#840 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Monday January 22)
Good morning,
“It is well to fly towards the light, even where there may be some fluttering and bruising of wings against the windowpanes, is it not?”
-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Letter to Robert Browning (March 5, 1845)
Today, a potpourri…
THE FIRST PRIMARY
Tomorrow, voters in New Hampshire will hold the first primary of the 2024 elections. Some will say that the primary season begins with the Republican Iowa Caucuses last week. But that’s not really true, as this is the first primary. Caucuses are for the “true believers.” Because caucuses require physical presence, often in a neighbor’s living room, where people must physically separate themselves into corners to indicate their preferences, only the most dedicated voters attend. Primaries, on the other hand, are secret ballots, without the peer pressure. Whether the non-Trump voters in New Hampshire can together capture enough votes against Mr. Trump may well determine whether the authoritarian juggernaut can be stopped. Given the Republican method of allocating delegates, Mr. Trump is favored. More primaries are “winner take all” (particularly California, with its huge number of delegates), where someone gets 50% of the vote. The Trump forces have been working at the state level to put their thumb on the scale. We most likely will know after Super Tuesday, in just six short weeks.
THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM
I have been saying for a while that there will be political violence in this country this year. The most likely precipitating factor would be a Trump defeat in November. Many of his supporters are well-armed and apparently willing to carry those weapons and intimidate others. Witness January 6, 2021. I think it is a fair assumption that there will be many people—fueled by yet more screams of “stop the steal” and invective emanating from Mr. Trump—who will not accept the results. I’m not sure what reactions will come from the left if Mr. Trump is elected, but I suspect they more likely will occur after Mr. Trump implements some of his policies in early 2025.
The violence could come earlier, as I also worry that there will be intimidation at polling places and drop-off locations for ballots. These would be the more organized mob-type of violence. Some may be mere skirmishes. Every interaction will be heightened by the presence of weapons.
I also worry about assassination, as it is nearly impossible to “harden” each of 535 Congresspeople, cabinet secretaries and Assistant Secretaries, 50 governors and countless members of State legislatures, municipal governments, election commissions, and school boards—at their offices and their homes. Then there are school board meetings, election board hearings, and ballot recount centers. There are too many angry people—from the right and the left—with too many guns and a jaundiced view of “the other.” I fear that we currently are in the calm before the storm of a very volatile time.
THE NORMALIZATION OF HORRIBLE BEHAVIOR
Within the Orwellian world in which we now are living, the “newspeak” of Mr. Trump and his supporters deflect his bad deeds by gaslighting Mr. Biden and the Justice Department for malfeasance not yet proven, based on discredited reports. In the meantime, they indulge the absurd statements and actions of Mr. Trump, all well-documented. It is a brilliant strategy. Accuse your adversary of precisely that of which what you are guilty and keep doing it. Eventually, mere conjecture and the unbelievable becomes, to many, gospel truth.
There was an interesting article in The Atlantic, which I felt the best explanation for the phenomenon. Basically, Mr. Trump commits heinous acts, initially denies, then delays through the courts. Eventually, the public is inured to the bad behaviors that no longer seem surprising and just part of his “schtick.” His bad acts, out in the open, just seem like “more of the same.” He seems to be hiding nothing (well, except for his motivations!). Mr. Biden’s unproven misdeeds, based upon “evidence” proven thus far to be nonexistent, or feelings that something is buried away, are “hidden.” In other words, he is so duplicitous that his misdeeds aren’t obvious and probably “covered up” by the deep state, the Justice Department, the Democratic Party, the “lamestream media,” and George Soros. Because his alleged misbehaviors are instinctively present (“there’s no way he didn’t steal the election” or “I’m sure he took bribes”) but can’t be proven, they must well-hidden through an elaborate cover-up by the lefties, the instrumentalities of the multiple players…just the grist of the conspiracy model.
Have a great day,
Glenn