Thanks, Mr. Trump, now get lost
The Friday Letter / No. 428 / Monday - Washington's birthday
Updated at 3:35 p.m. ET with corrections and clarifications
The Lone Ranger, surrounded by Indians: Looks like we are doomed, Tonto
Tonto: What you mean “we,” Kemosabe?
U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and six other Republicans voted to convict Citizen Trump of “incitement of insurrection.” He justifies his vote on the political calculation that Trump’s day in the sun is over, dismissing as unimportant the now irrefutable evidence that Trump had zero to do with the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, but more importantly, missing the point:
“I think his force wanes. The Republican Party is more than just one person. The Republican Party is about ideas. We were the party that was founded to end slavery. We were the party that preserved the union. We were the party that passed the first civil rights law. We were the party that ended the Cold War. We are the party that before COVID, had an economy that had record low unemployment for everyone, the disabled, the high school dropout, the veteran, the woman, the black, the Hispanic, you name it.”
Yes, Sen. Cassidy, and you had something to do with exactly one of those events, the tax cut. It’s a stretch for you to speak of the Republican Party’s great statesmen of old as “we.” But read that last part again: an economy that had record low unemployment for everyone . . .
It’s been said that 100 Senators look in the mirror each morning and every one of them sees a future U.S. President. They tend to be a narcissistic lot, and some have the ego of a rooster that thinks his crowing causes the sun to rise. Cassidy must think he is somehow responsible for the greatest economy with the most opportunity for the most people in our nation’s history. Think again.
Jim Kallinger is senior strategist for the political consulting firm Front Line Strategies in Tallahassee, Fla. He credits the Senate for allowing Trump to take an axe to the onerous job-killing regulations of his predecessors, and for approving the 2017 tax bill. Fair enough. Beyond that, the Senate had little to do with the enormous success of this presidency. Many of Cassidy’s Beltway Republican colleagues worked hard to obstruct it.
Kallinger, who served two terms in the Florida House, believes it was ordinary Americans who made the economy flourish by walking through the opportunity doors Trump opened for them. “All government did was get out of the way,” Kallinger says, by allowing what Adam Smith described as the “invisible hand” to work its magic – millions of people making economic decisions in their own interest that collectively benefit society as a whole.
This explains the lowest unemployment ever for blacks and Latinos, for women, for non-college graduates, even for the least skilled.
Now we have replaced the invisible hand with the heavy hand of the state, with its curbs on economic freedom, speech, the freedom to protect one’s family, even the freedom to think independently. As frightening as this is, Kallinger says, a huge opportunity window is open for Republicans in 2022 and beyond.
The reason is that the 75 million who voted for Donald Trump aren’t going away, despite the dreams of Establishment Republicans who yearn for a return to normal, normal being that idyllic state where they lose with dignity and good humor while enjoying low stress with little responsibility in Washington High Society. They get to rub elbows with John Roberts and Chuck Schumer at cocktail parties paid for by somebody else. How can you beat that?
Constitutional conservatives must start the fight right now at the state and local level. We are seeing some early results, as parents start to get interested in the ruinous activities their local school boards are inflicting on their children.
This is where the war is won or lost, in the trenches. Whether Trump or somebody else should head the ticket in 2024 will become clear in due time. Voters will figure it out without help from the Republican National Committee, Senate Republicans, or establishment scolds at the Wall Street Journal. Trump himself will determine the answer, by his demeanor and by his effectiveness in helping constitutional Republicans win the mid-terms.
In the meantime, voters at the local, congressional, and state level must decide who will represent them. It is not Kevin McCarthy’s responsibility to decide whether Liz Cheney should be removed as the GOP’s number 3 in the House. That is for Wyoming voters to decide, and they are already at work: She will have a primary challenge in 2022, and that is the proper venue.
Lisa Murkowski, the only Republican senator to vote for conviction who faces voters in 2022, deserves a primary challenge, but that is for Alaska voters to decide. Primary challenges are healthy, Kallinger says, but Republicans need to come together after those bruising fights, more like Democrats do.
Now let’s talk about new political parties. At first blush, forming a new party of constitutional conservatives from former Republicans and Democrats sounds like a prescription for unmitigated disaster. That too, will sort itself out.
Kallinger thinks that won’t happen. “What I am hearing is that Trump doesn’t want to start a third party,” he said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “He wants to get things done.”
For a different viewpoint on this matter see the Steve Deace piece at The Blaze.
Sovereign states
Jim Kallinger doesn’t understand how the Jan. 6 Capitol attack came down with so little resistance. Having worked in two state capitols, Florida and Kansas, he understand security protocols. “The actual space is sovereign territory,” the former state representative and governor’s aide said. “The speaker and Senate president have complete and total authority on that real estate. The U.S Army does not have jurisdiction over that space. Even an army should not have been able to get into that building.” Although the House and Senate sergeants-at-arms are out, neither Nancy Pelosi nor Charles Schumer has explained the security lapse. “The thing was pre-arranged,” Kallinger says.
A final thought. What is a difference between lobbying a Republican and a Democrat? “I asked this of a lobbyist,” Kallinger said in a telephone interview. “They lobby everyone – Republican and Democrat. When they lobby a Republican, Kallinger says, “the majority understand they serve their constituents. Democrats have the sense that they are like a king. They don’t serve, but they are an authority. It’s more a position of power than representation or one of service.”
The Second Amendment end-run
Democrats hope to create an end-run around the Second Amendment with a bill that would register firearms, ammunitions, their locations, and would establish an annual $800 year tax on firearms. In a story at The Blaze, H.R. 127 would also establish psychological testing for anyone who seeks to own a weapon. Penalties of up to $150,000 and 10 years in prison are included.
Retired police officers, often targets because they have no backup, wouldn’t be exempt under the bill sponsored by Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee of Texas. While the law is clearly unconstitutional, opponents have plenty to worry about, given recent erratic Supreme Court decisions on state election law and its ideological leftward shift.
Short takes on the news
Get ready for the coming “social credit” system Glenn Beck has been warning about for months. A take on China’s social credit system that rewards compliant subjects of the Chinese dictatorship and punishes renegades, the financial social credit system is explained in the International Monetary Fund’s blog as “tapping various nonfinancial data: the type of browser and hardware used to access the internet, the history of online searches and purchases.” Ostensibly the practice will make credit available to the world’s 1.7 billion “unbanked” adults by gathering non-traditional information. Sounds scary from where we sit. . . . Reports from Texas explain that power blackouts result from too much reliance on wind and solar. In addition to inconsistent, some wind turbines are frozen . . . Surprises that aren’t: The Oregon Department of Education urges government schoolteachers to attend a continuing education course where they will learn that asking math students to show their work is white supremacy. “White supremacy culture infiltrates math classrooms in everyday teacher actions,” reads a promotion for A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction. “Coupled with the beliefs that underlie these actions, they perpetuate educational harm on black, Latinx, and multilingual students, denying them full access to the world of mathematics.” . . . Reasons to join a credit union: Bank of America says compliance with the socialist/left agenda will figure into its lending decisions. . . . Lefty political website Axios is reporting that Cindy McCain and former Senator Jeff Flake may get ambassadorships, McCain to Great Britain, Flake to South Africa. Axios describes the possible appointments as fulfilling Biden’s promise to make his administration bi-partisan, but both candidates are only nominally Republican, anti-Trump activists. Flake wanted Trump convicted in his recent impeachment trial. . . . David Perdue, ousted in the January run-off for re-election to the Senate from Georgia, files to run against the other Democrat winner, Raphael Warnock, in 2022. Perdue lost to upstart Jon Ossoff but will get another chance as Warnock’s win in the special election is for two years only. Warnock, a twice-arrested pro-Marxist preacher, beat incumbent Kelly Loeffler in the run-off. . . . Vice President Kamala Harris has begun making head-of-state telephone calls on behalf of Joe Biden, “raising questions about his ability to do the job of President,” the National Pulse reports. So far, neither Biden nor Harris has called the prime minister of Israel, America’s closest Middle East ally and the only democratic nation in that region. . . . White House Press Secretary Psaki refuses to rule out money for the abortion industry under Biden’s CCP coronavirus stimulus package, The Blaze reports. . . . The best moniker we’ve heard: Hugh Hewitt calls Rush Limbaugh “The Freedom Man.”
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