PS

My European haircutter, who seems quite interested in American politics, asked if I thought Mr. Trump will win the Election. When I replied, “Mr. Trump won’t live to the election,” my haircutter replied, “Sure he is older, but he seems quite fit and alert.” Nuance doesn’t always cross the language barrier; an Italian or an Eastern European would have gotten the point much quicker. Western Europeans are often far more trusting of their elites: It’s one reason why the Big Lie worked so well.

Anyway, if the Criminal Elite allow Trump to live until the election rather than Epsteining him while in jail for civil contempt, and don’t manufacture enough votes to beat him, it will only because they are doing a Herbert Hoover on him. Hoover, bright as he was, did all the stupit shite his advisers told him to do and made the Great Crash a real Great Depression 1.0. Trump will be saddled with GD 2, WW3, and the Great Reset.

A hundred years from now, he will be depicted as the tyrant who brough the USA down, even though it was the several petit Emperors who preceded him who rotted its very foundations.

PS: Good afternoon, gentlemen,

So, I found this fluff piece about Mx. Brainard (rhymes with Spraynard) in the Economist...

https://archive.is/LFrqj

It tells us she has a very important job! Aside from a brief mention of her (important!) role in raising the debt ceiling, it is otherwise light on any details.

---------

Mr. Hail,

“But few of his followers seem to care, the whole thing being all reactive ("Yeah! That'll show the elites! We're going to nominate the buffoonish con-man that grates them so much!"). As if quality of actual governing, actual policy, actual implementation, vision beyond cool-tweets and one-liner insults -- as if those things were ridiculous minutiae, why would anyone care about THAT when cool insults are the real issue? As if actual governing and actual integrity are unimportant details, akin to the color of a politician's tie or shoe size.”

Seems to me that shoe size and tie color are 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 important to the American electorate than trivial issues like the quality of actual governance, policy & implementation, vision, integrity, fiscal responsibility, morality, etc...

For example...

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/10/31/desantis-boots-shoemakers-00121044
https://newrepublic.com/article/176584/ron-desantis-boots-shoes-trump
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/10/ron-desantis-boots-lifts-heels
https://nypost.com/2023/09/26/biden-taking-urgent-steps-to-stop-more-falls-before-election/
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-flips-out-over-biden-wearing-sneakers-like-a-speedo-at-a-funeral

-or-

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/state-of-union-biden-zelensky-call-b2026268.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-putin-russia-state-media-criticizes-tie-2021-6
https://www.sevendaysvt.com/news/power-tie-biden-sports-a-vermont-made-necktie-at-white-house-press-event-39408754

I would imagine there have been many more articles and columns penned about these important topics than the inconsequential matters of which you refer.

I think you may be falling into a trap that many intelligent people fall into. I think you are misoverestimating the intelligence of others, namely the America electorate.

When pondering why the American people do not care about actual policy, governance and other seemingly important problems please keep in mind that 54% of American adults read below a sixth grade level and are even less proficient in math. The media is not only playing to their crowd, but are not really any more intelligent themselves...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il16p8YvS5E

Regarding your tentative-conclusion about Blompf... I think he is controlled opposition. All part of the show.

I hope you, Mr. Hail, (and everyone else) have a great day!

☮️

PS: Please don't think I didn't read your whole comment, Mr. Hail, as I start from your conclusion:

"The tentative-conclusion is this: there is some kind of conspiracy afoot FOR Trump by powerful forces, that want him to be the Republican nominee at least. For what reasoning you may speculate about, but it appears, from these post-Iowa observations, that the narrative-shapers want Blompf, and his cabal of conmen-and-Kushners, "in"; and are using their powers to do so."

I would have thought the conspiracy is in getting D's to vote for Nikki, if anything. If they really want Trump to win this thing, what are they thinking?

1) The figure they will nail him on some charges, and someone else would have to run. Do they want Nikki as number 2, so the GOP can just pick her last minute? The Deep State and all of them have no problem with Nikki, IMO. Having a GOP candidate win would just keep up the illusion of the 2-Party system.

However, this would result in some major chaos though, because people like me would vote for Trump whether he's in jail or not... leading to...

2) Are they expecting to cheat so heavily that Trump has no chance, no matter how popular he is.

Both of these things will lead to more chaos, and as Americans are seeing more video of police brutality on Jan 6 '21 and the exposure of the lies, next time, who knows how much violence would occur? There's not much to gain by being peaceful anymore.

About Iowa though, I did write this: "PS: My wife just showed me that Trump won the Iowa caucus handily. See?" The "See?" was added because I do think Trump is great at campaigning.

Re Ann Coulter, she is acting like the prototypical women scorned. Yes, she was scorned. We were all scorned by a guy whose ego is (was?) too big to let him get most parts of the job done. He let us down in a lot of ways for which he did not have to, even keeping in account the tremendous opposition within the Feral Gov't. Ann, however, well, she's right on most of what's she's written, but I've found things that are wrong too. I agree with her on Ron DeSantis though. He's more capable in so many ways, just not in campaigning.

That brings me back to Iowa. I don't know why Vikrahm, OK, Vivek (more on that) dropped out. His rhetoric was VERY VERY good. (As a blogger on or linked-from Instapundit wrote, he really needs to be Trump's press secretary.) About these other 2 - yes, 2nd place might be important if Trump hadn't been bolstered up among the MAGA base now for a year by the lawfare against him. Imagine if he were out of the news and had to actually debate, rather than name call.

He's good at the rallying and name-calling though. I think the campaign between him and the D candidate won't really be about the men or policy as much as about one side vs the other in the so-far-cold civil war. Trump is a good leader in that - DeSantis could be. Nikki would be on the other side.

The most important thing coming in my mind is for Nikki to lose Bigly in S. Carolina, her home State.

PS I'd say someone's not playing with a full deck of cards.

PS

-- "Iowa Caucus" 2024 results: BLOMPF WINS! CLOSE THE WHOLE THING DOWN!, says media --

Synopsis of results: Forty delegates to win, apportioned based on the strange system of town-gathering negotiations led by teams of local campaign-staffers:

-- Blompf:
wins 20 delegates

-- DeSantis:
wins 9 delegates

-- Subcontinental-candidate A, female, major elite ties:
wins 8 delegates

-- Subcontinental-candidate B, male, slick con-artist:
wins 3 delegates

-- Others: 0.

Despite this somewhat-ambiguous result, two strange things happened next:

(1.) Over the 24 to 48 hours after the Iowa Caucus, lots of people e starting yelling from the rafters that the whole thing is over, that Blompf and his cabal of Kushners have already won, that everyone else should immediately quit.

What I hear in these calls disturbed me. They were calls to make the Blompf personality-cult official. A hyperbolic analogy: people who were on Stalin's potential purge-lists, who saw the first few victims taken off blindfolded by night, came out as pro-Stalin at the opportune time, enthusiastically cheering for Stalin whereas earlier they had been semi-openly critical. During the long Stalinist terror, many people did this kind of calculated bandwagoning, against their own beliefs. But when this happened, the whole thing became a self-fulfilling prophecy: there were no voices of dissent anymore.

We don't need to go to the dark 'Stalinist' hour; it's true of politics of a lot of places and times. There's a reason this word "Bandwagon" became attached to politics and there remains, whereas it's almost died out in other uses, including its original use. It's fair to say that as a general rule, "bandwagoning" is not rational.

A range of people known to NOT be pro-Blompf were, in the days after the Iowa results, wee now Blompf cheerleaders. They struck the pose of the morally outraged, indignant that anyone on the R-team side would dare be against Blompf for any reason. The only exception among influential R-affiliated commentators seems to be Ann Coulter.

Ann Coulter continues to pursue an angry and unapologetic public vendetta against Blompf for his buffoonish terribleness as an actual executive. What I find funny: how can anyone really argue against Coulter's appraisal of Blompf, on the facts? But few of his followers seem to care, the whole thing being all reactive ("Yeah! That'll show the elites! We're going to nominate the buffoonish con-man that grates them so much!"). As if quality of actual governing, actual policy, actual implementation, vision beyond cool-tweets and one-liner insults -- as if those things were ridiculous minutiae, why would anyone care about THAT when cool insults are the real issue? As if actual governing and actual integrity are unimportant details, akin to the color of a politician's tie or shoe size.

.

(2.) The major news organizations unethically "called" the Iowa Caucus -- declaring the winner and declared "it's all over!" -- WHILE the caucuses were still going on. This little tidbit got reflected in the Peak Stupidity entry made on the day of, which ends with a line saying "My wife tells me Trump won."

Wait a minute. That's the story? "Trump won?" It's not how this contest works to say "so-and-so won, it's over, move on." There is no "win," in fact. It's a contest to award delegates. Blompf's 20 is, in fact, only half the total involved (40). In the end, this summer, at the Republican National Convention, a nomination for president requires 50%+1.

The real political story was about second-place: would it be DeSantis or "Nikki Haley"? It turned out to be DeSantis somewhat overperforming the most-recent expectations and taking "second place." But that story was not highlighted. And this result could have been influenced by the early "call," as most caucus-meetings were still ongoing.

The news-media "calling" the caucus while voting was still ongoing is an unethical breach of news-media protocol when reporting on any elections (there should be official coverage blackout until votes are cast, to avoid influencing the results).

--

These two observations lead me to the strange tentative-conclusion, which I don't know what to make of, which I don't know what to do with. The tentative-conclusion clashes with much received wisdom about this figure, Blompf; it clashes also with th Blompf personality-cult's own presentation of what he is vis-a-vis "the elites."

The tentative-conclusion is this: there is some kind of conspiracy afoot FOR Trump by powerful forces, that want him to be the Repeublican nominee at least. For what reasoning you may speculate about, but it appears, from these post-Iowa observations, that the narrative-shapers want Blompf, and his cabal of conmen-and-Kushners, "in"; and are using their powers to do so.

PS: I would say so.

PS

Better than being Double Tapped, I guess.