Programming note: Please join Steyn this evening circa 7pm North American Eastern/12 midnight British Summer Time for another nightly episode of his current Tale for Our Time, The Flying Inn by G K Chesterton.
~~The Democrat convention featured a full set of the party's presidents, save for Jimmy Carter, who turns one hundred next month. But, otherwise, there were present not only both Obamas but both Clintons, and even both Bidens, even though almost every one in that sextet loathes the other five, and certainly all six despise Kamala. But they're Democrats first, so they suck it up.
How's it going over on the Republican side? Well, former president George W Bush has announced he won't be endorsing anyone in this election. On the other hand, over two hundred Bush, McCain and Romney staffers have declared they're voting for Kamala. I'm not sure I've heard of any of them, but, as you know, the McCain and Romney campaigns remain bywords for hugely successful political operations, so no doubt many of those hundreds of staffers helped craft what are widely acknowledged to be two of the most impressive concession speeches in American history.
And then there's Dick Cheney...
NEW
Statement from Former Vice President Dick Cheney:
"In our nation's 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after... pic.twitter.com/TXDlTTLOvq
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) September 6, 2024
So Ms Harris is now the only presidential candidate in history to be endorsed by both a Republican vice-president (Cheney) and a Kremlin strongman (Putin). Impressive.
Liberals, take note: If you support Kamala Harris, you are now on the same side as Dick Cheney. https://t.co/JPfTdbrSNq
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) September 9, 2024
I have met Dick Cheney just the once. President Bush was kind enough to recommend my ancient bestseller America Alone to his colleagues, and so Cheney called me in to discuss its demographic thesis with regard to the Continent. His daughter Liz was also present, although I forget on what basis: I had assumed she was his deputy assistant under-chief of staff or some such. But her bio suggests she was with the State Department at that time.
At any rate, her dad seemed sharp and engaged, firing off terse questions designed to get to the nub of things. "This is a paradigm shift, right?" he barked at me re Muslim population growth in Europe.
Indeed, I replied. On present numbers, two of the Big Five on the UN Security Council - Britain and France - will become semi-Islamic in their political disposition. They are both also nuclear powers.
I thought Cheney was an homme sérieux. But, in the end, he wasn't. The Bush years have to be accounted a terrible failure, in which the leadership of the then dominant superpower was unable to grasp the simplest of truths - not least about the need for strategic clarity. Under Cheney, America launched wars with no war aims, in which it deluded itself that "smart bombs" counted for more than will. Meanwhile, on the home front, the rate of Muslim immigration to America doubled ...because it was more important to show the world how nice we are than to consider the cultural consequences of demographic transformation. So the west spent twenty years fighting over the most barren and worthless sod on the planet, while surrendering Malmö and Marseille, Rotterdam and Nottingham, and Lewiston-Auburn, Maine. This is what happens when you have a political class almost entirely disconnected from the rhythms of real life in real countries.
So Trump has performed a great service in driving the likes of Cheney to vote Kamala. The feeble charade of TweedleDem vs TweedleRep is designed to obscure the central fact of end-stage western "democracy" - that, on anything that really matters, nothing can be permitted to change. Thus, having Dick Cheney and Ilhan Omar formally on the same team is very helpful. Trump has driven the "respectable" political class to make the Uniparty literal, and its consolidation has freed up space for an actual second party. (On his recent podcast, my former National Review colleague John Derbyshire has more on this.)
For most of this century, while the "right" shrivelled conservatism to unwon wars, globalist economics and cultural surrender, the voters kept telling the political class they would like a wider choice on Election Day. Hence, eventually, even in the frozen American system, the coming of Trumpism. Whatever happens after November, there are no takers among the GOP base for a return to Bush-Cheney "conservatism".
As for the no-greater-threat-to-our-republic bollocks, it's just a few weeks since a would-be assassin put a bullet through the ear of the alleged greatest threat. That day provided a telling contrast - between Trump's defiance in immediately rising to his feet and raising his fist ...and Bush on 9/11 being hustled off while in the middle of reading My Pet Goat to a roomful of grade-schoolers and then agreeing to Secret Service demands that he spend the rest of the day on Air Force One being shuttled from one "safe" location to another and thereby rendering himself entirely invisible to the American people.
Be that as it may, it quickly became clear - not least through multiple lies and obfuscations in Congressional testimony - that the Secret Service and other elements in the federal government created the conditions that permitted that bullet to hit a former president in the head (and kill an American citizen). And that's putting it at its mildest: even after the shooting was underway, it was a local copper - not the feds - who was the first to fire back and hit the alleged perp.
Consider the implications of that, especially if you're the family of Corey Comperatore. That's a far "greater threat to our republic" than the man those corrupted alphabet agencies failed to protect. Cheney is contemptible.
~We had a very busy weekend at SteynOnline, starting with Mark's column on the stranded astronauts and its awful symbolism. Steyn's Saturday music show spanned the spectrum from cow-cow boogies to Liverpool lullabies. For his weekend movie date Rick McGinnis plumped for the non-musical forerunner of Chicago, Ginger Rogers in Roxie Hart. Steyn's Song of the Week marked the second anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's death with one of her favourite love songs - and our marquee presentation was Steyn's current Tale for Our Time, The Flying Inn by G K Chesterton, which is proving very popular with listeners. Click for Part Twenty-Two, Part Twenty-Three and Part Twenty-Four. Part Twenty-Five airs tonight.
If you were too busy spending the weekend announcing that as the campaign director for Bob Dole you'll be voting for Vice President Harris, we hope you'll want to check out one or three of the foregoing as a new week begins.
~We thank you for all your kind comments these last grisly months - and especially all those new members of The Mark Steyn Club, and those old members who've signed up a chum for a SteynOnline Gift Certificate or a Steyn Club Gift Membership. Steyn Clubbers span the globe, from London, Ontario to London, England to London, Kiribati. We hope to welcome many more new members in the years ahead.