Trexit

Facebook walls and the Twitterverse are exploding this morning. Emotions are running high, friendships are being strained and Americans are moving to Canada. The American Republic has cast its votes and Trump has won. Here are some quick takeaways.

1.  There Is A Silent Majority.

The polls were all over the place in the days before the election. Some of that is because some polls were inherently biased or constructed in such a way as to make a Clinton win look inevitable. Mostly, however, it was because the pollsters were asking the wrong questions of the wrong people, and people were not being honest about their answers.

As I said several weeks ago, you generally do not win a jury trial by calling the jurors bigoted cavemen. Clinton's entire strategy was to make Donald Trump radioactive. She focused her efforts on calling him names and labeling his supporters as misogynists. She had to make it unacceptable in gentle company to voice support for him. So they kept quiet.

This strategy failed because not everyone lives in posh homes in Washington and New York. In fact, the vast majority of the nation lives in "fly-over country," has never eaten arugula and generally will not pay $7 for a cup of coffee. Clinton lost these votes because she deeply offended the average person with her labeling. 

2.  Identity Politics Has Reached Its Breaking Point.

We still do not have all the numbers, but the exit polling shows that Trump over performed with women, African Americans and Hispanics. Hillary Clinton spent most of her campaign telling minority voters that there is no place for them in "Trump's America." She defined Trump's America as white, bigoted, and uneducated. She drew her line in the sand - Us non-white women vs. those angry white men.

The angry white men won because they and their wives still make up 70% of the electorate. Hillary Clinton alienated a huge segment of this very large voting block with predictable results. As unpalatable as she had made Trump, she still could not gather enough minority votes to make up for the white voters she shoved off the cliff.

The same is true for her gender politics. Our country is about half male and half female. When not focused on calling Trump and his supporters racists, Clinton proclaimed herself the great champion in the final battle of the sexes. She would raise her fist and smash, once and for all, those oppressive fathers, brothers, husbands, sons, boyfriends, etc. She apparently expected men to just lay down and take it. Instead, they voted against her in record numbers. She knew this would happen, and planned to create a gender gap of her own among women. That gender gap did not materialize on Election Day the way it had in the polls. This is most likely due to the fact that men and women really are not that far apart on the issues. Also, as I've written before, wives and husbands tend to vote together or don't vote at all. The Clinton fantasy that a bunch of angry wives would come out of their oppressive kitchens, knife their husbands and then race to vote for Clinton was just that, a fantasy. Instead couples talked about the election and made a collective decision.

In the future, if the Democrats want to win, they will have to reach out to majority voters as Trump did; the Forgotten Men and Woman left behind by the Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama new world order.

3.  The Establishment Will Suffer.

This election was a rejection of both political establishments. Nevertheless, the voters are sending Trump to Washington with control of both houses of Congress. He will be able to fill Supreme Court vacancies with ease, end regulation, and pass his version of immigration reform. In other words, voters were not just giving the Establishment a collective middle finger. They also wanted Trump in a position to actually succeed. Lucky for Paul Ryan and company he lifted them up, even as they tried to drag him down.

The Conservative Elite Media will not be so lucky. A number of careers are either badly damaged or outright destroyed. All the Karl Roves, George Wills, Bill Kristols, and Erik Eriksons lost. They lost in spectacular fashion. Not only were they completely wrong about the electorate, but they have misread their own audiences. The first rule of being an opinion writer is making sure your opinion matters. George Will's opinion of Trump and his voters no longer matters.

In the days and weeks ahead Trump owes it to the nation to begin to heal some of the divide. It is not entirely his fault, but some of the damage is his and he has a duty to fix it. The Clinton/Bush Era has finally come to an end. It is up to Trump supporters to show the world how good, old fashioned, red state values can fix a nation.

This Disappointing Election Was Decades In The Making

As the presidential election comes to a close, a full 85% of Americans would prefer a candidate other than Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. It is not difficult to understand why. Secretary Clinton has proven to be corrupt and Donald Trump has proven to be foul and boorish.  We have ourselves to blame as voters, but even so, it is not all our fault. Established political elites from both parties forced a process in which two unacceptable candidates became inevitable. The Democratic primary was literally rigged, as we now know from Wikileaks. The Republican voters, after suffering years of rigged primaries of their own finally rebelled. The result was Donald Trump.

The Republican Party Will Be Unrecognizable

If you are an ordinary voter, that is, not some talking head or Neocon opinion writer, you are probably somewhat unhappy with Donald Trump as the message bearer. That is not to say that you would have changed your vote in the primary, but you wish his populist, antiestablishment message had been promoted by some other outsider who is more polished. But Trump was selected for a reason. He represents a complete rebuke of the Republican Establishment Elite and their hangers on in the conservative media. Donald Trump was selected because Donald Trump is a caricature. He's a realty TV star who appears on the Howard Stern show and says lewd things. He is the antithesis of the polished, plastic political Ken dolls the Republican elite have been shoving down voters' throats for decades. If you were to pick the perfect messenger to deliver a stunning rebuke to your establishment, Trump is it.

In the wake of their humiliating defeat, the Republican Establishment Elite wasted no time exposing themselves to their base. Paul Ryan, the sitting Speaker of the House, before any salacious sex stories were uncovered, refused to endorse Trump. Instead he summoned the newly selected nominee to Capitol Hill to lecture him on Republican Establishment values. Trump was having none of it and, rightfully, withheld his own endorsement of Ryan and his agenda. 

The Bushes refused to endorse Trump. After decades of being defended by the Republican base for some very foolish decisions, the Bushes have now turned on their own voters.

Members of former Republican administrations have publicly announced that Donald Trump is too dangerous to be President. And, of course, conservative media icons like Bill Kristol, George Will, Rich Lowery, Karl Rove, and others have taken every opportunity to bash Trump, call him names and predict his demise in an effort to ingratiate themselves to the elites in Washington. 

Their actions are hypocritical. Karl Rove, for example, excoriates Trump for pandering to his base of white male voters. Well, it was Karl Rove who implemented that same strategy in Ohio in 2004 to get Bush reelected. Mr. Rove, sensing he could increase Republican turn out, put gay marriage on the ballot in that state. Yes, that's right, Mr. Rove used what has now been judged to be anti-Gay bigotry to drive President Bush to reelection. This is, of course, nothing new to the Bushes. George Sr. was propelled to victory over Michael Dukakis with a racially offensive ad featuring Willie Horton; an ad that has been used against Republicans for decades now to label them racist. Trump's rhetoric may be over the top, but he has yet to actually stoop to the extremely low levels that Rove and the Bushes did in their elections. They should keep their mouths shut.

Conservative media elites are no better. This is the same crew that has always endorsed mild mannered men who later go on to lose. They despise the Republican base, the Tea Party, and any voter who disagrees with their Neocon agenda. And what is that agenda? It has been an agenda of perpetual war, globalism, symbolic regulatory and tax reform, and the consolidation of power around squishy moderates. 

The Republican Establishment Elites have utterly failed the party. Consider this, in the last 26 years, the Establishment has controlled the process. They have won exactly three Presidential elections. Establishment picks in the last 26 years:

George H.W. Bush - Lost reelection to Bill Clinton.

Bob Dole - Lost.

George W. Bush - Won twice, but lost the popular vote once.

John McCain - Lost.

Mitt Romney - Lost.

For almost three decades, the Republican Establishment has controlled a process that has produced defeat. If you were to remove from consideration the Republican Revolution of 1994, led by Newt Gingrich, and the two Tea Party victories, the same pathetic record would exist for Congressional races as well. To be direct, the Republican Establishment stinks at politics. 

Donald Trump has battled his own party, the news media, and the Democrats. The friendly fire he's received from elites in his own party will not be forgotten by the voters and, since the voters favor Trump over Paul Ryan by a 70 - 30% margin, it is pretty obvious who the real losers will be in the inevitable Republican civil war. 

Without the base of the party, there is no party. The base has utterly and completely rejected establishment politics and is now even more incensed after watching these elites show their true colors. It would be enough if they simply did nothing to help Trump and kept their mouths shut. It is something entirely different when the party elite actively work to undermine their own nominee's campaign. It is tantamount to rejecting the will of the voters. Well, the great unwashed masses have already washed their hands of Republicanism and that has been reflected in every poll since Mitt Romney won the nomination in 2012.

The party will splinter into nothing. In the near future, Bill Kristol will be writing fluff pieces about how brave Paul Ryan is putting the Republican coalition back together ... as the minority leader. George Will can rejoin the ever shrinking minority party in good conscience, knowing that he stood up to the disgusting Republican base and helped take them out. As Laura Ingraham so poignantly said, they can all go back to their think tanks in Washington and dream up a bunch of "conservative" policies that no Republican will ever be in power to implement.

Good for them.

The Trump Accusers

Surprise, Donald Trump, a reality TV star and beauty pageant sponsor, is more boorish than your average man. I say "more boorish" because almost all men are capable of saying and doing some boorish things. As any married woman, especially any married woman with teenage boys can tell you, boys are gross and sometimes think, say, and do icky things. This understanding of the male species is nearly universal, unless you are a journalist, a Democrat, a Republican Ken doll, or a Hollywood actor. Because, of course, those people never say or do anything boorish...

It is a good thing, for example, that no President ever raped his black slaves. It is a good thing that no President had an affair with his wife's secretary while brave men were dying on the beaches of Normandy. We are lucky that no President had multiple affairs in the White House with staffers during the Cuban Missile Crisis, including at least one who was underage. And thank God that, while we were bombing Iraq and dealing with the transition of power in Russia, the President wasn't fiddling around with cigars and an intern in the oval office. If those things had been true, this nation would be in shambles...Right?

It is not okay to grope women. It is not okay to talk about groping women. It is really stupid to talk about groping women if you don't actually grope women, and it is supremely stupid to talk about anything off color at all with an Access Hollywood reporter. However, Donald Trump was not running for President at the time and had no plans to. He did not talk about it in the oval office, and the accusers that have come forward have some problems with their stories.

I would remind all of my liberal friends, particularly those who do any defense work, that these types of allegations are disproven all the time. Most people jump to the conclusion that a man is guilty of sexual assault or harassment before any investigation has taken place. There is a good reason for this. Most of us would never, ever lie about such a thing, so we cannot fathom a woman lying about such a thing either. However, it is an unfortunate truth that women sometimes lie, and they sometimes lie about sexual assault or sexual harassment. 

Of the four women who have come forward, one sent emails to the Trump campaign asking him to visit her new restaurant. When he said no, the allegations began to pour out. Of course, it begs the question. If Trump was so horrible to her, why was she inviting him to come promote her restaurant during the campaign?

Another accuser claims Trump fondled her on an airplane. Unfortunately for this accuser, there was an eyewitness, a British man, who was so incensed by the story, and the implication that he had done nothing to stop it, that he came forward to refute her version of events. According to this eyewitness, Trump "did nothing of the sort," and in fact, "she was doing the flirting."

The third accuser wrote an article about Trump's new marriage to Melania. According to her, Trump took her into another room and tried to kiss her. Of course, this obvious attempt at infidelity did not make it into the People Magazine story about Trump's marriage. Although this accuser made contemporaneous statements which would tend to corroborate her story that something happened, it seems unusual to ignore an obviously tantalizing opportunity to destroy the Donald and make news.

The final accuser claims that Mr. Trump was alone in a nightclub and groped her. First, as Mr. Trump has pointed out, he is never alone in a nightclub. If he had been alone, he would have been recognized anyway. Moreover, it is well known that Donald Trump does not drink alcohol. The Donald, alone in a nightclub, just looking for an opportunity to grope someone seems unlikely. 

All of that being said, if Donald Trump is guilty of this misconduct, he should be sued or charged, lose and then be impeached. I am quite certain that there would be no shortage of Republican Establishment elites who would jump at the chance to remove Trump from office and replace him with Mike Pence. Between the elites and the Democrats, they could probably do it by unanimous consent...

Twenty days before an election is simply not long enough to adjudicate allegations of sexual misconduct, but Trump, like all accused, is entitled to at least some presumption of innocence.

The Trump Message

Drowned out by the scandalous news media coverage is Trump's message. Trump has certainly done his part to drown out his own message, but the media bias in this election surpasses anything anyone has ever seen before. Donald Trump can spend 45 minutes talking about policy and make one misstatement about Mexicans and the news media only reports the misstatement. 

The Trump message, however, is popular and easy to understand. He wants to secure our borders, end bad trade deals, revitalize manufacturing, rebuild our military, renegotiate NATO contributions to the common defense, appoint conservative judges, protect the Second Amendment, ban partial birth abortion, cut taxes, cut regulation, and end the revolving door between public service and lobbying.

Donald Trump wants to end Establishment nest feathering, crony capitalism, and dirty backroom deals. His agenda is exactly what this country needs and at exactly the time we need it. Our country has suffered from anemic growth for more than a decade now, and regular folks have begun to lose hope in our country. When you cannot find a good job, when you cannot support your family on one income, when you cannot find something you are proud to do, then you become despondent.

The Forgotten Man remains, at best, forgotten. At worst, he is ridiculed for clinging to his guns and religion, or labeled irredeemable and deplorable. He is labeled a redneck, uneducated, and a racist bigot who hates women. But the Forgotten Men are the men that fight our wars, grow our food, build our cars, mine our coal, drill our oil, and preserve our traditional pioneer values. These are the men that are voting for Trump.

Establishment elites and other snobs continue to ridicule these men as troglodytes, and men of low character. Nothing could be further from the truth. The majority of men and the vast majority of white men will be voting for Trump in this election. You can label Trump whatever you want, but be very careful how you label his supporters. Without them, there are no factories, farms, or soldiers. Without them, the elites and their sycophants would be on their own, without any arugula to eat, Navy Seals to protect them, or Cadillacs to drive. They most certainly will not survive the coming confrontations with other serious men, like Vladimir Putin.

The Danger Of Clinton Corruption

If Hillary Clinton were competent and not corrupt, I would vote for her over Trump. Unfortunately, she has proven to be both incompetent and corrupt. Bernie Sanders would have been a much better candidate and would be a much better President. 

But Clinton corruption prevailed in the primary. Wikileaks has been able to prove that Clinton was able to leverage the DNC, the news media and some very dirty tactics to rig the system against Bernie Sanders. Some of the revelations are sickening. She was going to attack him as a Jew. She was going to attack him as a communist. She was going to question his mental health. She actually went so far as to try to convince election officials in Illinois to move the date of the Illinois primary to stop Sanders' momentum. She colluded with DNC officials to marginalize Sanders, and the DNC was more than happy to oblige. 

In the general election, leaked emails show that Clinton has a near despotic relationship with the media. Just as Putin controls much of the Russian media, we now know for sure, thanks to WikiLeaks, that the American news media actively colludes with the Democrats. Clinton has reviewed news articles before they are released to the public. She was given the questions by CNN analyst Donna Brazille before the second debate. News organizations ignore her obvious misconduct and have helped develop and disseminate the Clinton narrative. 

Recent revelations from WikiLeaks should make every American fear for our democracy. What they show is a pattern of bias and corruption that is usually only seen in places like the Soviet Union. We know from credible but anonymous FBI sources that the career agents and prosecutors in the Bureau  were adamant about indicting Clinton for her misconduct while Secretary of State. We know that top officials at the State Department offered political goodies to FBI investigators who would help to bury classified emails that were found on her personal server. We know that she knowingly lied about the intelligence coming after the attack in Benghazi. We also know from WikiLeaks that she initiated a major cover up to protect herself and President Obama from any scrutiny. 

Hillary Clinton thinks she is above the law because she is above the law. For that reason alone, she is more of a danger to our democracy than Trump could ever be. She openly ignores the law, she applies questionably legal tactics to get what she wants, she conspires to destroy anyone that gets in  her way, she routinely lies to the American people and Congress, and she refuses to face any media scrutiny or take serious questions about her misconduct. If Hillary Clinton is elected, our nation will continue further down this path of crony capitalism, pay to play, nest feathering, lies and basic incompetence. 

If there is anyone who is still uncertain as to the level of self importance harbored by Democrat elites, consider this: 

Russia invades Crimea, nothing. Syria uses chemical weapons, nothing. Russia invades Ukraine, nothing. Russia supports Assad and kills U.S. allies on the ground in Syria, nothing. 

But...

Russia hacks into the DNC and publishes embarrassing emails, Obama threatens an all out cyberwar with Russia. I guess we know where their priorities lie...

These Democrat elites, and Clinton in particular, represent a fundamental threat to our democratic institutions. Where the rule of law means nothing, where collusion and bribery are commonplace, where the American people are constantly manipulated and balkanized, and where significant American strategic goals are traded for personal gain, there is no democracy. America becomes just another banana republic racing towards its place on the great trash heap of history. 

Hillary Clinton cannot become President.

The Home Stretch

Like most people, I've never been so disappointed in our political system. It is rigged, the voters are ignored, and the common man or woman cannot get a fair shake. We have obviously lost our way as a nation. There is nothing about this election that will fix that, but it may be enough to at least beat the bushes and force the snakes to show themselves. If Trump is elected, the established elites of the Republican Party will be humiliated and marginalized, probably for a long time. The party can then begin to rebuild from the ashes of this horrible election. If Trump loses, there will no longer be a Republican Party as it is currently known. What comes out of that ash heap is anyone's guess.

If Clinton is elected, it is likely that Paul Ryan and company will be in a small minority in Congress. Clinton will appoint liberal judges who will support her plans to take away your guns and your right to carry a weapon. Partial birth abortion will be carved into the law for decades. Globalism will continue to erode U.S. manufacturing, and regulatory burdens will continue to force American businesses, and their jobs, overseas. American energy production will be attacked, and your taxes will go up. 

This is as terrible a choice as an electorate could face in the modern era. But, in my mind, the orgy of corruption from the Establishments of both parties must be put to an end. That means, as abhorrent as he may be, Trump is the right choice for America at this moment in history. 

Midwestern Common Sense Trumps Personal Attacks

In case you missed it, last night's Vice Presidential debate pitted a calm, genuine Mike Pence against an overly aggressive, rude Tim Kaine. Donald Trump's running mate, Mike Pence, channeled his inner Paul Harvey and, with a classic Hoosier accent (half Southern, half Midwestern), he proceeded to gently but firmly expose the Clinton campaign strategy for what it is. 

By contrast, Tim Kaine did little more than bark insults at Trump and his supporters in more that 65, yes 65, interruptions. To be fair to Senator Kaine, the format of the debate lended itself to verbal clutter. Two minutes is simply not enough time to answer a complex question about Syria, much less answer the question, rebut the opponent's last statement and then ad lib as necessary. Also to be fair to Senator Kaine, it seems clear that Clinton's strategy was to relitigate as many Trump misstatements as possible with an eye towards solidifying her position with her voting base. Clinton's singular focus has been and continues to be to label Trump and all of his supporters as bigots. This, of course, is nothing new. Democrats have avoided responsibility for their own failures in minority communities for decades by labeling the other party a cabal of Klan members just waiting around for an opportunity to bring back Jim Crow. The strategy has been very effective. Republicans receive almost no African American or Latino votes. But in the context of a debate, it is my guess that this strategy will prove to be largely ineffective. Governor Pence likely capitalized on that and won over some undecided voters.

Hilary Clinton already has almost all of the Hispanic, African American and single woman vote. There is an old saying in debate, when you've won your argument, stop arguing. Clinton has won the argument for these voters. Dedicating 90 minutes to solidifying her position with these groups, while at the same time alienating undecided white voters of both genders is a mistake. Kaine's tone alone, with his constant interruptions of both the moderator and Governor Pence, represents the debate style that viewers hate the most. If a voter is going to take 90 minutes out of his or her life to listen to a couple of politicians speak, he or she wants to actually hear what each candidate is saying. That is particularly true if that voter is still undecided. Ad hominem attacks are universally unpersuasive in debate. Any judge, debate coach, or expert debater will tell you that. Kaine's style likely alienated those voters.

Worse, it probably served to solidify Trump supporters. No one likes being called a bigot. Spending 90 minutes shaming Donald Trump as a bigot is 90 minutes spent labeling his supporters as bigots as well. Americans are not stupid. The natural response to being called a bigot is to resist the charge and double down on the candidate being attacked. In other words, labeling people as racists is counterproductive and unpersuasive.

Governor Pence went into the debate with a different agenda. His was to show that he has the temperament to be President and the influence to moderate his running mate's temperament as needed. Mike Pence is an Establishment favorite and it's easy to see why. He is plain spoken, smart, informed, and quick on his feet. His demeanor was his strongest weapon in the debate. With each attack, Pence dismissed his opponent like a gentle, rural grandfather dismissing an obstinate teenage boy. He didn't take Kaine to the woodshed, but he did make Kaine look petty and off message. 

On substance, both sides acquitted themselves well. There is no question that Kaine is competent and can execute the duties of the office. By Democrat standards, Kaine is more to the center than, say, Elizabeth Warren. It really is too bad that he spent his time on ad hominem attacks rather than demonstrating his obvious command of the issues.

Pence should have run for President. Whether he could have changed the outcome of the primary in such a clear anti-establishment environment is uncertain. To my Establishment friends who loathe Trump, I would refer you back to one of my earlier posts on the primary. Jeb Bush and a potential Romney revamp sucked the life out of all of the other potential Establishment candidates like Pence. Pence didn't run because he didn't want to compete against these perennial Establishment behemoths. It seems clear to at least this Republican that Pence would have been a good choice, and the Party needs to do a better job managing the behemoths out of the process in anti-incumbent years. 

A few thoughts on the moderator. Like the last debate, it is difficult to watch these moderators. Elaine Quijano was no better than Lester Holt. Between Kaine and the moderator, Mike Pence was statically interrupted far more than he was not, including during key moments in the debate. For example, Kaine was able to repeat his "Trump is a bigot" line of attack at least five times without interruption, much less without any challenge from Quijano. Mike Pence, on the other hand, only tried twice to attack Clinton on her emails or the Clinton Foundation. Both times Quijano interrupted Pence with a dismissive tone and then deferred to Kaine to continue the interruption. Whether by accident or by design, Quijano appeared biased. At best Quijano appeared to have totally lost control of the debate and Tim Kaine. Something tells me that didn't bother her one bit.

The next Presidential debate is Sunday. It is a townhall format, which should favor a candidate like Trump, who tends to be more comfortable with extemporaneous speech - that is, when he doesn't get too far off message. The stakes are extremely high for both parties. The polls are essentially tied, with Clinton holding a slight lead overall and a very slight lead in the battleground states. One classic Hillary flub, like "basket of deplorables" would sink her. Likewise, one personal attack on some private citizen from Trump will sink him. Message discipline will be the key, and for that reason you have to bet on Clinton. 

  

If nothing else, these debates have served the public by illustrating the stark contrast between these candidates. Whatever the outcome of this election, no voter will be able to say that he or she didn't know what they were voting for. Neither candidate is being deceptive about their agenda.  In that sense, we will get exactly the government for which we vote. Quite frankly, I'm not sure, having nominated these two candidates, what that says about us as a nation. 

Lester Holt Proves Media Bias

There were no questions about Benghazi. There was not a single question about Secretary Clinton's private email server and the subsequent deaths of intelligence assets overseas. There were no questions about the Iranian money for hostages trade. Mr. Holt didn't ask Secretary Clinton about the failed Russian "reset," the cringeworthy Iran deal, her statement about half the country being a "basket of deplorables," immigration, her refusal to hold a press conference, or her recent collapse in the heat at a 9/11 function. 

Mr. Trump, on the other hand, was asked about being a "birther," asked about his tax returns, his past statements about women, his position on the invasion of Iraq (before he was even a politician), his bankruptcies, and his temperament. It was an all out assault on his character.

Now, many people will argue that there is simply more to attack Trump on and so that's how the debate went. That is partially true, but even the most hardened Democrat can recognize that Secretary Clinton was not pressed on any major misstatement or policy mistake. Holt just handed her a win that she didn't even need.

Even taking all of that into consideration, it was a lively debate in which the candidates took control. Neither candidate did anything to win over undecided voters. If you were for Clinton, you are still for Clinton. If you were for Trump, you are still for Trump. Trump's negatives are already baked into the pie. The media and the Clinton campaign have spend hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of hours of time attacking Trump on every dumb thing he's said or done in his life. If you were persuaded by that, you're not going to suddenly change your mind. Likewise, if you know all of these things about Trump and were willing to support him anyway, nothing he said Monday night will change that. In that sense, the debate was a draw.

This debate did do one thing really well. It drew a stark contrast between the candidates. Trump is an unconventional candidate that approaches politics from the outside. He has been the target of government regulation and interference, and he knows first hand how government can destroy prosperity. He also knows how inefficient government is and why. Secretary Clinton, on the other hand, is the epitome of a wonky insider. She knows the issues, she wants to explore them by committee, engage other "experts" in the resolution and then implement that resolution. She approaches problems from a technocratic perspective, but one that is devoid of actual experience in the trenches with ordinary Americans or businesses. Hers is a theoretical approach, he is results oriented. She will accept the status quo, he will not.

This election is about experience; it's just a question of which kind of experience we want. Donald Trump is an experienced builder and business man. He actually employs people, builds buildings, deals with regulators, lawyers and the courts. He lives with the consequences of government everyday. He mingles with other businessmen and hears their concerns. He has been in the fight his entire life and he has succeeded. Secretary Clinton also has tremendous experience. She has been in government in one form or another for her entire adult life. She knows how politicians think and how to mobilize them to act on an agenda. She understands the nuances of diplomacy, even if she tends to come up short in the end when the deal is done. She has access to "experts," who will provide her with reasonable advice.

There really is a stark choice in this election, perhaps more so that in any other election. Their life stories, agendas, temperaments, experiences and policies could not be more different. All of those Establishment Republicans that were afraid Donald Trump is a secret democrat can't possibly still hold onto those illusions now. Bernie Sanders supporters can no longer hold on to any hope that Clinton will stay to the left during the general election. She will most certainly continue to move to the center in an effort snag those final few undecided voters. 

Lester Holt's agenda aside, the debate was pretty even. The candidates had the chance to project the image they wanted to project. It will soon be in the hands of the voters.

Republican Insider Elites Finally Drink Their Hemlocks As Hillary's Emails Kill A "Friend"

You couldn't make up a more fitting end to the Republican Establishment Elite than what is currently taking place. Dozens, if not hundreds, of old guard Establishment Republicrats are racing to the fields to hang themselves before the American public. For a year now, we've heard that Trump is "not a true conservative," and "not even a Republican." Yet, it is the liberal Republicans who are screaming mea culpa in the streets. After watching for a year as the party switches sides like a predictable version of Iago, I have to say, I'm glad to hear them scream.

The "Never Trump" movement is based on the idea that he is unfit for command. Now, putting aside the fact that he has never been in command outside of the private sector, a vote against Trump is a vote for Hillary Clinton. If you are still willing to allow Hillary Clinton to get elected after news broke this week that she very likely got a spy killed in Iran, you should reconsider your position.

This week, on the heels of a $400 million cash for hostages trade, Iran announced that it hanged Shahram Amiri. Mr Amiri was an Iranian nuclear scientist who was, in all likelihood, placed deep inside Iran's nuclear program as a spy. (The Obama Administration failed to secure his release with their $400 million). Mr. Amiri is now dead, and the question is, after being hailed as a hero by Iran, what changed? 

We know what changed. Hillary Clinton and her various foolish staffers outed Mr. Amiri as "our friend" in unsecured email communications running through her unsecured server. She discussed his placement, what he may know, and his identity.

Scooter Libby went to jail during the Bush administration for allegedly outing Valerie Plame as a CIA agent, a fact that was common knowledge in the cocktail circuit in Washington. Other Republican elites, like Karl Rove nearly went to jail with him. Secretary Clinton not only discussed his mission in unsecured communications that the FBI assumes were intercepted, but she revealed his identity. If we were to assume, as the FBI does, that these communications were intercepted and used by foreign powers, like Iran, then Hillary Clinton's "recklessness" has now led to its first known casualty. It is likely one of many casualties to come, and one of many that have already happened that we simply don't know about.

So, yeah, vote for her George Will. Let her become President, Erik Erickson. Trust her with your national secrets Michael Chertoff. See if she keeps us safe, Susan Collins. 

The American people are neither stupid nor fooled. Donald Trump won more votes than any other candidate in the history of the Republican primary, and he had 15 other opponents. Had it just been him and, say, Jeb Bush, his margin of victory would have been legion. The fact that these party insiders can't make up their minds about whether he is "too liberal" or "too conservative" tells you all you need to know. It's not about ideology. It's about them. It's about their own power and preserving their own influence. And for putting their own personal interests ahead of those of their nation, they deserve to be held up to ridicule as their "consciences" will not support Trump, but instead allow a corrupt female version of Dr. No to hold her finger over the button.

The Republican Party chose Trump. They forced him to sign a loyalty pledge, even if they never intended to honor it themselves. They were terrified that he would form a third party and defeat Jeb Bush the same way Jeb's father was defeated by Ross Perot. Now, when forced to choose between two deeply flawed candidates, they would have you believe that they cannot in good conscience choose the person who says stupid things over the person who does stupid things.

We will likely never know what other leaked state secrets have now been used to harm our nation or to execute spies. As Secretary of State, she had access to the most critical information, all of which passed through an unsecured server in her basement. The fact that it cannot be proven is of no real concern to a reasonable person. A poor outcome can be presumed from reckless conduct. Her conduct has now cost another life. She is unfit for command.

Democrats And The Media Use A Fallen Soldier To Insult America

You've never sacrificed anything for your country. Did you know that? You may have worked hard for your entire life, you've dutifully paid your taxes, you've given to charities, you've been there to help your neighbor when he needs it, you've chopped the wood, dug the ditches, operated the machine, tilled the field, and raised a family. But you haven't sacrificed anything for your country.

Captain Humayun Kahn was killed by an IED in Iraq in 2004 as his Humvee was patrolling a neighborhood in a stupid war supported by Hillary Clinton and waged by George W. Bush. His death, like all deaths in most modern wars, is tragic. His death was 12 years ago. In that 12 year period, Obama withdrew from Iraq, leaving a power vacuum now occupied by ISIS and Russia. Clinton supported the withdrawal, which has turned out to be the second greatest strategic blunder the U.S. has committed in that region. Tens of millions of people have been killed, tortured, raped, enslaved, or displaced as a result of that epic lack of judgment. But that's not what Clinton or the media want to talk about. They want to talk about racial politics, and they used the memory of Captain Kahn to do it.

Who knows what Captain Kahn would've thought of his leaders 12 years later. Who knows whether he would've voted for Hillary Clinton, or voted at all. I would venture to guess that his feelings would mirror those of most other veterans, who felt sick as they watched ISIS march into hard fought towns like Fallujah, where so many of their friends were killed. I would also venture to guess that Captain Kahn, like most other veterans, was not thinking about his racial or religious background the day he died.

The Clinton campaign put Captain Kahn's father on the stage of the Democratic National Convention, not to celebrate his son's life, not to highlight the importance of fighting terrorism, not to honor the memories of all our fallen Iraq War veterans. No, it was none of those things. Hillary Clinton wanted Captain Kahn's father to talk about his son's race and religion and use his death to accuse Donald Trump, and anyone else who wants to suspend immigration or build a wall, of being racists. Moreover, as Mr. Kahn intimated, unless you've served or lost a child to the service, "you haven't sacrificed anything" for your country.

The Media, of course, loved it. His speech was a perfect amalgamation of all things progressive; race, religion, identity politics, and an opportunity to insult Americans who want to curtail illegal immigration and keep terrorists out. The problem is, the media and Hillary Clinton are in the minority in their views. In three different polls, anywhere between 48% and 54% of Americans (all Americans) support a "temporary ban on Muslim immigration." If the question is phrased in terms of banning "immigration from Muslim countries that support terrorism," the percentage jumps up significantly. Likewise, Rasmussen, NBC and FoxNews polls show that anywhere between 51% and 55% of Americans (again, all Americans) support "building the wall." 

The message coming out of the Democratic Convention to the majority of Americans is this: You are a racist bigot who never sacrificed anything for your country. 

The Clinton campaign used Captain Kahn's family to deliver those insults to Americans in flyover country, assuming that a Gold Star Family would be beyond reproach. It was clever and cynical, but they were right. That said, it represents the worst of Establishment politics and Progressive ideology. "You didn't build that;" "you've never sacrificed anything for your country;" "you are a bigot," and "you're not allowed to argue with me about it because I have a protected status." 

Do not be fooled. These are insults, regardless of who says them. They may also be the determining factor in this election as they were in the primaries. Americans are sick of being told that they are stupid, lazy, bigots by a bunch of elites who in turn ask us to sacrifice even more of our hard work on the alter of liberalism. 

Trump is often a poor messenger for those of us who are now staunchly opposed to Establishment politics. He is clumsy and often misses the mark with his criticism. To some degree, that's what people like about him. He is genuine, even if he is sometimes inarticulate, but it is pretty obvious that Americans are open to his message. Part of the reason for this is that the liberal Establishment continues to insult and out right harm white, blue collar workers who make up a huge portion of the electorate. When Hillary Clinton promises to "put a lot of miners out of work," she is telling the truth. When Mr. Kahn, speaking on behalf of the Clinton campaign, accuses Donald Trump or people like him of having never sacrificed anything for the country, those same miners hear it. It is doubtful that they are impressed by that message.

The tenor and tone of American politics has fallen far below what should be acceptable to voters. However, it is voter anger that is fueling much of that negative tone, and the anger stems from the complete and utter failure of the political Establishment to govern effectively. For example, Captain Kahn should never have been in Iraq in the first place, but he was, due to the poor judgment of our leaders in both parties. If you want to honor his sacrifice, vote for the candidate that won't send our heroes to fight a perpetual war without any strategy for victory. 

Truth and Chaos

It is usually the case that the established order of things is disrupted by unmitigated truth. Going back to the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson penned: "We hold these truths to be self evident." Jefferson, a great philosopher in his own right, likely knew that, in fact, all truth is self evident. It is only in our modern, deconstructionist world that we can be convinced that truth is relative or that "truth is in the eye of the beholder." No, it's not. The truth is the one thing that  has historically liberated us from the yoke of slavery, feudalism, and now the global political elites, bent on ruling the world like some evil character in a James Bond movie.

Bernie Sanders told the truth. He had his opinions, but he told the truth. So did Donald Trump. The truth is, we are ruled like serfs by a tiny handful of political and financial elites, who have only  personal aggrandizement as their goal. And, rather than use merit and hard work to reach their goals, they choose instead to do it on the backs of others. There is, of course, nothing repugnant to them about stepping on the backs of the serfs, doomed to forever grow their food and fight their wars. To our masters, "justice" is a powerful word synonymous with "placation," "pacification," and "illusion." "Equality" means equality for everyone else but them, and the "truth" is whatever they say it is.

The last three months have been remarkable in global history. ISIS has succeeded in inflicting serious damage on western targets using very little in the way of weaponry. The elites, unable to resist using a crisis to their advantage, demanded that the serfs disarm. After all, you are only entitled to protect yourself if your master allows it. Serfs don't need guns. We are not important, like Hillary Clinton is. Only she and her elite friends need to be surrounded by guns. Only they have the right to protect themselves.

Also in the last three months, Secretary Clinton managed to escape indictment on a series of charges that she mishandled classified information. The Justice Department let her go, arguing that her violation of the law was merely "technical," and that she did not "intend" to make the nation vulnerable. Of course, there is no "intent" required under the statute. The FBI director and the Attorney General just unilaterally changed the law to read in an intent requirement. Why? Because the masters are superior to the serfs. Justice is merely an illusion. Brown nosing journalists agree; the queen must be saved. Long live the Queen! Without the queen, they can no longer peddle influence and keep their own larger crumbs, thrown to them like dogs begging at the dinner table.

Were that not enough, hackers have now disclosed (through the liberal darling Julian Assange and Wikileaks) that the Democratic National Committee, working with Hillary Clinton, conspired to defeat Bernie Sanders and his populist followers through dishonest means. The emails hacked show an embarrassing level of self-importance and an unscrupulous campaign to marginalize him and his followers. They planned on attacking him as a Jew in the South. They planned on attacking him as an Atheist in the MidWest. They planned to question his sanity and his mental health. Basically, the politically correct world they've constructed for us simply does not apply to them. Why should it? They are the masters, we are the serfs.

In 1789, French peasants with pitchforks began to over run their feudal estates in what would become known as The Great Fear. Although there is much confusion among witnesses and historical accounts, it appears that a rumor of impending martial law sparked a wave of fear in peasants, who all knew they and their families would be killed. On July 14, 1789, the peasants overran the Bastille, which was an armory used to imprison political dissenters, store grain and store guns. The French Lords were so frightened by the sudden loss of everything they had so viciously taken, that the puppet National Assembly abolished the Feudal Regime and passed the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen." Similar to our Bill of Rights, the regime set out to once again placate the masses with the illusion of justice and equality. The ruse did not last. By 1793, the former serfs (le tiers-etat) began the so called "Reign of Terror," in which masters and noblemen were simply dragged into the streets and beheaded under the dull blade of the guillotine. 

Hillary Clinton, the Bushes, the Romneys, and the rest of these self-serving elites are fortunate that it is not 1789. That said, they still need to be very careful. They can still have everything they hold dear taken from them by peaceful revolution. If Trump wins, Hillary will go to jail. Bill might too. The spontaneous, lock-step chants of "lock her up," at the RNC surprised even her. Even a seasoned elitist, who is sheltered by wealth and power, can sometimes feel a little fear that the masses might some day lock her up.

And this is what they fear. This is what they've feared all along in this election. They fear Donald Trump, who could care less about the political elite, riding a revolution of angry serfs right to the White House. They certainly feared Bernie Sanders, a plain speaking populist hero who routinely declares the greatest call to action anyone has seen. They are trying to destroy both men and the reason is obvious. We the people must not be allowed to storm the Bastille and take away all of their power, money and influence. Their lives will have been meaningless without those things. The Bastille must be protected and the crowd must be ordered back to their lands to make grain for their natural superiors. 

I, however, refuse to be a serf. What about you?

Why I Need An AR-15; And Why You Do Too.

I hate gun control debates. They bring out the most ignorant and unreasonable arguments on both sides. Guns are an emotional issue because they are designed to kill things. They are not a bunker, or body armor, which are designed to defend things. No, guns are specifically designed to put the operator in an offensive position to injure or kill. Owning or carrying a firearm necessarily means that you have chosen to go on the offense in a defensive situation and proactively kill an attacker. It is a decision with heavy moral, legal, and psychological consequences, but once you've made that decision, you should arm yourself with the best weapons you can.

Democrats are calling for another "assault weapons ban." The last ban, passed during the Bill Clinton Administration lasted from 1994 until September 13, 2004. During that period, gun violence remained unchanged. In fact, in 2004, while Democrats were attempting to renew the ban, both the Justice Department and the National Institute of Justice reported that the impact of the ban was so small that it was likely not measurable. They concluded that renewing the ban would have a negligible statistical impact on violent crime. The ban was lifted. 

During that same period, however, medical records, specifically mental health records, somehow became sacrosanct. Liberal Democrats passed significant legislation to make it nearly impossible to investigate someone's mental health. Not surprisingly, several crazies, who had demonstrated real mental instability, passed background checks and killed multiple people. The last mass shooter passed his background check notwithstanding being investigated, twice, by the FBI. No one believes this guy should have had a gun. 

But let's also be accurate in the way we characterize this last attack. This was not a "crime." It was an act of war committed by someone who received terrorist training overseas to carry out such an attack. He could have and likely would have simply used a bomb and done just as much or more damage than he did with his rifle. Ironically, shootings give the potential victims a better chance to escape or hide once everyone realizes what's happening. Bombs just go off and kill everyone. I'd much rather be involved in an active shooter situation than crammed in a night club while some Jihadi with a  bomb yells at me in Arabic right before pressing a button.

That said, I support a much more intrusive, regimented background check process that, once completed, also expands a gun owner's rights. I also support a two tiered background check system. If you want to own a revolver for example, you pass a less rigorous background check than if you want own an AR-15. Ban the people, not the guns. I'll make a specific proposal in the next few weeks. 

What I will not agree to do is ban assault rifles or high capacity magazines. Unless the government can assure me that it can - and will - protect me and my family from terrorists and other evil men, I will need a powerful, precise weapon of war with which to do it myself. Unfortunately, the government is unwilling to stamp out terrorism, protect our borders, or reign in violent crime and home invasions. Our leadership is making conscious decisions every day that make us less safe. Banning a particular class of semi-automatic firearms will not change that. All it will do is take weapons out of the hands of the good guys at a time when we are more at risk. 

I choose an AR-15 for home defense for several reasons. First, it is reliable and easy to operate. Millions of the fully automatic versions of these guns have been produced and deployed by the military. The design of the weapon has been well tested and largely perfected, and it is highly likely to function when you need it to. Second, it is precise, accurate and tends not to over-penetrate. Shotguns are not a good home defense weapon. They tend to over-penetrate, sending shotgun pellets through walls, potentially injuring the people you are trying to protect. Shotguns are also less accurate. Handguns are a good option for a small home, but the gun owner has to be cognizant of the ammunition used. 9mm ball ammunition, for example, will go through several walls in a house. .45 ACP rounds are better, but some find the recoil more difficult to handle. Pistols are also less accurate and less lethal than rifles. That is why soldiers don't clear a house in Iraq with a pistol.

The 55 grain, .223 caliber, lead core round fired from an AR-15 tends to shatter when it hits a target. Some shrapnel will penetrate past the wall or the person hit, but the bulk of the bullet remains in the target. That notwithstanding, it will pierce soft body armor at close and medium range. Since more and more criminals and terrorists are using body armor in their attacks, it is sensible to deploy a weapon that can defeat that threat. It will not defeat the steel or ceramic plates used by soldiers and S.W.A.T. teams.

The .223 is a small caliber. Its relative weight makes for very light recoil when combined with a rifle. Many people learn to shoot rifles using an AR-15 variant for this reason. It is light, has low recoil, is easy to shoot, and accurate. Learning to shoot for the first time on a powerful hunting rifle is a bad idea. 

For me, the AR-15 also doubles as a woods gun. While not ideal for shooting a large animal, it is ideal for killing medium size animals, like a coyote or wolf. It also gives me piece of mind to have my AR-15 and high capacity magazine sitting by the bed or on my deck because I know the police are about 20 minutes away from my 260 acre farm. There is a serious meth problem in the area and there have been home invasions. Finally, when my children are playing in the 11 acre field, I know I cannot possibly grab my handgun and run 80 or 100 yards fast enough to defend them from a predator creeping into the field. 

I choose the AR-15 because it is light, reasonably powerful, easily fired, easily cleaned, accurate, reliable, and modular. All firearms are weapons of war. Once you've chosen to use a weapon to defend yourself or your family, you should choose the best one. It is the AR-15's ability to fill many different roles that makes it the one rifle you need to own.

Gun Ban Advocates Should Be Careful What They Wish For

I am a 6'2" 270 pound weightlifter who used to work as a bouncer in a bar. If violently confronted by another man, I stand a reasonable chance of defending myself and my family. If I am facing more than one attacker, my chances fall dramatically. If facing a gang of attackers, they will do whatever they want to me and my family. 

Gun-ban advocates seem to have one of two fantasies about the scenarios I've outlined above. In the first fantasy, they believe that such situations are exceedingly rare or never really happen in real life. This, of course, is demonstrably false. The second fantasy is a little more difficult to debunk. When home alone at night, 5'2" 135 pound women and overweight dads with desk jobs secretly think that they would be able to fend off such attacks. The fantasies range from "getting a baseball bat" to "becoming a mama bear protecting her cubs." These are dangerous fantasies that will get you killed in real life. Anyone who has any real experience with being attacked will tell you, your baseball bat probably will not save you from a single drugged up attacker, much less a gang of them. The "mama bear" fantasy is just plain childish. There is no way, and I mean no way, that a 5'2" woman, who is not an expert fighter, will defeat multiple male attackers my size. No way. You will be a victim, absolutely, every time.

Firearms are the great equalizer. Statistics are all over the place on defensive gun use (from 100,000 per year to over 4.7 million). The most comprehensive studies however have concluded that firearms are deployed somewhere between 1.7 and 2.5 million times per year in self defense. I'm not going to argue statistics, do your own research. But one statistic that is consistent across almost all serious studies is that of those defensive deployments, 30% of those guns are deployed by women. Now, whether you believe defensive gun use is lower or higher, let me ask you this: which woman should have been raped and/or killed by her attacker last year because YOU took away her ability to adequately defend herself? Which single mom sitting at home during a home invasion should have surrendered her family to her attackers? Name her. Let's ask her what she thinks.

The Constitution was not founded on government rights, or civil rights, or social rights. The founding principles of our nation are that we are all endowed by our "Creator" with certain inalienable rights. In other words, our rights are God given, natural and cannot be stripped from us. Among those rights is the right to reasonably defend yourself. "Reasonably" is a term that cuts both ways. No, you do not have the right to defend yourself with rocket launchers. On the other hand, however, you need to be able to utilize weapons that are at least equal in power to those weapons being brought to bear against you. A baseball bat or even a sword is probably inadequate to stop multiple attackers during a home invasion. You need a reliable modern firearm with a large capacity magazine to do that. Five shots from your grandfather's .38 caliber revolver will not be enough to stop three or four determined men. 

There are certainly measures we need to take to prevent mass casualty attacks. There are laws that can be and should be passed. There are no circumstances under which a radical Islamic terrorist on a government watch list should be allowed to purchase a gun. This is obviously another example of the government failing to protect the citizenry, but the FBI needs to be empowered to make more subjective determinations about individuals who are prone to making violent or radical statements. Those measures do not, however, include gun bans. Gun bans don't work. They've never worked, and it will take both sides to reach a reasonable compromise. For men and women who think like me, compromise is poisoned by ill informed people who know nothing about guns or self defense or fighting, who want to ban guns they've never fired. If you don't know the difference between automatic and semi-automatic, or if you think that the AR-15 is the same weapon used by our military, you need to educate yourself. Then we can have a discussion about gun control and probably reach a compromise that would protect both gun rights and limit mass casualty attacks. 

A Time To Mourn; A Time to Kill

As Americans, we are, appropriately, slow to anger. We do not fight in a rage, and we do not rush to judgment. After last night's Jihadist attack on an LGBT night club, it is time to be angry, it is time to rage, and it is time to pronounce judgment on our enemies.

I have very little to add to the dozen or so posts I've written on this exact issue over the past several years after similar attacks on Western civilization. We are at war, whether we are willing to admit it or not. Our enemy targets unarmed citizens, women, and children. We have done almost nothing to harden soft targets, and we continue to live in denial when it comes to the overall goal of radical Islam. We are paralyzed, not in fear of the enemy, but in fear of global condemnation should we, finally, decide to wage a total war against these savages. We have, most likely, forgotten how to even wage total war. We continue to deconstruct, we continue to play games with the words and, not surprisingly, we are still losing.

There is absolutely no way we can defeat radical Islam by killing one Jihadi at a time. Focusing on stopping lone wolf or wolf-pack attacks is like trying to stop a river with a fishing net. If it is not part of a broader strategy, it will result in more American deaths. The only way to stop Jihadi attacks is to completely eradicate their radical ideology from the planet. We must inflict such carnage on the populations supporting these attacks that, after the war, to whisper a Jihadist thought results in instant exile or death in the community. 

We must make the ideology illegal and ban its practice. While it is illegal for an individual to make a terrorist threat, it is not illegal to practice an ideology whose foundational tenet is the destruction of America and the West through acts of terrorism. For whatever reason, our leaders prefer to curtail the civil liberties of all Americans to targeting, disrupting, and prosecuting those who are most likely to commit acts of Jihad. That simply cannot be the case if we want to be serious about defeating Jihad. 

We also must harden ourselves individually, and harden all soft targets. As I've said before, we protect our money better than we protect our schools. It is no coincidence that Jihadis attack unarmed people and poorly guarded locations. Terrorist tactics by definition require the attacker to inflict the maximum amount of emotional and physical damage on the population before being killed. A lone wolf or a pack of wolves would be immediately killed if they targeted a police station. The attack would fail. If you want to deter an attack, you make sure that the attacker is killed in the swiftest most efficient way possible. That means using firearms. There are only several ways to deploy firearms in the public in such a way as to quickly respond to attacks: have police squads on every corner, deploy the military, or mobilize the citizenry. Deploying the military is unconstitutional and it would be literally impossible to employ and train enough police officers to stop every attack. 

So we must harden ourselves individually. We must accept as Americans, first that we are at war; second that the war is being waged on our soil; third that we cannot bargain with our enemy; and fourth that we can either fight back or die. Jihadism can be defeated if our leaders will come to terms with their own fears. In the interim, we as individuals can accept responsibility for our own safety and the safety of our families and communities. Jihadis and other evil men will always have guns no matter what laws we pass. If you do not believe that, look at the Paris attacks. Fortunately, we have the right as Americans to defend ourselves from Jihadis with similar guns. We have the right to learn how to safely store, retrieve and use those guns. We have the right in most states to carry those guns. If enough Americans are willing to make themselves hard targets, terrorism will be rendered a far less effective tactic. 

We will not always be at war. We will not always be as vulnerable as we are today. We can mourn the victims of this atrocity today, but tomorrow we must resolve ourselves to exterminate the enemy. 

Politics And The Potty

As Iran continues to pursue nuclear weaponry, as Russia marches on in Eastern Europe, as ISIS crucifies children and threatens to attack the United States, as our economy stagnates at .5% growth,  and as our debt soars to $14 trillion, once again, our leaders choose to pursue what really matters. The potty.

And incumbent leaders scratch their heads in disbelief at the rise of Trump and Sanders...

Transgendered Americans make up less than .05% of the population. For some reason, however, the government has decided that this is the issue we need to debate right now. Who cares who started it. Whether it was states passing anti-transgendered bathroom legislation, or whether it was progressive cities who did it, it doesn't matter. Like two toddlers arguing in the Kindercare, they need to be separated and put in time out by the grownups. 

This was not a problem until someone decided to make it a problem but, thanks to the federal government's intervention, it has now become a real problem. The Obama justice department and the President have now proclaimed that all schools, employers, and government buildings allow transgendered individuals to use the bathroom of their choice. This, of course, is a huge problem. Liberals paint anyone opposed to the administration on this issue as a bigot, but that simply isn't the case. Americans, for the most part, could care less about the extremely rare occurrence of a transgendered person using any bathroom. Transgendered individuals just don't make up such a large portion of the population to have their bathroom habits be noticeable. Americans do, however, care about sexual predators, who far outnumber transgendered people. 

The liberal narrative that nothing evil ever happens in the bathroom is just plainly false. If you doubt that, just google it. Children are abducted from bathrooms. Children and teens are attacked in bathrooms. Voyeurs do attempt to exploit locker rooms. At best, if the liberals have their way, this law will create confusion in the minds of potential victims. "Should I say something? Am I a bigot if I speak up about this man in my locker room? Will I be mocked on campus if I don't accept this man exposing himself to me in the bathroom?" 

Also overlooked is the cost. Liberals argue that employers and schools should create unisex bathrooms and locker rooms like the family changing stations that exist now. No they won't. I promise you they won't. Schools have community locker rooms and showers. So do employers. They are currently divided by gender. There is no way the parents of teenage boys and girls are going to allow unisex locker rooms and showers. For their part, employers are not going to risk the sexual harassment exposure of unisex showers and changing rooms. To retrofit schools and business to provide privacy in communal changing rooms and showers would cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Building new facilities would cost even more, and for what? To fix a non-problem for a very small portion of the population. 

Finally, there is no definition of "gender identity" that could serve to set uniform rules for bathroom use. The term is entirely subjective and, no matter where you stand on the issue, it is universally true that no rule can be formed or enforced if it's based on complete subjectivity. So, either the other 99.95% of Americans are going to be forced to accept this, or it will be totally blocked except in rare circumstances. 

Minorities seeking acceptance and protection as a class need to be very selective about the cases they use to achieve those rights. Test cases are filed and rejected all the time. The LGBT community unquestionably wants to be recognized as a protected class and provided remedial rights against their communities, schools and employers for a history of discrimination. This is not the case to use to do that. There is an old adage in legal profession: "bad cases make bad law." Imagine, as a member of the LGBT community, that you were finally granted protected status under federal law based on one of these test cases. You may celebrate, but forever and always those rights would be tied to the bathroom. This just isn't the best case to use to achieve equal protection.

Five Requirements For Republicans To Sweep

As Establishment heads explode, the race for the White House has tightened. If recent polls are correct, Trump has managed to close a nearly 11 point gap against Clinton in about a week and a half. This may come as a surprise to Democrats, but it's no surprise to Trump supporters. He's constantly beaten highly qualified candidates on whom he trains his sights. 

Clinton, by contrast, has proven to be a truly awful candidate. Bernie Sanders just won yet another state yesterday. Clinton, who won every county in West Virginia in 2008 against Obama, managed to alienate just about every voter she could by promising to "put [them] out of work." Donald Trump, granted, says some stupid things, but seriously, "I want to put you out of work"? I can't imagine a more damaging statement. "Build the wall" simply doesn't compare to threats to disenfranchise and unemploy hard working, blue collar Americans. In any event, her comparative weakness as a candidate provides Republicans with exactly the opening they need to sweep the elections, if they play their cards right. As a life long Republican, here is my advice.

Embrace Some Trumpsim

I did not say "embrace all Trumpism." I said "some." Specifically, Trump's jobs message is extremely powerful and has resonated with all Americans, even if he has alienated some others. All Americans can be unified in some very basic things: (1) we love our families and want them safe; (2) we want ourselves, families and neighbors to have good jobs; (3) we want our representatives to be proud to be Americans; and (4) we all want to feel like we're heading in the right direction in our lives.

Trump speaks to all of these common American aspirations. In that way, he is an ironic aspirational candidate. He clearly loves his family, and he speaks often about keeping America safe. He wants to rebuild the military and do whatever it takes to protect Americans from dangerous Jihadis who are, inevitably, flowing across our borders, (hidden in bales of marijuana). 

Trump is strong on jobs. He wants everyone to get back to work, in good jobs. Manufacturing jobs, infrastructure jobs, and mining jobs are good jobs. Somehow in America, right around the passage of NAFTA, Republicans and Democrats got together to convince Americans that these forgotten man jobs were somehow too dirty or low for any real American to do. It was a foolish proclamation that has deeply damaged our nation.

These jobs lead directly to production. A producer economy is always stronger than a consumer economy. Making things like coal, steel, automobiles, clothing, or furniture is far more important than making paper wealth through currency manipulation and markets. Building the infrastructure to  support these manufacturing jobs is much much more important than shuttering plants and mines. Trump is a builder. He builds "beautiful buildings, and a beautiful business" etc. He promises to rebuild American manufacturing and to exploit American strategic resources. That can only be good. How that is accomplished is up for debate. Trump has his ideas, now it's up to individual Republicans to offer some modifications. But they should embrace his energy and passion on the issue.

Trump is proud to be an American. My wife laughs every time she sees Trump, this billionaire New Yorker, wearing that ridiculous red trucker hat. But it works. He is telling voters in every state that he wants, above all else, to make America great again. Clinton has an effective response, I have to admit. She says that America is great now and she wants to make it better. Her message may resonate with voters, it may not. My guess is, that if she is branded as a liberal coal hater, who still embraces globalism rather than jobs, she will lose. Trump does not believe in globalism. He believes in an America First approach to dealing with every problem from immigration to foreign policy. After decades of Globalthink, perhaps he is correct. Regardless, a majority of the Republican primary voters, and a significant number of cross-over Democrats, agree with him. It is time for the Establishment to get on board with the America First agenda and then find ways to tweak it to make it work.

Finally, we all want to feel like our lives and our country are headed in the right direction. The single most important poll in every election is the so called "right track, wrong track" poll. An historic number of Americans believe the country has been on the wrong track. That is the fault of both parties and Republicans would do better in their own down ballot elections if they took at least some responsibility for that. Trump is the outsider. He has enormous credibility with voters looking for change, including anti-establishment Democrats. He can, and likely will, vouch for individual candidates as "part of the solution" rather than "part of the problem." There have been a large number of Establishment politicians stating that they don't want Trump anywhere near their elections. Maybe they're right, but it is likely that these Establishment incumbents would lose anyway. This is obviously an anti-incumbent year. Look at Bernie Sanders "Berning" Clinton to a crisp with energized, anti-establishment voters. Between Trump, Cruz and Sanders, almost three fourths of Americans have already voted for outsiders who promise to destroy the Washington Establishment. I'd hate to be running as an incumbent from either party this year. I would probably reach out to Trump and ask him for his endorsement, and I would also adopt the popular parts of his message. Candidates who choose to face this electoral hurricane on their own may be able to claim they stood on principle, but they may be claiming that from their next stop in some cushy multinational boardroom, not the Senate.

Name a Cabinet

Embracing some Trumpism will be half the battle when it comes to unifying the party. The next will be his choice of Vice President and cabinet members. Trump has already announced that whoever his Vice Presidential pick will be, it will be an insider with significant political experience. That sounds to me like he will pick an Establishment politician. Hopefully, the party can get behind that person rather than ripping him or her to shreds for supporting Trump. If they don't, well that's on them. Trump can only reach out so much before looking weak with the electorate he has clearly energized. 

Stay Away From Politicizing The Supreme Court

Trump made a huge mistake when he said he would provide voters with a list of ten Supreme Court nominees. This has never been done before and for good reason. The Court is obviously political and has become even more so in recent years. Judges write hundreds, sometimes thousands of decisions in a career. This may offend some of my judge friends, but guess what? Some of them aren't great decisions. Judicial nominees are very easy to attack. Everything is in writing and, in our legal system, often times the law is unpopular. Rulings force a judge to pick one party over the other. Someone always loses and sometimes that person can be a rallying point for politicians. 

Naming ten Court picks gives the opposition ten more highly vulnerable candidates to run against. Judges are not elected to the Supreme Court, so subjecting them to the electoral process necessarily defeats the Framer's intent. They will be inundated with press and opposition researchers. They will be hounded in their homes and security will be difficult to provide. They will be held up to scorn and, ultimately, a number of them may not want to be considered or may drop out of consideration. It's just a bad idea and the Establishment should not push it either.

Don't be Afraid to Attack Clinton

Establishment Republicrats have been shocked by Trump's "attacks on women." Trump needs to avoid saying stupid things about women, but he does not need to "moderate his tone." The fact is, women are not infants. They don't need to be mansplained to or protected from the harsh realities of the world. Trump doesn't mansplain. He literally treats women like he does men, and Republican candidates can learn from that. There is a phrase for it that I won't repeat, but basically, he is an equal opportunity harsh tone user.

Hillary Clinton wants to be President of the United States. In my view, she's already demonstrated that she's not up to the task by her time as Secretary of State, when every conceivable global rival mowed her down like a weed. She clearly didn't have the stomach to save Americans in Benghazi, or stand up to Putin in Eastern Europe. Now she wants to extend her reach to the Presidency. 

Clinton's record is fair game and no one should put on silk gloves to attack her on her decisions. The Obama Administration, with her support, has placed women in combat, in special forces training, and on the front lines. If she was serious about those decisions, then she can stand with them and fight bare knuckles. Yes, even against a man. Republican men should have enough respect for women in general and Clinton in particular to go after her like they would a man.

Resist the Urge to Campaign on Reproductive Politics

The conventional wisdom is that Trump has a "woman problem." As I've said before, I think married women will likely vote for their husbands in this election, somewhat blunting the impact of Trump's rhetoric. The Establishment's constant gloating about Trump's unpopularity with women, however, is the most hypocritical development so far in this cycle. The Republican Party has done terrible with women, and individual candidates who make stupid statements about reproductive politics are to blame. Every candidate who discusses "legitimate rape," or refuses to consider any exceptions to abortion bans, further erodes what modest support the party has. For his part, Trump doesn't have this problem. He doesn't discuss "legitimate rape," and he wants to change the Republican Platform to recognize, as the Catholic Church does, exceptions for the life of the mother. In fact, the entirety of Trump's woman problem rests in his willingness to attack women personally like he does men.

The Party needs to avoid making this election about abortion, birth control, Planned Parenthood, or anything else that involves a discussion about women's sexual health or sexual activities. None of those things has ever helped a single Republican win the womens' vote. If asked, candidates need to be measured in their opposition to abortion and recognize that the vast majority of abortions are not carried out by women who have some murderous desire to kill a baby. The nation is deeply divided on this issue and demonizing women who you are trying to persuade to change their position is unproductive. Unfortunately, Republicans, especially Republican men, have sometimes had a real problem articulating the pro-life message in a way that is not considered universally offensive. It's better just left unsaid for now. 

Conclusion

In the final analysis, Republicans should take a page out of the old Bill Clinton playbook. "It's the economy, stupid." Two decades later, his wife has completely abandoned that message, instead promising to put people out of work to pursue some bizarre liberal ideology. Trump, by contrast, has a clear jobs message. Embracing that message, promising to curtail globalism, and staying away from unnecessary political debates will carry them to victory on a new wave of populist voters.

A New Third Party Emerges From The Ashes Of Trumpism

Jeb Bush will not vote for Donald Trump. Neither with George W. Bush, nor George H.W. Bush. Mitt Romney and John McCain will sit this one out as well. Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House and the Chairman of the Republican Convention, isn't sure whether he will support Trump or not. 

The Republican and Democrat elites have now established their own party. We'll just call it the Establishment Party.

The Establishment Party will vote for Hillary Clinton, a member of the Establishment. They may not all actually pull the lever for Hillary, but they might as well. None will attempt to block her candidacy. The Bushes, of course, are now terribly sorry that they played a part in forcing Trump to pledge his support, in writing, to the Republican Party. They now know they could've done much better. They could have forced Trump (and his anti-establishment, grass roots supporters, made up of blue collar miners and machine operators) to run as a third party. They know from their own family history that, while a third party Trump would divide the vote like Ross Perot did, they still would maintain their power and influence. Eight years later, another Bush could be President. It's just a waiting game for the Bushes. 

And what will this new Establishment Party stand for? Well, we actually know what they stand for. They stand for themselves. They stand for maintaining their own influence, even if they have to sacrifice the nation to do it. They stand for higher taxes, and more spending, just as they've done, more or less, for three decades. They stand for the invasion of Iraq, nation building, limited war and globalism. They stand for free trade, even if that puts hard working Americans out of work. They stand for the federalization of education with Common Core and No Child Left Behind. They favor bank bailouts, "too big to fail," cronyism, and anti-abortion platforms that make no exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother. The Establishment Party believes that Democrats are mostly right, but their policies need to be tweaked - just a little. They prefer unsustainable debt and spending to fiscal responsibility and hard choices. The Establishment Party prefers cocktail parties in Georgetown to a beer with a miner at the end of his shift. They prefer cheap, illegal labor from Mexico to higher paying jobs for blue collar Americans. They prefer their buddies to the voters.

The Democrats are even worse, but at least they're honest about it. Everyone knows that Democrats are corrupt. They hardly deny it themselves. Hence the rise of Bernie Sanders. Between Trump and Sanders, a full 70%, yes 70%, of Americans want to Bern down the Washington playground. Trump's unfavorables are terrible. There is no doubt. But they are lower than the unfavorables of the Republican Congress. Think about that. The Establishment Party is lambasting Trump and calling him unelectable because of his unfavorables when theirs are even worse...

It's both a sad day in America and a great day. I did not vote for Trump. But, everything in my core tells me that Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are the right messengers for this nation right now. As Peggy Noonan said today in an article for the Wall Street Journal, Trump was the spark, not the fire. http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-was-a-spark-not-the-fire-1462488099. It's a good read.

Trump was surprised today that Paul Ryan wouldn't support him. I'm not. After all, Ryan is a Wisconsin Representative, in a moderate district, in a liberal state, who ran as Mitt Romney's Vice Presidential pick. He's a good man, but he's obviously still learning on the job. Donald Trump should run against Ryan and the Establishment Party in the general election. For starters, the Establishment won't support him, so why should he care what they think or say? Trump appeals to a broader cross-section of Americans, including service workers, blue collar manufacturing workers, entrepreneurs, miners, married middle class women, evangelical Blacks and, of course, a huge percentage of white men. White men alone made up nearly 37% of the actual voting electorate in 2012. By contrast, hispanics of both sexes only make up 14% of the entire population, and in 2012, hispanics made up only 8.4% of the electorate. African Americans  of both sexes made up about 12% in total. It's very difficult to find statistical information about married white women because, I have to suppose, the media just ignores their importance in the overall electorate. A pew poll, however, indicates that white women made up about 40% of the electorate in 2012. It also appears that married couples basically voted the same, within one or two points of each other.

My point is this, building the wall is not unpopular, no matter what the media says. And no matter how unpopular it might be with hispanics, it probably will not the determinative factor in the election. For every one hispanic voter who wants illegal workers to have unfettered access to our country, there are ten miners, truckers, electricians, journeymen, autoworkers, and machine operators that are out of a job because of NAFTA or that illegal worker. If everyone in this nation votes his or her interest (which they will), the wall will be built. Period. This is democracy. The majority will rule, with exceptions spelled out in the Bill of Rights.

The Establishment Party doesn't want majority rule. Quite simply, they are in the minority, so they must use force of law to maintain their power and influence. The day there is a true populist revolution is the day they lose everything they've built for themselves and their families. Before you feel sympathy for these elites, however, consider how they got their wealth. The vast majority got it through influence peddling, trading favors, playing politics and making unfulfilled promises to the voters. Very few of these men and women built their own wealth. It was handed to them because of their political station. And they tend to forget that their power is granted to them by the people who they have willingly betrayed now for decades. 

It is worth considering this: 535 representatives of our government are all there are for 325 million Americans. When Hawaii became a state in 1959, capping the number of representatives we have, the population of the United States was 154 million. The size of the country has more than doubled, but the number of politicians representing our interests has remained the same. I doubt this was our founders' intent. Each year as our population grows, our elected officials become more and more elite just by virtue of the fact that the number of representatives remains stagnant. It is an untenable model. Elitism is quintessentially unAmerican but unfortunately it has become the norm just by default.

The Establishment Party represents American elitism at its worst. The "Bush Dynasty" is the best example. Prescott Bush started the dynasty as a Connecticut moderate Senator. His son was Vice President and then President. His grandson became President and his other grandson was the anointed one by his party to become the next President. Bill Clinton came from nothing, but his wife is now running for President. No doubt his daughter will run some time in the future. Dynastic politics is anti-American. When George Washington was offered a crown, he declined. Jeb Bush had to have his crown taken away by the sullied masses.

There are many things I dislike about Trump. But there are a lot of things I do like. I like his willingness to say out loud that Americans should come first. That security should come first. That jobs make everyone happier and better off. "How will you win the Black vote, Mr. Trump"? "That's easy," he responds, "they want jobs, and I'll get them good jobs." 

It's the same with any demographic or balkanized group in our country. For my liberal friends, Bernie Sanders represents the same singular focus. And I like Bernie, a lot, even though I totally disagree with his position on the issues. At least he tells it like it is. And that's what Americans want.

For the Establishment Party, the last thing they want is to have the truth exposed. That would mean that they are exposed as the power mongers and elitists that they are. I say, expose them all. Sanders vs. Trump is a fair fight for the hearts and minds of Americans. The Clintons and Bushes can stay home.