Prelude to an I Told You So
Let me start with a disclaimer. I am not a political commentator, nor am I a political analyst. I’m not a political scientist or a journalist who follows politics. What comes next is not a carefully vetted political prediction or considered analysis. This is purely an observation. That’s it. Just an unqualified observation by a guy who’s willing to say “this is this.” I’m saying it now because I’d really like to not have to say “I told you so” later.
Donald Trump. The name invokes different things for different people. To some, he is the anti-Christ, sprang forth from the sulphuric fires of the underworld to upend American dignity and undermine our standing in the world with mean Tweet after mean Tweet. To others, he is a savior, sent from his golden tower in New York to drain the swamp and save us all from a corrupt Deep State. Fully half the country hates him with a kind of frenzied abandon that truly defies all reason. Establishment politicians and bureaucrats have, in fact, conspired to undo Trump by any means necessary. And by that, they truly mean ANY means. Never before in American history has a politician been so egregiously attacked and targeted by the establishment players. Never before have the generational politicians felt so absolutely secure in their control that they’d quite literally manufacture evidence, lie to the courts, conduct a sweeping and openly politically motivated series of investigations targeting first a political opponent and then a sitting president. Never before has any politician at any level of American society been charged and indicted on so many false charges and imagined offenses in an effort to keep him off a ballot. Never in our history, and I have to say never in my imagination before it actually happened, have we seen a coalition of 50+ intelligence professionals flat-out lie in writing to try and sway the outcome of a free and fair election the way we saw in the Hunter Biden laptop denials. These are former intelligence leaders who understand that nothing matters more in the intelligence field than does the analyst’s credibility and integrity. Nothing. Yet, given the chance to chuck their own credibility and integrity under a speeding bus to make sure “their guy” got the win? Beep beep! Even the courts are after him. 91 felony charges, people. Ninety-One. Given the track record of lying, inventing charges, manufacturing evidence, lying on FISA warrants, and impeachment trials for made-up offenses, is there a single soul who honestly looks at these charges and thinks “That’s legit?” I promise, about half the country does.
Whatever he is to you personally, Donald Trump is undeniably a political lightning rod. He draws the fire and the attention of everyone in the room in one way or another. He is carrying around more baggage than any political candidate in the history of America. Those who hate him want to see more of the same and damn the truth or whether any of it happened or not. Those who love him are quite literally buying trading cards of his mugshot and turning it into a campaign poster. But let’s take a second and look through the theater. Let’s peer beyond the lights and pyrotechnics, get past the headlines and the numbers, and let’s really take a look at what all of this says about us. Donald Trump, with all of his baggage, all of his legal woes, and half a country of devoted, borderline insane haters collectively stabbing their orange-haired voodoo dolls in the hopes of seeing him catch fire on live TV… is winning. In even the most pessimistic polls, Donald Trump is tied with the sitting president of the United States. In the middle of the road polls, Trump likely wins if the election is today. Joe Biden, who ostensibly garnered more votes than any presidential candidate in history, is losing to Donald Trump. Not 2016 Donald Trump, mind you. Against 2023 Donald Trump, with all his 91 felony charges, with his two impeachments, with the entire establishment in Washington solidly against him, with all his rhetoric and rancor - Joe Biden is losing. I want you to stop reading for a moment and let your mind dwell on that thought. Ponder what it means - what it REALLY means, and we’ll continue.
What it means is this: Americans are so absolutely fed up with the direction of our country right now that even when they won’t say it publicly, they’d rather hand the country over to anyone than let Joe Biden remain at the wheel. The negative impact of President Biden’s policies has taken such a toll on the average American that they simply cannot get behind the man who just a few years ago was supposedly the most popular candidate in history. When Barack Obama swept into the White House in 2008 and easily won re-election in 2012, he collected a grand total of 65 million votes. Joe Biden dwarfed that number (according to official vote counts, anyway) with 81 million. Americans supposedly came out in historic droves to support this man, and today he falls somewhere behind the guy he lost to in that same election. That same guy, mind you, now with a pair of impeachments and 91 felony charges who is using his mugshot as a campaign poster. No matter what the headlines are trying to tell you, no matter what the White House says, no matter how the spin doctors try to present things, and no matter how much you want to believe that the current president is not an incompetent, dottering, senile old man incapable of running a household, let alone a country, this is not a message you should ignore. Even if you’ve found a way to intellectually contort your thinking into excusing Biden’s bribery, pay to play, and influence peddling activities; even if you are willing to excuse the fact that he has sold out America to her adversaries for personal gain, this is not a message that should be lost on you. It’s telling you something. It’s telling you that even the Democrats don’t believe in Joe Biden.
While this doesn’t mean Trump is a sure thing or that he’d even be a better option, the important part of the message is that Joe Biden’s policies have failed terribly, and as a candidate, Joe Biden is a real stinker - and America knows it. The party knows it, the common man and woman on the street know it, the press knows it, and the entire political establishment on both sides of the aisle in Washington knows it. If I were a betting man, I’d say that means we’re in for a seriously turbulent election cycle. I won’t speculate as to who the candidates will end up being in November. What I will say is that these are pretty important signs, and we’d all do well to pay attention to them. The dissatisfaction and buyer’s remorse on the Left is real, and the anger and resentment on the Right has grown beyond the resigned disappointment and stunned mourning that followed the election in 2020. At this point, everyone is justifiably angry about something. What was, up until the last decade or so, a fringe problem has encroached upon the center to an alarming degree. If we don’t find a way to bring back to our political process some sanity, some integrity, and some justice, then we are paving the way for the corruption to become more than just the status quo. We’re authorizing it. We’re voting for it and making it permanent. If we, the People do not take action to change what has become a social and political dumpster fire of historic proportions, then we’ve spoken and said “This is who we want to be.” It won’t just be “them” anymore. It will be “us,” and “We” will be sleeping in a bed we’ve made for ourselves with no room to gripe.
We find ourselves in a familiar spot. Everyone knows what’s true, but we’ve all agreed to participate in some idiotic form of theater and act like it’s not true. We’ve all figured out that we can scream into social media, make memes, share pithy insults about the other guys and feel better about all of this long enough to not want to throw ourselves out a window. They’ve figured it out, too. Why do you think all these pressure release valves exist? If we’re not smart, we’ll sit in front of our keyboards and phone screens yelling and screaming into the ether, doing nothing of any real substance to change things, and the play will run its course exactly the way they want it to. They’ll solidify the corruption with our tacit support and votes, enrich and empower themselves even further, and secure the ability to keep us all in check for generations to come.
If the last few years hasn’t been enough to drive the message home, what will it take?