A video posted by CNN Business on February 3rd shows a clip of an appearance by MyPillow founder Mike Lindell on American Agenda on Newsmax. Lindell had come on the show to talk about being banned by Twitter but shifted the conversation to voting irregularities. Titles overlay-ed on the video by CNN Business helpfully lay out the facts:

“Newsmax anchor Bob Sellers walked off set during an interview with MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. Lindell, a supporter of Donald Trump, was there to talk about cancel culture after being banned by Twitter. But the conversation quickly devolved as Lindell railed about unsubstantiated election fraud claims.”

When Lindell mentioned Dominion Voting Systems, Sellers tried to redirect his guest.

“We at Newsmax have not been able to verify any of those kinds of allegations we just want to let people know that there is nothing substantive that we’ve seen. Let me read you something.

“While there were some clear evidence of some cases of vote fraud and election irregularities, the election results in every state were certified and Newsmax accepts the results as legal and final. The courts have also supported that view.

“We wanted to talk to you about cancel culture… we don’t want to re-litigate the allegations that you’re making.”

Titles on the video further explained “separately, Dominion has sent Lindell a letter warning that litigation is imminent.”

The video shows Sellers’ frustration at having to shift his guest back to safer ground before walking off the set. CNN tries to make Lindell look as if he’s too wacky even for an outfit like Newsmax.

I suspect that the reason for Sellers’ discomfort is that he was being forced to read something that goes against his views. It is also very similar to a statement posted on commentary site American Thinker at the behest of DVS:

American Thinker and contributors… published pieces on www.AmericanThinker.com that falsely accuse Dominion Voting Systems, Inc. of conspiring to steal the November 2020 election from Donald Trump. These pieces rely on discredited sources who have peddled debunked theories about Dominion’s supposed ties to Venezuela, fraud on Dominion’s machines that resulted in massive vote switching or weighted votes, and other claims falsely stating that there is credible evidence that Dominion acted fraudulently.

These statements are completely false and have no basis in fact. Industry experts and public officials alike have confirmed that Dominion conducted itself appropriately and that there is simply no evidence to support these claims.

It was wrong for us to publish these false statements. We apologize to Dominion for all of the harm this caused them and their employees. We also apologize to our readers for abandoning 9 journalistic principles and misrepresenting Dominion’s track record and its limited role in tabulating votes for the November 2020 election. We regret this grave error.

The statements from both American Thinker and Newsmax read as if made under threat of lawsuits with potentially devastating consequences for the two media organizations. Similar announced lawsuits by DVS against Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani smack of the same strategy.

Corporate leadership has a responsibility to maximize the owner’s value. That means protecting a company’s reputation, the value of its brand, and prospects for future business. C-suite executives who damage the brand or lose out on business are themselves likely to get sued by shareholders. A company that vigorously defends itself by disproving false allegations against it is doing the right thing.

This is different. It has the feel of a SLAPP.

SLAPP, or strategic lawsuits against public participation, are essentially legal actions to silence opponents which likely do not have the resources for to pay for costs of a protracted legal battle.

In “The Corporate Defamation Plaintiff in the Era of SLAPPs: Revisiting New York Times v. Sullivan,” D. Mark Jackson, explains how corporations have been making greater use of the defamation tort since the 1964 NY Times v. Sullivan decision:

Intimidation lawsuits have become a major weapon in the corporate arsenal. Using defamation suits against civic-minded citizens, groups,and publishers, corporations have drastically squelched citizen and news media involvement. In this way, the defamation suit has become a tool to ward off public criticism and oversight.

Lawyers for Dominion certainly got the attention of those two smaller outfits which definitely do not have the resources for the fight and would be ruined if a judgment were found against them.

Mark Steyn, himself a victim of a lawsuit from someone who disagrees with his public utterances explains the backstory of the SLAPP:

It was coined in the Eighties by Penelope Canan and George W. Pring at the University of Denver, and in the Nineties they turned it into a book: SLAPPs: Getting Sued for Speaking Out. And it proved so influential that by the Oughts various jurisdictions were passing “anti-SLAPP laws,” to the point where they’re now on the books of 28 states, one territory, and the District of Columbia. The purpose of an anti-SLAPP law is to get such suits quickly dismissed.

His experience shows that the process isn’t quite as smooth and quick as people would like. But still, the definition of the SLAPP is there and the process by which to respond is already available in more than half of all states. I suspect that these suits initiated by the legal team at DVS fit the definition of a SLAPP and may get tossed if any of them makes it to a courtroom.

Until that happens, individuals and small publishers are going to have to face Goliath, and his SLAPP, alone.

Reference:

D. Mark Jackson, The Corporate Defamation Plaintiff in the Era of SLAPPs: Revisiting New York Times v. Sullivan, 9 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 491 (2001), https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1366&context=wmborj

The advice from the good doctor has been all over the place. From there’s nothing to worry about, and no, you don’t need a mask, to stay home to stop the spread of the plague, to sure, have sex with strangers you met on Tinder, to I’ve found that wearing more than one mask protects me even more than a single mask. Accident injury lawyers and chiropractors could have a field day treating the whiplash this conflicting “advice” has given the American people.

But how has he been able to get away with it? How have these exemplars of “science” been able to get away with a performance that would make, by comparison, a patent-medicine salesman seem like a pillar of integrity?

Two factors have allowed them to get away with this. A general illiteracy in the sciences among the public and the existence of much of that same public in a state of perpetual present.

It was big news in 2014 when the results from a survey conducted by the National Science Foundation revealed that 1 in 4 Americans did not know that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Other surveys have shown that some don’t know that a year is the time it takes the Earth to complete a revolution around the Sun.

Over the decades, many concerned members of the public have attempted to protect their communities from the dangers of di-hydrogen monoxide (DHMO). In some cases trying to get their municipality to ban it.

Of course these poor souls nearly banned water because the molecule is more popularly known as H2O. No doubt the icky-sounding monoxide ending sealed the deal for many. If carbon-monoxide is bad then that other monoxide must be bad too.

Ignorance of Galileo’s heliocentric model by a quarter of the population and concern about the scourge of DHMO by others are but two examples of the state of public knowledge. Another, Ivanovsky’s 19^th century experiments which discovered organisms too small to be bacteria –viruses– is likely still taught as part of high school biology, but likely unknown to much of the public.

The fruits of high technology, engineering, and science make our lives easier, more productive, and longer, but too few people have even a superficial understanding of how any of it works. To many, it’s closer to magic than science and they are content to leave all the thinking to the experts.

Now it’s true that individuals and organizations with advanced and deep knowledge of a topic should be heard when something happens in their field of expertise. But there is a difference between consulting the experts and simply ceding to them all decision making power.

At the start of February we are nearly ten months into the “two weeks to slow the spread” campaign that started in March. Remember that? At the time, virtually no one argued against that or brought up the fact that if everyone rushed out all at once to buy provisions to get them through a two week shutdown, that they would get exposed to the very public from which they were supposed to hide. The “science” told the “scientists” that this was the right tactic against this disease. It would also give the health care sector time to prepare for the expected influx. Miraculously, people complied and the aptly named lock-down began. What many also didn’t realize is that they had just stepped into a cage, which was locked from the outside.

Two weeks dragged by and people eagerly awaited the end of their sentence, except the goal posts suddenly shifted. We hadn’t shut down to slow the spread and give healthcare providers a chance to prepare, we needed to stay shut-in to keep anyone from getting infected! Testing centers were setup in most cities and the news media got a lot of mileage out of “another grim milestone has been reached today” as news of positive tests was reported by health officials. But were things really so bad? Did the media provide any context to help people understand? No on both counts.

In page 50 of his book “Corona False Alarm? Facts and Figures”Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi explains the numbers game:

“If we look at the numbers of reported infections in the first four weeks of March we can see that this actually looks like exponential growth, exactly as the RKI proclaimed. And that is how it was presented everywhere.

However, what the RKI did not point out was that in calendar week 12 the number of tests had approximately tripled and increased again the following week. The RKI apparently did not feel duty-bound to truth and clarification towards the population. So therefore, are these figures really distorted? Why didn’t they correct the numbers? That could have been achieved by stating the number of infections per 100,000 tests as shown in the second diagram.”

By not providing context, health authorities made it seem like there was a spiraling disaster when there was slow growth in infections. The media, likely as ignorant about concepts of statistics as the public they claim to serve, ran with the raw numbers and then terrified their audience.

Statistics can get complex, but few people even had the minimal understanding of statistical concepts to ask that reports of positive tests be put in the context of changes in the number of tests performed. The people saw unrealistic numbers and panicked rather than ask questions. The media enjoyed the attention, the ratings and the online engagement too much to provide context or contrasting views. The authorities, either in public health or in government generally, realized that they had carte blanche to do whatever they wanted and so the game began.

But surely people would notice the shifting targets and conflicting statements. Wouldn’t they keep track of announcements who’s content changed week to week? Or maybe that their rulers weren’t following the edicts they used law enforcement to apply to the little people?

They didn’t.

At least not enough that it made any difference. Too many people had entered Dory mode.

The arrival of smart phones in most pockets and instantly searchable websites and databases and even social media made it seem like our civilization had reached a golden age of information access. The flip-side of this information revolution is that people are less likely to subscribe to newspapers or have reference books –or books of any kind– in their homes. Everything is searchable online, often for free, so most people don’t bother with the expense. This leaves them vulnerable to whoever controls those sources of information.

Sites with articles critical of the effectiveness of masks suddenly had notices stating that the advice did not apply to COVID or redirecting to propaganda to ensure mask compliance. The initial surge of deaths was widely reported but as those leveled off the focus shifted to infection rates. As those too became less urgent the focus shifted again to “positive cases” which were positive test results that didn’t track whether individuals were tested more than once. Whatever would scare the public into compliance is what ran that week.

This kind of shell game might have been harder to pull on people who still had newspapers or magazines from even the recent past in their homes. They might notice that the criteria kept changing depending on the needs of the moment. Households that get their news electronically from social media and mainstream media had no such fallback. Constantly updated news feeds with the most recent reason to panic meant that there was no time for contemplation. Readers could barely tread water in the here and now. They were stuck in a perpetual present.

Orwell’s 1984 envisioned something similar where the only source of news was whatever came over the tele-screen. In one scene in the novel we learn of a change in the chocolate ration and how the residents of Oceania processed the news.

“It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week. And only yesterday […] it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grams a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it. […] The eyeless creature at the other table swallowed it fanatically. passionately, with a furious desire to track down, denounce, and vaporize anyone who should suggest that last week the ration had been thirty grams. Syme, too-in some more double complex way, involving double-think-Syme, swallow it. Was he, then, alone in the possession of a memory?”

In a perpetual present, and with no records of the recent past, the people of Oceania were easily controlled and lied to by their government. In real life, journalists and social media, which march in lockstep to silence dissenting views, are achieving the same thing.

A society filled with people without basic knowledge of science and math, and ignorant of much else because they rely on online information that can be changed in an instant is going to be easily controlled. Ours also suffers from tech induced memory loss.

We walked right into this. Our rulers had our number.

First we have further proof that pollsters are liars who were trying alternately to boost Biden or depress President Trump’s supporters. Ridiculous polls that showed Joe Biden up by over 10 points nation wide have been shown to be con jobs. As I write, the margin in the popular vote is 3% with just under three million votes separating the candidates. There is no reason why the polls would have been that wrong until election day if it were not for an agenda on the part of the polling firms.

Second The Blue Wave (TM) and its big brother, the blue tsunami, didn’t come to pass. For at least a while longer, the United States is still a 50/50 country. It is a remarkable thing that after every media company, traditional and social, and every activist group threw everything they had at President Trump that they could barely lift his opponent just above the 50% mark in the popular vote.

Third I worry that so many voters are so un-serious or so far gone that we may be about to lose the country. Oregon, Washington, and Minnesota saw months of rioting by radicals who destroyed whole sections of cities. These radicals were public in their hatred of the president and in their willingness to destroy the communities of people who are largely supportive of their aims. Being on the receiving end of the rage and destruction doesn’t seem to have changed many minds. Oregon and Washington still went 2 to 1 for Joe Biden. Minnesota has Biden up by seven with a margin of about 200,000 votes. These people don’t learn lessons.

Fourth It looks like Republicans will hold the Senate even if President Trump does not get re-elected. It’s possible that they could provide the legislative circuit breaker necessary to spare us the worst of a Kamala Harris presidency. That said, how much confidence would anyone have in the ability of Mitt Romney, among others, to hold the conservative line? If it comes to pass, every setback for the president will be blamed on those enemies of the people in the US Senate.

Lastly During Fox News’ coverage on election night, a lot was made of the fact that Cubans and Venezuelans provided part of Trump’s margin of victory in Florida. They said that Trump’s anti-socialism message really hit home these two demographic groups. It’s not a surprise that people who experienced the deprivation and repression of socialism/communism first hand would be receptive to this message. They know what it’s like to live under repressive regimes. Hopefully the naive/ignorant voters who threw their support to Biden won’t have to learn that lesson firsthand.

This plays to a large segment of the American people who seem to believe that a cure is just over the horizon if we just apply the right amount of “science” to the problem.

The delusion is clearly a public health version of what prosecutors, defense lawyers, and judges termed “the CSI effect,” where people familiar with the forensic science depicted on those types of shows end up with unrealistic expectations of what is possible in real life. USA Today described the effect:

But the programs also foster what analysts say is the mistaken notion that criminal science is fast and infallible and always gets its man. …. Real crime-scene investigators say that because of the programs, people often have unrealistic ideas of what criminal science can deliver.

The same is likely going on with perceptions of medicine. Shows featuring medical professionals usually have a patient with a disease who gets cured by the end credits nearly every week. This creates a perception among some in the audience that any disease is curable provided we send enough people wearing lab coats and stethoscopes into battle.

In this world, Donald Trump is not acknowledging the reality that we can treat the disease and protect the most vulnerable while everyone else goes about their lives. He’s thought to be willing to sacrifice the vulnerable to restore the economy and improve his chances of reelection. If only Donald Trump would extend the lockdown another week. If only Donald Trump had more doctors like Dr. Fauci on his team. If only Donald Trump would lead by example and wear triple masks. If only Donald Trump believed in “the science,” we could beat this thing.

People who believe the world works like this are deluding themselves. Back to that USA Today article:

But real scientists say CSI’s main fault is this: The science is always above reproach.

Sound familiar?

People watch TV and think that fantasies, be they crime or medical shows, are real. Then real life disappoints them.

The real science shows that lockdowns don’t do anything but delay the inevitable spread of the virus. Alex Berenson has done the legwork with his “Unreported Truths About COVID-19 and Lockdowns” books.

The real science shows that the benefits of masks are not clear cut. They may protect the wearer from inhaling water droplets that carry the virus. But the benefits are offset by the fact that people touch their faces more when wearing a mask. Some are now claiming that those same water droplets caught by a mask can be aerosolized and dispersed as smaller particles when a person exhales. The aerosolized particles are much easier to inhale and can work their way deeper into lung tissue.

The real science shows that people with the virus can be treated with existing medications and make a recovery, provided that they get help early in the infection. Drugs like hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin have already been shown to be effective in treating people with coronavirus infections. Cures may be forever on the horizon.

TV can be very tidy. The case of the week gets wrapped up in 60 minutes, unless the network needs a two-part episode. In real life, science is a process more than an answer. Scientists and experts make mistakes in their interpretation of data and have to reevaluate their work. Real life is often messy and we do have to learn to live with things.

The fantasies promoted by Joe Biden and the Democrats are not going to fix this crisis. These fantasies will prolong the crisis and cause deep scars in public health, both physical and mental, the economy. The longer we entertain them, the worse the damage to our country.

On October 24th, Turning Point USA published a video where Charlie Kirk speaks briefly about socialism and introduces Sirley Àvila Leòn, a Cuban woman, who shared her real life horror experience in communist Cuba. The 12 minute video is worth your time to get an idea of what socialism actually looks like on the ground.

Sirley’s Story

Sirley Àvila Leòn begins her story with the issue that motivated her to speak out for change. Leòn, who ran a small farm with livestock and fruit trees, was selected as a delegate to the People’s Assembly to represent her community in an eastern province of Cuba. Her role was to communicate the issues and difficulties of the peasants to the government. When the Cuban government decided to consolidate smaller schools in rural areas because each location was serving a small number of children, Leòn shared her concerns with the government. The peasants were worried that if their local schools shut down that children would be walking many miles to the nearest available school.

She described how she went to the municipal government, then tried to present her neighbors’ concerns to the provincial government. Finally, she went to the national government to present her case. At every level she was stonewalled by government officials. She went to the national government to plead her case twelve times and was still ignored.

When she returned home Leòn experienced retribution from the government she served. The government settled dangerous prisoners on the edge of her property; her home was vandalized and livestock was stolen. When she searched for information about dissident organizations her son was fired from his military career and denied him an income, and faced demands that he denounce her as crazy. The pressure campaign didn’t sway the support she had from family and neighbors so the government decided to step it up. A couple arrived at her door looking for work and Leòn took them in and gave them a job and a place to live.

Later, when Leòn went into town to complete paperwork for the ministry of agriculture, she surprised her neighbors who had been told she had moved away. Upon return to her home Leòn found the couple that she took in waiting for her. The man was holding a sharpened machete and announced that he was going to use it on her. He started hacking at Leòn and she lost part of her left arm. Just as he was about to deliver the kill shot, his young grandson came out and responded with shock. The man lost his nerve and didn’t kill Leòn.

Her neighbors called for help but the police never showed and an ambulance appeared hours later. At the hospital, Leòn was left unattended for hours and the doctors did shoddy work once they did get around to her. She doesn’t elaborate whether the poor medical care was the result of political decisions or incompetence.

Leòn eventually was able to get to the United States where she received proper medical care. She praised the United States as a place where people have the freedom to express themselves and the freedom to choose how to live. She said that anarchy, communism, and socialism aren’t capable of delivering what they promise and do not defend their citizens.

Why This Matters

Whether listening to Leòn’s story on video or reading the recap above the first thing that should jump out at the reader is that Leòn was not a terrorist or a disruptive protester. She was not even one of the Ladies in White who publicly protests government policy. Leòn was a member of the community in good standing. She believed in the system of government enough to participate in the political process and represent the interests of her community in Cuba’s socialist system.

The moment she became inconvenient to the people in charge they didn’t cancel her on social media. They didn’t send mean tweets or post nasty comments on her Instagram posts. The people in charge tried to cancel her. As in dead.

This is the danger of leftists. They apply the vice of pressure from above — government diktats like the corona virus lock-downs — and pressure from below — street violence targeting those with whom they disagree — to get what they want.

If socialism comes to America we won’t have targeted attempted killings like the one Sirley Àvila Leòn described, at least not at first. But we will be on the road to a very grim destination.

While I don’t doubt that there are many decent men and women in the Republican party, both as officeholders and activists, the party seems to be led by people who either don’t want to win or are misrepresenting themselves.

We don’t need the full history lesson about the GOP but recent events are important to consider. The main principle of the Republican party after World War II was anti-communism. The Democrats started out that way too but drifted left as the Cold War dragged on. Neither party was ideological in the way we think of them now but as the Democrats moved left, more people ended up as Republican by default. Conservatives, Christians, traditionalists, libertarians all ended up under one tent. Ronald Reagan famously commented that he didn’t so much move right as the Democratic party moved left and left him behind.

After Reagan engineered the defeat of the Soviet Union, one of the main pillars of the Republican party, the anti-communist one, no longer had a reason for being. During the 1980s and 1990s some clever Republican operative noticed that if they could have their candidates talk every other year about Jesus and small government and how abortion is bad, that the rubes would support them with campaign contributions and votes.

The topics would change to fit the needs of the moment but a few carefully placed key words and the party’s base would know that they had nowhere else to go. And so we experienced a John McCain who was against mass immigration, when he was running for office, and for mass immigration, when he was in office. We saw Mitt Romney run twice for the presidency as the most “severe conservative” in the race only to be the only Republican to vote with the Democrats on a sham impeachment of President Trump and endorse for president the Democrat with the most far left agenda ever put before the American people.

In the Congress we saw the performance art of the Paul Ryan House passing one symbolic repeal of Obamacare after another during Obama’s second term. They were symbolic because Obama’s veto was assured and there weren’t enough votes to override the veto. But Republicans assured us that they were legitimate votes. When the time came that a Republican president offered to sign the repeal, suddenly the Republicans weren’t sure if any of those dozens of repeals that they had passed just a couple of years earlier would really work. Amazing, right?
That they couldn’t just take one of those repeals off the shelf and pass it again spoke volumes about their honesty the first time around.

About the Obama era IRS scandal, or the attempted coup against Donald Trump, or the Steele Dossier, or the recent silencing of conservatives by big tech, the Republicans promise hearings. To be conducted at some point in the future, when no one is paying attention, where there will be no consequences for wrongdoing. Toothless showboating, but it does bring in those campaign contributions.

To say that this state of affairs is depressing is an understatement. Both parties do what they can to rile up their respective bases. It’s just politics and it’s cynical operatives do what they must to pump up their team.

So why, after this litany against Republicans, should you, or I, or anyone, support these people with our vote?

Because the other side is dangerous. That’s why.

Allowing the Democrats near power will accelerate the slide of the United States of America from the hope of the world, the shining beacon on a hill, to the depths of Third World despair.

As bad as Republicans are, they still tend to spend less, infringe on our liberties less, support useless government less. Whatever the Democrats want, the Republicans want it too, but less.

As a country, we need the breathing room of less. A slower slide will hopefully let us get our footing before we’re past the point of no return.

I’ve spent most of this piece complaining about Republicans, so in the interest of partially equal time here is a story about the Democrats. And why they shouldn’t be allowed near power.

As Obamacare was moving through the course in the House of Representatives the question of abortion came up. It was a sticking point for a group of conservative Democrats led by congressman Bart Stupak. They were uncomfortable with abortion funding in the bill. Stupak, along with a group of conservative Democrats and Republicans presented an amendment barring Federal funding for abortions. The congressman and his staff were harassed
by abortion advocates and a companion amendment did not pass in the US Senate. Stupak had to settle for the promise from President Obama of an Executive Order banning Federal funding for abortion in the act. The Affordable Care Act passed and Stupak did not seek re-election.

Those moderate, reasonable, conservative Democrats still caucused with the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. And after their votes for the leadership were counted, those moderate, reasonable, conservative Democrats became back-benchers in their own party. They had served their purpose and their power was gone. They were swamped by the leftist elements in their own party.

Republicans are not always as conservative or devoted to the well being of their constituents as they claim, but there are just enough office holders who will put the brakes on the worst of impulses of the statists and authoritarians among us to give us the breathing room we need to save this country.

Vote Republican! They suck, but less.

The most obvious comment to make is that, of course this young man, and his partner who filmed the encounter, felt perfectly confident about disrupting the women who were operating the table. They’re clearly bullies but smart enough to pull their stunt on people not likely to respond to them physically. It’s doubtful that they would have pulled this stunt at a bikers for Trump event. It also demonstrates how the left and the Democrats really don’t have an argument anymore and resort to intimidation instead.

Donald Trump has been very hard for the Democrats to pin down and destroy, precisely because he has blown up every one of their stock arguments against the typical generic Republican.

Every election year we hear that Republican candidate X is a warmonger. He’s doing it all to help his buddies in the military-industrial complex and to look tough for all the neo-conservatives, they tell us. They then point to his foreign adventures and wonder aloud about why he is spending money overseas when he should be spending it at home. If there is a hot war in progress, the press will keep running tallies of dead and wounded on their shows and publications. But only if he is a Republican. Recall that the war in Iraq had just that, with reports about the dead, and the press speculating on why President Bush was fine with servicemen and women being killed or maimed to help his friends, the Saudis. When President Obama entered office that concern evaporated, even as the Iraq campaign dragged fitfully on, the effort in Afghanistan continued, and we entered Libya. Nope, those overseas contingency operations were really of no interest to anyone except of course when Osama bin Laden was found and killed.

President Trump has consistently not taken the bait and refrained from sending our military careening into another adventure. He has been restrained in his responses to provocations from Syria. He ordered the strike that took out Iranian terrorist kingpin Qasem Soleimani, and has resorted to diplomacy with North Korea. Trump’s efforts at bringing peace to the Middle East through the Abraham Accords also appear to be starting to bear fruit.

So he’s not a warmonger. That line of attack doesn’t work. Next!

The next Democrat argument against generic Republican presidential candidate is that he does not care about the plight of the poor. Every attempt by a Republican president to spur economic growth through tax cuts has been spun by the left and the media as a giveaway to rich people.

Under Donald Trump, this argument also doesn’t hold. The Wall Street Journal reported that prior to the start of the pandemic, that median net worth and media household income both rose, Unemployment, which had been gently declining from its 2010 high of nearly 10% as a result of the great recession, declined quickly during Trump’s term to 3.5%.

CHART TRADINGECONOMICS.COM

Thanks to President Trump’s policies, the United States had reached full employment before the start of the pandemic. The people who were most helped were the ones with the least. As more people participate in the work force and incomes rise they have less need for government and what the Democrats are selling. Again, President Trump has neutralized that argument from the left. Next!

The Republican is a racist! Every four years some Republican will be the most racist person in the world. At least until the election is concluded.

George W Bush didn’t specifically court black voters but his campaign and presidency were not dismissive or insulting to them either. Then along came Hurricane Katrina and the devastation it wreaked on primarily black communities in Louisiana was laid at the feet of George W. Bush. The ineptitude of Democratic officials at the state and local level didn’t matter. The generational corruption that had squandered flood control money and left New Orleans barely able to cope with an afternoon rainstorm somehow became the fault of the Republican in the White House. The Bush administration mobilized aid but the damage was done. “George W. Bush doesn’t care about black people,” Kanye West blurted out during the benefit Concert for Hurricane Relief. And the perception was set in stone.

In 2012, Joe Biden told black voters that Mitt Romney would put them “back in chains.” Evidence was not necessary.

Contrast this to Donald Trump’s record with the black community. Under Trump black unemployment fell to historic lows. Trump’s efforts at criminal justice reform and commuting what have been considered overly harsh sentences for criminal convictions have shown that he cares about all of his constituents, even if they are not wealthy or connected. Trump’s work to improve funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities has also shown his commitment to the black community. His message of law and order, in part in response to the riots that have further hollowed out urban cores must also resonate with communities tired of being preyed on by predators and opportunists.

In short, if Donald Trump is a racist and a white supremacist, then he’s doing it wrong. The Democrats and the press will hound Trump for his supposed support of white supremacists –he doesn’t– but will report once and never again bring up that Joe Biden has the endorsement of professional white supremacist Richard Spencer.

The Democrats and the left are out of ideas and out of arguments. The best they can hope to do is fling insults and slanders and hope enough of them stick that they can drag down President Trump in his re-election efforts.

More depressingly, a second look at that young man in the video captured on Twitter shows he has a four word vocabulary. He can’t argue for a competing point of view. He can’t express anything beyond his hatred of the President.

“Fug Donald Trump ni—” is the best that he can say to supporters of the president.

The Democrats did that to him.

Democrats are the ones who have limited school choice and dumbed down the curriculum. Democrats are the ones who have told every minority group that they are being oppressed and have no hope outside their party. Democrats are the ones who have made conformity with their values a requirement, on penalty of assault or property damage.

The Democrats did that to that young man and to tens of millions of people around the country.

How many of them never developed the ability to think critically? How many of them are examples of wasted potential because they believed the propaganda that a racist country would never let them get ahead? How many of them have doubts about how things are going for them, and their communities, but don’t have a clue where to begin to fix things? Or are scared of what could happen to them if they break with their community?

Donald Trump must be maddening to Democrats.

He is not the caricature that they pin on other Republican candidates. He has governed responsibly and pushed an agenda of freedom and economic growth for everyone. He has been friendly to demographic groups normally ignored by Republicans. He has preemptively knocked down all of their arguments, not with promises, but with deeds.

Hopefully we can reach that young man and the many others like him.

For now we need to make sure the Democrats understand that their usual lies are not going to work for them this time.

The contradictory advice, and the strange lack of judgement on the part of many of those same public health officials during the recent — and ongoing — riots have caused quite a bit of skepticism among the public.

The most bizarre part of the conversation has taken place in publications that serve the fields of medicine and public health. Articles that doubted the effectiveness of mask wearing among the general population as a means of preventing the spread of disease have been amended with pro-mask statements after they’re widely shared in anti-mask circles. Other articles have bypassed any question of the effectiveness of masks and moved straight into questions of propaganda. How can we convince or pressure the public to be good and wear their masks, they ask. They then move on to weighing which form of social pressure will be most effective to convince the reluctant to fall in line.

Until recently someone trying to enter a government building, a bank, a pawn shop, or most businesses wearing a mask would be turned away. The association of masks with criminal behavior is too strong for anyone to take the risk of allowing that person in. It is no coincidence that criminals like bank robbers, the KKK, or Antifa wear masks to conceal their identities during the comission of crimes. Skeptics who doubt the effectiveness of masks as a disease prevention tool and also connect them with criminal behavior are naturally going to be wary of mandates requiring that masks be worn.

Strange things going on… Why would public officials recommend a solution that is only slightly effective under ideal conditions and foist it on the general public?

Control is definitely a factor but it’s more than that. It seems more like a belief in magic.

Think about it.

There’s a witch on the loose whose name is Corona. She’s invisible and she can cause you great harm unless you wear this talisman to scare her away.

Sound far-fetched?

Suppose that Donald Trump was sold on the value of mask wearing as a way to halt the spread of the virus. Trump is shown results of studies that aren’t definitive but show that masks afford a degree of protection. He then issues an Executive Order mandating the wearing of masks — you know, what Joe Biden has promised to do when he gets into office.

But this is not Joe Biden, it’s Donald Trump so there is no doubt that the liberal outrage machine would immediately shift into high gear.

Feminists would be trotted out onto the media circuit. Rachel Maddow would look on approvingly as they made connections between submitting to the mask mandate and the indignities suffered by the female characters in Margaret Atwood’s dystopian Handmaid’s Tale. “They are using the patriarchy to further suppress women by making us cover our faces,” they’d wail. Some young, innocent feminist would make the comparison between mask mandates and burkas; but would be taken aside and told that they shouldn’t criticize their allies in “the struggle.”

Over on CNN the younger Cuomo would rail against the authoritarian nature of the Trump administration and contrast it to his big brother’s enlightened leadership of the Empire State. Don Lemon would barely be able to conceal his contempt for the Trump people as his guests, likely sociologists or anthropologists, would explain that talismans are very important for primitive people who don’t understand science. Lemon would likely barely stifle a laugh when his guest compared Trump to a witch doctor.

Across the media and academia we could expect to see these types of comparisons where primitive non-thinkers — Trump supporters — believe that their magic masks ward off the evil Corona Witch.

This counterfactual scenario is completely believeable because so much of the professional left makes decisions about what it believes by opposing what they see in mainstream society or on the right. It’s even worse if the Bad Orange Man is involved.

Recall that Trump was called a xenophobe when he restricted air travel from China. Our House Speaker denounced him as a racist and told everyone within the sound of her voice to go hug a chinaman to counter his racism. But as the spread of the virus became cause for alarm, Democrats slammed the president for not doing enough soon enough to halt the spread. President Trump also mobilized the resources of the federal governemnt to aid in fighting the pandemic but wisely left the implementation to state and local officials. This is in line with the federal structure of our form of government. Democrats now complain that he hasnt’ done enough to take control of the emergency even as — in another breath — they complain that he is an incipient autocrat out to violate the separation of powers.

And so the left is oppositional, rather than rational, especially when it comes to the policy choices of President Trump. In their process, after oppostition comes rationalization. So the masks that work when worn by professionals under controlled conditions must become a requirement for all — even when they are ineffective because of the material, ill fit, or lack of understanding of germ protocols by the lay wearer — because President Trump is against such blanket mask mandates.

To the left the mask has become a symbol. Wearing their masks they show that they are good people who care about the health of others and wouldn’t endanger them. The mask also lets them easily identify the other members of their team and boosts them in their efforts to resist the president.

Though they would deny it, magical thinking is exactly what is happening among the pro-mask left. The mask is their talisman against the evil Trump. It has the effect of keeping things from appearing to return to normal. There is no room for adults to weigh the risks and decide for themselves. Everyone must follow the shaman’s prescription to the letter or the Corona Witch will emerge from the shadows and claim more victims. In their minds there is no space to deviate from their prescriptions. Even if pressed, they would deny that they are doing this to hurt the president’s chances for re-election; they’re simply concerned for public health, don’t ya know. Inwardly some of the more cynical elements likely hope that these ongoing mandates will do just that and help get their guy into office.

There is no magic cure for the virus. The best thing most of us can do is to wash our hands regularly, stay home when sick, take our vitamins, get some sunlight each day, and be especially vigilant of the condition of the most vulnerable in our society.

Medical professionals who deal with the sick will likely find masks made to medical grade specifications a sensible precaution. They will work, unlike the ones made of household fabrics with cute patterns or corporate logos. The former is a tool used by a professional; the latter is a placebo, a talisman.

As in so many other areas in life we need more reality in our thinking. Magic won’t solve our problems, clear thinking will.

It’s all very disappointing but it got me to think about just the type of president we had for eight years in George W. Bush.

I voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 election. Four years later, I intended to do more than just vote. I followed House and Senate primaries around the country and made modest donations to campaigns all across the fruited plain, in addition to W, of course. But that wasn’t enough. I stopped by the local Republican party campaign headquarters and picked up flyers for my own canvass of my neighborhood. Most people weren’t home and received a flyer that likely ended up in their mail pile, but I felt that I was making a difference.

The toughest was making an approach to people who answered the door or were outside. My neighbors are generally nice people and most took the flyer, nodded politely, and said they would consider supporting the president for reelection. Near the end of my neighborhood canvass I came upon a middle aged woman on her porch.

“Hi, I’m supporting President Bush for reelection. Are you a voter? “

She hesitated. There was an akward silence. Did I do something wrong? Was she a Democrat?

“You know, George W. Bush has done a lot for this country. Please consider supporting our president. Have a great rest of the weekend.”

She took a flyer and wished me a nice day. I thanked her for her time and continued down the street to visit the rest of the neighborhood.

I still remember that interaction sixteen years later, because of the flash of fear I experienced. What if she had asked for examples? What had George W. Bush done for this country?

As a conservative it’s hard to give George W. Bush a glowing report card for his time as president.

His administration was primarily defined by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Bush administration had inherited a bureaucracy where different intelligence outfits in the government were unable to communicate with each other and were unable to connect the dots where there were threats to national security. Bush had also inherited the near decade of national security negligence of the Clinton administration which did little about the threat of Islamic terrorism in general and 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden in particular.

Bush, to his credit, assembled a team that took the fight to the terrorists. The United States did not suffer another large scale terrorist attack since. George W. Bush deserves the credit for keeping the country safe.

The balance of his administration did not do much to advance the conservative cause. In fact, most of his initiatives created openings for the leftist statists who would follow during the Obama administration.

The Miller Center at the University of Virginia hosts a timeline of key events in the Bush presidency. The foreign policy side of the ledger, the rightful purview of a president, lists the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, changes in treaties with Russia, the Arab-Israeli conflict, North Korea, and American relationships with Britain, France and Germany, among other topics. The domestic side focused on tax cuts to spur the economy, debates over same-sex marriage and abortion, immigration policy, and Federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

The statist tilt of the Bush administration was most revealed by the Federal intrusion into education policy, expanding of entitlements for which future taxpayers would be on the hook, and energy efficiency standards.

The No Child Left Behind education reform bill, passed in January 2002 reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, was one of the president’s major domestic projects. The intent – to promote school standards and raise up under-performing schools – was noble enough. But NCLB represented a major intrusion of the Federal government into what has always been primarily a state and local matter. Cities, counties, and independent school districts around the country have school boards to set standards and policy. These bodies, because they are closest to the affected voters, are the ones most qualified to determine the needs of their communities. By dangling funding in exchange for compliance to dictates from Washington DC, the Bush administration dis-empowered local policy making bodies and opened the door to the Obama era Race to the Top campaign which was closely followed by Common Core.

A briefing sheet for the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act describes the extent of Federal government interference:

In 2001, No Child Left Behind imposed federal standards for what children had to know in reading and math. In 2009, the Obama administration’s competitive Race to the Top program required that states adopt Common Core State Standards and tests to be eligible to apply. In 2011, states began seeking waivers from the U.S. Department of Education from the unworkable provisions in No Child Left Behind, and the department required, in essence, the adoption of Common Core State Standards in order to receive waivers.

In December 2003, President Bush signed into law a bill which overhauled Medicare, and provided prescription drug benefits for senior citizens. The program was voluntary but wildly popular, with 73% of Medicare beneficiaries participating. While premiums for users have not risen much since the start of the program in 2006 the costs to taxpayers have spiraled. From The New York Times:

But the stability in the premiums belies much larger growth in the cost for taxpayers. In 2007, Part D cost taxpayers $46 billion. By 2016, the figure reached $79 billion, a 72 percent increase. It’s a surprising statistic for a program that is often praised for establishing a competitive insurance market that keeps costs low, and that is singled out as an example of the good that can come from strong competition in a private market.

The president, and the Congress that wrote the law, got the credit for helping retirees with their prescription costs – the taxpayers will pay the bill as it comes due. Notice also that the near doubling in cost came just as the large Baby Boomer generation has started to retire. Those costs will only continue to strain the Federal budget in the years to come as more people join the Medicare rolls.

The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 was most known for two provisions: raising automobile fuel efficiency standards and banning commonly used incandescent bulbs. Here again, the ‘we know better than you’ statist attitude comes to the forefront.

Greater fuel efficiency in cars and light trucks was already a trend. The Toyota Prius had launched world-wide in the year 2000 and other auto manufacturers worked hard to improve their MPG ratings to compete. Changing consumer preferences were driven as much by the rising cost of gasoline as by improvements to conventional internal combustion technology and greater reliability of hybrid and electric vehicles.

Phasing out the manufacture of light bulbs should also have happened as a result of market forces rather than law. People could have been persuaded that changing to bulbs with a higher up-front cost but lower power use meant lower costs over the life of the product. This was certainly not true initially; people who passed on compact fluorescent bulbs noted that the high purchase price meant they wouldn’t save money. Many also didn’t like the type of light the CFL bulbs put out. Over time the industry has resolved both issues. Sticker shock is not as common in the light bulb aisle at Home Depot and the bulbs themselves don’t emit that harsh light common in early CFL models. Market forces got us to the same destination.

In neither case were government edicts needed.

I come back to that moment during my 2004 get out the vote project. If pressed by that lady on her porch, what could I have said in favor of President Bush besides he cut taxes and is running the War on Terror?

Those are two big deals and Bush deserves credit for righting a wobbly economy after 9/11 and pursuing the people who meant to harm this country. The flip side is that he also must take responsibility for further enmeshing the Federal government in education through NCLB, creating a massive new entitlement in Medicare Part D, and dictating terms for energy efficiency that were best resolved in the free market.

George W. Bush is a decent man who behaved well while in office, especially when compared to the low bar set by his predecessor. But he was far too comfortable throwing around the weight of the Federal government to achieve his aims. Even where his intentions were honorable, by allowing the government to intervene in places it should not have gone, President Bush gave cover to future statists to continue to expand their power at the expense of our freedom.

This is probably one of the reasons why W and his people were silent during the massive expansion of the Federal government that took place during the Obama years but don’t have much good to say about the first president in decades that actively slashes regulations and returns power to the citizenry.

They are the best neighbors one can hope for. They are friendly and wave hello whenever we see them. They have many friends and family in town and are regularly involved in community activities. Laura bakes cakes and pies for community fundraisers and has been involved in American Cancer Society projects. The two of them also put on elaborate Halloween events for the young and young at heart in our town. Several times when we had prolonged power outages because of storms, they’ve offered to loan us their spare generator. Mark has a standing offer to loan me any tool I might need for a home improvement project.

In short, Mark and Laura are the ideal neighbors.

For over 20 years the one thing we never saw from them was anything associated with politics.

My neighborhood leans Republican but does have a substantial share of Democrats. Consequently, every election cycle sees yard signs and bumper stickers for local and statewide elections. Even in the primaries.

Mark and Laura have never had a sign in their yard or a bumper sticker on their cars. They don’t seem passionate about politics.

One night in February we ended up in a long conversation with Mark. We talked current events in town, how the neighborhood has changed over the years, and the progress of a town beautification project. It was pleasant small talk but it didn’t seem to be anything of great consequence until Mark segued into politics.

Sure enough, he and Laura are apolitical. They fondly remembered the Clinton era because the economy was doing well and the political climate wasn’t overheated like today. He had no strong feelings about Bush or Obama as neither man got more than a sentence. About Trump, Mark thought that he could have done a better job of speaking to the country. Mark did believe that Trump deserved credit for the economic expansion.

It was getting late and the conversation wound down. We all said good night and went returned to our homes.

It was an illuminating talk because it confirmed my guess that Mark and Laura were go with the flow types who were too busy living their lives to get too worked up about any politician. They seem representative of Americans who may not be registered voters or who are part of the great undecided; people who could be convinced by either side in a campaign.

Then one day I get home and find a Trump 2020 sign in their front yard.

For the first time in nearly a quarter of a century, my remarkably apolitical neighbors put up a sign for a political candidate. The Trump sign has stayed in its spot and was even restored after it was knocked over. They are serious about their support of the president.

I have not had a chance to ask them why they are publicly supporting a politician for the first time since I’ve known them. I suspect that, like many Americans, they have seen President Trump’s successes. What’s more is that during these times of government mandated shutdowns, they have had a chance to look critically at how the Democrats operate. It’s possible they’ve found the Democrats’ programs wanting.

Mark and Laura are not the only people thinking this way this election cycle. Others are displaying yard signs in front of their homes, putting bumper stickers on their cars, and even attending the president’s rallies when he stops nearby. This movement is no doubt favoring President Trump. The question is whether there are enough Marks and Lauras across the country to help him cross the finish line.

*In an effort to protect their privacy I have changed the names of my neighbors. Mark and Laura are not their real names.