I agree with everything you say but think you are missing the whole reason Trump is still alive in the polls, not to mention the hearts and minds of the 60% of Americans who are tired of the toxic partisanship of both main parties.
The key issues for these people, besides their economic concerns around cost of living and unfettered immigration is the cloak of wokeism, DEI and assaults on parental rights that covers the shoulders of local, State Federal Democrat dignitaries.
Having been an elected representative I understand that politics is 10% Principle and 90% Pragmatism. I would’ve vote for President Trump under any circumstances.
However, what I fear the Never Trump folks fail to understand is how allergic the 60% of non-tribal Independents are to the sanctimonious influence of the metropolitan elite and their branches of academia, bureaucrats and technocrats.
To see how out of touch the political and media elite are on these issues, just look at recent election results in France and Germany.
Also, the Never Trumpers who think that Kamala’s campaign swing to the center will hold if she prevails should take a look at the performance of Keir Starmer before and after he was elected in the UK. He ran to the center in his campaign and now he is sprinting back to the left from whence he came
The 4th Estate will do their job with Trump… they failed everyone this past term…everyone. So here we are - which candidate offers better Domestic safety; National security; financial stability; educational excellence; oh, and a little defense & protection of the Constitution. Please spare us the TDS dictatorship malarkey. What are Harris policies- still nothing on their own campaign website!
Echoing Pinder, we wouldn't be in this situation if the Democrats hadn't created such a toxic brand. Addressing just the Gender War in my field of biomedical research, we have "pregnant persons," "persons who menstruate," and "AFAB" (recommended by the NIH office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion). For the unenlightened, AFAB means "Assigned Female At Birth." The wish to avoid offending a small fraction of 1% of the population leads to annoying and, yes, offending a far greater fraction, while committing violence on the language.
My cautious hope is that Harris appreciates this problem and is trying to deal with it.
A friend who teaches comp physiology can't refer to male and female salamanders in his lectures; rather they are salamanders that produce eggs and salamanders that produce sperm. I was reading about a rare disease and on the Cleveland Clinic web site I find: "People assigned male at birth are more likely to develop (this disease) than people who are assigned female at birth." The Cleveland Clinic! I am a reasonably liberal Democrat (or so I would have said a while back) but this drivel drives me nuts.
I wish I could say I was surprised. Indeed a significant fraction of Democrats have simply gone bonkers (maybe 2-5%?), but the problem is that almost no "left-liberals" are prepared to object to this lunacy except in private, lest their friends consider them Bad People.
As you both know, this stuff drives me crazy--especially when there's a madman on the loose and drawing votes from people who are as infuriated by wokery as we are. But I'm suspending my outrage until November 6, unless something new and egregious happens that could affect the election. Stopping Trump is the most important thing right now.
I know; you've said as much several times. I'm not sure it's electorally helpful to keep our silence, but I'm hardly a political tactician. Just venting.
You would have a better platform to speak from, on electoral or governmental interference, if the United States had not so thoroughly pioneered the effort. Whether one looks at our invasion of Russia in 1918, our overthrow of the Iranian government in 1953, our picking who the leaders should be in Vietnam in 1963, and so on. George H.W. Bush, was one of the very few, who very much limited his interference in other nations, unfortunately no other president after him did. Clinton in what was then Yugoslavia, George W. Bush in Iraq, Obama in Libya, Trump, maybe you know where he interfered, Biden-Harris in Ukraine and Gaza, the list could easily be further filled in. What Russia is doing is bad, but minimal compared to the U.S., both present and past. This is not the America of the 1960's, for all the good, the bad, and the ugly that existed then, it is worse.
Agreed, Michael. I've opposed most of our past aggressions--vehemently, you can look it up--but that doesn't make Russia's actions "trivial" and it doesn't explain why Putin is so keen on having Trump as President.
Thank you, most kindly, for replying so forth rightly.
My thoughts on Putin, in this matter, are that he prefers someone solid to someone squishy. It will tell him the limits he can go.
Stalin: The problem with Hitler is he never knows when to stop.
Eden: Does anybody at that level?
Stalin: I do.
Putin has set his sights on being the new Stalin, this may help define him, he knows his limits, and Biden has provided nothing solid or grounded to go by.
Well when the deep state murders President John F. Kennedy and gets away with it without consequence, then they have become emboldened. And for the next 60 years their pravda media demonstrates that they are just whores of the deep state.
I actually agree with the estimable Kim Strassel about the relative dangers of a compromised Justice Department compared to Russian interference in our elections. To me it is completely intuitive that three years of Russian Collusion nonsense, lawfare, along with a myriad of FBI political interference (ie Hunter’s laptop, spying on Catholics, anti-Trump partisans at the top) pose a far greater threat than social media trolls from Russia. I have yet to see any reputable studies that indicated that it was anything more than extremely minor “noise” in the cacophony of our insane election seasons.
That is not to say that Kim or I discount the threat of interference from Russia, China, or Iran—these are huge existential threats who should be taken as the enemies they are. Which candidate do you suppose would support a greater defense buildup anyway?!
PG--There was significant Russian interference--pro-Jill sTein--on black radio stations in Detroit, Milwaukee, Philly and Pittsburgh in 2016. You can look it up. You might also check out the ENTIRE first volume of the Mueller report. And yes, there has been nonsense lawfare in New York and perhaps Georgia, but not by Justice--the two Jack Smith cases are rock solid and justified (and delayed by Garland's undue caution). There is no escaping the fact that Trump tried to overthrow the government. There is no escaping the fact that he's an authoritarian thug. I can't wait for the day when the Republican Party comes to its senses--your sensibility--and starts running some sane moderate-conservatives like my GOP friends in there For Country caucus.
LOL! Green Party promotion on black radio stations in four cities. Oh yea, that is massive interference. And after 22 months and $30million the world’s most corrupt lawyer Andrew Weisman (reprimanded by the SCOTUS 9-0 for his unethical conduct in the Author Anderson prosecution) could only produce evidence in the Mueller report of a meager $40k in Facebook adds. The rest was speculation.
The Department of Injustice lawsuits with the unconstitutional appointment of Jack Smith is the most egregious lawfare in US history comparable to Soviet courts and those in banana republics. The Florida persecution is over a document dispute with the national archives, a dispute all past Presidents have had. Meanwhile Beijing Biden kept classified documents that he did not have authorization to take and showed some to his biography author and probably to Hunter Biden for use in the influence peddling of the Biden crime family. Demonstrating the current banana republic two tiered justice system in the US the DOJ will not prosecute the Biden crime family for their pay to play grift. The weaponized DOJ persecuation of President Trump in DC ignores Presidential immunity norms which the SCOTUS has already chastised Jack Smith for ignoring.
It’s idiotic to try to stretch questioning election integrity into trying to overthrow the government especially since Jan. 6 was a government false flag operation and Capital Police attack on peaceful protestors with more FBI agent provocateurs than Christopher Wray could number and who were instigating most of the violence against Police (and never being charged). It is psychological projection try to label President Trump, a patriot who loves the US and its people, as an authoritarian thug. It is the corrupt deep state who have persecuted innocent citizens because they don’t share the same political beliefs who are Authoritarian thugs.
Joe, your RINO GOP friends have been kicked to the curb, this is the new MAGA Republican party.
My understanding is when it was all said and done in 2016 the FBi could only provide evidence of around $40k in Facebook adds paid by Russia. That is laugable.
It is obvious to the most limited intellect that the FBi and the rest of the deep state will do whatever it can to keep President Trump out of office and is using our tax dollars to fabricate propoganda for that effort.
Joe, your lies and misrepresentations are easy to refute:
Stephens, the Cheney’s, the Bushes, McCain, Skyes and Murdoch are all Trump haters and war mongers and will disparage President Trump at every opportunity. The retired Generals are looking anticipating lucrative jobs in the military industrial complex and are going to repeat the propaganda of the DC swamp.
Joe, you are psychologically projecting calling individual liberty, individual responsibility championing, small government conservatives as being fascist. By contrast big government, excessive regulating, cultural mandating political leftists are the fascists. And the left is no longer liberal, they are illiberal and intolerant of other ideas. As such, they are the authoritarians.
Kimberly Strassel is absolutely correct that the U.S. Injustice Department (and the US intelligence community) has and continues interfere with US elections and are serving up more Russia interference hoaxes in front of the 2024 election. And Joe you lie, previous interference has been diminutive, I believe after 22 months and $30million, all Mueller found was about $40k in Facebook ads. And there is no evidence whatever Russian games are played that they favor Republicans. They are more likely to intended to stir up division among US voters And President Trump was harder on Russia than Obama, for instance Trump increased sanctions and authorized the airstrikes that killed 200 Russian mercenaries’ in Syria. Vladimir Putin also recently endorsed Comrade Kamala Harris.
Meanwhile the DOJ/FBI has engaged in lawfare against President Trump and his advisers fabricating bogus legal charges using dubious legal theories. Does anyone believe they would destroy jurisprudence to such a great degree if President Trump wasn’t running for re-election? A survey showed that 30% of 2020 Biden voters would not have voted for Biden had they known that Hunter Biden’s laptop contained evidence of influence peddling for the Biden crime family. Congress recently reported they have evidence that Biden’s grift is over $30million. That was significant election interference and none of the 51 former US intelligence officers who signed the letter stating the laptop was likely Russian propaganda just prior to the only debate between Trump and Biden have ever apologized.
And no matter how much propaganda the lying media vomits the “big lie” is that there wasn’t widespread election fraud in 2020. The lying media likes to point to the 65 court cases in 2020 questioning the integrity of the election but none of them looked at the evidence, they were all dismissed on standing not merit. Joe, how many of the Senate hearings did you watch with dozens of witnesses and hundreds of sworn affidavits of election fraud? For the 2024 election the democrats have imported 10-15 million illegal aliens into the US and lavished them with free stuff and are up to their shenanigans to get them to vote illegally.
President Trump is the best POTUS we’ve had in our lifetime, arguably even better than Ronaldus Maximus. We had peace and prosperity. The visceral hate of President Trump and Trump Derangement Syndrome by the uniparty and the US government crime syndicate is because Trump is a threat to their grift and by the media because they can’t control Trump and he embarrasses them. I’ve talked to a lot of Trump supporters who have come to find Trump’s boorish personality to be a feature rather than a bug because he ticks off all the people we want to be ticked off.
I don't want to veer off-topic, so I will begin by addressing the surprising (to me) response to Mr. Klein's post.
Yes, we have not only interfered with but controlled other peoples' elections. Yes, we upheld and funded strongmen from Cash My Check to Rhee in South Korea to Diem, etc. etc. The Soviets played roughly the same game. Kissinger would call it realpolitik. But that does not prove there was no Russian interference in 2020. In fact, small amounts of $$$ directed efficiently - look at Soros - can work. It's called working smart, not working hard, which I think was ex-President Clinton's biggest virtue. I did not know about the money to radio stations in key black voting districts, but that's what I would do if I wanted to effect an election in an almost invisible way.
My real point, and it is short, is that I have become a watcher of a Hong Kong based Chinese "news" channel. Also, the Japanese-American channel, and RT and Al-Jazeera and the Jerusalem Post on the Web. China's belt and road program is the greatest soft power chess move in recent history, if ypu can believe even 25% of the reporting. The Chinese news is dominated right now by a big forum hosted by Xi with 50 guest African nations and their untapped mineral resources. I love Chinese culture, philosophy and history, but they are a true economic influencer in the "Third World, and thus a threat to our hegemony, if anyone really cares about that. I trust democrats a little more on this issue, as they have economic views on regulation that transcends Trump's give more to the wealthy policy. Whomever wins, I'm not sure they are ready for what is coming. Trump is right about the threat to the dollar and our debt crisis, but I don't think he is the person for the job.
I agree with everything you say but think you are missing the whole reason Trump is still alive in the polls, not to mention the hearts and minds of the 60% of Americans who are tired of the toxic partisanship of both main parties.
The key issues for these people, besides their economic concerns around cost of living and unfettered immigration is the cloak of wokeism, DEI and assaults on parental rights that covers the shoulders of local, State Federal Democrat dignitaries.
Having been an elected representative I understand that politics is 10% Principle and 90% Pragmatism. I would’ve vote for President Trump under any circumstances.
However, what I fear the Never Trump folks fail to understand is how allergic the 60% of non-tribal Independents are to the sanctimonious influence of the metropolitan elite and their branches of academia, bureaucrats and technocrats.
To see how out of touch the political and media elite are on these issues, just look at recent election results in France and Germany.
Also, the Never Trumpers who think that Kamala’s campaign swing to the center will hold if she prevails should take a look at the performance of Keir Starmer before and after he was elected in the UK. He ran to the center in his campaign and now he is sprinting back to the left from whence he came
Agreed; the Marxist left will not admit to their policy positions because they know voters will reject them. So instead, they lie.
The 4th Estate will do their job with Trump… they failed everyone this past term…everyone. So here we are - which candidate offers better Domestic safety; National security; financial stability; educational excellence; oh, and a little defense & protection of the Constitution. Please spare us the TDS dictatorship malarkey. What are Harris policies- still nothing on their own campaign website!
Agreed. What Harris policies? Just feel the Joy! LOL!
Echoing Pinder, we wouldn't be in this situation if the Democrats hadn't created such a toxic brand. Addressing just the Gender War in my field of biomedical research, we have "pregnant persons," "persons who menstruate," and "AFAB" (recommended by the NIH office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion). For the unenlightened, AFAB means "Assigned Female At Birth." The wish to avoid offending a small fraction of 1% of the population leads to annoying and, yes, offending a far greater fraction, while committing violence on the language.
My cautious hope is that Harris appreciates this problem and is trying to deal with it.
A friend who teaches comp physiology can't refer to male and female salamanders in his lectures; rather they are salamanders that produce eggs and salamanders that produce sperm. I was reading about a rare disease and on the Cleveland Clinic web site I find: "People assigned male at birth are more likely to develop (this disease) than people who are assigned female at birth." The Cleveland Clinic! I am a reasonably liberal Democrat (or so I would have said a while back) but this drivel drives me nuts.
I wish I could say I was surprised. Indeed a significant fraction of Democrats have simply gone bonkers (maybe 2-5%?), but the problem is that almost no "left-liberals" are prepared to object to this lunacy except in private, lest their friends consider them Bad People.
As you both know, this stuff drives me crazy--especially when there's a madman on the loose and drawing votes from people who are as infuriated by wokery as we are. But I'm suspending my outrage until November 6, unless something new and egregious happens that could affect the election. Stopping Trump is the most important thing right now.
I know; you've said as much several times. I'm not sure it's electorally helpful to keep our silence, but I'm hardly a political tactician. Just venting.
You would have a better platform to speak from, on electoral or governmental interference, if the United States had not so thoroughly pioneered the effort. Whether one looks at our invasion of Russia in 1918, our overthrow of the Iranian government in 1953, our picking who the leaders should be in Vietnam in 1963, and so on. George H.W. Bush, was one of the very few, who very much limited his interference in other nations, unfortunately no other president after him did. Clinton in what was then Yugoslavia, George W. Bush in Iraq, Obama in Libya, Trump, maybe you know where he interfered, Biden-Harris in Ukraine and Gaza, the list could easily be further filled in. What Russia is doing is bad, but minimal compared to the U.S., both present and past. This is not the America of the 1960's, for all the good, the bad, and the ugly that existed then, it is worse.
Agreed, Michael. I've opposed most of our past aggressions--vehemently, you can look it up--but that doesn't make Russia's actions "trivial" and it doesn't explain why Putin is so keen on having Trump as President.
Thank you, most kindly, for replying so forth rightly.
My thoughts on Putin, in this matter, are that he prefers someone solid to someone squishy. It will tell him the limits he can go.
Stalin: The problem with Hitler is he never knows when to stop.
Eden: Does anybody at that level?
Stalin: I do.
Putin has set his sights on being the new Stalin, this may help define him, he knows his limits, and Biden has provided nothing solid or grounded to go by.
Well when the deep state murders President John F. Kennedy and gets away with it without consequence, then they have become emboldened. And for the next 60 years their pravda media demonstrates that they are just whores of the deep state.
I actually agree with the estimable Kim Strassel about the relative dangers of a compromised Justice Department compared to Russian interference in our elections. To me it is completely intuitive that three years of Russian Collusion nonsense, lawfare, along with a myriad of FBI political interference (ie Hunter’s laptop, spying on Catholics, anti-Trump partisans at the top) pose a far greater threat than social media trolls from Russia. I have yet to see any reputable studies that indicated that it was anything more than extremely minor “noise” in the cacophony of our insane election seasons.
That is not to say that Kim or I discount the threat of interference from Russia, China, or Iran—these are huge existential threats who should be taken as the enemies they are. Which candidate do you suppose would support a greater defense buildup anyway?!
PG--There was significant Russian interference--pro-Jill sTein--on black radio stations in Detroit, Milwaukee, Philly and Pittsburgh in 2016. You can look it up. You might also check out the ENTIRE first volume of the Mueller report. And yes, there has been nonsense lawfare in New York and perhaps Georgia, but not by Justice--the two Jack Smith cases are rock solid and justified (and delayed by Garland's undue caution). There is no escaping the fact that Trump tried to overthrow the government. There is no escaping the fact that he's an authoritarian thug. I can't wait for the day when the Republican Party comes to its senses--your sensibility--and starts running some sane moderate-conservatives like my GOP friends in there For Country caucus.
LOL! Green Party promotion on black radio stations in four cities. Oh yea, that is massive interference. And after 22 months and $30million the world’s most corrupt lawyer Andrew Weisman (reprimanded by the SCOTUS 9-0 for his unethical conduct in the Author Anderson prosecution) could only produce evidence in the Mueller report of a meager $40k in Facebook adds. The rest was speculation.
The Department of Injustice lawsuits with the unconstitutional appointment of Jack Smith is the most egregious lawfare in US history comparable to Soviet courts and those in banana republics. The Florida persecution is over a document dispute with the national archives, a dispute all past Presidents have had. Meanwhile Beijing Biden kept classified documents that he did not have authorization to take and showed some to his biography author and probably to Hunter Biden for use in the influence peddling of the Biden crime family. Demonstrating the current banana republic two tiered justice system in the US the DOJ will not prosecute the Biden crime family for their pay to play grift. The weaponized DOJ persecuation of President Trump in DC ignores Presidential immunity norms which the SCOTUS has already chastised Jack Smith for ignoring.
It’s idiotic to try to stretch questioning election integrity into trying to overthrow the government especially since Jan. 6 was a government false flag operation and Capital Police attack on peaceful protestors with more FBI agent provocateurs than Christopher Wray could number and who were instigating most of the violence against Police (and never being charged). It is psychological projection try to label President Trump, a patriot who loves the US and its people, as an authoritarian thug. It is the corrupt deep state who have persecuted innocent citizens because they don’t share the same political beliefs who are Authoritarian thugs.
Joe, your RINO GOP friends have been kicked to the curb, this is the new MAGA Republican party.
My understanding is when it was all said and done in 2016 the FBi could only provide evidence of around $40k in Facebook adds paid by Russia. That is laugable.
It is obvious to the most limited intellect that the FBi and the rest of the deep state will do whatever it can to keep President Trump out of office and is using our tax dollars to fabricate propoganda for that effort.
Joe, your lies and misrepresentations are easy to refute:
Stephens, the Cheney’s, the Bushes, McCain, Skyes and Murdoch are all Trump haters and war mongers and will disparage President Trump at every opportunity. The retired Generals are looking anticipating lucrative jobs in the military industrial complex and are going to repeat the propaganda of the DC swamp.
Joe, you are psychologically projecting calling individual liberty, individual responsibility championing, small government conservatives as being fascist. By contrast big government, excessive regulating, cultural mandating political leftists are the fascists. And the left is no longer liberal, they are illiberal and intolerant of other ideas. As such, they are the authoritarians.
Kimberly Strassel is absolutely correct that the U.S. Injustice Department (and the US intelligence community) has and continues interfere with US elections and are serving up more Russia interference hoaxes in front of the 2024 election. And Joe you lie, previous interference has been diminutive, I believe after 22 months and $30million, all Mueller found was about $40k in Facebook ads. And there is no evidence whatever Russian games are played that they favor Republicans. They are more likely to intended to stir up division among US voters And President Trump was harder on Russia than Obama, for instance Trump increased sanctions and authorized the airstrikes that killed 200 Russian mercenaries’ in Syria. Vladimir Putin also recently endorsed Comrade Kamala Harris.
Meanwhile the DOJ/FBI has engaged in lawfare against President Trump and his advisers fabricating bogus legal charges using dubious legal theories. Does anyone believe they would destroy jurisprudence to such a great degree if President Trump wasn’t running for re-election? A survey showed that 30% of 2020 Biden voters would not have voted for Biden had they known that Hunter Biden’s laptop contained evidence of influence peddling for the Biden crime family. Congress recently reported they have evidence that Biden’s grift is over $30million. That was significant election interference and none of the 51 former US intelligence officers who signed the letter stating the laptop was likely Russian propaganda just prior to the only debate between Trump and Biden have ever apologized.
And no matter how much propaganda the lying media vomits the “big lie” is that there wasn’t widespread election fraud in 2020. The lying media likes to point to the 65 court cases in 2020 questioning the integrity of the election but none of them looked at the evidence, they were all dismissed on standing not merit. Joe, how many of the Senate hearings did you watch with dozens of witnesses and hundreds of sworn affidavits of election fraud? For the 2024 election the democrats have imported 10-15 million illegal aliens into the US and lavished them with free stuff and are up to their shenanigans to get them to vote illegally.
President Trump is the best POTUS we’ve had in our lifetime, arguably even better than Ronaldus Maximus. We had peace and prosperity. The visceral hate of President Trump and Trump Derangement Syndrome by the uniparty and the US government crime syndicate is because Trump is a threat to their grift and by the media because they can’t control Trump and he embarrasses them. I’ve talked to a lot of Trump supporters who have come to find Trump’s boorish personality to be a feature rather than a bug because he ticks off all the people we want to be ticked off.
Get ready for MAGA 2.0!
You give new meaning to the Trump Derangement Syndrome.
How so? Can you provide any facts or logic or is this all too complicated for your limited intellect?
Jay Turney
I don't want to veer off-topic, so I will begin by addressing the surprising (to me) response to Mr. Klein's post.
Yes, we have not only interfered with but controlled other peoples' elections. Yes, we upheld and funded strongmen from Cash My Check to Rhee in South Korea to Diem, etc. etc. The Soviets played roughly the same game. Kissinger would call it realpolitik. But that does not prove there was no Russian interference in 2020. In fact, small amounts of $$$ directed efficiently - look at Soros - can work. It's called working smart, not working hard, which I think was ex-President Clinton's biggest virtue. I did not know about the money to radio stations in key black voting districts, but that's what I would do if I wanted to effect an election in an almost invisible way.
My real point, and it is short, is that I have become a watcher of a Hong Kong based Chinese "news" channel. Also, the Japanese-American channel, and RT and Al-Jazeera and the Jerusalem Post on the Web. China's belt and road program is the greatest soft power chess move in recent history, if ypu can believe even 25% of the reporting. The Chinese news is dominated right now by a big forum hosted by Xi with 50 guest African nations and their untapped mineral resources. I love Chinese culture, philosophy and history, but they are a true economic influencer in the "Third World, and thus a threat to our hegemony, if anyone really cares about that. I trust democrats a little more on this issue, as they have economic views on regulation that transcends Trump's give more to the wealthy policy. Whomever wins, I'm not sure they are ready for what is coming. Trump is right about the threat to the dollar and our debt crisis, but I don't think he is the person for the job.