 It was not the result that I wanted, but the American people have given Donald Trump a decisive victory over Kamala Harris. He won both the popular and electoral votes. Harris graciously conceded to Trump, and the transition is underway for the 47th President of the United States of America. The silver lining is that the election results are not being litigated in courtrooms across the country, and there will be a peaceful transfer of power. In the history of the United States there has never been a more uniquely flawed candidate at the head of a major party’s presidential ticket than Donald Trump. That is why I thought that Kamala Harris would squeak out a victory. But I was wrong. The American people had been expressing their dissatisfaction with the direction of the country throughout the campaign, and the Democrats were mostly tone deaf to the things that mattered most, namely high prices and border security. Joe Biden was an unpopular president, and by the time he begrudgingly dropped out the race it was too late for any replacement candidate to mount an effective campaign against Trump. Joe Biden was an 800-pound albatross around Kamala Harris’ neck, and she could never effectively articulate how her administration would be meaningfully different than Biden’s. Republican wins in the House and the Senate sent a clear message that the country wanted change, even if that meant bringing back Donald Trump.  The Democratic Party was clearly out of step with the mood of the country. The progressive politics of the Biden Administration pushed the party left while the majority of the country shifted right. The Trump campaign effectively portrayed the Democrats as a party trying to impose a radical left-wing agenda highlighted by racial, gender and identity politics, while the needs of ordinary Americans were being ignored. As a result, Donald Trump and his party will soon control the executive branch and both Houses of Congress.  But What About Trump? Donald Trump was an unpopular president and unpopular presidential candidate. In recent days his favorability rating surpassed 50% for the first time. Voters were willing to overlook the criminal indictments and convictions, the xenophobia and misogyny, the name calling and petty antics, and the circus atmosphere surrounding Trump. None of Trump’s nonsense and misdeeds impacted voters personally, but high prices and the sense of insecurity resulting from a porous border did. It’s true that Trump’s base of MAGA supporters is strong. But Trump was pushed over the finish line by anti-incumbent voters who rejected Joe Biden’s policies, and by extension his political party.  Trump Gets a Clean Slate: The electorate did more than just forgive Trump’s boorish behavior, it gave permission to the Justice Department to dismiss the two federal criminal cases against him. Within the past few days, a court in Washington D.C. dismissed the case which alleged Trump had attempted to overturn the 2020 election. This week the federal documents case against Trump in Florida was also dismissed. In the court filings to dismiss these cases Special Counsel Jack Smith cited a Justice Department policy that sitting presidents may not be prosecuted. Prosecuting a sitting president would certainly impair his ability to perform his duties, but I doubt that the framers of the Constitution intended the president to be above the law.  The door remains open for the prosecutions to be renewed once Trump leaves office, but the chances of that happening are remote. The American people handed Trump a get out of jail free card when they elected him to be the next president of the United States. Trump still faces state charges in the Georgia election interference case, but odds are that case will die a quiet death. It now appears that Trump’s sentencing for his 34 criminal convictions in the New York hush money case will be delayed until after he leaves office.  Going Forward: Despite his claims to the contrary Trump was not given a mandate by the voters to go “full MAGA” on the country. He received just under 50% of the popular vote, which means that half of the country voted against him. Nonetheless, Trump is newly emboldened by his election victory, the Republican takeover of both Houses of Congress, and the dismissal of the criminal cases against him. There will be little to no restraint on his ambitions to become an all-powerful executive in the Oval Office. His cabinet and other key government positions will be packed with loyalists ready to do his bidding, and Project 2025 will be their roadmap.  For the next two years Trump will yield nearly unfettered control over the reins of government. It’s time for Mr. Trump to put up or shut up and “Make America Great Again”. Without those pesky Democrats to get in his way he has no one to blame but himself if he doesn’t execute on his agenda. The good news is that the mid-term elections are two short years away and the American people get cranky when politicians swing too far to their ideologic extremes, just ask the Democrats. The 2nd Trump term will be a test of the resiliency of the Constitution and the rule of law. It will remind voters of the importance of the separation of powers, the need for checks and balances within the federal government and determine whether the co-equal branches of government actually function as such.  Some Crazy and Not So Crazy Predictions:
To sum it up, Harris lost the election because paychecks went further under Trump. In the immortal words of Democratic strategist James Carvel, “It’s the economy stupid!”  If you enjoy reading this type of commentary, please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 American @gmail.com.
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 There was a seismic shift in the 2024 presidential race on June 27 when Joe Biden’s debate performance showed the country that he was not up to the challenge of winning another term against his challenger Donald Trump. The more that President Biden dug in and tried to reassure his party and the country that he was up for the job, the further behind in the national polls he fell. Things began to fall into place for Trump’s return to the White House.  Trump was handed a get out of jail free card on July 1 when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of his immunity claims. The Court ruled that presidents have broad immunity when conducting official acts while in office. This casts doubt on the legality of the remaining state and federal indictments that Trump is facing. To put an exclamation point on Trump’s legal victories, a federal judge in Florida dismissed the classified documents case, finding that the special counsel handling the case had been appointed unconstitutionally.  Surviving an assassination attempt on his life on July 13 cemented Trump’s image among his base of supporters. He was viewed as the divinely chosen candidate destined to retake the White House. Trump himself believed in the inevitability of his winning the presidency. This is borne out by picking J.D. Vance as his running mate. J.D. Vance is the youngest and most inexperienced of the VP candidates that the Trump campaign had vetted. He won’t bring in many new voters, and more importantly, he won’t help Trump’s odds in the all-important swing states. The pick of J.D. Vance shows that Trump was convinced that he would win the election, and he wanted a VP whose ideologic views were aligned with his and who could be the future of the MAGA movement.  Just days after the failed assassination attempt, Trump was welcomed at the Republican National Convention as a concurring hero. The reverence for Trump among his MAGA supporters had never been higher, and even the Democrats thought that it would take a miracle to defeat him in November. That miracle came on July 21 when Joe Biden announced that he was dropping out of the race and throwing his support behind VP Kamala Harris.  Harris Becomes the Democratic Nominee for President: Kamala Harris quickly garnered the support of Congressional Democrats, big donors, and party leaders such as the Clintons and Obamas. Within days of Biden dropping out of the race delegates to the nominating convention began to pledge their support for Harris. On August 6 Harris received enough delegate votes during an online voting process to become the Democratic nominee for president.  Enthusiasm among Democrats for Harris’s candidacy has exploded to levels not seen since Barack Obama was the nominee in 2008. Donors both big and small have been pouring money into the Harris campaign, and in the runup to the Democratic National Convention Harris was ahead of Trump in most national polls.  Readjusting to a New Reality: The Trump campaign was built around defeating Joe Biden, and is scrambling to recalibrate against a new opponent. The past three weeks have not gone well for Trump’s campaign or his psyche. The cloak of invincibility has been pulled from Trump and what’s underneath is disturbing. With all the light shining on Harris, the Trump campaign and the Republican Party have tried to recapture the narrative, but with limited success. Republicans attribute Harris’s surge in the polls as her honeymoon period, but there is more to it than that. The main obstacle to the Republican’s message getting through to swing and undecided voters is Donald Trump himself.  Trump Goes on the Attack: Over the past two weeks Trump has tried to shift the momentum back to his campaign through a series of press conferences and interviews. The press conference at Mar-a-Lago on August 8 was the first of these events and was a prelude of things to come. The Trump campaign had hoped that their candidate would present a substantive case for his election, including his accomplishments and important policy prescriptions. But that didn’t happen. Trump has an inexplicable inability to stay on message and quickly defaults to his old playbook of personal grievances, untruths, bizarre theories, and petty personal attacks. The Trump campaign, and even Trump himself realizes that Harris is vulnerable on some key policy issues, namely the border and inflation. Rather than sticking to a winning strategy against Harris, Trump resorts to personal attacks, nonsensical theories and blatant lies. Below are a few choice examples of Trump’s failing message.  Personal Attacks on Harris: The personal attacks by Trump won’t stop because he claims that he is entitled to them due to the mistreatment he has received from the Biden/Harris Administration. The personal attacks are petty and undignified for a candidate running for the highest office in the country. Here are some of Trump’s recent public comments about Harris:
  Bizarre Theories and Nonsense:
 Untruths and Scaremongering: Trump has always been fast and loose with the truth, but the rapidity with which he tells lies has reached a fever pitch with the rise of Kamala Harris. This makes it difficult to accurately access anything that Donald Trump says, which is why some people dismiss anything he says outright, and others support him out of blind faith. Here are just a few notable lines on his current play list:
 The Democratic Party came to the realization that their presidential candidate was unelectable in the days following the June 27 presidential debate. President Biden’s age, mental acuity and physical stamina were preventing him from being an effective spokesperson for the party and could no longer assure victory in the November election. Party leaders persuaded Biden to drop out of the race for the good of the party and the country. After several agonizing weeks, Biden did the right thing by dropping out of the race and passing the torch to Kamala Harris.  Today the Republican Party is worried that their candidate may be slipping and turning off voters that they will need in November. In many of his public appearances Donald Trump comes across as paranoid, delusional, and stuck in the past. Campaign officials are frustrated with Trump because they are well aware that Kamala Harris is vulnerable on key issues, particularly border security and the economy. If Trump could stay on message his campaign might have a winning strategy. Trump’s dystopian view of America does not play well against Harris’s joyful optimism. Trump should take a page from Ronald Reagan’s playbook, who with hope and optimism portrayed America as that shining city on a hill. It is Donald Trump’s election to lose, and if he does, he has no one to blame but himself. Trump is already setting the stage to contest the election if he falls short on November 5, 2024. But that is a topic for another day.  If you enjoy reading this type of commentary, please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776@gmail.com.
Thanks, Armchair American  Like most Americans I didn’t know much about Minnesota Governor Tim Walz until Kamala Harris picked him as her running mate last week. From what I have read he is a decent man with a long and proud record of public service. He has strong mid-western roots and seems to be a regular guy who can appeal to both urban and rural voters. This has got the Trump campaign worried, and it didn’t take long for it to go on the attack. Swiftboating: This term was coined in 2004 to describe an unfair or untrue political attack and was first used during the 2004 presidential race against the Democrat nominee John Kerry. Kerry was an officer in the U.S. Navy, served a tour of duty in Vietnam in charge of a Swift boat, and received several combat medals for that service. A partisan group called the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” attacked Kerry’s war record during the 2004 campaign, claiming that Kerry had embellished it. The claims were later discredited and proved to be politically motivated, but the damage to Kerry’s campaign was significant. The architect of the “Swift Boat” campaign against John Kerry was political operative Chris LaCivita who happens to be a co-manager of the Trump campaign. Is Tim Walz the victim of swiftboating? Let’s take a look.  J.D. Vance Levels Accusations Against Tim Walz’s Military Record: Within days of Walz being picked to be Kamala Harris’ running mate, the Trump campaign rolled out its vice presidential nominee to go on the attack. Vance served for four years in the Marine Corps, so he was tasked with attacking Walz’s 24 years of service in the Army National Guard. Vance accused Walz of abandoning his unit right before they went to Iraq. Tim Walz filed papers to run for Congress on February 10, 2005, and retired from the National Guard that May. In August of 2005, the Department of the Army issued a mobilization order for Walz’s unit in preparation of deployment to Iraq. The timing might look suspect to some, but there is no proof that Tim Walz timed his retirement to avoid being deployed to Iraq. He did nothing improper in how and when he retired. J.D. Vance also accused Tim Walz of “Stolen Valor” for claims he made in 2018 while speaking to a group about gun control. In support of common-sense gun control laws Walz said that “we can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried in war is the only place where those weapons are at.” Tim Walz never served in a combat zone, so according to J.D. Vance it was a mortal sin for Walz to claim that he had carried a weapon in war. It is true that Walz never served in combat, and therefore did not carry a weapon into battle. But Walz certainly trained with weapons of war in preparation of going into a combat zone during a time of war. The argument is purely semantics, and the Harris campaign was quick to scrub any of its campaign materials referencing Walz’s “weapons of war” comments. The final allegation against Tim Walz’s military record is that he claims to have retired at the rank of Command Sergeant Major. The truth of the matter is Walz did serve as a Command Sergeant Major, but he did not complete the requirements to retire with that rank. He retired at the lower rank of Master Sergeant. The Harris campaign’s website has been updated to reflect that Tim Walz did not retire as Command Sergeant Major, but only served as one. Tim Walz has held political office for nearly two decades. Like any politician running for office he may have embellished his record to cast himself in a more favorable light. In a vacuum that doesn’t look good. In the context of the current political race, it is insignificant and downright laughable when you consider who is leveling the charges. Donald Trump as head of the Republican ticket has no standing in the military community and has an aversion to telling the truth.  What has Trump to Say on the Matter: Donald Trump has been silent on the matter, and for good reason. He has no credibility when it comes to military service, and that’s why J.D. Vance was tasked with the attacks on Tim Walz’s military record. Trump avoided military service during the Vietnam War through dubious means. He received a deferment helped by a medical examination by a private foot doctor who diagnosed bone spurs in his heal. A New York Times investigation in 2018 revealed that the doctor who performed the medical evaluation was a tenant in a building owned by Trump’s father, and that the deferment recommendation was done as a favor to the family. In addition to not serving in the military Trump has often disparaged those who have served. He belittled John McCain’s military career because he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. When Trump visited a French cemetery for Americans killed during World War I he said it was filled with losers and suckers. Trump lacks any understanding of the service and sacrifice that our veterans have made in defense of our country. Comparing the Public Service Records of the Candidates: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have spent nearly their entire careers in public service, not so for Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. Let’s compare the public service records of each candidate and you decide which record is more deserving of your vote.  Donald Trump: Trump was never in the military and never held a public sector job. The only elected position he held was a four-year term as President of the United States. J.D. Vance: Vance served in the US Marine Corps for four years. He was a combat correspondent in a non-combative role, including a six-month deployment in Iraq with the Public Affairs Department. He has served as a U.S. Senator from Ohio since 2023.  Kamala Harris: From the time of her graduation from law school in 1989 to the present-day, Harris has worked in the public sector. From 1990 to 2003 she worked as a prosecutor, first as a Deputy District Attorney for Alameda County, then as an Assistant District Attorney for San Francisco, and finally as a special prosecutor with the San Francisco City Attorney’s office. In 2003 she was elected to the office of District Attorney of San Francisco and served in that role from 2004- 2011. In 2010 and again in 2014 she was elected to serve as the Attorney General of California. She successfully campaigned for the U.S. Senate in 2016 and served in that capacity from 2017-2021. She became Joe Biden’s vice president in January of 2021 and serves in that role to this day. Tim Walz: Walz started his career in public service when he enlisted in the Army National Guard at the age of 17. During his 24 years of service, he acquired a college degree and went on to teach and coach in public high schools for approximately 15 years. Waltz left teaching to run for Congress where he served for 12 years. In Congress he sat on the Agriculture, Armed Services, and Veteran’s Affairs committees. Tim Walz is now in his second term as governor of Minnesota.  Let’s hope that the American people can see through this blatant attempt by the Trump campaign to discredit Walz’s honorable military career by spreading falsehoods and casting aspersions. Donald Trump is not even in the same league as Tim Walz when it comes to honesty, integrity, and dedication to public service. Disparaging Tim Waltz’s military career is a losing hand for the Trump campaign and is the height of hypocrisy.  If you enjoy reading this type of commentary, please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776@gmail.com.
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AuthorThe Armchair American. 
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