Programming note: Join Steyn tomorrow, Saturday, for another episode of his Serenade Radio show, On the Town - including a presidential edition of his Sinatra Sextet. The fun starts at 5pm Greenwich Mean Time - which is 6pm in Western Europe ...but, for one week only, 1pm North American Eastern. You can listen from almost anywhere on the planet by clicking the button at top right here. On Sunday, Mark will also have a brand new special pre-election edition of his Song of the Week.
~To reprise my regular line, in these final days of the world's most interminable "election", if Trump hasn't won decisively by 11pm Eastern on Election Night, he won't win at all. He has fought a brilliant and good-humoured campaign against forces that have indicted him and convicted him and then, when neither moved the meter, shot him. The Big Mac/garbage truck phase has been like watching a fantastical novel from a faraway land in which a Friars Club comic takes down the dictatorship.
The supporting acts are pretty funny too:
JD Vance: "We actually recorded an episode of Joe Rogan this morning."
Tulsi Gabbard: "How long were you in Rogan's studio?"
JD Vance: "Almost 4 hours, so I've officially done more interview time than Kamala Harris has the entire campaign, just today." pic.twitter.com/qB7Q5Y8fWE
— End Tribalism in Politics (@EndTribalism) October 30, 2024
That's true. Trump has come close to restoring the conditions of 2015-2016 - when he was the antidote to all the leaden rituals of presidential politicking: fake-o journalists reporting on fake-o candidates regurgitating fake-o canned lines. The consultant-industrial complex loathed that usurpation of the process, and were determined to restore the wanker norms. So, as I used to say to Tucker four years ago, their answer to a guy who was all candidate and no minders was to replace him with Biden, who was all minders and no candidate. And, even when they were forced to sideline ol' Joe, they managed to find an even more gaping nullity. "I grew up in a middle-class family"? Yeah, in Montreal, in a high-caste Brahmin household...
Which actually is quite an interesting biography, if only you were permitted to mention it rather than parroting the same three poll-tested lines over and over:
And, even after Vance does his Kamala shtick, she's still feeding the line to rube reporters eager to lap it up. One more from JD:
.@JDVance does a Kamala Harris impression:
"We need to build an opportunity economy because if Americans don't have opportunity, then they're not gonna have the opportunity to be Americans" 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/ERzw0Dgi6G
— Luke Schroeder (@Luke__Schroeder) October 31, 2024
That's clear blue water, and a meaningful choice. It's Bollocks vs Authenticity. Speaking as someone who's bored stiff by almost all unwatchable Yank sports (and cheerfully confessed as much every post-Superbowl Monday when guest-hosting for Rush), I can't believe this Walz guy knows even less about "American football" than I do:
Every now and then, it just pops into my head how insane it is that a former football coach didn't know what a pick-six was.
— Margot Cleveland (@ProfMJCleveland) November 1, 2024
This isn't a small thing. America is in the mess it's in partly because its politics attracts creeps and freaks and weirdoes whose unconvincing shtick is pretending to be just like you. Walz is the ex-paramour of a well-connected ChiCom hottie and thinks tampons in the boys' bathroom are the key to childhood literacy. But he's being passed off as "America's dad".
In 2016 Trump did a huge service to integrity in public life by refusing to play along with the bollocks. Me eight-and-a-half years go:
~AUTHENTICITY: Traditionally in American politics the way you connect with voters is to pretend you're just as big a broken-down loser as they are. One recalls Lamar Alexander and his team flying in to Manchester, New Hampshire and just before touchdown changing out of their Brooks Brothers suits and button-down shirts into suspiciously pressed and unstained plaid. In this cycle, it's been John Kasich doing his slickly produced, soft-focus "son of a mailman" ads. So much presidential politicking is now complete bollocks, as rote and meaningless as English panto or Chinese opera conventions. Trump doesn't bother with any of that. Halfway through, he detoured into an aside about how he was now having to go around in an armored car, and how many rounds it could take before the window disintegrated, and how the security guys shove you in and let the reinforced door slam you in the ass. And the thing's ugly as hell. "If I win," sighed Trump, "I'll never ride in a Rolls-Royce ever again." And all around me guys who drive Chevy Silverados and women who drive Honda Civics roared with laughter. Usually, a candidate claims, like Clinton, to feel our pain, but, just for a moment there, we felt Trump's.
At this point I don't know whether America can be saved. But, if we're headed over the precipice, I'd rather not do it with Norah O'Donnell asking Kamala, "Some people say that big roaring sound getting louder is Niagara Falls. What's your plan for Americans concerned about being shattered into a thousand pieces on the rocks at the bottom?", and Kamala replying, "First of all, just like them, I grew up in a middle-class household...", and Norah nodding thoughtfully...
Not wishing your nation to die as the Republic of Bollocks is reason enough to vote Trump.
~Can they do it? Well...
HUGE LINES in Bucks County.
No one is going to the democrat table — they look distressed.
We texted every Republican in Bucks.
Wait until you see the numbers tomorrow.
📍Doylestown, PA pic.twitter.com/Xm2hVsynNP
— ThePersistence (@ScottPresler) October 31, 2024
On the other hand...
The fake voter registrations caught in Pennsylvania were reportedly collected by Field+Media Corps, a company owned by @frankieheredia, a longtime Democratic activist and the vice mayor of Mesa, Arizona.https://t.co/QN0Lzn9Iuq
— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 1, 2024
Is New Hampshire in play? In 2000 its four electoral votes provided George W Bush with his margin of victory - a lone red blip in a sea of north-eastern blue. Since then it has voted for Democrat presidents. And yet and yet... Headline from Newsweek:
Donald Trump Takes Shock Lead Over Kamala Harris in New Hampshire Poll
The Granite State has more or less honest elections, save for Dartmouth, UNH and a couple of other dodgy college towns. So:
The latest New Hampshire Journal/Praecones Analytica poll released Sunday night gave Trump 50.2 percent of the vote, a razor-thin lead on Vice President Kamala Harris' 49.8 points.
For what it's worth, I see no signs of any enthusiasm for Harris, but my sense is the most likely outcome (with the assistance of those out-of-state college students) is a slim Dem victory. Nevertheless, it's not good in the final days for the swing-state map to be widening, and for the defending party to have to divert big-name surrogates to formerly safe states to shore up the vote.
~Faced with the obvious good time Trump, Vance et al are having, Axios is now reduced to complaining that the exuberance and optimism of the Trump campaign increases the risk that his supporters will not accept their defeat as legitimate.
Meanwhile, preparations are in hand for America's uniquely unique "peaceful transfer of power" - which, as we know from the last two cycles, is far more consequential than the actual "elections". This year, anti-Trump protests are scheduled to begin even before the Wednesday wee-small-hours shenanigans are underway:
On election night a group that calls itself "Defend Democracy Election Night Watch Party" states in its permit application that the event is an "election night watch event for advocates of democracy." They report: "We'll watch the election results live as they come in and speakers will talk about the importance of ensuring that every vote counts." They will gather at Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. a common place for demonstrations.
Hence my win-by-11pm thesis: "Every vote counts", but the ones that arrive by van at 3am Wednesday count for more. So a landslide would be helpful, something big enough to overwhelm the shenanigans. (That's where a victory in New Hampshire would be of assistance, as they count efficiently and declare early.)
Yet, even if the shenanigans are a bust, the Democrats have their plans. Courtesy of our pal Natalie Winters:
Rep. Jamie Raskin: "It's going to be up to us on January 6th 2025 to tell the rampaging Trump mobs he's disqualified."
This is the masterplan. pic.twitter.com/hhQLV7r2D1
— Natalie Winters (@nataliegwinters) October 31, 2024
Bear that in mind. Whatever happens on Tuesday, it's gonna get worse in the following days.
~In this eighth year of The Mark Steyn Club, we're very appreciative of all those who signed up in our first flush and are still eager to be here as we cruise on towards our first decade. We thank you all. For more information on the Club, see here.
