Here we are, 19 January 2021—the last day of basking in liberty before Biden the Usurper assumes the throne. For all his personal foibles and occasional missed opportunities (while acknowledging, of course, his many achievements), President Trump at least fought to ensure that Americans could enjoy freedom and opportunity. Under progressive rule, no such guarantees exist.
But rather than look about gloomily at what is to come, I’d like to offer some words of exhortation. Times will not be easy for conservatives and Christians over the next four years, but I’m trying to embrace this new progressive era with some cautious, small-scale optimism.
That might sound discouraging, but consider it from another angle: if we can’t make much of a dent at the national level, then why waste the energy? Instead, let’s focus our efforts locally.
South Carolina has a reputation for orneriness—we were the first State to secede from the Union in 1860, after all, and threatened to do it nearly thirty years earlier, during the Nullification Crisis of 1832-33—and it seems our Catholic priests are particularly prone to use their pulpits to prescribe some red-pills. Priest Jeffrey Kirby delivered a fiery homily warning that with Biden’s election, the Church faces real persecution in the days ahead, and scolded parishioners who cast their votes for Biden as betraying their Catholic faith:
Priests and preachers usually shy away from overtly political sermons, but we’re overdue for some Truth. We’re not discussing Democrats versus Republicans anymore; we’re talking about electing Evil—those that flaunt their desire to slay the unborn—and even the recently born!—and celebrate every opportunity they can force us to accept another progressive indignity. Trannies reading storybooks to four-year olds isn’t a “blessing of liberty,” per wincing, politically-correct, noodle-wristed, mainstream Evangelical David French—it’s an assault on our values and our culture. If they can make us accept something so ridiculous and patently unnatural—wicked!—then it puts that wedge in the door to pry it open to all manner of government-sanctioned evil.
Father Kirby’s bold sermon reminded me of another great warrior for Christ—and for Life: Father Robert “Bob” Morey. Father Bob is less bombastic in his denunciation of evil, but he is nonetheless a true warrior for his Faith. In October 2019, Father Bob declined to give Joe Biden Holy Communion due to Biden’s pro-abortion—pro-infanticide, I should write—stance.
As such, I thought it would be a good time to look at Father Bob’s bold stance for life in this week’s TBT. Here is October 2019’s “Warrior for Life“:
Lest I be cast as a “doomer”—one who has given up on President Trump’s noble attempt to win the re-election that is rightfully is—it seems likely that our ruling elites will assure Biden wins the presidency. I still believe that Trump is the rightful victor; that the election was stolen from him; and that the evidence of widespread voter fraud is compelling enough to throw, at the very least, the election to the House of Representatives.
Remember, we live in a world that still argues that John F. Kennedy’s campaign did not manipulate vote totals in Cook County, Illinois to flip the State away from Nixon in 1960, thereby assuring Kennedy’s victory. What we saw in 2020 was the Cook County strategy writ large. We should fight that manipulation to ensure the integrity of future elections, but I fear the damage is done.
Again, I hold out hope that Trump will be vindicated and that justice will be served. Nevertheless, as conservatives, we should adopt the distinctly conservative course of preparing for what comes next. Even if our dream scenario comes to fruition, it only buys conservatives time. Either way, we’ve got to consider seriously where we’re going, and our place in a society that increasingly rejects us and our interests.
I don’t think the election is over—not by a long shot—as recounts are still be done, and the voter fraud is so blatant, it can’t help but lead to legitimate legal challenges. But even if these mysterious early-morning ballots for Biden are thrown out and President Trump is duly re-elected, the whole debacle suggests that conservatives need to wake up to the folly of depending upon purely electoral solutions to our problems. Winning elections is just one facet of the larger culture wars in which we find ourselves.
To that end, I’m dedicating a few editions of Lazy Sunday to going back through old posts that, in their titles, pose some kind of question. These posts range from the philosophical to the political to the cultural, but also cover some fun stuff (like whether or not Saturn is the creepiest planet). I’ll look at three or four posts every Sunday, which should take several weeks to get through (so we might take a break with some Christmas Lazy Sundays in the middle).
That said, here’s our first round of Questions:
“TBT: Ted Cruz – Conservative Hero, or Traitor to His Party?” (originally at the old TPP Blogspot Page) – Back during the 2016 RNC, Senator Ted Cruz refused to endorse candidate Trump explicitly in his convention speech, which earned him jeers and scorn. At the time, there was still real tension between clear-cut Trumpians (I was moving in that direction, but was a Cruz man myself) and the rank-and-file Republicans, never mind the Never Trumpers. Cruz went on to be one of President Trump’s staunchest supporters and defenders, and even seemed to be a contender for a SCOTUS position. One thing that’s clear, though, is that Democrats will back their candidate to the hilt, even if they don’t like him, but Republicans will scatter at the least whiff of controversy around a candidate. Hopefully Trump has changed that to some extent.
“Fire Furloughed Feds?” – Remember the much-ballyhooed government shutdown in early 2019? Looking back on it, it seems like a big missed opportunity for President Trump to clear the decks and do some swamp draining.
“TBT: Transformers 2: Conservatives in Disguise?” (originally at the old TPP Blogspot Page) – I wrote this post way back in 2009, when I was a very different (and much, much portlier) man. It’s amazing what eleven years of working and living will beat into you. Anyway, the post looks at what I perceived to be some pro-military and pro-limited government messages in the second Transformers film, in which a meddling government bureaucrat retards the fruitful cooperation between American military personality and powerful transforming space robots, which ultimately helps the bad transforming space robots. There’s a similar plot device in Ghostbusters, in which an EPA functionary releases a bunch of contained ghosts into Manhattan because he thinks the Ghosbusters’ containment unit is an environmental hazard. Yeesh!
That’s it for this Sunday. More questions—and, perhaps, answers?—to come.
Today is my busy day in the unorthodox rotating schedule at my little school, and I didn’t have the foresight or energy to post something last night. So before that first bell rings and the long day of mind-molding begins, here are some reflections and thoughts on the latest election news:
It’s looking more and more like the election is going to drag on for weeks to come. The deliberate slow-walking of vote counting in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina just opens up the door for more and more fraud in those States, though the Trump campaign and its internal pollsters seem optimistic about all four States. There will be a recount in Wisconsin, and almost certainly in Michigan. Pennsylvania seemed clearly in the win column for Trump until corrupt Philadelphia officials started stuffing the ballot boxes. Even the sheriff there has refused to enforce the court order allowing—requiring!—the Trump people to observe the vote counts.
The gall of the progressive Establishment at all levels is appalling, but it suggests their utter contempt for the rest of us. These people hate us because we don’t embrace their kooky weirdness and abnormality—because we just want to live quiet, peaceful, God-fearing lives.
Fortunately, even if Biden wins, Republicans look poised to hold the Senate, and even picked up seats in the House. If we can pull out a majority in the House, a Biden presidency will be a lame duck from day one. Voting all over the nation suggests a repudiation of radical progressivism—defund the police, Antifa riots, etc. When I have more time, I’ll write further about the potential future of national conservatism. This Rod Dreher piece does a good job of summing it up, though (indeed, that’s my source!).
More to come. Keep praying, and remain ever-vigilant.
—TPP
Tip The Portly Politico
Support quality commentary on politics, education, culture, and the arts with your one-time donation.
We’ll see. Nevada is supposed to report results today, but they’ve been putting machinery in place to make fraud easier.
The takeaway: local and State elections matter. Having good Republicans staffing seemingly mundane positions makes a difference in running clean, fair elections. Consider: when most progressives believe that they are noble warriors fighting against Trump the Fascist, it becomes easy for them to rationalize unethical, immoral, and illegal behavior, like throwing out Trump ballots and withholding vote totals from pro-Trump counties.
The Republican Party can’t compete with the Democrats for gentry white liberals. We must become the party of the working class—“blue-collar nationalists,” as my brother put it.
Tip The Portly Politico
Support quality commentary on politics, culture, music, and the arts with your one-time donation.
The 2020 election is tomorrow, and the fate of the country hangs in the balance. Yes, such melodramatic rhetoric crops up in every election, but it’s very real this time around.
By this point, many Americans have made their choices, but I implore undecided conservatives and centrists to cast their votes for President Trump—and for Republicans at every level. Sure, there are still some RINOs in our midsts, but a semi-reliable RINO is better by far than a reliably destructive progressive.
Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell might not always vote the way we would like them to, but there’s no denying they’ve been effective at supporting President Trump’s agenda in deed, if not always in words. But actions speak louder than words; I can put up with a token denouncement from McConnell if he keeps packing the courts with conservative constitutionalists and playing procedural hardball with the Democrats.
Of course, the main attraction is Trump himself. If he were any other person in American history, we’d be lauding him as the greatest president of a generation. But because his style is combative and pugilistic, conservatives are all too eager to denounce him as “reckless.” The irony is that Trump would have been unable to accomplish everything he has in his first term if he didn’t possess that scrappy sensibility.
I had a conversation last week with a conservative friend who agonizingly arrived at the point where even though he dislikes Trump’s style, he realizes the Democrats have nothing to offer but death and destruction. Voting for the Democrats was never on the table for him, but he felt he could not morally support the President—until he thoughtfully considered the president’s record. As he put it, “‘Peace in the Middle East’ used to be a joke. Then Trump actually did it.”
Trump is the obvious choice for peace, prosperity, and national renewal. Joe Biden is a puppet of the progressive Left, which will shunt him out of office in favor of Kamala Harris—a calculating, cruel, corrupt politician lacking any scruples whatsoever—at the first opportunity.
Don’t let that happen. Vote for Trump, vote Republican, and vote to Keep America Great!
MAGA!
Tip The Portly Politico
Support quality commentary on politics, education, culture, and the arts with your one-time donation.
Last night was the second and final presidential debate between President Trump and former Vice President Biden. Overall, it was far more measured in tone and richer in substance than the first debate, and it accomplished what President Trump needed to do: reassure squishy independents and critical undecided voters that he’s not just a loose cannon, but can actually govern, and govern well.
I also found the moderator to be surprisingly fair. The questions obviously were slanted in favor of the Democrats, as these questions always are (again, who cares about climate change anymore?), but she gave President Trump the opportunity to respond to criticisms, and also had some tough questions for Biden.
President Trump did what he should have done in the first debate: he gave Biden the rope with which to hang himself. It was Biden who brought up China and Ukraine, which opened the door for Trump to attack Hunter Biden’s lucrative salaries from foreign companies and governments—the result of Biden’s influence peddling.
With the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last Friday, the political world was thrown into hysterics. Democrats are threatening to set the Supreme Court building and the White House ablaze if President Trump attempts to nominate a replacement for the Notorious RBG before the November election.
Even if they were serious about their histrionic, treasonous threat, President Trump should do it, and Senate Republicans should act speedily to confirm his nominee. For that matter, President Trump should appoint the most stridently right-wing, pro-life, socially conservative, religious justice possible.
If the Kavanaugh hearings taught us anything, the Left will pillory any mildly conservative nominee to the Court. Kavanaugh is a Beltway Dudley Do-Right, and he was treated as a de facto stand-in for every unpleasant interaction a woman has ever had with a man. If the Left treated him so shabbily, why not go for broke and get the second coming of Antonin Scalia, or a young Clarence Thomas clone?
When I first heard the news, I remembered President Obama’s Merrick Garland appointment, and how Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to hold confirmation hearings. That was entirely constitutional, both for the president to nominate, and for the Senate to decline to confirm. McConnell’s rationale was that the Senate should not confirm a nominee during a presidential election year, so as to give the people a chance to vote for new leadership first.
My initial reaction was, “Well, screw it—just slam in a nominee and control SCOTUS for generations.” The Senate isn’t bound by an unwritten rule or custom, and the Left has broken so many rules (including threatening to impeach Trump for performing his constitutional duty to make an appointment), it’s time for us to do so to win.
But then my younger brother informed me that a confirmation at this time would not be a breach of senatorial custom. The rule that McConnell invoked in 2016 only applies when the President is one party, and the Senate is controlled by the opposing party. Presidents who have attempted nominations in those conditions during election years have failed. Ted Cruz covers it beautifully in a short YouTube video:
“29 times there has been a vacancy in a presidential election year. Now, presidents have made nominations all 29 times. That's what presidents do. If there's a vacancy, they make a nomination.”https://t.co/ajV3LOhtE0
Of course, McConnell warned then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in 2009 when the Senate got rid of its requirement that sixty Senators were necessary to confirm Supreme Court nominees that it would one day come back to haunt the Democrats. The price of their political expediency could very well be—let us pray!—a conservative-controlled Court.
Sadly, it seems that the Democrats will keep moving the goal posts, as usual. The cry now is that if Trump gets his nominee before the election, the Democrats will engage in court-packing should they win the presidency and Congress; in other words, they’ll add Supreme Court seats to dilute the conservative majority.
Congress has the authority to alter the number of Supreme Court seats (when the Constitution was first ratified, the Court only had six justices, rather than the present-day nine). However, the last infamous example of court-packing—Franklin Roosevelt’s ham-fisted attempt to inflate the Court to fifteen justices from nine—was met with severe push-back from even his own party, which saw it for the transparently naked power-grab it was. Democrats nearly ninety years later are all too eager to engage in that power grab.
Therefore, even if President Trump gets his nominee confirmed before the 3 November election, it could all be undone with a Biden win and a “blue wave” seizing control of the Senate. That’s why it’s all the more imperative—especially in swing States—to get out and vote for Trump. The Supreme Court pick will be meaningless if Democrats take control of the levers of power again.
More importantly, it will—barring progressive court-packing—secure the Court for conservatives for at least a generation, and possibly beyond. If President Trump is reelected and Republicans maintain the Senate, it may then be advisable—as much as I hate to suggest it—for Justice Thomas to step down, thereby allowing Trump to appoint a younger conservative who can maintain the conservative majority for another thirty or forty years.
Big things are afoot. The Republicans and Trump may just have one last shot to save the Republic.
Donate to The Portly Politico
Support quality commentary on politics, education, culture, and the arts with your one-time donation.
Today’s post is a new exclusive for $5 and higher subscribers to my SubscribeStar page. Five Dollar Fridays will be a regular feature heading into the 2020 election, with unique analysis of and insights into the presidential and other national, State, and local elections.
Also, I am pleased to announce I have reached eight subscribers! Half of subscribers are at the $5 level, and already enjoy weekly installments ofSunday Doodles. Of course, I’ll continue posting exclusive content every Saturday for $1 subs and higher.
Since the 2000 election’s infamous “hanging chads” and Bush v. Gore, Florida has been the quintessential swing State, the make-or-break for presidential hopefuls, and a must-win for any Republican candidate. It’s a tricky State, as it’s really three States in one.
North Florida is basically like the rest of the South: pine barrens and good ol’ boys. That’s Trump Country. Southern Florida is a melange of New York Jews and Cubans, the former of which are firmly in the Democratic fold, the latter of which historically have voted Republican, but have begun to shift blue over the last decade. Central Florida is a mix of both regions, it seems.
In the 2016 Florida GOP primary, Trump demolished the Sunshine State’s favorite son, Senator Marco Rubio by 18.68%. The general election was much closer, with Trump winning 49.02% to Secretary Clinton’s 47.82% (Libertarian goofball Gary Johnson won 2.2%, which very nearly spoiled Trump’s narrow victory)—a margin of just over 100,000 votes.
Trump’s win in Florida early on election night surely fed into the electric momentum of that historic night. While other States—think Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan—have gained in importance for President Trump, Florida still remains a critical State, central to the president’s path to reelection.
Fortunately, recent polling—and some interesting nautical events—suggest that President Trump is well-positioned to a repeat victory on the peninsula. It may even be bigger this time.
The Portly Politico 