The lyrics don’t quite fit the situation, but the spirit of this song seems appropriate for today: Goodbye to You!
Harris
Those Assertions About Trump’s “Darkness”
A Financial Times headline today refers to “Trump’s dark campaign.” This is not surprising coming from the FT, but even the WSJ today refers to Trump’s “dark pitch.” If one wants to look for Darkness, I’d suggest that it can be found in the rants of the Harris campaign and Democrats in general against Trump and especially against his supporters: ‘Fascists’…’garbage’…’anti-American’. I also see plenty of darkness in the ideology and policies of the Democratic Party…the divisive obsession with race/ethnicity…the casting of blame rather than solving problems, as with the blaming of grocery prices on ‘price gouging’ rather than government-caused inflation…the strange Democrat affinity with the Iranian regime…the tolerance of anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish violence on campuses and elsewhere…plenty of darkness there.
This video by a celebrity Harris promoter certainly sounds to me like a clear threat against Trump supporters. More darkness.
I haven’t personally attended any of Trump’s rallies, but those who have–such as this foreign student, who attended both Trump and Harris rallies–generally report an atmosphere which is positive rather than negative, and welcoming rather than hostile.
As an example of Trump’s ‘darkness’, the WSJ quotes from a rally speech in which he referred to ‘fighting against the most sinister and corrupt forces on earth.’ I wouldn’t have said it exactly that way, but there is no question that America is under threat by some trends that, if not interrupted and reversed, will destroy our society. And these trends are all heavily pushed by the Democratic Party and groups closely associated with it. I’ve discussed these trends in my post Vectors of Societal Destruction–and the Growing Pushback Against Them.
Hopefully, the pushback will be strong enough to interrupt and reverse these trends before it is too late.
The Election, 2024
Personally, I’m voting for Trump and for Republicans generally. My issues include:
The overwhelming importance of free speech, which is under pervasive and increasing Democrat attack (the censorship pressures during Covid and the 2020 election were only the tip of the iceberg)…the strange Democrat affinity for the Iranian regime, the failure to stop Houthi depredations on shipping, and the undercutting of Israel’s self-defense (had Harris had her way about Rafah, Sinwar would still be alive)…the spread of anti-Semitism on ‘elite’ college campuses, including interference with Jewish students attending class, and the Administration’s failure to do anything substantive to address this…the chaos resulting from deliberate failure to enforce the border laws (done obviously for electoral reasons)…Democrat failure to take seriously the Chinese challenge and supply-chain dependency…Harris blaming inflation on ‘price-gouging’ and ‘greed’ while ignoring the effects of spending and money supply.
The dismal performance of much of the public education system, which is condemning millions to virtual innumeracy and illiteracy, while being protected from competition and challenge by the Democrat-affiliated teachers unions…A threat to innovation in the form of economic policies centered around subsidies toward favored industries and companies rather than addressing structural problems; also, the proposal to tax unrealized gains. Energy policies which are unrealistically and harmfully anti-fossil-fuel. Overall, the increasing Democrat orientation toward reengineering the entire society from the top down, which is entirely contrary to the spirit that has made America successful and free.
I think Trump is a problem-solver and a creative thinker, he has a lot of what Michael Gibson of 1517 fund refers to as Polytropos, a Greek word that was used to describe Odysseus and which means, basically ‘will get it done somehow.’ There are obviously plenty of things about the man that I wish were different, but as Bill Ackman pointed out, an election is not like a marriage or a business partnership where you have a whole universe of people to choose from–in this election, you choose from two. In my own view, Trump is the better choice by a wide margin.