Introduction
I want to begin with the observation that Joe Biden is an objectively poor candidate, and that by the traditional metrics he is running an objectively lousy campaign. The plain fact that he is clearly not mentally fit helped everyone to set a really low bar for the first presidential debate, such that everyone then thought it was a great victory when he didn’t fall clean over. He doesn’t know what state he is in, in either sense, and all he can do is slur his way through thickets of bromides. The hard left has taken over the party, and Biden is, in effect, little more than a sock puppet for that base.
So what is going on then?
An Overview
Of course conservatives are staring at all of this in disbelief. The Dems can’t be serious, right? They hold events that draw scores of supporters, and Trump is packing out rallies. But they are actually doing this, and so it is time to repeat the question. What is actually going on?
It seems pretty clear to me that this is not a traditional campaign, not at all. If Biden wins it decisively, then it might be made to look like it had been traditional campaign, but only after the fact. But from where we sit now, in the middle of this campaign, nothing about it is normal. We are being set up, and it seems to me that the objectively poor Biden campaign has to be part of that set up.
How could this be? The plan that is unfolding appears to be one that is actually not dependent on Biden winning it. The plan appears to have either contingency built in — whether winning or losing. And so it does not matter if Biden is a poor candidate, because Biden is just a placeholder. He is a necessary prop for the old style campaign, until the election, at which point the new style campaign will commence.
A great shout arose from the Old Narnians. Miraz was down—not struck by Peter, but face downward, having tripped on a tussock. Peter stepped back, waiting for him to rise. “Oh, bother, bother, bother,” said Edmund to himself. “Need he be as gentlemanly as all that? . . . The Lords Glozelle and Sopespian had their own plans ready. As soon as they saw their King down they leaped into the lists crying, “Treachery! Treachery! The Narnian traitor has stabbed him in the back while he lay helpless. To arms! To arms, Telmar!”
Prince Caspian
So if Plan A is to claim that your guy was robbed, then it needs to look kind of like he was robbed. This means that you are set. If your vans full of mail-in ballots work, and Biden wins, and Trump protests, you can make it look like Trump is trying to steal the election. If Trump wins, them you can simply claim that he stole it. The drumbeat in either case will be Trump Lost, and is refusing to leave, and if you try to say something about it on Facebook, you will discover that their fact checkers have determined that your post contains erroneous information.
What Each Side Wants
In a normal campaign, each side wants and needs a victory. As long as it isn’t close enough to land you in recount territory, a victory is a victory. Ugly victories are still victories, and your guy still gets sworn in. But this is not a normal campaign. These are not normal times. This is not your great grandfather’s presidential campaign. We haven’t had a situation comparable to this one since the 1860’s.
So if I had sold my soul to the devil, for reasons best known to myself, and I was advising Antifa and all those other evildoers, what I would be urging them to strive for is a close Biden loss. They would perhaps settle for a win, but a win only gives them control of a constitutional mechanism invented by a bunch of dead white supremacists — and with the Republicans probably still holding the Senate. But they don’t want to be in charge of the old system. They want to burn the old system down.
Obama was in charge of the old system for eight years, and from the perspective of constitutional conservatives, he did a lot of damage to it. But the revolutionaries are appalled and dismayed by two things — first, how little he got done from their perspective, and second, how much of it was then undone by Trump.
So in my role as diabolical advisor, I would urge them to rank their desiderata in this way. 1. Close Biden loss; 2. Close Biden win; 3. Biden blowout; and bringing up the rear in the non desideratum category, 4. a Trump blowout.
Either 1 or 2 gives them the excuse to do what they are itching to do, which is to launch the revolution, which is to say, taking it to the streets. Number 3 gives them a mandate. They don’t get the hot street war they wanted, but it would provide the next best thing from their perspective, and which contains the compensatory prize of being able to run with purges, pogroms, and penal colonies.
In the Tank
As I said earlier, Biden is a disastrous candidate, and here he is, with a commanding lead in the polls. This is the same kind of commanding lead that Hillary had, and it is the same kind of commanding lead for the same reason. The pollsters are not detached observers, reporting on the facts as they discover them. Anybody who believes that the pollsters have no agenda in this, and that the people running those companies are somehow floating above the fray, is someone who needs to go back to college and retake their Cynicism 101 class. Allow me to put it another way. The polling that led up to the Hillary disaster was not an honest scientific mistake. It was sincere in that these haruspices have gotten to the point where they actually believe the reports they get from the entrails, which is why they were so astonished, but it is not the case that they have any ethical right to be astonished.
For some mysterious reason, a bunch of young people have gotten it into their heads that having views that are identical with those held by the HR departments of every major American corporation makes them part of the resistance. “Tell me, oh solitary drummer, why do you march so?” “Oh, stranger, the reason I am so persecuted for my convictions is that I am in sync with all the universities, with all the corporations, with all the major media outlets, and with the big tech companies, not to mention the U.S. State Department. We simply cannot compete with those powerful interests out there, backed as they are by Tucker Carlson.”
Suffice it to say that the entire Establishment will do everything in its power to reinforce the narrative that any kind of Trump loss and protest, Trump slim victory, or Trump normal victory is by definition illegitimate. They will have good success with any of these scenarios, and they are well-prepared for any of these scenarios. The only situation they will not be able to manage is a Trump blowout. But even there, they will try.
The one thing they will not be able to counter effectively is a Trump blowout. And so that is what they should get, good and hard.
And so I would remind you, this is not an election between a continued Trump administration and a possible Biden administration. We are way past that kind of thing. This is an election on whether to continue having elections. It is my conviction that citizens who find Trump’s policies misguided and his manners reprehensible, but who see what is actually happening on the streets, should be able to vote for Trump if for no other reason than wanting to continue to be able to oppose Trumpism. Trump, if elected, will do things they don’t like, but one of them won’t be to outlaw dissent. But the left, arrayed against us as the only alternative in this election, is totalitarian. Allow me to say it again. The left is totalitarian, and brooks no dissent.
And if you are not yet convinced of this, I would urge you to hunt around and get some eyes in your head.
What Kind of Nutter . . .?
Are you actually predicting that there are forces on the left that are cynical and corrupt enough to stage manage a revolution in the aftermath of the election? That they would burn down cities to get their way?
Look, friend. They’re burning cities down NOW. In order to get their way.
I am not predicting anything outlandish. I am predicting that the left will do nothing more than continue to do what they have been doing ever since the 2016 election, which is to not accept the results of it. But because they were not prepared for that contingency in 2016 they had to figure out their coup on the fly, and so we had Russian collusion and impeachment and all that jazz thrown together in a haphazard way. But this time, they are fully prepared for the possibility that Donald Trump might win the election. There will be pallets of bricks ready to ship. Change my mind.
It is not crazy to point out that the unrest that preceded the election, in order to steer that election, will also follow the election — in order to “fix” the election results after the fact. It is not crazy to surmise that they will continue to do what they have been doing for months. It is not crazy to assume that they will continue to justify the unjustifiable. They have been doing it, why wouldn’t they continue doing it?
And, if they can, they will do everything in their power to represent any Americans who act in such a way as to prevent the stealing of the election as individuals who are trying to steal the election. Bush stole the election from Gore in Florida because Bush didn’t let Gore steal the election in Florida. That kind of thing, only with guns.
Cities of Refuge for the Never Trumpers
This situation doesn’t really have an ethnic component (other than that ever present white supremacy we keep hearing about). But there is a point of comparison. A sage once observed that you do not have to choose up sides in an ethnic war — the other side does that for you.
Now it may well be that there are conservatives (and ostensible conservatives) who are too fastidious to vote for Trump, even in the face of all these compelling observations. “I don’t care what you say, I am still not going to vote for that loathsome man.” I get it. I understand you. But once you have voted your conscience, and the country is pitched into post-election chaos, you also have to agree not to flee to a red state for refuge. Because if you do, you are fleeing to Trump country. If you didn’t vote for him in the election you most certainly should not vote for him after the election. Right?
It turns out that you live in a place where the other side has decided to make decisions for you. It turns out that they are totalitarians, and this comes as something of a shock. So you start thinking about moving to a place where dissent is still tolerated.
I say this to make a point. If you refuse to vote for Trump, you shouldn’t flee to Trump country after the fact. I mean, it was a matter of conscience, right? Right. But if you do flee in such a manner, I am here to assure you that you will be most welcome. I mean, why not? It’s a free country, what’s left of it.