Didn’t see or hear the debate myself – and as usual it’s difficult to find an opinion that isn’t to some degree slanted in a favored direction – so all I can give is an overall impression left by the reviews I have read – the upshot being Trump did not do well but possibly did just enough to live another day – one would describe that as the absolute bare minimum mark he needed to hit.

To ‘win’ all he had to do was demonstrate a somewhat even temperament – jury appears to be out on that one but sounds like a fail – show some modest grasp of policy details – again, not good it appears – and hit at Hillary’s glaring weakness, trust – again, doesn’t sound like he managed that either. Hillary is a target rich environment when it comes to her supposed accomplishments and trust – that he couldn’t score any winners would suggest his debate prep was seriously lacking. If you can’t even manage enough focus to prep for a fucking debate you’re not gonna be a very good president and might possibly be a dangerous one – although, Obama’s guilty of both those things and his minions seem convinced he’s a genius.

So where does that leave me? Pretty much where I’ve been for a long time now – there can be no possible good outcome to this election aside from the absurdist one of Trump winning and then handing off his duties to Pence. Trying to pick the ‘least bad option’ is nearly impossible since you’re left relying entirely on hypotheticals. It gets harder and harder to not view the election of Obama as the first step in a very bad journey for the country towards what could prove an existential crisis. The left has lost its mind and the right is just lost period. Possibly not since the civil war has the country been so in need of a truly great president – and there isn’t one even remotely in sight. We got lucky with Lincoln, lucky with FDR [although some with good cause might argue that] and lucky I’d say with Reagan – at pivotal moments the right person came to the fore.

‘Winning’ at history isn’t just about having laudable attributes as a culture and making good decisions – luck plays a part – and when it abandons you, watch out. One can argue that Rome’s decline stemmed from a failure to find leaders adequate to the challenges faced – often this failure was abject in nature. Has America entered the abject fail stage of its history? Kinda starting to feel that way.

Am I starting to hope for a Trump win? The debate tonight should settle one way or the other whether or not such a thing is even possible – and I certainly still feel that Obama is the worst president the country has ever had and Trump could potentially be worse – so no sane person hopes for stuff like that – regardless, I think I am hoping for it, but in terms of: all scenarios are bad and fraught with danger - which is the least bad? And I think it’s the recent nonsense in Charlotte that has pushed me over that edge.

That a black cop on a police force led by a black chief shooting a guy carrying a gun who refuses to put down the gun after being warned to do so several times gets spun into the “America is a cauldron of racism serving white privilege and the country’s police forces are its praetorian guard’ narrative is a ludicrous absurdity – and yet the left pushes it as if it makes complete sense – probably because progressives have so taken leave of their senses that they do indeed see it as a perfectly rational narrative.

Something has to stop this madness. It sure as hell ain’t gonna be Hillary – that leaves you with Trump. One madness to stop another – country really is a mess.

[this fantastic essay makes the point much more thoroughly and convincingly – having to choose Trump is an awful position to be in if one believes coherent ideas, intelligence and a reasonable and moral character matter when it comes to the presidency – but the menace posed to our constitutional order and the very fabric of the country itself by modern liberalism and the radical ideologues like Obama who make it possible is so great, dire and I think immediate that choosing Trump can indeed be defended as the least bad option on the table. Yes, you can argue that if the GOP keeps control of the house and senate then Hillary is the safer choice – but that’s a big if and may not matter if the media is going to let her get away with continuing Obama’s efforts to turn the executive branch into a progressive despot’s playground – and of course the media will – but they won’t let Trump get away with such abuses – seen in that light Trump indeed does become the least bad option. You can argue that media bias always makes a flawed conservative candidate safer than a flawed liberal one because the media will not hold the flawed liberal accountable – see Obama – but will hold the flawed conservative accountable with a fierce passion – see Bush. True, Trump may not actually be a conservative but regardless the media will not be out to do him any favors]

Police kill a couple more black guys – riots ensue before facts are established because what definitely is established as far the left is concerned is that facts don’t matter compared to the ideological agendas the shootings serve, namely: guns are bad, America is racist [even though in Charlotte the shooter and police chief are black – again, facts don’t matter] and that according to the race grievance industry and those joyful anarchists over at BLM there’s nothing wrong with black culture in America or liberal governance thereof [pretty much all troubled minority neighborhoods are in cities and states run by the left] that the toppling of a few [many] evil white capitalists won’t cure.

And of course Hillary chimes in with a statement essentially endorsing the fact free race grievance narrative. Wonderful – although, given there’s a chance the far left will cost her the election because they don’t think she’s sufficiently leftist, guess she has no choice. May have to wear a BLM t-shirt to the debate to get her over the hump.

Where does this all end? No place good, no place reasonable or rational that’s clear. The sadly ridiculous thing is – and let me issue a microaggression warning here because this statement will unfortunately involve an unpleasant fact – the ridiculous thing is nearly 50% of gun crimes are committed by black men, which means regardless of false narrative spewing riots, cops are going to continue to be put into positions where they have to shoot black guys, whether to save their own or someone else’s life. That, again, is another fact – but how can that fact abide in a world where the left simply doers not care about facts and therefore more riots, more disorder, more anarchy are guaranteed?

You see, given the left’s willingness to let the false narrative spin on, there’s simply no way this ends in a rational and coherent way.

So let’s say we just jump straight to the irrational and absurd solution staring us in the face: law enforcement will no longer enforce the law when it comes to black men – you see a black guy speeding, you let him speed, see him robbing a convenience store at gun point, give him the thumbs up. I mean, since given the dynamics there’s no way this ends in a sane place anyway, why not just embrace the insane now? Police entirely divest themselves of responsibility when it comes to the African American population. Sure, it may lead to some unfortunate synergies – but what the hell, the left is so damn good at denying reality, embracing now the inevitable absurdity of this reality may be the only way to convince them that facts do indeed matter.

Then again, probably not. The sign of a true leftist is the ability to deny the undeniable. No way they’re gonna let some Copernican bastard tell them their ideology doesn’t sit at the center of all that is.

I’d like to see a poll done in the US, and other countries where the values of the Western tradition abide for that matter, that asks the question: given a choice, would you prefer democracy as it exists now in your country, or an autocracy of some sort, assuming the assurance that that autocracy would govern in a just and reasonable way [an assurance which of course would be quite hollow]? My guess is the results of a poll like that, after you’ve explained to the average voter what ‘autocracy’ means, would shed much light on the rise of people like Sanders and Trump and explain why Hillary, a walking talking manifestation of political corruption and dishonesty and a shining example of why elites engender such distrust and disaffection among an increasingly large plurality of voters, is so hated.

[although Obama, every bit as much of a liar as Hillary and himself a perfect example of the entrenched idiocy of the leftist elite, is still popular - but there are reasons for this that have nothing to do with how awful a president he has been, not least of which is the left pushing so relentlessly the idea that not liking Dear Leader is tantamount to racism that many people I think tell pollsters they ‘like’ him simply to avoid that stain]

Indeed, several polls published recently do confirm a growing scepticism when it comes to democracy and a cynical or despairing or impatient or naive yearning for a ‘something else’ - that this something else does not and has never existed [in a viable form] leaves the yearners lots of room to imagine fanciful scenarios - from the ‘enlightened’ socialist bureaucracy that Sanders’ supporters seem to long for to the fair but tough strongman rule that Trump’s supporters seem to dream about [although I’m not sure Trump’s supporters really know what they want apart from knowing they can’t stand the status quo and Trump captures that feeling - I like to think the average Trump enthusiast is not a bigot etc etc but rather a person who when they hear a progressive whine on about safe spaces and transgender washrooms etc etc shakes their head and mumbles ‘who are these fucking morons and why are they in my life?’ - I think progressives have turned liberalism towards a delusional ideological wasteland and that there are many ‘average’ people out there who sense that reality and know that the media and various institutions have and are enabling that turn and they long for someone to emerge that can set things ‘straight’ - I think media bias has undermined democracy, has undermined the whole point of freedom which far as I’m concerned is to allow for and to sustain the marketplace of competing ideas - the stark polarization we’re seeing is a result of it and polarization is inherently undemocratic since the life blood of democracy is compromise and how to you compromise with people you hate? The progressive elite without question does not simply disagree with conservatism but utterly loathes it and those who practice it - and now you have a strong plurality of erstwhile conservatives - since Trumpsters really aren’t conservative per se - who respond with similar enmity and disdain not just towards the liberal elite but the so called ‘establishments’ of both parties].

[In many ways the Founders anticipated this problem which is why we have the system of checks and balances that we have - but if SCOTUS turns left and significant institutions incline left and the media is sympathetic to a leftist agenda and you have a left wing POTUS willing to rule by executive fiat rather than compromise with people he hates as Obama has tried and often succeeded in doing - then what good are all those checks and balances? What good is a Republican establishment that wants to play by the Founders rules when the left increasingly seems to view those rules as mere impediments to the grand socialist wonderland they long to create? When you drill down into the heart of the matter, it’s that reality and the angry, intransigent partisanship it leads to that made Trump and Sanders possible - liberals increasingly act as if they of course are right about everything and anyone who disagrees must be either stupid or mentally ill - and these supposedly stupid and or deviant plebs look upon this progressive monster with fear and dread, despise the Republican establishment for failing to stop it, and turn to the outsider strongman illusion in hopes of being saved - which is why this election was never about ideas but rather always about emotions, feelings - the feeling on the left of entitled superiority and the naive idealism it engenders - Sanders - and on the right and not so right the feelings of anger and fear and resentment and a longing for a return to something that seems more like the America they knew - Trump - the left sees in this longing racism but the left sees racism in everything - the longing is more a reflection of many people sensing in their bones that the country is in a bad place and not getting better and fearing that Washington is either too corrupt or too feeble or too misguided or too inept to do anything about it]

[It’s odd or interesting that you see a similar dynamic in the Brexit vote - but with the nationalist urge leading to the embrace and celebration of democracy rather than expressing a deep cynicism thereof - but this makes sense because the bureaucratic dictatorship that the EU is morphing into is explicitly undemocratic in its goals since it wants to destroy national identities and therefore if you desire to escape the clutches of that progressive beast you naturally will do so by embracing democracy as an expression of national will, especially if you’re from a country that is the birth place of constitutional democracy. And when it comes to Trump you shouldn’t confuse a dislike and distrust of politicians with a dislike and distrust of democracy itself - the two can be connected but not necessarily so - the rise of feelings of frustration about democracy may have more to do with politicians than the institution per se - although certainly the idealism of the left has always been animated by strong undemocratic urges - see liberal elite in the 30s fawning over Stalin and Hitler - this is because liberalism as it has existed since let’s say Rousseau - and what we now know more accurately as progressivism - is an idealist ideology and therefore absolutist by nature and therefore intolerant of competing ideas and therefore not at ease with democracy - conservatism is empirical and therefore pragmatic and therefore comfortable with democracy because conservatives believe it a means for containing extremism - although 8 years of a leftist ideologue in the White House and the rise of people like Sanders and Trump may be causing many conservatives to question the ongoing validity of that belief.

I think it was Emerson who said something to the effect that conservatives are much more comfortable with facts than liberals - and that’s because facts have a tendency to run rough shod over idealist assumptions and presumptions - John Adams said facts are stubborn things - if you’re a progressive they’re also pernicious - if I write an article that contends that the problem with Islam is that it’s more a political ideology than it is a religion and I put a link to this article on Twitter, the stalwart progressives running Twitter will tag this tweet as possible hate speech so that its fearful users can stay well clear of ‘facts’ that do not fit what they want to believe - increasingly for progressives, free speech is only that speech which they have sanctioned.

Regardless, one disquieting fact that conservatives may have to start paying attention to is this: if the country is broken, are we sure that, given the current state of affairs, democracy is up to the task of fixing it? Many may still think yes, and maybe rightly so - but if people who think and act like Obama are the future of the American left and conservatives for a variety of reasons - increasingly biased media and institutions, changing demographics, Trump breaks the GOP - find themselves unable to win the White House - and you get a string of liberal presidents willing to rule by executive fiat and a corrupted SCOTUS that devolves into nothing more than another political organ of the left - well, then you can definitely see how American democracy would be threatened because a great many people who do not share the progressive world view would be left with no viable voice that represents them - at that point ‘conservative’ power would shift from a hobbled Congress to the states and that’s where the battle line would be drawn against what in effect would be a growing liberal tyranny. Sounds far fetched - but when you couple the rise of populists like Trump and Sanders with the ideological extremism of Obama and his willingness to flat out lie and ignore both the constitution and Congress to move his agenda forward - not that far fetched I think. I mean, just consider the IRS scandal - worse than anything Nixon ever did and the media pretty much just ignores it - that’s the media telling any future leftist president to go ahead and do whatever the hell they want as long as it serves the great cause. Stuff like that will break a democracy - after all, what’s the first thing a dictator does once seizing control? Takes over the media. Erdogan in Turkey, taking over the media - Putin, took over the media - China, controls the media. The American left can check control of the media off the tyrant’s to do list - so maybe our democracy is already broken and Trump and Sanders and for that matter Obama are just the first manifestations of it]

[of course liberals don’t really control the ‘media’ per se - what they control or seek to control or increasingly control is the dominating narrative - the dominating narrative keeps the already indoctrinated safely ensconced in the progressive echo chamber, keeps minorities and immigrants recumbent before the idea that democrats are good and republicans are bad, and keeps independents, for the nonce the crucial voting block of low info voters, confused. The key fact here is that only conservatives consume conservative media - independents go to CNN or left leaning social media feeds or something they saw on a late night talk show etc etc for their ‘news’ - that’s the reality - it’s not control of the media, it’s control of the dominating narrative. That’s where the left wins - except it’s not a win, what it amounts to is a republic divided, dysfunctional and cascading towards an existential crisis]

[the interesting thing is when contemplating this existential crisis – if Trump wins, it will be because he was right: there are a hell of a lot of angry white people out there, sick and tired of being looked down upon and treated like the enemy by progressives, worried that these progressives have an agenda that wants to fundamentally change America – something Obama freely admitted to - and angry at the GOP establishment for seeming to take their loyalty for granted. In other words, if Trump wins it will mean the country is already broken – not because Trump is so awful and dangerous – Obama is awful and dangerous – if Hillary represents his 3^rd term she will be awful and dangerous – no, broken because the country will be made up of two factions with irreconcilably different views of what America is and should be. At the recent Emmys someone called Trump Hitler and the crowd cheered wildly – essentially that amounts to one half of America telling the other half they’re a bunch of Nazis – and what that tells me is that if America is a marriage it’s heading for an ugly divorce]