Tag: renewal

Is It Just the Economy, Stupid?

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The polls seem to indicate that the Democratic Party is going to receive the equivalent of a good stiff knee to the groin on Tuesday night.  Of course, that’s wonderful news and no surprise.  But analyzing the reason why is important too.  If this is completely explained by the double-digit inflation and the skyrocketing crime wave engulfing the cities then it’s still good news.  But I hope it’s more than that.

What I’m hoping is that it is partially explained by a large chunk of independent voters reacting to the Democrats’ behavior during the lockdowns.  Being bullied for two years and then finding out that the bullying was all for nothing should have a lot of people really angry.  And now that more people are realizing how dangerous the side effects from these unnecessary and ineffective drugs are I can imagine that adding to the anger and the desire to get some payback.

You might ask why it matters if it’s more than just a reflex action by people unhappy about inflation and crime.  It’s simple.  If there’s any hope of this country returning things to sanity (never mind normalcy) it will depend on a solid majority rejecting the Democrat party categorically.  They have to stop seeing the two parties as legitimate alternatives.  We’ll only start fixing things when the Democrats can be kept out of power for a couple of cycles.  Enough time has to pass that laws can be passed to repair the damage that’s been done to the institutions of government.  All vestiges of the programs and policies that the Democrats have promulgated must be flushed down the drain and reasonable policies adopted.  And that will only happen when a stable majority that rejects their madness has emerged.

Of course, that assumes that such a majority exists.  I often wonder whether there are enough sane people among the Millennials and their younger brethren to allow this country to recover.  I think it’s far from certain that there are that many normal people in the next generation.  But we’ll get a chance to find out starting Tuesday.  And we’ll need to run the table from now on until things improve.  2022, 2024, 2026, 2028, 20230, 2032.  That’s a really long time to hold onto power in Washington.  The last time that happened was during the Reagan era.  The Republicans held the White House for twelve years.  Of course, Bush Senior was a RINO who single-handedly handed the country over to the Clintons by lousing everything up.

It would take an extraordinarily savvy politician to manage the fickle American electorate for that amount of time.  Basically, it’ll take a miracle.  And the Stupid Party doesn’t do miracles.  They do stupid.  But stranger things have happened.  The exact right man may appear at the exact right time and save us from the miserable fate that seems to be pursuing us.

But one thing’s for sure.  We’ll never have a more compelling case for kicking the Democrats out of power than we have right now.  Inflation, recession, crime, culture war madness, COVID fascism, you name it.  What happens after that is a matter of political savvy and determination.  And of course, a large dollop of luck.

How Far Will the Pendulum Swing this Time?

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Back in the 1970s America went off the rails.  The cities became drug and crime infested hell holes.  The economy cratered into stagflation.  Public trust in government and other institutions nose dived and Americans were afraid for the future.

And this low point was followed by Ronald Reagan’s election and a renewal that ushered in the optimism of the 1980s and beyond.

By my scorecard we’re even lower now than we were in the late seventies.  By every social, economic, cultural and physical measure, our world is shaking itself apart like an unbalanced rotating machine.  So many things are out of whack that it’s hard to see how the whole damn thing doesn’t smash itself to bits and lay across the landscape like a shrapnel field.

But someone once said, “There’s a lot of ruin in a nation.”  And he was right.  There have already been reactions to the madness of George Floyd and Joe Biden in places like Florida and Texas.  Someone like Ron DeSantis is sticking his neck out to defy COVID lockdowns and illegal alien invasions and crime waves and pedophile grooming in the elementary schools.

The pendulum will swing back against the stroke of madness.  The only question I wonder about is how far.  You see, I think we may not end up in positive territory after this latest debacle.  Back in the 1970s we didn’t have gay marriage, defund the police, sanctuary cities, legalized drugs, doctors castrating children and cancel culture.  I’m not sure we’ll get back far enough to keep the lights burning.

There are basic problems with our society that may preclude our survival as a culture.  Western civilization has convinced itself that abandoning things like petroleum and nuclear power will be possible without abandoning their benefits.  For the last century and more we’ve enjoyed the luxuries that electricity and the internal combustion engine have provided us.  The freedom to live our lives the way we want has been provided by the automobile and the instant communication inherent in the telephone.  Things like central heating and air conditioning were made possible by fossil fuels and the chemistry that they provided.

Now our descendants have become detached from reality and in order to pay homage to the Earth Goddess Gaia they demand that we cover the landscape with windmills and solar panels and pretend that this will allow us to carry on as before.  Screeching mental defectives like that Scandinavian harpy Greta Thunberg cow the leaders of modern countries into shutting down the resources needed to keep the wheels of industry turning.  Currently the price of fuel has doubled and when winter returns to the Northern Hemisphere we may see some truly frightening increases in the cost of heating oil and gas.

So, all of this is my way of wondering out loud whether we can turn this thing around.  Suppose we banish the Democrats from their leadership positions in the House and Senate in November.  That’s a start.  And suppose we retake the White House in 2024.  And suppose the Supreme Court overturns the constitutionality of gay marriage and affirmative action.  Will that be enough to push things back to normalcy?  I’m not so sure.

What I hope is that if those minimal things happen then some of the states will start nullifying federal actions that they find unconstitutional.  Sort of like the blue states did with sanctuary cities and legalized pot.  And that may be as good as it will get.  For some areas of the country, it’s probably too late.  Places like Baltimore and Philadelphia may not make it back to the rule of law.  Baltimore has been seven years without a working criminal justice system.  There may not be the will to reestablish law and order there.  Even New York and Chicago are becoming thugocracies.  Packs of teenage children hunt down and batter old people to death for sport.  This is not something you fix with an election or two.

Leave your comments below.  I’m curious to get the consensus from the readers.  Will we get back to where we were in 2000?  What do you think?