We are less than a year away from another presidential election in the US. Can it really be eight years ago that Donald Trump announced he was running for president and the left lost its collective mind?
And are we really going to have a rematch of the candidates from 2020?
Both parties seem deeply divided and both leading candidates have many strikes against them. If you know me, you know that I will vote for whomever the Republican candidate is, especially now, even if I have to hold my nose to do it. And I usually do (have to hold my nose).
They say (whoever “they” are) that most people vote against a candidate instead of FOR a candidate. That is true of me, since I have to believe that the Republican in any race is going to align more closely with my principles of freedom and free markets than any Democrat. That has never been more true than now. Economic freedom and individual empowerment are not high on the Democrats’ “to-do” list, with their anti-business stance and tendency to focus on victim groups, but Republican politicians often fail to protect our rights as well. So we usually have to vote for the lesser of two evils.
That brings me to the two front runners in the 2024 race. Of course we haven’t had a primary yet, and in the past, primaries have been the undoing of many “unstoppable” candidates. Let’s look at each of the front runners in turn.
First, President Joe Biden: Will there even be a primary on the Democrat side? It’s obvious the Democrat establishment doesn’t want one. There are people in the race against Biden, but they are being studiously ignored. It seems the last thing Democrats want is democracy.
You’d have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to recognize that the current president is in serious cognitive decline. That’s not because of his age, it’s not a character flaw and it’s not his fault. The people who are encouraging him to run for office again ARE at fault and should be charged with elder abuse. He is in no condition to be president. Yet, the Democrats have painted themselves into a corner where they have very little choice.
The diversity hire Vice President Kamala Harris can’t use advanced age to explain her nonsense speeches and inability to accomplish anything, no matter how many opportunities she is given to shine. While Biden’s poll numbers are abysmal, Harris’ are worse. What reasoning could the Democrats use to replace BOTH Biden and Harris?
So Biden’s cognitive decline is a terrific drag on his chances to be elected, but that’s not his only disadvantage.
It is becoming increasingly clear (despite the Democrats’ and their fellow travelers in the media’s insistence that there is “no evidence”) that the Biden family monetized Joe’s eight years as vice president with a complex web of shell companies, threats and intimidation, and association with shady characters in countries that are officially enemies of the United States. Much like Hillary and Bill did through their Clinton Foundation, the Biden family, led by Hunter and Jim, were paid millions by people wanting access to the vice president and the advantages that access could bring.
We might never have known any of this if a drug-addled Hunter Biden hadn’t forgotten to pick up the laptop he left at a repair shop. The contents of the laptop were discovered and revealed by the New York Post and that, plus the revelations of a number of whistleblowers, have blown the lid off the operation that the Bidens thought they could keep hidden.
The evidence ranges from circumstantial to outright smoking-gun. If the media, big tech and the Washington establishment weren’t covering for Joe Biden so vociferously, he would have been forced to resign already.
But that would leave them with – KAMALA!
Complicating matters for Biden is fissures within the party over support for Israel vs. Palestine, which is causing some Jews to reassess their loyalty to the Democrats, and fading support among African-Americans (especially men) and Hispanics.
On the other side of the divide, former President Donald Trump dominates all the polls, recently even besting Biden in several polls.
But in recent years, the polls have been wildly wrong. I suspect that once the primaries start, a slightly different picture may be revealed. Trump may still win the nomination, but that’s no guarantee of victory in November.
Among Republicans, Trump IS the fissure, with “never Trumpers” continuing to believe they are the REAL Republicans and populists taking an “only Trump” stance.
Like Biden, there is a possibility Trump won’t be in the race after all, if any of the charges against him in the several indictments stick and he has to serve time in jail. I regard the charges as bogus and naked attempts to prevent him from becoming president again, but there are judges who would not hesitate to violate their oaths of office to keep Trump out of the oval office.
My personal attitude is, I’ll vote for Trump if he’s the nominee, but I may not vote for him in the primary, much like I didn’t in 2016.
Do I think Trump was a good president? He was much better than I expected (I voted for him twice), but that doesn’t mean I think he was perfect. Far from it.
I agreed with many of the policies Trump enacted while president, and many of the woes the US is experiencing now is because Biden consciously reversed Trump’s policies, especially concerning the border wall and energy policy. If Biden had continued those two things, we wouldn’t have millions of new illegals in the country, whose purpose for being here we can only guess, and I don’t believe Russia would have invaded Ukraine, because the oil prices would have remained low and Putin couldn’t have afforded a war.
The inflation now hurting American citizens can be laid at Biden’s doorstep because he ended the energy independence Trump had achieved, which allowed oil prices to increase, and since everything we buy arrives on trucks, the price of everything went up. Add to that the crazy mandate to end fossil fuel production when an adequate replacement is not in place and you have a recipe for inflation. To combat inflation, the Federal Reserve has repeatedly increased interest rates, which has put home ownership out of reach of many people and caused credit card debt to skyrocket.
So I think Trump did a lot of good things, but there’s also a downside.
Trump’s biggest failing is, in my opinion, he’s not a good judge of people. Trump put people in his administration who flattered him, but once they had power, they worked against him. Trump’s narcissism prevented him from judging who his real allies were, and that hamstrung his administration.
Will he be able to do better if elected again? I would hope so, but I don’t know.
The prime example of this failing was his handling of the COVID 19 pandemic. He should not have allowed Anthony Fauci to run things and shut down the country (the world, really). I know we didn’t know a lot in the beginning, but “two weeks to stop the spread” should not have been allowed to become two years! In reality, it should have been apparent that the best thing that could happen was for the country to reach herd immunity so the virus would be weakened quickly. Fauci’s solution was EXACTLY WRONG. He doubled his net worth during the pandemic, so it seems obvious that his steering the country away from useful, cheap medications and toward the vaccinations was a way to personally enrich himself. It seemed Trump could not see any of that. Of course, hindsight is 20-20.
The vaccinations were another Trump blunder. His “Operation Warp Speed” may have seemed like a good idea, and it would have been in most situations, but when it comes to new, untested medical measures, slow, methodical processes are better. The drug companies knew this and legally protected themselves from lawsuits before releasing the vaccines, because they knew they had not been adequately tested. What testing was done revealed serious problems which would have resulted in pulling any other medication during normal times.
Still today, Trump talks of “Operation Warp Speed” as a great accomplishment, but it was not. It is, in fact, his biggest single mistake.
I was thrilled by Trump’s emphasis on “draining the swamp,” but that is also why he is being attacked from every side. The graft and corruption in Washington, D.C. is so pervasive that “the swamp” will crush anyone who threatens it.
So, if Trump is the Republican nominee, I will (as usual) hold my nose and vote for him, because I continue to hope that Republicans will live up to their potential as freedom and free-market champions, though they have disappointed me many times.
“Hope springs eternal…” as the Alexander Pope said.
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