The State of the Union Address

I admit. I didn’t watch it. I am so disgusted by the continuing marionette show I prefered to simply review the commentary afterwards. Others far more informed than I have already pointed out all the lies and distortions that spewed forth from the mouth of the puppet-in-chief. I’m going to, rather, address the peripheral question as to whether the GOP over-reacted and/or inappropriately reacted to the deliberate, pre-meditated misrepresentations and accusations hurled at them. Should they have sat quietly shaking their heads as Kevin McCarthy did, or should they have stood and yelled, “liar”, as Marjorie Taylor Greene did?

I’ve listened to both sides of the argument. Some on the Right say that not only was it uncharacteristic of members to shout out their opposition, but unseemly at best, rude and obnoxious at worst. They suggest that having done so, the GOP descended into the mud pit and acted no better than the Democrats. “Take the high road” has more often than not been the admonition of the Right.

What good has taking the high road done? I’m all for nobility and decorum, but when your opposition elevates their game from name-calling to defamation, censorship and character assassination (not to mention threat of REAL assassination – e.g. Kavanaugh), i.e. nonsensical speech to verbal kinetics, and has destroyed all means of civil undertakings to oppose him, the decision has to be made whether to take off the gloves and fight back, or not. The Democrats have so destroyed the principles by which we as a nation have governed ourselves for over three hundred years, so twisted and perverted the vocabulary, the rules of engagement, our history, even FACTS, that we have no choice, really, but to fight fire with fire.

This does not mean that we should simply resort to the kind of perverted antics so cherished by the Alinsky/Cloward and Piven brainwashed Left. Throwing the BS flag onto the floor of the House as was done during the SOTU isn’t a duplication of their style. Rather, it was a transparent, for-all-the-world-to-see return of fire akin (but more honest) to the ripping up of Trumps SOTU speech by Pelosi.

While some on the Right have argued that we gave the MSM a golden opportunity to castigate us further, I could almost hear the unified voices of the Traditionalists and Conservatives in America joining MTG, in unison!

Just as the Chinese push and push to see how far they can go, what our limits are, the Democrats have pushed and pushed to determine how far THEY can go. And once our limit is reached, and we push back, they cry, “See, you’re pigs and fascists and racists and anti-democracy and insurrectionists and threats to America.”

This is projection of the first order! Their banal vituperations are so childish, so outlandish, so petulant, so descriptive of precisely what THEY are and what THEY do, it would be laughable if it were not so destructive.

Shouting “liar” may be rude, but it’s factual, and for many brain-addled, MSNBC/CNN/NBC/CBS/ABC-watching Americans, it’s the first time they’ve ever seen any opposition to the BS spewing forth from their “leaders”.  The MSM has so distorted and censored the truth, they have created an alternative reality that millions of our fellow Americans actually believe! They are shocked to see the Right stand and call “BS”. They are puzzled when the MSM is forced (follow the money!) to cover the Democrats’ patently obvious treachery and deceit, their attempts to hide their failures and the results of their destructive policies and actions.

Is vocal opposition such as that witnessed during the SOTU enough to turn the tide? Does it help push the pendulum back? Will the probes by Comer and Jordan and the continuing exposure by what remains of conservative media start to repair the damage done to the hearts and minds of so many Americans who have fallen for the Leftist “alternative reality”?

I fear not. As good as it felt to hear someone voice what I would have said in the House chamber that night, it’s all talk. Until the GOP uses its power to halt the idiocracy created by the Democrats, until it garners and uses every tool at its disposal to pierce the dark fog of BS with which the Democrats have filled the airwaves, until more MTG’s, Gaetz’s Jordans, Kennedys, etc. create enough headlines with truth bombs to get the lemmings to break from their rush to the precipice, we will continue to simply hurl invectives at one another and continue sliding down the slippery slope.

As I have come to conclude, it’s going to take something monumental to wake America up. Not a balloon, not the Hunter laptop, not yelling “liar”. Something truly nasty may need to happen that will cause us to apply chemotherapy combined with radiation to kill the cancer that has metastasized. The Democrats have skillfully exploited the ratchet effect to incrementally destroy our values, our principles, our country.

We need to strip the ratchet.

A Black Swan May Be The Only Thing That Will Stop This Madness

In my previous post I concluded that it may take a cataclysmic event to restore sanity to our nation. I’m not talking about the price of eggs or gas skyrocketing, or store shelves being empty for a few days. I’m talking about something that will cause even the most dumbed-down, brain-addled, handheld-screen-addicted person to pick his or her head up and say, “Wow, maybe some things are more important than what the Kardashians are up to this week!”

I’ve long said that Economics is the dismal science, an academic exercise in futility, and while it may be fun and may earn a whole raft of propeller-heads an income, even wealth, it’s really only mental masturbation of the highest order.

Why do I say this? Because economics deals with building “models” that describe what the panoply of pulled levers have caused in the past with the hope that those models will help us predict the future. The fundamental problem with these models, however, is that they depend on two flawed assumptions: 1) the “rational man” and 2) the “absence of an outside shock”.

In case you haven’t been paying attention let me state the obvious:

First, there is no such thing as a rational man (or woman). All human beings are driven, at least in part if not entirely, by feelings, perceptions, etc., what I’d characterize as “squishy stuff”, NOT rational, analytical thought.

And, as we have all seen, “outside shocks” OCCUR ALL THE TIME! They differ in magnitude, of course, but they destroy models’ explanations of the past and their usefulness as predictors of the future.

Nevertheless, thousands of economists and bureaucrats pontificate endlessly on the overarching topics that impact our daily lives and GET PAID TO DO SO! Sometimes they’re right, more often they’re wrong, but they persevere.

In his famous book, Nassim Nicholas Taleb defines a Black Swan as an improbable event with three basic characteristics: it is unpredictable, it has massive impact, and after the fact, explanations are concocted to make it appear less random.

Examples of past Black Swan events include: the 2000 Do-Com Crash, 9-11, the Fall of Lehman Brothers, the Fukushima and Chernobyl nuclear Disasters, BREXIT, and most recently, COVID.

None of these were severe enough to wake people up. The effects, though severe, were not of such duration that people got serious about paying attention to things that matter.

Now we’re sufficiently far down the slippery slope, there is sufficient chaos, there is enough “information” flak in the air, that only a really BIG Black Swan of significant duration will, in my opinion, bring us back to REAL Reality!

So, what might such a Black Swan consist of?

China invading Taiwan
Israel nuking Tehran
The North Koreans launching a nuke at Japan
The San Andreas fault creating Nevada beach-front property
Tactical nukes get used in Ukraine
NATO deploys troops to Ukraine
The Stock Market crashes
The Yellowstone Volcano erupts
Biden resigns and Harris becomes President and Michele Obama becomes Vice President (threw this one in because it is such a frightening nightmare!)
A terrorist attack on the 9 key substations takes down the electrical grid for from 3 months to a year
Another, more deadly virus gets out of a lab
A coronal mass ejection REALLY hits Earth and wipes out much of what is electronic

I could conjure up more… These are just some “known unknowns”. A Black Swan is by definition an “unknown unknown”!

That one about a protracted blackout is the one that worries me the most. Three weeks without electricity and we’re in trouble. Three months without electricity and we’re in a shit-hit-the-fan, possibly even TEOTWAKI (The End of the World As We Know It) situation. I urge my readers to think about this stuff. The time to prepare for a Black Swan walking up your driveway isn’t after it’s already at your front door. It’s not as if we haven’t been forewarned and as if we don’t see how vulnerable our country and society is.

No Silver Bullets, No Easy Answers

Since the election, through the Holidays, now well into the New Year, I’ve been thinking about the answer to the question, “What now?”.

Sorting through the “news” each day, I can’t help but see more and more confusion over what is true, what is falsehood, what is sensationalism, what is understatement. The one word to describe our state of affairs is: CHAOS.

I don’t see any cohesive strategy, any clear direction, any comprehensible plan to either ‘make our country great again’ or ‘take it back’ or ‘drain the swamp’ or ‘root out corruption’. I see little to no consequences for malfeasance, for lying, for theft, for waste, for self-abusive destruction of what has since its inception been the greatest country in the world.

‘Common sense’ is no longer common.

Demagoguery,, self-delusion, obsequiousness and self-centeredness are common.

Psychologists call it ‘other-directed’. Fewer and fewer people think critically much less skeptically. Individualism has given way to herd instinct. Emotions rule – no one spends the time to think rationally.

What was fringe is now mainstream. Pushbacks against what would in other time be considered lunacy are met with overwhelming, crushing condemnation. It’s as if the one reasonable person standing in the middle of a valley is being charged by thousands of buffalo. Just read the responses on Twitter or any other social medium to a ‘traditional’ statement or viewpoint.

I’ve long thought that the way to change the course of our national ship is with good leadership, with the development of new Hollywood heroes who successfully fight and win against the encroaching and increasingly pervasive evil infecting our society, with ‘reality’ hitting Gen X and Gen Z such that they awaken from their folly.

It ain’t happening! The megaphone afforded by the Internet puts power in the hands of the deleterious, the destructive, the Evil. On one hand it improves lives. On the other hand, it destroys them.

It’s not just artificial intelligence that has supplanted real intelligence. Social media and the ubiquitous handheld phone/tablet/computer combined is now an addiction.

Pew Research tells us:

  • 46% of teens say they use the internet “almost constantly”
  • 48% of teens say they go online several times a day
  • 48% of teenage girls say they’re online “almost constantly”
  • 43% of teenage boys say they’re online “almost constantly”

Look around you. It’s not just teenagers. So long as our society continues to descend into an artificial reality, fundamental human priorities will be back-burnered, what’s important neglected, what’s moral diminished, what’s good scoffed at.

No hero, no charismatic leader, no game of whack-a-mole is going to turn this around. Artificial reality has become Real Reality!

Thus I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that it will take some kind of cataclysmic event to wake up society and get people serious again. A Black Swan. Something that completely shatters what I will call Artificial Delusion and return us to basics.

It’s long past time to prepare for that Black Swan event.

An Exceptional Article Worth Reading

As I have often said, there are many who say it like I wish I could have said it. The following article, found on American Thinker January 11, 2023, is an example. J.B. Shurk expertly lays out the case for “we the people” pushing back on government. I strongly urge you to read the full article which can be found here. Some excerpts:

“Ordinary people have extraordinary power. Don’t believe me? Watch what happens if tens of millions ever decide to close their bank accounts all at once. Or critical sectors of the workforce decide to stay home for weeks. Or a sizable percentage of the population refuses to obey arbitrary and capricious government orders. When citizens become fed up enough to take matters into their own hands, those with government-bestowed titles learn quickly how little power those vaunted titles actually have.”

“Nothing is so certain as death and taxes,” the old proverb goes, but it might just as accurately be said of almost all governments throughout history that those in charge will extract from those under their thumb either death or taxes — and often both. Force is the only language most governments know, although that force is often disguised as being performed for the people’s “own good.” As it turns out, force is generally sufficient for corralling humans into their government-controlled pens, especially if there are carrots or other treats inside to keep them content, if not particularly happy. When those pens have nothing attractive to offer and become overrun with filth, however, then those doing the corralling must resort to more and more force in order to make their captives obey.”

“It is not the American way, however, for citizens to live higgledy-piggledy under the ambiguous reign of one government dictate to the next. It is not American for an unelected bureaucracy to create rules out of thin air and enforce them upon the people through agency prerogative and regulation. It is not American for presidents to legislate through executive order.”

“It is not American for congresses to conduct show trials against American citizens or to demand that tech companies censor points of view. It is not American for courts to scribble over the Constitution whenever expedient. It is not American for the Department of (in)Justice to persecute citizens for their political beliefs or for the FBI to act as a lethal enforcer against the regime’s political enemies.”

“It is not American for there to be so many criminal statutes that no American could possibly know them all, let alone confidently act without fear of sanction. It is not American for there to be so many government agencies and divisions that no American could capably draw a diagram listing their roles and functions.”

It is not American for the government to champion its secular religion over the moral tenets of Americans’ spiritual faiths. It is not American for the government to ignore the will of its citizens and subvert immigration law by leaving its borders unprotected and wide open. It is not American for an amorphous Intelligence Community to spy on American citizens with neither warrant nor probable cause. It is not American for the news media to be so co-opted by the State that they almost universally support the government’s talking points — no matter how ludicrous and unsupported — while taking aim at dissenting citizens’ debate.

It is not normal for a “government of the people” to regularly denigrate its citizens as racists, extremists, deplorables, terrorists, misogynists, bigots, and rubes. It is not normal for any government claiming to be “for the people” to declare half the nation “enemies of the State.”

“These are the acts of a government committed to using intimidation, violence, and other forms of coercion in order to get its way.”

On The House Speaker Circus

I watched Hannity last night excoriate Lauren Boebert, referring to the sixth failed Kevin McCarthy vote, endlessly repeating “It’s 200 to 20”! No Sean. It’s 0 for 6! The issue isn’t whether there are more votes for McCarthy than against him. The issue is binary: either he has sufficient votes or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t, an alternative is needed.

I come down on the side of the rebels in this clash. If the Republican Party doesn’t change its leadership, strategy and tactics, it will continue to fail to take back the country, drain the swamp and prevail against the Leftist onslaught.

One of the phrases I keep hearing about Kevin McCarthy is: “He’s done the work. He’s raised the money. He’s recruited good candidates.”

THAT’S THE PROBLEM! THE REPUBLICANS RAISE MONEY AND RECRUIT CANDIDATES. THE DEMOCRATS ARE FIGHTING A WAR, COLLECTIVELY, FOR THEIR PRINCIPLES, WRONG AS THEY MAY BE! There’s a huge difference in approach to governing!

As I’ve noted previously, our Speaker doesn’t have to be, nor should he or she be, another Nancy Pelosi. Couldn’t happen anyway – Republicans wouldn’t follow a demagogue or someone as corrupt as she was/is.

Our Speaker must do more, however, than eat rubber chicken, raise money and recruit candidates who will kowtow to “Leadership’s” diktats. Our Speaker needs to FIGHT, INSPIRE, MOTIVATE, LEAD, not just espouse, but TEACH and PROMOTE conservative principles (as Reagan did!). He or she needs to do more than just talk. The GOP Speaker needs to rally the Silent Majority who overwhelmingly support the conservative agenda and PUSH that agenda. And at the moment, while Biden controls the Senate and Executive Office, the Speaker needs to BLOCK, TACKLE and CLIP the Democrat agenda at every opportunity.

Kevin McCarthy lacks the most important of the necessary leadership qualities: the ability to inspire and motivate! He is, in fact, an archetype of the Old Guard (a.k.a. Swamp)!

I could be wrong on this, but isn’t is just possible that the Rebel 20 opposition to McCarthy is based on a sincere desire to change the way the GOP does business in Washington? Could it be that while they may not have a specific “hero/heroine” in mind as an alternative, that first they have to win the argument that electing McCarthy won’t help us win but set us back further? Could there be personal antipathies and hidden agendas, yes, but fundamentally, is what the Rebel 20 are saying, “This is our chance to change how the GOP will fight Leftism in the Future, and it begins on this hill.”?

Some pretty terrible labels are being attached to the Rebel 20: “terrorists”, “obstructionists”, narcissists, etc.

I, on the other hand, think they’re behaving the way they are because they fundamentally recognize the following:

Republicans are ill-equipped to take back the country, drain the swamp and fight the Left. If we don’t change, we’ll continue to atrophy and die.

The Left, lemmings and brain-addled followers that they are, coalesce whenever the music comes up and they “feel” righteous in their pursuit of the “Can’t we all get along” utopia they dream about. Like proper sheep, they follow the demagogue leaders who have written and pronounced the words of the hymns. No original thought. No concern for what’s best for America. Concern only for power and money, and I might add, celebrity.

Republicans, on the other hand, are the inheritors and keepers of the rugged individualism that built this country. They are skeptical, thinking, opinionated but generally more altruistic and freedom-loving, self-reliant, subscribe to the notion that “government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem”, and are unwilling-to-be-dominated and refuse to be told what to think or do.

So, with those solid principles in their ideology, of course they’re opposed to Kevin McCarthy’s business-as-usual approach to leadership!

Let it play out.

The Christmas Story

I am dismayed by how many people do not know the story of the birth of Christ. Sure, there are cartoons and videos and picture books that depict the sequence of events, all with high production values to capture the attention of young and old in a world of instant gratification, shiny objects (.sic) and eye-popping visuals, but even I had to stop and think about the main points as I prepared to recount the story to my grandkids this Christmas. They’re still too young and squirmy for me to read it to them from the Bible but I take a few minutes, have their parents hold them down, and remind them of what the Christ is Christmas is all about.

We can lament how commercialism has overtaken the significance of what happened over two thousand years ago, but unless we pause at some point during the next few days and think about it, another year will rush by.

So for those of us with short attention spans or those who wish to recount the story to others without a PowerPoint presentation… here goes:

  • Joseph and Mary are living in Nazareth when one day an angel, Gabriel, appears to Mary and tells her she is going to have a baby boy who is the Son of God and that she is to name him Jesus.
  • Mary travels to visit her cousin Elizabeth who is also going to have a baby (John) and when Mary enters Elizabeth’s house, Elizabeth’s baby jumps in her womb and Elizabeth immediately knows that Mary is carrying the Holy Child. Mary spends three months with Elizabeth, then returns to Nazareth.
  • Caesar demands a census be taken so he can tax everyone, and everyone is to head to their traditional home city which for Joseph and Mary was Bethlehem, about 70 miles south of Nazareth.
  • When they arrive in Bethlehem, there is no room available for them in the “inn”.
  • They are told to spend the night where the sheep were kept. Mary gives birth to Jesus, wraps him in swaddling clothes, and places him in a manger.
  • Shepherds living out in the fields nearby keeping watch over their flocks at night are terrified by an angel that appears to them.
  • The angel says to them, “Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”
  • Suddenly a great company of additional angels appear praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
  • When the angels retreat to heaven, the shepherds decide to go find the baby the angel spoke of.
  • The shepherds head to Bethlehem where they find Joseph and Mary and the baby lying in a manger. They tell everyone about what the angels had told them about the baby, and they go back to their flocks praising God for all they had seen and heard.
  • Mary had been told by the angel Gabriel that she was to name her son Jesus, but when he was eight days old, according to Hebrew tradition, the baby was officially given the name Jesus.

So what does this have to do with the price of eggs or gas, or the open border, or the election shenanigans, or the crises in our cities, or government corruption? In truth, it has to do with ALL of it. The Lord’s prescriptions really aren’t complicated or ambiguous. They’re straightforward and virtually all of our current problems can be traced to either violations of the Ten Commandments or Gospel Law.

As for me and my house, this year and every year I will insist that we pause to reflect on the real meaning of Christmas.

Hope yours is merry and that 2023 will be better for all of us. Hang in there and may God bless us all!

Changing The Basic Concepts Of Society

As I read about the soon to be passed, euphemistically named “Respect for Marriage Act” I shake my head once again at the Left’s success at changing the definition of fundamental concepts to suit their agenda. It’s all ok, of course, because this is meant to be “progressive” and move us further toward that utopian fantasy where we can “all just get along”.

The skill with which the Left (i.e. Democrats) are able to use the media and high production values to beguile or bludgeon us into changing what we name concepts and thus continue to insidiously change society as a whole is astonishing.

“Illegal Alien” is now “Undocumented Immigrant”.

“Global Warming” is now “Climate Change”.

“Sex Change Operation” is now “Gender Affirming Care”

“Male and Female” is “Sex Fluidity”, “Non-Binary” or any number of other ridiculous labels

“AR 15 Style Rifle” is “Assault Weapon”

“Utopian Absurdity” is “Progressive”

And now, in a reversal of the “Defense of Marriage Act” passed under the Clinton Administration, this “Respect for Marriage Act” changes a definition that has existed since Adam and Eve.

On the one hand, I get it that in some ways calling the committed relationship between same sex couples “marriage” is a shortcut way to ensure that, for example, a same-sex “spouse” enjoys the same rights and benefits as a heterosexual spouse in everything from hospital visits to probate law. On the other hand, these inequities were already being addressed with laws and policies being incrementally changed under the rubric “civil unions”.

What galls me is the degree to which the Left has sought, in many cases successfully, to shove their ideology down our throats. The LBGTQXXX invasion of our school curriculum is another example. Cancel culture, the designation “deniers” of this or that…all are meant to shame and or/demonize what has traditionally been the norm since the beginning of time.

In short, the tail is wagging the dog. A small minority of green or multi-colored haired, aberrant deviants, given a very loud megaphone by the “cool ones”…i.e. the unproductive losers who make up the majority of the print, televised and social media, funded by megalomaniacal, power-hungry and bent-on-domination godzillionaires, are destroying everything that made our country, and society in general, the most prosperous and civilized in the history of mankind. All so they can feel good about themselves, in the case of the deviants, or for power advancement, in the case of the puppet-string pullers.

Not only is the Left successfully changing the meaning of things, it is also successfully demeaning, censoring, blasting any voice that dares utter opposition to this civilizational suicide. Comparisons with Germany in the 30’s and what has repeatedly happened in totalitarian regimes across the globe aside, what’s happening to 2020’s America is nothing less than the necrosis of the greatest civilization in world history.

Can it be halted? Can it be reversed? I think so. For the good of my children, my grandchildren, my fellow-Americans and for all sane and traditional-minded human beings around the world, I pray so.

Blackout

The attack on the electricity substation in Moore County, North Carolina this past Saturday evening is precisely what I’ve been warning about for years. Conventional arms were used to blast away at transformers and other equipment at the site resulting in a blackout that persists three days later for thousands of North Carolinians.

If you take the probability and likelihood of a disastrous event and multiply it by the impact it would have you get what I call the “Disaster Index”. It’s a measure of just how bad a disaster could be. In arithmetic terms DI=I x P. So while the impact, and forgive the pun, of a meteor hitting the earth amounts to the highest imaginable I (an extinction event most likely), the probability or likelihood of such an event is PDS (pretty damn small). The Disaster Index is thus extremely small.

On the other hand, the impact of a Katrina-like hurricane is both high AND likely, thus the DI is many times greater than the meteor strike.

I have long stated that the event with the highest DI is not an EMP, Coronal Mass Ejection, Reversal of the Earth’s magnetic poles…all potentially catastrophic in terms of impact but, unlikely. Rather, it is a terrorist attack on the nine electrical grid substations in the country that, were they to fail or be knocked out simultaneously, would plunge the entire nation into darkness for upwards of three months. The knock-on effects of such an outage would create a chaos and “Walking Dead” scenario only Hollywood could dream up.

The attack in Moore County is being investigated as “vandalism”. Irrespective of whether the attack was that, or a deliberate vulnerability “test”, you can bet the many terror cells already existing in the United States took a very special interest in it.

Study after study have warned of the vulnerability of our power grid. Blackouts have already occurred that should have been wake-up calls that this kind of disaster could happen. But no, our government would rather…you fill in the rest.

God help us!

They Are Going To Try To Crucify DeSantis

Back on September 22nd I gave my two cents on whether Trump or DeSantis ought to be the GOP nominee for 2024. Long story short, I recommended Trump be the standard bearer, and I still feel that way notwithstanding his faults. Here’s why…

Trump has been so vilified, so investigated, so assaulted, he has achieved “victim” status even in the minds of progressives who sense the Left has gone too far. It is a given that now he’s declared his candidacy, the opporesearchers and fake news will continue to work overtime to try to disqualify him from running. But they have little to nothing left to go on. The Merrick Garland special counsel/prosecutor is just so much political flak, and everyone knows it. Now that Trump has been restored to Twitter, he’ll be better able to counter the inevitable BS that will be thrown out there by the MSM and social-media-sphere. As a result, he’s got a certain degree of teflon layered on himself.

DeSantis, on the other hand, is fresh meat for the Left. If he declares, the next two years will consist of endless attempts to discredit him and bring him down. 99% of it will be horse#$%^, but the wear and tear, the debilitating effects of having to fend off the BS, the damage to the GOP as the circular firing squad does the Left’s work for them and gives the MSM tons of material with which to work, will make it difficult for ANY GOP candidate to win.

My preferred/suggested alternative is for DeSantis, who is young, to stay on as Governor of Florida, and let less popular candidates flay at Trump in the Primary. Sitting on the sidelines, supporting Trump’s POLICIES, and continuing to do a good job in Florida, more options open up for him:

If Trump implodes, even as late as Spring of 2024, DeSantis can always be called up from the bench in the 8th inning.

If Trump gets elected, and DeSantis hasn’t opposed him in a primary, he can be drafted to serve in a senior Cabinet position or in some other prominent Administration capacity either right away or in 2026 when his term as Governor expires. There he can be groomed for 2028.

If Trump somehow loses, DeSantis will still have his crown and can serve as the de facto leader of the Right and the GOP, and when termed out as Governor in 2026, can then occupy himself with running for the Presidency in 2028.

In short, Trump is still the GOP’s best bet to win in 2024 so long as there is, in fact, no truth to malfeasance or illegality in his former administration and so long as he can win back soccer moms and at least SOME of the Gen Z’rs who are only now beginning to feel the effects of real life, i.e. consequences for being snowflakes and mega-entitled. If he and his team can introduce some tough love on them but in a way that makes celebrities and heroes out of those who face real-life and thrive (not an easy task, but possible with the right marketing), he could defeat even the most propped up, straight-from-central-casting Leftist candidate like Gavin Newsome.

It’s going to be a long two years.

Keep your seat belts fastened.

Finally!

It was ugly, but we’ll take the win. My worst case scenario materialized – we took the House but not the Senate. Blame can be placed wherever you want. Firing Nancy Pelosi and being able to block the Biden administration idiocy and masochism was a critical precedent for climbing back up the slippery slope.

Trump running? If, and that’s a huge if, he can stay on message and not revert to his childish name-calling and belittling tactics, he just might, and it’s a tough bet, win over enough independents to win in 2024. Some big if’s there. More likely, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, is tired of the antics, the self-aggrandizement, the narcissism, the self-promotion. If he’d just act his age instead of like a schoolyard bully who put on a clean shirt to run for student body president, we have a shot at winning it all in 2024. But if the Dems recruit Tulsi Gabbard or Joe Manchin or some similarly popular and populist figure, Trump will go down in flames.

As much as we’d like to think that performance record is the determining factor in how people pull the lever on election day, it ain’t! This election proved that. How on earth could the Red Wave not have materialized given the Left’s performance record?

They won because of OTHER factors: visceral factors; clever marketing and merchandising; good production values in the pro and con messaging, and, of course, exploitation of the rule changes, habitual and proven cheating methods and above all, the hundreds of millions of dollars of free propaganda supplied by the main stream media.

That Lurch (Fetterman) could have won in Pennsylvania, or pre-adolescent Hobbs in Arizona, is testament to the gullibility of the masses and the ability of the MSM to manipulate perception, thus reality.

So on we go. If this next House doesn’t get its act together and learn how to fight, how to use their newly acquired power to stymie the Left’s agenda and fully expose, prosecute and perp-walk their rampant corruption, the pendulum will swing back to the dark side ever more powerfully next time.

You can’t win by pointing out the other guy’s a fool. You have to beat him at his own game, and if you’re not fighting on your chosen ground but his, i.e. on a field occupied by dumbed-down, dependent losers, you have to be a better Santa Claus. Parents have the hardest time teaching their children right and wrong. The GOP are the adult parents, and the Democrat Left are, predominantly, the immature, dysfunctional, self-absorbed and prodigal children.

Time for some tough love. I hope McCarthy and the GOP can apply it.