We were about 5 or 6 weeks into the lockdown by that point.
I know this because I keep a movie ‘watch list.’ I started it in July 2004 and have watched 2,703 movies since then.
During that week I watched four movies on Netflix, all while drinking beer.
Life seemed pointless.
I think one of the hardest blows was losing your identity.
Here in America, we equate ourselves with our jobs, deriving most of our importance and self-worth from that occupation.
And then it was gone.
‘Who am I...What do I do...Why am I here…?’
Millions of Americans were suddenly asking themselves these questions.
Many still are.
I was out of work for 101 days myself, but during that bleak week at the end of April...I didn’t think I’d ever go back to work.
But I did, and millions of others did, and we’re getting back to some kind of semblance of ‘normal.’
Thank God!
I got a call from some woman on Sunday morning.
She wanted my help in somehow getting the Green Party back on the ballot here in Montana.
I told her she should call Gary Marbut. He’s currently suing to get the Greens back on the ballot after they were kicked off, yet again, by the Democrats. He has 4 days.
She had no idea who Gary Marbut was.
At that point I asked where she was calling from.
“I’m here in Illinois,” she said.
“Well, I’m sorry for that,” I replied, and she chuckled. (Can you imagine living in the murder capital of America? I can’t.)
Seems she wanted me to go to the hearings...whatever those are, and wherever those are at.
I have a good one for when things like this come up:
“I’m sorry, but I have two kids ages 9 and 1 and I pretty much do stay-at-home dad stuff all week.”
“Oh,” came the reply.
I knew the phone call was over, and I think she realized it then as well.
I imagine she was calling every previous Green Party candidate in the state, hoping against hope that one of them could help further her agenda...whatever that is.
I explained to her that everyone in the state knows the Greens are nothing more than a front for the Republicans, designed to take away votes from the Democrats just like the Libertarians do to the GOP.
She did not disagree.
Illinois...California...Washington...Oregon…
The list goes on.
We have around 30 states that qualify as blue, and many of the people from those states are moving here.
How will that affect our election results?
Are these conservatives moving here, or liberals?
Are they going to vote for the same things that created the mess they’re trying to get away from?
We don’t know.
We do know for a fact that the greatest American diaspora since Reconstruction is affecting Montana. Missoula has never had so few apartments available. One property company that manages 1,600 units has just one unit available.
The thing is, you can change your place of residence overnight...but you’re not going to change your ideals.
The people moving in with the Washington plates that are fleeing Seattle? They’re going to vote for the bluest, most progressive, most tax-and-spend candidates they can find.
And in a few years when the unrest comes here...where will they flee to then?
A lot of money.
Nearly a month ago the story came out, and it’s gotten very little play.
You might remember that at the end of June, Bullock gave $530,000 to the Department of Commerce to help get more people to complete the census.
It wasn’t until over a month later that we learned the Department was going to then give that money to Forward Montana, Western Native Voice, and Montana Nonprofit Association.
All strong, trustworthy Dem organizations.
Forward Montana was started 14 years ago by Matt Singer, someone that also started 4&20 Blackbirds blog with William Skink.
You might remember that the blog was deleted by Singer several years ago when Tester thought it might be hurting his reelection chances in the state.
Now Forward Montana is hiring two new census takers.
We’ll see how this all works out. Bullock is beginning to spend more of the $1.25 trillion the feds gave him, though he’s not too happy about it. Trump forced him to start using much of it to give workers $400 a week. We’ll see when that happens.
Another attractive Harris in the news.
This time it’s Kamala, and I think she and Uncle Joe have a good chance of winning. She’s charismatic and well-spoken and will attract many voters, especially women and Indian Americans.
But I’m not thinking of her.
I’m thinking of Katherine.
If you remember Election 2000...you remember Katherine Harris.
She was Florida’s Secretary of State, and was in charge of the recount process, expunging certain votes, and certifying the vote when it was all said and done.
This paved the way for George W. Bush to become president.
Seems like a long time ago, but I think we’ll see Election 2000 all over again this year...just in many, many different states.
And we’re gonna have a lot of Harris-like figures out there, many of them term-limited out of office or lame-ducks with nothing to lose.
Think Corey Stapleton.
Here in Montana, the election will easily go to Trump.
But what about in swing states that are going all-in on mail ballots? It’s gonna take some time to count all those, which means it’ll take weeks after the election to know who won, perhaps even months.
We have to know by January 20 or Nancy Pelosi will become acting president. I figure the Supreme Court will get in before that, but it doesn’t need to go that far - just the SoS level in each state.
They can stop recounts, say certain mail ballots don’t count (for pretty much whatever reason they want), and certify when they choose to.
The only thing that can stop them are the courts in their states, which can be overridden by higher courts.
It’s going to be a big mess.
Are polls useful?
Today we have an ABC/Washington Post poll that has Biden up against Trump, 53-41%.
A CNN poll also just came out, and it has Biden up against Trump 50-46%. In fifteen different battleground states, however, the CNN poll has them at 49-48, with Biden keeping a narrow lead.
The thing with CNN is that just two months ago, they had Biden up by 14%. In the span of two months, he’s lost all of that.
Why?
The riots.
Despite the corporate media’s marketing for the Dems by not showing the riots on the news, Americans know about them and are not happy.
Remember, two months ago it was just Minneapolis that was rioting. Now it’s Seattle and Portland and Chicago and New York.
The latter has been one of the hardest hit cities in this country, with blocks and blocks of downtown storefronts boarded-up to protect them from the hordes.
And that still doesn’t mean you’ll be safe. You sure wouldn’t want to drive down there at night to go shopping:
NYC Times Square last night. They are threatening bodily & property damage, limiting the free flow of traffic, unlawfully holding others against their will. If NYC Leadership won’t take action, the citizens will need to defend themselves pic.twitter.com/ER4tEhdb84
— Rob O'Donnell (@odonnell_r) August 14, 2020
Minneapolis figures the riots will cost them $500 million. Portland’s riot bill is sitting at $23 million. We don’t know the full costs for Chicago yet, but since their landmark ‘Magnificent Mile’ has been trashed, it’ll cost a lot to clean it up and it’ll take years for those businesses - that do remain - to feel confident again. Consumers might not feel that way for even longer.
This is why Biden is slipping in the polls.
Trump is gaining. Conservative support for Trump went from 76% to 85% since the rioting began. People between 35 and 64 now favor Trump. Before the rioting started, they favored Biden.
The Democratic Party’s marketing department figured they were smart by not showing the riots on their nightly news broadcasts each night.
Alas, this move by the corporate media might have backfired.
Despite not showing them, the riots are still happening. Smaller media outlets are reporting them, as well as bloggers and those on Twitter.
Americans notice this, and they do not like it. They do not like that Democrats in these cities are not stopping the violence, the destruction.
The polls reflect this.
If the Dems are serious about winning in November, the insiders at the DNC will have to lay down the law, making it clear to these local politicians that if they want to have any kind of national future in the Democratic Party, they have to get their cities under control.
If they do not do this, Trump will win again.
It’s not rocket science.
Americans of all political persuasions - all races and creeds - want law and order. In fact, 74% of blacks oppose defunding the police.
I’m scared.
I’m scared of what the Democrats are going to do when Trump wins in November.
Over the past four years we’ve seen this Party and their voters completely lose their minds.
What we’re witnessing is a political party completely unraveling as it heads toward the dustbin of history.
I’ve said on this site for years that you take the other Party’s issues and talking points and you make them your own, effectively negating their message and appeal.
Trump did that a week ago, and that’s why Congress is now on recess for the next month.
Nancy Pelosi said “people will die” if some kind of stimulus bill isn’t passed. That was four days ago. Now she’s back in her mansion in California eating her ice cream.
No one’s going to die. Trump did what Nancy could not - he extended unemployment benefits to people like me. A few days later, Bullock conceded that he’d go ahead and issue that with the $1.25 billion that Trump gave him.
Americans will be getting $400 a week, with a lump sum ‘backlog’ payment of around $1,200 coming to us in early September for all these weeks in August we’re not getting paid.
Democrats were beat, and they knew it. With tails between their legs, they left Washington for their gated communities.
Their ice cream.
Oh, they’ll be back.
Come September they’ll be rested and ready and reaching for their guns (figuratively, of course).
It’ll be just 60 or so days before the election at that point, and they’ll do their darndest to derail Trump, mainly through their marketing department (the corporate media).
October surprise? I’m sure we’ll have some real humdingers.
I don’t think any of it will matter. Minds are already made up. No amount of political advertising is going to change minds in this, the year of our Lord, Twenty-Twenty.