The DeSantis versus Trump duel
It’s a given that the left and the MSM hate DeSantis and will do their best to destroy him. It’s also a given, apparently, that the portion of the right one might call EverTrumpers also detest DeSantis.
People who’ve read my blog for years know my history with Trump. Early on I realized his appeal and also that he had a chance of winning the nomination and even perhaps the presidency (see this post of mine from August of 2015, for example). But he worried me for two big reasons: I didn’t trust him because he seemed like a loose cannon, and I thought he was actually very likely to lose to Hillary Clinton. And so I didn’t support him in the primaries, although afterwards I was very nervous about his prospects. And then, after he won, I looked at him objectively in terms of what he actually did as president, and for the most part I liked what I saw.
I’ve also written that I think something happened to him in the fall of 2020, shortly before the election. I think it’s possible that it had to do with his serious bout with COVID, or perhaps the meds he took to combat COVID, such as steroids. Whatever it may have been, I noticed it almost immediately when he returned. There was something off about him. It was as though some of his political instincts had deserted him.
And I think there’s been something off about him ever since. That said, I would vote for him were he to be nominated, and certainly I would not for a single moment consider voting for Biden. But I think – as I’ve also written several times – that Trump has almost no chance of winning the general in 2024. People’s minds are made up about him, and too many people are “anyone but Trump.”
But does any Republican have a chance in the general? I don’t know (as I indicated in this post from yesterday), and there are several very worrisome factors that militate against it.
I haven’t yet watched DeSantis’ appearance on Twitter last night to kick off his campaign, but I know that my post on that subject drew some interesting comments typical of what I see around the right side of the blogosphere whenever DeSantis’ candidacy comes up. They range from suggestions that Florida needs him more, that he should wait for 2028, that he doesn’t have the common touch that Trump has, to (mostly seen on other blogs) that he’s just Jeb lite and that he’s being disloyal to Trump by running at all.
These statements all seem either wrong to me, irrelevant, or preposterous.
For example, DeSantis helped drive reform of the voting system in Florida and as a result the state is more reliably red and the voting process there is more reliable in general than it was before. He’s set the state on a course good enough that I think he can move on to something else with the idea that a successor Republican will do well there. If it turns out that DeSantis has a better chance of beating Biden than Trump does, then he owes it to himself and to us to run now.
But does he have a better chance? Polls are irrelevant; it’s way too early in the game for them to matter. I happen to think at this point that he does have a better chance in the general than Trump, but I say to others why not watch the campaign and see how he does rather than pre-judge him as lacking? In other words, I think whether he has general appeal or not – including whether he’s “likeable,” a trait Trump isn’t all that strong on himself with an awful lot of people – will become more clear as time goes on.
The loyalty argument seems to me to be the most hypocritical of all, because there’s no way that Trump would follow such a rule if he saw his own opportunity. Politics ain’t beanbag.
I also think that Trump – who is, among other things, very lively and entertaining – has accustomed his supporters to the show he presents. Neither DeSantis nor most other politicians can offer such a show. They’re perceived sometimes as boring. But it does not mean they would do worse in the general; perhaps the opposite is the case. Trump’s very liveliness and outspokenness so often segue into nastiness and/or outrageousness that those traits alone have turned off a great many voters.
I think that many of the people who go around the blogosphere writing these negative things about DeSantis are sincere. But I’m convinced that many are not. I’m convinced that a significant number are actually on the left and are trying very hard to widen the rift between these two sides of the Republican electorate, because they know that would be a likely way to effect a Biden win in the end. Each time I write about DeSantis in a positive way, I see some completely new commenters suddenly appear who are critical of him, people who’ve never commented here before. Paid operatives? Perhaps.
[ADDENDUM: Ace says it all, and then some.]
A trans person speaking out against the medical transition of children
In this recent post I wrote the following:
Many trans people…are appalled at what today’s extreme trans activists have done in their name. There are actually a number of trans YouTubers who have embarked on trying to make it clear that they know that there are important biological differences between people who are born in a sex and people who transition to it, and it is not the least bit disrespectful or transphobic to admit the truth on the subject.
I thought I’d present an example, so you could see the sort of thing I mean. This is a person who was born a woman and now presents as a trans man, and I doubt if you met him on the street you’d suspect such a history. But he’s very upfront about that history (which includes a transition that occurred at the age of 30) and about the fact that he is still a biological woman and that – as he says – no amount of testosterone would make it otherwise. He’s very blunt, as well as dedicated to the cause of protecting children from social media indoctrination and medical interventions. He often interviews de-transitioners, which is how I first found him because I sometimes watch such videos. But in this particular clip he’s speaking alone and explaining his point of view regarding the treatment of children:
Open thread 5/25/23
DeSantis declares as a 2024 Republican presidential candidate
He chose to make the announcement on Twitter, and then to stick around to schmooze with Elon Musk and moderator David Sacks.
Twitter crashed from the stress, and the MSM is headlining that rather prominently.
According to the PJ post I just linked:
It was part traditional Q&A and part three guys shooting the breeze…
I wasn’t sure what to expect with this innovative platform, but so far, I really like what I see. DeSantis came across as very knowledgeable, articulate, and likable.
I didn’t watch it. Maybe later I’ll see if a clip is easily accessible.
How many people…
…will continue to think this guy was an evil MAGA-supporting white supremacist? The MSM knows what it’s doing: set the narrative early, and then when the facts contradict the narrative, just move on.
Most people will never catch up with the truth.
Netflix cracks down on password sharing
I can’t imagine that this decision will gain Netflix a lot of friends:
Netflix’s (NFLX) controversial password sharing crackdown just hit the US.
On Tuesday, the company released a blog post with the news. In addition to the US, Netflix confirmed it will also be rolling out the crackdown across all regions around the world such as the UK, France, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, Singapore, Australia, among others.
“Netflix account is for use by one household,” the company wrote in the post. “Everyone living in that household can use Netflix wherever they are — at home, on the go, on holiday — and take advantage of new features like Transfer Profile and Manage Access and Devices.”
You can also pay $7.99 and up to add on someone not in your household.
Believe me, Netflix has crunched the numbers and decided this will be to their financial advantage. They don’t take any steps without said crunching. I said it wouldn’t gain them a lot of friends. But they’re betting it will gain them a lot of customers.
Will Biden’s unpopularity matter in terms of the 2024 election?
Polls indicate that Biden is very unpopular, with low approval ratings. I don’t doubt that Democrats would love to replace him with someone perkier, but I don’t believe they’ll succeed in finding such a person and removing Biden. They would have done that by now if they had someone who fit the bill on a national level, but so far they don’t seem to have located that person.
Needless to say, Kamala Harris didn’t pan out for such a role. At any rate, let’s just stipulate that they’re looking for someone but that someone hasn’t appeared, and Biden seems determined to run again.
And in considering this question, it almost doesn’t matter who the GOP candidate will be. I’m going to assume Trump or DeSantis, but any GOP nominee would be lied about and demonized by a full court press in the press. Fascist, bigot, rapist, you name it.
Biden ran in 2020 with five assets. The first two would be true of any Democrat: (1) the power of the Democrat machine, whether it be “rigging” such as ballot harvesting in many states, or outright fraud, or money advantages that enable them to saturate the airwaves and internet; and (2) a press determined to help demonize the Republican and defend the Democrat, including lies about the former and the suppression of news that hurts the latter.
Biden’s next three assets were peculiar to him and/or to 2020. The first was the reflected glow of Obama, because he’d been Obama’s faithful VP for the entire eight years of the Obama administration. The second was COVID, which allowed him to curtail his appearances enormously, and keep to prepared presentations. The third was his own public persona honed over the years as a genial and avuncular fellow, somewhat of a blowhard but certainly not a radical (how anyone found that especially believable I don’t know, but I think many did).
And to various extents, all three are still operating. Perhaps the Obama glow has faded and been replaced by Biden’s own non-glow, but I believe it still lingers. COVID may have mostly retreated – although perhaps they’ll come up with a new surge or a new disease in time for November – but many of the voting changes are still in place, and now Biden will have the excuse of being too busy to campaign, because after all he’s president. The third is probably also not what it was in 2020, but one would have to really be paying attention to see it, and I think the MSM has covered him so carefully that’s it’s mostly intact.
Meanwhile, Biden and the Democrats and the press have demonized – and will continue to demonize – not only Trump and DeSantis but also Republicans in general. Don’t underestimate how hard it is for a lifelong Democrat, even one who has grown very unfond of Biden over the years, to cross that line and vote for a GOP candidate. Doubts and dissatisfactions with Biden are one thing; voting GOP is a whole ‘nother ballgame.
I’m not saying it’s 100% impossible for a Republican to beat Biden. I just think it will be very very difficult despite Biden’s awfulness and low poll ratings.
If Biden is re-elected – perish the thought – the composition of Congress is very very important. Actually, it’s important even if he isn’t elected, but it’s especially important in terms of stopping the passage of several things that would establish Democrats as permanently in power, if he is elected for a second term: (1) national voting “reforms” that end voting security measures such as voter ID and institutionalize policies that favor Democrats (2) making DC and perhaps Puerto Rico states; and (3) and packing the Supreme Court.
NOTE: Many Democrats don’t want Biden to run, and say so in polls. That does not mean they wouldn’t vote for him if he does run. It just means they’d prefer a Democrat who’s younger and more appealing. Many of them would also prefer someone they perceive as even more to the left than Biden.
France bans short haul domestic flights…
…that have rail coverage of the same trip in less than two and a half hours.
The wave of the future, I suppose. Some day it will only be the EU heads and the Great Resetters who will be allowed to fly, in chartered luxury jets of course.
Actually, I don’t think it makes sense to take a flight that’s so short, because the trip to and from the airport, and the wait to go through security, probably makes the trips as long or longer and more stressful than the train rides would be. And connector flights are unaffected by the ban. But still, banning the flights seems very ominous to me.
And apparently, Macron’s being criticized for not banning flights with up to four-hour train rides as the alternative.
These sorts of measures are really just technological virtue-signaling:
Critics have described the latest measures as “symbolic bans”.
Laurent Donceel, interim head of industry group Airlines for Europe (A4E), told the AFP news agency that “banning these trips will only have minimal effects” on CO2 output.
I don’t doubt it.
Open thread 5/24/23
Roundup
(1) There’s a new IRS whistleblower on the effort to stifle the Hunter Biden tax investigation.
(2) North Carolina’s Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, has declared a state emergency in order to stop the North Carolina legislature – controlled by Republicans – from voting on school vouchers. I guess an emergency is whatever a Democrat says it is, and it’s an emergency when the public school unions are in danger of being thwarted.
(3) The word is that DeSantis will be declaring his candidacy tomorrow.
(4) Andrew C. McCarthy asks – and answers – the question of why there’s been no special counsel appointed in the Hunter Biden investigation.
(5) Another indictment may be in the works for Trump, this time in connection with the Mar-Al-Lago raid.
Biden again claims his son was “lost” in Iraq; Republicans pounce
I’ll start by saying that Joe Biden has had an enormous number of personal tragedies in his life, losses I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
But I’ll add that he continues to either lie about certain elements of these tragedies, or actually believes his own misrepresentations, and that this pattern of behavior was set before his cognitive decline.
The first involves the loss of his wife and young daughter in a traffic accident, which he has in the past blamed on a drunk driver. Apparently, the driver’s family had to seek the help of a judge to clear the driver’s name from the public charge, for which there never has been a particle of evidence. In the fall of 2007, after the judge had said there was no evidence to support the allegation of drunkenness, Biden said he accepted the family’s claim that drunkenness wasn’t involved – but that was thirty-five years after the accident.
It would be one thing – and an understandable one – if Biden had decided on his own, in a reaction to the tragedy and trauma of the crash that killed his wife and daughter, that the driver was probably drinking and that it was his fault. People often assign blame like that in an effort to deal with very painful and complex emotions. But as a public figure, to state it and assign blame to the driver for all the world to hear is another. And it’s that latter course that Joe took.
With these recent declarations of Biden’s about his son Beau that “we lost him in Iraq” (and an earlier claim that Beau “lost his life in Iraq”), I believe we’re seeing a variation of the same phenomenon on Joe’s part, plus advancing cognitive decline. The facts are that Beau served in Iraq as a military lawyer (judge advocate) from 2008-2009 and died of a brain tumor in May of 2015, having been diagnosed in August of 2013. Biden has attributed his cancer to exposure to “burn pits” in Iraq, and whether or not that is the case (it is not proven, but there are carcinogens released by burn pits and so it’s arguably possible), there is no question that Beau Biden was not “lost in Iraq.” Biden is a native English speaker and is well aware of what the phrase means: that someone either died or went permanently missing in Iraq.
In 2019, Biden was aware enough to cite a connection with bun pits when he stated as much in a speech:
Biden also referenced his son in a 2019 speech: “[Because] of exposure to burn pits, in my view — I can’t prove it yet — he came back with stage four glioblastoma. Eighteen months he lived, knowing he was going to die.”
Even then, this does not reflect the facts, because Beau returned from Iraq in 2009 and wasn’t diagnosed till August of 2013, after which he lived for nearly two years. Biden distorts the timeline in that speech by making it sound as though Beau was diagnosed with stage four glioblastoma very soon after his return.
But although these statements of Biden’s tell us something about the man, they’re not much of a concern to me. Of much much greater concern are his destructive public policies and vicious divisive race-mongering and MAGA-demonizing.
I’ve said several times that even when I was a Democrat I found Biden to be a mendacious nonentity whom I never considered had a chance to be president, he had so little following. Well, he got the last laugh on that score, didn’t he?