What are Democrats saying about Joe Biden in private? Is it all positive?
One day this will all be over.
As America heads into the Thanksgiving holiday, perhaps it’s time to reflect on our moment in time. Even in the darkest hour it’s comforting to know that whatever troubles us at present is only short-lived. According to Wikipedia, the saying This too shall pass “is a Persian adage translated and used in multiple languages. It reflects on the temporary nature, or ephemerality, of the human condition. The general sentiment is often expressed in wisdom literature throughout history and across cultures, although the specific phrase seems to have originated in the writings of the medieval Persian Sufi poets such as Rumi.”
Wherever the saying originated, it’s familiar to most people and comforting whether you’re hearing it for the first time or is frequently employed in your neck of the woods. The establishment news media makes it seem like every headline grabbing occurrence is permanent and damaging to somebody. Hardly. We all could soothe ourselves in moments of trial by figuring “Tomorrow is another day,” or “The sun will come up tomorrow.”
The same is true for President Donald Trump’s supporters. With lawsuits and recounts moving forward and certification deadlines having come and gone or rapidly approaching in most states, everyone has an opinion as to the wisdom of keeping up the fight to contest the election. Trump will win, or he won’t. One day this will be over. The question is how much people will choose to remember.
As might be expected, Trump’s enemies are revealing themselves in unexpected ways. For example, Watergate investigative “reporter” Carl Bernstein says there are twenty-one Republican senators who’re apparently taking the occasion to talk behind the outsider president’s back. Daniel Chaitin wrote at The Washington Examiner, “Veteran investigative journalist Carl Bernstein revealed the Republican senators he says have privately complained about President Trump.
“’I'm not violating any pledge of journalistic confidentially [sic] in reporting this: 21 Republican Sens–in convos w/ colleagues, staff members, lobbyists, W. House aides–have repeatedly expressed extreme contempt for Trump & his fitness to be POTUS,’ he said, nearly three weeks after Election Day…
“’With few exceptions, their craven public silence has helped enable Trump’s most grievous conduct — including undermining and discrediting the US the electoral system [sic],’ Bernstein finished.
The Republicans Bernstein named are: Ohio's Rob Portman, Tennessee's Lamar Alexander, Nebraska's Ben Sasse, Missouri's Roy Blunt, Maine's Susan Collins, Alaska's Lisa Murkowski, Texas's John Cornyn, South Dakota's John Thune, Utah's Mitt Romney, Indiana's Mike Braun, Indiana's Todd Young, South Carolina's Tim Scott, Florida's Rick Scott, Florida's Marco Rubio, Iowa's Chuck Grassley, North Carolina's Richard Burr, Pennsylvania's Pat Toomey, Arizona's Martha McSally, Kansas's Jerry Moran, Kansas's Pat Roberts, and Alabama's Richard Shelby.
With the possible exception of a few names, it’s not surprising to hear these mostly establishmentarians are whispering about Trump. Most of them are the who’s who of the Washington GOP ruling class and likely will find themselves on the wrong end of a primary challenge at some point. To my knowledge, none of them were enthusiastic supporters of Trump’s initial run for president. These “sources” supplied Bernstein and other journalists with all the quotes they’d ever need to make it seem like all Republicans are of the same mind.
At least three of them won’t be in the next Congress (Martha McSally lost her seat a few weeks ago and Pat Roberts and Lamar Alexander retired). It’s odd to see Sen. Tim Scott among the names because Trump has worked closely with the South Carolina senator to promote his enterprise zones. And Scott delivered a terrific speech at August’s Republican convention where he commended Trump for his work to improve African-American communities.
Then there are the obvious wishy-washy thorns in Trump’s side. You know, Ben Sasse, Susan Collins (who was running for re-election in a blueish purple state), Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney. No shockers there. Sasse talks a lot but his voting record is solid. Murkowski can always be counted on to draw attention to herself as a “swing” vote and Romney is about as big a spineless RINO weenie as there is in Washington today. When he’s turned out of office in a few years he’ll probably head for the nearest #NeverTrump faction and melt into irrelevancy with the rest of the movement.
It's unlikely anyone -- including Trump -- will get too upset about Bernstein’s scoop. This too shall pass. Bigger fish to fry elsewhere.
The more revealing question is why old dinosaur “investigative reporters” like Bernstein aren’t more interested in reporting what Democrats are gossiping about behind Joe Biden’s back? If Trump did indeed lose the presidential election and he’ll be out of office in two months, what does it matter if twenty-one Republican senators grumbled to someone about Trump’s “fitness” for office? All of them -- even Romney on the recent Supreme Court vacancy -- proved useful in passing some aspect of Trump’s agenda. All of them remained fairly united in advancing Trump’s judicial nominations. And all of them, more or less, contributed enough votes to stop the House Democrats’ disastrous socialist pipedreams from seeing the light of day.
In today’s ultra-divided partisan environment, senators don’t do much other than vote on whatever the majority leader decides to bring to the floor. With the filibuster very much still in existence, the majority -- and minority -- can kill anything coming from the House side. It wouldn’t matter if all 53 current Republicans didn’t think Trump was “fit” to serve as long as they did their jobs.
Why doesn’t the media report on the much more fascinating schisms in the Democrat faction? It shouldn’t be forgotten that most of Joe Biden’s Democrat primary competition/opposition came from party senators. Sen. Bernie Sanders was within a whisker of being on the November ballot instead of Grampa Joe if South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn hadn’t stirred up the African-American vote in his home state.
Then there was Senator Kamala Harris, who was basically cut down early in the process by revelations about her unprincipled lack of support for certain liberal anti-law enforcement causes. Biden chose her for his running mate because her skin color and gender fit his identity politics profile. Senator Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren allied herself with Sanders and left no doubt that she would make trouble for the new president if he didn’t go along with her crackpot rantings on consumer protection and the like. Senator Amy Klobuchar also challenged Biden for the badly mislabeled “centrist” Democrat vote.
Democrat “centrists” are every bit as liberal as the fringe contingent, they just haven’t adopted the “socialist” tag yet.
What are these folks saying about Biden’s “fitness” to serve? Does anyone truly believe that all Democrats consider Biden up to the physical and mental challenges of occupying the Oval Office? How many are counting on Grampa Joe to falter at some point and leave the 2024 Democrat nomination up for grabs? How many Democrats have memorized the rules for exploratory committees to keep their options open?
Trump may run again in 2024. At that time, it might be reasonable to revisit who said what about him in his first term. But for now, this too will pass. Bernstein and company are desperately grasping for some way to trash Trump while they still can. If the Watergate opportunist published this story on January 22, 2021, would anyone care?
It's stupid.
There is much still to be thankful for on the fourth Thursday in November
There’s little doubt that thankfulness and gratitude are in short supply these days. Even if fortunes rapidly turned and President Trump could somehow prove massive fraud and the election were overturned, his second term would be shrouded in darkness and he would face a hostile if not violent opposition. The media and Democrats would almost certainly spin the midterm elections as a referendum on Trump’s “coup” that “stole” the presidential contest from ol’ doddering Joe.
Society would break down. It would be ugly. There aren’t any good options. But nonetheless, there is much to be grateful for.
We should give thanks to President Trump. The longtime successful businessman and TV star could’ve just rode into the sunset, watched his family’s interests grow and played a lot of golf. Instead, Trump chose to stare down the entrenched political establishment, throw a few proverbial elbows and do hand-to-hand combat with any and all comers for five and a half years. And he did it for free, donating his presidential salary to worthy causes and personally financing much of his own campaign. In 2016, Trump asked black voters, “What do you have to lose?” The same philosophy could be applied to himself. He pulled no punches, won the adoration and goodwill of tens of millions and can control his own political destiny. Thank you, President Trump!
We should give thanks to Vice President Pence. Perhaps no one other than Trump has endured as much pure hatred and leftist vindictive than Pence. How many “rumors” circulated that Pence had had enough of Trump and wanted nothing to do with him? How many enemies accused the vice president of being a sycophant to a tyrant and savaged him for failing to get onboard the media’s 25th Amendment drive to remove Trump? Pence’s steadfast conservative principled fingerprints are evident in many of the Trump administration’s greatest policy achievements. Not bad for a humble guy from Indiana.
We should give thanks to the conservatives in Congress. Certainly not all conservatives are Republicans and not all Republicans are conservatives, but there are a good many lovers of liberty who put their names and reputations on the line to defend Trump in his darkest hour(s). To name just a few, there were Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan in the House and Senators Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley and Lindsey Graham in the upper chamber. Thankfully, there are seemingly more voices than there used to be. Trump paved the way for a new kind of Republican and made the party better.
We should give thanks to Trump’s millions of supporters. It goes without saying that one of the best memories we’ll all take from 2020 is the sight of countless thousands -- millions across the country -- taking an active role in publicly backing their president. Whereas many campaigns offer a lukewarm choice between the lesser of two evils, it definitely wasn’t the case this year. With their president besieged by unrelenting and unfair criticism brought on by a pandemic, the grassroots responded. Who will ever forget the miles-long parades? The rallies? The pride in their country? And gratitude. The willingness to persevere through the darkest days?
America still lives in the hearts of such folk.
It just goes to show, this too will pass. There are better days ahead, and thanks to conservatives and President Donald Trump, there is much to look forward to.
Don’t be a stooge, defy the Thanksgiving lockdowns. And be careful.
Other heartfelt news arrives from different corners of the country as Americans vow to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday despite despotic orders to the contrary -- and also be responsible about it. As was true from day one, the most vulnerable citizens need to be extremely cautious about contracting COVID-19, and those around them must observe good common sense in maintaining distance and cleanliness.
Apart from this, it’s up to the people to decide for themselves. Americans don’t need the disaffected ruling class to tell them what to do. And from what I’ve heard, law enforcement isn’t about to enforce the ridiculous commands to separate households. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP, or Wuhan, if you prefer) virus has not extinguished the Constitution or our rights. People must be trusted to do the right thing. And assumption of risk is part of everyday living.
One of the most memorable moments from this year’s campaign was when President Trump came home from the hospital, having recovered from COVID-19, and said Americans shouldn’t be afraid to go on with their lives, while taking appropriate precautions and being smart about it. The same goes for Thanksgiving. And it’s something to be grateful for.
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