At this time of the rolling year, it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for finding some positive straws to grasp at in order to stave off despair. And probably the likeliest item is just how awful the polls are for Biden. Outside of defense corporation C-suites you’d be hard pressed to find an encouraging word. He has mucked up almost everything he has touched. The man is as popular as smallpox. I guess that’s a negative positive straw.
I asked a couple of friends who would be on the November ballot and one said that Biden would be pulled right before the convention and replaced with Gavin Newsom. And the other told me that Donald Trump would be kept off the ballot by judges. And this fellow seemed relieved because he assumed that another Republican would easily beat Biden. I told him I disagreed. I said I thought that if Trump is forced off the ballot a large enough part of the Republican voters would stay home on election day to give Biden the win. I think this was a new thought for him. I’m not sure I convinced him but I think I gave him something to consider.
So many people are angry and confused by the endless failures that have become the hallmark of our government. And almost as bad is the absurd lies that emerge to paint an unrecognizable version of reality.
Such as:
“We are living through the strongest economy in history. Wealth and prosperity abound. Life here is full of choices and freedom that provide everyone with fulfillment and joy. Big Brother loves you. Joe Biden is vigorous and smart. Ukraine is winning the war. We’ve always been at war with East Asia.”
They’re all such obvious lies that it seems reasonable that most of the country will see through them and punish the ones responsible for the lies and for the underlying problems. So, I grasp at the straw that Biden is so hated that he will be voted out in November. But it’s just a wish. It’s just a hope. It’s not the solution to an equation.
But isn’t life mostly a grasping at straws? We spend our time stumbling around in the dark trying to outguess the stock market or the labor market. We place our bets on a career or an investment strategy or a politician. Sometimes we win. If we win enough times, we begin to think winning is the norm. That was what it was like in the eighties and nineties in America. It felt like winning was how the world worked. But then came the turn of the millennium and things changed.
The people in charge had plans of their own for us and it didn’t involve winning. More like skinning. We were way too happy and prosperous. It was time to let the rest of the world win. And ever since it’s been losing. Losing prosperity, freedoms and self-respect.
Well, now we’re grasping at straws trying to find a way back to what we had. So far it hasn’t worked. Maybe the only thing that’s improved is we know where not to look. It feels futile but we have no choice. The new reality is intolerable and the memory of what we had before is still there. So, we go on.
“We know they are lying, they know they are lying, they know we know they are lying, we know they know we know they are lying, but they are still lying.” – Attributed to Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
Nolte: Average Monthly Mortgage Payment Explodes to $3,322 In Biden’s America
WSJ analysis of the housing market:
Average monthly new home payment when Biden took office: $1,787
Average monthly new home payment today: $3,322
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2023/12/11/nolte-average-monthly-mortgage-payment-explodes-3322-bidens-america/
Another data point showing that when we say things have doubled in cost it’s not hyperbole. It’s actual.
My retirement accounts are finally back to within 5% or so of their 2021 dollar value. Now, all I need is for them to climb back another 50% to 60%+ to make up inflation lost value.
I’ve done what we were supposedly taught to do, be frugal and save and invest. Rampant inflation is the Democrats way of saying, “Sucker! You should have spent every cent on hedonism like the other idiots.”
Yeah, they don’t mind inflating the money supply because they can just add as many zeros to the end of their income as needed. But the more they make this resemble Weimar, the more likely it is that they’ll get the same result.
Not just Weimar Republic though they are the most famous if not the most egregious example. Zimbabwe for example. Attached is a photo of the $100 trillion dollar Zimbabwean bill with the dubious distinction of being the largest denomination bill in human history. I bought a number of these bills for about dollar and some each in around 2009. I gave them away as gag gifts. Amazingly, a couple of years ago I happened to find that the $100 trillion dollar notes had become rare and expensive. I checked a couple of minutes ago and found them selling in the… Read more »
Not so sure about voter hate not being a factor. I believe the 2016 election was not as much about love for Trump as it was about a majority of Americans despising Hillary. Today’s Democrats are trying their best to whip up a seething hatred of Trump and among their core it works. Most liberals would give their firstborn to keep Trump out of office. But then, they have no problem with murdering their babies, anyhow. The left is using the weaponized bureaucracy to try to get anything they can to keep him off the ballot. It might just work.… Read more »