Victor Davis Hanson says a real reset is coming
In truth, we are about to see a radical reset — of the current reset. It will be a different sort of transformation than the elites are expecting and one that they should greatly fear…
In the November 2022 midterms, we are likely to see a historic “No!” to the orthodox left-wing agenda that has resulted in unsustainable inflation, unaffordable energy, war, and humiliation abroad, spiraling crime, racial hostility — as well as arrogant defiance from those who deliberately enacted these disastrous policies.
What will replace it is a return to what until recently had worked.
Closed and secure borders with only legal and measured immigration will return. Americans will demand tough police enforcement and deterrent sentencing, and a return to integration and the primacy of individual character rather than separatist fixations on the “color our skin.”
The public will continue to tune out of the partisan and mediocre “mainstream” media. We will see greater increased production of oil and natural gas to transition us slowly to a wider variety of energy, strong national defense, and deterrent foreign policies.
The prophets of the new world order sowed the wind and they will soon reap the whirlwind of an angry public worn out by elite incompetence, arrogance, and ignorance.
I don’t doubt that there is a widespread backlash of the sort Hanson describes. But for me, the watershed moment in his essay is when he writes “What will replace it is a return to what until recently had worked.” The problem as I see it is that, despite the overwhelming backlash against the original Great Reset, unless elections are non-fraudulent the results may not reflect that backlash sufficiently to kick out the current holders of power. What’s more, even if they are kicked out, look what they did to the administration of the first resetter of the Great Reset, Donald Trump.
I think Hanson is ignoring the depth and breadth of the left’s presence in virtually all of our cultural, legal, financial, and bureaucratic institutions, plus their determination to undermine the will of the people if it goes against their will. This is the problem as I see it. But I sincerely hope Victor Davis Hanson is correct and that my pessimism proves unwarranted.
First, the regarding the potential for the corruption of the 2022 election itself, I can’t say for certain how likely it is that we’ll end up with another situtation similar to 2020. For one thing, as we all know, the 2020 election was highly unusual in terms of the number of mail-in ballots and the like. This obviously introduced a lot of potential for corruption that obviously won’t be present in 2022.
But beyond just the reduced potential for corruption, it could be argued that the baseline attitudes of much of the electorate is quite a bit different in 2022 as compared to 2020. My impression right now is that the 2020 election was shaped by 2 overwhelmingly significant factors that greatly benefited the Dems: Covid and Trump. Neither of those factors will be anywhere near as significant in 2022. Trump won’t be on the ballot and Covid will have almost completely waned by November (baring the emergence of some new insanely lethal variant at least, which doesn’t seem super likely at this point).
But it seems to me at that at this point the 2022 midterm elections are shaping up to be more of a “throw the bums out” type of midterm based on a lot of attitudes I’m seeing, hearing, and reading about over the past year or so. It seems like the biggest factors for this upcoming election may be
1). The economy/inflation
2). Parents rebelling against wokism is schools
3). Uncontrolled immigration
But this is just my impressions of the current state of affairs. I could easily be wrong as I often have been in the past.
I think he is right in concept but agree with you that election shenanigans might occur again.
Ruy Teixeira gives me some hope, especially as I don’t expect the progs to take his advice.
A recent headline from Newsweek reads as follows: “Joe Biden’s ‘New World Order’ Comment Jumped On (–albeit not pounced on–) by Conspiracy Theorists.” One could profitably make a long list of so-called “conspiracy theories” from the right which the passage of time, a phrase beloved by Kamala (often, in fact, only a few months), proved to be undeniably true, based upon solid evidence (having to do with Russiagate, the laptop of Hunter the great painter/writer/bon-vivant, the Wuhan-virus, the “Great Replacement”, amongst many others). Whatever the current administration and the malicious and mendacious MSM proclaim to be true should be assumed false until such time as the contrary can be demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt.
I’m with neo and against VDH on this one.
Dems, the media and especially the “Swamp” are all in. Many of them have committed actual felonies.
Repubs won’t respond to The People either. They’ll do symbolic things that will let them fund raise later. They won’t punish wrongdoing.
I suspect VDH is in error. The political class neutralized the Tea Party at which point it dissipated. I’m not expecting salutary policy changes at the center. There may be some in regard to school curricula and school discipline in local areas. The state legislatures need to get on the stick about reforms to teacher training and rules regarding school staffing. Not expecting much there, either. You see some satisfactory instincts in some legislation, but it’s not addressing structural problems. You want to address structural problems, you have to blow up the teachers’ colleges. All of them.
Some wild cards would be some crisis coming to a head. Biden’s impairment is some dry tinder, the incompetent Federal Reserve Board is another. Another might be public revulsion at another vote fraud extravaganza.
Regarding the VDH piece:
“You may say I’m a dreamer,
But I’m not the only one . . . .”
He’s dreaming. I’d *like* him to be right.
Like others here, I’d like to *think* that VDH will be correct, and that’s what the *voters* might want, but…it’s not what they are going to get. The Trump administration showed what will happen if someone who even vaguely suggests upsetting the DC apple cart gets into office – don’t think for a second they wouldn’t do the same to Ron DeSantis or anyone else. About the only way out would be for Congress to sign up to slay every sacred cow out there and substantially cut the funding to everything – Department of State, Education, HHS, Defense, the “17 Intelligence Agencies” – which would at least cut the power of the federal bureaucracy even while making it even more hostile (the bet being that it would be hard for the federal bureaucracy to get much more hostile than they were to Trump).
The GOP is nothing but controlled opposition and the junior partner of the Dems in the deconstruction of the historical American republic.
We can’t vote our way out of this.
Marisa:
I disagree strongly.
The GOP certainly has elements exactly as you describe, but it’s certainly not the whole GOP. There is an internal struggle within the GOP between that faction and a more robust and more conservative faction.
Yeah, I expect a return to normal right after I win the lottery.
I am not without hope; however, I am on the same page as Neo. As are many of the other commentors.
Regardless of the term you prefer to use (e.g., Great Reset), or the group you believe is driving events (e.g., CCP), a key description is Relentless.
Also, their victories have reached the point that we are essentially in a rearguard stance. And most cannot comprehend that because there have been no “bullets”. I am 95% certain that at some point – our lifetimes, children’s lifetimes – we will be conquered. See history.
***
• It is so because the desire to implement a fascist ruling class in the modern era has never diminished, and is growing in acceptance.
– see Marx/ Mao/ Cloward-Piven/ New World Order/ Great Reset/ Build Back better
• It is so because what is happening – at a conceptual level – has a history of being successful.
– see the rise of every fascist state in the modern era
• Most importantly, it is so because a ruling class is the natural state for groups of people.
– see any period of recorded history
• And all of that is too hard for many to accept/ fathom
Wouldn’t a true reset in November 2022 require such a massive win by the GOP that the party achieves a 2/3 (i.e., veto-proof) majority in both houses? The predictions I’ve read see a retaking of both houses, but not one to that extent.
I think it likely that we will indeed see a historic NO! to the democrats in the 2022 elections.
I see little to no return to closed and secure borders with only legal and measured immigration. No matter what corrective legislation a GOPe majority Congress might pass, the DOJ cannot be made to enforce it.
If such a Congress starts impeaching and convicting Bidet’s appointees, they will either be replaced with even more radical appointees or the positions left open with deputy secretaries continuing the administration’s same policies.
And the MSM will have a field day portraying a reformist GOPe majority Congress, as reactionary fascists.
Americans will demand tougher police enforcement and deterrent sentencing but democrat control of the major cities will ensure that only lip service is given to those goals.
And “a return to integration and the primacy of individual character rather than separatist fixations on the “color our skin”” will not be championed in the public schools, colleges and Universities.
Formal instruction in CRT may be arrested but the underlying premises of CRT will continue to be pushed by the leftist indoctrinators posing as teachers and professors.
Understandably, Prof. Hanson is simply not ready to accept the extent and depth of the rot.
Watt (5:01 pm) said: “Wouldn’t a true reset in November 2022 require such a massive win by the GOP that the party achieves a 2/3 (i.e., veto-proof) majority in both houses?”
Necessary but hardly sufficient.
If the GOP had a veto-proof majority as described, what would they do with it — especially given the exasperating, feckless faction resident in the GOP, and especially given the brutal and unforgiving headwinds they’ll inevitably encounter from the enemy.
I’m reminded of the apocryphal dog who finally catches up to the moving automobile: okay, he overtook it, now what’s he supposed to do with it?
There is a phrase in the Declaration (which the left views as a meaningless document), “consent of the governed”. It means more than just winning the last election. It means that those in power must have more profound justification for their policies than that they can get away with it. The revealing phrase heard often the last 14 months, “once in a generation chance” reveals the left’s basic authoritarianism; “we’re better, we’re entitled to rule by our own standards”.
Fox and the GOP RINO wing are phobic on the topic of election integrity. VDH appears on Fox frequently. Whether he shares that phobia or has adapted his talking points to avoid censorship is an open question.
I like VDH to start The most worrisome is public schools are turning out little Marxists and preaching LGBQ lifestyle which will give eventually a hard Leftist bend in the country opinions. I think by all normal voting 2022 should turn over Congress and 2024 should turn over the Presidentcy except fraud is still on the books and you might find the next Democrat president might get 100,000,000 votes.
We on the right talk about how frustrated we are and how we expect that if we keep getting disappointed, things will eventually go kinetic (Civil War II).
It occurs to me that the disappointment and frustration on the other side will be far greater. Unlike us, they live in a self imposed bubble, unmoored to reality. Their media and institutions constantly tell them that their worldview is the only righteous one, and that anyone who disagrees is literally deplorable, or worse. They act as though they really believe that electricity comes from the outlet on the wall, food comes from Whole Foods, and gasoline comes from the Exxon station on the corner. When all of that stuff is no longer there for them, it will get ugly fast. For the most part, they are unwilling or unable to prepare for this type of situation.
There is a good chance that the S will HTF starting this summer. SCOTUS will likely eviscerate their abortion sacrament, and several other rulings will not go their way. There will be shortages in their “food deserts” to start, then shortages will spread to the Whole Foods in the upscale neighborhoods. The Russians may finally succeed in taking part of the net down, rendering many of them unemployable. They will lose the House big time in Nov, maybe the Senate. Brandon may be deposed, only for them to witness the disaster that is Kamala. Alternatively, and worse for them, Brandon may stay in power.
Up to this point they have “gone kinetic” only in their spaces, seeming to have an innate understanding that the red zones are “No Go” for their misbehavior. They will either resume their destruction of their own nests, or ignore their inner warnings and try to invade and destroy the neighborhoods and places where we live. It will not go well for them.
As bad as it seems for us, I almost feel sorry for them. We are all constantly thinking about a way out of our predicament. They are always digging their hole deeper, becoming further removed from the real world. Hold on, it’s gonna get wild, but we’ll be ok.
Watt asks the rhetorical question “If the GOP had a veto-proof majority as described, what would they do with it”? and we all know the answer.
jvermeer,
The Left has to view as meaningless the document upon which the Constitution’s principles are based. The Declaration is far too threatening to their narrative.
In rejecting those principles, the left essentially rejects their US citizenship and effectively declares themselves to be an enemy of the Constitution. It’s only a matter of time till their ideological fanaticism forces us to treat them accordingly.
Banned Lizard,
The GOP RINO wing are phobic about anything that would upset the applecart. And that slips a dagger into the back of VDH’s hoped for reforms.
Skip
Maybe. ‘Mandates’ need decisive numbers.
But a clear majority in the electoral college will suffice and, they fully intend to achieve the once in a generation ‘opportunity’ that our ‘crises’ are providing.
I’m not optimistic either. IMO, the election system in Washington state is crooked. In 2020, not Republican won on a state level except for the Sect. of State who supervised the elections. That, in a year of rampant crime, lockdowns, a slowing economy, and general dissatisfaction among voters. A moderate Democrat recently won the Seattle mayor’s race, which surprised me and probably surprised the lefties in Seattle. I doubt any such moderate will win again. I do not expect him to be able to effect much change. The left is too imbedded in all the institutions.
In the meantime, a great reset is taking place here in Washington state – at least in the Puget Sound area. People are fleeing the crime, homeless, and business problems of King and Pierce Counties by moving north to Snohomish and Skagit Counties. Real estate prices in Snohomish and Skagit Counties are in a steep climb and homes sell in three or four days to the highest bidder. It’s insane! But not as insane as the policies that have driven people to move. Unfortunately, I expect that these new homeowners will bring their voting tendencies with them, and it won’t be too long before our tough on crime sheriff is voted out of office. Then the quality of life will start declining here also. I hope I’m wrong.
I’d love that VDH words would be true, but I just don’t think so. I’m willing to go to the polls and vote GOP through the ticket. This cycle. Because I am voting against the Democrat agenda. Next cycle, the Republican agenda will be on the ballot, and I doubt it will be attractive. I’m sure anyone of us can name enough squish Republicans to sway victory into the jaws of defeat. If today you are proud of your vote for McCain or Romney; it is likely only because Obama was the alternative and now that you survived the ordeal, maybe abstaining would feel better.
I voted in the Primary. There was a long line to vote Republican. Everybody was there to vote out the Dems. Few were there to vote for a candidate.
Hanson is not naïve.
He knows history.
He also knows people.
Sometimes you need to stoke the realpolitik to put hard choices into action, and sometimes you need to stoke the dreams that tell you what the choices ought to be.
He does both, depending on the forum.
https://victorhanson.com/podcasts/
https://victorhanson.com/
A GOP “veto proof” majority (meaning 2/3rds in both houses) is a very long shot, especially in the Senate. But if it were to occur… if that many seats were overturned all at once in both houses, it would represent an unprecendented uprising and indicate a level of public discontent with the status quo not seen in this country since perhaps the Civil War. The term “mandate” is often thrown around when both of the houses flip away from the President’s party in an off year election. If they were to flip from a paper thin (D) majority in both houses to a (R) super majority in both houses (which… let’s be real here, is unlikely… but not impossible) not only would the GOP have a mandate to make some pretty dramatic changes, they’d pretty much be completely nuts to ignore it or go back to “business as usual” or whatever.
On the topic of election security – reached via a PJM post, which just repeats the data here with some panegyrics.
https://redovoting.com/why-redo-voting/
I still have some questions, but maybe a more technologically-literate person can assess the feasibility of their method.
Hanson writes constantly on the pervasive capture of cultural, civil and governmental institutions by the Left and allied elements of the Administrative and Managerial classes and has delivered at least a dozen speeches and interviews incorporating that analysis ( see: YouTube). His predictions aren’t born of ignorance or naivety in that regard.
Perhaps he’s trying to counter the climate of pessimism a/o the Conservative surrender reflex. I don’t know, but it’s certainly not because he isn’t aware of the scope of the problem.
@ Mike K > “Ruy Teixeira gives me some hope, especially as I don’t expect the progs to take his advice.”
I read a couple more of his posts, all very well constructed, argued, and resourced. Comparing the ones in 2021 to the ones in 2022, it’s quite clear that the Democrat Party has not taken his advice (Manchin and Sinema don’t need him to tell them what they already know).
Bringing him into this blog conversation is a “two fer,” because he represents almost the mirror-image of Hanson, and is trying to get his Democrat colleagues to look at what their dreams ought to be, and then start putting their choices into action.
The BIG problem is that he believed back in 2021 that the D-Party was just a little confused.
https://theliberalpatriot.substack.com/p/the-fox-news-fallacy?s=r
Ruy Teixeira Aug 5, 2021
The problem, of course, and I think even now he is trying not to look too close, is that those are precisely the things the Left does NOT support, which is the main reason they deny that those issues are “problems” — they are features, not bugs, and the voters just need to be manipulated or bullied into getting with the program.
Whereas Hanson actually agrees with Teixeira on the solutions to the issues Americans want addressed, that these things really are problems, and Republicans need to take ownership of the actions to solve them.
Two other posts by Ruy are relevant; I didn’t take time to read any others, but the headlines are enticing.
https://theliberalpatriot.substack.com/p/can-the-democrats-capture-the-political?s=w
Mar 25, 2021
“Can the Democrats Capture the Political Center? They Can, But It Won’t Be Easy”
That they didn’t was clearly shown in the Virginia gubernatorial election, which he talks about in his August 2021 post; you might almost say he predicted why Youngkin won.
https://theliberalpatriot.substack.com/p/how-not-to-build-a-coalition?s=w
Jan 20, 2022
How Not to Build a Coalition – The Left’s Theory of the Case Falls Apart
The Five Keys that supposedly should work for the Democrats have also been well-discussed on this forum, and he gives a pithy explanation of why they have NOT worked as supposed:
turnout is a two-edged sword;
assuming “people of color” are a monolithic vote for the left is no longer true;
cultural leftism is a not winner;
the Crisis of Democracy aka January 6 “insurrection” is not a high priority of the voters;
the election of 2020 was about a return to normal not a mandate for radical transformation.
The post Mike K linked is this:
https://theliberalpatriot.substack.com/p/the-democrats-common-sense-problem?r=1yx1h&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
“The Democrats’ Common Sense Problem – Voters Think They’ve Abandoned It”
In which he demonstrates that the voters are absolutely correct.
I think Hanson is right about people wanting a reset. The problem is how do Republicans show themselves as a real alternative. It has to be a bottom-up approach in finding local candidates who can point out the local issues in their areas and then take them up to higher levels where there are coherent conservative policies. Mike Pompeo is working on this. For people PO’d about their schools, point out that Randi Weingarten, whose teachers union give so much money to the Dems and kept their masked kids out of schools, can’t even spell Ukraine. Point out the disaster of the Iran negotiations led by Russia and how that will take us closer to the nuclear showdown we now fear from Putin. Talk about the truckers’ convoy and how left policies have driven up the cost of fuel for these trucks, which is one reason why there are so many supply problems.
We have to show why the disastrous leftist national and local policies are raising their food and fuel costs and how they can be fought locally as well as inside the beltway.
People do want a reset. The whole party has to show that they can deliver.
It seems clear that there is a mighty reset coming against current radical leftist policies. All other things being equal, our victories will be sure and large in 2022 and 2024.
As to fraud, it’s one thing to blatantly rig a single presidential election during the exceptional circumstances of Covid. It will be another to rig however many battleground congressional races are coming up this year, especially now that we are watching more closely.
Also, as I keep quoting Breitbart, “Politics is downstream from culture.” Culture has changed. Our side has become radicalized by the deceit and tyranny starting with Obama and reaching a crescendo from the 2020 election on. Seems to me that many conservatives greatly underestimate this.
Sure, the GOP often disappoints, but not always, and even RINOs can get the message of how high the stakes have become. The Perfect should not be the enemy of the Good.
Weirdly, a few of the most important “conservatives” today are Democrats — Manchin, Sinema and to a lesser extent, Tulsi Gabbard. I’d credit them with some principled backbone, but they are also responding to real changes in the culture.
I don’t think Hanson is arguing it will suddenly become the year 2000 again or that it will be easy street, but that a decisive shift is coming. It will be the end of the beginning.
@ huxley > “It will be the end of the beginning.”
I hope so, but the last time someone said that, things got really nasty before we got to the beginning of the end.
https://www.wwiidogtags.com/wwii-quotes/churchill-quote/
I’m expecting some localized change, in a few to several states, small segments of which will be dramatic. Overall, however, I think it will be “just the usual churn to no great effect” at the federal level.
Elections are wonderful things to have but given the massive increase in unelected bureaucracies, and their accumulated power, whomever is elected, be it state or federal, becomes mere window dressing.
Were Congress to develop a strong and severe committment to correcting that by eliminating 70% of the federal executive branch (accompanied, ideally, by introducing measures to initiate repeal of the 16th and 17th amendments) I would gladly and gleefully announce my error in judgment. Until then I’ll continue placing my bet on “cocktail parties and meaningless pontificating” remaining a growth industry.
I will retain hope that VDH is correct and his prediction comes to pass. The problem as I see it is that the opposition from the majority of politicians and government functionaries is so broad and deep, and their interests, political and financial, are vested in maintaining the status quo, that they will stop at nothing to make sure there is no change.
Were Congress to develop a strong and severe committment to correcting that by eliminating 70% of the federal executive branch (accompanied, ideally, by introducing measures to initiate repeal of the 16th and 17th amendments)
What, you want the expenditures cut by 70% or you want the staffing cut by 70%. Which 70% do you want to cut? And what’s your objection to income taxes in particular, as opposed to any other way of raising revenue? And what’s your fancy about the magic of Senators chosen by state legislatures?
Art-
The objection to Income Taxes is that they make government the only purely socialistic (and therefore counterproductive) activity that everyone has to participate in. The more you earn/have, the more you pay. The less you earn/have, the more you get. It penalizes productivity, so we get less of it. It rewards inactivity and sloth, so we get more of it. That is not a good way to run a society.
There is no other service that I interact with that the price I pay depends on what my income is.
The primary function of the federal government has become taking money from Peter to pay Paul (with many cuts for many big guys along the way). That is nowhere mentioned as a role for the government in the Constitution.
As far as electing Senators goes, my objection is purely practical- the government has engorged itself and become far more tyrannical since that change was made. The states remain the laboratory of democracy, but just barely, and the difference between how people live in red states vs. blue is worth keeping, and enhancing.
The Battle of Athens in 1946 is instructive. For years the entrenched Democratic machine running McMinn County had used the power of the sheriff’s guns to steal every election. The Democrats in Nashville and DC refused every request to do anything about it. After all, Democrat bosses used the same techniques to “win” elections all over the country.
It was only when the GIs returned from fighting for freedom all over the world that they decided it was worth fighting for in their home town.
The Democrat machine is corrupt to the core. It is Chicago, Philly, New York and Boston. They are crooks. Always have been. Always will be. And they won’t stop until force is used to make them.
Huxley,
They’ve been stealing elections for decades. Read Caro’s third volume on LBJ. Read JFK’s cousin on what happened in 1960 with Daley and Chicago. Read about the theft efforts in Florida in 2000.
My brother once served on the county election commission. The Democrats in charge ALWAYS put the machines that were known to malfunction in GOP precincts. In every Dem precinct in the city, voters walked in and voted within a few minutes. In every GOP precinct, the wait would take forever. By 5 pm when people stopped to vote after work, the line would extend around the block and the wait was well over an hour. Exactly as planned.
This is just standard election procedure for Democrats. They have dozens of ways to cheat. They are pros. They play to win. They fight. As dirty as it takes. The GOP is a collection of amateurish fools who still believe the BS they learned in civics class.
The objection to Income Taxes is that they make government the only purely socialistic (and therefore counterproductive) activity that everyone has to participate in.
Rubbish. Property taxes and consumption taxes have an economic impact on anyone who owns property, rents property, vends goods or services, or consumes anything. It’s just that the responsibility for making the specific payments is lodged with the property owner or vendor. The taxes are incorporated into his costs and the costs are apportioned between the parties according to the supply and demand schedules in the specific markets in question.
The more you earn/have, the more you pay.
Property and consumption tax liabilities are also correlated with income.
The less you earn/have, the more you get.
That’s not a function of your mode of taxation, but of the government budget. It is also generally untrue with regard to all categories of public expenditure apart from means-tested transfer programs.
It penalizes productivity, so we get less of it.
That’s going to be a function of your precise marginal rates. (I think if you compiled a bibliography of studies on the effect of income taxes on labor market participation, you’d discover that the modal conclusion is that labor market participation is quite insensitive to income tax rates).
It rewards inactivity and sloth, so we get more of it.
Income taxes do not actually do that.
There is no other service that I interact with that the price I pay depends on what my income is.
When the government stays in its lane, it is providing services which do not appear naturally on open markets or which default to monopoly. Of course you’re not paying ordinary market prices. You want the government financed by capitations? Good luck with that.
The primary function of the federal government has become taking money from Peter to pay Paul (with many cuts for many big guys along the way).
“Robbing Peter to pay Paul” is a nonsense trope.
If you have an objection to social transfers, you should be able to delineate what you wan restructured and what you want discontinued, as well as your understanding of what the social impact of your plans will be. That’s not too much to ask.
That is nowhere mentioned as a role for the government in the Constitution.
To what ‘that’ are you referring? (And which government and which constitution, while we’re at it). You’d like Social Security declared ‘unconstitutional’? I’d refer you to Robert Bork’s understanding of when the principle of stare decisis applies. He discusses it in The Tempting of America.
As far as electing Senators goes, my objection is purely practical- the government has engorged itself and become far more tyrannical since that change was made.
Post hoc fallacy.
The states remain the laboratory of democracy, but just barely, and the difference between how people live in red states vs. blue is worth keeping, and enhancing.
So early 20th century political scientists tell us. It’s a nice idea, but with some notable exceptions (Gov. Thompson in Wisconsin, ca. 1990) it’s fairly unusual. Find me a state that has gelded the woke-tards in the public higher education system.
Michael Gableman, a former Wisconsin supreme court justice, is in the process of completing his investigation of and report on the 2020 Wisconsin election. He was recently interviewed on Tucker Carlson Today, and I recommend it to anyone with a subscription to FoxNation. It is shocking the extent to which WI outsourced its election process to Zuckerberg. Gableman does not come out and say it, but one cannot avoid concluding that Zuckerberg’s involvement did, in fact, affect the result.
They’ve been stealing elections for decades. Read Caro’s third volume on LBJ. Read JFK’s cousin on what happened in 1960 with Daley and Chicago. Read about the theft efforts in Florida in 2000.
Caro was writing about a primary election in which about 1.2 million people cast ballots but the two principal competitors were separated by < 200 votes. The theft Johnson's people undertook involved one precinct in one county and ballots stuffed in one sealed box. It was so discrete and detectable with the technology of the day that Caro could identify the box and the forged register entries 30 years after the fact.
As for Daley's theft in 1960, you again had an exceptionally close contest and a man with a well-ordered organization in every precinct. Illinois' electoral votes were insufficient to steal the election. In order to do that, you'd need to steal enough to get 10 additional electoral votes. The usual speculation has it that the electoral votes of Missouri and / or Texas were stolen.
Art-
Nice try, but parsing definitions does not constitute an argument.
Property taxes and consumption taxes have an economic impact on anyone who owns property, rents property, vends goods or services, or consumes anything.
Property and consumption taxes are flat, not progressive. Anyone who owns a property or buys a widget pays the same amount. That’s fair.
Property and consumption tax liabilities are also correlated with income.
A loose correlation at best, and avoided by living below your means (always a good idea).
That’s not a function of your mode of taxation, but of the government budget. It is also generally untrue with regard to all categories of public expenditure apart from means-tested transfer programs.
Simply not true. Means tested transfer programs are a huge part of the federal budget. Even social security is weighted toward the low income earner. I pay 4X the standard rate for my Medicare Part B because I still earn a relatively high income. I’m completely excluded from Section 8 and Food Stamp assistance because of my income. The feds give a large amount of $ to the states, which distribute it mostly on the basis of income. The only part of the federal budget that is not weighted by income is defense.
…labor market participation is quite insensitive to income tax rates
Citation needed. It defied common sense and basic economic theory that increasing that cost of an activity does not decrease the amount of activity. Everybody has to work, or depends on someone else working (possibly through govt as an intermediary). You don’t think that there are people who want to work but don’t out of concern for losing medicaid or AFDC?
If you have an objection to social transfers, you should be able to delineate what you wan restructured and what you want discontinued, as well as your understanding of what the social impact of your plans will be. That’s not too much to ask.
No, it’s not. Ideally, all government transfer programs should be phased out over a generation or so- a gradual decrease in payments, along with a gradual decrease in taxes paid to support them. That will be politically and economically painful, but not as painful as what will happen if we continue present path. We often read of a 30 trillion national debt, but under the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles that all corporations are required to follow, the debt is closer to 80 trillion, due to SS and Medicare obligations. Totally unsustainable, and will lead to misery and suffering as the US dollar gradually at first then all of a sudden loses reserve currency status.
If you insist on keeping these huge and unsustainable programs going, they should at least be on a actuarially sustainable.pay-as-you-go basis.
And which government and which constitution, while we’re at it)
Now you’re being silly.
The Republicans could possibly pick up a veto proof House, but not the Senate. That would require picking up 17 Senate seats, and not sure if the Dems this year have that many seats up for election, and of those, many would be in deep Blue Dem machine states, where ballot collection and drop boxes are the norm, and election fraud is well established. I told my brother the other day, who lives in CO, that the Republicans lost any real chance at regaining power when the state went to mail in balloting – that is why Dems impose it in states when they can, because it allows them to institutionalize election fraud. And the example I used, as was done above, is WA.
We now know a lot of the mechanisms that the Dems use to steal elections, and esp with mail in balloting, because they had to aggressively use all of them in order to beat Trump and install FJB as President. Here in AZ, it looks like they may have had to generate and count over a half million illegal ballots in order to beat Trump by 10k (and Kelly won by only 20k) votes. So, in purple states, this is going to matter. I don’t give Kelly much of a chance here in AZ, for this reason, despite all the ad money already flowing in. The Dems are probably going to have problems cheating, or at least nearly as much in those big 5 states they won through fraud in 2020, because their tricks will be expected, and for the most part, mail in balloting is legally well controlled. But keeping ballot harvesting from occurring in AZ, where it is illegal, but allowed in 2020 by corrupt election officials, isn’t going to help one bit in next door CA, where it is perfectly legal.
My estimate is that about all that we can expect this year is maybe 55 Republican Senate seats, and 60% of the seats in the House. Probably a little lower for both.
About the best that they can do with those numbers is to investigate a lot, and enforce subpoenas with the budgets. Maybe a little bit of playing chicken, but the Dems don’t have anyone who can centralize their messaging at the national level. If an agency doesn’t respond properly to subpoenas and FOIA requests, just squeeze their budgets until they do. And, my big hope, is for a major House investigation of the 1/6 investigation. I saw yesterday that they had leaked private conversations between a House Republican and Ginni Thomas, Justice Thomas’ wife – just because they could. I also expect though of the DOJ and FBI investigations (and instigation) of 1/6 protests, and all of the rest of their war on White Supremicists (I.e. Republicans and Republican sympathizers).
I do hope VDH is right, the alternative might result in a civil war II as the Leftists will need to put the boot down to keep on their course. J6 is a Gulag warmup
They’ve been stealing elections for decades. Read Caro’s third volume on LBJ. Read JFK’s cousin on what happened in 1960 with Daley and Chicago. Read about the theft efforts in Florida in 2000.
stan:
Yes, I am aware of both. I am reasonably well-read in history for an American.
The context of my comment is the current concern that the Republic is lost and will not be recovered in the course of normal electoral and cultural change.
This concern is understandable in the light of events since Obama was elected. However, your point highlights that we have had stolen elections in the past and not lost the Republic.
Which is the point I am making about our current situation.
AesopFan:
Likewise the point I am making. I believe we can recover with electoral and cultural change, but it will still be a fight, and a fight that will be fought on more equal terms now that we understand our opponents more accurately and have summoned our resolve.
Though one that will be settled, IMO, without saturation bombing of civilian populations.
Now you’re being silly.
No, you did not in the remark to which I made reference specify whether you were referring to the state governments or the federal governments.
No, it’s not. Ideally, all government transfer programs should be phased out over a generation or so- a gradual decrease in payments, along with a gradual decrease in taxes paid to support them.
So, you’d like to go Ayn Rand. I can’t wait to see you sell that.
That will be politically and economically painful, but not as painful as what will happen if we continue present path. We often read of a 30 trillion national debt, but under the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles that all corporations are required to follow, the debt is closer to 80 trillion, due to SS and Medicare obligations.
No, the debt is not ‘closer to 80 trillion’ unless you fancy public transfers should be booked as accounts payable. They’re not discrete and enforceable contractual obligations. It is not necessary to eliminate the programs to render them actuarially sound, either. Just putting the retirement age on an escalator would work for Social Security old age benefits. Having the retirement age on an escalator and adding deductibles would work for Medicare.
Totally unsustainable, and will lead to misery and suffering as the US dollar gradually at first then all of a sudden loses reserve currency status.
Just about every country in the world gets along fine without ‘reserve currency status’. The British pound isn’t nearly as consequential in foreign exchange markets as it was a century ago. They do all right.
By the way, Ron Paul is a crank.
“Just about every country in the world gets along fine without ‘reserve currency status’.”
Dude, stop embarrassing yourself.
There’s a difference between “every other country in the world” and the U.S. A good way to conceptualize that is to look at the criticisms, complaints, and ridicule being directed at the Russian military for its struggles in Ukraine. Well, Russia is the #4 biggest military spender on Earth but spent “only” about $62 billion on its military in 2020. And I use “only” because the #1 military spender on Earth is the U.S. at over $775 billion in 2020.
What do you think happens to the world if the U.S. economy can no longer afford to spend more on its military than virtually every other major power on Earth combined? And you have to be really stupid to not understand military spending is going to be dramatically downsized before we put retirement age on an “escalator.”
Mike
What do you think happens to the world if the U.S. economy can no longer afford to spend more on its military than virtually every other major power on Earth combined?
The problem has nothing to do with reserve currency status. The problem has to do with the balance of power between China and the United States given China’s malevolence.
Nonapod on March 24, 2022 at 8:03 pm said:
If they were to flip from a paper thin (D) majority in both houses to a (R) super majority in both houses (which… let’s be real here, is unlikely… but not impossible) not only would the GOP have a mandate to make some pretty dramatic changes, they’d pretty much be completely nuts to ignore it or go back to “business as usual” or whatever.
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LOL!! Have you met the stupid party ? The idea that the GOPe would actually do something with such a majority is laughable. An absolute, “Believe it when you see it” if I’ve ever heard one.
There is one thing that I virtually guarantee that GOP majorities in the House and Senate can and will do in 2023-24: Damage the Republican brand with a major assist from the lying, liberal media. They will not fix one single thing that people believe are problems in the US, but they WILL get blamed for them once they have control of Congress.
Art Deco – I’d be curious to see a guess at the new retirement age based on the escalator you think we’d have to implement to maintain SS and Medicare solvent.
Then people can assess whether or not that proposal is any more realistic than phasing out those programs altogether.