Campaign 2024: Officially Chaos

 

MATT TAIBBI:

 Campaign 2024: Officially Chaos.

At this stage of the cycle three elections ago, on August 1, 2011, President Barack Obama signed a controversial debt deal and headed back on the trail, starting with a pair of birthday fundraisers in Chicago. Meanwhile, Michelle Bachmann left the stump in Iowa to return to Washington and vote against Obama’s deal, saying it “spends too much and doesn’t cut enough.” This was considered campaign excitement once. Boring is too mild a word for those mechanized non-dramas of yore.

A dozen years later, the campaign is pure chaos, Pompeii after the blast. In the annals of presidential races we haven’t experienced many days like yesterday, July 31, which ended with the futures of all major candidates appearing hopelessly clouded. Forget the national debt; there are now not-improbable scenarios in which the main issues in next year’s debates, which could easily involve both nominees in ankle monitors, are nuclear fallout and alien visitation. Our leaders, who once had the election process reduced to scripts more predictable than Everybody Loves Raymond, now seem to have no clue what will happen beyond the next few minutes.

If not for the fact that the disintegration of American society might be imminent as a result, I’d be laughing harder. It might be funny anyway. Consider: the establishment plan for the Republican Party this cycle was clearly Ron DeSantis, but a New York Times/Siena poll published yesterday shows he’s plunging like a stone, falling to 17%, a.k.a. 37 points behind Donald Trump. . . .

The cognoscenti never figured out or accepted that the support for protest candidates like Trump or Bernie Sanders even is rooted in wide generalized rage directed their way. To this day they don’t accept it. They keep thinking they can wish it away, describe it away (see Bump’s description of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as “not at this point serious competition”), indict it away. If you drop 76 charges on a candidate and he goes up in polls, you might want to consider that you might be part of the problem. But they can’t take even that heavy a hint.

They’re emotionally incapable of accepting the truth that they’re awful.

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The Trump Indictments (VDH)

 The Trump Indictment (10 Bothersome Paradoxes)

Politics of Indictment Part 1

The Politics Of Trump Indictment Part 2 

Poking the Snoring Conservative Dragon (VDH)

Victor Davis Hanson

Conservative America has been growing ever angrier. But it still had remained inert and in somnolence about the ongoing woke revolution.

But just lately that comatose dragon is beginning to awake—and with a roar.

Poking the Snoring Conservative Dragon Part 1

Poking the Snoring Conservative Dragon Part 2

Poking the Conservative Sleeping Dragon Part 3 

Awakening the Conservative Dragon Part 4

The U.S. Is In Real Decline—No Kidding! (VDH)

The U.S. Is In Real Decline—No Kidding!

Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

Rudyard Kipling, “Recessional”

There is proverbially a lot of rot in any great nation, which accordingly can endure a lot of self-induced damage.

But has the U.S. exhausted its reserves? Britain after World War I denied that its empire was doomed and its standard of living unsustainable. The Soviet Union was in decline gradually, then abruptly by 1989 became doomed. In the fourth century AD, Rome had established a modus vivendi of incorporating non-Romans into the empire, defending its borders, and tamping down on corruption. A century later, the Western empire collapsed from internal decay and tribal invasions across the Danube and Rhine.

US In Real Decline Part 1

 US In Real Decline Part 2

US In Real Decline Part 3

Lois Lerner/ Jack Smith War Machine

 Lois Lerner/ Jack Smith War Machine

How Disgraced IRS Official Lois Lerner is Tied to Trump’s Latest Indictment

Katie Pavlich | August 03, 2023 12:30 PM

 The Obama Factor

The Obama Factor

A Q&A with historian David Garrow

BY

DAVID SAMUELS

AUGUST 02, 2023

China Prelude to war

 IN THE DAYS BEFORE WORLD WAR II, THE SENIOR LEADERSHIP OF JAPAN’S GOVERNMENT AND MILITARY WAS PURGED OF THOSE WHO DID NOT SUPPORT WAR: 

China Replaces Missile Commander Days After Removing Foreign Minister: Ouster of senior military leader aimed at shoring up loyalty to Xi Jinping, analysts say.

China ousted the commander of its missile force, a move that analysts said was intended to ensure loyalty to leader Xi Jinping in the arm of the military that controls nuclear-tipped missiles pointed at the U.S. and would play a pivotal role in any attempt to seize Taiwan through force.

The removal of Li Yuchao, a veteran of the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force, marked an abrupt end to an unusually short stint in a key military post and comes days after China replaced its foreign minister in another decision shrouded in mystery.

Li, who was appointed commander in January last year, hadn’t been seen in public for several months. His ouster was confirmed at a ceremony a day before China celebrated the 96th anniversary of the founding of the PLA, which falls on Tuesday.

In a Tuesday commentary marking the anniversary, the official PLA Daily newspaper urged all military personnel to uphold Xi’s status as the “core” of the Communist Party leadership, and to persist with efforts to enforce discipline and fight corruption within the armed forces.

Alternatively, Xi is worried about a coup — though the two are not mutually exclusive.

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