DeSantis speaks out in favor of Djokovic and against insane COVID-restrictions

The issue of Novak Djokovic and his unfair treatment by various entities with regard to his vaccination status has been addressed repeatedly in earlier texts ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]). While he was allowed to compete in this year’s Australian Open, and while this allowed him to regain the first place on the ATP ranking, he is still a victim of undue restrictions, as with e.g. this year’s Miami Open.

The restrictions on travel to the U.S. (that prevent Djokovic from participating in the Miami Open) has caused Florida* Governor Ron DeSantis to write a letter to Joe Biden, available at Brownstone. Due to the high quality and high relevance to COVID-nonsense in general, not just on the topic of Djokovic, I republish large parts below:**

*Miami is, of course, located in Florida, which makes the tournament of particular relevance to DeSantis—and the main risk of COVID-damage, should such exist (have existed), would be (have been) directed at Floridians, not the U.S. population in general or Delawareans, as Biden’s potential special-interest group.

**Restricted to the body. Footnote removed. The usual reservations for formatting, etc., apply.

It has been reported that Novak Djokovic has formally applied and been denied permission from your administration to enter the United States so that he may compete at the upcoming Miami Open tennis tournament. This denial is unfair, unscientific and unacceptable. I urge you to reconsider. It’s time to put pandemic politics aside and give the American people what they want—let him play.

While Mr. Djokovic is surely a supreme competitive threat to his fellow tennis professionals, his presence in our country poses no meaningful health or public safety risk. I note that since the onset of COVID-19, Mr. Djokovic has visited the United States at least twice — including once during your presidency — without any apparent health incident. It is also not clear to me why, even by the terms of your own proclamation, Mr. Djokovic could not legally enter this country via boat. Please confirm no later than Friday, March 10, 2023, that this method of travel into Florida would be permissible.

Furthermore, even as you enacted the Proclamation on air travel that remains in force to this day, your administration pointedly allowed thousands of unvaccinated migrants to enter our country through the southern border. In sum, the current “travel ban” as applied to Mr. Djokovic and presumably millions of other potential unvaccinated foreign visitors — seems completely ungrounded in logic, common sense, or any genuine concern for the health and welfare of the American people.

[…]

The only thing keeping Mr. Djokovic from participating in this tournament is your administration’s continued enforcement of a misguided, unscientific, and out-of-date COVID-19 vaccination requirement for foreign guests seeking to visit our great country. American tennis legend John McEnroe recently termed this restriction “absurd.” He was quite right to say so.

We are now three years since the onset of COVID-19, and we have learned many valuable — and often painful — lessons during that time. For one thing, it is now clear that the COVID-19 vaccines are not as effective as initially advertised. A new study in the Lancet has found that natural immunity is at least as effective as the COVID vaccines (“Our analysis of the available data suggests that the level of protection afforded by previous infection is at least as high, if not higher than that provided by two-dose vaccination using high-quality mRNA vaccines.”). Furthermore, data also suggests that exposure to COVID-19 is now significantly less likely to result in hospitalization or fatality. Finally, not only is the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine now in question, but recent scientific studies have identified serious potential health risks from the vaccine. Florida’s Surgeon General has issued guidance recommending against the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines for males ages 18-39 years old — precisely the cohort of Mr. Djokovic.

[…] Although it has taken some time, most of the rest of the world has now come to recognize COVID-19 vaccination requirements as obsolete. At present, it appears that the United States is one of only a handful of countries that requires foreign visitors to have received a COVID-19 vaccination. […]

[…]

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Oddities from the U.S. election

With the chaos and highly conflicting reports on this and that, I will not go into detail on the U.S. elections even now. However:

1. What I have seen from specifically the infamous Maricopa County both in 2022 and 2020 is beyond the pale.

   In a best-case scenario, we have such a combination of incompetence and negligence that the election results cannot be trusted and that the lesser evil would be to simply strike them as too unreliable—just like “election” results from a county would not be accepted that had been decided by the flip of a coin. (What legal options exist here, I do not know, but the question will likely be academic for reasons of politics.)

   More likely, there has been a systematic pro-Democrat cheating, which has outright falsified election results.

2. I have seen repeated claims (but, unfortunately, no official source) that the Republicans had a clear “popular vote” majority in the House. (E.g. [1], which gives 52.3 R, 46.2 D with reference to the “Cook Political Report”.)

   This does not seem to be reflected in the seats won, as the Republican victory is not yet completely certain and will be at most by a thin margin. While such flukes can happen,* they are unusual, unlikely, and cause for suspicion.

   *By a sufficiently uneven distribution of voters.

3. Combine this with another claim and there is very major reason for suspicion:

   That the Democrats won almost all “toss up” seats.

   I have not seen final numbers on this and “toss up” is open to interpretation,* but say for the sake of argument, that we have an election with 15 50–50 seats and one party wins at least 14 out of 15. The chance of this happening is given by the binomial formula as 0.5^15 + 15 x 0.5^14 x 0.5 = 16 x 0.5^15 or 1/2048.

   *If and when I see better numbers, I might revisit the issue.

   This is unlikely to match the actual relevant numbers, but it does give a general idea of how such scenarios should raise suspicion.

   (Note similar issues in the past, e.g. that Trump took most bell-weather states in 2020, yet somehow lost the election. Could be coincidence, but is yet another reason for suspicion.)

4. Then there is the much smaller “swing” during these mid-terms than what appears typical,* despite the utter disaster of Biden, inflation, economic crisis, energy crisis, CRT, gender-indoctrination, etc., etc.

   *I saw numbers in advance of the election, but have not revisited them since then and have to be a little vague.

   This does not make sense, unless we assume voters out of touch with reality—or extensive cheating. (Mind you, I am very open to the “out of touch with reality” explanation. There is precedence…)

To this might or might not be added a failure of the Republicans to over-perform relative polls. I am hesitant here, because it is not clear how strong this trend has truly been in the past, polls this year have been very contradictory, and there is always a chance that polling institutes have adapted their approaches to reduce the difference between poll and election. Moreover, a “popular vote” win (cf. above) would lessen the issue relative the disappointing seat numbers.

As to the Senate relative the House, I point to The disadvantage of defending more seats (U.S. elections).

The last chance for the U.S.

The U.S. is at a critical point, having possibly its last chance to preserve anything resembling the “Land of the Free”.

The almost two years of Biden have been an unmitigated disaster, and it is vital, important beyond description, that another two years like this do not follow.

Two more years of far Left politics, of inflation and economic destruction, of attempts to quash the mechanisms of democracy, of disregard for civil rights, of government-driven censorship, of abuse of the DOJ for political persecution, of a justice system that puts violent criminals back on the street, of you-name-it is not something that the U.S. can afford.

In a bigger picture, it is not something that the world can afford, and as long as the U.S. is ruled by the far Left, the world is in danger.

To everyone entitled to vote during Tuesday’s election, please do the right thing and oppose the Democrats. If not because you are in favor of Republicans, then because the U.S. cannot afford another two years of this shit. Every Democrat governor, congressman, and whatnot who is replaced, and every Republican ditto who is preserved, makes the chance of survival that much larger. Even moving just the Senate or just the House to Republican control can give the U.S. some protection from Biden and the far Left. Even just one governor more can give the same protection to a new state, and reverse existing policies. Even just one unexpected “down-ballot” victory can make a difference. Etc.

And remember: This might literally be the your last chance—in two years, for the big one, if the Democrats win now, the U.S. might no longer have elections that count.

Brownstone drops the ball II / An odd attack piece on Trump

Some two weeks ago, I encountered another article where Brownstone dropped the ball, with a weird unwarranted attack on Donald Trump (intermingled with likely* sensible claims on the economic damage of the COVID countermeasures). This reeks of Leftist propaganda, in that Trump (the Republicans, the Right, the whatnot) is blamed for damage mostly caused by the Left. (Ideas like “The economy is in shambles after almost two years of a Democrat President, House, and Senate—and it is all the Republicans’ fault!” are somewhat common on the Left.)

*Due to the attack-piece aspect, I skimmed and skipped, and left the last parts entirely unread.

Before I look at some examples, I stress that I do believe that Trump dropped the ball, but (a) not to the degree that many other political leaders did, (b) his fault was listening to his advisors,* (c) the brunt of the overall (U.S.) damage falls on Biden (POTUS-wise) and the likes of Fauci and Birx**, (d) chances are that Trump would have followed a more DeSantis-like COVID policy, had he been reelected. I further stress that I would have had no problem with a general discussion of U.S. government failures around COVID, where Trump was given his fair share—and the likes of Biden and Andrew Coumo their fair share. (The reader is invited to count how many times these three persons are referenced in the article.)

*This is the guy that the Left has otherwise repeatedly accused of ignoring wise advisors who could have made everything right, and instead doing his own ignorant thing. The truth might rather be the opposite, that things went bad when he did listen to advisors and worked well when he did his own thing. They should have let Trump be Trump, as they let Reagan be Reagan.

**Cf. her autobiography/self-incrimination, which describes deliberate manipulation and subversion attempts. This, maybe, to the point that an (e) applies: The policies under Trump were a distorted version of what Trump had actually ordered. (I say “maybe” as I have read several reviews of the book, but not the actual book.)

Prolonged fiscal and monetary excesses prior to February 2020 were already destined to generate an era of reckoning, even before Washington jumped the shark* after the Covid panic was ignited by Donald Trump in March 2020.

*What the author intends here is unclear. I suspect that the expression is simply misused.

COVID panic was igniting world-wide from multiple sources, Trump is likely better viewed as a victim than as the igniter, and the likes of Biden, Hillary, and Obama would almost certainly have gone down the same path. Trump was the messenger; not the sender of the message. His main error was failing to reject the message—but the same applies to most other world leaders.* From another point of view, it is puzzling why the author goes to the trouble of mentioning Trump by name (or it would have been, had this not been an obvious attack piece). Why not speak of e.g. “Fauci”?

*A general issue, which I will not always mention, is that what happened in other countries, what mistakes were made by more experienced politicians, how much more damage Biden has done in the post-Trump era, etc. is left out. Trump, going by the discussed text, was a single, unique world-leader who screwed up where others did not or, in his place, would not have. The truth is radically different.

The history books will surely record, therefore, that it was Trump who foolishly ignited the above depicted ticking financial timebomb. Based on the facts known now and the evidence available then, the prolonged Lockdowns ordered by Trump on March 16, 2020 were one of the most capriciously destructive acts of the state in modern history.

Firstly, there is no need to ignite a time bomb. The defining characteristic of a time bomb is that it goes off on its own, when the literal or metaphorical dial hits the right time. Any premature ignition will only change the timing of the bomb. (It might even be argued that some bombs, including financial ones, are better detonated as soon as possible, because they are hard to disarm and tend to do more damage the later they go off.) Blame the guy who built the bomb, not the one who accidentally set it off prematurely. (Whether Trump is the latter, I leave unstated. He certainly is not the former.)

Secondly, again, Biden did (and will likely continue to do) worse and so did many others—and at least Biden did so with much more information and more deliberately. Trump in contrast, going by e.g. claims by Birx, might have truly gone for “two weeks to flatten the curve”, or something similar, only to be manipulated into prolonged lockdowns as events unfolded.

Looking at choice of words, the use of “foolishly” and “capriciously” seem to serve no other purpose than rhetoric.

Indeed, the IFR (infection fatality rate) for the under 70-years population has turned out to be so low as to make the brutal economic shutdowns ordered by the Donald and his Fauci-led Virus Patrol tantamount to crimes against the American people.

The lockdowns (in a great number of countries) might well be argued to be such crimes, but Biden did worse, the degree to which Trump was the driving factor is highly disputable, and the “Virus Patrol” was not his outside a very formal sense. On the contrary, it acted as an independent force, subverted his will (cf. Birx), and manipulated him. There is also some room to dispute what shutdowns and other countermeasures were ultimately ordered by Trump, Congress, federal this-and-that and what by their state level equivalents.*

*Here, I have not paid much attention and would need additional research, but I note that there were and are large differences between the situations in e.g. Florida and New York (state), often with Republican-governed states being more sensible and successful than the Democrat-governed ones. (I did throw a casual eye on some Wikipedia pages, but they are still, absurdly and contrary to the collected evidence of more than two-and-a-half years, written on the premise that the earlier, the longer, and the harsher the lockdowns the better, which makes them fairly useless for this type of evaluation.)

Here and elsewhere—why the inconsistent and arguably disrespectful “Donald” or even “the Donald”? (A “Hillary”, often used by me, at least serves disambiguation, as “Clinton” has so strong associations to husband Bill. Ditto some few other exceptions like “Dubya” and “Teddy”.)

Nor does the Donald and Fauci’s Virus Patrol get off the hook on the grounds that these dispositive facts about the Covid were not fully known in early March 2020. But to the contrary, the results of a live fire case study involving the 3,711 passengers and crew members of the famously stricken and stranded cruise ship, the Diamond Princess, were fully known at the time, and they were more than enough to quash the Lockdown hysteria.

If this paragraph had focused on Fauci, leaving Trump unmentioned, it might have been in order. As is, no. In particular, how much own knowledge must be required of Trump when he has specialists to advise him? Can we require that non-physician, non-virologist, non-epidemiologist Trump, at so early a stage, answers a team of renowned specialists with “But Diamond Princess?”, after being told that “science”, “models”, whatnot show that several percent of the U.S. population might die? (Fauci, Birx, et al., in contrast, have no excuse.) And what if he did give this answer and was met with a plausible sounding explanation as to why the data from the ship were not representative? And how is Trump different from dozens of other world leaders, including Angela Merkel (an actual former scientist, albeit not in medicine).

That’s right. Donald Trump and his way-in-over-his-head son-in-law, Jared Kushner, knew or should have known that the survival rate of the under 70-years population on the Diamond Princess was 100%, and that there was no dire public emergency in any way, shape or form.

Beg to differ. See above.

Under those conditions, anyone with a passing familiarity with the tenets of constitutional liberty and the requisites of free markets would have sent Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx and the rest of the public health power-grabbers packing.

That the Donald and Jared did not do. Instead, they got led by the nose for month after month by Fauci’s awful crew because basically Trump and Kushner were power-seekers and egomaniacs, not Republicans and certainly not conservatives.

Most of this is true, but not all (and how many did better?). Trump certainly has a greater right to call himself a Republican or Conservative than the likes of Mitch McConnell and Liz Cheney. (Former Democrat? Yes, but so was Reagan.) There is not much to indicate that Trump sought election because he was more of a power-seeker than, say, Hillary, Biden, Obama, Bush Jr. If anything, he seemed more set on doing what was right, once elected, than they (non-POTUS Hillary excepted) were. The “egomaniac” part might be fair, but neither of these four attributes are in obvious connection with “got led by the nose”. Political naiveté or undue optimism about experts* are more likely factors. Moreover, here the author implicitly admits that Trump was not the villain—merely manipulated by the villain(s).

*Also see my own recent text on disillusionment with experts.

Donald Trump literally decimated the production side of the US economy because he did not have the gumption, knowledge and policy principles necessary to blow off Fauci’s statist attack on America’s market economy.

Highly speculative, both regarding Trump and Fauci. (As much as I despise and loathe Fauci, it is not clear that this was a “statist attack”, rather than attention seeking, search for personal influence, sheer incompetence, or whatnot.) A better formulation would have spoken of e.g. “The lockdowns literally […]”. The Trump-era lockdowns were bad, but something that the economy could have largely bounced back from in a reasonable time—the artificial prolongation by Biden is another matter. (Ditto the inflation driving, energy-sector destroying, whatnot policies of Biden.) Step on a flower and chances are that it will bounce back with a few lost petals and an unfortunate bend—grind it under your foot and it can rarely be rescued.

The Donald did not care a wit about fiscal rectitude and the surging public debt that was already in place; and actually had demanded time and again even more egregious money-printing than the ship of fools in the Eccles Building were already foisting upon the American economy.

Again, highly speculative. I note that, pre-COVID, the U.S. economy was doing better than in decades. If Trump demanded money printing, it was a drop in the sea compared to Biden, and a short-term, one-off help package (or whatnot) to compensate for the lockdowns was not an obviously bad* idea (unlike the massive and prolonged efforts under Biden). Note that flower again.

*Which is not necessarily to say that I would have supported one.

Looking at his overall, pre-COVID, approach, it did not seem to be a matter of “not care” but of different priorities, namely to stimulate the economy, lower taxes, whatnot—note the similarity with Reagan in this regard. Of course, the key to “fiscal rectitude” and “public debt” is to keep expenses down—not taxes up. We might discuss how lowering taxes, keeping the budget balanced, and (by now) bringing inflation down should be prioritized,* but (a) prioritizing the X does not imply a disregard for Y, (b) the true blame should be put on those who brought taxes and spending up to ridiculous levels—which was not Trump. Similarly, we might discuss whether someone morbidly obese should have gastric surgery, go on a diet, take up swimming, and/or whatever other approach might be relevant—but the surgeon who performs the gastric surgery is not the problem. The morbid obesity is, the surgeon should not be blamed for trying to solve the issue, and the blame truly resides with too much food, too poor food, too little exercise, whatnot.

*Note the recent juxtapositions in the U.K., with Truss vs. Sunak, Thatcher vs. Reagan, Truss vs. Thatcher, etc.

Excursion on Biden:
For simplicity, I formulated this text based on the assumption that Biden is actually in charge of the Presidency (and himself). To the degree that this does not match reality, modifications might be needed in detail, but not in the big picture.

Last (?) thoughts on the 2020 U.S. election(s)

For what might or might not* be my last update on the 2020 elections, a few remarks. These remarks might be marginally premature, as challenges are still being raised in Congress and there might be some ever so slight chance left in front of the courts, but the chance of an improvement of the result is close to zero and most issues exist regardless. Thus:

*I have been here before …

1. The treatment of Trump continues to be outrageous, and it remains clear that he is (again!) targeted in a dishonest and hypocritical manner.

   Some Trump supporters riot and Trump is to be considered personally responsible and impeached?!? The worse, as impeachment at this juncture would be a purely symbolic act—and one that goes contrary to Biden’s ostensible message of peace and unity.

   I note that these riots are a drop in the ocean compared to the Leftist riots of 2020; that they were targeted at something that was at least approximately the cause of the dissatisfaction, while the Leftist were directed at innocents; that they were based in a reasonable* and rational* dissatisfaction, while the Leftist were based in reality distortion of e.g. systemic racism or the “racist murder” of someone who likely died of a drug overdose—and where, if in doubt, no trace of racism has actually been demonstrated or even made plausible.

   *Which is not necessarily to say that the actions taken were reasonable and rational.

2. I have personally experienced the Left close up in two countries (Sweden and Germany) over thirty years of political consciousness, and have seen many examples in many other countries and at many other times through more indirect means, ranging from the modern-day U.S. to the genocides of e.g. Stalin and Mao.

   While no side of a political conflict or issue is likely to be beyond reproach (indeed, often falls considerably short), there has been common trends virtually everywhere and “everywhen”,* that an the-end-justifies-the-means mentality tends be a Leftist issue more often than “Rightist” issue, that political violence tends to come from the Left, that propaganda lies, defamation, personal attacks, etc., tends to come from the Left, disregard for democratic processes tends to come from the Left, and so on. At the same time, the Left is quite often extremely concerned with accusing its opponents of exactly the misdeeds that itself performs.

   *With obvious reservations for complications like some types of abuse being far easier for the party in power.

   This especially if the Fascist/Nazi faction(s) are discounted, which in many ways have more in common with the Left than the “Right” and where the typical association with the “Right” could be seen as a historical accident (or clever Leftist propaganda!), where the application of slightly different criteria would have grouped the Nazis with the Communists instead of the Conservatives on a binary Left–Right scale.*

   *But I re-iterate my rejection of such binary scales as simplistic, misleading, and counterproductive.

   The current U.S. provides many good examples, including the treatment of Trump and the BLM riots. However, it is interesting that the difference has historically been far smaller in the U.S. than in e.g. Sweden and Germany, likely because the “political middle” has traditionally been further to the “Right” than in most European countries, making the likelihood of extremist opinions and methods lower on the Left (relative Europe; not relative the Right) and higher on the Right. There has been a massive shift over recent decades, leaving the U.S. as bad as or worse than Europe.

   A text that I have contemplated writing on several occasions has the theme “how much hate, lies, and violence will it take before the masses understand the true nature of the Left”. Well, it has been at least a hundred years since any thinking and well-informed person should have seen truly massive problems—and, if anything, the understanding seems to have diminished over time.

3. Overlapping, I note that there has been a massive downturn in the political climate, even globally, during my blogging years.

   For instance, a considerable portion of my early days (2010, give or take) was spent on individual (Gender-)Feminists and other crackpots engaging in gross censorship, distortions, and similar, in lieu of bringing factual arguments to support their claims and ideas. Today, the same outrageous behavior is systematically pushed by the likes of Facebook and Twitter.

   For instance, back then, I could still use cases like the firing of Larry Summers as examples of PC extremism—today, they are everyday occurrences. Indeed, today, the “wrong” opinion expressed two decades ago (regardless of current opinions) or by a spouse (regardless of own opinions) can be grounds for e.g. a firing.

4. The failure of the courts, especially the SCOTUS, to address the election issues is to some degree understandable,* but it has had extremely negative consequences. It would, I suspect, have been a lesser evil to test these issues thoroughly in court and then, regardless of the winner, have had some degree of confidence in the system and the election—or, if nothing else, a warning shot that might have made future cheating less likely.

   *Due to the risk of violating the separation of powers, setting dangerous precedents, etc.

5. I am currently leaning towards recommending an abolishment of the Electoral Council—but in quite the opposite way of the Democrats: Let the POTUS be elected based on a vote by Congress,* with no direct popular vote. The people’s influence would still be exerted through the Congressional elections, controversies like 2020/2021 would be far less likely, the federal nature of the POTUS office would be stressed, the importance of the POTUS relative Congress would be diminished to something more resembling the original intention, the enormous costs for multiple campaigns and elections would be reduced, etc.

   *The exact modalities would still need to be thought out, e.g. how and whether both the House and the Senate votes, and whether it is one vote per state or one vote per person.

   A potential downside, admittedly, is that it would be harder for an outsider like Trump to shake things up.

6. These elections have been extremely disappointing, even the potential distortion of the result through fraud aside: For parts of the election day, it looked as if Trump was winning easily, that the Senate would be easily held, and that there was a chance of the House being turned. As is, with the events of the last few days, not even the Senate is held, and Republican 3–0 has been turned to a Democrat 3–0.

   This is the worse, as this election was of extreme importance in light of the absurd drift Leftwards of the Democrats and their infestation with hate-agendas, pseudo-scientific and racist theories, and whatnot. I have no crystal ball, but the hit that the U.S. is about to take might turn out to be worse than the one FDR delivered. And, yes, to reiterate some earlier text, the U.S. might be heading into its worst internal crisis since the Civil War.

7. On a semi-tragic, semi-funny note: Has anyone else seen parallels between Kamala Harris and Selena Mayer?

The end of the world as we know it

So this is how democracy dies—to thundering applause!

(or something very similar) is how the fall of the Republic to the evil Empire is commented in “Star Wars”. So it was today.

A few comments:

1. Over the last few decades, we have had a very disturbing combination of the allegedly free world growing ever more totalitarian (with a severe recent push due to COVID) and ever more Leftist. Today, we have seen a disastrous culmination of this.

   Trump, to continue the “Star Wars” theme, might well have been our only hope, the last defense against not only excessive Leftist policies, bad enough in their own right, but the evil, the intolerance, the hatred, that the modern Left pushes so hard—often, paradoxically and hypocritically, in the name of good, tolerance, and love. Note carefully that evil usually comes in the guise of good, and that it is never more dangerous than when it is mistaken for good. (This is one of the reasons why I insist that we should go by what people actually do, not what they merely say, and that we should listen two both sides of an issue, not just blindly believe the one side.)

   Also note how the Left has grown more and more intolerant, the more power it has received, as in Germany, where you cannot open the news without hearing fears about Rightwing-this and Rightwing-that, while society shifts ever more Leftwards. If Ludwig Erhard had lived to see the current set of redistributions and “welfare” excesses, he might have died from the shock (despite having a strong “social” streak, himself); while the likes of Erich Honecker (the last dictator of the GDR) might have been positively surprised. And, yes, Germany has very similar problems with the “New Left” as does the U.S., on top of the “Old Left” problems—here even Honecker might have been upset.

2. We might now be in the absurd position that Putin is the leader of the free world; and, in the long term, it might well be that China poses a greater chance for the world than does the U.S. This not because Russia, let alone China, would be setting a shining example, but because the U.S. is crashing fast.
3. While I have long considered democracy a mere “least evil” as a political system, situations like the current truly make me wonder: Either the system is too easy to cheat or the broad masses are simply too stupid to vote (or both …), leaving us with a dictatorship of the manipulators and the dumb masses. Democracy in its current form is simply not tenable. It might work for a while, but as the problems build up, we end where many “advanced” Western democracies are now: wealth created by the free or semi-free markets give people enough affluence to not complain, while the individual is increasingly trampled and the government and its bureaucracies and “programs” grow out of hand. Go outside this group and it can turn even worse, as with Venezuela.

   Democracy needs either a (constitutionally guaranteed) small government or a restriction of voters by e.g. an IQ cut-off—and a high one, at that.

4. For democracy, this election might have been the greatest failure since the rise of Hitler (by mostly democratic means) and the fall of the Weimar Republic. (And, yes, I strongly suspect that the events in “Star Wars” were partially inspired by that failure, partially by the fall of the Roman republic.)
5. As for the U.S., it might have reached the single greatest internal crisis since the Civil War, and while the consequences are likely to be less bloody, they might turn out to be as dire in terms of e.g. societal costs, damage to long-term development, etc. Note that the Biden/Harris election is just one part of the overall puzzle, which must be seen in combination with e.g. extreme-Left (and other) rioters, the anti-intellectual take-over of the academic world, and the social-media censorships.
6. Irrespective of anything else, it is quite clear that the U.S. must change its procedures to eliminate the rampant possibilities for election fraud. Will Biden/Harris do so? Do not bet on it.

   However, if, against expectations, the Supreme Court, the state legislatures, or whoever, intercedes to compensate for the fraud and irregularities that have taken place this year, it would set a very dangerous precedent. It might be used to prevent fraud today, but it might then be used by the Left to perform fraud the next time around. On the off chance that Trump does win in this manner, his highest priority would have to be election-law reforms.

7. From a personal point of view: I have grown ever more cynic and disillusioned with the world, humanity, and governments, as time has gone by, but what I have seen in the last year, with disproportionate COVID countermeasures, people being fired for having the “wrong” opinions (or even their spouses (!) having the “wrong” opinions), BLM and Antifa hate-mongering and riots over a likely drug-overdose, Leftist lies being openly (but likely often insincerely) supported even by large swaths of the non-Left, the extreme censorship and free-speech violations by e.g. Facebook/Twitter/YouTube, the U.S. elections, …

   It is all truly horrifying. Even the Social-Democrat Sweden of the 1980s, where I first developed a political awareness, was a better place that the modern Sweden, Germany, and U.S.

   I like to think that “this too shall pass”, but I am not certain that it actually will.

   Frankly, I have only two hopes: (a) that the sheer extremity of what happens will awaken sufficiently large portions of the masses to stop the changes, and (b) that the Left might splinter, e.g. along “identity” lines, and see its factions turn on each other, allowing the non-Left or a more moderate Left to take over.

Excursion on future posts:
The results of the election, and the circumstances around it, have led to many more “extraordinary” posts on this closed-in-principle blog than I had intended. With one exception, a re-working of the lyrics to “American Pie”, I will probably not post more on this topic. This, obviously, with a reservation for a change in outcomes, e.g. through a successful Trump lawsuit.

The POTUS election, Leftist hypocrisy, and Time Magazine

Apparently, Harris/Biden have been awarded the Time’s “person of the year”—in a manner that repeats the inexcusable hypocrisy and hate propaganda already mentioned in e.g. [1], where I say:

I am used to Leftist hypocrisy, but what I have seen since the U.S. election beggars believe. Above all, that the likes of Biden have the audacity to speak of e.g. “healing” and “unity” is so outrageous that I (a professional writer!) have problems finding words. There have been years of hate-propaganda, unwarranted attacks, whatnot from exactly these people, driving people apart, awakening hatred, aggravating or creating conflicts, and now these people speak of “healing” and “unity”!?!?!? It is sick, it is twisted, it is inexcusable.

That a POTUS winner is rewarded with “person of the year” is unremarkable—it appears to be a knee-jerk reaction. However, even discounting that the election is still not decided, the motivations are truly tasteless. For instance, Fox quotes Time* as saying:

*The Time website is not accessible in my browser.

it wasn’t about fighting Trump with righteous vengeance, or probing any deeper rot that might have contributed to his ascent. Biden believed most voters simply wanted reconciliation after four years of combat, that they craved decency, dignity, experience and competence.

Absolutely, utterly, utterly, inexcusable!

We have had five years of disgraceful hate attacks by Democrats on Trump, most of them void of justification. We have had years of racialist and racist hate mongering by Democrats. We have seen U.S. colleges ruined by hate-mongering and pseudo-scientific “social justice” freaks. Etc. Decency and dignity has been nowhere to be seen. (And while Biden might be experienced, few consider him very competent, at least today, while Harris, so far*, appears to be neither.)

*I reserve the right to modify my impression of her in light of future events.

And now the hate mongers are given awards for being the candidates for peace and reconciliation—those who won through hate and defamation—unless they won through cheating.

I can only call for a complete and exceptionless boycott of the brain-dead shitheads at Time.*

*I am very, very deliberately letting this formulation stand: they really do deserve it.

Excursion on the choice of Harris:
Looking at Wikipedia, it appears that the POTUS winner has received a blanket award of “person of the year” since 2000, including Trump in 2016, and with a very good chance in the years before that. However, this seems to be the first time that the vice president is included—something very telling in the overall scheme.

Excursion on other years:
While it is obvious that Time has not necessarily made choices based on e.g. virtue in the past,* but more on importance, recent choices are ridiculous. Last year, e.g., we saw Greta Thunberg, a climate populist with no accomplishments to her name, short of being-famous-for-being-famous, and who might not even truly understand the issues that she push. The award has increasingly been given to vague groups of people, like “The Guardians” in 2018 or “The Silence Breakers” in 2017**, let alone the ludicrous “You” of 2006. Other problematic recent winners include the horrifyingly-bad-for-the-Internet Mark Zuckerberg and the very disappointing Angela Merkel (cf. [3], regarding another person-of-the-year award, and e.g. [4]).

*Past winners include Stalin, Hitler, and Khomeini.

**Pushing the mostly harmful “me too” movement. Cf. a number of earlier texts, e.g. [2].