I just so very, very badly want the Orange Game Show to come to an end. Nothing of America in these years will be remembered fondly. Music? Fashion? Industrial innovation? Childish adults indulged their bitterness: Even they will have no warm sentiment for this hour.

Wanting Biden to win has nothing to do with it.

A game show host in the White House told the world that the competent had lost the plot: The idiots were emboldend.

Repeatedly.

Douthat quibbles, Sommers sees the pattern.

A glorious new meaning for “sophistication.”

Wanting Biden to win has nothing to do with it. ~ Crid at October 14, 2020 8:35 AM

But the question always has to be asked, "if not him, who?" What next?

Many a revolution gone off the rails because removing the current regime was the only objective. No one asked or answered, "what will replace it?"

Will "Harris-Biden" actually be an improvement? What forces will come to power in a "Harris administration with Joe Biden as president?"

Will Jorgenson get enough votes that her candidacy will serve as more than a protest vote against the major party candidates? If she wins a significant percentage of the vote, will the winner of the election pay attention to the frustration the voters are expressing in voting for a third-party candidate? Or will the winning candidate/party ignore that vote and, as in the past, claim a mandate simply due to winning?

The vote is serious and cannot only be about Trump. Whichever party wins will be in charge for the next four years.

Now, I don't like Trump and his bombast, childishness, cultural vulgarity, and egomaniacal pomposity. However, his economic policies do have some merit (with a few exceptions). He's low-tax and low-regulation, something I think the government ought to be.

Trump's stance on curbing illegal immigration, bombast and rhetoric aside, is headed in the right direction. NAFTA did send jobs across the border wholesale; and needed to be renegotiated. NATO "allies" are getting away with putting the entire burden of defending the alliance on the US.

WHO is, in fact, a joke as a global health advisory body, almost wholly under the sway of the Communist China propaganda machine. Communist China is running a nationwide sweat shop, enslaving its minorities, and stealing international intellectual property.

Soleimani was a terrorist mastermind intent upon destabilizing the Middle East for an Iranian power grab. Iran is working on nuclear weapons even as we speak, despite a promise not to. And Obama delivering a palette of cash to them for nothing but a promise was one of the most naive foreign policy moves ever made by any president of any party.

I just so very, very badly want the Orange Game Show to come to an end. ~ Crid at October 14, 2020 8:35 AM

All of us do.

However, we need to remember that Trump is an effect of these times, not a cause. Electing Biden to office will not change the current ugly zeitgeist and usher in an era of peace and contentment.

In fact, his election might inflame the problem as those currently fomenting the violence and unrest are empowered by a "Harris-Biden" administration.

And Obama delivering a palette of cash to them for nothing but a promise was one of the most naive foreign policy moves ever made by any president of any party. ~ Conan the Grammarian at October 14, 2020 10:48 AM

Sorry, that should be "pallet," although I'm sure the cash came in a range of pretty colors.

The vid: Wow, I wonder how much of his minor shaking at the end was emotion.

As to Trump, I see the "bombast, childishness, cultural vulgarity, and egomaniacal pomposity." as needed things, maybe unfortunate that they are needed but needed things.
With the way the media has been, any Republican idea will be called Racist, homophobic etc by the media just to kill the idea. And too often any Republican would immediately back off and not fight back. So cultural vulgarity is needed to wade though the media shit and dish it back. Oh media called me a racist, must be a day ending in Y, has to be your attitude.
egomaniacal pomposity and bombast are needed because this is a culture war, the left wants us to feel ashamed and believe western culture has never done anything not evil, where showing basic pride is deemed evil. So overblown bombastic behavior is needed to show some pride is ok. As to childishness, after years of smart and poised talking politicians, it's just darn refreshing.

This offers as good an example of the corruption of American politics (and society) as anything.

This offers as good an example of the corruption of American politics (and society) as anything.

> But the question always has
> to be asked, "if not him,
> who?" What next?

This isn't the plain-truth answer you want it to be. Impulses and satisfactions and corrections are colliding everywhere all the time. Everyone on this planet is thinking "What next?" every moment of the day, and there are 5.7 billion of us, with 152 million registered voters in the United States.

Of those 152 million, how many have an idea worth hearing? How many would make good candidates for chief executive? Could you really believe the answer is two? And even if it were, would these be the guys? No, that's simply not possible.

The reason it's come down to a tight hour between this 8th-grade reprobate and a brain-damaged career fraud, both doddering, is that voters want it this way. The political sphere of American life is like a quarrelsome couple in a violent marriage. It's simply not possible that our doe-eyed, pure-hearted, never-meant-nobody-no-harm electorate and those brutal, inebriated candidates just happened to fall into this spiral of lunacy. As with so many horrible and destructive unions, THESE PEOPLE FIND EACH OTHER. The Trump voters sincerely enjoy Orange Boy's corrupting antics. Coddled, socially-needy lefties sincerely enjoy the censorship and condescension. Neither side wants any greater service from government than to be really angry at the other. They all ache, they pine, they long to hear the line from the police dispatch in the old comedy: "The use of excessive force *has* been authorized…."

'But what about RIGHT NOW??,' they will shriek, for their moment is at hand! 'This is the most important election of our blahblahblah! Can't you see? It's down to this incredibly poignant and desperate little choice between good and evil this very second, no matter what should have happened in the 20, 30, 40, 50 or sixty years of my participation in public life heretofore! There ISN'T TIME for principled thinking and consideration of mutual needs or reflection upon details!

No. I don't fucking believe it. Adherence to decency, persuasion, cooperation and oversight is always going to be the way forward. A screeching pretence of being cornered like an animal gets you nowhere.

Trump has been President of the United States for four goddamned years. He's the "cause" of PLENTY of this idiocy, indisputably. He is not an outsider, nor are the pants-pissed voters, be they pro or con.

Crid, I suspect that in the future, because of COVID, candidates for President will have to run at least once before age 50 and win before 60 - or they won't be nominated.

Or, they'll HAVE to get a veep well under 50.

Or both.

Btw, I have a hunch that despite Bernie's age, given how alert he still seems to be, he could have made a better impression during the debate than Biden did.

Neither side wants any greater service from government than to be really angry at the other. They all ache, they pine, they long to hear the line from the police dispatch in the old comedy: "The use of excessive force *has* been authorized…." ~ Crid at October 14, 2020 9:24 PM

No matter who wins in November, that won't change until one side gets to do some real damage to the other side. As a nation, we're spoiling for a fight.

If you've ever spent time wondering how a nation could devolve into a civil war, pay attention to these times. I'm not saying the US will devolve into civil war but, by watching this era in America, you can see how it happens.

Whether it be Donald Trump's fault, the voters' faults, or just something in the water, it will get worse before it gets better. And the ouster of the orange man won't change that. If anything, ousting Trump will embolden the social justice warriors in their efforts to "cancel" the non-woke and set the country "right."

Fulgencio Batista was a brutal dictator. Fidel Castro was a brutal dictator. Under Batista, Cuba had the highest per capita income and literacy rate in Latin America. Under Castro, Cuba had poverty, misery, and a near constant stream of people braving shark-infested waters to escape.

Ideally, we'd have a non-doddering idiot as a choice. However, our elections tend toward the binary - today Democrat or Republican, yesterday Whig or National-Republican. Perhaps that's for the best as we don't want to try governing under a French system of more political parties than types of cheese.

Neither Trump nor Biden are evil, despite the hyperbolic political rhetoric being bandied about. Neither is a saint. Both men will blow the budget and put the country on the road to the poorhouse. Neither is capable of unifying the country.

Both men are in their seventies. So, the question to ask yourself as a voter is not which doddering idiot to elect, but what elements will be empowered by the ascension of either man.

========================================

The historical understanding of socialism and its offshoots today among US voters is at a record low.

The Soviet Union fell in 1991. People not yet born then are approaching their 30s today; and they're voting. State control socialism has a very strong appeal for them, having never seen or read about it in action beyond a few dusty tomes or dry lectures by a boring pedant in a sweltering classroom.

When presented with modern-day examples, they insist the socialism of Cuba or Venezuela isn't what they're advocating; they want democratic socialism. They'll acknowledge the existence of this barely-understood "Soviet Union" but say this time they'll do socialism right.

To them, the USSR was bread lines, architectural brutalism, and neat tchotchkes with hammers and sickles. They don't read The Gulag Archipelago or understand that the Cold War wasn't just cool spy stories, microfilm, and sneaking through Checkpoint Charlie with a fake passport.

They read Mao's Little Red Book with no understanding of the bloody legacy of his Cultural Revolution or his Great Leap Forward. They see Communist China as an emergent economic and military power with a rising standard of living - a new market to be exploited - not as a brutal dictatorship with a history of bloodshed. Look at the NBA's reaction to the Houston Rockets' manager expressing support for the Hong Kong protesters.

To them, the US is as bad, or worse, than the USSR and CCP are alleged to have been; as bad as Nazi Germany. They see the US not as a shining city on a hill, not as the greatest experiment in political and economic freedom ever undertaken on Earth, but as a brutally racist society built on slavery and slaughter, a swirling cauldron of greed and corporate malfeasance.

“'But what about RIGHT NOW??,' they will shriek, for their moment is at hand! 'This is the most important election of our blahblahblah! Can't you see? It's down to this incredibly poignant and desperate little choice between good and evil this very second, no matter what should have happened in the 20, 30, 40, 50 or sixty years of my participation in public life heretofore! There ISN'T TIME for principled thinking and consideration of mutual needs or reflection upon details!”

Philosophical question here. Of all the elections of the last fifty years in California, which one was *the one* that set them on a path to financial ruin?
Which one locked in the one party state?

And if you can’t identify just one, isn’t It possible that every national election might be important in turning back ballot harvesting, law fare, creeping socialism, and the erosion of the rule of law and individual rights?

> No matter who wins in November

Both Trump & Biden are evil. We need never fear constraint on its production. There's always plenty for the hearts of any who consciously welcome it, no less than for those who don't.

I agree with you about socialism & ahistoricism. Ever-greater access to all the wisdom of the world, with libraries, literacy and electronic indices for the greatest imaginable fraction of the population — even the GIRLS!!! — has ironically attended a flowering of naivete and provincial thinking in the people it was supposed to enoble.

> isn’t It possible that every
> national election might be
> important

? Whose side you on here?

My point fairly precisely, only alongside all the other civic involvement. Elections call to mind something Reynolds once said about sex: It's a large but not overwhelming component of marital happiness so long as everything else is going well. When it has to carry too much stress as the spinning contraption wobbles, it disappoints quickly & tragically.

Yonder

? Whose side you on here?

Anyone who appears to be opposing the overreach of unelected bureaucracy composed almost entirely of self interested grifters?

Had houseguests In 2018 that were and still are brainwashed denizens of the Beltway. If I hear one more thing about how the electoral college should be abolished because it failed to yield the result they preferred in one particular election, I think I am going to vomit.

These people are willing to destroy the Republic to indulge their short term narcissistic desire to be on the winning side. Talk about shallow. Trump has nothing on them. He is a piker in comparison.

For those of you who are still having trouble processing the difference between Democrats, Republicans and each of their supporters, I will leave you with this link to the latest Project Veritas video. Only one side is talking about killing random people in the streets and guillotines and it ain’t the Donald’s side. Please note how they have infected the Democratic party in CO all the way to its core. Make no mistake, when you vote for any Democrat, you are voting for this creep’s agenda and not voting is not an option.

https://twitter.com/jamesokeefeiii/status/1316745717285822466?s=21

Not voting is always an option, and you shouldn't let anyone tell you what your vote, your sexuality, or your religion rilly means.

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