Madsplaining: Chaos Agents
Madsplaining: Chaos Agents
Shooting, shouting, stepping down and stepping up
The Coup
You know it’s been quite a week when Donald Trump looks like the stability candidate.
After defiantly fighting off calls to step aside, President Biden announced he will no longer run for re-election, throwing his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris. Earlier in the week, it was reported that the President had contracted covid-19 and was isolating before promising to hit the campaign trail again. Only the “Lord Almighty” could convince him to leave the race, he said. It appears God had other plans.
All that said, the announcement was very strange – a post on X, mere hours after the President’s campaign manager adamantly insisted that nothing was going to change. Staffers said they had only found out reading the post themselves while observers are noting the President is conspicuous in his absence these last couple of days. But it is understandable if he needs some downtime to lick the wounds. And could you blame him if he is a bit salty for being pushed out of the race?
Et tu, Nancy? Journalist Mark Halperin is certain that former Speaker Nancy Pelosi placed pressure on the President to go quietly and be celebrated or they would push him out. Did they promise to protect his family from prosecution? Did they assure him about his legacy library? Certainly the accolades for the President’s sacrifice, selflessness and patriotism in stepping aside are now pouring in from supporters and donors seem to have re-opened their cashbooks.
President Biden says he wants to focus his energy on running the country until his term is up, but how he can do that if he is not fit to run is a question on many lips. Legal experts aren’t sure if it is proper to swap out candidates, nor if Congress could confirm a new Vice President before the Democrat convention, should President Biden step down immediately. Perhaps the future of primaries is also on the line.
After a foggy debate performance against Donald Trump last month, corporate media have been steadily reporting Washington whispers of manoeuvring by heavyweights to convince the President to withdraw from the race. Leaked audio revealed the President mocking a Bronze star veteran’s service and newsrooms spread reports that top Democrats were quietly telling him he could not win the White House again. Donations were dropping off. President Biden is clearly not used to hostile press events, whisper-shouting at Lester Holt during an interview for not doing enough to praise his accomplishments and expose Donald Trump’s lies.
The future is a big, old mess. VP Harris will inherit the President’s campaign cash (the FEC ruled that it would have to be refunded if Democrats don’t nominate her) but it is not clear she has the support of the party, nor the public, for that matter. On Megan Kelly’s show, guests pointed out that VP Harris is complicit in the cover up that kept President Biden’s decline under wraps. Her track record as a lax prosecutor and failure in her vice-presidential duties (securing the border) are well-known, if memory-holed for now.
Happy Campers
The Republican National Convention wrapped up its conference last week. It’s quite clear that liberals who have grown disillusioned by inflation, anti-Semitism, the Dems love of open borders and transgender everything, have been welcomed with open arms. A porn star gave one of the more memorable speeches (according to what I read, at least); a Hindu prayer was offered by Harmeet Dhillon, a Party official, once considered for the leadership position and rappers took to the stage to parody Donald Trump. And Teamsters?
Pastor Roemke brought a fine benediction.
Trump officially accepted the nomination to be the Republican presidential nominee and in turn, chose Ohio senator, J.D Vance as his running mate. Once a “never-Trumper”, Vance says he thinks quite differently these days, blaming media narratives for distorting his views. Vance already has liberal media on his case, for his stance against covid mandates, against Ukraine funding, against diversity hiring and for backing Trump’s progressive economic policies. Elites also don’t like his hillbilly credentials. Political analyst, Frank Luntz noted that Vance, who is just 39, will ensure the MAGA movement continues.
God was mentioned – that’s a good thing – but abortion, not su much. And that’s not a good thing. As I wrote last week, pro-lifers are feeling a little like they have been downgraded to cattle class, after the historic, strong pro-life stance of the party’s platform was removed. Although American Evangelicals are “the most reliable pro-family and pro-life voting bloc in the nation”, it appears that “social conservatives” will be one of many with a “seat at the table.” Although it is usually preferable to have the weight of government behind your cause, it is probably worth asking those who are crestfallen over this news what their churches are doing to advance the cause of life.
By all reports, the spirit of the place was joyful, thoughtful and positive. Attendees heard from families whose children died due to President Biden’s open borders policies which allow fentanyl and violent illegal immigrants to cross into the U.S. Donald Trump reflected on his brush with death and honored the man who died saving his own family at the Butler rally. He gave a very long address, but the crowd didn’t seem to mind. Mass politics for the masses.
Someone said that the divide in American politics is not really a clear left and right, but rather, if you think America is corrupt, you’re for Trump.
Many Angles But No Good Answers
Every day last week brought news of more distressing details from the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
The shooter, Thomas Crooks had hidden a firearm at the site previously, having flown a drone over the rally location earlier in the day. He was seen using a rangefinder before the event. Presumably, people just assumed someone else was looking into it. While Crooks had no real social media footprint, no manifesto or history, a Republican lawmaker claims that the FBI is investigating much more complicated connections through encrypted accounts overseas.
A local police officer had tried to confront the shooter but retreated when Crooks pointed his gun at him. An officer had seen the man on the roof thirty minutes before shots were fired and reported him, but no one removed Donald Trump from the stage. A Secret Service sniper had the shooter in his sight for two minutes before he began shooting at Donald Trump.
Butler police had warned the Secret Service that they didn’t have the resources to cover the building the shooter eventually climbed onto, however snipers were in the building even as he made his way onto the roof. A whistleblower says most of the detail at the event were not even Secret Service but other Homeland agents, unseasoned and unprepared for such a situation.
Secret Service denies that they pulled agents off Trump’s detail to protect First Lady Jill Biden, who was campaigning in the area. (Although, Democrats did propose removing SS protection for Trump if he was convicted in the “hush money” case.) Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Trump’s security was actually increased after a threat from Iran.
Is this all just compounding incompetence? Critics point to the Secret Service head, Kimberly Cheatle and her stated desire to increase diversity hires, especially adding more women to the Service. (It has been noted that DEI commitments are one of the chief corollaries of incompetence.) She also defended the security plan for the Butler rally, saying the roof the shooter positioned himself on was “too steep” to consider placing a sniper there. She has refused to step down.
Secret service experts weighed in, concluding different things. But there is a common theme that lack of communication, lack of coordination and short notice to plan created a perfect storm. Under-resourced and lacking in experience, the Secret Service’s “one job” was harder than it seemed, one retired agent said. “Ever since we moved from Treasury to DHS, the process of assimilating the Secret Service to the bottom of the DHS priority list has been pretty clear to me…we're lumped in with other agencies whose missions are important, but we're fighting for resources just like every other DHS entity.”
Was it an inside job? The distrust and divide in America means it probably depends on who you ask. Trump supporters find it quite plausible to believe that the Democrats meant to place Donald Trump in harm’s way. Biden supporters believe Trump orchestrated the whole thing, to promote himself.
As the calls for unity following the assassination attempt quickly receded into normal name-calling and fear mongering, Democrats may be feeling the “diminishing returns of turning everything up to eleven” as Auron McIntrye put it.
“The locusts have no king, yet they all advance in ranks”
I heard someone paraphrase one of Agur’s proverbs last week, proposing the idea that those who wish for destruction, death and mayhem don’t really need to be told to wreck destruction, death and mayhem – it is their M.O. There doesn’t need to be an “inside job”, there is no memo, they know what they need to destroy.
Whether that is a faithful interpretation of Scripture, I will leave for scholars. However, the power of a worldview to shape people and their behavior is fairly plain to see.
Whether its the media when they decide to push a narrative;
Whether its the RNC when they decide to expand their tent for political gain;
Whether its the Democrats rallying against “threats to democracy”;
They don’t need marching orders from a sovereign to know what to do.
What about the saints? tempered by suffering, trained by the Word of God and following hard after their Savior? Those who know they are paid for and that their true home is in the age to come? As Pastor Fisk said last week, being for life is the unifying factor for Christians – the unborn, the fatherless, the solitary. While the locusts are lockstep ruining the good, true and beautiful, remember, we do have a King and we have our orders.