VIVEK’S PLOY

Ken Grossberger, PhD

Vivek Ramaswamy is running for the Republican nomination for President. Or is he? He started off as the new kid on the block: young, bright, rich. But over time he devolved into an old school attack-and-trash pol and even resorted to scribbled messaging at a debate calling Nikki Haley corrupt. Looks like he couldn’t resist.

But what is he really after? He has refrained from direct attacks on Donald Trump, and his pitch is that he represents the new generation of leadership. He reserves his caustic comments for Nikki and Ron DeSantis hard, so he has a fierce side, but he engages in rhetorical pattycake with the ex-President. If he really intends to be the Trump alternative, why does he only target the other candidates? He even said he would pardon Trump if he gets elected president, and Trump has said nice things about him.

Is Vivek just a MAGA version of Pete Buttigieg? It seems that he’s a stalking horse in the primaries, splitting the vote of the other candidates, and making it harder for a realistic challenge by the others (most notably Haley and DeSantis). This looks like a denial strategy.

So maybe Vivek is purchasing a cabinet position. We can be sure he isn’t serious about winning the Republican primary, but he does get attention.

Shenna Bellows – What is She Running For?

Ken Grossberger, PhD

In this era of Trump ballot denial Maine Secretary of State Shena Bellows’ decision to eliminate Donald Trump from her state’s election is the latest example of trashing democracy in the name of democracy. She tortured the dots from the 14^th amendment to Trump in a self-aggrandizing attempt to convince the political world that she actually has a point. But in the end, she mangles the meaning of the US constitution and denies the voters any say in an election designed by law to provide such voting privileges.

This is that latest attempt by the left to reinterpret the 14^th amendment into something other than what was intended. At issue here is Section 3 which reads, in part, that no one who holds an office having sworn an oath to the “support the constitution……shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same” constitution. The 14^th amendment was ratified in 1868 and was clearly designed by Congress to prevent former Confederate army veterans from holding office. Also at issue is the definition of insurrection and rebellion, which has nothing to do with Donald Trump on the infamous day of January 6, 2021. Even more ludicrous is that Trump was actually in office at the time, so the logic of the left is that Trump was conducting an insurrection against himself. The superannuated frat party of misfits that invaded the capitol that day deserve to be punished for breaking the law. They also severely embarrassed the country. Trump certainly could have done much more to stop the mob, and he did not. But this was not an armed rebellion, even though here are those on the left who are quick to point out that some of the capital transgressors had weapons. How does this one-day mess, as bad as it was, rise to the level of an insurrection on the level of the US Civil War where hundreds of thousands fought against the government and almost a million Americans died? Only in this age of extreme polarization can anyone this side of sanity suggest that January 6 was an attempt to overthrow the government that Donald Trump himself was the chief executive of.

But that was not Ms. Bellows primary motivation. She is currently the Secretary of State of Maine. She previously was a state senator. She also ran for the US Senate against Susan Collins and lost. So, stealing a play from Trump’s playbook, she makes a screwy decision to remove Trump from the ballot in Maine, not as the result of a deep-thinking process as to the legal issues at hand, but to deal herself into the big game, to grab the spotlight, to set herself up for the next office she may target.

Her political claim to fame is that she is a Biden sycophant, and now a lefty seeking higher ground. The two for one play is that she might actually believe she could keep Trump off the ballot at the same time, yet another paranoid Democrat seeking Trump inoculation. But if she actually succeeds, she would open something much worse than anything Pandora had in her bag of tricks. Consider the environment where administrative officers across the country decided who could, and who could not, have ballot access based on their perception of a criminal act. Also consider that usually most states have Republican governments. Game-set-match, the end of the Democratic party on most local levels in the US. Does future candidate Bellows really suggest we have a country where we replace legal guilt (determined by a jury) with some notion of administrative guilt determined by bureaucrats? Even though the left quickly points out that their now favorite clause of their now favorite amendment does not specifically state that a legal conviction is necessary, are they actually promulgating a government where the right to run for office hinges on the constitutional interpretations of unelected administrators?

Not quite what she may argue, but apparently, what she wants is controversy, and above all, attention. In a Trumpian way she seeks to command the notice of the media and make herself the center of the circus. But she is guilty of what Yuval Levin calls a “dereliction of responsibility” and the attempted “corruption of political culture.” By no means does this excuse the behavior of Donald Trump. He engages in what Mr. Levin labels “thuggish narcissism.” But this does not disqualify him from any ballot, and the US Supreme Court will undoubtedly make quick work of Ms. Bellows’ stunt, as well as the misguided attempt by other states to bury democracy in the darkness of gerrymandered jurisprudence.

The Big Dance

The art of lying is such a staple of politics that we accept it as a natural act, like the rising of the sun. Thus most national elected officials have dismal ratings in the polls: the President, Vice President, the leaders in the Senate (both parties) and the leaders in the House (both parties). Trust is a thing of the past and many of those who vote strain to choose the least damaging of the worst.

The Biden team is an example of such deceit, on steroids (as the President likes to phrase things). So he clearly thinks he conjured up the big rhetorical flip taking the Republican-manufactured sarcastic term “Bidenomics” and now uses it as a symbol for this miraculous economy he keeps touting. As his team cherry picks through the data for good stuff (“it’s working” Biden whispers) and ignores the bad stuff (e.g., huge spikes in the cost of just about everything and the dramatic increase in the national debt), he is performing the rhetorical choreography of the “the big dance” designed only to make his administration look good. So Bidenomics is better termed Bidenoptics. Every time he whips out his Bidenomics double talk, he is dancing. The border is closed, he knew nothing of Hunter’s business deals, etc. He continues to dance through the political tulips.

Even more embarrassing is White House Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s recent statement that the record setting sea of illegal immigration at the southern border in December is typical for the end of the year. Or “we need Congress to pass comprehensive immigration” as an excuse for the dramatic increases in border crossings under the Biden administration. These deflections are in line with today’s political word games, based on the dance, and not the truth. The American public is being waltzed down the proverbial road because the Biden team, like too many politicians, will continue to blame the person who put the cookie jar on the kitchen counter, not the person who put his hand in it. The same goes for the economic scene where Bidenomics has hit the middle class and working poor pretty hard. The White House excuse machine is not going to talk people out of their pain with some not-so-clever reverse sloganeering. Politicians have a political blind spot: all they have to do is get the right frame, the right explanation, the palatable clarification or the rhetorical justification, and no one will notice that what they say just isn’t true. They’re dancing, and we the people get a continuous show.

Is there a day of reckoning coming? Will the voting public finally reject the old school politics of deception and vote the rascals out? Are voters finally exhausted from the dance and looking to demand substance only? Lincoln might not fare well in today’s political environment, Franklin Roosevelt might. Reagan did. Carter didn’t. But those leaders were from different eras where there was at least a modicum of civility and restraint. Not that they didn’t have their own brand of shenanigans, or rhetorical sleight of hand. But nothing like the psychotic rearranging of reality of the Biden-Trump era.

Will this be the election cycle where voters dump the fibbers and elect the truth tellers? Perhaps the adults in the room will manifest themselves in such a way that this election will be more about self-interest and the needs of the county, and not power and cosmetics. But in the meantime time the big dance continues.

VAX POPULI

The pressure to vaccinate against COVID 19 by the federal government, big business, major universities and big Pharma has been intense and persistent, despite the ebb of the crisis. The vaccines (mRNA shots), we have been constantly told, are safe and effective. But that message has changed over the course of the pandemic. The earlier warnings and advice have been pushed aside in favor of new warnings and advice (e.g. from the vaccines will prevent the spread to the vaccines will prevent severe illness), to the merely advisory (e.g. the CDC’s recent pronouncements relaxing the restrictions).

So, what are we to believe? Much of what we hear, many think, is politically motivated and the debate rages between warring liberal and conservative factions as to what is true and what we need to do (or not do). The centerpiece of all this has been the mandates to get vaccinated. Here is where we separate fact from politically self-serving fiction, and suppression from democracy. For many, the vaccine is a must in order to keep us all safe, and those who resist are criminally negligent.

Thus, we are confronted with the current problem of using propogandized “science” for political purposes. To paraphrase the good Dr. Krauthammer this is a case of Covid derangement syndrome. First it was one shot, then two. Then a booster. Then annual boosters. Vaccines forever. Now new vaccines for new “variants.” Pretty soon a “cocktail” for all of the above. Endless. But why? To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, everything is about COVID except COVID, COVID is about power. This is politics, not science, the left will not yield.

We need to be pro-choice on the vaccines, keep democracy in the forefront of the debate, and not be panicked into another round of mandates by authoritarians in sheep’s clothing if and when the next surge of COVID strikes.

It’s A Start

My opening salvo. It’s time to state the truth, as we see it. Without fear or prejudice, and to let the chips fall. And they will fall. Our political leadership is dismal at best and riddled with prejudice at worst. Their motivations are subjective, power based, negative and even hateful. Lost in the politic shuffle are the people they were elected to represent and help. This is no way to run a country. Both parties are guilty and need to be called to account. It’s time to do that.