WILL THE ELECTION BE ABOUT FEAR?

Every four years, it seems, we have “the most important election in history.” Exaggeration? Maybe, but I don’t think so, not this year anyway. While many Americans see November 3rd as  Biden vs Trump, others see it as left versus right. I’ve voted in every presidential election since I became eligible in 1972 and, while I used to be swayed by who the person running was, that’s not very important to me anymore. It’s the platform he or she espouses that matters now.

Over that forty-eight year span, my political outlook has moved across the spectrum from left to right and two aphorisms sum up why. The first is attributed to Winston Churchill: “If you’re not a liberal when you’re twenty, you have no heart; if you’re still a liberal when you’re forty, you have no brain.” The second is from that other British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, who said: “The facts of life are conservative.” Democrats are so far left now they’re becoming socialist.

In a February 17th column, I said Trump looked unbeatable, and he did. Then, in the last paragraph, I wrote something which has proven prophetic: 

But nine months is an eternity in politics. Anything can happen between now and November. Like what you may ask? The Corona virus, for one thing. Chinese efforts to contain it have been futile. So have their efforts to censor information about how serious it is. Their economy is slowing considerably and likely to tank. Pulitzer-Prize-winning science writer Laurie Garrett has covered first-hand over thirty epidemics worldwide and she offers a very sobering account of what we may expect from the virus now being called COVID-19. “The economic and political repercussions are going to be enormous,” she says.

Then, on March 16th, a British professor at Imperial College named Neil Ferguson issued a devastating prediction. If the U.S. and the U.K. did not shut down for eighteen months and isolation measures were not taken, he claimed, 2.2 million Americans and more than half a million British would be killed. American and British health officials — and President Trump —took that very seriously and shut down their countries. Thus, covid became the biggest issue in the campaign.

Ten days later, Ferguson said, Whoops! I was wrong! And he revised his prediction down. Only 20,000 Brits would die; half of them would have died anyway of old age and comorbidities; and the U.K. already had enough ICUs to handle the victims. But it was too late. The left loved the shutdown here in Amcrica because President Trump’s surging economy — his biggest asset for reelection — was crippled. The left and its mainstream media allies weren’t about to let it recover until after election day in November.

Using the British scale above, Ferguson’s prediction for the deaths in the U.S. would revise downward by 2500%, from 2.2 million to 88,000. Here in mid September the CDC has reported 200,000 Covid deaths, but in August the CDC said that only 6% of fatalities reported as Covid deaths were solely from the virus. The other 94% involved Covid, but the virus wasn’t the only killer. Nonetheless, mainstream media continue to hype the virus with endless stories about how many are testing positive and how many are dying. Is that because they want the shutdown to continue through to the election? Seems like it.

Actually, in June, the CDC estimated 0.2 % overall chance of dying from Covid

On my local Left & Right TV show months ago, I asked my left-wing opponent if there will come a time when we view the shutdowns as a major disaster far worse than the virus itself. Never before has there been such a drastic step taken to deal with a disease. Never before has this country shut down its entire economy plus its schools, sports, parades, churches, and countless other activities for medical reasons. Have our state and federal governments exceeded their constitutional authority? Have they violated constitutional rights of citizens?

In 1933, the US Supreme Court ruled that no governments — neither state nor federal — may exercise powers not enumerated by the US Constitution. “[A]n emergency may not call into life a power which has never lived,” said the ruling in HOME BUILDING & LOAN ASS'N v. BLAISDELL. Lawsuits have been filed in several states alleging governors wielded unconstitutional powers, but given the slowness of the judicial process, many plaintiffs will have gone bankrupt before they’re adjudicated.

Governors and other officials, especially in blue states like Maine, drunk with new power over people and economies, are reluctant to give it up as the virus threat fades. Have partisan politics controlled government response to Covid? Do politics influence research into Covid? Consider this: According to Federal Election Commission records, over $285,000 was contributed by CDC employees to Democrats, but only $1000 to Republicans.

Is it possible the CDC is hoping to sway November’s election by pushing fear?

Left & Right Wednesday, July 8, 2020

Newspaper publisher Mark Guerringue again sits in the left chair. The first question from the producer asks about reports that Trump was ignorant of Russian payments to the Taliban to kill American soldiers. It’s no surprise to me, I say. Russians have been supporting the Taliban against US forces for nineteen years. When Russian invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the US supported Bin Laden and others against the Russians. I don’t see what the big deal is. Mark’s answer is circuitous. He talks about frequent communications between Trump and Putin, then mentions what he claims are examples of Trump’s racism like retweeting someone saying “White Power” from a gold cart in Florida. I asked what that had to do with Putin paying Taliban and Mark related what Trump aide John Bolton said about it: that Trump probably was briefed on the Russian payments but didn’t pay attention, that Bolton saw that often with Trump and his daily intelligence briefings. I bring up Trump’s July 4th speech at Mount Rushmore and outrageous mainstream media reaction to it, quoting headlines from The NYTimes and The Washington Post depicting the speech as “dark and devisive.” Mark quotes Trump saying there is a new far-left facism in corporate boardrooms.” I agree with that because corporation are kissing BLM butts and coming out in support. Mark claims 70% of the American people support BLM. I doubt that. Mark claimes: “Trump said angry mobs are tearing down statues of our founders, our most sacred memorials and unleash a wave or violence.” I ask, “You don’t agree with that?” “No,” says Mark. “What?” I say. “Have you been watching television?” It went on like that for the rest of the hour, quite contentious. See for yourself.

THE NEW POLITICS OF RESISTANCE

The curve has been flattened at enormous expense. Most expect Covid will eventually go through the entire population and take many more elderly with comorbidities. It cannot be stopped without a vaccine — or a series of them since the virus will likely mutate. An initial vaccine won’t be available until the end of this year at the earliest. Many governors, however, are reluctant to relax their shutdowns. Instead, they predict a second wave, keeping fear levels high.

Everyone cooperated to flatten the curve, which didn’t take long. People understood the logic and it got done. Reasons to continue the shutdown are not logical and more than a few medical professionals have been censored by Youtube, Facebook, and other social media outlets for declaring that it’s past time to fully reopen the economy. Many people are openly rebelling against continuing restrictions; many more quietly ignore them.

Ninety-something percent of deaths are in one vulnerable, elderly cohort which must continue to quarantine until a vaccine is available. However, death rates for all people infected from this point — including our vulnerable elders — is below one percent. Hospitals are not overwhelmed. Instead, they’re laying off staff! Yet still, Democrats and their media allies continue pumping up fear. The danger now is that lots of people are afraid to go to emergency rooms. Cancers are not caught early. Heart problems are not detected, and so forth.

Motives for continuing the shutdown seem primarily political, though disguised as concern for humanity. The left wants to keep things locked. Conservatives want to reopen. The left says conservatives would sacrifice human lives for money. Conservatives believe the left would keep the economy depressed so they can defeat Trump and take the Senate in November.

Pre-virus divisions are widening as nearly everything now is seen through a political lens. The left sees Dr. Anthony Fauci as the virus guru and he would keep schools closed next fall. It’s hard to envision economic recovery if parents must continue homeschooling. Going about in public without a mask is becoming a sign of resistance to government control. Wearing one is becoming a sign of virtue, not unlike driving a Prius.

Snitches call police when their neighbors entertain guests. Some cops try enforcing guidelines while others declare they have enough to do already. When mainstream media focused on crowds ignoring social distancing at Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri over the weekend, Camden County Sheriff Tony Helms issued this statement: “Social distancing is not a crime and therefore the sheriff’s office has no authority to enforce actions in that regard.” The left was appalled. Conservatives cheered.

Traveling between rural, mostly-conservative Lovell, Maine and coastal, mostly-leftist South Portland, Maine each week, I see contrasts. Rarely do I notice anyone wearing a mask in Lovell but it’s very common in South Portland. Picking up a curbside order of fried clams there last week, I parked next to a pickup truck in which a small dog was wearing a mask. I don’t know whether it was a sarcastic political statement by the driver or genuine concern for a beloved pet.

There’s little point going across the Casco Bay Bridge into Portland these days. Yes, it’s pretty to watch the sun rise at the Eastern Promenade, but nothing is open. The left runs everything in Portland and is less than welcoming to those with differing world views. Last summer I was harassed and assaulted for wearing a MAGA hat on a Congress Street art festival. Will people without masks be harassed? If the City of Portland allows another art festival this summer, I’ll let you know.

My habit is to keep a mask in my car and another in my truck. If I drive up to a store that requires one to get in, I’ll go back to my vehicle and get it. Wearing it makes my glasses fog up though and I can’t see what I’m looking for, so I pull it down. That, of course, negates any virus-inhibiting effect it’s supposed to have, but no one has so far ordered me to pull it up. Many around me do the same thing. Otherwise, I never wear a mask.

Clearly, response to this virus is exacerbating already-serious political divisions. How will that affect the election in November? I don’t want to venture a guess. I will predict, however, that whatever the result, the other side will not take it well. Should the left lose, I expect civil unrest.

Can We All Keep Getting Along?

It’s remarkable how well people are cooperating with government orders about how to conduct our entire lives. If you’d asked me hypothetically a few months ago to predict how the public would react, I would never have imagined the degree of collaboration we’ve seen so far. Driving back and forth between Maine’s rural mountains and coastal areas each week I see hardly anyone on the roads.

Oxford Street Shelter (From Portland Press Herald)

There are exception, however. I noticed homeless men congregating closely together near Portland’s Bayside neighborhood where soup kitchens and shelters are located. They were commiserating in small groups of six or eight on the sidewalks and touching each other frequently. And, we’ve all seen footage of college students at Florida beaches. These two otherwise dissimilar groups are both wholly absorbed in their own desires and oblivious to the needs of the public at large. Everyone else I observed was maintaining government-advised social distance.

During a community TV show “Left & Right” episode in the early stages of the pandemic, my guests and I speculated on the degree to which the issue might become politicized. One guest was sure politics would influence governmental policies but I expressed cautious optimism that political camps would put aside rivalries for the good of the country. That slim hope has shown little fruition, however. At all levels — local, state, national, and international — many politicians and media personalities have been indulging their animosities.

During daily presidential press conferences on the virus most questioners are looking for facts, but there are many caustic, snarky questions from the usual suspects. Never one to let a real or perceived slight go unanswered, the president responds in kind. Resulting exchanges more closely resemble those of squabbling siblings at the supper table than professionals dealing with a crisis.

No one doubts the virus originated in China but it’s given different names. I first heard of it as the Corona Virus, then as COVID-19, then Wuhan Virus according to the city in which it was first detected. Then Trump called it the China Virus around the same time Chinese government officials claimed it originated in the USA — although there’s no evidence to support that. Then Trump-hating media personalities in the US accused Trump of racism for calling it the China virus.

Although some in media and politics have compared the pandemic to World War II, any student of history would consider that a stretch. There was precious little politicization of WWII. Before Pearl Harbor there was, yes, but afterward American patriotism was so strong hardly anyone dared utter a critical remark. Longtime-leftist radio broadcaster and author Studs Terkel wrote a book calling it “The Good War” because everyone in America, regardless of political stripe, agreed that it had to be fought and won. It won a Pulitzer.

Virtually every historical event since WWII, however, has been politicized, so I guess I was naive to hope this pandemic wouldn’t be. There was a short period of non-partisanship following September 11, but it only lasted  a week or two. That TV show I mentioned was only a month ago but it seems like a year. I speculated that if I was wrong and partisanship did emerge, whoever was guilty of it would pay a political price on election day.

There are seven months to go before the first Tuesday in November, an eternity in political terms, and I think both sides will pay a price. Recent polls indicate mainstream media, together with their Democrat allies, will pay the most. Expect accusations in the form of snarky questions to escalate and be echoed by Democrats in Congress. Trump will continue his fake news accusations and political polarization will exacerbate. 

The $2 trillion bill passed last week was delayed by attempted Democrat add-ons that had no connection to virus relief. Although it was the most expensive piece of legislation in history, still more such bills are predicted before the election. So far, there has been little civil unrest in spite of unprecedented restrictions on public freedoms and increased public distress due to the economic effects of shutdown. Will that continue through April or beyond?

There are signs of fraying. High-end stores have been closed for weeks but lately owners are boarding them up in several cities. Do they expect looting? Will printing $2 trillion cause an inflationary spiral? Will $4 trillion? $8 trillion? There was a mile-long food line in Pittsburgh the other day. Police and food store workers are front-line with medical personnel and they’re getting fatigued.

If we all lose someone in a mounting death toll, perhaps our shared grief will strengthen community bonds. That’s one good thing that can occur in war against a common enemy.

Between Now and November

Democrats and their mainstream media allies hate Donald Trump, and that hate has been the central political dynamic of the past four years. By extension, they also hate Trump supporters which comprise more than 60 million Americans who they consider ignorant at best, or irredeemably racist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic at worst. As someone who held my nose when voting for Trump in 2016 I shall likely do so again in November, only this time with relish.

Democrat voters interviewed by Mainstream Media during the New Hampshire primary last week were asked who they liked, but their answers were more about who they didn’t like — Donald Trump. They weren’t sure what Democrat to vote for and would make up their minds in the voting booth, at which time they would choose the candidate most likely to beat him. Bernie supporters were rabid for their guy but supporters of the other candidates were unenthusiastic. Democrat and media pundits are afraid Bernie will get the nomination and then be easily beaten by President Trump.

The pundits, however, still don’t understand the 60+ million Americans who voted for Trump in 2016 and likely will again in November. Neither did they understand the Tea Party movement a decade ago. Back then they went looking for Tea Party leaders to interview but couldn’t find any. They couldn’t comprehend that this was a real, spontaneous, grassroots movement against what an Obama Administration which was growing government. Obamacare was taking over the healthcare industry and the president was spending nearly a trillion dollars on supposed “shovel ready jobs” to stimulate the economy.

At CPAC 2010 in the lobby

Attending CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) in Washington during 2010 and 2011, I sensed a discomfort in the Republican establishment running the conference with the upstart Tea Party thousands of whose members invaded CPAC. Republican leaders were not sure where this new, amorphous, small-government throng would fit in, if indeed it could fit in at all. There were no clear leaders with whom dealmakers could meet and talk about making sausage. Meanwhile, Democrats in President Obama’s IRS like Lois Lerner obstructed the Tea Party’s efforts to procure 501(c)4 status for their groups which would enable them to organize and raise funds.

Facing Republican condescension and Democrat obstruction, it soon became apparent to virgin activists in the Tea Party that neither side wanted them in their respective Washington cloisters. Thus spurned, these pockets of the Tea Party returned to their rural enclaves and either organized locally or returned to political dormancy — until Donald Trump started campaigning around their country. He woke them up.

Previewing what Hillary Clinton would later say about Trump supporters, Democrat spinmeisters  ten years ago said the Tea Party was racist and xenophobic. In a September, 2019 interview with the leftist publication Mother Jones, Harvard government professor Theda Skocpol reiterated those accusations against the emerging Tea Party of 2010 who were later to become Trump supporters. She said Trump’s promise to build the wall pleased them and: “The other thing they like about Trump very much is that he ‘kicks ass,’ that he makes people on the left angry and upset. They love that,” she said.

They certainly do. While many former Tea Party types were put off by Trump’s incessant braggadocio, they could overlook it because he so enflamed the left. When Democrats and their mainstream media allies called Trump racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, and all the rest, they recalled the same baseless slurs being thrown at them years before. The “Never Trumpers” included Republican leaders as well as Democrats and were the same people who spurned the Tea Party. Trump had the same enemies they did, so the old aphorism: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” took hold and held fast.

As facts continue to emerge about Obama Administration efforts to prevent Trump’s election, and subsequent efforts by his surviving minions and Democrats in Congress to bring down his presidency, Trump’s support only hardens and increases. At this point in the primary process, it doesn’t appear that any of the Democrats running can possibly beat Trump. He continues to tweet and say stupid things but the economy is humming along. He’s making trade deals. He’s getting judicial appointments approved. With nine months until the election, he looks unbeatable.

But nine months is an eternity in politics. Anything can happen between now and November. Like what you may ask? The Corona virus, for one thing. Chinese efforts to contain it have been futile. So have their efforts to censor information about how serious it is. Their economy is slowing considerably and likely to tank. Pulitzer-Prize-winning science writer Laurie Garrett has covered first-hand over thirty epidemics worldwide and she offers a very sobering account of what we may expect from the virus now being called COVID-19. “The economic and political repercussions are going to be enormous,” she says.

Our Ever-Widening Gulf

Have we become a mutual scorn society? As the gulf between left and right in America steadily widens, it’s gotten to the point where primary divisions in our country are not racial anymore; they’re political. According to an article by Yoni Applebaum in the latest Atlantic:

In 1960, less than 5 percent of Democrats and Republicans said they’d be unhappy if their children married someone from the other party; today, 35 percent of Republicans and 45 percent of Democrats would be, according to a recent Public Religion Research Institute/Atlantic poll—far higher than the percentages that object to marriages crossing the boundaries of race and religion. As hostility rises, Americans’ trust in political institutions, and in one another, is declining.

The right sees mainstream media (MSM) as in bed with the left while the left disdains alternative media like Fox News and AM radio as reactionary. According to a recent Gallup poll, 69% of Democrats trust MSM but only 15% of Republicans and only 36% of independents do. This should concern us because it’s a major shift. Gallup first measured Americans’ trust in MSM back in 1972 when 68% said they trusted it. In 1976 it was 74%.

It should be noted that that high trust level of 74% followed impeachment hearings against Republican President Nixon who had resigned two years earlier. As impeachment hearings on Republican President Trump proceed here in late 2019, MSM trust is down to 41% of all Americans. The widening trust gap isn’t just between Republicans and Democrats either. Only one in three independents trust mainstream media now.

When Democrats initiated impeachment hearings against Nixon, many Republicans in Congress supported them. Republican Senate leaders visited Nixon in the White House and advised him to resign. Impeachment hearings against Trump are completely one-sided and Mainstream Media coverage of Trump since his inauguration has been more than 90% negative.

When pollster Scott Rasmussen was interviewed recently by Sharyl Attkisson on her program Full Measure, he said:

78% of voters say that what reporters do with political news is promote their agenda. [Voters] think [reporters] use incidents as props for their agenda rather than seeking accurately record what happened. Only 14% think that a journalist is actually reporting what happened... If a reporter found out something that would hurt their favorite candidate, only 36% of voters think that they would report that. So voters are looking at them as a political activist, not as a source of information.

Ciaramella and Obama's pajama boy

On October 30th, Paul Sperry of Realclearinvestigations named the original Trump “whistleblower” as Eric Ciaramella, who worked in the Obama Administration at several levels including CIA and NSC, then continued under President Trump. Both MSM and Fox News still refuse to identify him. When Congressman Adam Schiff began his secret impeachment hearings, he refused to allow Republican committee members to ask questions about Ciaramella. Schiff still denies reports that his staff had contact with Ciaramella before he “blew the whistle,” and coached him about how to file his original report to the NSC Inspector General.

Obama's staff warmly welcomes Trump on his first day in office.
Eric Ciaramella circled

Sperry also reports that Ciaramella worked with Obama CIA Director John Brennan, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Vice President Joe Biden, and DNC opposition researcher Alexandra Chalupa who was investigating the Trump Campaign in 2016. If all that is true, it’s easy to understand why Adam Schiff won’t allow questions about him. Schiff, however, insists he is protecting the “anonymous” whistleblower from potential physical harm, ostensibly from Trump.

According to the Daily Wire: “Mark Zaid, the attorney for the Ukrainian whistleblower, stated just days after President Donald Trump was inaugurated in January 2017 that the ‘coup has started’ and that ‘impeachment will follow.’” It’s hard to dispute that Trump-hating Democrats and Republicans have had their knives out for Trump from day one of his presidency — even before as the Justice Department Inspector General Daniel Horowitz is expected to report December 11th. Trouble is, it’s not just the pundit class that’s deeply divided on impeachment. It’s the entire American populace.

When extended families get together next week for Thanksgiving, the more prudent will avoid discussing politics because divisions run deep at that level too. In most families, however, there’s always someone who will bring it up. Then there will be someone else who cannot let a remark slide and will feel compelled to respond. At that point, whoever is hosting should respectfully request that discussion of politics be off-limits for the day.

Thanksgiving 2019 may be the last at which imposition of such limits will be possible. Next year’s Thanksgiving will come only three weeks after election day. No matter which way the voting goes, tensions are bound to get even higher.

Moving The Electoral Goal Posts

Democrats have been bitterly disappointed by some election results over the past two decades — both nationally and in Maine, so now they want to move the goal posts. Maine Democrats were burned when they nominated a weak gubernatorial candidate in 2010 in the person of Libby Mitchell. She got only 18.8% (108,387) of the vote, while the winner, Governor Paul LePage got 37.6% (218,065). He might not have won if there weren’t a spoiler candidate named Elliot Cutler in the race who obtained 35.9% (208,270) of total votes cast. 

Mitchell, Cutler, and LePage

Cutler was an Independent but ran on a platform far to the left of Republican LePage. He supported public funding for abortion, opposed education vouchers, favored same-sex marriage, affirmative action, and amnesty for illegal aliens. If either he or Mitchell were running head-to-head against LePage, the outcome would likely have been different. 

LePage, Cutler, Michaud

In 2014, Maine Democrats nominated former congressman Mike Michaud, but again Elliot Cutler ran as an independent liberal — and again he was the spoiler drawing 8.43% ((51,405) of the vote that, if it were added to fellow liberal Mike Michaud’s 43.34% (264,369), would have put him over the top against LePage who won reelection. Democrats were furious. They hated LePage who was a fighter much like President Trump whom he endorsed for President in 2016. 

Democrats nationally never got over losing the 2000 election to George W. Bush after their candidate, Al Gore, had won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote. That’s only happened five times in US History but the last two occurred in the past two decades and both times it was the Democrat candidate who was burned. The second one, as I’m sure you know, was Hillary Clinton in 2016.

After the hated Maine Governor Paul LePage’s reelection with a plurality of the vote, Democrats circulated a referendum petition for something called “Ranked Choice Voting” which passed in 2016. It was employed against Republican Congressman Bruce Poliquin who won a plurality of the 2018 popular vote and thought himself the winner — but the goal posts had been moved. Voters were urged to vote for all candidates on the ballot for a particular office. They could vote for just one candidate as they always had, or they can rank their choices first, second, third, etc.

If no candidate gets a majority of first choices, the candidate with the lowest vote total is eliminated and counting starts over. If there still isn’t a candidate with a majority of first choices, the process is repeated until there is. That’s how Democrat candidate Jared Golden was declared the winner. If balloting were done as it always had been, Republican Bruce Poliquin would have won reelection.

Supporters call ranked-choice balloting an “instant run-off.” Republicans call it an instant rip-off and consider the election flawed. A real run-off, the way other states like Louisiana do it, would mean the top two vote-getters then go head-to-head in another election. That way, the candidate with the most votes would win — a process voters can support because they understand it. If Poloquin and Golden were to have gone head-to-head, the result might well have been different.

Most Mainers who hated Governor LePage also hate President Trump and would like to eliminate the electoral college process that elected him. To do that, however, requires a constitutional amendment and that’s a very difficult process. I remember former Maine US Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, a Democrat, came to Fryeburg years ago and said the amendment process is intentionally difficult because our plan of government — which is what our constitution is — should never be changed without a broad, public consensus.

Article Five declares that to eliminate the electoral college, two-thirds of both houses of Congress would have to propose an amendment. Then it would have to be ratified by three-quarters of state legislatures. Democrats know there isn’t enough support for all that so, rather than follow the Constitutional process, they’re trying to circumvent it by forming something called “The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact,” or NPV. According to last month’s Imprimis:

Until this year, every state that had joined NPV was heavily Democratic: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. The NPV campaign has struggled to win other Democratic states: Delaware only adopted it this year and it still has not passed in Oregon (though it may soon). Following the 2018 election, Democrats came into control of both the legislatures and the governorships in the purple states of Colorado and New Mexico, which have subsequently joined NPV.

Maine Democrats almost passed a bill to join NPV but it lost narrowly last month. Had it passed, Maine would have forfeited power over its four electoral votes. They would instead have been awarded to whatever candidate won the most popular votes nationally.