Home is the hunter, home from the hills

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So I’m back – anything happen while I was gone?

I see that the nation is ready to return to “normalcy”. Greenwich voters went for Biden by 9,000 votes, and Greenwich Republican Chairman Dan Quigly explained why: “[T}he people who really voted for [Trump] to become president are the people in middle America, not the people in Greenwich …” So, back to the days of Gin & Tonic Republicans, where the elite of both parties get along, and business as usual returns. Silicon Valley execs get back their access to cheap Asian labor and Chinese markets, the M&A boys can resume buying up companies, shutting their factories and shipping manufacturing to the Third World, Washington insiders can resume their seats, and the yokels will again be promised that they can get whatever they’ve ever wanted, for free, because those same billionaires who have regained power are going to agree to pay for everything, this time — really. Promise.

In Portland, where restaurants have lost 30-60% of their business, the citizens voted to finish them off by raising the minimum wage to $18 an hour. “Everyone will be rich now, because magic”.

There’s lots of magical thinking going on, and, at least for now, I don’t care. My children voted for it and believe in it, and if I was willing to let them discover the truth about the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus for themselves, why make a pest of myself now?

And if I’m willing to let my own children go their way, I’m even less inclined to worry about the country itself. Empires and nations rise and fall, and yet the world goes on. I have no control over our country’s future, and at my age, I’m okay with that. Upon regaining access to the Internet yesterday, I started prowling some of my favorite political blogs and quickly stopped, because I realized I just don’t care.

I also don’t particularly care about Greenwich real estate, but that’s ostensibly my business, and I see that some noticeable sales occurred last week. I’ll get to them, as soon as I finish cleaning my guns.

Open Thread

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Seattle, November 4, 10:00 pm.

Seattle, November 4, 10:00 pm.

So that happened.

I went off the Internet around 8:00 last night and retreated to my bedroom to read and listen to Sirrus Radio’s “Outlaw Country”, which plays C/W artists from, mostly, the 70s and 80s, that brief period of rebellion after the “Nashville Sound” had ruined the genre and before the reord companies regained control. Just before hitting the lights I switched to a news channel and heard a brief discussion of the still-pending results from Ohio, in which a commenter noted that Trump’s support from white-collar graduates had fallen since 2016, and I thought, of course they have, and that will continue for at least the next few decades.

It’s not, in my opinion, that recent college graduates are less intelligent than blue-collar workers, but rather, they’ve been exposed to four more years of indoctrination than their more fortunate peers. Four additional years of being lectured to by faculties comprised 95% of Democrats or even further left is bound to have its intended effect.

I’ve seen studies showing that, historically, young voters between 18-24 have a dismal voting turnout record, but participation grows after that, and by 34 or so, they’re in full bloom. So it shouldn’t be surprising that we’re seeing a flood of new socialist voters this cycle. But, worse, the 18-24 crop appears to have broken through their preceding cohort’s indifference to voting, and come out in record numbers. A double-whammy.

The shift to socialism was always inevitable, I believe, because the “Long March” of communists through academia has been proceeding for more than sixty years, and is finally reaching fruition. Even had we held out this election, we’d have lost in the next. And as of this posting, we haven’t lost, yet. So maybe I’ll return from the woods to discover that we dodged the bullet one final time. I don’t think our luck will continue, if it has.

Or that’s what I believe. Democrats in charge of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches aren’t the end of the world, only the world as we know it, and as this country’s founders intended it. But the world will go on, and the naive children who have fallen into the trap set by their elders will have to figure out what happened, and set about to correct it, if they can. I’ll leave that to them, and wish them luck.

Upon awakening this morning I did check the Internet for final results and seeing none, I put on a pot of coffee and resumed reading a book on spirituality I’ve rediscovered; the chapters I read today were devoted to tolerance, forgiveness, and a full recognition of our own flaws, and the illusion that we can live in a perfect world if only others would listen. I found it timely.

So I’m off to the Maine woods, where the only cellphone reception is atop a ridge a mile from camp. I might access it from there, should my hunting take me past it, but otherwise, see you in a week or so. Comment away. And maybe pray for your children and their children; it’s the latter, I suspect, who will need God’s grace most.

The Volvo Line, illustrated

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That phrase for Maine’s infected voter pool has been updated to the “Subaru Line”, though I’d suggest “Prius”. Regardless, you can see it outlined here. One note from the epicenter of the pandemic, which says it all: Portland — Gideon, 28,071, Collins, 8,656.

Collins is ahead right now 51% to 43%, and with the southern towns all accounted for, she’ll probably hold onto that lead and avoid the dreaded “ranked-vote” process which would have awarded Gideon the seat by lumping into her vote total those of the still-further-left candidates.

But that’s this time. Trump lost the state (Portland: Biden, 33,784; Trump, 6,438), both Republican congressional candidates lost, and Collins was returned to office only because many Mainers remember her long service to the state. She’ll be gone by the next election cycle, and so will those voters.

Here's hoping they get it, good and hard

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NYC voters lining up for hours to vote.

Early-bird voters came in droves to polling sites across the Big Apple Tuesday, forming long lines and waiting hours to cast their ballots.

Presumably for Biden, since the last Republican voter left that shithole decades ago. I’d have hoped that long lines would discourage them and send them back to their dismal lives, but apparently not:

“When New Yorkers want something, they get it,” [a poll worker] said.