Every morning, like millions of other conservatives in the United States, I wake up to multiple pleas from Republicans to send money NOW!!! to save the Senate. The latest garbage polls show Perdue a quarter-point ahead and Ms Loeffler half-a-point behind, but, given the rate at which the dodgy mail ballots are pouring in, it's either going to be a double-header Dem landslide or a narrow enough win for the rock-ribbed two-thirds conservative majority of the Supreme Court to be terrified of hearing any lawsuit on the subject. So the GOP need even more of your dough to prevent the Dems from taking the Senate...
Well, okay. But I just wish these Republican establishment types would occasionally cough up something in return. Here's what I wrote a year ago - December 16th 2019. It helps explain, I think, why (voter fraud aside) Trump 2020 was not Trump 2016:
As Kate Smyth, doyenne of the Sydney branch of The Mark Steyn Club, put it the other day (scroll down):
Conservatives are those with positions supported by the left ten years ago, as they say.
Indeed. In 2000, when the Vermont Supreme Court mandated same-sex "civil unions", American conservatives were outraged. By 2010, when the left had moved on to gay marriage, conservatives were supportive of civil unions but insisted marriage was an ancient institution between a man and a woman. Now, the left having won that one and moved on to transgenderism, conservatives profess to be a bit queasy about transitioning grade-schoolers.
So you can take it to the bank that by 2030 rock-ribbed Republicans will be on board with penises in the girls' changing rooms, but determined to hold the line against whatever the left's next cause du jour is: human cloning, mandatory transitioning for delinquent boys, voting rights for animals.
There really isn't much point to conservatism that's just leftism ten years late, is there? It's like that ITV+1 satellite service they have in Britain that offers you the ITV schedule but an hour later, in case you were caught in traffic heading home. If you're considering on which side to bestow your tribal loyalty, the left is right quicker; the right is left behind - but only for a few years until they throw in the towel. If you're all headed to the same destination, why not ride first class on the TGV instead of the creaking, jerking stopping service? Justin Trudeau's vapid modishness was perfectly distilled by his campaign catchphrase of four years ago: "Because it's 2015." But that beats waiting till 2025 to say "Because it's 2015".
While we're on the subject of the northern Tories: Because the late unlamented Andrew Scheer finessed his views on same-sex nuptials as lethargically as did Barack Obama, he was flayed by the Canadian media as some fire-and-brimstone social conservative of televangical inflexibility. I wish. As I wrote the other day, he's as unmoored from principle as Boris Johnson, but without the countervailing strengths of being able to stick it to the other guy and to pass himself off as a human being. He was particularly contemptible in the hours before my appearance at the House of Commons Justice Committee, as I may discuss in detail one of these days. Yet the never-learn Conservatives are minded to replace an entirely hollow man with someone just like him, only more so.
It is surely telling that the only issues on which the right has made any progress at all in moving the ball in its direction - Brexit in the UK; illegal immigration and a belated honesty about the rise of China in the US - had to be injected into public discourse by two outsiders, Nigel Farage and Donald Trump. And indeed in the teeth of opposition by the establishment's catch-up conservatives.
Catch-up conservatism gives the game away: The right has lost the knack of persuasion, and increasingly doesn't even bother to try.
~If you're a Mark Steyn Club member, feel free to disagree in the comments section.
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"The right has lost the knack of persuasion, and increasingly doesn't even bother to try."
Which might almost suggest that they have become one and the same thing?
My sense is that should matters continue as they are that something rather "radical" will (very) suddenly emerge. In which case both "left" and "right" (and whatever electron microscope can tell the difference between them) will thoroughly deserve everything that consequently comes their way.
But I'm just a cap-doffing working man so what do I know?
"[Andrew Scheer] was particularly contemptible in the hours before my appearance at the House of Commons Justice Committee, as I may discuss in detail one of these days."
Soon, please.
I'd like to hear about that too. I was there,. It was shocking. Canada faces all the same problems but, in my view, at a later stage..
"one of these days"?
Why not now?
For that matter, why not well before?
Eh?
In truth, we have one leftist party, the Democrats (Socialists) and two "not leftist" parties.
Republican ≠conservative as in small state, private enterprise, individualist, freedom-loving, God-worshiping, strong defense, law and order, "Tories".
There are plenty of Republicans who believe in conformity, big state, big corporation, statism, obeying the leaders, elitism, mass immigration, perpetual war. Let's call these Whigs.
Both sides salute the flag and believe that their God is on their side.
The Mitt Romney whigs have been running the party against the interests of its populist Tory majority for many years. These last four years the Torys have had the run of the party. The Democrats and Whigs united to throw them under the bus.
I don't know how much of a run of the party the 'Torys' had. Some for sure, and Trump certainly had some significant successes. But I think he got down to Washington and found a swampy deep state that probably shocked him and whatever part of his team were really 'Torys.' I assume he anticipated much of it, but I doubt he and his team really knew the extent in the beginning.
Survival for many millions of Americans depends on getting the Whigs (Old Fat Money) out of conservative culture because they do not now represent anyone other than themselves. They have made that perfectly clear.
To the extent that they were too busy ranting - so easily - about Trump's vulgarity (Stormy Daniels anyone?) to care about *actual election fraud,* they deserve to go under and be replaced by conservatives who care about basic principles and concerns if you still want a free country.
If it happens, it'll be brutal - formerly well-funded "conservative" organizations will go under (very loudly) and new, free social media will spring up. But remember the stakes. Things will be far worse if that doesn't happen. And no one said freedom was easy.
It's a contest between zealots with an Ideology which is expected to deliver paradise and a rather disparate bunch of people with no common ideology. There are factions on the right with firm beliefs, eg the anti-abortion campaigners, but they are minorities within a minority.
We need a holy book that sets out the essentials of western democracy, the ideas and rules that everyone who wants to live in a free society must sign up to.
Indeed. And we need in to rein in woke billionaires as a matter of urgency.
Absolutely, and before they have us all (well maybe just half of us) peeing in cups like those Amazon workers, at least that's assuming we can still pee after they put us on an algae diet.
We also need to rein in anybody who thinks that where they went to college gives them special prerogatives.
Yep - the "expert" class. The managerial state. Everything must go!
PS. I know nothing about secession, but it seems to make sense when the decline and destruction are so remorseless (and intentional): a good-faith new party alone won't solve that.
We have (had) that holy book.
It's called the Constitution.
Unfortunately, and one of my long - standing pet peeves is the 16th (and 17th) amendments.
A Federal INDIVIDUAL income tax immediately made the Bill of Rights moot.
I wish I had the eloquence of the Steyn Club "poets" but I just had to get that in...
I think it's an interesting dichotomy that the Commie end of the Democrat spectrum is unsatisfied with the relatively more moderate end of the party and is calling for a change in leadership, as expressed lately by AOC and there doesn't seem to be much in the way of objection, even from those being targeted (i.e. Pee-losi and Senator half-glasses-resting-on-the-end-of his-nose). Let's look at the GOP side of the coin. Somebody like Donald Trump comes along and is made out to be the next incarnation of Hitler because he wants protect our economy, jobs and culture from those who are here illegally and those who want to come here illegally. When Donald Trump descended on the escalator in 2015 and declared what his positions are, the blow back from his own party was astonishing. When he took office, both chambers of Congress were controlled by his party but they stonewalled him at every turn until the mid-terms handed the House over to the Democrats. So, it seems the moderate wing, as it were, of the Democrat party is in trouble because they are not extreme enough and the moderate wing of the GOP is running the show on their end because they think issues like immigration and law and order are too inflammatory. Aren't there any power hungry GOP wannabes out there who are takers for Trumpism only for the sake of getting in office, even if they don't really believe in it? I'm not necessarily talking about the White House. I'm talking about local, state and Congressional elections where there are 10's of millions of voters just itching for the chance to support them. The Dems seem to be outsmarting the GOP. Who out there believes the Georgia GOP light-weights in the Senate run-off have even a sniff of a chance? Me neither.
Yes, the populist base on the left has much stronger representation (the Bernie Bros have AOC), while the MAGA movement *is* DJT: In terms of people running for office, there's little to indicate there'll be Trumpism without Trump (after his second term).
As for the Establishment - and the rest - Joel Kotkin has written about "The Coming Neo-Feudalism" whereby a collapsed middle class is ruled over by oligarchs (and the SJW clerisy).
It's called lag time. We are all going to hell but the conservatives are in the back of the bus.
It's been over since election day 2008 when the above-ground edifice started to rise, but the foundation was being built before that -- e.g. when W passed over Alito for Roberts as chief justice. What possible significance can the Georgia runoffs have regarding the 'highest court in the land' given that the court is already packed. Any doubt? Look at the ruling/non-ruling that came out this morning. "Premature" -- there's a new one from the Roberts-lexicon-bag of obfuscation. Translation: "I'm all in with Biden and the left."
I don't know what these duplicitous idiots think they're going to gain by siding with the left. Because of the covid hat trick the United States is close to $30 trillion in debt with both sides of the aisle clamoring for more debt because they care for "the forgotten man" (or woman, or cis-normative self identifying gender of the month club eunuch). They care so much about the forgotten man they've forgotten what gender he is. Nonetheless, the working class and a large segment of the tax paying base in America has been put out of business because of 'covid' while our national debt has grown so profoundly unsustainable that our economic hegemony in the world is the stuff of rainbow unicorns. Unless by some miracle President Trump is back in office on January 21st the United States is done. China is already poised to take over our military position in the Pacific. China will be the ruling world power with none of the self restraint and generosity of the U.S. shortly after biden takes office. Biden will die of covid or conveniently stagger off stage, and kamala will take over. The leftists in the media were working over time to peddle her during the democrat primaries. When they didn't get their way they manipulated biden over the finish line and stuck ms. harris next to him. She'll be preening in the oval office while the main stream media gushes over the 'first woman and a woman of color" to be President while they simultaneously accuse the rest of us of being racist and sexist for ever having voted for President Trump who will be arrested on false pretenses and never heard of again. When the ccp takes over it will have no pity for these useful idiots on the left or the right.
The democrats want to start another civil war, but they'll lose this one like the lost the last one they started, either to the chi-coms or to the rest of us.
"The democrats want to start another civil war"
It is the way of things. War is a natural state of affairs. We have had an unnatural state of peace for far too long.
It would be easy to say that things have always been like this, with one party following another into office and nothing ever changing, but the utter self-serving bankruptcy of all politicians in the exact same way seems to have reached a sort of end point.
Still, I remember seeing an old political cartoon from the 1800s, where a very annoyed Miss Canada is standing with a badly-swollen bandaged arm, while 2 doctors, Edward Blake and Sir John A. Macdonald, argue over her treatment. Macdonald asserts that the ailment is likely to end *fatally*, and then says, "Dismiss that quack, and hire me!" "And what would you do in the case?" asks Miss Canada. "I would... occupy his position" comes the reply.
That's why were subscribers - for your warmed over, 6 ft under 19th century conservatism...
Seriously, I would like to think that I'm a 1964 conservative - Reagan's 1964 speech A Time for Choosing / and Barry Goldwater's acceptance speech - but that's before I was born. I'm at least a 1992 conservative, though. I'm also partial to Patrick Henry's Give me Liberty or Give me Death Speech (though I guess what we have from that is mostly made up). ... Excuse me, I got to put on my mask so I can go get tested before I travel to PA and present my papers...
The most apt comparison of the Republic Party that I've ever seen is to the Washington Generals, who are contracted by the Harlem Globetrotters to be the losing team in their exhibition games. I genuinely believe that the party has no real desire to actually govern, and relatively little interest in even winning. They just want to get paid handsomely to lose and also not have to look to bad in the process.
What I mean is that they consciously know their role of being the "loyal opposition" to the majority party. So long as they believe they will be personally safe from the consequences of Democratic rule, they are happy and content to let their voters be ruined. This isn't a matter of competence or even will. They are doing what they set out to do, which is fundamentally dishonest.
TOO bad. I so wish I could edit my responses.
Yes, but Peggy Noonan and George Will and the like can write a really elegant, even stirring concession speech.
Precisely. Mark often refers to conservatives being "in office but not in power" - which is exactly the way they want it. They're content to play second fiddle - as long as the party duopoly and bureaucracy-for-life are maintained. Trump is despised for upending the status quo grift.
Send money now... so we can shaft you!
P. J. O'Rourke once remarked "The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it."
Even the Democrats don't really want to be in full power. They seem to want international or foreign parties to be in power while they just lord over us.
I just wanted a simple basic home. These people want their wildest fantasies.
The irony of George Will is that he spent years if not decades writing about the corruption and damage caused by the administrative state, or deep state. Then we finally get a president who wants to actually do something about it, and what does Will do? He throws a pathetic temper tantrum over Trump's vulgarity, as if we have the luxury of worrying over such things
I'd love to see someone put that question to Mr. Will so I could perhaps understand his reasoning.
"Catch-up conservatism" is just Old Money securing its position. The tens of millions of working class Americans abandoned by the Republicans need a serious discussion of their options.
First, it's useless to whine that the Dems stole the election without considering the extent to which the GOP helped by sheer passivity. Which leaves the millions who flocked to Trump leaderless again.
The GOP never wanted Trump. He was forced upon them because Old Money couldn't even come up with a sufficiently graceful loser like McCain or Romney in 2016. Now, once again, Old Money can stay in office as the graceful, though reviled, losers and fundraise off the increasingly desperate tens of millions by citing the AWFUL things that will happen if they don't support Old Money.
But, if OM can help it, they will never just win and prevent those awful things. That's the Old Money racket in a nutshell. Everyone wins except OM's no-money supporters.
Historically, most people in the supporters' position have just been expendable peasants. But Americans, historically, are different. The supporters could possibly decide to cut themselves a better deal.
Well, Mark, I'm up for going back to 1250 if you are. Anyone who isn't is a squish in my book.
I haven't been able to sell too many people on that program though...so...have to pick and choose battles. I'll settle for stopping people from butchering babies.
I don't really think politicians are in the persuasion business. They implement the programs of people who are. Occasionally there is somebody like Farage who spans both worlds, but the more common model is Joe Biden. Doesn't it seem almost laughably irrelevant to ask what Biden's views are on anything? We all know he's there to implement the media consensus. Any views he has will change overnight if he is directed to do so by a few hundred blue check marks.
So money for Loeffler or Perdue is just the last step in the chain.
The start of the Little Ice Age doesn't sound that attractive.
Mark is exactly right. I've come to the conclusion that there is no social/geo/political event of any kind for which the only solution is sending more money to politicians. I get no fewer than 10 phone calls and 20 text messages a day pleading for campaign contributions. Yet - they only offer no new tactics or strategies on how they plan to achieve ANY conservative goals.
They can't even say how they plan to counter the brazen fraud committed by the Democrats.
I've come to believe the best way to counter Democrat "fraud" - which is no longer "fraud" - it's simply the new "legal" - Is to play by the new rules. We need to print counterfeit ballots, fill them out with the names of dead people and get them in the mail. When they call and ask for campaign contributions, I tell them I'll pay them $1 per blank ballot they send me - up to $2,000.00. If the GOP isn't going to fight to change the "new rules" they have to at least be willing to play by them.
"The new legal" - to go with "the new normal"! I'm going to steal that and use it at the first opportunity, if you don't mind!
Republicans asking for money for elections at this point are scam artists. It's not only that they refuse to deliver any results. It's not even that they have a disturbing tendency to slander and dismiss the people they voted in. Right now, it is clear that they are refusing to fight even the next round of election fraud. It is just a plain outright snub, just announcing to us that donations mean nothing. They're laughing at us. They want to appear to be fighting, but not fight. They want it to look like there is a two party system with a loyal opposition when there is none. They're in it for themselves and they think that those of us who put principles first are just, what is that brilliant linguistic innovation in modern American English that our cultural and intellectual superiors have developed for when they wish to refer to their 'slaves,' oh yes..'losers.' Well, I'm tired of just being had. We need some sort of strategy moving forward. If there are no big solutions involving the country at large, then it should be something that small groups of people can work on constructively. But one way or another it should be something that we can work towards and shake off this hopelessness that keeps swamping us.
Good points, Joseph. Will it be enough to secede from the GOP - or will it have to be from the USA?
PS. I thought it was interesting that Rush Limbaugh raised the issue of secession (while not supporting it).
There could be a massive effort in which we all pledge to vote for no incumbent Republican, and primary the lot of them. That might possibly work, even if it meant sidelining a handful of decent ones, but seceding from the GOP sounds easier. I am just worried about splitting the party before Jan 20, since we might be cutting off some possible avenues to Trump's second term. Although I admit we already do seem to have a possible de facto split with so many of our leaders ignoring us. I have no idea if secession from the country is feasible, really just no idea. I do not have any sure sense for what the military units would choose to do. Even if they support the President, many of the soldiers would be from states that would not secede. While support is regionally divided between red and blue states, it is still pretty well mixed up in both. Maybe if states split in some sort of gerrymandered pattern with Upstate NY splitting from the City etc. But I just don't see how that would play out. Even in NYC there are many people who would rather be in the seceding half. That's even where Giuliani is from, although I do not know where he lives now. I haven't heard enough talk about it to have any clear sense. I always thought it was too complicated to be feasible, because the issues while regionalized to some extent just did not seem to meet a necessary threshold. I'm just trying to take it in day by day.
You probably understand the secession issues better than I do. Sorry if I just went over ground you've covered a million times.
There were splits within States during the Civil War. There were Copperheads in the North, bloody internecine fighting in Kansas and Missouri, and the border states along the Mason-Dixon line: Kentucky, Tennessee and Maryland all had deep political divides. West Virginia broke away from Virginia. The difference in 1860 was that there were two separate sets of ruling elites. The mercantilist high tariff group in the North and the cotton exporters in the South. The Abolition issue broke on the same lines so individual States could raise armies to fight. Today the ruling elite is centered in the big cities and present different problems with communication and finance. How the situation proceeds is far from certain but some hornets have been stirred up.
I yield my word count to Rush Limbaugh, CPAC 2009:
Let me tell you who we conservatives are: We love people. When we look out over the United States of America, when we are anywhere, when we see a group of people, such as this or anywhere, we see Americans. We see human beings. We don't see groups. We don't see victims. We don't see people we want to exploit. What we see -- what we see is potential. We do not look out across the country and see the average American, the person that makes this country work. We do not see that person with contempt. We don't think that person doesn't have what it takes. We believe that person can be the best he or she wants to be if certain things are just removed from their path like onerous taxes, regulations and too much government.
We want every American to be the best he or she chooses to be. We recognize that we are all individuals. We love and revere our founding documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life. Liberty, Freedom. And the pursuit of happiness. Those of you watching at home may wonder why this is being applauded. We conservatives think all three are under assault.
We don't want to tell anybody how to live. That's up to you. If you want to make the best of yourself, feel free. If you want to ruin your life, we'll try to stop it, but it's a waste. We look over the country as it is today, we see so much waste, human potential that's been destroyed by 50 years of a welfare state. By a failed war on poverty.
We love the people of this country. And we want this to be the greatest country it can be, but we do understand, as people created and endowed by our creator, we're all individuals. We resist the effort to group us. We resist the effort to make us feel that we're all the same, that we're no different than anybody else. We're all different. There are no two things or people in this world who are created in a way that they end up with equal outcomes. That's up to them. They are created equal, given the chance.
That's a winning message, even today. I've posted it before, and resolve to commit it to memory. But as much as it's a call to people to embrace conservatism, is it not, too, a call to conservatives to embrace people? If we are who Rush says we are (the Democrats are certainly who he says they are), have we done enough?
Yes.
The fundamental problem with (non-Trumpist) modern "conservatism", at least in its Western variant, is that it is not conservatism at all, at least by any traditional meaning of the word.
Rather, it is (at best) merely a testudinal strain of Enlightenment liberalism. It plods along, far behind its mad-dashing, hare-like, sibling strains of Enlightenment liberalism...but eventually, it arrives at all the same places.
Above, I wrote "at best", because it is not even clear that (non-Trumpist) modern conservatism even qualifies as an intelligible worldview. I cannot detect any abiding story there. There is no sign of any clear premises, any clear or concrete goals, any compelling vision. Certainly there is no sign of forceful, positive momentum. The whole thing is incoherent and inchoate.
Of course, Trumpism is a different thing. It does have a story; it *is* anchored to certain premises; it does aim at a vision of the future. That was clear enough even through Trump's often-garbled, stream of consciousness, extemporaneous verbal diluvia.
Partly because it is actually intelligible, and does retain consistency over time (it is not hyperactively ad hoc), and does include a Theory of Positive Action, it is intuitively far more appealing than anything ever put forward nowadays by Establishment Republicans.
What that suggests is that if Trumpism ever manages to get a more articulate, more decorous, and far more Machiavellian, proponent than Trump himself, it could really transform the nation - and for many decades.
As it is, its progress, for the time being, appears to have been halted. Short of the next few weeks bringing us the greatest comeback since Lazarus rose from the dead, Trumpism will be in time-out at least for the next four years.
Should be an interesting next few weeks...
Trumpism could use a more articulate proponent, but that individual wouldn't necessarily need to be "Machiavellian", just steadfast with a love for western culture, and a lot of common sense. I think of Ronald Reagan telling a reporter what his plans were for defeating the Soviets in the Cold War — "We Win, They Lose".
I think he would need to be Machiavellian. How else to purge the rot now embedded so deep in the federal government, before it takes you out? That requires shrewd, quick, surgical, ruthless action.
Point taken. If it requires a clear-eyed, ruthless leader who has no scruples when fighting to save the republic and protect the rights of every citizen, I will wholeheartedly support that person.
Mark,
We're not in a persuasion match with the Left, we're in a shouting match. It's not that the Catch-up Conservatives lack the courage of their convictions, it's that they don't have any convictions. I've often wondered if so many Establishment Republicans weren't senior class presidents in their youth, and that's their model for a career in politics. Just try to get someone like Mitt Romney to discuss the issues. It's no wonder they fold like origami.
Hey! I was Senior Class President! I get your point.
PS. They made me take the office because no one else wanted it and the guidance counselor said it would look good on my college applications.
It's no wonder conservatives (as out-of-date liberals) are always "on defense".
There was a great SteynOnline comment recently (author?) along the lines of: "For the left, *every* hill is the hill to die on". Which is true... and engenders a level of "respect".
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity" - WBY
Catch-Up Conservatism is wrong in at least one respect, Mark. Opposition to abortion remains, and the work pro-life people do converts mush middle people fast enough to prevent it from "going away" as an issue, which the left would like to see happen. The abortion rate trended down for decades, until it is now back to about where it was when Roe V Wade was decided, but in the last few years (since ~2015) it appears to have leveled off. But that argument isn't "over", and perhaps Conservatives should ponder why it is still a going issue 5 decades on, instead of disappearing in a decade like most other conservative positions. Perhaps it has to do with being that hill we're willing to die on you mention so often...
Agreed. If they'd stop butchering babies I'd pay 70% marginal tax rates and bow three times a day in the direction of Al
Sharpton's house apologizing for "white privilege" if that was what it took.
All true, but I still sent Perdue and Loeffler some money, because a speed bump to slow down the Harris fast-track agenda will at least give me some time to buy a tent, back pack, and to load up on freeze dried meals, sterno, topo maps, Orwell essays, and Mark's back catalogue.
Will donations be enough to get them beyond the margin of Dominion?
Maybe not, so I probably should do my shopping early.
Probably not, and I had already stopped giving donations, but given what's possibly on the horizon (hyperinflation?), it is a reasonable hedge for reasonable people to make. However, people may not wish to wait until January if they wish to stock up on goods now before gosh only knows what sort of mismanagement comes. The Republicans can ignore us, but they can't yet completely stop people from stocking up on some food and durable goods before any 'resetting' gets too 'great.'
What will advance the Republic now? $50 dollars to GOPe or invested in several boxes of green tips? With the later one may be able to cast several "votes" for saving the Republic when the time eventually comes. Events may overshadow this comment anyway.
I had to google sterno and green tips. Interesting.
Mark, I get the same non-stop appeals, and I just spam them if they come by email, or delete them unread if they arrive by text message on my phone. I get over 30 texts a day, so this takes a bit of time.
I have donated rather generously to both GA senators, but I have never received a note of thanks or appreciation. Instead I get an endless barrage of doom and gloom predictions that if I don't give them $5 (with 6X matching!!!) all will be lost. I have yet to receive any appeal that indicated they had a plan to win. I would prefer to invest in something that will be successful. I have other used for my limited funds if all they offer is defeat.
Against my better judgment I donated to Lindsey Graham late in the campaign. The news about Harrison receiving $108 million, most in such small amounts that they didn't require reporting the name and address of the donor, did concern me. After the election, I noticed that Lindsey had received about $80 million, but he'd only spent about $65 million. So all I accomplished with my donation was to increase his war chest. I presume some of that will be used for the GA elections if things look as dire as my daily correspondence would suggest.
Things really are in a state of disarray. Pretty faces and vacant minds, droning on with focus-group-tested inanities, may garner lots of likes on FB or Twit, but they are useless in winning an argument. They can't even frame a successful argument because they blindly adopt the language and terms dictated by the progressives. They proudly wear face masks to show their compliance with what is likely the greatest scam of this century. Very little electro-chemical activity is evident in the cavity between their ears.
Robert,
No offense, but you must be a politically-connected lawyer or something, still making political contributions with only a 6x match. If you aren't being offered matches with at least two digits you are just on the wrong lists. Why I wouldn't even think of contributing to the worthless repub pols in GA or where I live for anything less.
I will never, ever, ever, again contribute to a repub candidate on the state or federal level (unless the dem candidate is definitely Satan and even then I will think twice).
Now I feel really insulted. I'm fairly sure that nobody has ever offered me more than a five-times match. I assume that, once the Georgia runoffs are over, the American elections will be over altogether, at least until nearly the end of February, when it will be time to start all over again.
Whoever it is who sends those emails to me, I'm British. I don't contribute to American election campaigns and, unlike Nathan Bedford Forrest, I don't vote in them, either.
"Pretty faces and vacant minds, droning on with focus-group-tested inanities, may garner lots of likes on FB or Twit, but they are useless in winning an argument." -- So accurate...The surest way to lose an argument is to make a concession before making your case. And the Republicans/'conservatives" in politics and media do that consistently. They begin any of their wholly tepid criticisms of the left or their weak disagreement with a policy of the left/Biden/Obama/etc. with some soft comments, such as 'we know they mean well' -- from that point on, it's over. They have conceded. The left never does the same in reverse. Platitudes and pleas for mutual understanding are white flags -- and the white flags now fly everywhere.
Charles, LOL ... a lawyer?? ... oh my gosh! Actually I have given "expert" testimony in a court, but that was 40 years ago. As for the multiple offered, I receive perhaps one a day at 8x. But if you ever look at the entity who sent you the text, it is never Newt, or Rudy or Joni or Ted or Donald Jr or Kelly or Donald Himself despite the message featuring the name. So I have never responded to such a plea. My guess/fear is that more than a few of these outfits are run by deep state interests. They have clearly been dredging up donor names from the FEC reports or, more likely, from the candidate's donor database since they have my phone number, which isn't posted with the FEC data. I can't imagine anyone giving significant sums to one of these boiler room enterprises.
I generally go to the candidate's website and donate there, when I find a candidate who has done something worth supporting. Almost always the credit card donation goes thru a service that handles a lot of Republican candidates, and frequently I have to run a gauntlet of repeated requests to double my donation before I get to the acknowledgement page. The whole thing seems to be aimed at someone who is giving $5 out of some whimsical notion, and the intent of the process is to get them to increase the amount to $20. Fund raising by a poorly programed AI or by grubby little people who can't be bothered to consider what the donor wants, let alone what the donor expects, is not a good formula for success.
"Please give money so that we don't have to lose more often". The more they lose the less important they become. That equation may change as the Social Club of The United States (SCOTUS) takes more passes on the Constitution. Handed a winning hand with President Trump, the GOPe didn't want to win on any terms but their own. Now with the absolute need to fight for Trump, even Senator Graham has forgotten his warning about what happens if the Left gets control. If the biggest election steal in history is a "ho-hum" now what is really worth paying hard-earned money for?
Gee, Mark, how depressing.
Win or lose in Georgia, the dems will overreach and the repubs will get another chance sooner or later. But who really cares? I like a comment you made earlier somewhere (on the radio maybe?) to the effect that all that us "conservatives" can really count on is the Repubs delivering yet another corporate tax cut when they get power back. Of course, doing what their voting base wants in terms of pushing back against cultural decline caused by the left is way, way less important that delivering what the repubs' corporate masters (and paymasters) want.
Really , though, we don't have to wait. La. deep, deep backbench Senator Bill Cassidy is "reaching across the aisle" to get a C-Virus relief bill right now!!!! Another near trillion in deficit spending, a tiny, small $600 Christmas bonus for the peasants, and billions and billions of transferred wealth to the corporate class. You go Bill.
Speaking of paymasters, don't forget the ChiComs!
Throughout the West, we've been sold down the Yangtze by those on both sides of the aisle.
So true...and the CCs are so entrenched that we now have intelligence agencies twisting themselves into knots to explain that it-absolutely-positively-had-to-be-the-Russians who accomplished the major hack across months and CISA, when it could not be more obvious it's the CCs.
It's impressive that DJT has been able to achieve so much in the face of institutional obstruction and corruption (even without taking into account the repeated coup attempts against him).