Lazy Sunday CCLXXII: Harris Stuff

28 July 202425 July 2024 The Portly Politico5 Comments

Well, Kamala Harris is heading up the Democratic ticket, unless something crazy happens before or during the Democratic National Convention. Harris is the ultimate example of failing upwards—after dropping out early in the Democratic primaries in 2020, she found herself as the nominee for the vice presidency.

Now that her boss has ended his Weekend at Bernie’s-esque charade, Harris has fallen up to the de facto nomination for the presidency. The concubine-turned-prosecutor-turned-pandering-politico who checks all the intersectional boxes is now energizing a demoralized—but still quite cringe—Democratic base.

One unremarked upon quality of President Trump is that he manages to appeal to Boomers while also not coming across as unbearably cringe. The unwittingly cringe Boomer is a meme at this point (God Bless them, but I’ve got quite a few who read this website—love y’all, but wise up, fogies), but it’s pretty wild that Trump can capture that demographic and still come across as school. Of course, it’s because he’s authentic: he’s just being himself, warts and all.

Harris, on the other hand, is nobody, because she tries to be everything to all people. She has no identity beyond a lust for power (and Willie Brown’s willy, it seems). She is tokenism made manifest, and we’ll all be enduring her insufferable cackling—and fawning coverage of the same—between now and election day.

As such, I thought I’d feed the fire and look back at some Kamala-related posts:

“The Collapse of the Obama Coalition?” – Thank God for Tulsi Gabbard, who effectively destroyed Harris’s campaign.
“Breaking: Biden Picks Harris as Running Mate” – Harris’s political career was saved by a geriatric zombie.
“Biden Out” – Biden’s out, and we’re looking at an election akin to that of 1828.

May God Have Mercy on us all.

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

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Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Biden Out

24 July 202422 July 2024 The Portly Politico23 Comments

By the time you’re reading this post, it will be old news, but President Biden announced he would not seek re-election in 2024. At the time of writing, the likely nominee is Vice President Kamala Harris.

While I was hoping for the chaos (and, quite frankly, the sheer political science interest) of a brokered convention, it seems even the Democrats realize that would probably not work well for them.

It’s an interesting situation: Kamala Harris has the opportunity to become President in spite of the fact that she was jaw-droppingly unpopular in the 2020 Democratic primaries. At the same, she’s assuming the mantle barely over 100 days out from the election. She’s going up against a yugely popular Trump campaign, coming on the heels of a triumphant Republican National Convention and President Trump’s survival of an assassination attempt.

That perhaps explains why no other likely Democrat has announced his or her candidacy. While there are notable Democratic figures who have not endorse Harris at the time of writing, there does not appear to be any eagerness to challenge her, either. Doing so would be a Pyrrhic victory: seizing the Democratic nomination from Harris only to go down in flames against Trump. Indeed, it would be seizing a Pyrrhic victory from a Pyrrhic victor, as Harris does not seem likely to win the election.

TBT: Modern Art and Influence

14 July 20228 July 2022 The Portly Politico3 Comments

It’s that dead time of the year, news-wise, when nothing much exciting is happening—unless, of course, rising food, gas, and home prices are your idea of excitement. Everyone’s in a summertime mood, and no one wants to worry about the troubles and strife in the world when we can be out swimming and eating ice cream.

Of course, as we’re out there on the beaches, we’re going to see a lot of people, beautiful or otherwise. We’re all beautifully and wonderfully made in God’s Image, and He Cares about each of us. There is Beauty and dignity to be found in every human life.

Naturally, some humans are blessed with more Beauty than others. Nevertheless, I’d like to think that, as a species made in God’s Image, we all instinctively appreciate True Beauty when we see it. That our ruling class actively supports “art” that is anti-Beauty is another sign that they are illegitimate and, quite frankly, Satanic.

Most modern “art” is not worthy of the moniker. We all understand that a great deal of its support comes from wealthy doofuses who want to look cool. Unfortunately, these hipster doofuses—whether intentionally or not—are destroying culture in the process of celebrating “art.” The destruction of Beauty is a crime against God and civilization; the celebration of ugliness is a sure sign of moral and artistic decay.

Fortunately, there’s still a great deal of Beauty in the world. We just have to seek it out—prayerfully and intentionally.

With that, here is 28 July 2021’s “Modern Art and Influence“:

TBT: One Week [and One Year] Under the Usurper

27 January 202223 January 2022 The Portly Politico9 Comments

Well, it’s been one year and one week since Biden the Usurper seized the throne and assumed his reign of the federal government. Of course, he’s a senile puppet—or maybe he’s playing at senility—and rubber stamps whatever the progressives want.

I’ve really disengaged from national politics over the last year, as I find much of the wrangling fruitless. I personally advocate for radical decentralization and focusing our energy and attention at the lowest levels of government to bring about change. If economics functions on a “trickle-down” basis, politics “trickles-up”—(re)gain control of the mechanisms of power and the institutions locally, and you’re going to change—albeit slowly—the greater heights.

That said, even I am not ignorant to the state of the country. Workers are quitting their menial jobs in droves—or not returning to them after being furloughed—as they can enjoy excessively generous unemployment benefits. Prices are through the roof on everything, especially food. Farmers are facing higher prices for the inputs for fertilizer, which means food is just going to get more expensive. The supply chains are totally disrupted. And we’re wringing our hands over The Virus, which has gotten milder over time, and was never all that deadly anyway.

Police officers are arresting nine-year olds in New York City for not having vaccine passports. Masks—which don’t work at all—are a sign of the pious—the New Elect—and increase carbon dioxide levels. Companies are forcing employees to get The Vaccine, which isn’t even a vaccine in the traditional sense, but an experimental gene therapy that appears to increase dramatically the incidences of myocarditis in even the healthiest individuals—including professional athletes, who are dropping like flies.

Americans might have lost their spirit of ornery rebellion, but if their kids are getting arrested and/or discriminated against and they can’t buy stuff they want at low prices, they’ll make a fuss. They already are. The Biden Administration might not bear the responsibility for everything that is happening, but they’ve done precious little to ameliorate—and much to exacerbate—our current situation.

That’s why now more than ever, we’ve got to get serious about fixing things where we are. Grow your own food, stack cash (even if inflation eats into it), and learn to live lean.

With that, here is 27 January 2021’s “One Week Under the Usurper“:

TBT: The Morning After

4 November 20214 November 2021 The Portly Politico9 Comments

It was one year ago today that The Z Man wrote that “America died” on 3 November 2020. I don’t think he meant it melodramatically, and it certainly encapsulated what a lot of us were feeling as we watched the fraudulent votes magically appear in the middle of the night.

The 2020 election woke a lot of people up, but even blatant fraud across multiple States has, sadly, gone largely ignored. The silver lining is that folks seem to have abandoned national politics and are focusing on what’s happening at the local and State levels. Indeed, there seems to be a general disengagement from politics, something that in the past I would have decried, but that now I think might actually be healthy—provided people are willing to make tough decisions for themselves.

Regardless, it’s hard to think about the 2020 election. Since then, we’ve been stuck with a old man who is essentially a corpse dangling from the strings of invisible hands. I thought a year ago that The Usurper Biden would be tossed from office at the first opportunity, but it’s occurred to me that he is too perfect a patsy for the radical elitists performing the marionette. For one, Kamala Harris somehow manages to be less likeable and more phony than Hillary Clinton, and progressives don’t like her. For another, it’s better to have a hollow man like Biden than a strident floozy like Harris, who might occasionally make a decision on her own.

Well, this topic is depressing. You can see why I’ve switched over to writing about music and the weather.

With that, here is 4 November 2020’s “The Morning After“:

SubscribeStar Saturday: Decline, Part I: Afghanistan

11 September 20219 September 2021 The Portly Politico1 Comment

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Events of the past few years give one the distinct sense that the United States—and, indeed, Western Civilization—is in a steady decline. As I wrote in an old post:

We’re no longer the Roman Republic, but we’re not the Roman Empire in the 5th century, either. We’re more like the Roman Empire in the 2nd or 3rd centuries: coasting along on the remnants of a functioning system, with a play-acting Congress shadowing the motions of republicanism.

We’re in what might be called the “decadent” phase of our existence: past generations forged a nation from their sweat and blood; their successors solidified and consolidated on those gains, creating a powerful economy and culture, and winning major wars; their successors are currently coasting along on the fruits of their ancestors’ efforts. But a culture, a nation, a civilization can only coast for so long before it loses all momentum entirely.

The recent unpleasantness in Afghanistan is a stark illustration of our current decadence—and our blind arrogance. We believed we could plant a functioning democratic republic in a land that has been war-torn and riddled with autocratic warlords since time immemorial with an investment of twenty years of blood and treasure. Instead, we botched a pull-out, abandoning American citizens and military equipment in the process, allowing the Taliban to seize control of the entire country in a leisurely weekend.

Ironically, The Pretender Biden was probably the perfect patsy for American withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was about nineteen years overdue. Every administration has known we needed to get the heck out of a place known as “The Graveyard of Empires,” but no one wanted the bad optics of a withdrawal. Biden is so senile and mentally foggy that he probably still doesn’t realize what he did, and certainly doesn’t feel any shame about abandoning Americans to the Taliban.

But even given our incompetent, mentally hobbled executive, the withdrawal from Afghanistan—quite necessary, I think—was botched so terribly, it condemns the entire US government and our military leadership. Any ten-year old could have said, “Yeah, get all the weapons and people out first, then withdraw the last of the American troops.” Instead, we did the exact opposite. Ripping off the Band-Aid and getting out of Afghanistan was necessary, but did we have to rip the skin clean off the arm?

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Modern Art and Influence

28 July 202126 July 2021 The Portly Politico4 Comments

Most readers of this blog will likely agree with the following sentiment: “modern art is terrible.” In my more intellectually generous moments, I’d add “most” as a qualifier to start that phrase, but with age comes orneriness, and orneriness does not lend itself to intellectual generosity.

Perhaps the best treatment of this sentiment in a scholarly—dare I say “intellectually generous”—way is Roger Kimball‘s The Rape of the Masters: How Political Correctness Sabotages Art. The book is a quick read, but even in 200 pages, it’s depressing seeing the increasingly bizarre, flat-out wrong interpretations politically-motivated Leftists bring to classic works of art. The unfortunate trend of comparing everything that ever happened to Harry Potter is no-doubt the watered-down, pop cultural version of this academic shoehorning of the ideology du jour into artistic interpretation.

Of course, there is a corollary to the maxim that “modern art is terrible.” It’s that “modern art is only successful because wealthy dupes want to look cool.” That’s a bit of a mouthful, we all know it’s true.

So it is that two close relatives to the current Pretender’s regime—scandal-ridden, sister-in-law-loving drug addict Hunter Biden, and not-pretty-enough-to-be-a-model model Ella Emhoff (Vice President Kamala Harris‘s stepdaughter) have made good money peddling “art.”

One Week Under the Usurper

27 January 202126 January 2021 The Portly Politico7 Comments

Today marks the first full week of Biden the Usurper’s reign. He assumed the throne one week ago today. Where are we after one week of his fraudulent tenure?

Friday Rundown (18-22 January 2021)

22 January 202120 January 2021 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

It’s been an eventful week, so I figured an extra post today running down the posts from the past few days would be worthwhile. Also, I’m a slave to the WordPress daily streak counter, and when I scheduled this morning’s post on Wednesday, WordPress for some reason immediately e-mailed a preview; ergo, I want to make sure I get the daily post streak. Gotta keep the streak alive!

So, here is a quick rundown of this week’s posts:

“Memorable Monday: Happy MLK Day 2019 – Suggested Reading” (Monday, 18 January 2021) – Some suggested reading for your day off, including Neo’s link to MLK’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”
“The Last Day of Freedom?” (Tuesday, 19 January 2021) – Some musings on life under the (then-pending) Biden administration. Contra one anonymous commentator’s claims that I was lying and fearful, a closer reading of this long post indicates that I am optimistic, not about the national government, but about local government and community-building.
“Inauguration Day 2021” (Wednesday, 20 January 2021) – Some more reflections on the Biden-Harris Era, as well as my own inauguration to Lamar Town Council.
“TBT: Gardening” (Thursday, 21 January 2021) – A look back at the joys of gardening, and the satisfaction of feeling my own soil between my fingers.
“The Joy of Romantic Music II: Bedřich Smetana’s’The Moldau’” (Friday, 22 January 2021) – Some mild analysis and major appreciation of a beautiful piece of music—something lighter for your weekend.

Enjoy!

—TPP

Inauguration Day 2021

20 January 202119 January 2021 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

The day has arrived—the briefly delayed third term of Obama’s presidency. In the years since Obama left office, the progressive Left has become even more insane. After a four-year reprieve under Trump, the radical progressives aren’t going to let another opportunity pass to transform the country completely.

Things are going to get worse before they get better, which is why I’m encouraging my fellow conservatives, Christians, and traditionalists to think and act locally in the years to come (H/T to historian Brion McClanahan for that pithy phrase). Now is the time to attend town/city and county council meetings, to run for local and State offices, and to build up communities. While we can do some of that online, we’ve got to get out and meet people—join Bible studies, form local clubs, revive forgotten civic organizations, etc. Heck, even play at an open mic!

The Portly Politico

One Southerner's unique, erudite, conservative perspective in a hectic world

Tag: Joe Biden