Some unsolicited thoughts on this election. I’m not one that plays politics too much, just a guy running my business trying to do my best.
Trump is probably going to lose is my gut at this point (but he could very well still pull this out). I’m not one that is all “bring in the feds” in most situations, but we need a federally standardized election system. This business of seeing the number, then back counting as many ballots as you need like in Michigan and Pennsylvania to fix the result is insane. Lets assume for a moment that there is exactly zero vote fraud. The current system where some states can count their ballots in five minutes and some take six days simply makes some people believe that their candidate got heisted, and they will never believe otherwise. Of course there can be fraud if this is moved federally, but I feel that if we just simply said “this is the machine, this is how you vote, if the vote isn’t here by 8pm on election day, too bad so sad”, well, how hard could this really be. I understand that these different states having different chaotic systems is a feature to some, not a bug.
Outside of Trump maybe losing, the Republicans pretty much crushed it with everything else (making the obvious fraud above even more ridiculous). State houses were held/improved upon, the House had unexpected gains, and fancy pants Nancy is going to have her hands full with her cadre of idiots making all sorts of insane demands. The Democrats will 100% screw up whatever they do. The Senate will probably end up R, also good.
The markets have shown over the past few days that a divided government is a good one for business.
If anyone believes a political poll on anything, well, I don’t know what to tell them. Those businesses should all never be patronized again and should just close up shop. 100% worthless.
Prediction: If he wins, Biden will either resign or be 25th amendmented by the midterm election. Is anyone going to really start asking him questions about foreign policy or…anything?
Prediction 2: Republicans take the House in 2022, and will make (potentially) Harris’s life super fun if they keep the Senate.
That’s about all I’ve got and all I have time for (see aforementioned business). OK, let me have it in the comments.
I think I’ll start referring to President Biden as Andropov. If you are too young to remember the mid 80’s that was the barely animate cadaver that was nominally in charge of the Soviet Union for about a year. Then he died and was replaced by another guy, even feebler. 10 Trivia Points if you can name him without Google!
I had to Google it. I will give myself one bonus point for knowing that there was “one” between Andropov and Gorby.
This is a one-cup of coffee-and-a-plate-of-scrambled eggs guess, but Chernyenco (sic)?
@Stephen, Ding! You win a lifetime free subscription to ChicagoBoyz!
Expecting Trump to pull this off.
Otherwise, yes to everything.
“The markets have shown over the past few days that a divided government is a good one for business.”
Good for stock prices in the short term, maybe…but for business in the longer term? A Biden presidency would certainly involve lots of new regulations, ranging from valuable to questionable to really harmful. More racial/ethnic/gender divisiveness seems likely. And, while the effects are long-term in nature, no improvement in K-12 education via choice/competition.
Well, here’s my gut feeling.
It is a commie coup, with foresight knowledge, collaboration and fixing the game by (R) in all the right places. What did P. Ryan did in Congress for 2yrs? Why didn’t he clean it off? Why all out 3-letter-abbreviated security agencies and in ever-increasing-percentage, military leadership(!) are all (D), all the time? Why Trump has been knifed in the back all 4 yrs, from his own side?
The (R) knew what’s going to happen, there were multiple news of election fraud starting several months ago – even with lefty MSM’s repression of such news – and they did nothing. Impotent, dirty cowardly short-sighted opportunists all.
We are entering the period of disintegration of the country. Of the idea of America, as the beacon of western civilization.
The commie swamp is just about to swallow us all.
I’ve lived thru it, and now it came as dejavu again.
-oh, and, Elephant, the proper term from soviet vernacular is гонки на лафетах. Look it up (but something tells me, you know it well)
It appears that FL really cleaned up their act regarding election competency in the mid 2000s. That was probably because the GOP at the state level was motivated to minimize the ability of corruption in Miami to be determinative for the entire state. Trump’s major problem right now is that each of these “Blue Wall” states went Dem at the state level in 2018. The only chance he has is if the cheating can be shown to be so brazen that it can’t be ignored. It seems like there might actually be a small but non-zero chance of that in WI.
We’re also seeing the ability of the MSM to set the narrative, and how powerful and destructive that is. If they had called GA and NC, it would “look” like Trump was about to clinch this thing. Instead they refused to do so, Fox brazenly called AZ for Biden to push him far higher in EV count, and so it “looks” just the opposite.
I made both your predictions in my comment the other day. They seem pretty inarguable. The Dems are kind of in a quandary now. They thought they’d drag Slow Joe across with majorities in Congress, and then be able to do literally anything they wanted, at least for two years, which is an eternity in politics. Now they’re stuck with a mental case who nobody likes, so who can’t use the bully pulpit at all, and with no Senate they can’t do anything.
Everyone needs to accept that polls aren’t trying to measure anything. They’re trying to push a narrative.
And finally, reading “conservative” commentators on twitter is also like living in an alternative reality. So many of them will readily admit they voted for McMullen last time, and even though the sane ones say they regret it, it still shows they are wildly unrepresentative of anything in the real world. Trump’s ability to inspire the Trump Train boat and car rallies of the past few months is something people really need to try to come to grips with, about what it means about what sort of person and message people are looking for.
PS.
and Dan, your suggestion of “bringing in the feds” is about 3 yrs late. As the “feds” in question are all planted by Obama admin. That’s what Ryan and other Reps should have been doing – cleaning up the augean stables.
It’s an overhaul of the government from within. It will be one party from now on, all the time…until the money run out.
“That’s what Ryan and other Reps should have been doing – cleaning up the augean stables.”
Ryan had no interest in helping Trump, and never even pretended otherwise. His vision of the GOP is dead. He should have resigned honorably rather than serve as Speaker and sabotage a President of his own party.
Ryan et al. He was not the only one.
His and others like him wishes might come true again – to be a tame, lip-service (R)servicing their commie masters.
The saddest thing about all this is that you could see it all coming in late summer – maybe even earlier than that. We’ve reached the point where it’s possible to broadcast nefarious plans well in advance and, it seems, those involved in the scheme happily carry it out and everyone else sits back in disbelief and watches it happen. Quite a helpless feeling.
Perhaps the sheer scale of the fraud was its greatest asset–I doubt the Trump campaign thought the Dems would pull out 200% turnout in Milwaukee, when they were modelling what was going to happen.
Note that as always, the GOP is entirely silent. They never stood up for Trump during the entire Mueller travesty, never punched back during the impeachment farce, etc. One would hope that the Trump team is telling them all that if this is stolen from him, anyone who doesn’t speak up about it now is going to see Trump doing rallies for their opponent during the next primary season.
There’s room for litigation, and the consent decree is out of force.
Don’t despair over the election yet.
Re: Andropov, surely he is more of a Baidou Jiangshi? His family name is Baidou and his personal name is Jiangshi, and he has a slight problem with his vitality.
If Trump loses the litigation battle, D intensity this cycle is a little strange. Either driven by specific deranged Americans, or by foreign influence. If of domestic origin, they don’t see even their supporters as people, and the combo of official authority, sympathizers in the bureaucracy, and extreme lack of restraint will go very unpleasantly. If of foreign origin, then in office policy is likely to be driven by the necessities of whatever foreign power. Which is likely a dictatorship with a poor grasp of American culture.
Since allegations of Russian influence were admissible in 2016, Chinese influence allegations are admissible now.
There are still many options available that would be very bad precedent. Communist dictatorships would kill more than just about any other option.
May Saint Augusto of the Whirling Blades spare us his necessities.
By my reckoning, Trump was the first president since Carter to not start a new war. This is a big problem for defense contractors as indicated by Defense Sector Spending:
Surprisingly, Sanders was #3 followed by two Republicans, one from the House and one from the Senate.
I predict that Taiwan will be absorbed by the Peoples Republic of China over the next four years.
Pachydermis: “I think I’ll start referring to President Biden as Andropov.”
I like it! Here is another suggestion, based on the history of the British Isles rather than the USSR. In 1688, there was a successful Dutch invasion of England, which replaced the Stuart king. The Twitter of the day called this devastating Dutch invasion the “Glorious Revolution” — showing that nothing much changes in the manipulation of the populace. The son of the ousted king unsuccessfully tried to reclaim the throne, and became known as the Old Pretender — “pretender” being used in a now-archaic sense of someone who has a claim to the throne. His son in turn was known as the Young Pretender, better remembered these days as Bonnie Prince Charlie.
With all that, is seems that Sleepy Joe could appropriately be called “The Very Old Pretender Biden”. But in the spirit of compromise, it would be entirely reasonable to refer to Slo Joe as “The Very Old Illegitimate Pretender Andropov”.
“By my reckoning, Trump was the first president since Carter to not start a new war.”
Yes, and it is absolutely criminally incompetent that Trump didn’t shout that constantly as a fundamental plank of his reelection campaign.
Any other GOP nominee of recent times would have conceded already.
Prediction: If he wins, Biden will…
Prediction: If Biden wins Clarence Thomas will not administer the oath of office.
Other than that, who knows. It could be bad, but never take counsel of your fears and all that.
It does seem clear that we are well into a time of troubles that began, politically, with the Tea Parties and the Obama administration’s reaction to them. Trump represents the next stage of the process. It seems likely that some new conservative leader or movement will eventually follow, even if Trump serves a second consecutive term.
But don’t count Trump out. He fights, unlike most Republicans. That’s reason enough to support him.
Someone should have made a Trump flag/t-shirt with the “I can’t spare this man–he fights” quote on it…
I remember Yuri “The Kid” Andropov from Bloom County
I am not as sanguine about a Biden administration. If they get away with this massive and obvious fraud, what else can they do. Send a pallet load of cash to our enemy? Oh wait. Ban fracking to let Russia resume its leadership in the oil market? Yeah. Send jack-booted thugs to my door to take all my guns? Eventually, yes.
I’ve been having fun comparing and contrasting the gerontocracy of the Soviet Union with the current Donk leadership for some time. What makes it more fun is that going on forty years ago those Rising Donk Stars were almost as put off by the Evil Empire speech as the Politburo claimed to be.
Take your pick: is Mr Biden K. U. Chernenko or Christopher Pike?
I think I’ll start referring to President Biden as Andropov.
I refer to him as our Hindenburg.
And as for polling, it is of a piece with dowsing, homeopathy, and phrenology. Oh, and sociology, let us not forget.
It’s the sheer brazen effrontery that makes me angry – not even bothering to hide the manufacture and delivery of fraudulent votes in an all-out effort to steal an election, and with the apparent connivance of most of the Establishment News media. They couldn’t make their contempt for voters any more obvious.
It will be someone new. Trump’s getting up there in age and there’s plenty of Republicans who were loyal to Trump to take his place, with his blessing. A fighter with a more polished demeanor.
Stephen Karlson:
I remember the Donk Star response to the Evil Empire speech. My father echoed that response, when he told me that talking like that could risk war. Like you said, that apparently echoed the response of the Kremlin, which didn’t like at all being disrespected.
As for myself, who had voted Third Party during the Reagan years, I rather liked Reagan saying that. He called a spade a spade. While I grew up in an anti-anti-Communist environment, the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan spurred a change in my attitude.
I live in central New York. As I’ve been saying for a few months, there are Trump signs and flags EVERYWHERE. Trump boat rallies. Trump trucks. Most of those people aren’t going to vote for Marco Rubio, Josh Hawley, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, etc. I’m sorry, GOPe, they’re just not.
So, to the entire GOP–you fight to the end now, or get ripped to pieces and scattered to the winds, and you idiots won’t even begin to know why.
PS. I don’t think the fight is going to be victorious, to be honest. I think the fix is in. But you don’t fight because you are guaranteed to win…
…and here it is.
Brian: “you don’t fight because you are guaranteed to win”
Sgt Mom: “not even bothering to hide the manufacture and delivery of fraudulent votes in an all-out effort to steal an election[…]They couldn’t make their contempt for voters any more obvious.”
They don’t bother to hide it because they are guaranteed to win. There will be no opposition, apart from Trump’s campaign, which is a teaspoon in a barrel.
People tend to forget: right after February 1917 anti-monarchist revolution, the bolsheviks were a small faction on a left wing of the Russian political spectre. Then they manufactured the coup (famously, targeting “post office, telegraph, telephone [service], railways stations and newspapers. sounds familiar?)and took over 1/6 of Earth for close to 90 yrs.
We need a phrase to capture the essence of Slow Joe and Blow Jo… voters. The essence of these voters is that they are histrionic, shallow, childish, OK with corruption and anti American sell outs to globalization values (aka CCP values). We need a phrase to describe them, and NO, “C*nts for China, while true, won’t fly across the internet. We need a phrase that can’t became a badge of honor, like Deplorables did. Anyone?
The markets have shown over the past few days that a divided government is a good one for business.
Or that the markets are expecting more easy money.
It will be someone new. Trump’s getting up there in age and there’s plenty of Republicans who were loyal to Trump to take his place, with his blessing. A fighter with a more polished demeanor.
I agree but the only one showing any guts is DeSantis in FL. Nikki Haley is AWOL, of course. I have always been suspicious of her.
Who is there? He might be one of a kind.
I’m not sure who the next nominee will be, but the odds are better than even that his or her last name will be Trump.
Not quite over yet. Biden without the Senate, two years of nothing, lots of court fights no check on spending if that was ever a possibility. How about veto proof majorities in both houses for ’22? A person can dream. It would require the Republicans to pull their heads out of their nether regions and actually produce viable candidates to start. Why would they do that?
I’m thinking the clod and the clown might be an appropriate appellation. “Dr.” Jill isn’t going to pick out the Christmas decorations, she’ll be lucky if she makes it to St. Patrick’s.
They don’t bother to hide it because they are guaranteed to win. There will be no opposition, apart from Trump’s campaign, which is a teaspoon in a barrel.
I disagree, strongly. They are working to hide it, feverishly and frantically. And there will be opposition- and there already is.
Surely you don’t think no one will oppose communism in this country? I drove to work past a billboard that read, “Chinese-Americans support Trump, we fled socialism>” Literally millions of people here have firsthand experience with communism, including yourself.
Do you think the vote fraud will look better the more people learn about it? I doubt it.
My take- if the left had a chance to actually win in this they wouldn’t have to lie so much, or at all. Lies and frauds are all the party of FDR has left- ha ha- to have even a chance to remain in
control.
Despite spending billions of dollars on this election and creating the largest vote fraud operation in history, to borrow from Joe Biden, the best they could was to lose House seats and maintain a rough status quo in the Senate. And the presidential outcome is now in the courts, which isn’t much of a surprise.
That’s just not what success looks like.
But it’s sure what politician run enterprises look like, both sides.
Apropos Dan’s post, the most spirited conversation I overheard at work today concerned chicken coops. The world will keep turning.
That election that put Al Franken in was a farce. “Keep recounting until we get the result we need”, was the theme.
There does have to be a Federal standard. And IDs – if you need one to give a credit card is it too much to ask to require one when voting for the direction of the country?
On Kamala Harris – what a joke, who by fortune got this slot. The joke in CA was that she was Willie Brown’s mattress.
I hope Lex is right – I pretty much shut myself off from the news – it just makes me mad.
After those two middle of the night dumps of all-Biden votes, it seems to me that we can’t go on pretending this isn’t happening. The stories of the election of 1960 permeated our thinking for a long time. That that seemed a banana republic election was always troublesome to those of us young then; I wonder how much that sense was part of the lack of respect for the republic of the later parts of that decade (I know, it was all screwed up and the cynics about the country were the people who hated Nixon so it seems all jumbled – but I do know if you accept a lie as the truth, as we have with so much that is politically correct, we have been prepared for accepting the three strange vehicles pulling into the Detroit parking lot, unloading over a hundred thousand ballots (all apparently for Biden) and then the fade out – accepting this has got to be a bridge too far. Probably everyone has seen the description of red flags and he video Instapundit linked to, but if not, here is a look at Michigan by an accoutant and a video by a poll watcher: https://monsterhunternation.com/2020/11/05/the-2020-election-fuckery-is-afoot/
X.: “Surely you don’t think no one will oppose communism in this country?”
Reminds me of the book by an old commie Sinclair Lewis, ” It Can’t Happen Here” (just with the opposite sign).
I think those who fully realize the danger are too spread out and too involved into personal survival to do anything. Russian-American blogs are furious, and list more and more examples of fraud and fix – but the closest resembling a call to action I saw came from “survivalist”-oriented: like contemplating scenarios of utter infrastructure chaos, utilities failure, and accessibility of electric generators, etc.
And the rest are just too reluctant to transition to action from observation. See, f.i., this here thread. Understandably – exactly because they (we) know once you made that step, there is no going back.
And why is is that ordinary people should take the matter of defending the country into their hands? After all, isn’t that why we have our representatives in the governing structure? Who should be doing their job? But these and other similar questions are quickly becoming rhetorical.
I agree but the only one showing any guts is DeSantis in FL.
Also, Cotton in AK.
It’s fixing to be that bad. Four senate seats undeclared. Tow of them are tightening just like the presidential did. Alaska only 50% counted for the last two days. Sled dogs out sick? One headed to run off early next year. Can you imaging the bucks and “organizing” for going into that one. The other two are not done and the same white van is on the road. We could end up 50-50 or 49-51 in Schumer’s favor. All the other undeclared states are also “progressively” shifting Biden.
Let the “investigations” and suits begin, but the ability to capture the necessary documentation from the urban machine voting systems is doubtful. Recounting manufactured ballots still gives the same outcome if you can not identify and remove them after the fact. That is most unlikely on a scale to reverse the results.
The red flags are massive, but the legal proof will be destroyed/hidden/spoiled.
Death6
How many CA House seats did they steal in the weeks after the election last time? Quite a few, if I recall correctly. It doesn’t seem like the NC Senate seat is within the margin of fraud, but Trump was cruising to victory at 10pm on Tuesday, so who knows. You have to think the GOP is going to win those GA seats, but there is going to be intraparty civil war going on in the meantime, so who knows what will happen.
This post from a few months back was so prescient, and still it all is happening:
“And if Biden, in combination or replaced by A Dem Candidate To Be Named Later, wins the election, I don’t think it will be any improvement. The blatant vote fraud in certain districts will overwhelmingly obvious. There will be unparalleled shenanigans in tallying the ballots, way too much for most Trump voters to countenance. I don’t image that they will react violently, in the manner made so very familiar by our dear Antifa-idiots – but they will protest, perhaps in the streets. In places where the Antifa-idiots and Black Lies Matter gangsters are protected by elements of local politicians and authorities, the Antifa-idiots and BLM gangsters will cry havoc and unleash hell … or they may just do so anyway, without being provoked, for the jolly destructive fun of it. The more respectable Democrat officials, as well as our dear mainstream news creatures will be outraged by any demonstrations of defiance in the streets or in social media by unhappy pro-Trump partisans. They will retaliate in nasty non-violent ways on pro-Trump partisans who have drawn their attention for defiance … and that’s when it will get interesting.”
This column by J. E. Dyer is excellent: https://libertyunyielding.com/2020/11/06/election-2020-this-is-the-fight-you-were-appointed-for/
Good post. Biden is toothless and when he has his stroke and Kamala takes over she will have no ability to move things even in her own party, let alone among Republicans. No power base of her own, no negotiating skills, no charm, a very limited ability to punish enemies. However, there remain things that concern me. 1. The investigations will be called off and the Administrative State will resume their governance, perhaps even emboldened. “We held the bastard off by accusing him and his people of so many things that he had no time to go after us until it was too late.” There will even be quiet revenge and ruined careers inside agencies, especially the FBI and DOJ. 2. Biden has no ability to deal with a national crisis, and if he is himself the national crisis because of dementia, Kamala has no such abilities either. 3. An internal battle among Democrats about when to replace him would harm them more than Republicans, but ti would harm the country as well. Terrible. 4. Bad behavior by Iran and China should be expected quickly. Unless, of course, both believe they can quietly move the pieces on the chessboard without anyone much noticing, because Biden won’t call them out. That might be worse than aggression.
On the other hand, the consolation prize of strength going into the midterms and a laughable Democratic primary in 2024 whatever happens is a good thing. Hell, Trump might even run again, and a divided two terms might be more powerful in retrospect that two consecutive. That’s projecting a long way out and a lot can happen, however.
Assuming a Biden “victory”, the ’24 Democratic primary fight should be entertaining. We thought the clown car was full this time around. I can’t imagine even an assistant dog catcher deferring to the incumbent and there’s sure no shortage of Democrats convinced that they should be president.
I think that Trump would be too old to run in ’24 but he keeps doing things without asking me, so who knows. If the Republican party wants to survive, they will need a candidate with more than name recognition. The whole party needs to decide what they want to stand on.
Romney managed a remarkable feat of self-immolation in just two years. I hope whoever wants to run in ’24 takes note.
Assuming Harris quickly assumes the presidency, can you imagine her going one-on-one with Premier Xi and holding her own? Or with Putin?
I don`t believe any foreign leadership will take this administration seriously. The fraud was just too open and they all see it. The credibility and prestige of the US will go down the drain.
@Occasional Commenter:
Of course China will take Biden&Harris seriously! They paid for it! Slo & Blo are their puppets. If they step out of Chinese line, what will be serious is the consequences to their pockets.
I can’t believe the naivety here.
Wake up. We are within a coup, live. It’s an American ГКЧП (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Committee_on_the_State_of_Emergency).
Maybe I’m naive but I’m still with Lex. Just saw a video on Steven Crowder with Giuliani – sounded promising. Newsmax has also not given up hope.