A lot of my like-minded political brethren were figuring on a Red Wave
election for the 2022 midterm that would sweep out many Democrats from office. They were so optimistic that the term Red Tsunami
was being thrown about. They thought for sure that with record high inflation, and record high crime, many people who had been voting blue were now going to vote red.
They were wrong, of course. For decades now, the most expensive and high crime areas of our country have been ruled by Democrats who were voted in by Democrats. There wasn't a single hell hole in this nation that you could point at that wasn't one-party rule by Democrats. So the idea that their constituents would suddenly vote for their self-interest was preposterous. If they acknowledged what was happening at all, it was only that it was great that other places felt their pain as well.
If you want to make any headway with the Democrat constituents, you must start with what their leadership were saying were the most important issues that needed addressing. After all, these people are very good at getting elected, so they know what their people needed to hear. So what were the most important issues for the leadership in the past two years? The January 6th Insurrection, Climate Change & Abortion.
Before getting started, I've got a couple of points I need to make. First, I'm not stating that the constituents thought these were important items, just that their leadership were telling them they were important. And second, I'm not offering any magic bullets here. There is no way to reason a liberal out of being a liberal. Only people who recognize that what they want to accomplish isn't happening with liberal policies are open to what I am stating here.
That second point may sound patronizing, but that's what happened to me. I was a liberal, but couldn't remain one once I recognized the utter failure of liberal policies. More to the point, I even agree with the Democrat's concerns on these three issues, I just see them from a different perspective. One where being effective is more important than virtue signaling.
I remember watching the evening news on January 6th 2021, and being totally stunned by what I was watching. This isn't what conservatives do.
I thought to myself. We don't riot. That's a liberal/anarchist shtick.
And while I didn't see anyone on the conservative side not condemning it, I was also not seeing enough done to make sure it would never happen again.
That was until Nancy Pelosi decided to step in. She decided that this horrible insurrection needed to be prosecuted as a means of persecuting Donald Trump. Insurrection? Really? This is the first insurrection I've ever heard of where no one showed up with any weapons, and where the only fatality that both sides can agree on was an unarmed insurrectionist
woman, but whatever. My only thought was You go, girl!
I back what she is doing 100%. Too bad she hasn't given any consideration to the property damage and lives destroyed by the riots of 2020.
For a liberal, holding people accountable for their actions is only something you do to your enemies, not your allies. And those rioters of 2020 were their allies. While they are quiet now, there have been no attempts to hold them accountable, which means everyone knows they will be back when they are needed again. Through liberal inaction, we know that looting and rioting are acceptable, and even desired when the times are right. What should be noted is that the lives most devastated by these riots are the ones voting for the Democrats. Their fear of those riots returning is what Democrat politicians are counting on. They want their constituents thinking Better to keep Democrats in power in order to hold their thugs in check.
Too bad that never works, see Chicago.
While I was fairly confident that there would never be another insurrection,
, because we won't be caught off guard by some poor fools getting whipped into a frenzy again, the Democrats and their hyperventilating over that day are making sure that it will never, and I do mean NEVER, going to happen again!
Thanx Nancy!
In the previous topic, I whole-heartedly agreed with what the liberals were doing, I just wish they would have carried it further to include people they claim to care for. There was a lot of suffering that took place among their constituents due to the lack of accountability for those rioters, and will undoubtedly occur again when it is politically expedient. For this next topic, I agree that it is an issue, I just completely disagree with how to go about addressing it. I even doubt the motivation of the liberals, particularly now that their high priestess on the subject, Greta Thunberg, has come out stating that her concern is more with ending capitalism, not climate change.
When I've brought up climate change in the past, and the liberal response to it, it has always been more of an abstraction. I could easily see how the solutions
offered by liberals would be a disaster for our economy, but it wasn't until President Asterisk came into power and then shutdown America's energy production that the true devastation could be seen. The rising gasoline prices were not a bug, but a feature. Liberals needed to get the American people out of their gas powered cars and into electric ones, and the idea that they should stoop to convincing the American people that they should, was just not an option. Again, it was their constituents that were the most devastated by not being able to afford the gas they need to earn their living. The harm committed against them was no abstraction. And making them more dependent on government by blocking them from earning a living is also a feature not a bug. See the COVID lockdowns.
I had no problem seeing our devastation, as I knew it was intentional. It was the devastation world-wide I didn't see coming. There is no such thing as an American oil market. The price of oil is worldwide. And if American oil companies can't profit from its sale, other companies (nations) will, and none of them are nice. Not only have the actions of liberals been a tremendous gift to these evil countries, it has also allowed them to spread their evil elsewhere.
Easily the greatest tragedy so far in this 21st century has been the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The high oil prices not only financed the invasion, but these prices only make it more profitable for Putin to take the oil rich regions of Ukraine. It also doesn't hurt to have a feckless, gibbering, crypt-keeper of an American president that only sees his own country as evil. Whatever devastation you think might occur with cliamte change, it pales in comparison to the devastaion that is actually occurring with the liberals' ill-conceived responses to it.
And if you think I am being too hard on Brandon, there aren't words avilable for the contempt I feel over him selling out our strategic oil reserve to keep oil prices from climbing even higher than they should. He'll go begging to the evil nations of Saudi Arabia and Venezuela for them to increase production, but won't lift a finger to allow our companies to do so, beyond denigrating them for profiteering.
And when you factor in the 800 coal burning power plants China will be constructing over the next couple of years, the carbon reduction the liberals state they are trying to bring about won't come close to compensate. This not only makes their efforts to reduce carbon emissions completely gestural, it exposes their real concern of destroying capitalism for all that are willing to see. As I have stated many times, if you really care about people and want to accomplish something good, it takes conservative principles to make them happen. If you don't want China to build these power plants, you need to offer alternatives that only a capitalist society can bring about.
Not only do government regulations stifle innovation, so does its sponsorship. Things like the Green New Deal create false financial incentives that don't bring about real development that can stand on its own. Giving people $10K to buy an electric car won't bring the real cost down. Only without these benefits
can they eventually figure out how to build them in ways that really benefit us all, including China.
So do I believe in addressing climate change? Of course, if done right. Even if you don't believe in man-made climate change, the only effective means of addressing it is through conservative principles. This includes increased energy efficiency and diversification, free of the artificial sticks and carrots of government regulations and subsidies. But liberals just can't conceive it. To them, only through suffering and oppressive government intervention can we save our planet. I would pity them if it wasn't for the death, rape, and destruction they have visited upon this planet because of their lack of real insight.
Instead of fighting liberals on the issue of climate change, we need to address it to redirect it. State that we want to address it, but only by means that are effective at reducing global carbon emissions, and not just shaft our economy for the sake of shafting our economy. China (or India) isn't going to follow our regulations, nor are they going to adopt less carbon emitting solutions with technologies that can only exist with government patronage. We need to unleash true market-based solutions like I explain how the microwave oven became ubiquitous.
As a side note, have you noticed how nearly all solar panels are made in China, but they aren't the ones using them? Think on that.
Of all of the issues that motivated the voters to not bring about the Red Wave,
the largest issue would have to be abortion. I'm personally Pro-Life, but that describes what I am for, and not what I am against. If you have read what I have had to say about abortion before, which is that there shouldn't be any laws against it, you probably think that I align with the Democrats on this, but I don't. Their path to this position is so littered with death and destruction that I would rather align with those that want to outlaw all abortions without any exceptions.
Take their latest euphemism for supporting abortion, which is body autonomy. Body autonomy? Give me a break! These are the same people that are all in on universal health care, which means they have no problem with the government making life or death decisions on everyone's body. Liberals are pro-abortion, and the fact they have to lie about it demonstrates the cynical way they use this issue.
This cynicism began when seven of nine men decided they would short circuit what was happening with state legislators in deciding how to handle abortion by creating a right to one. Since the courts are not authorized by the constitution to create rights, they had to lie and say it was there all along. Most politicians on the left and the right breathed a sigh of relief with this decision, as they no longer had to deal with it, but it inserted a cancer in our nation much like the Dred Scott decision that would eventually rip us apart. Even the left's darling, the Notorious RBG, later recognized the flawed justification for Roe vs Wade, and how it needed to be corrected through legislation.
But who were the ones that most objected to resolving this in Congress? The Democrats, of course. They early on saw an opportunity to exploit what many were calling an illegitimate court decision. They could not allow this to be resolved, as it would remove one of the prime fear factors needed in their constituents to vote for Democrats. Even when the Hobbs decision came down, and Roe vs Wade was overturned, there was enough Republican support to codify it, but the Democrats would only put forward something that would make abortion available up until birth and be taxpayer funded. No Republican would cross that line, and the Democrats knew it, which is why they felt safe to offer it. Putting forth something that would settle this issue was not an option.
My view on abortion is pretty straight forward, if a bit unconventional. If you read my page on the Patriarchy, you would know that I believe men are the ones responsible in our society, at least it only functions correctly when we do recognize that responsibility. Not that we are the ones in charge, just the ones responsible, and nowhere is that more obvious than with abortion. No woman wakes up in the morning and decides that she needs to get pregnant so that she can have an abortion. Maybe one day when our society degenerates far enough that woman can get paid for selling the body parts of their babies, but for now, that day is not here.
I cannot state this strongly enough, every single abortion that was not done for the health of the mother was caused by the irresponsible or malicious actions of men. I don't care how promiscuous or sexually aggressive a woman behaves, if she gets pregnant, then a man did it to her. Not only is there no way any law could address this, but any attempt at a law also invalidates a man's responsibility. Our side likes to complain about how the left is destroying the men in our society, but what they do is trivial compared to what we do to invalidate what it means to be a man.
I first put in my web book that I didn't support laws against abortion back in 2010, and from time to time I would get emails from people saying it was hypocritical of me to call myself pro-life while not supporting laws against abortion. I would then turn it around on them and say they weren't Pro-Life, just Anti-Abortion. This is no different than when I accuse someone who calls himself Pro-Choice as really Pro-Abortion.
If you think you are Pro-Life, then act like it by actually promoting life. Don't just sit there and demand laws outlawing abortion. As I have said before, Laws are what you pass when you no longer wish to respect those you disagree with. I've heard many times from our side that we do not want to punish women for their abortions, just those that provide them, but how tone-deaf can you be? Don't get me wrong, I have no respect for the ghouls at Planned Parenthood, so anything that harms them I'm all for, but that is the problem with all laws. They have unintended consequences. There is no way to go after Planned Parenthood using laws without it at least appearing to go after women.
More importantly, just because something is wrong, doesn't mean we should outlaw it. The evil of abortion is not like the evil of say pedophilia. There are people out there getting their jollies abusing children, so of course, outlawing pedophilla makes sense. There is no woman out their who wants an abortion. They just don't want a child, and no law can address this emptiness they feel inside towards the child.
So, are you really Pro-Life, or just Anti-Abortion? If you are pro-life, then show a little faith, will ya? Do you truly believe that what a woman gets out of motherhood far outweighs what they believe a baby will deny them? If so, act like it. By insisting that abortion be outlawed you are stating that babies are a hinderance to happiness instead of a source, and so we then need laws to protect them.
I have the same objection to the Pro-Death Christians I write about on my Pro-Life Christian page. They see Christianity as something that is only about saving yourself from hell after you die, so by inference, not being a Christian means you are having a great life while you're alive. Nonsense. I'm a Christian because of how wonderful my life has become due to having Christ in my life, and am completely unimpressed with what secular society believes makes them happy. The same is true for what Pro-Abortion women think they want with a life without their baby. What they want is trivial and transitory at best. I'm not impressed by men who value their careers over their family, so I'm certainly not going to be impressed by women who want the same thing.
If we truly want to save babies lives, then we need to start promoting life, and stop acting like the government and its laws are the solution. We need to be about what we are for, and not about what we are against.
Before I wrap this page up, I need to discuss the Elephant in the Room
as no analysis of this election would be complete without it. Before I get started, I want to make it perfectly clear that I have always considered Donald Trump to be an arrogant ass/clown from the days he shafted the USFL back in the 80's right threw to today, and no man has ever exemplified the term His own worst enemy
than him. That said...
Going into the 2016 Presidential elections I was quite impressed by the wide selection of possible Republican nominees I had to choose from, but little did I know that this was not a good thing. From the moment Trump descended on that escalator to announce his run to be the Republican nominee, I was appalled. He had no history as a conservative, and everything he presented was nothing more than a populist rant. As the campaign went on, the Media
kept promoting him. When I turned on the TV is was nothing but Trump, Trump, Trump. Clearly, they saw him as the weakest candidate, and so they were doing their darndest to get him nominated. Not elected, of course. Just nominated.
Surely my party wouldn't fall for this? Yet as the polls were coming out leading into the primary season, he didn't need them to. While he held support among a relatively small part of the party, the other 16 candidates were dividing up the remaining support leaving him out in front. Looking back, it all seemed a blur except that we had too many candidates that were too similar, and that allowed a real standout to have a chance for a coalition to form around.
By the time the general election rolled around, I was left with no choice. I just spent 8 years living under the rule of a man the press refused to hold accountable, so voting for anything that would allow a woman to be president who committed crimes (from mishandling classified documents to pay-to-play Clinton Foundation scams) was not an option. What the Media
was not reporting about Hillary showed this was going to be more of the same as the Obama administration. So as distasteful as it was for me, I held my nose and voted for Trump. At least the press would finally do their damn job and hold the president accountable, instead of just being the president's lap dogs.
The next morning, expecting to be under the misrule of someone who was only nominated because of her gender, imagine my shock to find out that the person the Media
picked to be the Republican nominee was the one that won.
Thanks Media! (seriously) (no sarcasm)
Afterwards, watching the Left completely lose their $#!t was glorious! I generally don't indulge in schadenfreude, but I couldn't help myself. Liberals wanted to run against Trump, and so they had no one to blame but themselves. How rich was that!
So we dodge a bullet with Hillary, but I wasn't expecting anything good to come out of a Trump Presidency. He was everything I was told was wrong by the people I respected like George Will, Bill Crystal, and the person I most respected, Michael Medved, so color me shocked when he began accomplishing long desired conservative agenda items. Yet I was being told that this was not a good thing by these people, but they couldn't exactly explain why.
Back in the GW Bush presidency there was something that came to be known as Bush Derangement Syndrome, or BDS for short. Everything he was accomplishing was causing the left to treat him as the second coming of Hitler. Just Google Bushilter and see what you get. It was a real thing. So when Trump came to power, I was expecting more of the same, but what I hadn't counted on were all of the people that were supposedly on my side that came out against him the same way. They were completely deranged, so Trump Derangement Syndrome is unique to BDS in that it afflicted people on both sides of the political aisle.
Hardest hit, from my perspective, was Michael Medved. As Trump began succeeding where previous Republican politicians failed, his criticisms seemed unhinged. Several times during the four years of Trump's presidency, I had to email Michael to tell him that while I completely agreed with his opinion of his character, he was missing the mark on his assessment of Trump's accomplishments. When Trump lost in 2020, I was able to handle Michael's obvious glee in shooting down anyone who doubted the integrity of the election. What I couldn't take was his suppression of the relevance of the obvious corruption surrounding Brandon's son, such as the millions he received from foreign companies with no relevant expererience, other than being the Vice President's son. This was a bridge too far. After nearly 20 years of listening to Medved, I had to stop. I take great pride in listening to those that claim to be liberal who disagree with me, like watching MSNBC, CNN or Bill Maher. But someone who is claiming to be on my side that is doing the same thing is just... sad.
As TDS among Republicans came to fruition towards the end of his presidency, I started to understand what was wrong with the Republican party. My first inkling of the problem occurred when GW Bush ran as a Compassionate Conservative.
This bothered me, because even back then, I knew that real compassion starts with conservative principles. You can't be compassionate with other people's money, so he was stabbing conservatism in the back for his own political gains. At the time I took it as him saying what needed to be said to get elected, but not anymore. He never convinced me he was a conservative, and with his TDS in full bloom, I now know he wasn't.
BTW, we really need to stop using the term RINO (Republican In Name Only). It implies these people are betraying the party. No. They are betraying conservatism. They can support and vote for all the Republicans they want, they just can't advance conservative principles, and we need to be wise enough not to elect them to party leadership anymore. People who use RINO come off as someone that puts party over principle, or over the country. I know it's not the case, that's just how people outside the party perceive it, and there is no need to use it, so why carry the baggage.
What Trump's Presidency allowed me to see was that I was wrong all along to describe one of the differences between Republicans and Democrats was that Republicans can seperate politics from religeion while Democrats use politics as a substitute for it. Clearly, there are way too many people in this party that care more about perception than accomplishments. These are the virtue signalers. Democrats are composed almost entirely of them as they destroy their cities while beliving they are accomplishing great things. The same is true of the Never Trumpers
amongst us. Any conservative that won't vote from him after all of his accomplishments, will only harm us, and we must not elect them again.
Don't get me wrong, I pray to God I don't have to vote for him again in 2024. He has had way too many unforced errors to be the ideal candidate going forward, but I'm glad we had him when we did. Without him, I never would have known how much the federal government and the Republican establishment was stacked against us. It's now going to be way easier for me to figure out who not to vote for. Only the candidates that understand what it takes to advance conservative principles are going to get my vote, and not the ones that are Republican only because they are scared of the Democrats. You can be in our party, but you can't be allowed to lead it.
Am I an election denier of the 2020 election like many Democrats were following the 2016 election of Donald Trump? You bet I am. I have no doubt in my mind that Joe Biden is an illegitimate President of this country.
So what.
As someone I can't recall said, We need to win by enough votes that their cheating won't matter.
Democrats are all in on getting that 51% of the vote so they can ram their agenda down the throats of everyone. It's all they have. They don't believe that people can be left to decide what's best for their lives. A true conservative, who actually believes in limited government, gains nothing by being elected. Our agenda cannot be achieved by enacting laws. The best that can happen for us by winning an election is thwarting Democrat machinations.
And therein lies the problem. Democrats state that everyone should vote for them, because they can do good things with the power of government, while Republicans say the government is the root of our problems, so you should vote for them to limit the power of government. How would you react to someone applying for a job that you are offering that says that the job doesn't work and needs to be eliminated? Your natural tendency is to go with the guy that says that he will accomplish great things if you give them the job, which gives Democrats a tremendous advantage.
So what are Republicans supposed to do? How about we start by not doing anything the Democrats are doing. Scaring their constituents works well for them, but not for us. As I started this page, emphasizing how Democrats are screwing things up doesn't work because it just ends up as a He-said/She-said situation. When all we do is what they are doing, it is percieved that we both want to impose our agenda. This means we need to do things different, so that the decision on who to vote for doesn't appear to be whose side gets to tell the other side what to do. The decision must be seen as which side is going to allow you to decide what you want to do.
My advice to promote this is simply to remain happy and brave. This is not a prescription for our Leaders,
but for us. Political leaders can rally the base, but they don't attract new followers. As I explain about my conversion to Christianity, it's the one-on-one, person-to-person interaction that does it. So if we want people to join us, then we have to be the kind of people others want to join. And no one wants to join a group of miserable doomsayers. We need to be happy and brave to dispel the notion that we are more concerned with our lives than the people who are most harmed by the liberals, and that is their followers. As bad as we conservatives have it, it's nothing compared to what the people who vote for Democrats have to deal with, and we have to act like it. Presenting a front where we'll be fine, they won't, is what will work. Not doom and gloom.
And I'm seeing a lot of doom and gloom over the mid-terms, but it's a misplaced reaction if you ask me. Instead of focusing on this narrow band of voters that swing back and forth that give power to one side or the other, how about we focus on those who don't vote at all. According to Google Approximately 240 million people were eligible to vote in the 2020 presidential election and roughly 66.1% of them submitted ballots, totaling about 158 million.
Let that sink in for a second. A full third of the people who could vote, don't. These people clearly don't see these elections as THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF ALL TIME! and OUR DEMOCRACY WILL END IF WE ALLOW THE DEMOCRAT/REPUBLICAN TO WIN!
While pondering the right words to describe this group of people, I came across something in the comments section of an article I had just finished reading that went We live in a world where people who pretend to hate capitalism buy products from companies that pretend to care about social issues.
That's their attitude about all this in a nutshell. If you doubt it, then explain why the saying Go Woke, Go Broke
is a real thing. No one but the truly faithful are buying anything from the left.
Keep in mind that everyone in this group believes what they do in spite of the near stranglehold the left has on media (no one in this group is watching Fox News). Not only do Democrats out spend Republicans with direct campaign ads (the wealthy know who their real allies are), when you factor in Hollywood and all the other in-kind contributions from the media and entertainment, we are out spent by billions. Not millions, billions. Yet they only get one third of those available to vote for them? Seriously?
Again, let's not do what they are doing. It doesn't even work for them, they just make it look like it does. This is Hollywood after all. What works for us, and really the only thing that works at all, is in-person interaction. Any true conservative knows of Adam Smith's Invisible Hand
in describing how a free-market economy works. I would say this describes all human endeavors. It is only what we are free to do without coercions of any kind that matters. It's a liberal trait to gravitate towards central planning, we shouldn't be following them. Real change in peoples minds only happens one on one. This is the only explanation for the limited success we have had, and it is what we must focus on.
If you think about it, this also explains how the Republican Establishment has always failed us. They all start off as well-meaning small-government types until they get to Washington. They then get it in their heads that they need to save us, so they start doing things they shouldn't. They think that as long as what they want is different than what liberals want, then it is OK to behave as liberals. The most obvious recent example is Lindsey Graham. We in the base have spent 5 decades electing people who will get the right supreme court justices in place to repeal Roe vs Wade so that this issue could return to the states to be decided, and when that finally happened, he goes and submits a bill to federalize a 15 week ban on abortion. What a way to stab us in the back, Lindsey.
As a free person in this country, I don't need saviors in office, I need servants. It's liberals that need saviors, not us. I don't see myself as a victim, so all I need are politicians that will protect my inalienable rights. We can do our own saving. This is essentially why we lost the midterms (not doing nearly as well as we should is a loss). All we were talking about was how much we are all victims to the Democrats, and not presenting ourselves as the happy and brave people that we are. How we win is not by convincing people they are victims that need saving. Even if we win that way, these people who voted Republican because they were too scared of voting for the Democrats can't be counted on, and are still victims. Just getting them to vote our way does us no good. They need to be one of us by being shown that they live in the greatest nation on the planet, and their future is for them to decide. In other words, we win when people become conservatives, and once they are conservative, they will vote for the right servants to protect our future.
Put another way, when you vote for a Democrat, you are doing everything that is expected of you to advance the cause of Progressivism, because it's up to the party elite to determine what should be imposed or prohibited in this nation. When you vote for a Republican, you haven't accomplished a thing to promote Conservatism. In fact, you may even harm it by electing one that believes it's his or her job to decide what is in our best interest. Conservatism is only advanced by what you do in the world around you, and not by electing people to do it for you. I would say that applies to everything in life, not just politics.
BTW, if you are looking for more evidence that we are killing it, check out the ratings for the king of late night comedy, Gutfeld! It wasn't that long ago when all of those late night shows were quite funny, but not anymore. All of them, but the former boyfriend of Taylor Swift (wink), Greg Gutfeld, are way more interested in virtue signaling than being funny. This show proves that being happy and brave is the ticket to our success.