By VRAYVENUS @Adobe Stock
Entering the last Stage of Grief: Acceptance
The last four years seem at times like four straight years of a presidential campaign, mocks The Spectator US.
One-half of the population accepted that their nominee could be replaced without a single primary vote. The other half accepted that their 2020 nominee couldn’t be replaced at any cost.
Voters Holding Their Collective Nose
Selecting from the less evil candidate can also mean voting for the other guy. Voting for the lesser guy is nothing new, assures Spectator editors.
After all, 224 years ago, Alexander Hamilton threw his weight behind Thomas Jefferson. What makes this interesting is that the US media is populated by twenty-somethings” whose knowledge of political history extends twenty-four months. That’s why they acclaim every minor development “unprecedented.” Meanwhile, Americans have had to endure assassination attempts and indictments, unsealed legal filings, palace coups, and the like.
Meanwhile Kamala Harris has repudiated her own admiration. What’s not to repudiate? Inflation, the border a shambles, the Middle East ablaze, Asheville underwater. The sitting vice president is running as a “change” candidate: we opened October with a run on toilet paper. (For once, no one used the term “unprecedented.”)
The Harris honeymoon with its “politics of joy” appears to have run its course, not unlike a waning moon.. Kamala has a higher unfavourability rating among independents than Trump, according to Gallup, after four years in the Eisenhower building.
Kamala Harris still has trouble stringing coherent thoughts together on anything policy-related or otherwise. Mark Twain, by the way, described the Eisenhower Building as “the ugliest building in America.”
Then There Are the Running Mates
Lie Low and Never Open Your Mouth
“Overexuberant” Minnesota dad Tim Walz seems allergic to the truth.
(Walz’s) fudging of his time in China and his lie about being there for the Tiananmen Square protests came back to bite him in the VP debate — Walz’s ties to China (and his tall tales surrounding it) are detailed by Ian Williams.
Still, it just may work.
Not an Optimal Strategy
Donald Trump seems not to be able to help himself.
The former president seems to want to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. After surviving two assassination attempts, he’s spending his time hawking six-figure watches, shilling cryptocurrencies and complaining about the misrepresentation of his crowd sizes.
In a superb performance, JD Vance added intelligence to policies thought of as “Trumpisms.”
His thoughtful demeanor, civility, mastery of the issues and overall intelligence are qualities we haven’t seen from a national politician in some time — dare we even call it weird in an age of unprecedented stupidity? Concerns about Trump from those on the fence (if they actually exist) may evaporate knowing there’s a steady hand near the White House.
International Upheaval
In the Middle East, Israel is essentially fighting a three-front war, about which the US administration speaks out of both sides of its mouth. The more Harris and Walz quibble, the more support they lose from both the Jewish and Arab-American communities.
A recent Pew Research Poll showed that among Jewish registered voters, Harris bests Trump 65-34. But the former president only garnered 27 percent when he spearheaded the Abraham Accords. His rise in Jewish support has, surprisingly, appeared to coincide with gains among Arab-American voters. A recent poll from the Arab American Institute showed community support for Trump at 46 percent to Harris’s 42 percent.
Biden/Harris, Mishandling Domestic Issues
The reliable progressive pivot to blaming climate change in the wake of deadly storms was disrupted by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, reporters told the Spectator. FEMA doesn’t have any more money to support Americans for the rest of the Atlantic hurricane season, this after FEMA had earmarked $640 million to house and subsidize migrants coming into the country.
Voters appeared to be coming round to Harris’s narrative that Trump blew up “an unprecedented” border security deal, but the deadliest storm since Katrina is a stark reminder of the potential consequences of her White House tenure.
What’s Really Weird
One of the gentler (yet telling) put-downs of this election came from Tim Walz, who pronounced that Republicans are “weird.” “Hilarious,” responds Kim Strassel in the WSJ.
Want to know what’s really weird?
Taxpayer-funded sex-change surgeries for felons. Attempts to regulate cow flatulence. The expectation that fewer police will mean less crime. The 1619 project. Decriminalizing border crossings. Boys competing in girls’ sports. The word Latinx.
Sizable majorities of Americans think all this is nuts. Yet these remain staples of Democratic policy and rhetoric.
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