Unknown's avatar

About theartfuldilettante

The Artful Dilettante is a native of Pittsburgh, PA, and a graduate of Penn State University. He is a lover of liberty and a lifelong and passionate student of the same. He is voracious reader of books on the Enlightenment and the American colonial and revolutionary periods. He is a student of libertarian and Objectivist philosophies. He collects revolutionary war and period currency, books, and newspapers. He is married and the father of one teenage son. He is kind, witty, generous to a fault, and unjustifiably proud of himself. He is the life of the party and an unparalleled raconteur.

Happy Thanksgiving !

Thanksgiving is a holiday where we celebrate prosperity and achievement. Those things only happen under political and economic freedom. America was, and still is, a unique country for its always rising prosperity and freedom — with each generation better off than the last. That’s why Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday. The more we renew our commitment to those magnificent ideals, the more joyful all our future Thanksgiving celebrations will be.

As Ayn Rand put it, “Thanksgiving is a producers’ holiday. The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of production.”

Happy Thanksgiving!

Follow Dr. Hurd on Facebook. Search under “Michael Hurd” (Charleston SC). Get up-to-the-minute postings, recommended articles and links, and engage in back-and-forth discussion with Dr. Hurd on topics of interest. Also follow Dr. Hurd on X at @MichaelJHurd1, drmichaelhurd on Instagram, @DrHurd on TruthSocial. Dr. Hurd is also now a Newsmax Insider!

Chris Wright asked to Lead DOE

Donald Trump has named oil and gas industry executive Chris Wright as his pick to lead the US Energy Department.

He is expected to fulfil the president-elect’s promise to increase fossil fuel production – an aim summed by the campaign slogan “drill, baby, drill”.

Wright is the founder and CEO of Liberty Energy, which serves companies extracting oil and gas from shale fields in a process known as “fracking”.

Trump wrote in a statement: “Chris was one of the pioneers who helped launch the American Shale Revolution that fuelled American Energy Independence, and transformed the Global Energy Markets and Geopolitics.

Advertisement

“As Secretary of Energy, Chris will be a key leader, driving innovation, cutting red tape, and ushering in a new Golden Age of American Prosperity and Global Peace.”

Wright is a climate change sceptic who previously said he does not care where energy comes from, “as long as it is secure, reliable, affordable and betters human lives”.

In a video posted to his LinkedIn profile last year, he said: “There is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition either.”

Wright will also be appointed to a new Council of National Energy, the Trump campaign said.

The council will oversee “the path to US energy dominance by cutting red tape, enhancing private sector investments across all sectors of the Economy,” Trump said.

The Trump campaign cited Wright’s work with Pinnacle Technologies, a company he founded before Liberty Energy, as being critical to the US’s fracking boom, which has made the country the largest oil producer in the world.

Wright’s appointment is a win for the fossil fuel industry, which expects a boom under the next administration. Trump has pledged to increase production of US fossil fuels rather than investing in renewable energy sources such as wind power – a goal Wright will be instrumental in driving.

The president-elect has pledged to open areas such as the Arctic wilderness to oil drilling, which he argues would lower energy costs.

During his first presidency, Trump rolled back hundreds of environmental protections and made America the first nation to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.

Banner titled 'More on TRUMP TRANSITION' with pic of Trump pointing outwards on background of red stripes and white stars

Advertisement

I Hate Trump, but I’m Glad He Won

https://077f6f535902569b29488596aad7576f.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

I hate Trump, but I’m Glad He Won

by Gabrielle Bauer, opinion contributor – 11/15/24 10:30 AM ET

The workings of my mind continue to surprise me, even at age 67. On the evening of Nov. 5, as I watched Pennsylvania flip from blue to red on my TV screen in Toronto, I waited for the expected pang of alarm to tighten my chest.

But it wasn’t alarm I was feeling — it was excitement.

What the hell was going on here? I thoroughly dislike Trump. He wears his ego like a neon placard, the words spilling out of his mouth an endless riff on “look at me.” He has no oratorial game, no gravitas, no class. And I won’t even get into the weeds of his moral character.

Point is, I’m no fan of the guy. And yet I couldn’t mistake the poke from my subconscious: it was rooting for him. I was rooting for him. It made no sense. Was I a sociopath, or what?

“This is not about Trump,” my son suggested the following day. “It’s about your anger at the left.”

Indeed. My irritation with the progressive left, initially a soft hum, had swelled to a trumpet blast over the past few years. It started in spring 2020, when the online scolds began hurling epithets at anyone who suggested, ever so timidly, that locking down an entire population might do greater societal damage than accepting that a few grandmas might get COVID.

Then “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” exploded — on college campuses, in corporate boardrooms, online. Every subculture, no matter how esoteric, began braying for recognition (or “centering,” in DEI language). Two-spirit indigenous people? Incarcerated women with HIV? Nonbinary semi-professional athletes? They all had a laundry list of grievances, and demanded that governments provide the salve.

This new movement rests on two absurd ideas: that certain groups require extra help in perpetuity because of harms they incurred in the past — what dissenters have aptly termed “the soft bigotry of low expectations” — and that inequality of intergroup outcomes can only arise from systemic discrimination. Cancel culture, the DEI movement’s enforcement arm, locks in these ideas by grabbing the mic from anyone who dares to contest them. It betrays the movement’s subliminal impulse: to squash free speech like a bug.

Oppressor and oppressed. Perpetrator and victim. And above all, Black and white. It’s all so tiresome. Coleman Hughes, author of the book “The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America,” regards his blackness as one of the least notable things about him. Likewise, I have no interest in looking at people through tinted glasses.

In a poignant article for the Free Press, Paul Kix describes how progressives have turned their backs on interracial marriages like his. Friends who just 10 years earlier would have celebrated his union are now telling him that, as a white man, he cannot possibly understand his mixed-race children. How sad is that?

I have no interest in denigrating men, either — a pet project of the new left. Toxic this, toxic that. Never mind that we owe much of civilization — from iron mines and the printing press to the jet planes that bring the world to us — to the ingenuity of men who came before us. That nobody gives them credit for it speaks to the level of misandry in our midst.

null

Apparently all this bothered my subconscious mind enough to nudge it toward Orange Satan on that fateful November evening.

Jonathan Haidt, author of the book “The Righteous Mind,” writes that our responses to social and political events flow not from a rational thought process, but from deep-rooted intuitions — what Haidt calls our “moral tastebuds.” Then rational arguments about morality come later to justify these preferences.

Well, my moral tastebuds — triggered for years by an increasingly priggish, intolerant and, yes, racist left — wanted to see Team Blue cut down to size, even if it took a Trump to make it happen.

In the disgorgement of social media confessions that followed the election, I learned that I’m not alone. Millions of other people are just as fed up with the new left as I am. They felt the same guilty relief at the election results as I did, for the same reasons. Political commentator Wesley Yang said it best: “I still feel foreboding about Trump … But my schadenfreude toward the Democrats is totally untrammeled. I wanted to see them pay a price for their derangements.”

Democratic strategists, take note.

Gabrielle Bauer is an award-winning journalist and author based in Toronto. Her book “Blindsight Is 2020” was published in 2023.Tags 2024 presidential election Donald Trump


Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

SPONSORED CONTENT

Privacy Policy

Millions of Americans Are Canceling Cable TV Because of This Smart DeviceWaveMaxPro|SponsoredClick Here

I’m partnering with IFCJIFCJ | The Fellowship|SponsoredLearn More

Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Supports IFCJ & IsraelIFCJ | The Fellowship|SponsoredLearn More

These Barefoot Shoes are Leaving Neuropathy Experts BaffledBarefoot Vitality|Sponsored

Debt Collectors Hate When You Do This (But They Can’t Stop You)FinanceBuzz|SponsoredRead More

People Birth Before 1976 Offered Benefit They Never Heard Of Through NovemberTheWalletWatcher.com|Sponsored

3 Toxic Foods For Dogs: The One Meat You Should Never Feed Your DogExpert In Pet Health|Sponsored

Neurologists Shocked: Barefoot Shoes are The Best Thing You Can Do in 2024Barefoot Vitality|Sponsored

Millions Are Ditching Cable Because of This Genius $39 DeviceWaveMaxPro|Sponsored

Vet Begs Owners: Never Give This Toxic Meat To Your DogExpert In Pet Health|Sponsored

An empty bowl is an empty heart.Donate to the ASPCA.|SponsoredDonate Now

Will you help feed a hungry animal?Donate to the ASPCA.|SponsoredDonate Now

Doctor Explains Do This Immediately “To Go” When You’re Backed Upresetdigestion|SponsoredLearn More

Eye Bag Reducer Keeps Selling Out On Amazon – Find Out WhyThe Beauty Edit|SponsoredLearn More

Seniors Are Flooding This Site Before December To Take Advantage Of These 19 BenefitsSeniorDiscounts.Pro|SponsoredLearn More

Ozempic Hailed ‘Miracle Of Weight Loss’ – Get It Dirt CheapOzempic|SponsoredClick Here

Consumers Say Their Cats Love These Warm and ‘addictive’ Sleeping BagsCat Sleeping Bag|SponsoredLearn More

The Highland Cow Doll Is Taking New York By StormHighland Cow Toy|SponsoredLearn More

More Campaign News

A new path forward for Black America 

Campaign  /  46 mins ago

Trump’s 2024 win highlights Democrats’ economic challenge

Opinion / 20 hours ago

How a French political movement from the 1950s helps explain Trump’s win

Campaign / 23 hours ago

The Democratic Party has no credibility on building democracy 

Campaign / 1 day ago

See All

Video/Hill.TV

Rising: November 15, 2024

Rising  /  20 hours ago

Rising: November 14, 2024

Rising  /  2 days ago

Rising: November 13, 2024

Rising  /  3 days ago

See all Hill.TVSee all Video

Top Stories

The Memo: Trump spoils for a fight with controversial Cabinet picks

Campaign  /  3 hours ago

See All

Most Popular

null

DON’T MISS A BRIEF.SIGN UP FOR OUR DAILY EMAIL.

TheHill.com

Follow Us On

Get the App

Get the Android app from Google Play

Get the Android app from Google Play

Get the iOS app from App Store

Get the iOS app from App Store

THE HILL 400 N CAPITOL STREET NW, SUITE 650 WASHINGTON DC 20002

© 1998 – 2024 Nexstar Media Inc. | All Rights Reserved.

nullhttps://postrelease.com/iframes/topics.html

Whoopi Goldberg and the Leftist Echo Chamber

Whoopi Goldberg says she can’t leave America as she promised, if Trump won.

Why not?

Because, she says, she’s too poor to live without her income as one of the lead shrews on The View.

Whoopi Goldberg is worth $30 million–at a minimum. This is why Democrat Communists lost. They think $30 million is poverty.

It also shows how they live in psychological echo chambers. The horrific spectacle we see on The View represents the inner works of a woke leftist mind.

No amount of money can ever fix these people.

Follow Dr. Hurd on Facebook. Search under “Michael Hurd” (Charleston SC). Get up-to-the-minute postings, recommended articles and links, and engage in back-and-forth discussion with Dr. Hurd on topics of interest. Also follow Dr. Hurd on X at @MichaelJHurd1, drmichaelhurd on Instagram, @DrHurd on TruthSocial. Dr. Hurd is also now a Newsmax Insider!

We All Have Don Jr. to Thank for This.

This November 28th, when America counts its blessings, top of my list will be Donald J. Trump, Jr. He is really the guy who made the success of 2024 possible.

If you think back to 2016, the whole Trump effort, it was not just unlikely, it was ridiculous. The campaign consisted mostly of Donald Trump’s stream-of-consciousness Tweets and phone calls to various talks shows. Volunteers from around the country organized their own events for him, because there was no real traditional campaign organization. Some went very well. Others, not so much, like the March 2016 rally at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Smack in the middle of one of America’s premier left-wing neighborhoods, it turned into an ANTIFA-style riot. 

Trump’s personnel choices were equally odd. For his campaign communication director, he chose the beautiful, but shy, fashion model Hope Hicks. Hicks refused to do an on-camera interview and communicated with the working press by handing out Xerox copies of her memos.

When he got to the White House, Pres. Trump was immediately handicapped by poor organization and some awful hires. Most Trump people came in one of three flavors — loyal, but incompetent, like Mike Flynn. The just plain incompetent, like Coats and Sessions. And worst of all, the incompetent and outright perfidious, like Gens. Kelly, Mattis, and McMaster.

Most of that last category seem to be people Ivanka and Jared wanted.

Unsurprisingly, this team of scrubs was no match for the D.C. Swamp. Much of the anger and frustration of Trump and his supporters on Jan 6, 2021, was fueled by the realization of just how badly they were served by people who were supposed to be on their side.

If you are somebody like Rudy Giuliani, tirelessly working with Pres. Trump to save the country, and you see him get him impeached for properly trying to investigate the Biden bribery scandals or have the Deep State run a game to falsely impugn the Hunter Biden laptop or worst of all, see the Deep State’s outrageous Russiagate scandal, which was cooked up by Hillary Clinton’s people. Then yes, you may even start to think the voting machines in Georgia could be rigged.

After the disappointing 2022 midterms, most people (including me) gave Donald Trump no chance. DeSantis even passed by him in the betting odds.

Behind the scenes, however, it was Don who started to bring some order to the chaos of Trump world. Until then, he had been the second banana in the family behind Ivanka and Jared. But they were bored with the whole political scene after 2020 and moved on. Especially after Jared got Qatar to bail him out of his high-rise real estate disaster.

Sponsored

Don (and his brother Eric) had spent most of the first Trump term in New York, ably running the Trump business, even as they had to meet a make-or-break deadline to refinance their holdings. Then, it was finally Don’s turn to help assist his father’s political operation and did he ever.   

Don began with hiring Susie Wiles to run the national campaign. Wiles got her start with Jack Kemp, then worked for Ronald Reagan all eight years. She has a marvelous record of running campaigns. When she became available after a falling out with Ron DeSantis, she was welcomed into the 2020 campaign, and then tabbed to run the whole 2024 effort. This was a great move. She has a whole ecosystem of competent people around her, and she got Trump organized and focused on the issues.

The unprecedented lawfare attack by the Biden administration in 2023 was met calmly and became a rallying point for people who had seen enough of the Democrats’ dirty tricks.

Don was also the talent scout, bringing in fresh new faces who could make a difference. He was the one who got Ronna McDaniel ousted from the RNC and brought in Charlie Kirk to implement more modern election tactics. Whereas in 2020, President Trump decried early voting; in 2024, Don was convinced those were now the rules and we had to outdo the Democrats.

It was Don who befriended JD Vance, seeing he was budding star, and had his father endorse him in a crowded Senate primary. Don also lobbied for him as VP pick, which proved an inspired choice, as he connected with younger voters.

When it is all said and done, it will also probably be revealed Don was the one reaching out to Elon Musk years ago, when he turned against Biden and decided to save free speech on social media. This at a time when Donald Trump, Sr. was holding his infamous Dinner With the Schmucks.

Remember, it was Jared and Ivanka who kept attaching President Trump to ridiculous celebrities like Kanye West and the Kardashians. While it was Don who built a network of serious people to help the country, like Peter Theil. 

The first days of the Trump transition are now going like the last days of the Trump campaign — focused, efficient, and smooth. I suspect that’s in large measure due again to Don and he is likely the one recommending all the solid cabinet picks.

Thanks to Donald J. Trump, Jr., I think Trump 47 is going to be a far more successful experience than Trump 45.

Frank Friday is an attorney in Louisville, KY.   

Totalitarianism is addictive

My training, education, and professional practice taught me narcissists and sociopath don’t change. And you can expect more of the same going forward.

If anything, there will be an escalation of their venom.

Evidence for my points?

In her “concession” speech, Harris lectured us (expecially Trump supporters) on the need to accept election results.

She essentially said, “Unlike Trump supporters, we accept election results.”

If you believe this, then you probably believe in the command-and-control, centrally run economy that Kamala and Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., tried to impose.

The very Democrats who lectured us on the need to be civil and accept election results refuse to acknowledge the critical importance of election integrity.

Instead of accepting an open investigation into alleged voting irregularities, as secure people might do, they threatened and imprisoned those who dared for daring to question.

Democrats’ civility and “acceptance” are fake.

Kamala, her entire party — still led by Obama, and supported by Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, Walz, and others, want control, not freedom…

Find the full article HERE.

Follow Dr. Hurd on Facebook. Search under “Michael Hurd” (Charleston SC). Get up-to-the-minute postings, recommended articles and links, and engage in back-and-forth discussion with Dr. Hurd on topics of interest. Also follow Dr. Hurd on X at @MichaelJHurd1, drmichaelhurd on Instagram, @DrHurd on TruthSocial. Dr. Hurd is also now a Newsmax Insider!

Totalitarianism is addictive.

My training, education, and professional practice taught me narcissists and sociopath don’t change. And you can expect more of the same going forward.

If anything, there will be an escalation of their venom.

Evidence for my points?

In her “concession” speech, Harris lectured us (expecially Trump supporters) on the need to accept election results.

She essentially said, “Unlike Trump supporters, we accept election results.”

If you believe this, then you probably believe in the command-and-control, centrally run economy that Kamala and Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., tried to impose.

The very Democrats who lectured us on the need to be civil and accept election results refuse to acknowledge the critical importance of election integrity.

Instead of accepting an open investigation into alleged voting irregularities, as secure people might do, they threatened and imprisoned those who dared for daring to question.

Democrats’ civility and “acceptance” are fake.

Kamala, her entire party — still led by Obama, and supported by Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, Walz, and others, want control, not freedom…

Find the full article HERE.

Follow Dr. Hurd on Facebook. Search under “Michael Hurd” (Charleston SC). Get up-to-the-minute postings, recommended articles and links, and engage in back-and-forth discussion with Dr. Hurd on topics of interest. Also follow Dr. Hurd on X at @MichaelJHurd1, drmichaelhurd on Instagram, @DrHurd on TruthSocial. Dr. Hurd is also now a Newsmax Insider!

“Burn the System Down”: Democrats Now Face Charges That They’re Actually the Ones Trying to Destroy Democracy

American Flag Burning

“Burn the System Down”: Democrats Now Face Charges That They’re Actually the Ones Trying to Destroy Democracy

(WND News Center)—Protecting democracy was a catch phrase that Democrats have used for years to explain their hatred of now President-elect Donald Trump.

He was, after all, they said, a “Hitler.” He would be a dictator. He would use the military against his political opponents, jailing them and worse.

The only salvation for America’s “democracy” would be to keep Democrats, in this election Kamala Harris, in power, they said.

Now they’ve flip-flopped, and are openly advocating for the downfall of democracy, according to new analyses.

Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, said, “Democracy appears to be losing its appeal on the left. After campaigning on panic politics and predicting the imminent death of democracy, some on the left are now calling to burn the system down in light of Republicans not only taking both houses and the White House but Trump likely winning the popular vote.”

He pointed out that it’s ironic that “Democratic politicians and pundits repeated the mantra that, if we did not elect Harris, this might be our last election.

He explained, “After losing that election, democracy appears to be the problem. The majority of Americans voting for Trump have been called ‘anti-American’ by Gov. Hochul. Other politicians and pundits have called them racists, misogynists, or weaklings seeking domination by strongmen and bullies.”

Now, as protesters are calling for demolition of “the system as a whole,” figureheads are joining.

“CNN’s Bakari Sellers wants to pressure Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to resign and replace her with Harris. Former Harris aide Jamal Simmons wants Biden to resign to allow Harris to become president despite the vote of the majority,” Turley explained.

The problem runs directly to the failing support for Democrats among voters, with Trump winning women by eight points and gaining ground among young voters, black voters, Hispanic voters and more.

“The call for Biden to simply do what the public did not want to do (in making Harris president) is particularly ironic. Many voters were repulsed by the Democrats simply making Harris the nominee after all the primaries were over. This was the candidate who could not garner any appreciable votes in the prior presidential primaries before being made Vice President by Biden. Now, the idea is that she would be elevated by the unilateral act of Biden,” Turley wrote.

Yet Simmons has insisted, “This is the moment for us to change the entire perspective of how Democrats operate.”

Sellers just wants Harris on the Supreme Court.

“At no point in history has anyone suggested that Harris was a leading legal mind. Nothing in her history suggests that she is a competent, let alone promising, candidate for the highest court,” Turley pointed out.

He noted “The one option that does not appear to be popular is to listen to the voters and actually return the Democratic Party back toward the center of our politics. The problem is now the voters themselves.”

commentary at the Federalist warned that, “Leftists are the great threat to democracy, not Trump.”

“They chose the most extreme politician to run for president, through an antidemocratic process of selection. She epitomized the two great idols of the Democratic Party, its raison d’être: unrestricted ‘reproductive freedom’ (abortion) and coercive LGBTQ immorality. Harris in turn chose the most politically extreme running mate she could find, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.”

The writer, Robert Gagnon, explained the leftists controlled the news media, social media, colleges and universities, entertainment industry, Fortune 500 companies and more, and they still wanted more power.

He cited the Democrats’ attempts at a one-party state through massive illegal immigration, their push for “trans insanity,” “compelled speech” for pronouns, “unrestricted” abortion, including coercion for doctors and pharmacists who had religious objections to destroying the unborn.

Then they talked of packing the Supreme Court, ending the Senate filibuster and adding four senators to their party roll.

“The majority of Americans now see that the biggest threat to our republic is the Democratic Party that runs most of the country. We finally just got tired of the political extremism and totalitarianism. That’s why Harris-Walz lost and why Trump-Vance won,” the commentary said.

Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@wndnewscenter.org.

This article was originally published by the WND News Center.t

© 2024 🔔 The Liberty Daily

Well, ya can’t win ’em all.

I’m surprised by the ease with which I’m taking this. I was far more worried in ’16, but Trump will have far fewer constraints on his worst impulses this time around, and is poised to bring on average a much worse group of people to his admin than during his first term. The main reason this doesn’t seem nearly as dire a prospect is that Trump himself has declined so noticeably in vitality, and so rapidly that he may well already lack the energy to really yeltsin things up. We might even be lucky enough to have this be an abbreviated term, with him stepping down at the two-year mark to focus his last years on hedonism.

The effect of burnout and normalization can’t be neglected, neither. As creatures of flesh, there’s only so much we can chemically expend on panic before we burn out. This may well be a much worse term than the first. For as old as DJT is, he’s still only a year younger than Ayatollah Khomeini was before his own assumption of supreme leadership. The Imam was hardly the picture of health in his dotage, and his chaos machine tragically spins on almost half a century later.1 It’s best to not underestimate the damage an unchecked elderly man with unlimited power and an unquenchable sense of grievance can inflict. But our feelings don’t care about our facts. Their chemicals have already expended themselves upon us for as long as we have invested ourselves in this shameful drama. For our youngest voters, such has been nearly half their lives.

But who is Your H.R. kidding? DJT did not win because of “normalization”. November 5th was a massacre. Worse in many ways than the more devastating Electoral College defeats of Mondale and Dukakis, as Harris’ principle shortcoming was not with any individual demographic she failed to sufficiently woo, nor whom switched votes, but with the well-over ten-million Americans who voted in 2020, and stayed home in ’24. Both candidates received lower vote totals than their parties performances four year ago. But even if neither candidate managed to convince anyone from 2020 to change tickets, and even if every voter from 2020 was still voting in 2024; then for every one absent Trump voter, there were over ten Harris voters who did the same. An eight-figure loss in voters. Nearly a sixth of the prior cycle’s coalition.

When John McCain lost to Barack Obama in ’08, the Republicans were short only a twentieth of the prior cycle’s numbers. Hillary wasn’t even a hundredth short of Obama 2012; losing only due to the quirk of the Electoral College. Romney, Kerry, Dole, and even Dukakis all improved their popular numbers on their party’s prior presidential performance. The last and only time the Dems — or any other American political party, including the ones that no longer exist — have seen an eight-figure loss in voters was 1968, and that was with one of their own candidates running a poison-pill independent campaign as revenge for the passage of the ’64 Civil Rights Act. Even without a George Wallace, the Democrats have lost in Humphreyesque fashion.Subscribe

But at least this loss was convincing. There will be no coup attempt this January at least. Nor will there be any way to frame this loss as a matter of tactics. It’s not possible to lose a real election this decisively because of merely picking the wrong V.P., or not visiting the right states. This was a strategic defeat. Woke is not dead, but the American public, having the agenda forced upon us by the majority of our intelligentsia and our institutions, with a general trend of increasing intensity since the Civil Rights Movement, reject the theory with each degree it forces itself to be practice. To the point where we will actively choose the dumber and more criminal option if it means keeping the saddle of racial and sexual bolshevism off our backs. Though I myself personally think this was still the worse of the two options, Your H.R. is only one man. Millions of others, who only four years earlier gave the Democrats a chance to show they could be our return to normalcy, felt betrayed enough by their about face to either switch teams or not care.

A major shakeup is in order. One which may well not be for the better. Plenty already are calling the Harris candidacy a failure due to being too centrist. A preposterous argument, but one which might well win out anyway if a sufficiently charismatic, ideologic, and demagogic figure can capture the ’28 nomination. But such a deep commitment to recapturing the dumb-people vote would be a tremendous negative step for the nation, as we already have one party so skilled at the art as to be futile to challenge. The far better option would be for the Party of Elite Human Capital to finally realize that the longstanding liberal rejection of human biodiversity, or even the very concept of innate ideas and capabilities, will always fail upon contact with reality. And any attempts to undo this condition of mankind via social engineering will be doomed to failure, disappointment, and the needless infliction of cruelty on endless generations of fresh victims. Genetic engineering, IVF, or even a rise in public awareness of the importance of genetics for human intelligence: all could well bring the meaningful gains that generations of social policy have failed to provide. But policy must be made for the real world. Not imaginary ones. And even if and when we do bring about these meaningful gains, they still won’t mean we won’t have general intelligence gaps between both individuals and groups, as well as gaps in all other talents and abilities. Far better to accept the world as is and restore and recommit to our historic Anglo commitment to individual liberty, rather than foolish Franco commitment to group equality.

Unlikely? Yes. But it’s still an option.

Far more pressing is that the Republicans have now elected an honest-Injun2 HBD-pilled presidential ticket. This offers tremendous opportunity to undo decades of bad policies. The Hananian reform agenda, lain out in The Origins of Woke, may well see enactment, and the retard brigade selfishly promised jobs by our grovering chief executive may well prove only as lasting as Scaramucci. Much can be done by the Republicans to persuade smart people to vote for them again, in particular the breaking of disparate impact standards at the wheel, and the further securement of the Supreme Court to ensure the expungement of as much Warren and Burger awfulness as possible.

But Your H.R. won’t get his hopes up too much. Rightoid brainlessness and bigotry was a pressing enough concern to lose my vote even after the Biden administration proved even more of a failure than the first Trump administration. Those who willingly seek the exploitation of such forces are to be trusted even less than those sincerely stupid enough to be true believers, but the chance to avoid dealing with these people entirely was tossed aside long ago. Shameful toadying, sadly, will be the best option for many, including most of all those that deserve better. If Zelensky has to rename the Crimean Peninsula into Donaldea, or offer daughter Oleksandra’s hand in marriage to Barron,3 if such indignity be the price which need save Eastern Europe from Ruskie belligerence and restore the sovereignty of the post-Soviet era, so be it. The world as is must be the measure of our options, and many cruel choices await us, but though our short-term hopes be shattered again and again, the hope of long-term victory only grows more promising. The generation-past wish of America being more like Europe now appears hopelessly foolish even to the same leftoids who once supported it. The threats of Russia and China, though real and growing, have been again and again exposed for their extreme crookery and hollowness, masturbating themselves and their populations with chauvinism until they’ve comfortably covered up the memory of their extensive corruption and tremendous poverty relative to the Free World. History has not ended, but there is still no conceivable rival to the United States of America as the World’s supreme power, and even our worst presidents can’t ruin things enough to change that course in the foreseeable future.

We are still, by far, the country to bet on. That covers up a lot of heartache. Even for those suffering so large a defeat as November 5th.

Thanks for reading H.R.’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Well, ya can’t win ’em all.

I’m surprised by the ease with which I’m taking this. I was far more worried in ’16, but Trump will have far fewer constraints on his worst impulses this time around, and is poised to bring on average a much worse group of people to his admin than during his first term. The main reason this doesn’t seem nearly as dire a prospect is that Trump himself has declined so noticeably in vitality, and so rapidly that he may well already lack the energy to really yeltsin things up. We might even be lucky enough to have this be an abbreviated term, with him stepping down at the two-year mark to focus his last years on hedonism.

The effect of burnout and normalization can’t be neglected, neither. As creatures of flesh, there’s only so much we can chemically expend on panic before we burn out. This may well be a much worse term than the first. For as old as DJT is, he’s still only a year younger than Ayatollah Khomeini was before his own assumption of supreme leadership. The Imam was hardly the picture of health in his dotage, and his chaos machine tragically spins on almost half a century later.1 It’s best to not underestimate the damage an unchecked elderly man with unlimited power and an unquenchable sense of grievance can inflict. But our feelings don’t care about our facts. Their chemicals have already expended themselves upon us for as long as we have invested ourselves in this shameful drama. For our youngest voters, such has been nearly half their lives.

But who is Your H.R. kidding? DJT did not win because of “normalization”. November 5th was a massacre. Worse in many ways than the more devastating Electoral College defeats of Mondale and Dukakis, as Harris’ principle shortcoming was not with any individual demographic she failed to sufficiently woo, nor whom switched votes, but with the well-over ten-million Americans who voted in 2020, and stayed home in ’24. Both candidates received lower vote totals than their parties performances four year ago. But even if neither candidate managed to convince anyone from 2020 to change tickets, and even if every voter from 2020 was still voting in 2024; then for every one absent Trump voter, there were over ten Harris voters who did the same. An eight-figure loss in voters. Nearly a sixth of the prior cycle’s coalition.

When John McCain lost to Barack Obama in ’08, the Republicans were short only a twentieth of the prior cycle’s numbers. Hillary wasn’t even a hundredth short of Obama 2012; losing only due to the quirk of the Electoral College. Romney, Kerry, Dole, and even Dukakis all improved their popular numbers on their party’s prior presidential performance. The last and only time the Dems — or any other American political party, including the ones that no longer exist — have seen an eight-figure loss in voters was 1968, and that was with one of their own candidates running a poison-pill independent campaign as revenge for the passage of the ’64 Civil Rights Act. Even without a George Wallace, the Democrats have lost in Humphreyesque fashion.Subscribe

But at least this loss was convincing. There will be no coup attempt this January at least. Nor will there be any way to frame this loss as a matter of tactics. It’s not possible to lose a real election this decisively because of merely picking the wrong V.P., or not visiting the right states. This was a strategic defeat. Woke is not dead, but the American public, having the agenda forced upon us by the majority of our intelligentsia and our institutions, with a general trend of increasing intensity since the Civil Rights Movement, reject the theory with each degree it forces itself to be practice. To the point where we will actively choose the dumber and more criminal option if it means keeping the saddle of racial and sexual bolshevism off our backs. Though I myself personally think this was still the worse of the two options, Your H.R. is only one man. Millions of others, who only four years earlier gave the Democrats a chance to show they could be our return to normalcy, felt betrayed enough by their about face to either switch teams or not care.

A major shakeup is in order. One which may well not be for the better. Plenty already are calling the Harris candidacy a failure due to being too centrist. A preposterous argument, but one which might well win out anyway if a sufficiently charismatic, ideologic, and demagogic figure can capture the ’28 nomination. But such a deep commitment to recapturing the dumb-people vote would be a tremendous negative step for the nation, as we already have one party so skilled at the art as to be futile to challenge. The far better option would be for the Party of Elite Human Capital to finally realize that the longstanding liberal rejection of human biodiversity, or even the very concept of innate ideas and capabilities, will always fail upon contact with reality. And any attempts to undo this condition of mankind via social engineering will be doomed to failure, disappointment, and the needless infliction of cruelty on endless generations of fresh victims. Genetic engineering, IVF, or even a rise in public awareness of the importance of genetics for human intelligence: all could well bring the meaningful gains that generations of social policy have failed to provide. But policy must be made for the real world. Not imaginary ones. And even if and when we do bring about these meaningful gains, they still won’t mean we won’t have general intelligence gaps between both individuals and groups, as well as gaps in all other talents and abilities. Far better to accept the world as is and restore and recommit to our historic Anglo commitment to individual liberty, rather than foolish Franco commitment to group equality.

Unlikely? Yes. But it’s still an option.

Far more pressing is that the Republicans have now elected an honest-Injun2 HBD-pilled presidential ticket. This offers tremendous opportunity to undo decades of bad policies. The Hananian reform agenda, lain out in The Origins of Woke, may well see enactment, and the retard brigade selfishly promised jobs by our grovering chief executive may well prove only as lasting as Scaramucci. Much can be done by the Republicans to persuade smart people to vote for them again, in particular the breaking of disparate impact standards at the wheel, and the further securement of the Supreme Court to ensure the expungement of as much Warren and Burger awfulness as possible.

But Your H.R. won’t get his hopes up too much. Rightoid brainlessness and bigotry was a pressing enough concern to lose my vote even after the Biden administration proved even more of a failure than the first Trump administration. Those who willingly seek the exploitation of such forces are to be trusted even less than those sincerely stupid enough to be true believers, but the chance to avoid dealing with these people entirely was tossed aside long ago. Shameful toadying, sadly, will be the best option for many, including most of all those that deserve better. If Zelensky has to rename the Crimean Peninsula into Donaldea, or offer daughter Oleksandra’s hand in marriage to Barron,3 if such indignity be the price which need save Eastern Europe from Ruskie belligerence and restore the sovereignty of the post-Soviet era, so be it. The world as is must be the measure of our options, and many cruel choices await us, but though our short-term hopes be shattered again and again, the hope of long-term victory only grows more promising. The generation-past wish of America being more like Europe now appears hopelessly foolish even to the same leftoids who once supported it. The threats of Russia and China, though real and growing, have been again and again exposed for their extreme crookery and hollowness, masturbating themselves and their populations with chauvinism until they’ve comfortably covered up the memory of their extensive corruption and tremendous poverty relative to the Free World. History has not ended, but there is still no conceivable rival to the United States of America as the World’s supreme power, and even our worst presidents can’t ruin things enough to change that course in the foreseeable future.

We are still, by far, the country to bet on. That covers up a lot of heartache. Even for those suffering so large a defeat as November 5th.

Thanks for reading H.R.’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Democrats Now Must Rebuild Their Obliterated Party

The Bulwark

JoinSign in

Home

Podcasts

Newsletters

Chat

Special Projects

Events

Founders

Store

Archive

About

Democrats Now Must Rebuild Their Obliterated Party

The same cast won’t be returning next season.

A.B. Stoddard

Nov 08, 2024

179

12

Share

(The Bulwark / Midjourney)

THREE MONTHS AGO, the Democratic party looked robust. It was willing to push a sitting president off the ticket because of his advanced age, then it quickly united around another candidate. The Republican party, by contrast, was sticking with its (also old) convicted criminal. Parties exist to win elections, not launder money to their nominee’s lawyers or tend to the egos of elderly men—and the Democrats showed they understood that.

But that party was demolished on Tuesday.

Democrats are now reeling, and not only because of the breadth of Donald Trump’s rout, which points to a historic realignment in the electorate that will force them to adapt their policies and messaging—but also because their entire apparatus just fell apart. Their team is busted. All the big players have just participated in, and influenced, their last election. They will have their opinions, and they will render declarations, but they are done.

President Joe Biden crawls, humiliated, into retirement in January after being expelled. He will be blamed forever by many of his fellow Democrats for Trump’s return to power. Kamala Harris, a vice president and former senator who never had deep roots in the party, has suffered a devastating defeat. And while Harris sources said her concession speech Wednesday was designed to position her to remain a party leader, that appears naïve.

Get 30 day free trial

Trump has defeated not one but two women, the nation’s first and only females to become major party presidential nominees. As a consequence, popular Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and progressive star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are now unlikely to lead their party.

Indeed, given the country’s populist turn, the Democratic party may shy away from elite lawyers in the future—bad news for Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. Someone like Sen. John Fetterman or Rep. Ruben Gallego—a former Marine who grew up poor, had his own bed for the first time when he arrived at Harvard University, and seems poised to soon be Arizona’s senator-elect—may be smarter choices. Gavin Newsom need not apply.

As for who will champion the party’s ideas and reinvigorate the demoralized grassroots behind new candidates—those jobs are open too.

The Clintons and the Obamas, of the free-trade establishment and of the past, won’t be wanted in a party that must reposition itself to win over working-class voters it has hemorrhaged since 2016.

Rep. James Clyburn, age 84, helped Biden win the party’s nomination in 2020 but he is not playing kingmaker anymore.

Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer, age 73, has never been influential in the party and is now headed into the wilderness as Senate Democrats are unlikely to regain a majority in the chamber for the foreseeable future.

Jaime Harrison who runs the Democratic National Committee, will pass the baton in humility and bewilderment . . . but to whom?Join

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who has served just one term as leader of the House Democrats, is the only current leader who will be part of the future Democratic party.

Nancy Pelosi remains the only senior leader in the party with any moral authority. Had she not succeeded in pushing Biden out in July, Trump’s victory would have been far larger. She passed power successfully to Jeffries and is a shrewd strategist connected at all levels who will be clear eyed about the party’s path forward. But she is also 84 and was just elected to her twentieth term in the House.

It’s hard to know where to start.

Trump’s smashing win shows he has built a durable and diverse working-class coalition. He held strong with every voting bloc, and made gains with most. In 2020, he lost Latino men to Biden by 36 to 59 percent; this year, he won them 55 to 43. Many women voted for abortion rights ballot initiatives while supporting Trump, whose Supreme Court justices helped overturn RoeYoung men under age 30, whom Biden won by 15 points four years ago, now voted for Trump by 14 points. The entire country, including blue states, moved rightward.

This affirmed the GOP argument that Democrats are considered elitist and out of touch, speaking only to the 43 percent of the electorate with college degrees. They are seen as soft on crime, wrong on energy production, and as radical culture warriors who expect us all to welcome boys on to girls sports teams and say “birthing persons;” people who, in a quest for social justice, label everyone who disagrees with them bigots and racists.

Trump’s advertisements during football games about Harris supporting prisoners having taxpayer-funded sex-change operations in prison didn’t just resonate because it turned off Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. At a deeper level, it raised doubts that no matter how centrist she sounded in her campaign she might give in to pressure from the left.

Keep up with all our articles, newsletters, livestreams, and podcasts:Join


SINCE DEMOCRATS’ DEFEAT ON TUESDAY, two camps have already formed and are leaking to the media. One believes that if only Biden had left sooner and there had been a primary, Harris (or someone else) could have become a stronger candidate and prevailed. The other accepts that Harris never had a chance and argues that no Democrat could have stopped a Trump victory.

Not all of the recriminations are productive. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who should also take a bow, excoriated Democrats the day after the election for abandoning working-class people. He criticized sending billions to the Israeli government for its “all out war against the Palestinian people” and questioned whether Democrats “have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not.”

Since all those working-class Americans just voted for Trump’s corrosive plan to give Elon Musk unfettered power in his administration, yes, it’s true: Democrats probably don’t have any idea how to do that.

Jaime Harrison slapped back at Sanders on Thursday, calling his criticism “straight up BS” and crediting Biden with being the most pro-worker president of his lifetime.

Rep. Ro Khanna, a progressive considered a future presidential candidate, called for the party to start over. “There needs to be new thinking, new ideas and a new direction. And, you know, the establishment produced a disaster.”

Others, however, are blaming progressives. Rep. Ritchie Torres argued that the left has “managed to alienate historic numbers of Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Jews from the Democratic Party with absurdities like ‘Defund the Police’ or ‘From the River to the Sea’ or ‘Latinx.’” He added that “the working class is not buying the ivory-towered nonsense that the far left is selling.”

Given this rift, finding consensus on a new policy agenda will be confounding. Democrats support expanding health care, lowering the cost of prescription drugs, taxing the wealthy, raising the minimum wage, expanding Medicaid and Medicare, paid family leave, and childcare support. All of which are popular, and most of which Republicans oppose. They will argue over how this is messaged—and will presumably struggle to argue that if the economy stays strong in the next few years, it should be attributed to Biden’s legislative accomplishments—like the CHIPS Act, the infrastructure bill, and new clean energy manufacturing in the Inflation Reduction Act—and not to Trump policies.

Share The Bulwark


DEMOCRATS WILL UNITE against Trump and his policies, too. But they must overcome intraparty division on immigration. The party needs to back new restrictions while opposing Trump’s promised plans for massive deportations of immigrants. They can’t deny that Biden’s failure to control the border was a huge gift to Trump. It grew during his term to become a top concern across the political spectrum and added to a sense of chaos. As David Frum warned, so aptly, in 2019: “If Liberals Won’t Enforce Borders, Fascists Will.”

Trump will not convince other nations to absorb 15 million people but he will round up thousands and likely hold them in internment camps, which could become a spectacle as vivid and troubling as the family-separation policy of Trump’s first term and will damage the economy as well. Democrats should again push for passage of the strict border-security bill written by Sen. James Lankford that Trump spiked.

Finally, as Democrats attempt to appeal to those who have stopped hearing them, they should recognize that voters no longer want to hear about Trump.

He will use the power of his second term in dangerous, and likely unconstitutional, ways. The results could be calamitous. But a majority of voters—even after his coup attempt—have given him permission to do as he pleases. And so has the Supreme Court. If Democrats want to secure an electoral majority again, they will have to choose their battles.

They will also have to get much better at talking with people, and listening to them. Trump will work hard to make sure fewer and fewer voters listen to Democrats, and that he’s doing all the talking.

The Bulwark

The Bulwark

JoinSign in

Home

Podcasts

Newsletters

Chat

Special Projects

Events

Founders

Store

Archive

About

Democrats Now Must Rebuild Their Obliterated Party

The same cast won’t be returning next season.

A.B. Stoddard

Nov 08, 2024

179

12

Share

(The Bulwark / Midjourney)

THREE MONTHS AGO, the Democratic party looked robust. It was willing to push a sitting president off the ticket because of his advanced age, then it quickly united around another candidate. The Republican party, by contrast, was sticking with its (also old) convicted criminal. Parties exist to win elections, not launder money to their nominee’s lawyers or tend to the egos of elderly men—and the Democrats showed they understood that.

But that party was demolished on Tuesday.

Democrats are now reeling, and not only because of the breadth of Donald Trump’s rout, which points to a historic realignment in the electorate that will force them to adapt their policies and messaging—but also because their entire apparatus just fell apart. Their team is busted. All the big players have just participated in, and influenced, their last election. They will have their opinions, and they will render declarations, but they are done.

President Joe Biden crawls, humiliated, into retirement in January after being expelled. He will be blamed forever by many of his fellow Democrats for Trump’s return to power. Kamala Harris, a vice president and former senator who never had deep roots in the party, has suffered a devastating defeat. And while Harris sources said her concession speech Wednesday was designed to position her to remain a party leader, that appears naïve.

Get 30 day free trial

Trump has defeated not one but two women, the nation’s first and only females to become major party presidential nominees. As a consequence, popular Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and progressive star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are now unlikely to lead their party.

Indeed, given the country’s populist turn, the Democratic party may shy away from elite lawyers in the future—bad news for Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. Someone like Sen. John Fetterman or Rep. Ruben Gallego—a former Marine who grew up poor, had his own bed for the first time when he arrived at Harvard University, and seems poised to soon be Arizona’s senator-elect—may be smarter choices. Gavin Newsom need not apply.

As for who will champion the party’s ideas and reinvigorate the demoralized grassroots behind new candidates—those jobs are open too.

The Clintons and the Obamas, of the free-trade establishment and of the past, won’t be wanted in a party that must reposition itself to win over working-class voters it has hemorrhaged since 2016.

Rep. James Clyburn, age 84, helped Biden win the party’s nomination in 2020 but he is not playing kingmaker anymore.

Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer, age 73, has never been influential in the party and is now headed into the wilderness as Senate Democrats are unlikely to regain a majority in the chamber for the foreseeable future.

Jaime Harrison who runs the Democratic National Committee, will pass the baton in humility and bewilderment . . . but to whom?Join

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who has served just one term as leader of the House Democrats, is the only current leader who will be part of the future Democratic party.

Nancy Pelosi remains the only senior leader in the party with any moral authority. Had she not succeeded in pushing Biden out in July, Trump’s victory would have been far larger. She passed power successfully to Jeffries and is a shrewd strategist connected at all levels who will be clear eyed about the party’s path forward. But she is also 84 and was just elected to her twentieth term in the House.

It’s hard to know where to start.

Trump’s smashing win shows he has built a durable and diverse working-class coalition. He held strong with every voting bloc, and made gains with most. In 2020, he lost Latino men to Biden by 36 to 59 percent; this year, he won them 55 to 43. Many women voted for abortion rights ballot initiatives while supporting Trump, whose Supreme Court justices helped overturn RoeYoung men under age 30, whom Biden won by 15 points four years ago, now voted for Trump by 14 points. The entire country, including blue states, moved rightward.

This affirmed the GOP argument that Democrats are considered elitist and out of touch, speaking only to the 43 percent of the electorate with college degrees. They are seen as soft on crime, wrong on energy production, and as radical culture warriors who expect us all to welcome boys on to girls sports teams and say “birthing persons;” people who, in a quest for social justice, label everyone who disagrees with them bigots and racists.

Trump’s advertisements during football games about Harris supporting prisoners having taxpayer-funded sex-change operations in prison didn’t just resonate because it turned off Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. At a deeper level, it raised doubts that no matter how centrist she sounded in her campaign she might give in to pressure from the left.

Keep up with all our articles, newsletters, livestreams, and podcasts:Join


SINCE DEMOCRATS’ DEFEAT ON TUESDAY, two camps have already formed and are leaking to the media. One believes that if only Biden had left sooner and there had been a primary, Harris (or someone else) could have become a stronger candidate and prevailed. The other accepts that Harris never had a chance and argues that no Democrat could have stopped a Trump victory.

Not all of the recriminations are productive. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who should also take a bow, excoriated Democrats the day after the election for abandoning working-class people. He criticized sending billions to the Israeli government for its “all out war against the Palestinian people” and questioned whether Democrats “have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not.”

Since all those working-class Americans just voted for Trump’s corrosive plan to give Elon Musk unfettered power in his administration, yes, it’s true: Democrats probably don’t have any idea how to do that.

Jaime Harrison slapped back at Sanders on Thursday, calling his criticism “straight up BS” and crediting Biden with being the most pro-worker president of his lifetime.

Rep. Ro Khanna, a progressive considered a future presidential candidate, called for the party to start over. “There needs to be new thinking, new ideas and a new direction. And, you know, the establishment produced a disaster.”

Others, however, are blaming progressives. Rep. Ritchie Torres argued that the left has “managed to alienate historic numbers of Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Jews from the Democratic Party with absurdities like ‘Defund the Police’ or ‘From the River to the Sea’ or ‘Latinx.’” He added that “the working class is not buying the ivory-towered nonsense that the far left is selling.”

Given this rift, finding consensus on a new policy agenda will be confounding. Democrats support expanding health care, lowering the cost of prescription drugs, taxing the wealthy, raising the minimum wage, expanding Medicaid and Medicare, paid family leave, and childcare support. All of which are popular, and most of which Republicans oppose. They will argue over how this is messaged—and will presumably struggle to argue that if the economy stays strong in the next few years, it should be attributed to Biden’s legislative accomplishments—like the CHIPS Act, the infrastructure bill, and new clean energy manufacturing in the Inflation Reduction Act—and not to Trump policies.

Share The Bulwark


DEMOCRATS WILL UNITE against Trump and his policies, too. But they must overcome intraparty division on immigration. The party needs to back new restrictions while opposing Trump’s promised plans for massive deportations of immigrants. They can’t deny that Biden’s failure to control the border was a huge gift to Trump. It grew during his term to become a top concern across the political spectrum and added to a sense of chaos. As David Frum warned, so aptly, in 2019: “If Liberals Won’t Enforce Borders, Fascists Will.”

Trump will not convince other nations to absorb 15 million people but he will round up thousands and likely hold them in internment camps, which could become a spectacle as vivid and troubling as the family-separation policy of Trump’s first term and will damage the economy as well. Democrats should again push for passage of the strict border-security bill written by Sen. James Lankford that Trump spiked.

Finally, as Democrats attempt to appeal to those who have stopped hearing them, they should recognize that voters no longer want to hear about Trump.

He will use the power of his second term in dangerous, and likely unconstitutional, ways. The results could be calamitous. But a majority of voters—even after his coup attempt—have given him permission to do as he pleases. And so has the Supreme Court. If Democrats want to secure an electoral majority again, they will have to choose their battles.

hey will also have to get much better at talking with people, and listening to them. Trump will work hard to make sure fewer and fewer voters listen to Democrats, and that he’s doing all the talking.