Think Very Hard About Your Choice

This piece is being written about three weeks prior to the 2020 Presidential Election.  I spent a good deal of this Saturday sitting in my shop and watching the good Lord paint the trees on this gorgeous fall day in Kentucky.  I thought about how absolutely crazy our world has become and how confused about it everyone has gotten.  I spent a good deal of time reflecting on the upcoming election and how the result would impact that world.

You could speak to your dog, your neighbor, or your young child and get as accurate an election prediction as you might from me.  But for what it’s worth, I believe that this election will be decided over the next two weeks.  As of today, there is a hard-core Trump vote around 45 percent.  There is also a hard-core Biden vote of around 45 percent.  Trump’s 45 percent is mostly rural.  Biden’s 45 percent is mostly urban.  Each segment is scattered from east to west and north to south and how that vote is scattered is of critical importance.  That is the great unknown.

And just as I believe that about 90 percent of the electorate is locked in; I also believe a similar percentage of the electoral vote is locked in.  It will be that 10 percent who have not yet decided how to vote and who are scattered across about a half dozen states that will determine our next President.  Today, they are undecided.  They will not wait until the final week before the election to decide.  Most of them will decide in the next two weeks.  Joe Biden’s strategy is no secret.  He is going to minimize where he goes, what he says, and how much he is seen.  He thinks he is ahead and he will play it safe.  He will basically allow the mainstream media to campaign for him.  Trump will either win or lose this election on his own.

President Donald Trump is not an easy man to abide.  He has been a child/boy/man of privilege his entire life.  This entitlement has permitted him to adopt a strategy in reaction to any challenge he faces; it is a strategy that few people have available to them.  Every time his person or judgment is questioned, his response is hold…my…beer.  And unfortunately, both for him and those around him, there has always been someone standing there more than willing to hold his beer.

Now for typical folks like myself, a rural redneck that is quite content with a simple life, there have been far too many occasions in life where I have uttered the term hold…my…beer.  The good news is that most times, I had friends nearby who knew what holding my beer might lead to and they refused to do it.  The bad news is that oftentimes someone did hold my beer or else I simply set it down.  This inevitably led to many bad memories and much regret.  Fortunately, my good friends and family loved me enough to forgive my stupid moments and eventually I learned to simply hang onto my beer and let others make a fool of themselves.

Donald Trump never learned this lesson because he didn’t have to.  His stupid moments had little consequence and he has never really had any incentive to change his behavior.  It is quite possible that the first major consequence of his obnoxious behavior is due to arrive on the first Tuesday of November.  And that would be a bad development for this country.  As I have written before, this presidential election is not about Donald Trump versus Joe Biden.  This presidential election is about the health and well-being of American democracy and how our government will be run.  It is about Republican principles versus Democrat principles.  It is about personal liberty and accountability versus suffocating regulation and the nanny state. 

Before you vote in the presidential election this year, take a moment or two to reflect on what we might gain and what we might lose in the upcoming result.  Consider how these potential gains and losses will impact the everyday lives of you and your family.  Consider how the future of our citizens and our nation will be impacted by these possible gains and losses.  Carefully consider each potential gain or loss and decide for yourself in terms of its value.  I am talking about the loss of putting up with a spoiled brat President in order to gain a better government …or… because of a personal dislike for a politician’s manner, the gain of having an uncontroversial milquetoast President and the loss of personal freedom.  

The United States of America has never had a saint for President and we will not have one come January of 2021; regardless of who wins this November.  So the pertinent question is not about having a President that we would like to invite for supper; not about approving of their endless political ravings and rank partisan hypocrisy; and certainly not about having a President whose spirit and soul is as pure as the driven snow.  We ain’t getting none of that.

The question that should determine how we vote is the one that ventures the query: Who is best for our country?  And how should that question be answered?  Each of us must decide based on what we have seen; based on what people have said; and most important of all…based on what people have done.  Donald Trump is 74 years old.  Joe Biden is 76 years old.  They are what they are.  Do not expect for a moment that either of these men will magically transform overnight into something you might deem as an improved version of themselves.  That ain’t happening.  What you see is what you will get.  And here are some selected items about exactly how that particular shopping list shapes up…

The coronavirus pandemic hit the planet about January of 2020; here is a good timeline: https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-pandemic-timeline-history-major-events-2020-3 .  The plain and simple fact is that not a single nation in the world was prepared for this epidemic; everyone struggled with its insidious effects; and America was neither the best nor the worst in how it reacted to this plague.  It seems to me that the most important statistic of any pandemic would be the number of lives lost to the illness.  Here is a chart of the coronavirus death rate for various nations:  https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-death-rate-in-us-uk-italy-china-compared-2020-4 .  America is better than some, worse than others.  But there is only one America.

Every government across the globe grappled with the challenges of the coronavirus and all made mistakes.  Like every other country, the United States faced unique circumstances when confronting this pandemic.  America is the third largest country on earth; slightly behind Canada in second, Russia in first, and slightly ahead of China in fourth.  We have a government like no other; fifty independent state legislatures with one over-arching federal government.  The President was limited in exactly what he could do to combat the coronavirus and each state government was largely ordained to deal with the plague on its own.

President Trump did all he could within reason to meet the pandemic challenges set before him.  He tried to limit our national exposure to foreign infections; he did his best to supply states with logistical support and necessary resources to deal with the virus; and he tried to co-ordinate the many federal entities involved in facing the pandemic in a manner that was effective and efficient.  I would give him good grades on the first two and a middling grade on the latter.  He may improve that last grade if he can come up with a vaccine sooner rather than later.

My point is this…For all of Biden’s bluster about the coronavirus; for all of the media criticism that the Trump Administration has received; and for all of the terrible price that the pandemic has demanded; Joe Biden or anyone else could not have done a much better job than President Donald Trump in addressing this problem.  The global statistics bear this out and for people to claim otherwise is simply agenda-driven foolishness. 

The U.S. economy in December of 2019 showed unemployment at 3.5 percent.  It showed the consumer price index at 1.7 percent.  Net household wealth had risen to $77 trillion from a 2016 figure of $63 trillion.  The prime interest rate was 4.75 percent.  Workplace participation numbers were at all-time highs, unemployment rates for minorities were at all-time lows, there was real growth in workers’ paychecks, and upward mobility opportunities existed for people at every step of the economy.  Here is a snapshot of the U.S. economy at that time: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_01102020.pdf . 

Any reasonable person must acknowledge that the American economy was going like gangbusters before the pandemic hit.  And when it did hit, it delivered a knockout blow not just to the American economy, but to the worldwide economy.  There is no reason to think that the same policies that led our economy to its high performance level of December 2019 won’t lead us right back to those levels once the coronavirus is put behind us.  You want proof?  Just look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) for December of 2019 (the above link) and compare them to ones for December of 2016: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_01062017.pdf .  If this dramatic improvement could be accomplished in the first three years of the Trump Administration, it could certainly be re-established in another four-year term.

Joe Biden is on record as saying that if elected president, he will try to reverse the tax reform and trade policies of the Trump Administration that led to the aforementioned economic renaissance.  He says that he would do all in his considerable power as President to re-institute the stagnant and oppressive economic and trade policies of the two Obama/Biden Administrations.  This article by CBS News (no friend of Donald Trump):  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nearly-60-of-americans-say-theyre-better-off-financially-than-a-year-ago/ and this recent article: https://news.gallup.com/poll/285593/say-better-off-past-elections.aspx both indicate how well our economy was performing prior to the pandemic shutdowns.   This is the robust economy that Joe Biden would try to reverse?

Even Gallup’s most recent poll, taken September 14-28, 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, indicates that 56 percent of those polled believe “they are better off now than they were four years ago”.   Why in the world would American voters pull the plug on economic policies that have clearly shown to be effective and return to the suffocating economic agenda of the prior Obama/Biden Administrations?  Numbers don’t lie.

In September of 1987, during the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) Justice Nomination process for Robert Bork, Joe Biden was the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee conducting the nomination hearings.  Whether rightly or wrongly, many historians designate these hearings as the beginning date marking the time when Senate SCOTUS nomination hearings began their long and unseemly descent into incivility, personal assassinations, and the general unprofessional carnival atmosphere that has existed so often since that time.  We most recently witnessed this with the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh.

The rank hypocrisy and unethical behavior exhibited by Joe Biden during these hearings was inexcusable and shameful.    Try as he might, his subsequent evasive rhetoric intended to excuse his behavior during this time is wholly inadequate to wipe away the stench of these proceedings.  Led by Ted Kennedy, the Democrats on that Judiciary Committee joined in a chorus of “Robert Bork’s America” and created a travesty of the confirmation process.  One can disagree with Robert Bork’s judicial record and temperament; but any reasonable person cannot fail to condemn the personal attacks that were unleashed on this highly-respected man when he was nominated as a SCOTUS Justice.

If you think that I might be exaggerating Biden’s behavior during these hearings, I urge you to judge for yourself.  The internet is a marvelous research instrument and there is bountiful video and transcript data available from this episode.   Remember…Joe Biden was the Chairman of the Committee and in the U.S. Senate, the Committee Chairman has immense control over the proceedings. 

In his years of elected office since that time, Joe Biden has proven that those flashes of callous viciousness and insensitivity are common attributes to his character.  He has accomplished nothing of consequence during his Senatorial career; he has repeatedly failed in numerous prior attempts to be elected President; and he was even forced to embarrassingly wait for an endorsement from the man for whom he served eight years as Vice-President.  Joe Biden is a prototype for the caricature of the career politician and is a perfect example of WDC corruption and decay.  Joe Biden is a shell of a man and the only open question on his possible presidential behavior is who will control the strings attached to his body…Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or Bernie Sanders?

Every Administration in history has had some bad elements within it.  In Hillary Clinton’s case, even though she never ascended to the top, she was the bad element.  This is no secret.  The reason she was quite possibly the worst presidential candidate in history and was defeated by another one of the worst candidates in history is because everyone knows she is corrupt.  Point…blank…period.  The depth of her political and character darkness becomes more public with each passing day.

The more we learn about the Obama/Biden Administration; the more corrupt we find it was.  If Obama and Biden weren’t involved in the dirtiness of Brennan, Comey, and other assorted characters; they were artfully ignoring and endorsing these obscene actions through willful ignorance.  Under Obama/Biden, there was scarcely a government department or agency that was not politically weaponized.  If this nation elects Joe Biden as President, you can bet your rent money that the lead crooks from both camps, in addition to Bernie and his Squad, will be heavily involved in the daily operations of the White House.  A vote for Biden/Harris will be a vote for a return to a government that is overtly partisan, without ethics, and shameless about the abuse of power necessary to achieve their preferred ideology.

For decades, the Democratic Party has taken the black vote for granted.    Their assumption of monolithic support (Biden’s own words) from the black community has worn thin and is now finally being reconsidered by many black Americans.  From his buddy-buddy days with southern racists like Robert KKK Byrd to his proud claim that “Delaware fought with the South” to his ignorant and presumptuous “you ain’t black” rant to his revealing remark about “a black woman stocking the grocery shelf”, Joe Biden has shown himself to be someone who, like most Democrats, has taken the black vote for granted and feels no obligation to earn it. 

If you are minority or anyone concerned about achieving racial justice and equality in this country, is Joe Biden the kind of leader you want to place in charge of that effort?

The best solution to achieving equality and fairness in this nation for all races is insuring that equal fairness and respect is guaranteed by our justice system; that discrimination by race in all of its forms is eliminated; and by creating equal economic opportunity for all Americans to fulfill their hopes and dreams.  No President in my lifetime has met these multiple challenges more effectively than Donald Trump. 

It is regrettable that our national media has sunk to the depths it has in regards to professionalism and ethics.  They have not only sacrificed all credibility in support of Joe Biden and the Democrat Party; they have reached a point where they don’t even bother to hide it and are shamelessly proud of it.  Even before he took office, President Trump has been hounded by farce, hoax, and blatant untruths directed at him by the mainstream media and the Democrats.  Their blatant and open alliance has greatly diminished Trump’s ability to execute the duties of the President and has greatly harmed our government and its institutions.  They have literally altered the news to promote their liberal, anti-Trump agenda.

Like Hillary Clinton, the media has never quite gotten over Donald Trump’s election victory in 2016 and their pure spite and malice has been childishly on display ever since then.  If they manage to drag Joe Biden across the finish line ahead of Donald Trump in November, they will undoubtedly be convinced that there is nothing they cannot put past the American public.  They will be emboldened to perpetrate increasingly outrageous orchestrations and lies.  Their liberal hubris will be fully unleashed.

If Biden wins, it will be very interesting to see if the marriage between the media and Democrats holds up.   I don’t see the media changing their stripes out of remorse, regret, or guilt because they obviously have no conscience.  But I do see a scenario where the Democrats, once they get their hands on the levers of power, simply continue to take the media for granted and openly treat them as the useful idiots that they are.  The media will not like this.  But what will they do?  What is that old saying about chickens coming home to roost?  Have plenty of popcorn available just in case.

If Job Biden can hide in his basement and get elected President with the willing and biased support of the national media, it will be a terrible indictment of this nation’s civic sense of duty.  Voters might be spending a very long four-to-eight years wondering how they could be so stupid and manipulated so easily.  Stick your finger in the mainstream media’s eye or even better…stick your middle finger right in their face.  Vote for Donald Trump.

For a man who wears his faith on his sleeve as often as he does, Joe Biden is not held in very high esteem by his own church.  Having been refused communion due to his ardent support for abortion, Joe Biden should really stay away from discussions involving church and morality.  No person who advocates for late term abortions, partial birth abortions, and abortions up to the point of delivery should ever introduce faith into their politics.  Biden either supports all of these positions or passively permits their promotion by his Party. 

Abortion is a gut-wrenching, emotional issue fraught with raw feelings on both sides.  There are well-intentioned people in both the pro-life camp and the pro-choice camp.  There are also extremists who are radical beyond description.  Over his career in public service (which has been most of his adult life), Joe Biden has managed to occupy both ends of the spectrum and all points in between.  It goes without saying that when it comes to the subject of abortion, Joe Biden has no moral compass; just a finger held up to gauge the political winds.

I don’t really believe that Joe Biden personally supports open border policies, an effort to pack the SCOTUS by adding Justices, the addition of two new states to the Union (featuring the promotion of Washington D.C. to statehood), universal government-run health care for everyone, the detonation of the nuclear option in the Senate to allow passage of legislation with a simple 51-vote majority, the elimination of the electoral college, and the defunding of police departments across this country.  I don’t believe Joe Biden personally supports the return to sky-high energy costs and rolling blackouts; but that is what will happen with his energy plan.  Look at what Biden and the Democrats have told you.  Here is the actual report of the Democrat Unification Committee that was produced in order to purchase Bernie Sanders support for Joe Biden: https://joebiden.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/UNITY-TASK-FORCE-RECOMMENDATIONS.pdf .  This is the official Joe Biden/Democratic platform.  The reality is that Joe Biden refuses to stand up and speak out against these positions.  Through his acquiescence, his support is manifest.

Joe Biden is a man without principle who will always take the path of least resistance and the one that benefits him personally.  If elected President, he will be pushed to action by the most potent advocate that happens to be around him at the time.  All indications are that those advocates will be the crooks connected to Hillary Clinton, the power-hungry ideologues from the Obama/Biden Administrations, and the left wing liberal crazies from the Bernie Sanders/AOC wing of the Democratic Party. 

Look at the Joe Biden that stands before you during the next few weeks and ask yourself: Does this look like a man who can oppose the forces I just mentioned?  Examine his words and speeches and see if you can find any indication of underlying principles that might lead you to expect sufficient character to lead this nation.  Consider his choice of the most liberal Senator in America, Kamala Harris, as his Vice-President and then wonder what he would not do to gain political support from the extreme liberals in the Democrat Party. 

If you are thinking you might vote for Joe Biden because he is a nicer guy than Donald Trump; if you think Joe Biden might be fun to go to a ball game with; if you think Joe Biden is capable of bringing the radical elements from the right and the left together in our country; if you think that Joe Biden has the physical and mental strength and stamina to stand up to the rigors of the presidency…then you need to look a whole lot closer at the man Joe Biden. 

We are not electing a social club president, selecting a sports team cheerleader, or picking up a drinking buddy.  We are electing a President who must go toe-to-toe with Putin of Russia and Merkel of Germany.  We are electing a President who will make the hard call to take out a Middle East terrorist when we have the chance.  We are electing a President who will once again make America the strongest military force in the world so that we might preserve the peace through strength and protect our homeland.  We are electing a President who must have the stamina to work seven-days-a-week like the energizer bunny and still be enthusiastic about his job.  We are electing a President who will openly and brazenly question all of the decay and corruption that has made WDC the swamp that it has become.  We are electing a President who will consider new ideas, think outside of the box, and not worry about being politically correct with all that he says and does.  We need a President who will not kowtow or pander to the media of this country and will challenge them to once again do their jobs as professional journalists.

Joe Biden is not that man.  Examine him closely.  Listen to what he says.  Pay attention to what he will not say.  There is an old adage that goes…if you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.  Joe Biden has no history of standing for much of anything and he has oftentimes fallen for plenty.  Electing Joe Biden to the Presidency will be placing a weak, flaccid puppet in the White House and opening our nation’s government up to manipulation and deviation by some of the sorriest people on the face of this earth. 

I have used strong language in this post; stronger than usual and frankly stronger than I am comfortable with.  I believe this election is that important.  As I have said before, electing Joe Biden as President will not be the end of America.  We are stronger than that.  But electing Joe Biden as President will be the end of America as we know it.  Of that, you can be certain.

Consider your choices carefully; vote; and never forget…we deserve the government we get.  Regret will be a thin tonic indeed if Joe Biden is elected President.