No, Trump isn’t the only person “who can save America”

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: commenter “that guy.”]

Right at the outset, the title of this piece annoyed me: “Only Trump Can Save America.” My quarrel with it? No one person can “save America,” although one person – if elected president – can certainly help it begin to happen. But to do that, such a person would first have to get elected. Is Trump that person? I’m not at all sure he could get elected, although I’m pretty sure he could and will get nominated by the GOP.

Is DeSantis or is Haley that person? I definitely think DeSantis could be that person – but again, he’d have to get nominated first and then elected. Neither looks probable at this point, and neither has looked probable for many many months. So I pretty much gave up on that long ago.

I realized quite early in the campaign season that Trump was almost certainly going to be the nominee – barring black swan events – and I don’t know why everyone else didn’t realize it as well. I have long seen the race for second place as a competition to be the Trump alternative if something were to happen that would mean Trump couldn’t run, and I therefore think it’s fine if the second-place race continues for at least a while.

From the article:

Those of us who backed Ron DeSantis – or the other Republican candidates – should read the room. Former President Trump winnowed the field effortlessly and then crushed the remaining three candidates in Iowa. He leads in the polls everywhere else.

Is the writer, Steve Cortes, just noticing that? Is he only now “reading the room”? But it’s been quite obvious almost from the start of the race. Iowa was merely a demonstration of what has been apparent for ages.

Then he follows up with this:

It is time to coalesce and unite behind the clear preference of the GOP grassroots, Donald John Trump.

No, it’s not. As I’ve said before, that second-place battle is important. A lot of Republican voters don’t prefer Trump, and they don’t want to be prematurely deprived of their chance to vote for alternatives in the primaries. This is not a coronation.

Cortes continues:

We do not have the luxury of further internal strife and instead must gird for an epic battle this autumn against our opponents who are inflicting daily damage upon America.

“Internal strife” has long been a GOP constant, so forget about ending it. And calling to prematurely unite behind Trump when the primaries have barely begun might even increase that strife, because many Republican voters – probably close to half – might resent it.

And if the GOP leaders haven’t already been “girding for an epic battle this autumn against our opponents,” then we’re in even bigger trouble. It is possible to have several candidates competing in the primaries while at the same time not just “girding” for a battle later on against Democrats, but fighting that battle right now.

The DOJ knew right away that Hunter’s laptop was Hunter’s laptop

The New Neo Posted on by

Well, I’ll be gobsmacked. Fancy this:

Of course they knew, and most people on the right knew they knew. But the press and fifty “intelligence officers” were eager to suppress that news and create an alternate reality in which the whole thing was Russian “disinformation” and Joe Biden’s election would not be unduly affected.

I wonder how many Democrats will get this new information about the coverup, and how many will care – after all, isn’t lying about the laptop (and just about everything else) well worth it in order to prevent the demonic Trump from being elected?

Here’s a trip back in time – from a post I wrote in late October of 2020, not long after the outset of the Hunter laptop stories in the NY Post and prior to the 2020 election:

Well, we already knew the FBI was given the Hunter laptop in December of 2019, didn’t we? …

And now the following has been reported by James Rosen:

“A Justice Department official confirmed to journalist James Rosen of Sinclair Broadcasting Group that in 2019 the FBI ‘opened up a criminal investigation into Hunter Biden and his associates that is focused on allegations of money laundering and remains open and active today.'” …

So, what was the FBI doing with the laptop [till late in 2020]? Perhaps Toobining themselves?

Whatever they were doing, they kept mighty mum about it …

Or, as Ace wrote today:

They [the DOJ] verified that the laptop was Hunter’s in 2019. They compared information on the laptop to information from Hunter’s Apple accounts and determined it was the same information.

And then they lied and lied and lied to the American public.

One of the saddest things of all is how little any of this surprises us anymore.

Haley’s support and other election 2024 matters

The New Neo Posted on by

Nikki Haley’s supporters in Iowa are Biden-friendly (or Biden-adjacent):

nearly half of [Haley’s Iowa voters] — 43% — [said] they’d vote for Democratic President Joe Biden over Trump.

These new findings from the latest NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll of Iowa further illustrate the degree to which Haley is bringing in support from independents, Democrats and Republicans who have been uneasy with Trump’s takeover of the GOP. Fully half of her Iowa caucus supporters are independents or crossover Democrats, according to the survey results.

This makes perfect sense. It’s exactly the demographic to which Haley would be likely to appeal. The GOP base, of course, is loyal to Trump, and my guess is that many would not vote for Haley were she to be the nominee – which I predict won’t be happening anyway. But the split between a candidate who seems to appeal to moderate and especially Independent voters, such as Haley, and one who appeals to the conservative right is an old old story.

My favored candidate remains DeSantis. But unless he can make big inroads in New Hampshire in the next week, Haley will best him there – probably as a result of crossover votes from Democrats and Independents. Crossover votes represent a flaw in the primary system in my opinion. They’re not as much of a problem in a year in which both parties’ primaries are very competitive, but this year Biden has it locked up (if the powers behind the throne don’t give him the hook, that is), and so Biden supporters feel free to meddle in the Republican primaries in states that allow it.

Haley has refused to attend a planned debate in New Hampshire with DeSantis for the ostensible reason that Trump won’t be there. That reason doesn’t pass the smell test. She has attended many debates, including one recently with DeSantis, without Trump. I think her refusal now is that she’s way ahead in NH polls and she did somewhat poorly against DeSantis in her one-on-one debate with him, so why risk it? DeSantis has rightly called her on this:

Making his case to host Wolf Blitzer and an audience of New Hampshire voters, including registered Republicans and undeclared voters, DeSantis made the point that he is the sole remaining candidate who hasn’t refused to show up and debate his opponents.

He said at this point he was the only one not running a “basement campaign.” Good point, but I don’t know if this will help him. That link to the DeSantis talk has some interesting remarks of his about many other things, such as baseball and why he joined the military.

As I’ve said many times, though, I believe Trump will be the nominee. Will Biden be his party’s nominee? I continue to think it more likely than not because a mechanism for removal and a good replacement hasn’t been found. And to those who say “Michelle Obama,” I say that if she had wanted to run she’d have run in 2020 instead of Joe.

I’ve read here and elsewhere that Trump might pick Elise Stefanik as his running mate. I think that would be a good choice, but I have no idea what he’s thinking.

This is an amazing hostage story

The New Neo Posted on by

Please watch. It’s not long.

All the hostages were not kept under the same circumstances or by the same people, so there was and is some variation their experiences – plus of course the variation in their personalities prior to being taken hostage. This young woman seems to have drawn on a source of strength that she may or may not have exhibited prior to her becoming a hostage. Perhaps her captor was also less hardened and sadistic to begin with than many other captors. But for whatever reasons, she was able to project some unusual quality of – for want of a better word, I’ll use her captor’s word – light in the darkness.

The Iowa caucuses

The New Neo Posted on by

So, let’s see.

Were there any surprises? If you look at the poll averages and then at the results, the only real surprise was that DeSantis did better than expected and came in second.

Does it matter? Because DeSantis and Haley were nevertheless close in Iowa (Vivek closed up shop after his poor showing), I doubt either will drop out right now and that means they’ll go into New Hampshire and split the non-Trump vote. Polls in New Hampshire indicate that Trump wins, although in the 40s rather than the 50s, Haley is a very strong second, and DeSantis way behind. However, the polls include Christie and Vivek, both of whom are now gone from the race. Will that change much and help DeSantis? Perhaps a little, but probably not a lot.

I’m not sure why Haley is doing so well in New Hampshire. However, it’s a quirky state and polling there in recent years hasn’t been especially reliable. But I’m almost sure Trump will indeed do well there, so what does second place even matter – not just in New Hampshire but in general? After all, I don’t think Trump would be influenced when picking his running mate, whom I believe will come from the ranks of people who have not run against him in 2024. And I also believe that the only way he loses the nomination is if something catastrophic happens that means he is unable to run, or voters desert him in droves. The former is more likely than the latter; Trump’s voters are especially loyal. It is only if Trump is unable to continue running that the second-place finisher might end up being the nominee, if Trump’s delegates turn to him or her. But that possibility, however remote, is why I think both DeSantis and Haley will continue to duke it out for that second-place spot until their monies run out.

I keep reading that Trump set some sort of record, getting the “largest margin of victory at the caucuses, surpassing Dole’s hold of 18% in ’96 (Trump was up nearly 30% compared to the next candidate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis).” But that’s an absurd comparison. There’s no equivalent to 2024 and Trump for two simple reasons. The first is that usually there are more candidates at this point, and more candidates ordinarily makes it harder for any one of them to amass a really strong lead. The second and probably far more important reason is that Trump is close to the position of being an incumbent. He is a former president with a record of accomplishment that has earned the loyalty of his supporters, who are very very loyal indeed. To compare him to other candidates in previous years is a poor analogy.

The Iowa caucuses are today

The New Neo Posted on by

The outcome seems to me to be a foregone conclusion.

But you can talk about it all here. Or the weather, which is very cold in Iowa today.

Or this song:

I saw the original Broadway production as a very young child and developed quite a crush on Robert Preston. I was attracted to his energy.

COVID: looking back

The New Neo Posted on by

Fauci’s been testifying that some of the social distancing recommendations for COVID were based on nothing much:

The idea was everyone staying six feet away from each other would slow the virus spread.

From that flowed the “need” to close businesses, shut schools, and generally immiserate average Americans.

Yet, per Fauci (in Wenstrup’s words), the 6′ guidelines “sort of just appeared” without meaningful scientific input and “likely not based on scientific data.”

Looking back, I found this old post of mine from quite early in the pandemic, mid-April of 2020. In it I wrote:

Personally, I’m all for the continuation of a certain amount – a milder amount – of social distancing. And in particular, since I’m in a high risk group because of age and a pre-existing condition, I plan to be fairly strict with myself. But that has nothing to do with what should happen in the larger society. I wouldn’t advocate a bunch of parades, of course. But I believe businesses need to reopen and people need to get back to something approximating regular commerce and regular life, and it needs to happen pretty soon in most places.

It is possible that there are huge costs in terms of illness, but it is virtually certain there are huge costs as well in keeping things closed. Those latter costs are not just economic, either. They can and probably will impact on physical and mental health as well, with people shut in and worried about their livelihoods, taking it out on each other in many instances, drinking, not exercising, overeating, becoming depressed, and not tending to other medical needs.