An overview: “our democracy” is like a tram

The New Neo Posted on by

When a party goes leftist and captures all the cultural organs too, as has happened in the US with the Democrats, what results is a constant indoctrination session, plus voting rules that make a comeback from the other party well-nigh impossible. What is it that Erdogan of Turkey said? Ah, yes:

Democracy is like a tram. You ride it until you arrive at your destination, then you step off.

That’s the way tyrants use democracy – as a tool to hegemony. Democracy is a drawbridge across a moat, a bridge to enter a fortified castle (remember “fortifying” the election of 2020?). Then the left can pull the drawbridge up after themselves. All very legal. Out constitution has enormous safeguards to stop it from happening, but once all cultural organs are controlled by the left and the election mechanism is controlled too (that’s why they were so eager to pass HR1 to insitute their “election reforms” on a national level), then the tram has reached the end of the station and it’s time to get off.

Are we there yet? I think we’re perilously close, if not there.

Conservatives believe in democracy/republicanism as a process that is not just a means to an end but a good in and of itself. But that’s only true if both sides believe it and play by the rules. For much of its history, most of America (not every city or every state, but most) played by those rules and agreed on and respected those rules. That is no longer the case, I’m afraid.

Magical thinking on the right about fixing the voting rules

The New Neo Posted on by

First, I want to say something about voting fraud. I have the same opinion about voting fraud in the 2022 election that I had in the 2020 election. It goes more or less like this:

(1) The relaxed voting rules enable fraud. Therefore, whether or not fraud occurs in an election, they foster the strong perception that it has occurred. This is one of many reasons these rules are awful.

(2) They also make it virtually impossible to prove or disprove that fraud has occurred. So you can rail all you want about fraud, but it sounds demented to those who don’t believe it occurred, and it’s intensely frustrating to everyone who does believe it occurred.

(3) It also fosters three things: backlash and contempt from those who think fraud didn’t occur, the right using accusations of fraud as an excuse for not fixing or focusing on other things that are also problems, and a sense of apathy in some voters on the right that can depress turnout (“Why bother? After all, we can’t vote our way out of this). This has the effect of creating a negative feedback loop.

(4) Therefore I think focusing on yelling “Fraud!” is counterproductive. This doesn’t mean fraud didn’t occur. It means that we can’t know and can’t prove it and therefore it’s not to our advantage to concentrate on whether or not it did occur.

(5) What IS to our advantage is to focus on (a) tightening up the rules wherever possible; and (b) where it’s not possible (that is, in blue states) making full use of the rules rather than telling voters on the right to pretend it’s the olden days and to vote only in person and on Election Day.

What do I see, though, around the blogosphere? Statement after statement to the effect of: the GOP could have changed these rules and they didn’t even try because they don’t want to win. This is said by bloggers, opinion writers in publications on the right, and commenters galore. But I believe it’s a case of magical thinking, for the most part.

Compared to the volume of comments like that, I see very little realism about just how that should be done in states that are either blue or purple. I’m not even sure most people understand the formidable obstacles in the way, and I see very little acknowledgement of the many efforts the GOP actually has made to change things. The following isn’t an exhaustive list, but it discusses some of them. And no, this isn’t to say the GOP is blameless; hardly so. But facts are facts and it’s important to understand them.

Please read this post of mine from 2020, as well as this one. It is very important to understand things such as the left’s clever practice of collusive lawsuits, for example. If you don’t understand some of these details, you’ll be unable to even think of possible solutions and you will not understand what’s been going on to tie the hands of those on the right who do want to change this.

Here’s a comment from “Kate,” describing how some of these practices were tried in North Carolina and the court managed to stop them. However, that can’t happen if the court is filled with judges from the left.

Here’s the sad story of what happened in Minnesota.

And do you remember this lawsuit by Texas? SCOTUS dismissed it for lack of standing, which you can read about here.

And federal court review is often not allowed: see this comment by “Bauxite”.

Here’s the depressing situation in New Mexico, a very blue state. I can’t even imagine how this could be changed by any remaining Republicans there.

Here’s some information about how voting works in Washington state. I challenge anyone to tell me how this could be changed by the GOP at this point.

I think some people seem to believe that the GOP could pass some kind of law to control all of this everywhere by setting the standards for voting, a kind of Republican reverse-HR1. But to do that Republicans would have to gain control of Congress and the presidency, plus SCOTUS would have to approve it. I don’t think the conservative justices would give it a green light, however, because except for a few very minimal requirements, voting rules are supposed to be set on a state-by-state level.

On the state level, ordinarily there are three or even four requirements that need to be in place before it can be done: control of the legislature, to pass laws; control of the governorship, so such laws aren’t vetoed; a majority of conservative judges on the state appeals court, so that the new restrictions won’t be ruled to be discriminatory or otherwise unacceptable, and even a GOP secretary of state to avoid the collusive lawsuit approach by Democrats. But if a state has all of those already, it’s very unlikely to have a voter fraud or voter rules problem in the first place. It’s a kind of Catch-22.

[NOTE: I think the most serious failures that really do seem to be the fault of the GOP are located in Arizona. It is a particularly bleak and important failure, because there the GOP didn’t seem to try much if at all and yet they did have quite a bit of power. I suggest you read this article with many details about what happened there. I also wrote this piece in 2018 about the problems in Arizona. And of course, this year Arizona has been a good example of what not to do.

I’d love to compose a state-by-state analysis of what was tried and what succeeded and what failed. But that would be a large book, and I’m not going to be writing it. Obviously, Florida was a major success, but that was in part because it had GOP leadership in DeSantis but also the other elements were in place, including a Republican-controlled legislature.]

Here’s a thread to discuss FTX

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s an article called, “The Crypto-Ignorant Person’s Guide To What’s Going On With FTX And Founder Sam Bankman-Fried.”

Well, you can’t get much more “crypto-ignorant” than I am, and so I read it. It’s okay as far as it goes, but it doesn’t really deal with much of the backstory. That backstory is loaded with rumor and further conspiracy theories; here’s another article that goes into some of this.

Jorge Luis Borges and politics

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve always liked the work of Jorge Luis Borges. His writing isn’t to everyone’s taste, but it is to mine.

I was reminded of Borges the other evening when I did a search for “science fiction stories about immortals” and one of the choices was a story by Borges called, quite appropriately, “The Immortal.” Somehow I’d never come across it before, but here’s a little excerpt:

Death (or reference to death) makes men precious and pathetic; their ghostliness is touching; any act they perform may be their last; there is no face that is not on the verge of blurring and fading away like the faces in a dream. Everything in the world of mortals has the value of the irrecoverable and contingent.

Among the Immortals, on the other hand, every act (every thought) is the echo of others that preceded it in the past, with no visible beginning, and the faithful presage of others that will repeat it in the future, advertiginem. There is nothing that is not as though lost between indefatigable mirrors. Nothing can occur but once, nothing is preciously in peril of being lost. The elegiac, the somber, the ceremonial are not modes the Immortals hold in reverence.

There’s always a lot to digest with Borges. Slow reading. But luckily, he writes short stories, so it’s never tedious.

Then I became curious about Borges’ politics, of which I’d previously been unaware. And I found this:

During a 1971 conference at Columbia University, a creative writing student asked Borges what he regarded as “a writer’s duty to his time”. Borges replied, “I think a writer’s duty is to be a writer, and if he can be a good writer, he is doing his duty. Besides, I think of my own opinions as being superficial. For example, I am a Conservative, I hate the Communists, I hate the Nazis, I hate the anti-Semites, and so on; but I don’t allow these opinions to find their way into my writings — except, of course, when I was greatly elated about the Six-Day War. Generally speaking, I think of keeping them in watertight compartments. Everybody knows my opinions, but as for my dreams and my stories, they should be allowed their full freedom, I think. I don’t want to intrude into them, I’m writing fiction, not fables.”…

In an interview with Richard Burgin during the late 1960s, Borges described himself as a “mild” adherent of classical liberalism. He further recalled that his opposition to Marxism and communism was absorbed in his childhood. “Well, I have been brought up to think that the individual should be strong and the State should be weak. I couldn’t be enthusiastic about theories where the State is more important than the individual.”…After the overthrow via coup d’état of President Juan Domingo Perón in 1955, Borges supported efforts to purge Argentina’s Government of Peronists and dismantle the former President’s welfare state. He was enraged that the Communist Party of Argentina opposed these measures and sharply criticized them in lectures and in print. Borges’s opposition to the Party in this matter ultimately led to a permanent rift with his longtime lover, Argentine Communist Estela Canto.

In a 1956 interview given to El Hogar, “[Communists] are in favor of totalitarian regimes and systematically combat freedom of thought, oblivious of the fact that the principal victims of dictatorships are, precisely, intelligence and culture.”

He elaborated, “Many people are in favor of dictatorships because they allow them to avoid thinking for themselves. Everything is presented to them ready-made. There are even agencies of the State that supply them with opinions, passwords, slogans, and even idols to exalt or cast down according to the prevailing wind or in keeping with the directives of the thinking heads of the single party.”

In later years, Borges frequently expressed contempt for Marxist and Communist authors, poets, and intellectuals. In an interview with Burgin, Borges referred to Chilean poet Pablo Neruda as “a very fine poet” but a “very mean man” for unconditionally supporting the Soviet Union and demonizing the United States. Borges commented about Neruda, “Now he knows that’s rubbish.”

I’m accustomed to having to ignore the politics of artists I love in order to continue loving their art. But it’s always a a delight on the rare occasions (Frost being another big example) when the artists I like happen to substantially share my politics.

Voting in Italy

The New Neo Posted on by

From commenter “Paolo Pagliaro, who lives in Italy:

In Italy we are able to have uncontested elections – even by a left party adopting “Fascist alert!” as the leading slogan – because strict in person vote, on paper, in a precisely designated site is mandatory; not only we have to show an identity document (usually the “Carta d’Identità”, which the town office issues to citizens in a very short time, everybody has it), but we also have a personal electoral-card stamped by an official at the polling station each time we vote. The exceptions are minimal and cannot impact the outcome by design.

I’m boggling at the absurdity of your system, you simply cannot have confidence in the results, each and every time.

What Paolo describes – or something like it – is typical for European countries and most other countries around the world. Not the US. But the US has become an unserious country, I’m afraid. We do have an absurd voting system, at least in many blue states as well as many purple states, which of course affects the entire outcome. And perhaps “absurd” is a kind word for our voting process.

What’s more, we not only have a cognitively challenged president, we have a president who is obviously cognitively challenged. Just a few years ago most of us wouldn’t have believed it possible. We also are about to have a senator from Pennsylvania who is cognitively challenged in a different way, and was elected despite it.

I repeat: we are an unserious country. But reality can get serious very quickly. In fact, I think it already has, but the US hasn’t adjusted.

Digesting the 2022 election further

The New Neo Posted on by

Each day the election results have become more and more clear and more and more depressing. It looks to me as though it will take a great deal of luck and almost a miracle to get a Senate majority, or even to keep the Democrats from increasing their razor-thin lead by one in the Senate. So Pennsylvania looms very very large once again, and the loss there is tremendous.

However, that still could be offset by a razor-thin GOP majority in the House, which could at least help stop the Democrats’ pernicious agenda. But we’ve watched too many seats slip out of our hands in the very late counting of mail-in ballots to not feel tremendous anxiety about what will happen this time.

So here we are.

In addition, some states – such as Pennsylvania, once again – may have experienced a switch in the state legislature from Republican to Democrat. The jury is still out, as far as I know, but there’s a good chance that will happen. People who say “the GOP must change the voting rules back again to tighten them up” must be aware that in order for that to happen, the GOP must (1) control a state’s legislature and its governorship (in order to prevent a veto), as well as its appeals court (in order to prevent an overrule) and sometimes even its secretary of state; and (2) have the will and organization to change the voting rules if it does get the reins of power. Once a state gets into the hands of Democrats and the rules are relaxed, however, the state has gone far towards becoming permanently blue.

I hate being so pessimistic. Hate, hate, hate it. But as I think about these things – and I think about them a lot – that’s where my thoughts lead me. Last night I was up very very late with these sorts of ruminations and I felt that I had enough material for about thirty different posts today on how this election went down and its meaning.

Obviously I’m not going to write thirty posts a day. So I’ll be planning to dribble them out over time. Maybe not thirty more, but quite a few more. But not all at once.

For today I’ll just add a few more points. This election mess wasn’t because of Trump or fraud, although they may indeed have contributed. But given the country’s situation and the way its current Democrat leaders have governed, the 2022 election should have been the GOP tsunami that was predicted. I see three basic reasons why it wasn’t, reasons I probably will expand on in future posts if needed.

(1) The aforementioned relaxed voting rules and security either enable fraud, or definitely the appearance and perception of fraud, or even just facilitate ordinarily unmotivated and uninvolved (and indoctrinated) young voters to reliably help deliver Democrat victories.

(2) To most of us, the demonizing of “mega-MAGA” was ludicrous and the idea of most on the right was that all but the most committed leftists would see through it and even be repelled by it. Not so! I think it was tremendously clever. As soon as January 6th happened I thought “this is their Reichstag Fire,” and they made great use of it, never letting up on the propaganda until most Americans except MAGA Republicans were convinced that the right was dangerous. Oh, not everyone on the right was so dangerous, but that there was a huge bloc to be feared and silenced for the good of the country. Biden’s “blood-red” speech in Philadelphia fed into this. Even people who were tired of hearing about January 6th – and many moderates were very tired of it, although the Democrat base was not – were affected by it and I believe a great many were influenced by it and believed it on some deeper emotional level. It was a fear election. The Democrats running in 2022, as well as the MSM, were relentless about tying in GOP candidates to January 6th by labeling them “election deniers.” This handicapped any candidate who supported Trump or questioned the 2020 results in the least, and it tainted all GOP candidates except especially charismatic or successful ones, or those in reliably red areas.

(3) The right is remarkably divided, and has been for much of my lifetime and certainly for my entire existence as a blogger. I’ve written about it time and again, although the labels may keep changing. I think you all know what I mean: Goldwater vs. Rockefeller wings, Buchananite vs. neocon wings, anti-GOPe vs. GOPe wings, Bushites vs. Trumpians, or the “burn it down” folk vs. the “compromise” crowd. Trump didn’t cause those divisions; he reflected them and unfortunately ever since 2020 he has amplified them. In 2022, GOP candidates had the choice to ally with one wing or the other, because the issue couldn’t be avoided and the left knew it and was willing to capitalize on it. “Election denier” or “let’s move on from 2020”? Choose! Either choice was going to alienate a significant portion of the right, but the former was going to alienate an awful lot of independents as well. And like it or not, it’s necessary to gain independents in purplish states or even bluish states in order to win in those states. This also extended to monetary support; McConnell was less likely to give money to those who were “election deniers” and certainly to those who said they wanted to replace him when they got elected to the Senate.

These divisions are now being exacerbated, and can only be temporarily quieted by a very compelling, smart, and charismatic candidate. Reagan did it, and he attracted the moderates in both parties as well. DeSantis is compelling and smart, but he wouldn’t be able to do that in the present climate and with the present mindset of the proportion of the right who are Trump’s most devoted and loyal supporters (I’m not sure what to call them, but perhaps “EverTrumpers” or even “OnlyTrumpers”). Trump’s attacks on DeSantis have intensified the problem, but the dispute isn’t in the mold of the old divisions because DeSantis is not the least bit GOPe. The attacks, however, have tapped into those pre-existing divisions and the old enmity by attempting to prove that DeSantis really is a RINO GOPe tool, cleverly disguised as someone more conservative, and that if he ever gets more power he is a betrayer who will stab the MAGA folk in the back.

As I said, I may indeed elaborate on some of this in the future. Fun, eh?

Why the red tsunami in Florida?

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a discussion. An excerpt [emphasis mine]:

Ron DeSantis, meanwhile, has surged to numbers never before reached in Florida. He and Rubio both won in Miami-Dade County, a huge liberal enclave in this state–where Rubio hails from, while not previously winning there. They did this by displaying tangible conservative leadership, giving the people a reason to vote for them. It is not a case of name recognition, but proven political delivery.

Look at what DeSantis faced throughout 2022, in terms of issues. He was battled by the Disney corporation. Then he was demonized in the press over a parental rights bill, as the news outlets colluded to call it a homophobic ‘Don’t Say Gay Bill.’ He was dubbed a racist over the flights of immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard. The governor even absorbed criticism for his handling of Hurricane Ian – before the storm even made landfall. In each case, DeSantis held firm – and persevered…

The end result was a show of voter support…

I said it’s about leadership, he says it’s about leadership, but of course that’s a bit too simplistic. And I’m not sure it carries over to a national race, or to other states that aren’t Florida. But it certainly wouldn’t hurt.

In Florida, was it also the changing Hispanic vote? The tightening of the voting rules? The new arrivals determined to not repeat their old errors – or if they were already on the right, happy to be voting where their vote would finally count?

It’s not as though the MSM and the left didn’t try to get DeSantis. I had forgotten some of it until I read that article: don’t say gay, kidnapper, Bush-like hurricane enabler. It didn’t stick; it only made him stronger. Character matters, too, and he didn’t give them fuel for the fire in that regard.

It is instructive to look at exceptions, and Florida was an exception.

I also noticed this comment to a post at Althouse’s:

DeSantis barely won four years ago, yet governed as if he had been elected unanimously. He picks his fights carefully and has an extreme amount of personal and organizational discipline. He actively supports others on the down-ticket Republican “team,”down to the local school board level. As a consequence, he won yesterday the single most lopsided Republican victory in the state of Florida since Reconstruction.

I have very little doubt that a Republican presidential campaign run by DeSantis and his team would have a strategy to beat the Democrat campaign in every winnable state up to and including using mail-in ballots, ballot harvesting, and early voting exactly as the Democrats use them.

Trump opened the door, but DeSantis is going to walk through that door.

That last sentence is way premature, of course. But I see the strengths that that commenter sees. And yes, of course DeSantis will be attacked relentlessly and unmercifully if he runs. In addition, we have no idea if he will run. But he’s a bright spot in a difficult time, as well as an instructive example.

Election mechanics in a post-COVID world

The New Neo Posted on by

Some thoughts to ponder, although this only applies to certain states (I’ve cued it up for just a few minutes that I want to call your attention to):

Victor Davis Hanson also has thoughts on the election. As usual with Hanson, they are worth reading. I can’t say I disagree much with any of them. An excerpt:

During the COVID-19 lockdowns, American elections radically changed to mail-in and early voting. They did so in a wild variety of state-by-state ways. Add ranked voting and a required majority margin to the mess and the result is that once cherished Election Day balloting becomes increasingly irrelevant.

Election Night also no longer exists. Returns are not counted for days. It is intolerable for a modern democracy to wait and wait for all sorts of different ballots both cast and counted under radically different and sometimes dubious conditions.

The Democrats – with overwhelming media and money advantages – have mastered these arts of massive and unprecedented early, mail-in, and absentee voting. Old-fashioned Republicans count on riling up their voters to show up on Election Day. But it is far easier to finesse and control the mail-in ballots than to “get out the vote.”

To summarize the messages from D’Souza and Hanson: the right must pay far more attention to the changed mechanics and landscape of elections, because at least for the moment they are realities, especially in potential swing states. And they deeply affect the outcome.

In addition, I’m going to link to a blogger I don’t usually link to: Sundance at Conservative Treehouse. That’s because I believe that this article, in which he points out the differences in strategy and tactics between an election campaign focused on votes (the right) and one focused on ballots (the left), is spot on. We’re living in a post-COVID ballot-world, and we must adjust in order to do better.

I believe that this is the most important thing to learn from the elections of 2022.

NOTE: Yes, it would be very very nice to tighten up the voting rules in the states that need tightening. But most of these states are not under the control of the right. Unless and until they are, it is important to learn how to operate successfully under the present rules.

Veterans Day; Armistice Day

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: This is a repeat of a previous post.]

Yes, indeed, I am that old—old enough to just barely remember when Veterans Day was called Armistice Day. The change in names occurred in 1954, when I was very small, in order to accommodate World War II and its veterans.

Since then, the original name has largely fallen out of use—although it remains, like a vestigial organ, in the timing of the holiday, November 11th, which commemorates the day the WWI armistice was signed (eleventh hour, eleventh day, eleventh month).

I’m also old enough–and had a teacher ancient enough—to have been forced to memorize that old chestnut “In Flanders Fields” in fifth grade—although without being given any historical context for it, I think at the time I assumed it was about World War II, since as far as I knew that was the only real war.

You can find the story of the poem here . It was written by a Canadian doctor who served in the European theater (there is no separate URL for the discussion of the poem, but you should click on the link about it if you scroll down on the left sidebar). It’s not necessarily great poetry, but it was great propaganda to encourage America’s entry into what was known at the time as the Great War.

The poem’s first line “In Flanders fields the poppies blow” introduces that famous flower that later became the symbol of Armistice—and later, Veterans—Day. Why the poppy?

Wild poppies flower when other plants in their direct neighbourhood are dead. Their seeds can lie on the ground for years and years, but only when there are no more competing flowers or shrubs in the vicinity (for instance when someone firmly roots up the ground), these seeds will sprout.

There was enough rooted up soil on the battlefield of the Western Front; in fact the whole front consisted of churned up soil. So in May 1915, when McCrae wrote his poem, around him bloodred poppies blossomed like no one had ever seen before.

But in this poem the poppy plays one more role. The poppy is known as a symbol of sleep. The last line We shall not sleep, though poppies grow / In Flanders fields might point to this fact. Some kinds of poppies are used to derive opium from, from which morphine is made. Morphine is one of the strongest painkillers and was often used to put a wounded soldier to sleep. Sometimes medical doctors used it in a higher dose to put the incurable wounded out of their misery.

Now a day to honor those who have served in our wars, Veterans Day has an interesting history in its original Armistice Day incarnation. It was actually established as a day dedicated to world peace, back in the early post-WWI year of 1926, when it was still possible to believe that WWI had been the war fought to end all wars.

The original proclamation establishing Armistice Day as a holiday read as follows:

Whereas the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and

Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations; and

Whereas the legislatures of twenty-seven of our States have already declared November 11 to be a legal holiday: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), that the President of the United States is requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on November 11 and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.

After the carnage of World War II, of course, the earlier hope that peaceful relations among nations would not be severed had long been extinguished. By the time I was a young child, a weary nation sought to honor those who had fought in all of its wars in order to secure the peace that followed—even if each peace was only a temporary one.

And isn’t an armistice a strange (although understandable) sort of hybrid, after all; a decision to lay down arms without anything really having been resolved? Think about the recent wars that have ended through armistice: WWI, which segued almost inexorably into WWII; the 1948 war following the partition of Palestine; the Korean War; and the Gulf War. All of these conflicts exploded again into violence—or have continually threatened to—ever since.

So this Veterans/Armistice Day, let’s join in saluting and honoring those who have fought for our country. The hope that some day war will not be necessary is a laudable one—and those who fight wars hold it, too. But that day has clearly not yet arrived—and, realistically but sadly, most likely it never will.

[NOTE: I’ve scheduled this post to be published at 11:11 AM on 11/11.]