True debate leads to discovery and truth, but that debate has been re-defined, basically bastardized, by those who don’t understand its true nature (as nearly everything today has been bastardized). I focus on political debate today. If you want your guy to win the next election in this Alice-in-wonderland environment, please understand the new tactics.
Every debate my email group engages in rebounds to Trump, no matter what distant topic it began with. If my liberal friends, Democrats in general, can’t win on issues, they throw Trump in our faces. How much longer must I defend Trump? He was an accomplished president, but I would like to avoid a third run. The drama is so exhausting and he had his chance already. I want to switch topics.
Still, if Trump is to be the Republican nominee he must be defended and advised (if possible). The media wants Trump nominated so they can dial up the talk of his foibles and highlight his craziest statements. The media’s number one goal in 2024 will be to defeat Trump. The more they keep him on the front page, and the more Trump aids and abets their scheme, the more Biden is likely to win. Of course, the strategy is dishonest as well: exaggerate all his faults to an infinite power, and invent new faults raised to even higher powers.
I wish more Republicans could spot this simple strategy. Democrats can win with it. Trump will remain in the spotlight when continually on trial; it will not be good press for him. A conviction will hurt his chances with enough voters to alter the current landscape. With 91 indictments and unfavorable/biased jury pools, convictions are very likely. Republicans should also realize Trump is nearing 80 and is not the same guy he was as president. A younger, more effective candidate could do better. Furthermore, Democrats will do anything to keep Trump from winning: indicting him, lying about him, and attempting to keep him off the ballot in several states, is just a start. The tactics are awful and immoral and should be decried, but are still effective. Can’t Republicans see how difficult it will be to win while Trump’s attention is focused elsewhere? He cannot possibly help himself and will assuredly during each trial’s proceedings put his foot in his mouth. I wish Republicans could see there is a better choice, but in Trump so many still trust.
The liberals in our group are instinctively following this strategy. They know the platitudes, not the facts, of climate change; they can’t explain how Israel is an occupying force; they cannot tell us how to delineate good from evil; they draw moral equivalences between barbarians and people who have always desired co-existence, but still they know how to effectively use Trump’s weaknesses and highlight media’s vast exaggerations to gain an election advantage.
Republicans could force Democrats to defend the awful things done by President Biden, the guy actually in power at this moment. They could highlight the crazy Democrats who defend Hamas or refuse to define terms like “woman” while bragging about appointing black women justices, passing the violence against women act, or debating a woman’s right to choose. How about while Trump is on trial, Biden is impeached for not enforcing our border laws, for enriching Iran our sworn enemy, for not protecting classified documents, for interfering in criminal investigations of his son, and for corruptly enriching himself and his family? Maybe we can get the whole country interested in politics again?
In most elections I vote for the candidate I dislike the least. I think it’s that way for most Americans. Give people the main reason to vote Republican: the other party is destroying our nation. There are no two ways about it. Realize good things are rarely discussed, so whoever is discussed most loses. I scoffed in 2020 when Biden stayed in his basement and Trump massively out-drew him in barn-storming rallies, but I see now the strategy made political sense.
I have also naively believed the goal of debates is to overwhelm others with facts and logic, but my liberal colleagues naturally tack back to Trump, comparing him to Hitler. They have known something that is just dawning on me: the no-holds-barred attack wins a debate in 2023. The Debating Club must enter the Tik-Tok age. Logic, reason, and facts are old school. The more outrageous the claims (hence the references to Hitler), the more impactful. It is disheartening for me who loves the debate and the exchange of ideas, but we must adapt and counter the new manic form.
Moderated debates are also becoming a thing of the past. If the 2024 race is Trump/Biden, I doubt there will be a single moderated debate. One of the candidates is mostly dead and the other is not as good a debater as he likes to think. Furthermore, the debate stage is not the best place to go negative.
Where are We Headed?
As the election draws closer a Trump/Biden rematch seems more inevitable. I hope both will fade into the background in 2024. The country deserves better choices.
Of course, the question we all want answered is: who is most likely to win? So, we look to the polls. Please do not trust the polls; they always yield an answer, one that may seem right or pleasing, and they are sometimes just close enough for us to believe them, but they are not mathematically sound. They are not random samples as statistical theory requires. Sure, polls are politically biased, but that doesn’t matter; they are not accurate even without the injection of politics–and haven’t been for decades. Further, they are only a snapshot in time. Polls could accurately predict results today, but public opinion could change dramatically during the next year, next month, or next week. What’s the point other than keeping many folks employed?
Still, when Trump has a 44 point national lead and Biden has an even bigger margin, the polls actually tell us something.
Trump’s lead is just 30 points in Iowa and 28 in New Hampshire, so maybe it’s not a fait accompli yet. Candidates are exiting and the “never Trump” vote may consolidate around DeSantis (no other Republican has a chance). Perhaps people are just starting to pay attention and we could have an upset. It could happen, but I fear not.
Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsome are set to debate each other on Fox News on November 30. I will pretend it is a preview of the 2024 presidential debate so I can have some hope for next year.
Climate Change and Such
Allow me a diversion into climate change to emphasize the election debate problems.
A recent group discussion started with: are we doing better under Trump or under Biden. It then leads to energy independence achieved under Trump. Energy independence is an illusion according to my debating partner:
There have been claims there was energy independence under Trump which simply isn’t factual. The facts are we exported more energy than we imported, but that doesn’t make us energy independent . . . Independence, at least to me, means we wouldn’t need the imports to run our machines and heat and cool everything and we do.
Our support of the petroleum economy gives money to terrorists like Hamas, and countries like Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia. These countries and organizations want to destroy us and every gallon of gas you buy for your car supports them.
Our energy independence won’t happen while the dominant source of energy is petroleum, and we need to find an alternative that we have in abundance and better yet renewable. .
We can look at different measures on the first point, but per Forbes Magazine, the most straightforward definition of energy independence is: “add up all of our energy production (oil, natural gas, coal, renewables) and then subtract our net energy consumption” https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2021/11/14/is-the-us-energy-independent/?sh=3f3e550c1387, By this definition, the US became energy independent in October 2019. President Trump simply allowed oil companies to produce oil, nothing more. President Biden’s hostility to expanding fossil fuels threatens this independence. It is an easy counter.
The second statement is just ignorant. If the US slashes oil production, the supply of oil drops and the price rises (basic macro Economics 101). These changes occur rapidly and often without notice. Those countries whose economy is based on oil production–Iran, Russia, and Venezuela to name three–benefit immediately. A drop in US oil production means more profit to our enemies. It is simple math.
Of course, renewable energy could alter the equation by eliminating our need and the world’s need for fossil fuels, but the fact in 2023 is 5% of US cars are electric–and that’s after massive government subsidies to consumers and producers and government incentives to make more electric cars (Dr. Steven Koonin, a nuclear physicist who served as a technical advisor to the Obama Administration, describes how smaller, more numerous nuclear reactors could solve the problem, but this solution is rejected too).
The current administration’s goal is: 50% of American vehicles be electric within seven years (just before we all die from climate change, thankfully). Kentucky Representative Thomas Massey’s chat with U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, highlights the infeasibility of this.
Massey notes:
- The US electric grid does not have the capacity to allow for two electric cars per household.
- Over the course of a year, an American household would use 25 times more energy charging their cars versus refrigerators. It takes four times more to charge a car than to use air conditioning.
Per Secretary Buttigieg himself, “if we have yesterday’s grid with tomorrow’s cars, it is not going to work.” Yet, we are told: abandon your home today because the house we will provide you tomorrow will be the one of your dreams. (see my post: climate-change-failures )
My liberal friends persist:
The problem with climate change whether natural cycles or manmade is the impact to us and how we live. If we bury our head in the sand and do nothing it will cost more later to do anything about it. Examples are crop location, building on the water’s edge, stronger storms impacting building code.
No, my friend. The problem is completely altering our way of life for an unproven theory. It is immoral for the West, still enjoying the fruits of the capitalism and the industrial revolution, to demand hundreds of millions around the world forgo the promises of modernization, all so that we can cool the earth by a minimal amount (minimal per the IPCC, the supposedly definitive source on climate change). People in less developed countries would surely enjoy electric Tesla cars in their driveways and solar panels on their homes, but they won’t ever get there without starting with cheaper, more reliable fossil fuels.
CO2, carbon dioxide, is the real problem per President Obama’s EPA. CO2, is color-less (invisible, actually), odor-less, non-toxic, and essential to life on the planet. Without C02 plants die and life on Earth ceases. Furthermore, increased C02 today is proving a boon to agriculture: the planet has become greener–more land regions have become arable, and food production has increased–as carbon dioxide has risen. Why then did the EPA label it a pollutant in 2012?
There is a very low level of the community scientific knowledge displayed when C02 is regarded as a pollutant rather than the key to photosynthesis.
The first 100 parts per million (ppm) of C02 have a significant effect on atmospheric temperature whereas any increase from the current 400 ppm will have an insignificant effect. Furthermore, because C02 has a short residence time in the atmosphere, it is naturally sequestered into the life of the oceans, life, or rocks in less than a decade.
On yet another scale, geology shows that all six of the great ice ages were initiated when atmospheric C02 was far higher than present . . . When atmospheric C02 was up to one thousand times higher than present, there were no tipping points, no carbon dioxide driven climate change, and no runaway global warming. Dr. Ian Pilmer, The Science of Climate Change
Maybe we shouldn’t run in circles, screaming and shouting, after all? There is a natural cycle not only of rising and falling carbon dioxide levels, but of rising and falling temperatures, rising and falling sea levels, rising and falling land masses, encroaching and declining periods of glaciation, all of which have occurred repeatedly throughout millions and billions of years of earth history–all without influence from humans, and all without human measures to restore the planet to its previous state. The Australian Great Barrier Reef, for example, has disappeared more than 60 times during glaciation periods the last three million years. It has re-appeared after each cycle. http://thegreatbarrierreeflibrary.org/history-great-barrier-reef/
Do you know anything of the hockey stick, the theory that temperatures were stable forever and then suddenly rose during the last 100 years, forming a hockey stick in long-term temperature graphs. The hockey stick theory is the basis for the global warming theory. Where are the actual (not projected) extreme temperature shifts below? Why is it suddenly now that we are here on earth, the climate should never again change? https://www.amazon.com/Hockey-Stick-Illusion-Andrew-Montford-ebook/dp/B0182I73BA
Democrats offer hope of a future that never comes and condemnation of everything which improves life today.
But What About Trump?
Remember, the discussion boomerangs to Trump, no matter how much I re-direct. No point I raised on climate change (and there were more not included in the post), not a single one, was addressed after a week of debate. This is common strategy: the topic is changed or unassailable points are ignored.
I offered this to my debate friends: Stories like the following concern us. You say we are burying our heads in the sand by ignoring the problem. You are burying your head in the sand by ignoring the real agenda
https://frontline.news/post/globalist-groups-demand-us-close-military-over-climate-change
Not Just Less Pollution — Less Military,” reads a policy recommendation in the report published by the Climate and Community Project (CCP) and Common Wealth, two think tanks funded by George Soros’ Open Society Foundations. “Scaling back military operations and hardware acquisition is essential to emissions mitigation.” The groups also urge the military to start closing bases, which are “unnecessary in a foreign policy agenda that prioritizes peace and cooperation.”
A single minded focus on one goal to the exclusion of all others is a bad idea. The response, of course, pivoted to Trump:
Why do you think each of the fringe left groups represent all Democrats, maybe that’s how they are portrayed in the narrative? You seem to think the Trump MAGA, who you call fringe actually represents about 1/2 of the Republicans, making them more than a fringe, and they are drinking some very powerful kool aide. They look at Trump as a god or someone who can do no wrong, willing to let him be an authoritarian and go after anyone who disagrees with him as long as they get their inexpensive gas.
I know the current discussion is climate change, but you changed it to the “real” agenda. Take a look sometime at Trump and his real agenda, it isn’t about making America Great Again, it’s about making Trump all powerful and it will be at the detriment of everyone. He thinks he wants to be in the same club as the most powerful and dangerous dictators that ever existed, which should make everyone in our country worry, but ultimately he’s just a bone spur draft dodging little coward with a big ego. He will make us all pay if he gets his way though and my advice is be very afraid of him. I hope I’m wrong.
Trump’s actions are that of a dictator and so are his words. He is pulling phrases straight out of Hitler’s speeches, particular ones that raise lots of questions about his goals and the dog whistle phraseology.
The “real agenda” is echoed by Barrack Obama, not Trump. Obama wanted to fundamentally transform America. He was raised and mentored by Marxists, and he advanced the Marxist goal of tearing down the common values we used to share: faith, federalism, individual freedoms, work ethic, education, national pride, and common identity (i.e. not the creation of sub-groups separated by every identity under the sun). He doesn’t believe in traditional American values, and Marxism requires they be destroyed first. Allegiance is to the state only.
Climate change is a means to further the Marxist goal of destroying America from within, the long march through the institutions which is bearing fruit after sixty years. Fixing the climate is not and has never been a goal. The leading climate spokespeople don’t even abide by their own rules. John Kerry and Bill Gates say they do so much for the climate, so they should be allowed to burn mass quantities of CO2 in their private jets, and there isn’t a bigger phony or absolute climate moron than Al Gore.
The George Soros backed group which seeks to curtail the military for the sake of climate is a kooky fringe group per my friend, but the Obama EPA which called C02, a gas essential to life a pollutant, is not fringe? Because President Obama lends his name to this nonsense it is not a goofy fringe idea?
Is there any point in trying to talk climate change or do you just want to complain about Trump?
Ben Shapiro says Trump’s epitaph will say: “He said a lot of stuff.” Saying stuff and doing stuff are different things, you know. I am personally tired of Trump’s emoting. He does talk too damn much, but compare his words to the awful Biden actions. The emoting is far less impactful.
My friends can’t help but skewer Trump. I liked Trump as president; he did many good things. I think his time has passed, but still he was not a dictator and is not Hitler by any stretch. Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin, two very prominent Jewish conservative talk show hosts declare Trump the most pro-Israel president ever, a very un-Hitler-like profile.
Perhaps my friend was referring to the following dictatorial actions instead:
- a president/dictator ignoring a Supreme Court decision and continuing to forgive student loans?
- a president/dictator mandating a medical treatment and firing military personnel for refusing?
- a president/dictator using the IRS against his political opponents? Conservative Talk Radio Host Clay Travis Says He’s Being Targeted By The IRS. | Story | insideradio.com.
- a president/dictator diverting investigations into his family’s corrupt business, and prosecuting his main political rival to help get himself re-elected?
- a president/dictator refusing to enforce immigration laws: leading to importation of terrorists from all over the world and enough fentanyl to kill 100,000 Americans yearly?
Which president/dictator would that be?
Trump pulls phrases from Hitler’s speeches? That sounds cute and is lapped up without question by people who hate Trump. I think it was a reference to his use of the word “vermin”, a word apparently about to be removed from the English dictionary and reserved for use only by Hitler. This one utterance (ignore all other surrounding words, please) was enough for the whole of one channel media to pivot to Hitler. Remember: the more outrageous the claim, the bigger the impact. https://www.npr.org/2023/11/17/1213746885/trump-vermin-hitler-immigration-authoritarian-republican-primary
Last year, there was a story about military academy cadets use of the “ok” sign at a football game being a dog whistle for white supremacy. The ‘OK’ gesture as a white supremacist symbol is not a hoax. How did everyone get convinced it was? : r/conspiracy (reddit.com)
Can we talk about something serious, please? Can we ever have a REAL debate again?
Still my liberal friend keeps pivoting to Trump, the hypothetical Trump, not the out-of-control Biden:
If it doesn’t concern you, it should, when Trump talks about the retribution he is planning if he becomes president. He said he will be using government resources to go after his enemies, not just those people that investigated him or his company, but anyone who has said anything negative about him. There is also talk that he will require federal employees to pledge loyalty to him, not the constitution, or country, but to him. That sounds about as authoritarian as they come and dictators like Duvalier in Haiti, or the Kim’s in North Korea. Is that the type of country you want? If you think you’ll be treated differently because you support him, you’ll quickly find out the good life only applies to those in the inner circle, which you are likely not part of.
Who actually flaunts the rules? Who ekes of retribution? The prosecution of Trump is clearly election interference, and it is done openly. Democrats are trying to take him off the ballot in two states. Is this how to conduct FAIR elections? Russia, China, and Iran have elections also. They show elections, so they can pretend they are democratic. Is there much difference between them and us if our unjust legal-fare is allowed to stand?
I am not an apologist for Republicans either. The party is full of phonies and sells out its base continually. I’ve simply contended one party has zero to offer intellectually, morally, and spiritually and wants to destroy all that is good or ever was good in America. The other party is not so good at defending its positions, but at least isn’t wholly evil.
The Microcosm
Our little group seems a microcosm of the national debate.
Trump creates problems for himself, but perhaps restricting his Twitter account was ironically a good thing. Can we channel the good Trump and then switch the debate to Biden? Can we deflect to our opponents’ nonsense? Can we stick to the topic and not continually chase squirrels?
I will support Trump if nominated, but Republicans should see their way to another candidate. DeSantis is not as charismatic as Trump, but is more disciplined and as accomplished and successful as any governor in my memory. Vivek wants to be the younger version of Trump while Haley wants to be the more adult version, but neither is as accomplished as DeSantis or Trump. Christie wants to be the anti-Trump but that won’t sell in today’s Republican Party.
DeSantis forwards pro-Trump policies, but at the same time avoids stepping on the many rakes placed in front of him (unlike Trump). Trump speaks too much of himself and is less about change these days. DeSantis speaks less while doing the deeds first, a rarity in politics. Trump won’t even debate his opponents. How do we know if he is ready to be president in 2024? 2024 is an opportunity for real change, and DeSantis is the most likely to deliver that change. Support the one good alternative to Trump.
Dave https://seek-the-truth.com/about/
https://seek-the-truth.com/
Seek the Truth 
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