We are indeed living in remarkable times. I feel that I should write about them just because of their extraordinary nature.
On the evening of July 13, I wrote an impulsive, ill-considered Facebook post that was titled, “The top 10 suspects who are behind the assassination attempt against Donald Trump.” It was a very flippant post that treated the incident with burlesque humor.
The post was hastily written less than an hour after the shots had been fired in Butler. After about 20 minutes, I thought better of it and deleted the post. Aside from the national security implications, the post showed profound disrespect to the firefighter who was killed in the attempt, as well as his surviving family. I’m sorry I ever brought it into reality.
A more sober and serious analysis of the event caused me to get angry. I wasn’t as much angry at the idea that someone had tried to kill Trump. Frankly, I’m surprised that it took as long as it did. I was outraged that the head of the Secret Service refused to resign. As you know from reading these pages, incompetence rewarded with loyalty really causes my quills to stand up. The Secret Service had one fucking job, to keep a presidential candidate safe from harm, and they were derelict in their duty. If Trump had not turned his head when he did, we’d be seeing blood in the streets now.
Well, Kimberly Cheatle did finally step down, but not because she was incompetent. She stepped down because she saw the writing on the wall. The Democrats, as well as Republicans, were not going to throw her a life line. But the travesty still exists. Cheatle should’ve stepped down within 24 hours of the attack, not 10 days.
Six days after Trump was shot on a stage in Butler, PA, Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race. Contrary to the hollow platitudes floated by the Dems, he didn’t do it out of any sense of patriotism for his country or his party. According to reliable reports, he stepped down because too many DNC heavy-hitters ganged up on him and forced his hand.
Biden had no choice. His disastrous debate performance was the pivot point. His petulant, back foot defensiveness in subsequent interviews did not allay the growing fears of the Democrats that his advanced age would prove to be an embarrassment of riches for a sniping Trump.
We may never know all of the behind-the-scenes drama that went into Biden’s withdrawal, but we do know that he’s still maintaining a tenuous grasp on the presidency.
48 hours after Biden withdrew, all of the chattering classes were speaking of Kamala Harris as the presumptive presidential nominee for the Democratic Party. She won no primaries. She won no hearts in debates or interviews. She scored no points with Democrats during her tenure as vice-president. In fact, she came to be the butt of many jokes during her less than stellar tenure as veep. If you doubt me, just go look up Kamala Harris on The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live on YouTube. She was even the subject of several unflattering pieces from credible media outlets such as CNN, The Atlantic and Politico; none of which are right-wing outfits.
Kamala Harris simply inherited the nomination because of her race, her gender, her geographical location and her Trumpian luck. She is a
Remarkable study in how to fail upward, as was Kimberly Cheatle. As, frankly, is Donald Trump. That is one of the unfortunate hallmarks of our country today. Institutional momentum drives people who don’t deserve success into the limelight.
Here’s the part of this entry that will be as weird for you to read as it is for me to write. Ever since Kamala ascended to the status of heir apparent, I’ve been seriously tempted to vote for Trump in November. Now, don’t any of you get your shorties in a twist. I have made no final decision. I’m just saying that the temptation to vote for Trump is as strong in my heart as it has ever been.
Lest you think that Trump broke me, let me provide a laundry list of just some of Trump’s misdeeds.
Trump is a serial liar who always doubles down when called on his deception. He is a serial adulterer who paid hush money to a porn star to gain political advantage. He is an admitted sexual predator who uses his celebrity status as leverage over his victims. Trump plays fast and loose with state secrets. He speaks well of men like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, while openly trashing our NATO allies. He protests when his enemies use “lawfare,” against him, but he will certainly use the same tactics against his enemies if given the chance. Trump is impulsive, erratic, narcissistic, unstable, vain and professionally and personally abusive to those in his orbit. He is incapable of managing a real crisis, such as the pandemic, showing a decided lack of leadership when it matters most. Despite his outward bluster, he can be strikingly indecisive, such as was the case during the 2020 racial riots in America.
Worst of all, Trump is a conspiracy theorist who traffics in election denial and instigated an attempt to overthrow the peaceful transition of power for his own ego-driven ends. I cannot stress enough that this is an absolute threat to the order and stability of our republic.
And yet, with all of that on the record, is Donald Trump the worst threat to our democracy that we face in these trying times?
Consider what I’ve already written about Kamala Harris. Then consider this.
Joe Biden came into office promising to unify the country. He has utterly failed. His abominable withdrawal from Afghanistan, his refusal to control our southern border, his steadfast delusion in the face of mounting inflation, his flip-flopping on Israel, his empty threats in the face of the invasion of Ukraine and, worst of all, his naked race baiting in Georgia when they passed voting reforms, all indicate a divisive presidency that is mediocre at best. As the vice-president, Kamala must share in that record.
What really gives me pause is Harris’s approach to crime. She has vocally supported those who have engaged in political violence under the banner of Black Lives Matter, while openly scorning those who stormed the U.S. Capital on January 6. I have no patience for those who condemned the BLM riots of 2020 but defended the January 6 marauders. But the reverse is also true. I have been and will continue to be consistent on this point. I am unalterably opposed to political violence in a free and open society such as ours for any reason.
I wish Kamala could say the same, but she can’t. Does anyone remember when she visited Jacob Blake in Kenosha? Does anyone remember when Kamala supported the Minnesota Freedom Fund, who bailed out violent offenders regardless of the severity of the charges? Does anyone remember when Kamala very vocally supported defunding the police? Does anyone remember when Senator Harris co-sponsored the resolution to create the Green New Deal? Does anyone remember when Harris called for the elimination of private health insurance? Does anyone remember when Vice-President Harris was put in charge of the crisis at the southern border and never visited the border? Instead, she went to Guatemala to explore, “root causes of migration.” If you don’t remember these things, you better google it soon before the media permanently memory holes them.
Yes, the media has had its own role to play as the country has made the light speed jump from Biden to Harris. I must admit that I reveled in the discomfort of Democrat talking heads when the media went on attack mode after the debate. It gave me the cleanest of pleasure to watch them do their jobs for a change. This was the same bulldog press that relentlessly hounded Trump during his term in office. And you know what…I’m fine with that. The Fourth Estate is in top form when it is skeptical at best, adversarial at worst. They are in the dregs when they run cover for the government. Their jumping on the Harris band wagon, including the attempt to erase the idea that she was ever the Border Czar, is nothing less than Orwellian.
The only thing more pathetic than an obeisant mainstream media are the rabid ‘Never Trumpers.’ I’m talking about the Lincoln Project, Nick Catoggio, Mike Murphy and the crew at The Bulwark. Their anger toward Trump has driven them to the point where they honestly believe that supporting Democrats is preferable to the alternative. I’m not just talking about reluctantly pulling the lever in the privacy of the voting booth, but a full-throated support of Joe Biden, followed by the instantaneous transfer of loyalty to Harris. These defenses include the sad, transparent rationalizations of all of Kamala’s convenient policy reversals, all uttered by her surrogates.
This warped mentality is demonstrated most clearly by a recent column by Bulwark founder Charlie Sykes, in which he wrote:
“For Never Trumpers who have been in the political wilderness for nearly a decade now, this is not the time to quibble over tax rates, the Green New Deal, fracking, or pronouns. Harris is far from their first choice, but when your kitchen is in flames, you reach for whatever extinguisher is at hand. You can worry later about washing the dishes or whether you need a new garbage disposal. Put the fire out now.”
I love people who use fire analogies, because they are always so reckless. Fire is an energy that is nearly impossible to contain, and it always exacts collateral damage. So, question for Charlie. What if, in your blind panic, you grab a can of gasoline instead of the fire extinguisher? Forget the friggin’ garbage disposal. What if, despite your best efforts, the whole goddamn house burns down?
Because that’s what this whole Kamala fever smacks of. Just beneath the hype and the gloss and the heaps of abrupt, saccharin praise, wafts the pungent odor of desperation. Your desperation to stop Trump at any cost has caused you to mill about in a frantic frenzy, like a scared kid trying to find that fire extinguisher. And by the way, when exactly is the right time to quibble over tax rates, border security and pronouns? Is it before or after the electoral prize is won? Grab a fucking clue, Charlie!
President Biden has just released a laundry list of changes he wants to make to the Supreme Court, which is one of those institutional checks that is meant to prevent government from running amuck. Is Biden so feeble that he doesn’t know that his proposals are dead on arrival? I suspect that his real intent is to plant a seed that will eventually be harvested by President Harris. These recommendations have all been made in bad faith. The Democrats aren’t interested in the ethics of the Supreme Court. They want to change its compositional makeup because they don’t like the court’s rulings of late.
Do we really believe that Harris won’t take the SCOTUS ball and run with it? Do we really believe that Harris, who has been openly hostile to law enforcement, will do anything to quell the surge of anti-Semitic mob activity that has been growing on our streets since October 7? Do we seriously believe that Harris will take a strong stand in support of Israel, or against Russia and China? Do we really believe that a President Harris won’t use and abuse her pen and her phone to move on guns, illegal immigration, healthcare, so-called trans rights and the economy?
If you really believe those things, then you are as cuckoo as Bill Kristol and Tim Miller. In no universe does aiding the Democrat Party, who is steadily moving leftward, make any kind of sense. Maybe the dickheads at the Bulwark think that they can influence the Harris administration if they just display the correct amount of felicity on her behalf. All due respect…how has that worked out during Biden’s term? How is that any different than Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Nikki Haley capitulating to Trump?
Here’s another angle to consider. Are we better off with a media that is every bit as sycophantic toward President Harris as they were toward President Obama in the name of identity justice, or are we better off with an antagonistic, bulldog press that is doing its job and reporting on the actions of the president? If the press had done their jobs a year or two ago, perhaps the Democrats could have had a genuine primary. But they didn’t, the train wreck of a debate happened and only then, when the truth about Biden’s deterioration became too obvious to ignore, did they turn on the pressure.
How many major interviews has Kamala done since Biden withdrew from the race? How many press conferences has she held? How many spontaneous Q&As has she done? The answer…zero. She knows she doesn’t have to, because the press loves her. All she has to do is stay on script and avoid potentially awkward situations for the next three months, let Trump be Trump, and she may win the prize.
Conversely, Trump just did an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists yesterday. He did himself some damage, but the dude showed up. Kamala begged off.
And are we sure that Trump will run wild in his second term? How is Project 2025 working out these days? How about the handmaid post-Ro nightmare of forced births? How’s Trump doing on abortion?
Say what you will about Trump, but he is proving to be the more authentic expression of democracy during this election cycle. Love him or hate him, and there is no middle ground on this point, he was chosen by primary voters in a valid contest with well-qualified candidates. Kamala Harris cannot make that claim. She was chosen by Biden because of her identity. This is not a slur or a smear. It is fact. Her position as vice-president placed her in orbit to be chosen when Biden proved incapable of running for a second term. If she wins in November, she will have done nothing to earn the office. The Democrats mouse trapped themselves into the position they are in now. Why should we allow them to mouse trap the entire nation?
Speaking of identity politics, I find the idea of these segregated Zoom calls for Kamala to be super gross. “White dudes for Harris,” “Win with black women,” “Win with black men,” “Latinas for Harris,” “White women, answer the call.” I was raised to believe that segregation was evil. How is positive segregation any better than negative segregation? I am unalterably opposed to segregation of any kind, for any reason, in the professional or political sphere. I believe that nothing good can ultimately come from such practices. I would honestly welcome a candid discussion with an African-American man or woman who would give me a good faith explanation of how and why this sort of thing is helpful.
Over in the Trump camp, I’ve been hearing more and more about African-American men and Latinos drifting toward the GOP. I’m not sure if this is a real phenomenon, or just wishcasting on the part of pundits, but I guess we’ll find out in November. If it is really happening, it would be the sort of organic diversity long touted by the left.
Either way we wind up after November 4, the outcome is sure to be grim. When I run the various scenarios in my brain, I keep coming back to the notion that I first expressed in my last entry. Maybe America, and the world at large, is better off with the devil we know, rather than the devil we don’t.
I can guess what’s coming. Some will accuse me of latent racism or sexism because of my antipathy toward Kamala Harris. All I can say is, I can’t wait to watch the career of Winsome Sears continue to unfold.
I am fully aware of the contradictions in my position here. I am at risk of becoming the very thing that I’ve hated for the last eight years. If I vote for Trump, I have to own it, including all of the consequences that result. My only remaining questions are, which fall-out will hurt America the least. If Trump wins, we’ll have street violence. If Harris wins, we’ll have street violence. Which violence is the least worst outcome?
What an absurd and wretched question. Right now, I have no fucking idea. I am sure of one thing. No matter who wins the election, one group of violent offenders will be punished, while another will be pardoned.
I am cognizant of the ‘Burn it Down’ entry I wrote a few months ago. There’s your fire analogy again, folks. Everything I wrote in there is still valid today. In a world rife with irony, wouldn’t it be ironic if Trump lost to Kamala, despite his best efforts? Hillary looks pretty good next to Harris, doesn’t she? This would make the fourth straight electoral loss that Republicans suffered under Trump’s reign. I wrote previously that the GOP would have to keep losing and losing at the ballot box until they get the point that Trump is no longer effective. A Harris victory would prove me right. But how much damage would the country have to suffer before they change course?
Let me circle back to my starting point; the assassination attempt. When Donald Trump was struck by a bullet and thrown to the ground, then immediately stood up, blood on his face, and raised his fist in the air and yelled, “FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!” it was the perfect American symbol. Wouldn’t it be ironic if that proved to be his crowning political achievement? If he keeps going the way he’s going, it will be his political finale.
Two days after he was shot, Trump selected J.D. Vance as his vice-presidential nominee. It was an act of extreme hubris which is backfiring on him. During his acceptance speech, Trump reflected on his brush with death for about 20 minutes. Then, he reverted to type, riffing and wandering his way through the remainder of his bloated speech.
As I’ve always said, there’s nothing that Donald Trump can’t fuck up.
Meanwhile, we’re still waiting for Kamala to choose her veep nominee. If she picks Jewish Josh Shapiro, she’s screwed. If she doesn’t pick Jewish Josh Shapiro, she’s screwed.
Mouse trap, indeed.
Trump had his cocaine high after the debate. I think Kamala is now having hers. But external events have a way of drastically and rapidly altering the political landscape. In the past 72 hours, two high-level terrorists were assassinated by the IDF in retaliation for a rocket attack by Hezbollah that killed 12 children on a soccer field in North Israel. Three of the masterminds behind 9/11 will avoid the death penalty by agreeing to a plea bargain, courtesy of the Biden Justice Department. A female Olympic boxer surrendered to her biologically male opponent after just 46 seconds of combat. Venezuela has erupted in chaos after President Maduro tried to steal the election. Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan are returning home after being falsely imprisoned in Russia, thanks to a prisoner swap engineered by Biden.
If you think you know how the election will turn out, you’re full of shit. Me…I haven’t been sure of anything since Biden dropped out.
Someone wake me up when this nightmare is over. I’ll be taking a catnap with Kylie.
Addendum: August 4
Thank you, Mr. Trump, for reminding me of why I just can’t vote for your stupid orange ass. As if things weren’t going bad enough in your camp, you spent valuable time attacking Governor Brian Kemp last night during your Atlanta rally. Georgia is a swing state, you stupid fuck! I wonder if the shift in polls will get your attention.
I guess the whole bloody mess really is in God’s hands.
