After the Voters Speak

We have won the argument and now we need to act like it.

by Adam Mill for American Greatness

In 1984, the Democrats ran Jimmy Carter’s former vice president against Ronald Reagan. The Democrats did not seem to accept or believe that Americans had turned their backs on their enlightened views about the Soviet Union, crime, and the social safety net. But they had. In perhaps the most stunning rebuke in American electoral history, Election Night 1984 delivered this map: 

Take a moment to look at it and ponder what led every American state except Minnesota (and Washington, D.C.) to reject a return to big spending, weak law enforcement, and a defanged U.S. military. 

Reagan’s reelection victory changed the Democratic Party for a long time. Not until Barack Obama arrived on the scene almost a quarter century later would another progressive, big government Democrat win the White House. Bill Clinton’s midterm trouncing in 1994 put a sudden and decisive stop to the switcheroo he tried to pull after his 1992 campaign promising a moderate administration. Thereafter, Clinton signed on to Republican priorities like reforming welfare to add work requirements and a lifetime limit. Clinton still appointed left-leaning judges and promoted small and largely symbolic programs we would now consider part of the “fight” against “climate change.” But the Democrats largely wilted in the face of the confident free-market Republicans.

Conventional wisdom now holds that the voters will be sending another message to Democrats in the 2022 midterm election. This isn’t about the changing seat count in Congress. We need to remember and renew the cultural shift that followed the 1984 rebuke of the intellectual utopians that caused so much harm to the American people. All those pie-in-the-sky social programs cost money and that money comes out of somebody’s hide. Printing money to pay for utopia crowds out the value of the dollars you receive in return for your precious time and effort. Americans learned that the hard way in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They were sick of the feel-good spending that accomplished nothing and wasted resources. 

And here we are again. And it isn’t just inflation this time, but a lot of it isinflation. Your money just doesn’t go as far now as it did before the Federal Reserve printed trillions of new dollars to pay for “COVID relief,” and other such “rescue” programs. That’s enough rescuing for now. In fact, thanks to all that spending, America needs rescuing from the rescuing.

But it’s more than that. Most Americans, including some liberals, are sick and tired of the climate of political correctness. We’re tired of mentally rehearsing everything we say just in case some scold might find a hook on which to hang his/her/xi/xer outrage. For a long time, it was easier just to avoid arguments and change the subject. But people have had enough.

So much of what the Left says and makes us all agree to is backwards and upside down. The weather is man-made, they say, while inflation, crime, and diesel shortages are all accidents of nature that will recede if we’re patient enough. Racial strife can be ended by scolding people about the collective sins of their race. Violence is speech. Speech is violence. Mutilating the sex organs of young children is compassionate. Opposing the same is hate. And voters “endanger” democracy by trying to change the direction of government through an election. 

In the 1980s, the formerly stylish revolutionaries who seemed so alluring in the 1960s and ’70s became ugly scolds. Their music, their fashion, their speeches—all of these quickly became dated and lame. In the ’80s, instead of skipping classes to protest for a nuclear freeze, students focused more on career day or partying with their friends. All that enlightened leftism ceased to be cool all at once. Americans ignored or mocked the hippies and their quotes from Mao’s Little Red Book. 

It’s often said that politics is downstream of culture. And culture, like politics, has a lot to do with how we live. Halfway through the Biden Administration, Americans have had to make adjustments to their travel, dining, and purchasing decisions to accommodate the mirage of Democratic “progress.” The first bills have come due and many more will follow. But there’s no progress, much less utopia, in sight. Schools have become indoctrination factories. Everyone walks on eggshells at work. The culture has changed. It’s just that the powerful have not yet been realigned to match the people they lead. Not yet. 

The revolt against the Left is underway. Legal victories on abortion and an anticipated affirmative action victory at the U.S. Supreme Court would not be possible if the Left hadn’t already been losing the intellectual argument. The Left’s dependence on censorship clearly signals the same. And you can see that begin to crumble, too, as Elon Musk snatched Twitter from the clutches of the woke and attorneys general have already exposed collusion between government and Big Tech to censor dissenting views.

After the voters speak, the next Congress’ needs to tackle inflation. As much as I think the FBI needs to be eliminated and we deserve justice and accountability for COVID authoritarianism, inflation is the first and most pressing issue facing the country. 

By a happy coincidence, the best way to tackle inflation is to cut all of the spending that has supported the professionally outraged. A new Republican Congress would have the power of the purse. It can simply refuse to continue funding our collective suicide. Thousands of grants and programs exist for no other reason than to support or justify (directly or indirectly) the Left’s social justice agenda. Stop spending money on this crap and make these people get real jobs. Stop tying up the useful labor force in nonsense jobs. Those people could be stocking warehouses and learning to weld. 

Come to think of it, maybe we should also just defund the FBI. Cut out all of those worthless, troublemaking diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) jobs. Cut all of those “climate ambassador” jobs. Stop the obviously rigged studies on climate change and “unconscious bias.” The Left and their minions will howl in protest. But most Americans will delight in knowing their own pain is finally shared by those who authored so much of the misery their countrymen have been suffering. 

Americans are ready for serious politicians who have the courage to say these things. Winning seats isn’t enough. We have won the argument and now we need to act like it.

W³P Open Thread: Red Tsunami MAGA Moon Edition

{{In my kinda serious but not too serious voice:}} We are gathered here today to witness the impending loss of many Democrats, bold attempts at fraud from the Left, and a Red Tsunami under a bright MAGA Moon to wash it all away and leave Truth and Liberty in its wake.

Hang out, chat, share music, call each other names, whatever floats your boat. Y'all know how we do it over here. Here's some memes to get things kicked off.

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The Unigovernment

We’re not just living in a uniparty country. 

We’re living in a unigovernment world.

by Dan Gelernter for American Greatness

A good deal of scathing commentary has been heaped on Emily Oster’s terrible piece in the far-Left Atlantic on COVID amnesty, so I won’t spend more time on the fundamental lunacy and—as our own Ned Ryun aptly puts it—the chutzpah of this old-new leftist idea: That you have to let everyone off the hook for the terrible things they did because they had no way of knowing at the time that it was terrible. (“I’m sorry I bashed your head in! I thought it was in the best interests of society!”)

Instead, I want to ask the Osters of the world a question of perspective: Why do you suppose it is, if there were “mistakes” on all sides, that 100 percent of the pandemic “errors in judgment” went against individual freedom and liberty? If this were an honest back-and-forth situation, where everyone was getting it wrong some of the time, you’d expect to see some big mistakes in the other direction—in the direction of not enough precaution, not enough restraint. Instead, Oster would like us to believe, we flipped a hundred coins, and every single one came up tails.

I grant you that Oster may be hysterical and totally lacking in common sense—most tenure committees consider that a prerequisite. But “mistakes” like this don’t just happen, one after the other and all tending in the same direction, unless the people guiding society have a fundamental conviction under everything else that people cannot be trusted and that the biggest threat to good order and “progress” is the people themselves.

Keep a weather-eye on the Republican Party as soon as the elections are over. Don’t expect them to rush head over heels to represent your views or actually do what you wanted them to. Trump did what the voters wanted and look what they did to him—and by “they” I mean the Republicans as much as the Democrats: You can serve the people or you can serve the government, but you can’t do both. Guess which side the GOP leadership is on?

If a new Republican caucus were serious about its duties to the voters, it would fire Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy today. No more nonsense about how good they are at maneuvering through the minutiae of procedure in Washington. It’s not that these men are incompetent; in fact they’re very good at what they do. It’s just that they’re playing for the wrong team. They’ve been the leaders of a party we didn’t vote for, elected under false pretenses by paying us lip-service every two years. They get elected by pretending to offer us an alternative to Democrats. Gotta keep that old illusion alive—it keeps everyone paying their taxes.

Mitch McConnell must not become majority leader in the Senate. Kevin McCarthy must not become majority leader in the House. 

But they will.

Many people have written about the uniparty, but unfortunately the problem is more sinister than that. You may wonder why the American government seemed more bent on cooperating with the Chinese government than with Americans during the pandemic. You may wonder why ostensible democracies like England and Australia gave us sudden flashes of fascism, locking the potentially infected in concentration camps and having the police threaten people who came out of their houses.

It’s not just that the Republicans have more in common with the Democrats than they do with their voters. It’s that governments—all over the globe—have more in common with each other than they do with their people. We’re not just living in a uniparty country. We’re living in a unigovernment world.

Your elected representatives, the ones who have been in Washington for a couple of decades, have closer ties with Xi Jingping than they have with you. The top-level officers in our military have more in common with their opposite numbers in China than they have with you. Or with their enlisted men. (Remember when General Mark Milley actually bragged in public testimony that he’d promised to warn rather than attack the People’s Liberation Army.)

Governments of the world, be they communist or fascist or even nominally democratic, all agree about one thing—they agree that people are dangerous. Our lives need to be run and controlled. And they are the boys for the job. Governments agree on so much, they may even agree it can be mutually beneficial to go to war with each other from time to time. There’s nothing that transfers power and wealth from people to governments so quickly and efficiently as a nice little war.

So when you look at a thoroughly confusing global situation and have trouble understanding which country benefits from insanities like the war in Ukraine, it’s because you’re asking the wrong question: You imagine that, just because countries seem to be on opposite sides of the political spectrum, or even on opposite sides of a military conflict, that those governments must be fighting against one another. In reality, those governments are fighting together against you: Stealing your life and your labor and your money to pay their own way. 

Fortunately, America is uniquely positioned among all the nations in the world with a safety valve—albeit one we’ve forgotten about: We have states. We have states that are supposed to operate as a counterbalance to federal power. Before the Civil War, individual states (and groups of states) were forces to be reckoned with—and that meant Washington had to pay them, and their citizens, due consideration and respect. It couldn’t treat the nation as a monolith, a single network of local government offices, all singing from the same sheet of music, reliably enforcing federal dogma. The Civil War, whatever else it achieved, notched a huge victory in the belt of unigovernment when it destroyed the power of the states. But in fact that power is still there, in potential. It is simply dormant, unclaimed: Rusty, but still sharp underneath.

We need imaginative and courageous governors to remember that they are, in their way, as important as the president. We need state legislatures to remember that their duty is not simply to attend to local matters but to sit on the other end of the balance against the national legislature. And when Americans, en masse, begin to get the sense that the federal government is representing its own interests rather than our own, it is the responsibility of the states to say, “Not so fast, there: I think you’ve forgotten about us.”

These Two SCOTUS Cases Could Put The Administrative State In Its Place

As the administrative state expands, so too does the number of individuals entangled in its tentacles. It’s time for the Supreme Court to affirm the Constitution’s separation of powers.

by Alison Somin & John Kerkoff for The Federalist

Justice delayed is justice denied — or so the old saying goes. And although swimming in complex factual and legal issues, two cases that will be argued at the Supreme Court on Monday will put that adage to the test.

Start with Axon Enterprise v. Federal Trade Commission. The company makes police body cameras and digital evidence management systems. Shortly after acquiring an insolvent firm making similar products, the FTC claimed Axon’s acquisition raised antitrust concerns. The FTC filed suit, but not in a court of law. Instead, the FTC took the case to its own internal “court” with its own employee as the judge. 

Turn to Securities and Exchange Commission v. Cochran. Michelle Cochran worked for an accounting firm in Texas; after she left that job, the SEC hauled Cochran into its in-house court on claims of paperwork irregularities. Not even the SEC claimed that anyone had been deceived or harmed because of these errors.

Both Axon and Cochran wanted fair proceedings — not in-house Star Chambers — so they filed lawsuits in federal court. After all, in their in-house adjudications, the agencies act as police, prosecutor, judge, and jury. Many traditional rules in federal courts that ensure fairness — such as fixed evidentiary standards — don’t apply in internal agency proceedings. And federal courts often defer to the agency’s findings if their rulings are appealed.

Not surprisingly, agencies enjoy a clear home-field advantage. Win rates in their own in-house courts are sky high: Cochran’s brief states that the SEC won more than 90 percent of the cases that it brought in-house between 2010 and 2015. Former FTC commissioners have noted that the FTC won nearly 100 percent of cases during their time there. 

Judging Their Own Case with No Accountability

Thoughtful observers have long questioned the constitutionality — and the fairness — of these agency proceedings. Keep in mind: Commissioners both vote to file the complaint and determine all final questions of fact and law. Axon and Cochran, in other words, will not prove their cases to an impartial judge or jury; they must prove their case to the very people suing them. No wonder Professor Gary Lawson has written that the FTC’s combination of prosecutorial and judicial functions clashes with the deeply rooted principle that “no man can be a judge in his own case.” 

Other constitutional problems linger still. Axon and Cochran raise arguments about the agencies’ structures, including special insulation from presidential control. Good-cause removal protections for the agency commissioners and administrative law judges ensure they will not be held democratically accountable. And Axon says the FTC’s arbitrary choice to bring a case internally (instead of in federal court) violates equal protection principles. Each argument alone could stop the agencies in their tracks. 

Long Wait for a Day in Court

Yet the Supreme Court will address none of these important constitutional issues this term. Instead, the justices must grapple with a fundamental antecedent question: Who decides? The agencies claim that Axon and Cochran must endure years of litigation at the agency tribunal before ever getting a chance to go to an impartial court to make their constitutional arguments against the agency process. Only after losing in the in-house proceeding can Axon and Cochran ever get to make their cases to a neutral judge. And even then, lower court judges are bound by Supreme Court precedent that requires them to defer to most agency decisions. 

Basic principles of fairness would allow plaintiffs to raise their constitutional claims in federal court immediately, without having to proceed through the agency. Why make private parties spend years — and in many cases, thousands (or even millions) of dollars on legal fees — fighting an agency in-house when the whole proceeding could later be declared illegal? 

No doubt, there are instances when it makes sense for agencies to adjudicate claims in-house — if, for example, the dollar amount at stake is extremely low. Cases that are not truly adversarial, like those involving public benefits, such as payments to veterans or Social Security benefits, serve as other examples. 

But whatever the merits of allowing simplified in-house resolution of such matters, the FTC and SEC cannot resolve claims about their own constitutionality. It is hard to imagine that agencies could handle such questions about themselves objectively or fairly. Recall that the FTC says Axon must argue to the FTC that the FTC is unconstitutional before it gets to ask a federal court. The result is preordained. 

Let Federal Courts Decide on Constitutionality

A simpler route makes more sense: Let federal courts decide the constitutionality of the legal process. They are not only better equipped but constitutionally required to resolve such disputes. As Article III says, the “judicial Power of the United States” belongs to the federal courts, which “shall” hear “all Cases … arising under this Constitution.” And more than a century ago, Congress confirmed that district courts have jurisdiction to hear “all civil actions arising under the Constitution.” 

Such clear-cut jurisdictional grants ensure that federal judges give life to the Constitution’s separation of powers. This constitutional design was no mere afterthought. On the contrary, constitutional structure protects individual liberty by pitting power against power. That includes the judicial branch checking executive branch overreach by ruling that agency action is illegal. But this careful scheme of checks and balances is frustrated when federal courts shut down such constitutional challenges. 

An earlier Supreme Court decision — Thunder Basin v. Reich — created a limited exception to this general principle of judicial review. Thunder Basin held that courts lack jurisdiction when Congress’s intent to preclude judicial review is “fairly discernible” from statutory text.

But in Axon, no text — let alone clear text — in the FTC’s enabling act precludes judicial review. The FTC Act simply permits judicial review of cease-and-desist orders in the federal circuit courts. It says nothing about taking away jurisdiction from district courts before any cease-and-desist order has been issued. So, to agree with the FTC, the Supreme Court will have to squint — and squint hard — to find such congressional intent to strip federal district courts from hearing Axon’s constitutional suit.

The SEC’s authorizing statute is similar. It provides that the federal appellate courts have jurisdiction over appeals of the SEC’s final decisions. But it is odd to read that provision as impliedly taking away jurisdiction from the district courts over claims that the agency process is unconstitutional. In fact, the Supreme Court explained more than a decade ago that the act “does not expressly limit the jurisdiction that other statutes confer on district courts. Nor does it do so implicitly.” And yet that is precisely the issue in the case today. As Judge Eric Murphy of the Sixth Circuit wrote recently: “the question” in Axon and Cochran “does not look particularly difficult.” 

Axon and Cochran’s specific travails may seem distant from everyday life. Few imagine facing lawsuits in agency courts with agency judges. But administrative proceedings today cover everything from horseracing disputes to product liability torts. And as the administrative state expands, so too does the number of individuals entangled in its tentacles. It is therefore all the more important that the Supreme Court affirm the Constitution’s separation of powers and hold that district courts have jurisdiction to hear structural constitutional challenges to administrative proceedings. Our individual liberties depend on it.

Russia flew €140m in cash and captured Western weapons to Iran in return for deadly drones, source claims

 

Russia flew €140m in cash and a selection of captured UK and US weapons to Iran in return for dozens of deadly drones for its war in Ukraine, a security source has claimed.

A Russian military aircraft secretly transported the cash and three models of munition - a British NLAW anti-tank missile, a US Javelin anti-tank missile and a Stinger anti-aircraft missile - to an airport in Tehran in the early hours of 20 August, the source told Sky News, speaking on condition of anonymity to share sensitive information.  

The weapons had been part of a shipment of UK and US military equipment intended for the Ukrainian military that "fell into Russian hands", according to the source.

The source said they could give Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) the ability to study Western technology and potentially copy it.

"They will probably be reverse-engineered and used in future wars," the source said.

For its part, Iran supplied Russia with more than 160 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), including 100 Shahed-136 drones, the source claimed. These have been nicknamed "suicide drones" because they explode on impact.

The source alleged that a further drone deal worth €200m (£174m) had been agreed between Tehran and Moscow in the past few days.  

"That means there will be another big supply of UAVs from Iran soon," the source said.

The Iranian and Russian governments were approached for a response to the allegations.

President Vladimir Putin's forces have recently ramped up drone attacks against Ukraine. 

Coupled with more conventional missile strikes, they have targeted critical power and water supplies across the country, including in the capital Kyiv.

The barrages have killed civilians, caused widespread blackouts and strained Ukrainian air defences, with costly anti-aircraft missiles deployed to counter much cheaper drones.  

Iranian drones 'crucial part' of war effort

Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think-tank, said the Iranian drones had become a crucial part of Russia's war effort.

"If Iran hadn't supplied the Shaheds, it would be significantly less effective in terms of the Russian strike campaign against Ukrainian electrical infrastructure and water," he said.

In a potentially even graver threat, the Iranian government has also reportedly agreed to transfer bigger, more sophisticated ballistic missiles to Russia.

Vadym Prystaiko, the Ukrainian ambassador to the UK, said if the reports were confirmed "this will pose a real, real threat".

He told Sky News: "If they [Iranian ballistic missiles] come in numbers, we will have real trouble." 

Iran has dismissed the missile allegation as "completely false", though it did finally admit to supplying "a limited number of drones" to Moscow.

But Hossein Amirabdollahian, the foreign minister, claimed on Saturday that this happened before - not since - Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February.

By contrast, Ukraine, the US, the UK and France have all accused Iran of supplying drones to Russia more recently.

The exact total number is not clear. The US said in July it believed the Iranian government was preparing to provide Russia with hundreds of drones.

Russian military cargo planes 'in Tehran'

Offering evidence of the alleged 20 August drone transaction, the security source shared with Sky News satellite imagery that they said showed two Russian military cargo planes at an airport in Tehran.  

The source said one of the Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft was believed to have transported the €140m (£122m) and the captured Western weapons.  

The first image, time-stamped 1.17am in the morning on 20 August, showed two aircraft, highlighted by red lines, at Mehrabad airport in the Iranian capital.

In the second image, taken at just after 3.30am, one of the aircraft had moved to the runway side of the facility and the other had turned around.  

In the final image, three and a half hours later, both aircraft appeared to have gone.

Either one or both of them departed carrying Iranian drones, the source alleged.  

The source said they were aware of at least five Russian aircraft having transported drones from Iran since 20 August as part of the deal.

A list of supplied drones

In terms of what was supplied by Iran, the source listed: 100 Shahed-136 drones, 60 smaller Shahed-131 drones and six Mohajer-6 drones.

Unlike the Shahed "suicide" aircraft, the Mohajer-6 is an armed drone that can drop or launch munitions.

Asked why Russia also gave Iran captured British and US weapons, the source said it is thought this was because Tehran wanted to use its ability to reverse-engineer products.  

The source said they believed knowledge gained by the Iranians from reverse-engineering a US spy drone captured by Iran in 2011 helped in the development of the Shahed drones.

Iran reverse-engineering drones

"We think that the Iranians have proven that they have an efficient reverse-engineering system, as we can see with the UAVs they have reverse-engineered from the US's UAV captured in 2011," the source said.

"It seems that Iran also wants to benefit from the war [in Ukraine] by receiving from the Russians Western capabilities that will be useful for them in the future - as happened in the past."

An American RQ-17 Sentinel surveillance drone - used for reconnaissance - was captured in December 2011. An Iranian commander claimed the following year that his country had reverse-engineered the aircraft and was building a copy.
Moscow last month denied its forces had used Iranian drones to attack Ukraine 

"Russian equipment with Russian nomenclature is used," spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying on 18 October. "All further questions should be directed to the Defence Ministry."

Sky News has contacted the Russian defence ministry but has yet to receive a reply.  

https://news.sky.com/story/russia-gave-eur140m-and-captured-western-weapons-to-iran-in-return-for-deadly-drones-source-claims-12741742

The Democrats Face a Rendering of Their Own Making in 2022 Elections and Learned No Lessons in the Process

Brad Slager reporting for RedState 

In today’s midterm 2022 elections, the Democrats are looking at dwindling prospects, and they have no one else to blame.

With today’s vote upon us, the only real mystery concerning the result is, “By how much?” All indicators – literally all worth focusing on – show a healthy GOP performance. As just one of the many indicators, in Florida, it is already looking like a romp. Traditionally the state sees a big number of Democrats in preliminary returns, with a strong Republican presence on voting day. In a never-before-seen result, the early voting already shows a greater GOP turnout ahead of tomorrow, including an edge in the deep blue county of Miami-Dade.

Nationally, races thought to be assured are now looked at as toss-ups, as the Democrat Party is seen spending money in areas it previously had not planned, including a blue New York district Biden took by 20 points just two years ago. Some studies have blacks voting with Republicans this year at a rate doubling their vote tally in 2020. How have the Democrats squandered things while controlling Washington, in just two years?

Smug confidence while ignoring their constituents is the generalized explanation, but there are specific areas and actions the party has adhered to all while ignoring evidence and data that should have alerted them to trouble. That these signals were disregarded while maintaining their course down dead-end policy avenues is both amazing to have watched and unsurprising to see leading to an assured demise tomorrow. They behaved like they were holding pocket-2s and pushed all their chips in before seeing any other cards.

 Here is a collection of factors at play in the Democrats’ impending losses.

January 6 Obsession

The aftermath of the riot at the Capitol saw Democrats setting up what they certainly felt was an ironclad issue they could exploit for numerous elections. Well after the event, they made this a primary story and the press played along, all behaving as if this would register with voters for years, if not a generation. Instead, they came off like unsettled obsessives. This continued with the formation of the January 6 Committee, where they rigged the formation and blatantly behaved in a biased fashion.

As became evident, the public was both unimpressed and soon tired of it completely. Polls have long shown diminishing concern over the riot and over time fewer and fewer people held Republicans responsible for the violence. The Democrats were undeterred, continuing to beat the drum of this being the worst political event ever witnessed. The end result: January 6 rates low on lists of issues voters cite as a primary concern, with one poll actually showing more people now consider Democrats a greater threat to democracy than Republicans when asked.

Diminishing the Impact of Inflation

Primary in that tabulation of voter concerns is the economy. Inflation, gas prices, a recession, and other economic challenges are all top of the mind for voters. For well over a year now, Democrats and the press have been busying themselves with either telling people how things are going just fine or attempting to sell us on the concept that sometimes inflation is a good thing, or a recession is ultimately good for a healthy economy. Blaming Putin for gas prices or growing grocery bills on pandemic effects comes off sounding like the President and party are throwing up their hands in carefree fashion, all while trying to tell people they should focus on an event from two years ago. 

Perhaps the best representation of this attitude comes from a CBS News report on a Virginia House race. Elaine Luria is on the January 6 committee and surprisingly finds herself in a statistical tie with Republican Jen Keggans. Scott MacFarlane, himself an ardent Jan. 6 obsessive, asks Luria if there is a risk in being one of the faces of the committee. Her response: “Honestly, I don’t care.” After his report, there was a panel discussion, and the pundits all seemed dismayed when MacFarlane detailed that in the district, voters were talking about their economic issues and no one was concerned over January 6.

Taking the Latino Vote for Granted

This year, another prevailing indicator of a Red Wave has been the reality of a significant number of Hispanic voters showing a trend to support the Republican Party. This has been a move now for a number of elections, and the Democrats appear to be in some form of denial. After counting on Hispanics for generations, the party leaders never regarded them as a collection of diverse ethnic groups, as the GOP has been addressing them independently. Issues of interest to Mexicans may differ from Venezuelans, and Puerto Ricans might focus on other issues entirely. 

As this trend has been growing, the response from Democrats has not been to repair the issue; instead, they have hurled insulting excuses. Claims have been that these voters had been duped by misinformation, or they fell for QAnon theories on Spanish language radio, demeaning Hispanics as easily duped and not savvy enough to know better. The latest explanation is also insulting – the trend to declare that Latinos voting for Republicans have become white supremacists. 

All of this comes down to regarding Hispanic voters as a very weak-minded set of people. If they stray from the accepted political support and think for themselves, suddenly they are easily influenced individuals prone to be swayed by QAnon conspiracies, nefarious media types who dupe them with lies, or they give in to base racist instincts. Any Latino who thinks “incorrectly” is not in their right mind. 

Defeating MAGA Fascism

While long a Dem talking point, this messaging launched to a new stratosphere with Biden’s infamous Red Sermon Speech in September. Jose Biden tried to demonize the Republican Party entirely by attaching every member to Donald Trump, election deniers, insurrectionists, and all other manner of imagined right-wing extremism. The Democrats and the press stressed that this was the ultimate danger to our nation and we were facing down a vile threat of violent upheaval in the country.

This effort then was completely neutered by the Democrats’ own actions when it was revealed they had been funding advertising campaigns in support of GOP candidates who were Trump devotees and election deniers (in the effort to put up perceived weak candidates for Democrats to run against) the very people deemed the highest threat in the country. Once it was exposed that Democrats could not be overly concerned with the plight of our future when they were doling out millions to back the very threat they were pointing at, the dramatics were undone by their own cynicism.

Fear and Doom to Vote Correctly

One of the most risible arguments this election season has been that Republicans are the party of fear. What elevates this to the level of hilarity is almost in the same breath, we hear how this election could be the death of our democracy. Also, we are promised that women will be cast into a social purgatory on par with “The Handmaid’s Tale,” every social program is at risk of being dismantled, and minorities will have almost every right stripped away because The Party of Fear wants these results. Hell of a platform to run on. 

What unspools this melodramatic reading of things is that in selling this nightmare scenario, they have to insist that by executing your democratic right to vote you are at risk of…losing this right to execute your vote. Basically, goes their argument, our very democracy is hanging by a thread if you use your right to vote but vote incorrectly while doing so – somehow.

What has to go unrecognized in this is while selling us that this doomsday scenario is the Republican agenda for this election, it is leading to one of the biggest GOP swings in a midterm election.

Maybe voiding social programs, erasing the races, enslaving women, and bringing about THE DEATH OF OUR DEMOCRACY should have been the party platform for generations. The Republicans would have ruled the nation for decades! 

Is It Time to Move on From Trump?

posted by Jeff Charles at RedState 

You have probably already thought about it. Most of us on the right have at one point or another, haven’t we?

As the midterm election season comes to a close, the nation will be looking forward to 2024. The chattering class is already abuzz with speculation as to who will be sitting at the Resolute desk after the next presidential election.

Former President Donald Trump still enjoys an enormous level of support among conservatives. But even among those grateful to him for his stint in office, some desire to see someone else carry on the America First legacy.

Hedge fund CEO and GOP megadonor Ken Griffin said in an interview with Politico that he believes it is time for the Republican Party to move on from Trump and seek out another standard bearer.

“He did a lot of things really well and missed the mark on some important areas,” Griffin said. “And for a litany of reasons, I think it’s time to move on to the next generation.”

The investor indicated he would be willing to back Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, despite having some areas of disagreement with him, if he threw his hat in the ring for the White House in 2024.

“I don’t know what he’s going to do. It’s a huge personal decision,” he said. “He has a tremendous record as governor of Florida, and our country would be well-served by him as president.”

“Would I support him? The bigger question is, is he going to run? That bridge has to be crossed,” he added.

From the report:

While he’s supporting one of this cycle’s biggest culture warriors in DeSantis, Griffin said most hot-button issues — abortion rights, battles over sex education and LGBTQ rights — don’t define his interests. He wants to improve the diversity of the GOP and blunt the vein of populism that has complicated the party’s relationship with the corporate world — two things he’s consulted with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy about.

Trump also seems to believe that DeSantis might be eyeing a run for the White House. During a Saturday rally in Pennsylvania, he took a swipe at the governor, referring to him as “Ron DeSanctimonious.” He later softened the blow by encouraging Florida voters to re-elect him at an event the next day.

Multiple polls have shown Trump leading as the frontrunner by a healthy margin among possible GOP contenders. But DeSantis has been chipping away at the former president’s lead despite having not indicated whether he intends to run in the next presidential election.

An ABC News/Ipsos poll released on Sunday revealed that 72% of registered Republicans felt DeSantis should have a great or good deal of influence over the future trajectory of the party. About 64% said the same about Trump.

But is it truly time for the conservative movement to move on from Trump?

On the one hand, it might be easier politically. Love him or hate him, the former president has a lot of baggage – some of it deserved, some of it undeserved. The left would have an arsenal of ammo that it would gleefully use if Trump were to make another run. The weaponization of the Justice Department and FBI against the former president might just turn up enough dirt – whether real or fake – to turn off enough moderate and independent voters to allow Democrats to eke out a victory in 2024.

Conversely, DeSantis would have an easier time navigating these waters. He already knows how Washington, D.C. works and has shown an ability Trump seems to lack: Knowing which battles to pick and which ones to avoid. Where Trump is a hammer in search of a nail, DeSantis takes a more surgical approach to the culture war. The governor has the same America First values as the former president and might be more effective at implementing them from the Oval Office.

Still, Trump still has a lot of fight left in him. In 2016, he became president against all odds, and it would be foolish to count him out completely. Moreover, he has the ability to ignite the base in ways that DeSantis might not. The governor is beloved on the right but lacks the charisma we see in the former president.

Ultimately, it will be up to the voters to decide whether to give Trump the nod or to go with a fresh new face. But one thing seems clear, conservatives are not done with either Trump or DeSantis regardless of how this shakes out. Both will have a distinct impact on the future of the party going forward.

Election Night Coverage + Podcasts- Nov 8 (GOD BLESS AMERICA!)

 

For those curious as to why I put this up so early, Badlands Media is having all day election coverage with lots of special guests, and I thought it'd be right to post this earlys o you'd all get to watch them if you wish. If there's anymore new videos up tonight, I'll update the thread with them.

The big night is finally here!! 🥳🥳🥳 

This is not only THE big thread to live post about the results as they come in, but there's also a few news podcasts down below as well, if you want something to pass the time.

Grab the popcorn, or the wine, and settle in for a fun night! (and also, when both sides of Congress are taken back, feel free to invite any troll on this site to rub it as obnoxiously in their faces as you want!! 😂)

#InGodWeTrust