theamericanconservative--2020-11-07--Liberalism Loses With Biden

Liberalism Loses With Biden

No president gets re-elected when there ’ s a recession , or worse , in the year leading up to the vote .
That ’ s been the case since the Great Depression , at any rate , and if Donald Trump is in fact sworn in for a second term come January , his populism will have beaten the greatest of political odds .
But if Joe Biden is sworn in instead , Trumpism wins another way—by leaving liberalism to be smashed to pieces by the circumstances of its own Pyrrhic victory .
First there ’ s the pendulum—the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ president ’ s party in midterm elections .
The pendulum cost Republicans control of the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterms , just as it cost the Democrats control of the Senate in the 2014 midterms and control of the House in the 2010 midterms .
There are rare exceptions when the president ’ s party gains seats—2002 , barely a year after the 9/11 attacks , and 1998 are examples—but come 2022 , Democrats will lack the single greatest source that motivated their gains in 2018 : opposition to Donald Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ personal popularity was not enough to bring Democrats to the polls in 2010 or 2018 , what are the chances that a President Biden would be able to generate sufficient enthusiasm two years from now ?
The Democrats ’ depressing performance ( for them ) in this year ’ s congressional elections , when their voters did turn out in force—only to be met with equal or greater counter-force by highly motivated Republicans—are only a taste of what ’ s in store .
Defending an administration in power is always harder than mounting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ comes great responsibility , and , therefore , all the blame .
There are many things for which a Biden administration might be blamed in the next two years , and President Trump ’ s experience in 2018 shows that an administration doesn ’ t automatically get credit from midterm voters for a booming economy .
Even a dramatic post- COVID recovery won ’ t guarantee the Democrats an easy time in two years .
By then , concerns about rising levels of violent crime may be uppermost on voters ’ minds .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the attacks lately suffered by France prove to be a prelude to attacks here .
Biden was once the sponsor of a crime bill , but the Biden of today is not the Biden of 25 years ago , and the Democratic Party of today is deeply riven over crime , with a progressive faction preferring to defund the police .
Without Trump to serve as a focus of Democrats ’ hatred , the differences between the social democratic and neoliberal economic factions within the party will also be a source of frustration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the Democratic Party has simply been the Anti-Trump Party .
Now it will be neither the Obama Party nor the Anti-Trump Party , but the Biden Party—and that ’ s not a thing to inspire anybody .
But the real rocks against which Biden will be broken are not those of his party but those of the conditions that gave rise to Trump and the populist insurgency in the first place .
COVID has only exacerbated the country ’ s inequalities and concentrated economic power ( and social control , in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hands .
Neither neoliberalism nor multiculturalism proposes a remedy for this : the Democrats beloved by Wall Street may think they can mollify voters with handouts and new welfare programs , but they offer Americans no dignity , no self-sufficiency .
The identitarian left , meanwhile , sees poor whites as just more oppressors—the ones who are likeliest to have un-woke attitudes , as it happens , and also the ones who are easiest to marginalize .
The Democratic Party is the party of the irreligious and the aggressively anti-Christian .
Even when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voters , they twist liberalism into a quasi-sectarian movement rather than an effectively political ( and economic ) one .
Economic nationalism and American patriotism are a natural fit within Trumpism ; anti-Americanism and either cultural or economic globalism ( or both ) are the formula of 21st-century liberalism .
The 1619 Project is not only not an answer to Communist China ’ s economic depredations , but to the extent anyone buys into the narrative of an unredeemable racist America , the emotional corollary is to celebrate the eclipse of American industry—globalization @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s efficient , as the neoliberals insist , but also because it is global rather than American , and whatever diminishes American identity is , for the multicultural left , naturally good .
Even without the long-term effects of the COVID recession , the American economy was on an unsustainable path toward dividing the country into a megarich elite ; a shockingly vulnerable , parlous professional class ; and masses of low-skill service workers and completely abandoned populations without educational credentials or proximity to “ job creators ” in the cities .
With @ @ @ @ @ @ @ liberalism is headed quickly for a crisis—if not in two years , almost certainly in four .
Biden would be a one-term president because of his age , if nothing else .
But Biden will in fact have to contend with everything else .
Four years from now , the Democrats will be looking for another nominee .
And if Kamala Harris was lackluster in the 2020 primaries , she won ’ t be any stronger when she ’ s tied to a failed administration in 2024 .
In fact , the greatest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s collapse will be so swift that a fraudulent populist—some establishment Republican simply emoting—will be able to take advantage of it .
But during this time in opposition , if Biden becomes president , Trump Republicans will be able to hone their program as well as their pitch .
Many of the best people in the Trump administration had little previous experience in government .
Only now do they know what is required to implement a Trump-like agenda over the objections of the permanent bureaucracy and disloyal Republican hacks .
They have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ address the obstacles they encountered while in power—the better to remove those obstacles expeditiously next time .
The 2020 election showed that even in the midst of a recession and a pandemic , even after four years of relentless Russian collusion hype , four years of demonizing the president and his supporters as racists , even after impeachment and with the liabilities as well as the strengths of the president ’ s personality , the Trump message was capable of mobilizing a record number of voters for the GOP and making gains among @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Under the worst possible conditions , Trump and Trumpism performed well—much better than the pollsters and the pundits predicted .
Think of what would have happened if not for COVID and the recession .
Donald Trump would not be troubled by protracted vote counts ; he would have been re-elected in a landslide .
If Republicans learn from this and follow the path Trump has shown them , without stumbling over the historically unprecedented roadblocks that were in his way , they will go into 2022 and 2024 facing a divided , depleted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on his ninth decade under the sky before the next presidential election—is not the man to rejuvenate liberalism .
He is rather its last gasp .

No president gets re-elected when there’s a recession, or worse, in the year leading up to the vote. That’s been the case since the Great Depression, at any rate, and if Donald Trump is in fact sworn in for a second term come January, his populism will have beaten the greatest of political odds. But if Joe Biden is sworn in instead, Trumpism wins another way—by leaving liberalism to be smashed to pieces by the circumstances of its own Pyrrhic victory.
First there’s the pendulum—the swing of political fortunes away from the president’s party in midterm elections. The pendulum cost Republicans control of the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterms, just as it cost the Democrats control of the Senate in the 2014 midterms and control of the House in the 2010 midterms. There are rare exceptions when the president’s party gains seats—2002, barely a year after the 9/11 attacks, and 1998 are examples—but come 2022, Democrats will lack the single greatest source that motivated their gains in 2018: opposition to Donald Trump. And if President Obama’s personal popularity was not enough to bring Democrats to the polls in 2010 or 2018, what are the chances that a President Biden would be able to generate sufficient enthusiasm two years from now? The Democrats’ depressing performance (for them) in this year’s congressional elections, when their voters did turn out in force—only to be met with equal or greater counter-force by highly motivated Republicans—are only a taste of what’s in store. Defending an administration in power is always harder than mounting criticisms from opposition: with great power comes great responsibility, and, therefore, all the blame.
There are many things for which a Biden administration might be blamed in the next two years, and President Trump’s experience in 2018 shows that an administration doesn’t automatically get credit from midterm voters for a booming economy. Even a dramatic post- COVID recovery won’t guarantee the Democrats an easy time in two years. By then, concerns about rising levels of violent crime may be uppermost on voters’ minds. Or new waves of terrorism, if the attacks lately suffered by France prove to be a prelude to attacks here. Biden was once the sponsor of a crime bill, but the Biden of today is not the Biden of 25 years ago, and the Democratic Party of today is deeply riven over crime, with a progressive faction preferring to defund the police. Without Trump to serve as a focus of Democrats’ hatred, the differences between the social democratic and neoliberal economic factions within the party will also be a source of frustration and distrust. Since Obama left office, the Democratic Party has simply been the Anti-Trump Party. Now it will be neither the Obama Party nor the Anti-Trump Party, but the Biden Party—and that’s not a thing to inspire anybody.
But the real rocks against which Biden will be broken are not those of his party but those of the conditions that gave rise to Trump and the populist insurgency in the first place. COVID has only exacerbated the country’s inequalities and concentrated economic power (and social control, in the case of tech companies) in fewer hands. Neither neoliberalism nor multiculturalism proposes a remedy for this: the Democrats beloved by Wall Street may think they can mollify voters with handouts and new welfare programs, but they offer Americans no dignity, no self-sufficiency. The identitarian left, meanwhile, sees poor whites as just more oppressors—the ones who are likeliest to have un-woke attitudes, as it happens, and also the ones who are easiest to marginalize. The Democratic Party is the party of the irreligious and the aggressively anti-Christian. Even when these hatreds do not provoke revulsion from voters, they twist liberalism into a quasi-sectarian movement rather than an effectively political (and economic) one. Economic nationalism and American patriotism are a natural fit within Trumpism; anti-Americanism and either cultural or economic globalism (or both) are the formula of 21st-century liberalism. The 1619 Project is not only not an answer to Communist China’s economic depredations, but to the extent anyone buys into the narrative of an unredeemable racist America, the emotional corollary is to celebrate the eclipse of American industry—globalization is good not only because it’s efficient, as the neoliberals insist, but also because it is global rather than American, and whatever diminishes American identity is, for the multicultural left, naturally good.
Even without the long-term effects of the COVID recession, the American economy was on an unsustainable path toward dividing the country into a megarich elite; a shockingly vulnerable, parlous professional class; and masses of low-skill service workers and completely abandoned populations without educational credentials or proximity to “job creators” in the cities. With the economic effects of COVID, establishment liberalism is headed quickly for a crisis—if not in two years, almost certainly in four. Biden would be a one-term president because of his age, if nothing else. But Biden will in fact have to contend with everything else. Four years from now, the Democrats will be looking for another nominee. And if Kamala Harris was lackluster in the 2020 primaries, she won’t be any stronger when she’s tied to a failed administration in 2024.
In fact, the greatest danger that Trumpism faces is that liberalism’s collapse will be so swift that a fraudulent populist—some establishment Republican simply emoting—will be able to take advantage of it. But during this time in opposition, if Biden becomes president, Trump Republicans will be able to hone their program as well as their pitch. Many of the best people in the Trump administration had little previous experience in government. Only now do they know what is required to implement a Trump-like agenda over the objections of the permanent bureaucracy and disloyal Republican hacks. They have the time to direct their studies to address the obstacles they encountered while in power—the better to remove those obstacles expeditiously next time.
The 2020 election showed that even in the midst of a recession and a pandemic, even after four years of relentless Russian collusion hype, four years of demonizing the president and his supporters as racists, even after impeachment and with the liabilities as well as the strengths of the president’s personality, the Trump message was capable of mobilizing a record number of voters for the GOP and making gains among blacks, Latinos, and Asians. Under the worst possible conditions, Trump and Trumpism performed well—much better than the pollsters and the pundits predicted. Think of what would have happened if not for COVID and the recession. Donald Trump would not be troubled by protracted vote counts; he would have been re-elected in a landslide. If Republicans learn from this and follow the path Trump has shown them, without stumbling over the historically unprecedented roadblocks that were in his way, they will go into 2022 and 2024 facing a divided, depleted Democratic Party. Joe Biden—who will start on his ninth decade under the sky before the next presidential election—is not the man to rejuvenate liberalism. He is rather its last gasp.


theamericanconservative--2020-11-07--Stop Saying This is a Coup

Stop Saying This is a Coup

There 's no serious evidence for voter fraud and the election is n't being stolen .
The keyboard Falangists need to stand down .
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speaks one day after Americans voted in the presidential election , on November 04 , 2020 in Wilmington , Delaware .
( Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images ) Joe Biden is highly likely to be the next president of the United States .
For now , most media outlets are holding off on declaring a winner .
Fox News ’ premature Arizona call may not hold up and a recount is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accurately predicted by many to be the tipping point state , may be called for Biden by the time you read this .
The former vice president could well end up with the exact same number of electoral votes ( 306 ) that Donald Trump won in 2016 , albeit by larger national and state margins .
Absent credible evidence of massive and unprecedented voter fraud , that will ultimately be that .
Yet with millions of votes nationwide still to be counted and America on edge , the conspiracy theorists are out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scene straight out of the HBO political comedy Veep , the Trump campaign is demanding that some states “ STOP THE COUNT !
” while others continue counting .
The president ’ s gormless son brought some potential 2024 presidential contenders to heel with one tweet , while the administration ’ s most blinkered defenders have already labeled the 2020 election a coup .
A strange coup , this .
Biden will likely be president but Republicans seem a better bet to hold the Senate , pending a pair of early January runoff @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flipped 11 seats in the House so far , after being projected to lose at least that many .
Democrats were eviscerated in Texas and Florida , two major states many pundits thought were poised to turn blue .
Trump earned the highest percentage of nonwhite voters for a Republican presidential candidate in 60 years .
Recriminations have already begun among the supposed winners .
The Democratic caucus ’ post-mortem conference call was apparently filled with both rage and tears .
As one of this magazine ’ s writers noted at TAC ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ poised to be a WAP : Weak Assumptive President .
The stolen election charges , rumors , and innuendoes are in full flight , however .
We have Sharpiegate , reports of pro-Trump poll watchers being barred from entering ballot-counting areas , and alleged armies of dead voters .
There is no credible evidence for any of this .
Yes , “ absence of evidence is not evidence of absence , ” but come on , man .
Cursory online investigation dispels any charges of weight thus far .
Suspicious numbers make good @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Three missing absentee ballots in Buffalo and quickly corrected TV typos do not a conspiracy make .
Even the New York Post couldn ’ t gin up a sympathetic headline for the president ’ s tired accusations last night .
The legal challenges mounted by the Trump team are already being dismissed by courts around the country—a reasonable facsimile of James Baker apparently couldn ’ t be found on short notice .
The last major investigation into voter fraud , just two years ago , yielded paltry results .
Nothing we have seen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Many longtime GOP operatives and officeholders have tried to pour cold water on this stolen election delusion .
Biden is ahead by 20,000 votes in Wisconsin ; former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker noted that the 2016 presidential election recount in the Badger State yielded 131 extra votes for Trump .
Karl Rove put it plainly yesterday : “ stealing hundreds of thousands of votes would require a conspiracy on the scale of a James Bond movie .
That isn ’ t going to happen.
” At an event at the late Newseum @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 9/11 Truther tell a panel of visibly uncomfortable New York Times journalists that the term “ conspiracy theorist ” was pejorative and delegitimizing—he wanted to be known as an “ evidence advocate.
” The 2020 coup crowd has the same energy .
Actual reporters and election experts predicted this “ Red Mirage ” weeks ago .
Because the ( GOP-controlled ) legislatures in Pennsylvania , Wisconsin , Michigan , and Arizona refused to allow the counting of early and absentee ballots to begin prior to election night , it was always very likely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whittled down and erased by the slow , steady addition of mailed ballots .
None of these ballots were “ found ” : they were sitting in boxes and bags , awaiting the ( bipartisan ) eyes of ballot counters .
That they are disproportionately going to Biden is also unsurprising , for reasons of both campaign strategy and political geography .
The most significant political divide in America may not be between Right and Left , young and old , rich and poor , or urban and rural .
Perhaps unionism is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There are those—in both parties and in neither—who accept the rules of the game and will ultimately put principle over party and nation over faction .
We had better hope they are a majority of both the elites and the American population .
Republicans proudly remind America at every opportunity that they are the party of Lincoln .
One hopes the GOP will overcome this latest psychosis and remain the party of unionism and federalism .
America isn ’ t going to spiral into civil war over this election ; the Boogaloo is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unwilling to even fire subordinates in person is not going to lead legions of modern minutemen into the streets .
But coming on the heels of decades of bipartisan bloodsport , from impeachment to birtherism to Russiagate and back again , baseless delegitimization of election results is dangerous .
The legal fight may grind on for a while before petering out , President Trump may refuse to ever publicly concede that he lost , but the result will stand .
If we have a shadow government for weeks or even years , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speeches and trash TV .
There are keyboard Falangists , Boomer and Zoomer alike , who say that they will not recognize the legitimacy of the new “ regime.
” One wishes them luck in what will doubtless be a brave campaign of civil disobedience and bearing witness .
But if these dead-enders are keeping a tally of confederates who wouldn ’ t “ stop the steal , ” the rest of us should just as readily remember those who were too corrupt or too credulous to truly put America first .
Gil @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Catholic University of America ’ s Center for the Study of Statesmanship .

Joe Biden is highly likely to be the next president of the United States. For now, most media outlets are holding off on declaring a winner. Fox News’ premature Arizona call may not hold up and a recount is certain in Georgia. But Pennsylvania, accurately predicted by many to be the tipping point state, may be called for Biden by the time you read this. The former vice president could well end up with the exact same number of electoral votes (306) that Donald Trump won in 2016, albeit by larger national and state margins. Absent credible evidence of massive and unprecedented voter fraud, that will ultimately be that.
Yet with millions of votes nationwide still to be counted and America on edge, the conspiracy theorists are out in force—at presidential behest. In a scene straight out of the HBO political comedy Veep, the Trump campaign is demanding that some states “STOP THE COUNT!” while others continue counting. The president’s gormless son brought some potential 2024 presidential contenders to heel with one tweet, while the administration’s most blinkered defenders have already labeled the 2020 election a coup.
A strange coup, this. Biden will likely be president but Republicans seem a better bet to hold the Senate, pending a pair of early January runoff races in Georgia. The GOP has flipped 11 seats in the House so far, after being projected to lose at least that many. Democrats were eviscerated in Texas and Florida, two major states many pundits thought were poised to turn blue. Trump earned the highest percentage of nonwhite voters for a Republican presidential candidate in 60 years.
Recriminations have already begun among the supposed winners. The Democratic caucus’ post-mortem conference call was apparently filled with both rage and tears. As one of this magazine’s writers noted at TAC’s foreign policy conference, Biden is poised to be a WAP: Weak Assumptive President.
The stolen election charges, rumors, and innuendoes are in full flight, however. We have Sharpiegate, reports of pro-Trump poll watchers being barred from entering ballot-counting areas, and alleged armies of dead voters.
There is no credible evidence for any of this. Yes, “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” but come on, man. Cursory online investigation dispels any charges of weight thus far. Suspicious numbers make good soundbites but collapse on closer examination. Three missing absentee ballots in Buffalo and quickly corrected TV typos do not a conspiracy make. Even the New York Post couldn’t gin up a sympathetic headline for the president’s tired accusations last night.
The legal challenges mounted by the Trump team are already being dismissed by courts around the country—a reasonable facsimile of James Baker apparently couldn’t be found on short notice. The last major investigation into voter fraud, just two years ago, yielded paltry results. Nothing we have seen so far suggests anything different this election.
Many longtime GOP operatives and officeholders have tried to pour cold water on this stolen election delusion. Biden is ahead by 20,000 votes in Wisconsin; former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker noted that the 2016 presidential election recount in the Badger State yielded 131 extra votes for Trump. Karl Rove put it plainly yesterday: “stealing hundreds of thousands of votes would require a conspiracy on the scale of a James Bond movie. That isn’t going to happen.”
At an event at the late Newseum two years ago, I watched a 9/11 Truther tell a panel of visibly uncomfortable New York Times journalists that the term “conspiracy theorist” was pejorative and delegitimizing—he wanted to be known as an “evidence advocate.” The 2020 coup crowd has the same energy.
Actual reporters and election experts predicted this “Red Mirage” weeks ago. Because the (GOP-controlled) legislatures in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona refused to allow the counting of early and absentee ballots to begin prior to election night, it was always very likely that an initial Trump lead would be whittled down and erased by the slow, steady addition of mailed ballots. None of these ballots were “found”: they were sitting in boxes and bags, awaiting the (bipartisan) eyes of ballot counters. That they are disproportionately going to Biden is also unsurprising, for reasons of both campaign strategy and political geography.
The most significant political divide in America may not be between Right and Left, young and old, rich and poor, or urban and rural. Perhaps unionism is the real issue of our time. There are those—in both parties and in neither—who accept the rules of the game and will ultimately put principle over party and nation over faction. We had better hope they are a majority of both the elites and the American population.
Republicans proudly remind America at every opportunity that they are the party of Lincoln. One hopes the GOP will overcome this latest psychosis and remain the party of unionism and federalism.
America isn’t going to spiral into civil war over this election; the Boogaloo is not upon us. A man reputedly unwilling to even fire subordinates in person is not going to lead legions of modern minutemen into the streets. But coming on the heels of decades of bipartisan bloodsport, from impeachment to birtherism to Russiagate and back again, baseless delegitimization of election results is dangerous.
The legal fight may grind on for a while before petering out, President Trump may refuse to ever publicly concede that he lost, but the result will stand. If we have a shadow government for weeks or even years, it will be a sorry grift of incoherent speeches and trash TV.
There are keyboard Falangists, Boomer and Zoomer alike, who say that they will not recognize the legitimacy of the new “regime.” One wishes them luck in what will doubtless be a brave campaign of civil disobedience and bearing witness. But if these dead-enders are keeping a tally of confederates who wouldn’t “stop the steal,” the rest of us should just as readily remember those who were too corrupt or too credulous to truly put America first.
Gil Barndollar is a senior research fellow at the Catholic University of America’s Center for the Study of Statesmanship.


theamericanconservative--2020-11-09--How They Pushed Joe Biden’s Corpse Over the Finish Line

Democrats and their allies were able to coordinate the perfect storm of political dishonesty to cost Trump the Presidency in 2020 .
A win is a win , though few should be proud about how Joe Biden got there .
Here ’ s how it happened .
The media , Deep State , big tech , and pollsters shamelessly did everything they could for four years to sway the vote—opening Brett Kavanaugh ’ s high school yearbook while closing Hunter Biden ’ s laptop faster than you could say Anthony Weiner , weaponizing anonymous sources to gossip on the front @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deep in the political process ( to the point of falsifying FISA applications to spy on American citizens ) , showcasing performance journalism like the Cuomos , Jim Acosta , and Yamiche Alcindor , and using social media to edit the public agenda .
The big takeaway is how well it was all coordinated this time ; no Jim Comey tossing an investigative monkey wrench into the campaign at the last minute .
It worked like this : something regularly leaked from inside the Deep State .
Anonymous sources spoke to CNN , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t service the initial dead drop , “ confirming ” the leak .
Blue Check Twitter fluffed the story so the MSM could run reaction pieces .
Paul Krugman wrongly predicted an economic collapse six times .
Proof that it wasn ’ t just bad journalism ?
How many times did the MSM get caught lying in a way favorable to Trump ?
And where were the Russians , Chinese , and Iranian hackers ?
What happened to armed militias at polling places , the boogaloo ?
Given one of the highest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voter suppression , the white supremacist gerrymandering in places like Georgia ?
Those politically orchestrated delays at the Post Office delivered truckloads of decisive Biden ballots .
The pollsters transitioned to political operatives loading voters on the bandwagon .
You can imagine smart guys are actually dumb ( one major poll had Biden ahead in Wisconsin by 17 points , another predicted Biden by four points in Florida ) and hide behind “ a massive failure of polling ” again , or you can see that it was part of a larger plan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but they were never meant to be right .
The whole thing was so well organized Joe literally did not have to campaign .
Black ops , Mr. Garrison .
Don ’ t ask what , ask why , ask who benefits ?
The real surprise is that it all mattered about as much as the Russians did in 2016 .
The much-celebrated state flips involved tiny margins .
Democrats spent more than $ 315 million to decisively lose six Senate races .
They also failed to generate a Blue Wave downballot at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ smite Trump enablers Mitch McConnell , Susan Collins , and Lindsey Graham did not .
The Lincoln Project ’ s frat-boy mockery changed nothing as Trump won a bigger share of Republican voters than in 2016 .
That as uneventful a candidate as Joe Biden ever got as far as a tie , never mind a win , was in the end as much about luck as anything .
The election was a referendum on Trump , and the goal all along was to create a Not-Trump narrative that stuck .
Many were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ collapsed on lack of evidence , not on lack of effort .
The consolation prize to the Dem base , which thanks to midterm gains actually made it to formal impeachment , had little substance behind it .
Both ended with Nancy Pelosi as Wile E. Coyote suspended in midair as the cliff fell away .
Meep meep !
Also tried was Orange Man Bad ( bad racist , bad misogynist , bad white supremacist ) repudiated by 66 million American voters .
Trump won more minority votes , 26 percent , than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polls showed Trump ’ s support rose among women .
Actual black voters , it turns out , are not the same as BLM marchers .
Some 17 percent of black men voted for Trump , up from 13 percent in 2016 .
Support among black women doubled .
Latin support rose and won Florida .
The 2020 electorate was overall more conservative than in 2016 .
Trump put together one of the most diverse collections of Republican voters in years .
Those voters may have liked Orange Man naming three Supreme Court @ @ @ @ @ @ @ treaties and fewer wars , and pre-Covid , growing the economy .
They may not all own stocks , but the people who employ them do , and the market roared .
Even The Economist admitted “ Growth never quite reached the lustrous annual rate of four percent he promised , but it did do better than many had forecast , and his tax cut in 2017 turned out to be a well-timed fiscal stimulus .
At the end of last year unemployment was at its lowest level for half a century .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ were rising swiftly.
” There ’ s irony in knowing the word “ influenza ” comes from the Italian word for “ influence.
” Absent COVID , this election would have likely been a Trump blowout .
But that narrative did stick , and Dems owe their success to creating a radically misleading version of the pandemic , dovetailing perfectly with H.L .
Mencken ’ s advice “ the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed ( and hence clamorous to be led to safety ) by menacing it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Exit polls are clear : voters had the pandemic and its economic effects on their minds .
How that translated in the vote was somewhere between mass paranoia ( someone has to be to blamed ! )
as when witches were burned following natural disasters , and crude politicization of tragedy .
The narrative evolved .
At first “ flatten the curve ” was about reducing hospitalizations so as to not overload the system .
Somehow , a metric that would go down got replaced with dramatic case numbers which forever went up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a “ case ” decreased .
Despite evidence from Europe and Asia of tactical steps proving effective ( anyone still alive in Sweden ? )
Democratic governors raced into broad lockdowns to press votes toward Biden by ramping up fear .
Reality was an inconvenience , for , like the Russians , the mass graves and two million dead never appeared .
The tens of thousands of ventilators and hospital ships were never needed .
Everyone in unmasked Florida did not die .
Instead , lockdowns became punitive , not palliative .
Democratic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a sense of crisis , which hurt Trump , prevailed .
The only other explanation is leaders in California and New York were too dumb to imagine what might happen if they drove away commerce , businesses , residents , and with them , their tax base .
Conspiracy theory ?
Explain the disparity in response between Dem and Republican run states .
In return , NY Governor Cuomo is already asking Biden for an $ 8 billion downpayment to bring his state back to life .
The real con was that while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state level , blame was leveled at Trump .
The meme was established early , even before anyone was the Dem nominee , when , in February , the NYT sent up a Bat Signal titled “ Let ’ s Call It Trumpvirus ” ( subtlety is not required . )
A Columbia University report claimed a better Trump response could have avoided up to 210,000 deaths , something like a 90 percent reduction .
Deeper reading shows the claim is based only on a hazy statistical model of population and deaths in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mix is how those European and Asian countries do not suffer America ’ s fractured healthcare system and immense social disparities .
Poorer base health equals more COVID deaths .
The U.S. also lacked those places ’ central authority to nationally require masks , quarantines , open or closed schools , etc .
Nonetheless , the “ excess ” American deaths were blamed on “ politicization , leadership vacuum , and the failure of top officials to model best practices.
” That tracked well with the original campaign meme of Trump vs. COVID @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump was accused of personally killing Americans via his super-spreader event rallies .
The plan was on election day to tally up the deaths with whomever was the Democratic candidate as a slightly interested bystander .
The problem is that the meme shifted from “ Trump is the problem ” to “ Biden is the solution ” , as strategists searched for something for Biden to stand for .
So the expectation now is that Biden will end politicization , fill the leadership vacuum , and model best practices to tidy things up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a mega-reveal of how much of the crisis was exaggerated .
Watch for some magic improvements as COVID loses its political usefulness .
The forces which created the narrative will have gifted Biden a lousy starting position .
He ’ ll need the luck of a long tailed cat stuck in a room full of rocking chairs .
As Biden learned when he and Obama took over the Bush financial mess in 2008 , the American people will only grant a brief pass before it becomes your crisis .
Then come the real @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economic damage to major cities via the diaspora of workers , millions fewer people working at all , whole industries such as the airlines in ruin , a lost generation of students , all alongside rising hunger and poverty .
And if any of that seems like a good thing , the lesser of two evils , the way you want to choose your government , message me .
I hear The Lincoln Project is looking for interns for the midterms ahead .
Peter Van Buren , a 24-year State Department veteran , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People , Hooper ’ s War : A Novel of WWII Japan , and Ghosts of Tom Joad : A Story of the 99 Percent .

A win is a win, though few should be proud about how Joe Biden got there. Here’s how it happened.
The media, Deep State, big tech, and pollsters shamelessly did everything they could for four years to sway the vote—opening Brett Kavanaugh’s high school yearbook while closing Hunter Biden’s laptop faster than you could say Anthony Weiner, weaponizing anonymous sources to gossip on the front page, accepting the FBI and CIA deep in the political process (to the point of falsifying FISA applications to spy on American citizens), showcasing performance journalism like the Cuomos, Jim Acosta, and Yamiche Alcindor, and using social media to edit the public agenda.
The big takeaway is how well it was all coordinated this time; no Jim Comey tossing an investigative monkey wrench into the campaign at the last minute. It worked like this: something regularly leaked from inside the Deep State. Anonymous sources spoke to CNN, WaPo, or NYT, whomever didn’t service the initial dead drop, “confirming” the leak. Blue Check Twitter fluffed the story so the MSM could run reaction pieces. Paul Krugman wrongly predicted an economic collapse six times. Proof that it wasn’t just bad journalism? How many times did the MSM get caught lying in a way favorable to Trump?
And where were the Russians, Chinese, and Iranian hackers? What happened to armed militias at polling places, the boogaloo? Given one of the highest turnouts in history, where was the voter suppression, the white supremacist gerrymandering in places like Georgia? Those politically orchestrated delays at the Post Office delivered truckloads of decisive Biden ballots.
The pollsters transitioned to political operatives loading voters on the bandwagon. You can imagine smart guys are actually dumb (one major poll had Biden ahead in Wisconsin by 17 points, another predicted Biden by four points in Florida) and hide behind “a massive failure of polling” again, or you can see that it was part of a larger plan.
The narratives were all wrong, but they were never meant to be right. The whole thing was so well organized Joe literally did not have to campaign. Black ops, Mr. Garrison. Don’t ask what, ask why, ask who benefits?
The real surprise is that it all mattered about as much as the Russians did in 2016. The much-celebrated state flips involved tiny margins. Democrats spent more than $315 million to decisively lose six Senate races. They also failed to generate a Blue Wave downballot at the statehouses. The races designed to smite Trump enablers Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins, and Lindsey Graham did not. The Lincoln Project’s frat-boy mockery changed nothing as Trump won a bigger share of Republican voters than in 2016.
That as uneventful a candidate as Joe Biden ever got as far as a tie, never mind a win, was in the end as much about luck as anything. The election was a referendum on Trump, and the goal all along was to create a Not-Trump narrative that stuck. Many were tried.
Trump as a Russian agent collapsed on lack of evidence, not on lack of effort. The consolation prize to the Dem base, which thanks to midterm gains actually made it to formal impeachment, had little substance behind it. Both ended with Nancy Pelosi as Wile E. Coyote suspended in midair as the cliff fell away. Meep meep!
Also tried was Orange Man Bad (bad racist, bad misogynist, bad white supremacist) repudiated by 66 million American voters. Trump won more minority votes, 26 percent, than any Republican in 60 years. Exit polls showed Trump’s support rose among women. Actual black voters, it turns out, are not the same as BLM marchers. Some 17 percent of black men voted for Trump, up from 13 percent in 2016. Support among black women doubled. Latin support rose and won Florida. The 2020 electorate was overall more conservative than in 2016. Trump put together one of the most diverse collections of Republican voters in years.
Those voters may have liked Orange Man naming three Supreme Court justices, facilitating more Middle East peace treaties and fewer wars, and pre-Covid, growing the economy. They may not all own stocks, but the people who employ them do, and the market roared. Even The Economist admitted “Growth never quite reached the lustrous annual rate of four percent he promised, but it did do better than many had forecast, and his tax cut in 2017 turned out to be a well-timed fiscal stimulus. At the end of last year unemployment was at its lowest level for half a century. The wages of the less well paid were rising swiftly.”
There’s irony in knowing the word “influenza” comes from the Italian word for “influence.” Absent COVID, this election would have likely been a Trump blowout. But that narrative did stick, and Dems owe their success to creating a radically misleading version of the pandemic, dovetailing perfectly with H.L. Mencken’s advice “the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins.” Exit polls are clear: voters had the pandemic and its economic effects on their minds. How that translated in the vote was somewhere between mass paranoia (someone has to be to blamed!) as when witches were burned following natural disasters, and crude politicization of tragedy.
The narrative evolved. At first “flatten the curve” was about reducing hospitalizations so as to not overload the system. Somehow, a metric that would go down got replaced with dramatic case numbers which forever went up, even as the danger of becoming a “case” decreased.
Despite evidence from Europe and Asia of tactical steps proving effective (anyone still alive in Sweden?) Democratic governors raced into broad lockdowns to press votes toward Biden by ramping up fear. Reality was an inconvenience, for, like the Russians, the mass graves and two million dead never appeared. The tens of thousands of ventilators and hospital ships were never needed. Everyone in unmasked Florida did not die.
Instead, lockdowns became punitive, not palliative. Democratic leaders sacrificed their economies to ensure that a sense of crisis, which hurt Trump, prevailed. The only other explanation is leaders in California and New York were too dumb to imagine what might happen if they drove away commerce, businesses, residents, and with them, their tax base. Conspiracy theory? Explain the disparity in response between Dem and Republican run states. In return, NY Governor Cuomo is already asking Biden for an $8 billion downpayment to bring his state back to life.
The real con was that while devastating political decisions were made at the state level, blame was leveled at Trump. The meme was established early, even before anyone was the Dem nominee, when, in February, the NYT sent up a Bat Signal titled “Let’s Call It Trumpvirus” (subtlety is not required.)
A Columbia University report claimed a better Trump response could have avoided up to 210,000 deaths, something like a 90 percent reduction. Deeper reading shows the claim is based only on a hazy statistical model of population and deaths in several countries. Left out of the mix is how those European and Asian countries do not suffer America’s fractured healthcare system and immense social disparities. Poorer base health equals more COVID deaths. The U.S. also lacked those places’ central authority to nationally require masks, quarantines, open or closed schools, etc. Nonetheless, the “excess” American deaths were blamed on “politicization, leadership vacuum, and the failure of top officials to model best practices.”
That tracked well with the original campaign meme of Trump vs. COVID. Things reached peak fear mongering when Trump was accused of personally killing Americans via his super-spreader event rallies. The plan was on election day to tally up the deaths with whomever was the Democratic candidate as a slightly interested bystander.
The problem is that the meme shifted from “Trump is the problem” to “Biden is the solution”, as strategists searched for something for Biden to stand for. So the expectation now is that Biden will end politicization, fill the leadership vacuum, and model best practices to tidy things up. We will all be part of a mega-reveal of how much of the crisis was exaggerated. Watch for some magic improvements as COVID loses its political usefulness.
The forces which created the narrative will have gifted Biden a lousy starting position. He’ll need the luck of a long tailed cat stuck in a room full of rocking chairs. As Biden learned when he and Obama took over the Bush financial mess in 2008, the American people will only grant a brief pass before it becomes your crisis.
Then come the real costs of the Democratic strategy — vast economic damage to major cities via the diaspora of workers, millions fewer people working at all, whole industries such as the airlines in ruin, a lost generation of students, all alongside rising hunger and poverty.
And if any of that seems like a good thing, the lesser of two evils, the way you want to choose your government, message me. I hear The Lincoln Project is looking for interns for the midterms ahead.
Peter Van Buren, a 24-year State Department veteran, is the author of We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, Hooper’s War: A Novel of WWII Japan, and Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the 99 Percent.


theamericanconservative--2020-11-09--It’s Time for Conservatives to Unite Behind Ye

Kanye West attends the 2020 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Radhika Jones at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on February 09 , 2020 in Beverly Hills , California .
( Photo by Rich Fury/VF20/Getty Images for Vanity Fair ) Welcome to election month , ladies and gents .
It ’ s a vibrant time of year when we gaze at the softly falling leaves , brush up on our pie-making , take walks in the sunlight , and consider the scorching of our electoral system .
What with Trump threatening to take the election results to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ waving away any claims of interference , this doesn ’ t seem like it ’ ll end well .
And who thought it would ?
Both camps—bloody-knuckled culture war conservatives and anxious liberals chanting “ Trump Bad ” each day at the stroke of noon—have let this exact scenario live in our heads rent-free all summer .
For its part , the media seemed to believe , and so very much wanted to convince us all , that Biden would win in a landslide ( He did not .
He ’ s up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , that ’ s only because the media , as the media will do , spent the last four years reverting further into its own inane delusions that working-class Americans would really bask in its racialist dronings , gaslighting , and dripping-faucet snark .
And if there ’ s anything we can rely on , it ’ s that that ’ s not going to change .
It ’ s tragically funny and horrendously dumb .
So it goes and here we are .
What ’ s our future from here ?
As @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Almighty , “ Lord , to whom shall we go ?
” I can ’ t speak for the Lord , but here ’ s my Dark Twisted Fantasy : conservatives have every single reason to get onboard with rapper , creator , late-night tweeter , and outrageously capricious oddball Kanye West .
He ’ s already announced his plans for 2024 , the first candidate to throw his hat in the ring .
That means we ’ ve got four years to get this ball rolling and consolidate around the one person @ @ @ @ @ @ @ principled , robust , and sustainable conservatism that speaks to this broken and bitter nation of ours .
Yeezy has become an absolute treat .
But even if he were incredibly unlikeable , his platform alone is stellar .
For those who don ’ t know—since he was largely dismissed by the media , and even his own wife , as a raving nutjob—Kanye West managed to erect a 2020 political platform that could easily double as a training manual in American conservative political thought .
The guy openly declares that he wants @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gives even the young a shot at a secure financial future , a dovish outlook on foreign intervention , meaningful criminal justice reform that could reunite family members , human-centric environmental conservation efforts—the achingly beautiful list goes on .
He seems deathly serious about all of this , too .
Why did we not pay him more attention ?
The answer is twofold .
Kanye himself is partly to blame , considering that ( to my own great frustration ) he entered the race at the eleventh hour , when all of us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speed ahead with the two ancients-of-days in suits .
By that time , it was too late for him to take a real crack at the election .
For most states , he couldn ’ t even get on the ballot thanks to his inimitable tardiness .
Add to that the fact that he didn ’ t seem to consistently show his new campaign to even be real , and what you end up with are a lot of very surprised and understandably confused would-be voters .
I was one of them .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the GOP cast an incredulous , sidelong glance at him—and then kept right on doing what they were doing .
Many of the deplorables , after all , were genuinely thrilled for a MAGA sequel .
They didn ’ t need Kanye .
The others were trying their best to just keep their heads above water and not feel completely deflated by the political train wreck that was this summer .
To that particular group , Ye ’ s announcement was odd and unwelcome in an odd and unwelcome election season .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Kanye was a celebrity fly to swat away while they tried their best to keep Trump a placeholder for four more years while they figured out what the hell to do with this party .
In the end , they just really didn ’ t want President Kamala .
Well , boys : we might get her anyway .
Fortunately , it looks like our conservative elites know now what the future of the party is .
Since Tuesday , the right-wing intellectual set has seemed to agree on a few things @ @ @ @ @ @ @ got hard data to prove that conservatism should no longer cater solely to homo economicus .
And thank God for that .
In a brittle world bullishly set on obliterating things that last in this life , we ’ re seeing a return to a platform of substance—to the embrace of narrative , culture , and faith .
Turns out we ’ re not ready to cast off whatever vestiges of old-world , patriotic identity we ’ ve got left just to play ball with those who relish only the here and now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s why the uneducated morons voted for Trump .
And it ’ s why we ’ ll vote for Kanye .
It ’ s also why a lot of other people who aren ’ t conservative will vote for Kanye , too .
Like it or not , dataheads aren ’ t the leaders anyone is seeking right now .
May we never forget the lessons we learned with Trump , especially that of the indelible power of the cult of personality—it transcends even the party line-turned-chasm .
After all , America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and it makes sense that we would be .
Once an ambitious startup , our country still rewards gumption , celebrity , and aesthetic .
The presidents we remember and fashion our national lore around , for better or worse , prove that to be true .
Think Teddy Roosevelt , John F. Kennedy , Bill Clinton .
We said yes to Obama for his suavity , charisma , and well-spoken ease .
And it was Trump ’ s brash accessibility and New Yorker aphorisms that got him , a millionaire , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ For his part , Biden was such a stuttering blank slate that it almost cost him the election .
When it comes to personality , Kanye takes the cake .
That ’ s not his weakness ; it ’ s his strength .
Granted , that personality used to be more of an obnoxious , prideful riddle .
Back in the day , he had a nasty habit of calling himself “ a god ” and being matter-of-fact about his status as the greatest artist alive .
( Though , that makes tautological @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , statistics show it ’ d be a god . )
This went on for many years while we watched him shock the media with genre-bending album after album , take a voluptuous reality star wife , build a bizarre-yet-lucrative clothing brand , and rake in mega-loads of cash .
And then , after all that , we saw him morph into the lucid traditionalist Christian we needed .
Make no mistake , Kanye shocks the media even more now .
But here ’ s the thing : who cares ?
Time and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ media has proven both its inability to understand the people it ’ s supposed to serve and its allegiance to the left .
These days , most moral media shocks are probably just signs that something is going right .
Sure , Trump did the same thing , but we who shrugged at the Orange Man ’ s inevitable ascent also numbly accepted his use of shock , Christendom , and shocking Christendom as political tools .
The same can ’ t be said for Kanye .
To the distaste of nearly everyone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and his fanbase , the man has still allowed himself to be humbled to his bones by his new beliefs .
Watch him weep on stage at the mere thought of abortion ’ s staggering body count .
Watch him whisk his children out of the vile clutches of Hollywood and into the quiet country of Wyoming .
He scorns his past debauchery as a sex-mad lyricist , and is crystalline in his yearning for a revitalization in the heart and soul of the country .
Indeed , in the face of his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Michael Jackson ’ s marred legacy , we have an artist with his heart on his sleeve .
What a welcome , welcome change Ye would be to our politics .
It ’ s obvious that we ’ ve reached an American era that ’ s increasingly done with the chi-chi pandering and paper smiles of morally bankrupt politicians .
In Kanye , we finally have a non-politician .
It ’ s that very descriptor that the MAGA crowd used to explain their devotion to Trump .
For Kanye , it actually sticks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I believe that artistic rectitude will speak to more than just the conservatives who read this magazine .
Kanye ’ s following as an artist is broad .
In spite of his antics , he ’ s earned the respect of millions of liberal Millennials , even if just as a creator and thinker .
And for those whose political infrastructure extends beyond leftist , semantically overloaded platitudes , that respect hasn ’ t died merely because he ’ s changed his mind about some things .
Yeezy has the capacity to give @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a populist like Donald .
He can help them to consider , for even a moment , the idea that he might be right .
We know he is .
Of course , the left will say his faith is a joke .
As long as he keeps on saying true things , they ’ ll keep on trying to paint him as a bipolar kook who needs his meds .
They painted Trump as something very similar and he still prevailed in 2016 .
He may yet prevail in 2020 .
Even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ throwing their chips in for a man with questionable character , but Kanye has character in spades .
Where Trump is weak , Kanye is strong .
And that ’ s because , like America herself , Kanye has been brought to his knees .
As Saint Augustine wrote , “ It was pride that changed angels into devils ; it is humility that makes men as angels.
” We ’ ve been electing devils for far too long .
All this bar-spitting angel really needs is the strength of a coalition .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Emma Ayers is a roving writer on culture and religion .

Welcome to election month, ladies and gents. It’s a vibrant time of year when we gaze at the softly falling leaves, brush up on our pie-making, take walks in the sunlight, and consider the scorching of our electoral system. What with Trump threatening to take the election results to the courts and Biden’s camp deftly waving away any claims of interference, this doesn’t seem like it’ll end well. And who thought it would? Both camps—bloody-knuckled culture war conservatives and anxious liberals chanting “Trump Bad” each day at the stroke of noon—have let this exact scenario live in our heads rent-free all summer.
For its part, the media seemed to believe, and so very much wanted to convince us all, that Biden would win in a landslide (He did not. He’s up by razor-thin margins.) But then, that’s only because the media, as the media will do, spent the last four years reverting further into its own inane delusions that working-class Americans would really bask in its racialist dronings, gaslighting, and dripping-faucet snark. And if there’s anything we can rely on, it’s that that’s not going to change. It’s tragically funny and horrendously dumb.
So it goes and here we are. What’s our future from here? As the good Saint Peter once queried the Almighty, “Lord, to whom shall we go?” I can’t speak for the Lord, but here’s my Dark Twisted Fantasy: conservatives have every single reason to get onboard with rapper, creator, late-night tweeter, and outrageously capricious oddball Kanye West.
He’s already announced his plans for 2024, the first candidate to throw his hat in the ring. That means we’ve got four years to get this ball rolling and consolidate around the one person who could truly and artfully invigorate a principled, robust, and sustainable conservatism that speaks to this broken and bitter nation of ours.
Yeezy has become an absolute treat. But even if he were incredibly unlikeable, his platform alone is stellar. For those who don’t know—since he was largely dismissed by the media, and even his own wife, as a raving nutjob—Kanye West managed to erect a 2020 political platform that could easily double as a training manual in American conservative political thought.
The guy openly declares that he wants prayer in classrooms, an economy that gives even the young a shot at a secure financial future, a dovish outlook on foreign intervention, meaningful criminal justice reform that could reunite family members, human-centric environmental conservation efforts—the achingly beautiful list goes on. He seems deathly serious about all of this, too. Why did we not pay him more attention?
The answer is twofold. Kanye himself is partly to blame, considering that (to my own great frustration) he entered the race at the eleventh hour, when all of us were damning the torpedoes and going full speed ahead with the two ancients-of-days in suits. By that time, it was too late for him to take a real crack at the election. For most states, he couldn’t even get on the ballot thanks to his inimitable tardiness. Add to that the fact that he didn’t seem to consistently show his new campaign to even be real, and what you end up with are a lot of very surprised and understandably confused would-be voters. I was one of them.
Of course, the vast majority of the GOP cast an incredulous, sidelong glance at him—and then kept right on doing what they were doing. Many of the deplorables, after all, were genuinely thrilled for a MAGA sequel. They didn’t need Kanye. The others were trying their best to just keep their heads above water and not feel completely deflated by the political train wreck that was this summer. To that particular group, Ye’s announcement was odd and unwelcome in an odd and unwelcome election season. And, given his reputation as an erratic, Kanye was a celebrity fly to swat away while they tried their best to keep Trump a placeholder for four more years while they figured out what the hell to do with this party. In the end, they just really didn’t want President Kamala. Well, boys: we might get her anyway.
Now it’s time to regroup.
Fortunately, it looks like our conservative elites know now what the future of the party is. Since Tuesday, the right-wing intellectual set has seemed to agree on a few things, namely that we’ve now got hard data to prove that conservatism should no longer cater solely to homo economicus. And thank God for that. In a brittle world bullishly set on obliterating things that last in this life, we’re seeing a return to a platform of substance—to the embrace of narrative, culture, and faith. Turns out we’re not ready to cast off whatever vestiges of old-world, patriotic identity we’ve got left just to play ball with those who relish only the here and now. Like it or not, that’s why the uneducated morons voted for Trump. And it’s why we’ll vote for Kanye.
It’s also why a lot of other people who aren’t conservative will vote for Kanye, too. Like it or not, dataheads aren’t the leaders anyone is seeking right now. May we never forget the lessons we learned with Trump, especially that of the indelible power of the cult of personality—it transcends even the party line-turned-chasm. After all, America is a sucker for a character, and it makes sense that we would be. Once an ambitious startup, our country still rewards gumption, celebrity, and aesthetic. The presidents we remember and fashion our national lore around, for better or worse, prove that to be true. Think Teddy Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton. We said yes to Obama for his suavity, charisma, and well-spoken ease. And it was Trump’s brash accessibility and New Yorker aphorisms that got him, a millionaire, a seat at the middle-class Flyover Table. For his part, Biden was such a stuttering blank slate that it almost cost him the election.
When it comes to personality, Kanye takes the cake. That’s not his weakness; it’s his strength. Granted, that personality used to be more of an obnoxious, prideful riddle. Back in the day, he had a nasty habit of calling himself “a god” and being matter-of-fact about his status as the greatest artist alive. (Though, that makes tautological sense—if anyone is the greatest artist alive, statistics show it’d be a god.) This went on for many years while we watched him shock the media with genre-bending album after album, take a voluptuous reality star wife, build a bizarre-yet-lucrative clothing brand, and rake in mega-loads of cash. And then, after all that, we saw him morph into the lucid traditionalist Christian we needed.
Make no mistake, Kanye shocks the media even more now. But here’s the thing: who cares? Time and time again, most of the mainstream media has proven both its inability to understand the people it’s supposed to serve and its allegiance to the left. These days, most moral media shocks are probably just signs that something is going right.
Sure, Trump did the same thing, but we who shrugged at the Orange Man’s inevitable ascent also numbly accepted his use of shock, Christendom, and shocking Christendom as political tools. The same can’t be said for Kanye. To the distaste of nearly everyone in his circles, his family, and his fanbase, the man has still allowed himself to be humbled to his bones by his new beliefs. Watch him weep on stage at the mere thought of abortion’s staggering body count. Watch him whisk his children out of the vile clutches of Hollywood and into the quiet country of Wyoming. He scorns his past debauchery as a sex-mad lyricist, and is crystalline in his yearning for a revitalization in the heart and soul of the country. Indeed, in the face of his caps-locked social media rants and fixation on Michael Jackson’s marred legacy, we have an artist with his heart on his sleeve.
What a welcome, welcome change Ye would be to our politics. It’s obvious that we’ve reached an American era that’s increasingly done with the chi-chi pandering and paper smiles of morally bankrupt politicians. In Kanye, we finally have a non-politician. It’s that very descriptor that the MAGA crowd used to explain their devotion to Trump. For Kanye, it actually sticks.
Call me an optimist, but I believe that artistic rectitude will speak to more than just the conservatives who read this magazine. Kanye’s following as an artist is broad. In spite of his antics, he’s earned the respect of millions of liberal Millennials, even if just as a creator and thinker. And for those whose political infrastructure extends beyond leftist, semantically overloaded platitudes, that respect hasn’t died merely because he’s changed his mind about some things. Yeezy has the capacity to give pause to folks with reactionary distaste for a populist like Donald. He can help them to consider, for even a moment, the idea that he might be right.
We know he is. Of course, the left will say his faith is a joke. As long as he keeps on saying true things, they’ll keep on trying to paint him as a bipolar kook who needs his meds. They painted Trump as something very similar and he still prevailed in 2016. He may yet prevail in 2020. Even so, too many voters vacillated on throwing their chips in for a man with questionable character, but Kanye has character in spades. Where Trump is weak, Kanye is strong. And that’s because, like America herself, Kanye has been brought to his knees. As Saint Augustine wrote, “It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.” We’ve been electing devils for far too long. All this bar-spitting angel really needs is the strength of a coalition. I say we give him one.
Emma Ayers is a roving writer on culture and religion.


theamericanconservative--2020-11-09--An Octopus Could Have Predicted the Election Better Than the Media

A new version of Octopus Paul leaves a box with a shell on October 10 , 2013 at a restaurant in Barranquilla , Colombia .
Paul 's task was to decide in favour of one of the shells hidden in the boxes with the flags of Colombia and Chile respectively and thus act as an oracle for the September 11th FIFA World Cup Brazil 2014 qualifier between both countries on October 11 .
( LUIS ACOSTA/AFP via Getty Images ) A few days ago , a parrot named Eric saved his owner from a fire in the middle of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the bird has since become famous because it sounded the alarm before the smoke detectors did .
Most journalists in the European and American establishments are like those fire alarm systems , slower and more ineffective than Eric the Parrot .
They insisted on a landslide victory for Joe Biden right up to the last minute , even though the only thing that looks anything like a landslide at this point is the defeat of the big corporate editorialists .
If anyone thinks this will make them reflect , they don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
For the sake of killing Trump , they were willing to declare that Joe Biden was a charismatic candidate and that Kamala Harris would lead the way in post-election national reconciliation .
They were not making predictions , but trying to impose them .
At the 2010 World Cup , Paul the Octopus became famous .
He was a cephalopod from the Sea Life Centre in Oberhausen , Germany , credited with extraordinary intelligence from a very young age by his handlers .
To test his talent , they used him to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , giving him a choice between several pairs of boxes of food , each one with the flag of a different country in contention .
Paul the Octopus , also known as the Psychic Octopus , got all eight pairings right , becoming the first demoscopic star from the family of octopodiformes .
After witnessing what happened last week , I ’ m convinced that the octopus soothsayer , Eric the Parrot , and Phil the Groundhog would have predicted the election results better than all the editorialists , pollsters , and analysts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ closing the door on socialism—at least partially—remains the greatest contribution to world politics that the most important democracy of our century could have made .
For months , and right up to election night , the left was leaning towards revolution , either by trying to make it or by excusing it .
At the height of the pandemic , the Axis of Evil embodied by Cuba , Venezuela , and , of course , China , continues to gain allies for its cause through violence .
Chile is the latest example , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of enduring the flames of burning churches and stores .
Biden and Harris have played that satanic game : if you want riots , vote for Trump ; if you want peace , vote for us .
Yet that game can go very wrong , because if anything goes with the American DNA , it is respect for freedom .
And nobody likes to be threatened , especially not if the one promoting the coercion is a guy like Joe Biden , who only had the courage to quietly condemn Black Lives Matter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the inside ones—predicted that street chaos could take a toll on his campaign .
Although the American political battlefield is still wide open , the fundamental aspect of what happened last week was the discrediting of the big media outlets .
It ’ s not just that their crazy election predictions weren ’ t right .
It ’ s that the four years they ’ ve spent pontificating about the present era , as though speaking on behalf of all Americans , have just collapsed like a house of cards .
Immigrants have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ noise has nothing to do with the sentiment of the majority of the American people , the president ’ s pro-life attitude has not been discredited , and the middle class is far more concerned with the economy , work , and freedom than Ms. Harris ’ personal obsessions with gender identity , her publicized and put-on-display Indian heritage , and the sexual diversity of the Pacific Ocean ’ s Marianna Trench amoebas .
The Democrats and their allies in the media led us to believe that Trump was backed by a band @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bounty hunters , conspiratorial leaders , and drunken cowboys who organize riots every night in the cantinas .
Now we can see that , no , Trump represents at least half of the country , and especially the working class , the humble and simple people , the small business owners , the families that sustain the salaries and vices of the establishment and the various public administration bureaucracies with their daily work and their taxes .
Without them , without their money and their work , neither the Hollywood millionaires of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been able to back a candidacy as crazy and inconsistent as Biden ’ s .
They would have been too busy trying to make a living by their own means to entrust the U.S. economy to the extreme left of someone like Kamala Harris .
Moreover , the fact that none of the candidates won a landslide victory invites a certain amount of contention , regardless of who finally wins .
That a country is politically divided is not a drama , but the health and economic crisis that is hitting everyone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ soon as possible and to seek a national reconciliation that , although difficult , is not impossible—if the left renounces once and for all intimidation through street violence .
Perhaps we ought to look towards a celebrated definition from the Spanish satirist Jardiel Poncela : “ Love is a man and a woman who agree on one point and disagree on everything else.
” After all , it ’ s not a matter of giving in ideologically , but of seeking unity and points of union .
It ’ s the people alone—and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ States out of the chasm into which the Chinese virus has plunged the entire West .
And we all need it .
Itxu Díaz is a Spanish journalist , political satirist and author .
He is a contributor to The Daily Beast , The Daily Caller , National Review , The American Conservative , The American Spectator and Diario Las Américas in the United States , and a columnist for several Spanish magazines and newspapers .
He was also an advisor to the Ministry for Education , Culture and Sports in Spain .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ or visit his website www.itxudiaz.com .

A few days ago, a parrot named Eric saved his owner from a fire in the middle of the night. It happened in Canada and the bird has since become famous because it sounded the alarm before the smoke detectors did.
Most journalists in the European and American establishments are like those fire alarm systems, slower and more ineffective than Eric the Parrot. They insisted on a landslide victory for Joe Biden right up to the last minute, even though the only thing that looks anything like a landslide at this point is the defeat of the big corporate editorialists. If anyone thinks this will make them reflect, they don’t understand how contumacious the progressive bias is. For the sake of killing Trump, they were willing to declare that Joe Biden was a charismatic candidate and that Kamala Harris would lead the way in post-election national reconciliation. They were not making predictions, but trying to impose them.
At the 2010 World Cup, Paul the Octopus became famous. He was a cephalopod from the Sea Life Centre in Oberhausen, Germany, credited with extraordinary intelligence from a very young age by his handlers. To test his talent, they used him to predict the results of the World Cup, giving him a choice between several pairs of boxes of food, each one with the flag of a different country in contention. Paul the Octopus, also known as the Psychic Octopus, got all eight pairings right, becoming the first demoscopic star from the family of octopodiformes. After witnessing what happened last week, I’m convinced that the octopus soothsayer, Eric the Parrot, and Phil the Groundhog would have predicted the election results better than all the editorialists, pollsters, and analysts combined.
That the United States is closing the door on socialism—at least partially—remains the greatest contribution to world politics that the most important democracy of our century could have made. For months, and right up to election night, the left was leaning towards revolution, either by trying to make it or by excusing it. At the height of the pandemic, the Axis of Evil embodied by Cuba, Venezuela, and, of course, China, continues to gain allies for its cause through violence. Chile is the latest example, surrendering to the left after many months of enduring the flames of burning churches and stores.
Biden and Harris have played that satanic game: if you want riots, vote for Trump; if you want peace, vote for us. Yet that game can go very wrong, because if anything goes with the American DNA, it is respect for freedom. And nobody likes to be threatened, especially not if the one promoting the coercion is a guy like Joe Biden, who only had the courage to quietly condemn Black Lives Matter violence when the polls—the real ones, the inside ones—predicted that street chaos could take a toll on his campaign.
Although the American political battlefield is still wide open, the fundamental aspect of what happened last week was the discrediting of the big media outlets. It’s not just that their crazy election predictions weren’t right. It’s that the four years they’ve spent pontificating about the present era, as though speaking on behalf of all Americans, have just collapsed like a house of cards.
Immigrants have backed Trump, BLM’s street noise has nothing to do with the sentiment of the majority of the American people, the president’s pro-life attitude has not been discredited, and the middle class is far more concerned with the economy, work, and freedom than Ms. Harris’ personal obsessions with gender identity, her publicized and put-on-display Indian heritage, and the sexual diversity of the Pacific Ocean’s Marianna Trench amoebas.
The Democrats and their allies in the media led us to believe that Trump was backed by a band of freaks, little more than unscrupulous bounty hunters, conspiratorial leaders, and drunken cowboys who organize riots every night in the cantinas. Now we can see that, no, Trump represents at least half of the country, and especially the working class, the humble and simple people, the small business owners, the families that sustain the salaries and vices of the establishment and the various public administration bureaucracies with their daily work and their taxes. Without them, without their money and their work, neither the Hollywood millionaires of the caviar left nor the government officials would have been able to back a candidacy as crazy and inconsistent as Biden’s. They would have been too busy trying to make a living by their own means to entrust the U.S. economy to the extreme left of someone like Kamala Harris.
Moreover, the fact that none of the candidates won a landslide victory invites a certain amount of contention, regardless of who finally wins. That a country is politically divided is not a drama, but the health and economic crisis that is hitting everyone makes it necessary to close wounds as soon as possible and to seek a national reconciliation that, although difficult, is not impossible—if the left renounces once and for all intimidation through street violence. Perhaps we ought to look towards a celebrated definition from the Spanish satirist Jardiel Poncela: “Love is a man and a woman who agree on one point and disagree on everything else.” After all, it’s not a matter of giving in ideologically, but of seeking unity and points of union. It’s the people alone—and not the politicians—who can get the United States out of the chasm into which the Chinese virus has plunged the entire West. And we all need it.
Itxu Díaz is a Spanish journalist, political satirist and author. He is a contributor to The Daily Beast, The Daily Caller, National Review, The American Conservative, The American Spectator and Diario Las Américas in the United States, and a columnist for several Spanish magazines and newspapers. He was also an advisor to the Ministry for Education, Culture and Sports in Spain. Follow him on Twitter at @itxudiaz or visit his website www.itxudiaz.com.


theamericanconservative--2020-11-10--A History Teacher’s View: Why Liberal Elites Can’t Understand the Trump Vote

In the coming months liberals and never-Trump conservatives will attempt to salvage their credibility by offering explanations for why the polls and prognoses of a Biden blowout were so egregiously wrong .
Much of the chattering class has already chalked the closeness of the election up to racism—now called “ white supremacy ” because of the former ’ s overuse .
And this despite Trump ’ s relatively strong performance among minorities .
More than a few of my left-leaning friends and colleagues in liberal Los Angeles have already asked me—the token conservative—how voters could be so dumb as to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It ’ s as if any rational person could only understand the last four years as an ongoing catastrophe .
As a history teacher in a prestigious independent school , I have a simple answer which comes from rational observation of teenage students mostly from well-heeled backgrounds : the cosmopolitan elites of the media and academia establishment , like the presupposing college bound teen with seniroritis who has the world all figured out , fail to grasp the blinkered nature of their own world view ; in doing so , they fail to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The world view to which I am referring goes by many names—rationalism , secularism , humanism etc .
It is a view that emanates from what I call the Enlightenment Myth : the idea that we arrived at the modern world by wholesale jettisoning of religion , tradition , and custom .
It ’ s the idea that modernity was built from the ground-up , through secularized reason .
As the AP European History concept outline in my textbook uncritically puts it : “ They [ Enlightenment thinkers ] sought to bring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the darkness of prejudice , outmoded traditions , and ignorance , challenging traditional values.
” Of note is not this drab statement itself , but the fact that its authors , like my students and the pollsters who predicted electoral carnage for Trump this election , take it as a matter of fact as opposed to ideology-driven historiography open to debate .
One can almost imagine the line I just quoted grafted onto the present : They [ Democrats ] sought to bring the light of reason to bear on the darkness of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , challenging the traditional values of Trump voters in flyover country .
The way this perspective plays itself out in my history classroom is illuminating , especially when we get to the Enlightenment .
“ Finally , ” my students tell me , “ something I can relate to.
” For once the certitude of religious doctrine and cultural supremacy has given way to the recognizable and comfortable relativism of today .
The rational , self-interested individual is finally free to achieve full autonomy and self-actualization .
As the French Revolutionary document The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Citizen puts it : “ Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else.
” This is why my students find it so incomprehensible when they learn that the rebellion in the Vendee—a pro-monarchy and pro-church counter-revolution—was led not by aristocrats but by peasants who wished to protect their way of life from the homogenizing intrusion of “ reason.
” For in the name of reason , their churches were being desecrated , their streets being renamed , and even their work week stretched out from 7 days to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Why , my students nonetheless ask , couldn ’ t the peasants recognize their own liberators , the ones who had sought to banish backwardness to the past and free them from clerical tyranny and feudalism ?
But after their momentary curiosity they usually move on to more pressing concerns .
Questions like those are footnotes in history , one of life ’ s many unanswerable abstractions .
One of my mentors once stressed that as history teachers , our urge is often to make history relatable and hence understandable .
Here are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as this or that anecdote demonstrates .
But the allure of history , this mentor told me , lies just as much in the subject ’ s strangeness .
History is full of weird events that are hard to understand and , if we succeed as history teachers we help students not to understand that weirdness but to at least inhabit it—to ponder it with the wonder of the childlike .
In the same way that my students sometimes fail to inhabit the strangeness of history , which they inevitably reduce to obscurantism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ elites of both parties , as well as academia and the media , fail to even attempt to inhabit the strangeness , the domestic exoticism , of the Trump voter .
Why would some Americans rather work and risk death during the pandemic than wait on a government stimulus check ?
Why would they choose , like the President seemed to , economic growth over rational self-interest and self-preservation ?
How could Latinos vote for a President who demonizes undocumented immigrants or gays for a man who has sought to ban transgender people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a liberal student of mine put it to me , “ I mean voting for him twice ?
How could people be so stupid as to vote for him a second time ?
Look at his record !
How could the election even be this close ?
It ’ s depressing.
” “ Maybe , ” I said , citing the above evidence “ not all Trump voters are racist.
” “ Or maybe , ” they replied , “ it ’ s not just white people who are racist.
” In the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Row America , Chris Arnade explicitly states “ This book is not a book about ‘ how we got Trump.
’ ” Nonetheless , the lesson he learns from speaking with and photographing America ’ s marginalized is one that has gone unlearned by too many of us , even after the upset Trump victory in 2016 that should have reordered our curiosities towards comprehension of what we fail to understand .
“ My biases , ” Arnade says of his time observing churches in poor neighborhoods , “ my years steeped in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deeper understanding.
” There is no more perfect analogue to the failure of one ’ s historical imagination to inhabit anything other than the probity of the torchbearers of Enlightenment truth than Charles M. Blow ’ s recent New York Times op-ed entitled “ Exit Polls Point to the Power of White Patriarchy.
” As he works his way through the inexplicable numbers of non-straight white males who voted for Trump he ruefully laments “ It is so unsettling to consider that many of our fellow countrymen and women are either racists or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Somewhere his high school history teacher is cringing .
At least I hope he is .
Kurt Hofer holds a PhD in Spanish Literature and teaches high school history in a Los Angeles area independent school .

In the coming months liberals and never-Trump conservatives will attempt to salvage their credibility by offering explanations for why the polls and prognoses of a Biden blowout were so egregiously wrong. Much of the chattering class has already chalked the closeness of the election up to racism—now called “white supremacy” because of the former’s overuse. And this despite Trump’s relatively strong performance among minorities.
More than a few of my left-leaning friends and colleagues in liberal Los Angeles have already asked me—the token conservative—how voters could be so dumb as to pull the lever for Trump twice. It’s as if any rational person could only understand the last four years as an ongoing catastrophe. As a history teacher in a prestigious independent school, I have a simple answer which comes from rational observation of teenage students mostly from well-heeled backgrounds: the cosmopolitan elites of the media and academia establishment, like the presupposing college bound teen with seniroritis who has the world all figured out, fail to grasp the blinkered nature of their own world view; in doing so, they fail to comprehend the full complexity of reality itself.
The world view to which I am referring goes by many names—rationalism, secularism, humanism etc. It is a view that emanates from what I call the Enlightenment Myth: the idea that we arrived at the modern world by wholesale jettisoning of religion, tradition, and custom. It’s the idea that modernity was built from the ground-up, through secularized reason. As the AP European History concept outline in my textbook uncritically puts it: “They [Enlightenment thinkers] sought to bring the light of reason to bear on the darkness of prejudice, outmoded traditions, and ignorance, challenging traditional values.” Of note is not this drab statement itself, but the fact that its authors, like my students and the pollsters who predicted electoral carnage for Trump this election, take it as a matter of fact as opposed to ideology-driven historiography open to debate.
One can almost imagine the line I just quoted grafted onto the present: They [Democrats] sought to bring the light of reason to bear on the darkness of prejudice, outmoded traditions, and ignorance, challenging the traditional values of Trump voters in flyover country. The way this perspective plays itself out in my history classroom is illuminating, especially when we get to the Enlightenment. “Finally,” my students tell me, “something I can relate to.” For once the certitude of religious doctrine and cultural supremacy has given way to the recognizable and comfortable relativism of today. The rational, self-interested individual is finally free to achieve full autonomy and self-actualization. As the French Revolutionary document The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen puts it: “Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else.”
This is why my students find it so incomprehensible when they learn that the rebellion in the Vendee—a pro-monarchy and pro-church counter-revolution—was led not by aristocrats but by peasants who wished to protect their way of life from the homogenizing intrusion of “reason.” For in the name of reason, their churches were being desecrated, their streets being renamed, and even their work week stretched out from 7 days to the more “rational” 10. Why, my students nonetheless ask, couldn’t the peasants recognize their own liberators, the ones who had sought to banish backwardness to the past and free them from clerical tyranny and feudalism? But after their momentary curiosity they usually move on to more pressing concerns. Questions like those are footnotes in history, one of life’s many unanswerable abstractions.
One of my mentors once stressed that as history teachers, our urge is often to make history relatable and hence understandable. Here are people just like you and me, as this or that anecdote demonstrates. But the allure of history, this mentor told me, lies just as much in the subject’s strangeness. History is full of weird events that are hard to understand and, if we succeed as history teachers we help students not to understand that weirdness but to at least inhabit it—to ponder it with the wonder of the childlike. In the same way that my students sometimes fail to inhabit the strangeness of history, which they inevitably reduce to obscurantism and benighted un-reason, the Trump despising elites of both parties, as well as academia and the media, fail to even attempt to inhabit the strangeness, the domestic exoticism, of the Trump voter.
Why would some Americans rather work and risk death during the pandemic than wait on a government stimulus check? Why would they choose, like the President seemed to, economic growth over rational self-interest and self-preservation? How could Latinos vote for a President who demonizes undocumented immigrants or gays for a man who has sought to ban transgender people from serving in the military? As a liberal student of mine put it to me, “I mean voting for him twice? How could people be so stupid as to vote for him a second time? Look at his record! How could the election even be this close? It’s depressing.”
“Maybe,” I said, citing the above evidence “not all Trump voters are racist.”
“Or maybe,” they replied, “it’s not just white people who are racist.”
In the book Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America, Chris Arnade explicitly states “This book is not a book about ‘how we got Trump.’” Nonetheless, the lesson he learns from speaking with and photographing America’s marginalized is one that has gone unlearned by too many of us, even after the upset Trump victory in 2016 that should have reordered our curiosities towards comprehension of what we fail to understand. “My biases,” Arnade says of his time observing churches in poor neighborhoods, “my years steeped in rationality and privilege, was limiting a deeper understanding.”
There is no more perfect analogue to the failure of one’s historical imagination to inhabit anything other than the probity of the torchbearers of Enlightenment truth than Charles M. Blow’s recent New York Times op-ed entitled “Exit Polls Point to the Power of White Patriarchy.” As he works his way through the inexplicable numbers of non-straight white males who voted for Trump he ruefully laments “It is so unsettling to consider that many of our fellow countrymen and women are either racists or accommodate racists or acquiesce to racists.” Somewhere his high school history teacher is cringing. At least I hope he is.
Kurt Hofer holds a PhD in Spanish Literature and teaches high school history in a Los Angeles area independent school.