This Great Election

Posted on November 8, 2016 by Luke Ford

Education Realist writes:

So I wasn’t excited about 2016, what with all the talk about another Bush, hints of returning to the autopsy plan, even after Rubio got his ears pinned back.

And then came Trump, down that damn escalator.

He never had to win to make me happy. I wanted the message out there. I wanted another politician to defy conventional wisdom, to refuse to step down or apologize, to insist that the people be given their choice. I wanted someone to show the popularity of issues the media and elites considered completely unthinkable, to force them into the debate. The Overton window has shifted feet–yards, even–back in the direction of sanity.

But GOP elites are trying to bargain their way out of reality. They think fondly of a world where Rubio–the GOP’s version of bland, teleprompter-ready Obama–could have won if Kasich and Christie had dropped out because golly, he gave a good speech. Or Cruz–whose voice is so awful I change the channel when he shows up–could somehow win over enough swing voters. Or they blame the media for giving Trump air time, forgetting that the airtime was devoted to blasting Trump for insensitivity, for “racism”, and demanding the public share their opinion. Instead he won more votes every time he refused to back down.

If you want to rebuild the GOP, start by asking a Trump voter what the key moment in his success was. Most will point to his refusal to apologize for his June 16 announcement. NBC dumped him. Univision fired him. And he didn’t back down. He didn’t play the game. He didn’t apologize, mend fences with the media. That was……well, huuuuge in the world of Trump’s base. He snarled back, and got more popular.

What we’ve needed in America is someone willing to defy the media and the elite. Someone who had the money and message to succeed despite blasted disapproval. This forced the media and the GOP leadership to realize that all of their power relied on their ability to shut off the microphone. Take that ability away, they got nothing.

I don’t lionize Trump. I think he tried for years to win approval from the same elites who despise him now. I’m glad he chose to run. I’m glad he showed them, through the people, how wrong they were.

Because unless the polls are dramatically wrong in Clinton’s favor, Trump is not going to get destroyed. If he loses, it will be be a margin less than McCain, possibly less than Romney. With few ads and even fewer experts to advise him–the experts being the one class who still needs elite approval.

All he had was a message.

Next steps: win or lose, Trump voters need to see that class, not race, is the way to grow their ranks. This Sheryl Stolberg story on the decimated black working class that see no hope from Hillary but hate Trump–they’re the first step. I believe that African Americans can be convinced that our immigration policies are incredibly harmful to their interests: in jobs, in education, in reducing their political viability. Working class Hispanics, those of long-standing in this country, are also a great opportunity for actual outreach.

I’m not sure where it goes from here, because very few Republicans in media or leadership have any interest in rebuilding. Most of them believe that surgical removal of Trump voters is not only necessary, but simple. Laugh at them.

It’s all the meme these days for the media to talk about how horrible this election has been, how dispiriting it’s been to true believers in democracy and American greatness. That, again, is one reason why we all hate the media and elites, for failing to realize how exciting many of us are by the opportunity to vote our issues.

To all of you out there in Trumpland, I hope you share my sense of joy in this campaign. Watching everyone in power realize they had no power to stop Trump and his message.

If our side loses, it wasn’t because the media won the narrative. Entire publications were dedicated to convincing the public of Trump’s evil nature. They failed. They weren’t able to frame this election, because in their framing, Trump is unthinkable, a fascist racist misongynist who’ll start nuclear wars. But “unthinkable” doesn’t include close to half the country’s support.

If we lose, we’ll lose because we don’t yet have enough votes. Trump’s important qualities are alienating. I believe they were also essential. There was no moderating, no winning approval, that wouldn’t likewise end his ability to sell his message. And the conservative wing of the party has had it their way for so long that they can’t conceive of voting for a candidate they aren’t crazy about. That, too, was a non-negotiable constraint.

But moving forward, I believe this can be fixed. I believe the media and the GOP will find it impossible to shut down these issues. I believe we’ll get more compelling candidates. I believe we’ll find a way to win more support.

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President Trump!

Posted on November 8, 2016 by Luke Ford

There was not one major MSM journalist, publicly or privately, who was predicting a Trump victory. Not one. Journalists are not our friends.

Matt Drudge.

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Chaim Amalek: I call upon Yidden everywhere to offer up prayers to Hashem to help save this country by electing Trump

Posted on November 8, 2016 by Luke Ford

Chaim writes: An Impromptu And Sincere Prayer to Hashem:
Lord, God, you know better than any pollster the stupidity of the regular goy, the reckless arrogance of the “off the derech” [apostate] Jew. And you know that certain of the liberal goyim are fellow travelers of Satan, whether they know it or not, whether they think it is all a joke or not (e.g., Podesta, Merkel, etc.). Please, just for today, and just in the voting booth, grant enough of the goyim sayechel [wisdom] to vote for Donald J. Trump to be President, and silence the wicked tongues of the liberal, off-the-derech Jews who oppose him from the media. Chastise the Merkel, the Soros, the Blitzer. Do it for us, your chosen people, who know that a Clinton presidency would kill the goose that lays our golden egg and turn this country into another France or Germany, overrun with all manner of hostile migrants whom not even Hollywood can redeem from their hatred of us. Please Hashem, please make Donald J. Trump, whose grandchildren are Jewish, the next President of the United States.

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A Final Plea to Never-Trumpers

Posted on November 8, 2016 by Luke Ford

Dennis Prager writes:

It is very hard to publicly affirm a position for nearly a year and to then, at the last minute, change one’s mind.
Nevertheless, even as late as Election Day itself, I wish to address those conservatives and Republicans who have declared themselves Never-Trumpers.
I was one of you in vigorously opposing Trump’s nomination — on my national radio show and in my syndicated column. And I paid a price, as you have, in losing longtime supporters — in my case any number of listeners who supported Trump from the outset and found my strong opposition to him disappointing and worse.
Unlike you, however, I did say from the beginning that if he were to be the nominee, I would vote for him.
On this Election Day, I am more convinced than ever that this was the right position. I even have to believe that in the wee hours of the night — when worrying about the current and future state of our beloved country keeps you awake — many of you have at least wondered whether you have taken the right position.
Most of you are simply too intelligent, too idealistic and too self-questioning not to have at least on occasion had second thoughts. If you understand — and I cannot believe that most of you don’t — how destructive another four years of any Democrat in the White House, let alone the truly corrupt Hillary Clinton, would be, it is inconceivable that you have never questioned your Never-Trump position. Never-Trump, after all, is not the same as Never-Question.
To prove my point, one of my favorite Never-Trumpers, Jonah Goldberg, wrote in May: “If the election were a perfect tie, and the vote fell to me and me alone, I’d probably vote for none other than Donald Trump.”
In that moment of exquisite honesty, Jonah acknowledged one of the most important moral arguments to be made for voting for Trump — the Lesser of Two Evils argument.
To which conservatives who won’t vote for Trump often respond: “The lesser of two evils is still evil.”
Now, forgive me, but that it is a complete non sequitur, morally and intellectually unworthy of any conservative, religious or secular, who makes it. The only relevant moral lesson here is not that the lesser of two evil is still evil; it is that choosing the lesser of two evils, by definition, increases good. Would you amputate your leg if it might save your life? Or would you say that because losing your life and losing your leg are both evils, you won’t amputate your leg because the lesser of two evils is still evil?
Then there is the Never-Trump argument that Donald Trump isn’t a conservative. I agree that he hasn’t been his whole life, because he probably never gave the subject of the differences between left and right five of minutes of serious thought (nor, if we are to be honest, did Republican presidential nominee John McCain, whom I also worked hard to elect). But Trump and Mike Pence and his top political advisors are well to the right of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. As Victor Davis Hanson wrote last week, in his plea to Never-Trumpers:
“On the Supreme Court, Obamacare, the debt, rebuilding the military, the Second Amendment, school choice, abortion, reforming the tax code, re-examining regulation, energy exploration and production, illegal immigration, sanctuary cities, and a host of other issues, the Republican ticket is the antithesis of Clinton/Kaine — and is recognized as such by nearly all progressives.”
Why isn’t all that enough to vote for Trump?
Then there is the argument that electing Trump means that in the eyes of many Americans, especially young Americans, Trump will embody conservatism and Republicanism, and that would be a calamity.
On that noble concern, I am not willing to turn America over to four more years of leftism. First of all, the damage the left will do, if not permanent, will almost certainly last a generation. And I happen to think it could very well be permanent. Can you name a country outside of some formerly Communist countries (which had Communism forced on them), that chose to go left and has fully recovered from a generation of leftism?
Given the arguments in favor of voting for Trump, I see only three possible explanations for conservatives helping to elect Hillary Clinton.
One is that they are certain Donald Trump is so psychologically imbalanced that he will jeopardize America and the world. But they have to be certain of this. If they have any doubts, they have to vote for him — because they are certain about Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. And between certitude and incertitude, one must always act on what is certain.
The second is their self-image: How can they, truly decent people, vote for someone who has exhibited the uncouth speech and behavior that Trump has? Or, as some have expressed it, “How can I explain to my daughter that I supported Donald Trump?”
As someone who also thinks of himself as decent, I think that saving America from Hillary Clinton, the Democrats, and the left is the most decent thing I can do. And as for your daughter, just have her speak to any of the millions of wonderful women who are voting for Donald Trump. They will provide your daughter with perfectly satisfying moral and woman-centered answers.
And the third explanation for the Never-Trump conservatives is they that they believe we will survive four more years of left-wing rule, and that America is really not in such bad shape anyway. That argument was made this weekend by a writer for National Review. “The United States of America is not a wreck,” he reassures us. “The people who are telling you that it is — on both sides — are trying to sell you something. Don’t buy it.”
Question: What exactly am I, or Victor Davis Hanson, or Thomas Sowell, or at least half of The Wall Street Journal columnists, or millions of religious Jews, Protestants, Catholics and Mormons trying to “sell you”?
And second, that writer and others who think like him seem to be living in a different country than I am. Because compared to America at any time in its history except for the Civil War years, the country I am living in is indeed a wreck — and getting worse each day, and in every way. After another four years of a Democrat in the White House the country called the United States will still be here, but America as envisioned since its founding — as the world’s beacon of individual liberty, Lincoln’s “Last Best Hope of Earth” — won’t.
To think otherwise is willful self-delusion.

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WP: Two Democratic operatives lose jobs after James O’Keefe sting

Posted on November 8, 2016 by Luke Ford

Washington Post:

Scott Foval and Robert Creamer, two little-known but influential Democratic political operatives, have left their jobs after video investigations by James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas Action found Foval entertaining dark notions about how to win elections. Foval was laid off Monday by Americans United for Change, where he had been national field director; Creamer announced Tuesday night that he was “stepping back” from the work he was doing for the unified Democratic campaign for Hillary Clinton.

The moves came after 36 hours of coverage, led by conservative and social media, for O’Keefe’s video series “Rigging the Election.” In them, Foval is filmed telling hidden-camera-toting journalists about how they have disrupted Republican events. Foval also goes on at length about how an organization might cover up in-person voter fraud. In another Tuesday night statement, the Creamer-founded Democracy Partners, which used Foval as a contractor, denounced both Project Veritas and the statements caught on camera.

“Our firm has recently been the victim of a well-funded, systematic spy operation that is the modern day equivalent of the Watergate burglars,” the firm said. “The plot involved the use of trained operatives using false identifications, disguises and elaborate false covers to infiltrate our firm and others, to steal campaign plans, and goad unsuspecting individuals into making careless statements on hidden cameras. One of those individuals was a temporary regional subcontractor who was goaded into statements that do not reflect our values.”

Scott Foval’s Twitter feed is hilarious. He says he’s voting for Trump.

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