It’s been a big news week, and someone was noticeable by his non-presence. Or would that be behind-the-scenes presence?
He who dares not offend cannot be honest.
Thomas Paine, “The Forester’s Letters,” Letter III—‘To Cato,’ Pennsylvania Journal (April 24, 1776).
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Monarchy or Republic
On November 12, 1905, Norwegians established, by referendum, a monarchy — not a republic. Exactly 14 years later, to the day, Austria became a republic.
“After years of claiming that money in politics is bad and Trumpists will destroy America,” writes Joe Lancaster in Reason, “Democrats spent millions to boost the people they are most afraid of.”
In a strategy that might be designated Too Clever by Half, “Throughout the 2022 primary season, groups affiliated with the Democratic Party funded ads to boost immoderate Republican candidates,” Lancaster explains. “The goal was to boost the least moderate candidates in the hopes that they would be easier to beat in a general election.”
The Senate Majority PAC bought ads for New Hampshire’s Republican U.S. Senate primary, for instance, calling Chuck Morse a “sleazy politician,” allowing a retired brigadier general to advance on to the general election — only to lose to the incumbent. Another Democratic PAC pushed “nearly $100,000 on ads proclaiming Republican House primary candidate Robert Burns ‘the ultra-conservative candidate’ who ‘follows the Trump playbook.’” Burns went on to defeat his more moderate competitor and then be defeated in the general election.
That was the pattern around the country.
If this all sounds familiar, this is how we got Trump into the forefront in the first place. Hillary Clinton’s campaign infamously orchestrated the corporate news media’s fixation on Trump in 2015 and through to Trump’s winning the primary contest. And then, you will remember, the news media changed course and started the great anti-Trump freak-out.
This time, however, it may have paid off. Or at least not horribly backfired, for the much-prophesied Election Day 2022 “Red Wave” merely eroded the Democrats’ stranglehold on unified government.
Washed away, instead, is the idea that Democrats truly fear these “mega-MAGA Republicans” or care about democracy.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Fyodor Dostoevsky
It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool’s paradise.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot (1869).
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Eleven/Eleven/Eleven
On November 11, 1889, the State of Washington was admitted as the 42nd State of the United States.
In 1918, German officials signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car in the forest of Compiègne, France. The fighting officially ended at 11:00 a.m. — the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. The war officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919.
In 1921 on this date, U.S. President Warren G. Harding dedicated the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery.
Back in the Spring, a pollster was detailing his findings to a group of us. The Democrats were none too popular, he informed. And informed. And further informed. But at one point, the pollster stopped to remind: “Don’t get me wrong, that’s not to suggest the public is fond of Republicans.”
“We have the worst inflation in four decades, the worst collapse in real wages in 40 years, the worst crime wave since the 1990s, the worst border crisis in U.S. history, we have Joe Biden who is the least popular president . . . since presidential polling happened,” Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen explained on Fox News, “and there wasn’t a red wave.”
Barely a ripple.
Voters, he continued. “looked at all of that and looked at the Republican alternative and said, ‘No, thanks!’”
Calling it “an absolute disaster,” Thiessen advised the GOP to do a “a really deep introspective look in the mirror right now.”
Watch for cracks.
More than the abortion issue or the mixed blessing of Mr. Trump’s omnipresence, I think the GOP’s problem was the lack of any serious, cohesive and positive agenda. We are indeed facing massive inflation, crime, cultural revolution . . . but what are you going do ’bout it?
Answers aren’t coming from the Republican Party.
In last year’s red wave across my home state of Virginia, it wasn’t now-Governor Glenn Younkin who made respecting the rights of the parents of public education students a cataclysmic issue. Parents did that.
The Republican Revolution of 1994 rode a tsunami produced in no small part by the term limits movement. With term limits measures on the ballot throughout the country, the GOP gained 52 seats to secure a majority after 40 consecutive years in the minority — even defeating the Democratic House Speaker.
Want candidates to ride a popular, pro-freedom wave?
Better start splashing.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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William Godwin
Whenever government assumes to deliver us from the trouble of thinking for ourselves, the only consequences it produces are those of torpor and imbecility.
William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793), Vol. 2, bk. 6, ch. 1.
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Cry of Independence
On November 10, 1821, the First Cry of Independence in the small, interior town of Villa de los Santos, occurred in Panama. The November 10 date has since become Panama’s “Cry of Independence Day” in the country.
The GOP has just issued a 1,000-page report about corruption in the Department of Justice and its Federal Bureau of Investigation. Based largely on the disclosures of 14 whistleblowers, plus what’s in plain sight — what we’ve all been able to see for ourselves over the last several years — the report details “a rampant culture of unaccountability, manipulation, and abuse.”
- To support its political agendas, the FBI has deliberately inflated statistics about “domestic violent extremism” and has diverted resources from legitimate investigations — like those into child trafficking.
- The Justice Department and FBI have averted their gaze from blatant and multifarious wrongdoing by Hunter Biden, son of the president.
- The FBI has “purged” employees who disagree with the left-leaning ideology of top brass.
- The FBI has targeted parents for investigation simply for protesting school board policies.
- Without cause, the FBI has been spying on US citizens, including persons who worked for candidate Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
- Like other agencies, the FBI has worked with Big Tech social-media companies to censor viewpoints that FBI honchos find uncongenial.
- While targeting anti-abortion activists who have perpetrated no violent acts, DOJ and FBI have ignored attacks on churches and pregnancy centers.
To be sure, the recent conduct of these agencies has plenty of precedent; thousands more pages could be produced.
From initial election results (before I got too sleepy), Republicans will have control of the House of Representatives, at the very least, and perhaps a Senate majority. They will have the power to press their investigation further and compel reforms.
The House controls the purse strings . . . if it dares.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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