Many of you have heard the terminology, “gag reflex.” Certain behavior once merited a gag reflex. You saw it and something rose in your throat that caused you to gag. It was a good response.
Then after awhile you saw the same behavior become so common that it was normal. You didn’t gag anymore. No reflexive reaction occurred at all. When you see something all the time and all over, you might become desensitized to it.
As the gag reflex became insensitive to one bad behavior, it required even worse behavior to bring it. Gagging necessitated a more extreme action. Don’t get me wrong, I care about John Fetterman as a candidate for the gospel. I would love him as a person. God can and will save him if he turns to the Lord. However, I gag at his Senatorial election win. I’m glad that some things can still boggle my mind. If he showed up to flip burgers, I wouldn’t hire him. I’d help him to the door and then watch to make sure he walked away.
Something happened on Tuesday night that was new. I always expect the polls are wrong. They were wrong again, except for ones usually wrong. Now they were right on this one. The left was wrong in 2016. The right was wrong in 2022. You can’t reliably predict these things any more. I thought John Fetterman could never win as a candidate. He did.
I thought a red wave would occur. Almost nothing went well in the last two years. Everyone suffered from Democrat control. I won’t list all the ways things have gone wrong. Republicans may still control the House and Senate, but it felt like a loss. It looks like one. What happened?
I just read Mike Pence’s personal account of January 6 from the Wall Street Journal. It’s an excerpt from his upcoming book. I haven’t read an analysis of it, but it seems like his attempt to sink Donald Trump. I wouldn’t call it retaliation. I don’t think Pence works that way. However, I do see it as purposeful to help someone else clear away Trump for 2024. Could someone? Maybe, maybe not.
A large group of people in the United States — I’m going to estimate thirty percent at least — are loyal to President Trump. He stood up for them and us and took unprecedented opposition for four years. 2020 was rigged. Whoever beats Trump in a 2024 primary will need those people.
In many ways, Trump created Ron DeSantis. No one operated like DeSantis until Trump. And as a result, something happened in Florida as never before. You remember the hanging chads in the Bush-Gore election of 2000? DeSantis wins by 20 points a little over 20 years later.
Two major points appeared Tuesday. Someone like Trump can still win an election, but he would do it like Ron DeSantis. DeSantis has everything good about Trump without most of what’s bad about Trump. Donald Trump will not back down. Someone will need to peel off some of that thirty percent. It’s not going to be easy. That’s one point.
What else? The country is even in worse shape than what it was. Way worse. I’m not talking about damage caused by President Joe Biden. He’s just a symptom. They voted for John Fetterman. Katie Hobbs is ahead in Arizona and she ran a near basement campaign. Even if Lake comes back to win big after they finish the count, why did the counting stop for over 24 hours at 66 percent? This wouldn’t happen to a Democrat. The final result won’t occur until Monday. This itself is a level of either corruption or incompetence that has become the new normal. And those in charge can still get away with this, just like those who spawned the Russia collusion hoax.
A majority of people may not like wokeness, but they will still do little to none to defeat it. It’s not going to change through elections. People must change in their natures to affect the downward trajectory. That will come only through the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that won’t happen unless churches, the individual professing believers of churches, commit themselves wholesale to the only true gospel.
************
Interesting Report from John Solomon on the Republicans Winning the Popular Vote on Tuesday, 53-47.
The Republican Party is going to have a tough time in 2024. Here is why. Trump for all his good also has a major flaw. He is very self focused. Everything is about him. Many Americans can’t stand him and he is going to have a hard time winning even if there is no cheating. If Desantis runs, Trump will do everything to shred him. If Desantis wins the primary, I just can’t see Trump bowing out and backing Desantis. He will claim Desantis is the establishment and they were all out to get him. I think many people like myself would have love to support Trump again if he could just be more like Desantis in his approach to people and dealing with people. There is a lot to be said, but if I knew Trump could win 2024 I would back him and the Desantis for 8 years. But since I don’t think Trump can win, I would love to see Desantis run. But that would require Trump to bow out. I don’t see anyone else who has a shot as long as Trump or Desantis are running. No one should even consider running if either of those guys are in it. (Of course Liz Cheney might have a shot). All this to say, I think we need to pray for this to get worked out. I am concerned there could be civil war in the party unless someone (Trump or Desantis) bows out from the start.
Thanks,
Jon
Brother Brandenburg, is your advice regarding President Trump still, “Embrace Him”?
I say, Embrace Him if he’s the Republican candidate for president or if he is the best candidate in the primary. He could be. We don’t know yet. He is the only one to throw his hat in.
Yes, embrace a candidate who literally is trying to over throw American democracy. The first president in history to refuse peaceful transfer of power. If that is not enough for you, let’s be more pragmatic- a president who lost by 3 million votes to one of the worst presidential candidates in history (Clinton)- lost by 7 million votes to a below average candidate (Biden)- first president in 90 years to lose the presidency, house and senate in the first term- with his hand picked candidates, underperformed significantly in the recent midterms.
If you can’t oppose him on moral grounds, perhaps you can at least be pragmatic. If you care about conservatives being elected, Trump is the worst choice you can make. He is the only candidate in the upcoming election who Biden would likely beat. I know it is difficult to admit you were wrong about Trump (sunk cost fallacy) but without a course correction, Republicans will keep losing.
Wow, how incredibly blind can a “David” get.
Trump “refused peaceful transfer”? Maybe take off your blindfold for a second and pull your head out of the sand. Your an adult, I think anyway, that believes in Cinderella.
But Trump should have, because the election was 100% stolen. Robbery. Fraud. Complete cheat. Just like what is happening in Brazil right now, and what already happened in France, and in Canada. The military should have stepped in and demanded a re-election with ZERO mail in voting and ZERO Digital Voting machines. Trump did not lose the “presidency, house and senate”! They were STOLEN. Election fraud is about the only thing Globalists/Lefty devils (i.e. demoncrats) have accomplished since 2020, and they just did it again. Trump blew Clinton out of the water, and Biden, staggeringly, enormously, but when tens of millions of fake and false ballots are dropped into the count right at the right time, even if its a week later, and massive corruption with the digital machines, etc, well anyone can win in such a manner. Thats the only way those demented, wicked people could win. Even the ponzi scheme autistic lefty deranged and demoted crypto junkie with FTX has a mother who ballot harvested 15 MILLION ballots that were “partially filled out” and sent them to swing state voters. She is only one of thousands.
Everything evil and diabolical going on in America up till now under the Demoncrats lead is 100% intentional. They are full of the Devil and happy to do his bidding.
Stop spreading your lies and falsehoods. Its grossly nauseating.
Reuben
Keep up your delusion Reuben and keep losing elections. Maybe a psychiatry consult would help too.
Another important article about ELECTION FRAUD. Database latency. The CORRUPTION goes very very deep.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/11/heres_how_they_did_it_realtime_election_fraud.html
You really should stick to religion. You sound like an idiot when you delve into politics. But then, you are a self-professed election denier so what should I expect?
Hi Fred,
Do you care about Biblical religion? If so, was your comment respectful, edifying, and godly? Or did you sound like Trump?
Do you find that calling people who deny the 2020 election results idiots is a great way to convince them?
Thanks.
For everyone else,
I believe there are several takeaways from the election results.
1.) Just like the average voter does not like people that justify left-wing riots, they don’t like people that minimize the January 6 riot or wish to overturn election results. Nominating for senate someone who was at the capitol on January 6 is a great way to lose a purple state.
2.) Even if one thinks Trump would deserve what he calls a “third term” in office, he is politically radioactive. He should do what presidents Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and all the other ones before them did, and just live a private life after he is done being president.
3.) If one promises people $10,000-20,000 each to vote, it helps them to turn out. Biden was effective in ramping up the youth vote by promising them up to $20,000 each.
4.) While mass mail-in balloting is a bad idea, Republicans need to start doing a better job with the mail in votes in states where it is legal. If the Democrats can collect votes from people who are too lazy to turn out for weeks and weeks, while Republicans ignore the lazy people and only rely on people who will turn out on election day, they will lose close elections. Also, claiming elections are lost through fraud will discourage your voters. The claims of election fraud cost the Republicans two Georgia senate seats and handed the senate to the Democrat party, and election fraud claims are likely to be still depressing their turnout. If you really believe elections are rigged, why bother showing up? All you have to do is convince 5% or less of the population of your voters not to show up and you go from winning to losing, losing, losing.
5.) The leftist media, while they probably greatly regret giving Trump a billion dollars worth of free advertising in the primary so the Republicans would nominate him in 2016, as they assumed he would never be able to beat Clinton, are likely glad that his personality is so problematic that he could not contain himself enough to stop turning people off in 2020 and so lost an easily winnable election, and are very glad that he strongly hinted he is running for president before the midterms, so voters would be thinking about him instead of about how much gas costs, that he made candidates talk about overturning the 2020 election instead of inflation, helped nominate weak candidates for Senate, etc. Trump does for the left and for moderates what Clinton did for the right-unite them in disgust and make them turn out. That he also makes an ever-larger percentage of the right disgusted as well by continually attacking everybody from his own vice president on down does not help.
Thomas,
I’m not sure I have heard you give equal treatment to the gigantic crime wave in blue cities, the rising death toll, that dwarfs Jan 6. I’ve not heard you mention the summer before, when many more police were attacked, buildings looted and burned, federal ones, government ones, people died, in the riots in Portland, Seattle, and other major cities. It doesn’t make sense that people voted for the side that was worse than the other. Something else is at work here.
KJV1611,
I am not trying to convince election deniers of anything. There is no hope of that. The only thing you can do is marginalize them. That will work fine because gratefully, there are not enough of them to win elections, which is why every election-denying SOS candidate lost their election. It is why nutcase Keri Lake lost hers too.
Also by the way, morality starts with telling the truth. I simply am not going to take lectures about godliness from election deniers that tell lies one day and spout Bible verses the next. If Kent wants to be taken seriously here on his political/religious blog, he needs to go all in for truth. That means he needs to stop repeating his crank conspiracy theories and stop accusing the other side of election fraud when he has no evidence.
Fred,
State one untruth or lie that I’ve told as it relates to the 2020 election. I await this.
This is not hard. You said “the 2020 election was rigged.” You say that without evidence. There is no evidence. You actually admitted that you could not prove this in a previous article but you continue to say it anyway. You are a liar.
You also slandered, because you accused a group of people of a crime without evidence. This may not matter to you because they are just Democrats, but you slandered them. You are breaking between 2-4 of the 7 sins God hates with your lies about the 2020 election.
Hi Fred,
The 2020 election was rigged and there is a lot of evidence for that. The election denial claim is just propaganda. I’ve given evidence here for a rigged election and defined what I meant by it. Here’s one: the Hunter Biden laptop. Voter’s were polled on whether that would have changed their vote. It would change the outcome of the election. That’s one, important thing, but there is more than that. You know that states violated their own election laws in several states. It’s very much like not enforcing immigration laws. I don’t know what accusation about what crime you are talking about. Please point that out. You are very ambiguous for someone who uses harsh names about someone. Rigged is the title of the book by Mollie Hemingway, editor of The Federalist, a book filled with evidence. You’ve actually not proven I have lied about this Fred. Maybe we will talk about this in person some time, and I think you’ll be different than when you are hiding behind a keyboard. This is one of the big problems on the internet.
I have to agree with Kent on this one. It is not a lie if you believe it. That does make him delusional, but at least he’s not a liar. I rarely read this blog anymore for this reason. If his political views are so delusional, how can we take his theological views seriously?
You’re right David that I’m not lying. I think positions should be taken on govt, so I write about it. You say I’m delusional on it. Just out of curiosity, do you think someone like a Victor David Hansen or Newt Gingrich are delusional on politics?
Hard to say with them. They are either delusional or liars, but those are the only two options.
Taking my name out of it, I think for people reading, your characterizing Gingrich and Hansen as delusional or liars, I think, will help them to see where you are coming from, without making it personal about me.
OK, fine. Kent may just be delusional rather than a liar. Slander fits though. He does not get a pass on that just because he is delusional. He is still responsible not to speak untruths that damage others’ reputations.
As to your questions Kent… I think Victor David Hansen is a loony crackpot. I think Gingrich probably is not. My guess is just a dishonest politician who is spouting stuff he knows is not true.
Fred,
I think your style of writing here will help people take into consideration the truthfulness of it. Your assessment of Gingrich and Hansen are also helpful for people reading.
Just because you strongly hold to a belief that is also held by well known writers or politicians, does not make it any less delusional. There are any number of well known Russian journalists, politicians, etc who, no doubt, strongly believe Russian propaganda about the Ukraine war and, therefore, hold false beliefs, but any rational, outside observer would come to a different conclusion. If you are only reading resources that buttress what you want to be true, you are in the same boat. You will deny it, but so would they.
I haven’t told a lie about the election, Fred, but I don’t think your principle here is biblical either, that is, you can’t take the truth from someone who is off in some other area. Can you read Psalm 119 from David? He was an adulterer, polygamist, and murderer? The Apostle Paul was thankful for those who preached the gospel, even with a bad motive in Philippians 1. The book of Habakkuk is Habakkuk complaining to God about God using wicked Babylon to judge Israel. This point you’re making, just reads sanctimonious, like the Pharisees of which Jesus confronted in John 8 by saying that if any of them were guiltless, they could cast the first stone.
Oh and one more thing KJV1611. I do appreciate you are not an election-denier nut. However, people that do mail-in voting are not lazy. That is unnecessarily pejorative on your part. I vote by mail every election. Why? Because it is easier and it is my right to do so. You don’t get to call me lazy for that. You are not some king who gets to prescribe the moral way to vote.
Hi Fred,
I didn’t say everyone who voted by mail is lazy. I voted by mail (and I could have done it twice, since I got two ballots–but didn’t, because it was wrong). I said people who would not bother to vote if they had to take about the same effort as going to the grocery store on election day but will vote if they get a mail in ballot are lazy.
You don’t want people believing misinformation. Did you accurately read what I said?
Elections are not determined by committed, intelligent, informed voters, who are a minority. They are determined by poorly informed and non-committed people who can be influenced. Right now Democrats are doing a much better job turning these people out, while Republicans are convincing people not to vote for them by discouraging mail in voting and convincing them that their votes do not matter because of fraud.
Dear Bro Brandenburg,
Many Republicans who could distance themselves from Trump greatly outperformed those tied to him.
To everyone else–I’m probably done commenting here. Thanks.
Dear Bro Brandenburg,
One more thing about riots in Seattle that killed normal citizens and a riot that could have killed the Vice President and members of Congress in an attempt to change election results–it is not obvious, at least to many swing voters (as well as to me, although I am not at all a swing voter but a certain conservative one), that because more people were killed that the other riots were worse. A very good case can be made that attempting to kill the VP is worse than the equivalent very evil deed on the guy that owns the car dealership in Portland. Furthermore, the Republicans nominating for a Senate seat someone who was in the capitol on the day of the riot was really, really foolish. Yes, he was not involved personally in the violence on January 6. January 6 was “mostly peaceful,” like the riots in other cities, where most protestors did not engage in violence. There is a difference between nominating someone who is soft on crime (which sometimes doesn’t even work in very liberal San Francisco, where we just recalled our DA for being too soft) and nominating someone who was actually there on the day of the January 6 riot. The Republicans who were too Trumpian and running on Trump stuff were much more likely to lose, although in some places, like Ohio, they managed to make it, as Mitch McConnell diverted millions of dollars so that the election denier in Ohio could make it over the finish line–money that was then not available to help other weak Trumpian candidates.
Thanks.
Note that Trump now says that election fraud is why his person lost in Arizona. This sort of thing is going to drive down Republican turnout and alienate swing voters, helping to turn Arizona more blue rather than being a purple state. We also just can’t have someone throwing charges like that around without clear, clear, clear evidence every time Trump anoints a weak candidate and that candidate loses. Trump even was saying that the reason Newsom was not recalled by the very conservative Larry Elder in California was election fraud. I’m sorry, but a conservative Republican doesn’t need to lose through election fraud in California. If enough conservatives actually take Trump seriously, they will stop voting, and conservatives will keep losing, and, of course, it will never be Trump’s fault.
Thomas,
I don’t want to argue about this with you, but I believe you’ve got it wrong. Not only the comparison between the varied events, but also why the Republicans lost elections. I think you’ve got it almost totally wrong. Your explanation would be something closer to what Mitt Romney or Lynn Cheney would say.
Mr. Ross,
You wrote:
> One more thing about riots in Seattle that killed normal citizens and a riot that could have killed the Vice President and members of Congress in an attempt to change election results–
>Note that Trump now says that election fraud is why his person lost in Arizona. This sort of thing is going to drive down Republican turnout and alienate swing voters, helping to turn Arizona more blue rather than being a purple state. We also just can’t have someone throwing charges like that around without clear, clear, clear evidence.
On the evening of Jan 6th, I was very disturbed by what I was hearing of the events of that day. I supported the idea of the rally because the evidence was already clear that fraud had occurred in the 2020 election. However, after hearing of folks breaking windows, and forcibly entering the Capitol, the Lord brought to mind the story of David’s encounter with Saul in Engedi: “And he said unto his men, The LORD forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, the LORD’S anointed, to stretch forth mine hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the LORD.” I wonder if something like this is why you react so strongly to what happened on January 6th. I won’t say more on that day, except to say there is plenty of evidence that the events of that day were largely orchestrated by anti-Trump nefarious actors.
As the weeks and months went by, though, the evidence became “clear, clear, clear” to me to that massive fraud had occurred, and that it was far more than enough to affect the 2020 election. I know you like documented evidence. I won’t even try to present comprehensive proof. If you want it, you can find it. I’ll just leave you with one link to peruse: https://electionfraud20.org/dr-frank-reports/pennsylvania/
As for the contention that claiming election fraud will drive down Republican turnout, we are to “reprove evil works of darkness.” It shouldn’t matter if it drives down Republican turnout. It is the truth. People need to hear it. In similar manner, I don’t hesitate to tell people there is a penalty for sin, even if it might drive down the number of publican prayers for salvation. Godly love rejoices not in iniquity, but in truth.
-Chris
The reds didn’t lose. It had nothing to with Trump, or any Republican messaging, or abortion, or anything else.
Its mass mail-in/drop-box ballot harvesting. Its as simple as that.
They did it in 2020, and now they’ve done it again.
Florida is a good example and its not just because of DeSantis. Strict voting procedures and rules in place prevented the demoncrats cheating ways.
Republicans will never win another election as long as the ultra despicable and diabolical demoncrats continue to get away with this. It has to be stopped. The brazen fraud and contempt of honest election is literally unbelievable. A civil war once started for less.
Reuben
Hi Reuben!
Before talking about war–bloodshed–because of Trumpy Republican underperformance, maybe it would have been a good idea to check out the fact that Trump-people got a drubbing in states where you can’t harvest ballots, and more normal conservatives like DeSantis (who encouraged people to vote by mail) did well in states where mail-in balloting is legal–like Florida.
Maybe it would be good to check up on things like that before talking about violence.
Thanks.
Thomas,
“Thanks” for what? If I had written my comment to you, I would have addressed you by name. Saying “thanks” at the end of your diatribe is supercilious superfluous flummery.
Whether it was harvesting ballots or corruption through voting machines or voter ID or not allowing republicans to vote because they “ran out of paper” or “out of ink” or some some other cunning and duplicitous maneuver or excuse, there was still corruption and that is why the demoncrats won. Their energy isn’t put into winning the people but defrauding the people. That’s the ONLY way they can win, proven repeatedly in the previous election and now. Even sleepy, corrupt Joey admitted so much in Oct of 2020, when he said and I quote: “We have put together, I think, the most extensive and and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.” We can say at least once Biden spoke the truth. I don’t reckon there are many people that harbour such a lack of brain cells as to vote for a party that has the clear objective of destroying their own nation and the lives of its inhabitants, led by a leader that is a severely corrupt, pedophile, globalist, basement-dweller. Even people with a very low IQ get it. And Desantis went out of his way to make elections secure in that state. And that is why that state is almost completely red.
I am grateful that the men who inhabited America 246 years ago and zealously pursued to preserve their rights and independence from an out of touch central government, weren’t sanctimonious snowflakes.
Reuben
Bro. Ross,
Gov. DeSantis signed a pretty comprehensive bill to make elections more secure in Florida. Among other things, the bill addressed security of drop boxes and adding restrictions to mail in voting. He took a massive amount of heat for it and the effort was said to be a product of election denial. So essentially not only does DeSantis recognize the extreme fraud that exists- he signed his name to a bill that addresses it head on. I have no doubt you will shred me in a debate Sir- and I highly respect you and rarely comment, but I thought this fact was being overlooked in your previous comment. God bless.
Thanks, Jeremy!
As I had mentioned before, I don’t think mass mail in balloting is a good idea. It is easier to cheat with mail-in ballots. But if we are going to have them, we should make them as secure as possible. I’m glad if Florida is doing that. I’m totally for it. I’m actually for making it harder to vote so that people who aren’t committed are less likely to do it, although I’m not holding my breath until people run on the “let’s make it harder to vote so the ignorant and lazy can’t do it as easily” platform wins.
Jeremy P: “I have no doubt you will shred me in a debate Sir- …”
I am amazed at the spin Bro. Ross thinks he can put on this stuff, and I find that debate technique seems to be more important than brotherly discussions to help us all honor the Lord. I’m in general agreement with Bro Ross’s positions on many – not all – things. But I’m at the point of not wanting to quote from him because I wonder if his logic in theology is as knee-jerk as in politics. And I am embarrassed by his “stridentness” when, instead, a communication to the reader of the humility he must have had in order to get saved would go a long way.
I hardly comment because it seems like trying to didcuss stuff with a woodpecker – the noise (condescending attitude) will go on and on. Glad I’m not a bug in the tree bark.
Praying for us all.
Mr. Ross bothers you because he speaks truth, which I suspect you find offensive because your favorite politicians gave up on any semblance of truth long ago. If you are a Trump fan, you do not love truth.
Furthermore, your argument here is a logical fallacy. Your opinion of his humility (or lack thereof) does not have anything to do with whether he is speaking truth.
Dr Brandenburg,
I think out of all the comments on here, I agree with your closing statement to this article the most. I too think it is important that “individual professing believers of churches, commit themselves wholesale to the only true gospel.”
The fact that Trump yesterday ‘truthed’ something that might signal the end for his campaign prompted me to reflect on what has happened thus far, and I think we all need to take a moment to just calm down and reflect. Like it says in Psalm 46, “Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.”
Unfortunately, unless I misread all of your comments, with the sole exception of Kent mentioning a few passages such as Philippians 1 and John 8 there wasn’t much biblical reflection in this discussion. Regardless of how much I agree or disagree with you I think we can do better. We need to focus on what’s really important. The fact that God is in heaven and we are here on earth is important. One of the reasons I love my country is because our founding document gives a very deserving place to the Lord as being Lord. He occupies a special place above our system of government: He is recognized as such in the US Constitution Article 7, Attestation Clause (where it says, “in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven and of the independence of the United States of America the Twelfth.”) Our Creator is also recognized explicitly as such in the other great founding document, the Declaration of Independence, a mention which President Lincoln spoke very highly of at one point.
We need to remember that even more important than loyalty to a man in any branch of government, whether federal, state or local, what’s most important is what Dr Brandenberg mentioned. That is, individual professing believers of churches are to commit themselves wholesale to the only true gospel.
This also reminds me of what a founding father of Rhode Island once wrote during the colonial era. He wrote this in his appeal for the Royal Charter that would govern the state for the next century, part of which is inscribed on the Providence state house, and I quote it as it appears in Congressional Records: “That they might be permitted to hold forth a lively experiment that a most flourishing civil state may stand, and best be maintained, with a full liberty in religious concernments; [the inscription cuts off here] and that true piety, rightly grounded upon gospel principles, will give the best and greatest security to sovereignty, and will lay in the hearts of men the strongest obligation to true loyalty.”
I say all that to make this point. God sets up and removes leaders. We are blessed not to have to be under an absolute monarch. People historically have no right to expect that, but that the situation we were blessed with. We are not that centralized, and what abortionists do in Massachussetts or wherever else shouldn’t affect us, if we don’t live there. It’s true that especially since the Obama era, proponents for greater presidential power have chipped away at our balanced system of governance, with its checks and balances. They are still chipping away at it. And that’s bad. It’s true that these people have terrible plans for our lives. Probably something like you would read out of the apocalyptic segment of the New Testament. But we should be like those who had to live under bad leaders in the past, always secure in the knowledge that God is over them and is still going to use all of this for some greater purpose, even if we can’t envision how that works now. As it says in the Bible, He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them: he enlargeth the nations, and straiteneth them again (Job 12:23). And also, “the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men.”
I am still uniquely appreciative of our Constitution. So it troubles me that Trump yesterday wrote something that could at least be taken out of context as meaning he thinks we should “terminate” articles therein. The exact sentence Trump wrote on his truth social account is this: “Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”
It seems from this one of three things, assuming Trump actually wrote the above sentence. Either 1) He meant to say that’s what the fraudsters did, not what he’s suggesting to be done, or 2) this is actually some 10-dimensional-chess master play to clear the way for another person to successfully run against him in the primaries, or else 3) he really thinks the US Constitution articles should be violated or overturned just because someone won an election, or two, by fraud (which I grant by the statistics and by the overwhelming evidence, did happen). I have to say that if possibility 3 is the case, then I am very concerned about the future of Trump’s candidacy. We don’t do things that way just because someone cheats. You don’t throw out or give up on the whole system of law. That’s what the wicked want us to do. And that’s exactly what the foreign powers (China, etc) who are trying to destabilize the free world want to happen. We need to show better control. I’m very disappointed if possibility 3 is the case. I think God can raise up a much better leader for us than that, if that’s what we need. Thanks all for the discussion, I learned a lot, especially from the article.
Thanks Anonymous.
I didn’t have time to respond to your comment and I wasn’t even planning to, but I was sitting here taking a rest and saw a news story on Realclearpolitics about Trump’s comment. Watching the man now for awhile, I think I understand what he’s saying when he uses certain words, like terminate. I know people want to read the worst into that, but Trump doesn’t have that kind of pause to him. He lets it flow out of him with whatever word he thinks it is at the moment, and instead of saying amend, he said terminate. There is the prohibition of alcohol and then the repeal of prohibition. Trump thinks the Constitution needs amending to deal with election issues. He just used the word “terminate,” and anyone who wants to read the worst about him, thinks, “he doesn’t care about the constitution. He would just shred it.” No. He doesn’t use the legal or even constitutional word. He uses his word, terminate. He means repeal, change, amend, doing away with something in it to make it better. That’s what I think. Will something like this sink him? I don’t know. Nothing has sunk him so far.
The Elon Music publishing the behind the scenes of Twitter before he bought it, most recently the Hunter Biden laptop story. If he had not bought it, this would not be there for everyone to see like he has done. Everyone already knew it, but this is evidence, like something might show in court. The NY Times doesn’t even report on it. Among many other points, this is what Trump is incensed about. He doesn’t like losing, it’s personal to him, and he feels he was cheated. Then he uses the word, terminate. Trump speak.
Dear Bro Brandenburg,
I would like to agree that Trump was just saying something dumb when he said:
“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” he added. “Our great ‘Founder’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections.”
but he still thinks the VP can unilaterally overturn election results. I have to assume he isn’t just saying another of the gazillion ridiculous things that he says, but that he actually thinks this. I didn’t think he would egg on violence on January 6–but he proved me wrong. Unfortunately, I think we need to take Trump seriously once in a while. He had already lost my vote, not just in the primary, but in the general election, since I am in California, which is not a swing state and so how I vote there for president does not matter. With this statement, he almost surely lost my vote even were I in a swing state (and he also likely handed Georgia to Warnock, giving the Democrats a real Senate majority). He is proving that the previous Republican Vice President was right about Trump when he stated: “Donald Trump … tried to steal the last election [in 2020] using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward. A real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters. He lost his election … I know it, he knows it, and, deep down, I think most Republicans know it. … Donald Trump [must] never again [be] near the Oval Office.” (source: https://faithsaves.net/donald-trump-joe-biden-2020-election/)
Thomas,
I think you’re out of balance. Trump won. He beat Hillary in 2016. Dole lost. McCain lost. Romney lost. Bush lost his reelection, winning the first time only because of Reagan. You treat him like he’s a loser. He got more votes than any Republican in American history and over 10 million more than the first time, when he won. George W. Bush won, but in many ways he was a disaster. Trump would have won in 2020 for more and other reasons than what you give. The level, number and quality, of the illegalities from the left are breathtaking related to the election. I don’t know what statement you could point to, where he egged on violence. These people have guns. They are the gun toting side. Who had a gun of any of them? If the Republicans that you like were so good, then why can’t they easily persuade and beat Trump?
Many people, who are not deceived as you might think, wanted Trump. If I thought someone else, like a DeSantis could and would be Trump-like, then I want him. These are men greatly influenced by Trump. Pompeo was elevated by Trump, for instance. You would hope they were as tough as Trump. His Supreme Court picks. Then the overturning of Roe/Wade. Energy production. Freedom of religion issues. No wars. As I say this, the people reading this and don’t like what you’re writing. They are not deceived. I think you think that they are. Look at who the people are that are most flattering of your opposition to Trump. I’m just asking for balance. When I say balance, I don’t mean 10-90. At least closer to 40-60.
By the way, I agree with something that came up from Mark Levin, that we’re headed toward a Democrat run police state. There are two systems of justice, one for the left, where they get away with almost anything they want, see Hillary Clinton acid wash evidence. I also agree with the assessment that what Elon Musk is now releasing on Twitter on interference against Trump in 2020 is “Watergate on steroids.” We just don’t hear about that from you. Where’s the balance?
Your cognitive dissonance with Trump is just astounding. He says to “terminate” parts of the Constitution and you helpfully spin that he really just meant to “amend” the constitution. Nothing to see here. He openly associates and dines with white supremacists and anti-semites. I have not seen you comment on that, but again, I assume it is no big deal. You accuse Democrats of wanting a police state right after you just defend Trump from wanting to terminate the constitution. Trump has advocated supra-judicial overthrow of the 2020 election and wants to terminate parts of the consitution and you are still willing to carry water for him and make absurd claims about the Democrats? The pretzels you are willing to twist into for this guy are truly astounding and not becoming of someone in your position. I would also challenge you to provide one quote, policy paper, etc. from any national democrat that advocates for a police state. Someone on this blog previously accused you of lying, and on this issue I have to agree.
David,
Trump also met with Xi and Kim Jong Un. He met with Putin. He doesn’t have the sense not to meet with these types, the ones about which you were speaking. He talks to everyone. I don’t know why he talks with the NY Times editorial board or gives long interviews to Bob Woodward. I never wrote about that, criticizing that either. I didn’t criticize him much because I liked what he said he would do and then he did it. He does enough to make himself look bad. I don’t want to make him look bad. Pence could make a constitutional argument on the electoral college, but Trump saw it as a sham because what’s the point of certifying a rigged election. It seems like a lie to certify something where you know it wasn’t democratic. In the end, he left though. He left the White House and went back into private life. He didn’t do what Antifa does or BLM and keep that going. Trump doesn’t want to be told he can’t talk to someone and if he does, he gets punished for guilt by association. Lots of people talk to Adam Schiff. They talk to Gavin Newsome. When the state of California amended its Constitution to define marriage between man and woman, Newsome married same sex in city hall. Then Arnold did nothing about it. He did not faithfully execute the Constitution of California.
Mark Levin, a lawyer in the Reagan White House and his justice department, said we’re moving toward a Democratic run police state. He didn’t say we were in one. I agree with his assessment. The White House press secretary said the President was watching what was happening at Twitter. It is now a privately owned company. Musk took it private in contradiction to what Thomas wrote about it. It was public before the Musk purchase. You function like the media, David. I quoted Levin. I’m saying its headed that way and you turn that into my saying Democrats wanted a police state. Some would. They might not call it a police state. Communist China doesn’t call itself a police state. Bob Barr said several times there were two systems of justice and that is the path to a police state.
One more thing, your threat about something being unbecoming of someone in my position, in other words, I should just keep what I think to myself, is a big part of the problem. People are afraid to say anything for fear someone like yourself will say what you say. I think churches should talk about what’s happening in the country. I don’t think people should show up for church services and get political speeches, but where the passage might make an appropriate and right application, a church leader should not remain silent. Paul talked about government in a few places. So did Jesus. The Old Testament mentions it a lot, including information directly from God on it.
I don’t have a problem with you saying whatever comes to your mind. The saying is not the problem; the beliefs are the problem. I would rather have you say what you believe so the public can see you for who you are and what you support. You support a former president who has advocated terminating parts of the Constitution and who has spent the past 2 years undermining democracy. The election was not rigged. Every judge, justice, both Republicans and Democrats, who have looked at the issue, under oath when there is threat of perjury charges, in 60+ cases, have found no evidence of that. You can keep repeating the lie as long as you like, but that does not change reality.
I have no problem with Trump meeting with heads of state in an attempt to resolve national differences, even if those states are global pariahs. When he dines, voluntarily, with an anti semitic rapper and white nationalist nobody, he elevates their platform and gives them greater visibility. I do not know why he would do that if he does not sympathize with their views to some degree, or at least think they are not a big deal.
Your evidence that we are moving to a Democrat run police state? Because Mark Levin says so and you agree with him? I asked for evidence directly from Democrat sources who advocate that, but again you deflect.
Levin gives evidence. Bill Barr said what I’m saying. It’s why he joined Trump despite his being his least favorite of the 17 candidates, once he won. I’m not going to replay it for you. Headed toward a police state and being one are different, and I said the former, not the latter, but you said I said the latter. And now you can’t retract. Trump meets with every sort of shady character. The fact that he meets with almost anyone and everyone means what? You see it as supporting antisemites. Trump too, I believe, sees Kanye West as a celebrity and that means something to Trump in his mind. Trump was probably the most pro-Israel president in history, pretty good for an antisemite. They’ve named things after him in Israel. He’s quite popular there with all those Semites. He’s also popular with his Jewish son-in-law.
Trump Heights (Hebrew: רמת טראמפ, Ramat Trump, [ʁaˈmat ˈtʁamp]) is a planned Israeli settlement in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights named after and in honor of the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump.In June 2020, Israel’s government approved 8 million Israeli new shekels (about 2.3 million in US dollars) in funding for the Trump Heights settlement.[29][30] On July 4, 2020,[citation needed] a major sculptural memorial was placed adjacent to the entrance to Trump Heights, honoring President Donald J. Trump. It depicts an eagle in front of a menorah.
Quote Bill Barr when is suits you. He also said Trump was “detached from reality” regarding his election fraud claims. Do you agree with the former top lawyer in the country regarding that? He also said the DOJ probably had enough evidence to indict Trump over the Mar-O-Lago raid.
I assume you believe that we are “heading” to a police state because the Democrats want that? Or are you saying the Democrats don’t want a police state, so it is happening accidentally? Your nitpicking of “heading to” verses “becoming” vs “wanting” is mere semantic games that I will not bother with.
Your views on the above really don’t matter. Those in power and the majority of the American public reject these claims, so you can tilt at windmills for as long as you like, but that really is all you are doing.
The Trump team probably mishandled papers. Trump takes election fraud to an extreme. I’ve already said that. Barr is careful in what he says. He doesn’t want Trump as a candidate, so he’s playing this both ways. I understand wanting someone other than Trump for 2024. The same qualities that got Trump elected are one that make him unelectable. It’s hard to reject the unelectable qualities when they got him elected. They also enable him to fill arenas of people while Biden works from his basement. There is a difference between wanting and heading. A big one. I believe some want some level of police state, as seen in comments by the managers of Bernie Sanders campaign caught by Project Veritas a few years back. Many like myself see election denialism and big lie talk as mainly propaganda.
Hello Bro Brandenburg,
If you check out my article here:
https://faithsaves.net/donald-trump-joe-biden-2020-election/
I say that I believe Biden should be impeached because of his abuses of power.
That does not mean that when Trump says the Vice President can unilaterally overturn election results–and clings to it for over a year–and then says that the Constitution should be destroyed so that he can get power back he is not a tyrant.
If someone has a rational, documented, scholarly critique of the case here:
https://lostnotstolen.org
by conservatives that Trump lost the 2020 election, I would be happy to see it. Trump himself isn’t making it. In court his lawyers aren’t even arguing what he says to the general public. Pence said in his book on when he was in the White House, essentially, that Trump knew he lost but that Pence was “too honest” when he was not going to deny the truth. I have every reason to think that, if I have to choose between Trump being a liar or Pence being one, that it is Trump, and his ego is just the size of Trump Tower so he can’t admit it in public.
Trump saying he will destroy the Constitution right before the Georgia election also is very likely to hand Georgia to the Democrats and with it the Senate. So even if we want to pretend Trump doesn’t really mean what he has said, over and over and over again, about the VP being a dictator who can reject election results, he will–once again, just as in the general election we just held–harm conservative prospects.
By the way, that Twitter was colluding with the Democrats is bad, although they are a private company and so they get to do that. But Trump, by saying he wants to destroy the Constitution, has turned the attention away from these bad things to himself and his dangerous and very foolish comments. People in Georgia will be voting, not thinking about the price of gas, or about inflation, but about Trump saying he wants to destroy the Constitution. That is a great way to Make America Democrat Again.
Thomas,
I’m not going to pick through that article. Someone can make the arguments it makes. I do think things are bad enough in the country and especially in the legal or justice system that two clear standards of justice exist. The border is porous. If someone doesn’t want to wear the gay pride symbol at work, they might fire him. They might fire him for an unrelated reason because of not wearing the pride symbol. People know this. They feel it. It’s a powder keg. You call it democracy. People don’t believe that. If they speak up at a school board meeting, they are investigated like a criminal. The IRS gets involved. 55 or so former intelligence officials come out in public before the election to call the Hunter Biden laptop Russian disinformation. People believe MSNBC and CNN on these things. Those people without scruples mostly know they’re lying. Ballot Harvesting. Republican voters don’t tend toward that. They see it as cheating, not the instinct for that. The other side doubles and triples it. Filling out ballots for someone is not democracy. Some can technically say that Trump lost. It wasn’t a fair election. Election laws were disobeyed. Some practices functioned without previous legislation, something new through the executive branch when the legislative branch decides election law. In addition, Trump was undercut his entire term by the Russian hoax investigation and on and on, which was the opposite of what really happened. The dossier was a lie and allowed the Obama administration to spy on the Trump campaign. Is that fair? Is that a rigging of an election? I don’t think people hear these things from you. In your paper, you say that President Biden should be impeached. Okay? But he’s president, and if he were impeached, voila, Kamala Harris. Everyone reading gets what you’re saying. I would like someone to testify that it’s persuaded them. I’d like to hear from that person.
Trump is not a lawyer. He doesn’t even have a firm grasp of how the constitution works, but he knows based on common sense what is fair and what isn’t, which is how a lot of voters look at the country. They know what he means when he says something about terminating, changing, whatever, the constitution. Repeal, terminate, amend. These words interrelate.
Dear Bro Brandenburg,
That’s fine if you don’t refute the strong conservative case at:
https://lostnotstolen.org
The fact is, as far as I can tell, not only have you not done it, but nobody has done it, or even seriously tried. This looks to me like strong evidence that it cannot be done.
I am very concerned about leftist attacks on freedom. Trump costing Republicans the Senate in 2020, and costing them the Senate in 2022, enables Biden to appoint more radicals to the bench. That is very bad. With the awful economy the Senate should now be a 53 or 54 seat Republican majority, and the house should be a huge Republican majority. If Trump cares about the constitution rather than his ego he should enjoy his Florida paradise and keep to himself, and if he really, really needs to endorse candidates, he should endorse some that are not scary and unelectable or unlikable. He should say wonderful things about Republicans like the governor of Florida instead of attacking him, and praise his very conservative vice president instead of attacking him and almost having him killed. He should recognize that he is very unpopular and that he unites the left, scares moderates, and divides the right, and he should not say he is going to destroy the Constitution right before a Georgia senate runoff.
Thomas,
Ted Olson, one of the authors, you might remember, argued for same sex marriage against the California Constitution. He was hired by California to undo that. He was picked for Solicitor General by Bush. McConnell was fully approved by a Democrat Senate and served under George W. Bush. You remember the Bush/Trump campaign of 2016? Think Bushes like Trump?
I’m saying the are making very specific legal arguments, ones I’m not mentioning. Courts are reticent to interfere with elections. Conservative judges don’t want to do it and “legislate from the bench.” They want legislative branches to work on the process, which Florida did and it helped a gigantic majority there. Democrat courts in this case don’t want to do it for other reasons. It doesn’t mean laws weren’t broken. It also doesn’t mean that dozens of ways Trump was hurt in an illegal way that was allowed and lost him the election.
Dear Bro Brandenburg,
I don’t believe most Democrats want a police state. I think more of them want to defund the police.
I also do not believe it is credible that sixty courts all sided against Trump and Trump’s own lawyers in court were not making the arguments Trump was making to the public because Trump’s case was really just great.
We also know that attacking one or more authors of the work I cited, which proves Trump’s claims are false about the election, does not deal with the arguments themselves, as, of course, you are fully aware.
I also disagree with David’s affirmation that you are lying. I do not believe you are trying to lie. Unlike Trump, you are a person with integrity.
Trump is not an anti-semite or a racist. But meeting with people who are at his fancy residence right before an election where black turnout will be a major factor in the Georgia senate runoff is idiotic, as is meeting with such people, period, even if he feels good when they agree with him on his election fraud claims while also denying the Holocaust.
Thomas,
I believe the Democrats want selective punishment of their political opponents for certain crimes. That’s where Levin is coming from. He said we were headed there, toward that. They use the courts and succeed at punishing political enemies. The FBI helped cover for the Biden’s, but on the other hand successfully used the Steele Dossier, a fraudulent document, to spy on political enemies. So far it looks like they get away with that. Antifa not prosecuted and released. Illegal immigrants allowed in. Jan 6 people prosecuted to the full, given uniquely bad treatment in jail/prison. Hillary acid washes evidence, but the police all out raid Maralago for documents.
I agree with Conrad Black about lostnotstole (https://www.nysun.com/article/lost-not-stolen-report-fails-to-convince):
“Entitled “Lost, Not Stolen,” the report inadvertently highlights a weakness in the Trump argument for which the former president is himself responsible. As has been detailed in Molly Hemingway’s authoritative analysis of the election, “Rigged,” and elsewhere, Mr. Trump moved too late to challenge the election result where it was vulnerable.
That is the pre-election changes to voting and vote counting rules, ostensibly to facilitate voting during the pandemic, that contrary to the constitutional allocation of elections to the state legislatures, were effected by state courts or governors, especially in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.”
It’s a legal argument. Someone can argue legally that Trump lost and win that argument. It ignores what I’m writing about that directly effected the outcome. The Hunter Biden laptop alone, when people are polled, says they would have voted differently, enough to change the outcome.
Dear Bro Brandenburg,
Thanks for the comment. I believe the link below is an (overly) generous view of what Trump said about destroying the Constitution so he could get relected, but if one wants to see what can fairly be said to defend his comment right before it probably costs Republicans Georgia’s Senate seat (again) and a Senate majority (again), here it is:
https://patriotpost.us/articles/93298-what-did-trump-really-say-about-the-constitution-2022-12-06
The article you linked to by the Sun is not scholarly, creating many misrepresentations about those who disagree with Trump’s claims. Why no evidence, but instead a lot of abusive ad hominem? It does not demonstrate, or even try to demonstrate, that even one of the court challenges Trump filed should have been determined differently. It never bothers to even quote the ridiculous claims Trump made in his January 6 speech, toning them down to something more acceptable, and even then admits: “His claim to have won a majority of the popular vote is also far-fetched.” It admits that the claims his legal team were making publicly were false, in the most generous way possible so that avid pro-Trump readers do not think too much about what it is admitting. It provides no proof for Trump’s stolen election claims. Its anticlimactic declaration near the conclusion is that “Public opinion has steadily reflected widespread concern about the validity of the 2020 result,” which, of course, is totally irrelevant in terms of evidence about whether Trump’s claims are correct.
I am surprised that you agree that it refutes the claims in Lost, not Stolen. Did you read both Lost, not Stolen carefully and this article in the Sun, or just the article in the Sun?
You can have the last word on this if you desire; I don’t plan to say more. I did come back again after Trump made some of the most anti-Constitution comments by any president or former president since the time of the Civil War, helping to get himself back in the news, whatever the cost to the country or Republican party or the Georgia runoff.
Thomas,
I didn’t read all 72 pages. I looked at every page quickly. I noticed this:
This goes along with one of the assertions by Mollie Hemingway. The Trump team was not prepared in a legal way. When elections are over, judges don’t want to deal with it, making it seem like they’re overturning an election. They want the legislative branches of these states to take care of it, which they did in Florida. Trump’s “terminate” tweet seems related to this, now in hindsight, based on your article. It was Trump-speak, as I said. He used the wrong word. What he said was innocent, different than what you’re saying about him, Thomas. He said the opposition was terminating the constitution, which means they were overturning the constitutional requirement of the legislative branch to set election laws. This related to pandemic voting. He also was concerned for the 2022 election, where he thinks that challenges should be able to still be made, not in this very narrow time frame. It needs to be gotten right. It does.
Related to your article. I agreed with the article. It’s what I’m saying. I just wouldn’t have written it like he did, where he throws Trump under the bus, like you do. It’s like his critics think it’s easy to win a presidential election, and they proudly know all about it. People who have never been in an election, won an election, lecture Trump about it. There’s an ego to that. I think he can be criticized in a way that gets across the point without savaging him. That would be more helpful to those who are his supporters. Attacking him like you do isn’t persuasive to his supporters. Isn’t that the point? If it’s not the point, what is the point?
By the way, David’s comments are in the same vein, much worse than yours. He uses name-calling, ad-hominem attacks. He mocks. He threatens. It would not persuade anyone. So what’s the point? I think that is self-evident. The point of people who do that are self-evident.
Kent,
I have to take issue with that. Where did I use ad hominem attacks or name calling in any of my above comments? Your false characterization of my comments is itself an ad hominem attack. I am sorry you do not like my opinions, but I have not attacked anyone personally. If I say someone is delusional or that they are lying, that is not an ad hominem attack if is it true, and I truly believe it is.
David,
Delusional is ad hominem. So is “lying.” Just because you “believe” it doesn’t mean it isn’t ad hominem. It seems mocking is fine though for you. This is normal for you. My point though is that it isn’t persuasive, that style. You want me and others like me to change to your way of thinking. That doesn’t do it.
Trump’s entire style involves ad hominem and personal attacks, yet you still support him. I think mockery is a useful tool. When people are so far to the extreme, and are impervious to reason or reality, I think that is a useful tool. I’m really not here to convince you. I think that you are too far down the rabbit hole, but there may be some reasonable people out there that are reading. I seem to remember reading somewhere that you were banned from sharper iron due to your tone and personal attacks. I am proud to say that I have never been banned from commenting due to my tone or behavior despite what you say.
Down the rabbit hole is ad hominem David. You’re not a convincing person. You’ve never tried. I was not banned from SharperIron. Jason, the former owner, was clear about that. He did not want people like me and others on SharperIron. He delineated a different term of separation and not for personal attacks, so that’s not true. The owner at the time, who is not the present owner, said he didn’t want our type of doctrine and practice, standard sacred text, personal separation, local only ecclesiology, Baptist perpetuity, on SharperIron. He said I was not banned for behavior. There is new ownership and I’m pretty sure I could join again. They’ve linked to me half a dozen times or more since the new ownership.
David, I think telling someone they need a psychiatry consult qualifies as ad hominem, as I see no purpose in that other than as an inflammatory tactic.
By the way, though: why does someone meeting with a person who is accused of being a “White Nationalist” any worse than meeting with someone who has had an abortion? or what about meeting with anyone who even advocates for that barbaric practice? I personally think they (and I will refrain from calling them names) should all be shut out of polite society while they hold those positions, similar to the same way those who traffic in human beings and sell them as slaves are rightly regarded. I think we should all call them what they really are, child sacrificers: And probably a lot more than that too. That would be our moral responsibility and I would be glad if we started to do that now, since Roe v Wade is abolished. But David, if you are overlooking that, but at the same time worrying about how people appear according to media narratives that people drum up purely to scare you, about something that doesn’t even exist, then I see the possibility that you are too concerned with how the world views things as opposed to how God sees things. But I sure hope not. I stand in doubt of the fact you’re more concerned about that than what I just discussed.
I’m not a Trump defender by any stretch of the imagination. We should still be concerned about massive fraud. If people no longer care and they are demoralized, then it doesn’t matter what evidence you have at that point. It can be happening in broad daylight. They’ll steal elections in broad daylight and no one will do a thing to stop them because people will be trapped in their own self-defeating state, a willing prisoner to their own self-defeating thought processes, effectively policing themselves for the panopticon far more effectively than anyone else ever could. They’ve been demoralized. Satan and his Democrats know full well that you know that they are lying, and yet they are still lying. And that’s a lot like what sin looks like when it is the thing being believed and obeyed. So I have to say I’m disappointed when I see you give in to these narratives, and it has a lot more to do with than just Trump. No, this is much beyond that. I still care about the truth and about having integrity in everything we do, including elections. That’s what it’s about here. That really matters to me. Responsibilities to the truth matter. My eyes are open to the facts that are happening openly (not in secret or a conspiracy, nothing of the sort is alleged), and because my eyes are open that means nothing is going to demoralize me as long as God continues to help win the fight. Nobody, especially not a Democrat, can gaslight me, just by repeating lies to my face, into doubting whether I saw what I saw and whether I see what I see right in front of me. The Democrats are straight up lying to your face and many of you are being cowed. Maybe for some it’s a lack of a spine or a doubtful hold on the truth – I don’t know. At the end of the day, something is missing, maybe just not enough prayer for God to show you the truth. But I do know that I see many of you being cowed, and that is disappointing. My personal reputation isn’t more important than the truth, so they can come at me with all the personal ad hominem attacks, call me whatever they want, it doesn’t change the fact, they are liars. They can’t defend what they do. They just switch tactics to ad hominem and trying to make everything a conspiracy or go to some other tactic, and it is sad to see folks just like some of you falling for that. It’s really sad, to the point that it feels like one of those psychology experiments where you see many of the weaker subjects go along with the crowd and write that 2 and 2 makes 5. That’s how I see guys (not naming names, just speaking generally) who are blindly and dumbly parroting Democrat talking points, essentially doing their job for them! Seeing this behavior is I dare say, like a bad dream or a nightmare. We’ve seen plenty of obvious lies already. Covid, the twitter files. (Where our funding for strictly nonpartisan government organizations was used by dishonest fiends to turn facebook and twitter into an “agent of government” that represented Democrat party interests.) Furthermore, forcing us to pay for abortion through government funding to Planned Parenthood. We’ve seen them admit to what they do openly. There’s no secret, there never really was. I think the fact we’re even having to debate at all about this just reflects the fact that some people don’t understand how deeply evil the world system really is, and they’re just not willing to accept the fundamental distinction here that is dividing so clearly between the light and the darkness, the children of the wicked one and child sacrificers who are unequivocally, evil. It’s sad to see that some are still amplifying their lies despite all of this, the mountains of evidence against them. There is truly a mountain of evidence against them, and the daily lies, the daily gaslighting and hypocrisy is palpable. Many people still want to equivocate, trying to look for some kind of merit within those children of darkness even while at the same time claiming to believe in the Bible, claiming to believe that it’s holy and what it says. But they’re falling for the lies. Even if it’s one in a thousand lies that they’re believing, they’re still falling for it. The whole point is that they lie hundreds of thousands or millions of times until they’ve broken people down, gotten them to question themselves and lie to themselves. We really need God and His word because that’s the only way to see things clearly. I’m absolutely unapologetic about holding this view because it’s my responsibility to be a light and salt to this world and have integrity about and be consistent with what I truly believe happened even in a sea of darkness, confusion, word games and equivocating. And last of all, the woke that this present world has shall not gaslight me. They rather have to give way to the truth of the Lord. The collateral damage that “they” cause during their final fall has to be minimized. But thanks though for your discussion. It has been informative, especially to me. I see it as good that no one has descended all the way into intellectual dishonesty in this conversation.
Andrew,
I see things the same. It’s not good politics to meet with these people, knowing the state of the world, but there are many, many, many racists of different colors or absence of color of skin than white. They are never called out until, like Kanye, they go away from the Democrat party and could influence people away from the Democrat party. However, Trump is consistent in meeting with anyone and everyone, and I think it’s partly in his system not to have the cancel culture tell him what to do. If this is a form of separation, where you encourage bad behavior by association, then who makes the rules for the behavior. You can meet with an abortionist and many other types of criminals, but not this one selected person. It’s a part of virtue signaling. Getting all up in arms is a kind of virtue signaling.
Yeah, that’s true. But I would say one thing, which is that if you’re going to belittle me for who I am, I believe you should have the right to do so. I would rather that than take away freedom of expression for an American. I actually believe in and subscribe to the ideals of the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. The same can’t be said for many today whom I would describe rather charitably using a number of descriptors and advise them to find a new place of residence. I say this because if they continue to break the law by violating other people’s freedom to speak, they deserve to be investigated by the law, brought to court and have penalties leveled against them for breaking the law. One example of this would be the forceful hijacking of a private social media entity by powerful members of Congress, who apparently think they are above the law. Another example would be diluting real votes with faked ballots, which are probably all filled out by the same person and then dropped off at the polling location. People should pay attention to what’s actually happening here.
Your point about virtue signalling is true. What it really essentially is is trying to flatter and impress very wicked people and make them think you’re with them. It’s a form of submission to those powerful people. You show that you’re willing to apply different standards depending on who you are dealing with in order to curry favor with them. It’s basically the opposite of how God’s law operates. You might be perfectly fine with “racism” except under certain circumstances when your political enemies do it, for example. Biden can be racist because he’s on the “correct” side, but other people can’t. At least, that’s according to their “rules.” That’s not applying the same standard to everyone, it’s a form of favoritism.
I essentially agree with your position on the freedom of speech. I believe that today especially men try to shut people down with a certain kind of treatment. Men determine its not worth the hassle anymore and stay silent. Many a conservative person, including myself, is willing to examine, feel guilty, wonder about whether we are saying the right thing, and so this kind of criticism is effective to keep them quiet. They won’t speak out or won’t tend to do so, because of the apparent chaos that ensues from it. It’s in the line of if you jump into the mud, expect to get muddy. It gets you muddy. It feels like the orneriness sticks to you. Like David’s comment, that I was kicked off SharperIron. I know I wasn’t, but he said it and it’s out there. It didn’t happen, but how many people think it happened. Silence seems more appealing, just sailing away, going off the scene. I don’t think it’s the right thing to do.
Thanks Dr. Brandenburg, I really appreciate it.
https://thefederalist.com/2022/12/07/3-unsexy-reasons-warnock-beat-walker-in-the-georgia-runoff/
Dear Bro Brandenburg,
I think you did well to simply post a link rather than endorsing that Federalist article. Here is how other races went in Georgia:
Governor: R+8
Lt. Governor: R+5
Sec. of State: R+9
Attorney General: R+5
Ag. Commissioner: R+8
In. Commissioner: R+8
State School Superintendent: R+8
Commissioner of Labor: R+7
Then Walker lost by around 2%.
Walker was unquestionably a poor candidate. He would not have made it through the primary without Trump’s endorsement. Here is some background on him:
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/trump-pressured-herschel-walker-into-georgia-senate-race-over-familys-objections-christian-walker-says/
So ballot harvesting, etc. did not explain Walker’s loss in Georgia. Other Republicans won big with the same election laws. (Note the Federalist said nothing about the Republican-passed election integrity laws in Georgia that the Democrats decried as racist.) Trump picked a poor candidate–just like he did in many other Senate races, and now we have a Democrat controlled Senate that will approve radical judges appointed by Biden, despite 8% inflation, instead of a 54-55 seat Republican majority. With Mitch McConnell’s help, Trump got three conservative judges on the Supreme Court, and if one of them dies, with a Democrat senate we could get Roe v. Wade right back again now that Biden can still appoint whoever he wants.
Brian Kemp was vastly outspent by Stacy Abrams as well–but Abrams lost by a big margin.
This is what really happened:
[O]ther Republicans in the state were playing on the same field as Walker, and every other Republican running statewide won. Kemp was reelected by eight points, and Raffensperger by nine. Republicans also comfortably won races for lieutenant governor; attorney general; commissioner of agriculture; commissioner of insurance; school superintendent; and commissioner of labor. Republicans also significantly outpolled Democrats in holding both houses of the state legislature and nine of its 14 House seats. And yet Walker lost by somewhere between two to four points, as swing voters who voted for other Republicans ran away from him.
Georgia, of course, is not an isolated example. In Arizona, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania, Trump’s hand-picked candidates lost Senate races that could have been won, and the same was true across the country in congressional districts and governor’s races. When the primary qualification for the Republican nomination is loyalty to Trump, it not only saddles the Republican nominee with unpopular positions, but also forecloses the normal vetting process that occurs during competitive primaries that are supposed to weed out bad candidates. In 2024, Republican voters are going to have to decide how many winnable elections they are willing to lose to massage a single man’s bruised ego.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/12/donald-trump-loses-georgia-again/
The Federalist analysis can knee-jerk defend Trump if it wants, but if Republicans let Trump continue to lead them, they will continue to lose, lose, lose, in all probability. That Trump barely won against Hillary–one of the most unpopular Democrats in the nation–right after she was indicted days before the election–does not prove he was a winner. Every other election he was the Republican leader they did disastrously. They lost in 2018, he lost the presidency in 2020, and now he destroyed the Republican wave and made it into a Republican trickle. We can blame conspiracies if we want, but that isn’t the explanation.
I’m 60. I remember in the 90s when Republicans first took the House for the first time in decades, during Bill Clinton’s first mid term. I don’t believe any other Republican candidate would beat Hillary in 2016 than Trump. Despite criminal activities in the Russian hoax and numerous others, Trump was sailing along until Covid in early 2020, which changed everything, despite the illegalities against Trump that Thomas rarely to never mentions. This brought unique kind of voting, easily corrupted, with difficulty to measure. The American voting system was already rife for corruption without Voter ID. This included spying on his campaign with a foreign intelligence surveillance act obtained with a phony dossier. Then the Hunter Biden laptop. Polls show that if the truth was known by voters they would have voted differently to the extent that Trump would have won despite all of what occurred to him that was illegal, that Thomas rarely to never mentions.
What we’ve now seen with the Twitter files is whole other wide ranging type of corruption in favor of Democrats. It probably could be proven illegal, but it’s extremely corrupt. We know now that FTX with Sam Bankman Friedman used investor funds to donate to Democrat candidates. This is much like the 2020 Zuckerberg bucks, also corrupt and probably illegal, that changed swing state elections. I could write much more than this, that is true, and can be substantiated. Trump’s presidency resulted in the overturning of Roe v. Wade, not Bush and not Reagan. This also brings unmeasurable amounts of religious freedom because of this court. The American embassy is in Jerusalem. The Iran deal was scrapped, which greatly slowed Iran’s ability to obtain a nuclear weapon. Because of increased energy production, that started even after Trump won the election (I know people in the industry), gas prices went down in some states below 2 dollars a gallon. Trump took a tremendous amount of opposition for all of this, while some conservative critics sat and took potshots, joining leftists.
Yes, Hershel Walker was a bad candidate, but he was a far, far more decent man than Raphael Warnock. On the Republican side of things, Trump had enough sway to get his candidates through. Someone could armchair quarterback that and say something else should have been done, but it wasn’t done. There were all those stupid Republicans, unlike the very smart ones, who knew what Trump did and the kind of opposition he faced, illegally, that were still loyal. DeSantis, Pompeo, all the great candidates that you like Thomas, they’re all products greatly of Trump. Thomas, you’re going to persuade almost no one to go a different direction with the way you deal with this, but maybe that’s not your goal. Trump can’t persuade Gen-Z and suburban women, and you can’t persuade Trump voters.
Kent,
That’s a nice “Mussolini made the trains run on time” argument but it is not germane to what Thomas or I have been arguing, i.e. continued support of Trump will further hurt the Republican Party and make it difficult for conservatives to be elected. Your post, which started this whole discussion, denigrated polls in general, yet you keep stating with certainty that polls show that if Hunter Biden’s laptop was known, Trump would have won. Really? You don’t trust polls except for this very specific poll which supports your worldview?
You keep stating that current voting procedures are ” easily corrupted” but you, and everyone else, have failed to show that they WERE corrupted in such a way that the election outcome was altered.
People get tired of hearing this argument, but it bears repeating. Oil is a global commodity, traded in a global market. The price is set by market forces that no president has control over. Gasoline taxes are set by the states, not the federal government. Trump’s policies were not the cause of low gas prices. It is absolutely false that increased energy production brought gas prices down. In fact, the US has pumped more oil per year on under Biden than all but one of Trump’s four years in office. You can look it up.
https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/verify/presidents-dont-control-the-quantity-of-domestic-oil-being-produced-technically-highest-oil-production-during-president-bidensadministration/65-401bfdf8-e601-4d3f-8dee-f90f349c9cac
You can defend Hershel Walker if you want, but if the Republicans had picked literally any other candidate with a pulse, the Republicans would have won that seat. That loss can be laid directly at the feet of Trump who placed candidates who parroted the Big Lie as the only candidates he would support. Walker was uniquely unqualified for that seat.
The biggest problem with your view is that you are leaving out the fact that Trump has spent 2 years attempting to overthrow American democracy. He has said that parts of the Constitution should be terminated to put him back in power. Even Bill Barr has said there is a good chance Trump will be indicted. I really struggle to comprehend how conservatives can defend this.
David
David,
You did better in this comment not to do the ad hominem. I commend that. I didn’t and wouldn’t support entering the capital of the U.S. on Jan 6. I understand it though. I think the attack on democracy is the opposite of what you say. The attack on democracy is Antifa, BLM, when Gavin Newsome marries same sex at city hall after the voters changed the California constitution to define marriage between man and woman, then Governor Arnold does nothing to execute the California constitution, the unwillingness to execute immigration law at the Southern border, the willingness to sidestep constitutional protection to spy on a campaign, even the Jan 6 committee shutting out the inclusion of an opposing viewpoint. The left has kept intelligent design out of the school system. This isn’t democracy.
As far as oil goes, I’ve heard your point of view. Have a good time persuading people that when gas prices rocketed up to 2-3 times more expensive after Biden became president, had nothing to do with Trump policies. Everyone knows about the Keystone pipeline, the green agenda, stopping the drilling on public lands. If none of this mattered, they also know President Biden went to the Saudis begging for oil production. He also released a ton of oil from the petroleum reserves. Some of what you are saying is true, but it corrupts the main point on that issue.
Voting changed in 2020. Everyone knows that. It’s proven. They’ve also proven corruption occurred. Mail-in and box-drop ballots increased exponentially. This country doesn’t historically have an easy enough mechanism to deal with these types of problems. We’ve obviously made it difficult on ourselves in a lot of ways to deal with a wide array of problems in the country. That doesn’t mean those problems don’t exist.
One other factor that may swing tight races–more Republicans are buying anti-vaccine COVID conspiracy theories, and so they have a significantly higher death rate than Democrats of comparable ages, as a lower percentage of Republicans are vaccinated:
https://www.nber.org/papers/w30512
This may be a long-term pro-Democrat demographic change if Republicans continue to be less likely to be vaccinated.
I don’t know, man, this sounds like a classic “concern troll” to me. Tell us, what are your solutions to the alleged problem that you are proposing, that is if you are not just concern trolling us right now? This sounds like something a wokeist who is concern trolling us and trying to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) would say, but I’m giving the benefit of the doubt and responding.
Thomas,
I suspect the truth is exactly the opposite of the above claim. Covid-19 shot-deniers will have more babies, per capita, over the next few years. See the page below. These findings have been similar for several countries.
https://igorchudov.substack.com/p/hungary-most-vaccinated-counties.
Are you willing to reveal your sources for news? What search engines or indexes do you use for research? If you choose not to answer, no worries.
Thanks.
Thomas,
I was responding to your last comment: “This may be a long-term pro-Democrat demographic change if Republicans continue to be less likely to be vaccinated.” Based on what I am seeing, (including the link I included) the long term effect will be the opposite. The recent statistics on declining birth numbers are even more dire. Australia’s birth rate has dropped dramatically.
Vaccine injury and death leads me to anticipate more conservative voters in the future. Until there is major election reform, it won’t change results at the ballot box, however.
I took a brief look at the link you provided, but I am skeptical. I saw first-hand how medical coding was gamed to produce greater Covid-19 numbers. Bounties were paid for Covid-19 treatments which further skewed the numbers. One can produce a pre-determined outcome in any study given enough time and money. And statistical sleight-of-hand. Yes, I could do a deep-dive on the study you linked but I won’t.
My goal was to present an alternate view, and to try to understand how you do research. Now, I’ll follow your advice and make “seeking the kingdom of God [my] first priority”
Thanks for responding.
Hi Chris!
Maybe you missed it, but my comment was about death rates. In Afganistan people that are against the polio vaccine have lots of babies, starting from the time that girls are able to bear children, following the prophet Muhammad’s example of marrying a six year old and consummating the marriage at age nine. They have high infant mortality and a low lifespan, but they are growing fast because of the early start they get. If your point is about fecundity among anti-vax conservative Republicans versus, say, among pot-smoking anti-vax socialists in San Francisco, your link may not be especially convincing, but I’m not going to argue about it.
I have some resources on politics here:
https://faithsaves.net/politics/
if that is what you are asking.
I think one of the most important things to do is follow the principles here for how to evaluate uninspired claims:
https://faithsaves.net/conspiracy/
And, based on those Biblical principles, I don’t just blindly trust any news source but seek to get the best arguments for both sides of something before drawing a conclusion.
Thanks.
Of course, your comment did not engage at all with the data I supplied in my comment.
Thanks again.
In Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Arizona down-ballot Republicans got a higher percentage of the vote than down-ballot Democrats (e. g., in House races). So mail-in voting does not explain why the Senate went more Democrat this year. The explanation is bad, Trump-picked candidates. Now the Senate can continue to vote in anti-life, anti-Constitution judges Biden appoints, and if one of the more conservative Supreme Court judges dies, we can get someone else who will put Roe v. Wade back again. There are both compelling theoretical and practical reasons not to back Trump for elected office ever again for those who favor limited government and the Constitution (and there are compelling reasons for the main stream media to do whatever they can to keep Trump propped up so Democrats can continue to win).
Systematic voter fraud in targeted areas, and election integrity generally as an issue of our time, is much larger than Trump winning or losing. IOW, the fact that he happened to be running when this started happening is incidental.