…and How It Got Back in Power….
While it is socially acceptable — indeed, required — for smart people to scorn the notion that the 2020 federal election was in some way rigged or gamed, a few things are certain:
1. By official tallies, more people voted in that election than had been registered in the previous election, and that was the first time this jump in ballots had occurred in American democratic history. This was allowed, in part, because
2. a number of swing states had taken the excuse of the pandemic to hastily establish mail-in voting over extended periods of time. Further,
3. Democrat congresspeople had pressured major social media companies (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) to suppress major news stories prior to the election, so that almost no one relying on major media knew the truth about a number of stories, most prominent among them the Hunter Biden corruption story.
4. Prior to the debacle of the pandemic, which Trump blew in several important ways, Trump was a known shoo-in for a second term: the economy was doing remarkably well and Americans overwhelmingly hated the Democrats’ frank support for riots around the nation. So the virus itself was the key factor that took down the Trump presidency. And, curiously enough,
5. it was only until after the election that it was socially acceptable to even mention what now appears to be true, and what Trump should have insisted upon, and recognized, from the get-go: that the U.S. Deep State and Wide State were heavily involved in the creation of the virus that allowed Democrats to win. It is entirely plausible that the release of the virus was done by Whoever (a rogue Chinese or American agent in Wuhan, or the Chinese Government itself) expressly to mess up the 2020 election. One is still not allowed to discuss this, from what I can tell. (Why? Because of the dreaded C Word: conspiracy … plus theory.)
This is not to say that I will support Trump in 2024. He really blew it. But it is to note that the reason Russia invaded Ukraine almost certainly has something to do with the Democrats’ long-term agenda of poking at Ursa Putin. Remember that the Biden Family has deep roots in Ukrainian corruption as well as Chinese corruption, and that Democrats impeached Trump over the idiotic issue of the Ukrainian Phone Call, in which Trump was accused of holding up an arms give-away to Ukraine. (He did not.)
I believe Democratic insiders have been pushing for a war against Russia for a long time. I don’t know why they want to, exactly, but have many suspicions. Ukraine was the flashpoint country for their insane brinksmanship.
If the war escalates in global danger, the country in need of a regime change would be the U.S. Actually, nix the “if.”
twv
Wirkman Comment 
I love your blog, Wirkman.
A 99% unrelated comment.
The State Choir and Orchestra of Ukraine will be giving a recital in my country (Spain) today, with the following program: The Carmina Burana (o, Fortuna; Tempus est iocundum…; In taberna quando sumus…; Ego sum abbas cucaniensis, (about the myth of the famous land of Cockaigne)). By Carl Orff, a German.
The second part of the recital is the infamous (my view) 9th symphony of Beethoven, another German.
In my opinion, it’s crazy that they chose these two works. One talks about the ever changing whims of Fortune, who first favors people and then oppresses and prosecutes them, like a the Genie in story of Aladdin and the Genie of the Lamp. It fails to point out the fact that the many misfortunes of people are brought upon themselves by their vices (envy, lust, gluttony, avarice). Fortune is just the ultimate scapegoat. This point is lost to many people.
Was it the intention of the authors of this very old profane poems to fail to mention the responsibility that people have in their own living problems?
There are many profane songs too, which I think are not appropriate for this time. We now need to inspire honor and virtue in general, and for that we need music that communicates a sense of sacredness and love, the hymn “Stabat Mater” (the version by Palestrina, for instance) is appreciated even by hard-core atheists who love music; but profanity brings more criticism, which we have plenty.
The 9th symphony is generally regarded to be about Peace. This is reasonably misleading interpretation. In the 1820’s, when the symphony was composed, after all the disasters of many long years of wars, everywhere, someone decided to take a poem of Schiller from the 1780’s decade, the time before the greatest disasters began. A poem about peace and fraternity among all humans. The gall of these people…
First, the mischief-makers run amok, they destroy, or collaborate to destroy, many bystanders’ lives and property, creating perdurable psychological wounds, which propped up more problems in the subsequent decades.
Then very same idiots who started the problems or fed the flames, start with one course of fake apologies. Some human beings are truly despicable.
Right now, there is no need for this kind of music. There are many other things they could be performing. A piano concert by Prokofiev would be better, first to show the Ukrainians are not racists, and second, because the snobs who never go to the Auditorium will go this time because the some idiot on TV told them to go there, and I would prefer that the musicians punished them with some horrific modernist composition they personally hated too.
The sweetness and exaggeration of any Italian composer is better suited for this epoch. Or, since they have come to Spain, they could be playing famous compositions by Spanish composers. The “Concierto de Aranjuez” is a better choice for those who want to overcome the pain of war. It is politically incorrect to play that kind of music in my country. And yet, it is better suited for the occasion.
Thank you.