California Voters Say Biden Shouldn't Seek a Second Term

 Heh. 

California's the looniest leftist state. That voters here reject Bident for 2024 is something. 

At the Los Angeles Times, "California voters favor Newsom over Harris, don’t want Biden to run again, poll finds."

'Conservatism' Is No Longer Enough

At the American Mind, "All hands on deck as we enter the counter-revolutionary moment":

Let’s be blunt. The United States has become two nations occupying the same country. When pressed, or in private, many would now agree. Fewer are willing to take the next step and accept that most people living in the United States today—certainly more than half—are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term.

I don’t just mean the millions of illegal immigrants. Obviously, those foreigners who have bypassed the regular process for entering our country, and probably will never assimilate to our language and culture, are—politically as well as legally—aliens. I’m really referring to the many native-born people—some of whose families have been here since the Mayflower—who may technically be citizens of the United States but are no longer (if they ever were) Americans. They do not believe in, live by, or even like the principles, traditions, and ideals that until recently defined America as a nation and as a people. It is not obvious what we should call these citizen-aliens, these non-American Americans; but they are something else.

What about those who do consider themselves Americans? By and large, I am referring to the 75 million people who voted in the last election against the senile figurehead of a party that stands for mob violence, ruthless censorship, and racial grievances, not to mention bureaucratic despotism. Regardless of Trump’s obvious flaws, preferring his re-election was not a difficult choice for these voters. In fact—leaving aside the Republican never-Trumpers and some squeamish centrists—it was not a difficult choice for either side. Both Right and Left know where they stand today… and it is not together. Not anymore.

Those who wanted to Make America Great Again may refer to themselves as Republicans, though many realize that, apart from Trump, the party does not really care about them. Many may also, in some loose way, consider themselves conservatives. But among these plumbers, insurance salesmen, gym owners, and factory workers there’s one question you can pretty much guarantee they never discuss with their family and friends: “What kind of conservative are you?” This question has virtually no bearing on the problems that overshadow their lives.

It is still a question, however, that occupies intellectuals, journalists, and the world of think tanks. And this matters, unfortunately, because however sensible and down to earth the voters may be, an effective political movement needs intellectual leadership to organize and explain the movement’s purposes and goals. This leadership is still divided into—to name a few—neocons, paleocons (not to be confused with paleo-libertarians!) rad-trads, the dissident right, reformicons, etc. A lot of these labels are a distraction. But before I reject these disputes as mostly irrelevant, let me make a couple of points about why we can’t immediately leave this debate behind—and so why an essay like this is necessary.

“The conservative movement” still matters because if the defenders of America continue to squabble among themselves, the victory of progressive tyranny will be assured. See you in the gulag. On the off chance we can avoid that fate, it will only be if the shrinking number of Americans unite and work together. But we can’t simply mandate that conservatives “set aside” their differences, no matter how urgent it is that they do so. So my goal here is to show why we must all unite around the one, authentic America, the only one which transcends all the factional navel-gazing and pointless conservababble.

Practically speaking, there is almost nothing left to conserve. What is actually required now is a recovery, or even a refounding, of America as it was long and originally understood but which now exists only in the hearts and minds of a minority of citizens.

This recognition that the original America is more or less gone sets the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy apart from almost everyone else on the Right. Paradoxically, the organization that has been uniquely devoted to understanding and teaching the principles of the American founding now sees with special clarity why “conserving” that legacy is a dead end. Overturning the existing post-American order, and re-establishing America’s ancient principles in practice, is a sort of counter-revolution, and the only road forward...

Keep reading.

It’s Inevitable: Trump Will Be Indicted

From Julie Kelly, at American Greatness, "Americans should prepare for the spectacle of Donald Trump pleading not guilty to charges brought by the Biden Justice Department."

The Payback for Mar-a-Lago Will Be Brutal

From Kim Strassel, at WSJ, "What went around Monday will come around hard for the Democrats when Republicans control the Justice Department and FBI":

Trump derangement syndrome has a curious way of scrambling coherent thought. Witness the Democratic-media complex’s blind insistence the Justice Department raid on Donald Trump’s home is just and necessary—rather than a dangerous move for their party and the republic.

In descending on Mar-a-Lago, the department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation shifted the U.S. into the category of countries whose ruling parties use government power to investigate political rivals. No attorney general has ever signed off on a raid on a former president’s home, in what could be the groundwork for criminal charges.

Yet to read the left’s media scribes, Monday’s search was a ho-hum day in crime-fighting. The Beltway press circled the wagons around Attorney General Merrick Garland and primly parroted Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s piety that “no one is above the law.” “The Mar-a-Lago Raid Proves the U.S. Isn’t a Banana Republic,” pronounced the Atlantic, clearly worried readers might conclude the opposite. It is “bedrock principle” that those who “commit crimes” “must answer for them,” it lectured.

The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake attests it’s totally standard to investigate presidents—look at Israel! The New York Times soothingly explains that prosecutors “would have carefully weighed the decision,” and that the investigation therefore must be “serious.” Roll Call produced a law professor to remind all that a judge had to sign off on a “detailed affidavit that established probable cause.” The last time we got this level of reassurance about federal law enforcement’s professionalism was at the height of the Russia-collusion hoax.

The bar has always been at its highest when the investigation involves a former president. Even more so when the former president remains a contender for the office. Mr. Garland breezed past all this history and complexity in his “equal under the law” statement Thursday, even as he expressed outrage that anyone might mistrust the department and the bureau that brought us the Steele dossier and the Carter Page wiretaps.

Democrats may be betting that adverse coverage of Mr. Trump will help them in November, or in 2024. They’d better hope so....

All this tit for tat will further undermine our institutions and polarize the nation—but such is the nature of retributive politics. Which is why the wholesale Democratic and media defense of this week’s events is so reckless. Both parties long understood that political restraint was less about civility than self-preservation. What goes around always comes around. What went around this week will come around hard.

Attorney General Merrick Garland Approved Decision to Seek Search Warrant for Mar-a-Lago (VIDEO)

Extremely partisan.

At WSJ, "Attorney General Merrick Garland Asks Court to Release Trump Search Warrant":

Garland says he requested the warrant be unsealed because of ‘substantial public interest’ in the matter.

WASHINGTON—The Justice Department has asked a Florida judge to unseal the warrant FBI agents used to search former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home this week, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday, raising the prospect that details of the extraordinary search of the former president’s home could soon be public.

“I personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter,” Mr. Garland said in his first public remarks since Monday’s search. “The department does not take such a decision lightly.”

Mr. Garland said he filed the motion—which asks to unseal both the warrant and the receipt that lists the items seized—in light of Mr. Trump’s confirmation of the search and the “substantial public interest” in the matter.

Aides to Mr. Trump didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Mr. Trump’s lawyers will have time to respond to the Justice Department’s request, including raising any objections to the unsealing, before the judge makes a decision. Mr. Trump was given a copy of the warrant and a list of items that were taken during the search.

Monday’s search of Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and social club in Palm Beach, Fla. was a dramatic escalation of a monthslong investigation into the former president’s handling of classified information. The move, while Mr. Trump was in New York, stoked a political firestorm with Republican lawmakers demanding an explanation for the unprecedented search of a former president’s home.

Mr. Trump and his allies have criticized it as a politically motivated stunt by Justice Department officials.

“I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked,” Mr. Garland said, adding that “the men and women of the FBI and the Justice Department are dedicated patriotic public servants every day.” He didn’t take questions...

End of the Republic

From Robert Spencer, at Jihad Watch, "With the FBI raid on Trump’s home, America has fallen into the abyss":

When the FBI raided Donald Trump’s home on Monday, a key aspect of what made the United States of America great and free has been lost, and likely cannot be recovered. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson detested one another for years before their eventual reconciliation, but neither one used the agencies of the U.S. government to hound, persecute or discredit the other. Other bitter political opponents throughout the history of the republic have never before used the government’s own mechanisms of justice to do injustice to their foes. Joe Biden, Merrick Garland and their henchmen have brought America to a new phase of its history, and it is not likely to be one that is marked by respect for the rule of law or defense of the rights of individual citizens. Instead, we are entering an ugly age of authoritarianism, in which the brute force of the state is used to bend the people to the will of the tyrant.

Trump announced on Monday, “These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents. Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before. After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate.”

The 45th president is not given to understatement, but the FBI raid on his home is much more than just unnecessary and inappropriate. It is criminal. The FBI that was heavily involved in trying to frame and destroy Trump in the Russian Collusion hoax is now trying once again to destroy him, apparently by claiming that he improperly took classified material from the White House. They never cared when Hillary Clinton misused classified material on a grand scale; what is the difference? They’re also likely trying to find something to link him more firmly to the January 6 “insurrection” that never was. The Left’s January 6 narrative has been full of holes from the beginning: Trump told the demonstrators to proceed peacefully, the people who entered the Capitol had no weapons, and no one had sketched out any kind of plan to do what the Left continues to claim that Trump was trying to do all along, overthrow the government and rule as a dictator.

But Joe Biden’s handlers are desperately afraid that Trump will return to the White House on January 20, 2025 and that things will go harder for them next time than they did during his first term. They’re afraid that a vengeful Trump will do a genuine and thorough housecleaning of the desperately corrupt and compromised Washington bureaucracy, and that many of them will, quite justly, end up out of power, and some of them will, even more justly, end up in prison. So they’ve determined to pre-emptively do the same to Trump. If they can’t actually find anything to prosecute him for (and Lord knows they’ve tried, this is the most investigated and poked and prodded and scrutinized man in American history, and still those who hate him have nothing), then at very least they hope to taint Trump so completely in the eyes of the distracted and indifferent public that they will have a fighting chance in 2024....

Many conservatives are saying that this ensures Trump’s victory in 2024. But what makes them think that this corrupt regime will allow the man whom they fear and hate above all others return to the White House? It’s clear now. They will stop at nothing.

This is no longer a republic, except of the banana variety. It may be a republic again someday, but for now, the great American experiment is over. Born July 4, 1776 in Philadelphia, died August 8, 2022, in Mar-A-Lago, at the hands of Joe Biden, Merrick Garland, and Christopher Wray.

White House Files Under Scrutiny in Trump Search, Signaling Inquiry’s Depth

Yeah, let's see the files the FBI Seized. Perhaps they were ooking for evidence of criminal complicity on January 6th, no?

At the New York Times, "Questions swirl about what exactly the F.B.I. was looking for, and why":

The F.B.I.’s search of former President Donald J. Trump’s home in Florida on Monday continued to rock Washington and, more broadly, American politics, amid a swirl of questions about what led the Justice Department to take such a stunning step.

The search came after a visit this spring to Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Palm Beach, Fla., by federal agents — including a Justice Department counterintelligence official — to discuss materials that the former president had improperly taken with him when he left the White House.

Mr. Trump was briefly present for that visit, as was at least one of his lawyers, according to people familiar with the situation. Those materials contained many pages of classified documents, according to a person familiar with their contents. By law, presidential materials must be preserved and sent to the National Archives when a president leaves office. It remained unclear what specific materials agents might have been seeking on Monday or why the Justice Department and the F.B.I. decided to go ahead with the search now.

Mr. Trump had delayed returning 15 boxes of material requested by officials with the National Archives for many months, doing so only in January, when the threat of action to retrieve them grew. The case was referred to the Justice Department by the archives early this year.

In carrying out the search, federal agents broke open a safe, the former president said.

The search was the latest remarkable turn in the long-running investigations into Mr. Trump’s actions before, during and after his presidency — and even as he weighs announcing another candidacy for the White House.

It came as the Justice Department has stepped up its separate inquiry into Mr. Trump’s efforts to remain in office after his defeat in the 2020 election and as he also faces an accelerating criminal inquiry in Georgia and civil actions in New York.

Mr. Trump has long cast the F.B.I. as a tool of Democrats who have been out to get him. The search set off a furious reaction among his supporters in the Republican Party and on the far right.

Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader in the House, suggested that he intended to investigate Attorney General Merrick B. Garland if Republicans took control of the chamber in November. A delegation of House Republicans was scheduled to travel to Mr. Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J., for a dinner with him on Tuesday night.

Aggressive language was pervasive on the right as Monday night turned into Tuesday morning.

“This. Means. War,” the Gateway Pundit, a pro-Trump outlet, wrote in an online post that was quickly amplified by a Telegram account connected to Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s onetime political adviser.

The F.B.I. would have needed to persuade a judge that it had probable cause that a crime had been committed, and that agents might find evidence at Mar-a-Lago, to get a search warrant. Proceeding with a search on a former president’s home would almost surely have required sign-off from top officials at the bureau and at the Justice Department.

The search, however, does not mean prosecutors have determined that Mr. Trump committed a crime...

 

Peter Navarro, Taking Back Trump's America

At Amazon, Peter Navarro, Taking Back Trump's America: Why We Lost the White House and How We'll Win It Back.

Federal Magistrate Bruce Reinhart, Who Issued Warrant for FBI's Raid on Mar-a-Lago, Is Democratic Donor Who Represented Jeffrey Epstein After Leaving Justice Deparment in 2008

On Twitter, "BREAKING; Florida Federal Magistrate Bruce Reinhart, who approved the FBI raid on Trump's home, is also a Democratic presidential donor who previously represented several Jeff Epstein Associates after leaving the US Attorney's office in 2008."

Hmm.

At AoSHQ, "A Federal Judge Would Never, Ever Show Political Bias In Authorizing a Raid on a President * Except It Wasn't a Federal Judge -- It Was a Mere Magistrate * Who Was an Obama Donor * Who Was an Epstein Lawyer."

Judge Reinhart's page at the United States District Court Southern District of Florida is inaccessable: "Access denied."

Wait WTF????

THIS BRUCE REINHART???

Wtf!!! https://t.co/9fWqKeeUA2 https://t.co/f7LJqkZvmB pic.twitter.com/l9W1S1Eigk

— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) August 9, 2022

A Nation in Decline': Trump Posts Video Hours After FBI Raided Mar-a-Lago

Care of Legal Insurrection, "Former President Donald Trump released a video in the style of a campaign ad on Truth Social hours after the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago."

He's running. Makes you nostalgic, even if you're sickened by January 6th (as I am). 

He's going to announce before the midterms, I'm sure of it. It's been spectulation, but now after the FBI's raid it's almost a certainty. Even GOP non-supporters are expressing their outrage over the tyannical measures the Biden administration's using to take out his main rivil for the presidency in 2024. This is what banana republics do, I must concede, as so many folks on Twitter have suggested ad nauseum.

WATCH:

The FBI's Mar-a-Lago 'Raid' is About the Capitol Riot, Not the Mishandling of Classified Information

From Andrew McCarthy, at the New York Post, "This search was almost certainly about much more than classified documents":

The court-authorized search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate is another unmistakable signal that the Justice Department is trying to build a criminal case against him arising out of the Capitol riot.

Ostensibly, the search relates to a long simmering dispute between the former president and the government over Trump’s potentially illegal retention and mishandling of classified information. But don’t be deceived.

National Archives officials alerted the Justice Department months ago regarding missing records and possible classified information violations. That owes to the chaotic atmosphere in which the Trump family decamped to Florida from the White House following the Capitol riot – with impeachment proceedings and even talk of removing Trump from office under the 25th Amendment then underway.

Reportedly, about 15 boxes of records were removed from the White House and shipped to Mar-a-Lago. The National Archives subsequently explained that much of the material should have been kept in the government’s possession, pursuant to the Presidential Records Act. After extensive negotiations, Trump agreed to return some of the materials in January 2022. Upon receipt, National Archives officials advised the Justice Department that the returned materials included classified information.

If true, that raises several issues. If Trump had not declassified these materials while he was president, then his continuing possession of them in a non-secure location was probably illegal. While presidents have unilateral authority to declassify intelligence, they only maintain that authority while in office – it may not be exercised in the post-presidency. The returned documents were thus potentially evidence of crimes. In addition, since it is believed Trump did not return everything that was shipped out of the White House in those hectic days of January 2021, there was significant reason to suspect he continued to retain classified information at Mar-a-Lago.

One of the potential law violations, under Section 2071 of the federal penal code, includes in its penalty provisions that, upon conviction, a defendant “shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States.” The ongoing proceedings implicating Trump – in particular, the Justice Department’s investigation and the House January 6 committee probe – seem geared toward undermining his capacity to seek the presidency again in 2024. Obviously, then, there is speculation that DOJ may be mobilizing now in order to trigger the Section 2071 disqualification.

I doubt that. The Justice Department well knows that the qualifications for a presidential candidate are set out in the Constitution. They may not be altered by statute, precisely because the Framers did not want the executive branch to be dominated by the legislature, as would happen if Congress could disqualify incumbent or potential presidents simply by passing a law. The Constitution’s qualifications for the presidency are minimal – one must be over 35 and a natural-born citizen. Being a felon is not a disqualification, so even crimes potentially far more serious than mishandling classified information are not a bar to seeking the presidency.

Moreover, the Constitution also prescribes the basis for disqualifying a person from seeking the presidency or other federal office: conviction by the Senate on an impeachment article voted by the House. Again, what is prescribed by the Constitution may not be altered by a mere statute. To trigger disqualification, Congress would have to impeach and convict Trump; it cannot be done by criminal prosecution.

The Justice Department obviously used the potential classified information as a pretext to obtain a warrant so it could search for what it is really looking for: evidence that would tie Trump to a Capitol riot offense – either a violent crime, such as seditious conspiracy to forcibly attack a government installation (which is highly unlikely), or a non-violent crime, such as conspiracy to obstruct the January 6 joint session of Congress to count electoral votes, or conspiracy to defraud the government.

As previously explained, I believe it would foolhardy for the Biden Justice Department to indict a former president on such debatable non-violent crime charges. That is especially so when it comes to a former president who could be the 2024 Republican nominee, since such charges would fuel the perception that Democrats are using the Justice Department as a political weapon...

 

Search of Trump’s Home Roils 2022 Midterms, 2024 Presidential Race

Yeah, it's big. There was virtually unanimous outrage on Twitter last night (follow scroll down here). Even some Democrats see the threat to republican democracy. 

At the Wall Street Journal, "Many Republicans denounce FBI raid on former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence as politically motivated":

WASHINGTON—The FBI search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home rallied many prominent Republicans around the former president and could shift the political course of both the midterm elections for control of Congress and the 2024 presidential race.

While many details of the FBI’s investigation remain unknown, the developments both challenge and underscore Mr. Trump’s hold on the GOP, just as he is publicly considering a third run for the White House. Many Republicans, including potential presidential rivals, denounced the search, casting it as a politically driven action by the Biden administration, while others demanded more details from the Justice Department but stopped short of criticizing its motives.

“This is a brazen weaponization of the FBI by Biden’s DOJ against his political opponent,” tweeted Rep. Steve Scalise (R., La.), a member of the GOP leadership, reflecting the stance of many House Republicans.

People familiar with the matter said the search was part of an investigation into Mr. Trump’s handling of classified information. Trump lawyer Christina Bobb, who was present during the search, said that federal agents “seized paper.”

The White House didn’t get any advance notice of the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago, an administration official said.

The Justice Department has been looking into the former president’s handling of official records and his actions around the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Monday’s search is separate from the Jan. 6 investigation, the people familiar with the probe said. Mr. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and casts the investigations as part of a long-running campaign by Democrats.

People close to Mr. Trump said the search could further motivate him to announce a run for president in 2024 before the midterm elections.

Shortly after midnight, Mr. Trump posted a campaign-style video on his TruthSocial account that teased a possible campaign. “We are a nation that has become a joke … but soon we will have greatness again.” It ends with an on-screen message: “The best is yet to come.”

Some GOP lawmakers, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) have been pushing Mr. Trump to hold off on any announcement until after the election, to not upset the party’s chances of taking back the House. While Mr. Trump remains a powerful motivator of Republican voters, he repels many swing voters, and party leaders have focused their midterms pitch on the economy and inflation. Republicans are seen as heavily favored to win back the House, while the Senate is seen as a tossup.

Polls show Mr. Trump as the top GOP candidate in a hypothetical 2024 presidential field, and he easily won a straw poll at last weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference. “We may have to do it again,” he said in a speech Saturday at the gathering.

Mr. McCarthy said late Monday that “the Department of Justice has reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization” and pledged to investigate Attorney General Merrick Garland and the department if Republicans take power.

Democrats have defended the raid. “No person is above the law, not even a former president of the United States,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) on NBC’s “Today Show.”

House Republican leaders will have a chance to take the temperature of the conference at a previously scheduled members-only call on Tuesday that was set up to discuss the Senate-passed climate and health bill. Members of the Republican Study Committee, made up of House conservatives, are scheduled to have dinner with Mr. Trump on Tuesday night at his Bedminster, N.J., golf club.

The members-only call is shaping as a proving ground for Mr. McCarthy, who is in line for the House speakership next year if Republicans regain control. Mr. McCarthy needs to show that he can be tough on the issue to respond to the restive conservative wing of his base, a House Republican said. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.) suggested this week on “The War Room” podcast, broadcast by Trump ally Stephen Bannon, that Mr. McCarthy shouldn’t be speaker.

A Republican takeover of the House in the November midterm elections would give them subpoena powers in 2023 and the ability to create committees and lead investigations. Many Republicans were already planning to investigate Hunter Biden, the president’s son, and said following the search of Mr. Trump’s home that they would hold hearings on the FBI’s actions as well.

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is increasingly seen by many Republicans nationally as a potential Trump alternative, joined in the condemnation. The raid “is another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the regime’s political opponents,” he said.

While some rivals were quick to defend Mr. Trump, the developments also underscored what they see as his vulnerability as a deeply divisive figure in American politics. He drew a record number of votes for an incumbent U.S. president in 2020, but lost by about seven million votes to President Biden.

“Other Republican leaders will see him as vulnerable,” said GOP donor Dan Eberhart. “There is now blood in the water.” He said that could give added reason for potential 2024 candidates, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Vice President Mike Pence and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, to look at the race...

The Dam Breaks: Key Dems Run Away From Biden '24

From Byron York, at the Washington Examiner, "You've seen the polls showing that large majorities of Democratic voters want the party to pick a new nominee for president in 2024, bypassing incumbent President Joe Biden. Now we're seeing the living embodiment of those polls as some important Democratic lawmakers distance themselves from, or outright oppose, a reelection run by the nearly 80-year-old president."

Biden's Cybersecurity Chief Says National Security Apparatus Must Focus On 'Dismantling Systemic Racism'

At Blazing Cat Fur, "Is there a single agency in Old Joe Biden’s catastrophic administration that hasn’t been completely corrupted and politicized? Apparently not."

They Can't Let Him Back In

From Michael Anton, at the Compact:

The people who really run the United States of America have made it clear that they can’t, and won’t, if they can help it, allow Donald Trump to be president again. In fact, they made this clear in 2020, in a series of public statements. Simply for quoting their words in an essay for The American Mind, I was mercilessly mocked and attacked. But they were quite clear. Trump won’t be president at noon, Jan. 20, 2021, even if we have to use the military to drag him out of there.

If the regime felt that strongly back then, imagine how they feel now. But you don’t have to imagine. They tell you every day. Liz Cheney, Trump’s personal Javert, has said that the 45th president is literally the greatest threat facing America today—greater than China, than our crashing economy, than our unraveling civil society.

That’s rhetoric, of course, but it isn’t merely that. It’s safer, and generally more accurate, to assume that your adversaries mean what they say. If you doubt this, ask yourself: When was the last time they acted more moderately than they talk?

Even if it is just rhetoric, the words nonetheless portend turbulence. “He who says A must say B.” The logic of statement A inevitably leads to action B, even if the speaker of A didn’t really mean it, or did mean it, but still didn’t want B. Her followers won’t get the irony and, enthused by A, will insist on B.

Take some time to listen to the mainstream media. It doesn’t have to be long; five minutes should do. Then spend another five or so reading the statements of prominent politicians other than Trump. To round it out, sacrifice another five on leading intellectuals. It should become abundantly clear: They all have said A and so must say—and do—B.

Take some time to listen to the mainstream media. It doesn’t have to be long; five minutes should do. Then spend another five or so reading the statements of prominent politicians other than Trump. To round it out, sacrifice another five on leading intellectuals. It should become abundantly clear: They all have said A and so must say—and do—B.

And B is that Trump absolutely must not be allowed to take office on Jan. 20, 2025.

Why? They say Jan. 6. But their determination began much earlier.

And just what is so terrible about Trump anyway? I get many of his critics’ points, I really do. I hear them all the time from my mother. But even if we were to stipulate them all, do Trump’s faults really warrant tearing the country apart by shutting out half of it from the political process?

Love him or hate him, during Trump’s presidency, the economy was strong, markets were up, inflation was under control, gas prices were low, illegal border crossings were down, crime was lower, trade deals were renegotiated, ISIS was defeated, NATO allies were stepping up, and China was stepping back (a little). Deny all that if you want to. The point here is that something like 100 million Americans believe it, strongly, and are bewildered and angered by elite hatred for the man they think delivered it.

Nor was Trump’s record all that radical—much less so than that of Joe Biden, who is using school-lunch funding to push gender ideology on poor kids, to cite but one example. Trump’s core agenda—border protection, trade balance, foreign restraint—was quite moderate, both intrinsically and in comparison to past Republican and Democratic precedent. And that’s before we even get to the fact that Trump neglected much of his own agenda in favor of the old Chamber of Commerce, fusionist, Reaganite, Conservatism, Inc., agenda. Corporate tax cuts, deregulation, and bombing Syria: These are all things Trump’s base doesn’t want, but the oligarchs desperately do, which Trump gave them. And still they try to destroy him....

Anti-Trump hysteria is in the final analysis not about Trump. The regime can’t allow Trump to be president not because of who he is (although that grates), but because of who his followers are. That class—Angelo Codevilla’s “country class”—must not be allowed representation by candidates who might implement their preferences, which also, and above all, must not be allowed. The rubes have no legitimate standing to affect the outcome of any political process, because of who they are, but mostly because of what they want. Complaints about the nature of Trump are just proxies for objections to the nature of his base. It doesn’t help stabilize our already twitchy situation that those who bleat the loudest about democracy are also audibly and visibly determined to deny a real choice to half the country. “No matter how you vote, you will not get X”—whether X is a candidate or a policy—is guaranteed to increase discontent with the present regime. People I have known for 30 years, many of whom still claim the label “conservative,” will no longer speak to me—because I supported Trump, yes, but also because I disagree on trade, war, and the border. They call not just my positions, but me personally, unadulterated evil. I am not an isolated case. There are, as they say, “many such cases.” How are we supposed to have “democracy” when the policies and candidates my side wants and votes for are anathema and can’t be allowed? How are we supposed to live together with the constant demonization from one side against the other blaring 24/7 from the ruling class’s every propaganda organ? Why would we want to?

Keep reading.

 

Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis Jockey for Position Ahead of Potential 2024 Showdown

I hope DeSantis wins the nomination.

At WSJ, "Former president paying close attention to Florida governor’s polling and fundraising; ‘Only Ron matters’":

HOLLYWOOD, Fla.—The current front-runners for the Republican presidential nod are both in Florida. Whether Palm Beach or Tallahassee is more likely to produce the eventual winner might depend on if GOP voters here and around the country want an encore from the party’s most dominant voice or prefer to hand the stage to its fast-climbing star.

Former President Donald Trump is very likely to run again in 2024, aides say, and he has said publicly that he is weighing whether he should announce before or after this November’s midterm elections. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has developed his own devout following and is one of the few potential 2024 contenders who hasn’t said he would defer to Mr. Trump, though there are several other high-profile candidates who could end up challenging one or both men.

Once close allies—Mr. Trump’s endorsement helped fuel Mr. DeSantis’s rise, and Mr. DeSantis lavished praise on him in return—the two Republicans have jabbed at each other across the state, particularly over each man’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Mr. DeSantis is capturing the interest of some Trump voters, as well as party officials and donors.

Here in Hollywood, among 1,500 GOP activists at a guitar-shaped resort on Saturday evening, many said Mr. DeSantis should run for president because they like his brand of defiant conservatism.

“I haven’t backed down one inch and we are not going to back down,” Mr. DeSantis said at a political summit he hosted at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.

That same night, Mr. Trump gave a speech to young conservatives in Tampa, Fla., and again teased a return, claiming falsely—to wild applause—that he had already won two presidential elections. “And now we may just have to do it again,” he said. The 45th president returns to Washington Tuesday afternoon for a speech before a policy group made up of members of his administration.

Their budding rivalry is top of mind for Florida GOP insiders—and in other key states—many of whom are torn over having to pick sides and would rather not see a clash arrive, though they expect one. Some hope Mr. Trump, 76, won’t run and some want Mr. DeSantis, 43, to wait his turn. Others fantasize about a Trump-DeSantis ticket.

Recent surveys have shown that Mr. Trump retains the backing of most GOP voters. But polling and interviews with voters in many states have shown signs the former president’s support has ebbed, and congressional hearings into the Jan. 6 Capitol riot have reminded Republicans of the controversies around Mr. Trump. A Quinnipiac poll this month found 69% of Republicans wanted Mr. Trump to run again, down from 78% last October, and a recent New Hampshire survey showed Messrs. Trump and DeSantis statistically tied in the state, leaving Mr. Trump fuming, advisers to the former president say.

Mr. DeSantis, who declined an interview request, is favored to win re-election in November, and he hasn’t joined the parade of candidates in other races around the country wooing Mr. Trump for his endorsement. The former president has asked friends about how Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist is performing in his bid to take on Mr. DeSantis in November—implying, according to people familiar with the discussions, he wants his understudy to sweat a little.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Monday, Mr. Trump said he would vote for Mr. DeSantis’s re-election in November but quickly turned to his role in helping Mr. DeSantis four years ago. “If I didn’t endorse him, he wouldn’t have won,” Mr. Trump said. “I get along with Ron very well,” he added, before mentioning “a very good poll this weekend”—an unscientific straw poll of young conservatives at the Tampa conference that showed him beating Mr. DeSantis by a wide margin.

A person close to Mr. Trump said he wasn’t concerned about other would-be 2024 candidates, including former Vice PresidentMike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and several conservative senators.

“Only Ron matters,” the person said.

Another Republican who talks to the former president said, “Trump wants to find something harder to say but really can’t because DeSantis has played it well.”

While President Biden’s advisers see an upside in a rematch with Mr. Trump, some are concerned over the prospect of the nation’s oldest-ever president facing the younger, more-disciplined governor, according to people familiar with the discussions. Messrs. Biden and DeSantis have often criticized each other’s policies in their public remarks.

Mr. DeSantis acknowledges Mr. Trump’s role in his rise, thanks to an endorsement over a better-known Republican in the 2018 governor race, and the two differ more on personality than substance. Mr. DeSantis, then a congressman from near Jacksonville, Fla., caught Mr. Trump’s eye through Fox News appearances attacking the Russia investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.

After narrowly winning that contest, Mr. DeSantis, a Florida native who played baseball at Yale and has a Harvard law degree, has become one of the state’s most powerful executives ever. He has frequently won turf fights with the GOP-controlled Legislature while building a national profile for eschewing Covid-19 restrictions, battling the social advocacy of Walt Disney Co. and banning the instruction of critical-race theory from schools.

Mr. DeSantis has also won bipartisan support for his environmental record, including money for conservation and Everglades restoration. He has raised teacher pay and given bonuses to first responders. And he has frustrated Democrats by touting projects in the state funded by the Biden administration’s Covid-19 aid and infrastructure bills that he criticized.

In December, Mr. Trump was booed by supporters after saying he received a booster shot. The governor—who publicized his first vaccine shot—had refused to say whether he had received a second shot, prompting Mr. Trump to say politicians who wouldn’t disclose their status were “gutless.”

A few days later, Mr. DeSantis said on a conservative podcast that he wished he had spoken out “much louder” against the Trump administration’s calls for a nationwide shutdown at the start of the pandemic...

 

The DeSantis Dilemma

From Andrew Sullivan, at the Weekly Dish, "Is he the only politician who can save us from a second Trump term?":

“I would say my big decision will be whether I go before or after. You understand what that means?” Donald Trump told New York Magazine’s Olivia Nuzzi this week. He likes to tease. But we know what’s coming. The deranged, delusional liar who tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power is going to again. He still commands a huge lead in the GOP primary polls; he shows few signs of flagging energy; and the president who succeeded him is imploding in front of our eyes.

The preeminent question in politics right now is therefore, to my mind, a simple one: how to stop Trump — and the spiraling violent, civil conflict and constitutional chaos a second term would bring. To re-elect a man who attempted a coup is to embrace the definitive end of the American idea.

The Democrats, meanwhile, appear to have run out of fake “moderate” candidates, are doubling down on every woke mantra, presiding over levels of inflation that are devastating real incomes, launching a protracted war that may tip us into stagflation, and opening the borders to millions more illegal immigrants. They are hemorrhaging Latino support, and intensifying their identity as upper-class white woke scolds. And a Biden campaign in 2024 would be, let’s be honest, “Weekend At Bernie’s II.”

So get real: If you really believe that Trump remains a unique threat to constitutional democracy in America, you need to consider the possibility that, at this point, a Republican is probably your best bet.

One stands out, and it’s Ron DeSantis, the popular governor of Florida. And yet so many Never Trumpers, right and left, have instantly become Never DeSanters, calling him a terrifyingly competent clone of the thug with the bad hair. He’s “Trump 2.0” but even “more dangerous than Trump,” says Dean Obeidallah. “He’s dangerous because he is equally repressive, but doesn’t have the baggage of Trump,” argues a fascism scholar.

“DeSantis has decided to try to outflank Trump, to out-Trump Trump,” worries Michael Tomasky. He’s a clone of Viktor Orbán, says Vox, and on some issues, “DeSantis has actually outstripped Orbán.” Then there’s Max Boot: “Just because DeSantis is smarter than Trump doesn’t mean that he is any less dangerous. In fact, he might be an even bigger threat for that very reason.”

Jon Chait frames the case: “Just imagine what a Trumpified party no longer led by an erratic, deeply unpopular cable-news binge-watcher would be capable of.” Chait’s critique focuses at first on the fact that DeSantis is an anti-redistributionist conservative, and believes that pure democracy is something the Founders wanted to curtail. Sorry — but, whatever your view on that, it’s light years away from Trump’s belief in one-man rule.

On this, in fact, Chait acknowledges that DeSantis once wrote that the Founders “worried about the emergence of popular leaders who utilized demagoguery to obtain public support in service of their personal ambitions.” He meant Obama — not Trump. Unfair to Obama, of course. But the same worldview as Trump’s? Nah.

Chait then argues that DeSantis is an anti-vaxxer, or has at least toyed with anti-vaxxers, and out-Trumped Trump on Covid denialism. But like many criticisms of DeSantis, this is overblown. Dexter Filkins reports that DeSantis, after his lockdowns during the panic of April 2020, studied the science himself, became a skeptic of lingering lockdowns and mask mandates, and, for a while, risked looking like a crazy outlier.

But from the vantage point of today, not so much: Florida’s kids have not been shut out of schools for two whole years; the state’s economy beat out the other big ones except Texas; Covid infection and death rates were not much higher than the national average; and compared with California, which instituted a draconian approach, it’s a viral wash.

As David Frum put it in a typically perceptive piece:

The DeSantis message for 2024: I kept adults at work and kids at school without the catastrophic effects predicted by my critics. Because I didn’t panic, Florida emerged from the pandemic in stronger economic shape than many other states — and a generation of Florida schoolchildren continued their education because of me. Pretty powerful, no?

Very powerful in retrospect. And again: not Trump.

And this is a pattern: DeSantis says or does something that arouses the Trumpian erogenous zones, is assailed by the media/left, and then the details turn out to be underwhelming. His voter suppression law provoked howls; but in reality, as Ramesh Ponnuru notes,

the law includes new restrictions, such as requiring that county employees oversee ballot drop-boxes. But it’s also true that the law leaves Floridians with greater ballot access, in key respects, than a lot of states run by Democrats. Florida has no-excuse absentee voting, unlike Delaware and New York.

DeSantis wins both ways: he gets cred from the base by riling up the media, but isn’t so extreme as to alienate normie voters.

Ditto his allegedly anti-gay bigotry. Vox’s Beauchamp says DeSantis is another Orbán. But Orbán’s policies are a ban on all teaching about gays in high schools, a ban on anything on television before 10 pm that could positively show gay or trans people, and a constitutional ban on marriage rights. DeSantis’ policy is to stop instruction in critical gender and queer theory in public schools for kids under 8, and keep it neutral and age-appropriate thereafter. In other words: what we used to have ten minutes ago before the woke takeover.

And who but a few fanatics and TQIA++ nutters really oppose this? I know plenty of gay people who agree with DeSantis — and a majority of Floridians support the law as it is written. The fact that his opponents had to lie about it — with the “Don’t Say Gay” gimmick — and then resorted to emotional blackmail — “This will kill kids” — tells you how unpopular their actual position is.

Some more contrasts: Trump famously wanted to torture captured prisoners, steal the oil in occupied Iraq, and desecrate Islam to break down Muslim detainees. DeSantis, on the other hand,

was responsible for helping ensure that the missions of Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets [in parts of Iraq] … were planned according to the rule of law and that captured detainees were humanely treated. “He did a phenomenal job,” Navy Capt. Dane Thorleifson, 55, said of DeSantis … [describing him] as “one of my very close counsels that as we developed a mission concept of operations, he made sure it was legal. I respected him a lot as a JAG. He was super smart, articulate, resourceful and a positive part of the staff.”

Imagine Trump taking care to make sure anything is legal!

Trump ripped children from illegal immigrant parents. DeSantis opposed the policy. Trump launched his real estate empire with a “small loan of a million dollars” from his mega-wealthy dad. DeSantis grew up in a working-class neighborhood, scored in the 99th percentile on his SAT, and worked several jobs to help pay his tuition at Yale.

Trump is a teetotaler, and while in office “his administration made a number of hostile anti-marijuana actions — rescinding Obama-era guidance on cannabis prosecutions to implementing policies making immigrants ineligible for citizenship if they consume marijuana.” DeSantis ensured that Florida’s overwhelming vote in favor of legal medical marijuana was passed into law, and he even suggested that the drug be decriminalized — despite his distaste for the smell of weed in public.

Trump wings everything, and almost never delivers. He couldn’t even build a fraction of his wall. DeSantis is disciplined, studies issues closely, and follows through. On a good day, Trump is fun. DeSantis, to be kind, isn’t. He has a Nixonian edge.

Trump believes climate change is a Chinese hoax, and, given the chance, would cover our national parks with condos and oil rigs. DeSantis is a governor in a state where rising sea levels and floods are real, so Trumpian insanity is a non-starter. “I will fulfill promises from the campaign trail,” DeSantis said shortly after taking office:

“That means prioritizing environmental issues, like water quality and cleaning the environmental mess that has resulted in toxic blue-green algae and exacerbated red tide around the state. We will put Everglades restoration into high gear and make it the reality that Floridians have been promised for three decades.”

This year he followed through — with more than $400 million in funds for containing rising sea levels. And last year, Filkins noted,

DeSantis signed into law a remarkable piece of environmental legislation that could become a model for the rest of the country. The project will establish the Florida Wildlife Corridor, a blueprint for the state to connect all of its large national and state parks with tracts of open land.

The corridor, once complete, would create an unbroken swath of preserved land from the Alabama state line all the way to the Florida Keys, nearly eight hundred miles away. It would insure that a population of wildlife — whether it be black bears or panthers or gopher tortoises — would not be cut off from other groups of its species, which is one of the main drivers of extinction.

So far, DeSantis is not that far from the “Teddy Roosevelt conservationist” he claimed to be. Yes, he’s mainly focused on responding to, rather than preventing, climate change — “Resilient Florida” is the slogan. And he’s allergic to green uplift or catastrophism. But another Trump? Nope.

His authoritarianism? He certainly gives off vibes. He picked a fight with Disney, for example, over their belated opposition to his parental rights bill — and punished them even after the law had passed. Using executive power to target companies for their free expression is not conservatism. (It’s worth noting, however, that in this case, the “punishment” was ending very special state treatment for the company.)

There is also disturbingly vague wording and vigilante enforcement in his parental rights bill — which is why I opposed it. He has tried to curtail free speech in colleges in ways that will almost certainly be struck down by the courts. Three state university professors were prevented from testifying against state policies (DeSantis denies any involvement). His comments on tenure are chilling. He said something dangerous about the role of child protective services in punishing parents for taking their kids to raunchy drag shows. Parental rights for conservatives, but not for liberals?

His spokesperson, Christina Pushaw, is Trumpian in her provocations, reviving the ugly trope that gays are pedophilic “groomers” until proven otherwise. DeSantis wages the power of government in the culture war — and with alacrity. There’s a pugilism to his style that comes off as bullying at times, so he can, quite clearly, be a charm-free prick. He’s been a coward over January 6 and Trump’s Big Lie. And as Tim Miller notes, he hasn’t exactly declared he would not be another Trump in his contempt for constitutional democracy (although such a stance now would effectively sink his bid to replace Trump). He’s said nary a word on abortion; and has ducked real questions about guns in the wake of Uvalde. Who knows what his position on Ukraine is?

I’m deeply uncomfortable with much of this...

 

Amid Hunter's Scandals, President Biden's Going Soft on China

It's Miranda Devine, at the New York Post, "It took a certain bloodless chutzpah for the president to place his scandal-ridden son front and center at a White House function last week."

She literally wrote the book on this. See, Laptop from Hell: Hunter Biden, Big Tech, and the Dirty Secrets the President Tried to Hide.

'I Made A Huge Mistake Voting For Biden'

Ms. Zoe Nicholson from St. Louis:

Zoe, a Missouri resident: “I made a huge mistake voting for Biden.”

“I regret voting for him. I mean, it really was a terrible choice. " pic.twitter.com/EMki781Gu7

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 11, 2022

If Held Today, President Trump Would Win the #GOP Primaries

He's got a huge plurality of supporters in this this new poll out from the New York Times.

See, "Half of G.O.P. Voters Ready to Leave Trump Behind, Poll Finds":

Far from consolidating his support, the former president appears weakened in his party, especially with younger and college-educated Republicans. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is the most popular alternative.

As Donald J. Trump weighs whether to open an unusually early White House campaign, a New York Times/Siena College poll shows that his post-presidential quest to consolidate his support within the Republican Party has instead left him weakened, with nearly half the party’s primary voters seeking someone different for president in 2024 and a significant number vowing to abandon him if he wins the nomination.

By focusing on political payback inside his party instead of tending to wounds opened by his alarming attempts to cling to power after his 2020 defeat, Mr. Trump appears to have only deepened fault lines among Republicans during his yearlong revenge tour. A clear majority of primary voters under 35 years old, 64 percent, as well as 65 percent of those with at least a college degree — a leading indicator of political preferences inside the donor class — told pollsters they would vote against Mr. Trump in a presidential primary.

Mr. Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6, 2021, appears to have contributed to the decline in his standing, including among a small but important segment of Republicans who could form the base of his opposition in a potential primary contest. While 75 percent of primary voters said Mr. Trump was “just exercising his right to contest the election,” nearly one in five said he “went so far that he threatened American democracy.”

Overall, Mr. Trump maintains his primacy in the party: In a hypothetical matchup against five other potential Republican presidential rivals, 49 percent of primary voters said they would support him for a third nomination.

The greatest threat to usurp Mr. Trump within the party is Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who was the second choice with 25 percent and the only other contender with double-digit support. Among primary voters, Mr. DeSantis was the top choice of younger Republicans, those with a college degree and those who said they voted for President Biden in 2020.

While about one-fourth of Republicans said they didn’t know enough to have an opinion about Mr. DeSantis, he was well-liked by those who did. Among those who voted for Mr. Trump in 2020, 44 percent said they had a very favorable opinion of Mr. DeSantis — similar to the 46 percent who said the same about Mr. Trump.

Should Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Trump face off in a primary, the poll suggested that support from Fox News could prove crucial: Mr. Trump held a 62 percent to 26 percent advantage over Mr. DeSantis among Fox News viewers, while the gap between the two Floridians was 16 points closer among Republicans who mainly receive their news from another source.

The survey suggests that Mr. Trump would not necessarily enter a primary with an insurmountable advantage over rivals like Mr. DeSantis. His share of the Republican primary electorate is less than Hillary Clinton’s among Democrats was at the outset of the 2016 race, when she was viewed as the inevitable front-runner, but ultimately found herself embroiled in a protracted primary against Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont...

Still more.

And Bill Schneider suggested the other day that Trump might announce his 2024 run before the November midterms. We'll see. That's not unprecedented. Howard Dean formally announced his bid for the 2004 Democratic nomination June 23, 2003, but he was campaigning way before then, in the second half of 2002.

If Trump's able to raise a massive war chest --- to the tune of say $2 billion or so --- then he'd certainly scare off much of the competition. But let's see how much DeSantis is able to raise in 2023, should he throw his hat into the ring. He's the one on fire right now. I like him. I hope he's the nominee. He'll crush any Democrat in the 2024 general election.