Posts Tagged → republican
Harrisburg voters: Break the binary, vote for YOU
Harrisburg City, Pennsylvania: A financially broke, struggling, crime-ridden city with Pennsylvania’s most failed school district. What is the one factor that is associated with all of these negative traits?
The one consistent factor here in Harrisburg that has not changed in decades is the presence of one single political party running things. And by the results we see every day, this political party has been mis-running, mis-managing, mis-handling everything here, for a long time.
We are talking about the Democrat Party here, and across America this single political party is associated with epidemic crime, low real estate values, crazy high taxes, and government failure in city after city after city after city, community after community. This party’s failure has been replicated over and over, for decades. And its record of failure has been allowed to continue only because so many people carelessly keep voting for it, either out of habit or because they think it stands for something that it does not represent.
The people hurt most by the Democrat Party’s failures are urban Blacks and Hispanics, those Americans who for inexplicable reasons have been the most loyal to the party.
It is time to break this decades of failure and stop voting for a single political party “just because it is who I always vote for.” And no, voting for good candidates from the otherwise lame-ass Republican Party will not turn you into a toad. This artificially binary world where you can only ever vote for one political party makes zero sense, and it is time to break this arrangement. Start voting for you, for your interests, and not for some political party.
Here in Harrisburg, we have a lazy, useless incumbent state representative Patty Kim. Patty Kim does nothing, achieves nothing for the voters in her district, and rules over her impoverished, powerless, disempowered serfs with great joy. They keep voting for her and yet she does nothing for them, which to be fair to Rep. Kim is a model that elected Democrats across America implement year after year, because the people they hurt the most keep voting for them.
Here in Harrisburg, we have an opportunity to elect a nice young guy named Dave Buell to the state house. I had the opportunity to meet Dave this morning and spend some time talking with him. He is a fine young person with enough life experience to make a good representative. Yes, Buell is a Republican, but so what? If he gets more votes than Patty Kim next month, then he is going to have to work with everyone, represent everyone, in order to hold onto his seat in the future.
City of Harrisburg voters should support Dave Buell. What do you have to lose by voting in a non-partisan way? If you vote for Patty Kim, it is just voting for more failure, and Harrisburg cannot afford any more failure. Why would a voter willingly vote for more failure? Harrisburg City needs representation, and we have not had any in a very long time. Patty Kim has failed us, and it is time to give someone else a chance to do the job that needs to be done.
Vote for Dave Buell.
Across America, Democrat candidates refuse to debate
Across America, Democrat Party candidates are refusing to debate their political opponents in the traditional way of testing the quality of one another’s ideas in public. Including here in Pennsylvania. They are literally just hiding in their basements and letting the mainstream media (MSNBC, NPR, CBS, ABC, etc.) promote them, without taking any risks that might expose them to the curious public.
This hiding is a goddamned shame is what it is. It is pathetic, and it demonstrates that across America the only thing standing between a political annihilation of the Democrat Party through the voting process and its basic nail-scraping-up-to-the-cliff-face survival is the Democrat Party’s ownership of the mainstream media. The Democrat media continues to act like it is a propaganda arm of one political party. And that is a disgusting shame, too. And I find it amazing that any American sits and absorbs the toxic bullshit that MSNBC and CNN (both of which I watched recently just to be reminded of how much these channels never say or try to figure out for their viewers) pour down the gullets of their lazy audience.
Here in Pennsylvania senate candidate John Fetterman, a rich playboy who pretends to be a blue collar working guy, who has never held a real job in his entire life, who has destroyed the small Pennsylvania town he served as mayor of in his first adult job, who says he wants to release 30% of the incarcerated violent felons back into our neighborhoods, refuses to debate Dr. Oz, his Republican opponent.
Fetterman is not just a liar and a poser and a faker, he is justifiably afraid of debating Oz. I am no huge fan of Dr. Oz. I was a Kathy Barnette supporter, and remain so. But at least stand up and show people what you are made of, you pussy, Fetterman. Fetterman knows his koo koo ideas cannot withstand the light of day in a public debate. And yes, it is true that Fetterman had a brain seizure and a stroke, rendering him a babbling incoherent mess in public and private. So to an extent we can understand his reluctance to appear publicly.
But if your health is that bad, Fetterman, then step the hell down and stop trying to be the candidate hiding in the basement! Being a US senator is a big deal and it requires the full abilities of the person serving in that capacity.
And what about the registered Democrat voters who are going to vote for basement dweller Fetterman, no matter what, no matter that he is a dysfunctional mess (forget that he is an admitted communist who says he wants to use his position to dismantle America as we have been for over two hundred years)? What the hell is that about? Are you voters really so tribal, so short sighted, so deep into your own partisan trench that you will vote for a candidate this bad?
Really?
In Washington State, Arizona, New York, in addition to Pennsylvania, Democrat candidates refuse to stand up and tell the voters what they believe in. They are relying on a spineless sold-out press to do that for them. And yet America actually still has a large number of voters devoted to this ridiculous political party, who will vote for any thing with a “D” after its name on the ballot.
Believe me, I don’t get the partisan Republican thing either, but at least they are not trying to turn America into a mushroom cloud or a mass of dead middle Americans killed by released felons, like the defund-the-police and release-the- prisoners soft on crime Democrats are. At least the Republican candidates show up, get stabbed by crazed Democrat voters (or run over and killed) (or shot like Rep. Scalise), and keep explaining why they love a constitutional America, with freedom, liberty, safety, and opportunity for all.
Once again, it is shame, shame, shame on registered Democrat voters for being so lazy, uncurious, and careless with their sacred votes. Sorry, folks, gotta say it. And yes, you can change. You do not have to vote for bad people like Fetterman.
America is gonna need a Truth & Reconciliation Commission
When the Democrat Party’s brutal and lawless assault on Americans who support democracy and the Constitutional Republic as America was founded comes to an end, America is going to have to go through a South Africa-style Truth & Reconciliation Commission process to resolve the endless injustices now being committed against political opponents of the evil Democrat Party.
Just looking at the Department of Justice’s latest illegal attack on President Trump, we all can imagine what horrible pain is in store for the rest of us citizens. DOJ AG Merrick Garland won’t voluntarily release the affidavit that was used to secure the bogus search warrant that allowed thirty federal agents to swarm through President Trump’s personal belongings inside his home in Florida, searching for a crime they don’t know of yet. Already the DOJ and FBI are returning personal items that were improperly removed, like President Trump’s passports.
A legitimate search warrant written according to the US Constitution specifies EXACTLY the items that are to be removed from a private home or business. Any search and seizure that results in all kinds of “oopsy” property removal is on its face an illegal search and seizure. But this DOJ FBI brutality isn’t a mistake, it is on purpose. They are looking for a crime, any crime, so they can hurt a political opponent, which is illegal.
It was this EXACT bully behavior by the authoritarian British against the early Americans that resulted in the Revolution, that resulted in the US Constitution and its Amendments, so that government could never again behave in such a lawless fashion.
Yet here we are now, and here we are headed for more of this behavior with not just the DOJ and FBI, but a new literal army of IRS armed agents coming to our homes. It seems that under the Democrat Party, ruling the populace through SWAT team is the new daily norm. Which of course is not normal, and it is not legitimate. American voters did not and would never have given the Democrat Party any of this authority or power, and it is why the Democrat Party had to steal the 2020 election, steal the presidency, and then hijack the federal government. They are now building on that steal and aggressively consolidating power and control over every US citizen.
Inevitably Biden’s lawless, cruel, evil, and oppressive misuse of official government is going to result in a lot of badly hurt people and seriously damaged lives. Americans who are right now kind of coasting through their lives are about to get a seriously rough awakening from Biden’s SWAT teams and heavily armed IRS agents. These agents are not coming to our homes to help us out. They are not coming into our lives to help us and assist us in complying with a complex tax code that requires mental gymnastics even for the Certified Public Accountants we use to report our taxable income.
No, these heavily armed federal agents are all arriving in our kitchens and living rooms and dining rooms to control us with an iron fist, to arbitrarily and capriciously hold us extremely “accountable” for even the smallest and most honest of our mistakes. Just like the British bullies did in the 1770s, with all of the unfair human wreckage they left in their wake. And before that, just like the Sheriff of Nottingham did in Britain.
So if old history is repeating itself now as tax compliance authoritarianism and it becomes the new normal, then maybe America will need to borrow a page from more modern times. For example, after Apartheid ended in South Africa, and yes I believe that even after just eighteen months America is already right now deeply into an Apartheid-like system, the only way to help South African citizens heal and learn to live in peace with one another was to have a Truth & Reconciliation Commission. And America is going to need the same thing.
The American Truth & Reconciliation Commission’s purpose will be to address and resolve the terrible political injustices that are being perpetrated by the Democrat Party under color of “law.” Anything other than a process like this is going to leave a deep and festering scar under the surface of America’s skin…pretty much like what happened after the Democrat Party’s Civil War from 1861-1865. Back then the Republican Party took away the Democrat Party’s African slaves, and the Democrats never forgave the Republicans for it, and the Democrats created all kinds of Jim Crow laws, poll taxes, the Ku Klux Klan, and lynchings, to hold onto their power. And here we are, 160 years later, with the Democrats yet again trying to brutally control and enslave everyone. Political lynchings of people like President Trump are only the beginning.
Americans eventually getting out from under Democrat Party brutality are going to have to go through a better process than we did the last time the Democrats did this. Let’s start planning the American Truth & Reconciliation Commission now.
Three more, very brief, thoughts about Roe v. Wade
With the US Supreme Court addressing the policy question of abortion by simply returning it to the fifty states to decide themselves individually (and not in any way ending all abortion ever), a lot of silly hot air has been exuded in response over the past two weeks. And also a lot of terroristic death threats against the US Supreme Court justices have been made, too, by the usual “we represent all peace and love and justice” people. Some of these threats being made right outside their homes, and some while the Justices are eating at Morton’s Steak House in DC. You know, only the real basic elements of democratic process at play….at least according to the Biden Administration, which refuses to implement the federal law that categorically prohibits people from protesting or picketing outside the homes of judges. Because of threats n stuff.
So all this activity inspires yours truly to add three more real simple, brief thoughts on this subject:
- Everyone reading this…be thankful…you were not aborted,
- Proponents of unlimited abortion on demand have become unbelievably callous about human life and body autonomy, even while simultaneously demanding that Americans/ Canadians/ Europeans automatically, unconditionally, unquestioningly submit their bodies to mysterious government injections and body movement passports and chip implantations to force our physical compliance with government bureaucrats. Is there any logical consistency among these human death cult people? Do you guys ever think through your policy positions? Do you value logical consistency?
- The intellectual wackiness and slovenly behavior of the pro-abortion-all-the-time advocates is so extreme that even satire about it is actually funny: Meet Satan.
Abortion activist Satan specifically thanks the useless, spineless Republicans and their leader Mitch McConnell (Source: Babylon Bee)
“Death is healthy, safety is dangerous”…wtf?
Few events have highlighted the sweaty, crusty butt crack separating America’s Left from the Normal people like the few recent US Supreme Court holdings over the past week. These holdings on Second Amendment rights, improper judicial legislating from the bench (Roe v. Wade), and religious liberty fly in the face of decades of Leftist activism and common establishment media narratives, and have elicited wonderfully violent public statements, violent actions, and promises of more violence from the Left and its Sinn Fein, the Democrat Party.
If the Democrat Party can’t control Americans with freedom-crushing iron-fisted laws, then they intend to control us through more murder, destruction, and mayhem.
As a long-ago former member of the Democrat Party, I am mystified how more Americans don’t walk away from this corrupt and morally bankrupt organization. How can it be that people are loyal to this lawless anti-America movement when its leaders:
- cannot tell us what is a woman, but then say that women’s rights have somehow been diminished by allowing the fifty states to determine among themselves when a child can be killed by its mother
- tell us that the death of a living, breathing child is “healthy” or is “healthcare”
- say that a wide-open southern border over which child traffickers and deadly fentanyl pour daily unchecked and undocumented and uncontrolled is “fair”
- catch and release violent criminals back into society, instead of jailing them, so they can continue committing violent crimes against innocent people
- demand civilian disarmament to prevent citizens from keeping legal firearms close to them for protection because armed law-abiding civilians are “dangerous”
- say that the practice of religion by just one person in public is the equivalent of establishing an official religion
We could easily have this list go on and on, but anyone paying attention to what is happening around our homes and families and businesses already knows that there is a significant percentage of Americans who do not identify as Americans, and who are attempting to use our collectively owned government to destroy America from the inside. This is not a what the f*ck (wtf) thing, it is a crystal clear philosophical separation between two different groups of humans.
These two groups could easily be associated with groups from the past, like the Democrat Party slave owners of 1861 and their Republican Party abolitionist (anti slavery) opponents. I think the choices facing Americans today are easily as stark as they were in 1861, except that instead of controlling a few million African slaves like in 1861, the Democrat Party is now trying to enslave all of America. All of us. You and me.
Are you in a (political) cult?
Politically active Americans pride themselves on having knowledge and basic principles that drive their political views and commitments. This goes for both left and right and especially the non-devoted “independents.”
But given how extremely out of kilter America’s economic and political landscape is right now (five dollar gasoline and 8.6% inflation by design of the Biden Administration, and lawless FBI thugs illegally performing the old Nazi Gestapo’s political function by arresting innocent political opponents of the Democrat Party), we have to ask if Americans on both the left and the right are politically devoting themselves to a form of cult worship. As in blindly supporting a political party or a political figure, regardless of how far away this devotion takes them from the essential beliefs they once held.
Because I was long ago a Democrat, and I have since fleeing that political party nonetheless long co-mingled with Democrat Party members, I have a base line for comparison, and so I will start here.
I am incredulous at how tenaciously so many Democrat Party members cling to that brand, despite so many widely deviating policy positions pouring out of it. John F. Kennedy, vaunted Democrat Party icon even today, would have zero in common with the Democrat Party of today were he resurrected and inducted back into American politics. Rather, JFK would by today’s standards be a far-right Republican. This is because the Democrat Party has now abandoned every essential principle on which it stood, and has instead embraced and championed every anti-America, anti-child, anti-woman, anti-freedom, racist, Marxist, anti-America policy possible.
Given that the Democrat Party now stands for everything that is the opposite of what it used to stand for, it naturally follows that we ask if those Americans who are nonetheless still devoted to this organization are mentally in a cult. Like, they don’t realize it, and their blind devotion to something so profoundly destructive is an emotional response and not a reasoned response.
Look, if you so closely personally identify with a political organization that has repeatedly and radically changed its policies not just over your lifetime but over the past ten years, so strongly that you take it deeply personally when someone criticizes that organization, then yeah, you have a cult follower mindset. Because you have lost sight of the fact that all organizations are created to implement certain goals, and they are very rarely a personal reflection of you. This particular Democrat Party organization has shown zero fidelity to what it once represented…so how can you continue to so closely identify with it?
So I think the answer is Yes, especially a great many older Democrat Party members today are in fact in a cult mindset. They are emotionally loyal to an organization that is killing their grandkids’ future, and that personal attachment, that emotional way of thinking is why so many older Democrats then become absolutely enraged and incapable of maintaining a calm, logical discussion about policy and politics when their political party is criticized.
No debate is allowed, walls go up, friendships and even family relationships are ended. We all see it. It is tragic. It is unnecessarily destructive, and yet, this cult mindset persists.
Now, let’s look at the political right.
The American right is splintering along several philosophical paths, and it is amazing that the Republican Party has been able to provide a big enough “tent” to house all of these different views.
One path is religious, and not just Christian, but Sikh, Hindu, orthodox Jewish, and probably a few others. These are traditionalists who value family and community structures above all, and who ascribe religion with the capability of holding it all together. The crazier and more stridently anti-religion the Left gets (First Amendment be damned), the more these disparate people find themselves sharing the same fox hole. And based on my own personal experience, there are religious Christians who strongly oppose other religions, or liberal factions of other religions, but who nonetheless find themselves in league with them by necessity or by happenstance. Nothing wrong with that, as America is based on different people with the same shared values.
Another philosophical path on the right is the Small Government/ Big Citizen American. These are people not very religious, but devoted to running their small businesses, caring for their families, enjoying life, planning for their future. They see and reject the Left’s policies targeting everything they have worked for. They are especially at odds with Big Government + Big Tech taking control of their every thought, decision, communication, and bank account, and thereby reducing the citizen to a very small role in what is supposed to be a representative government tailor-made of, by, and FOR the citizen.
Finally, there are the nationalists, for whom a constitutional republic America represents the penultimate in human achievement. Some nationalists may be religious, of course, but there are a lot of proud Americans who rightly worship the American flag’s unique symbolism of freedom, liberty, opportunity.
Into the ointment of these neat little conservative philosophical categories flies the presence of President Trump. Without question there is a well-earned cult of personality surrounding President Trump, to whom myriad supporters often ascribe superhuman powers of discernment and strategery. It is a fact that President Trump saved America from the uniparty in 2016, and probably created a great national revival and awakening by having his re-election stolen in 2020. And so he deserves our adoration and appreciation, even if he isn’t really magic.
However, if there is any cult-like mentality on the right, it is among Trump Faithful who follow his every political endorsement, no matter how poorly reasoned or considered. Trump has made a bunch of frankly bizarre political endorsements around America that has left many of his supporters scratching their heads, like Dr. Oz here in PA and RINO Minority Leader Congressman Kevin McCarthy in California. Quite lovely primary battles are unfolding in Arizona and Nevada, where a couple of Trump’s endorsed GOPe candidates are being strongly rejected by Trump Faithful voters. They say that Trump showed them the way to the promised land, and that he has now has gotten bogged down in politics, which was never his strong hand.
And that right there shows that even among the Trump personality cult following on the right, there is both careful reasoning for why he earns support, and how there is disagreement with him over politics. Americans are understandably drawn to the only truly pro-America and non-political political candidate in many decades, President Donald J. Trump. Even those who openly adore the man also openly disagree with him.
I don’t think there is a political cult on the right. There definitely is one on the left.
Ten take-aways from my Election Day experience
With the Kerwin men, quality people
Primary elections are more important than the general election every November, because voters choose who is going to be representing them at the November election. And in the case of Republican Party voters, if you don’t vote for constitutional America-First candidates, you are guaranteed to have a Republican In Name Only (RINO) liberal running against the Democrat Party liberal in the November election. There’s not a whole lot of philosophical difference between the Republican liberal and the Democrat liberal, and after that November election between a RINO and a Democrat it’s just a question of how rapidly America is destroyed under your feet, slowly or quickly.
On Tuesday I volunteered at four different election polls, handing out brochures for Kathy Barnette, and I spoke with a lot of voters. Here are some take-aways from my experience during and after Tuesday’s Primary Election here in PA:
- Unsurprisingly, voters make both simple and complicated choices in voting for candidates. Simple choices can be lazy or principled, and complicated choices can be bizarre or carefully thought out. Candidate selection is as complex as any other choice in life, and I think that is a good thing.
- Party establishment endorsement is a negative among Republican/ conservative voters, who appear to increasingly view the GOP as a force for bad and not for good. For example, Lou Barletta’s campaign unleashed a tidal wave of Republican establishment career politician endorsements in the days before Tuesday’s election, and if anything these endorsements seemed to hurt Barletta at the polls, not help him; Doug Mastriano crushed Barletta.
- On the other hand, Democrat voters seem highly attuned to and in synch with their establishment, as witnessed by political newcomer Justin Fleming’s trouncing of long time Democrat Party activist Eric Epstein in the newly created 105th Legislative District (PA House). For at least ten years, and probably closer to twenty years, independent-minded liberal Epstein has run for everything from dog catcher to school board to state senate, almost always unsuccessfully but always with close-call results. Not this time. Apparently ten unions and the House Democrat Campaign Committee aggressively weighed in to stop Epstein from finally capitalizing on his well-known household name in southcentral PA. Fleming the unprincipled “electoral pragmatist” won with 61% of the vote.
- Money is not all that it used to be, but it can still matter in elections, no surprise. Case in point is a very small amount of money (like $157,000 total), old fashioned shoe leather, and reasonable social media networking got conservative grass roots favorite Kathy Barnette up to 25% of the vote in an eight-candidate race. This is a huge statement about the lack of importance of money. However, when the wildly false negative attacks against Barnette started pouring in during the last week from McCormick and Oz and their supporters, like Sean Hannity, Barnette lacked sufficient funds to get out her last-minute rebuttals on TV and radio that could have gotten her over the finish line to win. Enough confusion and obfuscation was created by the attacks to blunt Barnette’s position at the top, and allowed both Oz and McCormick to grow their own voter returns at her expense. Had Barnette possessed a million dollars to do last-minute TV and radio ads, she probably would have won the election.
- Negative advertising does work, and it also greatly suppresses voter turnout. At all of the five polls I was at yesterday, voting was down between 10% and 20%, and I believe many voters were just fed up and confused by all of the negative advertising. SO they stayed home and said “I will just vote in November for whoever wins this primary race.”
- Conservative voters are much more oriented toward ideology and principles than political party.
- Almost every primary election has one winner and some losers, and almost always the losers say they will take their ball and go home if they don’t win, and they won’t back the winner of their race. For weeks before and even after the election was over, I heard unceasing complaints from Republicans about how Mastriano is “too conservative” for Pennsylvania, and that his win will automatically hand the governorship to Komrade Josh Shapiro. I also heard unceasing complaints from Republican voters that Lou Barletta was too milquetoast to appeal to anyone in November, except for blue haired suburban GOPe Republicans. Folks, get used to these competitive races. They are good for us. This competition is just the nature of real and healthy primary races, something that Republicans really need, and something that the GOPe HATES. The Republican Country Club Party hates hates hates sharing decision making with the unwashed dirty masses, who keep gumming up GOPe dreams of easy ill gotten wealth and posh fundraisers. Sorry not sorry, GOPe, get used to ceding more and more decision making to the actual people you claim to represent. It is a good thing, and it is why Mastriano won by an enormous margin.
- For the most part, the GOPe got its ass kicked in PA and elsewhere in America. RINOs like Jake Corman (the sitting President Pro Tem of the PA Senate!!), Jeff Bartos, et al either dropped out or finished below 5%, while underdog candidates like Kathy Barnette and Dr. Oz scored big time vote returns against the establishment’s wishes. We are witnessing a power shift away from GOP party bosses, which is a good thing, because party bosses are corrupt and self-serving people.
- Charlie Gerow is still a good guy, and still not a catchy candidate. Once again, voters enjoy Charlie as an articulate proponent of conservative values, but not as a representative in government for their needs. Charlie is a salon intellectual in the mold of William F. Buckley, one of the 20th century’s great conservative crusaders. Not winning elections doesn’t mean Gerow isn’t relevant, it just means his strength is in policy debates and in the conservative salon of ideas. Nothing wrong with that.
- Finally, yard signs and road signs do not mean anything close to what they used to represent even ten years ago. At one time yard signs and roadside signs were a big part of electoral public outreach, but in this digital age, they are becoming less important. I would not say they are unimportant, because in some ways they can be used to get a sense of voter engagement. Like, lots of signs for Candidate X in a county or in a region probably means that Candidate X is well known there. But it does not mean that Candidate X is necessarily going to convert that name recognition into an Election Day win. Information is now moving so fast and so far across the political landscape, that just one gaffe or one slip-up by an otherwise reasonable candidate can mean the end of their lead or presumptive win. No amount of yard signs can counter a fifteen second video of a candidate doing or saying something ridiculous.
Thank you to all the voters who spent time talking with me on Tuesday. I promote candidates at polls on Election Day every year because these are people I believe in, and I believe in sharing the why and how I have arrived at my decision on whom to vote for. One thing that has not changed among voters at polls since I was a teenager is this: Liberal voters at polls are always surly, grumpy, dismissive, or disrespectful. Do not ask me why this is, but it does hint at how some people think.