Advice to DeSantis: Wait for ’28

Patience  is  a  virtue.

by Josiah Lippincott for American Greatness

Reports surfaced two weeks ago that Florida Republicans are considering changing the state’s “resign-to-run” law so Governor Ron DeSantis could throw his hat in the ring for the 2024 presidential nomination without losing his governorship. It is one sign among many that DeSantis, or those close to him, are thinking about taking on Donald Trump in the primary. 

A word of warning and wisdom to DeSantis: Don’t do it. 

DeSantis is a promising politician with a real future on the national scene. He should want to be president. But not yet. DeSantis needs to understand his true self-interest. Running for president in 2024 isn’t it.

I can save DeSantis and his team a truckload of money and an embarrassing performance in the primaries by stating the obvious right now: There is no way to win against Trump in 2024 for the GOP nomination. Period.

DeSantis, look, you’re a good governor with a bright future but you don’t stand a chance against the most popular Republican candidate of all time. That’s not a slight. It’s just a fact. You don’t want to learn this reality the hard way!

Donald Trump won 74 million votes in 2020—far more than Obama in ’08. Trump won Democrats, nonvoters, and independents in massive quantities. Had it not been for the illegitimate election machinations preceding the 2020 election (mail-in ballot harvesting operation), Trump likely would have won a second term in a landslide. Trump is personally popular in the Rust Belt on a scale DeSantis simply cannot hope to reach in the next two years. Driving through rural Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania one would think The Donald is permanently running for president in each state based on the sheer number of bumper stickers, yard signs, and billboards bearing his name. 

DeSantis doesn’t have this kind of support. But he needs it if he wants to be president. 

Instead of running a suicide mission against the man who elevated him to his current office, DeSantis should bide his time. DeSantis should position himself as the heir apparent, ready to inherit the MAGA mantle after Trump ends his second term in 2024 . . . assuming, of course, that America’s oligarchs allow Trump to both run and win. 

That is a contentious prospect to say the least. It points to the core problem DeSantis faces once he has the nomination in hand—mere popularity is not enough in American politics anymore. Democrats can run stroke victims, dead people, and geriatric former vice presidents who don’t campaign and have zero personal popularity and still “win.”

Avoid the Establishment Creeps

If DeSantis wants to win, he needs to stay away from the dead consensus politics of the loser D.C. establishment. The way of Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, and Paul Ryan is the path of political death. DeSantis needs to be more ambitious than these losers. He needs to stay away from their petty intrigues. Of course, the D.C. bow-tied class would love it if he committed seppuku fighting with Trump. They would love nothing more than to permanently cripple the American Right by pitting its most promising young talent against the swaggering billionaire who humiliated them in 2016.

No one hates the GOP’s base more than good ole’ boy GOP politicians. DeSantis should want nothing to do with these cretinous failures. 

Instead, DeSantis needs to chart a different course. He should woo the Trump base by first showing loyalty to Trump and secondly (and more importantly) by adopting the winning bipartisan consensus issues that got Trump elected in 2016. 

That means running on a platform of national survival just like Trump did. The core issues for DeSantis should be immigration, trade, war, and law and order. He should, for the next six years, never open his mouth in public without mentioning one of these four issues. Critical race theory, transgender kids, abortion, gay marriage—these are important issues, but they are not the winning issues. You cannot win a culture war when you don’t even have a country.

Fundamentals come first. Always. And the fundamental issue in our time is securing American sovereignty. This means limiting legal and illegal immigration (by building the wall), returning American manufacturing to American soil through favorable trade deals, ending America’s stupid foreign wars and involvement abroad, and securing Americans from the threat of crime and political corruption.

This populist platform is pro-worker, pro-America, and pro-middle class. It is anti-foreign meddling, anti-communist, and anti-oligarch. The Left wants to destroy America as a discernable sovereign entity. It wants to dispossess white middle-class Americans, disparaging them as racist deplorables. Liberalism is a giant shakedown operation designed to replace healthy communities with fentanyl-infested hellholes that are easier for them to control. The people who have been screwed by this system need a champion. Right now, that champion is widely recognized by them to be Trump. When he is gone, they will need another. This is where DeSantis comes in.

Time to Build Popular Support

He has six years to build his brand. He can start by patching things up with Trump. DeSantis should endorse Trump publicly, as soon as possible. Then he should hit the campaign trail with the president. He should denounce the Nick Fuentes/Kanye/Milo fiasco as a psy-op and a media-driven circus. He should blast the fake news media and cowardly GOP politicians for betraying Trump by slandering his name and through weak guilt-by-association charges. He could point out that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has been a regular associate of war criminals like Barack Obama and Joe Biden!

DeSantis must understand that the D.C. elite class is his enemy. He should treat them accordingly. He doesn’t need big donors and D.C. praise. An alliance with America’s degenerate elite might get him a cushy CNN gig, but it won’t get him what he really needs to become president: popular support. DeSantis must side with the people over the elites. He must turn to the silenced majority and become their avatar and hero.

DeSantis has come a long way by imitating Trump. He can go even further. DeSantis may not have Trump’s chutzpah and sense of humor. But nothing is stopping him from adopting Trump’s message and surrounding himself with real allies who will stay focused on the goal. 

DeSantis should use the next two years to do what he can to build real political power that will translate into election victories. He can start by strengthening Florida’s election laws. DeSantis should use his substantial political capital to crack down on mail-in and early voting. The model is simple: voters should cast a paper ballot, in person, at a secure polling place, on Election Day, after showing official photo ID. Just like the French.

DeSantis should also push to change Florida law to require that all voters re-register for each and every election in which they intend to vote. The more secure Florida’s elections become, the more striking the result will be in favor of Republicans. Democrats abuse the rules of the electoral game in order to “manipulate procedural outcomes” in favor of their preferred candidates.

By requiring a brand new voter roll for each and every election, it makes fraudulent election manipulation, no matter how allegedly rare (lol), that much harder. Requiring in-person voting means activists won’t be able to get “ballot access” out in the unsupervised wild. Ballots should be treated like valuable secure documents. They should never leave the watchful eyes of election officials and partisan observers designed to keep the process above board and honest. 

DeSantis should point out that early voting is illegal. Federal law, in accordance with the Constitution, specifies an Election Day, not an Election Week, Month, or Season. Voting is an important civic responsibility. Voters should take that obligation seriously enough that they are willing to arrange their lives so they can actually be at a polling place when an election is being held. If a voter will be out of state, the state of Florida should arrange to have a ballot sent to an official polling place or embassy where said voter can fill out the ballot on the day of the election. 

As of now, Florida allows for forms of non-photo ID, like debit and credit cards, to be accepted as identification. This practice should be ended. So should the practice of allowing voters without ID to vote provisionally. If you cannot show an official government ID to prove your identity to a polling official, you should not vote. Simple as that. 

Without secure elections, Republicans will never again have a chance to win a national election. DeSantis should push Florida to become a model for the rest of the nation. Wildly disparate results between states with secure elections and those without them will make obvious to everyone just how corrupt and illegitimate the American electoral process has become. That will help generate popular pressure to reform American elections at a national level. It is high time Our Democracy™ endured a few mass protests and general strikes in favor of real democracy!

The Right Policies

DeSantis should lean into free speech issues as well, attacking Big Tech for censoring right-wing voices. DeSantis must strike hard against corporate rules (created in collusion with government agencies) that favor communists while treating ordinary patriotic Americans as right-wing extremists. 

America’s public forums are not private entities. Stripping Americans of their natural right to freedom of speech is wrong, no matter whether it’s done by individuals or the state. Without unmediated access to the people, DeSantis won’t be able to win in 2028 because he won’t be able to craft a message independent of D.C. machinations. That is why he must stay firm on questions of internet free speech.

It is also crucial that DeSantis avoid getting drawn into becoming a sop for foreign powers. When asked to take sides in the Russo-Ukraine War, he should side with . . . America. How does sending American treasure abroad to go kill Russians, protect Americans from fentanyl flowing across the southern border? It is a question worth asking and one that DeSantis should use as a bludgeon against America’s out-of-touch D.C. foreign policy class.  

On social issues, DeSantis should adopt a stable set of talking points that allows him to avoid distracting fights that pull away from issues of national sovereignty and survival. On abortion, for instance, he should call for “common sense” reforms and attack Planned Parenthood. Point out that Democrats want a North Korean abortion policy of unlimited abortion on demand. Then get back to talking about immigration, trade, war, and law and order. This is the recipe for victory. 

DeSantis has six years to make his case to the American people and to become the hero they need. His aim should be to become a major player in the 2024 election, lending support to Trump and riding his coattails as he wins a second term. With a Trump victory, DeSantis should work out an agreement that he moves into a foreign policy-centered role, probably as secretary of state either in ’24 or ’26, when his governorship concludes. 

If Trump doesn’t win, DeSantis will be thrust into the spotlight even sooner. Trump cannot live or dominate the GOP forever. He needs an heir who will lead the resistance against the worst excesses of liberal insanity if the worst comes to pass. DeSantis needs to be ready.

He needs to surround himself with real friends who seek to help him, not frivolous D.C. consultants just trying to make a buck. The wise leader knows from whom to seek counsel. Is DeSantis wise? We are about to find out. 

X22, On the Fringe, and more- December 6

 

I'm bored. Got something interesting to say?

Former AG Says Biden Regime Positioning Resources to “Absorb” the Violence Expected Upon Indictment of President Trump

 Considers Trading Arrest of Hunter Biden for Arrest 

of President Trump and Play Blind Justice Game

posted by Sundance at Conservative Treehouse 

Appearing on CBS with Margaret Brennan, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, President Obama’s fellow traveler and wingman in the fundamental change process, stated his belief the progressive movement and Biden administration has adequately prepared the nation to “absorb” the political violence that may surface as the result of an arrest of former President Donald Trump.

The rather remarkable admission and statement comes at approximately 06:30 of the video interview below where Margaret Brennan reads her prepared script and questions Eric Holder about such a divisive decision by a comprehensively corrupt U.S. justice system.   The statement also comes on the heels of an 11th circuit appeals court ruling that removed the court ordered ‘Special Master’ in the Trump Mar-a-Lago documents case.

In the Mar-a-Lago case the 11th circuit court stated if the search warrant was legally predicated, and if the search warrant was legally executed, then all of the proceeds from the search warrant were legally valid as investigative outcomes – and no special master is needed.  However, President Trump is not allowed to see the search warrant, nor are his lawyers allowed to see the predicate affidavit that underpins the search warrant, and they are not permitted to see what documents were seized by the FBI.

In essence, if the secret and general warrant was legal, then all seizure is legal, but you are not allowed to see the secret and general warrant.  Former AG Eric Holder rejoices in this judicial ruling as he evaluates the ability of the nation to “absorb” an arrest of Donald Trump based on that justice system position. WATCH:

If you read between the lines, and know how Holder (Obama Inc) operate, you can see what Obama structured Deputy AG Lisa Monaco has to do. Monaco will coordinate the timing of the arrest and indictment of Hunter Biden to coincide with the arrest and indictment of President Trump. This will provide the narrative of blind justice the DOJ will attempt to leverage to stop national reaction.

There’s actually a lot in this interview.  Eric Holder doesn’t surface accidentally; he is preparing the Lawfare landscape.

[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn now to former Attorney General Eric Holder. He now heads up the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. And he has a book, “Our Unfinished March,” which examines the current state of America’s democracy. Welcome back to the program.

ERIC HOLDER: Good to see you, Margaret.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I have a number of things I want to get to with you. But I want to start on something I know is immediate this week. An organization that you run that we mentioned here that focuses on redistricting is involved in a Supreme Court case, Moore v. Harper. It’s going to be heard on the seventh of this week. And it boils down as I understand it to the question of what the Constitution means when it assigns state legislatures the task of regulating elections. That sounds really wonky, but you phrased it as the future of democracy being at stake. What are you worried is actually going to happen here?

HOLDER: Yeah, this case is all about something called the independent state legislature doctrine. It’s a fringe theory that North Carolina Republicans are trying to use to make sure that the North Carolina Republican legislature has the sole responsibility of doing redistricting in the state and excluding from that determination the state court system. It is something that if the Supreme Court goes along with it, would really upend our system of checks and balances. And it’s for that reason that I am extremely concerned. It is a fringe theory, this is something that if the Court I think does the right thing, you should have a nine to zero opinion by the court that rejects this notion of this independent state legislature doctrine that has been rejected by conservative scholars, by practicing Republican lawyers, by former Republican judges, and by this conference of state supreme court justices, as well. This is a very, very dangerous theory. It would put our system of checks and balances at risk.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So there were a number of Democratic senators who actually filed a brief urging the Supreme Court not even to hear the case. So there are some heavy hitters here saying don’t even talk about it. What does that tell you about the potential harm here? I mean, is there value in the Supreme Court hearing this and striking it down? Or does them hearing it at all indicate something more to you?

HOLDER: Yeah, it’s hard for me to see how this case was ever taken by the Court. I think the better thing would have been for the court to simply have rejected it. But now having taken the case, I would hope that the Court would drive a stake through this notion of this independent state legislature doctrine and get it off the- off the books and out of our consideration, once and for all. It truly is, I cannot emphasize this enough. It truly is a fringe theory that should result in a nine to zero rejection of the- of the theory.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So we mentioned you’re working on redistricting. Democrats are suing to overturn congressional maps in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Ohio and Texas. I read a quote from you in the Washington Post that said the work you’ve been doing on redistricting has paid off in the most recent midterms. Do you think that your legal battles will help Democrats make gains in 2024? What are you trying to say there?

HOLDER: Yeah, I think that what we have seen, there been studies that said that we have had the most fair redistricting process in the last 40 years as a result of the work that we’ve done. 75% of the redistricting is considered to be fair, which also means that 25% of it is unfair, and that is still problematic. I think, for instance, the House of Representatives is going to be in play for the entirety of this decade, very contrary to where it was in the past decade where after the successful Republican gerrymandering that occurred in 2011 and in 2012, it was really difficult for Democrats to take the House back. I think Democrats will be able to take the House back as early as 2024. But it doesn’t ensure what we have done doesn’t ensure the Democrats are going to hold on to the House for the entirety of the decade. It will be for the American people to decide. Fairness will reign in that determination.

MARGARET BRENNAN: When you were last on this program in May you shared at the time that you had changed your mind recently that you did believe that the Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland should hold former President Trump accountable for his actions. You previously thought it would be too divisive for the country. Now, where we are with this special counsel, what is your assessment? And how should Merrick Garland, who has to ultimately decide, weigh the question of a risk to political violence in this country from any decision he makes regarding the former president?

HOLDER: Well, I think the Attorney General has said it quite well, that he’ll make the determination without fear or favor. There is- Everybody has to be held accountable for the same system. The determination that he’s going to have to make will have to be based on the facts and the law. And we’ll just have to deal with the consequences. The reality is that if he makes a determination one way or the other, it is going to be divisive. And so the best thing simply is to make sure that everybody who is under consideration for possible criminal treatment, including the former president, is treated just like every other American. And that’s what that opinion out of the Circuit Court this week essentially said that you can’t craft things. As a district court judge you can’t craft things for a former president that don’t exist for regular American citizens. Treat everybody in the same way, make the determination based on the facts and the law. And the United States, I think, has the capacity to absorb a possible indictment and to deal with it fairly and to get on with the business of the country.

MARGARET BRENNAN: As someone who’s been an attorney general, I wonder as well, how you think about the case before the U.S. District Attorney in Delaware regarding President Biden’s son Hunter. CBS has reported the FBI has sufficient evidence to charge him with tax and gun related crimes. How would you handle this? A plea deal? Is the Attorney General boxed in to take a hard-line position because of working for the President?

HOLDER: No, I mean, you have- they left in place, the Republican, the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney in Delaware to consider the case. You’ve got career lawyers working on it, career FBI agents. You want to listen to their recommendations and then again, make a determination based on the facts and the law. The defendant should not be treated any more harshly because of who he is, who he is related to, should not be given breaks because of who he is or who he is related to. He should be treated as former President Trump should be treated, just like any other American citizen. If there is culpability, that person should be held liable for his or her acts. And if there is not a basis for a case, a case should not be brought.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But it will ultimately come to the Attorney General’s desk.

HOLDER: That’s certainly the way I would have run the Justice Department. And my guess is also that that would be something that Merrick Garland will be doing as well. That determination will be made I suspect in Washington, D.C.

MARGARET BRENNAN: All right. General Holder, thank you very much for your time today.  [End Transcript]

On the election stuff….  Holder is moving to phase 2

REFERENCE and CONTEXT is critical to understanding.

PHASE 1 – After Eric Holder left the Obama administration as Attorney General, he was hired by the State of California to defend against the Trump administration in early January 2017 (LINK).

Why?

When Eric Holder left the Obama administration, his firm was contracted by California during a process of linking the motor vehicle registration files to the Secretary of State voter registration system.  Holder was advising on part of a technology system being constructed to bridge the DMV and SoS offices.  You might know this as a “Motor/Voter” process.  However, former AG Eric Holder had a very specific function in the construction of this technology bridge.

The process of adding voters to the registration rolls when they receive or update their driver’s license was seen as an opportunity to expand the voter rolls.  Making the voter rolls as big as possible is the key to the utilization of mass mail-out balloting.  I will skip the part where California started giving illegal aliens drivers licenses for a moment – you can obviously see how that would play with motor/voter rolls – instead I am choosing just to focus on the specifics of the Holder aspect.

The DMV needed to connect to the SoS office.  This was simply a part of a tech system that needed to be built.  CTH has previously spoken with the lead engineer, a member of a very small technology group, who worked in the California information technology (IT) unit that was tasked with building the system that connected the DMV to the SOS. [NOTE: I invite the state of California to sue me as they will likely claim what you are about to read is not true.]

In the process of connecting the two state networks together, there needed to be a “flag”, essentially a check box, where the applicant to the DMV would attest to being legally authorized to vote.  It is a positive affirmation, a check box, that says the Driver’s License holder affirms they are legally eligible to vote. That affirmation (the technical flag in the process), when affirmed, then transmits the information to the SoS office with the DL operator identity, and the California driver is automatically added to the SoS rolls and registered to vote.

During the time when Eric Holder was the legal counsel for the California Secretary of State, the technology team was constructing the internal data processing systems.

The lead engineer in the unit was instructed to code the data transfer in such a way that even if the “check box” was left unchecked, the registration data would transmit from the DMV to the SoS office.

Essentially, instead of only those who affirmed their legal eligibility by checking the box, everyone -including those who did not check the box- would get a DL and would automatically have their information transmitted to the SoS office.  Everyone who received a driver’s license or state issued id was automatically going to be registered to vote, regardless of their legally authorized status.   That request led the engineer to contact me.

I wrote about it, published the details, then the engineer freaked out as he/she realized there was only a very limited number of people who could expose the issue.  He/She was worried about his/her safety and family and asked me to remove the article.  This background is how I know the details of who, what, when and why the California mass mailing ballot process was being constructed.

In the 2018 midterm elections we all watched the outcome of that process surface in the weeks following election day.  As each day passed more and more California mail-in ballots were being counted and day-by-day Republicans who won on election day 2018 watched their lead evaporate.

What happened in the California 2018 midterm election surrounding state-wide ballot distribution, collection (harvesting) and eventual presentation to the counting and tabulation facilities, was the BETA test for the 2020 covid-inspired national ballot mailing process.

The outcome we are seeing from the 2022 midterm ballot collection program was not just similar to the 2020 general election ballot collection program, it is a direct outcome of the refined BETA test from 2018.  Now we have multiple states following the California mass distribution of ballots approach.  Washington state, California, Arizona, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, there’s a long list.

In many states mass mailing of ballots is now codified in election law.  Activist election lawyer Marc Elias now coming in behind the construction team of Eric Holder with the legal arguments to support the ballot collection programs.

The Importance of Election Rolls – As you can see from the California initiation point (Motor/Voter), in order to most effectively use the mass distribution of ballots as an electioneering process you first need a massive state secretary voter file in order to generate, then mail, the physical ballots.

Remember, votes require people – ballots require systems.

Any institutional system that can link people into the SoS system to generate a larger registration file for ballot distribution is a net positive.  The key point is not to generate voters, the key is to generate ballots – the more the better.  Mass printing of ballots is the origin of the electioneering process.

Any state or federal system that links a physical identity to the secretary of state voter rolls is good.  Any system, like the USPS postal change of address system, that would remove physical identities from the state voter rolls is not useful.  The goal is to maximize the number of systems that generate registration, that eventually generates ballots.

Beyond the Driver’s License issue, it’s everything.  Sign up for public assistance, get registered to vote.  Sign up for state benefits, get registered to vote. Sign up for a state id, get registered to vote. Sign up for state college, get registered to vote. Sign up for a grant, get registered to vote. Sign up for unemployment, get registered to vote. Sign up for any state system and get registered to vote.  Get married, change names, change addresses, etc, that’s how the voter rolls expand and that’s how the massive distribution of ballots is created.

The states then fight against anything, any effort, any process, that would purge voter rolls or fix incorrect voting rolls.  To use the new electioneering system, the system operators need ballots created, they no longer need votes.  They need ballots.

Downstream from this process that’s where you find the “ballot submission assistance” programs.  This is where the local community networks, regional activist groups and widespread community organizers come into play.  Instead of advertising or the previous electioneering systems around candidate promotion and Get Out The Vote (GOTV) efforts, the majority of donations to the DNC are now used in the ballot assistance programs.  This was phase 1.

PHASE 2 – What Eric Holder is describing as his “victories so far”, is the codification of phase 1 together with controlling the geographic process for ballot collection.

Forget votes.  Congressional districts (CD’s) need to be looked at as ballot gateways.

Zip codes are where the importance exists for phase 2.

On a congressional district level, the problem for ballot use is the lack of ballots in certain areas. Moving forward, ballots that DNC activists can gather and control need to come from geographic regions where they can impact congressional representation.  CD’s now need to be looked at as district mail regions to modify so that zip codes can determine election outcomes.

With ballot collection and assembly as the new process, congressional districting maps are no longer important from a representation standpoint, now the priority needs to be zip code representation.

Mass distribution ballots need to go to addresses in zip codes in order for them to be harvested to change the congressional district representation.

Now that elections are based on ballots and not votes, zip code control is where the action is.

Keep watching.

 

Under Joe Biden, Threat Of Nuclear War Has Gone Up

Even corrupt corporate media are willing to acknowledge the risk of nuclear war is ‘now a daily issue for the Biden administration.’

Jordan Boyd reporting for The Federalist

Ten months after Russia invaded Ukraine and two years into the disaster-prone Biden presidency, there’s no denying the world is at a greater risk of nuclear escalation — not just in Eastern Europe, but also on the other side of the world in the South China Sea.

A majority of Americans overwhelmingly don’t want to go to war with Russia over Ukraine, especially as the conflict escalates to nuclear levels. Yet, objective reality indicates that, under President Joe Biden’s leadership, the U.S. is not only committed to an indefinite proxy war, but has only increased its contemplation of the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

Just this week, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, admitted that at the beginning of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, he believed the chance of nuclear war to be zero. Now, he knows that the possibility of using nuclear weapons has changed.

“Look, Ukraine is a tragedy of monumental proportions, but it could actually be worse because if you asked me a year ago when this war began, ‘What are the chances that it will degrade to tactical nuclear weapons,’ which is sort of a longer way of saying, ‘entering nuclear weapons,’ I would have told you zero,” Netanyahu told Chuck Todd on Sunday’s “Meet the Press.” “Today, I would still say that the odds are very low but they’re not zero. And that could be the greatest tragedy of all because in three quarters of a century, we have not crossed that threshold. We must not cross that threshold.”

Netanyahu isn’t the only one who thinks the world is much closer to nuclear conflict now than before. A majority of Americans, 69 percent, say they are “extremely” or “somewhat” concerned that the world could experience a thermonuclear war within the next five years. That number is up 8 percent since November 2021.

Even corrupt corporate media are willing to acknowledge the risk of nuclear war is “now a daily issue for the Biden administration.”

What they refuse to admit, however, is that Biden’s leadership (or lack thereof) has significantly contributed to that increased threat. Instead of questioning Biden’s penchant for escalation, the propaganda press blames Vladimir Putin not just for his own aggression but also for any failures of the American president.

It’s true that Putin’s wartime rhetoric and actions are not short on portending nuclear disaster, but neither are Biden’s.

“First time since the Cuban missile crisis, we have a direct threat of the use (of a) nuclear weapon if in fact things continue down the path they are going,” Biden told attendees at a Democrat fundraiser in New York in October. “I don’t think there’s any such thing as the ability to easily (use) a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon.”

Biden’s comments paired with the tens of billions of American taxpayer dollars flowing to Ukraine demonstrate that he is not backing down. As a matter of fact, Biden and his administration have done nothing but reassure Americans who say they don’t trust the Democrat to handle this conflict well that if Russia goes nuclear, the U.S. will too.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan confirmed that the White House is not above escalation in the form of retaliatory nuclear assault when he staunchly refused to deny that the U.S. would enter a war with Russia if Putin deployed nuclear weapons.

That was after he promised that “any use of nuclear weapons will be met with catastrophic consequences for Russia.”

“We have communicated directly, privately, and at very high levels to the Kremlin that any use of nuclear weapons will be met with catastrophic consequences for Russia, that the U.S. and our allies will respond decisively, and we have been clear and specific about what that will entail,” Sullivan said on “Face The Nation” in September.

White House National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby similarly confirmed that “the stakes are very high right now.”

The Biden administration hasn’t just signaled the willingness to go nuclear, it has also enabled Putin to escalate with nukes if he wants to. By signing off on Nord Stream 2, Biden helped give Putin the hegemonic confidence he needed to make a power grab in Ukraine.

“Nothing is going to stop them [Russia] now marching deeper into Ukraine, because their gas pipeline system — I mean the Ukrainian one — is going to be redundant pretty soon after the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is completely established and fully operational,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki predicted in June of 2021.

Similarly, it was Biden’s laxity with China that opened the door for Xi Jinping to further follow through on his own hegemonic desires. Despite Jinping’s recent demonstrations of weaponry, the Biden administration still has made no formal announcement about defending Taiwan against China’s expansion, with Biden instead making off-the-cuff declarations that are quickly walked back by his staff. In the meantime, China is stockpiling hundreds of nuclear warheads.

There’s no denying the Biden administration’s history of seriously discussing nuclear aggravation. Yet, the media deliberately leaves the White House out of their finger-pointing. That decision is especially insulting given the press’s treatment of former president Donald Trump when it came to nukes.

For more than four years, the media and their Democrat allies accused Trump of bringing the world closer to the brink of nuclear war, only to be met with four years of peace. Contrast that with months of Trump accurately noting that the Biden administration’s dangerous pivot towards escalation has the potential to lead us straight into a nuclear conflict with dire consequences.

“We have to be very smart and very nimble. We have to know what to say, what to do. And we are saying exactly the wrong thing. We’ll end up in a World War III,” Trump said at an October rally in Arizona. “We must demand immediate negotiation of a peaceful end to the war in Ukraine, or we will end up in World War III and there will never be a war like this. We will never have had a war like this and that’s all because of stupid people that don’t have a clue. And it’s also because of the kind of weaponry that’s available today.”

During another October rally, Trump warned his followers about the “n-word”– “nuclear.”

“The N-word is the nuclear word, and the nuclear word is something that’s not supposed to be discussed. You don’t talk about it. You don’t talk about it, but Putin’s been talking about it,” Trump said.

Instead of taking Trump’s warnings about the threat of nuclear war under Biden seriously, The Washington Post used the moment as an opportunity to accuse Trump of flirting with racism.

As my colleague John Daniel Davidson noted in April, “The chances that Putin will accept total defeat in Ukraine without escalation that involves the use of nuclear weapons, or that involves widening the war, are probably lower than most Americans are comfortable with.” Meanwhile, Xi Jinping in China is asserting power over his own people and over his country’s neighbors more aggressively too.

Putin isn’t backing down anytime soon and the Biden administration, as it has publicly made clear, isn’t either. Unless someone gives, the U.S. could be doomed to a nuclear tit-for-tat war with Russia over Ukraine, which Biden is doing nothing to stop. And while the Biden administration is busy dealing with Russia and depleting U.S. defense resources for Ukraine, Xi Jinping has pledged his willingness to take “all measures necessary” to expand the Chinese Communist Party’s rule to Taiwan.