Thursday, October 24, 2024

This Election, Consider the Four “C”s

What are the four “C”s?  They are Constitution, Competence, Courage, and Consistency.  Which candidate can best deliver this?  Let’s take them one at a time.

 

Constitution:  Beginning with Obama, the Executive Branch of our government began to blow through the constitutional boundaries on Executive Action.  When Obama used up his extraordinary portion of public and Congressional good will by ramming Obamacare down America’s throat in his first two years, he poisoned the partisan well in Congress to the point where he was simply unable, or unwilling, to work with them on a bipartisan basis.  He then resorted to new adventures in Executive Action that essentially shifted a lot of governing power from the Legislative and Judicial Branches over to the Executive Branch.  

 

When Trump followed Obama into the White House, he too became disenchanted with the difficult task of working with Congress in the pursuit of governance.  Like his predecessor, but to a lesser degree, he overly indulged in the practice of Executive Action. 

 

The Biden/Harris Administration started from a position where the constitutional barriers on Executive Action had been compromised and literally exploded it to extremes heretofore unseen.  Given her political career up to this point, there is no reason to expect a president Harris to slow down on this effort to distort the Constitution in ways that empower the Executive Branch beyond what our framers intended. 

 

As I mentioned, Trump is certainly not blameless in this area.  He largely refused to work with Congress in a productive fashion, even when his party controlled both houses.  But all things considered, Trump has a far better record of respecting our constitutional blueprint than does Biden/Harris.  Harris certainly appears to be nothing less than Biden 2.0…or perhaps Obama 3.0.  The advantage on Constitution goes to Trump.

 

Competence: Any reasonable and rational examination of VP Harris’s political career leaves a large and nagging doubt about her level of competence to perform any position of authority and influence at a high level.  She is vacuous, shallow, and an unprincipled bubblehead.  She is an avatar for those who support and control her behind the scenes.  There is no reason to expect that a president Harris would not continue, and perhaps even accelerate, the Biden/Harris inclination to seed our government from top to bottom with stupid, insipid, non-serious, irrational, and clueless liberal/progressive ideologues who are, if nothing else, seriously and legitimately incompetent.

 

I do not think of the words Trump and competence in simultaneous fashion.  It is not a word I would use to describe Donald Trump; but having said that, his history in the business world and his record as president demonstrates clearly that he by and large surrounds himself with intelligent and competent people.  And while a lot of those appointees were not sufficiently tolerant of Trump’s monstrous ego to stay around for long, he always managed to replace them with reasonably competent successors.  History dictates that on the subject of Competence, the advantage goes to Trump.

 

Courage:  While not a shining example of intestinal fortitude, it seems fair to say that Harris could not have achieved the position she now occupies as a candidate for president without possessing a significant amount of personal courage.  There can be little question that her identity of being a minority female has made it more difficult to have reached this level in her political career and whether or not she wins the race, she should be admired for getting to this point in the political process. 

 

For many reasons, Donald Trump obviously does not lack personal courage.  While a part of that trait is no doubt a product of an entitled life, that privileged upbringing cannot fully explain his business success and the valor he has shown while being under constant political attack and life-threatening physical attack.  Regardless of wherein lies its source, Trump clearly is a brave man.

 

The relevant question here is which candidate has political courage?  Which one will best be able to make the hard and difficult choices as president when no good options are available and no one is willing to stand with you when you take the bad or unpopular ones?

 

I cannot find a single instance where Harris has taken a political stand based on courage or principle.  Much like her mentor Joe Biden, she is intimately in tune with the direction of the political winds and effortlessly flows in that direction.  While Trump is also prone to say anything to anybody at anytime if it will serve his interests, he did demonstrate his willingness to take unpopular actions during his term as president and on occasions, even confronted his own party leaders.  Once again, the reality of past actions dictates that the advantage on Courage will go to Trump.

 

Consistency:  In many respects, consistency is a product of combining the previous three elements in this post…Constitution, Competence, and Courage.  While I would never expect to find a president that performs exactly how I as an individual citizen would expect, I would like to have one that is sufficiently competent to comprehend our constitution and has the courage, both personal and political, to consistently adhere to its blueprint as the leader of our nation. 

 

While considering that I have rated Trump superior on the foregoing three elements, you would think that he is a clear winner on this fourth.  The problem with that assumption is the simple fact that Donald Trump is one of the most unpredictable and inconsistent politicians you will ever meet.  He was a Democrat before he was a Republican.  He was liberal before he was conservative.  He will often be for something today and against that same thing next week.  But here is the point: Even though he is an inconsistent individual, he is always consistently Trump.  What you see is what you get; even though you may not always know what that is going to be.  Like him or not…he is authentic; he is real.

 

If we have learned nothing else from the Harris campaign for president, we have certainly learned that she is a vaporous and malleable person who seems to have no solid core of substance or principle.  The one reliable thing that you can say is that she has always been quite reliably…liberal and progressive. 

 

Therefore, on this fourth and final evaluation of desirable presidential traits, I will give the advantage to Trump.  I do this not because he is any more predictable than Harris; they are both needy, egomaniacal politicians.  That is what they both are.  But as I said before, if a leader is a combination of their constitutional respect, their competence as administrators, and their political courage to do the right thing…then I will select the personally inconsistent Donald Trump that I have little respect for…because he has demonstrated a high level of administrative consistency over his lifetime.  After all, we do refer to our presidents as “Chief Executive”.

 

While Harris has been a fairly consistent model of political philosophy throughout her career, the simple fact is that her model is one of liberal and progressive idiocy.  It is a product of her failings in the three components that blend into the final element of consistency.   As a political leader, she has been consistently bad.

 

Our nation, relying as it must on its constitutional moorings, is incredibly strong and enduring.  It has survived many disasters, both natural and manmade.  It has survived bad presidents, corrupt legislatures, and rogue federal prosecutors and judges.  While I have grave concerns regarding what a Harris Administration might portend for the next four years, I cling to the notion that our nation could survive that possible outcome. 

 

Legitimate votes matter.  Politicians are elected to terms in order to reward them or punish them for their service to the people.  Given the choices before me, I must cast my lot with Donald Trump.  His record and potential is markedly more promising for America than that of his opponent, Kamala Harris.

 

This will be my last post before the upcoming national elections in November.  I urge everyone…educate yourself on your choices, think about what you want in your elected leaders, vote on election day,  reconcile yourself to those results as they may be…and then get on with living your lives.  America will survive a chaotic second Trump Administration full of bluster and caricature or it will weather an initial Harris Administration full of Obamaesque naiveté and Bidenesque ineptitude.  Yeah…just keep repeating those words to yourself over and over…you might even start to believe it.  We will get the government we deserve.

 

Moving on to other news of the day, here is all things National Media:

  

https://jonathanturley.org/2024/10/24/selling-the-apocalypse-the-press-and-pundits-face-devastating-polls-on-the-threat-to-democracy/

 

The Democrats and their allies tell you that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy.  Listen to this and then ask yourself: Who is the real threat: https://www.nationalreview.com/podcasts/the-mccarthy-report/last-minute-lawfare/

 

https://amgreatness.com/2024/10/20/j6-and-now-congress-knows-the-rest-of-the-story/

 

https://amgreatness.com/2024/10/24/cbs-refusal-to-release-60-minutes-harris-transcript-indefensible/

 

https://amgreatness.com/2024/10/21/a-media-beyond-caricature/

 

All things Campaign 2024:

 

https://amgreatness.com/2024/10/20/the-strategic-consequences-of-kamala-harris-incompetence/

 

https://amgreatness.com/2024/10/24/kamalas-inane-talking-points/

 

https://thefederalist.com/2024/10/23/kamala-harris-keeps-reminding-voters-shes-joe-biden-2-0/

 

https://reason.com/2024/10/20/kamalacare-is-just-bidencare/

 

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/10/the-biden-iran-scandal-gets-worse/

 

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/10/the-october-bribe/

 

https://amgreatness.com/2024/10/20/2024-election-showdown-harriss-america-vs-trumps-comeback/

 

Sad but true: https://reason.com/2024/10/23/trump-harris-ads-make-clear-they-wont-be-cutting-government/

 

https://amgreatness.com/2024/10/22/without-massive-reform-a-trump-victory-will-be-in-vain/

 

https://americanmind.org/features/what-trump-should-do-if-he-wins/how-trump-can-win-the-transition/

 

https://americanmind.org/features/what-trump-should-do-if-he-wins/make-peace-and-rebuild-americas-industrial-base/

 

All things Election Integrity:

 

https://thefederalist.com/2024/10/22/asking-questions-about-election-integrity-doesnt-make-someone-an-election-denier/

 

https://amgreatness.com/2024/10/22/will-democrats-accept-the-results-of-the-2024-presidential-election/

 

https://jonathanturley.org/2024/10/22/the-mark-of-kaine-the-biden-administration-under-fire-for-virginia-lawsuit-over-non-citizen-voter-removals/

 

https://thefederalist.com/2024/10/23/there-is-no-good-reason-for-voters-to-not-expect-results-on-election-night/

 

All things Education:

 

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/what-to-do-about-grade-inflation/

 

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/standardized-testing-is-good/

 

School choice anyone??? https://thefederalist.com/2024/10/24/parents-pull-kids-from-illinois-k-5-school-as-librarian-stages-public-gender-transition/

 

https://reason.com/2024/10/24/illinois-scholarship-program-explicitly-excludes-white-applicants/

 

Closing Notes to think about:

 

Being an elder myself, I liked this: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/americas-elderly-should-never-feel-alone/

 

Combine profligate federal spending with climate lunacy and what do you get??? https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/three-years-after-allocating-5-billion-for-ev-chargers-government-has-completed-projects-at-17-stations/

 

Optional: Post-Election Therapy…You can call it celebration, or grieving, or consolation, or despair, or whatever you might choose.  There is one remedy that will address them all…music.

 

Outstanding attitude: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh8xy58dOV4

 

What a great place to grow up in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R50cMM5ADy0

 

Ever feel the need to just get away? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh5Lt1ccdjA

 

More of that Tom Petty attitude, Springsteen style: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3cecpC75vw

 

Live it like you love it…:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV-Z1YwaOiw

 

…‘Cause it will be over with before you know it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR-qQcNT_fY

 

Yeah…so many of the great ones left us way too soon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ardglr9MVVQ

 

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This Election, Consider the Four “C”s

What are the four “C”s?   They are Constitution, Competence, Courage, and Consistency.   Which candidate can best deliver this?   Let’s take...