If I had told you to put money on it, that the sun was going to rise in the east tomorrow morning, you’d tell me, of course, it is going to rise in the east. It always does.
If I told you I knew for a fact that the Pope was a Catholic or that bears who live in the woods poop in the woods, you’d not find either statement confusing or controversial.
So if I had predicted that Joe Biden’s numbers would rise as the November elections neared, you should also not be surprised.
Here’s what I wrote two months ago, after the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semi-Conductors Act of 2022 passed with the help of 17 “Republican” senators (whose names are devilishly difficult to enumerate).
“New York’s U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer is privately chuckling in exultation as he solemnly (reading glasses on nose) congratulates his squad and the 17 players from the other side for saving his and his team’s butt once again. Sen. Schumer, along with California’s former senator and now U.S. Vice President — cackling Kamala Harris — is stirring her boiling pot of Crow Stew as the almost, very nearly, light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel ascendant Republican Party — headed up by Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell and California Congressman Kevin McCarthy in the House — takes aim at their feet and fires away. There really is no explanation (or excuse])for any of this, as 17 – count ‘em, 17 – Republican senators have gone along with yet another spending boondoggle.”
I recounted the sordid history of the 1994 almost-Republican takeover of the California Assembly, thwarted ultimately by a couple RINOS (Republicans In Name Only).
Then I continued:
“And so, based upon that illustrative history, the national Republican Party has decided it would rather follow in California’s footsteps than put their big-boy shoes on and step up to take control of Congress. ‘It’s the Democratic Party that loves government,’ I can hear them saying, ‘so let’s leave it up to our friends across the aisle. In the meantime, we can continue surreptitiously signing on to spending plans that are likely to enrich our friends and neighbors — many of whom are Democrats, after all— and we can stay in Washington as the Party-in-Waiting. The pay is good, the events are great (and way more fun when they’re run by Democrats), and the pressure is off.’ ”
The Republican votes on the CHIPS Act allowed for holdout Democrat Joe Manchin to renege on his vow not to raise taxes and to vote “no” on a pared down Build Back Better plan.
So the cynically re-labeled Inflation Reduction Act 2022 bill passed immediately after the CHIPS Act was passed, promising to “make prescription drugs cheaper, lower health insurance costs for 13 million Americans by an average of $800 a year, improve energy security, tackle the climate crisis, create thousands of new jobs, and help lower energy costs in the future.”
Oh, and by the way, the bill would also “reduce the deficit.”
I opined further that the bill was so comprehensive its passage would cure bad breath, combat toenail fungus and reduce hair loss.
My guess was that these Democrat successes would “achieve lift-off on the pages of The New York Times and the Washington Post. and that NBC, ABC, CBS, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, and the rest of the note takers in what used to be actual media will praise the president’s perspicacity and the clarity of his vision …Blah, blah, blah.”
Then my prediction:
“Over the coming weeks,” I wrote, “Mr. Biden’s poll numbers will rise, and those for a Republican victory in November will fall. Maybe we’ll pull out of the coming nosedive and maybe we won’t, but all this activity — with more to come!! — is enough to turn hopeful Republican voters into ‘I’m never going to vote for anything ever again’ agnostics.”
My plea was not to lose hope, that despite the backstabbing of a large percentage of Republican senators with no will to win, we conservative voters cannot give up.
If Republicans did indeed throw away a great opportunity, pundits will eagerly blame former President Donald Trump for having chosen “unelectable” candidates. But the real culprits will be the current crop of spaghetti-spined Republican officeholders who opened the floodgates to Democrat-inspired legislation with their votes on the CHIPS Act.
The same kind of collusion by virtually all media — print, radio and television — with government entities, academia and the entertainment industry that created and maintained the Russia Collusion hoax, will insist that Republicans are on the wrong track, that the Democrats are on the ascendant. They are making it up and would make it up regardless of whether it’s true or not. It’s what they want you to believe.
They want you to believe:
— Apparently, there are more voters out there who want to be able to “terminate a pregnancy” at any time during the nine months of gestation than there are of those who seek to protect that fragile life.
— There are more voters who agree parents shouldn’t be in a position to tell schools what ought to be taught to their children.
— A wide-open border — Come one, come all! – is good for the U.S.
— Taxes aren’t high enough.
— Speech codes should be enacted at every level of public and private life,
— History should record that slave-owning white men (and I guess, white women too) destroyed this once pristine land.
— Drag queens have every right to impose their act on elementary school children.
— Boys who believe they are girls or vice versa should be able to change their sex at age 10 or earlier, and such a decision could and maybe should be withheld from the parents of said child.
— Boys or men who now call themselves girls or women should be able to compete with girls or women as equals.
The list is long, and if you care about the future of your country, now is not the time to go wobbly.
Don’t believe the prognostications of your local left-leaning media outlet. You can win this. You should win this. You will win this if you don’t walk away or stay home.
Vote in November (or October, or whenever) as if your life depended upon it.
Because your life — and the life of your children — just may.
James Buckley is a longtime Montecito resident. He welcomes questions or comments at jimb@substack.com. Readers are invited to visit jimb.substack.com, where Jim’s Journals are on file. He also invites people to subscribe to Jim’s Journal.
