I have a rule for myself that I’ve followed for a long time. I’m not going to be forced into a decision that I might not normally make.
For example when Salmon Rushdie was threatened by Iran with death thousands rushed out to buy his book, The Satanic Verses in a show of solidarity.
I didn’t
My thought was this. If the Iranians did nothing would I be interested in this book? The answer was no. So I decided that buying the book in response to Iranian threats was just allowing these terrorists to dictate my actions and I wasn’t about to do that.
Which brings us to the Trump indictment.
If it in fact happens it will be a reflection on the idiocy of NY voters who apparently have no issue with being victims of violent crime and allowing themselves to be victimized by criminals as long as political goals are reached.
It further reflects on Bragg who apparently has no interest in protecting the citizens of the city but in fairness
He ran on a platform of “getting” Donald Trump
He is bought and paid for by Soros
So if nothing else he is keeping his promise on this subject and giving his owner value for the dollars invested in him.
Put simply Bragg is a corrupt ass who doesn’t care about the people of NY or the future of this country as the precedent set by these actions are going to be very harmful.
All of these things are reasons to deplore the indictment of Donald Trump and the use of criminal justice system for political ends but all that being said none of these things are a credible arguments that Donald Trump is a better candidate for the GOP nomination than Ron DeSantis.
In fact the actions of Trump surrogates seem to be making the case that he is an inferior candidate to DeSantis. The blatant lies and calumnies being told about DeSantis by Christian conservatives is a reminder that Trump tends to fight like a Democrat.
Don’t get me wrong, there is a solid case to be made for Trump as the GOP nominee based mostly on his record as President which was better than any other 21st Century president to this point.
But Allen Bragg being an asshole and the Democrat run Justice department and NY criminal justice system being corrupt are not part of them. They are in fact the case for voting GOP in general not for voting Trump in particular.
Without a doubt if Donald J. Trump is the GOP nominee I will vote for him without hesitation, but if he wants my primary vote he is going to have to earn it by his arguments and actions. I’m not going to let some corrupt leftist drive my primary vote, I won’t cede him that power.
The left has a new mantra. Well, they always have a new one. And their newest mantra is, “The right doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘woke.'”
As far as I can gather, the earliest use of “woke” was by African American musician Lead Belly, who added “stay woke” in an afterword of his recording of “Scottsboro Boys,” which was about the injustices faced by nine black youths accused of raping two white women in 1931.
But words often change meanings. For instance, centuries ago “garble” meant “to sift.” In the spice trade “garbling” was the process of removing impurities from spices. Over time, “garble” evolved into meaning confusing, unclear, and yes, impure. For instance, someone might say, “I couldn’t understand the voicemail message you left for me, it was garbled.”
The definition of woke has similarly evolved. It appears woke made a reappearance in the public dialogue in 2016 after the police shooting of Michael Brown in 2016, but by 2020, conservatives had adopted and co-opted the word. People who are woke–this is my take–are rigidly beholden to far-left political beliefs and they will use mob action to enforce their viewpoints.
“Politically correct,” a term that emerged from the left, was similarly co-opted by the right, so liberals dropped it years ago.
The word woke is a much more serious problem for the left, which is why libs, in a futile effort, are trying to reclaim it, or at least neutralize its meaning. After all, woke is an unpleasant word with only four letters and just one syllable, it is better suited for our contemporary sound bite and pithy headline culture, compared to the more cumbersome “politically correct.” Over the past week leftist journalists, an intellectually incestuous lot, pushed back. An opening to them was given by Bethany Mandel, the co-author of the best seller Stolen Youth, which is about the dangers of woke culture. Last week, in an interview captured on video–one that went viral–Mandel suffered, in her words, “a momentary brain freeze,” and she wasn’t able to clearly answer a question about the definition of woke.
But shortly afterwards on Twitter, Mandel was able to clarify what woke means.
“A radical belief system suggesting that our institutions are built around discrimination,” Mandel Tweeted last week, “and claiming that all disparity is a result of that discrimination. It seeks a radical redefinition of society in which equality of group result is the endpoint, enforced by an angry mob.”
A radical belief system suggesting that our institutions are built around discrimination, and claiming that all disparity is a result of that discrimination. It seeks a radical redefinition of society in which equality of group result is the endpoint, enforced by an angry mob.
Just now, as I was finishing up this entry, I watched as Jen Psaki, in the premiere airing of her MSNBC show declare, “Republicans have gone all-in on their anti-wokeness.” Psaki, a smug know-it-all, then presented a one-sided view of Mandel’s “momentary brain freeze.”
All but admitting defeat in the word war, Matthew Cooper in Washington Monthly says the word needs to be disposed. The headline of his article is, “Let’s retire the word ‘woke.'”
Too late!
The legacy media is up woke creek without a paddle.
This month two woke mobs attacked in California. The Federalist Society invited a US Appeals judge, Kyle Duncan, who was appointed to the bench by Donald Trump, to speak at the Stanford Law School. Only the mob, the led by the school’s diversity, equity, and inclusivity dean, Tirien Steinbach, all but prevented the judge from speaking. Diversity to the left hasn’t meant diversity of opinion for years.
In my opinion, outside of the ten percent or so of the populace who is indeed woke, no one can argue that such boorish antics are justifiable.
As is also the case of the second California campus woke outburst, when Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk spoke at the University California, Davis. “Black-clad goons” goons is how the Daily Mail described the protesters who pepper-sprayed attendees and smashed windows at the hall where Kirk spoke.
Kirk’s UC Davis address is available in podcast form. Unlike Duncan, Charlie was permitted to speak. And in his opening remarks, Kirk vowed, “Tonight, you’re going to see that anyone who disagrees with me tonight is not just allowed–but is encouraged to go ask [me] a question.” Kirk even called for his dissenters to head to “the front of the line.”
Now, that’s what I call diversity.
Those leftist protesters–I believe it’s fair to call them rioters–were probably egged on by a woke Sacramento Bee opinion columnist, Hannah Holzer, who, in a since retracted claim, said Kirk “called for the lynching of trans people.” In his remarks that evening at UC Davis, Kirk responded, “That is a lie. I have never done that,” adding, I’ve always been clear about peaceful activism.”
Charlie Kirk responds to Sacramento Bee for saying he has “called for the lynching of trans people.”
“That is a lie. I have never done that … I’ve always been clear about peaceful activism.”
The unpeaceful ones that night at UC Davis were the members of the woke mob.
The great majority of Americans don’t have politics on the top of their informational diet. But this truly silent majority, the ones who decide the outcome of elections, is aware of the evils of leftist violence, intimidation, misinformation and censorship. And now there is an ugly word for that and more that is now entrenched in the mainstream conversation.
“Woke” is that word.
To my conservative writers and influencers: The other side has betrayed a weakness and a fear. They hate it when we say “woke” to decry radical policies and angry leftist mobs. What is worse than “woke?” Well, those odious things that the word describes, such as the recent outrages at Stanford and UC Davis.
So that still leaves the question: How does Donald Trump counter a popular governor like DeSantis with a strong record and a reputation for fighting the fights conservatives need fighting.
The answer can be found in Lyndon Johnson’s first senate campaign where his primary opponent was a fellow named Pappy O’Daniel.
Pappy O’Daniel was an entertainer who parleyed his radio show act into a a fortune selling flour into the governor’s chair in Texas. One of the things he constantly pushed was the idea of a pension
He’d sing, tout Hillbilly Flour, quote scripture, and declare he was fed up with “crooked politics” and “scheming professional politicians.” He promised to pay every Texan over 65 a $30-a-month pension. He didn’t say how he’d fund those pensions, preferring to sell the idea singing lyrics he’d written to the tune of “Let Me Call You Sweetheart”—“Thirty Bucks for Mama.”
Smart types scoffed. Politicians and reporters said Pappy’s crowds came for the circus. But battered Texans yearned for something new. In the Democratic primary, against 11 rivals, Pappy got 51 percent, taking the nomination in a state where Republicans didn’t count.
When the sitting US Senator Morris Shepard died in office Pappy O’Daniel appointed the 87 year old son of Sam Houston to his seat pending a special election. Lyndon Johnson seeing this as an opening promptly announced his candidacy and Pappy wasn’t far behind.
Johnson as a sitting congressman had a problem. O’Daniel was an immensely popular governor with the voters and while he was happy to be in bed with the various lobbyists (expect for the liquor lobby O’Daniel’s one unshakable principled belief was that booze was a tool of the Devil) an attack on his as corrupt was useless not only because Johnson’s own associations were not all that clean but because of the people still listening to his radio show now done from the Capital wouldn’t buy that the person fighting so hard to get them a pension didn’t care.
So Johnson took a different path. He painted O’Daniel as the indispensable man of Texas the man who was needed in the statehouse to fight for you and your pension here while he (LBJ) could fight for you in the Senate.
It was a stroke of brilliance. O’Daniel has talked about his fight for Pensions in his re-election campaign just six months before and Johnson’s praise of him and his work in Texas made direct attacks on him almost impossible.
In the end it paid off, at least until on election night Johnson let down his guard and allowed his key districts to report which gave an opening for the folks in the Liquor lobby, who wanted Pappy, out of Texas who did this:
Suddenly “late” returns from counties in East Texas where Congressman Martin Dies, another candidate for the open Senate seat, had previously run strong with 46% of the vote with O’Daniel getting 34% and Johnson 11% and a 4th candidate Mann 9%. As Robert Caro put it on paged 738-739 of his 1st volume on Lyndon Johnson:
But Dies did not do as well as he had done earlier. He received only 82 of these “new” votes — not 46 percent but 32 percent, Johnson and Mann didn’t do as well either: Mann received 6 votes or 2 percent; Johnson did particularly badly; he received 3 of the new votes : 1 percent. O’Daniel, who had received 34 percent on the first returns, received 64 percent on these later returns.
This pattern was repeated in county after county in east Texas where O’Daniel’s “Magic Ballots” kept turning up. Johnson manged to get a few “corrected” returns from a few spots but as official returns had been sent in such things were few and far between. He contacted George Paar known as the Duke of Duval who was the power there and bluntly asked for more votes. Duval’s reported reply: “Lyndon I’ve Been to Federal Penitentiary and I’m not Going Back For You” was logical. Because the official numbers had not come from East Texas no matter how many votes he agreed to provide O’Daniel’s folks would simply create more in counties that had not yet reported. In the end his 5000 vote lead became a 1311 vote loss 175,590 to 174,279.
Sound familiar?
Bottom line until O’Daniel’s foes in big Booze stole the election for him Johnson’s plan worked.
If I was advising Donald Trump, I would use the same tactic as LBJ did.
I would point to what was done in Florida and point out that there are plenty of people on the left who want DeSantis out of there. Who want to stop his innovations from spreading to other states. I’d point to his reforms on voting, his strong attacks on the sexualization of children and his taking on woke education and say that America NEEDS DeSantis in Florida to keep it a shining example for the entire nation.
I would compare this to his own reforms on the federal level, and suggest that DeSantis moves are much like his own but on the state level, it’s a great opening for Trump to tout his own record which is without question the best overall record of any 21st century president, from Tax Cuts to prison reform and beyond.. This way he can point to his own initial endorsement of DeSantis in his first campaign and even to some degree take credit for those accomplishments made possible by his own support in his initial election win that was by a small margin. Suddenly DeSantis’ success becomes derivative of his own.
I’d even go one better. I’d point out that Disney would LOVE to get DeSantis out of there and have the chance to try to influence a different perhaps weaker governor who would appoint people of their choosing to boards and commissions to slowly undo all that has already been done. I’d suggest that DeSantis needs at least one more term to solidify these changes and to make sure that the woke legions, led by Disney can’t reverse what has already been done. He owes it to the people who sent him back to make sure the job is done.
It’s the type of argument that has the best chance of not only preventing a DeSantis 2024 campaign but would make attacks on him by DeSantis very difficult.
Anyways that would be my play and I submit and suggest to the Trump campaign that it’s the one most likely to put the nomination in his hands.
Clarissa Saunders: Diz, Don Quixote with bill will get to his feet in a minute and speak two important words: “Willet Creek”. When that happens, the sliver knight will fall off his tightrope and puss will jump outta his boots.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 1939
In a campaign with a lot of memorable moments one moment during the 2016 campaign stood out to me.
It happened on May 16th 2016 on Morning Joe, the Panel was discussing Trump and Women and the attacks the Clinton campaign was making on him and they turned to Donny Deutch who said something that ended the conversation quickly:
Here’s the tennis game, Donald Trump kissed a woman in a bathing suit. Trump hits back: Tell me about the president’s relationship with a guy named Jeffrey Epstein. That’s your tennis match.
Everybody at the Table knows who Jeffery Epstein is, and what the story is
Nobody at the table wanted to talk about it
And elaborated further:
Mind you Trump hasn’t even bothered to say a word about Epstein yet and the table does its best to spin this in a different direction, but the very fact that Trump is who is forced MSNBC to deal with the story even if most of dealing with it was talking about Trump’s willingness to go there.
Take a look at the set of dejected faces on that video, remember those faces are being broadcast on MSNBC to liberal viewers who would never do a web search of the words “Jeffery Epstein + Bill Clinton”
This was written in May of 2016 when Jeffrey was still free as a bird and the thought of not killing himself wasn’t even in his mind.
Bottom line the mere mention of Epstein was something the left/media was desperate to avoid during that campaign.
And that brings us to election 2024 and Trump vs DeSantis.
For move than half a decade the MSM/Left has tried to link Donald Trump to something remotely Epsteinish and despite their best efforts they have failed miserably. Nor do I expect Ron DeSantis to join in such an effort if he decides to run, but while there is nothing Epstein like in his past to use against Donald Trump there is a name, known to all Americans that Ron DeSantis can deploy at any time if he wants to give Donald Trump fits in a GOP primary:
That name is Anthony Fauci
During the COVID crisis Donald Trump repeatedly deferred to Anthony Fauci rather than firing him. He allowed Fauci to advance policies that hurt the American public both physically and psycologically. We as a nation are still recovering and counting the costs of the reign of terror that Anthony Fauci let loose upon us with little restraint from the President. It was the single most critical mistate of his four years in office.
Now in fairness this was to be expected, at least early on. Donald Trump grew up in an era where Doctor’s were respected, where the Hippocratic Oath still emphasized “Do no Harm” and the science of virus and medicine was not something that was within Trump wide range of expertise. It is possible, even probable that Donald Trump could not picture a medical Doctor deceiving the public during a time of crisis to advance an agenda.
There are a ton of people, particularly in the medical field who lost their jobs because of the policies that Anthony Fauci pushed. There are people who have lost loved ones due to the policies that Anthony Fauci pushed.
It would take very little effort for Ron DeSantis to link Trump and Fauci and the Donald knows that. It’s no coincidence that he no longer pushes the COVID Vaccine at rallies as he discovered quickly.
To say this would be disaster for Trump in the primaries is the understatement of the year, this is why the attempt to play hardball with DeSantis is at best foolish and at worst reckless.
So what should Trump DO about a potential DeSantis run? Well I have a thought on that but that’s for another time.
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