53percenter's Blog

This past weekend, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders before a rally in Queens.  One couldn’t help thinking: How racist and sexist of her to endorse an old white guy to be the Democratic nominee.  As per the left’s woke philosophy, AOC should have endorsed, in sisterly solidarity, the female frontrunner Elizabeth Warren, or gone with the African-American female, Kamala Harris, or the African-American male, Corey Booker.

Outside the realm of woke philosophy, the above is all ridiculous, of course.  One likes and votes for a candidate based on a number of factors which don’t usually have to do with gender and race, and Sandy O obviously endorsed Sanders because she considers him a true democratic socialist.

But the left doesn’t understand that, or pretends not to, when it comes to voters and voting.  In 2016, you were somehow a traitor to your gender if you were a female Democrat and couldn’t stand Hillary Clinton, or favored Bernie Sanders over Hillary.  Remember Madeleine Albright scolding female voters in 2016 that “there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.”

For many of us female Democrats (I was one in 2016, but no longer), you couldn’t have paid us to vote for Hillary because we (correctly) viewed her as dishonest and corrupt.  And it was galling to hear mainstream media elites trying to shame us into voting for their favored establishment candidate.

The reality is that voting is a complex calculus, and voters come at it from a hundred different angles.  Take Joe Biden’s frontrunner status in the Democratic race for several months, for instance.   There are a dozen reasons why Biden shouldn’t be the Democratic frontrunner to today’s hyper-woke left:  he is a white male, a much older one to boot, and one seemingly stuck in the past.  Plus, he has undeniably lost a step and often has memory-and-cognition lapses that are only politely called “gaffes.”  Yet, many Democratic primary voters, especially African-American voters, are sticking with him, no matter what.

Again, the reasons for that are all over the place:  Biden is a known entity to many older voters; he is perceived to be electable; most importantly, he is the moderate, centrist candidate against candidates that’ve veered into far-left, crazy territory on many issues.

To paraphrase another noted political figure, until fairly recently it seemed Joe Biden could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and still be the frontrunner in the Democratic race.  That has changed as the race progressed, of course.

The idea that voting choices often have complex underpinnings especially needs to be said in the context of Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory.  The left and the mainstream media painted the victory in only one possible way: as a bevy of deplorables — racists, sexists, bigots, nativists, white nationalists — voting for the supposedly racist Trump who pushed supposedly racist policies.  

Never mind that Trump won 29 percent of the Latino vote, and roughly 29 percent of Asian-American votes.  Were these voters racist and white nationalist too for voting for Trump?  

And let’s not forget the left’s continued tarring of evangelical voters for voting for Trump.  As per their flawed logic, voters can only vote for a candidate who perfectly aligns with their values and lifestyle.

By all accounts, the left and the media are doing it again in advance of the 2020 race: attacking and painting Trump supporters or anyone thinking of voting for him as “racist.”

But the thing about attacking too much and too often is that the attacks lose their power and become white noise. 

Meanwhile, the left, and especially media elites need to understand some truths about voting choices and methods:  When it comes to voting, the heart wants what it wants.  Voters are a savvy bunch — they may not have gone to Ivy League colleges, but in the game of life they’ve been around the block a few times and can size up a presidential candidate pretty efficiently, no matter how much the nattering nabobs in the media try to push this or that establishment candidate.

And especially in 2019, voters have become savvier still.  They may not even go for a conventional, charismatic candidate if he/she is seen to be favored by wealthy donors and media elites.

The reality is that presidential candidates have to work harder than ever to earn voters’ liking and trust.  The days of the media building up and pushing a candidate on voters is over. Race, gender, and other superficial check-your-box preferences have never worked and never will.

Saritha Prabhu is a freelance writer

This past weekend, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders before a rally in Queens.  One couldn’t help thinking: How racist and sexist of her to endorse an old white guy to be the Democratic nominee.  As per the left’s woke philosophy, AOC should have endorsed, in sisterly solidarity, the female frontrunner Elizabeth Warren, or gone with the African-American female, Kamala Harris, or the African-American male, Corey Booker.

Outside the realm of woke philosophy, the above is all ridiculous, of course.  One likes and votes for a candidate based on a number of factors which don’t usually have to do with gender and race, and Sandy O obviously endorsed Sanders because she considers him a true democratic socialist.

But the left doesn’t understand that, or pretends not to, when it comes to voters and voting.  In 2016, you were somehow a traitor to your gender if you were a female Democrat and couldn’t stand Hillary Clinton, or favored Bernie Sanders over Hillary.  Remember Madeleine Albright scolding female voters in 2016 that “there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.”

For many of us female Democrats (I was one in 2016, but no longer), you couldn’t have paid us to vote for Hillary because we (correctly) viewed her as dishonest and corrupt.  And it was galling to hear mainstream media elites trying to shame us into voting for their favored establishment candidate.

The reality is that voting is a complex calculus, and voters come at it from a hundred different angles.  Take Joe Biden’s frontrunner status in the Democratic race for several months, for instance.   There are a dozen reasons why Biden shouldn’t be the Democratic frontrunner to today’s hyper-woke left:  he is a white male, a much older one to boot, and one seemingly stuck in the past.  Plus, he has undeniably lost a step and often has memory-and-cognition lapses that are only politely called “gaffes.”  Yet, many Democratic primary voters, especially African-American voters, are sticking with him, no matter what.

Again, the reasons for that are all over the place:  Biden is a known entity to many older voters; he is perceived to be electable; most importantly, he is the moderate, centrist candidate against candidates that’ve veered into far-left, crazy territory on many issues.

To paraphrase another noted political figure, until fairly recently it seemed Joe Biden could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and still be the frontrunner in the Democratic race.  That has changed as the race progressed, of course.

The idea that voting choices often have complex underpinnings especially needs to be said in the context of Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory.  The left and the mainstream media painted the victory in only one possible way: as a bevy of deplorables — racists, sexists, bigots, nativists, white nationalists — voting for the supposedly racist Trump who pushed supposedly racist policies.  

Never mind that Trump won 29 percent of the Latino vote, and roughly 29 percent of Asian-American votes.  Were these voters racist and white nationalist too for voting for Trump?  

And let’s not forget the left’s continued tarring of evangelical voters for voting for Trump.  As per their flawed logic, voters can only vote for a candidate who perfectly aligns with their values and lifestyle.

By all accounts, the left and the media are doing it again in advance of the 2020 race: attacking and painting Trump supporters or anyone thinking of voting for him as “racist.”

But the thing about attacking too much and too often is that the attacks lose their power and become white noise. 

Meanwhile, the left, and especially media elites need to understand some truths about voting choices and methods:  When it comes to voting, the heart wants what it wants.  Voters are a savvy bunch — they may not have gone to Ivy League colleges, but in the game of life they’ve been around the block a few times and can size up a presidential candidate pretty efficiently, no matter how much the nattering nabobs in the media try to push this or that establishment candidate.

And especially in 2019, voters have become savvier still.  They may not even go for a conventional, charismatic candidate if he/she is seen to be favored by wealthy donors and media elites.

The reality is that presidential candidates have to work harder than ever to earn voters’ liking and trust.  The days of the media building up and pushing a candidate on voters is over. Race, gender, and other superficial check-your-box preferences have never worked and never will.

Saritha Prabhu is a freelance writer

“We become what we hate” is an old yoga maxim. I would extend this expression to include fear, because it isn’t just hatred that drives certain actions, fear does as well. Fear and hate are two points on a continuum. It seems we hate what we fear, implying we must feel fear first. If one accepts that premise, we progress toward a paradox of opposites where we first become what we fear and then we become what we hate, a phenomenology in which it is part and parcel of the very nature of passionate conflict to turn one into his own enemy.

Supposed anti-fascist forces utilize fascist tactics in their fights. People decry others as Nazis while emulating Nazi methods. Corrupt politicians fight corruption with corrupt practices. People think the path to non-discrimination is through targeted discrimination and the most effective way to secure individual freedom is to initiate total control over the lives of every citizen.

One could deduce that this inversion of identities is facilitated by a loss of sense of propriety in the pursuit of a goal. That would seem to argue that the adoption of an “ends justifies the means” ideology that allows a person or group to believe that bad actions, even evil ones, are acceptable if the goal is achieved.

Propriety is that set of unwritten rules by which mutually understood limits are observed, limits which are necessary to the preservation of a society, the protection of a culture, a respect for, and awareness of, precedent and the maintenance of the institution of civil government.

In short, propriety is the process by which we each ask ourselves this question: “If just because we are not forbidden from doing a thing, should we do it?”

As Albert Camus noted, “’Everything is permitted’ does not mean that nothing is forbidden.”

When one observes the actions of the political right, one can see at least a modicum of respect for boundaries, a minimum attention to propriety. There is a respect for the constitutional “guardrails” Democrats profess exist (but only for their opposition) and a willingness to stay within those boundaries has been a “win” in a philosophical sense but a loss from a practical and political sense.

When one observes the actions of the contemporary Democratic Party toward an unexpected president (at least unexpected in their minds), one can see the evidence of the fear and the hatred — and the process by which they have sought (and continue to seek) his removal. In many ways, they have exhibited – and are exhibiting — characteristics far worse than those of which they accuse President Trump.

Nowhere is this more evident that Democrats have dispensed with propriety (and adopted the scorched earth principles of the end justifying the means), than in the phony “impeachment” process.

The evidence is legion that Democrats have finally become that which they profess to hate.

“We become what we hate” is an old yoga maxim. I would extend this expression to include fear, because it isn’t just hatred that drives certain actions, fear does as well. Fear and hate are two points on a continuum. It seems we hate what we fear, implying we must feel fear first. If one accepts that premise, we progress toward a paradox of opposites where we first become what we fear and then we become what we hate, a phenomenology in which it is part and parcel of the very nature of passionate conflict to turn one into his own enemy.

Supposed anti-fascist forces utilize fascist tactics in their fights. People decry others as Nazis while emulating Nazi methods. Corrupt politicians fight corruption with corrupt practices. People think the path to non-discrimination is through targeted discrimination and the most effective way to secure individual freedom is to initiate total control over the lives of every citizen.

One could deduce that this inversion of identities is facilitated by a loss of sense of propriety in the pursuit of a goal. That would seem to argue that the adoption of an “ends justifies the means” ideology that allows a person or group to believe that bad actions, even evil ones, are acceptable if the goal is achieved.

Propriety is that set of unwritten rules by which mutually understood limits are observed, limits which are necessary to the preservation of a society, the protection of a culture, a respect for, and awareness of, precedent and the maintenance of the institution of civil government.

In short, propriety is the process by which we each ask ourselves this question: “If just because we are not forbidden from doing a thing, should we do it?”

As Albert Camus noted, “’Everything is permitted’ does not mean that nothing is forbidden.”

When one observes the actions of the political right, one can see at least a modicum of respect for boundaries, a minimum attention to propriety. There is a respect for the constitutional “guardrails” Democrats profess exist (but only for their opposition) and a willingness to stay within those boundaries has been a “win” in a philosophical sense but a loss from a practical and political sense.

When one observes the actions of the contemporary Democratic Party toward an unexpected president (at least unexpected in their minds), one can see the evidence of the fear and the hatred — and the process by which they have sought (and continue to seek) his removal. In many ways, they have exhibited – and are exhibiting — characteristics far worse than those of which they accuse President Trump.

Nowhere is this more evident that Democrats have dispensed with propriety (and adopted the scorched earth principles of the end justifying the means), than in the phony “impeachment” process.

The evidence is legion that Democrats have finally become that which they profess to hate.

Want to make a Mexican in Mexico very angry?  Look at him and call Mexico a “failed state.”

To be fair, Mexico is not Beirut or Medellin in the 1980s. Go down to any major Mexican city and you see people going to work or dining on Saturday night or attending a birthday party.

It looks normal but is not really normal.  Mexico has very serious problems, as we see in this article by John Daniel Davidson:   

Last Thursday in the city of Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state, a battle erupted between government forces and drug cartel gunmen after the Mexican military captured two sons of jailed drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. 

The elder son, Ivan, was quickly freed by his men, who overpowered government forces and secured his release. 

Ivan then launched an all-out siege of the entire city in an effort to free his younger brother, Ovidio.

And the bad guys got their way!

In public, Mexicans get angry when you say “failed state.”  In private, they will tell you that they don’t really know who runs Sinaloa.  

As a Mexican friend said:  “Did the government just lose Sinaloa to the cartels”?

No, Sinaloa is still part of Mexico, but the cartels demonstrated two things:

First, they have weapons and people who know how to use them.  How much longer before the cartels have their own fighter jets and bomb government locations?  I don’t know, but there are fighter jets for sale in the black market.  

Second, the Lopez-Obrador adminstration needs to realize that the U.S.-Mexico border is a national security threat.  How did those weapons get to Mexico?  And what about the dollars financing their operations?   There is a big hole on the border and the cartels own it!

Maybe someone will ask the Democrats about Mexico in their next debate.

PS: You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.

Want to make a Mexican in Mexico very angry?  Look at him and call Mexico a “failed state.”

To be fair, Mexico is not Beirut or Medellin in the 1980s. Go down to any major Mexican city and you see people going to work or dining on Saturday night or attending a birthday party.

It looks normal but is not really normal.  Mexico has very serious problems, as we see in this article by John Daniel Davidson:   

Last Thursday in the city of Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state, a battle erupted between government forces and drug cartel gunmen after the Mexican military captured two sons of jailed drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. 

The elder son, Ivan, was quickly freed by his men, who overpowered government forces and secured his release. 

Ivan then launched an all-out siege of the entire city in an effort to free his younger brother, Ovidio.

And the bad guys got their way!

In public, Mexicans get angry when you say “failed state.”  In private, they will tell you that they don’t really know who runs Sinaloa.  

As a Mexican friend said:  “Did the government just lose Sinaloa to the cartels”?

No, Sinaloa is still part of Mexico, but the cartels demonstrated two things:

First, they have weapons and people who know how to use them.  How much longer before the cartels have their own fighter jets and bomb government locations?  I don’t know, but there are fighter jets for sale in the black market.  

Second, the Lopez-Obrador adminstration needs to realize that the U.S.-Mexico border is a national security threat.  How did those weapons get to Mexico?  And what about the dollars financing their operations?   There is a big hole on the border and the cartels own it!

Maybe someone will ask the Democrats about Mexico in their next debate.

PS: You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.

The usual suspects are indignant, indignant I tell you, about the fact that President Trump used the term “lynching” in one of his tweets:

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

So some day, if a Democrat becomes President and the Republicans win the House, even by a tiny margin, they can impeach the President, without due process or fairness or any legal rights. All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here – a lynching. But we will WIN!

7:52 AM – Oct 22, 2019

The accustomed media and left-of-center figures immediately began howling and caterwauling. This is unsurprising. If Trump stated, “The Democrats are pouring me a cup of tea,” we could anticipate the same St. Vitus’ dance of gibbering and hysteria and we would not be disappointed.

What is dismaying is the number of Republicans crawling onto this particular bandwagon.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said, “I don’t agree with that language.”

In the Senate, John Thune turned to the classic weasel term “inappropriate.”

Adam Kinzinger, a GOP congressman evidently out to be primaried tweeted, “…never should we use terms like ‘lynching’ here. The painful scourge in our history has no comparison to politics, and @realDonaldTrump should retract this immediately.”

The basis of the complaint, it seems is that “lynching,” like “slavery,” “suffering,” and “racism,” is a word reserved only for blacks, and can only be used by them or on their terms. This is scarcely an exaggeration – there are people in this country who believe that blacks are the only people who ever suffered under slavery.

The case with “lynching” is similar. Lynching, it is claimed, was reserved only for blacks, and was never suffered by whites.

This is asinine.

Crusading journalist Ida B. Wells focused for many years on exposing lynching. She carefully recorded the number of lynchings in the South and her findings, while refined over the years, have never been challenged. There were 4,743 lynchings all told. While 3,446 were black, 1,297, over a quarter, were white. The Klan and similar trash were not necessarily picky about who they strung up. It is also quite likely that some of the whites who were hanged were too friendly or supportive of them-there colored, a fact that has undoubtedly failed to occur to today’s commentators.

It’s also fair to point out that every last lyncher, every last Klan member, every last member of a Southern mob in all these instances without exception was a Democrat. Things have not changed much.

Lynching was also commonly practiced on the frontier. It was the major enforcement tool against rustlers during the great cattle drive era of the 1870s-1880s. If anything, it was more widespread and accepted than in the South. Not to mention more virulent: one posse operating on the Platte hanged 35 men in a matter of days.

(A few years ago a black couple were outraged to spot a noose hanging in a steakhouse operating on a cattle-drive theme. While probably a less than wise decorating choice – would you want to tuck into a steak underneath a noose? – it was clearly a reference to the fate of rustlers, a fact completely missed by the complaining couple, who were absolutely sure that it was directed at blacks. It seems that they knew nothing of the cattle drives, another piece of history lost to PC.)

Trump, of course, is not the only Republican to have referred to lynching. A legendary instance occurred when Justice Clarence Thomas was accused of being a sex maniac by the same institutions that are today attacking Trump. He termed the mob action a “high-tech lynching,” which effectively brought the campaign o a close.

What is being done to Trump fits the definition of a lynching to a tee: a mob attempt to traduce the law by victimizing an innocent individual through extralegal means. This is clearly what Pelosi and Schiff are up to — they don’t dare attempt a legal impeachment, and so are trying to goad the media and their fellow pols into a mob action. It’s shameful that there are Republicans willing to oblige.

As for the Democrats, we will simply share an ancient piece of Southern wisdom handed down the generations: “Ain’t never been a lynch town amounted to nothin’.”

We’ll find the same is true of political parties.

The usual suspects are indignant, indignant I tell you, about the fact that President Trump used the term “lynching” in one of his tweets:

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

So some day, if a Democrat becomes President and the Republicans win the House, even by a tiny margin, they can impeach the President, without due process or fairness or any legal rights. All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here – a lynching. But we will WIN!

7:52 AM – Oct 22, 2019

The accustomed media and left-of-center figures immediately began howling and caterwauling. This is unsurprising. If Trump stated, “The Democrats are pouring me a cup of tea,” we could anticipate the same St. Vitus’ dance of gibbering and hysteria and we would not be disappointed.

What is dismaying is the number of Republicans crawling onto this particular bandwagon.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said, “I don’t agree with that language.”

In the Senate, John Thune turned to the classic weasel term “inappropriate.”

Adam Kinzinger, a GOP congressman evidently out to be primaried tweeted, “…never should we use terms like ‘lynching’ here. The painful scourge in our history has no comparison to politics, and @realDonaldTrump should retract this immediately.”

The basis of the complaint, it seems is that “lynching,” like “slavery,” “suffering,” and “racism,” is a word reserved only for blacks, and can only be used by them or on their terms. This is scarcely an exaggeration – there are people in this country who believe that blacks are the only people who ever suffered under slavery.

The case with “lynching” is similar. Lynching, it is claimed, was reserved only for blacks, and was never suffered by whites.

This is asinine.

Crusading journalist Ida B. Wells focused for many years on exposing lynching. She carefully recorded the number of lynchings in the South and her findings, while refined over the years, have never been challenged. There were 4,743 lynchings all told. While 3,446 were black, 1,297, over a quarter, were white. The Klan and similar trash were not necessarily picky about who they strung up. It is also quite likely that some of the whites who were hanged were too friendly or supportive of them-there colored, a fact that has undoubtedly failed to occur to today’s commentators.

It’s also fair to point out that every last lyncher, every last Klan member, every last member of a Southern mob in all these instances without exception was a Democrat. Things have not changed much.

Lynching was also commonly practiced on the frontier. It was the major enforcement tool against rustlers during the great cattle drive era of the 1870s-1880s. If anything, it was more widespread and accepted than in the South. Not to mention more virulent: one posse operating on the Platte hanged 35 men in a matter of days.

(A few years ago a black couple were outraged to spot a noose hanging in a steakhouse operating on a cattle-drive theme. While probably a less than wise decorating choice – would you want to tuck into a steak underneath a noose? – it was clearly a reference to the fate of rustlers, a fact completely missed by the complaining couple, who were absolutely sure that it was directed at blacks. It seems that they knew nothing of the cattle drives, another piece of history lost to PC.)

Trump, of course, is not the only Republican to have referred to lynching. A legendary instance occurred when Justice Clarence Thomas was accused of being a sex maniac by the same institutions that are today attacking Trump. He termed the mob action a “high-tech lynching,” which effectively brought the campaign o a close.

What is being done to Trump fits the definition of a lynching to a tee: a mob attempt to traduce the law by victimizing an innocent individual through extralegal means. This is clearly what Pelosi and Schiff are up to — they don’t dare attempt a legal impeachment, and so are trying to goad the media and their fellow pols into a mob action. It’s shameful that there are Republicans willing to oblige.

As for the Democrats, we will simply share an ancient piece of Southern wisdom handed down the generations: “Ain’t never been a lynch town amounted to nothin’.”

We’ll find the same is true of political parties.