A Word to Undecided Voters
With only six weeks until Election Day, here are some critical points to ponder.
As unfathomable as it may be for folks on the farthest sides of the aisle to believe, there are American citizens who right this minute cannot decide who to vote for in November. Some days their most pressing political need is for abortion to be regulated at the federal level, and other days they remember they need to put gas in their cars and food on their tables. They like open borders and free speech. They want equal, unfettered access to guns and gender affirming care. It’s just impossible to choose. Could go either way, really.
In one corner, you’ve got a joyful, cackle-happy, mixed race, assigned-female-at-birth *can you hear the highest, thickest, most impervious glass ceiling of them all shattering?* DEI hire former prosecutor whose “tough on crime” approach disproportionally impacted minority communities and who will, in fact, tax Americans—to use the technical, politico-scientific term for it—up the wazoo. Across the ring you’ve got a boastful business tycoon with a bit of a tremendous superiority complex (Let me tell you folks, he’s positive he’s the best. Unbelievable, really. Just ask him. No one else comes close.) who wants to deport millions of illegal immigrants who are burdening our systems, raping and murdering our citizens (not all of them obviously, but isn’t one one-too-many?), and may or may not be eating our pets.
Anyone have a quarter I can toss?
She was ranked more-progressive-than-Bernie-Sanders before the media decided to rewrite history and cast her as just a smidge left of center hahahahaha. She promises to pursue green energy investments, expand affordable healthcare, ensure federal protections for reproductive health services, and reduce “voter suppression” (by making voting less racist, i.e. requiring an ID to do it). He is a famously mean tweeter who swears he’ll resuscitate the economy, rebuild our military, finish the border wall, and make America energy independent again (most of which he actually did last time around, FWIW).
The thing is, they’ve both spent roughly the same amount of time in the White House. There’s no wild card in this deck. We know pretty much where each candidate stands and what he or she will be most focused on and committed to if (re)elected. So ask yourself: Are you better or worse off today than you were four years ago? Are your basics like food, gas, rent, insurance, and entertainment more or less affordable? Do you feel safer or less secure in your home or in your community? Are you saving for the future or struggling to make ends meet? Joy and humility and kumbaya aside, which presidential hopeful is more likely to march us straight into WWIII?
Let’s look at where the candidates stand (and how they’ve fared) on some key issues that directly impact your day to day life:
HEALTHCARE
In a recent report looking at the ten most advanced economies in the world, the US healthcare system came in dead last on all metrics. We spend the most on healthcare, have the shortest lives, suffer the most avoidable deaths, and our infant mortality rate is among the worst. It’s actually embarrassing, when you think about it.
Harris champions “healthcare for all” which would expand the role of government in healthcare funding, eliminate private insurance, and sounds an awful lot like socialized medicine (you can ask folks in the UK and Canada how that’s working out). With RFK Jr. on his team, Trump will address the rise of chronic conditions like autoimmune disorders, autism, and obesity, and eliminate the chemicals in our food and the corruption in our health agencies. Basically, she’ll keep you sick but possibly make it cheaper to go to a doctor (that you might have to wait eighteen months to see); his team wants to make you healthier so you don’t need to see the doctor at all. Tough call, I know.
TAXES
In 2022, Harris cast the tie-breaking vote on a bit of legislation that allowed the IRS to track and tax tips. (I know, she later flip-flopped to “no taxes on tips" right after Trump announced “no taxes on tips,” but her plan was very different in that it was the exact same.) She’s proposed a terrifying plan to tax unrealized capital gains (which admittedly would only impact the wealthiest at first… exactly as the Alternative Minimum Tax was designed to do in 1969—literally targeting 155 households—and which ultimately affected millions of people). It’s easy to sit back and declare “the wealthiest should pay more” until they change the definition of “the wealthiest” to include you.
This week, the IRS wholeheartedly endorsed the democratic candidate (could that have anything at all to do with Harris casting the deciding vote to boost the IRS budget by $80 billion?), which basically translates into as MSNBC put it, ‘get ready to be taxed to death.” Conservative strategist Greg Price added, "If the IRS, the FBI, Wall Street, Iran, Putin, the military industrial complex, the New York Times, Iran, 100 former McCain interns, and Dick Cheney all want one candidate to win then, for the love of God, vote for the other one." He’s got a point.
ECONOMY
Author and sociologist Michael G. Zey explained the state of American finances succinctly in an article in the American Thinker (and these are but a few highlights; I encourage voters to read the whole piece):
“When Americans elected Biden in 2020, their message to him was clear: Trump handed you a booming economy. Just don't do anything to ruin it! Unfortunately, Biden has done just that, and Americans have taken notice.
“The Trump economy Biden inherited in early 2021 was expanding at a 6.7% annual rate. Unfortunately, in less than three years, Biden's war on fossil fuels, overregulation of industry, and wasteful government spending has driven the country into financial hell.
“Trump slashed regulatory costs by $11,000 per household. Biden's regulations cost Americans a total of $10,000 per household.
“Trump's energy policies drove gas down to $1.87 per gallon. Biden's climate policies resulted in a record $5.02 in June 2022. Gas hit $7.00 per gallon in some areas.”
But gender equity and social justice! It’s another tricky decision undecided voters will have to think long and hard about.
IMMIGRATION
Trump wanted to build a wall. Harris wants to use your taxpayer dollars to give illegal immigrants food, housing, cell phones, healthcare, cash, interest-free loans, and gender reassignment surgeries, should they (the illegals, not the surgeries) fancy them (the surgeries, not other illegals sorry but pronouns are confusing).
Sure, you’re pinching pennies to put food on your table and walking around with a cracked iPhone SE and paying 7% interest on your home loan—just kidding who can afford a home anymore?—and recently cancelled Netflix to save $10 a month, but you know what? Complaining about any of that is obviously racist. Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
AMERICA FIRST
The US has provided more than $174 billion in aid to Ukraine alone since February 2022, money that could have been used to repair and improve decaying infrastructure in this country (which would also create jobs and boost the economy, BTW), provide tax rebates to American families (increasing disposable income and stimulating spending), provide affordable childcare to working families (duh), fund mental health programs in schools, and much more.
Democrats will say it’s our global civic duty—our humanitarian responsibility—to help other countries in need. Why do the millions of Americans in need not exist on their own neighbors’ radar?
Imagine a couple who has four children, two of whom are emaciated, barefooted, and infested with lice. Now imagine the couple is donating thousands of dollars a month to the neighbor’s Pool Party Fund (even though those kids don’t lift a finger to help around the place and barely even show up for school and they don’t even invite the starving barefoot children to their stupid party). If that makes sense to you, you’re technically not an undecided voter. #You’reWithHer
FREE SPEECH
During the pandemic, if you said something controversial online—you know, like “hey, look, this super safe drug is treating Covid with remarkable efficacy” or “my husband/wife/sister/daughter/friend died an hour after being vaccinated”—you were silenced. Your social media accounts were immediately shut down. If you were on the side of safe-and-effective-and-everything-else-is-disinformation, maybe you even gloated or cheered when you saw this happen. But what if the next big controversy is something less fringy? What if the thing you suddenly can’t say online is “The sky is blue,” or “Twizzlers are better than Red Vines,” or “folding a fitted sheet is the awfulest of all the awful household tasks”?
Here’s the thing: Without the ability to express (possibly dissenting) beliefs and ideas and challenge authority, democracy collapses. Free speech is how we hold the powerful accountable. A society without it is a dictatorship in disguise. And it’s a slippery-as-hell slope from “we’re protecting you from this harmful opinion” to “this is what you will think, say, and do, and nonconformists will be severely punished.”
Kamala Harris has promised a Brazil-style crackdown on free speech if elected. If that doesn’t scare the bejesus out of you, kindly move to North Korea or Cuba and take your vote with you.
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear.”
—Orwell
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
—Evelyn Beatrice Hall (conjuring Voltaire)
"The freedom of speech may be taken away—and, dumb and silent, we may be led, like sheep, to the slaughter."
— George Washington
I’m sure my sage subscribers can add valuable fodder to this cannon. Bring your best game in the comments. And please like, subscribe, and share!
p.s. To my “two wings of the same bird” readers: I know you think even discussing “the election” is a huge waste of time; that the winner has already been selected and that nothing will change no matter which evil assumes the Oval Office. As I’ve said, I do not know this to be unequivocally true or false (and neither, I would venture to suggest, do you). And while I do believe this has been the case in the past, there’s something about DJT that feels different. (I know; that’s what they want me to believe.) My logic is that holding that hope is sort of like believing in God. If I choose to believe in Him and I’m right or wrong, there’s no harm done. If I choose NOT to believe in Him and I’m right, same outcome. The only way I’m screwed is if I choose NOT to believe in Him and I’m wrong. So please vote… and do so wisely.
p.p.s. That analogy is in no way meant to elevate Trump to deity status. I do not think he’s a god or anywhere near it, but I do believe he might be a disruptor of their agenda. Just so we’re clear.
p.p.p.s. Several subscribers, separately, asked me to write on this topic, so apparently I am now taking requests! Feel free to LMK if there’s something happening out there in this wacky world that you’d like my take on. :)
To all undecided voters--Get over your hate or fear of Trump. Do you understand that next to nothing has come out of the Biden/Harris administration?
If our country has been destroyed so much the past four years, just think about how good things were during Trump's four years in office. Make our love of country great again! (MOLCGA).
We cannot afford the impending (additional) loss of freedom which is a true threat to democracy.
There is only one true choice to help our country move forward. Trump/Vance/Kennedy!!! 😇
I’m tired of the repetitive slanders against Trump. Is he arrogant? Yeah maybe, but so what? What is not fair is linking to stories that paint him as someone who told 40,000 lies in his presidency. Really? They blame HIM for hyperbole?? And according to who? According to the sane media that has been lying to us for the past 8 years or more. I’ve yet to see even 100 absolute lies much less 40,000. Show me 10. You can’t. His mean tweets were the truth.
Trump did a lot more good those four years than bad. To counter the article that was linked to that painted him in a dishonest and corrupt light , consider what he DID do (I saved and copied from another commenter a few months ago) :
1) stopped ISIS cold
2) EO stopping the drug companies from charging medicare more than what they charged foreign countries
3) EO forcing hospitals to disclose their prices
4) Move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem
5) ENERGY INDEPENDENCE for the first time in my lifetime of 70 years, and record low energy prices
6) Started no new wars 6A) Abraham Accords, bringing peace to the middle east instead of war
7) Elimination of regulations, required to eliminate 8 to add a new one
8) Cut Taxes across the board
9) Increased the individual tax credit eliminating the need to file more complicated returns
10) Started the space force, sorely needed today
11) Replaced NAFTA with an agreement better for American workers
12) Put tariffs on china, starting the process of moving American production out of the enemy’s land
13) Brought back massive amounts of money saved in foreign countries
14) Withdrew from the farce know as the Paris Climate Accords
15) Withdrew from the Iran deal
16) Increased the $$$ of the average family by over 5K
17) Started the process of fixing the VA
18) Increased the spending by other NATO countries
19) Killed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
20) Created several million jobs, actual creation not bafflegab bullshit
21) Economic growth rates were going up, somewhere around 4% before the marxist killed the economy with the scam chinaVirus
22) Lowest rate of unemployment ever, across the board for blacks, hispanics, asians, veterans, etc.
23) Opened ANWAR and had the Keystone pipeline being constructed
And there’s much more. I’d also argue that the negatives touted were more the fault of trusting the wrong RINO knobs as he was sabotaged repeatedly. Mike Pompous-ass, I mean Pompeo, urged Trump, BEGGED him,
to not release the JFK files convincing him America would not survive what they would find. Trump was naive and believed he was protecting us somehow. He now realizes that if we survived the last four years, there’s nothing we can’t survive, and the ONLY people the RINOs were protecting was themselves and their legacies and their power. Not America. Trump sees this now.
Seriously, how can we all see how the media and government lied to us about Covid, lies to us about RFKJr, lies to us daily about Biden and Harris, but we cannot see that they lied to us all these years about Trump, and he wasn’t lying nearly as much or as often as them. If he were, they’d have no need to kill him.