How on earth do we explain - here in deepest Red State Wyoming - why this presidential election race is so damnably close?
Do we live in a country where endorsements by Taylor Swift, Oprah Winfrey and Meryl Streep overpower the fact that 10 million illegal immigrants – some say as many as 20 million – have entered our country illegally, and have been set free? Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) estimates that over this and past administrations, as many as 13,000 illegal immigrants have murdered someone before arriving here, and 15,000 committed sexual assaults.
These are the people we're “catching and releasing”? And that's OK with Democrats?
Wouldn't you think that the words “sanctuary city” would be seen by now as mindless, self-serving virtue signaling? These so-called sanctuaries were foisted on liberal communities by politicians claiming to be compassionate, but who also see illegal immigrants as future Democrat voters. And today, the mayors of those cities – almost all Democrats – are left to deal with the cost, and the violence, and finding housing for this crush of people who are here illegally.
We are told that these immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than American citizens. But who says we have to absorb the violence of these new arrivals when we've already got our hands full dealing with our home-grown perpetrators?
Wouldn't you think a simple trip to the grocery store – where prices are up 21 percent over the Biden-Harris administration – would be enough to tilt the election to Trump? Don't Democrats buy eggs? Recall that inflation was 1.4 percent when Trump left office, but rose to 9 percent for a time under Biden. (Biden has trouble recalling that.)
Wouldn't you think that a national debt that now tops $35 trillion would cross the minds of those who want four more years of “Bidenomic” spending? Neither candidate says much about our crushing debt. But Democrats embrace ever-expanding spending, while Republicans are at least embarrassed by the profligacy, in which they all too often participate.
And wouldn't you think that the abysmal performance of leadership of the Secret Service, with two assassination attempts on Trump so far, would convince voters that it's time for a change from the party that brought us Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas?
Don't these issues matter to voters?
Oh, I know, I know. Donald Trump's bluster and bravado turn a lot of people off. He can be a bull in a china shop with his rhetoric. It's hard to listen to him give so much ammunition to those who hate him.
I was watching, however, when Sean Hannity asked Trump about Democrats' claim that he wants to be a dictator. Trump responded, “Only on Day 1,” and only on two issues: The border and energy.
From then on Democrats claimed that Trump wants to be a dictator, and he said it “in his own words.”
Likewise with Trump's words about Charlottesville. He said there were “very fine people on both sides,” referring to the issue of tearing down Confederate Civil War monuments. He never said perpetrators of violence were “very fine people.”
But Democrats picked up that ball and ran with it. Even some “fact checkers” have said Trump was talking about tearing down statues, not about perpetrators of violence. But the “good people” line lives on for the Trump haters.
Same with that “bloodbath” comment. He was talking about the auto industry, not political retribution.
The reaction of Democrats, and many “Never-Trumper” Republicans, is a visceral thing. It has much to do with what our parents told us: Don't brag. Don't beat your own drum. If you've done something good, someone else will point it out. But that isn't Trump. His enemies hate his self-promotion and bluster, preferring the muddled performance of Biden and Harris over the good results of Trump's years
And when Democrats say that failed “bipartisan” border bill was not supported by Republicans – at Trump's urging - it was because the president who threw open the border is the last person we'd trust to now suddenly change his stripes and close the border. Simple as that.
If we elect Kamala Harris, we're in for four more years, maybe eight, of this chaos.
So, again, I ask:
How on earth could this election be so damnably close?
