Tim Walz is not the savviest politician who ever kissed a baby or shook a hand.

But yesterday’s “knucklehead” admission may be the dumbest own goal he’s ever made:

Admitting that one is a marketing charade is a bold move, Cotton.  Let’s see how it works. 

Ed Morrissey notes:

In that sense, perhaps this is Walz’ attempt at sincerity — by acknowledging what seemed pretty apparent all along. What’s mystifying is why Walz would admit publicly that Harris was pursuing a race-based calculation in her running mate rather than, y’know, finding the best person for the job. And not just in the one-heartbeat-from-the-presidency sense either, but also in the ability to campaign and to compete against J. D. Vance.

Like candidate, like running-mate, I guess.

I’ve never made bones about the fact I’ve been a Trump skeptic.  Eight years ago I voted for Scott Walker, and thought that Trump’s term would be a disaster, hopefully mitigated by a good SCOTUS pick.   I was wrong – mostlly, anyway.  His behavior in 2020 cost the GOP the Senate, and he had an uncanny habit of endorsing bad candidates.  But I held my nose and voted for him.

There was no holding my nose this time – although I make no bones about the fact that I’d really like to see more of the Focused Donald than the Twitter Donald. 

Yesterday was a good start.

Itwas the first inauguration I watched live since Jimmy Carter.  But I picked a good one.

Trump’s speech was the best I’ve seen him give. 

It clocked in at 29 minutes – and didn’t include (many of) the rhetorical tangents that make so many of this speeches feel like rhetorical slalom runs. 

It was by turns pugnacious and intensely optimistic.   I was glad I had a chance to see it.  I think it recapped the tone of his campaign – especially since the first assassination attempt – and laid out the agenda far more clearly than he ever did in his first time.  It was…bracing. 

Side issue – my father, a speech teacher, used to say that nobody in the modern world embodied classical oratory like Southern Baptist ministers.

Rev. Lorenzo Sprewell certainly made the case:

It was a genuine wonder and joy to behold. 

And as someone who grew up seeing “dead air” as the enemy, and believes taped backing tracks are a plague on society, Carrie Underwood did one of the most amazing things a performer can do – took a compete technical clusterf**k and. turned it into a triumph:

Let the metaphors fly. 

So – what were the five most important stories of 2024, according to that most dispositive of sources, yours truly?

Glad you asked.  Here goes:

5. I, Knucklehead – Recently, we learned that Harris’s insiders knew she never had much of a lead or chance. But that wasn’t what we saw, or even inferred from the data we saw out here in the wild. Even some fairly reliably intelligent conservative pundits were prepared for the worst as of 7PM CT on November 5.

So I was driving up to North Dakota last summer, worried that Harris was going to pick Josh Shapiro as her Veep nominee.  The conventional wisdom was that the road to the White House led through Pennsylvania, and that Shapiro would deliver it, and likely make Trump’s path to victory a lot longer and more convoluted. 

I was driving home from the same trip when I got the news that Giggles had picked Tim “Piglet” Walz as her running mate.  And I let out a huge sigh of relief, and maybe a gleeful cheer or two, as I careened down I94, my mood having brightened about 145 degrees.

His debate performance against JD Vance was a revelation to some – but almost an anticlimax to me.  I knew from the moment I got the news that Vance would mop the rest-room floor with Walz.  He didn’t disappoint. 

4. He Killed Medicare – It wasn’t just Joe Biden that collapsed in the infamous June debate with Trump. It was the entire campaign of gaslighting that the Democrats and media were trying to run.

And I was about to add my usual “pardon the redundancy” after that last sentence, but I think that everyone with eyes to see and the interest in using them caught it. While the bloom was off the mainstream media’s rose long ago, this past year took a heat gun to whatever was left of that shabby wallpaper.

3. The Big Stick – The Mossad attack on Hezbollah’s leadership via remote controlled boobytrapped pagers and radios was a brilliant kick-off to what appears to have been a slow but definite end-game to Israel’s year-long campaign to crush the Iranian proxies who’ve sworn to Israel’s destruction this past three generations.

It’s all the more important when you remember that it happened when the American election was still very much up in the air, at least outwardly. The Israelis were making hummus while the sun shone, unsure what the status of their alliance with the US would be after January 20. Of course, after the Trump victory, Israel emasculated Iran’s entire air defense network, leaving them basically helpless before any retaliation for any future aggresssions, rebooting much of the math in Middle Eastern politics.

2. “Fight, Fight, Fight” – The leaks about Harris’s real internal polling notwithstanding, the first assassination attempt against Trump was, I think, the point where it started to feel like Trump had more than just an election to win; it was more of a rendezvous with destiny.

I know – I hate being that dramatic without cause. But I think it may actually have been appropriate in that case. It started to feel like it had to happen. There was a change in the campaign’s momentum and, really, a change in Trump.  He seemed a lot more focused, not only as his ear healed, but through the rest of his campaign.   The Twitter-firebomb-throwing Trump of 2015-2020 wasn’t gone, per se – but he seemed much more on task.  Calmer? 

And as much as the Harris campaign tried to co-opt the term “Joy”, it started to feel like there was some sort of je ne sais quoi to the Trump effort – not “joy”, but “purpose”?  “Sense of mission?”

It felt a lot more intense and immediate after that. 

And #1. – Red Green Shoots – It was the year you saw conservative media and “influencers” (much as I hate the term) start to hit their stride. The cultural right hit its “Battle of Midway” moment in myriad battles for the culture:

• Research undercutting “Trans” ideology and medicine started to take on a critical mass.
• Young people, Latino men, married women, and increasing numbers of black men voted for Trump
• There are signs that GenZ is tiring of the meaninglessness of the left’s modern culture.
• Hollywood’s “woke-ism” is taking flak, with cultural resistance to the PC-ing of tentpole projects like Star Wars and Snow White and Netflix’s ongoing woke-y decay reaching, if not critical mass, at least notable, sustainable velocity. 

Feel free to sound off in the comments. What the heck.

Giggles isn’t paying her staff.

But sure, she could have fixed the economy. 

Let them eat brat vibes.

Governor Klink is doing the rounds of the Twin Cities media, saying he’s not going to rule out further runs for national office.

Of course, to a leftist, “conversation” means “Monologue” – which is what Walz is used to here in Minnesota, with his constant stream of selfies and Twitter proclamations and straw men.

His foray into national politics was his first attempt at a “conversation”.

It didn’t go well.  See also his debate with JD Vance. 

But hope springs eternal that we can have an actual conversation with Walz and the entire DFL over his and their dubious record in office – especially given the news of yet another corruption scandal (more next week).

Speaking of “conversations”:

Hey – one person’s “rumors about dogs and cats” is another person’s “neighborliness”.

To hear her partisans call it, Kamala Harris ran an amazing campaign – she just didn’t have the time to actually do interviews!

Harris was consistently criticized for shying away from substantive public interviews and appearances, enhancing a public image many associated with inauthenticity and empty spouts of “word salad.”

“Real people heard in some way that we were not going to have interviews, which was both not true and also so counter to any kind of standard that was put on Trump that I think that was a problem,” Jen O’Malley Dillon said on the liberal podcast Pod Save America. “And then, on top of that, we would do an interview, and . . . the questions were small and process-y.”

The interviewers didn’t ask the right questions?

Forget for a moment that most of the media she faced bent over backwards to make her look good – that’s HER job as someone who’s, you know, campaigning.   To control the conversation!

If she couldn’t drive the discussion with Dana Bash or Bill Whitaker, what was she going to do with Putin, Xi or the Mullahs?

“I think back and think we should have signaled more of our strategy early on about podcasts and who we were trying to reach, but we had a limited amount of time to reach the people we were trying to reach, and we were trying to go to them,” the campaign’s chairwoman lamented…“Being up against a narrative that we weren’t doing anything or we were afraid to have interviews is completely bullsh**,” Dillon claimed.

“We’da done more, if we’d only had the time!”

Problem is, Harris had all kinds of time. She was too busy trying not to talk:

I’m pretty sure Harris could have cobbled something together inside a month.

SCENE:  A “domestic” set in a media production room in DC.   Two Staffers, CHAD and JOSHUA, and two Harris staffers, COURTNEY and CLAUDE, are going over footage from an attempt to shoot a video.

COURTNEY:  OK, try take 45:

KAMALA HARRIS (on playback) “Hey, I’m Kamala Harris, and I spent the past week or two getting unburdened by what has been, raging on Jäger shots and weapons-grade weed, and trying to…

CLAUDE:  That’s not gonna work. 

COURTNEY:  What else we got?

JOSHUA:  Well, let’s just say this ad campaign is…um…

CHAD: Unburdened by a great take.

CLAUDE:  Well, I’m afraid that means the best take is…

COURTNEY:   63. 

CHAD:  Hard to say. She smelled like a three day bender the whole time.

COURTNEY:  (shrugs shoulders) Let’s try and see it again.

JOSHUA: (presses button)

The four wince visibly.

COURTNEY:  Seriously?   The best take?

JOSHUA:  Er…

CHAD:  Yep.  That’s as good as it gets.

CLAUDE:  We could try again when she’s sobered up?

COURTNEY:  OMG, she’s worse when she’s hung over. 

CLAUDE: (shakes head). What the hell.  Post it. 

CHAD: ( posting the video). Here comes the joy!

 And SCENE!

UPDATE:  I mean, look what they had to choose from?

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

Thank you to everyone who Voted as Hard as They Could.  It paid off.  The election was not stolen. 

I have a parenthetical thought that doesn’t pertain to Joe. I don’t want to interrupt the flow, so I’ll hit that at the bottom of the post.

Back to Joe, who has the same question I had the day after the election:

But I still have a lingering question or two.  What happened to those 81 million 2020 Biden voters?  They didn’t go to Trump – he got fewer votes this time than last.  They didn’t stay home – Kamala got as many votes as Hillary.  

Did they ever exist?  Or is this graphic proof of a stolen election after all? 

My first principle is to never assume malice when stupidity and sloth are equally possible. The drop in Trump voters indicates that it’s at least partly the expiration of Covid-era voting rules that allowed people to submit ballots via their DoorDash driver, or by blinking three times during a Zoom meeting.

But that is a lot of disappeared Democrat voters. Which may speak just as well to the “sloth” thing.

OK.  Discuss.

Deferred Parenthetical Thought: And again, pinky swear, isn’t aimed at Joe – I get the point he’s going for (or at least the one he will go for when I’m done interrupting), but could we retire the phrase “Vote Harder?” Smug anarcho libertarians have beaten that one to death.

We get it. You’re splendidly above the muggles and our quaint delusions. 

Governor Walz on Twitter, over the weekend:

Lt. Governor Flanagan, who uses her Native heritage like Walz uses plaid shirts:

That might explain them missing this bit of news:

The shift is striking because a Brookings Institution analysis published after the 2022 midterm elections found Native Americans still “solidly Democratic in their voting preferences.” Looking at data from an African American Research Collaborative poll with a nationally representative sample of Native American voters, the Brookings authors noted that in “House races across the country, Native Americans supported Democratic candidates at 56% relative to 40% of Native Americans who reported voting for Republicans.”

Seventeen counties with majority-Native American populations swung toward President-elect Donald Trump by ten or more percentage points. Just as with black and Hispanic voters, Native Americans had concerns that extended beyond the identity politics and left-wing virtue signaling of Democrats and the Kamala Harris campaign. Nationally, a whopping 65 percent of Native American voters went for Trump.

Apparently “stolen land declarations” aren’t as important as a decent economy and, perhaps, taming of the federal bureaucracy that’s sandbagged so much of Native American society.

Either way, I suspect if any more elections go like this, Prog politicians will stop “celebrating” Native American month, and you’ll start to see Sunny Hostin calling them “Native White Supremacists”.

Some Democrats are reverting to their mean: they lost because the dumb people didn’t support them, and if they somehow were kept out of the process, and voting were reserved for the deserving, things would be different:

So I thought – how about we continue the thought? Let’s impose more, better standards on the electorate!

How about people who take liberty seriously?

If only gun owners were counted: The electoral map would look something like this:

That’d be a pretty serious realignment.

OK – how about the people who risk everything to be the backbone of our economy?

Entrepreneurs: If only people who started business were counted, the totals would go something like this:

Makes sense.

OK – how about the people who actually pay attention to how government works, as opposed to voting for “joy”, “vibes” or to “protect abortion” in states where its already enshrined as a right in the state constitution?

Civics Knowledge: If only people who could pass a test of their civics knowledge:

Note that there wouldn’t be enough qualified voters in the District of Columbia to register a result.

I’m old enough to remember when “election denial” was the highest of crimes and misdemeanors.  And if you’re much over four years old, so are you.

But (predictably) not as re Senator Bob Casey in Pennsylvania:

Donald Trump’s stubborn denial of his defeat — his refusal to accept the legitimate election results of 2020 — was bad. January 6 was terrible.

But we saw a similar rejection of election results from Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams two years earlier, and she became a Democratic hero — literally wearing a cape in one photoshoot — and a favorite subject of the Democrats’ celebrity-industrial complex. (And remember, she’s apparently exempt from masking for Covid, while kids sitting right next to her had to stay masked.) She may never become governor of Georgia, but she can always be proud of holding the position of President of United Earth (selected, not elected).

To review, Abrams’s denial of election results was forgivable, Trump’s was the trigger for “the worst attack on democracy since the Civil War,” in Biden’s words, and now Casey’s denial is just a prudent desire to see every vote counted. You don’t have to be Columbo to recognize a suspicious pattern in which a Democratic candidate’s denial of election results is excusable, but a Republican candidate’s denial of election results is a dangerous threat to American governance.

I had a hunch that pendulum was going to swing back, and hard, yet again.

SCENE:  In a conference room at the headquarters of Minnesotans United for All Progressive Causes, a blindingly Scandinavian-looking suite of offices in a pre-war building in Saint Paul.  On one wall, a window looks out on a stunning vista the Mississippi River.  Through the other, rows of cubicles staffed by interns making fund-raising calls, as a couple of college-age boys tear down Kamala Harris posters and throw them in the trash.

In the conference room are:

• Moonbeam BIRKENSTOCK, community engagement manager.  She’s wearing a blue bracelet.
• Inge “Lucky” CARROLL, head meme-buffer.  She sports a new, blue Celtic Thorn tattoo on her wrist.
• Gretel STROMBERG, executive director.  She also has a blue bracelet. 
• Ken MARTIN, Chair of the MN DFL
• Martina ROBBINS, Liaison director for Planned Parenthood of Minnesota.  She’s wearing blue bracelets on each wrist. 
• Chad MANBUNFRONDSON, Democrat National Committee field staffer based in Minneapolis, and current romantic partner of Gretel Stromberg.
• MyLissa SILBERMANN, Reporter for National Public Radio’s Saint Paul bureau, covering the “Fake News” and “Diversity” beats, and no way no how an active participant in regional progressive politics.   Her hair is newly-died blue. 

All look visibly cried-out. 

STROMBERG:   OK.  So, that could have gone better.  But (she says, visibly trying to convince herself), it’s a new day.  Onward and upward.  What do we say?

EVERYONE (grumbling).  We’re not going back.

BIRKENSTOCK (slightly more chipper): Tuuuuurn the page!

(The exhortation is met with grumbles). 

STROMBERG:  OK.   We’re going to get on top of the new plan.  Inge?

CARROLL: Yes.  We’re going to get women to adopt the “Four Bs – it’s a South Korean trend where women swear off dating, sex, marriage and having kids with men”.

BIRKENSTOCK:   I already broke up with my boyfriend.  

STROMBERG:  I actually ditched my partner .

MANBUNFRONDSON:  You what?

STROMBERG: Oh, yeah.  I’m  not going back…

MANBUNFRONDSON:  But…but… (tearing up a bit) Not even if I wear the Schoolgirl outfit?

MARTIN:  (a little perplexed). Hang on, Gretel. Isn’t Chad always an ally?  I mean, he wears an unironic man-bun and ran White Dudes for Harris of Minnesota…

STROMBERG:  The cause is the cause. 

(The women all nod.  Martin looks around, fall silent. MANBUNFRONDSON leaves the room, in tears)

SILBERMANN:  So that means…

CARROLL:  No dating.  No sex.  No marriage.  And noooooo babies.  None.   Complete cut-off. 

STROMBERG:  Sounds like genius.

(Everyone applauds – even Martin, gingerly – except for ROBBINS)

ROBBINS:  Wait.  No sex?

CARROLL:  Yep.  Even for your husband. Sorry. 

ROBBINS:  Oh, that train left the station five years ago.  No, here’s the problem (pulls out iPad, shows it around the table):

ROBBINS: This ingenious plan of yours will leave us broke. Busted. Bupkes.

(Silence around the table, as the murmer of the fundraising and MANBUNFRONDSON’s sobbing filters through the glass wall)

BIRKENSTOCK:  Well, the legislature will appropriate money to make up for it! 

CARROLL: Yeah!  We got the trifecta!  

STROMBERG:  ONE MINNESOTA!

MARTIN:  Uhhhh, kind of a good-news, bad-news situation, here…

SCENE pulls away to the middle of the fundraising floor, to the sound of the womens’ blood-curdling screams. 

And SCENE.

One of the more surprising results from election night:  the nation is more…not “conservative”, probably.  More Republican, anyway. 

The New York Times released a “shift map” of election result shifts, by county.

It’s live and interactive here – and it’s an interesting read. Each red arrow is a county where the vote was more Republican than it was in 2020. Note that many of the blue arrows in red states – I’m looking at you, Oliver County North Dakota – are counties where the GOP vote dropped from the 90s into the 80s, for example.

More interesting still – the demographics behind those shifts.

In every category but “people with lots of years in schools”, the anti-Trump reaction of 2020 has more than recouped – in some cases (the urban vote, young people), way way more than recouped.

After being called a “Nazi”, a “misogynist”, a “fascist” and a “Racist”, it’s hard not to indulge in a little schadenfreud. 

Maybe a lot.

And when God throws an opportunity like this in your way, who am I to argue?

A licenced “poiltical analyst”, last Tuesday before the results started rolling in:

I asked the universe – there has to be an “after” video.

And the universe answered:

In addition to misogyny and racism, she blamed “Republicans moving to urban areas” .

That’s right – she’s the only “expert” in the US who hasn’t heard of the “Great Sort”. 

Election Week Bonus:  Other progs predictions, saved for posterity (click for a very long thread):

One of my biggest beeves with Donald Trump over the past four years has been the cult of personality around him – the wave of Scaramuccis and Loomers and other camp followers more partial to chanting points than issues.

But the Democrats tried to out-cult the cult.  Kamala Harris was a terrible candidate who ran a vapid campaign wrapped round brat vibes, Instagram moments and “Joy”. 

It was the Trump camp that ran on issues:

But this election, despite how the propaganda press tried to frame it, was not mostly about Donald Trump. The New York Times is at it again this morning, talking about Trump’s “cult of personality.” But Trump didn’t run on personality, he ran on the issues. He talked relentlessly and effectively about inflation, the border, and war and peace. True, he digressed more than some of us would have preferred, but his policy messages came through loud and clear.

It was the Democrats who tried to run on the cult of personality. The record of the Biden/Harris administration was indefensible, so they didn’t try to defend it. Harris avoided talking about the issues as much as possible, going so far, on multiple occasions, as to refuse to say what her position on an issue is. She was, as one pundit put it, the “no comment” candidate.

Instead of substance, the Democrats chose to run on personality and identity politics. Vote for Kamala because she is “kind” and “joyful”–never mind that she is such an obnoxious autocrat that she can’t keep a staff together. Also, vote for Kamala because she will be the first woman of color to be president. Whoopee. And most of all, of course, the Democrats tried to run against the personality of Donald Trump.

 

The fact that Trump is in a second term should mean – I hope – that he spikes the ball on those issues over the next four years.

It was 20 years ago when Hugh Hewitt released “If It’s Not Close They Can’t Cheat”.

And he was finally right. 

As this is written, Wednesday morning, Donald Trump has 277 electoral votes nailed down.  Trump could actually get over 300 – as this is written, Michigan, Arizona, Alaska and Nevada and their 35 votes are still up in the air, but trending toward Trump.

The US Senate has flipped, and. might actually get to 56 GOP votes.  

The US House is still very much up in the air, and likely will be for a while, but the GOP has flipped several seats and, as far as I know, lost none.   If I had to bet, I’d say they hold the majority, and the trifecta.  

Speaking of trifectas – the DFL’s is at least hobbled.  As this is written the MN House is tied at 67-67, with a few recounts underway.  I’m not sure what happens with a tied House – Lisa Demuth and Melissa Hortman arm-wrestle for the gavel?  I’m going with Lisa. 

Some good news – Anoka rejected municipal trash.  That is something worth celebrating.

The Piglet is over.

I got home after 2AM.  Posting may be light today.

Crystal K, charter MOB member, has a scathing review of life in Tim Walz’s Minnesota.

Read the whole thing .

There are too many pullquotes to run them all:

Our lives under Harris-Walz could be yours if we don’t vote to stop it.

The good news is that America has been in bad shape before and recovered. Minneapolis was dubbed “Murderapolis” in the 90s, but crime had come down significantly by the end of Republican Tim Pawlenty’s two terms as governor. The gas lines and exploding interest rates of the Carter years led to the Reagan recovery because people were sick of their plummeting standard of living and voted their way out of it.

We can do this. We too can vote our way out of this. We need to do it. My mom can’t work forever, and I will lose the home my husband and I worked so hard for if this doesn’t turn around. Our children, grandchilden and great-grandchildren deserve a future that’s much better than life is now. 

I hear there are about three persuadable people in the country right now. But since my family has lost three Republican men since the last presidential election, I’m hoping to persuade at least three people to vote Republican if they haven’t yet, or if they were planning to sit it out, please don’t. Hungry children and exhausted widows are depending on you. We could use some joy.

 

Fingers crossed.

Not that there’s a lot of doubt – the last Democrat I voted for was in 1996, and that was probably the only one since I voted for my mom in 1984.

But yeah, while Trump isn’t my favorite human on earth, and I wrote in Scott Walker in 2016 and held my nose voting for him in 2020, I’m voting for Trump and Republicans down the ticket for better reasons than usual this time.

1. Because May Lor Xiong, GOP candidate for CD4, actually shows up in the district.
2. Because violent crime, even after “dropping” since 2020, is still up by about a third over 2018.
3. Because there are better ways to reform a police department than gut it.
4. Because unlike earlier crime waves, this time the governments of Minneapolis and Saint Paul think the criminals have a point…
5. …and that you’ve kinda got it coming.
6. To spite everyone in “George Floyd Square”
7. And “Anti”-Fa
8. And the Minnespolis Go-Pro Bros.
9. And all the “pissed off women” trying to turn their emotional instability into a political weapon.
10. For families trying to make it as families in this messed up world .
11. To stick it to Deniece Specht and Randi Weingarten.
12. Because the DFL squandered $19 Billion in “surplus”, which they knew well was not really a surplus in the first place…
13. …and raised taxes 40%
14. Because Governor Piglet passively coddled the rioters in 2020. 
15. Because Gwen and Hope Walz actively supported them. 
16. Because Piglet excused the rioters depredations.
17. Because Ilhan Omar would be tickled pink if Hamas had managed to exterminate all the Jews. 
18. And to whiz on Betty McCollum. 
19. To support the Somali who broke with the DFL last weekend.
20. To show solidarity with the good Republicans of CD8, who over the past few years turned a solid Democrat district into solid Republican territory…
21. …and with the folks in CD7, who won’t send another Democrat to DC for generations.
22. And with the folks in CD1, who have been warning the rest of the nation about Governor Piglet with their votes since he left Congress (they voted for Johnson in 2018 and Jensen in 2022). 
23. Because while I am a forthright non-fan of Donald Trump, he will do much less damage to this nation’s constitutional fabric than Giggles and Piglet.
24. Because Tim Walz ran on “One Minnesota” – and promptly made it clear he was talking a about authoritarian, forced “unity”. 
25. Because Tim Walz lied about the science during Covid, and then covered it up.
26. Because Tim Walz had the worst record of any governor regarding long term care patients…
27. …and nobody dared hold him accountable.
28. Because Walz created a snitch line.
29. And because the DFL enacted a thought-crime database.
30. And the DFL passed a law that protects “attraction to minors” under the MN Human Rights Act. 
31. And while if you are a noncustodial parent who brings your child to Minnesota for a private education, the state will beat you like you owe it money, they will use the State Patrol and the Attorney General’s office to protect your spouse with Munchausens by Proxy, provided they steal your kid to bring them to Minnesota for “gender affirming care” – aka chemical and surgical neutering.
32. To end the “Trifecta”.
33. To make Tim Walz a lame duck, and give his successor – Flanagan?  Hortman? – an uphill road to getting the office.
34. To chastize the local media for letting Piglet skate for 20 years with no scrutiny whatsoever.
35. In the hope of draining the swamp.
36. To persuade all our vacuous, useless celebrities…
37. …and overwrought influencers, to actually follow through on moving to Canada (even though, shhh, Canada doesn’t want them).
38. To drop a Daisy-cutter in the Culture War.
39. Because a Trump victory will put the entire Star Tribune, KARE11, MPR and WCCO newsrooms on Paxil for the next year.  And I’ve got a bunch of Glaxo stock.  #WinWin!
40. Trump believes America is a land of opportunity, not a cesspool of inequity that targets the”outs”
41. I’m voting for Trump because he hasn’t called me a deplorable.
42. Or a bitter, gun-clinging Jeebus freak.
43. Or garbage.
44. Or a Fascist, or a Nazi.
45. And he doesn’t represent people who think men are, as a gender, superflous…
46. …or the enemy. 
47. To show modern academia who’s boss.
48. Because the Electoral College is a vital part of helping a nation full of people that don’t like each other much, actually function.
49. Because the threat of the filibuster helps filter out a lot of bad ideas – it’s what stands between us and being a cold Greece.
50. And because the Supreme Court needs to remain independent of Executive Branch control
51. Because Trump is a meritocrat, who favors rewarding innovation and entrepreneurship…
52. …and Democrats are the opposite of that, always. 
53. I’m voting for Peanut the squirrel.  Because he can’t…
54. …although if he lived in Chicago, Newark or Seven Corners, he probably could.
55. A Harris win will give DEI a new tank of gas.
56. To teach all of our “best and brightest” that they are responsible for their own “safe spaces”.
57. Because Piglet passed a universal gun registration program…
58. …and an “ex-spouse empowerment ” law…
59. …and supported a bill that would have confiscated 2/3 of all firearms in MInnesota in a generation. 
60. And Kamala Harris wants a forced buyback of AR15s…
61. …while condescendingly cooing “nobody’s coming for your guns”.  There are few things I hate more. 
62. For families – which Democrats are trying to subordinate to the state.
63. To stick it to Erin Maye Quade. 
64. While tariffs are a bad idea, Trump used them before to enforce good behavior among other nations. 
65. Because “America First” under Trump means looking out for our interests (not our “social purity”) first. 
66. Because I miss a foreign policy where dictators are afraid of us.
67. Because the border should mean something.
68. And so should citizenship.
69. To start the process of pushing progressives back down the route of their “long walk through the institutions”.
70. To throw a finger at the deep state.
71. To hopefully compel all those celebs and influencers who wannt to “move to Canada if Trump wins” to do it.
72. Because any step toward taking the Minnesota executive branch is a step closer to finding out the truth behind our electoral system.
73. Because under Trump’s first term, the world was a safer place.  The world’s tyrants were legitimately worried about that bump in the night, and showed it.  There’s a reason Putin, Hamas and Xi held their water from 2017-2021. 
74. And there’s a reason 2021 saw the collapse of Afghanistan, 2022 the invasion of Ukraine, and 2023 the invasion of Israel.
75. And there’s a reason Israel and Ukraine are ramping up their efforts now; they’ve been worried about a possible win by Giggles and Piglet.
76. To honor the solidiers of the 1/125 Field Artilllery, who went into the Sandbox without their Command Sergeant Major so Klink could run for Congress.
77. I’m voting against Giggles and PIglet because they think the road to peace in the Middle East is for Israel to let Hamas re-arm and try again. 
78. And because Trump got the Middle East to the brink of peace, and may just finish the job.
79. I’m voting Trump for a free Iran. . God willing.
80. I’m voting Trump so there’s at least a chance the five Americans being held hostage in Gaza right now to come, alive – or ever.
81. Wages grew way faster than inflation under Trump’s first term.  No – way faster.
82. Because Harris wants to replace Equality with Equity.
83. Because Harris wants to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on doling out political patronage to people the Democrats want to vote for them.
84. Because Harris is obsessed with Marxist-style class politics…
85. …and government spending to rectify the non-problem. 
86. Harris promotes a culture of supporting sustained weakness to enabling strength, economically, and in foreign policy terms.
87. Because Harris thinks she and Biden put in a good day’s work with the collapse in Afghanistan. 
88. For the 13 servicepeople killed at Bishops Gate….
89. …and all the Afghans who died trying to get out, and since then (thanks to SmithStCroix).
90. And all the Afghan women who got stuffed back into burquas afterward.
91. Because Harris wants to systematize the view that all imbalances are the result of discrimination.
92. Because the fact that the DNC thought Tim Walz would score votes among regular guys.
93. To spite “White Dudes for Harris” – the worst piece of patronization I can recall ever. 
94. And to mock “the Handmaid’s Tale” and everyone who refers to it. 
95. Because, whatever you think about the slogan, Trump does believe America is great…
96. …and will work on a policy level to keep it that way, and
97. Harris and Walz don’t, and won’t.
98. And that, right there, is all we should need to know. 
99. Because I want to make Orwell fiction again.
100. For my kids, who are trying to create a life in the big world…
101. …and my oldest granddaughter, who spent way too much time locked down in a state of artificial panic…
102. …and so her little sister never had to go through that again to benefit the DFL.
103. For everyone immigrant business person burned out during the riots…
104. …and every business smothered by Piglet’s idiot approach to Covid…
105. …and every cancer patient who died while Piglet locked down clinics…
106. …while opening bars and big box stores. 
107. …and every senior – every grandma and great-grandpa – who died, alone, their families barred by the police from visiting them in their final days.
108. And for my mother, whom I didn’t dare move to Minnesota after her husband died, leaving her in a memory care in North Dakota for six miserable month. 
109. For that alone, I need no more reason.  Fuck Tim Walz, and anyone who puts him on a ticket. 

…were any needed, that nobody on the Harris/Walz campaign has ever actually met a straight adult male:

Because guys go to vote like they’re a bunch of girls at a bar going to the bathroom together.

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

Election officials in Trump-trending Bucks County, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philly, sent a police officer to turn away voters standing in line, waiting for early voting.  The line was closed at 1:45 pm instead of 5:00 pm as advertised.  A judge later reinstated early voting after Republicans sued.

There is no election fraud.   There may be occasional errors but not enough to change the outcome. It is impossible to steal an election. The last election was the fairest one ever, except for this one, which is even more fair.  All we need to do to win, is to show up and vote. Anybody who says otherwise is an election denier and a threat to Our Precious Democracy.  

 

Joe Doakes

Seems a little…irregular.

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

After 265,000 absentee ballots have already been accepted, NOW they’re going to consider putting Republicans on the Absentee Ballot Board to decide which absentee ballots can be accepted in the future:

 

There is no election fraud.   There may be occasional errors but not enough to change the outcome. It is impossible to steal an election. The last election was the fairest one ever, except for this one, which is even more fair.  All we need to do to win, is to show up and vote. Anybody who says otherwise is an election denier and a threat to Our Precious Democracy.  

 

Joe Doakes

It’s all feeling a little Orwellian, isn’t it?

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

Around a dozen ballots in Mesa County were stolen from registered voters in the mail and submitted fraudulently.

State officials said Thursday they discovered the thefts this week through the signature verification process in Grand Junction, prompting an investigation by state and local officials.

 

This caught THIS dozen but how many others, in how many other counties, were not discovered?  Enough to swing the election?  How will we know? 

 

There is no election fraud.   There may be occasional errors but not enough to change the outcome. It is impossible to steal an election. The last election was the fairest one ever, except for this one, which is even more fair.  All we need to do to win, is to show up and vote. Anybody who says otherwise is an election denier and a threat to Our Precious Democracy. 

 

Joe Doakes

It’s enough to make you wonder. 

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

There are no standards for printing ballots.  Different counties use different print shops to print election ballots, but some ballots cannot be scanned.  Not all voters got the defective ballots and nobody knows whose votes were counted versus whose were rejected.  In counties where the red-blue split is close, rejecting red voters could swing the election.

There is no election fraud.   There may be occasional errors but not enough to change the outcome. It is impossible to steal an election. The last election was the fairest one ever, except for this one, which is even more fair.  All we need to do to win, is to show up and vote. Anybody who says otherwise is an election denier and a threat to Our Precious Democracy.  

Joe Doakes

The Constitution enumerates some powers to the states.   It’s both a strength and. weakness.  And unfortunately, the Federal and State governments are both run by government workers.

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

Virginia Governor Youngkin issued an order in August directing the state to remove ineligible non-citizens from the list of eligible voters (dead people, non-residents, illegal aliens, fraudulent registrations).  Democrats sued to keep ineligible persons on the eligible voter list, the district court decided the state could not remove ineligible persons within the “quiet period” before the election, Republicans appealed to the Supreme Court which decided the “quiet period” does not protect ineligible persons since they’re ineligible to vote in the first place. 

If the Supreme Court had not acted, ballots from those ineligible persons could have been harvested and votes cast for Kamala, potentially tipping the election.  Remember the felon votes for Al Franken?  Same idea.

 

There is no election fraud.   There may be occasional errors but not enough to change the outcome. It is impossible to steal an election. The last election was the fairest one ever, except for this one, which is even more fair.  All we need to do to win, is to show up and vote. Anybody who says otherwise is an election denier and a threat to Our Precious Democracy.  

 

Joe Doakes

The crime, to the left, is noticing the crime.

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

I have been pelting you with emails on a certain theme. Now Laughing Wolf takes up the refrain:

“I highly recommend going back and re-reading Larry Correia’s excellent takes on the 2020 elections, here and here. There are some other good ones out on that election, and 2022, but those do a very good job of establishing the patterns. Patterns we are already starting to see in Colorado (passwords, multiple other issues, trying to keep Trump off the ballot), Minnesota (multiple votes same voter ID number, etc.), Michigan (Chinese student voting), Pennsylvania (closing lines, voter intimidation, etc.), and, well, there are more.”

The evidence is clear that Democrats are blatantly trying to steal this election.

I don’t want to hear Republicans say, “There is no election fraud. There may be occasional errors but not enough to change the outcome. It is impossible to steal an election. The last election was the fairest one ever, except for this one, which is even more fair. All we need to do to win, is to show up and vote. Anybody who says otherwise is an election denier and a threat to Our Precious Democracy.”

Instead, I want to hear Republicans tell Democrats right now, “You are cheating and we won’t sit still for it. If you cheat to steal the election, we won’t quietly go along. We will burn it all down before we submit to a usurper. Stop cheating, play fair, or face civil war.”

Of course the media will lose their minds. Of course RINOs will be aghast.
Of course Democtats will point and rheeee.

So what? What’s Option B? Let them cheat to steal the election and what, lose gracefully? Claim that Trump was a bad candidate, too divisive, we need to run someone more moderate next time? And when Democrsts steal that election, and the next, and the next, then what?

Which one is the hill to die on?

Joe Doakes

Discuss.