November 06, 2024

Election Aftermath: Where Do The Democrats Go From Here?

November 06, 2024/ Francis Menton

Donald Trump has now decisively won the presidency. I have a big collection of ideas for him on things to do once he takes office. So far, I’ve been holding off on writing about those ideas, not wanting to get ahead of myself only to then have him lose the election. Now, the gates can open.
But for today, I have another topic to consider: the relatively tiny shift in party control of seats in the House of Representatives. Indeed, the shift is so small that it is not even completely clear at this writing that the Republicans will control the House. (Current betting odds are around 91% that Republicans will retain control.). Why didn’t Trump have any meaningful coattails in the House? The answer to that question can give some insights into how the respective parties’ odds might change the next time out.
From what I could observe in my own region, a big part of the answer to the question lies in the issue of abortion.

November 03, 2024

What To Expect If Harris Gets Elected

November 03, 2024/ Francis Menton

Without doubt, Vice President Kamala Harris has made it as difficult as possible to pin down exactly where she stands on major policy issues.
Besides studiously avoiding challenging interviews, she has also made a series of notable reversals of previous policy stances, for example abandoning previous support for banning private health insurance, for banning “fracking” for oil and gas, and for banning internal combustion cars.
These are all huge issues. If she has walked away from all of these positions, then how can you tell where she stands on anything?
Actually, I would submit that it is easy to figure out how Harris will govern on almost any issue.

October 26, 2024

October 26, 2024/ Francis Menton

I know it’s crazy, but I continue to get the print edition of the New York Times delivered to my front door every day. It’s part of my mission to keep up with what the other side is thinking.
I read it (less and less) so that you don’t have to. But even an occasional skim makes it obvious that with every passing year and day they retreat ever more from serious news, and descend ever further into crazed partisan zealotry.
So imagine my surprise this morning when the entire central portion of page 1, covering three of six column on the top half of the front page, contains what appears to be a huge free ad for Trump for President.

October 23, 2024

October 23, 2024/ Francis Menton

For well over two decades, the linked causes of climate alarmism and energy transition have provided their adherents with a powerful upper hand in American politics. For that matter, supporters of those causes have had just as strong, if not a stronger upper hand in the politics of all the countries with advanced economies, whether in the EU, or Canada, Australia, and others.
Here in the U.S., for all this time, almost no politician — even those claiming to advocate generally for smaller government or less regulation — has been willing to push back directly against assertions of “climate crisis,” or against demands for reducing “carbon emissions” or for achieving a “net zero” energy economy via government coercion and massive subsidies. Most Republicans seeking office have been cowed into deflecting and deferring on these issues, if indeed they have not openly gone along with the left’s energy program.
I have long said that this situation can’t last. The reason is that the proposed energy transition is infeasible and can’t possibly work; and the effort to achieve the impossible via government mandates and subsidies would inevitably drive up costs and otherwise impact voters directly in ways they would see.
At some point the voters would react. But when would that occur?

October 16, 2024

October 16, 2024/ Francis Menton

The American presidency has definitely had its ups and downs over the years, but at least the occupants of the office, and the contenders who have sought it, have taken the job of being President seriously.
Until now, uniformly, they have thought it important to outline some kind of a vision for the country, and to propose policies intended to achieve that vision. Even if in some instances you might disagree entirely with the candidates’ vision, at least they had it. Or, if they really didn’t have a vision, or much of one, then they pretended to.
In this sense, has there ever been a more fundamentally unserious candidate for President than Kamala Harris?

October 01, 2024

October 01, 2024/ Francis Menton

Back in July, I had a two posts (here and here) comparing the then candidates for President, Biden and Trump, on the issue of who is the greater “threat to democracy.”
The posts reviewed actions of each candidate that may be viewed as such threats. For Trump, those things included J6, plus seeking legal advice and then bringing litigation as to what he claimed was fraudulent conduct in the 2020 election; for Biden, the things included having the prosecutors bring phony criminal charges against political adversaries, engaging in a systematic effort with social media platforms to suppress the opposition’s speech, extra-constitutional expansion of the regulatory state, hundreds of billions of federal dollars to fund the political Left, the student-loan-forgiveness vote buying program, and opening the southern border.
Whew — quite a list! Obviously, the contest wasn’t close.
But now comes to my attention another whole category of threat to democracy emanating from the Biden-Harris Administration. This is one I have been somewhat aware of, but I have not been fully aware of the vast extent and systematic nature of the effort. Likely, this category is the worst of all the threats discussed in the extent to which it represents fundamental attack on the constitutional structure.