“They Can’t Let Him Back In”
Quite a few people have recommended this Michael Anton article. Anton was the author of the “Flight 93” piece prior to the 2016 election, which he wrote under a pseudonym at the time.
His more recent essay is about the left’s efforts to stop Trump at any cost. It happens to dovetail with the post I just published, which I had written late last night before I read Anton’s. But it’s not surprising that a lot of people are seeing similar things right now, because they are rather obvious – although Anton fleshes it out with greater scope and detail.
I think that people on the right sometimes underestimate how successful the framing of January 6th by the left has been. If a person reads sources on the right, it is easy to know a lot that undermines that “narrative” by the left. But most people don’t do all that much reading and at least half of America is unfamiliar with anything that would challenge what the January 6th show trial has been saying. From the start, shortly after January 6th, most of the people I know thought it was akin to a revolution from the right, a hyper-dangerous movement involving Trump supporters in general and needing to be crushed.
Anton’s piece has many things to recommend it, but one phrase that struck me in particular was this:
The regime can’t allow Trump to be president not because of who he is (although that grates), but because of who his followers are. That class—Angelo Codevilla’s “country class”—must not be allowed representation by candidates who might implement their preferences, which also, and above all, must not be allowed. The rubes have no legitimate standing to affect the outcome of any political process, because of who they are, but mostly because of what they want.
It’s not just that they think the deplorables are – well, deplorable, or that what the deplorables want is bad or wrong. It’s also because of who the members of the “regime” are: those whom Thomas Sowell has so aptly labeled the anointed. So many of his books, including ones written long ago, described the combination of self-righteous arrogance, ignorance, and condescension that they exhibit, and they’ve gotten a great deal more planful and ruthless in recent years.
Another part of Anton’s essay that struck me was this:
People I have known for 30 years, many of whom still claim the label “conservative,” will no longer speak to me—because I supported Trump, yes, but also because I disagree on trade, war, and the border. They call not just my positions, but me personally, unadulterated evil. I am not an isolated case. There are, as they say, “many such cases.”
Indeed.
He gets it. This is a power play pushing for war. The deplorables are going to be forcibly disenfranchised. If they don’t go along, killing them is acceptable.
America is already dead.
Michael Anton (Hillsdale) is a highly accomplished writer, and none has so well captured our current moment of political instability and cultural insanity as he has done in The Stakes (published in 2020, but more relevant than ever) and in “Unprecedented: Western Civilization at the Crossroads” in The New Criterion (Volume 40, Number 4, December 2021). It would be impossible to recommend these writings too highly, nor should one miss his recent (and very short) commentary on the sad decline of NationalReview (“no longer even remotely conservative”) at The American Spectator.
My experience is that rank-and-file Biden voters didn’t really want to think very hard about the issues. They didn’t prefer what Biden’s immigration or energy policies to what Obama was doing. They just thought Trump and the Republicans were evil and wanted to keep them out of power, trusting that whatever the Democrats would do would be right. They weren’t thinking much about policy, and the culture war or class war was a by-product and not the main point. They did want to keep the “deplorables” out of power, but they mostly wanted Trump out and just gave a blank check to the Democrats.
Never Trumpers are convinced that “normal politics” is more honest, decent, and responsible than it really is. To them, Trump is uniquely evil, and that (along with a general unwillingness to question their assumptions) made Biden look honest, decent, compassionate, and competent to them. Trump supporters are more aware of Trump’s shortcomings than Trump haters believe. The supporters just don’t think as much of the dominant political class as the Never Trumpers do.
Trump turned out to be a very good president, but I’m a little afraid that that was more by accident, and that — and his apparent inability to learn from experience and adapt — troubles me a little. I’d still vote for him — looking at how things are now, how can you not? — but I recognize that it would a throw of the dice, a little more of a gamble than voting usually is, and I understand that others are a little uneasy about voting for him.
The Powers That Be are experimenting with multiple avenues. This one is hardly likely to make any progress whatsoever but it adds to the babble about being “moderate”. It also coordinates with an attempt to push the GOP into the hands of the likes of Congresswoman Liz Cheney, Sen Mitt Romney and former VP Pence.
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/third/2022/07/27/id/1080658/
Dozens of former Republican and Democratic officials will announce on Wednesday a new national political third party to appeal to millions of voters they say are dismayed with what they see as America’s dysfunctional two-party system.
The new party, called Forward, will initially be co-chaired by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang and Christine Todd Whitman, the former Republican governor of New Jersey. They hope the party will become a viable alternative to the Republican and Democratic parties that dominate U.S. politics, founding members told Reuters.
If you don’t want the deplorables acting up, do a better job running the country. The failings of the neoliberal order have become more and more obvious over the past 30 years, but they can’t do anything about that because it would require our elites admitting they’re neither as smart nor as good as they think they are.
The hilarious thing is that while there’s always a small group at the very top that can insulate themselves, when things go to crap it will drag down most of the “annointed.” Even people with six and seven-figure incomes will suffer along with the rest of us.
What’s bizarre is how they think they can destroy everything that created and supported the neoliberal order and still maintain the status quo. Europe, for example, is facing a terrifying population collapse. And not one that’s going to develop over centuries but will start crippling economies in the next few decades. But what are they doing about it?
Mike
The blanc mange caucus
https://www.axios.com/2022/07/28/joe-biden-xi-jingping-call-taiwan
The city mouse/country mouse dynamic is nothing new. Not in American politics, nor in the politics of Europe, Asia nor Ancient Rome.
Why are the country mice always willing to leave the city mice alone, but not vice versa? I understand folks who dwell in big cities and affluent, coastal enclaves look down their noses at the common folk in fly over country, but why do they care?
It seems they cannot rest until they eliminate them and their way of life. People in Des Moines, Iowa give little thought to the laws of New York City, aside from chuckling or shaking their heads when they hear stories of what Gothamites pay to live in a 15′ X 15′ box, or the condition of the streets or subways.
But the city mice? They not only mock the country mice and their way of life, they are hell bent on eradicating it. Why do they waste any time on something they have no apparent interest in?
On a prior thread I wrote that I do not wish to see DJT run for President in 2024. I believe his candidacy will be a net detriment, I do not think he is the best available candidate and I don’t think he will be up to the job 2 – 6 years from now. He has lost a step in the past 2 years.
However, because of the reasons Anton and new outline, a vindictive part of me wants him to run because it would so greatly agitate so many people who are against me, and my way of life.
But vengeance is not a good political strategy. 😉
“Why do they waste any time on something they have no apparent interest in?”
To distract from their own quiet desperation.
How many people living in major cities actually live ANYTHING like a “Sex and the City” lifestyle? How many go to shows or dine in fancy restaurants or take advantage of ANY of the things that supposedly make big cities so great?
Some do. Maybe a lot. But a lot of metro denizens are also living utterly humdrum workday existences no different from the folks in flyover country, except they have to deal with all the big city stress and expense.
Mike
Agree with Anton. And that’s why I have been convinced for a long time that Trump will be indicted and convicted by a DC jury.
I watch CNN and MSNBC from time to time and they are absolutely orgasmic about the thought of Trump being convicted.
But the Dems might do us a favor. DeSantis or Pompeo becomes president and pardons Trump. And then appoints him as Amb to China.
“Conan, what is best in life?”
Generally speaking, the country mice make things and want to sell the things they make. That means that they want prices and taxes and government spending kept low and don’t want much from government. A lot of the city mice don’t actually make anything that people want to buy. They rely on government spending in one way or another to survive. They aren’t a majority of the population in urban/suburban America. There may even be a higher percentage of impoverished government beneficiaries in rural areas. But the class that wants to administer things and impose policies is more powerful in urban America than in rural America.
It wasn’t always this way. In New Deal days, the West wanted water and the South wanted investment, and they turned to government to get those things. Northeasterners and Midwesterners were more inclined to mind their own business then than now. What changed? The dominance of the media and the universities changed the culture. You got more people who had ideas but weren’t producing anything they could sell on the open market. And the South and West got what they wanted and didn’t want more from government. They (and other countries) beat out the old Northern cities economically, so the older cities turned to government spending to stay afloat. People with causes and programs and ideologies saw opportunity in big government and started using it to fulfill their own agendas.
I’m not denying you may be right, but have their been any reasonably trustworthy polls indicating that, for example, there’s a either majority or significant minority of likley voters who believe that Trump committed actual crimes on January 6th? Or perhaps a majority or significant minority of likely voters believe that he committed improper acts that, while not technically crimes, may disqualify him as someone to vote for in 2024?
Just speaking personally, there’s a few potential presidential candidates I’d greatly prefer over Trump. But I also know damn well that Trump will be the candidate if he wants it (at this point anyway), which so far every indication is that he does. He has a cult of personality among the Republican base that is fairly insurmountable.
MBunge,
That could explain it. As a former city mouse who looked down his snout at the country mice there was a pervasive attitude that non-city dwellers were dumb. It was so pervasive I didn’t even know I was imbued with it until moving away from the “Big City.” I was often offensive to country folk while having no concept that I was being derisive.
I also wonder if the two ways of life foster different coping mechanisms. Life in big cities is tribal? Life in rural areas is communal?
Rufus. I get a lot of what you’re saying. Among other things, though, it’s useful to recall that what the city mice accuse Trump of is characterized by what I’m told lawyers call “conclusory statements”. IOW, Trump’s a racist. Evidence…. Trump’s evil. Evidence….Trump’s corrupt. Evidence……
And they take these as sufficient and requests for evidentiary statements are either blown off or followed, as I said upcomment, simply by more conclusory statements. This is perfectly acceptable and there is no way to actually discuss them. I suppose a few use this tactic to avoid discussing actual facts, but from what I can tell, most think it’s the right way to think. Nothing else is necessary.
Yeah, lib hysterics in the event of a Trump win would be delicious.
For another purpose, I started looking into some country/rural issues. Seems Iowa has 85k working farms, mostly family-owned and operated. Average worth is $2.5 million. Average size is 300 acres. Figure four people, husband, wife, one employee, or maybe two, one late adolescent, per farm and that’s just over ten percent of the state’s population Increase by ten percent for small businesses dealing directly with farming and that’s a pretty fair number of people who know how to Do Stuff and are self-reliant. And that’s just in agriculture. But a guy who can successfully run a farming business isn’t smart because he lacks a degree indicating sufficient classroom seat time to qualify for the parchment.
Good piece on the country folk when that Amtrak hit a truck.
https://seandietrich.com/mendon-missouri/
I like the concluding paragraph of Cornhead’s comment at 2:57 pm.
Ah, the suggestive movie quote from sdferr.
Mongol General: What is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.
______
What does this mean? Angelo Codevilla’s “country class”
It’s not a reference to those living in the country. I’ll use another movie quote from “A Few Good Men.”
Dawson is Codevilla’s “country class,” I think.
Although the city mouse/country mouse dichotomy is a very interesting discussion in its own right.
The new party, called Forward, will initially be co-chaired by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang and Christine Todd Whitman, the former Republican governor of New Jersey. They hope the party will become a viable alternative to the Republican and Democratic parties that dominate U.S. politics, founding members told Reuters.
Yang has been a capable man in his trade, but is of no interest to Democratic voters. You’ll recall Amy Klobberherworkers cadged 3x as many votes as he did and Elizabeth Warren 15x as many votes. As for the others, sorry to sound like a broken record, but there simply is no popular NeverTrump strand. It’s the Capitol Hill nexus, K Street, the campaign consultant business, and opinion journalists. Christine Todd Whitman hasn’t run for office in 25 years, and she was notably less capable than were Thomas Kean and Chris Christie at establishing rapport with New Jersey’s electorate.
“But vengeance is not a good political strategy.”
Right, which points to the alternative: victory. What Reagan said, I think. “We win, you lose.” Or “they lose”, but you get his point.
Richard Aubrey,
Another, similar Missouri story. There was almost no, national news follow up to the devastating tornado that tore through Joplin, Missouri on May 22, 2011. Why? Locals and folks from miles around showed up nearly instantly and started helping, fixing, hauling, feeding, healing, praying… No one sat around waiting for FEMA, or complained because Marine 1 didn’t fly over soon enough. Folks helped folks.
In conjunction with the theme of neo’s post; how rarely most of us ask why we need a Federal government? Many probably never ask the question. In most the things the Federal government does, how does having several layers of bureaucracy hundreds(?), thousands(?) of miles away make it better than if that layer of bureaucracy was not there?
This is another big reason why they had to remove Trump and cannot let him win the Presidency again. He says we don’t need NATO, the WHO, the UN, the FBI, CIA… He calls Congress out as feckless. What if people start listening to him?
“But the Dems might do us a favor. DeSantis or Pompeo becomes president and pardons Trump. And then appoints him as Amb to China.” (Cornehad at 2:57)
i LOVE IT!!
Art Deco,
Dave Smith is the most disruptive Libertarian to come along in a long time. If he gets that party’s nod for the Presidency he will make waves.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Tulsi Gabbard also heads up a 3rd party ticket.
And Bradley Cooper is up to something, hanging out with Huma. Now that Trump proved a celebrity who has never won office can win it’s nearly certain we’ll see more narcissistic* celebrities and CEOs run.
And, of course, Bernie never seems to fade away.
*Not more narcissistic than Trump. Not sure that’s possible. I mean more in quantity; others, similarly narcissistic.
It’s a pandemic of Democratic (and friends) lies and coverups since Obama. Their lying and covering up has become de rigeur. Normal. Standardized. Acceptable. Commonplace. Not even noticed.
And we are supposed to believe these chronic, serial, pathological liars when they talk about Trump? And about his supporters? Really?? Suddenly, when it comes to Trump they speak Truth?
It is this rampant, perfervid, hysterical, across-the-board dishonesty that is destroying the nation, shredding the body politic, eviscerating the country’s soul…this, together with their intentionally destructive policies.
It is nothing less than a declaration of war.
But when it comes to Trump, they’re telling the truth, of course they are.
Time for people to wake up….
Note, Yang’s outfit envelopes two other letterhead organizations. One is run by an unremarkable man who served a couple of terms in Congress (and had spent 11 years as a congressional aide). He was bounced out of office by…Charlie Christ. The other includes such luminaries on it as Evan McMullin, Miles Taylor, and George Conway. The also includes Eliot Cohen, who may be a capable scholar but has no background in electoral politics. The big pine cones among the politicians are Christine Todd Whitman and Tom Ridge. There isn’t any dirt on Whitman. She lacks the common touch and is antagonistic to the social right (and such people are in practice disappointing on other issues as well). Ridge is the man responsible for the seminal culture of the Department of Homeland Security and it was his officials who let Kermit Gosnell run rampant. There just isn’t any there there.
Seems Iowa has 85k working farms, mostly family-owned and operated.
I’m not an expert, but there is quite a bit of nuance to Richard’s commentary. While some of the farmland has been bought up by consolidators I suspect most farmland is still owned by families. However, they mostly don’t operate it. Other families operate it. So the farms are family owned and operated but not the way you think.
One important factor in all that is that these super combine pieces of machinery are very expensive and it may take something like 2,000 acers or more of harvest to make the machine pay well. And when one guy is driving that machine, so much corn is spewing out, that it takes three truckers continuously operating to handle the output.
Are truckers farmers? No, they are not in the head count, but maybe they should be. So it is all a little weird in an industry where the human labor has been driven close to zero.
Oddly, the family farm that I own a tiny piece of is operated by a Mennonite family originally from Lancaster Co. PA. A family with maybe 8 kids who operates our plot, their plot, probably other plots, and raises a variety of livestock. Not typical.
“The rubes have no legitimate standing to affect the outcome of any political process, because of who they are, but mostly because of what they want.” Michael Anton
The insurmountable problem for the left is that there are 70-80 Million ‘deplorables’ who are wedded to the deep belief that they have inalienable rights. Excluding them from meaningful participation in the political process will not end well for those on the left.
“The deplorables are going to be forcibly disenfranchised. If they don’t go along, killing them is acceptable.” stan
They’re certainly going to try it. However, those on the left are far more vulnerable to being separated from their mortal coil than are we. The thing about really playing ‘hardball’ is that both sides get to play it.
M Smith,
“his apparent inability to learn from experience and adapt — troubles me a little.”
It troubles me greatly. Trump has consistently listened to the wrong people and accepted bad advice. I see no evidence he’s learned from his mistakes, which is partly why I too favor De Santis.
JimNorCal,
Both efforts are doomed to failure.
MBunge,
“If you don’t want the deplorables acting up, do a better job running the country.”
Making an omelet requires the breaking of eggs. It’s for the greater good. Think of the children…
“Europe, for example, is facing a terrifying population collapse. And not one that’s going to develop over centuries but will start crippling economies in the next few decades. But what are they doing about it?”
The coming Green New Day will usher in a new age of kumbaya…
Rufus T. Firefly,
“But the city mice? They not only mock the country mice and their way of life, they are hell bent on eradicating it. Why do they waste any time on something they have no apparent interest in?”
Utopia requires compliance and cannot tolerate non-participation.
Check out our woke leftist elite’s vision for us…
“They really think we can live like this…”
Watch the brief video and their ‘vision’ will be much clearer.
https://www.revolver.news/2022/07/they-really-think-we-can-live-like-this-crazy/
Reminds me of the Star Trek episode, “The Cloud Minders”
“Kirk and Spock are caught up in a revolution on a planet where intellectuals and artists live on a utopian city in the sky while the rest of the population toils in mines on the barren surface below”
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0708456/
Now that Trump proved a celebrity who has never won office can win it’s nearly certain we’ll see more narcissistic* celebrities and CEOs run.
That we may, and it’s not a bad thing. However, the je-ne-sais-quoi which brings Trump and his constituency together is not distributed like confetti. See the performances of Carly Fiorina, Tom Streyer, Michael Bloomberg, and Andrew Yang. I’ve never heard of the two Hollywood figures you mention. One appears to be a performer who has never run anything and the other appears to want to be in the sack with Huma Abedin. Tulsi Gabbard’s role would be to rally those in the Democratic Party who are tired of the criminal element. AFAICT, the vast majority of street-level Democrats are unwilling to acknowledge there is a criminal element.
Check out our woke leftist elite’s vision for us…
Sorry. Not buying the notion that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia proposes to stuff 30% of the country’s population into one building of 130 stories.
BTW, they’d need to build 889 of those line cities to house all 8 Billion of us. Of course, that assumes that the pop. is not greatly reduced ‘accidentally’ …
Yuval Noah Harari “What To Do With All of These Useless People?”
“But the Dems might do us a favor. DeSantis or Pompeo becomes president and pardons Trump. And then appoints him as Amb to China.” (Cornehad at 2:57)
Go the full Monte. Trump as Secretary of State. When you consider federal bureaucrats that epitomize the sort of liberal elitism described here, the State Department likely leads, both in their dripping condescension and disdain for most of America.
Their heads might explode. There would no doubt be mass resignations. All good.
Art Deco,
Whether you buy it or not won’t affect their plans in the least. If not Saudi Arabia, then somewhere else will do.
But upon what basis do you imagine that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia is interested in any contrary opinions that the average Saudi citizen might have?
Remember, saving the planet is an existential necessity.
As said before read 4 books on the 2020 election, while agree on this article another reason I think is the seemingly slim but real possibility they will be called for their crimes if Trump or another Trumpite gets the Presidency.
I am not afraid of a 2nd DJT Presidency as he knows who was against him and with nothing to lose might try to clean out as much of the Deep State as possible.
For those interested in Michael Anton’s more general political thought, along with listening to simply good conversation, I recommend this New Thinkery podcast in which Anton is the guest discussing Montesquieu’s Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and Their Decline, 1734,
(https://archive.org/details/MontesquieuConsiderationsOnTheCauses/mode/1up )
Podcast here: https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/show/thenewthinkery/id/23616398
Rutus T Firefly….” Life in big cities is tribal? Life in rural areas is communal?”
What distinguishes tribal life from communal life?
— Trump doesn’t have a cult of personality. He has a track record of fighting for people who have been crapped on their entire lives and those people love him for it. They love that he fights. They love that he pisses off all the same people that piss on them. Deplorables love him because he was the ONLY person who ever fought for them. It’s about LOYALTY to a man who fought as their champion (medieval meaning).
— why do they care? Because they hate/despise/dismiss/denigrate. Smug arrogance and assumed moral superiority.
— after Katrina the vast majority of the rebuilding work throughout southern Miss was done by church groups from all over the country who would take a week of vacation to travel there to do physical labor. For the next year. They would stay in cots at local churches. If you never heard about it, think about why. People in the communities there (Home Depot, fast food places, etc. would make conversation — “which church are y’all with? Y’all Baptists?, Methodists?, maybe Presbyterians?”
— If Trump or DeSantis (or some other conservative willing to fight hard) makes the lack of patriotism of Democrats an issue, it may well be possible to peel off five percent or more of the Dems long term support. I think we may already be seeing this with Hispanics and some blacks. The Democrats have let their true nature show through. They hate America. They aren’t willing to fight for it. They aren’t willing to protect the borders. They aren’t willing to protect ordinary people by putting the predators in jail. There isn’t a majority in America that will support a party that hates America. Just make the case and hammer it home. The evidence is all there.
Tommy Jay
Various folks have told me combines are owned cooperatively, although I didn’t get the number of owners. Three? Ten?
Going through Kansas a couple of years ago, well off the interstate, we noted that three quarters of the vehicles coming our way were working trucks; flatbeds with equipment, fuel trucks, local transport, grain haulers, so forth. Lots of work being done when all you see is corn to the horizon.
Farming is dangerous business so I figure many or most have had some serious first aid training.
Manage all their machines.
Since the Walmart Supercenter is a long drive away and we’re encouraged to buy in bulk anyway and farm houses have space, they could, without being preppers, have three weeks of food on hand, not counting the six-foot long freezer chest I’m told is nearly ubiquitous.
So some reason to feel self-reliant.
Also doing some numbers: Pretty much every adult who gets out and about on business or whatever knows a certain number of people; neighbors, people with whom he does business, kids’ friends and maybe their parents, some people at church, couple of teachers if their kids are in school, other possibilities.
Can’t not. It would be about the same in a rural county of ten thousand or a suburban county of a quarter million. But in the former, the known folk make up a heck of a lot higher proportion of the population. And if you have to do any business in a rural county, you’ll probably be on one or two blocks in the county seat. There being nothing else…I speak generally.
The likelihood of seeing someone you know in your errands is much, much higher, since you’ll be at the same place.
I’ve done business in small towns and seen how often a client will wave at somebody across the street and say…”My son’s football coach when Tim was in high school.” or something like.
This, I submit, creates a sense of place not likely among the swarming tens of thousands.
And check out youtube footage of “harvey rescue”. Ordinary folks.
1. The City v. Country class is not helpful. It was outdated when it originated and should not be revived. There are a LOT of people living in the cities who understand that the government has turned on them, and may have a more direct understanding of the depth of the treachery than people living out in the country. Also, there’s more of them. Mistake to leave them out of the conversation!
2. The Andrew Yang/Christie Todd Whitman Party will be a slightly less insane and rude version of the Dems. The rallying cry will be: Enjoy the decline! Ref. Conquest’s Second Law of Politics (Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left wing). NeverTrump will try to infiltrate.
The Progressive Left in 2020 took election chicanery to new levels, right up to the legal limits and most likely, over them. It was a confessed well-organized effort, so successful that they couldn’t help but brag about it in Time Magazine. The effort was multi-disciplined with operations across multiple societal fronts (city governments with private-sector election authorities, logistically-supplied riots, ongoing multi-state lawfare to relax election security, well-managed cash flows and disbursements, high-level coordinating meetings featuring industry leaders. They have gamed the system successfully and the Jan 6th Committee is simply the mop-up. Having gotten away with it so splendidly, why would they allow any future election to be any different, except even more tilted in their favor?
They’re not going to reform themselves; They think they are winning, and they’re greedy enough to try to do it again.
As far as I know, none of the people pushing the wild and crazy theory that the 2020 election wasn’t stolen have tried to explain this: Given that Trump was evil incarnate and absolutely must be kept from another term “by any means necessary”, what could possibly have motivated the Democrats to refrain from stuffing the ballot boxes as much as they could, and instead leave the fate of the planet to the whims of the voters?
“I think that people on the right sometimes underestimate how successful the framing of January 6th by the left has been.”– Neo
This is the million-dollar conundrum. How many of the 74.2 million voters checking the Trump box in 2020 won’t check that same box in 2024 because of the J6 propaganda extravaganza?
There’s a second burning question. Can Sleepy Joe Biden get 81 million votes in 2024? Or Newsom. Or Kamala. Can any Democrat candidate get 12 million more votes than Barack Obama got in 2008 when the country was electing the first Black American, and a formidable candidate at that. Even Sleepy Joe had to acknowledge that! “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”
Will double digit inflation for the next two years, a continuing decline in feeling safe in my neighborhoods and city, a growing assault on common sense, manifest in declaring men can get pregnant and women can have penises, and no matter how I conduct myself, I’m racist because I was born white and a dozen more observable flights from reality.
Since polls are meaningless in this hyper-politicized environment, how can I know that. I would say that the J6 show trial hasn’t been enough and the left believes that as well, forcing their plan B of a criminal conviction with all the potential chaos that would cause.
President Trump has rightly said were he to walk away from public life, this would all end. The question might rightly be, would the country really be better off?
The Andrew Yang/Christie Todd Whitman Party will be a slightly less insane and rude version of the Dems.
No, they’ll be who they are, a bunch of establishment Republicans easily shifted from one square to another.
NeverTrump will try to infiltrate.
Huh? It’s Yang and a bunch of NeverTrumpers. Why would they need to ‘infiltrate’?
But upon what basis do you imagine that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia is interested in any contrary opinions that the average Saudi citizen might have?
You fancy he plans to build a version of Isaac Asimov’s Trantor, a gargantuan undertaking for just what purpose?
this dialog explains how codevilla came to his point of view,
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/angelo-codevilla
globalist/nationalist is probably a better prisms,
“globalist/nationalist is probably a better prisms” – M Cervantes
I agree, that’s the core battle.
Yang/Whitman’s Forward Party may have ideas with merit in normal times. We might be able to discuss ideas and proposals with them, even occasionally come to rational agreements of some sort or another. These, however, are *anything* but normal times.
Mark my words: The Forward Party would stand firm and unyielding against what they (and the establishment) regard as right-wing extremism, and they would simperingly cave to the incessant demands of what we normals regard as left-wing lunacy. The Forward Party would have us arriving at The New World Order an hour or two later than we otherwise might be arriving — especially once the founders go their ways and the ideologues take over. (Those ideologues are guaranteed to be left-wing ideologues.)
Thanks but no thanks.
I thought this was a shocking and sad bit from Miguel’s link. David Samuels interviewing A. Codevilla. Samuels in boldface.
Then Samuels gets on his horse and rides it into a lather. Blah, blah … Finally Codevilla says,
“But it really is a matter of who has dinner with whom.”
I wonder how the party schedule for say a Supreme Court justice’s spouse rates in this grand scheme of things.
I find the way he prompts his subjects very interesting
https://briancostello.substack.com/p/the-issue-with-chinese-companies
He got ben rhodes to admit more truth then intended
The 2020 summer riots, but orders of magnitude larger, not to be called off until their people are secure in the White House.
–Michael Anton
As the resident optimist here — I maintain we’ve won the upstream culture war and the results are arriving downstream politically — I nonetheless see this as a very dangerous time in 2022 and 2024.
If I’m being objective, I want DeSantis to run, and hopefully win, in 2024. I think he would be the best candidate for the GOP. However, I can’t deny I’d watch the reactions of the “anointed” with glee if Trump won again.
I suspect that the democrat’s paranoia of another Trump term now extends to contemplating his assasination.
Art Deco,
“You fancy he plans to build a version of Isaac Asimov’s Trantor, a gargantuan undertaking for just what purpose?”
We can’t know how seriously he’s considering it but if he’s been approached with a serious proposal, funding must be part of the package. Dubai has shown that the Arab potentates have as big an ego and desire for proof of status as does any other leader. That would be the hook in any sales pitch to him.
AMartel. I expect you’re correct about the city folk who’ve seen the light regarding the government’s treachery.
But two things apply: They can’t afford to leave, employment or not getting sufficient capital out of housing. And they are still city folk with the condescending view of the country folk. It’s possible only one apply.
It’s also possible that they think, whatever their particular beef with the government may be, they’re not getting away from it by moving to Watseka, IL. Or Merion, IL. Or Pagosa Springs, CO.
I know some folks who are having a bit of trouble because they moved, for employment, to Texas. They had this idea that they were superior to Texans, just a bit. After thirty years, more or less, they’re having trouble with some people because, having been superior to their fellow Texans, they’re superior to practically everybody. And some interactions don’t go as well as they might, whatever the residence of the other parties.
For reasons which are both complex and private, I can say Texas has been very, very good to them, compared to more salubrious surroundings where they lived earlier in their family life.
Wow, great thread…thanks Neo and commenters!
FWIW, if anything, I was listening to a radio program (religious, not political) the other day. The speaker said “We are going through an upheaval now, and such upheavals usually last 4-6 years.”
I don’t know what this was based on, and a little web searching found nothing.
“Biden”‘s next step:
“US Offers $10M Reward for Russian Election Interference Info”—
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/election-interference/2022/07/28/id/1080849/
An additional “Weapon of Mass Distraction” that, it is no doubt hoped, will serve as a hate accelerator to accompany and boost the orgasmic levels of hate already generated by the Russia hoax, the two bogus impeachments, the 24/7 media mega-blitz and—especially—the January 6th farce.
The Democrats don’t stop.
They will not stop.
They cannot stop.
Demonization of half the country (or more) is their holy crusade.
The more demonization that can be spread across the country the faster the country can be destroyed.
For the Democratis, THIS is a moral imperative.
(It need not be mentioned that it’s ALSO—even MAINLY—a necessary coverup for their own mega-crimes and uber-corruption…)
I know some folks who are having a bit of trouble because they moved, for employment, to Texas. They had this idea that they were superior to Texans, just a bit. After thirty years, more or less, they’re having trouble with some people because, having been superior to their fellow Texans, they’re superior to practically everybody.
That attitude can cut both ways … as someone with both Ozarks and Appalachian roots, that lived in Dallas and now lives on LonGuyLand,. I looked down my nose at New Yorkers in my earlier days as condescending jerks.
Then I witnessed 9/11 and saw how the vast majority of New Yorkers were people who put their pants on one-leg-at-a-time like me, who were just as vulnerable – and capable – as I am. With a few with more money than sense mixed in, that gave them all a bad name … just as we in Flyover Country have our own condescending, overbearing few that can stink up the place.
Perhaps the problem people are the problem people, because they also happen to have the surface attributes that lead us to put them on pedestals and defer to them … credentials (Dr. … or Rev.), position (BigCorp CEO, or head of the local Chamber of Commerce), cultural popularity (movie star, or local boy made good), or presentation (slick media figure, or good ol’ boy).
The problem perhaps, is our deference to them. If instead we ordinary people are more willing to QUESTION the world around us, then build trust in our own insights and NOT delegate our decisions to others – even if that looks like more risk and effort for us – the power of The Pedestaled would be replaced by the engagement of our vast, that distributed intellect that is far closer, and more affected by, the problems we face … than that “little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital” that still thinks it can plan our lives for us better than we can ourselves.
And that’s why I have been convinced for a long time that Trump will be indicted and convicted by a DC jury.
I suspect that the democrat’s paranoia of another Trump term now extends to contemplating his assasination.
And those are two paths to a civil war, because if Trump can be subjected to either, there are many “deplorable” people who will then assume that they are next, and have nothing to lose by going kinetic,
I view Trump like Johnny Rico’s superiors in the cinematic Starship Troopers viewed Johnny: “You have the job, until you’re killed or I find someone better.”,
And at this time, I don’t see anyone better in terms of respecting me as a free man, and expecting me to take the responsibility to get through life making my own decisions. But there might be … DeSantis, or another.
But there is another reason to vote for him, even over DeSantis (whom I will support if he is the GOP nominee) or another sound candidate:
We have to prove to ourselves that we can consistently elect leaders who possess the resolve and reliability to institute policies that respect and protect individual liberty … even if that means he/she doesn’t check all the boxes of sainthood, and/or has to be uncivil and obnoxious to do so in the face of the professional/political complex … instead of electing some Nice Person™ we won’t have to explain to our neighbors, but will not advance our rights over top of the complex.
Electing Trump is a test of our priorities – and our ability to actually be nice to our neighbors, instead of acting civil when their rights are trampled right along with ours.
The open embrace of censorship by Dems, Big Tech and unbelievably, Corp. Media was the final and definitive example that the country can’t survive as whole. Or if it does, a violent upheaval will precede it. You can’t be viable country if one half diligently (and increasingly successful) silences the other half. Eventually, the silenced will ‘express’ themselves more forcefully. The non-traditional Trump’s first term victory was a peaceful revolt against the nations decline. The lefts counter- revolt: soft coup attempt, election fraud, censorship, politicized legal institutions and the insurrection show trial. The reaction to Trump’s victory revealed the shocking depth of our corruption. Yes, its all about squashing not just him but his support and the direction he was taking us, away from decline.
if he’s been approached with a serious proposal, funding must be part of the package. Dubai has shown that the Arab potentates have as big an ego and desire for proof of status as does any other leader. That would be the hook in any sales pitch to him.
A serious proposal? The building on this Earth with the largest quantum of interior square footage is a factory in Texas with about 10,000,000 sq ft. If you allocate 2/3 of that to residential units, you could have modest apartments for about 17,000 people. So, you’re telling me the Crown Prince has received a ‘serious proposal’ to construct something 500x that size.
The built-up portion of the Emirate of Dubai has a population density about that of Mayor Daley’s Chicago. It has some showcase pieces, like a skyscraper half-again as tall as the old World Trade Center. For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing that they like. What it is is a large city which has sprung up in the desert with unusual rapidity. There’s something disconcerting about that, but there’s something disconcerting about Phoenix and Las Vegas as well. What it is not is something out of Isaac Asimov’s imagination.
I also suffer from the issue listed in the 2nd Anton paragraph. My father has basically disowned me because I voted for Trump. He/they consider themselves anointed. My dad, a man I deeply respected – and still do for many reasons – said this to me. I paraphrase, ” I just always felt that I had more concern and compassion for people…” A back-handed slap at all the people who don’t have “more concern and compassion for people.” Please…
The animosity the DC establishment has for Trump, IMHO goes beyond their contempt for the “unwashed masses,” and their basic hatred of Trump.
If Trump becomes president he will make every effort to shutter and/or disembowel vast numbers of federal agencies, esp. those most powerful like the CIA, DOJ, FBI, NSA, EPA, DOE; change / eliminate the leftist totalitarians that run the CDC, FERC, DOT, etc., and basically ignore or neuter the elitist, incompetent, arrogant morons than run / inhabit the US State Dept.
Trumps desire to change the structure of the US govt is, I believe, the basic motivation that drives the elites of DC to criminalize / imprison if they could, Trump.
Trump , I think, learned his lesson (the hard way) during his 4 years as president; that the DC establishment cannot be trusted, that they are deceitful, power hungry and work to maintain their own power structure as opposed to working for the benefit of the citizenry.
Trump would also expose the hypocrisy and incompetence of the ruling elites – republican and democrat – which would really grind their knickers. They cannot allow this to happen and they will move heaven and earth to prevent another Trump presidency.
It’s too bad Trump’s personality oft times (all the time?) dominates people’s perceptions of him. They ignore what he wishes to achieve (which would really help the average citizen) and concentrate solely on his abrasive personality.
Most folks do not bother thinking about the correlation betwixt a politician’s public persona and the goals / competence of the politician.
There is no correlation.
As for a third party; if it gets off the ground, it will basically hand over the next election to the democrats. A third party will attract far more republican voters than democrat voters.
If I were a democrat of influence, I too would promote a third party, for it would greatly help the demokrat party.
A big concern is that once again, the republicans will form a circular firing squad as they vie for the republican nomination.
Knuckledragger, your father is conflating emotional concern, with substantial compassion.
Let me repeat … re-electing Trump is a test of our priorities – and our ability to actually be nice to our neighbors, instead of acting civil when their rights are trampled right along with ours.
Everything said about the combined arrogance, elitism, and ignorance of urban liberals is true. I embodied all of that. I was raised by Democrats in downtown Philadelphia. I moved to an Appalachian county in central Pennsylvania at age 32. I found work as a sheriff’s deputy. (Don’t ask.) Thus began my lengthy re-education and transformation. Occasionally I meet people coming from the kind of urban background I knew. More often than not, their arrogant condescension is palpable. Do they imagine that we do not sense it? The gulf seems unabridgable.
Stats: Roughly 90% of all homocides in Pennsylvania are committed in just two Democratic counties. They are Philadelphia County, with over 500 murders last year, and Allegheny County, which contains Pittsburgh. Those two counties account for only about 20% of the state’s population. Homocide is so rare in the other 65 counties that it averages out to about one per county per year, with small clusters in a few counties, while others go year after year with no homocides at all. This wild disparity holds true for all other types of crime as well. Philadelphia has been run by Democrats for more than 70 years. How can the Democratic urban elite look upon this calamity and yet never question their own political orientation.
Josel Dzhugashvili (“Stalin”) said it best: “We don’t change the orders, we change the guards”; and “One bullet, no problem.”
Any official Executive, Legislative, Judiciary branch open to defining re-appointment by assassination is ipso facto not to be replaced by “qui bono” opposition-force incumbents arguably instigating force-and-violence to achieve brutish ends “by any means necessary.”
Alas for consent-of-the-governed under Rule of Law, death-eaters’ “direct action” cannot be reconciled with “due process” policies, principles, procedures under any circumstances. Of course, Rats’ despotic lurking-menace curse is worse than the disease… but in matters of life-and-death, all rules are off.
Either We the People preempt these monomaniacal culture-vultures from murdering 95% of Earth’s 3.9 billion population, transforming the pathetic residue to starveling proles and serfs, or Gates, Schwab, Soros et al. –Aspen-Davoiserie kleptarchs writ large– or peace-and-progress as has fitfully developed since the Renaissance will fall to “a new Dark Age, made more sinister and perhaps more protracted by the lights of perverted science” (Churchill, “The Finest Hour,” June 1940).
If we start letting people say how they’re governed, who knows what it might lead to?
Some people move from Democrat states to Republican states for jobs. They want the states they moved to to be like the states they moved from, and they organize and vote to make it so. Other people move to Republican states precisely to get way from the Democrat states and their horrendous policies. They vote Republican, but even with the best of intentions there’s going to be a gap between the politicians they would like to vote for and some of the politicians rural areas actually elect. It’s difficult to bridge that gap in times as polarized and crazy as our own.
The Yang Party is a puzzle. Are they aiming to keep Trump out by offering Republicans who don’t like him another option? Most of the Never Trumpers backed Biden last time, so the new party could hurt the Democrats more next time. People who overcame their misgivings to vote for Trump in 2020, would probably do the same in 2024. It’s the same problem if they are trying to take out MAGA congressional candidates: the new party splits the anti-MAGA vote.
So far, the Forward Party doesn’t really have any policies, just a lot of promises to be nice and to treat people with “grace and tolerance.” How did that work out with Biden? It looks a lot like another attempt to pull the wool over people’s eyes with pretty talk. People are cynical about politics now and Yang’s abstractions give them plenty to be cynical about. It’s also strange that people who have been saying for years that Trumpism is fascist provide this creepy “Forward Together” stuff as an alternative.
The largest building by volume is Boeing Everett. 472,370,319 cu ft
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Everett_Factory
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David Foster @5:03pm,
Maybe those aren’t the best adjectives. In big cities one feels a part of his or her neighborhood, which often has a predominance of folks of a shared ethnicity, religion or both. New Yorkers always mention their borough; Bronks, Brookly, Staten Island, Queens. See “West Side Story” for an example.
In rural areas one feels a part of the area. There is typically also a predominance of a shared ethnicity, religion or both, but there is not a nearby enclave of folks with a different ethnicity or religion. If a Muslim from Morocco moves to Topeka, Kansas the locals don’t need to take sides. Why not welcome your new neighbor? Large factions of diverse people are not rubbing up against one another.
I have met many minorities (ethnic or religious) who live in white, Protestant, rural areas and fit in swimmingly. Dave Chapelle famously lives, happily, in small town Ohio.
Knuckledragger:
Sorry to hear about what happened with your father. If he is the type who likes to read, and he’d take a suggestion from you, you might recommend he read one of Sowell’s books on the subject of left and right.
The interview with Angelo Codevilla, M Cervantes linked to reinforces what Neo has written about the last few days about the attitudes of DC as the ruling class.
“Samuels: Just as it would be wrong to understate the importance of who has dinner with whom in Washington, it would be wrong to understate the extent to which the class you dislike is moved by an idea: The rational scientific functioning of the bureaucratic state. That’s their God. I may find this attachment emotionally bizarre, but that doesn’t make it any less real.
A. Codevilla: You’re saying the same thing in two different ways. Why is it that they have dinner together? It is that they believe that they share something terribly important. And that is precisely what they believe to be their stewardship of all things good.
Once upon a time, thus moved, they believed that they were holier than thou. Now they simply believe that they’re trendier than thou. In other words, they share the most valuable thing, which is not devotion to God but devotion to their own corporate mission. Their own corporate status. Status and mission. Status being the priests of the salvific religion of science and progress.”
This snippet reminded me of something I’ve noticed for years– why do people supposedly smarter than the rest of us keep making really stupid policy, policies that common sense would tell you can’t work?
To a large extent, it’s because they have a faulty world view. If you believe that Evil doesn’t exist, that people are just a blank slate, and with the right environment all will be well and just one more program, just a few more dollars spent the right way, just the right education, taught just the right stuff and paradise will be within reach.
We’ve seen that transformation from the liberal policies of FDR and LBJ that focused on raising the living standards of the underclass to what the left now demand that people suspend reality and reset their minds in a way one would expect from a religious cult.
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Brian E:
That is the premise of much of Sowell’s work on the subject – for example, The Vision of the Anointed: Self-congratulation as the basis for social policy.
Brian E,
With some folks your supposition is likely apt, but with many it’s simply “fitting in.” Ascribing to the “proper things.” “You’re still wearing pleated slacks with cuffs? Everyone who is anyone knows that flat front, hemmed slacks are what to wear.”
Also, for some, it’s akin to the Springbok in nature. One demonstrates superior fitness by exhibiting a behavior that goes against practicality.
“The species evolved to be omnivorous, and has the front facing eyes of a predator? Well, I’m so elevated I can afford to live on vegetation alone.”
Like Yogi Berra said, “Nobody goes to that restaurant any more. It’s too crowded.”
“To a large extent, it’s because they have a faulty world view.”
That’s giving them too much credit. It’s not really a worldview if you view the world only as an extension of yourself. People who spent years breathlessly waiting for Trump’s arrest and prosecution for Russian collusion now look down their noses at people who question the 2020 election. You can’t get to that place mentally unless the only thing you care about is yourself.
Mike
JesterNaybor.
Agreed. Funny thing, I think. When I went to freshmen orientation, summer of 62, there were maybe two dozen Bronx/Brooklyn types there. Overbearing, entitled, condescending. That accent put my back hairs up until I heard some of the radio talk from 9-11.
Had a relation working in New York, from the far midwest. Started a relationship with a local woman….maybe early twenties. They were going to drive out to his family just as soon as she got her drivers license.
It’s unnecessary and even counterproductive in the real downtown to have a car. So the question in a larger sense is what else can’t they do?
As Ann Coulter said, we have to send to Lodi to get actual men.
“Useless” people: As Jordan Peterson has pointed out, the US military knows more about IQ testing than anyone, because they use it to screen people for various jobs and even for admission. And they learned, painfully, that anyone with IQ of 82 or less cannot be trained to do any useful thing in the military.
It’s not a matter of time or effort. It simply cannot be done. And that’s 10 percent of the population.
I suspect this population is concentrated in cities, because there is enough support to survive there.
Gordon Scott
I expect you’re right as to where the concentration is.
But the issue is the more accomplished ones, those who set the agenda, or try to. And their views of the rest of us.
Some years ago, I believe it was NBC, a Sunday evening news show like Sixty Minutes, sent some Arab-looking, Arab-dressed folks to a NASCAR event with cameras following to find some yummy racist violence for their smug viewers. Nothing happened. I kind of wish they’d fronted a hundred times that much money to lose.
I suspect this population is concentrated in cities, because there is enough support to survive there.
Gordon, please see the writings of Edward Banfield on this very issue. The notion that 10% of the working-aged population is unemployable due to stupidity is a social fantasy.
Stats: Roughly 90% of all homocides in Pennsylvania are committed in just two Democratic counties. They are Philadelphia County, with over 500 murders last year, and Allegheny County, which contains Pittsburgh. Those two counties account for only about 20% of the state’s population.
Your state health department reports that the age adjusted homicide rate for Pennsylvania during the period running from 2015 to 2019 averaged about 6.1 per 100,000: 19.7 per 100,000 in Philadelphia County, 8.7 per 100,000 in Alleghany County, and 3.7 per 100,000 in the rest of the state. That would translate into 370-odd homicides in the rest of the state, or 5-6 per county.
People who spent years breathlessly waiting for Trump’s arrest and prosecution for Russian collusion now look down their noses at people who question the 2020 election. You can’t get to that place mentally unless the only thing you care about is yourself.
I think my brother cares about a number of things other than himself. It’s just that his self-concept is bolstered by a political nonsense discourse.
Yang’s book Forward is worth reading. Ranked Choice voting is being adopted in enough places to get public attention. As the public debate on Ranked Choice Voting develops it will be the surviving method IMO. That will change everything.
Is Trump Abe Lincoln or Dred Scott? A DC Jury will convict him of anything and everything.
I saw a scenario where the Dems remove Biden and name Newsome VP before the election and then have Harris resign. That probably won’t happen. Time is too short.
Trump as Speaker with both Biden and Harris removed is my current fantasy. As Judy Tenuta said so well: ” It could happen.”
“I saw a scenario…”
Isn’t it just “easier” to push hard on the Jan. 6 INSURRECTION, declare that half the country presents “a clear and [immediate] danger” to the country(!) and just essentially prevent—for national security reasons(!)…AKA PATRIOTISM—“the wrong people” from running for office…IOW essentially suspend elections?
And/or push hard on the “Climate Emergency”(TM) and declare that because of the “grave crisis” to America and the world—a crisis of the magnitude NEVER SEEN BEFORE!!—that “we’ll just have to, um, put off the elections—otherwise, how can WE SAVE the world (and America)???
Or a combination of the above.
(There certainly are enough crises to go around….Takes yer pick!!)
NEVER FORGETTING that if WE ARE FORCED to suspend elections we do so with indescribably extreme reluctance, great trepidation and profound sadness, yadda, yadda, yadda…BUT it’s ALL for the sake of the country and its citizens! And the World!
Oh, and for UNITY(TM)…
File under: TRUST US…
Then there’s always Plan ‘B’… (Or maybe it’s Plan ‘A’….)
“Lara Logan: They’re Giving SS#s at the Border to Illegal Aliens”—
https://www.independentsentinel.com/lara-logan-theyre-giving-sss-at-the-border-to-illegal-aliens/
H/T Blazingcatfur blog.
Key grafs:
‘…“You look around you and you know they don’t actually believe in citizenship. And now when people come across the border illegally, I have this confirmed from border patrol agents who are actually, physically doing this, they get a Social Security number. They get assigned a Social Security number when they cross…. And if you really want to know where the cheating starts, it’s long before you get to the polls. Think about it, it starts with the census. It starts with counting illegals in the census.”
‘That would mean they are entitled to all the benefits of citizenship and they’ll vote.
‘It’s not unheard of, in 2015, the Obama administration gave social security numbers to 541,000 illegals….’
Alas…not enough of them voted…for Hillary.
Poor Hillary…
(Or maybe they said to themselves: “It’s not right. I’m basically illegal. I just got here. THEY want me to vote for THEM. That’s not right… I just can’t do that…”)
Yang’s book Forward is worth reading. Ranked Choice voting is being adopted in enough places to get public attention. As the public debate on Ranked Choice Voting develops it will be the surviving method IMO. That will change everything.
I don’t believe it will change everything, but it will induce some salutary improvements if it’s done right. (And it would be my wager it won’t be). If done right, the following would be the case:
1. Postal ballots arriving after election day would be sequestered in a lock box with two keys, one key held by the Democratic county commissioner of elections, one by the Republican commissioner. After all votes are tabulated and results declared, the box would be opened in the presence of a municipal court judge and clerks from both side would mail these ballots back to the sender with a note that the ballot arrived too late to be tabulated.
2. Postal ballots which arrived before the drop dead date would be opened and have inside the mailer an outer envelope with identifying information and an inner marked only with the precinct. The ballots filled out would be in the inner envelope. Two member teams – one Democrat, one Republican – would check the signature &c against those on file, approving some ballots, and rejecting others. The approved ballots would go into locked cabinets. The cabinets would have two keys as described and be opened each day. The inner envelopes would be sorted into pigeonholes and the outer envelopes would be placed in plastic envelopes, sealed, and initialed by the pair of examining clerks. These cabinets would then be locked for the day. On election day, they’d be transported to a gymnasium and opened, with the ballots sorted to tables according to geography, and the tabulation under-taken by two man teams. After the election, the bulk of the rejected ballots would be returned to sender with a note that they were rejected. Some would be turned over to the sheriff for further investigation.
3. On election day, you’d have referenda, first-past-the-post contests, and ranked choice contests. The referenda would consist of ballot propositions, retention-in-office questions, and yes-no ballots on unopposed candidates. The first-past-the-post would be held when you had two candidates vying for one office. You’d use ranked choice for the rest. The first task would be to tabulate the results of the referenda and first-past-the-post contests and get those out of the way, as they require only one round of tabulation. Then you’d tabulate the first-preference votes of the ranked-choice contests.
4. The law would incorporate short-cut rules to offer dispatch to the process. One would be to allow the responsible board of elections to certify which candidates will be included in the second round of tabulation with certain precincts outstanding, if it be determined that there are not enough outstanding ballots in this set of precincts to change the line up. Another would be to have three tests to determine who is admitted to the subsequent round of tabulation. Rule one would be to eliminate the caboose candidate, rule two would be to rule that all candidates who fail to receive 2% of the 1st preference tally (blank and spoiled ballots not counted) are eliminated. Rule three would be that if there is a candidate whose 1st preference vote total exceeds that of the sum of all those candidates with lower such vote totals, all those with lower vote totals would be eliminated. If your contest has a single victor, you select the rule which allows you to eliminate the most candidates. (If you have a judicial contest where you have multiple candidates competing for multiple seats, only rule one or rule three would be used. If you’re electing a conciliar body from a multimember constituency, you’d have to use complicated Hare system tabulation).
5. Institute party registration. You could be a ‘no preference’ registrant, a Republican registrant, or a Democratic registrant. If you had a third party which achieved certain performance metrics in the most recent contests for the lower house of the state legislature, you could add an option to register as an adherent to that party. Political parties would be private membership organizations with dues set by formula in statutory law, and their internal government would be according to template by-laws found in corporation law or the election law. Political parties who compete well for the state legislature would acquire the status of ‘public organization’, which would incorporate benefits (less consuming ballot-access procedures) with constraints (supplementing members with registrants and submitting some nomination contests to primary elections among registrants).
6. Have state and county boards of elections classify every constituency as ‘competitive’ or not. In a ‘competitive’ constituency, the largest partisan body of registrants is < 2x the population of the second ranking body. Competitive constituencies nominate candidates according to a party nomination process, wherein major parties uses caucuses, conventions, and primaries to nominate candidates; minor parties use caucuses and conventions supplemented by designating petitions; and nonpartisan candidates make use of designating petitions. Designating petitions in these circumstances would be circulated only among no-preference registrants. In a pure petition contest, all aspirants would circulate in whichever was their preferred body of registrants. All candidates who circulated successfully would appear on the general-election ballot. Ballot order would vary from one precinct to another, with every aspirant having an equal chance to occupy the top position on the ballot.
7. The number of candidates a voter could rank could not exceed a certain number – seven perhaps.
8. Tabulation machines would use analog technology.