My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:
C’mon, America. Are we really going to do this? In a country of over 330 million people with legions of brilliant, ethical, honest, compassionate and humble servant leaders, are we really going to be forced to choose between Joe Biden and Donald Trump? Is this the best we have to offer? If the polls are any indication, we are barreling headlong into choosing between these two terribly flawed grouchy old men.
The Democrats appear to be committed to nominating President Joe Biden to be considered by the voters for a second term. Biden’s cognitive decline is as obvious as it is distressing. The incidents of Biden getting confused, wandering off and rambling incoherently are increasingly frequent. His press conference in Vietnam last week was tragic. He rambled from inappropriate jokes to getting confused over questions and admitting, “I’m just following my orders here” to having his staff cut him off as he closed with, “I’m going to go to bed.”
As happens with many elderly people who are in cognitive decline, Biden’s unsavory personal traits have come to the surface. Unable to stop himself from wandering from a podium, he is now vacillating between strange whispering into the handheld microphone to shouting for no apparent reason. Biden has always been known for his prolific lying. He was even run off the presidential campaign trail in 1988 when he was caught plagiarizing. His sagging ability to think on his feet have him blundering into even more obvious lies. His claim last week that he was in Manhattan the day after 9/11 was disproven within minutes by video of him in Washington D.C. that day.
Biden’s years of rank corruption are also coming to the surface. The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability has released some of the evidence they have gathered about the Biden’s real family business. The evidence shows years of corruption where tens of millions of dollars from foreign bad actors flowed through a web aliases (Joe Biden had at least three) and shell companies controlled by Biden family members with Hunter Biden serving as the primary bag man. The product they were selling was allegedly access to one of the most powerful people on the planet — Joe Biden. The Biden family has not offered any other reasonable explanation for why foreigners have been giving them millions of dollars.
As if the lies, corruption, and slip into senility was not enough, Biden’s first term has been an unmitigated failure. Inflation has raged out of control eating into every American’s quality of life. People are struggling to buy groceries, cars and homes as real wages have stagnated. The Southern border is wide open with tens of thousands of illegal aliens flowing into our nation every month to eat at our overburdened social safety net. Our nation is running up our national debt to a nation-killing level. Our enemies and friends are laughing at us as the world order reorients away from a languishing lion.
Despite all of this, the Democrats seem dead set on propping up old Joe for another term.
The Republicans are not doing much better. Despite several fantastic alternatives who are younger, smarter, more conservative, more likable, and with better records in public office, the Republicans seem dead set on nominating former President Donald Trump.
Only three years younger than Joe Biden, Trump’s cognitive abilities are holding firm even as his stamina slumps with marathon rallies being replaced by short and infrequent campaign stops. His lifetime of lying is currently manifesting itself in a voluminous attempt to gaslight the nation as to his record and the records of his Republican opponents. His energies that were focused on the righteous populist anger of the average American in 2016 and 2020 have been redirected in 2023 to his lengthy list of personal grudges and electoral fantasies.
While the litany of indictments against Trump are the more the result of the Marxist weaponization of our judicial system than a true assessment of Trump’s behavior, he has always shoved past dowdy ethical to flirt with the skirts of law.
Trump’s record as president was decidedly mixed. He was exceptional in securing the border, deregulating, selecting conservative judges, pulling America back from bad international deals, destroying ISIS, and reigniting our economy. These remarkable successes are weighted down by his prolific spending, ballooning debt, and lethargy in adjusting government policy to the reality of the pandemic. Perhaps his greatest failure was his terrible selection of, and support of, government officials from Anthony Fauci to Christopher Wray. Instead of draining the swamp, Trump added to and protected it.
America deserves better than to have a presidential campaign that resembles two semi-coherent old men yelling at each other from opposite ends of the bar about the television channel. Or do we?
I ask again … are we really going to do this?
who are younger, smarter, more conservative, more likable, and with better records in public office
DeSantis is simply NOT ‘more likeable.’ Tim Scott? Crispy Creme? The war-mongerette globalist from South Carolina? The guy who perfected municipal software? I think you know that a ‘better record’ is easy to get when Paul Ryan isn’t submarining you at every turn.
Let’s be specific!
If what you want is Democrat spelled differently then any of the not-Trump candidates will do. They’ll perform well on the DC cocktail party circuit and represent the monied interests of their top-tier donors which, by the way, are not likely yours or mine. They’re the typical candidates from the RNC stable with great campaign vision that morphs into a litany of non-performance excuses the day they take office. A return to deceit with a lovely veil of decorum might be enough to fool Republican voters again, although that outlook isn’t very promising so far.
Conservatives can be such whiners. They claim to want a fight, but utterly abhor the discomfort of a brawl. Their opponents, both Republican and Democrat, continue to take full advantage of this reluctance to fully participate in modern politics. I suppose there’s a certain level of comfort in accepting perpetual failure.
It is not the instinct of a Conservative to smack someone in the kisser. But as things are going……
Clearly, this article’s title is inaccurate. If no one wanted Trump to be part of the rematch, why is he clearly headed for the nomination? Isn’t that the point of a primary, to determine the candidate you want running on behalf of your party?
I ask the same question: are we really going to do this? Are we going to be a wet blanket on the candidate is headed to be our nominee? Will we continue to be the wet blanket during campaign season, in front of all the independents we are trying to sway? Or, worse yet, will we sit this election out on our “righteous couches”?
I have said this before on this forum, and will continue to say it: I have vowed to enthusiastically support and promote whoever our nominee is. Will you do the same? The results of the 2024 election depend on the answer to this question, more than anything else.
Yah, well…….”enthusiasm” no, and not sorry.
Trump is playing the pro-lifers. They made him the nominee AND the President in ’16. He figures “where else can they go?” now. Typical New York City gangster tactic.
My response to gangster tactics: Up Yours with a Meathook! …….or similar. That said, he’s the lesser of two evils by far.
I love how everyone keeps going back to ’16, like it was a mistake.
The truth is that people said and thought these exact things as Trump approached becoming the nominee. They approached the general the same way: he’s the lesser of two evils. I know I did.
But I was wrong. His presidency wasn’t anything like I expected, and lots of people noticed. Despite his opponents, the courts, and members of his own party running interference, he went right to work on fulfilling his campaign promises. He got a lot done. So much so that people were getting on the bandwagon. Who could forget the Jay Weber “winning segments”? (“Weeeeeeee”) But people seem to have short memories (yep, talking about you, Jay. Still not listening to your show)
You know who my guy is. I’m with him enthusiastically. If your guy gets the nomination, I’m with him enthusiastically. A wet blanket won’t help you get your friends and family to the polls. We must win, and we must do what it takes to win.
>Conservatives can be such whiners. They claim to want a fight, but utterly abhor the discomfort of a brawl. Their opponents, both Republican and Democrat, continue to take full advantage of this reluctance to fully participate in modern politics. I suppose there’s a certain level of comfort in accepting perpetual failure.
Both fair and unfair Merlin. Take away Trump’s version of conservatism and you said it yourself, there are no conservatives running. You can’t fight if you don’t have a contestant and the system is rigged such that we have no real way to get a Republican conservative on the ballot. I vote for a conservative just about every election, but they don’t have a chance thanks to the RNC and DNC bending of existing rules and adding new ones to make sure they’re the only candidates available. And I think we all agree that ‘conservative’ has virtually no place in today’s politics of greed and power grabs.
>Isn’t that the point of a primary, to determine the candidate you want running on behalf of your party?
What a nice combination of idealistic sentiment and fairy dust. Today’s politicians rely on people like Craig List. The whole ‘we don’t care who it is, what their record is or what they stand for, we will vote for them ENTHUSIASTICALLY if they have R after their name’ attitude is exactly how we continually get a choice between giant douches and turd sandwiches in the first place.
The whole ‘we don’t care who it is, what their record is or what they stand for, we will vote for them ENTHUSIASTICALLY if they have R after their name’ attitude…..
Yah, well, substitute “D” for “R” in the above and that’s what Democrats do.
The difference? Democrats do it illegally.
>In a country of over 330 million people with legions of brilliant, ethical, honest, compassionate and humble servant leaders, are we really going to be forced to choose between Joe Biden and Donald Trump?
You’re assuming they’ll both still be above ground on election day? Hold onto that optimism!
….but the debate would be hilariously entertaining.
I fail to see how supporting a candidate tepidly is better than enthusiastically. I’ve voted for every Republican nominee since I became eligible to vote. I had varying degrees of personal satisfaction with each one. But until this two-party system changes, there’s only one candidate I can vote for who will oppose the efforts of the Democrat party and the radical left. I lack the influence to persuade enough voters to elect a 3rd party candidate, and sitting out only helps the other side. I can, however, cast my vote and do what I can to encourage others to do the same.
If the guy you don’t like gets the nomination, belly-aching about him does nothing to rally support around him. He (or she) is your one choice. The media will paint even the perfect candidate as a giant douche and a turd sandwich; why wave your wet blanket in front of all the undecideds?
Oh, and yes, the point of a primary is for the voter base to determine the candidate running on behalf of its party. We disagree during the primary; we unite in the general. That’s the concept. But if you’re looking for idealistic sentiment and fairy dust, there’s plenty of THAT elsewhere on this site.
Perhaps you don’t read my posts regarding Trump. Maybe you should.
Meantime, he’s taking me–and thousands of other pro-lifers–for granted. That’s stupid on his part, and it’s not the first utterly stupid thing he’s done.
Do not lecture me, Junior, on how to comment on politicians or their campaigns. Don’t need your advice.
If my comments (not directed at you) are being perceived as a lecture, I hope you’ll forgive me, just as I forgive your assumption about my age.
My main point is that winning in 2024 means rallying around our nominee, whoever he is, faults and all. I am concerned that wet blankets will be thrown around; that is counterproductive (unless directed at our opponent).
But as to the pro-life issue; I also am pro-life. Trump more than pleasantly surprised me during his first term on this issue, and has done more to advance the pro-life movement than many of his predecessors. If you are referring to the comments he made during his interview with Kristen Welker, I will concede that some of them didn’t sound pro-life. If that’s what he truly believes, I won’t apologize for it.
However, having watched the entire interview, I am not convinced he is taking pro-life voters for granted. I would humbly suggest these comments be viewed in this light:
1. He was being compared to DeSantis. Attack-dog that Trump is (sometimes, a fault), he can’t allow DeSantis to look better than him on an issue, so he attacked the 6-week ban.
2. He was working with NBC, a hostile network. I noted several times in the interview that he was guarded in his responses to issues. It’s not unwise to do so, to avoid giving a soundbite that NBC can use against him.
3. As most pro-lifers are aware, there is a narrative out there that the abortion issue is a losing one for Republicans. The narrative is based on an idea that abortion is popular among a certain age-group right now, including some Republicans and Independents. If it’s true, hard-line pro-life statements may drive those voters away. As a result, we see a lot of Republicans strategizing behind closed doors on how to “message” on the issue. Most of these messaging attempts feel like compromises to us pro-lifers.
Note what Trump was doing in the interview, however. While remaining rather uncommitted on his “hard line,” he hammered the opposing position as being the extreme one. Not all Democrats support abortion up to birth, but Trump made it seem like they were. This flips the script on the abortion issue; instead of the pro-lifers looking like the extreme ones, is the pro-choice ones instead. This might be a very good play.
4. Keep in mind that Trump is a negotiator at heart. He knows that it’s difficult to get to a deal if you dig in on your side, and that the only way to get people on the other side of the table to move toward you is to move toward them. As pro-lifers, we don’t want to move an inch toward our opponents, and rightly so, because we are passionate about protecting the lives of the unborn. But if Trump is successful at negotiating a “number of weeks” with those who support abortion, it may accomplish two things: 1) provides an incremental win for the pro-life movement (the last 50 years have been a series of incremental wins), and 2) set a new stage for where the debate will take place. Instead of a “yes/no” debate on abortions (with exceptions), it’s now “when does life begin?” Considering the pro-life movement has always wanted that stage for the debate, imagine continuing that work in a world where it’s a given that 6, 8, or 10 weeks is the battle line instead of birth?
Perhaps I am wrong on all of this, and am seeing what I want to see. Time will tell. Regardless, any of the candidates on our side of the aisle will be more pro-life than the Democrat nominee. I will vote Trump in the primary, then our nominee in the general (whoever it ends up being), and will actively work to help the nominee win in 2024.
K.
Owen says that no one wants the Senile Joe and President Trump.
I disagree.
Most republicans want the rematch.
Most democrats do not.
I’m pretty sure the independenta might be sit.
>Yah, well, substitute “D” for “R” in the above and that’s what Democrats do.
My apologies dad of course I meant both parties, but I would have thought that by now you would know to take that for granted from me:).
>If the guy you don’t like gets the nomination, belly-aching about him does nothing to rally support around him. He (or she) is your one choice. The media will paint even the perfect candidate as a giant douche and a turd sandwich; why wave your wet blanket in front of all the undecideds?
>Oh, and yes, the point of a primary is for the voter base to determine the candidate running on behalf of its party.
Assumptions, ass-u-me…I am not a Republican or a Democrat. Any wet blankets I can throw can’t hurt my position or that of ‘my candidate’. Not that I haven’t voted for a few actual conservatives over the years, Ron Johnson being one of them.
I know the pro-life commentary was not directed at me, so I only want to add this: I am pro-life and I am fully against secular anti-abortion laws, go figure. Clear as mud?