Kamala at 28% and off somewhere where no voters live
Vice President Kamala Harris is off to France, or so we understand:
Vice President Kamala Harris’s third foreign trip will see her grapple with the migrant crisis -- in Europe.
The veep travels to France on Monday for four days of high-profile meetings with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European leaders as they gather in Paris to mark Armistice Day, which commemorates the end of World War I.
While there, she will take part in the Paris Conference on Libya, a diplomatic effort aimed at encouraging peaceful elections that could stem the tide of illegal migrants escaping the civil war-torn country for Europe.
My guess is that she will have something to say about climate change. Or maybe she will encourage the European leaders to attack the roots of the illegal immigration crisis. She has a lot of experience tackling the root problems of immigration issues.
As she crosses the Atlantic, VP Harris may be briefed on what her constituents think of her. She may feel like it's the Democrat nomination all over again. Here is the poll:
Vice President Kamala Harris' approval rating is 28% -- even worse than Biden's. The poll shows that 51% disapprove of the job she's doing. One in 5, 21%, are undecided.
Don't expect any senior Democrats to walk over to the Oval Office to tell President Biden to step aside for the good of the party or the country. Something like that happened back in the summer of 1974 but the GOP group had VP Gerald Ford waiting on deck back then. I can't believe that any serious Democrat thinks that talking to the President or applying the 25th is going to make anyone happy. Sad to say but many Democrats probably think that sticking with President Biden is better than turning it over to the lady once believed to be the future of the party.
Who would have believed this a year ago? I didn't!
P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk).
Image: Gage Skidmore
Biden's poll numbers continue to collapse
Thanks to relentless mainstream media propaganda, Joe Biden entered the Oval Office with very good poll numbers. Despite the contentious campaign season and the even more contentious election, Americans were willing to give Biden the benefit of the doubt, with 57% of them expressing approval for him in the first weeks of his presidency. Since then, he's had nowhere to go but down. The latest poll puts his approval at 38%, and the slide shows no signs of stopping.
The most recent presidential approval poll comes from USA TODAY/Suffolk University and was taken between Wednesday and Friday last week. That means that it caught the responses to the elections on Tuesday, including the way Virginia, which easily gave its Electoral College votes to Biden in 2020, has now turned red, with a Republican governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and state House.
USA TODAY sums up the most recent poll results:
A year before the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans hold a clear lead on the congressional ballot as President Joe Biden's approval rating sinks to a new low of 38%.
A USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll, taken Wednesday through Friday, found that Biden's support cratered among the independent voters who delivered his margin of victory over President Donald Trump one year ago.
[snip]
Among the findings:
- Nearly half of those surveyed, 46%, say Biden has done a worse job as president than they expected, including 16% of those who voted for him. Independents, by 7-1 (44%-6%), say he's done worse, not better, than they expected.
- Nearly two-thirds of Americans, 64%, say they don't want Biden to run for a second term in 2024. That includes 28% of Democrats. Opposition to Trump running for another term in 2024 stands at 58%, including 24% of Republicans.
- Vice President Kamala Harris' approval rating is 28% – even worse than Biden's. The poll shows that 51% disapprove of the job she's doing. One in 5, 21%, are undecided.
- Americans overwhelmingly support the infrastructure bill Biden is about to sign, but they are split on the more expensive and further-reaching "Build Back Better" act being debated in Congress. Only 1 in 4 say the bill's provisions would help them and their families.
This is impressive in its own way and shows the one place in which both Biden and Harris are over-achievers: they succeed when it comes to failing. Even their "Build Back Better" bill, which is meant to be the centerpiece of the Biden administration, gets support from only 25% of voters.
Given that both Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin seem to understand that reality, it's hard to imagine how the Democrats will be able to push the bill through — although one should never underestimate the role that the Vichy Republicans will play, as they did when it came to the House vote on Friday passing the "infrastructure" bill. Marjorie Taylor Greene said it best:
It's possible that the media will be unable to prop Joe Biden up any longer. With soaring inflation; runaway fuel prices; international humiliations; a deliberately broken border; the obsession with anti-White racism; the transgender indoctrination in schools and other institutions; and the hated, unnecessary, and unconstitutional vaccine mandates, all the feel-good stories in the world about ice cream and the absence of mean tweets will be useless. Moreover, given that voters have substantive reasons to dislike Joe, even if he bows out and Kamala steps in (or a different veep gets the job), as long as the policies continue, the Democrats will be reviled.
The fly in the ointment is that the Republican National Committee is practically guaranteed to throw its support behind the Mitt Romneys and Liz Cheneys in the party rather than the Trumps, Ted Cruzes, Josh Hawleys, and Marjorie Taylor Greenes. The RNC is the Democrat-lite party, and it is as hostile to true conservatives as the Democrats themselves are.
(My pronouns for this post are "Believe the polls" and "My dog could do a better job." What are your pronouns?)
Image: Joe Biden (edited in befunky). YouTube screen grab.
Must-see Tucker Carlson video about the cause of America’s woes
People are beginning to realize that something is wrong with America’s ruling class and, by “people,” I don’t mean people like you, who are actively engaged in politics. I’m talking about people who want nothing to do with politics or people living in prosperous leftist who haven’t been forced to think about what’s happening to less affluent Americans. To the extent they’re sitting up and taking notice, Tucker Carlson’s monologue perfectly explains what’s going on at the upper reaches of American government. The bottom line is that Biden knows he’s out of control and, in his fear, he cedes his power to dangerous ideologues.
Regarding the fact that ordinary, apolitical, non-political, or reflexively Democrat people are waking up, I have two brief anecdotes. I’m a sociable person and I value friendships, so I have relationships with people who run the gamut both age-wise (young to old) and politically (left to right).
The other day, I spoke with an older friend of mine who is studiously apolitical. Watching the news depresses her so she is truly disengaged from the American political scene. Nevertheless, when I spoke with her the other day—and our conversation usually revolves around the weather, dogs, and other anodyne subjects—she suddenly said to me, “You know, I have the very strong feeling when I look around that America is a nation in decline.” She may not watch the news but she feels the zeitgeist.
Today, I talked to a young friend of mine, the product of a very liberal college who works at a successful company filled with hard-working, very leftist people. She’s tried to accept the social and political shibboleths of her age and class, but she confessed to me that she doesn’t believe in transgenderism and she’s getting very afraid of how censorious Democrats and progressives are against anyone who doesn’t agree with them. “They’re really not nice people. Conservatives are nicer.” This young woman, who’s remained silent in the past both because she wanted to avoid politics and because she didn’t want to be on the receiving end of cancel culture, has decided that it’s time to step up and start pushing back because, “If it’s bad now, I don’t even want to think about how bad it will be later if we don’t stop them.” She too feels the zeitgeist.
Tucker Carlson’s also been thinking about the zeitgeist, and he’s concluded that what’s driving Joe Biden isn’t dementia but is, instead, fear, raw, palpable fear. Biden is aware that he’s failing but, rather than step away from the White House, he meekly does whatever his handlers tell him to do. That’s where security lies.
Unfortunately, his handlers are unchained ideologues. A good government tries to benefit its people and ensure the greatest prosperity and happiness for the greatest number. A government filled with ideologues is so focused on its utopian visions that it is willing to destroy the people to “save” them.
That’s why, for example, that despite polls showing that over two-thirds of Americans oppose reparations for illegal aliens, Biden’s government is going forward with the plan. For the ideologues, taking massive sums of money from struggling Americans to give to people who illegally entered our country is a means to achieve permanent Democrat political power and all the wonders it will bring. Any people who can’t appreciate that goal don’t matter:
Ideologues have no interest in the lives of actual human being. Ideologues only care about their theories, the bright future they are building. Human beings are just speed bumps on the way to utopia. So, not surprisingly, when ideologues take over society, any society, in any country, at any point throughout history, life always gets much worse for most people. Borders fall, crime rises, schools collapse, inflation gets out of control. Suddenly, there are drug addicts living in tent cites in your neighborhood screaming at your kids as you walked by. Quality of life falls off a cliff. It’s intolerable for most people—but the ideologues don’t care because they’re focused on the shiny new society they are constructing. Nothing else matters. Perfection is always just around the corner. As soon as we get rid of all these White men, everything will be great.
Things are not going to get better in the short term. They’re going to get a lot worse until voters speak out loudly against the madness and politicians (and ideologue-run corporations) really take notice. Currently, the left is insane and, subject to some notable exceptions (Marjorie Taylor Greene being one), Republicans are enabling them.
As my two conversations show, though, the ordinary people, the ones who tuned out of politics a long time ago, are realizing that, if they want to prevent America from turning into an apocalyptic hellscape, they need to speak out and act.
Image: YouTube screen grab.
In Defense of the Bourgeoisie
'Bourgeoisie' is a negative term.
As applied by Marxists and other progressive lefties, to be bourgeois is to be as close to evil incarnate as possible (if not evil incarnate itself). The bourgeoisie, in the Marxist imagination, are the people who are responsible for the colonization of the New World, the expansion of capitalism in Europe, North America, and the rest of the world, and the conquerors who have exploited Mother Earth and brought her to the brink of destruction. The bourgeoisie are also generally filial in nature, patriotic, and religious. In short, the bourgeoisie are everything that the left hates.
Among the other great lies that the left thrusts against the bourgeoisie, which is the middle class, is that they are enemies of 'democracy.'
Democracy has become the new sacred word for the left to wield as a battering ram against their opponents. They conceive themselves as the defenders of democracy and everyone they despise as threats to democracy. The bourgeoisie, now, are “domestic terrorists,” “racists,” and “fascists” who threaten the very republic and its democratic ethos they gave rise to and have defended time and again through history.
James Burnham has become a hot topic for writers and intellectuals again because of his analysis of the “administrative state.” Among other things, Burnham also wrote back the 1960s of the dangerous precipice that Western Civilization faced -- which we see today. But one of his lesser-known works is The Machiavellians and throughout his opus he is also a staunch defender of middle class capitalism and republicanism, something he saw as emanating from the bourgeois peoples that emerged in Europe and then spread to America.
One of the critiques of Burnham is that he simply offers analysis of the plight we are in and offers no program to confront the march of suicidal liberalism and bureaucratic despotism stifling the energy and exceptionalism of middle class ingenuity and spirit. This is an unfortunate limited understanding of Burnham. While it is true that Burnham offers no “conservative manifesto,” he was a staunch defender of what conservatives have long recognized as the beautiful essence of America and Western culture more generally: civil society, freedom of speech and assembly, constitutional liberties, entrepreneurism, and a decentralized mode of politics with a strong aversion to various forms of centralism.
The bourgeoisie are the democratic peoples of America. Progressives know this which is why they speak the language of “the middle class” constantly while enacting policies meant to crush middle class aspirations and dreams.
Civil society is rooted in free association and law and order. In the past few years, progressives have revealed how antagonistic they truly are toward civil society. Free association? That is just a front for white supremacy and bigotry. Law and order? That is just another manifestation of white supremacy, racism, and bigotry! COVID lockdowns, which are also antithetical to the vibrancy of civil society, was all the rage from progressive politicians and their fawning media lackeys determined to extinguish civil society and remake the ruins subservient to the federal Leviathan. (In the name of public safety, of course.)
In the attack on civil society, constitutional liberties have been regularly assailed and abused. Churches and other houses of worship have been closed and vandalized. Freedom of assembly has been rebuked as public health crises and “super spreader” events. Voicing frustration with the erosion of civil liberties also warrants de-platforming and banning on social media—with gleeful progressives cheering against those rascally middleclass Americans defending American values and liberties against tyranny.
The attack on businesses, especially small-businesses—the quintessential emblems of the entrepreneurial spirit—is not accidental either. Once again progressives engage in their sleight of hand by claiming their policies are aimed at helping small businesses while engaging in business shutdowns, lockdowns, and impossible mandates that would cripple the real cornerstone of middle class prosperity: small business ownership rather than corporate desk jobs. Not to mention burdensome inflation which is an unwritten tax that falls hardest on middle class Americans. (But Joe Biden and his allies say they are not increasing taxes, so it must be true.)
The assault on civil society, constitutional liberties, and entrepreneurism is an effort to crush the spirit of liberty that motivates the middle class and its aspirations. A vibrant civil society, constitutional liberties that are fully exercised by the citizenry, and successful small businesses all have something in common that is antithetical to the progressive ideology: no need for centralized government and bureaucracy. What Burnham identified as the essence of middle class values is what progressives need to eradicate for dependence on the new centralized state: independence from the federal government.
If civil society is healthy, people do not look to the federal government for assistance. If constitutional liberties are lived out by the people, there is no need to look for government rules and regulations to live by. If small businesses are booming and hiring, if more and more people embrace the entrepreneurial spirit, fewer and fewer people are dependent on the government’s parasitic tentacles. As such, progressives must destroy civil society, constitutional liberties, and small business entrepreneurism for their vision of totalizing government control over our lives to be consummated.
In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville noted that the spirit of democratic reforms came from the existing and aspirant middle class in the United States. These were the people who were most vigorously engaged in local democracy and devoted to the well-being of their towns and communities. Because these people took matters into their own hands, and achieved independence from centralized authority, Tocqueville marveled at their independence and lack of “central government” in their lives.
Progressives, with their Marxist animosity toward the bourgeoisie, see the middle class as enemies of their Utopian serfdom. They do not want democracy. They want bureaucratic managerialism. They see themselves as the managers of society and the rest of us as the cogs, worker ants, and little people, deplorables, to be managed. Step out of line and you’re everything from a terrorist, fascist, or racist. In fact, democracy, as conceived by the new progressives, is just about doing what we say. When the bourgeoisie vote for Republicans, well, democracy is danger! So much for democracy.
America’s real democracy rests with the vibrancy of the bourgeoisie. The middle class is the backbone of America because they are the Americans who give so much for the rare reality in which we live: a society where we can aspire and dream to be more than serfs. But rather than have a vibrant middle class rising up to defend democracy and its values of liberty and independence from centralized totalitarians, progressives want a faux middle class—one created by the government and, therefore, entirely dependent on the government.
Bourgeois democracy is about individual liberty and a spirit independent of government control. It rests on the pillars of civil society, constitutional law and order, free association, and entrepreneurial success and growth. That spirit won a great victory in Virginia. And we ought to be supportive of it everywhere across America because the future of the United States rests on its continued success and vibrancy in an environment hostile to it.
Paul Krause is a writer, editor, and teacher. He is the author of The Odyssey of Love: A Christian Guide to the Great Books, The Politics of Plato, and contributed to The College Lecture Today and the forthcoming book Diseases, Disasters, and Political Theory. He is the incoming editor of VoegelinView.
Image: National Portrait Gallery, London, via Picryl // public domain
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