I been rasslin’ ‘round in my head all day with how I might present this next without confusing the hell out of everybody, but I haven’t been able to come up with anything. So steel yourselves; gonna be a lot of jumping back and forth betwixt posts on this one. Instead of just providing one link for each excerpt as and when it’s first referenced, as is my usual wont, each time I shift to a different post I’ll re-link where it comes from. That’s the best expedient I can think of.

The Democrats Have Already Won the 2024 Election, Regardless of Who Either Party Runs

We don’t need to recap what happened in 2020, when Sundown Joe* campaigned from his basement and drove enough enthusiasm to have 81 million votes counted for him. The Democrats did a spectacular job of making their stolen votes completely unverifiable. “OK”, I thought. “The GOP has learned their lesson and won’t let this happen again, right?” Wrong.

Jump to 2022. We were ready for the Red Tsunami, which turned out to be a red trickle. Yes, there were factors. I pointed out that the Roe V. Wade victory was worth any temporary losses. Could we have had stronger candidates? Sure, Hershel Walker & Dr. Oz were far from perfect, but spare me that talk as an excuse. The Dems “won” with Raphael “Slum Lord Preacher Millionaire” Warnock in GA, Katie “Abortion Mouse” Hobbs didn’t even make any freakin’ effort to hide the election fraud that she committed! And don’t get me started on Uncle Festerman in PA. The dude got elected despite that fact that he is so clearly brain damaged that he couldn’t utter a single coherent thought! Even more so than the dementia patient who was installed as President after the 2020 election! No, a bigger problem is that the GOP Establishment didn’t want solid majorities in the House & Senate. Cocaine Mitch witheld funding for any candidates who would not kneel and kiss his ring, while barely veiled double agent Lindsey Graham decided to offer the Dems some great Get Out the Vote fodder by introducing a bill (that had ZERO chance of passing) to completely ban abortions immediately after the Roe ruling.

Then in the aftermath, the GOPe decided to spit in the faces of the Normals who they pretend to represent, with Cocaine Mitch proclaiming that sending billions of dollars with no accountability to Ukraine was the top priority of the GOP base. And in a head scratcher, the party decided to reward Mitt Romney’s niece, Ronna McDaniel as GOP Chair. I can see her appeal to the GOPe, as she is great at raising a lot of money from big donors while carefully avoiding producing results with that money (And no, I have no idea why Trump’s people whipped votes for McDaniel on election day).

So what can we expect in 2024? At the top of my post Iinked to my anti-Trump take. There was a lot of disagreement, both in the comments and on various boards where I posted, and most of the disagreement was well articulated. But on top of everything I had to say, it looks like Biden* is trying to use Merrick Garland’s corrupt Department of Justice to go after Trump to keep him from being able to run. This wouldn’t be unprecedented – Tuca recently made a strong case that the Justice Dept. railroaded Nixon out of office. So let’s say that we end up having a bruising GOP primary that toughens the eventual winner, and whoever loses decides to put the country ahead of any personal disputes and endorses the winner. And in this scenario DeSantis is the winner, and we have a simple case of what too many pundits have called, “Trump without the baggage” and the GOP cruises to victory, right?

Well, no, not necessarily.

The first and most important angle to consider when analyzing this stance is the present reality of American elections. President Trump’s seemingly insurmountable election night leads in 2020, which were significantly larger than his leads throughout the night in 2016, somehow vanished into slim Biden victories. In other words: Without our corrupt election systems being corrected, it doesn’t matter who runs since the winner is predetermined. Trump didn’t cost us; the election was stolen. But for the sake of this discussion, we’ll say that our elections are free and fair.

Despite his alleged loss, Trump gained more than 12 million votes from 2016 (and likely more,) the largest increase in vote total for any sitting president in American history and the highest vote total by any presidential candidate ever, aside from Biden’s highly suspicious 81 million votes that same year. So, the media-manufactured Trump baggage has not had any negative impact on voter enthusiasm for Trump. Based on his vote increasing by millions, you could make the argument the baggage led to more people rallying to support him.

Prior to 2016, Conservative voter enthusiasm in the previous two presidential elections was abysmal. John McCain and Mitt Romney both lost convincingly to Barack Obama due in large part to their politically correct, low energy approach to politics when conservatives were looking for the exact opposite.

The “Trump baggage” can be summarized as a combination of his brash style of politics and the never-ending war waged on him by the media. Ironically, Trump’s style was the change America sought, and his exposure of the corrupt media is what has kept him so popular. In essence, Trump is a product of the corrupt environment the media has created, and their hatred towards him makes him more popular. The “Trump baggage” is what was needed to move the needle enough for Trump to win states such as Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania that Republicans had not won since the 1980s.

Most of the baggage from the Trump presidency was completely manufactured by media with the purpose of doing exactly what it is accomplishing to an extent now: Diminish enthusiasm for Trump at any cost, no facts needed. The goal was never to prove any of the false accusations against Trump. They knew this was impossible; they created them.

If those examples are considered “too much baggage,” could you imagine the media frenzy with issues of actual substance? Enter Ron DeSantis. To this point, it is obvious why the Florida Governor does not seem to have much baggage, and it isn’t because he has a squeaky-clean past. He currently has not declared a run for the presidency which is when most baggage is exposed (or manufactured.) There already are accusations ready to be weaponized when the time comes. Important to note, as seen with Trump: truth and facts are not needed to create baggage.

It’s a crucial distinction, since the list of DeSantis “baggage” is much ado about the exact same style of deceitful, ginned-up nothing the AmThink author dismisses with Trump. But, as Brother Bob notes, that ain’t the point.

Personally, I thought that the anti-Desantis shots in the post I just linked didn’t have much substance to them, but that’s not the point. To The Radical Left, charges don’t have to have any substance or facts behind them. Lefties will happily believe any lie if it supports their beliefs, and just look at the stupidity they believed about Trump. I could write a few thousand words, but can sum it up with the most egregiously unbelievable example that they all swallowed: Pee Tape, anyone? Of course, in this scenario The Radical Left will also forget their seething hatred for Trump, as one trait they’ve always shared is that they obediently march in lockstep to whoever their leadership labels their latest Emmanuel Goldstein. Ace lays down a few of the ways thet they will delude themselves that they actually like Trump compared to DeSantis. And of course, unless voter fraud gets addressed, pretending any nominee can overcome it is a trap.

Since you brought it up, let’s talk about traps for a sec.

DeSantis 2024 Is a Trap

If voter fraud is not addressed, it doesn’t matter who the candidate is, because democracy in America won’t exist.

Stop trying to take Ron DeSantis away from Florida. Just stop it. I understand the rationale, but it’s wrong. It may be quite reasonable to be jealous of Florida for its governor—the only governor in the nation to win my coveted “competent” rating on every major issue. But before we encourage DeSantis and Donald Trump to have a falling out that splits the party (or, rather, before we let the RINO simps do it at the behest of Democrats and lots of Chinese money), let’s review a few salient points.

First, governors really matter now. The worse Washington gets—and it gets bigger and worse no matter who’s president because the bureaucrats never change—the more important states become. We need to stop thinking of the presidential election as the be-all and end-all of politics. It was never supposed to be that way. States were once so powerful that the federal government had to fight a Civil War to smack them down. States formerly regarded themselves as coequal partners in the nation, not as subservient entities bowing to federal dictates. Whatever else the Civil War achieved, it did immeasurable damage to states’ freedom of action and, by extension, our own.

States have it in their power to undo this damage by protecting their citizens from federal agents who operate outside the law. (Case in point: ATF agents showing up without warrants at peoples’ homes, attempting to entrap gun owners.) But that would require boldness and courage on a level I don’t expect from any governor. Maybe Kari Lake would have done it. But she had her election stolen. DeSantis is the only sitting governor who could conceivably have the strength of purpose to lead a great reawakening of states’ rights. As I say, I don’t expect it. But he’s the only one who could do it—and he won’t do it if he’s busy trying to get himself elected president.

And here’s the other thing about DeSantis. We can call it “the main thing”: DeSantis isn’t going to win in 2024. No Republican is, unless voter fraud is addressed first. That means voting in person, on Election Day, and with a valid picture ID, not voting by mail over the course of a month. If we don’t fix that—and we’re not fixing it—it does not matter who the candidate is: Trump, DeSantis, or any other Republican. None of them have a chance in hell. It has nothing to do with who they are.

I’m going to say this again, simply because far too many “conservative” writers are ignoring it: Trump did not lose in 2020. Republicans did not lose in 2022. If we think we can win with a broader “big-tent” message or with someone who does less mean tweeting, we, in our innocence, are actively helping to destroy this country.  

Pretty much, yeah. Back over to Brother Bob for the Big Question.

So what do we do now? We’ve already heard talk about the GOP adopting ballot harvesting techniques, as has already been successfully done in California. While I get the idea of using their tactics against the Lefties, that only goes so far, as the moment it becomes truly effective for us Normals is the day we get FBI raids on the homes of every Republican participating. If you don’t see that happening, look no further than all of the BLAMtifa domestic terrorist walking free while the victims of the January 6th Reichstag Fire rot away in the Garland Archipelago. Even if that threat didn’t hang overhead, I still don’t like it. For one, it gives a huge advantage to the GOPe versus any grassroots Republicans given the monetary and organizational advantages. Second, and more importantly, why should we Normals have to surrender a huge tactical advantage to The Radical Left? And if we become over reliant on harvesting, how soon until Democrats figure out that it’s a great way for them to measure how many fraudulent votes they need to find on election night? On this tactic, I share the brief, profane opinion toward Heinecken that Dennis Hopper offered in the movie Blue Velvet. Side note, but why aren’t any of us Normals pushing how ballot harvesting takes away the right of the secret ballot?

At this point you might be wondering if I’m going to offer anything remotely constructive, assuming you haven’t already put your fist through your screen hoping it will reach my nose. Adam Mill lays out the interesting scenario of boycotting the 2024 election.

I don’t completely agree with this sentiment, either. Completely sitting out the election means an electoral bloodbath downticket and wipes out representation for us Normals at the state and local levels, as well as in the School Board fights, where our base has shown new life. What if we still voted, but all voted a write in for President, such as John Galt? I’m sure that many of you disagree with me, but if I’m right (and I sincerely hope I’m not), how many rigged elections and tyranny at the hands of the Democrats do we put up with before we realize that we’re fighting the last war, and that we lost it years ago? Are we at that stage? I don’t know. Can we avoid reaching the stage where our election process has gone full banana republic, or was 2020 our Pearl Harbor, and 2022 was our Phillippines? I’d like to say that our Midway will be 2024, but based on what I wrote here I don’t see it. Calling out the regime’s illegitamacy is only a starting point, and things will get worse before they get better. But America remains the greatest country to ever exist, warts and all. My uncle didn’t get shot up by Rommel’s Africa Corps to return and live a productive life, while my great uncle didn’t get gunned down on the beaches of Normandy for me to squander what they sacrificed.

We will win this fight, as tyrannies always fall eventually. Some take longer than others. But if Germany could overcome being ruled by literally Hitler, and most of Eastern Europe could throw off Russian tyranny, there’s no reason we can’t do the same. And while we’re not as far along the road as those nations wound up, it’s impossible to ignore the path we’re on. But I’m not giving up.

Nor should you, nor should anybody else. Whatever the answer might turn out to be—and like Bob, I don’t claim to have any good ones myself—there is in fact one out there, just waiting for us to find it. Hope is only ever lost when it’s been abandoned. And that we must not, we cannot, do.