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“Sol Sanders”

What Trump Got Right: Our Choice Isn’t Democrats Vs. Republicans, But Socialism Vs. Democracy

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/08/29/what-trump-got-right-our-choic

Even today, we often hear there are no real differences between the two parties. They’re like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, we’re told. But hearing President Donald Trump’s lengthy, and detailed, acceptance speech Thursday night, we must agree: Never in modern history has there been a greater gap between the two major parties.

“Despite all of our greatness as a nation, everything we have achieved is now endangered. This is the most important election in the history of our country. At no time before have voters faced a clearer choice between two parties, two visions, two philosophies, or two agendas,” Trump told Americans.

“This election will decide whether we save the American Dream, or whether we allow a socialist agenda to demolish our cherished destiny.”

He’s right. And yes, the choice is that stark.

In the midst of an American cultural and political crisis, brought on by far-left inspired terrorism and rioting in the nation’s cities, it’s important to draw clear distinctions. And that’s exactly what Trump and others did in their convention speeches.

“The president and his surrogates boasted of replacing NAFTA with USMCA, passing criminal-justice reform, getting a significant tax cut through Congress (though this didn’t receive as much attention as usual for a GOP convention), destroying ISIS, and killing Qasem Soleimani, along with many less widely heralded achievements in foreign policy and regulatory reform,” as Daniel McCarthy of the Spectator USA magazine neatly summed it up.

A Tyranny Perpetual and Universal? Is the leftist dream now within reach? If President Trump loses, we will find out. By Michael Anton

https://amgreatness.com/2020/08/28/a-tyranny-perpetual-and-universal/

After “Is 2020 another ‘Flight 93 election?’” the question I most often hear is “What happens if Trump loses?” 

The answer to the first question, unfortunately, is yes, but more so.

The tl;dr summary of the answer to the second is: much more of the same. More of all the trends, policies, and practices that revolutionized American life in the 1960s, that enrich the ruling class and its foot soldiers at middle America’s expense, erode our natural and constitutionally guaranteed rights and liberties, degrade our culture and its people, and dishonor our heritage and history. The war on those who self-identify as Americans, and only as Americans, who love their country despite its flaws—who are certain in their bones that its strengths and glories vastly outweigh its historic and present shortcomings—waged by those who hate America and Americans, who want to destroy the former and crush the latter, will go on.

Two important questions are whether that war will intensify or abate and whether it might abate overtly but intensify covertly. Those questions will be explored in what follows.

First, though, a necessary caveat. A tiresome, sophistic, bad-faith, and inevitable rejoinder to my argument will go something like this: “Trump is the president; therefore, you guys are in charge; this ‘ruling class’ of whom you speak includes him, and you. So you’re lying and contradicting yourself when you criticize an alleged ‘ruling class’ running the country in ways you don’t like.”

No. The only accurate statement in the above summary is “Trump is the president.” And thank God for that; we’d be much worse off if he weren’t.

An Open Letter to Julia Louis-Dreyfus Reconsider your stand if you consider yourself anything of an advocate for the people. Bruce Bawer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/08/open-letter-julia-louis-dreyfus-bruce-bawer/

Dear Julia,

To begin with, though I found Watching Ellie stunningly bad, though The New Adventures of Old Christine left a bad taste in my mouth, and though I’ve never been able to get into Veep (which feels to me hopelessly derivative of better one-camera comedy series like Curb Your Enthusiasm), I still have a residual fondness of you based on your performance as Elaine in Seinfeld. So I was dismayed to learn that you were lending your talents to the fourth and final night of this year’s Democratic National Convention. And sure enough, even as the rioters and vandals and anarchists were destroying Portland, Oregon, and other cities under the twin banners of Black Lives Matter and Antifa – the former of which the Democratic Party openly celebrates and the latter of which they refuse to condemn – there you were on our screens, as big as life, flashing a bright smile and acting as if absolutely none of these horrors were taking place.

No, instead of acknowledging the madness in the streets, you stood there, describing yourself as “a loyal union member, a passionate climate activist, and a patriotic Democrat,” heaping hyperbolic praise on Michelle Obama (“joking” that her speech had been so spectacular that there’d be a fifth convention night on which it would be re-run “on a loop”) and Kamala “Lock-‘Em-Up” Harris (“She was fabulous!” you gushed), and implying, with a breathtakingly irresponsible gag about Putin, that the disgusting lies about Trump-Russia collusion, now known to have been concocted by crooked leaders of the Obama Administration in what may turn out to be the most scandalous top-down betrayal of the U.S. Constitution on record, were, in fact, true.

Then there was that special moment that you led up to with this ardent declamation:

Here’s the big question. How much of your time and energy are you willing to devote to elect Joe Biden?

The Trump Disruption His policy record is better than he and his opponents have made it sound.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-trump-disruption-11598570719?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

When Donald Trump won the Presidency four years ago, half of America gnashed its teeth or cried and even supporters who cheered weren’t sure what to expect. Four years later our verdict is that he has been better on policy than we feared but worse on personal behavior than we hoped. Whether Americans re-elect him depends on how they assess that political balance sheet.

We realize that even considering the Trump Presidency in these conventional terms is offensive to some readers. Don’t we get that he’s a would-be authoritarian, a Russian plant, or at least so deeply flawed as a human being that he can’t be trusted with power? Yet our democracy survives, and the Constitution’s checks and balances are intact. Americans who heard him ask for a second term Thursday night were trying to make sense of what has been a raucous and disruptive Presidency.**

This week’s virtual GOP convention has spent hours educating voters about Trump Administration successes, and many are real, starting with the pre-Covid-19 economy that we examined this week. The political irony is that this success was due to Mr. Trump’s adoption of conventional GOP economics, not his trade or immigration agenda.

Joe Biden Can’t Restore Normalcy The Democrats may now represent more disruption than coronavirus-fatigued voters want to hazard. Daniel Henninger

https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-biden-cant-restore-normalcy-11598483215?mod=opinion_featst_pos1

Donald Trump Jr. described Joe Biden as the Loch Ness Monster, a lifelong swamp creature. That was patty-cake compared with what Democrats think of and won’t stop saying about Donald J. Trump. Wash away the neurotic personal animus, and the Democratic case for Joe Biden is that by ending the nonstop Trump disruption, or “chaos,” Mr. Biden will restore the country to normalcy. He won’t.

Only the most sound-asleep voters can believe that with one day’s voting in November they can melt the Wicked Witch of Trumpland and dance down the yellow-brick road to more temperate times. Returning to pre-2020 normality anytime soon, no matter which candidate wins, is impossible.

Most people aren’t thinking about the next four years; they’re thinking about the next 12 to 18 months. They are wondering each day when or whether the pandemic will end and what the post-coronavirus world will mean for them and their families.

The economic and personal disruption has been immeasurable. Within weeks, daily economic activity went from normal to nearly nothing—an event with no precedent in modern history.

What comes next for the daily work people took for granted isn’t clear. At first, salaried workers were OK, but then the ranks of people on paychecks were thinned with furloughs and layoffs. American Airlines said this week it would unload 19,000 people. JPMorgan Chase says rotational work is likely to become permanent. Laying off unseen remote workers will be easier in the next recession.

A significant migration is occurring out of urban centers into the more predictable calm of suburban life. Younger people are choosing to live closer to where they grew up.

Normalcy? Joe Biden is running in an election year when liberals are fleeing New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and other cities overwhelmed with protests, homelessness and spreading disorder.

Enemies of the State: Biden, Harris, Pelosi, and Schumer By Mark Alexander

https://patriotpost.us/alexander/73005-enemies-of-the-state-biden-harris-pelosi-and-schumer-2020-08-26?

Anytime Democrats invoke their oath “to support and defend” our Constitution, it should evoke herniating laughter!

“Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of. Our enemies are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determining to be free, and heaven and earth will aid the resolution. On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important question, on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves.” —Joseph Warren (1775)

Each week, I typically have to choose from among 10 or more active and carryover topics to write about. Choosing just one can be a challenge.

I’ve been holding a topic — “Enemies of the People” — for six weeks, waiting on Joe Biden to announce Kamala Harris as his 2020 running mate.

The “enemies” topic was high on my list this week, and then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opened her pie hole, making it the indisputable frontrunner.

• The Democrats’ Public Shaming Is Now Coming For You By David Marcus

https://thefederalist.com/2020/08/26/the-democrats-public-shaming-is-now-coming-for-you/

In June of 2018, a spate of incidents occurred in which Trump administration officials were heckled at or asked to leave restaurants. This happened to then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen who was heckled at a DC eatery and then-Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders who was asked to leave a Virginia restaurant by its owner. A debate grew about whether such public shaming was an acceptable form of political speech. Many on the left argued it was.
One Democrat, Rep. Maxine Waters had no doubt about the just nature of this tactic, she said at the time, “Lets make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”
Other Democrats pushed back, albeit gently, against Waters’ rather extreme remarks but now it appears Waters’ approach is gaining momentum, not in regard to members of Trump’s Cabinet, but rather against any person that refuses to obey the orders of Black Lives Matters activists. This week a viral video emerged of a woman being harangued by a large, mostly white, BLM crowd, screamed at, with people right in her face because she refused to raise her fist in the air in a sign of solidarity.
To call this shift from shaming politicians to shaming regular citizens predictable is a vast understatement. It was always the logical end of the road Waters was laying out. After all, if political disagreement is enough justification for screaming at a person in power, why not a person you suspect of help putting them there? In the case this week, which was one of many, the young woman was actually supportive of BLM, but her refusal to raise her fist was sufficient to make her a target.

Remember the Trump Economy? His pre-Covid-19 record gives him a clear edge over Obama-Biden.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/remember-the-trump-economy-11598396570?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Joe Biden is running on his record in the Obama Administration of staging a turnaround after an economic crisis, and last week we reminded readers there’s less to that record than the spin. Conversely, there’s more to President Trump’s economic achievements in his first three years than his detractors admit, and this debate is crucial to how well the economy recovers after Covid-19.

Mr. Biden and the economic left claim Mr. Trump inherited a long expansion, and nothing much changed. But recall that Mr. Trump was able to win in 2016 in part by running against the “secular stagnation” that liberals said was inevitable. The Obama-Biden recovery was the slowest in decades, and by the second half of 2015 it was losing steam and came close to a recession in 2016.

***

Mr. Trump promised to spur growth again, and his win immediately revived animal spirits. The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index, which had languished below 100 for all but one month of President Obama’s tenure, jumped 10 points to nearly 106 in December 2016. The OECD’s Business Confidence Index showed a similar flip from pessimism through most of 2015 and 2016 into growing optimism. The University of Michigan’s consumer confidence survey quickly exceeded its Obama-era high.

The RNC’s aspirational message couldn’t be more different from Dems’ radicalism By Steve Cortes

https://nypost.com/2020/08/25/the-rncs-aspirational-message-couldnt-be-more-different-from-dems-radicalism/

The Republican National Convention is underway, and it ­offers a hopeful, pro-American agenda that stands in stark contrast to the radicalism that radiated out of the Democratic National Convention last week.

The Democrats’ convention ­revealed a disturbing truth about the party’s November ticket. While Joe Biden’s name is inscribed there as a sort of nod to a moderate past, it is the likes of Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who are really on the ballot this November.

Time and again, Biden, the supposed moderate, has proved willing to embrace the radical leftists who now control his party. His electoral platform is really a Biden-Sanders Unity platform. It reflects the hard left’s top policy priorities, including government-controlled health care, the Green New Deal and a climate agenda that would kill millions of American jobs and dull America’s economic and energy edge.

While the platform doesn’t explicitly endorse Medicare for All, it calls for the creation of a “public-option plan” overseen by the government. It was no accident that Sanders — one of the ­architects of Medicare for All — was prominently featured on the opening night of the Democrats’ convention.

Meanwhile, as nihilistic rioters sow disorder in cities across the United States, Biden and the Democrats said not a word in condemnation. As violent crime spikes in blue states and cities, victimizing mostly poor people of color, Biden and the Democrats offered no solution

Democrats Wish Upon a Star Welcome to the Happy Land of pathetic progressive make-believe.Don Feder

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/08/democrats-wish-upon-star-don-feder/

Last week, the Democrat Party had its national convention at the summit of the Big Rock Candy Mountain in the Happy Land of Make Believe – a place of magic and wonder where reality is shaped by whim and whatever you wish is true, just because you wish it. Joe Biden is now the Mayor. Kamala Harris provides hair-sniffing morale.

Democrats have been accused of lying. But to be guilty of that, you have to be able to distinguish between lies and the truth.

For the Democrat Party, reality is like the lyrics from “Pinocchio” — ”anything your heart desires will come to you.” As Slow Joe once said, his party chooses truth (that which confirms its ideology) over facts (that which contradicts it).

Here are a few of the truths Democrats cling to:

There is no rioting in Portland, Seattle, Chicago, New York, Denver, etc. just “peaceful protests” the President is trying to suppress with his “stormtroopers,” as Nancy Pelosi would have it.