Tag: Biden

DEMOCRACY DIES IN THE GREAT PARTY DIVIDE

by Ken Grossberger, PhD

Dean Philips has been told he should not run for the presidency because he takes votes from Biden. Same for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. No doubt the same for Cornel West and the Green Party candidate. The same will be “explained” to the No Labels candidate (if and when). Independents and moderates who state they will not vote for either Biden nor Trump are being told, alternatively, depending on whether they are getting advice from a Democrat or a Republican, that not voting for Biden is a vote for Trump, or not voting for Trump is a vote for Biden. The rationale for this voting strategy is that the other guy is so bad that he is an existential threat to democracy. But the real existential threat to democracy is the elimination of choice in a free society.

Free speech is infringed upon when people on either side of the great party divide think that what someone on the other side says is all lies, is dangerous and should be suppressed. Also, the Not-So-Mainstream Media edits and smothers content, as does social media, because what they don’t like is “dangerous.” None of this passes constitutional muster. Many Democrats suffer from a bad case of replacement racism and some Republicans wish to reconstruct the first amendment to mandate religion as part of government. Not good for democracy but policy has become the new religion and ideology has become theology. Let the sinners be damned and thrown to the scrap heap of democracy. But whatever happens, don’t let them vote.

This is party driven. Republicans and Democrats have fostered a dangerous age of polarization, and the fallout has covered the nation in an anti-democratic toxicity that is poisoning the ability of the electoral system to provide fair outcomes and reasonable office holders. The key variable is power, not useful policy, and certainly not good government.

AGEISM, THE 14th AMENDMENT AND THE BIDEN PROXY CAMPAIGN

by Ken Grossberger, PhD

At the end of the US Civil War there was a problem: approximately five and a half million African Americans were technically still slaves, still the property of their masters. So Congress passed, the president signed, and the state legislatures approved, the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments the constitution. The 13th amendment abolished slavery, the 14th amendment provided the now former slaves with citizenship (among other things) and the 15th amendment gave them the right to vote (except for women). The 14th amendment contained other significant provisions, such as the protection of citizens’ “privileges and immunities”, incorporated due process into the states, and gave “equal protection” to all Americans. This last clause has become the basis of many laws since, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which have become the bedrock of defending citizens against discrimination based on so-called protected characteristics, including age. Here is where the political rubber meets the electoral road. The prejudice against President Biden comes to mind.

We reach a point in our lives where we realize we have to walk and chew gum sequentially. This apparently has not yet dawned on the president. Thus the public consternation at his decision to run for reelection. But are the objections to his age or ability? The public perception is that it’s the former, but oh yeah, it might be the latter also. His age as a disqualifier is openly discussed, ad nauseum, as if the constitution doesn’t exist. Ironically, he picked his vice president based on gender and color, another egregious violation of standing law. Any employer would be on the wrong end of a lawsuit based on such flagrant violations of the constitution and subsequent statutes. But in this era of extreme polarization, with the attendant prejudiced partisan press, these discriminatory choices and comments have become mainstream.

The long history of the civil rights movement, and numerous court cases and laws, also include the Fair Pay Act, the Bakke case, the Fair Admissions cases, and many more. Yet we see blatant age discrimination (Biden is too old to be president), gender discrimination (the selection of running mates based on sex) and racial discrimination (the selection of Harris for VP based on color).

So Biden is both a victim and a perpetrator, but as his own worst enemy, he not only continues to feed the negative narrative, his White House staff and campaign staff seem to want to replicate the hidden candidate trick of 2020. Another proxy campaign, where his surrogates, apologists and excuse makers will ignore the bad, tell the country all is well and try desperately to have everyone focus on the evil Donald Trump. Meanwhile Biden will again be on vacation, taking trips or simply back to Delaware again and again.

This will not be something akin to the 19th century back porch campaigns, not in the high speed, instant information space. The President-In-Hiding maneuver may well backfire in this cycle, age discrimination or not, yielding a reductionism of the politically neurotic – it’s always about Trump.

And we are one terrorist act away from a brand-new ballgame.

TRUMP v. BIDEN – NEGATIVE COATTAILS

Ken Grossberger, PhD

This month has been a disaster for Biden, but since Trump just can’t gracefully accept a gift, he has to continue to make self-immolating comments. How do we gauge the political effects of two candidates in a race to the bottom?

There are likely to be negative coattails in a super close war for control of the House, with either side winning by less than a handful of votes. The Republican pickup of perhaps 5 seats due to population shifts maybe offset by the unusual number of Republican retirements, and if the Dems pick up seats in swing districts due to social issues (e.g. abortion) they may take control of the House but by a margin so small they will need Genghis Khan and Atilla the Hun as whips to keep the troops in line. 

The situation is different in the US Senate where the Democrats are defending in 33 states (including 3 independents) and the Republicans in only 10. The Democrats are vulnerable in West Virginia, Montana, Ohio, Arizona and perhaps Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Maryland (with former Governor Larry Hogan now running). But still, coattails are a factor, witness the poor record of Trump-endorsed candidates in the 2022 cycle. The map may favor the Republicans, but the irascible and unpredictable former president has a hard time taking yes for an answer and can’t resist sticking in his nose where it may not belong and may do no good.

Polling shows the country continues to split down the middle politically. In recent election cycles winners win close and any advantage gained is usually lost soon hereafter. The country just doesn’t trust this generation of politicians very much.  

THE DEMOCRATS RHETORICAL LOOPS

Ken Grossberger, PhD

In order to make excuses for their failed policies, the Democrats, and their Not-So-Mainstream- Media allies, have, either in coordination or due to some neurotic impulse to repeat their word or phrase for the day, routinely blurted out responses in reaction to criticism of their positions. Once that word or phrase is spoken by a leader, by the White House, or by some other lefty forum, the talking heads all start saying the same thing.

Remember the increases in energy costs due to Biden’s policy decisions? It was called the “Putin Price Hike.” And Biden’s deflection from the Democrats’ failures in Congress blaming the GOP?  He said, “this is not your father’s Republican party.” And Biden’s flip on soaring inflation? He whispered, “Bidenomics is working.” And the multiple catchphrases repeated by his Homeland Security Secretary and others, “the immigration system is broken” and “the border is secure”, and not to forget “the border is closed.” 

This constant repetition, with the presumptive force of rhetoric, perhaps satisfies the base, but further antagonizes the political right, and frankly puzzles the political center. Each of these lines is severely challenged by facts and believability. To whom are they speaking? They can only win their base once; the right and the center just aren’t buying into these. This not-so-subtle attempt at deflection is mawkishly transparent at best and ludicrous at worst.

Repeating nonsense doesn’t make it less nonsensical. Perhaps it satisfies having said it, perhaps it reassures when it is repeated, but it surely insults when measured against reality. The White House and the Democrats get stuck in these rhetorical loops because quite often they have no other answers.

The Discomfort of Undue Process

Ken Grossberger, PhD

What if George Santos is found not guilty?  What if Donald Trump is?  What if Hunter Biden is? What if Joe Biden gets indicted? The rush to judgment may satisfy emotionally, but due process gets trampled along the way.

Congress may have acted prematurely in the George Santos case. The press, and the people, may have prejudged Trump and anyone named Biden (depending on one’s predilections), in advance of any jury verdict.  This is fine for a discussion at the bar at midnight, terrible for any appreciation of due process. The lesson here is that preemption may be prematurity.  Expelling Santos from Congress and removing Trump from the ballot may be politically palatable to some but is also legally foundationless. The political strategies of ballot denial and power maintenance are also ethically dubious at best. The US Constitution requires due process to protect each individual’s rights, and even though in some venues due process does not apply in fact, it should apply in principle.

The most egregious example is in Maine, where Secretary of State Shenna Bellows unilaterally removed former President Trump from the primary ballot.  Her argument was that Trump was guilty of inciting an insurrection on January 6, thus she was compelled under section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the constitution to rule that Trump could not run for political office.  Access to the ballot, therefore, is left to the constitutional interpretations of hundreds of unelected state administrative officials, a precedent under which democracy, as we know it, would disintegrate.

In Colorado the state supreme court also removed Trump from the ballot under the same logic.  Here we have at least some semblance of jurisprudence, with a court of law involved. However, we also have the legal conundrum as to the intent of section 3 as Congress intended it in 1868.  After the Civil War, Congress was left with the problem of over 5 million people who were still slaves in the south.  Thus the legislature passed the 13th amendment to free them, the 14th amendment to provide them citizenship and the 15th amendment to give former slaves the vote.  The insurrection in question was half the country seceding and fighting a major war of separation from the federal government.  Almost a million Americans lost their lives as hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides fought a desperate war in this rebellion.  The superannuated but highly embarrassing January 6 frat party was incredibly wrong and damaging to the American psyche, but hardly an insurrection.  

So, those who graduated from the Google School of Law, and some misguided courts, would have us believe that cherry-picking one’s way through the constitution to find a word or phrase that seemed to justify one’s preconceived conclusion is justified, due process notwithstanding.  Removing Trump from the ballot, ipso fact, is supported by the 14th amendment.

Thus we would be left whims of the perpetually upset never-Trump neurotics, or their counter-parts on the Right, to determine whom they would allow to run for office.  Elections would become free-for-alls with competing jurisdictions summarily removing from the ballot candidates of the opposing parties only to suffer retaliation in turn, and then perhaps no one is left on any ballot.  Court cases would pile up and the entire electoral system would be permanently constipated.

“Democracy is on the ballot,” as we hear so often, and maybe this year it actually is.

WHAT’S LEFT AFTER THE LEFT TAKES OVER? BIDENOMICS IS BIDENOPTICS

Joe Biden has bought into the lefty-woke political culture.  Whether he actually believes this stuff or assumes it’s a means to power, we cannot tell.  But he talks the talk even if the walk is a bit of a challenge. Whatever, he has positioned himself far to the left.

The right labeled the president’s failed economic policies “Bidenomics” a derogative term symbolic of high inflation and high prices.  Using the Biden campaign’s spin to win technique they now use the term as a message that the president’s economic policies “are working” as Biden whispers not so authoritatively.  Spinning is an age-old device in politics, a rhetorical sleight of hand intended to deceive the audience that reality can be rearranged to a more favorable appearance.  So in his case Bidenomics is more properly Bidenoptics because the president seems more concerned with appearance than effective policy.  But he still leans left as he presumes that the winning political winds come for that direction.  Therein lies his problem.

The American political left continues to distance itself from traditional American values and what we used to consider the mainstream of American thought.  This movement is now associated with Bidenomics, a slur converted into slogan in the president’s Bidenoptical way.  Script flipping aside, Biden’s economic policies are pushing the country towards a progressive left reality that ranges from unworkable to downright ugly, where the rich get poorer, the poor get forgotten and the middle class gets trashed.

Biden’s government is spending $6 trillion more than previously appropriated, on top of an already dangerously bloated budget.  This is money borrowed from the future as well as the present, and dramatically increases the debt curve to unsustainable levels where no American government has gone before.  There are drunken teenagers with Dad’s credit card who have been more responsible. The interest on that debt grows unmanageably fast.  It’s a runaway, and Biden does not even mention it.  This leads us to the negative effects of the left, Biden’s current political home turf.

The left has no use for the individual, they are a collective seeking global collectivization.  To them the world is a series of groups, but some groups deserve more equity than others (i.e. equity means privilege).  The left is woke and woke is a problem. Woke thinking doesn’t work as a governmental construct, not even close.  It’s philosophically corrupt and presumes that a theologically lefty oligarchy will tell us all what we can and can’t do, and how to think. If we dare to disagree, they call us names. There is no democracy in Woke-land as it’s a cruel Orwellian twist in yet another attempt by an ideological movement to gain power. “Racism” is the predictable reflexive, default rhetorical response to anything they don’t like.  In their (possessive of “them”) homogenized society everybody gets put into a sociological blender so all might have “equity” (except for all the people “they” don’t like).  The woke left fails to understand that they are not righting the wrongs of the past, they’re just creating new wrongs, in their reconstructed world of the newly privileged and the permanently condemned.  Their version of our national anthem would end with “one nation under them with liberty and justice for some.”  A lefty is someone who thinks the United States constitution is the product of white supremacy, and according to the left, individual rights are thus conditioned by circumstance.  The result is mass injustice and the end of America as a major power and force for democracy.  In the world of Lefty Wokies, who makes the decisions?  Clearly not the people.  What kind of society results from this thinking? 

So Biden’s policies have damaged the economy, but he is somehow on an endless victory lap as viewed through the lens of Bidenoptics.  This is not a question of glass half empty or half full, but emptying the glass as Biden doubles down on policies that got us here in the first place.  He purports a perverse logic that a decrease in the rate of inflation is somehow a decrease in inflation, intentional duplicity at its worst. The results are and will be disastrous.  If Biden is re-elected the US may well be a client state of Communist China within 5 years.  And if the left is allowed to tax corporate America into oblivion who will produce anything?  The Biden political brand is still on the market long after the expiration date.

What’s left after the left takes over?

EL BIDEENO – THE BIG WIND

President Biden slipped three times going up the stairs to Air Force One on Friday March 19.  The White House Press Secretary says it was the wind that made him fall.  Apparently the rest of the country missed the monsoon that only the White House staff detected, and the president has not been heard from since. We have been assured that he is 100% Ok and presumably uninjured and unembarrassed by his bounce up the steps to his presidential aircraft.

But while his staff claims his basketball imitation was due to a major gust the bigger wind was coming from the now official cast of presidential apologists who have to reconcile the President’s verbal slips as well as his physical skids.  The president has become the poster boy for forgetting names, places and people, as well has his legendary mangling of the English language. But the windy White House staff assures us that all is well in Biden land and that the country is being well served by the President’s policies that have opened the way for Iran to create a deliverable nuke, encouraged China to laugh at us and created a disaster at the Mexican border, to name a few.  And this is just Sloppy’s first 60 days.  Imagine what he could do with 6 months or even a year? 

The excuses would pour out of the White House at such a pace that we would then have a second Windy City.

The Conventions Part 1

I watched some of the Dem Convention.  Sad and disappointing.  What country do they think this is?  Not one mention of the social unrest.  Although Biden did Ok.  But our expectations are so low that anytime he doesn’t have a meltdown we breathe a sigh of relief.

I still think it comes down to Michigan.  Biden takes PA, maybe AZ and possibly NC (maybe not), and Trump may steal MN.  Don’t bet any real money on this.  I could be wrong:  close but no potato chip for Sloppy Joe.  He won’t survive the debates. (Some moron Democrat actually tried to evoke some sympathy by suggesting Biden has a stuttering problem.  Pathetic).

The Biden Derangement Telethon begins tonight.