Forecasting the 2020 Election
Nobody has to tell me that it’s way too soon to predict the outcome of the next presidential election. Heck, in 2016, I was still guessing wrong until around 10 p.m. on Election Night here on the west coast.
Nobody has to tell me that it’s way too soon to predict the outcome of the next presidential election. Heck, in 2016, I was still guessing wrong until around 10 p.m. on Election Night here on the west coast. It was just about then that my depression slowly began to turn into wonder, culminating a few hours later in elation for a great many of us and a Niagara of tears over at CNN and MSNBC.
But since the election is on everybody’s mind and the overture to the big show has begun in the cornfields of Iowa, I might as well dip my toe in the water, hold my finger up to test the wind, climb out on a limb and risk making a fool of myself pretending to be a political pundit, just the way all the professional pollsters and political pundits did three years ago.
One thing I do know is that anyone who predicts that Trump will win in a cakewalk is wrong. For one thing, there are too many heavily-populated states that automatically vote for the Democrat and would even vote for Bill De Blasio were he to garner the nomination.
For another, Republican states (misnamed red states) are often said to trend left (purple), but the reverse process hardly ever takes place. I ascribe this to the dumbing down of America, but it’s also the result of people leaving a place like California because of its taxes and politics, but taking along the politics to places like Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Arizona and Colorado.
On the east coast, similar migrations take place because aging people leave the cold climes of New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire, for the warmer climates of North and South Carolina, Florida, Georgia and Alabama. What has happened to once reliably conservative Virginia can be explained by the expansion of the federal government. All those damn bureaucrats have to live somewhere and nobody who can afford to live elsewhere would ever choose to live in Washington, D.C.
The silver lining is that, thanks to Trump’s tax cuts and deregulations, not only has unemployment sunk to historical lows, but the average wage in America has risen by nearly $2-an-hour. That translates to $4,000-a-year.
That might amount to “crumbs” for a multi-millionaire like Nancy Pelosi, but for most people it means a new dishwasher, a new refrigerator, freezer, washer-dryer and flat-screen TV. Or, for the more spiritually-inclined, an extra $400 tithing in the collection plate.
Another hopeful sign is that, thanks to President Trump’s close ties to Israel and his wholehearted defense of religious rights in America, he will not only hang on to the 81% of the vote he received from evangelicals in 2016 but will increase it after his Protect the Life Rule deprives Planned Parenthood of $60 million of public funding. Agreed, it would be better if the nation’s biggest butcher shop was cut loose from the $500 million they receive every year, but only Congress can do that. And with the House under the control of Pelosi and the Democrats, there is little chance of that happening any time soon.
Trump berated Jews for betraying Israel by electing Democrats who then support anti-Semites like Ilhan Omar, A O-C and Rashida Tlaib, and promote the Jew-hating Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement created by Muslims and Arabs in their endless attempt to destroy the Jewish homeland.
The disgusting irony is that the Democrats then turn around and accuse Trump of being an anti-Semite in spite of the fact that his son-in-law/advisor Jared Kushner is an orthodox Jew; his daughter Ivanka is a Jewish convert; and their three children, Trump’s beloved grandchildren, are all Jewish.
Writing in the New York Post, columnist Rob Henderson, alerted me to the fact that there is now a new status symbol.
After interviewing a number of upper class residents of Larchmont, New York, Henderson discovered that possessing luxury items is no longer enough to confer status.
Today, big homes, expensive cars and Rolex watches, are nice, but that merely indicates a person has money. But in places like Beverly Hills, Pacific Heights, Grosse Point, Highland Park, Piney Point Village, Scarsdale, Key Biscayne, Riverfront and Palm Beach, in order to establish your place in high society, what Henderson refers to as “luxury beliefs” are required.
It is now essential in many circles to accept that white privilege is a real thing; that, furthermore, you have to accept that there are 400 genders; that transgenderism is a normal condition; that systemic racism is widespread; that protected borders equate to concentration camps; that it’s the federal government, and not the criminal actions of illegal aliens, that cause children to be separated from their parents at the border; that were it not for guns, people would stop killing one another; that women have the inalienable right to abort their offspring up to the point of delivery and, if need be, beyond; that traditional marriage and two-parent families are acceptable, but in no way superior to all the other options; and that Adolph Hitler has been reincarnated as Donald Trump.
And best of all, none of this costs the enlightened ones a plugged nickel. They merely have to surrender their brains, logic and commonsense. But they never use any of that stuff anyway, so it’s all good.
After I called for the construction of more prisons and mental institutions, Vera Holroyd suggested I add orphanages to my wish list.
She mentioned that she had a friend who was raised in a good one and that he not only cherished the one in which he was raised, but it left him with a strong desire to have his own loving family. Which, happily, he had.
It reminded me that the only person I ever knew who spent his childhood in an orphanage convinced me that although Charles Dickens may have described the orphanages he knew accurately in “Oliver Twist,” they had nothing in common with the one that had provided him with a home.
He said that the adult supervisors, without exception, were kind and caring. Plus there were always lots of children to play with.
Mrs. Holroyd has the same distrust of foster homes that I do. If you really want to raise a child as your own, you adopt it. If you’re only doing it because some government entity is paying you, commonsense alone would dictate that a well-run orphanage is preferable. Not only is there less chance of the children being abused but having a hundred or so under one roof makes more sense financially.
Sen. Mike Lee of Utah used to be one of the few senators who called himself a Conservative who wasn’t hiding his crossed fingers behind his back. Today, he makes a pretty strong case for term limits.
Back in 2011, he was an outspoken critic of Google, but in 2019 he opposes anti-trust legislation targeting the tech giant. And it’s certainly not because Google has mended its ways. If anything, we know that they have only increased its monopolistic tendencies, its aversion to Trump and his supporters, and its illegal surveillance of Americans.
Sen. Lee even pooh-poohs the charge that Google and the other tech companies censor Conservative groups and individuals.
Is it possible that this change of heart was sincere or could it possibly be that Lee’s position was brought about by Google’s having sponsored a major fund raiser before his last election?
And could that be the reason he only tossed softballs at the Silicon Valley kazillionaires when they appeared before his Senate committee to defend their corrupt practices?
In any case, one would have to be a head-in-the-sand ostrich not to smell a rat when, just a month after his pitiful performance at the hearing, Google announced it was building a $750 million data center in Mike Lee’s home state.
It used to be that the three R’s referred to readin’, ritin’ and ‘rithmatic.
These days, the term refers to the various phony issues on which the Democrats have chosen to attack President Trump: Russia, racism and recession.
According to zany Pete Wick, on the first day at the new seniors retirement complex, the manager laid down the ground rules for the elderly residents.
“The female sleeping quarters will be out of bounds for all males, and the male dormitory will likewise be closed to females. Anybody caught breaking the rule will be fined $50.
"Anybody caught breaking it a second time will be fined $100. A third offense will raise the fine to $300. Are there any questions?”
At this point, a dapper elderly gent raised his hand and asked: “How much for a season pass?”
