Author: donelsonfiles

Newt Gingerich recently noted the Biden campaign is competent and capable of taking Biden over the line to presidency one more time as they did in 2020.  Gingerich observed, ““The more I watch the polls and follow the methodical steps of the Biden team, the more I am convinced that we are underestimating Biden’s strength. A great deal of our underestimation comes from a deep misunderstanding of the nature of the modern Democrat Party.” Gingerich added, “Everyday Republicans tend to be the party of free enterprise, small business, and people who just want to be left alone. They don’t tend to have a real appreciation of the power of trillions of dollars in spending which holds together a coalition unbound by principle other than greed for tax dollars. So, seen from the values and interests of the left, Biden has been an outstanding president. He is not inept or incompetent. He’s faithfully exercising the liberal agenda. He is spending far more on the environment than any previous president. He is shoveling money to union contracts and changing regulators and government agencies to favor unions and undermine management.”

For the Democrats, government is their business, and they are willing to do what it takes to win to keep power.  Each group that is part of the coalition, work together as long they all get their cut of money and power.  The polls in many ways reflect this.

First the most recent polls from Real Clear Politics have seen Trump averaging 43.8 percent vs Biden 43.6 percent since June 6^th and Biden won 4 of the polls compared to 3 for Trump with one tie.  So, they are tied essentially.  DeSantis runs behind Biden 42.6 percent to 43.6 percent for Biden.  Biden won 2 of the polls, DeSantis leads in two and they are tied in three polls. So, like with Trump, DeSantis is essentially tied with Biden, only one point separate the two but they each lead in equal number of polls and nearly half of the recent polls are tied.

These recent polls are reflective of polls taken since the midterm elections.  Trump has 44 percent to Biden 44.2 percent, not much different that recent polls in the month of June.  DeSantis is 44.2 percent to Biden 44.6 percent, again not much different than data from the last month. So the question remains with Biden agenda unpopular with much of America is still tied with both Trump and DeSantis.  I doubt the other GOP candidates would fare any better. 

In a Democratic poll done in May, Trump ran behind Biden 50 percent to 48 percent, and they were tied in battleground state whereas DeSantis is up by only one point 49 percent to 48 percent but in battleground state, those numbers saw DeSantis was ahead 53 percent to 42 percent.  If this accurate, it means DeSantis has a better chance of winning than Trump the general election.

The bottom line, it doesn’t matter who the Republican candidate is, it will be a tough race and while some may make a case for DeSantis better able to win in 2024, he is not guaranteed to win and the Democrats and their co-political operative with bylines will make DeSantis the next Hitler. 

The question that Republican primary voters and caucus goers need to ask themselves, who provides the best chance of winning and when they win, who can govern effectively.  While you may view the prosecution of Trump a political persecution, the impact on many independent voters, suburban voters and even a few Republicans need to be consider.  Will they tire of the drama a second Trump administration and simply either stay home, sinking those down tickets or vote for someone else?  And Republicans need to prepare for the possibility that Biden doesn’t run or maybe RFK or another candidate wounds Biden in early primary votes.  In 1968, LBJ won New Hampshire but McCarthy came within 5 points, and this caused a wave within the Democratic party.  LBJ quit the race after that, and his Vice President Hubert Humphrey won the nomination.   Unlike LBJ, Biden has shown serious age issues and maybe signs of dementia as his obvious decline can no longer be hidden.  Many Democrats may view him as handicap and possibly a loser so what happens when Democrats go with Galvin Newsome or another candidate much younger?  That changes the dynamic of the race and may make it even tougher for Republicans to win.  Even Harris may prove tougher even though she is running behind both Trump and DeSantis, but she is still close despite that she is even more unpopular than Biden.  Biden could easily do a 1968 LBJ and say he is not running after all.

In 2022, GOP had many advantages in key battleground states with inflation and the unpopularity of Biden but while they got the House back, they lost the Senate and lost key races in those battleground states.  It could happen again in 2024.

Winston Churchill once said of Russia, “A riddle wrapped up in a mystery inside enigma” and the recent events in which Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin decided that he would retreat from his march on Moscow as part of a bargain brokered by Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko to avert a potential bloodbath that for the past week, thrown Russian’s leadership class in turmoil.  The previous twenty four hours looked like a coup against Putin and his military leaders but suddenly it ended just like that.

According to news report now, Prigozhin will leave for Belarus and criminal charges dropped but who knows what all this means and what political calculations are being considered.   What will be the impact on the war on Ukraine?  Will Wagner group be involved in further combat or retired from the front line?  It was reported that Putin had to flee Moscow and does this hurt his own image internally?  Will Moscow be willing to take a deal on Ukraine to get out of this morass?  Or Putin feels pressured to push the envelope to win the war?  What don’t we know is the impact and what deal between Prigozhin and Putin produced? 

As of this moment, I couldn’t tell you if this was a victory for Putin or not, but in the long run, I can’t believe it is.   The Wagner group began a mutiny and was marching to Moscow, before a deal stopped the march.  What is intriguing is how many of the oligarchies or military leaders did not openly support Putin during the entire crisis or that Putin was forced to leave Moscow.

The recent turn of events saw Prigozhin leave Russia for Belarus and those who participated in the coup were given amnesty but doesn’t sound like they will be in the Russian army or fighting in Ukraine.  The Wagner group bore the brunt of the battle for Bakhmut and lost heavily there.  During the crisis, they had control of the City of Rostov-on-Don and even occupied the headquarters of the Southern Military District.  As one observer noted, Prigozhin and Wagner must have gotten something in return and what is happening behind the scenes?  How secure is Putin’s position? If Wagner is no longer involved in Ukraine, how does that impact Russian war there?

The events have shaken up world political calculations as Putin is in a weaker position today than he was a week ago.  Part of Putin’s army essentially sided with the rebels and now the question remains, who can Putin’s trust now?

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There is one way to judge a Presidential candidate for 2024, what did they do during the pandemic 2020.  Trump in his first three years did a decent job of being President and while he had many accomplishments in foreign policy and his judicial appointments, he failed big time during the Pandemic.  As stated, Trump federalist approach worked in that those governors who followed the science, open early.

Trump failure was allowing Fauci and Birks to run the operation and we should not forget Trump attacked Brian Kemp when he opened his economy at the end of April 2020 but now, he is saying Kemp did a good job.  He continues to lie about DeSantis record, and he did little to change course He can claim that he did not listen to Fauci but the reality Birks and Fauci ran the show.

Trump did bring in Scott Atlas, who was a leading skeptic to offer a different view and Atlas does make the point in his book, “A Plague Upon Our House” that Trump was skeptical of the lockdown, but he also makes clear that it was Birks and Fauci who controlled the policies.  He tells the story that Trump did meet with the leaders of the Great Barrington Declaration, but behind closed doors and Atlas was not given power to make changes.   

Trump had not admitted no mistakes in his handling of the Covid and that is a problem.  I will add I have yet to hear if Mike Pence has any regrets.   If you want to make the argument that DeSantis joined others in closing his state in the beginning based on Fauci/Birks/Trump recommendation, but he moved away from this and by the time the fall came, Florida was open along with other Republican states.  Kemp and Noem opened first before DeSantis, but DeSantis did open and while Trump met with Great Barrington Declaration behind close doors, DeSantis did it openly.   

DeSantis admitted that he should have opened earlier, and Trump will not admit any mistakes. Voters must ask themselves do they want a candidate who understood early that he needed to change course or if the candidate at a crucial part of history fails to change course. 

Story that caught my mind, “Kenya Abandons U.S. Dollar, Petrodollar Decline Accelerates” and one of the key phrases, “Kenya has joined the long and growing list of former staunch American geopolitical allies to ditch the dollar in favor of using local currencies, gold or other precious metals, or cryptocurrency for international transactions of oil and other precious commodities.”

The failure of Biden foreign policies is proving disastrous, and this will be a mess that the next President will inherit but a problem that may be unfixable.   As reported by Nigeria Ripples, “The President of Kenya, William Ruto, has spoken against the use of the United States Dollar (USD) during trade between African countries. Ruto said traders from Kenya and Djibouti are facilitating trade with the dollar when they could take advantage of the pan-African payment and settlement system (PAPSS) created by Afreximbank. He suggested African countries should trade with currencies on the continent rather than depending on US legal tender, as traders often must search for dollars to complete transactions. The president spoke about the dollarisation of the African market on Tuesday during his address at the Djibouti parliament on Tuesday. According to Ruto, prioritising local currencies ahead of the dollar during trading between two African countries will ease trade.”

 Multinational banks are concern about the decline of the United States and this process has been accelerated by America’s proxy war in Ukraine and United States efforts to cut Russian out of the Global economy. For many nations, they fear the power of the United States to force them out of the economic system and for many of these countries, they simply want more option in the future. Another aspect the fecklessness of the Biden administration has reduced confidence in the United States leadership and our economic policies of excessive debts, increased spending and inflation is leading other nations to doubt if we are responsible enough to continue to be the reserve currency. As on pundit noted, “Beyond that, there are a lot of other reasons the petrodollar is collapsing that cannot be laid at the Biden entity’s feet. But it surely does not help having a geriatric corpse wheeled around the world and said to be the chief executive.”

Dollar allowed us to exercise leadership in the world and now we are risking our own economic decline and accelerate our economic decline. The decline of the dollar worldwide and many of our friends thinking elsewhere is another example of our decline. It has been said that Decline is a choice, and we are making that choice.