Tag: Trump

Government

Are You Paying Attention?

I hate to say I told you so… but I did warn you. Let’s see, what’s that old saying? “It’s not a Conspiracy Theory if it comes true”. I’ve been babbling about social credit scores and government domestic spying for quite some time. Here’s yet another example of where we’re headed. It came out yesterday that the FBI has been encouraging banks and credit card companies to flag transactions with terms like MAGA or Trump. You also got flagged if you shopped at sporting goods stores or purchased religious materials. Uhm, yeah. This is not ok.

Germany had the Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers, or the SS as its intelligence service to spy on its citizens. East Germany in the Cold War had the Stasi. Russia had the KGB. And thanks to the Patriot Act, we now have the FBI.

In the name of security and terrorism, the FBI is now a full fledged state security agency tasked with spying on the citizens. Are you ok with that? I’m not. I don’t think the agency can be saved at this point. It needs to be disbanded. But that won’t happen and we all know it. So what do we do?

I’m not sure what can be done. A rogue agency like that exists because we no longer have a press interested in asking questions. There are a handful of members of congress that will attempt to hold a hearing here and there, but nothing will come of it. If it wasn’t for Elon Musk and twitter, you’d never even hear of the FBI’s misdeeds. How do you hold an agency accountable when the watchdogs either don’t care or actively support their actions?

When the FBI is flagging transactions because you fit the profile of an evil white nationalist on the basis that you support Trump and shop at Cabelas… it’s over. We’re rapidly sliding into Orwell’s 1984 territory. When you’re guilty of wrongspeak, you’re going to have trouble finding a job, getting credit, or renting a car or hotel room. Is it really all that crazy to think that’s where we’re rapidly headed?

The DOJ has an entire web page dedicated to their pursuit of J6 evil doers. They’ve arrested 1,265 people so far and the FBI continues to show up at peoples houses daily. Grandmas and people wandering around taking selfies. Antifa burned cities across the country for an entire summer… where’s their DOJ dedicated page and mass arrests? Crickets.

The people don’t have the power to resist or complain. Say or do something and your life will be ruined. You’ll spend your life savings in lawyer fees trying to defend yourself. This is not who we were supposed to be as a country. The founding fathers are rolling over in their graves.

The scariest part is that the only hope we have rests on one person. The President of the United States is the only one with the power to effect actual change. The odds of our electing someone with the courage to do something is very low. I’d go so far as to say impossible. The deep state will ensure someone with that level of commitment to do the right thing never gets close to the office.

Vivek Ramaswamy was the only candidate who at least voiced the right answers and seemed to have an actual plan to make changes. I guess all we can do at this point is hope he can whisper in Trumps ear enough to convince him to do something. That is assuming he can win, which is far from a guarantee at this point.

But even if he does win, Trump has already said he wants to build the FBI a magnificent, shiny, new building in D.C. (with his son-in-law Jared already bidding for the construction contract). Trump kept Comey and then gave us Wray, so I don’t have high hopes for a complete shift in thinking.

Parents, it’s time to educate your kids on how to stay safe and away from the watchful eye of the state security service. Just like in East Germany with the Stasi, be careful of what you say and who you talk to. Don’t post anything controversial. Be wary of that new friend who encourages you to go to a rally or join a protest group. Go along to get along. Like only pictures of puppy dogs and recipes on Facebook.

It’s the new normal.

“Surveillance breeds conformity”
– Glenn Greenwald

Government, Politics

Does Iowa Even Matter?

I’m happy I don’t live in Iowa right now. I can’t imagine having 24×7 campaign crap going on for months. Non-stop door knockers, rallies, photo ops, and every commercial a political ad. No thanks. And the funny thing is… in the last twenty years, whomever Iowa chose as their candidate in the primary did not go on to become the actual GOP nominee. They chose Ted Cruz in ’16. Rick Santorum in ’12 and Mike Huckabee in ’08. Even the polling has been wrong. All polls indicated Trump would win the caucus nomination in ’16. So if Iowa is wrong every single time, why is such a big deal made of it?

I also live in a state that, for different reasons, does not matter in presidential elections. I suppose fortunately we barely exist politically, so we see a tiny fraction of the campaigning other states experience. We are a red state and will remain solidly so – at least for a while longer. The tide is turning and I can see us turning purple in the next ten years or so. Trump never bothered to visit in ’16 (actually I don’t think he’s ever been here). Ted Cruz visited and had a resounding primary win over Trump. Clearly it didn’t matter in the end.

So Iowa is wrong every time and the polling about Iowa is wrong every time. Meanwhile the press, as usual, has vehemently declared the ascendency and demise of every candidate in the running at some point. It’s all pretty silly.

Politics are in a weird place right now. Nothing seems normal.

Trump is the apparent favorite for the nomination, yet he doesn’t debate, answer questions, or interact with voters. He only holds mega rallies for fawning fans and spews one-liners for applause.

DeSantis was the favorite and then dropped off the press radar despite knocking on more doors and holding more events than any other candidate. Did he really fizzle with the population, or did only the press declare him dead?

Haley is the new media darling. She’s clearly the deep state choice. There’s even a big push for democrats to switch and vote for her in an apparent attempt to block Trump. She’s definitely Jeb! in high heels.

Vivek is hands down the most interesting candidate. The smartest, most articulate, and the only one with actual plans rather than campaign slogans. He also has zero chance. He is so dangerous to the establishment, there is no possibility they’d let him get anywhere near the nomination. They’d Bobby Kennedy him long before he got near the win.

And Biden… I don’t even know what to say about him. He campaigned in ’20 on Zoom from his basement. At this point they’re simply trying to keep him from falling off stairs or getting lost. I’m honestly shocked he’s still running. I was sure they’d have him drop out by now.

So conventional wisdom and polling says that Trump will be the eventual GOP nominee. Will that hold up? I think it’s a coin toss at this point. Reading the tea leaves, what the Enterprise/deep state is trying to engineer is a Haley v Biden or Newsom match up. They win no matter what in that scenario.

Anyhoo, Iowa will be the talk of the town – for about 72 more hours, before once again sliding into obscurity. Last day before ’24 voting officially starts… cards on the table, what’s your prediction as to how this all plays out on November 5th?

“Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”
– Abraham Lincoln

Government, Motivation, woke

Who Controls the Narrative?

With every passing day I’m more in awe of how prescient George Orwell was with his novel 1984. It’s even more impressive when you realize it was first published in 1949. One could go on and on with analysis of how accurate it is today, but there’s one concept from the book that seems strikingly true now:

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

The current progressive, woke culture mob is doing everything possible to erase the past. Removing statues. Remaking films with appropriate ratios of all persons of color and identity. Changing past temperature history to match the global warming narrative. Everywhere you look past culture is being erased. This is on purpose. Kids growing up today will have zero sense of our history. The very fabric of what made this country great has been vilified. The youth of today will arrive at adulthood believing that everything about this nation was profoundly immoral and wicked, and a new set of values must be set forth.

The great reset is succeeding. Why? It’s not because it’s a great battle of ideas happened and the right one won. No, it’s because of violence. The quote that captures it best is:

“He who controls the violence, controls the narrative”

I wish I remember where I got that quote from, because it’s so true. The BLM/Antifa riots of 2020 had members of congress, the FBI, and police on their literal knees in solidarity. People were falling all over themselves to post their support of BLM on social media in fear that someone might mistakenly think they supported evil white men. Law enforcement did virtually nothing to stop the violence for fear it might provoke more destruction.

During the Trump years, the left happily got in the faces of innocent people at restaurants and chanted Black Lives Matter and anti-Trump slogans. Progressive members of congress encouraged people to get in the face of Trump supporters and tell them they weren’t welcome. Congress launched a nonstop barrage of investigations, accusations, and impeachment hearings the moment Trump was elected. There were riots in the street after the inauguration, with half of Hollywood threatening to leave the country. The left doesn’t hesitate to employ violent or disruptive tactics to drive their agenda.

Today the favorite tactic seems to be “swatting”. Call the police and say you’re at the address of a conservative person and claim some sort of shooting or assault. Naturally the police descend upon the address with guns drawn, not knowing that it’s a hoax. The hope, obviously, is that with emotions running high someone gets shot or at least arrested.

The other fun tactic today is the “protest” that shuts down streets and highways. Whether it’s about climate change, BLM, or pro Palestinian/Hamas – the goal is to disrupt normal people as much as possible. If they can provoke an outburst from a frustrated driver or the police, even better. It’ll be on camera and posted all over social media in a nanosecond. Police stand by, paralyzed with fear of lawsuits and negative social media.

What do all these actives have in common? Violence. City councils and police departments are loath to stand up to calls to remove a statue because they know it will start protests which costs money in police services and damage cleanup. It’s easier to just remove the statue than fight it. You better not dare to question the trans activist activities because you’ll instantly be labeled all sorts of racist, intolerant names. Your business and social media will be targeted. You’ll be arrested and removed from school board meetings. It’s much easier to go along to get along.

This has been true from the beginning of time. If you control the violence you get to dictate what the narrative is.

Good luck disparaging the past regimes of the Mongols, Vikings, the Catholic Church, Russia, North Korea, etc… Go against the status quo of those rulers and you’ll be disappeared, or historically, your head would simply be put on a pike.

What’s interesting today is the mob is the one controlling the violence. Government is afraid of the mob. The progressive horde is slowing taking over government. Orwells 1984 becomes more of a reality every day. He saw it coming. Maybe it’s just the natural progression of a society run by benevolent rulers?

What was once an unruly mob, is slowly becoming the status quo. The big question is – will there be a new mob that forms to fight against this current woke regime and its new direction? Human history is remarkably consistent. Unfortunately, what’s consistent is that change only happens one way.

He who controls the violence, controls the narrative.

I’m not sure the woke regime appreciates the volatility of the tinderbox they’ve created. Then again, I’m not sure the anti-woke forces have the spine to employ the same tactics the progressive crowd used to take over. It’s going to be an interesting battle.

Government, Politics

It’s Chaos, Baby!

In case you missed it, which would be difficult to do, the state of Colorado removed the bad orange man from their ballot. The CO state Supreme Court ruled that due to insurrection, mean tweets, something or other, he is ineligible because of the 14th amendment. Odds are that the federal Supreme Court will overturn it, but you never know. It doesn’t really matter, because the actual point is chaos. Now, I’m going to say some things that the Trump diehards don’t want to hear. Buckle up, buttercup.

So let’s imagine for a second that Trump has managed to somehow beat or delay the 92 felony counts pending against him. And he’s prevailed in his, now, three Supreme Court filings and whatever future lawsuits will be filed between now and GOP convention. Assume the current polling is actually accurate and he manages to secure the GOP nomination. Now what?

Are you really going to delude yourself into thinking that the bulk of the Haley/DeSantis voters will happily turn out and vote for him in the general election? The never-Trump wing of the Republican Party is substantial. The big money machine of the enterprise is not going to support Trump (they want Haley). So in an era in which we know the GOP needs to eclipse 80+ million votes to beat the DNC candidate… in an environment in which the GOP has done NOTHING to combat the mail-in/absentee/Zuckerbucks issues that plagued the last election – you’re going to tell me that an absolute crushing avalanche of republican voters in swing states are going to turn out on Election Day and vote Trump in? Hmmm, ok.

I guess it might happen. I’ve been wrong before. Let’s say the bad orange man actually does manage to win. What next? Trump is a walking ego-driven chaos factory. You thought the deep state/media machine conspired against him at every turn last go ’round? You ain’t seen nothing yet baby. He will be steamrolled and blocked at every possible turn. In all likelihood the GOP will have lost both the house and senate, so he’s not going to get anything done there.

All the things he’s currently saying he’ll get done during his ego stroking rallies today… he didn’t get them done last time. What makes you think he’d get them done this time when the deep state opposition will be 100x greater than it was his last term?

One of his greatest failings last time was poor personnel choices. The end result was that virtually all major players in the Trump White House either turned against him and/or are now mired in legal actions brought by the DOJ. What sane, competent person would agree to serve Trump this time – knowing that most likely they’ll be facing millions of dollars in legal fees before the term is over?

Trump absolutely gets credit for not screwing up an already accelerating economy and unemployment rate (yes, really). But at the same time he didn’t build the wall and didn’t make Mexico pay for anything (despite controlling the house and senate), he gave us Fauci, Birx, the untested vaccine, mandatory jabs, lockdowns, he didn’t clean out the FBI or the DOJ, and added $7.8 Trillion to the national debt. Oh, and a lot of mean tweets.

Outside of the Trump rallies, people remember these things. They remember the chaos. I don’t think the average GOP voter wants another four years of the bad orange man sucking all the oxygen out of the room 24×7, for little effect. But I could be wrong.

All that aside, here’s the key issue. I suspect the deep state/DNC is salivating at the idea of Trump losing either the GOP nomination or the presidency due to court actions (as opposed to simply losing early in the primaries to another candidate). Why? Because the Right will lose their collective minds. If Trump is blocked from wining the GOP nomination I think we’ll see actual violence. Trump is the symptom of a bigger problem. The Right feels that they’re losing the country. The far left, woke, open borders, DEI policies are crushing what’s left of the American identity. Trump being quashed by the machine is going to send some folks over the edge – even the never-Trumpers would be angry (relieved, but still furious at the injustice).

And THAT is what the deep state is waiting for. Any excuse to come down like a ton of bricks with enhanced security, monitoring, and control. Federal misinformation departments, a supercharged DOJ and FBI, unending FISA warrantless searches… they’ll have their rational. We can’t have an angry right-wing marching in the streets. Leaked DHS memos already show they consider nationalist/white supremacist domestic terror to be one of the top security concerns. J6 and arrests for posting memes will seem like child’s play. Speak out against anything in the government approved lexicon and you’re toast. And President Newsom, with Democratic control of the house and senate, will happily usher in this new era of the Orwellian/American empire.

Or maybe not. Maybe the DNC is stupid enough to keep Biden as the candidate. Maybe Haley will win and our only issue will be war with the greater Middle East and Russia.

Either way, 2024 is going to be interesting times.

Welcome to the Jungle, Guns ‘N Roses

Welcome to the jungle it gets worse here everyday
You learn to live like an animal in the jungle where we play
If you got a hunger for what you see, you’ll take it eventually
You can have anything you want but you better not take it from me

In the jungle, welcome to the jungle
Watch it bring you to your kn-kn-knees, knees
I’m gonna watch you bleed

Politics

Attack Of The Lizard People

Unless you’re a weird political junkie like me, it’s doubtful you watched last nights DeSantis/Newsom debate. I’ll save you the hassle of finding a replay of it and give you the TLDR; Newsom won. Not in the traditional sense. DeSantis won on facts and substance. He probably won the likability factor too… not because he’s especially charismatic, but because Newsom is so smarmy and loathsome. Newsom won because he gave a masterclass on how to lie, deflect, and give a non-answer to everything.

Why is this important? On paper Newsom has nothing he can run on. California is a dumpster fire. San Francisco (he was the former mayor) is a dumpster fire surrounded by human poop. And Newsom is doubling down on everything that destroyed California. Normally this would be a recipe for election disaster. But last night Newsom showed that he can duck, dodge, and weave his way through every negative fact thrown at him and come out smelling like a rose. If you knew nothing about the current state of California you’d think it was a bastion of freedom, safety, and a low cost of living after listening to the governor.

The man lied, twisted facts, deflected, and turned everything into an attack on his opponent like nothing I’ve seen before. It was impressive. And his liberal base will eat it up.

Make no mistake, this was nothing more than a probing action against an enemy to look for weakness. Newsom needed to see if he could deflect the reality of the dystopian state of California. He needed to see how DeSantis would react to abortion, LGBTQ+ hate, book banning, and environmental questions. Mission accomplished.

Remember, Newsoms audience isn’t the right. It’s the left. It’s the legions of lefties who suffer from massive Trump derangement syndrome. It’s minorities. It’s the vapid, empty headed college students. It’s Antifa. It’s BLM. These folks are the majority of every major population center in the country. And they all think Trump and DeSantis are fascist, book burning, Hitlers who will destroy the country and return us to the horrible 1950’s (Newsom even brought this up in the debate).

How good is Newsom? Even the residents of California who see the crime, skyrocketing prices, taxes, drugs, and human feces every day, voted not to recall him by an absolutely massive margin. He managed to create some weird Stockholm syndrome and convince the citizens of that state that they really weren’t seeing what they thought were seeing on a daily basis. Now, imagine what he’ll be able to do with the liberal base and wine sipping soccer moms in the rest of the country.

You will see a campaign of 24×7 shouting from the rooftops: women’s reproductive rights; hate and discrimination; paying your fair share; common sense gun safety. And the left will eat it up because nothing scares them more than a Trump-like figure returning to the Whitehouse. You thought it was impressive that Biden got 81 million votes? You ain’t seen nothing yet.

So to recap:

Biden will drop out and Newsom will be the candidate. (I admit, I thought for sure it would have already happened)

It’s doubtful Trump will be the candidate. The man has 92 felony counts pending against him. Regardless of what you think of the validity of those charges, he’s not beating all of them. Will the Republican Party re-nominate an egotistic, 78 year old convicted felon? Maybe, but remember half the Right are die-hard never Trumpers. Plus, Trump is a one man voter turnout machine for the left. The left hates him with the power of a thousand suns. No, DeSantis will be the nominee.

So a damaged DeSantis plagued by scores of butt-hurt Trump fans who won’t support him, against the slick car salesman Newsom? Say hello to President Newsom. The lizard-man wins hands down.

I think the only chance the right has in ’24, and I mean the ONLY chance, is if Biden actually does run. This is why the Republican house doesn’t want to actually impeach him. Investigate, investigate, investigate, and damage him as much as possible. Keep the base angry and frustrated to spark turnout. A frail, cognitively damaged Biden with legitimate corruption allegations around his neck, MIGHT be beatable.

I just don’t see the Democratic Party wanting to take that chance.

Either way, buckle up buttercup. This isn’t going to be pretty.

“Hard times create strong men; strong men create good times; good times create weak men; and weak men create hard times.” <– P.S you are here

Government, Politics

Same Story, Different Day

I’m pretty sure I write the same thing every four years. What happened last night was not a debate. A debate is someone putting forth their ideas/opinions and allowing others to present counter arguments in a way that allows the audience to judge who has the better argument. Last night was a real housewives screech-fest, where the goal is to be the best at shouting over everyone and having the best cutting one-liner moment.

According to Twitter/X, whoever your candidate is was the winner. Every pundit has declared that candidate X DESTROYED candidate Y. So the end result is that whoever you supported going in… is still who you support today. What a pointless waste of oxygen.

Here are my takeaways from the little bit I watched last night, combined with reading the “news/analysis” this morning:

  • Everyone except Vivek and DeSantis are Bush era neocon clones who will bumble us into WWIII.
  • Vivek is a Trump clone desperately trying to capture the Trump base.
  • DeSantis seemed the most “presidential”, but had a bad moment with the hand raising thing.
  • Christy is an unlikable anti-trump plant who needs to give up and go back to the buffet.
  • Pence loves the baby Jesus. Did I mention that he really really likes Jesus?
  • Haley is Jeb! Bush reincarnated.
  • I think there were two other guys there, who’s names I don’t know.
  • Trump is still the nominee.

It’s a sad state of affairs. We are at the end stage of the republic, given our current trajectory. And what is the focus the GOP thinks we need to hear about? Some viral song, abortion, and loyalty pledges to Trump. It’s not a winning combination.

The republican house will continue writing sternly worded letters. The senate is already a complete uni-party. The GOP will put forth a nominee who has zero chance of winning. President Newsom will transform this country in eight years to something truly unrecognizable.

All empires eventually come to an end. Fingers crossed ours simply slowly fades away rather than a more violent undoing. I still have some travel plans and landscaping to finish.

Government, Politics

Shoot At The King

As the old saying goes – if you take a shot at the king, you better not miss. Trump took his shot at the deep state and the DNC and missed badly. He thought his name, self-declared fame, and his money would protect him. He was wrong. Trump is done. This is not some MAGA rally where he can throw out pithy statements to thousands of fawning fans. There is a very real possibility he sees prison time. At the very least he’s tied up in very expensive legal quicksand for the next decade.

For all the Trump fanboys who disagree… where’s the judge who’s going to dismiss the indictments? Where’s the RNC who’s going to go to the mattresses to fight this? Trump has burned every bridge possible. What politician or businessman is going to commit their future to the Trump train at this point?

No, the sad reality is that Trump will spend whatever remains of his campaign time fundraising and then siphoning off most of that to his legal defense (he’s already doing that if you haven’t been paying attention. He has the money to repaint his private jet but not for legal fees apparently). He’s too much of a narcissist to admit he can’t win. He’d rather torpedo the rest of the party and play the martyr when Gov Newsom takes the oath of office.

Normally this would be a who cares moment. A politician overplayed his hand and is regulated to the ash heap of history. Happens all the time. But this feels different. This feels dangerous.

The near unchecked power of the deep state and the DNC is frightening. The RNC continues to demonstrate we have a Defacto uni-party. Oh sure, there’s a few republicans that write sternly worded letters but that’s simply throwing spitballs at the castle walls. Currently the power of the federal government is unchecked and is being wielded to fundamentally alter this country.

When this election is over, there will be millions of very angry voters. A MAGA crowd that will feel disenfranchised and betrayed by their country. And that anger is going to be stoked by quite a few people looking to use that anger to their advantage. Odds are that most of that anger will be shouted into the Twitter (sorry, X) void. But… if the right personality comes along… someone with charisma and persuasion ability… someone who can organize and channel that anger into action – bad things could happen.

And President Newsom has already demonstrated as governor that he does not tolerate dissent. Lockdowns and curbing of rights in the name of safety are a given. And that my friends, is a recipe for a real coup. Not a silly J6 coup, but actual violent attempts to overthrow the government. Who knows what happens at that point?

Maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps the angry right is all bark and no bite. Generally speaking, Americans have been turned into herd animals. All we want to do is chew our cud and watch TV. Odds are that we wake up a decade from now and wonder where our country went.

We’ll have given up our freedom and national identity for the promise of safety from mean words, climate change, and science deniers.

Maybe. Who knows? The future is hard to predict. Besides, there’s that minor little WWIII thing developing that could alter everything. Regardless, the next few years are going to be an interesting soap opera to watch.

Politics

Predictions

The 2024 elections seem like a long way off and it feels silly to speculate on what might happen so early in the process. I’m probably going to be wrong, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that we’re going to have another four years of Biden. Here’s why…

The democratic primary has the concept of “superdelegates”. Because of this, the party establishment controls who will win the nomination (see Bernie Sanders, x2). The democratic party elite are perfectly happy having a useful idiot as a placeholder to do their bidding. As long as he doesn’t decline much further, he’s their man.

The man waiting in the wings is Gavin Newsom. He’s already traveling the country and putting fundraising and staffing feelers out. He just launched a PAC with 10 million dollars from his existing campaign funds. He won’t challenge Biden but is poised to jump in if the establishment decides the current commander in chief can no longer follow instructions.

Trump (A.K.A the bad orange man) is the dream candidate for democrats. There is no other republican candidate who can turn out the democratic vote better than Trump. While I don’t believe for a second that Biden received 13 million more votes than Obama, the sheer democratic turnout for someone who campaigned from his basement should scare the pants off of republicans.

Nothing sparks more outrage for democrats than Trump. And what is the democrat-controlled media and justice system currently doing? Everything possible to stir up more Trump outrage. Indictments, court cases, rehashing scandals, and never-ending analysis of every perceived horrible thing Trump has ever done. This will continue ad nauseum for the next year. And Trump, being the thin-skinned narcissist he is, will rise to the occasion and spend this year name calling and chanting about stolen elections. It’s a dumpster fire the democrats will keep pouring gasoline on.

The problem is that Trump voters don’t realize it’s already a lost battle. Trump barely won in ’16 and got spanked in ’20. Virtually all the candidates he endorsed in the ’22 midterms lost. The GOP does not know how to counter the democratic vote gathering machine and spends their time issuing pithy statements about virtue while the democrats clean their clocks in every big population city. It’s like Groundhog Day and Lucy with the football all wrapped up in one. Why does this keep happening to me? (see RNC chair Ronna McDaniel)

If Trump wins the nomination, there aren’t enough MAGA votes to overcome the democratic machine. And, there’s probably a reasonably large number of republican voters who will sit out rather than put up with four more years of Trump chaos. The establishment GOP leaders hate Trump and won’t lift a finger to help him. The deep state will do everything possible to further torpedo his chances. The DNC will hammer home the message of Trump chaos, scandal, racism, and abortion. Game, set, match.

The obvious wildcard is DeSantis. Trump is already attacking him nonstop, and I saw the first MAGA funded anti-DeSantis attack ad the other night. Trump is clearly worried. It’s unclear if DeSantis can win the nomination. To do so, he’s going to have to go hardcore against Trump. He’ll have to be nasty and hammer home Trump’s flaws. But if he does that, he’s going to piss off all the MAGA sycophants big time. If DeSantis eeks out the nomination, will all the butt-hurt Trump supporters turn out for him? That’s a big maybe.

For DeSantis to win the presidency, he’ll need to destroy Trump, win back the support of the MAGA crowd he pissed off, thread the needle of gaining GOP establishment support, and then win over the suburban soccer mom crowd. With the media already crafting him as the “don’t say gay” and book burning guy… he’ll have a tough job to gain any crossover support from any of the centrist liberal crowd.

My gut feeling is that DeSantis would emerge from the nomination battle with Trump too bruised to be effective against the DNC machine.

My sense is that the only chance of a republican winning the presidency in ’24 would be some sort of Trump scandal that comes out in the next few months that’s so egregious, even the MAGA faithful couldn’t stomach supporting him. If that happens soon enough, DeSantis can cleanly win the nomination and have enough MAGA support to have a sporting chance of defeating the DNC.

The democratic party is in good shape. They own the media and the deep state. They have a useful puppet already in place. If he screws up or has a massive stroke, pretty boy Newsom is ready to go. The democratic faithful already kept Newsom in place with an overwhelming majority vote in his failed recall effort. There’s no reason to think he’d do any differently on the national stage. He’s bulletproof.

So, barring any unforeseen circumstances, (nuclear exchange, massive financial melt-down, etc…) I give the democratic party an 85-90% chance of maintaining the presidency.

So there you go. My official prediction. Let’s see how off base I am. And yes, I’ll publicly eat crow if it turns out I have no idea what I’m talking about.

Daily Life, Government, Politics

Are You Better Off?

I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon on Facebook. I had to put up with about five plus years of non-stop wailing and gnashing of teeth when the bad orange man was running, in office, and immediately post-election (INSURRECTION!). Virtually every day one of the liberal/democratic folks on my feed would post something about how horrible Trump was and/or how ashamed of the country they were. Day after day. Every word he uttered or tweeted was mocked and pointed to as an example of disaster and impending doom. If you engaged with or disagreed with these folks, you were quickly shouted down as a MAGA loving, xenophobic, right-wing extremist.

But the last year… radio silence. Crickets chirping. Oh, there were a few things posted after the Roe decision and the start of the Ukraine war but for the most part very little political content shows up. Why is that? Inflation hit 9.1% today (probably more like 12%-15% realistically). Not a single mention of it from the left leaning side of my feed. Isn’t that curious? Did the entire left suddenly decide they were no longer interested in politics?

Let me ask an honest question. If you trend more towards the left side of the spectrum, can you point to something the current administration has done that you’d consider a success? What have they done that’s gone well? Are you better off now than you were during the previous administration?

I’m doing my best to be objective, but I can’t point to one thing the administration has done that has moved the country in a better direction. Not one. Literally every single thing that affects the average person in this country has gotten worse. The economy, prices, supply chain, the border… it’s all bad. And don’t get me started on global/foreign engagements. This administration is, to be blunt, a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

Mrs. Troutdog actually asked the other day if we should stock up on food due to the looming food shortages. It now costs me $130 bucks to fill up my truck. Replacement parts for the motorcycle and some construction materials either can’t be found or are on indefinite backorder. The market and our retirement account have taken a hit that will take years to crawl back from. Is this really Build Back Better?

My point is not to claim the right side of the isle is better. 90% of them are as useless as tits on a bull. The bulk of the left and right are a giant uni-party. While I liked many of the things the bad orange man “said”, he was a horrible judge of character whose massive ego led him to spending most of his time in petty twitter spats rather than following through with campaign promises (see, border wall). When the R’s take back congress, I have little faith anything of substance will change. More arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

So, the point… if you were one of the left-leaning folks shit posting bad orange man memes as fast as you could go, why the silence now? Why aren’t you publicly praising the daily actions of the President? Is it that you’re now embarrassed by your political choice? There must be something you can point to and say, “whew, thank God Biden is President”. Isn’t there?

Maybe, just maybe, the takeaway from this period will be a realization that blind partisanship is stupid. Following your party like a lemming leads to… well, where we are today. A barely functioning grandpa propped up and controlled by unknown and unseen forces behind the curtains. But hey, no mean tweets right?

Now, more than ever, it’s time to join the church of Contrarianism. Become a Contrarian. Question everything. Dump your party loyalties. Trust me, they don’t care about you. It’s a hard thing to really examine your opinions, do some actual research, and admit you’ve been duped. It’s a little painful, but just ripping off the Band-Aid is really the best medicine.

Because if we don’t become an army of Contrarians soon… I fear the lemmings are going to reach the edge of the cliff sooner rather than later.

Confirmation bias

Why Is Everything So Complicated?

We are the generation of the soundbite. The Tweet. The meme. We consume our information in tiny little pieces. And most of the time, that’s probably just fine. I don’t need to have a deep understanding of the cattle futures market to decide if I can afford the rib-eye this week or only cube steak. The price is the price and I either have the quan or I don’t.

But every once in a while, big events happen that raise questions. Politicians and pundits jump on these events and start spewing one-liners and soundbites that reinforce their echo chambers. Pretty soon we’re in a full-scale soundbite and meme war that leaves everyone confused and angry. What’s the truth?

I was thinking about this as I read snarky Twitter comments about energy independence, buying Russian oil, and gas prices. Everyone has an answer. Because I’m a dork, I decided to do some light reading on the energy sector and politics. Whew – there is no such thing as “light reading” about this subject! It is a deep, deep rabbit hole. It is hard to describe how many moving parts and global players there are in the energy world.

There are a whole variety of types of crude oil, all coming from different places in the world, all used for different things. Much of the recent increases in our purchase of Russian crude are due to fallout from previous sanctions on other countries like Venezuela, hurricanes in the gulf, and African countries not being able to ramp up production after Covid. We import foreign crude to the East and West coast because we lack the domestic infrastructure to transport our own oil. It’s actually cheaper to purchase non-US crude, than it is to send US crude to the East and West coast from the Midwest or gulf. We often purchase Russian (and other) crude because it has a higher sulfur content than US crude, which is needed for some specific refining processes. The worldwide crude oil market is a very interdependent and complex system. Even when we declared we were “energy independent”, that is a fuzzy interpretation with many moving parts that changed from month to month. We’d offset US products produced from crude and sold, against crude imports and for some quarters and depending upon what the meaning of “is”, is, we’d declare we had greater net exports vs. imports.

This led me to the issue of the current administration shutting down oil and gas leases. Come on, man – drill baby, drill! Well, they did attempt to put a moratorium on new leases in some areas. The courts shut that down. And currently… the Biden administration has outpaced the Trump administration in issuing drilling permits on public lands. Wait, wut? For example, just last fall the Biden admin completed the largest oil and gas lease in US history – 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico. Sigh, I’m so confused.

What’s my point? I don’t care what the Fox, CNN, or Twitter pundit says… virtually every issue you’d like to discuss is infinitely more complex than you think it is. Nothing is black and white, yes or no. It takes years for industry and policy experts to develop a real understanding of their domain. I did a tiny bit of reading this morning beyond Twitter, and quickly realized I know absolutely zero about the energy sector. It has tentacles in transportation, logistics, commodity markets, politics, money supply, production, jobs, and on and on. I think it would take at least a semester equivalent class to have at least a beginners grasp on the entirety of the market. And I think that holds true for most things in life. Geopolitics, military strategy, history, everything…

All of which is to reinforce my standard saying… Question everything. Be a Contrarian. It’s ok to endorse the Left or Right’s approach to the world. Just don’t do it blindly. They’re both equal manipulators of the narrative. And under the surface, things are often more complex than you realize.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple

Oscar Wilde