Trump’s Resilience And The Inevitable Endpoint of Democrat Politics

First published on July 19th...

Forty years ago, after the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan I remember watching ABC anchor Frank Renyolds violently slam his fist on the desk when he was given some conflicting information about the president’s fate.  The ABC brass quickly marched Sam Donaldson out to co-host, hoping to keep Renyolds calm. The country was shocked and somber.  While the left disliked Reagan, there wasn’t a hint of joy (that I remember) expressed that he had been shot or that it was unfortunate that he survived.

Fast forward 43 years and we have another maverick Republican president (albeit not in office at the time) who’s wounded by a would be assassin’s bullet.  This time, while most of the country was shocked and appalled, there’s a significant element of the press and the left who argue that the president was responsible for the shooting, as others openly wish the shooter hadn’t missed. 

What’s interesting is that as every day goes by we find out more about the utter absurd, incompetence or worse that put Trump at risk.  We discover that the DEI clown running the Secret Service diverted Trump’s usual detail to protect her patron, Jill Biden and left Trump with the practice squad.  What’s worse, we discover that the building upon which the would be assassin set himself didn’t have a sniper on it because the roof was sloped – and a SS sniper might fall off – and that authorities knew the killer was there for more than 20 minutes before the first shot rang out. They were even in the building itself!  The most charitable assessment is that those in charge are utterly incompetent imbeciles.  A less charitable assessment would conclude that they were somehow complicit in the attack. 

But of course this is just the latest attempt to destroy Trump. The Democrats conspired to sabotage him from before he was president and never gave up.  There have been lies about Russia, kids in cages, “Good people on both sides,” suckers and losers, and of course Trump encouraging the drinking of bleach. He was impeached for talking with Ukraine, investigated for allegedly trying to coerce Georgia’s Secretary of State of Georgia to create votes after the 2020 election and impeached for incitement of the January 6^th “Insurrection” despite the fact that no such insurrection occurred.  And the countless manufactured court cases were just more of the same. 

All the while Democrats and their mouthpieces in the Propaganda Ministry have been telling Americans that Trump is a threat to the nation, calling him Hitler and suggesting that if he gets into office he’ll never leave. 

Donald Trump has been on the defensive for the last eight years.  What’s more, his supporters have been abused, harassed, thrown in jail and in the case of Ashli Babbitt on January 6^th and Corey Comperatore on Saturday, killed.

All of this presents a picture of America that is much different than the one that the Democrats and their fellow travelers in the swamp and the media want you to think exists, and last night Joe Biden inadvertently highlighted it.  He told the NAACP “And when you peacefully protested George Floyd’s murder, Donald Trump called for the National Guard to go after you.” 

Democrats tell us it is the Republicans who are violent and dangerous.  That’s gaslighting.  Contra Biden’s assertion, I don’t remember the Floyd riots being particularly peaceful.  There were riots across the country, more than a dozen people died and that entire summer was full of violence.  Nor do I remember the protests after the death of Michael Brown or Freddie Gray being particularly peaceful. Thinking back even further, I don’t remember Seattle’s WTO protests in 1999 being peaceful nor the World Bank protests in Washington the next year. And the Democratic National Convention in 1968 wasn’t marked by peaceful protest either.  And more recently we’ve seen the Hamas supporting thug wing of the Democrat party unleash violence and chaos across the country. 

During that Floyd inspired “Summer of love” Democrats were calling for and supporting violence against the fiction of “systemic racism”. And now, while claiming they never encourage violence, they’ve been telling their sheeple for years that Trump is the new Hitler, a threat to freedom and a threat to “our democracy”.  They and their cronies have suggested that if he gets back into office he’ll likely never leave.

One wonders, given the left’s extraordinary propensity for violence, what might have happened if rather than Trump being shot, it was the sainted Barack Obama in the crosshairs when he was a candidate?  And what if the attempt had been successful?  I can only imagine that the resulting cataclysm would have made the “Summer of Love” look like a Boy Scout camp fire.

But it wasn’t Barack Obama and there weren’t any riots.  As a matter of fact, there weren’t any protest marches, there weren’t any threats of violence, there was… nothing.  And that’s the difference between Republicans and Democrats. One seeks to govern and advance its agenda through debate, legislation and the ballot box while the other seeks to use slander, intimidation and violence to achieve its means.

The last time Republicans were given a proverbial punch in the face – the stolen 2020 election – what did they do?  They protested in Washington, and almost all of the them doing so peacefully, as Trump had implored them to.  Unfortunately, Democrats conspired to leave the capital largely unguarded and decried the GOP when the predictable chaos ensued after police and agents incited a riot by firing stun grenades and rubber bullets into the peaceful crowd. This of course was labeled an “insurrection” but it was nothing of the sort. Whatever it was, it was not equivalent to the Democrat’s Summer of Love with burning cities, widespread violence and murders of innocent people.  That’s simply not the Republican way.

The bottom line is, Democrats think we live in a democracy while Republicans – for the most part – understand we live in a republic.  The former is the hallmark of tyranny of men while the latter defines a nation based on freedom and rights guaranteed by a constitution.   

So that is where we stand today.  We’re not at a hot war, but then we’re not far from it.  The Democrats and their comrades in the media along with their Antifa, BLM and pro Hamas stormtroopers have made it clear that a GOP victory in November will essentially put America where Germany was in the early 1930s.  That logic, taken to its logical conclusion, asks if you could go back in time and kill Hitler, would you?  Many of us might say yes. Well Democrats are telling us that we’re facing the same threat now in the form of Donald Trump. Given the level of gullibility and mental illness that characterizes the left, how many of them will not choose to become martyrs for the cause, or at a minimum, foot soldiers?  Let’s hope this attempted assassination has a silver lining, that the rhetoric on the left is dialed down a few notches and a few Democrats start listening to sources outside their silo.  If Amber Rose can do it, maybe a few million others could too and there just might be hope that Trump’s coming victory won’t trigger a leftist cataclysm.

The Debate Was A Kabuki Performance That May Have Opened Democrats’ Eyes

This post was written on June 28th, 2024 but is being posted here now...

You might think what you saw on Thursday night was a debate.  It wasn’t.  Well, technically it was in that it had all of the requisite elements to it, i.e. candidates, microphones, moderators, TV cameras, etc., but make no mistake, what you were watching was a highly scripted, highly choreographed Kaubki theater play that you weren’t supposed to recognize as such. 

Every single American with a functioning brain already knew that Joe Biden was mentally unfit for the position he held.  From the stumbling to the bumbling to the mumbling it was crystal clear to anyone looking.  Despite that, we’ve been told by everyone from the press secretary to members of Congress to the media and every Democrat who could get in front of a camera that Biden was not only capable, but robust.

That of course was a lie.  We knew it was a lie, but they kept saying it, over and over as if their repeating it was going to make it real. They had to keep the facade of Biden's competency up until it was no longer needed.  Which brings us to Thursday's “debate” when reality hit the airwaves.  The June 27th date is important for two reasons.  The first is that because it’s sufficiently far from March 12th when Biden secured the Democrat nomination, there can be no do over or opportunity for anyone else to win the nomination.  There’s barely a month and a half left until the convention and logistically there’s no way that a process can be set up to give voters the chance to select a new nominee.

At the same time, it’s sufficiently far from the convention that the Democrat barons have enough time to send up trial balloons for their potential candidates, get feedback before the convention actually takes place then install their choice.  It’s still June!  One has to wonder why the Trump campaign agreed to such an early debate.  They had to know that the debate was going to demonstrate to the country that muttonhead was indeed incapable of managing a debate, nevermind running the country, which would necessitate the party replacing him.  Napoleon once said: 'Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.'  One has to ask why the Trump campaign facilitated the replacement of a zombie as their enemy with someone who by default would be a stronger opponent?

Nonetheless, unless some big money dark horse like Bob Iger or Jamie Dimon pops into the picture, the Democrat pooh-bahs’ choices are likely limited to Gavin Newsom, Michele Obama, Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton, Gretchen Whitmer and Jared Polis. Kamala Harris will only come into the conversation if a sufficient number of DEI cultists threaten to stay home. And finally, if for some reason none of the others can carry the standard and they get desperate enough, they just might try to woo RFK, Jr. back into the party.  All of those people have been largely vetted and most of their skeletons are already known so it’s unlikely that some October surprise is waiting if one of them gets chosen.

But here’s the thing, the moneymen and the cabal running the Democrat party might have miscalculated.  And their miscalculation may be the single biggest catalyst of a change in the American political theater in one night since Walter Cronkite’s Report From Vietnam on February 27, 1968.  On that night, America turned against the Vietnam War.  It didn’t matter that the Tet Offensive, to which Cronkite was reacting, was in reality a tactical disaster for the North, Cronkite essentially told America that they’d been lied to and that there was little possibility of winning the war.  After that it didn’t matter what happened on the ground, the war was lost in the media and in the minds of Americans. 

After Thursday’s utter disaster, a certain percentage of Democrats who believed what they were being told, that Biden was robust but just a bit forgetful, can no longer be under that illusion.  They may have been a little skeptical, but were willing to go along with it because everyone, all the important people, the officials at the White House to the spokesmen for the entire government to the media and countless talking heads were telling them that they weren’t seeing what they were actually seeing. “The king is wearing clothes!” I’m not going to suggest that all Democrats or even a majority are going to have been red pilled… but some will.

There’s going to be a certain number of Democrats who step back and say, “Wait a minute!” and recognize that they had been lied to about everything for at least the last two years. The stumbling while walking up the stairs.  The shaking hands with ghosts.  The walking the wrong way during photo shoots and the nonsensical utterances and non-answers to questions.  All of it was explained away in a manner that suggested they weren’t seeing what they were actually seeing.  Now they know the truth, and know they have been lied to, taken advantage of and taken for granted… and some will be mad as hell about it and say, “If they were lying to me about this, what the hell else have they been lying to me about?”

And it’s not like they have to look very far.  They’ve been told that Donald Trump is basically the devil incarnate and if you watched the debate, that’s certainly not true.  They tried to say that it was Trump who is losing his capacities and if you watched the debate that’s clearly not an issue.  “If all of that is a lie, what else is?”  And that’s the last thing the Democrat elites need or want, a voter who actually starts to look and learn for themselves, particularly one with a skeptical eye to their approved media and the Democrats’ propaganda. 

Now, again, I don’t expect this to be a majority or even a numerically significant minority of the Democrats and independents.  But then it doesn’t really have to be.  The last election, in which over 150 million votes were cast, was “decided” by somewhere in the ballpark of 100,000 votes, or about .0006% of the total vote.  What’s more, after the 2020 election 9.4% of Biden voters said they would likely have changed their vote had they known the Hunter laptop story was true. 

Finally, there are going to be other Democrats, who wanted someone other than Biden but now feel like they were bamboozled and they were cheated like Bernie’s voters felt in 2016, who very well may stay home or vote for some other candidate other than the one the elites and moneymen force on the party. 

We’ll see how this plays out, but this would not be the first time in history when the elites who think they’re smarter than the plebs have overplayed their hands and ended up sinking their own boat. Hillary Clinton can tell you a little something about that. 

Lessons For America from the Emperor Aurelian

Sometimes history is history, sometimes history is a harbinger and sometimes history is current events. The story of Roman Emperor Aurelian is all three…

Aurelian took power in 270 AD.  The previous 35 years had been nothing short of a disaster for the Empire on a variety of fronts. 

The trouble began with the (well deserved) assassination of Commodus in 192 AD.  Always a force to be reckoned with, from that point forward the army required ever increasing bribes to remain loyal. Not surprisingly, the power of the army increased accordingly. 

At the same time, the treasury had been reducing the amounts of silver and gold in Roman coins for centuries, creating a ticking timebomb of inflation. 

What is known as the Crisis of the Third Century began in earnest in 235 AD with the assassination of Severus Alexander.  At that point the Roman map was about what it had been when Augustus, died in 14 AD, basically everything surrounding the Mediterranean.  When Aurelian took over in 270 the Crisis had hit its nadir and the Empire was a fractured disaster.

By the time Aurelian became Emperor at the age of 55, he had spent 35 years in the Legion.  Born in modern day Serbia, Roman citizen Aurelian would join the Army at the age of 20. In short order he would prove his mettle as a brilliant calvary commander and would over his career come to command increasing numbers of men, eventually commanding the entire army under Emperor Claudius II. 

Upon Claudius’s death Aurelian’s troops would proclaim him Emperor.  After a short battle with Quintillus, the Senate’s choice, he would prevail and take control of the Empire.  The empire he inherited was a far cry from the one Augustus had left. By 270 a huge swath of the western empire, encompassing today’s France, Netherlands, Belgium and parts of Germany and the UK had basically been carved off into a rival, the Gallic Empire.  In the eastern end of the Mediterranean a crescent of land stretching from Egypt, the most valuable province in the Empire, to modern Turkey had become the Palmyrene Empire, run by one of antiquity’s most powerful women, Queen Zenobia. Making matters worse, in addition to the empire being fractured, what was left was regularly under siege from barbarians on all sides.

This is the empire Aurelian found himself leading.  He began his reign by expelling various barbarian tribes from northern Italy. Next he went to the Balkans and crushed the Goths. But, there is no rest for the weary. 

Over in the formerly Roman aligned Palmyra, now the Palmyrene Empire, Queen Zenobia (Acting as regent for her son, Vaballathus) was seeking to convince the Romans to recognize Palmyrene independence. To demonstrate her power she cut off the Egyptian grain supply in 272.  The result was not the one she had hoped for.  Aurelian made his way east and easily defeated her. The next year he would take back Egypt and it was during that period that the city of Alexandria was burned and along with it what is said to have been the greatest library in history.

With the east in order Aurelian headed for the west to crush the so called Gallic Empire and bring it back into the Roman fold. Unlike the east however, Aurelian brought the west back with relatively little bloodshed. He secretly negotiated with the “Gallic Emperor" Tetricus to defect to his side and made him a Senator. Although a battle ensued, it was short lived as no one involved was interested in fighting a battle when both leaders were on the same side. 

By 274 Aurelian had reunified the Empire and had implemented policies to fix two of the most important domestic issues, the corruption at the Mint of Rome (and others) and the grain dole system.  Mike Duncan, the host of the extraordinary History of Rome podcast calls Aurelian the Sandy Kofax of the Roman Empire, not the longest reigning emperor, but the most dominant while he was there. For the five years Aurelian ruled, he was virtually unstoppable.

But as a man, he was stoppable. In one of the great ironies in world history, Aurelian was assassinated in 275 by officers of his Pretorian Guard. Despite the fact that the Guard’s raison d'être is to actually protect the emperor, this murder wasn’t particularly unusual, but in this case, it was the result of a lie.  Aurelian was a strict disciplinarian and one of his secretaries worried he’d be punished for telling a minor lie. He thus forged a document claiming Aurelian was planning to execute a number of his officers. Fearing for their lives these “accused” officers killed Aurelian. They soon discovered they were victims of a ruse and killed the secretary, and very possibly met similar fates themselves. 

So, we have an empire that’s coming apart at the seams, where government employees are corrupt and are demanding more and more money and power be handed to them.  We have an empire where inflation is rampant and the citizens are addicted to government giveaways.  We have an empire whose borders are being breached by countless invaders. Then a competent man steps in to take control and try to fix the problems.  He begins to right the ship, and he’s killed by corrupt officials.

Much of this kind of sounds like America today.  Many of the problems of the Crisis of the Third Century in Rome mirror those in America today.  Indeed, just as the Pretorian Guard was known for auctioning off the diadem and murdering emperors, we’ve seen the FBI and the CIA conspire to destroy presidents, something they’ve been doing for at least half a century and may have had a hand in killing one president.  Our borders are being overrun, 30% of the government’s spending is on welfare, we’re being spent into oblivion and not enough Americans want to join the military so the Pentagon is turning to immigrants. 

The story of Aurelian is a story of hope.  Not for him, obviously, but for America.  He demonstrated that an empire in decline doesn’t have to acquiesce to its own demise.  A crumbling nation can be rebuilt, a listing ship can be righted, a disappearing culture can be resurrected.  What it takes is leadership, a man willing to challenge what might be called “the new normal’, a man who reveres the culture and civilization that made the nation great in the first place.  Donald Trump is just such a man.  Aurelian was feared by the corrupt officials because it was clear he revered the Empire and everything he did was to bring it back to its former glory.  Donald Trump is hated by the corrupt and power-hungry Swamp because he loves America and most of the things he does are an attempt to make her great again. 

Because his reign lasted only five years, Aurelian rarely finds his name in the pantheon of the greatest emperors. That’s unfortunate, because he almost single handedly reversed the collapse of the Empire, which would go on to survive for another two centuries after his assassination. 

Donald Trump finds himself in a similar position, facing a nation in decline and in danger of collapse. Let’s hope that he can successfully and safely bring America back from the brink.  If he does, then America may lead the world for the next two centuries as it did for the last two. That just might get him on Mount Rushmore. 

Follow Me on Twitter at ImperfectUSA,

FairTax 101: Making America Great Again

President Trump recently floated the idea of eliminating the federal income tax. That tax became a fixture in 1913 when Congress ratified the 16th Amendment. The first U.S. Tax Code was about 400 pages. Today, with everything included, it’s more than 70,000 pages! Initially, the income tax was 1% on all incomes above $3,000 ($95,000 in today’s dollars) and applied to only 3% of the population. Today, the graduated rates start at 10% for families earning more than $30,000 and go up to 37% for families earning above $609,000. The rates vary greatly: The top 1% of taxpayers pay 45% of all income taxes, the top 25% pay 89%, and the bottom 47% pay 0%.

Trump understands that the tax system is a yoke on the neck of American prosperity. According to the National Taxpayer’s Union, Americans spend approximately $260 billion a year complying with the federal Tax Code, most of which goes into the pockets of accountants and lawyers. And that doesn’t count the countless billions businesses spend adjusting their operations to reduce their tax burden in the first place.

Trump has floated the idea of replacing the income tax with tariffs on imports. That’s neither feasible nor a great idea, but the notion of scrapping the current system is a compelling one, particularly if it eliminates the IRS. There’s a great (albeit not perfect) replacement for our current system, one that would replace the current dysfunction and replace it with something that would give the American economy a much-needed jolt: The FairTax.

Basically, the FairTax replaces all federal taxes, including Income, Corporate, Social Security, and others. It replaces all of them with a single retail tax to raise a similar amount.

Here’s an example of how it works: Let’s assume it costs $1.00 for a loaf of bread. According to the people at FairTax.org, $.22 of that $1.00 represents the aggregated federal taxes paid by the baker, distributor, retailer, and every other entity who had a hand in putting that bread on the shelf, including the individual income taxes their employees pay. The bottom line, though, is that you’re paying $1.00 for a loaf of bread.

Under the FairTax, all those aggregated taxes would be eliminated. The loaf’s cost would then be $.78, which includes all the inputs and profits from the farmer, distributor, retailer, etc. At retail, the tax would be $0.23, making the bread’s price $1.01, which is almost the same as before.

But here’s the kicker: Under the current system, when you earn $1.00, you only have between $.63 and $.90 cents left after taxes with which to buy that bread. Under the FairTax, when you earn $1.00, you have $1.00 left after taxes. (You can find the extra penny between the couch cushions!)

Given that the bread’s price stays basically the same, one might ask, “What’s the point?” Well, there are many beyond that whole paycheck in your pocket.

1. Spur Investment in America:

America could use a real shot in the arm. GDP growth is miserable (currently 1.3%). “But at least it’s growing,” you say. Not really.

The government will print (borrow) $1.2 trillion this year to pump into the economy, which will likely come in at about $28 trillion. So, basically, the government is adding 4.2% to the economy via debt, which will have to be paid back, even as GDP grows by less than 1.5%! That’s not real growth. The FairTax would fix that. There’s no single thing Congress could do that would more effectively spur investment in the American economy.

The average corporate income tax around the world is 23%. By eliminating federal taxes, Congress would make America an investment magnet. Currently, the world invests $1.2 trillion across national borders annually, $400 billion of which comes here. (While immigrants send $800 billion out of the country annually.)

By dropping the income tax to zero, America would spur companies worldwide to prioritize investment in the United States and create millions of new jobs. At the same time, it would motivate American taxpayers to bring home most of the $4 trillion they hold offshore, as would US corporations that hold additional trillions of dollars outside the country. Both would spur investment and create jobs.

2. Spur Entrepreneurship:

American employment is driven by small businesses that are mostly owned by individuals who report their income on their personal tax forms. By eliminating federal taxes and allowing entrepreneurs to keep more of their money, the FairTax would spur more Americans to become entrepreneurs.

3. Increased Competition and Innovation:

As efficiency returns to the market and more entrepreneurs are motivated to start businesses, competition will increase, which leads to more innovation and lower prices. Consumers will not only keep more money in their pockets, as competition drives down prices, those same dollars will buy even more.

4. Limit Congresses’ Power:

Eliminating the Tax Code would remove Congress’s ability to use it to punish disfavored industries and reward pet projects. Lobbyists would inevitably lose much of their power, as a significant amount of lobbying is predicated on enticing Congress to write industry-favorable tax laws.

5. Collect Taxes from Underground Economy:

Everyone who shops would pay the FairTax, including those in the underground economy who currently pay little or no taxes, such as illegals, drug dealers, or employees who are paid in cash.

6. Eliminate the IRS:

Does this need any elaboration?

7. Spur investment and innovation:

By taking the yoke of the Tax Code and IRS off the neck of individuals and businesses, the FairTax spurs investment and innovation. That puts the United States on the strongest economic footing possible on an increasingly competitive global stage.

8. Gives people their time back:

The FairTax frees individuals and businesses to focus 100% of their attention on starting, running, and expanding their businesses rather than contemplating countless tax consequences for every move.

9. A Boost for the Poor:

The FairTax gives every household a “prebate“ equal to the tax a person living on the poverty line would pay. As a result, every family in America who’s living at the poverty level would essentially receive a 22% increase in their income.

The FairTax is not a panacea—just ask the WSJ. It won’t solve all of America’s problems, and it won’t balance the budget, rein in government spending, or eliminate the vagaries of the business cycle. Some employers may try to reduce wages, which will spur labor disputes.

Those issues pale, though, when compared to the FairTax’s greatest benefit: It will begin reining in the imperial federal government, thereby taking the first step in returning America to its true foundation. That foundation is an understanding that the primary function of government is to protect its citizens’ freedoms and allow them to pursue prosperity and happiness unfettered by the tyranny of an oppressive state. Such a resurrection of the 10th Amendment would by itself make the FairTax a worthwhile endeavor and, indeed, go a long way to Making America Great Again.