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Digesting the 2022 election further — 147 Comments

1. Another iteration of a common Aubreyism: This time about the fear of the right. They can’t legitimately believe this stuff. Hardly anybody’s that dumb. They have to force themselves to believe it in order to fit in and to see themselves fitting in. Then they say it as if it’s true. And they can’t afford for it to be untrue.
   But, is there, someplace in their psyche a little voice muttering something about…it’s not true?
   One woman did fess up. She remarked that Michael Brown had his hands up, saying “don’t shoot”. I said that wasn’t true and had been debunked within a day. She said she knew that but preferred the earlier narrative and didn’t wish to be corrected on any such issue.
   If one will admit….

2. LOL! The odds don’t even favor the GOP winning the House now. The Democrats will count votes for as long as they need to in order to prevent the GOP from picking up the 7 seats needed for a majority. There are only 10 seats left that they can win, but one of those is in NY, one is in Colorado, one is in Oregon, two are in Arizona, and five are in California. I suspect all but one of the races in CA will eventually result in a Democrat winning, and even the fifth seat might be lost. In Arizona, both are within 1%, but the trend seems to be to the Dems in both. I think both races in Colorado will go to the Dems eventuallly as they are seemingly unable to count the last 25,000 votes in less than a week’s time. The seat in Oregon will also probably be lost even though the Republican is ahead- Oregon has slowed down the counting to no change at all over the last day and half.

   The Senate will be 51-49 for the Dems. Laxalt is sure to lose, and Walker, too, in Georgia.

   I wrote weeks ago- the Democrats did not intend to lose control of either house of Congress, and they are stealing the last seats they need in both with counts that never end, and dribble out results so slowly you would rather watch paint dry.

3. “EverTrumpers” was my tag. I want royalties.
   I also coined “StuckwithTrumpers” which described myself. Please, let us all be “NoLongerStuckwithTrumpers” and move forward in unity.

4. “This election mess wasn’t because of Trump or fraud, although they may indeed have contributed,” but clearly Mitch McConnell denigrating Republican candidates and diverting money from their campaigns for personal vendettas did contribute.

   President Trump continues to be the subject of blame, but if you honestly look back to his presidency, McConnell did everything he could to thwart Trump’s agenda and politically harm the man, and since then has done little to nothing to advance an America First agenda.

   “Many Trump candidates—including J. D. Vance, Ted Budd, almost certainly Kari Lake and Adam Laxalt, potentially Blake Masters, and possibly (after the runoff) Herschel Walker—will have won their races in highly competitive swing states despite most being outspent by tens of millions of dollars.

   If Washington, D.C. consultants and establishment leaders are truly looking for someone to blame for the lack of a red tsunami on Tuesday, there are far more suitable candidates than Trump. First among them would be Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose allies appear to be behind much of the Blame Trump campaign.

   At no point in the past two years have Americans seen McConnell and other top Republican leaders in Washington pick real and effective fights with the Biden administration. At no point have they managed to focus the nation on controversies that would be politically advantageous to their party. In Trump’s absence, the GOP establishment has reverted to McConnell’s preferred style of opposition, one of passivity and accommodation.

   Since January 2021, McConnell’s Senate minority has greenlighted some of the left’s most unpopular legislative and foreign policy initiatives—from the $550 billion “infrastructure” package to emptying out America’s arsenals and sending them to Ukraine. Even if he intended to pass the tens of billions for Ukraine, an effective Republican opposition leader would have insisted on including provisions to secure America’s own border in the process. The American people would have rallied to the Republicans’ side.”

   https://amac.us/the-absurdity-of-the-blame-trump-campaign/

   I agree with your post, except I think we need to look at the last two years and how much the actions of the GOPe or lack of action created a sense of helplessness. Sort of “what difference would it make to put the Republicans in charge?” The Republicans are still just the go along to get along party.

   I agree that we need Reagan right now. As you said, Governor DeSantis is no Ronald Reagan. (Neither is Donald Trump).

   As someone pointed out, DeSantis needs to work on his delivery and speaking more from the diaphram. What we’re missing is the jovial way Reagan delivered an insult.
   DeSantis has the attack mode like Donald Trump. What if that attracts some Trump supporters, but turns off the women and independents that were turned off by Trump?

   I think it’s a mistake to make the case that because DeSantis did so well in Florida, he can succeed in Pennsylvania or Michigan or other marginal swing states. How much has Florida moved to a Republican state because of their voting system?

5. I was not a Reagan supporter. I backed Ford in 1976, and John Connally in 1980. But when Reagan won the nomination, I became a supporter. And I was delighted for the next eight years.

6. Our system is broken. The big division is now between those who admit it and those who refuse to see it. There can be no “moving on” from the 2020 stolen election until there is a thorough investigation of what happened and those responsible face consequences. Until that happens, there will be a significant part of the population that will not have faith in our elections. This past election has done nothing to restore confidence in our system. Quite the contrary.

   Unfortunately, I think we are now at the point where only a near economic collapse and massive civil unrest can provide the motivation for the changes that are needed. I had somewhat naively hoped that these elections would allow us to avoid these consequences, but I fear I was wrong.

7. Based on some personal observations, I think a lot of Dem voters believe the nonsense about “racism” and “fascism” on the right, without evidence and without ever understanding that it is the left which really embraces those ideologies today.

8. The Democrats have a big data and big tech advantage that is poorly understood by the typical political operatives that Republicans continue to rely upon. They can target their core, devoted voters and seek out occasional voters or non-voters and relentlessly target them with multiple points of contact and persuasion materials in order to get them to vote.

   With the huge expansion of other than in-person voting methods, they can have these people complete mail ballots and forward them to the collection points, too convenient for the new voters to avoid participating. Republicans have focused instead on motivating voters to vote in-person, which is less convenient, so they have a lower completion percentage than the Democrat’s harvesting operations.

   Remember that the social sciences are overwhelmingly leftist, and they have resources for identifying potential voters and using sophisticated persuasion methodologies in conjunction with the big data resources. Nobody is legally compelled to vote, so we had relatively low rates of registered voters actually voting, until recent election cycles where participation has increased, those are Democratic votes that were identified, groomed, and collected by these highly developed systems. Republicans have nothing of the kind, so their share of the increased number of voters is negligible.

   The Always Trump crowd will prevent the Republicans from uniting and developing a sufficiently broad coalition to win future elections. Since Don Surber has reluctantly concluded that it is time to move beyond Trump based upon his recent failures and behaviors, his commenters have been brutal and unforgiving.

   Sundance at the Conservative Treehouse has been even more conspiracy obsessed than ever and longs for outright civil war on the right so that Trump somehow prevails and an electoral majority magically appears. He’s turning on DeSantis despite living in Florida and seeing his successes firsthand. The Only Trump crowd spin every Republican victory as Trump’s accomplishment, every loss as a stab in the back by the GOPe and McConnell. They are skeptical of every politician except for Trump, who can never be wrong. I’m waiting for an explanation from them exactly how that translates into election victories, but they are lost in their intra-party struggle and don’t see any bigger picture, apparently.

9. Censorship by Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter had a huge impact.

   If you dared question the 2020 election or Jan 6 you were banned online.

   It seems the establishment GOP preferred losing both houses of congress, than supporting Maga candidate. And tried to make Trump the scapegoat for the debacle.

   I wonder why:

   1. all of a sudden did Lyndsay Graham start backing Walker.

   2. Why Rand Paul make on Twitter a snarky comment about all the dead people getting Covid checks, did they also vote? Gop Senators seemed to have radio silence on election fraud, probably due to fear of McConnell.

   The awareness of fraud this election seems higher. And with none of those strange tales of fraud, that were probably salted as a way to discredit questioning the 2020 election.

   My guess is the Democrats will keep both houses of congress. Good news is they will own the economic downturn they are creating with their policies.

10. I don’t know if Pelosi shortchanged the candidates who wanted to unseat her as party leader or speaker, but she certainly made sure they changed their minds once they got to Washington. McConnell may not have been that persuasive, or have had the tools Pelosi used. Nancy knew she had to win the top job first. Mitch was content with being in charge of the minority.

    Smart politicians ought to know how to finesse the question of whether the 2020 election was stolen. Republicans wanted a yes or no answer and that means some dumb politicians got nominated. In hindsight, it looks like the party should have gotten together and figured out how to answer the question without really answering it.

11. Abraxas:

    But if the party could have gotten together on that, it would have been a very different party. The divisions are too stark.

12. When issues like inflation, rising crime, a non-existent border, drug addiction, homelessness, crumbling infrastructure, education failures, a military that can’t find recruits, seven million able bodied men who have dropped out of the work force, trans madness, a war in Ukraine, and much more; the average conservative would think the voters would be ready for a change of course. Nope. Why? I think we underestimate the power of the propaganda put out by the MSM and social media. At least that’s the way it seems.

    We laughed at Biden’s incoherent rantings about mega MAGA, neo fascists, and democracy being on the ballot. Straw man arguments all. Yet, they seem to have registered with enough Democrat and independent voters.

    We have the issues on our side. We offer solutions to inflation, the border, crime, and more but they don’t seem to register among enough voters. Is it mass delusions? Is it mass stupidity? How can people seem so unaware of what’s happening- where their interests lie? It certainly lends itself to suspicions of fraud.

    I am convinced that, in states where the elections are done by mail, the opportunity to harvest and manufacture ballots is just too easy for the Democrats. Eight states (California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington) conduct their elections by mail. Only one is a red state. California, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont and Washington are essentially one-party states now. How long before Colorado and Nevada reach that situation? Utah is an outlier. The Mormons are still pretty conservative and in charge there. Any election system can work properly if the voters and election officials are honest.

    Is it possible our problems lie with the fact that many voters are uninformed or misinformed? And have too many of those under 35 absorbed the leftist indoctrination they received in school? I don’t know, but food for thought.

    Reagan was the great communicator. He had a knack for making issues understandable and relatable to the voters. The MSM was opposed to him, but he went over their heads with speeches directly to the citizens. Any Republican has to do that to get their message out. The MSM is essentially a part of the Democrat machine now.

    Don’t know what lies ahead, but I think if the Dems control the Senate and, God forbid, the House, we are in for some rough economic sledding. Bat ten down the hatches.

13. Conservatives definitely get the fullest attack by the Democrats Propaganda Ministry as well as from Democrat/ Marxists. Sundowner screams we are the Devil reincarnate out to destroy the Democracy.

    I had my flag all day yesterday for Veterans Day.

14. I agree with your assessment, Neo. But you are leaving out a fourth crucial reason: abortion, abortion, abortion.

    I know I sound like a broken record, but there is no one single issue which can flip as many voters from R to D (or at least from not voting to voting D) as abortion. Most of the time, however, it is relegated to the background; ballot iniatives on certain restrictions here and there and thus neither affects partisans preferences or turnout to any significant degree.

    This year, of course was the Defcon 1 exception. I have no doubt had there been no Dobbs, there would have indeed been a red wave (possibly a red tsunami), all other things saying the same.

    I find nothing more frustrating about the Republican establishment and conservative activists in general than their willful blindspot about this issue and the massive vulnerabilities it constantly poses to the right. This country is majority pro-choice, and majority supportive of Roe. By how much is debatable, but the majority is not. True, many Americans don’t understand Roe or Dobbs; true, many Americans support restrictions similar to the Mississippi law that gave rise to Dobbs. But ultimately, a majority of Americans believe in a constitutional right to an abortion. Many of them passionately support it and when it’s threatened will vote accordingly, no matter how exasperated with Democrats they might otherwise be.

    Conservatives need to acknowledge this reality and develop a coherent, cohesive and persuasive response. In the 30 years between Casey and Dobbs…they never have.

15. I would suggest that the push to turn kids into transgenders is a weak point for Democrats, if enough of their middle aged and older base were to understand what is happening there. I have begun to slowly try to wake up two older, religious black female Democrats that I know. I do not want to overwhelm them at once, but I am trying to slowly update them on where their party is trending on that issue.

16. Ackler; RaySoCa; Brian E:

    As I said, I could write at least 30 posts on all of this. One could easily be about abortion as an issue in this election, one could be about social media censorship, one could be about Mitch McConnell, etc. etc…..

    There are too many important elements to cover, although I’ve mentioned all of them in one post or another.

17. Little thought was given to how messy the RINO problem might be – their resentment of and desire to sabotage populism, etc. We were naïve.

    Very well. The treachery is noted and will be remembered.

18. Ackler:

    I agree that Dobbs mattered, but I don’t think it mattered as much as you seem to, and I’ll tell you why.

    You write: “I have no doubt had there been no Dobbs, there would have indeed been a red wave (possibly a red tsunami), all other things saying the same.” I disagree, and I’ll tell you why. It’s not that abortion isn’t a big issue, but it would have been a big issue anyway. The left has been shrieking that Republicans are going to end Roe, and a big talking point has been to keep the presidency and Senate Democratic in order to make sure that if another SCOTUS appointment comes up, the replacement will be a leftist judge. One reason it seemed so very important was to SAVE ROE! You know, the Republicans are going to implement The Handmaid’s Tale and all that. Lots of people believed that way before Dobbs.

19. It should be noted that Desantis made a bold stand on the media misnamed ” don’t say gay ” bill. I believe it was Reagan that spoke of bold stands and not pastel stands. The right needs to reclaim the language and speak out boldly and with laws against ” sex changes” on kids and ” boys in girls sports and locker rooms.” Make the Democrats claim that ” trans women are real women” Get them to say it.

20. Ackler:

    Bless your heart. Fear for your soul.

    Got any other weak spots that the GOP should roll over on: First and Second ammendments? Certainly they can be nuanced to be more in step with the Arc of History.

21. OM,

    Did I say the GOP should ‘roll over’ on abortion? No. I said they should acknowledge the reality that this country is majority pro-choice (strongly for a fair amount of voters) and “develop a coherent, cohesive and persuasive response”.

    That does not mean abandoning principle or necessarily any change in policy position. It does mean developing active listening when voters who might otherwise be inclined to support the GOP, express their hesitation because the voters is strongly pro-choice, and responding in a way that is empathic and respectful. It does mean having quick, well thought out reply to the all to expected ‘gotcha’ questions: what about rape? isn’t this between the woman, her doctor and God? what right do you have to dictate over women’s bodies? Etc. Etc.

    Too often, Republican candidates are deer in the headlights when confronted about abortion. Stumbling and bumbling and desperately trying to change the subject. That is a long standing huge problem.

22. I think many folk underestimate the intellectual honesty and awareness of those we could describe as Always Trump or Ever Trumpers.

    Look, for example, at commenters on Power Line blog. Until at least November 9th (i.e,, the day after the disappointing election results), the commenters at Power Line blog remained very pro-Trump. Sure, some were blaming Trump for the low-tide Republican results, but the majority clearly still recognized Trump as the guy who was a great POTUS 45 and a desired POTUS 47. But, then on November 10th came completely unwarranted attacks by Trump against DeSantis (I’m not referring to the prior DeSanctimonious lame quip) and Youngkin. Almost immediately, the commenters as Power LIne lamented that Trump was no longer the guy to support. Today, at Power Line, Steve Hayes conducted an unscientific poll of Power Line readers, which shows that over 80% do NOT want Trump as the GOP’s 2024 nominee, and only 8% do. And given a limited selection among DeSantis, Pence, Youngkin, Pompeo, and Other for a desired nominee, over 80% selected DeSantis. My reading of the comments that followed indicates that the commenters still love Trump for what he had delivered (regardless of whether or not they want him to run in 2024), and would fully support DeSantis if he were the 2024 nominee. See, https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/11/reader-poll-looking-ahead-to-2024.php.

    My point is this, very few, if any, of the folks who have been Always Trump or Ever Trumpers will sit out the 2024 election merely because Trump is not the nominee. I’m pretty sure the nominee would have to be pro-MAGA (even if the “MAGA” term is not used). However, the nominee does not have to be Trump.

    And, whether the nominee is Trump or someone else, compaigning on, among other issues, honest elections, would be OK, we just have to stop litigating the 2020 election-even though we know it is highly suspicious.

23. yes lindsay shouldn’t have put his foot in his mouth, does he put nacho sauce, and rubio shouldn’t have joined him, but lets be clear, dems want no restriction on abortion, it is part of their thanatos cult, which is not a healthy expression, the kansas kerfluffle was about simply considering the option, but they demagogued it,

    so their color revolutions, topple governments, brazil was the latest to fall to china, and it’s very hard to reverse it, the night of tyranny is indeed falling upon america there are some sanctuaries for now, but they will not allow resistance for long

24. Ackler:

    Gee, abortion has been a political issue since Roe and the support for unlimited, post delivery abortion (infanticide), and funding by government has become the Democrat/Left position so you need to explain a more nuanced position to counter that extremism. Just become a squish. Who is the deer in the headlights again?

    Sounds like a strategy to undo a victory (Dobbs) to reach out to voters who have no intention of voting Republican. In Pennsylvania those folks elect dead men and barely sentient men remember?

25. so granted don’t do stupid things, but voting for golem, is something that can’t be excused with a case of tequila, same for voting for hochul, that’s self destructive behavior like binging or bunji jumping without a net,

26. Ackler:

    Election Deniers. Our Democracy under Threat. Climate Deniers. Insurrectionists. Domestic Terrorists (aka parents at school board meetings). ChristoFascists. Semi-fascists. Ultra Mega MAGA.

    Somehow protesting at abortion (charnel houses) clinics becomes a crime worthy of a FBI raid and you worry about a persuadable Democrat voter?

    “Othering” of conservatives is now the default for the Democrats/Left.

27. Ira Siegel,
    I wouldn’t take too much stock in the comments at Powerline. I would ask the question differently. If Trump is the nominee how many would refuse to vote for Trump. Even that question won’t get a completely honest assessment, but closer to the reality of the situation.

    The bigger issue aren’t conservatives, but independents. Can Trump get 74 million votes in 2024? Can Trump close the 276,000 vote margin in the swing states that decided the electoral college vote? If 200,000 were illegal/fraudulent votes as some have calculated– the difference was 80,000 votes. Can we make up the difference with a change of voting strategy? If we can’t, DeSantis or whoever probably can’t win either.

    I do agree that Trump needs to pivot to a campaign message. It’s counterproductive to even point out the possible illegal/fraudulent ballots this time. We may all know/suspect there’s chicanery going on, but proving it to the satisfaction of independents is nearly impossible. Once the ballot is separated from the envelope, it’s a legitimate vote.
    One of the problems is once the left knows conservatives are changing strategy, the numbers will go up on their side.

28. “The right is remarkably divided, and has been for much of my lifetime and certainly for my entire existence as a blogger.” neo

    Political divisions are hardly new but today’s division on the right perfectly reflects Jefferson’s observation;

    “Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes.

    2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests.

    In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves.” Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Henry Lee (10 August 1824)

29. Victor Davis Hanson, the historian, has seen much and seemingly has read *everything* . He feels Americans are waking up. He says Republicans got “ahead of our skis” and notes we were outspent 3 to 1.

    In this interview he concludes:
    ____________________________

    I’m optimistic only because America is so resilient and self-critical and we’re in a bad place right now our major cities are disasters but we’re very self-critical we’re not people who say don’t don’t dare say that about America I don’t think you’ll hear that from American they’ll say please tell us more.

    I mean the left will say this music might not yours but the right will say I want to hear what you think is wrong so I can correct it. So we’re very self-critical but on the right we’re positively self-critical. We’re not nihilistically self-critical as the left is, so I remain cautiously optimistic.

    –“Victor Davis Hanson Reacts to 2022 Midterm Results”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB4gnbxcHvE

30. Ira Siegel:

    Sorry to say, I think that you are wrong, and I have reason to believe that. Last night I spent a lot of time at Conservative Treehouse, reading the comments there to sundance’s latest on the subject. Last night there were over 1200 comments on that thread alone, and I read the first hundred or so (now there are 1420). They were pretty much all agreeing that DeSantis was awful and the GOP was lost. I wrote a draft of a post that I hope to finish and publish in the not-too-distant future about what was said there, but for now I’ll just give you one sample that I believe sums up the general thrust:

    I pray that MAGA voters sit on their hands if the GOPe manages to install The Next Jeb as the nominee.

    Rather burn it down than be slow cooked.

    Manages to combine the old “burn it down!” adage with a cute little nickname for DeSantis: “The Next Jeb.”

    This group is not going to vote for anyone but Trump. That’s certainly what most of them are saying, anyway.

31. Catturd zeroes in on McConnell:

    The reason Mitch McConnell hasn’t said anything about the bullshit happening in Arizona is because he wants Blake Masters and Kari Lake to lose.

    He only cares about power, money, and he absolutely hates us.

32. Does the following scenario have merit?:

    Let Trump run in 2024 while DeSantis holds back and focuses on being governor of Florida.
    Then either (a) Trump wins and we can see if he’s learned what he needs to from his first term, while reaping the fruits of his second, whatever those may be; or
    (b) Trump loses and, in the course of his flaming out, the personality-cult aspect of MAGA is burned out of the GOP, rather like a controlled burn in the forest, a scouring to make room for new growth.

    Some pros:
    1) let the Trump personality cult work its way out of the system, one way or another;
    2) DeSantis has time to get more executive experience under his belt, build his record, but most importantly, has a few more years to lay the foundation for what could be a well-running national campaign in 2028;
    3) Florida hopefully continues to develop as a model conservative state and, in so doing, inspires other conservative-leaning states to refine their operations along similar lines, as applicable.

    Some cons:
    1) can the USA afford another four years of whoever is left running Washington in the event Trump were to lose in 2024?;
    2) if things go too sour (i.e., GOP gets trounced sufficiently badly) in 2024 without DeSantis at the top of the ballot, will there be enough pieces to pick up in 2028?
    3) is the gravitational pull of the business-as-usual complex in the GOP ranks going to be too strong in the meantime, such that DeSantis himself or his emulators may have been politically emasculated by then?

33. Brian E on November 12, 2022 at 8:56 pm: I think either you missed, or I failed to make my point. That is, I believe Always Trump/Ever Trumpers actually are not “Trump or no one.” They will get behind another MAGA candidate if Trump continues on his current path. In my opinion, it’s not Trump, it’s MAGA.

    neo on November 12, 2022 at 9:17 pm: I’ve seen that at The Conservative Treehouse. I think the folks there are falling for the “DeSantis will be corrupted by the GOPe offers of support and only will stand up for MAGA” argument. My reaction to that: While we can expect GOPe to try, I’ve seen no evidence that DeSantis will be anything other than pro-MAGA. So, I believe the folks at The Conservative Treehouse will come around–unless of course DeSantis does succumb to GOPe.

34. Philip Sells on November 12, 2022 at 9:53 pm: “let the Trump personality cult work its way out of the system, one way or another”

    If MAGA is just a personality cult, we are sunk.

35. “and only will stand up for MAGA”
    should be
    “and only Trump will stand up for MAGA”

36. Banned Lizard:

    McConnell has managed to enrage practically everyone on the right this cycle.

    More have joined Rubio and Hawley in fighting him; see this. I have no idea whether it has even a chance of succeeding. I think, though, that if McConnell wins, many many people on the right will be even more disgusted with the party.

37. Philip Sells:

    We don’t have that kind of time to spare. A lot of damage can be done even in the next 2 years, much less the next 6. And I strongly believe that Trump has the potential to drag down those who run at the lower levels, who will either have to support or defy him, and will lose either way.

38. “The Club’s enlistment of former TPP approving congressman Ron DeSantis as a foil against the MAGA leader is transparent. DeSantis, funded by massive contributions from the Wall Street approval committee, replaces the prior approved candidate, Jeb. This Big Ugly battle was always going to end up with vulgarian Trump -vs- the next Jeb. The Club has selected DeSantis as Jeb. – Sundance

    Looks like Sundance coined “the next Jeb” for Governor DeSantis.

    By the way, DeSantis did vote for TPP. According to Ballotpedia, he voted against TAA (Trade Adjustment Assistance), but for TPA (Trade Promotion Authorization) which was the fast-track authorization.

    https://ballotpedia.org/Ron_DeSantis%27_congressional_history

    President Trump may have changed DeSantis’ positions on trade, but while Obama was President, DeSantis voted for TPP.

    It’s one of the reasons while I need to see DeSantis’ platform on foreign policy/immigration/trade.

    Where does Governor DeSantis stand on involvement in proxy wars like Ukraine? Trump has offered to broker a treaty between Russia and Ukraine.
    Trump’s foreign policy in the ME was quite good. While he wanted us out of Afghanistan (which I thought we should have done a decade ago), it had to be done on our terms– unlike the debacle that Biden engaged in.

    Some of this we probably won’t know until he starts assembling a team of advisors.

    As to the commenters at Treehouse, if DeSantis defeats Trump in the primary (if he runs), I suspect Sundance will reluctantly support the Republican candidate and most will go along with him.

39. Brian E:

    Tons of them say they won’t vote for him, period.

    And I think it’s needlessly nitpicky to get into what DeSantis voted for way back in the Obama years, when lots of people who later changed their minds supported that sort of thing. Hey, for that matter, Trump used to say he really thought Nancy Pelosi was great, and he had made many donations to Democrats.

40. Neo,
    This was only 7 years ago. His vote gave Obama the authority to negotiate the deal. This is certainly a clue as to his attitude on trade. If he’s changed his mind on trade, he’ll need to say so.
    As to Trump donating to Democrats– I would say he’s proved his conservative bona fides since then.

41. Brian E on November 12, 2022 at 10:33 pm: “As to the commenters at Treehouse, if DeSantis defeats Trump in the primary (if he runs), I suspect Sundance will reluctantly support the Republican candidate and most will go along with him.”

    Exactly. Always Trump/Ever Trumpers are not as self-destructive and Never Trumpers, who very well might be responsible of Biden’s 2020 victory.

42. The Republican wave didn’t succeed (except in FL) seemingly at least partly due to Democrat cheating.

    I feel some deja vu from 2020. Back then many said Trump will win in a landslide, because the Dems condoned and enabled massive rioting for months. Nope.

    In 2022, I don’t have to list all the disasters created by the Dems and the Dotard In Chief. Still, massive numbers of Dem voters supported the authors of those disasters.

    Yes, I know there was cheating in 2020 also.

43. Well, the GOP just stood around and did nothing to stop the Democrats from stealing Laxalt’s race. They find themselves in a truly dispicable situation- because of their anti-Trump animus right now, they can’t even complain about the Democrats suddenly finding huge batches of 2 to 1 Masto to Laxalt votes right at the end of the count- ratios that no other batch dropped from Clark County from early evening of Tuesday to early yesterday came close to matching.

    The GOP is like a guy who has tied himself up and is watching his wife being raped. Seriously- what the Democrats did in Nevada is the most blatant end of vote ballot stuffing in the history of vote fraud. Laxalt went from sure he had won, to apologizing for losing. What a disgusting display by the GOP and its leadership. They all deserve to be fired.

44. I’m pretty ‘Ever Trump’ myself, but I could definitely see supporting DeSantis for President. To me, the real problem and fight is everywhere else. Trump’ presidency shows pretty clearly that there will need to be a massive change in House and Senate members for a President with Trump’s policies to get anywhere. I’ll never vote for a globalist/centralist again; if we are going to go down due to those policies, I want the blame for them squarely on the Dems, without the bipartisan cover the Bush/McCain/McConnell types give them.

45. A FULL THROATED DEFENSE OF Trump COMES FROM AN UNXPECTED PLACE, Western Australia. Actually JoNova cobbles a handful of Yanks who are friends of Trump, and see the Swamps handiwork in November’s elections.

    “If only the US could afford to use paper and pens instead of machines, it would all have been finished. Welcome to Dystopia-World, where the real battle is the struggle to get legal votes counted in the richest nation on Earth. The Arizona slow-roll debacle should have the people in the streets…

    Meanwhile, the Democrats don’t want to face Donald Trump again, but they are not the only ones. ‘The list of people lining up against Trump right now is simply an indicator of how large of a threat he remains to the globalist elite.’ says Jenna Ellis.

    “Steven Mosher makes the case that it’s not Trump but the McLeadership of the Republicans who are to blame for any midterm results. Most of the Senate and House Republican campaigns were not run by Trump, but by the McLeaders — Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, and Ronna Romney McDaniel

    “Speaking of McConnell, there are shipping-lanes of connections between Mitch McConnell and China. Just in case anyone has forgotten what a deep swamp the core of US politics is, ponder that there is also one foreign communist government that would be especially happy if Trump doesn’t run in 2024. How much influence does it have over media moguls, tech giants and Mitch McConnell?“

    SEE LINK TO HEAR MORE OF THESE VOICES IN DETAIL.

    https://joannenova.com.au/2022/11/midterms-the-swamp-strikes-back/

    I love it when somebody abroad sees the Big US picture better than we often do.

46. TJ:

    It’s not either/or. McConnell of course has plenty of blame for this, and so does Trump, and of course the voting methods (which in most of these states are going to stay this way). I have no idea why anyone would exonerate either Trump or McConnell, or in some cases the state GOP apparatus as well as individual candidates who were clueless. With such a plethora of riches we don’t have to choose.

    There is one thing, however, of which I am almost 100% certain, which is that the Democrats would like to face Trump again in 2024. The only thing they’d like better regarding Trump would be to imprison him and his family.

47. Remember those bellwether counties in 2020?

    GOP winning popular vote by wide margin despite incongruous results

    Ah yes, our old friend Incongruity.

48. Banned Lizard:

    There’s something I don’t understand about the “national popular House vote.” What about districts where a candidate is running unopposed, or with only minor-party opposition? Or districts in states with “jungle primaries”, where the final two candidates are from the same party? Voters of the other party exist, but they will not be counted because they have no one to vote for. Are there so few of those that they can be disregarded?

    Anyway, the “national popular House vote” is meaningless for the same reasons the “national popular vote” for President is. If we really elected our Congress by a national popular vote with some kind of proportional representation, then the campaigns would be conducted differently and people would vote differently.

    Even if the “national popular vote” doesn’t prove anything, that doesn’t mean the Democrats didn’t cheat. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and “the Democrats didn’t cheat” is an extraordinary claim. A lot of people have been claiming without evidence that the Democrats didn’t stuff ballot boxes for Biden in 2020, but I’ve never heard anyone even suggest a plausible motivation for them not to do that.

49. We will see if “all politics is local”. I am happy to live in Iowa which is reliably red, partly due to fair elections. At age 65, I think I will not live to see another Republican win a national office. The cheat machine is too deeply ingrained

50. Look at the WA03 House district. The incumbent Republican voted for Trump’s second impeachment, so Trump helped primary her with a MAGA “stop the steal” candidate. Well, the MAGA “stop the steal” candidate has now lost the seat to a Democrat. This is an R+13 district!

    Come on folks. As they used to say when I was a kid, wake up and smell the coffee! Trump has made himself radioactive. The time to sort out the future of the party is later. If Republicans don’t all come together and dump Trump, we may be facing an extinction level event in 2024. Taking a loss in 2024 to excise Trump is not an option. By 2028, you’re going to have a packed Senate, a packed Supreme Court, Democrats’ full social agenda, and California voting rules imposed nationwide.

    And don’t think for a minute that you’re going to ride that out because you live in a deep red state. Progressives are about control. (And they think they’re doing it for your own good.)

51. For another cautionary tale, look at Pennsylvania. The PA GOP ran two MAGA candidates at the top of the ticket this year – Oz and Mastriano.

    Not only did Oz and Mastriano lose, they dragged down the rest of the ticket. Democrats appear to have erased a 23-vote GOP majority in the state House to take the chamber for the first time in 12 years. As near as I can tell, the GOP will keep the PA Senate, so PA will (hopefully) not get the full Virginia treatment.

    (And don’t try to blame that one on mail-in voting. The 23 vote majority was won in 2020 with the same mail-in voting rules that were in effect this year.)

    Vote for Trump (or a Trump acolyte) in the primary to elect progressive Democrats. You may not like that, but it is truth.

52. There used to be 2 big political axes and a third small axis:
    1) Oppressors – Victims
    2) Barbarians – Civilization
    3) Coercion – Freedom.
    Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians. (From Kling: 3 Languages of Politics)

    With Trump, there is a now a fourth axis:
    Elites (college) – non-Elites. With most college educated folk, including commenters here with Neo, as part of the college-educated elite or elite wanabees.

    MAGA is a movement of non-elites who are also not living on gov’t support. Trump is their choice & leader. DeSantis hasn’t shown he can be as good a leader and, importantly, vote-generator as Trump.
    -Unfortunately, Trump also generates votes by Dems, who are anti-Trump.
    -Fortunately, it’s not clear that there are really so many Dems that hate “Trump” as much as they hate “MAGA Republicans”.
    -Unfortunately, the GOPe (I don’t like “eGOP” – they don’t seem very internet aware at all) seems to have failed to realize that the Dems are much better at getting out the vote when it’s easy to vote.
    -Fortunately, there are LOTS of workers unhappy with Dems.
    -Unfortunately, most workers don’t believe most GOPe politicians are worth voting for.

    I’m a proMAGA , Trump’s OK kind of guy (TrumpOK, not EverTrump. The NeverTrumpers were TrumpNotOK’ers.) NeverWOKE and NeverPC, and in 2016 NeverHillary.

    The press & media gang-up against Trump’s DeSantis critique & now Youngkin critique – this clearly reduces the focus on the GOPe failure to get more Republicans elected. Ex-pres Trump is NOT “head of GOP”, merely the ego-driven attention grabber biggest mouth. AND most effective anti-establishment mouth.

    The GOPelite are mostly on the elite side of the Elite vs non-Elite axis, and Trump is the GOP leading spokesperson of the non-Elite.
    Trump has major flaws.
    And major strengths.
    Most importantly, if he chooses to run, he’s most likely to get more primary votes among GOP voters – and maybe even Dem votes in a primary thinking he’s easier to beat. But I suspect DeSantis won’t run if Trump runs.

    The Dem media want the GOP elite – vs non-elite circular shooting squad to distract from their own, more media-controlled disagreements between moderates and radicals, plus their own policy failures.

    There’s little reason to spend so much time on it (but Trump’s infected my mind as much as so many others).

    I saw a tweet by GOPchairwoman Ronna McDaniel about how bad the slow counting in AZ is. Why isn’t ELECTION FRAUD the issue on the ballot, instead of “democracy”? Because the GOPe know that most TrumpOK folk think the 2020 election was stolen, and they want to pretend it clearly wasn’t.

    I’m still interested in knowing how many Rep Congressmen were elected, how many got Trump endorsements for the primary and how many after the primary; and how many got elected w/o his endorsement. And same for how many non-Trump Reps won or lost.

    In PA, where the dead Congressman got 80+% and the Green Party got less than 20% — where was the GOP? Why couldn’t Ronna or Mitch or any Rep donor get a “good candidate” Rep to run, who quite likely would have won after the Dem died some 4 weeks before election.

    Failure of the GOPe, with an attempt by them to distract by over-blaming Trump, hugely assisted by the media.

    Finally, for real long term serious change it might well be true that getting 100 new MAGA politicians elected in 2022 instead of 120 GOP Elite politicians who will more likely pay lip service to border security without getting a WALL built.

    Sorry Neo, you and I all of us over 60 are unlikely to see Woke quickly reversed, and looking at TeenVogue makes me think things still need to get worse before they’re bad enough for enough young people to change their minds.

    Love your blog – but think spending more time on Karaoke and grandkids then on Trump and sad politics might be a better use of my precious limited time.
    Trump 2024 … DeSantis or Lake or …??? in 2028.

    Republicans need to control all 3 branches to do the swamp draining needed. Getting there in 2024 might be more likely with continued Dem winning in 2022 – so they can’t as effectively blame Reps for the failures.

53. Democrats take control of the Senate. Now, the Herschel Walker runoff in Georgia becomes a sideshow, if not inconsequential.

    5,000 votes in Nevada was the difference. I have yet to see how many of these victories were close or closer.

    I believe many were, adding likelihood to my suspicion that there was again Dem fuvkery at work in “winning.”

    I expected it because state-wide vote fraud is much easier to do and hide than in smaller House races in districts that are typically less than a million in population size. Opportunity — meet your maker, the outcome,

54. Neo writes to me “ It’s not either/or. McConnell of course has plenty of blame for this, and so does Trump…”

    LISTEN to what you’re saying. Have you ever heard an ex-President getting blamed for the next mid-term’s election outcome before? I haven’t.

    He ain’t on the damn ballot! Yet we’re all supposed to believe this time it’s different?

    Exceptional explanations require exceptional evidence. Well, where is it?

    Yet you tell us to be credulous? BLAH.

55. Politics won’t fix what ails us. It won’t save this nation from the destruction we face. The failure of political leadership is just one small part of the massive problem we face. We have to seize the culture which is rotting away our core.

    I am shocked at how clueless most of the debate is. The “cult of Trump” is a really stupid way to look at the people who are thrilled to finally have someone fight for them. It demonstrates a disdain for the working class in America.

    I suspect most of the people commenting here have no feel or understanding at all of regular people. They have no clue about how badly the educated class has crapped all over regular workers for decades. And this was before Covidiocy wrecked their lives.

    They will flock to and support anyone who is unapologetic in fighting the rot and abuse of the Woke left. Republicans are pathetic whiners who lack the courage to stand up for the truth or even themselves. You cannot attract the support of hard working, direct people with wimpy position papers and discourses over manners. You have to fight. You have to declare yourself in strong, unapologetic terms. You have to identify the evil, fight back against evil, and dedicate yourself to the fight for as long as it takes.

    This isn’t about wringing our hands and hoping that the right politician will run for office. It’s about whether the people with the understanding of the evil we face can band together and provide a united front to fight it.

    We face an existential struggle against evil. The fight has to come from us. If we fight, natural leaders will emerge. But politics isn’t going to fix this. We have to seize back the culture.

    The focus on any particular politician is pointless. We need to be recruiting an army of fighters who see the enemy clearly and are prepared for the inevitable battle.

    Trump isn’t the problem. He’s been powerful only because he was the only one willing to fight for years. If dozens of capable leaders emerge who are willing to fight, he will fade from the scene.

56. It’s more important for the eGOP to purge the GOP of any Trump Supporters and Maga types, than control the Senate and/or house. They dream of redoing what was done to the Tea Party, and Birchers, to the MAGA types.

    I would put a lot more blame on McConnell, and the GOP Establishment.

    Interesting – from a comment at Legal Insurrection:
    AZ – Masters $9m vs Kelly $73m
    GA – Walker $32m vs Warnock $76m
    NV – Laxalt $12m vs Cortes $47m
    NH – Bolduc $2m vs Hassan $36m

    https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/11/nevada-senate-race-called-for-democrat-cortez-masto-democrats-retain-control-of-senate/#comment-1343956

    And the Democrats had a lot better ability to do calls. This is basic, off the shelf technology that is in widespread commercial use.
    https://spectatorworld.com/topic/what-i-learned-making-calls-democrats-and-republicans/

    Don Surber had an editorial saying with the GOP Party’s record for the last 3 elections, you the top should be replaced.
    https://donsurber.blogspot.com/2022/11/fix-republican-party.html

    Roger Kimball had a great article about how the Never Trump Faction is trying very hard to scapegoat the election results on Trump:
    https://amgreatness.com/2022/11/12/nevertrump-fraternity-parties-on/

    Head of Heritage commented the base is upset, and the top GOP Leadership needs to be changed:
    https://twitter.com/KevinRobertsTX/status/1591435232586174464?

    And I am noticing at American Thinker a lot of articles going behind scapegoating Trump:
    https://www.americanthinker.com/

    Hochul outspent her opponent 7X.

    The state GOP Parties in Michigan, Az, and CA are amazingly ineffective. They seemed more focused on keeping out the Maga types, ignoring voter fraud / counting issues, than winning elections.

    Two articles on AZ:
    – https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/11/arizona_on_my_mind.html
    – https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/11/add_one_more_mc_to_the_mcfailures__mccain_is_back_from_the_dead_to_devour_maga.html

    One on Michigan:
    https://redstate.com/tladuke/2022/11/12/former-candidate-tudor-dixon-strikes-back-at-incompetent-michigan-gop-leadership-n658080

    CA I live here, so my 2 cents on the state GOP. Robin Itzler in her articles has hinted at some of the issues with the GOP in CA.

    And the GOP ignored Election Fraud, and those poor useful idiots of Jan 6, because of Trump! And it just came out a VP for Oathkeepers was an FBI Informant. But, the FBI had no clue ahead of time. Yep, you can absolutely trust them. https://archive.ph/y4sR5

    Say what you will about the Democrats, but at least they LEGALLY SUPPORT their supporters. Look at how many donations were done to BLM for Legal Support, and other rioters. Look at how any Democrat ally is giving amazing legal support. GOP ally, you are on your own. Good Luck with the cost! Oh, the lawfare destroyed your life. So sad. And any Democratic Scandal, the GOP Ignores.

57. a of asks “ Anyway, the “national popular House vote” is meaningless for the same reasons the “national popular vote” for President is. If we really elected our Congress by a national popular vote with some kind of proportional representation, then the campaigns would be conducted differently and people would vote differently.”

    Presidential campaigns are different because the Electoral College system is designed to exaggerate the power of smaller states, and to diminish the power of more populous states. By contrast, House Districts are a proportional device, and they’re size is recalibrated every 10 years. States are almost never reapportioned (SEE West Virginia, hived out of Virginia because the the slavery problem.)

    This reapportioning is supposed to be done fairly based on Census Bureau’s neutrality. (Yet balanced by states internal powers which will have a measure of unfairness, which is inherent to holding state’s power. Except until now. Now if you’re the Democrat seizing power nationally from their hated enemy, you get new discretions in our formerly unchanged Constitutional system.

    Trump tried to prevent fuvkery by the Census Bureau under Obama. But XiDen apparently reinstituted the cheat there ASAP, seriously cheating many R states of new House Districts, while only cheating one D state.

    It’s another MIRACLE,! Just as those weird Senate wins were!

    Now, with the Senate lost to the Potato-head tyrant, there’s going to be half the Congressional investigations to expose that cheat. Or maybe none at all.

58. My guess is the Democrats will keep both houses of congress. Good news is they will own the economic downturn they are creating with their policies.

    Yes, I had some concerns that a GOP Congress could be blamed for what I think is coming. It is probably too late to reverse course now. I moved from CA to AZ 6 years ago to escape the sh**hole CA has become. It’s followed me. The huge money advantage that Kelly, a cipher at best, had over Masters is partly McConnell’s doing but it looks like vote fraud was needed to close the deal. I hate to see Kari Lake go down and she might pull it out but the Soros SoS Hobbs seems to have control.

    Ducey is kind of a squish but has done a good job as Governor. If Hobbs gets it, we are headed for big trouble. We are headed there anyway but AZ had seemed like a refuge to ride it out.

59. I too am pessimistic. For me it all comes down to this: the Democrats won and will continue winning because a the majority of the electorate wants what they have provided and what they have on offer.

    I hope I’m wrong. I don’t know what to do or how I should think about this. Maybe pursue the Benedict Option. I just don’t know.

    In the meantime I will be hunkered down in Indiana which has very quietly remained red red red.

60. I have a dream: that Trump will announce that he is not running in 2024: that he will say he is going to stop talking about previous elections and instead work with Republicans to come up with a clear broad policy program for the party. He will encourage them to come up with election standards for different states reflecting their population density and that will ensure that votes are counted and reported on voting day. A few days of early in-person voting may be allowed that reflects the needs of people who work out of state or are traveling, but won’t allow mail-in ballots months before election day. Absentee ballots will be strictly regulated. Furthermore, voter roles will be strictly monitored and cleaned up.

    After this he will move to immigration, sanctuary cities, and non-citizen voting. Then he can turn to cleaning up federal agencies like the EPA and FBI. Finally, spending: how will they stop give-aways that increase inlation which takes money from normal workers.

    OMT: lets talk about energy policy and programs that protect the environment. Forget EVs that depend on foreign slaves mining lithium. and instead turn to our own engineers to develop ways to improve our lives and will resonate throughout the world.

    OK, that’s my dream. If we could get republicans across the board talking about the same ideas, we could give voters a clear picture of what we plan to do. That is what I wish Trump would say.

61. It’s more important for the eGOP to purge the GOP of any Trump Supporters and Maga types, than control the Senate and/or house. They dream of redoing what was done to the Tea Party, and Birchers, to the MAGA types.

    This.
    In reverse as well – if MAGA pro-American Workers are going to win, it’s more important that Reps who win be MAGA Reps, than merely maximizing Rep wins (whenever a Dem is President).

    But in all this talk about Trump, it’s mostly personal insults and character flaws, rather than actual policy.

    Policy >> (far far more important) character. For Trump, Biden, Obama, Bush …
    The Democrat, and often female, emphasis on personal characteristics distracts from policy & results of policy.

    Trump and DeSantis both have the right policy – but GOPe cares less about policy than about avoiding too much support for Trump supporters.

    The objective cash spent differences on “important” races will show the GOPe money spenders who failed to spend on “winnable” races is far more important and blame-worthy than anything Trump said or says now.

    And Dems controlling Congress makes the bad Biden bad results less easy to blame on Reps. (This is the usual silver lining for losers.)

62. The X factor in voting fraud is made calculable against non-variable terms. This is the New Algebra of American politics.

    We’ve all been gaslighted — AGAIN. THE proof is seen in Florida, the one state where polls matched outcomes. Why? As Neo has discussed, because of strict anti-vote fraud measures.

    On this calculus is the latest column by Wayne Allen Root unfurled:

    Think of all the times in just the past few years you’ve been gaslighted. They lied to you about open borders…they lied about Hillary’s 30,000 deleted emails…they lied about spying on Trump…they lied about Russian Collusion…they lied about a perfectly fine Ukrainian phone call…they lied about massive Biden corruption in Ukraine and China… they lied about the Hunter Biden laptop…they lied about the origins of Covid…they lied about the need for lockdowns and masks…they lied about the need for Covid vaccines…they lied about the vaccines being “safe and effective”…they lied and covered up all the deaths and injuries from the vaccine…they lied about the success of miracle drugs Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin…they lied about the stolen 2020 election…

    You’ve been the victims of nonstop severe gaslighting for a decade now. You’re all part of a human psychology experiment in the limits that government and media can go in propaganda and brainwashing…while you can see they’re lying right in front of your eyes.

    And these are the exact same people now telling you Democrats just over-performed, and stopped a GOP red landslide, against all odds, without cheating and stealing the midterm election. 

    Historically, every president in history facing his first midterm experiences a tough day with automatically 20 to 30 House seats lost…and 4 or more Senate seats lost…but this terribly unpopular President Biden is brain dead with severe dementia, and can’t put 3 coherent sentences together…Yet Biden defied history?

    While also facing the worst economy in modern history…and the worst inflation in America’s history…and out of control crime…and open borders…and failing schools…and polls showing 75% of Americans believe the country is going in the wrong direction…Yet Biden beat all of that?

    If you believe Democrats made a miracle happen, without cheating, rigging and stealing…I have a bridge to sell you, over the Atlantic Ocean, in the Vegas desert.

    First, every poll in the country showed a gigantic GOP landslide victory- ranging from red wave, to red tsunami. Polls even showed women moved 32 points from September to October in favor of the GOP. 

    But in the end they all moved back to Biden and Democrats? Does that make sense to you? 

    Second, every poll in the country showed the top two issues, by a mile, were inflation and the economy. And crime was in second place, along with open borders.
     
    And they all voted for Biden and the Democrats? Does that make sense to you? 

    CNN’s own exit polls showed the GOP made massive gains among almost every voting group- men, women, white men, white women, blacks, Hispanics, young people. Everyone.

    And they all voted for Biden and the Democrats? Does that make sense to you? 

    In this environment where Americans can’t afford gas…or groceries…or rent…with the economy failing…inflation raging…scared to death of losing their jobs…living in cities plagued by violent crime, mass shoplifting, homeless everywhere, streets lined with poop, pee, drug needles…and failing schools intent on teaching your children to become masked transgenders…

    In this environment, they all voted for Biden and the Democrats? Does that make sense to you? 

    That they looked around at the disaster one man has created in only two years, and they defied a century of historic midterm defeats for the party in power…and voted for Democrats?Folks, you’ve been gaslighted.

    But the real proof the midterm was rigged and stolen is…FLORIDA.

    In Florida the GOP won a landslide. DeSantis and Rubio and everyone else in the Florida GOP won in a red tsunami. The same one the polls showed was happening in the entire country….

    https://rootforamerica.com/democrats-just-stole-another-election/

    OK. Diabolis advocatis here: where is Root’s logic wrong?

63. My guess is there is a lot of anger in the GOP Base / voters, for they feel betrayed.

    They were promised the election fraud of 2020 was just a one off. And no more action was needed to prevent this. And with Trump gone, everything would go back to normal with no more mean tweets. DeSantis was an exception adding more meaningful protection against election fraud.

    And there would be a Red Wave this time.

    And yet, here we are again, with the Democrats keeping both houses of congress probably.

    The effort to scapegoat Trump does not seem to be working.

64. It looks like Kari Lake has an uphill battle to win the governor’s race.

    As of last night, Lake was behind by 34,000 votes with a total of 266,000 statewide ballots to count, 196,000 in Maricopa, 53,000 in Pima, and the rest scattered among the other counties.

    I’ve been unable to find the actual votes in Pima (I can find the constable races, but their website does not have the senate or governor races).

    To overcome the deficit, she will need the remaining ballots to split about 60/40. All along, she has said the large number of mail-in ballots delivered on election day would fall for her. Hope that’s true.

    Both Lake and Dhillon have remained confident, indicating they have sufficient poll watchers to insure a fair process.

    I read last night that all the mail-in ballots go to a contracted printing company to have the envelopes with signatures scanned. The ballots are stored there until delivered to the tabulation center to have the signatures verified and then the ballots tabulated. If this is true, the chain of custody certainly follows a long and winding road.

    I pray she ends up winning, and her confidence 4 days ago, doesn’t become fears of fraud. If there weren’t sufficient Republicans watching every step of the process, she should have indicated that then.

    Without proof of illegal voting/process fraud, she just needs to accept the results.

    Ballot harvesting is restricted to members of the family, or caregiver in Arizona. The weak point of the system, of course, is illegal voting (which would include ballot harvesting), lax signature verification or sloppy adjudication.

    Master’s is behind by 131,000 votes, which would be nearly impossible to overcome with 266,000 votes to count.

    Bad polling, favoring Republicans, is such an anomaly. Curious.

65. On money, where was this money for Masters et al. supposed to come from? Which race would you have shifted it from? Vance? He was down in the polls as recently as September (and maybe October, I don’t recall). Johnson? He couldn’t have spared it. Rubio? Maybe, but his race actually looked tight through the late summer and early fall.

    Face facts folks – one consequence of being the out party is that we are going to be badly outspent more often than not. It’s no conspiracy, it’s just reality right now.

    If you want to blame someone, consider blaming Trump and Peter Tiel, who spent big pushing marginally electable candidates in the primaries and then refused to spend on them in the general. Trump reportedly has a huge super PAC with $100M+, but he didn’t spend it on his candidates and expected the RNC to cover them in the general. He’s reportedly saving it for his own presidential campaign.

66. And FWIW, I don’t want to purge the GOP of any Trump supporters. On policy, I’m a heck of a lot closer to Trump than I am to Romney or Bush. The problem is not Trump supporters or Trump policies, it’s Trump himself.

    You may say it’s just mean tweets and I need to suck it up. I’m not the one who is making the difference, though. I voted for Trump in 2020 and I voted for all of his candidates on my ballot last Tuesday. They all lost, badly.

67. van der leun said of the gope around 2006, ‘they thirst for death’ they believe little, and are contemptuous of those who do, gingrich palin guiliani trump,

    yes graham was crafty, but people who can be convinced to hate the best part of them, the part that sustains civilization are on a death spiral, now when all of corporate america is also on the bandwagon, well what can be averted,

68. Bauxite,
    McConnell diverted between $5-9 million from lower 48 candidates to Murkowski, so she could defeat a Trump endorsed candidate, Kelly Tshibaka. I think Tshibaka is leading slightly, but because of ranked choice, Murkowski will like win.

    Trump’s super PAC, MAGA, Inc., sent $16 million to Republican candidates the last month of the election.
    I suspect Trump wants to keep some money for his presidential campaign.

    As an aside, I think I read DeSantis raised $200 million for his governor race. Should he have sent some of that money to other Republicans?

69. more like 11 million, mcconnell spent 30 million against roy moore, in Alabama
    that was the presage of this sad little saga five years ago, that crook blankenship regardless did have cocaine mitch right on the ball,

    murkowski voted for three of the west, austin who presided over al queda’s greatest recruiting ploy in 20 years, procurator garland, and mayorkas, the cartels silent partner, she also enabled haaland the scourge of our oil industry, to get out of committee, hence enabling the conditions behind the crimean crackup

70. NEWS, ONE LIGHT.

    A Trump backed Rep for the Third District in Wisconsin has flipped it from D to R
    https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4108760/posts

    We Need 7 more in the US House of Representatives.

71. sure thats totes fine

    https://social.quodverum.com/interact/109337928054830403?type=reblog

72. As long as we’re playing the blame game, we really should go back to the very beginning.
    To FIRST CAUSES…
    Trump should NEVER have won in 2016.
    NEVER in a million years.
    And HE should be DAMNED for doing so.
    For DARING to do so…. DAMNED along with all those who cast their vote for HIM.

    For it’s precisely THIS that has caused ALL the chaos and trouble. ALL THIS GARBAGE. ALL THIS CRAP.

    If HE hadn’t won in 2016, the Democratics would NOT have had to deploy Russiagate (at least not its extended, elegant, LP format).

    Don’t even try arguing it wasn’t HIS fault. HE MADE THEM DO IT.
    If HE hadn’t won, it would never have happened.
    Ditto with the chaotic government. (The Deep State HAD TO DO THEIR BEST TO SCREW HIM and trip him up and deny him and hogtie him and skewer him…and with him, the rest of the country.)
    Ditto with the compromised media, which had to go FULL PRAVDA because of him. Prior to that, they were pretty awful, true; but he MADE THEM utterly and totally compromise themselves. HIS FAULT.
    Ditto with COVID: It had to be weaponized BECAUSE OF HIM. People HAD TO DIE. The country had to be shut down, and with it the economy. BECAUSE OF HIM.
    And, so, ditto with the economy: HE made the Democrats wreck it. And in record time. (If it weren’t for him, they could’ve taken their sweet time wrecking it…)
    Ditto with the energy industry. By insisting—and establishing—American energy independence HE FORCED the Democrats to essentially shut down the future of the industry.
    Ditto with the military.
    And ditto with law enforcement. HE FORCED those Democratic cities to commit civic seppuku on a massive scale.
    And ditto with the country. Make America great? Again? REALLY?? Those MAGA monsters HAD TO BE SHOWN a lesson. (A lesson they’ll never forget…)
    Ditto with the 2020 elections. If HE weren’t so popular, it wouldn’t have been necessary to go through all that rigamarole to “FORTIFY” it—and then make sure that there’d be no “credible” evidence for having done so…and then make sure that anyone who thought the election had been stolen (fair and square, mind you) would be cast out, ridiculed, ostracized, imprisoned, tortured, denied any iota of genuine justice. TRUMP MADE THEM DO IT!
    Ditto with Jan. 6.—TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP IS YOUR MISFORTUNE!!

    And so here we are. November 2022. They gone done it again.
    AND ONCE AGAIN, it’s HIS FAULT!!#$@^!!!!
    ONLY THIS TIME, it’s not only the Democrats UNDERSTAND THIS.

    And there’s no excuse here: NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF th MF HAD LOST in 2016. LIKE HE WAS SUPPOSED TO!,,,,

    Yes, it’s only right, it’s only fair it’s only just—IT’S ONLY INTELLECTUALLY HONEST—if we go back to FIRST CAUSES.
    – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
    Epilogue:
    And after the season pass and all memory, nostalgia, bitterness…is forgotten (…or censored…or outlawed), it goes without saying that if/when DeSantis (or whomever) runs in 2024 that the Democratic Party will heave a collective sigh of relief and declare, “Halleluya!! We don’t HAVE TO CHEAT anymore!! PRAISE THE LORD. BLOW THE TRUMPETS!!!
    HALLELUYAH!!

73. come on barry, how did you expect the beatings not to continue, so morale doesn’t improve, one looks at this tableau from the scream and says it’s totes fine,

    ‘you might think that, I couldn’t possibly,’

74. Brian E:

    You write ” Should [DeSantis] have sent some of that money to other Republicans?”

    The tense you used there indicates you think you already know that he didn’t.

    Which is interesting, because a simple search would have revealed to you that he did use it to fund other Republicans’ campaigns in Florida.

    In addition, he traveled and appeared with other states’ candidates in order to assist them:

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ventured far from his home state Friday to campaign for two fellow Republicans running in critical races this fall…

    The events — part of a tour sponsored by Turning Point Action, an emerging conservative grassroots juggernaut — are aimed at uniting the party behind a slate of right-wing candidates endorsed by Trump. All of the candidates DeSantis has backed advanced from bruising primaries and have faced backlash from some Republicans in their states; they include Kari Lake and Blake Masters, the GOP nominees for governor and senator in Arizona, whom DeSantis hit the stump for earlier this week.

    “There’s primaries, people support one candidate or another and that’s fine. But once that’s over, it’s important that all Republicans get on board and support our governor candidates,” DeSantis said in Pittsburgh, adding that it’s “very important” for Republicans to also back Mehmet Oz, the GOP Senate nominee in Pennsylvania, who was absent from the rally. “And that means not just Republican voters. It means Republican organizations in Pennsylvania and throughout the country need to be invested in this race. They need to devote resources to this race.”

    A few hours later in Ohio, he praised Vance, a venture capitalist and the author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” as “somebody that’s going to be a leader and not just be a follower, and we need that in that swamp now more than ever.”

    That DeSantis is viewed as a unifying force in the Trump-centric GOP is notable, given that the governor until now has rarely campaigned outside his home state.

75. Bauxite:

    I think it’s clear that most people are angriest at McConnell for the enormous amount of money he gave to Murkowski. The Alaskan seat was always going to go to a Republican, but he supported the worst one – who was friendliest to him. He also gave her a LOT of money he could have used elsewhere.

    Also, most people are blaming Trump AND McConnell, and not just them. There’s plenty of blame to go around; no need to choose just one.

76. Ray SoCa:

    Trump is not being “scapegoated” by those of his long-term supporters who are angry at him. He’s criticized for having made a lot of bad choices in terms of who to support, talking against other Republicans who were running, and also other actions, post-November of 2020. He has earned the criticism. But most of the people criticizing him are also praising him for his work as president, and blaming plenty of other people as well for last Tuesday’s failures. As I’ve said before, there’s plenty of blame to go around.

    As far as whether it’s “working” or not, if you mean whether Trump is doing well in public opinion polls of Republicans right now, he’s not. See this.

77. mcconnell has never been on the side of the people, well maybe when he started out like ebenezer scrooge at the counting house, in 2010 he sabotaged the tea party in 2012 he did the same, in 2013, he stuck a knife in ted cruz, he did the same in 2014, in 2016 he was hamlet in the campaign, and i’ve related what happened when trump sought his cooperation, he allowed the steele dossier to get credibility, when it should have been dismissed out of hand, of course as the power of the purse he enabled all of this extra spending and was noncommittal on the lockdowns,

    he has real power, and money and is apparently unincumbered by lawfare or witchhunts, so why not blame him, he is the largest player that matters,

78. we have seen the dems profane the seat of liberty not once but twice, well union station is close enough, there will be nothing good that comes of this second shanghaing of the ship of state, except for more damage, through climate lockdowns perhaps moving straight to world war 3, without passing go, letting our cities descend into more hobbesian states of nature, dissolving the body politic, with 10 million invaders,

79. “You write ” Should [DeSantis] have sent some of that money to other Republicans?”

    The tense you used there indicates you think you already know that he didn’t.

    Which is interesting, because a simple search would have revealed to you that he did use it to fund other Republicans’ campaigns in Florida.” -Neo

    Couple of points. My comment was in reaction to Bauxite saying (Trump) “refused to spend on them in the general”, when in fact Trump spent $16 million in the last month.

    I wrote the comment somewhat obliquely about DeSantis because I didn’t know whether or not he could legally divert campaign funds given to him for his governor campaign to other campaigns.

    But based on what you said, while he did contribute to other Florida candidates, you’ve indicated he didn’t fund candidates he supported in other states. It’s fine that he campaigned for them, as did Trump.

    I think Barry Meislin’s excellent comment says it all.

    What many people want is for President Trump to be a different person. He’s maddening at times. But he had the vision and the courage to take on the status quo in a way no politician has done in my lifetime. His agenda was a broadside against the deep state/globalists/corruptocats all at the same time.

80. Neo – You made me think, and on a Sunday! My head hurts now.

    The ones I meant Who are trying to scapegoat Trump for this failure are the WSJ, New York Post, and Never Trumpers. The Roger Kimball has a good article on this: https://amgreatness.com/2022/11/12/nevertrump-fraternity-parties-on/

    My 2 Cents on Apportioning Fault:

    50% – Fraud, including voting rules that make fraud very easy. I doubt any GOP candidate could have won PA. In Blue States, due to fraud like my state of California, it’s almost impossible for a Republican to win. And when Fraud is obvious, the GOP does not fight it tooth and nail. My guess is the establishment GOP can’t admit fraud, for then it exposes their collaboration to Get Trump, which worked beautifully in 2020, to our detriment. I deeply admire that Gov. DeSantis took action to reduce the chance Election Fraud in Florida, I wish other states would take more meaningful action in this area.

    20% – Funding and support of MAGA Candidates by the mainstream GOP.

    10% – Candidate Selection. Both Trump and the establishment had some duds. And the allowing of Democrats to influence the primaries had an impact.

    10% – Censorship by social media and Internet giants. MSM Propaganda. Not countering this effectively by the GOP, such as the Fascism Accusation. If Trump was still on Twitter, he would have destroyed that narrative quickly. Unfortunately he has been banished and exiled, with his only meaningful outlet his rallies. Abortion was successfully used to energize some voters, and I was surprised by Leslie Graham’s snafu on it, which was deliberate.

    5% – Trump’s Loose Mouth. I am not sure if had a huge impact on votes. I view him as a tragic figure, and still being targeted by lawfare.

    5% – Democrat use of technology to get the vote out.

    A question to consider – If Trump has played nice, would it have made a difference in the mid term results?

    My 2 cents is Trump should not have attacked other GOP candidates facing Democrats, such as the GA Governor, even if he was betrayed in 2020. Or taken the bait with the CO GOP Senator after being attacked. Or had the lame attack on DeSantis and Youngkin. And Trump should stop backing the clot shot.

81. I think thats a fair assessment, why would o’dea, make a point of validating dem talking points, yes the attacks on desantis and youngkin are foolish, there are better targets,

82. An old story from ecology class: There is a rotting log floating down a river and it’s headed for the rapids where it will be smashed to bits. There is an ant colony on the log and the ants are engaged in a fierce debate about who will steer. That’s where we are as we approach the end of the long march through the institutions.

83. TJ:

    You ask where is Root’s logic wrong?

    I think I’ve already explained the answer, although not directly. I’ll try doing it directly.

    (1) Root has described one very strong possibility. His theory is logical and makes sense. In that regard, it is not wrong in the sense of being impossible or even unlikely. But there are other strong possibilities that make sense without him being correct. Plus, it can be “all of the above” at least to some degree.

    (2) One alternate possibility, however, is that the polls were not very far off at all, it’s just the interpretation that was off. Take a good look. Most of the polls taken right before the election were actually within the margin of error of the actual results, and many were spot on. What’s more, the polls that were taken the day before or a couple of days before only measure the opinions at that point in time, and don’t factor in those who had already voted.

    For example, the most obvious example involves Fetterman. Several polls taken closer to the election showed Oz pulling ahead but only leading within the margin of error. Some polls taken only a week before the election showed Fetterman ahead by 5, and before the debate Fetterman was also leading. In the end, Fetterman beat Oz by about 234,000 votes, but 500K votes had already been cast in that state prior to the debate. What’s more, there was a libertarian candidate who got another 72K votes and I’m not sure he was factored into the polls (there was also a Green candidate who got 30K). People often forget the margin of error factor when they look at polls.

    (3) I have a theory that I cannot prove, but I think the “red tsunami” forecast was always a wishful thinking forecast on the part of the right combined with a desire on the part of the left to motivate its voters who hadn’t already voted early to get to the polls to stop those horrible Republicans.

    (4) As I’ve said over and over, the voting rules changes favored the Democrats even without cheating, and the amount of the favoring was hard to measure. I think that was far more influential and even decisive than Root and many others seem to understand. That was also operating strongly in 2020.

    (5) And lastly, whether or not there was cheating is impossible to determine, in particular because widespread mail-in voting makes it possible to cheat but impossible to prove it. The resultant anger on the right, and accusations of cheating towards the left that are IMPOSSIBLE to prove, leave the right open to charges of “election denier” and “potential insurrectionist”, which turn out to be potent vote-getters for the left. Those crazy radicals on the right, undermining democracy! What’s more, not only are accusations by the right of fraud unprovable and help the left, but they also take the right’s focus and attention away from the other things it needs to attend to and fix, and also cause wide dissension on the right between those who blame fraud for the loss and those who do not. That’s why loosening the rules and encouraging mail-in voting is a win-win for the left and a brilliant move. It either enables actual cheating or it enables distrust on the right that can then be exploited by the left, or perhaps both of those things.

84. John Oh,
    Spot on.

85. Tom Grey:

    I have no idea why you write “DeSantis hasn’t shown he can be as good a leader and, importantly, vote-generator as Trump.” I think that’s incorrect. Of course, DeSantis has never been in a national election, so he couldn’t possibly have shown it or not shown it on a national basis. But in Florida he showed it dramatically. He took a squeaker of a victory in 2018 and turned it into an enormous landslide in 2022, where he won demographic groups that I don’t think had ever gone Republican, certainly not in many many many years.

    Take a look

    Gov. Ron DeSantis’s blowout victory was powered by his appeal to demographic groups that typically favor Democrats, such as Hispanic and female voters.

    DeSantis won 57% of the Hispanic vote, compared with 42% for Democrat Charlie Crist, according to exit polls by major news organizations. And he won not only the traditionally GOP-leaning Cuban-American vote, but Puerto Ricans, who historically tend to vote Democratic.

    That 15-point edge with Hispanics is a huge reversal from President Joe Biden’s performance with the group in 2020. Biden won the Hispanic vote in Florida by seven percentage points.

    DeSantis’s strength with Hispanic voters helped him carry Miami-Dade County, a majority Hispanic county.

    And it was no accident. It was the result of hard work (read the article), and he also helped other candidates win handily in Florida.

    Hispanics have been moving away from the Florida Democratic Party for years. Hillary Clinton won Hispanic voters by 27 points in Florida in 2016. That represents a 42-point shift from her performance to how DeSantis fared on Tuesday night.

    Miami-Dade has long been a blue bastion that Clinton carried by 29 percentage points. DeSantis’s victory there is seen as a devastating blow for the Florida Democratic Party, which likely can’t win the state without carrying the county and without performing much better with Hispanic voters…

    He also carried Palm Beach, Hillsborough and Duval counties, which all went for Biden. DeSantis won all but five of Florida’s 67 counties.

    That type of broad win shows DeSantis’s appeal beyond core GOP groups, such as white men and older voters. DeSantis also won female voters, a group Biden won in Florida.

86. we naively assumed that the denizens in blue bergs would not be so self destructive, there is no good end that comes to the ones who willingly voted for hochul, or shapiro, the ones who sowed the lockdowns, who made students more deficient, who let criminals rampage, if the objective evidence of disaster cannot
    sway them, then we are doomed, for they have enabled even more carnage,

87. DeSantis 2024.

    Goodbye Sean Patrick Maloney, Stacy Abrams and Beto O’Rourke.

88. those two were specially cringeworthy, the dancing segments, so there are some small joys in taking them down, will they be out, well shes already president of united earth, (roddenberry is doing capoiera in the either,)

89. neo and Ray SoCal – I can’t argue with the $8-9 Million for Murkowski. That doesn’t make sense for Republicans and it’s a great reason to criticize McConnell, it if I were a Republican Senator, it would make me question whether McConnell is still the right person to lead the caucus. (But if you remove him, you had better find someone else who is as good a raising money as he is. You can be upset about how McConnell spends the money he raises for GOP sentate candidates, but if the replacement can’t match McConnell’s fundraising, we end up worse off.)

    Also, given the discrepencies that Ray SoCal pointed out, though, that $8-9M doesn’t explain very much of the result. It’s pretty hard to argue that another $8-9M spread around would have made that much of a difference. I’m all for being the GOP being the populist party, but part of being the populist party is that we’re going to be badly outspent more often than not.

90. Ray SoCa @ 6:01pm linked to an American Greatness article by Roger Kimball where Kimball said this:

    “…although I have nothing but good things to say about Ron DeSantis, I do note that his single largest donor is the financier Ken Griffin. In a recent interview in Politico, Griffin said that he was ready to back DeSantis in 2024. Why? Many reasons. But one prominent reason, Griffin said, was that DeSantis “wants to . . . blunt the vein of populism that has complicated the party’s relationship with the corporate world.”

    Ah, “the corporate world.” That would be BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Davos, and the World Economic Forum. Forget about “making America great again.” The new mantra is “making globalism great again.” Trump represented a frontal assault on that initiative. He may have helped middle-class Americans. But he cost the regime class billions. They will never forgive him. The results of the midterms and Trump’s rhetorical incontinence have emboldened the anti-Trump fraternity. Now that even some of his erstwhile supporters are fraught, that fraternity will conclude that they have license to destroy him.”

    Further evidence why I have questions about Governor DeSantis’ policies.

    Kimball once again outlines exactly what President Trump was attempting to achieve, and why he was opposed by so much of the globalist/political class.

    You are only fooling yourself if you think Ron DeSantis is a kinder version of Donald Trump. I’m not doubting his conservatism, and that he may support much of the America First agenda– but even if he represents 100% of what the President was striving to achieve, he will at best succeed at the margins.

    We will be back to the incrementalism of the conservative advances. The MAGA populist movement will wither and die as similar movements have–the Reform Party and Tea Party come to mind. The hollowed out America First that remains, will be symbol without substance.

    Maybe Trump can’t be elected– maybe the 6 year onslaught of propaganda, lies, and slander have had their corrosive effect– but I think writing of President Trump’s demise at this point premature.

91. Remember too that McConnell was defending an abnormally high number of seats this year. It was not a great year for GOP insurgent candidates with little fundraising ability.

92. The concerned conservative™ notes that while Mitch McTurtle screwed Alaska republicans, and probablly screwed Arizona republicans, he has a lot of money to screw other republicans (who aren’t Mitch Minions™) so it is better to be screwed by Mitch than by anyone else. The concept that a replacement of Mitch wouldn’t be screwing republican conservatives seems to escape our concerned conservative™.

    Some “leadership,” lets see, Mitch caved on the Brandon Inflation Production Act and caved on the recent 2nd Ammendment vote so lead on Mitch, loyal opposition indeed.

93. The topic title reminds me of John Callahan’s immortal collection of cartoons, “Digesting the Child Within.”

    John Hinderaker of Powerline, after predicting a Red Tsunami, is digging in to better understand 2022. He’s a glass half-full sorta guy like myself:
    _________________________

    Republicans drew many more votes than Democrats. When the counting stops, there will be somewhere around 4 million to 5 million more votes cast for Republican candidates than for Democratic candidates….

    Republicans won every age group over 30. Of course, we got clobbered among young people. But at least we know where we need to concentrate our efforts….

    Republicans made substantial gains with minorities. This year the GOP won around 40% of the Hispanic vote (with a lot of variation among geographies and specific demographic groups) and 13-14% of the black vote. Asians, another diverse group, are also moving toward the GOP, with around 40% voting Republican this year…

    The Democrats can’t get men to vote for them. The gender gap continues to favor Republicans, as the GOP won male voters by 14 points, while the Dems carried women by only 6 points. Now we need to get more men to vote….

    The Democrats can’t rely on abortion forever. Can they? I think it is fair to say that Dobbs, while correct, cost Republicans the election

    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/11/rays-of-hope.php

94. I don’t see the popular vote win in terms of “We wuz robbed; it’s unfair” but as an indication that we are winning the culture war, as I thought. I do have difficulty understanding how we didn’t do better considering that and the peeling off minority votes from Dems.

    I’m not sure Dobbs played as much of a part as Hinderaker argues. Maybe.

    However, clearly the D+28 under-30 crowd is a big answer to the 2022 questions. I’m not sure what we do about that or perhaps they will grow out of it as they are faced with adult responsibilities.

    My upside is that I’m not going to feel guilty about having young socialists pay taxes for my SS and Medicare benefits!

95. Bauxite

    I don’t have the data on where Trump, DeSantis, GOP party, House GOP, and McConnell etc. funneled donations to candidates.

    Plus the dark money, yep totally non partisan, that is not counted.

    It seems from what little I have seen, that money was focused more on those candidates that were acceptable to the eGOP, than those with the highest chance of winning.

    The rule that the most conservative person that can elected should be nominated, still makes sense. I can’t remember who said that. As well as making sure a thorough background check / vetting is done for hidden scandals. And give the candidates a media 101 class to be like DeSantis, or Lake, and understand the media hates your guts and will try their hardest to destroy a gop candidate.

96. Tom Grey:

    You also write, “But in all this talk about Trump, it’s mostly personal insults and character flaws, rather than actual policy.”

    It depends what you mean by “actual policy.” Or what the goal is.

    I don’t think there’s a person here who doesn’t think that Trump’s “actual policy” as president was anything less than very good. I’ve praised his policy as president, as have so many others. And it matters. But we’re not talking about the prospect of what Trump’s policy would be in a second term. We’re talking about whether he’d ever get a second term. You don’t get to set policy if you don’t get elected, and you don’t get to set policy even if you ARE elected if you don’t help other Republicans get elected, both in the Senate, the House, and to a certain extent governorships.

    That’s where Trump has gotten very weak since 2020. He hasn’t helped the election of enough Republicans to Congress from the all-important swing states, and now the “mean tweets” are directed, instead of to Democrats – or even to his rival Republicans in debates during an active campaign – at fellow Republicans who were running for all-important offices in 2022, and at fellow Republicans whom he fears could be his rivals in 2024 but who are important GOP leaders (and success stories) right now.

    This is very bad for several reasons and not just “mean” or a mark of “bad character,” although it is those things. It is bad in terms of what for want of a better world I’ll call political strategy, which not only affects his ability to get votes but the ability of the Republicans as a whole to gain power. He would need Republican power down the line, particularly in Congress, if he ever were to be president again and wanted to get more done in terms of policy. So it’s in his own interests to get more Republicans in Congress, as well as in the country’s interest.

    It is is bad because it shows that he may have lost his political instincts to a certain extent, maybe even a big extent, and perhaps is losing some judgment in general that could affect him if he ever did manage to get elected. When even long-term supporters think his current behavior is a strategic error, one wonders whether the stress and the persecution (including current legal jeopardy of him and his loved ones) has finally gotten to him and is affecting him negatively.

97. Abortion? Nope, an unconstitutional bribe to Gen Z, to have someone else pay off their student loans:

    https://nypost.com/2022/11/10/bidens-illegal-student-loan-bailout-bought-off-gen-z-and-staved-off-red-wave/

    So they voted for Dems and will get to enjoy a real recession, stagflation, it really sucked in the 1970s. Suckers, fell for the Brandon con. College educated, but soon to get a real education.

98. Bauxite:

    Also, the Alaska GOP voted overwhelmingly to censure McConnell for supporting Murkowski over the other GOP candidate. In addition, Murkowski endorsed the Democrat Peltola for Congress, and Peltola endorsed Murkowski.

    Sweet.

99. Ray SoCal – We need to get the facts straight on who spent what. NR reports that the Senate Leadership Fund, McConnell’s PAC, spent more money on Don Bolduc in NH than Trump did on the entire midterm and that Democrats actually spent more money pushing Trump’s candidates in the GOP primaries than Trump did on the entire midterm. Their numbers on McConnell-related spending are also significantly higher than what you listed above.

    I don’t have any independent way of verifying these numbers, and they’re certainly different than what is coming out of the Trump camp, so if you have other numbers or other sources, let’s figure out which ones are correct.

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/11/the-trump-excuses-that-dont-work/

100. neo – I don’t get the Murkowski thing at all. It sure seems to me that AK is red enough to have a Senator much more conservative than her. Perhaps McConnell was afraid that the MAGA candidate would fumble away the seat the same way that Palin and the other Republican appear to have fumbled away the AK House seat? Maybe the ranked choice jungle primary that they have up there triggered some sort of “general election” clause in whatever arrangement the incumbent GOP senators have with one another.

     It’s a headscratcher for sure. If it is true that McConnell-related PACs spent $320M, however, it’s difficult to see how a reallocation of $8-9M would have made much of a difference in the overall results outside of AK.

101. National Review about as credible as National Enquirer? Bat Boy and UFOs.

102. Bauxite:

     I’ll tell you one thing, that money was wasted in NH and it was obvious it was going to be wasted. I’ve said it before several times, but Bolduc was never never going to win there for a host of reasons. Once he won the primary – courtesy of quite a few Democrats re-registering Republican in order to vote there – it was obvious it was a lost cause. And his nearest Republican competitor in the primary, who was more conventional, was so boring he never could have won either. Hassan could have been beaten, but only by Sununu, who chose to run for re-election as governor and won handily while Hassan also cruised to victory.

103. In the end, DeSantis, if he is to succeed at the national level as a candidate, must replicate Trump’s success in the midwest states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Without finding a way to do that, DeSantis will lose to Joe Biden or Gavin Newsom, whichever one is the nominee. Even Trump couldn’t replicate that success in 2020, but as all of you know, I am 100% sure he was robbed in Wisconsin and Pennsylavania (along with AZ and GA).

     At the very least, the Republicans need to be playing the mail-in-vote identically with the way the Democrats play it, and they probably need to spend far less money on campaign ads, and more for an actual ground game for collecting ballots from red areas and red voters. If the Democrats are cheating, then cheat back. If you ever want a fair election again, you have to match the Democrats turnout. If the blue areas reach 90% turnout, then reach 95% by hook or by crook. If the Democrats go to 95, go to 100%. Force the bastards to do a 105% turnout, and then respond with 110%. Blow the system up with ridiculousness- then, perhaps, the Democrats come to the table to discuss a cease fire and effective election reforms to make voting fair and secure.

104. Yancey Ward:

     One serious problem for Republicans is that Democrats have a lot more money to play with.

105. Did the Democrats cheat? In a court of law, they are innocent until proven guilty. Outside a court of law, OF COURSE THEY DID. Why wouldn’t they? Whether they needed to or not? If they believe half of their own propaganda, defeating those horrible MAGA Republicans “by any means necessary” must be a moral imperative.

106. Continuing to cry cheating doesn’t help republicans, my mother at 65 year old absolutely refused to vote in person or mail in because she fully believes the election is rigged so she just tune out politics completely and refuses to participate to avoid getting heart broken. That’s reality, many of her friends from church had the same attitude. That’s 10 votes loss in maricopa. I completely agree that trump crying voter fraud all the time suppressed republican votes. Voter fraud exists but if continuing to cry about it hurts republicans more than helping, what’s the benefit of bring it up all the time? since I don’t see republicans having the power to stop it or someone voting for republicans because they despise the cheating from democrats. just drop it.

107. “…defeating those horrible MAGA Republicans…”
     Yes, but that is merely the excuse, the rationalization, the justification—or one of them—for their goal of TOTAL POWER.
     In PERPETUITY.

     WE DON’T KNOW how much they cheated. We can’t know—given the Democratic Party’s definition of “transparency” and the ubiquity of “sheer coincidences” that keep repeating themselves… (Popping up and cropping up with “astonishing” regularity!)

     We do know the Democratic Party’s “game” of promoting whichever Republican contender they believe will be SO EXTREME (or SO AWFUL) as to be to the Democratic Party candidate’s advantage—a la Bolduc in NH cf. Neo’s comment: “…I’ve said it before several times, but Bolduc was never never going to win there for a host of reasons. Once he won the primary – courtesy of quite a few Democrats re-registering Republican in order to vote there – it was obvious it was a lost cause…” [Emphasis mine; Barry M.]

     In Arizona, the Democrats bit off a bit more than they could chew, doing their tried and tested song and dance routine to promote Kari Lake. And Lo and Behold(TM), there, the electoral shenanigans TOOK OFF FROM THE VERY GET-GO, as the Democrats realized they HAD TO correct that MISTAKE as soon and as quickly (and effectively) as possible.
     (Merely another “sheer coincidence”, of course, on that yellow-brick road to Democratic Party TRANSPARENCY….)
     – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
     “Blow the system up with ridiculousness….”

     Ah yes, when politics becomes brinksmanship.
     When politics becomes a game of chicken.
     (Cf. https://tinyurl.com/2badtnh7)
     But WHO will be the Solomon in this pernicious RAPE of the American political system?
     + Bonus:
     “Fair Elections Are The Underpinning Of A Free Society: Retired Marine Reserve Colonel”—
     https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fair-elections-are-underpinning-free-society-retired-marine-reserve-colonel
     – – – – – – – –
     “One serious problem for Republicans is that Democrats have a lot more money to play with.”—
     Not any more…! **
     https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ftx-founder-spent-40-million-democrat-midterm-megadonor
     https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/ftx-investigates-abnormalities-wallet-movements-fear-mount-potential-hack
     https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2022-11-12/friday-night-theft-ftx
     https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/sam-bankman-fried-bought-stakeholder-capitalism-and-proved-its-disastrous-ideology
     https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/sbf-questioned-bahamas-police-elon-counters-there-will-be-no-investigation-major-democrat
     https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/sbf-questioned-bahamas-police-elon-counters-there-will-be-no-investigation-major-democrat
     …etc.
     ** Just joking…

     (Though to be sure that particular FTX stunt sure was TIMED ADMIRABLY WELL!)

108. @ huxley > “My upside is that I’m not going to feel guilty about having young socialists pay taxes for my SS and Medicare benefits!”

     I’m with you there!
     The downside is that none of them will have a job on which to pay taxes.
     We are more likely to be supporting them with whatever the Democrats can squeeze out our retirement assets.

109. Hoyt links to Kendall (if you haven’t yet read it):
     “POST-MORTEM BY THOMAS KENDALL”—
     https://accordingtohoyt.com/2022/11/11/post-mortem-by-thomas-kendall/
     H/T Instapundit
     FWIW.
     YMMV.

110. QUESTION: did Biden’s student loan debt relief plan function as an effective “get out the vote”o motive in this months election?

     We know from exit polling that the young skewed over two-thirds Demoract. But what of the turn out numbers? The NYPoste has the numbers, and the numbers say YES.

     “Joe Biden blatantly bribed some young voters to save him from the red wave — and they don’t even need the cash.

     “That’s right: The kids actually did show up to vote this time around. Per the Edison Research National Election Pool’s exit polling, 27% of eligible voters aged 18 to 29 cast ballots. That makes this the second-highest youth turnout in a midterm in nearly 30 years. And Edison estimates that in key competitive states, the youth turnout was even higher, around 31%.

     “Predictably, Democrats swept this voting block by a huge margin. But the gap was even bigger than most expected. Per the same exit polls, 63% of young voters voted for Democrats, a clear majority, whereas all other age groups were closely divided. And in the closest races that ultimately may make the difference, young voters swung even more heavily in favor of the Democrats.

     “In Pennsylvania, for example, John Fetterman won 70% of the youth vote compared with Dr. Mehmet Oz’s 28%. In Arizona, Mark Kelly claimed 76% of this demographic while his Trump-backed challenger, Blake Masters, got just 20%.

     “Abortion ballot measures and Roe v. Wade’s overturn may prove to be the biggest single factor. But we can’t ignore the fact Biden, through his unilateral student-debt forgiveness initiative, attempted to funnel billions of dollars directly into the pockets of young people just a few months before the election.

     “That timing was not coincidental — and certainly seems to have bought his party some of their votes.

     “The president admitted as much in his reaction to Tuesday’s results: “I especially want to thank the young people of this nation, who I’m told — I haven’t seen the numbers — voted in historic numbers again” to “continue addressing the climate crisis, gun violence, their personal rights and freedoms and the student-debt relief.”

     “The president isn’t just speculating. A late October Harvard survey of youth voters found 9% viewed student-debt relief their first or second priority, a small percentage but enough to make a real difference….

     “ Biden’s student-debt “cancellation” surely had a significant effect on boosting the youth turnout. This might be smart politics, but it has jaw-dropping ramifications. After all, even Democrats like Nancy Pelosi had admitted that the president didn’t have the constitutional authority to enact his bailout unilaterally without Congress. This means that when Biden did it anyway, he did so knowing it’s almost certainly unconstitutional but that the courts wouldn’t have worked through it by Election Day.”

     https://nypost.com/2022/11/10/bidens-illegal-student-loan-bailout-bought-off-gen-z-and-staved-off-red-wave/

     It’s good to be the King — even with dementia in the brain and evil on the mind (of him and his handlers.

111. Ray SoCal – I think it was Bill Buckley who said a conservative should support the right-most candidate who can win. I’m completely on board with that idea. I’d rather be governed by a strong conservative, but if that option isn’t available, I’ll take a squishy conservative over a progressive seven days a week and twice on Sunday.

     I would also consider this – It could be the case that McConnell deliberately steered money away from MAGA “stop the steal” candidates to tank their campaigns. It could also be the case that McConnell spent his money based on candidate viability and that the MAGA “stop the steal” candidates were the least viable. The spending patterns would look very similar in both cases.

     Another point is that if you’re running great candidates, those candidates should be able to raise some portion of their own money. It’s kind of rich that the MAGA crowd pushed a bunch of insurgent, anti-establishment candidates in the primaries and is now belly-aching that the establishment didn’t save those candidates when they couldn’t raise money on their own. “We’re going to topple the establishment . . . as soon as the establishment gives us the money to do it.” If that’s the MAGA plan, its a pretty rotten plan.

112. neo – I wonder if the Murkowski thing was Jim Jeffords insurance. Murkowski was probably going to win regardless. It’s been discussed here how she has won previously as an independent against the Republican nominee and how the ranked choice silliness that they have in AK now makes it difficult for a more conservative Republican to beat her. If you’re McConnell and you cut her loose completely, the most likely result is that Murkowski comes back to the Senate with less even less loyalty and fewer obligations to the GOP leadership. Maybe she doesn’t do the full Jim Jeffords (not even Manchin did the full Jim Jeffords), but I could see McConnell thinking that sending Murkowski 2-3% or so out of his $320M is money well spent to keep her more in touch with the GOP leadership.

     I don’t know. That’s the best explanation I can think of.

113. And a special bonus for all those loyal members of the National Non-Sequitur Brotherhood/Sisterhood:
     “Collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX had ties to Ukrainian government, WEF, and top Biden adviser”—
     https://www.theblaze.com/news/ftx-sam-bankman-fried-democrats-ukraine?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
     H/T Instapundit.
     https://instapundit.com/553788/

     Turns out it’s a “family affair”, no less…
     As the Biden Oppo Government of the United States might say, “Almost Comedy”…
     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr9iECO82dw

114. I imagine everyone here has seen this, but what the hell:

     https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2022/11/13/nbc-news-projects-house-majority-control-n1645409

115. Related:
     “America’s Fourth World Vote System Is a Global Embarrassment”—
     https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/11/13/americas-fourth-world-vote-system-is-a-global-embarrassment/
     H/T Instapundit.

     File under: BY DESIGN. (Cross-Referenced with: Cui Bono?)

116. Another point – NR is reporting that Trump set up a portal to raise funds for Masters in AZ, but that 90% of those funds actually went into Trump’s own PAC and only 10% went to Masters.

     If this is true, it shoots a pretty big hole in the MAGA funding complaints.

117. Sorry to re-post, but this is a much better link. You can drill down to the uncalled races if you like.

     https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-elections/house-results

118. Because OMB. Whatever. Given that the late arrival mail in vote machine can generate as many votes as needed, see Epoch Times article, that is the problem. Big data, electronic signatures, lax or no independent oversight, why would a Fetterman, Hobbs, or Brandon ever need to campaign. Brrrrr, you are “elected.”

     Dead men and brain damaged vegetables for office. Forever.

     But OMB.

119. om – The NY Post reports this morning that the split on the Trump/Masters thing was 99/1. Trump allowed Masters to use Trump’s maing list to solicit donations, but Trump’s PAC kept 99% of the proceeds. NR reported that it was 90/10.

     That’s two sources now reporting the arrangement. Saying that McConnell screwed Arizona Republicans is just delusional. Somebody, or somebodies, screwed Arizona Republicans, but it wasn’t McConnell.

120. Related?
     (Hey! Everything’s related….)
     Pushback against the “angelic” perfectionists whose perverse moral compass insists on reducing history to cardboard cut-outs while basking in the pseudo-intellectual hot tub tat induces that frisson of certainty that DESTRUCTION is the ONLY moral alternative….
     “The Missing Link in American History”—
     https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-missing-link-in-american-history/
     H/T Powerline blog.
     Opening grafs:
     “Decades into the Left’s obsession with rewriting America’s history as a tale of unrelieved oppression, we’re still being told that the dark side of our national story is under-taught. It isn’t only the 1619 Project that has falsely flipped America’s narrative on its head. America’s story as an oppression narrative — and very little else — is well on its way to being enshrined in blue state education standards….
     “…But what if the real missing link in America’s history is the fuller story of how we became good — how we overcame an ancient oppression and extended the benefits of republican citizenship to all? That is the thesis of historian Jon K. Lauck’s new book….”

121. Then there’s this little tid-bit from Nevada….
     “Journalist Wanted To Prove The Integrity Of Mail In Ballot Signature Verification. 11 VOTERS PUT HIS SIGNATURE INSTEAD OF THEIRS ON THEIR MAIL IN BALLOTS.
     “SIX WERE ACCEPTED AS VALID!”—
     https://twitter.com/JohnBasham/status/1591806720749494274?cxt=HHwWhIDT1evxnZcsAAAA

     Time for a recount.
     Of the WHOLE gosh-darned thing.
     (Can that even be done???)

122. And, one other thing I would strongly suggest Republicans do in the areas they control in blue states and tossup states- don’t be the first to tabulate your results.

     The most striking thing about the drawn out counting fiascos is that red counties and precincts regularly get most of their counting done very early in the process. In Arizona, in the red counties, the counties Lake and Masters won, got their vote count over the 90% mark on Tuesday night. There was a spreadsheet from the state
     s SoS office that broke the votes down by county into what was “ready to tabulate”- these are the votes that are literally waiting to be put through the tabulation machine- nothing else needs to be done with them- a counting process that doesn’t take more than a few hours for even 300K ballots. Maricopa and Pima Counties had been sitting on over 500K such “ready to tabulate ballots” for three days ever since Lake had closed almost all of the gap opened by Hobbs on the early mail-in-ballots that had been tabulated by Tuesday afternoon (and thsse ballots, of course, do favor the Democrats for perfectly valid reasons).

     However, at some point on Wednesday afternoon, Maricopa and Pima counties stopped tabulating the “ready to tabulate” ballot pool, which just sat there at 500K for 3 straight days, and with no explanation at all given as to why they weren’t being tabulated. During that time, the other, significantly more Republican counties essentially finished all their counts with just a small amount of provisionals and late arriving mail-in-votes. I think the election officials in both counties stop tabulating for 3 days because they knew counting those ballots, most of which were day of votes and mail-in-vote dropoffs on Tuesday, just like almost all the ballots couted on Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, would greatly favor Lake over Hobbs, and would give Lake a pretty sizeable lead that would be easy to overcome with the same level of cheating, but would look more suspicious. So, they stopped counting those ballots, counted more early ballot votes, and very late arriving ballots, thus building up Hobb’s lead. I think once they were sure Hobbs had enough votes to stand up, they finally started to count the big pool of votes that were ready to tabulate on Wednesday.

123. Bauxite,
     Pretty easy to find out if Master’s campaign received only 1% of donations from the MAGA, Inc. pac. Ask the Master’s campaign. If they were stiffed to that extent by Trump, it’s unlikely they would bite their lips. No reason to at this point.

     Your logic is flawed regarding McConnell diverting funds to his candidates and away from America First candidates. Murkowski. He diverted funds from Oz, Masters and Laxalt to Murkowski– and was censured by the Alaska Republican party for that.

     Second, you diminish the amount ($9 million) as only 2-3% of the total, but not an insignificant amount to candidates already being outspent by large amounts.

     Third, America First supporters are supposed to support GOPe candidates, but not the reverse? GOPe can actively work against America First candidates, withhold funds from then, and that’s just ducky? Balderdash.

124. Re Bauxite, et al.
     Trump stiffed Master’s is the headline— and stories sourced to NeverTrumper NR, etc.

     Heh. Nothing suspicious in the timing of these reports. I’m sure. Or sources. Sure. /S

     Listen, we’ve been DELUGED AND FLOODED AND TIDAL WAVED INTO TRUMP HATE LIES. Gonna have to do better.

     Meanwhile, at National Pulse, Jenna Ellison reports on the McCONNELL and Murdock (Faux, WSJ, NYPost — the latter edited by another Never Trumper), all unleashing a pro DiSantis/Trump Bad barrage fir their WEF overlords.
     I’m properly skeptic all of all this. You, Sir B, are gullible.

     https://thenationalpulse.com/2022/11/12/ellis-the-murdochs-think-they-get-to-pick-the-next-president/

125. It’s absolutely correct to be skeptical about any of this.

     And I’m disgusted at all the jumping on this sordid bandwagon.

     Once again, it appears—to me, at least—as though there’s been massive cheating…
     …but as per usual, a scapegoat is REQUIRED.

     And so…Trump’s fault?

     Well, doubtful to me, but perhaps it’s the case; if so, it behooves anyone who thinks he/she is serious to wait for the dust to settle; to wait for certifiable proof.

     As it stands, the Democrats must be laughing themselves silly…

     …AGAIN…

     (…as the country they claim to love(!) and serve(!!) continues to go to pot…but MORE IMPORTANTLY to them—MOST IMPORTANTLY—Trump is getting skewered from all sides now…)

126. Yancey Ward – Amen. Red precincts should hold votes later. There’s no need for any funny business. Simply preventing the blue precincts from knowing how many votes are “needed” would discourage fraud and dispel the appearance of fraud. For all the cauterwalling that Democrats do about “our democracy,” their novel voting methods that have vote counting stretched out over nearly a week are as much a threat to “our democracy” and public trust in elections as anything.

     Brian E – The facts are out there and I’m sure that we’ll get them at some point. As for Masters having no reason to hold back now, I’m not so sure. I don’t think the man has any future in elected politics, MAGA or otherwise, but does he know that? Is he interested in a cable news gig? He may still have incentives to keep quiet. Let’s see how the facts come out.

     Also, I think it is you who have the logic backwards. McConnell raised money on behalf of the whole caucus and allocated it across all of the races (I believe there were 35 this year with special elections). The MAGA crowd nominated more than a few turkeys with little chance of winning. That doesn’t mean McConnell should haved changed his allocations to in a futile attempt to bail them out. Where they were salvagable, McConnell did spend money, e.g., Ohio. Frankly, if the MAGA crowd wants to nominate no-hopers, they need to provide the funding themselves.

127. McTurtle good OMB bad, just ask Murkowski or any concerned conservative™.

     Concerned conservative™, aren’t they ultra mega MAGA now? Get your slurs up to date.

128. The question about whether Trump got the majority of funds donated for Masters is not what the source of the report is, but whether it’s true. Evidence, please. The claim about the Trump/Masters split on a fundraising email is here:

     https://nypost.com/2022/11/13/dont-believe-trump-this-midterm-miss-is-all-because-of-him/

     All I can say for sure at this point is that the left has been able to paint Trump as a racist/fascist guy, without any reasons. Yes, they will do the same to any other Republican candidate, but possibly not as effectively. My sole concern is not any Republican candidate’s ego. It’s getting someone who is not a crazy leftist, or one of their country club somewhat-right allies, elected.

129. om, I can’t keep up with the acronyms. “OMB” sounds like the government personnel office. What does it mean when you use it?

130. orange man bad, you would think they would show a link to open secrets, but like the missing video and no presented inventory at the pelosi pad, we’re supposed to take it on faith,

131. Barry Meislin:

     As I have said before: both of them can easily be at fault. There’s lots of reasons for the disappointing loss.

     You may notice, however, that my criticism of Trump is actually about his behavior since his own 2020 loss in terms of (a) the incessant focus on how he was robbed by fraud, a focus that doesn’t change things and which has turned a lot of people off that he and/or the GOP need to win; and (b) his attacks on GOP candidates prior to the election as well as after, attacks which are destructive and emphasize one of his worst traits, his narcissism. Trump is not responsible for the loss and certainly not solely responsible, but he sure didn’t help and what’s even more clear is that he has destroyed his 2024 chances with a lot of former supporters and gained no new ones.

132. and they stole it again, lets not pretend otherwise, o’dea trying to be romney of the rockies, I thought carpenters had more common sense,

     money had to spent because of that omidyar paid jackass mcmuffin, mcconnell tilting the scale again, rove tilting the scale again, why should mcconnell stay as leader, you have to go back to 1970, for this level of poor performance,

133. Kate:

     Orange Man Bad (OMB) is almost as evil as Bush Hitler, or maybe more evil? The daughter of Darth Chenney is shirley (surely) afflicted with terminal OMB, as are many concerned conservatives. Nearly all the woes of the world can be laid to OMB. GOPe certainly seems to think that.

     🙂 “om” isn’t short for “Orange Man,” by the way. 🙂

134. One reform that might get bipartisan support, and if it didn’t get such support would more clearly outline the illegality of the Democrat counties’ methods, would be this-

     if valid ballots can be received a week or two weeks after election day, then no ballots can be tabulated until all valid ballots are ready to be tabulated. In other words, no counting of mail-in-vote or early in-person vote before, on, or the week of or two weeks of, or three weeks of etc. until all the valid ballots are in the state’s various precinct counting centers, completely pre-processed and cured according to the various state laws with a final total valid ballot count given (the total number of valid ballots cast in that election). Then and only then are the ballots tabulated, just like it used to happen on election night.

     What isn’t tenable any longer is Democrats knowing how many votes their opponents got before we know how many votes the Democrat candidate got, and with no information whatsoever of how many ballots are actually left to count, a number that I have pointed out over and over changes by the hour in these states with drawn out counting processes. It looks like fraud on its face, and it likely is fraud.

135. 1. I don’t know the details but the general picture should be obvious.

     2. It makes NO sense to claim on the one hand that the elections were massively fraudulent AND on the other hand to CLAIM that Republican candidates lost because they were sub-par, or because they were not sufficiently funded or because Gen Z was unhappy about abortion or because Gen whatever-it-is was gratified to have their debts canceled (at who’s expense?) or because the GOP leadership underperformed, or whatever other excuse du jour.

     Ah, but EMBRACE the power of ‘AND’??
     NO, not in this case. Most certainly not IN THIS CASE. (As I stated above, it’s nonsensical.)

     The short version? You can’t have it both ways. Either it’s stolen or it’s not. (No, not “a little”; no, not “as usual”; no, not “not enough to make a difference”. We’ve been there AND done that…)

     Addendum: If one DOES want to blame the GOP leadership it would be for NOT strengthening ballot certification/verification more “vigorously”… But WHO should one blame for that? Trump? Please….

136. The pattern, over and over again is this-

     (1) Early received mail-in-ballots and early in-person vote is tabulated first on election night- this usually favors the Democrat if the majority of the early vote is mail-in-vote, and favors the Republican if the majority is in-person early vote. In states like Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and Nevada, it is usually dominated by the mail-in early vote.

     (2) When the polls close on election day, you get counts from the in-person election day vote for the next 12 hours or so. The last 3 elections this has been dominated by Republican voters, and those early counts that show up with the Democrat leading regularly by 15-20% are cut very quickly down to something that is within the expected final margin, but over and over again, the counts of even in-person election day vote numbers suddenly stall everywhere- it isn’t that it is finished, it is that the counting just stops for days at a time, and then restarts where, suddenly, the trend that had been in place before the count was halted, is suddenly favoring the Democrat again- see all the states I listed above. It is the sudden trend changes after counting halts that makes me suspicious because there isn’t a really good explanation ever given for why ballots that are ready for tabulation aren’t being tabulated for days at a time. It really does look like someone realizing what the outcome is going to be, and working to change that outcome- work that requires a few extra days before resuming counting.

137. back during the walker recount, the progs were very miffed one red county held back the count,

138. The last election was just a little pregnant; late counting of ballots is much the same as another late term procedure. Had to kill the republic to preserve our democracy™ but we saved our right to choose.

139. Kate @ 1:30pm

     NY Post had been balanced on its coverage of Trump in the news pages for the most part.

     But this is an opinion piece from the editorial board. Like to know who actually wrote it– but this is one of the strongest denunciations of Trump I’ve read. I think the editorial board has been critical of Trump before.

     The defense of McConnell is as important to the writers as the denunciation of Trump, IMO. I’m curious why so many people are defending McConnell, since he represents the globalist/GOPe Republicans?

     The article reveals its juvenile nature: “The election should have been about him. Instead, you made it about you. And since you made it all about you, you are the only one to blame.” Analysis or petulence?

     I do see this as a globalist/nationalist struggle. (Trump vs. McConnell) Is this exposing the rift that existed all along, but was glossed over after his 2016 win? Rhetorical question.

     An aside. At this point it’s unknown which side DeSantis would support.

140. Yancy Ward:

     WA is only voting by mail or county drop boxes. There is a history of magical misplaced “prodigal son” ballots from the Puget Sound area. I would guess that the Dem ballot manufacturing process is more sophisticated now and they don’t have to find the votes (manufactured) IMO.

141. Nothing to see, OMB.

     https://no-pasaran.blogspot.com/2022/11/deja-vu-all-over-again-in-banana.html?m=1

142. “NY Post had been balanced on its coverage of Trump in the news pages for the most part.”

     Beg to differ.
     Since Nov. 9 (and I believe this is what we’re talking about here) the NYP has made a decisive and flagrantly vocal, no-holds-barred decision to hold Trump primarily responsible for the much-more-than-disappointing results of the last “election”.

     This 180-degree reversal on the part of the newspaper no doubt appeals to a great many, but as I explained above is, in my view at least, totally non-sensical if one believes that massive fraud was ONCE AGAIN perpetrated during the election.

     The truth is that after having been buoyed for quite a while by that paper and its determined stance vis-a-vis what I consider the awful truth of so many things these days…I am left appalled…

     But as they say, “That’s life, kiddo…”

143. the place where snake plissken wouldn’t bother, says what now, people like wading through rats, and fentanyl junkies, that’s your story,

144. We could use a history of political “pivots”. Do they ever really happen? Are they ever successful? Clinton’s “triangulation” in 1995 may be an example of one that happened and succeeded. Jefferson and Madison each, I think, backed down in practice from their party principles. But in general, politicians don’t pivot, and the pivots don’t usually succeed. Trump won’t pivot. Biden (or rather Biden’s team) isn’t pivoting either.

145. If one had as much to cover up as “Biden” one wouldn’t be doing much “pivoting either”….

     (OTOH one might CLAIM—even repeatedly—that one IS MOST CERTAINLY pivoting, even as one twists the knife in ever deeper. Depends on how Machiavellian one is…. And/or desperate.)

146. Barry Meislin, Newspapers used to be divided between editorial content (straight news) and op-ed content (opinion).

     The Post may mingle the content, since traditionally the opinion pages were clearly defined.

     I only occasionally see the NY Post (lots of Miranda Devine) which has always seemed balanced.

147. om, I am glad to know you are not orange.

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