Running for President in 2024? CPAC 2022 Straw Poll’s Top Two Contenders

AWAKE, NOT WOKE.  Sounding this defiant and clarion meme, the American Conservative Union once again, for a second time, hosted its annual gathering in Orlando, Florida, this year at the Rosen Shingle Creek resort hotel from February 24 -27, 2022.   The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is the largest yearly conclave of proudly patriotic Americans who are unabashedly conservative, adoring of America as originally conceived and traditionally understood, and not at all chary of proclaiming its foundational exceptionalism.  In the face of the most radical-left regime ever to rule this nation, conservatives and libertarians have needed a collective, metaphorical “shot in the arm” (no thanks to “Dr.” Anthony Fauci) to inspire sustained, principled civil resistance and counterforce to the onslaught of absurd, delusional, and destructive policies emanating from the White House and Congress since January 20, 2021.   This they got in spades at CPAC 2022.  The parade of luminaries with great things to say was stellar and galvanizing, providing a robust springboard for the coming midterm electoral battles later this year.   Clarity of purpose, perspective, and position was palpable in every speaker’s remarks, whether a current officeholder, candidate for elective office, pundit, or policy wonk.   CPAC always delivers the core conservative message, of course, but this year it did so especially well.

The impetus now for conservatives to gather, get inspired, get energized, get organized, and get working to elect conservatives at every level has never been greater, being loudly demanded by the increasingly disorienting times we live in.  After only one year of total control of the federal government by hard-Left Democrats, the regime of Joe Biden threatens to erode, cleave, and subvert Americans’ liberty, prosperity, security, moral cohesion, and sovereignty.  All conservatives and other sane, sensible citizens must rally in the face of the rolling insurrection against this constitutional republic that began in earnest on Inauguration Day 2021.  Presto!, this CPAC provided the counterrevolt with a loud and splashy launch.         

The speaker line-up was particularly compelling, with a multitude of celebrity pundits, commentators, wonks, and strong conservative candidates for elective office across the nation.  But early on, one of the most convicted advocates at this or any other year’s CPAC confab was the current governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, already a conservative icon in his first term for his many principled actions in signing legislative bills and issuing executive orders that honor and will surely work to guarantee Floridians’ safety, security, election integrity, public morality, and educational sanity.  In a 20-minute stemwinder, DeSantis cited his aggressive countermoves against “Faucian dystopia” (disavowing the federal vaccine mandates and passports), electoral subversion (outlawing ballot harvesting and the privatizing of election management), Big Tech elitist censorship (penalizing it criminally), public street chaos (criminalizing political rioting), transgender ideology (protecting women’s athletics), radical demographical transformation (banning sanctuary cities and removing illegal migrants to Delaware), and usurpation of parents’ child-raising authority (banning the teaching of Critical Race Theory and child sexualization in K-12 schools).  In addition to emulating President Trump’s appointment of three jurists to the highest court in his state, DeSantis has halted the onslaught of “progressive” efforts to rob Americans of their rights, freedoms, jobs, businesses, and sovereignty.  In less than four years, he has set a template for a 10^th Amendment defense of Americanism that all states should act to follow.   At CPAC, he was rewarded for his raw combination of smarts, courage, creativity, and steadfastness:  In a straw poll conducted among the attendees for their preferred nominee for president in 2024, he outpolled all other new possible contenders combined, besting everyone except Donald Trump.   With Trump eliminated as a choice in a second round, DeSantis cleared the table even more dramatically.   America has a bold new champion in the event Trump decides not to run again in 2024.   

Another striking highlight was a speech by journalist/author Julie Kelly, who chronicled the partisan authoritarian abuses and derelictions of the Biden regime since the sensationalized riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.  From the mass arrests and incarceration of peaceful patriotic attendees at that event without due process, bail, legal representation, speedy trials, and humane treatment to the abject failure to hold criminally accountable any of the rioters, looters, arsonists, and killers who tormented so many American cities in the summer and fall of 2020, Kelly painted an Orwellian picture of an administration selectively sanctioning political violence, censoring opposing views, resisting legitimate inquiries, suppressing video evidence, misusing law enforcement, and eroding and ignoring many sacred legal norms and constitutional protections.   She exhorted the audience to recognize how very critical to the future of American Liberty the upcoming elections this year are:  Failure at the polls is not an option if our free republic is to survive.

The critical issue of energy supply for the nation was spotlighted by Governor Kristi Noem (R-SD), an ardent advocate for American energy production and independence.   Cataloging the stream of injurious restrictions, permit withholdings, and project abrogations of the O’Bidenistas, she reminded attendees just how essential to prosperity a free and thriving domestic energy-production market is.  Along with Governor DeSantis, Noem acted throughout the Covid scare of 2020-21 to maintain her citizens’ freedoms to conduct business, attend their jobs and schools, worship, and avert all mandates and lockdowns.   Her clear-mindedness, staunch pragmatism, and firm reliance on traditional American precepts of governance will likely make her a serious contender for higher office in the coming years.     

In one of his now-trademark 90-minute orations, President Trump delivered a rousing review of his manifold successes as president, warned of the plethora of threats Americans face under the Biden regime and Pelosi/Schumer Congress, catalogued the many electoral depredations orchestrated by radical Democrats and Big Tech that criminally deprived him of a second term in 2020, and urged his supporters to work for the resumption of the policies and acts that were making America a truly great nation again.  Advocating for renewed energy independence, a completed border wall, strict migration controls, a pantheon of election reforms, new presidential termination authority over federal bureaucrats, a revitalized pro-America military, a strong and resolute America First foreign policy, full prosecution of violent criminals, an end to Covid-inspired mandates, the empowerment of parents to veto radical gender ideology in schools, and the legal breakup of Big Tech’s oligarchy, Trump had the audience repeatedly standing and applauding with giddy and gleeful approval.  Rising in tempo and high passion, he responded to the aims of what he characterized as “the radical, power-hungry ruling class” to extinguish “our identity as Americans and rob us of our liberties” with this Churchillian peroration:  “The People of America will not surrender our borders, our culture, our faith, our values, our history, our liberty, or our children to a small band of bullies and extremists who want to tell everyone else what to do.”   It was, once again among many, a vocal tour de force , one that signals to this observer that Donald Trump will be running for president again in 2024.   Coyness be damned.          

The charge to CPAC’s attendees this year was annunciated loud and ringingly clear by many speakers throughout the conference.   In perhaps the most succinct, stirring call to action to American patriots in 2022, North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, to tumultuous applause, exhorted the assembled throng to: “Stand Up, Lean Forward, and Fight Back!”  If such brio fully materializes throughout the nation in the coming months, 2022 may well be a singularly pivotal year in American history.   May this so “woke tyranny” be gone!   

This observer continues to be skeptical that America, under the O’Bidenista regime, really wants any direct and open military conflict between Russia and America over Russia’s now two-month-old military invasion of Ukraine.  However, Fox News Channel news host Tucker Carlson posited last night on his nightly show that President Joe Biden and the national Democratic leadership are actively precipitating such a conflict as a means of toppling Russia’s dictator Vladimir Putin and thereby securing total regime change in his nation. Why? As Democratic punishment for Putin’s and Russia’s covert complicity in Donald’s Trump’s presidential election victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016. This, despite the now widely acknowledged fact there was no Russian collusion in that year’s election that aided in Donalld Trump’s astounding win and that the whole delusional Russia-Trump collusion campaign was a cynically concocted, wholly seditious machination of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The evidence of a coup attempt is now in abundance and has been for some time now, but the serious federal prosecutions have yet to begin. The “when” can only be a matter of conjecture at this point, virtually sidelined by the press of many newer, late-breaking madcap events, both at home and abroad.

All that said, in the event of war between Russia and NATO and the U.S., qui bono? Well, China, of course.  And with communist Chinese influence coursing through the D.C. intelligentsia, could this all be a ploy by China (with connivance by America’s woke elites) to eliminate its two biggest strategic rivals via a kinetic confrontation between them?  One in which China would not at all be directly involved.  Then, with both major adversaries much weakened — perhaps even destroyed (one or both) — China will surely emerge as the world’s only superpower.  And then, in short order, it’ll be “Goodbye Taiwan” (perhaps without ever firing a shot) — and likely goodbye to every other free nation in the world as well. 

Can we thank Joe Biden (and the man [men?] behind his curtain) for this real-life actualization of George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, both here and overseas, all at the same time?  Maybe the Nobel Committee in Oslo should look into this unfolding tale of some Obamaesque “potential promise” for a new, even more demented Peace Prize selection of him — or better yet (much more sanely!), the International Criminal Court in the Hague for a wider inclusion of war criminals in the dock. The dusty Doomsday Clock of yesteryear’s Cold War is ominously ticking once again — only more suddenly now, more precipitously, and yet really no less precariously.

Tucker: The war in Ukraine has nothing to do with Ukraine

Courtesy of the New York Times

At the end of the first week in January, the world seems eerily drifting once again towards the brink of international war, and likely so in more than one region.  It’s all redolent of the year 1938, when predatory dictatorships in Germany, Italy, Japan, and Soviet Russia were all either maneuvering diplomatically, warring militarily, or engaging clandestinely in infiltration into governments with the goal of territorial expansion.   By that year’s end, the Nazis had absorbed all of Czechoslovakia and annexed Austria, Mussolini’s fascisti had earlier subdued Abyssinia (the old Ethiopia), Tojo’s imperialist military was brutally subjugating Manchuria (China), and Russia’s Comintern agents were clandestinely fomenting discontent, diffidence, and appeasement elsewhere in Europe, not to mention in Great Britain and America.  

Today, the Red Chinese are saber-rattling against Taiwan, the North Koreans are acting with provocation against their free national counterpart to the south, the Russians are readying manpower and materiel on their border with Ukraine, and Iran’s ayatollahs are moving inexorably to develop an offensive nuclear weapons capability, presumably with Israel and Saudi Arabia in their immediate strategic target sights.   Irredentism, a state’s drive to reclaim lands once held by a former national regime or its religion — whether as factual history or some fancy ideological mandate – is making a comeback across the globe. 

Just as in the 1930s, this comeback is being enabled by the appearance and reality of a complex of weak resolve in leadership, fading allegiance by elites to democratic values, dwindling economic and fiscal health, and fraying military readiness and strength in the nations of the West in general, and America in particular.  In a signal distinction from yesteryear, however, the United States as superpower is now the sole tentpole of the Free World, and without its unparalleled excellence in all of these dimensions, the history of the mid-twentieth century is about to repeat itself.  The appeasement mindset, and actions and policies of accommodation that flow from it, being demonstrated by America’s current rulers constitute surefire catnip to aggressors everywhere.

It appears to be just a matter of time now before “the balloon goes up” and the shooting starts.  Several years ago, Russia, China, and Iran created the Shanghai Cooperative Organization, aiming to coordinate military exercises at the very least, and presumably for the purpose of strategizing about how best to undermine and upset American global power in pursuit of their own foreign-policy objectives.  This appears to have gained impetus since Joseph R. Biden became president in 2021.  If ever there were any doubt as to the incompetency of the O’Biden regime or — what’s more likely — its insidious globalist agenda to emasculate America on the world stage, “desovereigntize” the nation, and deconstruct its republican form of government from within, the debacle of our withdrawal from Afghanistan last August and the unrelenting federal efforts since February to facilitate a rank invasion by foreign migrants into the homeland has dispelled it forever.   With increasing divisions and polarization amongst the American populace now the order of the day partly as a result (by design, no doubt), the advent of open civil strife appears very likely to occur in our near future. 

If such a scenario does come to pass – and even if it doesn’t result in widespread civil violence – the enemies of America will certainly be quick to capitalize on the distractions that it will create for the nation as a whole and its civilian and military leadership circles in particular.   Coordinated, concurrent military campaigns by America’s main adversaries, and perhaps others, against their strategic targets could easily overwhelm this nation’s ability to respond in any efficacious way, diplomatically, economically, or militarily.  The geopolitical order of the world could well be transformed virtually overnight, with a desperate resort to nuclear weapons by our leaders being the only cognizable way of addressing all of the seismic assaults decisively.  But what sane person would advocate for such a Wagnerian Götterdämmerung?   Even dedicated conservative patriots have to wince hard at the prospect of such a holocaust. 

The only rational way to avert such a global catastrophe is to organize Americans to face the threat posed by weak leaders in the administration and their plans for appeasement abroad and deconstruction at home, and to act civilly and lawfully in political advocacy and, as necessary, lawfare to oust Democrats from control of the Congress in the elections to be held this year.   And then to work to impeach this president and his ideologically aligned successors and key cabinet officers as soon thereafter as practicable.  If dedicated patriots succeed in their efforts, this   nation and its great republic can likely be preserved.   And millions of Taiwanese, Ukrainians, Israelis, Saudis, and South Koreans will sleep the night and breathe a whole lot easier.   And just perhaps, they will be joined by many more millions of other Europeans, Asians, and Arabs.   It’s well worth working for, for sure — and praying for, mightily.

Today is the first day of the new year 2022, and it’s vital to reflect on what autocratic Democratic rule (yes, rule, not governance) in Washington, D.C. has meant since Joe Biden’s inauguration in January 2021 and the assumption of near-total Democratic control of the national legislative agenda in Congress a few weeks earlier.  Any such reflection can be made from a myriad of perspectives, both mundane and esoteric, but there is a quasi-spiritual lens I’d like to peer through at the start of this critical election year.  Framing public-policy issues rationally and with resolute honesty is essential to discerning (i) likely outcomes of enacted policies and (ii) their efficacy in delivering their intended beneficial results.  To this end, moral clarity and the ground truth of all premises assumed are key to be established.      

To those who value fact-based realities over “social constructs” meant to facilitate and justify ideological imperatives like identity politics and tribalism, we accept that there are two — only two — genders among human beings.   Male and Female.  That’s it.  Social “innovations” such as “gender fluidity” and the heated efforts exerted by their proponents to normalize them are designed to confound, disrupt, and ultimately destroy the organic social order that has evolved over centuries of experimentation across many societies.  These proponents euphemistically label this “fundamental transformation”; those who are well acquainted with world history and the relentless delusions of social utopians, whether foreign or domestic, more accurately call this “social engineering.”  Usually, decadence in all forms attends their drives towards “perfecting” society by “perfecting” all of the people who live in it.  Rampant rank amorality, the debasement of all civilized norms of behavior, and the successful elevation — and even glorification — of perversions of all manner become milestones on the way to the new Utopia.   Narcissistic elites prosper, and everyone else slides into misery and poverty, mere tools for the formers’ aggrandizement of power and lucre.        

Even cursory reviews of history disclose that coercive force must ultimately be resorted to by those in power in order to gain the totality of obedience and compliance necessary to defy the common sense and objective views of reality possessed by Everyman and Everywoman.  Cancel culture, defamation, public shaming, banning, job loss, academic-admission denial, lawfare, social isolation, internment camps – this has all been done before, in one way of another, in many places.  Inevitably, it is certain prelude to horrendous end-of-the-line destinations such as mass incarceration and even liquidation of those who refuse to surrender their minds, wills, and bodies.

One of the modern whipping boys (so to speak here) for the advancement of this savage menace has been “toxic masculinity”, embodied in and epitomized by white, hetero, generically Christian, middle-class, working males.   Traits of this supposed scourge include overt tendencies toward emotional aggression, physical intimidation and violence, attitudes of patriarchal disdain and supremacism, and the usual laundry list of demoniacal supposed isms and phobias:  racism, sexism, various LGBTQ-centric phobias, and Islamophobia.  In a word, men are the problem, and particularly white heterosexual men who possess natural masculine attitudes, values, and predispositions.

This perspective, intentionally, ignores the positive traits of masculinity that have long been esteemed, honored, and celebrated not only in America but throughout all organized societies since at least ancient Egypt, Persia, Greece, and Rome.   These include the capacity to design and build structures and organizations; the ability to preserve, defend, and protect through exertions of physical strength; the ability to produce and amplify material wealth by the use of rational thought and physical labor; and the ability to utilize natural law to produce food and water supplies.  These are all “doing” activities — and lest the thrust of this piece be mistaken, these activities and the characteristics they represent are not possessed by biological males solely; many women embody them in widely varying degrees as well, particularly in cultures that have prized individual rights and liberties over group-identity rights and powers.   So “toxic masculinity” is really just a propaganda meme of the utopian Left created for the purpose of besmirching the strong individualism and independent mindset of society’s motivated producers, who predominantly just happen to be male.  

So, what of femininity?   Positive cardinal feminine characteristics are concerned primarily with the core attributes of “being” rather than doing:  Receptivity, inspiration, artistic creativity in its many forms, nurturance, and the activities of emotional and educational sustenance such as caregiving, pastoral work, teaching, and training.  Again, such qualities and pursuits are hardly the exclusive domain of biological women – many men are endowed with “feminine energy” and its associated traits, and without regard to their sexual orientation.  They pursue careers as physicians, nurses, social workers, and therapists; dancers, writers, composers, actors, singers, musicians, and designers; religious and spiritual leaders, and mystics; and teachers and academics, all of which exemplify the best feminine qualities.  There is nothing invidious about distinguishing these qualities and representative pursuits from those of the masculine type; in fact, both are essential for a fully functional society and well-balanced human beings. 

The central point is that men and women, and their most natural predispositions and drives, are discernible and categorizable as a matter of rational observation over many centuries in societies around the world.    

But if in fact there is a tangible phenomenon known as “toxic masculinity” beyond its just being an inflammatory meme designed to divide and alienate people from one another for purposes of accumulating social and political power, is there a correlate that could rightfully be labelled “toxic femininity”?  I aver there is.

If “toxic” males can be overly aggressive and intimidating, then “toxic” females may be overly passive-aggressive and covertly conniving, working behind the scenes to get what they want by subterfuge.   If “toxic” males can be too direct and “in your face” with their demands, needs, and wants, then “toxic” females may be intentionally indirect, coy, sly, and even deceitful to get whatever they want.   And, if “toxic” males can be physically violent based on their emotions gone awry, then “toxic” females may be emotionally manipulative towards others, playing on their personal fears, vulnerabilities, and sensitivities.   Now again, if all men and women share both masculine and feminine traits and energies as described above, in varying degrees in each person, then this disquisition can hardly be defamed as a diatribe aimed invidiously at women as women.   Rather, it reflects modes of behavior that exist in our politics and the ideological conflicts and rivalries that bedevil our nation’s society today — modes that are employed by both men and women.

Today, Democratic politicians and officeholders, at virtually every level of government, and many of their ideological cohorts in the major media, academia, Hollywood, and Big Tech are increasingly being regularly outed as serial liars, deceitful spin advocates, charlatans, subversives, and cynical panderers and manipulators of vulnerable people’s basest emotions and instincts.  Their predations certainly did not start with the November 2020 election and its aftermath; they antedate it by three decades at least.   However, they have gained greater normalization over the last dozen years or so and now threaten to overthrow our civil society and constitutionally republican, federalist forms of government.   

And, if not checked decisively this coming year by the sane, the rational, the historically literate, and the spiritually conscious, historians of the future may well ascribe America’s disintegration and eventual collapse as a free, democratic, independent, and sovereign nation to a rampant, popularly sanctioned pandemic of raging “toxic femininity.”  And it will be the men in power that are toxic feminists who will be largely to blame.  Like Biden/Obama, Kerry, Blinken, Austin, Garland, Mayorkas, Milley, Schumer, Durbin, Sanders, Schiff, and Nadler.  Move over Pelosi, Clinton, Warren, Feinstein, Hirono, Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Tlaib, Pressley, and Booker.       

As 2021 draws to a close, many disturbing develoments have crystallized this year since the O’Biden regime was inaugurated on January 20th: Open borders (unrestrained entry by unvetted migrants into the U.S. and their mass settlement in select states clandestinely by the feds); soaring price inflation engendered by profligate printing by the Federal Reserve of fiat currency; the irresponsible, abrupt flight from and unwarranted surrender of Afghanistan to the Taliban; the rank abandonment of our energy independence to OPEC and concomitant loss of thousands of well-paying professional American jobs; and the neoMarxist, anti-America indoctrination of the nation’s schoolchildren and military personnel, among many others.  Among these, two of the most insidious are the villainization and even demonization by the White House, cabinet officers, leftist Democratic senators and congressmen, and legacy media personalities of “white supremacists” and all people who choose to remain “unvaccinated” — really a misnomer because the prime “vaccine” is truly an experimental genetic therapy — against Covid-19 and its variants.  Because of historical precedents, these two are particularly ominous going forward, as they portend ever-growing alienation and offically sanctioned isolation of distinct population groups.  All thinking people would do well to earnestly contemplate the following meme I devised and then a very smart, informed commentary by Robin Falcone:     

Robin Falcone writes:

My grandmother was a Russian Jew who narrowly escaped a pogrom in her village as a child. Like many descendants of those people I’ve always found stories of that time especially poignant and personal.  I’ve also been fascinated at how these things happened right in front of the non-Jews living all around them, whose lives seemed to continue on with little impact. Did they realize what was going on? Or had they been told that Jews were the enemy often enough and loud enough that eventually they just accepted it as truth?

Historically when one group of people is singled out for persecution, the remaining population falls into three groups:  1. Those who simply go about their business unaware of what is going on, or who don’t care because they’re not personally impacted.  2. Self-appointed enforcers who gleefully point out the offenders to demonstrate their loyalty to the regime and (they hope) preserve their own favorable standing.  3. A courageous few who despite being exempt from persecution themselves, risk everything to stand up to tyranny because they answer to higher ideals which transcend cultural or political whims.  It was this group who helped people like my grandmother during the war, or became resistance icons like Witold Pilecki and Oskar Schindler. They understood what was happening and did something about it. Many others risked their own lives by hiding Jewish families in their homes or helping them escape the country. Growing up, people like that were my archetypes of courage and character. I’d ask myself, “If this happened today, who would I be? If all the chips were down and it would cost me everything, would I have the moral courage to help a Jew?”  We all like to think we are in group 3 but history tells us otherwise.

The majority of people fall into group 1, with a good number in 2 and a smaller percentage in 3.  And it’s no wonder. Remember, the horrors of the Holocaust were preceded by an all-out PSYOP campaign to turn people against the Jews and separate them from mainstream life.  The Reich controlled the public narrative and enforced it through aggressive and unrelenting media campaigns. As Hitler’s own Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels famously said, “If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes accepted as truth.” No wonder many businesses displayed “No Jews Allowed” signs in their windows. No wonder Jews were routinely turned away from movie theaters, concerts, shows, and other public venues.

In fact, the propaganda was so effective that before long many people believed that Jews shouldn’t be allowed to mix with the mainstream population at all, much less attend school with non-Jewish children. Finally, laws were passed preventing Jews from entering civil service, the military, medicine, teaching and other professions, all in the name of the “public good.” Widespread protests did nothing to deter the hell-bent Reich from their agenda. By the time Jews were physically separated from the general population many people were relieved, believing they were safer not being exposed to the Jews. It’s worth noting that the effectiveness of the propaganda was in no way dependent on the truth of the message. People were thoroughly convinced that Jews posed an imminent threat to their way of life, despite the fact that they had been freely associating with Jewish friends, neighbors and co-workers for months or years without suffering any ill effects.

What had changed, other than the narrative? How right Goebbels was! And how different history would look if people had believed what they actually saw and experienced, rather than the narrative that was being sold to them. The parallels between this and what is happening today are striking. Pick up the NY Times or the Washington Post and substitute the word “Jew” for “unvaccinated.” If you have any moral sense at all you’ll be appropriately alarmed; it is virtually indistinguishable from anything published by the Reich during WWII, right down to “necessary measures being taken to avoid the spread of misinformation” (for the public good, of course).

Like the Jews in my grandmother’s day, the un-vaxed are being banished from civil service, the military, medicine, teaching, and other professions (also pr esumably for the “public good”). No matter that millions of un-vaxed police officers, soldiers, nurses, doctors, teachers and others have been doing their jobs continually over the last 3 years without making anyone sick at all. Why are they suddenly unfit to mix with the general population? What has changed, other than the hyperbolic narrative being sold to the public?

Hitler was in “excellent” company. The most unthinkable atrocities in history have been committed in the name of the public good — just ask the 7 million Ukrainians Stalin intentionally starved to death, or the millions of Armenians slaughtered in Turkey, or the Cambodians lying in mass graves at the pleasure of Pol Pot, or the 50 million starved to death by Mao in China. Those are just four in a long list of Governments who decided that a certain contingent wasn’t going along with the program and needed to be dealt with.

As today’s un-vaxed are labeled “human petri dishes” and worse, with many people calling for shunning, separation and other punitive measures, I urge good people everywhere to consider two questions:

1.  Am I being rational?  No question that it’s rational to fear someone infected with Leprosy or Ebola. It’s even rational to keep your distance and wash your hands after being exposed to someone with a cold or flu. But is it rational to have mortal fear of perfectly healthy people? How have we been convinced that healthy, asymptomatic people pose not only a threat, but one so deadly that it warrants banishment from mainstream society?
2.  “Who am I?  Will I look the other way because mandates and restrictions don’t apply to me? Will I point at the unvaccinated and turn them in to the authorities to demonstrate my loyalty? Or, will I have the moral clarity and courage to stand up and fight tyranny whenever and wherever it happens, be it against Jews, Blacks,  Asians, Christians, or the Unvaccinated?  

As perfectly healthy people around you continue losing their jobs, health insurance, homes, access to grocery stores, banks, public schools, airports and even hospitals which group will you be a part of?  When history looks back on this time, what will your grandchildren say about who you were in 2021?  

Posted by Robin Falcone October 2021      https://thinkingbing.blogspot.com/2021/10/who-are-you.html

 Reply

By all accounts, America entered a new age on January 20, 2021 when Joseph R. Biden was inaugurated as the 46^th president of the nation, an event marked by little genuine fanfare, few attending onlookers, and a large force of activated National Guardsmen from several states charged with “protecting” the proceedings from a supposed clear and present threat from right-wing oppositionists to Biden’s election in November.   Unsurprisingly, no insurrection, uprising, or riot ever materialized, and Biden became the nation’s new president without incident, accompanied by a greater throng of stationary U.S. flags than celebrating citizens, an ironic historical “first.” 

Matching the changing times, a month later the American Conservative Union (ACU) convened its annual Conservative Political Action Conference from February 25-28^th at a hotel venue in Orlando, Florida, the first time ever the conclave has been held outside of the environs of the District of Columbia.   Driven by the refusal of D.C. area hotels to allow the usually large numbers of conservative activists, politicians, pundits, aligned media, and other concerned citizens to gather in person at the confab, the ACU chose to relocate the event to more freedom-friendly Florida, even as the chosen venue’s capacity was more limited.   No matter, spirits were high and as zesty for all who attended in the summerlike climate, eager to hear from conservative leaders in the aftermath of November’s electoral debacle and the shadow of illegitimacy that has beclouded it.   

Platform speeches from prominent officeholders alternated with panel discussions among various experts and pundits over the three days on the gamut of political, security, economic, and social issues facing America.  Florida Governor Ron DeSantis opened the conference by lauding his state’s first-in-line leadership in preserving Americans’ rights to operate their businesses, worship in their churches, and keep their kids in schools.    Memorable speeches were delivered by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on the Left’s cancel culture that threatens fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights, by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) on the threat to national sovereignty and social stability posed by open borders and sanctuary cities, by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) on the national and international ideologically based efforts to suppress “unwoke” free speech on campuses and throughout our civil society, and by James O’Keefe of Project Veritas on the encroaching totalitarian Trojan Horse menace posed by the self-entitled titans of Big Tech.   

Important points on developing international crises in Europe and the declassification of revelatory memos from within the Deep State marked the address by former Acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell, who also not-too-obliquely signaled his interest in replacing California’s ideologically perverse governor Gavin Newsom with a savvy, dedicated conservative.   South Dakota’s governor Kristi Noem, catapulted to national fame in 2020 by her steadfast refusal to lock down her state in the face of the rising coronavirus epidemic and by her galvanizing speech in front of Mount Rushmore on Independence Day 2020, mesmerized conferees with her recitation of what it truly means to be American and live life in our nation.  With her youthful good looks, sure smarts, earthy roots, and clear grit, she positioned herself as the leading female candidate for the Republican nomination for president or vice president in 2024.  If election integrity across all the states can be re-established in the intervening three years – with all Americans feeling well and properly assured of that reality, then the coming GOP presidential primary contest will be exceptionally robust and promising with a compelling crop of real conservative contenders.  And, even more vitally, given the near certainty that Biden/Harris & Company will embark on disastrous plans and policies on every issue during their term in office, the outcome of the 2024 general election should already be a foregone conclusion.

On the gathering’s last day, Donald Trump emerged onto the stage to the thunderous applause of the assembled conferees, reminding everyone across the land of just how popular – and even adored – this past president was during his just-finished term in office.   His fiery spirit undimmed, his “yuge” panache unrestrained, and his dedication to his America First agenda undaunted by the preceding events of 2020 and early 2021 aimed at derailing it, Trump spoke to the defiant, unapologetic mien that animates all of his proud, Liberty-loving supporters — Americans who know what has truly made America a great and prosperous nation, the citadel of Western civilization through two centuries, and the envy of the world.  In short order, he deftly burned off the dingy fog that still hangs dark and dirty over the conduct of the 2020 presidential election, recounting the myriad crude anomalies across several swing states that turned the final result into a caricature of democracy redolent of an East Bloc satellite or client state of the Soviet Union during the Cold War.  He skewered those who cynically sought to banalize and ridicule all the claims of fraud, malfeasance, corruption, and misplaced electoral authority and deny the legitimacy of the many lawsuits brought in state and federal courts seeking a fair hearing and an impartial review on the merits.   It was a tour de force of “J’accuse.”  The ultimate outcome is yet to be determined, perhaps placing the nation at some pivot point for an uncharted – and probably truly pivotal – new path.  

Going forward, Trump admonished his audience to focus on the 2022 midterm federal elections, aiming to retake both the House and the Senate for the Republican Party — but not anyone’s Republican Party.   In that vein, he emphasized the compelling necessity for conservatives to rid the party of officeholders who share the Democrats’ lust for big government, globalism, power grabs, and personal graft.  Only if conservatives work to — and do — nominate and elect true conservatives, patriots, and constitutionalists will our nation and republic prosper, stay free, and be preserved.   The consequences of failure in these efforts are readily foreseeable — and foreseeably catastrophic.  He pledged to get and stay involved going forward towards realizing that goal, and in so doing, inspired his listening audience to do the same.  The audience’s ovation in response was loud, lusty, and long. No doubt, American conservatives’ commitment to reclaim all of culture, core values, country, and Constitution was invigorated that day. If indeed so, the nation’s most glorious days may still be to come.