The Iowa caucuses are today
The outcome seems to me to be a foregone conclusion.
But you can talk about it all here. Or the weather, which is very cold in Iowa today.
Or this song:
I saw the original Broadway production as a very young child and developed quite a crush on Robert Preston. I was attracted to his energy.
I see what you did there. Great choice.
Lotta fun! Good thinkin’, Hostess.
Tragedy has struck, upon hearing a rumour that a real snowflake was sighted outside of Ottumwa, the entire media has left to investigate!
“The Music Man” is rather remarkable for the different types of songs it features; many of them very good; ballads, marches, call and response, gospel, whatever “shapoopie is,” waltz…
Now that I think of it, this or “Singin’ in the Rain” seem to be the most common replies I hear when I ask someone to name his or her favorite musical.
we could go with when kevin costners response when shoe less joe say ‘is this heaven’
I thought Missourians were the stubborn ones — as stubborn as their mules. Iowans are a bit more laid back and less showy. Aren’t they?
I saw The Music Man on the stage in CA when I was young. Listened to the record over and over and knew the words to all the songs. Great musical!
Was in a couple of plays in high school. Asked the director when we were going to do Music Man.
“When we get Robert Preston”.
I liked the framing of the couple towards the end- reminded me of Grant Wood’s American Gothic painting.
Like others have said, a lot of good songs came out of that musical.
Richard Aubrey:
That’s funny.
Preston was an absolute dynamo onstage. I could feel it very strongly even as a child – or perhaps especially as a child.
neo.
And in the movie. Sometimes that doesn’t translate from one medium to another.
Robert Preston is nearly universally lauded by all who have seen him perform, and I like him in the movie a great deal (never saw him on stage), but I don’t sense chemistry between his character and Marianne the Librarian. Shirley Jones didn’t seem into him and it’s hard for me to believe he would risk all at the end for her.
I’d like to learn about the inspiration and creative process for the opening song, on the train. It’s so very strange yet manages to work. Really, really creative. It’s especially interesting to me in that it opens a musical set at the turn of the prior century but is so very avant garde and free form. If I was a songwriter with that assignment I would have opened with a song that very much sets the scene and time of the setting. But that’s the obvious thing to do. I guess that’s why I don’t write musicals! 🙂
Pretty cold in so Mo too. Strong wind blew off the plastic barrier of one of my western ‘coat room’ windows then -1o hit. Yeeesh.
I got enough eats & stuff to be a hermit for the rest of the week. So I will.
Re: Music Man / Iowa
Somehow I’m reminded of a quote from Grandmaster Heinlein:
________________________________
A desire not to butt into other people’s business is at least eighty percent of all human wisdom.
(Spoken by Jubal Harshaw, essentially Heinlein himself)
–Robert A. Heinlein, “Stranger in a Strange Land” (1961)
________________________________
‘Twas a time in America…
Jubal has his own wiki entry. It seems many modern critics don’t care for Jubal’s pontificating. I loved Jubal as a teenager. I needed to hear a lot of what he said.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubal_Harshaw
Turns out Heinlein was born in Missouri, the “Show Me” state.
I found Preston to always be a bundle of energy. Always flamboyant and fun to watch even playing a straight man. Totally different male flamboyancy than say James Garner but still within the realm. And a great contrast in “Victor Victoria”. Two of my favorite actors.
In fact, for two bucks I’m’a go watch it right now.
Iowa stubborn! I had a friend from rural Iowa. He fit the standard set by this song to a T. Runs right down the middle of the street… so like him.
A friend of ours is an opera singer who, during a lull, took on the role of Harold Hill with a local community theater. Just for fun. He said it about did him in. Every performance was a marathon. The physical energy required was one thing, but the mental energy…complex, witty lyrics delivered rapid-fire was something else! He pulled it off wonderfully, though – and dropped about 20 pounds.
– – NEO – – a little sidebar: this same singer was our houseguest in December 1977. As he arrived from New York, he was booming with enthusiasm….”I’ve just seen the GREATEST movie…you’ve GOT to see it…the music is FANTASTIC!! Of course the movie was “Saturday Night Fever.” And we did enjoy it very much!
I liked Preston as a heroic Marine in “Wake Island.” I found that movie very inspirational.
Here’s a very informative write-up about The Music Man.
Among other things, it suggests that “Rock Island” might be considered to be the first rap song.
https://www.steynonline.com/8250/till-there-was-you
Hmm… I loved all the musicals of the 1950’s and 60’s. Sometimes had to ride two or three buses to get to the theatre where they were playing. However, my favorite musical of all time is “Paint Your Wagon”. “Maria”, “Wondering Star” loved em and Clint Eastwood has a lot more you know . . .
Harve Presnell wasn’t bad either!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DrOqRQQ9mg
Taking a small intermission from Victor/Victoria to say – how totally fun this movie is.
I had forgotten just how many high level names were in this.
It’s such a shame that damn surgeon nicked her vocal cords.
Ruth:
My DD was at “that age” when Satuday Night Fever came out. I was a single mom and she had spent most of the time “grounded”, which of course meant she climbed out her bedroom window! She came into my office demanding that I come with her to see this “new movie”. “your going to love it!” Finally, I gave in and chose to go see it and share a mother/daughter evening. I am the one that came out of that movie “doing the dance!
I love “The Music Man” and know it quite well because my older son played Harold Hill in his high school’s production. He told the music teacher who ran the play that he didn’t want a big part. She told him that he wouldn’t have a big part–he’d have a giant part! This son is an engineer–when he was applying to colleges, one of the engineering profs just shook his head and said, “An engineering student had the lead in the school musical!” Ah, memories! My younger son played one of the kids in the band, and my younger daughter was one of the ladies of the town. Good times!
I used to sing “Good Night My Someone” to my children as a lullaby.
Huxley:
I attended the 1962 Worldcon in Chicago (“Chicon III”) where Heinlein made a surprise appearance to collect his Hugo for Stranger in a Strange Land. The great man held an open house for the fans in his hotel suite, and I went and sat quietly at his feet and listened for a while as the younger fans kept asking him what he was really trying to accomplish with Stranger and he kept explaining to them that he wrote it to make a lot of money. (Stranger was the first Heinlein yarn I read that I didn’t love.)
Just finished Victor/Victoria. Great flick. Andrew’s ability to flawlessly slide up and down the scale always amazes me.
And Lesley Ann Warren was some kinda floozy. Those eyes, those…..
he wrote it to make a lot of money.
bof:
Lucky you! Sincerely.
That’s a snappy Heinlein line, and I can well imagine him doling it out, but I’ve read most of Heinlein except towards the end when he became … tedious.
The Heinlein persona in “Stranger” wasn’t just collecting a paycheck. That was Grandmaster H. himself — at least on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Though certainly not Sundays.
Trump has been called as the winner with 4% reporting. No big surprise.
Here’s the real substance: he’s at 51% right now. If he ends up with significantly less than 50%, that’s a victory for is ‘nonTrumpers’ (but not not not NeverTrumpers).
Now onto second place. Right now, DeSantis slightly leads Haley. Here’s my bold prediction: when all is said and done, Haley will get second place clearly; and Trump will be reduced to well under 50% (probably somewhere between 40-45%). DeSantis will drop out either late tonight or tomorrow, setting up the long anticipated two person race between the heavy favorite and the underdog (but not token) opposition
One caucus in Council Bluffs started at 7 and was done by 7:20. Not that many showed up even though the caucus covered a large section of CB. Trump killed it. DeSantis did OK. Haley bombed.
I first read Heinlein in “Glory Road” via a trove of early 60s “Fantasy & Science Fiction” back issues I had scored as a sixth grader when cashing in a birthday check.
It’s not hard to see the post-WW2 cynicism, the disposition to free sexuality, even a sort of proto-feminism in “Glory Road.”
Heinlein’s early political leanings were liberal. He campaigned for Upton Sinclair, a socialist, in 1934.
Heinlein wasn’t a simple man.
Good for Trump. He’s got my vote.
I would have preferred DeSantis, though his charisma deficit may have doomed him in any event.
However the constant renewed persecutions of Trump may have forced many, most conservatives understandably to double down on Bad Orange Man.
We’ll see how that works out.
Trump is a kind of dynamo himself. Some consider him, at best, a Harold Hill type of hustler. Others want to join and proudly march with the 76 trombones.
Re Heinlein:
I feel lucky to have started his books young, ‘long about the time “Have Space Suit…” and “Starship…” came out. I immediately looked up everything else and kept up on his new ones until he seemed to start getting repetitive in ‘message’ about “Friday”. Even as a hippie I thought “Stranger…” was a little too kumbayah.
NYT projects Trump wins all 99 Iowa counties (it was 37 in 2016). DeSantis second with slightly over 20%, Haley third with just under 20%. Democrats furiously trying to iterate on the best way to spin it – “Nearly half of Iowans voted against Trump!” and so on, almost comical – the talking heads have received the memo on this sophistry. Turnout was very strong, even with the foul weather and with projections that Trump would handily win. Tomorrow we’ll see how badly ‘Democracy is at risk’ with this Menace let loose upon the land…… but it’s looking doubtful that Haley will have the successful launch that the GOPe was banking on. Fox says DeSantis spent 9 figures on Iowa alone.
“Stranger…” was a little too kumbayah.
Oligonicella:
Not in 1961. Heinlein was fuckin’ radical that year. Hippies weren’t a gleam in anyone’s eyes then.
If “Stranger” had flopped, who would have been surprised? Instead it won the 1962 Hugo Award.
DeSantis did what he had to do- finish second, but probably too far behind for it to matter- he really needed a big separation from Haley to get any momentum. Looks like it is going to be Trump as the nominee, unless the GOP rigs the rest of its primaries like the Dems have done.
I have read all Heinlein’s novels except for the ones he published near the end of his life. I have always found them hugely hit or hugely miss. I always meant to read the last 4 or 5 he published, but I never got around to it, and have pretty much stopped reading science-fiction altogether.
Like one of the commenters above- the first one I ever read was “Glory Road” when I was in 4th grade- it was in our modest school library along with a couple of others (The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and Have Spaceship Will Travel).
Aggie:
As soon as I learned Trump was planning to run in 2024 and I saw a couple of polls, I felt I knew it was over for the others and Trump would be the victor and it wouldn’t be close. Trump’s supporters have been numerous and hyper-loyal. No matter what another candidate did or said, Trump supporters would stay loyal to Trump. So I don’t see it as a failing that they couldn’t make a bigger dent. Of course they couldn’t.
Well, I got that wrong.
Super disappointed.
Vivek probably met ever single one of his voters.
I still vote for him in the NE primary.,
@huxley:
Yeah, I realize I couldn’t read it as a hippie until I was a hippie, but at that point, being a hippie, even I found it too kumbayah. Making him into soup and romanticizing over the taste, looking at the grasshopper and “You are god.”, that kind of thing. At first I probably just thought of it as ‘otherworldly’ culture described in a technical setting instead of fantasy. Later it started looking pretty mushy to me. He kinda lost me at “Cat…”.
***
Good on Trump.
Odd to see the interleaving of comments about Trump and Heinlein.
The Lieutenant would probably be amused.
I don’t think he would be a Trump supporter, but I know he wouldn’t vote for Biden. YMMV. Please don’t start a flame war here; I can get that at Sarah Hoyt’s blog!
I began reading his works in elementary school (c. 1965) along with Asimov and the other Golden Age writers, and never looked back. I sometimes think it is strange that the writer of Glory Road also wrote Stranger, but the themes kind of meld in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, which is the last of his books that I enjoyed reading; never could get in sync with his later works, although many fans love those the best. I am more partial to the juveniles (early imprinting?) and short stories.
I learned from his posthumous epistolary biography, Grumbles From the Grave, that he was very frank about the money-making side of his craft. I don’t think he held any pretenses of it being an art. His advice to would-be writers (a rough paraphrase) was to put on paper something that would persuade readers to part with their beer-money for your book.
Did he write Stranger “to make a lot of money” as he said?
Making money was his motivation for writing in the beginning, after washing out of the Navy (health issues) and a failed political campaign.
The more interesting question would be: why did he think that a book so radically different from his usual work was the way to do it?
I don’t know the complete answer. Maybe huxley can run it through ChatGPT?
However, Stranger has a more extended back-story than I knew, which provides a partial one.
https://www.heinleinsociety.org/robert-a-heinlein-a-biography/
Here are a couple of other interesting posts I found while searching for my money quote.
https://coffeeordie.com/robert-heinlein-navy-veteran
https://locusmag.com/2012/11/the-joke-is-on-us-the-two-careers-of-robert-a-heinlein/
https://deanwesleysmith.com/heinleins-rules-introduction/
https://fee.org/articles/33-of-the-best-robert-heinlein-quotes-on-liberty-politics-and-culture/
https://www.aier.org/article/i-owe-my-economics-to-robert-heinlein/
Trump and Harold Hill make a better combination that Trump and RAH.
Probably their businessman-cum-entertainer professions with overtones from the hustler-conman vibes.
“The Music Man” has been my favorite musical since the first time I saw the movie in the sixties (all other favorites line up behind).
Our high school did the show not too many years later (I was only in the chorus).
Our leading man wasn’t anywhere close to Robert Preston (who was?), but he projected the requisite clean-cut-smarmy character, and had sufficient talent and energy to pull it off.
I can still sing most of the score.
Trivia note: Oliver Sacks says in “Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain” that the memory of music is stored differently in the brain than other memories, and is usually the last thing to go when people start forgetting thing.
I have recently heard some personal anecdotes supporting that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Sacks
Nit picking.
Steyn’s write-up is great, but this line from the opening song “Rock Island” is not
“Cash for the noggins and the pickins and the frickins”
It is “Cash for the noggins and the piggins and the firkins”
https://genius.com/The-travelling-salesman-rock-island-lyrics
A noggin is a small mug or cup.
A firkin is not the same as today’s Furries or Fur-kin.
It’s a small wooden barrel or covered vessel.
A piggin can be either of two utensils:
A small wooden vessel with an erect handle formed by continuing one of the staves above the rim.
A small earthen vessel; a pitcher; also, a shallow vessel provided with a long handle at one side, used as a dipper.
https://www.wordnik.com/words/firkin
The sites I found that have the wrong word made other give-away mistakes that Steyn may have picked up without proofing them:
Cash for the noggins and the piggins and the frikins
Cash for the hogdhead, cask and demijohn.
Cash for the crackers and the pickels and the flypaper
Easy to get from firkin to frikin to frickin (fricking?); then rhyme that with pickins instead of piggins.
This is, IMO, why folk songs have so many variant lyrics: people don’t remember the correct words, or don’t know what they mean, or mishear them, and substitute something else that fits.
See the “mondegreen” discussion a few days ago.
Wondering if the vote essentially AGAINST DeSantis is a recognition of the extraordinary AND ESSENTIAL job he’s doing in Florida…and the accompanying desire to see him continue doing that job THERE.
Also wondering if the vote FOR Trump is a general “THEY DONE HIM WRONG” response of essentially decent people (though this may say more about me than about “them”).
This, of course, in addition to the train wreck—THE INTENTIONAL train wreck—that is “Biden”. Why “intentional”? Well…if you’re absolutely sure that there’s no way you can lose an election…and your goal is the destruction of the country, well then, GO FOR IT…especially since YOU KNOW that the media will do everything in HELL—spinning on all cylinders, hitting warp drive—to PROTECT you and DESTROY your opponents.
The ONLY thing that MIGHT concern you is the need to demonstrate “responsibility” and “ability”—that is to LIE BLATANTLY and SHAMELESSLY—in the run-up to an election since you gotta keep your loyal ideological slaves on the reservation/plantation/what-have-you…but after that you’re home free…to continue your dishonesty, your lies, your destructive policies. YOUR BETRAYAL.
The problem with the above arm-chair “analysis” of course is that “Biden” and his media poodles are ALWAYS lying blatantly and shamelessly…oh well…
(To be sure, I wonder about a lot of nonsense…which, upon reflection, may not be as nonsensical as I think…)
Miguel calm down. You only harm yourself. Roy Benavides’. Why I’m proud to be an American
Ug. The reality if the situation hit home last night. I think I knew that the GOP was going to nominate Trump, I just really didn’t accept that primary voters were really going to go through with it.
DeSantis is done. Maybe Haley can mount a charge in NH and make things interesting, but I doubt it. She’ll get drubbed in SC, and I’m not sure I really trust her instincts anyway.
Just a thought – no one alive today under the age of 30 has ever voted in an election where the GOP nominee was anyone other than Donald Trump. By the time the GOP nominates a candidate other than Donald Trump, that number will be 34, assuming that Trump doesn’t run again in 2028.
“Lesser of two evils” arguments can work once, maybe twice in an incumbent election. The GOP will regret going to well a third time.
It is interesting to me that Trump, running as a quasi-incumbent, barely cleared 50%. That means that, of the GOP faithful who will turn out for a primary on a bitterly cold and snowy Iowa Monday, nearly 50% want someone else.
Frankly, this is how you destroy a party. One faction has enough intra-party power to force their preferred candidate down the throats of the rest of the party, now for three cycles in a row. They do this knowing that the other faction of the party finds that candidate repugnant and completely unfit to hold office. My guess is that Trump will offer absolutely nothing to the vanquished factions of the GOP. We’ll be expected to eat a crap sandwich and like it, for the third presidential cycle in a row. Anyone who complains will be called a “disloyal RINO.” And when Trump loses again, we’ll be expected to join the outrage about another “stolen election.” In the unlikely event that he wins, we’ll be expected to spend another four years defending the idiocy that comes out of his mouth every day and every asinine thing that he does.
Kind of like the “lesser of two evils” argument, you can “take one for the team” once, again maybe twice in an incumbent election. By now the third time? Really? It’s not as if the first two times (and the intervening midterms) were smashing successes either. Winning elections can smooth a lot of bad feelings, but Trump doesn’t even do that.
And the only alternative is the insane cult that is the modern left.
The left is so awful that there really is no place else to go. I predict that you’re going to see a lot of GOP voters just drop out of politics and focus on tending their own gardens, if you will.
The Concerned Conservative projects that he will drop out of politics. Not likely, The Great Orange Whale still is.
How long will Americans for Prosperity throw good money after bad?
om – FWIW – I think the 51% thing is a real problem. Trump can probably win the nomination, but he is not going to be able to unite the party.
I doubt that he will even try.
We are deep in the crazy years
https://twitter.com/johnddavidson/status/1747122217895571762
Barry Meislin,
I wish your theory was correct, but it is not:
That has a great Voltairean ring to it:
“The Democrats are destroying our country. Oh, well…let’s tend our garden.”
File under: Candide camera…
Bauxite,
“It is interesting to me that Trump, running as a quasi-incumbent, barely cleared 50%. That means that, of the GOP faithful who will turn out for a primary on a bitterly cold and snowy Iowa Monday, nearly 50% want someone else.”
I am disappointed Trump is running*, but the Iowa result is not evidence of your theory. Last night I heard a pundit declare that Trump won Iowa by the biggest margin of any candidate, R or D, in history. And, more punditry, the first George Bush was the last Republican to win Iowa and then get his party’s nomination. In other words; who knows?
*I think the best play for the country would have been to stay out of the race and endorse his home state Governor, Desantis.
Oh well, wrong agin’….
So maybe—in spite of EVERYTHING—he’ll bite at the VP slot?
Ya’ think?
Hmm. Probably not… (but politics is a funny game).
In any event, who is being lined up in The [Best Disinfectant] State to try and take his place?
Could it be, could it just be…that ALL the IOWAY’n Democrats registered—for a day—as Republicans and voted for OMB?
(Say it ain’t so, Joe…?)
…Gosh I loved that film.
(Imagine seeing that and Bull Durham as a double bill…)
Gingrich: Trump is not a candidate. He is a leader of a nationwide movement to take back power from Washington.
• 100% Agree
Durham isn’t my first choice. But I dont get my choice. Sometimes you have to pick whatever
Bauxite, the flaw in your argument is that Republicans who supported other candidates in the primaries are going to vote for Trump rather than stay home or vote for any Democrat I can imagine running. I will, and most commenters here will also, I believe.
I can’t see DeSantis agreeing to be Trump’s VP. He will serve Florida well for two more years and look at 2028. I also have never seen a “lack of charisma.” He’s not a showman like Trump. The comparison of Trump to Prof. Harold Hill is a good one.
Trump needs to turn from insulting solid Republican leaders to planning for a successful second administration.
I might get some grief over this, but… I have problems with The Music Man. Not over the performances or the music (which tends to stay in my head for days), but over the basic moral of the story.
It can be viewed as a story of redemption and forgiveness, and the essential goodness of the common man. I have no problems with that.
OTOH, do we ever see Harold Hill show any remorse ? He isn’t redeemed, he just gets caught. Then he’s forgiven, not because the townspeople are essentially good, but because they’re fooling themselves. So from that POV, the message isn’t that ordinary people are good, it’s that ordinary people are stupid.
I don’t find this very uplifting.
richf, now you’re being realistic. 🙂 What chance do Harold Hill and Marian the Librarian have to build a happy life together? What’s he going to do to support them? Leave us with the music and the fun.
that guy,
Regarding your quote of Gingrich’s quote, “He is a leader of a nationwide movement to take back power from Washington.”
I wish it were so, but it’s not. Trump is not leading anything but a campaign to win the election. Last time he had no effective plan to “take back power from Washington,” and, astoundingly (even for Trump) he appears to have no such plan again. Vivek Ramaswamy talks specifics about how and what he would do to which agencies and departments. Desantis does also. Even Robert Kennedy, Jr. has a detailed plan to reduce power in some agencies (and, unfortunately, give more power to others).
There is a huge movement* in this country to reduce the power concentrated in DC and in the Federal government. But Donald J. Trump is not that movement’s leader. Of the candidates, no one was better than Vivek on this topic, but there is no effective coalition among the groups that would get behind a leader who would fight for change at the Federal level.
*Not really a huge movement but many, specific, localized tiny movements. The Libertarians are always present, and Ron Paul did a lot to increase their numbers and energy. Take back Wall Street, the Tea Party, even Antifa all have desires to eliminate pieces of the Federal bureaucracy. I don’t see any attempt by Trump to try to corral these and other groups.
“The Music Man” and “West Side Story” came out at the same time on Broadway (and they were both revived a few years ago), so there’s always been something of a rivalry between them. One version is that they represent two very different Americas — the heartland and the metropolis, the long-ago past and the very cutting edge of the future. Some have said that “The Music Man” was actually musically more adventurous than “West Side Story,” though given all the talent involved in the Bernstein-Sondheim-Laurents-Robbins production that sounds like heresy.
that guy,
To flesh out my comment further, decreasing the size and power of the U.S. Federal government in 2024 would be one of the most complex and difficult undertakings of any politician in history. A huge percentage of Americans earn money directly from the Federal government, and 100% of us receive some benefits from Federal programs. These bureaucracies are deeply entrenched and most benefit from years of Congressional law and legal precedent to make them nearly impossible to dismantle. And we’ve seen there is no shortage of people working in the Federal government who will leak and lie to maintain the status quo.
I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it requires an extremely complex plan executed over 4 (or, hopefully more) years and would require thousands, if not tens of thousands of willing acolytes at all levels of the government and in the private sector.
I have not seen any attempt by Donald Trump to prepare such a plan or build such a coalition. On the contrary, he insults and chastises most everyone who might be a useful compatriot in such a mission. It’s probably not even possible with tens of thousands on the “inside” supporting your mission (see Reagan’s Presidency), but it certainly cannot be done by one man shouting at clouds, which seems to be Trump’s motus operandi. Look at how badly he was played by Fauci and the WHO. Desantis did a great job navigating those same waters and Trump doesn’t even recognize that, but, instead lies about Desantis’ record and his own record during the pandemic.
Kate – Some will turn out and vote for him. I will most likely vote third party for President and Republican for the rest of the ticket. I suspect that I’m not the only one. I also suspect that a greater number will just fail to vote at all.
And to anyone who would mock about “principles” or “keeping pure,” spare me. The man has no business being president again after what he did in 2020 and early 2021. Even if one thinks of it solely in terms of what is good for the right, the stench of another “stop the steal” or, God forbid, another J6 type riot or other violence would tar the right for a generation and more or less hand power to the left.
richf:
OTOH, do we ever see Harold Hill show any remorse ?
It’s a feel-good musical so it’s of course diluted but at 2:20:00 he confesses himself, admits to a change of heart and doesn’t attempt to flee arrest. Seems like remorse.
Like I said, it’s shallow but it’s a stage musical. I wouldn’t expect Kafkaesque angst.
Even if one thinks of it solely in terms of what is good for the right, the stench of another “stop the steal” or, God forbid, another J6 type riot or other violence would tar the right for a generation and more or less hand power to the left.
I guess you thought the 2020 election was honest and Brandon was fairly elected. By any chance did you see the riots after Hillary lost ? J6 was a combination of a demonstration and a setup. How many FBI assets were in that crowd?
RufusTFirefly:
Considering that the administrative state, the IC, Congress, and the Media,
spent 2017- 2021 in active blatant rebellion against Trump and fortified the election process in 2020, I would argue that whateverTrump’s plan in 2016 was, it was completely inadequate.
However, I do not assume he is naive about the left and their intentions now. I assume that many non-leftists have been paying attention to what has occurred since 2016.
I believe that most Americans want the border closed and the intruders returned.
I believe that most Americans want the east coast mafia out of our highest level of leadership.
I believe that most Americans do not want this society/government to try to be a pure Socialist economy.
I believe that most Americans want their schools and universities cleaned up.
I believe that most Americans do not want DEI philosophy in their government decision making.
I believe that most Americans want merit back in their universities.
There is only one candidate that appears to be willing to take on these messes. Including a willingness to create our own field and confront China/N. Korea.
UNFORTUNATELY: I also believe that that candidate is a dead man walking. Someone, somewhere, somehow.
om,
As many here, including neo, have pointed out, Trump hasn’t even appeared to do anything to rectify the faults in the voting process that he insists were his downfall last election; let alone do anything constructive to assuage and overcome the other things you list.
And I think he’ll have less support than last time. He’s famous for his mercurial firing and casting out of people for the slightest offense. His administration was a revolving door. He burned a lot of bridges in his four year Presidency and the opposition has demonstrated they are willing to wreck the career of anyone who supports him. A lot of good people who may agree with his cause will be unwilling to take the risk of a loss to their professional prospects and reputation, especially when Trump himself might be the one to ostracize them for their efforts.
Exactly how is Trump going to drain the swamp and who is going to work with him to do it?
Forget it, Anne. It’s 2024.
Anne,
“There is only one candidate that appears to be willing to take on these messes.”
Have you paid any attention to Desantis’ governorship in Florida?
DEI, illegal immigration, cleaning up schools and Universities, ESG…
Which executive leader in the U.S. has done more positive work on these topics than Desantis in the past 8 years? How about during the 4 years of Trump’s Presidency?
CC™ and his OMBx11 fully revealed:
He ran for reelection in 2020 in an election that was fortified against him.
He lost that “election.”
The Democrats stage managed a civil disturbance, executed (murdered) one protestor. Democrats called it an insurrection, in which they did all the shooting.
Democrats have been running kangaroo courts ever since.
But to CC™ The Great Orange Whale is the existential threat.
Loon.
In wisconsin they have fortified since same for arizona pennsylvania and georgia (even though the dominion trial is coming up, the real one)
Rufus T. Firefly, Anne:
Well, my previous was a cheap “Chinatown” shot.
I’m not all that fond of Trump, but whatever his deficits, Trump is the general we are going to war with. (Pray that the scenario Anne hints at does not come to pass.)
Trump has rattled anew the Deep State cages and Biden’s poll numbers are way underwater. Even Obama is concerned that Joe can’t wander Magoo-like through another campaign successfully.
I believe enough Dems and Independents understand the true crisis of democracy we are facing and will vote for Trump even if they would prefer not.
Anne:
DeSantis is more than willing to take those things on and in fact has done so quite successfully and forcefully.
I am not opposed to DeSantis. When I think of who, what money, or how many attorneys would have come forward to help De Santis confront 4 trials like Trump has faced, I can’t find that depth. I don’t think he has the deep money or other power players behind him. If things got as bad for DeSantis as they have for Trump I don’t know how well he would have survived. Isn’t that one of the factors we have to consider in this brave new world? Not just the man or his ideals, but rather how many corrupted players will back him to the end? You know–like Bill and Hillary–look how many truly nasty people and how much money has been spent keeping them alive in a positive light.
My take is that the R party will come apart over this–more than it’s current state.
Finally, I will vote for Trump again because I want my military restored to it’s finest glory. I want every little democratic puke who thought she was going to manipulate our system of law to understand absolutely that we the people won’t put up with that kind of crap anymore!
Anne:
I see Trump as having alienated far more people than DeSantis has. And DeSantis supports the military and served in the military.
Here’s what DeSantis has done in Florida regarding the military. And here are DeSantis’ proposals for military reform. Have you read them?
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“He’s famous for his mercurial firing and casting out of people for the slightest offense.”– R.T. Firefly
You must be thinking of his famous “you’re fired” Celebrity Apprentice show.
I’m trying to think of someone he “cast out” for the “slightest offense.” Many/some of those he hired in his administration at the recommendation of others were actively/secretly working to stymie his agenda.
Did the MSM/propagandists exaggerate those firings? Undoubtedly. Does Trump’s style make it easier to create that image? Sure.