I started writing a column on my favorite bonehead congresswomen stories from the last week, but I also wanted to do a little horse-race talk about the 2024 election, and a good news story on Israel’s war with Hamas, too. But the column started getting a little long, so I decided to make this a rare, three-column week.
First though, I’ve been nauseated by the way Brandon and his co-conspirators have turned “the MAGA agenda” into a vague, symbolic totem that they can use to motivate the easily frightened and shallow thinkers on their side into voting for them.
But I’ve noticed that many folks on our side have been using it in several different ways lately. I always thought of a MAGA agenda as pretty much synonymous with traditional conservatism. But during the clashes between Trump and DeSantis this year, I’m not sure that many people are using it to mean what I thought it meant.
My best guess right now is that MAGA might deviate from old-school conservatism in one of two ways:
1. Either MAGA differs on a handful of policy issues — ex: being more pro-tariff than OG conservative “free trader/laissez-faire” positions; more isolationist-adjacent than aggressive in foreign policy; more relaxed about LGB (but not necessarily T or Q?) social issues than more religious conservatives; and more pro-criminal justice reform a la the sentence reductions, commutations and/or pardons in Trump’s “First Step” act in 2018.
(On the first three of those, if I understand them correctly, I’m probably more MAGA than OG conservative. But definitely not on the fourth.)
Or
2. MAGA differs mostly in that it’s more about loyalty to or belief in Trump as the best chance to achieve mostly conservative goals, rather than being focused primarily on those goals in and of themselves.
But I could be wrong about both of those ideas. I’d love to hear from some of the MAGA fans in CO nation on this topic:
What do you mean when you say “the MAGA agenda”?
Now, on to the horse race:
I’m still hoping for a Christmas miracle, and that DeSantis somehow gets the GOP nomination. And much like a beleaguered Cubs fan, I’m going to hold onto that hope until he’s mathematically eliminated.
But assuming that Trump gets the nom, I’m feeling better lately about his chances against Biden, now that there’s a polling trend showing him with a small if consistent lead. One usual caveat still applies: the Dems will cheat enough to win if it’s close, so any GOP candidate (Trump or anyone else) will have to win by more than the margin of fraud.
And it’s still maddening to see neither Trump nor Ronna Romney (why did he have to back her for that crucial position?!) doing anything substantial to stop the steal next November. Does anyone in CO nation have any info about GOP attempts to fight electoral fraud or tighten up voting procedures that I don’t know about? (If so, please share them, and ease my mind!)
I’m also concerned that a lot of low-info voters might be dissuaded from voting for Trump if he’s got a conviction or two by November – infuriatingly unfair, but almost certain.
One additional tricky factor for anyone trying to handicap a Trump/Biden race is the fact that a majority of voters of all stripes say that don’t want either of those two choices. Recent Real Clear Politics average of all polls – which is probably the most accurate indicator in the goofy world of polling – show net approval ratings for Biden and Trump at the end of November as identical: they’re both underwater by 15 points, with 40% approval and 55% disapproval.
On one hand, I can’t take those numbers super seriously, since it’s hard to take seriously the judgment of anyone who can see Trump as negatively as they see Biden! On the other hand, those people can vote, so… yikes!
Those approve/disapprove numbers on election day would doom any candidate in political history… unless two such candidates are running against each other, which requires that much of the electorate holds their noses and chooses the guy they dislike the least.
That being the case, I think the GOP should probably stop pushing to impeach Biden. Keep investigating him, demonstrating his corruption, and wounding him, sure. But don’t knock him out! Because other than Que Mala – and I’m assuming that even the Dems are not insane enough to run her if Biden is out –any other Dem (as terrible as they all are!) would have to be tougher to beat.
And if you think it’s already too late for Biden to drop out… nope! I’d point you to the best historical parallel of a president with lousy approval numbers who made a late exit: LBJ in 1968, whose bungling of Vietnam made him toxic. Do you remember the date when LBJ dropped out?
It was the last day of March!
Besides, you can point to all of the rules, regulations and even laws you want – a candidate has to be on the ballot by this date, or nobody can receive the nomination after that date – but they all mean nothing. The corrupt Dems can drop in a new candidate at the last minute, laws and rules be damned.
They’ve done it before. (I mean besides in 2020, when PA changed its rules in 2 crucial ways to allow massive mail-in voting, with no authentication of mail-in ballots.)
In 2002, Robert “the Torch” Torricelli was the Dem candidate for Senate in New Jersey. He couldn’t have been more transparently corrupt. He was as obviously corrupt as Bob Menendez is now. He was as corrupt as… well, I can think of no better metaphor: he was as corrupt as a New Jersey Democrat.
The Dems didn’t care at all… until the fall of that year, when polls showed that he was going to lose in November. They pressured him to resign, which he did on September 30th. Unfortunately for them, the deadline for swapping out a candidate for a Senate seat was September 7th. For an ethical party, that meant that they were stuck with the Torch.
But these were Jersey Democrats. So they brought creepy Frank “the lout” Lautenberg out of retirement at age 78, and put him on the ballot. When the GOP took that violation of black-letter law to court, the Jersey Supreme Court (full of corrupt Dems) ruled that the law was flawed, because it would “prevent the voters from having a choice” in the election.
That claim was obviously and moronically wrong, because the voters had a choice: the GOP guy, or the Torch. It’s not like Torricelli died or something; he was still there, but he was going to lose. And if you’re a New Jersey Democrat, that cannot be allowed to happen.
So they swapped the Lout for the Torch, and the Lout won, and remained a senator until he died in 2013. For some reason, the Dems then removed him from the Senate.
I guess they hadn’t yet figured out the Biden Protocol (worst Robert Ludlum novel ever, by the way), which allows you to keep a deceased corrupticrat in office long after he has joined the choir invisible.
So I’m for damaging Brandon, but propping him up to make sure that he’s on the ballot in November, because I think he’s our best chance to win!
Let me end on a happier note. Israel continues to kill Hamas terrorists in bunches, and I’m as happy about that as Ivy League kids and the little charmers in the Squad are angry about it.
For one example, shortly after the IDF went into Gaza, they helped the commander of Hamas’ Shejaiya (pronounced just like it’s spelled) Battalion pursue his hobby of shrapnel absorption. After which he quickly assumed rubble temperature.
But not to worry. Because Amad “Creaky” Kirkae, his ambitious understudy and Deputy Commander, was eager to step up to the big show. He quickly moved into his predecessor’s old “office” (a musty, smelly section of tunnel with his blood still decorating the walls) and sent out an email announcement of his new position.
(“I know I’ve got big sandals to fill, but with your buy-in, I know we can achieve greater evil synergy, and increase our dead-children deliverables. Death to Israel. Thanks!”)
Annnnnnddddd… Israel killed Creaky this week.
Excellent! These creeps have fruit-fly life expectancies; they’re dropping like anti-Semitic Ivy League presidents and Bud Light and Disney executives!
Who’s on deck, Hamas? Because…
Batter up!
Hamas delenda est!
Martin Simpson 