The 2024 Election, Part III. Spring shoots

April 20, 2023

The Natrona County Republican Party committee is challenging the anonymous authors of WyoRino to a debate.

WyoRino purports to rank Republicans on their true Republicanism, which in historical context means it rates them as populists, not Republicans.

Frank Moore, well known Campbell County rancher, is contesting for Frank Eathorne's seat as head of the party.

On the Presidential front, here's whose running so far:

Donald Trump. We all know who he is.

Announced: Nov. 15, 2022

Nikki Haley, who is discussed above.

Announced: Feb. 14, 2023

Vivek Ramaswamy.  Ramaswamy is a conservative businessman and well known, apparently, in conservative circles.

Announced: Feb. 21, 2023.

Asa Hutchinson. He's a well known former Arkansas Governor who is an outright opponent of Trump's.

Announced: April 2, 2023

Tim Scott, discussed above.

Testing the water, the names are.

Ron DeSantis.  He's been in the news a lot lately as the non Trump, Trump.

Mike Pence.  Vying for the role of the world's most boring man, he's clearly on the edge of announcing.

Chris Sununu.  Well known Governor of New Hampshire and an anti-Trumper.

Glenn Youngkin.  Somewhat known Governor of Virginia.

Kristi Noem.  South Dakota right wing Governor.

Liz Cheney.  We all know who she is.  She's been mentioned, but I doubt she'll run.

John Bolton.  Also a known name, but I'd bet Trump's former National Security Adviser turned Trump opponent won't run.

Chris Christie. Former Governor of New Jersey and clearly thinking of running.

April 24, 2023

Polls out just before the weekend shows demonstrate that an overwhelming majority of Democrats, save for African Americans, do not want President Biden to run in 2024.

He's simply too old to run, and people know it. This is true of Trump too, but the populist wing of the GOP, which has a grip on the GOP so far, refuses to recognize that.

April 25, 2023

Joe Biden has officially announced his candidacy.

It can't help but be noted that the US presently has a gerontocracy.  The Republicans were so bold as to run a Twitter advertisement about Biden's age earlier today, when Donald Trump is only four years younger.  Their politics aside, neither man should be in this position at their current ages.

Indeed, as I've said before, the odds are good that either one, or both, of these candidates will die of natural causes before November 2024.  There's something fundamentally wrong with the country such that the only leaders the country will consider are so far above the nation's median age which, at age 38, is actually old in historical terms.

May 1, 2023

Perhaps its assuming too much, but it is my assumption that Secretary of State Chuck Gray views his office as a springboard to the Governorship and that he otherwise really isn't interested that much in the workaday role of the SoS Office. Certainly, he's doing a lot to keep his name in the news, or it is i the news anyhow.

Gray spoke at the University of Wyoming in front of a newly organized conservative student organization.  I suppose that makes sense, but what really struck me was the prayer offered by Gabe Saint, a figure in the organization, prior to Gray speaking.  According to the Tribune, it went:

Lord, please be with Chuck tonight. He has been a blessing to Wyoming and fights fervently for righteous change and to bring back American values,  Be with him while he is in office. Give him grace and wisdom. Lord, we ask that you deliver him from his enemies, because he has many. We ask that you protect him as he takes on the Goliath that is the enemy in the form of wokeness.

I'm not sure what to make of that at all.

This is another one of those areas where I find myself between two poles, between extremes on both ends, and wishing it was 1923, and I was riding out to check my sheep on a mule.

On one hand, I do feel that the American left is getting, leftier, if that's a word.  So perhaps doing on this on May 1 makes sense.

Not every proposition of the American left is nuts by any means, and depending upon what thread a person reads here, they might conclude from time to time that I'm a leftist, which I'm not.  But in the social arena, the left has gone completely off the rails and it's absolutely frightening.  That's what the right is referring to when it uses the term "woke".

On the other hand, the populist right has gone full authoritarian scary.

There are days anymore where it feels like Spain in 1935, hoping it doesn't become Spain in 1936.

Where was that mule. . . 

Anyhow, one of the things about the populist right and the far left is that they both live in a fantasy land.  The far left lives in one in which science, religion and reality don't matter. We can all be our own personal gods and everyone has to acknowledge that.  If Robert Reich came out tomorrow demanding that people who think they are polar bears be regarded as polar bears, it wouldn't surprise me a bit.  The far right, on the other hand, lives in a world where Donald Trump is some sort of heroic founding father saint and the election was stolen from him.

Most Americans don't like fighting much, as most people don't.  That's what the "advancements" in social issues actually means, on the left.  It isn't, quite frankly, that people have bought off on a LBGTQ+ agenda, they just want to be left the crap alone.  Of course, living in a society in which things are left alone, if they are corrosive, corrodes.  But that's what that really means, more than anything else.  The thing the right misses is that most Americans are not on the far right.  They're more or less in the middle, and right now I think they're moving to the left in reaction to the Republican Party looking increasingly like it's like the España franquista to be the national model.

Part of that reaction is the baffling adoption of lies by the populist far right. The rank and file really believe them, and by doing so fail to realize that they're a minority and becoming more of one.  That's giving us this goofball 2024 election in which it is increasingly likely that a 177 Donald Trump will be accusing a 180 year old Joe Biden of being old. They're both old.

There's plenty to fault both of them for.  Biden hasn't adhered to his expressed Catholic values, which should disturb voters, as a man who won'd adhere to his deepest values at least raises questions.  But he has done surprisingly well with the situation he was left with, and he isn't Donald Trump, which is why he's likely to win that contest.

Trump is either suffering from some sort of mental issue or a liar, or both, but he's absolutely scary in his contempt for democracy.

Which leads us to the prayer.

Chuck Gray is a Catholic, and the Catholic faith doesn't cut much slack for serious lies.  

Catholics also tend to hold a fairly non compromising view of the world in certain ways, perhaps best summed up in this letter from the Second Century.

Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign. 

And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives.  

They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they, rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by the Jews as aliens, they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one can explain the reason for this hatred. 

To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the world, but cannot be identified with the world. As the visible body contains the invisible soul, so Christians are seen living in the world, but their religious life remains unseen. The body hates the soul and wars against it, not because of any injury the soul has done it, but because of the restriction the soul places on its pleasures. Similarly, the world hates the Christians, not because they have done it any wrong, but because they are opposed to its enjoyments. 

Christians love those who hate them just as the soul loves the body and all its members despite the body's hatred. It is by the soul, enclosed within the body, that the body is held together, and similarly, it is by the Christians, detained in the world as in a prison, that the world is held together. The soul, though immortal, has a mortal dwelling place; and Christians also live for a time amidst perishable things, while awaiting the freedom from change and decay that will be theirs in heaven. As the soul benefits from the deprivation of food and drink, so Christians flourish under persecution. Such is the ChristianÂÂ’s lofty and divinely appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself.

 I don't know what faith Saint is, but his prayer strikes me as a sort of old time, classic, Evangelical one.  It actually reminds me a bit, and this isn't the only recent thing that's reminded me of it, of Theodore Roosevelt's 1918 speech in which he stated:

We fight in honorable fashion for the good of mankind; fearless of the future; unheeding of our individual fates; with unflinching hearts and undimmed eyes; we stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord.

Roosevelt stated that as he took his followers right into oblivion with the Progressive Party.

I'm not saying Gray and Roosevelt are co-political.  Roosevelt was a liberal Republican who became a radical one.  Gray is a far right populist.  I am saying that their branch of the GOP is probably taking it into political oblivious, however.

Anyhow, I'm not one to criticize a prayer as a rule, and I won't do so here.  People should pray for Chuck Gray, and for Governor Gordon.  But as part of that, for their souls and the courage to choose the righteous, honest path over the politically expedient.  Gray got his seat by flaming the flames of a fib, and that was expedient.  If he believes it, he's in serious need of reassessment.  If he doesn't, he should repent.

And as for ambition, and he's clearly ambitions, he should recall what was stated in Papal Coronation ceremonies between 1409 and 1963.

Sic transist gloria mundi.

May 3, 2023

Chuck Gray is starting to get a lot of questions about his out-of-office activities. Cowboy State Daily, which I'd regard as generally right wing, broke the news this week that 

Chuck Gray Skips National Secretaries of State Conference, Attends Gathering Run By Election Deniers

This occurred back in February.

Questions are starting to be asked about who paid whatever lawyer Gray used to try to intervene in the abortion suit that's pending in the 9th Judicial District.  It's a legitimate question.  Gray, who slammed his opponents' status as a lawyer, claiming she was aiming for the office for the pay (it probably would have been a pay cut in reality) has a lawyer on his staff, although I don't know that said lawyer was used.  Anyway you look at it, however, using state funds to pay for legal fees on an improper attempt to intervene in that suit raises legitimate questions about that being an improper act.

So far as Secretary State, we now know that Gray, who was previously employed in his family's radio business and who has no known outside work experience of consequence that's been reported on, has appeared as a witness in the legislature on campaign bills, went to the above referenced conference, appeared at a right wing event in Natrona County, and appeared at a right wing event at the University of Wyoming. This doesn't mean he hasn't been busy doing his actual job, but the state has never seen a Secretary of State behave in this fashion before.

May 7, 2023

Frank Eathorne easily turned back a challenge by more traditional conservatives for the leadership of the state's GOP, assuring that it retains a very Trumpist populist leader going into the next election.

May 9, 2023

Chuck Gray, who is clearly running for the Governor's office and using his newly acquired position of Secretary of State for that purpose, has proposed an administrative rule that would require investment brokers, broker dealers and securities agents doing business in Wyoming to disclose to their clients if they are using environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles in the course of their business. 

Chances are, none of them are, unless asked to do so.

This is pretty much theater and serves mostly to keep Gray's name in the news as a populist crusader.  It violates traditional Republican principals which would allow the clients of financial services providers to ask questions themselves.

In order for the policy to be implimented the Governor's approval would have to be forthcoming, which is unlikely, but which will serve to pit Gray against Gordon to the extent that they are not at odds already.

Gray claimed at the state's GOP convention, which Gordon did not attend, that he and his staff are working 18 hour days.  He also included the Democrats as part of a "troika" trying to keep consservatives from being elected in the state.  It's difficult to imagine that anyone actually thinks the Democrats are an influence on anything in Wyoming.

Laramie County paid its delinquent dues in an bid to end a feud with the state organization.

Last Prior Thread

The 2024 Election, Part II. What could go wrong?