RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16715/us-elections-unasked-questions

The initial success of America’s recent economic policy was based on three factors: a substantial tax cut, energy independence, and a more level playing field in foreign trade…. Will there be a high tax scenario at a time the economy is grappling with the crippling effect of Covid-19? Will he stop or curtail fracking and lose the status of number one global energy producer that the US has won for the first time since the 1960s?

Will the US re-join the so-called Paris Accord on climate change even though none of the remaining signatories has complied with it?

Will the US simply apologize and resume signing cheques for UNESCO and the World Health Organization (WHO) without insisting on reforms that most member nations regard as urgently needed?

Will the US dismantle the build-up of troops and materiel that has bolstered the allies in Central and Eastern Europe?

On strategic arms limitation schemes, will there be abandon recent demands to expand any agreement to include China or will he insist on a Cold War style check with Vladimir Putin? Will the US give the two fingers to Jair Bolsonaro and Narendra Modi, instead, hug Nicolas Maduro as Obama did with Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro?

On the Middle East, will the US simply revive the Obama “nuke deal” with the Islamic Republic in Iran, lift sanctions and help the mullahs feed the monsters they have created across the globe in the name of exporting revolution? Will the US resume smuggling crisp greenbacks to Tehran to help “the moderate faction” smile more tooth-fully while “the radical faction” massacres Iranian protesters in the streets?

Will the US stab long-term allies in the back in the hope of turning deadly foes into friends, as Obama tried to do with his infamous speech at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University?

As millions of Americans prepare to go to the polls on Tuesday, joining the estimated 50 million who have already cast their ballots, they might take a few moments to ask themselves a simple question: What are we voting for?

https://amgreatness.com/2020/10/31/a-hardcore-leftist-makes-the-case-for-trump/

To eject Trump now would be to rejuvenate the neoliberal order at a time of showdown and to accord it the legitimacy it desperately needed after its failed response to the last economic collapse.

The dominant view on the Left is to press the urgency of voting Donald Trump out of office, claiming he is an existential threat to democracy, and then work with a Democratic administration to push for a more progressive agenda. Trump is to be seen as an unprecedented disaster, and we are asked to think of Joe Biden as a temporary measure, the lesser of two evils. 

But all of this seems to be driven by a fundamental misunderstanding of where we stand today as an empire, and what this might mean for the actual possibility of change in a populist direction. 

Behind the upset feelings caused by Trump’s “vulgar” rhetoric and style, the substance of his policies versus those of the Democrats goes unaddressed. What if Trump could be shown to be less destructive than the Democrats in every single policy dimension? On immigration, trade, inequality, surveillance, civil liberties, and even the environment, what if reelecting Trump actually would prove less harmful than returning a Democrat to the White House?

Such a case, in fact, can be made. Trump is the first president in modern American history not to start a war. It appears that he tried his best to unwind the existing wars, but faced unrelenting pressure from the deep state (let’s call it that, rather than the military-industrial complex, because it better captures the passionately symbiotic alliance that’s formed between all the liberal institutions and the war machine) against international retreat. 

https://amgreatness.com/2020/10/31/a-momentous-choice-faces-us-today-as-in-1776/

As the historian David Hackett Fischer shows in Washington’s Crossing, his magisterial study of the opening months of the Revolutionary War, by Christmas 1776 things were looking exceedingly grim for the colonists. The British army, the mightiest in the world, had taken over three colonies, including New York, and were threatening Philadelphia, seat of the fledgling American government. 

Everyone knows now that, after several more years of brutal fighting, the story had a happy ending, for the colonists and for the world. But in the winter of 1776, the war was almost lost. There is a reason that Washington’s Crossing is part of a series about “Pivotal Moments in American History.” Had the chips fallen just a little differently, had George Washington made different choices about whom to attack, and when and how, the revolution would have been suppressed in its infancy. 

Fischer emphasizes the place of choice in the drama of history. His book, he says toward the end, “is mainly about contingency, in the sense of people making choices, and choices making a difference in the world.” 

It is a pregnant detail that Donald Trump kicked off the first of his four rallies in Pennsylvania on Saturday with a stop at the site of Washington’s headquarters, now private property, for his fateful crossing of the Delaware River. It was, in comparison with most of Trump’s rallies, a small and subdued affair. (Though with about 500 people attending, it was huge by Joe Biden’s standards.) 

The president spoke for about 30 minutes, short for him though, again, garrulous by the standard Biden has set for himself. The talk was not his usual off-the-cuff, rev up the crowd spiel but a thoughtful summary of what is at stake in this election. Like Washington’s crossing in 1776, the presidency of Donald Trump is about contingency, about choices. In 2016, the American people voted to elect Donald Trump president of the United States. That choice tore the tattered bandage off the façade of the deep state. It revealed a suppurating wound beneath, a septic disaster the reality of which Americans had somehow concealed from themselves for decades. 

https://pjmedia.com/columns/david-solway-2/2020/10/31/2020-must-be-a-trump-landslide-a-total-knock-out-against-the-unscrupulous-left-n1112183

Voter fraud is a distinctively American problem with deep roots in the Democratic Party. One might say, twin roots, for a complementary radicle has sunk into a significant portion of the voting public who approve of the illegal manipulation of electoral results. And there is not the slightest doubt that the “week in ballot shenanigans” is upon us once again: ballot harvesting, voting rules changed overnight, ballot dumping, stolen ballots, extended voting, multiple voting, the attempt to count unpostmarked ballots, and so on. Indeed, every conceivable form of ballot tampering is par for the course, including the latest iteration of the grave robbing vote in Florida.

How this violation of voting legitimacy can be allowed to continue in the absence of strict electoral supervision in an arguably democratic nation boggles the mind. But as noted, a political constituency with controlling access to the levers of power, its legions of cronies and advocates, and a substantial segment of the franchise are perfectly fine with the flagrant perversion of professional honesty, electoral fairness, and personal morality.

Such practices are the stock-in-trade of the political Left at all levels of authority and sentiment, and explain why the Democrats may yet win an election they should reasonably lose by a crushing majority. This leads us to the speculation that there are really two opposing groups of political actors that are not wholly defined by political labels such as Democrat and Republican or liberal and conservative. Rather, there are those who believe that the end justifies the means and those who believe that the means cannot be polluted by a prior determination of engineered ends.

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/2020/10/31/why-i-voted-for-trump-and-you-should-too-because-the-republic-is-at-stake-n1112201

EXCERPT

If you’re still on the fence, please consider the following.

First: There is a Deep State that abused the credibility of America’s Intelligence Community to overturn a free and fair presidential election. If you don’t believe me, listen to what left-liberal journalist Glenn Greenwald told Tucker Carlson last week. Greenwald brought out the Edward Snowden revelations about National Security Agency spying on American citizens. He has been a thorn in the side of the U.S. Deep State for years, and he now warns about a dirty alliance between the spooks and the progressive Left. The whole “Russia collusion” scandal was concocted out of thin air in order to bring down a presidency. If a handful of self-appointed officials in cahoots with the liberal elite can destroy a presidency, your democratic rights are toilet paper.

Second: The grudge that the Deep State bears against Trump arises from Trump’s opposition to “endless wars.” The people running our Intelligence Community got their jobs through endless wars, and a careful look at how the covert side of this war was conducted would ruin a lot of careers, and worse. When Trump dissented from the Bush-Romney-McCain wing of the party over the Iraq war, he became anathema. Trump’s position has the overwhelming support of the American people. I don’t care what you think of him: He stood down a mutiny by a cabal of spooks determined to thwart the will of the people as expressed in a fair election.

Third: Trump’s “America First” foreign policy achieved tangible results, bringing about a new set of peace deals in the Middle East that the establishment thought impossible. As I wrote earlier this month at The American Mind:

Some will argue that President Trump’s record of success is mixed, and that he might have handled some situations better. But three things should be clear from the past three years of governance. First, “America First” reflects a vision for U.S. foreign policy, not a retread of isolationism. Second, the vision has produced some tangible successes. And third, although the Trump Administration’s record in foreign policy is imperfect, it has real accomplishments to show, in marked contrast to the disastrous performance of the George W. Bush and Barack Obama Administrations.

I do not write as a Trump apologist, although I supported him in 2016 and support him in the current presidential race. In particular I have been critical of his approach to China. Nonetheless, Trump’s record is vastly superior to the “Blame America First” stance of his predecessor, and to the utopian interventionism of the preceding Republican president.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-already-won-11604073872?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

Win or lose, America’s 45th president deserves credit for a more competitive economy, a nation at peace and a secure rule of law. Donald Trump doesn’t trample Americans’ rights. He doesn’t start wars; he ends them. And he makes comments that offend people. The cost of supporting Mr. Trump is enduring awkward moments when he says things that presidents shouldn’t say. The benefit is that he champions U.S. liberty and prosperity, and a thriving America is a benefit to the world.

It may seem obvious that a president should prioritize the interests of his country. But when Mr. Trump arrived in Washington, too many politicians seemed to view America as one of the world’s problems. Barack Obama began his presidency with a series of overseas speeches in which he described American flaws. In 2016 he visited communist Cuba where he noted that the U.S. had once sought to “exert control” over the country. Many suffering Cubans wish that we’d succeeded.

Mr. Trump doesn’t apologize for America. When it comes to foreign relations, he thinks that in many ways the U.S. has been too nice. But he also brought the nicest news to the Middle East in decades, a series of historic peace agreements between Israel and its Arab neighbors. In contrast with the expansive ambitions of the Bush era and the apologetic retreats of Obama days, Mr. Trump leads an America that is ready but not eager for war and that encourages former foes to engage in peaceful commerce.

The pursuit of commercial vitality at home has defined his presidency, as it defined his unconventional candidacy. “Is Donald Trump Serious?” asked a New York Times headline in September 2015. A columnist mocked him for seeking to sharply reduce the tax on corporate profits. The real mockery was the damage the levy inflicted. When combined with state and local taxes, the tax rate on corporate income amounted to nearly 40%, the highest in the industrialized world. U.S. companies were fleeing for business-friendly countries.