2024 Election - Biden vs Trump - The rematch

[swordfish]

Nothing screams an "honest, fair and open" Town Hall campaign event like "No you can't ask what you want - We have some pre-determined questions".....

https://nypost.com/2024/10/21/us-news/kamala-harris-town-hall-host-maria-shriver-shuts-down-michigan-voter-hoping-to-ask-the-vp-a-question-we-have-some-pre-determined-questions/

Former California first lady and journalist Maria Shriver revealed that only “pre-determined questions” were allowed to be asked of Vice President Kamala Harris at a Michigan town hall event on Monday. 

“Are we going to be able to ask a question?” a woman attending the Oakland County event asked Shriver ahead of Harris taking the stage with former Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), according to the Daily Mail.  

Shriver shut her down. 

“You’re not, unfortunately, we have some pre-determined questions,” the former “Dateline” correspondent replied. 

“Hopefully I’ll be able to ask some of the questions that might be in your head,” Shriver added.

Video of Shriver’s response to the woman quickly went viral on social media, with several users slamming the event as a Harris campaign “production” rather than a genuine town hall — where voters typically are allowed to ask presidential candidates unscripted questions. 

“That’s not a town hall. That’s called a stage production,” one X user wrote, arguing that the Democratic nominee for president is “incapable of off the cuff.” 

“Some ‘town hall,’” Fox News chief political analyst Brit Hume tweeted. 

Another X user referred to the event, which was packed with canned lines and talking points, as a “prepped answer show.” 

 

[Muda69]

The Religious Vote Is Waning—And That Could Spell Trouble for Trump: https://reason.com/2024/10/22/the-religious-vote-is-waning-and-that-could-spell-trouble-for-trump/

Quote

About 102 million people of faith—including "32 million self-identified Christians who regularly attend church"—are likely to abstain from voting in November, according to a new study from Arizona Christian University (ACU). Many, including the study's lead researcher, are encouraging churches to "pull it together" to get their congregations out of the pews and into the polls.

The ACU study indicates that enthusiasm for this election among people of faith—defined as someone who associates with a recognized religion, such as Christianity, Judaism, Mormonism, and Islam—is lower than usual and much lower than in 2020, with 57 percent of respondents offering dislike for both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris as the reason for their apathy. About 55 percent also said none of the candidates reflected their most important views, and half of the expected nonvoters said the election has become too controversial.

The researchers, led by George Barna, director of research at ACU's Cultural Research Center, surveyed 2,000 adults during August and September 2024. Barna pointed out that more narrowly defined segments of "people of faith" have different expected turnout rates. Among self-identified Christians who regularly attend church services, 32 million are not expected to vote. At least 14 million adults who regularly attend specifically an evangelical church are expected to not vote. An additional 19 million who regularly attend Catholic services are not likely to vote.

 

There was some indication that this drop-off in enthusiasm from Trump's faithful fans was possible. The former president has been trying to distance himself from his past anti-abortion statements and policies (to align better with the majority of Americans), but 41 percent of Christians who regularly attend church services told surveyors that abortion was an issue that most significantly influenced who they would vote for (and a majority of whom oppose abortion). In August, Trump faced backlash after initially opposing Florida's six-week abortion ban, prompting him to later support it. A few weeks later, he posted "My Administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights" on Truth Social. Days later, Trump's running mate, J.D. Vance, was asked by NBC's Kristen Welker, "Can you commit…that if you and Donald Trump are elected that you will not impose a federal ban on abortion?" Vance answered, "I can absolutely commit that."

This attempt to moderate was a bridge too far for some prominent anti-abortion activists, including Lila Rose, the founder and president of Live Action, a nonprofit that claims "the largest digital footprint for the global pro-life movement." Rose is also a Catholic who advocates banning abortion with no exceptions, opposes the use of in vitro fertilization (another disagreement with Trump), is against birth control, and even says that women who get abortions should receive "criminal penalties." She retweeted Vance's comments on a federal abortion ban saying, "If you don't stand for pro-life principles, you don't get pro-life votes."

Of course, plenty of Trump's religious supporters split with Rose on this point. Many also seem worried by the findings of this study. Barna himself went on The Charlie Kirk Show to discuss the survey's findings, calling the potentially 41 million "born-again Christian" nonvoters a game-changer. "When you look at who those people would be likely to vote for, by a large margin, they would back Mr. Trump. By their refusal to show up in this election…Mr. Trump is going to be very, very hard-pressed to win."

 

The former president has been saying as much for a while, telling a crowd at a Turning Point USA event in July that Christians "don't vote like they should. They have to vote. If you don't vote, we're not going to win the election."

Barna went on to chastise churches and pastors who don't want to get involved in politics from the pulpit. "When we looked at 'what are their churches doing about the election,' what we discovered is that by and large, their churches don't want to get involved," Barna said. "Only 56 percent of Christian churches in the country have even bothered to encourage their people to vote." He continued, "We've really got to pull it together in these last few weeks of the election where Christians can make a huge difference."

Others agreed. CEO of the National Religious Broadcasters Troy Miller shared a similar reproach on Fox News, first blaming the left for intimidating Christians not to get involved in politics by calling them "Christian Nationalists," then castigating pastors for not speaking about the election enough. Author Eric Metaxas posted on X, "If your pastor doesn't INSIST you vote in his next sermon, he may as well preach on the blessings of abortion. It's the same thing. And if you attend a church like that, you share in the guilt." (The Jehovah's Witness denomination would certainly disagree as they explicitly remain neutral in politics.) 

Since 1954, the Johnson Amendment has, theoretically, prohibited all 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations (which includes churches) from endorsing or opposing political candidates. Trump signed an executive order in 2017 intended to allow churches to engage more politically, though it was mostly symbolic. He directed the secretary of the treasury, "to the extent permitted by law," not to treat speech "about moral or political issues from a religious perspective" as an endorsement for a candidate. However, as executive orders cannot overwrite laws passed by Congress, this did not change the law or its enforcement.

Truth be told, churches have never experienced much grief for violating the Johnson Amendment. As The Washington Post reported, "more than 2,000 mainly evangelical Christian clergy have deliberately violated the law since 2008 as a form of protest against it; only one has been audited by the IRS, and none punished, according to the Alliance Defending Freedom."

For those familiar with evangelical churches, it's no secret that sermons are often explicitly political. (As the daughter of an evangelical pastor, I can count on one hand the Sundays I didn't attend a service during the first 30 years of my life—even while on vacation or doing missionary work overseas.) Congregants regularly sit through preaching against abortion—a topic that, notably, isn't mentioned in the Bible—or voting for any candidate who supports it under any circumstances. (It's rare that these political sermons ever focus on the Bible's calls to be neighborly toward immigrants.)

Some groups are trying to get the IRS to respond to violations of the Johnson Amendment. The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) has recently asked the IRS to investigate and revoke the nonprofit status of Texas megachurch Lakepointe Church after pastor Josh Howerton preached a sermon titled "How to Vote Like Jesus" on October 6. According to FFRF, the sermon "made it clear that [Howerton] opposed the 'unrighteous' Harris-Walz ticket and therefore believed Jesus would have cast his ballot for the 'flawed' Trump-Vance campaign to win the election."

"Churches can't be allowed to get away with such blatant politicking," says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. "They must abide by the same rules as other nonprofits—or lose their tax code privileges."

The lack of consistent IRS action, even when violations are deliberate and widely publicized, has led to questions about the amendment's efficacy. Of course, churches are free to be as political as they like, including endorsing candidates—so long as they give up their tax-exempt status. However, given that J.D. Vance recently appeared alongside outspoken Trump-supporting evangelical pastor Lance Wallnau, it's clear these churches are more inclined to hold onto their tax-free privileges, hoping that a Trump reelection will lead to the long-promised repeal of the Johnson Amendment. 

Barna maintains that churches can make a difference without explicitly endorsing a candidate. "This research underscores the fact that [by] simply encouraging people to vote in order to fulfill their biblical responsibility…an estimated five million regular churchgoers would be likely to vote as a result," Barna says. "That, in itself, could change the outcome of the election."

 

[Muda69]

Neither Trump Nor Harris Wants To Drain the Swamp. They Want You To Join It.: https://reason.com/2024/10/24/neither-trump-nor-harris-wants-to-drain-the-swamp-they-want-you-to-join-it/

Quote

When Donald Trump campaigned for president in 2016, one of his most memorable and oft-repeated promises was to "drain the swamp" in Washington, D.C. This catchy phrase resonated with millions of Americans who felt alienated from their government and frustrated with political favors. However, eight years later, both Vice President Kamala Harris' and former President Donald Trump's campaigns are making it clear that their candidate doesn't want to drain the swamp. They'd like more of us to jump in.

The "drain the swamp" slogan originally meant clearing out the entrenched interests, self-serving practices, rent seekers, and systemic corruption that have taken root in our nation's capital. Well-connected companies scratch the backs of politicians and in return get subsidies, tax breaks, protections, and other special privileges. The rest of us are left to foot the bill.

In addition, there's the revolving door between government and lobbyists. There are career politicians who seem more interested in their own power and income-earning opportunities than in serving the people. There's the influence of big money, whose loudest detractors often fail to mention that an ever-expanding government creates the perfect swamp habitat.

Draining the swap is all fine. As someone who'd like to see all government-granted favors to private businesses terminated either constitutionally or legislatively, I'm for it. How many Boeing-type scandals do we need before legislators are embarrassed to continue passing out subsidies (including through the Export-Import Bank, an agency many of us call "Boeing's Bank")? How many more reports like those showing that most Inflation Reduction Act subsidies went to projects that were already in the works?

These debacles, and others like Solyndra, are cautionary tales about how politicians waste your money to help their friends and political allies—that is, their cronies. Sadly, most Americans don't realize government handouts don't do what politicians tell you they do.

And so, during Trump's first term, we saw him proudly announcing steel tariffs—essentially a tax paid by U.S. consumers—on national television, surrounded by all his steel CEO friends. He distributed subsidies and bailouts to various companies, as well as payouts to farmers who were hurt by his tariffs. Then, with several enormous pieces of legislation like the CHIPS and Science Act and the infrastructure bill, the Biden-Harris administration took corporate welfare to a level unseen before.

The swamp is thriving and the creatures it supports are alive and well. Now both candidates want to add more swamp creatures to the mix: some of us.

Take Trump. During this campaign, rather than touting far-reaching pro-growth policies, he's promised one favor after another to handpicked constituencies, including cutting taxes on Social Security benefits and maybe even lifting all taxes on the police and the military.

Not to be outdone, Kamala Harris promises forgivable business loans for specific minority entrepreneurs, better regulation of cryptocurrency to protect black men, and subsidies for parents needing child care and for working mothers.

Both have promised extensive tax credits to parents, no taxes on tips, and subsidies to first-time homeowners.

If you don't fit into the right categories, you're out of luck. That's because your tax bill will be higher than that of the Americans who receive the better breaks. More will come out of your pocket as the favors extended by pandering politicians take the form of debt and higher future taxes. Inflation, fed by all that circulating handout cash, will eat away at your savings and jack up the price of food and other necessities.

And, as if these consequences aren't bad enough, both Harris and Trump have plans for those they like to blame for America's problems.

Harris is committed to punishing whomever she can for the inflation that happened on her administration's watch and hurt us all. That includes grocery stores and other retailers. When she speaks of taxing the rich, that mostly means innovators, employers, and the highly successful.

Trump, as always, promises to punish with tariffs consumers who feel compelled to purchase affordable goods and services originating abroad. He also promises to deport immigrants, including, it seems, many who work and cause no trouble.

Trump's promise to drain the swamp tapped into a real and justified frustration with Washington. Entrenched corporate interests shouldn't be rewarded by politicians with handouts at our expense. Neither should individuals singled out for favors by politicians on the campaign trail.

Wow, if only we could reduce the size, scope, and power of the federal government then there wouldn't be any need a swamp in the first place.

[swordfish]

With the Harris campaign's final gasps of survival calling Trump "Hitler" - This ad could almost be considered the last nail in the coffin.

 

[temptation]

MSM:  "Man, can you believe what Trump said about Puerto Rico?  So much divisiveness."

Biden:  "Hold my beer."

[swordfish]

[temptation]

Pretty much sums it up.  Huge L for the media.

 

[Muda69]

So how long before the MSM starts a full on assault of "President Trump is to old, and is mentally incompetent" rhetoric?

 

[temptation]

8 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

So how long before the MSM starts a full on assault of "President Trump is to old, and is mentally incompetent" rhetoric?

 

They have no shame.  They created this divide and have too much pride to walk their words back.

[Muda69]

https://reason.com/2024/11/06/donald-trump-joe-biden-kamala-harris-election-2024/

Quote

Donald Trump has once again won the presidency—and has done so convincingly.

In the coming days and weeks, commentators will spill considerable ink trying to make sense of this result. Mainstream media figures must grapple with the fact that a seemingly disgraced, twice-impeached, convicted felon—one frequently derided as a fascist and a racist—was reelected president. Moreover, he made major inroads with minority communities, vastly improved his totals in various states, and is currently projected to win the popular vote. Make no mistake: This is a significant win for someone deemed not merely unelectable but wholly evil by every elite media institution in existence.

Pundits trying to understand how Trump could have possibly achieved this unthinkable comeback will focus on his message, his issues, and his campaign strategies. They will investigate the aspects of Trump that make him so appealing to throngs of Americans. But they might overlook the single most important contributing factor in Trump's victory: not an affirmative vote for the candidate, but rather a negative endorsement of his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Simply put, Harris was a disastrous candidate. Admittedly, she had a tough job, given that she replaced the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee—President Joe Biden—in the eleventh hour. But keep in mind that Biden was historically unpopular. He bottomed out at a 38 percent approval rating, which made him the least popular president in 70 years. Some of that disapproval was due to his advanced age and obvious cognitive decline, and in that respect, Harris was an automatic improvement.

But the fundamental mistake of the Harris campaign—the one that assured Trump's reelection no matter how improbable it seemed to elite tastemakers—was assuming that a simple candidate swap would be sufficient. This was egregiously wrong. Biden was not merely unpopular because he was too old to serve as president. He was unpopular because the American voters dislike his policies. On the issues that mattered most to voters­—the economy, inflation, and immigration—majorities of voters solidly preferred Trump over Biden, well before the June debate performance that doomed the incumbent president's candidacy. Voters remembered the Trump economy fondly and blamed Biden's policies for ever-worsening inflation.

Once Harris was installed as the candidate, she had the opportunity to engage in a reset. While she always faced the inherent difficulty of distancing herself from an administration in which she served, she had every opportunity to throw Biden under the bus and part ways with his policies. She could have criticized his economic setbacks, his foreign policy—which was especially unpopular in the must-win state of Michigan—and his border program.

Yet one month ago, when she appeared on The View, the hosts asked Harris if there was anything she would have done differently from Biden. Her answer? "There's not a thing that comes to mind."

That was an incredible mistake. The American people could not possibly have signaled any more strongly that they wanted a change—a fundamental break—with the inflationary policies of the Biden administration. Harris did not run from these policies: She co-signed them.

Indeed, there are several ways in which Harris may have been a worse candidate overall than Biden. It's true that Biden's rapidly declining mental state made him a likely loser in the 2024 election. But Biden, at least, had a track record of winning previous elections. Harris' only foray into national presidential campaigns ended disastrously, with her early exit from the 2019–2020 race. That was after she adopted a number of toxically unpopular progressive stances, many of which she was forced to shed over the course of the last four months. This rendered her a decidedly weak candidate; say what you will about Biden, but he had the good sense not to alienate Pennsylvania voters by endorsing a fracking ban.

Harris never ran from Biden's record or pretended that she represented some actual sea change in policy. Her pitch was: Biden's second term, overseen by a younger and more capable person.

This pitch did not merely come up short—it vastly underperformed expectations. That's because voters wanted to part ways with both Biden and his inflationary policies.

Whether Trump can deliver on his promises and restore the country's future remains to be seen. But one thing is for certain: The decision to suddenly and dramatically install Harris as the Democratic nominee—without any change whatsoever to the Democratic Party's underlying policy agenda—will be seen as a foolish mistake. Americans don't want Biden, but they don't want Bidenism either. Harris was more of the exact same.

Meh, the old "voting for the lesser of two evils" thing.  IMHO a morally dubious position.  Voting is not a horse race.

 

[Coach Nowlin]

Did you say Horse Race??    Now I am interested !!!!!  

 

[swordfish]

If both houses of Congress turn Republican then they better fall in line behind this man and support his agenda.  The first Trump administration was able to accomplish a lot before Congress was overtaken by the opposition, and I suspect President Elect Trump will be getting even heavier headwinds this time around.  My industry was able to work with his administration well and thrived.  But since record inflation, and the current President vowing to "slow the economy down" with high interest rates to combat the effects of his free money give-aways, my industry is in the toilet and FYI - the RV industry is a reliable harbinger of how the greater economy is headed in about 9 months to 1 1/2 years, so being in a free-fall for the past 12 months does not bode well for the greater economy.

[Muda69]

32 minutes ago, Coach Nowlin said:

Did you say Horse Race??    Now I am interested !!!!!  

 

Yes I did.  What is important is that you pick the winner, regardless of whether that candidate best reflects your views, morals, etc. 

Which is why I didn't vote for either uni-party candidate.

 

[Muda69]

Why Trump’s Victory Matters, and Why It Doesn’t: https://mises.org/mises-wire/why-trumps-victory-matters-and-why-it-doesnt

Quote

Donald Trump is the projected winner of the 2024 presidential election. After winning back states he had lost in 2020, Trump performed well in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—states Kamala Harris needed to win. Trump has won more than enough electoral votes to win back the White House and, as of early Wednesday morning, is projected to win the popular vote. 

Republicans have also retaken control of the Senate. Control over the House of Representatives is still up for grabs but, so far, Republicans are on pace to take that too. 

Trump’s win represents another major and well-deserved repudiation of the Washington establishment. In 2016, Republican voters decisively rejected Jeb Bush—the establishment’s chosen GOP candidate—and sent Donald Trump to the White House on a refreshingly anti-establishment platform.

While he largely governed like an establishment Republican in his first term, his occasionally anti-establishment rhetoric was enough to prompt a full-court press from the political class to first force him out of office and later to disqualify him from ever holding power again. In the realm of public opinion, the establishment’s chosen tactic was to label Trump a racist, misogynist, wanna-be fascist whose supporters back him simply because they hate everyone who isn’t straight, white, and male.

As Murray Rothbard wrote in a controversial, but prescient essay back in 1992, the modern Washington establishment has shown a robust willingness to excuse and even side with explicit racists. They aren’t actually appalled or offended by off-color jokes and statements. They just recognize that it’s easier to get regular, everyday Americans upset about those things than the rhetoric that truly worries those in power—in this case, Trump’s honesty about how Washington screws the public over and his skepticism about the need to fight all these wars.

The fact that Trump won again, after eight years of relentless demonization from those in power, is arguably an even bigger loss for the establishment than 2016. 

It is certainly a bad outcome for the establishment media. The Trump campaign made a very explicit choice to engage more with alternative media than any other campaign in history. Trump sat for hours-long interviews on some of the biggest podcasts and internet talk shows, bringing his message to millions of listeners in a conversational setting—the opposite of short, scripted sound bites. Meanwhile, the establishment was freaking out about newspapers not printing formal Harris endorsements. 

The establishment media is quickly losing relevance in our media environment, and this election result confirms that. 

Still, there are plenty of reasons to be worried about Trump’s second term.

For one, there is clearly an effort by some neoconservatives and establishment Republicans to again co-opt Trump’s presidency. Trump, for his part, will probably be happy to bask in calling himself a winner while delegating the actual work to establishment figures who actually oppose many of the policies that make Trump popular with the American people.

Trump is also explicitly bad on a number of issues—like his hawkishness toward China and Iran and his call for more government barriers to trade. And because these positions would grant more power and money to the political class, the prospect of them coming to fruition is far more likely than his better positions.

There is also what has often been dubbed the “only Nixon could go to China” effect, where nominally right-wing politicians have an easier time enacting left-wing policies, and vice-versa. For instance, Trump significantly escalated Obama’s policy and sent lethal aid to Ukraine back in his first term, in part to counter the establishment’s campaign to define him as a Russian puppet. Without vigilant, bottom-up pressure from the public, Trump could easily be worse on some issues than Harris would have been.

Still, there is value in the American people again repudiating the political establishment by voting for a candidate they had clearly deemed unacceptable. If Trump can follow through on his promises to end the war in Ukraine, appoint a libertarian to his cabinet, and finally free Ross Ulbricht, and if he greenlights Elon Musk’s plan to start a government efficiency department with Ron Paul, then this election will prove to have been even more consequential.

With all that said, however, it’s important to keep perspective and not get too carried away by all the focus on this one victory. The unfortunate fact is that some of the most significant issues facing the American people were not featured at all in this election cycle.

The most frustrating example is all the damage caused by the Federal Reserve. As Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Murray Rothbard, and countless other economists in the same tradition have explained, when supposedly independent central banks like the Fed print new money and transfer it to the big banks and other politically-connected groups, it transfers the public’s wealth to the political class through inflation and traps us in a never-ending cycle of recessions.

Further, the federal government’s use of money printing allows them to hide and delay the cost of government programs. All the worst things Washington is currently doing to us and to people abroad are only politically possible because of the Fed.

The price inflation our government forces on us is not only a blatant transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the politically-connected rich, it has incredibly damaging impacts on our culture. Thanks to Fed-induced permanent price inflation, people are encouraged to take on debt and be more shortsighted and reductionist in their economic decisions, firms become artificially big, the consumption of stuff takes priority over the cultivation and production of resources, the quality of our elites and leaders diminishes, and generosity recedes out of community life.

As if that’s not enough, the political establishment has used its ability to conceal the cost of its programs in inflation and debt to build a massive military-industrial complex. The political class has spent the past eighty years finding and creating new enemies abroad to justify all the power centralized in and money spent on the war-making apparatus in Washington, DC.

Eight decades of military engagements, proxy wars, and arming allies has been lucrative for federal bureaucrats, beltway “national security” experts, and weapons companies. But it’s come at the expense, not only of the American public’s economic well-being, but our actual security.

Today, the world is full of groups—ranging from remote bands of terrorists to nuclear-armed governments—that consider Americans their enemy thanks to foreign interventions conducted by our government that were completely unnecessary. Now, rather than admit their role in bringing about these dangerous conditions, the political class is using our perilous global moment to justify more foreign interventions.

That same cycle where the government creates problems with interventions that are then used to justify more interventions is at work in countless other areas, such as the cost and quality of healthcare, the price of college, the affordability of housing, and more. And again, much of this is enabled and exacerbated by the Federal Reserve system.

All of these are major issues that have serious impacts on the well-being of the American people. Yet they received little to no mention this election season. Inflation was mentioned a lot by both campaigns, but the rhetoric never touched on the true cause and only solution. Trump, to his credit, did have some good moments speaking out against “forever wars” and promising to end the war in Ukraine. But his stance on Iran and China was often even more hawkish than the Washington establishment.

The full context of the interventionist scheme creating and profiting off of the problems facing us at home and abroad was either not understood or intentionally ignored by both campaigns. 

The Washington establishment suffered an embarrassing defeat last night, and that’s reason to celebrate. But until the public comes to truly understand how they use central banking and interventionism to enrich themselves at our expense, the good that can come from elections remains frustratingly limited. It’s up to those of us who do to get to work.

Agreed.  If Mr. Trump truly wants to "drain the swamp"  ending the Federal Reserve would be a good first step. 

[Muda69]

 

[swordfish]

A sad Nancy Pelosi at Kamala's concession speech.......Let's all have a moment of silence for the old girl.....

Not the same attitude as back in the day, huh......

[temptation]

Just completed my first 24 hours as a fascist Nazi...hope I am doing it right.

[swordfish]

If you think your having a bad day - Remember - VP Kamala Harris just had to certify the electoral votes in the Senate today.  (She lost bigly)

[swordfish]