I'm not interested in arguing the details. All I know is that several swing states stopped counting votes around midnight on Election Night, and when they resumed, Joe Biden enjoyed a remarkable surge of votes.
I also know that in some precincts, huge numbers of ballots were delivered in the middle of the night, during the vote-counting hiatus, that had no races filled out except the presidency – 100% for Joe Biden. This happened in Philadelphia and possibly other places.
Do I think the election was stolen? Yes, I do.
Biden left his house only (approximately) one out of every three days, attended "events" that consisted of a handful of media people listening to him read off a Teleprompter (very badly), and yet somehow managed to defeat an incumbent president with a huge base of support, a president who attracted more support and more votes, including minority support, than he did in 2016?
I don't buy it.
Perhaps this is just personal bias on my part.
Nevertheless, I will never buy it. And that's that.
Readers are free to argue about it, if they wish. For the record, here is what I think:
The election was rigged. Moreover, it is likely that all future elections will be rigged. Your vote doesn't matter. The outcome has already been decided. This election was a sham, as it has been in Venezuela and other dictatorships. We have become an oligarchy of rule-by-billionaires. Yes, Trump is a billionaire (or at least he says he is) – but he is a rebel. The other billionaires, such as the software billionaires who are be running things at this point, have no populist instincts and are interested only in squashing the will of the people in order to enforce their own agenda at any cost. We have seen this in the attempts by Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms to silence any criticism of the status quo.
The United States of America has entered a post-representative period in its history. In our case, Caesar was able to cross the Rubicon without anyone particularly noticing, thanks in large part to a willfully compliant national media, which certainly includes the highly overrated Fox News. From this point forward, elections will be entirely meaningless. The results will be determined in advance by the powers that be. Voting is no more than a ritualistic act intended to reassure the hoc polloi that their "voice" still counts. It does not.
I do not recommend voting in any future election whatsoever, except possibly local elections, which may (possibly) not be rigged.
Basically, I would opt out of the political system at this point. This is what I intend to do. I'm no longer interested in politics, nor do I plan to engage in political controversies. I recognize that my opinion and my persuasive efforts are completely useless. We do not live in a country where the individual's opinion counts.
I'm not saying this merely because Trump lost. There were many negatives about the Trump presidency, not least his narcissistic and obsessive use of Twitter. But I think it should be obvious to any reasonable observer that Trump, whatever his (many) defects, was infinitely more popular than Biden, a dementia-addled candidate who was unable to hit the campaign trail two-thirds of the time.
Where we are now, I think, is in the Augustinian phase of Roman history. Augustus, as you may know, took over the leadership of Rome after the Republic collapsed. He permitted a fairly wide latitude in freedom of speech, and he continued the old forms of the Senate and consuls, but in fact he devised a new and quite practical method of leadership from the top down. He was a genius, which distinguishes him from the idiots who profess to know how to handle our political system going forward. The system authored by Augustus lasted for more than 400 years. I very much doubt that the system authored by Kamala Harris and AOC will last for even one-quarter of that time.
The $64,000 question is whether the 70 or 80 million people (who knows how many there really were?) who voted for Trump will accept this "new normal" or will eventually rebel. They are showing no signs of rebellion so far. I admit that this surprises me. I thought that under the circumstances, civil unrest would be much more widespread. I anticipated the kind of violence from the right that we have seen from the left (Antifa, Black Lives Matter) over the past eight months. Then again, I thought civil unrest would be ignited by the ridiculous demands to shut down businesses and wear masks in the face of a "pandemic" that is no more serious than the Asian flu or the Hong Kong flu. I was wrong about that; so apparently the American public, in general, is willing to conform to any level of authoritarian demands, no matter how unsupportable and absurd. And the same goes for our vaunted law enforcement officers, who have disgraced themselves by enforcing these ridiculous regulations, and who no longer deserve our support, even as Antifa and BLM target them for destruction. Let them be defunded and destroyed.
To be completely honest, I now support Antifa. Their objective is to "burn down "America. I don't see a problem with this. I would rather see us die quickly than in a long, drawn-out, pointless death. There is dignity in national suicide. There is no dignity in the path we're on now.
In any event, the worrisome complacency of Trump supporters may change as the new reality dawns on them that their votes are of no value. Right now, many of them continue to believe, naïvely, that they can still influence the outcome of elections by voting for the candidate they prefer. This faith will be tested and eventually broken in subsequent elections, probably starting with the two Georgia runoff elections for U.S. Senate. Then the question will be: How will the Trump supporters (i.e., the populist American right) react? Will they accept the road to serfdom, or will they rise up in blind, inchoate rebellion?
On this pivot point turns the future of our erstwhile "democracy." The alternatives seem to be a) willful acquiescence in a "soft" dictatorship of the tech elites or b) an effort at secession that may or may not succeed.
As far as the second option is concerned, I recommend the book American Secession by FH Buckley. This surprisingly levelheaded book presents a number of arguments for secession before ultimately (spoiler alert!) deciding against it. Buckley is a Canadian professor with a longtime interest in American history. His opinions are intelligent, well reasoned, and supported by copious historical evidence and contemporary data. Personally, I think he makes such a good case for secession that his last-minute conversion to a "unionist" standpoint is less than persuasive.
For me personally, I will say that I think some form of secession is the only hope left for preserving any form of freedom on the North American continent. But it is unlikely. We will simply march like lemmings into our 1984-style future. Or is it Brave New World?
I am, by the way, fully aware that by expressing such highly charged political opinions on this blog I will alienate people who don't share those opinions. However, I did not start this blog twenty years ago, when I was a mere lad of forty, in order to cultivate popularity. In fact, it never occurred to me that anybody would be interested in my nattering opinions. So whatever happens, happens.
I am a loudmouthed asshole, and I intend to continue being a loudmouth asshole, the matter what it costs me. Take it or leave it.
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