On to the Election

Over the years, Victor Davis Hansen (VDH) has written dozens of papers and articles that have become instant classics. None more so than an article that describes the domestic and international origins of "Trumpism." 

The article, an in-depth study that only a historian like VDH could assemble, cannot be summarized with a few extracts. This pull quote from VDH's piece is the only abstract I'll provide:

Like it or not, Trump hit on a great truth that no country can write off its vast industrial interior, destroy its borders, or prefer managed decline over renewal, and meanwhile call itself moral.

I would add another phrase before the word "and"—travel the road toward socialism when the very people it purports to help are the ones that historically are hurt the most.

Opponents of Trump love to dwell on his bombastic, coarse and often objectionable style, his lack of humility, and his combative attitude, along with a vast array of concocted lies about the man (e.g., he's a "racist"), because all of that allows them to wallow in hatred and ignore the clear realities that VDH describes. 

But for many of us, this is a lot more that just Trump. Clay Travis, a long-time Democrat voter writes:

The Democratic party has moved in a massive way towards the far left wing over the past decade. They’ve embraced the idea of reparations, defunding the police, and of labeling our country systemically racist and unfair. I think all of these ideas, frankly, are madness.

And in the process I believe the Democratic Party, often fueled by a mob of blue checkmark brigade members on social media, has lost its connection with the regular people in this country. The Democratic Party used to be the party of average working people in this country, people like my mom and dad, who never made more than $50,000 a year in their careers. Now it has left those people behind ...

Travis goes on to discuss five issues—NOT emotions—that mitigate against a vote for the new Democratic party:

1. We need to end cancel culture and allow a robust marketplace of ideas to flourish on our social media platforms.

2. We can’t shut down the country’s economy again because of COVID.

3. I believe in confronting China as aggressively as possible.

4. I believe in keeping nine justices on the Supreme Court.

5. I believe in American exceptionalism and a capitalistic democracy, and I support our police and our military absolutely.

I suspect that there are many people who will go to the polls on Tuesday (along with more than a few Democrats) who are considering some combination of those issues and will vote accordingly.

On to the election ...