Tag Archives: Trump

Kamala is not as stupid as advertised

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In the death throes of his presidency (at least) Joe Biden threw his DEI hire, Kamala Harris, to the back of the bus. Then off it. And then under it.

The Worst President Ever promised/threatened that if he were to withdraw from the 2024 race, his $200,000,000 in campaign funds, plus or minus, would go to her.

Left unsaid was what everyone knew: She’d waste it because she was unelectable.

Joe’s threat became less threatening as time went on and campaign donors went away. Moreover, his physical state became shakier, as did his mental state. Everyone could see it. Even the poodle media like WaPo and NYT, which had covered for him just months earlier, were forced to acknowledge his state and their lie.

Kamala became what might be called in baseball “a late-inning substitution.” Or maybe they would call her “a closer.” If she succeeds, she gets the “save.” She’ll be a “saver” for the Democrats, and perhaps even a savior.

She may well succeed.

President Trump dismisses her as “not very smart.” In a literal sense, he’s right. She’s not very smart.

But Trump uses “not very smart” to mean “stupid.” In that, I think he’s wrong. She’s not as stupid as advertised. For example, she’s not as stupid as Vice President Dan Quayle was deemed to be (and neither was Dan Quayle).

Her Indian mother received a PhD in endocrinology from UC Berkeley. Her Jamaican father was an economics professor at Stanford. I know you’re not supposed to say this, but she comes from pretty good stock.

She earned a law degree from UC Hastings, the tenth-best law school in California according to US News and World Report. She should have gotten into a better school, given her parents’ academic connections, but she did get in and did graduate (sans honors).

Upon graduating, flunking the bar, and then passing it, Harris became a government employee, and has been one ever since. She started as a prosecutor in San Francisco, and was not a bad one. Although she pledged never to seek the death penalty in a case – and kept that promise – she defended the California death penalty in a court challenge, as her position required. She was considered fairly tough on criminals. She pushed for higher bail for violent ones, and issued citations against the parents of truant students for failing to get their kids to school. 

She dated a well-connected California politician who was 31 years her senior named Willie Brown. He obligingly appointed her to several state government positions. She ultimately wormed her way up to the position of Attorney General of California, and then was elected United States Senator.

She gets difficulty points for those high acrobatic positions, even if no style points.  

Her 2020 presidential campaign flopped before the year 2020 began. But give her credit. Four years later, she’s the Democratic candidate. She’s done that without having won a single delegate, ever. She has now jockeyed herself into a close race with former President Trump.

For a person who lost humiliatingly four years ago and got thrown under the bus this year, she’s done alright. She’s in the Big Leagues.

Her policies? To me as a conservative, most of them are terrible. But since when do American voters bother to evaluate policies? It’s about politics, not principles.

In politics, she’s far more clever than the guy currently in the Oval Office basement, because she’s far smarter.

Here’s an illustration. She decided this week not to choose as her running mate the governor of Pennsylvania, a must-win state for her.

The reason Harris passed over him is that he’s Jewish and has been outspoken in his defense of Israel against the barbarian invaders. The governor’s religion and his outspokenness have earned him the contempt of the well-funded terrorist sympathizers in the Democratic Party.

Harris thus showed an abhorrent willingness to compromise principles in order to pander to antisemitism, but also showed a remarkable political shrewdness in doing so.

She might not be very smart, but she’s plenty crafty.

Does JD’s wife know he’s a racist?

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President Trump’s pick for his running mate, JD Vance, is a little hard to criticize. His mom in hillbilly Kentucky was a drug addict. He was saved, and raised, by his grandmother.

JD returned the favor in a way; he later saved his mom. He announced at the Republican National Convention that she’d been sober for many years (though he failed to mention that it was with his help). She beamed, and the crowd cheered.

JD joined the Marines, got a degree from Ohio State, and went to Yale Law School where he was an editor of the Yale Law Review. He became a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. He wrote an account of growing up called “Hillbilly Elegy” which became a best seller. He was elected to the United States Senate at age 37.

The left hates achievers. Especially when they do it on merit rather than skin color or sexual preference. If they’re conservative, they get dubbed “racists” for that.

To support the “racist” smear, the left will spin and even invent stories. In JD’s case, they’ve focused on his venture capital work.

After working for two venture firms, JD started his own. He named it after a power in the J.R.R. Tolkien books – Narya, which was a power to resist tyranny and despair.  

Rachel Maddow sees something ominous in this. She notes that if you take the “N” at the start of “Narya” and reposition it to the end, you have . . . [drum roll] . . . “Aryan.”

So, there you have it. Irrefutable proof that JD is a secretly self-identifying “Aryan.” As in the Hitlerian kind.

As for Tolkien, the left has long hated his depiction of a world with good and evil. The left doesn’t believe in evil, you see.

Pause to consider the reasons that a group of people would deny the existence of evil. And then consider the consequences of that denial.

Maybe I’m a little too hard on them. They do believe in one type of evil. They believe that conservative people are evil – like JD. They believe that such people deserve to be smeared with the “racist” label, as Maddow has smeared JD, and any other vile label.

Speaking of racism, some of the real thing was on display this week. In what the media dubbed “an antiwar protest,” the left marched in DC during Bibi Netanyahu’s speech to Congress. Half the Democrats boycotted the speech. This “antiwar protest” was an appalling antisemitic march depicting Netanyahu as a horned monster with bloody fangs. Numerous signs called for a “final solution” to the Jewish “problem.”

One other thing about JD. He met a woman in Yale Law School and married her. She happens to be a Asian-American who practices Hinduism. Both her parents immigrated legally from India.

JD and Usha have been married ten years and have three half-Asian children. During their marriage, he converted from Protestantism to Catholicism.

I wonder if Usha and the kids know JD is a racist. Count on Rachel Maddow to break the news.

Trump the Grey has re-arisen as Trump the White

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“Authority had taken up this plan and enlarged it at the moment of its failure. ‘Naked I was sent back . . . until my task is done,’ said Gandalf.”

–Letter 156 of J.R.R. Tolkien about the death of Gandalf the Grey and his return as Gandalf the White

I won’t compare the events of last Saturday afternoon in rural Pennsylvania to the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. I have a weakness for melodrama, but that’s a bridge too far even for me.

But the renewing effect of a near-death experience is old and powerful in literature and life – perhaps especially when the near-death is out of the blue. There’s no anticipation, no nervousness, no preparation.

The entire reaction occurs after the event is already over. Then, safe and sound, the person whose corporeal self was nearly extinguished is completely and intensely alive. The only evidence that he nearly departed is his shaking head and trembling hands.

OK, maybe his ear is bleeding, too, just to remind him how very, very close to his cranium was the Grim Reaper’s scythe.

Since he never saw it coming, he knows that he escaped not by strength, not by work, not by cunning. He escaped by luck.

Some call it Providence.

Gandalf the Grey (spoiler alert!) dies a horrible death in the course of Tolkien’s tale. The Ring-Bearer and his crew are thusly dealt a severe blow in their quest to save Middle Earth. Without a wizard on the team, they’re a rag-tag band of kids, an elf, a dwarf and a mere man.

But – Holy Smokes! – in the nick of time Gandalf reappears to help save the day and Middle Earth. In his reappearance, he is no longer Grey, but White.

Tolkien explains in the books and his letters (this explanation didn’t make it into the movies – they were quite long enough without it) that Gandalf did indeed “die” in the manner that wizards die, but an authority renewed him – stronger and wiser.

It happens.

Donald Trump will give a speech tonight accepting a nomination to save today’s approximation of Middle Earth from goblins, orks, pedophiles, fallen wizards, ballot harvesters, identity politicians, dragons, idiots, malevolence, vagrants, Antifa, dementia, wokesters, BLM, and sundry other Democrats.

On the first three days of the Convention, Trump seemed different. He seemed more calm, more at peace. Fire no longer spews from his mouth. Rather, a radiance shines from his eyes.

He’s becoming a leader. Not the “FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!” type, although those were his words as his fists pounded the air when he rose from the stage floor last Saturday afternoon.

That was then, when he’d been cowardly ambushed by another messed-up product of our messed-up culture. Trump’s defiance and fight were the natural and right reaction.

But bravado now is unnecessary and unhelpful. Now, he knows he’s been tasked with something big, and so do the people. Now, he and they know that he’s fully capable of performing this task. Now, he and they know his orange head has a purpose more noble than being exploded by a bullet, and more graceful than spouting inflammatory rhetoric.

His old opponents in the Republican Party have gathered round him. He has the endorsement of virtually all of them and many who are new to the Party – from Silicon Valley moguls, to one of the world’s richest men, to each of his vanquished rivals, to an ever-increasing share of Black America, to most Hispanic Americans.

What they see is what I see: A quiet confidence, an unexpected patience, a deep resolve to complete – or at least resume – a task much bigger than he.

The running mate Trump has chosen grew up as a self-described hillbilly in Appalachia, to become a Marine, an Editor of the Yale Law Review, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, and a young Senator. This guy is accustomed to being the smartest person in the room, the hardest working, and the one who has come the farthest.

Trump sees him not as a threat, but an asset. A person to whom he might someday pass the torch.

Trump is no longer a man, you see, but a movement. A mission. We’re witnessing something historic.

Trump’s enemies make him stronger

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What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger

— Friedrich Nietzsche, tormented soul

Back in the 2016 election, Donald Trump was a bit of a joke. He was a flamboyant, pussy-grabbing, orange-haired, reality show-hosting, real estate tycoon with improbable aspirations to be President of the United States. Just before the election, the New York Times gave him about a 4% chance of winning.

Assigning those odds was not just the Times’ effort to inform their readers. It was also an effort to crush him. They came not just to condemn Trump, but to bury him.

Imagine their chagrin when Trump proved them wrong. Imagine, too, the chagrin of Hillary Clinton and the rest of the establishment.

In discerning their chagrin, you don’t actually need to use your imagination at all. We saw it. They blocked Trump’s every effort at governance with dishonest smears like the Russian collusion hoax, two impeachments, and the pee-pee dossier. In their effort to prevent Trump from governing the country effectively, they were willing to prevent him from governing the country at all – the country be damned.

But the attacks on Trump in his first term didn’t kill him; they only made his stronger. He found a way to govern the country, and he did it effectively. A good example is his nomination of three conservative Supreme Court Justices, every one of which he successfully got confirmed by the insiders of the world’s most exclusive club – the United States Senate.

Americans today give Trump’s presidency higher marks than they give Joe Biden’s, and in the most important issues like the economy, immigration and foreign affairs, they prefer Trump. That’s why he’s leading in the polls (that, and the fact that his opponent is a senile dolt).

In the 2020 election, the establishment pulled out the stops to prevent Trump’s reelection. With a combination of a little election fraud, a lot of election shortcutting in the form of relaxed vote-by-mail rules enacted under the cover of COVID, the Democrats’ undemocratic kneecapping of Bernie Sanders, and a ton of media bias, they narrowly defeated Trump.

His 2020 loss didn’t kill Trump; it only made him stronger. He didn’t get the memo that he was supposed to retire to Mar-a-Lago and play golf. He instead started campaigning for the 2024 election.

Again chagrined, the Democrats decided to declare “lawfare” against Trump. They filed a series of bogus criminal and civil cases against him. They aimed to discredit him by labeling him a “convicted felon.”

The lawfare didn’t kill Trump; it only made him stronger. He fought and largely won. The Supreme Court has thrown out most of the charges against him. Democrat incompetence has undermined most of the rest. The American people see the lawfare for the corrupt scheme that it is, and Trump’s fight as the righteous one that it is. He’s gone up in the polls.

And this time, he shows a discipline that he’d never shown in 2016. He more often thinks and takes advice before he opens his mouth. He’s stronger.

A good example is his handling of the Democrat civil war over Biden’s candidacy. It must be tempting for Trump to pour gasoline on the self-immolating Democrats, but he’s mostly smart enough to let them do it themselves.

Leftists are by nature authoritarians. See, e.g., Stalin, Joseph; Zedong, Mao; Pot, Pol. That is why they’re so quick to label anyone who disagrees with them a “fascist.” It’s projection in combination with authoritarian shout-down.

And so, the leftists – all of whom are Democrats (though not all Democrats are leftists) – have always alluded to violence against Trump. A two-bit comedienne depicted herself with Trump’s severed head. A theater depicted Trump in the role of assassinated Caesar. Just last week, Joe Biden told donors in a conference call that it was time to “put Trump in the bullseye.”

Yesterday, someone did exactly that.

Fortunately for Trump, his supporters, the country and the world, and unfortunately for Democrats, the someone missed Trump’s head by a half-inch. The high-powered hollow point bullet merely took off the top of Trump’s ear (though sadly it instantly killed the man behind him).

As always, this assassination attempt didn’t kill Trump; it only made him stronger. He fell, but with Secret Service assistance quickly stood back up, blood streaming down his face, fists pumping the air defiantly.

Somewhere in hell, Nietzsche must be smiling.

News flash! Biden’s family decides four more years of a Biden presidency would be good for them

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In the aftermath of Joe Biden’s catastrophic, no-good, debate/debacle last week, he met with his trusted advisors to decide whether to drop out of the race.

You might ask, who are those trusted advisors? Barack Obama and Michelle? Hillary Clinton and Bill? Surely, seasoned Democrat politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, right? Maybe some big donors and fundraisers and pollsters?

No, no, no, no, no, no way, and hell no. He instead met with his family.

Before you think how sweet, let’s review the curricula vitae of this crew.

First, there’s First Son, Hunter. His resume shows most recently a felony gun conviction for which he’s awaiting sentencing that could be as much as 25 years in the federal pen.

Upcoming is his trial on tax evasion. The taxes he evaded are on the proceeds of his influence-peddling schemes where he sold access to Dad to foreign companies and governments, including China (notwithstanding Dad’s denial that he ever got money from China).

It gets worse. The guy is a documented dead-beat, paternity-denying dad who contends he doesn’t even remember his months-long affair with the mom – which might actually be true since he’s also a chronic crack addict. He was recently disbarred from the practice of law, not that he ever really practiced law.

Then there’s the First Daughter, Ashley. She would be a certifiable nobody but for the fact that her diary was stolen – a diary in which she wrote about how her dad used to join her in the shower when she was a little girl.

Then there’s the First Brother, James. He’s second only to Hunter in monetizing Joe’s political offices as Senator, Vice President and now President. He’s raked in millions. He once told the principals of a company he invested in not to worry about finances because “We’ve got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden.”

Then there’s Navy. She’s the illegitimate and disowned daughter of Hunter. Navy’s mom had to sue Hunter for child support. The mom won. Then Hunter failed to pay the ordered support, still claiming he was not the father even though DNA tests proved he was.

Joe pretended for years that Navy didn’t exist. He spoke of his six grandchildren, conspicuously leaving out the seventh, Navy. To this day, neither Joe nor Hunter has ever mentioned Navy or publicly acknowledged her.

I doubt five-year-old Navy was present at the all-hands-on-deck Biden family meeting to discuss whether Joe should stay in the race, since Joe and Hunter not only disowned her, but never owned her to begin with. I hope she was there, however, as she would have been the adult in the room.

Then there’s the First Wife, who is actually Joe’s second wife. The first wife died in a car accident when she pulled out in front of a truck. Never one to miss the opportunity to capitalize politically on a family tragedy, Joe has been lying ever since that she was a victim of a drunk driver. In truth, the accident was her fault, and the truck driver tested negative for alcohol.

It’s difficult to call the second First Wife the First “Lady,” given that her relationship with Joe started when she was still married and living with her first husband.

Second First Wife “doctor” Jill is a doctor. Sorta. She’s not a medical doctor, mind you. Nor does she have a Ph.D. She has a doctorate in education. It’s a Ed.D. That’s pronounced “Eddie.” The second First Wife is an “Eddie.”

She even wrote a doctorate thesis. Sorta. It has a typo in the first paragraph. She asks to be addressed as “doctor.” The poodle press dutifully complies because she’s married to a Democrat President. Heck, they’d address her as “Your Royal Highness” if she asked them to.

Speculation abounds that it is second First Wife “doctor” Jill who’s running the White House. Indeed, Joe’s sophomoric speeches have the look of an amateur, self-important, would-be speechwriter who makes typos in a bogus doctoral thesis.

So, that’s apparently the cohort of family members who met to discuss whether Joe should continue to be president for another four-plus years in the wake of his big reveal last week to 51 million Americans that he’s semi-somnolent. Those are the people whose judgment Joe Biden trusts in deciding the fate of the United States of America.

The family had two alternatives to choose from.

Alternative One: “Well, it’s been a good run,” they could tell themselves. “We made tens of millions of dollars and hobnobbed around the world. But the jig’s up. They’re onto us. And Joe is senile. He just might say or do something that puts us in jail. Besides, Joe is actually endangering the country. Remember the nuclear button and all that jazz. By the way, where did he leave that thingamajig?”

And so, they could say to Joe, “We love you and you’ve done a fantastic job as President. But we don’t have that many years left with you. Please quit this crazy race. We know you’re strong, but let a younger man take the helm. Let’s spend some time on the beach together.”

Alternative Two: “Hey, raking in tens of millions of dollars for doing nothing is nice, and we’d like it to continue,” they tell themselves. “And besides, if it ends now, then we might not get a Presidential pardon. The nuclear button? Aw, let the White House aides keep track of the slippery thing.”

And so, they could say to Joe, “We love you and you’ve done a fantastic job as President. The country needs you for another four years (and so do we). I know it’s a sacrifice to live in the White House with great food, comfortable digs and etc., but for the country (and us) you should do it for another four years.

Guess which alternative they chose.

Joe and Jill are goners who won’t go

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Joe Biden just delivered the worst televised debate performance in history.

It started in his opening remarks when he hurriedly regurgitated a canned speech like a nervous 11th grader in speech class, it continued into the early stages when he repeatedly suffered brain freezes in describing, for example, how he “beat Medicare,” and finally ended mercifully with a forgettable conclusion.

Even – especially – Democrats were stunned by his awkward, rambling incoherency and open-mouthed, vacant stares into space.

If this were a fight, a TKO would have been called in the first round. If this were softball, the Ten-Run Rule would have been invoked in the first inning.

The senility clips of the last few months which the White House defensively labelled “cheap fakes” as late as last week have now grown into a full 90-minute TV reality show. If you’re a Democrat, it’s like a bloody car wreck — it’s impossible to ignore and impossible to watch.  It was moderated by Biden’s hand-picked partisans at Democrat-friendly CNN, but the night was owned by an emcee named Donald Trump.

The editorial board of The New York Times – The New York friggin’ Times! – called on Biden to withdraw from the race. This is after he corralled 90-some percent of the Democratic delegates and is assured of a first vote win at the convention. Another Democrat pundit called him “toast.” Another said his performance was “painful.” Democrat organ Politico summed it up with “Democrats freak out.”

But Biden won’t withdraw. The very next day he was being escorted around by “doctor” Jill to badly read poor speeches off cheap teleprompters. We have no reports yet whether he read such parenthetical words as “pause for applause” from the teleprompter. Such gaffes are so common by him now that they’re barely reported anymore.

He won’t drop out because the “doctor” and her patient are addicted to the perks of the office of the Presidency of the United States. The digs are nice, the food is exquisite, the butt-kissing is sublime, and the airplane travel is first class (provided he doesn’t fall down or up the shortened stairs of Airforce One).

It’s the zombie presidency. The un-dead presidency. It’s dead but still twitches a destructive Executive Order or two spoon-fed to them by squirrely adolescent staffers until the Supreme Court throws it out. Even then they boast that they’ll do it again, the Supreme Court be damned. They’re the walking dead.

So, they plan to hang around. Screw the party, screw the country, screw the world. Something about them reminds me of the cheap, chiseling couple running the restaurant in Les Misérables. The illegitimate masters of the White House. But they’re not masters, they’re squatters. You want them out? You’ll have to vote them out. And even then you might have to evict them with the aid of the 82nd Airborne.

The only surprise from the debate was that the Democrats were surprised. Inexplicably, they were surprised that Biden delivered a performance consistent with his public performance over the last three years.

Where have these Dems been?

I predicted beforehand that Biden would do a little better than Republicans expected. He would not drool, not fall down and not sniff Trump’s hair, as many Republicans expected.

My prediction was correct. (I also predicted that Trump would do better than expected. I was right about that too. This guy is teachable, even if he sometimes goes out of his way to deny it.)

Democrats, however, apparently expected much better from Biden. They expected him to perform as if he was reading a teleprompter – despite the hard fact that over the last three years he’s shown little ability to do that.

It was a case of Democrats engaging in wishful thinking, or perhaps just coming to believe their own propaganda. In any case, their surprise at Biden’s poor performance was surprising to me.

The result was a Democrat piling-on. I wonder if the piling-on was designed to cover for their willful blindness over the past three years. Nobody’s saying “I’m with Joe” anymore, and instead they’re busy deleting the tweets where they said that just a few months ago.

It bodes badly for Biden and for a Democrat White House. The next set of polls will show Biden down by 6-8 points – at a stage in the election where he was ahead by 10 points in the close one of 2020.

It’s apt to get worse from there. Biden is entering laughing stock territory – Dan Quayle and Kamala Harris territory.

It’s hard to recover from being a laughing stock. People don’t vote for a laughing stock.

Only Biden himself – with a teleprompter-enabled speech from the Oval Office graciously announcing his withdrawal – can rescue the Democrats from themselves and probably only “doctor” Jill can rescue Biden from himself. But that would take a lot more courage, acumen and selflessness than either has ever shown.

There’s a reason they won’t release Joe’s cognitive test

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I’m almost young enough to be Joe Biden’s son. (But I’m not.)

When I see the doctor for my annual physical, she typically tells me at the outset that she wants me to remember three arbitrary words – something like “elephant, ice and automobile” – and intends to ask me what the three words are at the end of my examination.

I always see it as a challenge. At the end, I’ll remind her impishly, “Didn’t you intend to ask me what the three words are?”

“Oh, right,” she’ll reply.

That’s my cue: “The words are ‘elephant, automobile and ice’ except you asked me to remember them in the order ‘elephant, ice and automobile.’ By the way, did you know that elephants are closely related to mammoths, and that mammoths survived almost into recorded history? It’s thought that humans coming to the New World were responsible in part for their extinction – they hunted the mammoths to extinction. Those native Americans weren’t living in such harmony with nature after all.”

She’ll roll her eyes, convinced that I’m not senile but might well be something worse.

I report this because Joe Biden has doctors too. As an 81-year-old, he’s undoubtedly given at least informal cognitive tests by those doctors, similar to the one my doctor gives me. In view of his significant seniority over me, and the apparent diminution in his cognition, he’s probably given tests more formal than mine. It would be medical malpractice not to give him such tests.

Donald Trump appropriately noted in the debate that he himself has taken and aced such tests, and released them to the public during his presidency. That is true.

But Trump uncharacteristically understated his case in challenging Biden to take such tests too.

The fact is, almost certainly, that Biden has indeed taken such tests. The fact that he hasn’t released the results tells you volumes. As if you need to be told anything more after his performance last night.

The death of Europe is greatly exaggerated

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You hear that Europe is:

*Overrun with jihading Muslims;

*Running out of energy;

*Violent; and

*Dysfunctional.

I spent the last month hiking and trekking in France, Austria and Germany. This was the latest of my many escapades off the beaten track – and on the Beaton track – for my favorite activity that’s done standing up. Namely, walking. (See, e.g. HERE)

I concluded in a non-scientific sort of way that the death of Europe has been greatly exaggerated. It’s something like the Notre Dame. It caught fire, and might have been a goner, but it’s still with us and will be for a very long time.

More specifically:

French women are very friendly but not very hot. German women are very hot but not very friendly. (Those respective attributes and liabilities make sense when you think about it.) Scottish women are neither.

German men are large.

Europeans don’t refrigerate eggs. We don’t have to refrigerate them either, and grocery stores know that, but American consumers don’t.

Muslims are certainly in Europe. In France in particular, it’s common to see Muslim women. You know they are Muslim because they want you to know. They are in long dresses and scarves. They tend to be overweight. A great many are pushing baby carriages.

I assume that for each Muslim woman there is a Muslim man, but they are not easily identifiable because they apparently don’t wear any particular identifying clothing.

The Muslim women are nothing extraordinary apart from their distinctive garb, their girth, and their baby carriages. To this untrained eye, they behave much like other French women.

If Muslims are invading Europe, they’re pretty sneaky about it for the most part. The invasion of the United States from our southern border is much more apparent.

As for energy, the Europeans keep the indoors warmer in the summer and cooler in the winter. Sometimes, uncomfortably so. I assume this is because energy is more expensive in Europe. Translated into gallons and dollars, gasoline is a little shy of $10/gallon.

One result is that they use mass transit more than we do. The train system is very good in most of Europe – not just because gas is expensive but also because the distances are more manageable. And they have smaller cars. It’s extremely rare to see an American-style monster pickup truck, for example.

They have funny small cars we’ve never heard of, especially in France. In Germany you often see BMWs, Mercedes and Audis, of course, and they look just like the ones we buy. But on close inspection, you see that they are equipped with much smaller engines than ours and evidently get much better gas mileage. They still go plenty fast on the autobahn.

You see wind mills or, more accurately, wind turbines for generating electricity. They apparently work, but are inefficient once you factor in the cost of manufacturing and installing them and their limited life span.

I saw no one beheaded. In fact, I saw no violence and never felt threatened. I felt much safer in downtown Munich than in downtown Denver.

You never see vagrants camping on the streets, sidewalks or parks. That’s not because Europeans are rich; the average German has less money than the average Mississippian. It’s because they prohibit vagrants from camping in public spaces. I saw no reports that the consequence of that prohibition was the freezing or starving to death of vagrants.

On a government building in the old part of Munich, I saw several flags displayed, including the Israeli flag. This was 20 miles from Dachau.

As for the dysfunctionality of Europe, I suppose it depends on how you define it. The trains run on time. The garbage gets picked up.

Their politics, like ours, are volatile. But their conflict tends to drive things toward the center rather than toward the extremes.

I attribute that to their parliamentarian systems. In America, the candidates get chosen in primaries where the people who bother to vote tend to be the extremists on the right and left. The result is more extremity in the general elections – a hard right candidate chosen by the hard right primary voters versus a hard left candidate chosen by the hard left primary voters.

One wins. Then Congress is comprised of a bunch of hard rightist and hard leftists who spend an inordinate amount of energy battling one another rather than solving problems.

In parliamentary systems, the candidates are chosen more by the party apparatchiks. They tend to disfavor ideologues and favor electability. The chosen candidates are thus more moderate.

Moreover, the presidents and prime ministers are chosen not by the people but by their elected representatives. Those elected representatives tend to be pragmatic in their choices. They want leaders who can hold things together.

The multiple parties that are common in Europe mean that it is often the case that no one party can command a majority. When that happens, the parties must form coalitions – they have no choice but to compromise in order to maintain control of the government.

In Europe, they call that process of compromise and coalition-building “governance” and label the people who engage in it “leaders.” In America, we call that process “traitorous” and we label the people who engage in it “RINOs.”

Imagine if the alternatives for President of the United States were, say, Mitt Romney and Joe Manchin. My tribe will say they hate Mitt Romney. Fine, I get that. But wouldn’t it be better to win with Mitt Romney than to lose with Donald Trump? And wouldn’t it be better to lose to Joe Manchin than to lose to Barack Obama?

Expect both candidates to do better than you expect

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The debates will be interesting this time, because both candidates have the opportunity to change some minds. Joe Biden could change some minds that have decided he’s too old to be president. Donald Trump could change some minds that have decided he’s too much a jerk.

Will they succeed?

Probably, to some extent. In Biden’s case, it’s because expectations are extraordinarily low. Even Democrats think he’s too old. Republicans think he’s so old that he’s likely to forget where he is (as he appears to do from time to time), fall down (as he has done several times on camera), and perhaps sniff Trump’s hair.

Biden will exceed those expectations.

I’m not saying he’ll deliver great lines, such as “You’re no Jack Kennedy” or “I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” That failure won’t be because he will not have been fed such lines by his debate coaches; he will have been. Rather, it will be because he lacks the stage presence of Ronald Reagan and Lloyd Bentsen, and he lacks the memory to even remember the lines he will have been fed.

But he won’t fall down, he won’t forget where he is, and he won’t sniff anyone’s hair. In fact, he’ll be so pumped up with pharmaceuticals – as he apparently was at the State of the Union Address a few months ago – that he won’t appear sleepy at all. He’ll be preternaturally charged up.

It’ll be spooky. Think Energizer Bunny with hair plugs and tooth caps.

Despite Biden’s meme that he’s running again because he’s the only one who can beat Trump, his handlers know the truth. He’s about the only Democrat who can lose to Trump – mainly due to concern among even Democrats and certainly Independents that he’s too old and too far gone.

The handler’s efforts this week will focus on dispelling that concern. With the aid of pharmaceuticals and low expectations, they’ll succeed to some small degree.

As for Trump, most Republicans tend not to have much personal affection for the man. If Dan Quayle was no Jack Kennedy, Donald Trump is no Ronald Reagan.

Democrats loath (and fear) Trump to the point they think he will appear on horseback with three other riders, or perhaps with a chain saw in-hand, or might spin his head 360 degrees on his shoulders and vomit at the camera.

I predict Trump will not do any of that.

The man seems to have changed a bit. If Biden appears chemically stimulated, Trump appears slightly sedated in comparison to the Trump of the past. Moreover, even the experts are surprised at the quality of his campaign. He’s getting good advice, and seems to be taking that advice.

The 2016 election was a lark for Trump. He surprised everyone – including himself – by winning. Unfortunately, what he learned from that was to ignore the advice of seasoned politicos in the 2020 election – and so he lost (probably).  

Some of the advice that Trump is taking this time is about his debating style. In the 2016 and 2020 debates with Hillary and then Biden, he misapprehended the nature of a debate. He thought a debate was an argument. He repeatedly cut off Biden even as Biden was stumbling and mumbling. The effect was to save Biden from himself.

This time, Trump appreciates that a debate is not a personal argument with his wife. It’s a moderated show with a television audience.

Trump at heart is a showman, perhaps the best in politics since that professional showman Ronald Reagan. This time, he knows to keep quiet to let the stumbling and mumbling Biden continue stumbling and mumbling. Moreover, under the rules of this particular debate, Trump will not be able to interject even if he wants to because each candidate’s microphone will be muted during the other’s response to moderator questions.

It could be painful to watch, if you’re a Democrat. At least until the moderators interject to save Biden. Trump’s microphone will be muted during Biden’s stumbling and mumbling routine, but the moderators’ will not be.

Here’s another thing Trump will do, as any seasoned performer would. He’ll use a little self-deprecation. He’ll use it well, because people won’t expect it from him. If Trump pokes a bit of fun at himself, it might be the most memorable moment. It will either be a hit or, without a live audience, it could fall flat. If it falls flat, don’t expect the moderators to bail him out Ed McMahon style.

So . . . next week we’ll have a new race. The senile incumbent will have a bit of a pulse and the a-hole challenger will seem not quite so bad. America might survive another four years.

The emperor has no clothes – and no pulse

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A 19th century Dane named Hans Christian Andersen (a fine fellow despite his hateful middle name) published a story about an emperor who was conned into buying “new clothes.”

He was told by the con men that the “new clothes” could be seen only by people who were not stupid. The reason the con men told the emperor that was because these “new clothes” he’d paid for were nonexistent.

Not willing to reveal his stupidity, the emperor pretended to see the “new clothes” presented to him. He pantomimed putting on the nonexistent “new clothes,” and then paraded about the city in them. Because the “new clothes” did not actually exist, the emperor was simply naked.

The people got conned, too. Like the emperor, they had been advised that these “new clothes” were not visible to stupid people. Therefore, they too pretended to see an emperor in new clothes, not an emperor in the buff. Like the obsequious subjects they were, they even pretended to like these “new clothes.” Maybe in their self-deceptive minds’ eyes, they did see fine new clothes.

Finally, a child wandered by. Not sophisticated in the sham, the con, the self-deception or the obsequiousness, he saw the naked emperor and exclaimed “The emperor has no clothes!”

That child’s shriek of truth broke the spell on the people who had been enthralled, entranced or enslaved into believing that the emperor had new clothes.

The emperor’s poll numbers cratered.

The emperor himself, however, was prouder than ever. He took the people’s rejection as proof that they were too stupid to see his splendiferous new clothes. And besides, he told himself, these stupid people hadn’t really turned on him – polls are always wrong.

Stupid people love me, he reassured himself.

A couple centuries later, we have another emperor. He imperiously flaunts the law, makes up self-aggrandizing stories, abolishes the nation’s border (as well as its guardrails), slurs his words, forgets how to get off the stage (literally and figuratively), refers to “insurrectionists” as “erectionists” (Soviet jewelry, anyone?), and boasts of defying Supreme Court orders (George Wallace, anyone?).

He sells political influence to foreigners to enrich his grifty family headed by a non-physician wife who wants to be called “doctor” and whose relationship with him began while she was married to someone else, brags that Bidenomics reduced inflation from 9% when he took office (while in fact it was then 1.4%), and sniffs the hair of little girls he’s never met while whispering that he has a puppy in his van to show them.  

Like that other emperor, this emperor, his crooked entourage and his delusional followers are unable or unwilling to see the true state of the man. They all imagine that his deficiencies, decrepitude and dishonesty are fine and beautiful. He, because he enjoys being emperor, and they, because this “emperor” does what they tell him to, and even does his feeble best to speak what they write.

Anyone not able to “see” this beauty of a man is a threat to democracy and must be stopped – by any means necessary, including undemocratic ones. Never mind that democracy is long dead in the realm.

We need a child to shriek “He has no clothes!” How about that carrot-topped kid?