These immigrants aren't just from Mexico and Central America, they're from the Middle East and Eastern Europe. I'm not prejudiced against people from those countries. But we have had people on terrorist watch lists that have crossed the border, along with people that have serious criminal records, some of whom have committed heinous crimes once in the U.S. And I have a problem with that. We also don't test anyone who crosses the border for covid - not a huge concern of mine, except that we treat our own unvaccinated and untested citizens like criminals.
Along with the people have come record amounts of drugs, including fentanyl. Through mid-May, more fentanyl was seized than in all of 2020, and that's just what was seized. Both the flow of people and the flow of drugs into the U.S. are controlled by Mexican cartels, which are making vast sums of money from this trafficking. (And some of it is truly human trafficking; women and children are being trafficked into the U.S. for slavery, including the sex trade, and along the journey they're being raped by the cartels that are trafficking them.) Yes, the cartels now control our southern border, and they're openly firing automatic weapons - real automatic weapons, not the AR-15s that the Left mistakenly refer to as automatic weapons - across the Rio Grande at our border agents, openly mocking the fecklessness of our leadership in combating them.
You may also be aware of the disastrous pull-out from Afghanistan that left 13 U.S. service men and women dead outside the Kabul airport, killed seven innocent Afghan children and an Afghan "friendly" in a drone strike that we were initially proudly told killed an ISIS suicide bomber, and left hundreds of U.S. citizens and Afghan friendlies stranded in-country after we were promised that we'd stay until they all got out. The State Department and military leadership don't really know how many are stranded, but it appears to be more than they're admitting.
And you undoubtedly know that, having just passed a trillion-dollar infrastructure spending bill through both houses of Congress, the Democrats are now pushing Joe Biden's massive $1.75 trillion (down from the original $6 trillion pushed by Bernie Sanders) "Build Back Better" plan, that would include a number of Socialist spending measures funded by the biggest tax increase since FDR, accompanied by the biggest expansion of IRS powers in history. The measure would weaponize the IRS the way the DOJ has weaponized the FBI against parents of schoolchildren, opening up audits to those earning less than $75,000 a year in an effort to squeeze every last dime out of American workers in order to feed the Washington bear (no wasted symbolism that the hungry animal I use in this simile is the California state animal, or the symbol of the Soviet Union).
On to more local trends. If you've watched the news lately, you've seen the images - they should be shocking to us, but I'm afraid they're not anymore - of a bunch of organized looters armed with guns, hammers and crowbars running out of a Nordstrom's in Walnut Creek, California and jumping into waiting getaway cars, then speeding off to safety, knowing that they wouldn't be prosecuted under that state's non-existent shoplifting laws. Similar crimes happened at Louis Vuitton and Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. This isn't the ghetto, folks. Walnut Creek is well outside of San Francisco. I was just through there a couple of months ago. It's as suburban as my hometown of Overland Park, Kansas.
In downtown San Francisco, Walgreen's, CVS and Target are closing stores right and left due to the shoplifting epidemic. The mayor, ever in denial, claims that the chains are closing those stores simply because they're unprofitable. I realize that she doesn't understand how business works, but it's hard to turn a profit when your shrinkage rate is skyrocketing. Who loses as a result of these closures? The elderly urban dweller who now has to walk many blocks to get her prescriptions in an ever more dangerous city, because her neighborhood pharmacy had to close.
In Los Angeles, "follow-home robberies" have become commonplace. In these crimes, thieves wait outside high-end retail stores until shoppers take their wares to their cars, then follow them home, and either block them into their driveways or follow them into their houses and steal the goods, along with other valuables. The thieves are armed, and threaten to kill the victims and their families, which have included children sleeping inside the home. At least one recent incident resulted in a shooting death.
The response of city officials? Don't attempt to evade or defend yourself or your property. Instead, be a "good witness." In other words, be a compliant victim. We'll eventually get around to prosecuting these criminals, most of whom are gang members. Yeah, LA has a great track record in combating gang violence. The gangs control LA like the cartels control the southern border.
Then, of course, there was the tragic story of the man who drove his SUV through a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, killing and injuring a number of people. We later learned that he had a long rap sheet and several outstanding warrants, and was only free to do what he did - apparently intentionally - because of lax bail laws.
And also in Wisconsin, we have the entire Kyle Rittenhouse affair. One of the things we learned from his trial is that he was asked by a business owner in Kenosha to come and help protect his car dealership from rioters, because the night before, another dealership had been burned to the ground while police stood by, helpless to do anything, outnumbered by rioters. The Governor had refused offers from the President to send in National Guard troops to help protect Kenosha's citizens and property in the riots that followed the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Why? A stubborn partisan pissing match.
So a Kenosha business owner was so desperate, having lost one of his businesses to arsonist, rioting thugs, that he asked a 17-year-old kid to help protect another of his businesses. And the ultimate outcome was that two men who attacked that kid, and threatened his life, died. If anything, their deaths are on the Governor's head.
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There's an excellent, and probably underrated, song by Living Colour called "Cult of Personality." It was released in 1988. Check out some of the lyrics:
Look in my eyes, what do you see?
The cult of personality
I know your anger, I know your dreams
I've been everything you want to be
I'm the cult of personality
Like Mussolini and Kennedy ...
Neon lights, a Nobel Prize
Then a mirror speaks, the reflection lies
You don't have to follow me
Only you can set me free
I sell the things you need to be
I'm the smiling face on your TV
I'm the cult of personality
I exploit you, still you love me
I tell you one and one makes three
I'm the cult of personality
Like Joseph Stalin and Gandhi ...
Neon lights, a Nobel Prize
A leader speaks, that leader dies
You don't have to follow me
Only you can set you free ...
The song is about celebrity, but on a political level. It mentions Mussolini and Kennedy, Stalin and Gandhi, in the same couplets, to illustrate that while one is seen as good and one bad, they were equally followed by the masses because of their larger-than-life personalities. They may exploit their followers, but still they're loved by them.
There are lyrical references to why we're drawn to these political figures: "I know your anger, I know your dreams ...", "I've been everything you want to be ..." (or appear to have been), "I sell the things you need to be ...". The song also speaks to the message delivered by politicians: "A mirror speaks, the reflection lies ...", "I'm the smiling face on your TV ...", "I tell you one and one makes three ...". And the reference to "a Nobel Prize" is most curious, as the song pre-dates Nobel Prize-winner Barack Obama's Presidency by years, yet he may be the ultimate example of the Cult of Personality among U.S. politicians.
The song issues a final warning in subtly shifting the line, "only you can set me free" to "only you can set you free." And that's the point of this post.
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So what does the song have to do with all the current events listed at the beginning of the post, and with the title?
Everything.
See, when we vote, we tend to vote for the person. It's been that way for a very long time. Remember "I Like Ike"? It wasn't, "I Like the Eisenhower Doctrine," or "I Like Modern Republicanism." It was about Ike the man, and it shouldn't go unnoticed that he was the first widely televised President. Known for his big grin, he was the first "smiling face on your TV."
It's gotten worse in the age of television. Viable candidates like Paul Simon of Illinois and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut were strong on policy, but never gained a lot of traction with voters, in part, I believe, due to the fact that they weren't all that telegenic. On the flip side, JFK was an enormously popular President, in spite of very limited experience coming into office (similar to Obama), and a scant track record during his short time as POTUS before he was assassinated - and a track record marred by some pretty spectacular blunders. But he was a really good-looking guy, with a fashion model wife, and there was all the mystique of "Camelot."
The point is that we vote for people, not policies, but policies are what we get. So maybe we should flip the script and think about what we're voting for, not who. (Forgive me, fellow grammar-Nazis.)
Now, easier said than done, right? Because after all, "the mirror speaks, the reflection lies." Nobody's going to say, "If elected, I'm going to let two million illegal immigrants across the border in my first ten months," or "A vote for me is a vote for unfettered crime!", or "You want riots in the streets? I'm your guy!"
But we're smart people. And we ought to be able to test the winds of change, read the writing on the wall, and get an idea of what might be coming. We also ought to be able to figure out the implications of one-party rule. We're seeing the damage it can do in just a very short time. I shudder to think how much worse it can get by January 2023. Thank God much of that time will be spent campaigning.
Now, at the same time, we have to set aside party-line partisanship. It may drive you nuts to think of having an R or a D in any office, depending on which side of the fence you've got your heels dug into. But think about it: did the fact that the last mayor of your city was from the party you despise really screw up your life? No? Then stop grousing about the outcome of that race and get on with your life, and focus on the stuff that really matters. I'll give you a hint, as a head start: blind partisanship for its own sake isn't among that stuff. Policy, that which affects you and your fellow citizens, IS that stuff.
So here's what it comes down to. Remember when Californians went to the polls to decide whether to retain Gavin Newsom as their Governor? Now, Newsom is a telegenic guy if ever there was one. He was running against Larry Elder, not the best-looking guy in the world, and Caitlyn Jenner, who ... well, I won't even go there.
Ultimately, California voted to keep Newsom. (That makes it sound like a decision to keep a pit bull that won't stop biting the neighbors, which is actually a pretty good analogy.) Or, as one of my friends rather bluntly put it, California said, "Govern me harder."
But is that the message Californians really sent at the ballot box? I'd argue that it's not.
Instead, Californians said, "I want looters to be able to run into the Nordstrom's in Walnut Creek with crowbars and guns, and steal as much stuff as they can carry out. I don't really care if it terrorizes the store clerks to the point that they decide to quit their jobs, or if it means that retailers have to raise prices so that I have to pay more for the stuff I buy. And the same goes for the high-end stores in Beverly Hills."
"I'd like to see the suburban shopping malls ringed with concertina wire." That's another recent development in the "Golden" State.
"I want CVS and Walgreen's to pull out of downtown San Francisco, even if it means little old ladies have to risk getting mugged because they now have to walk twenty blocks to get their arthritis scripts refilled. Better that than enforce shoplifting laws." The San Francisco DA is also facing a recall election. It'll be interesting to see how he fares.
"I like the idea of playing 'chase' with the gang-bangers in LA, having them follow me home from the store and try to break into my house and steal my stuff. It'll be like a video game. Don't worry, I'll be a good little witness. I'll even show 'em where I keep the good silver. They probably won't shoot my kids in their sleep." The actor Seth Rogen recently said - publicly - that this is just life in a big city, and people should get over it.
"I don't want to be able to mow my lawn with a gas mower anymore." That was a unilateral decision made by Newsom not long after he was retained in the recall vote: a ban on gas mowers in California, effective in a couple of years. But I'll bet they use gas machinery in his Napa Valley vineyard.
When voters in Wisconsin pulled the lever for Gov. Tony Evers, they said, "Why should Minneapolis get all the attention? We want riots in Kenosha, too! And we want Tony to stand up to the Bad Orange Man and refuse the National Guard, even if it means that teenage kids with AR-15s have to defend local businesses. We'll just count on the mainstream media to label those kids as white supremacists, and surely they'll be found guilty of murder, especially if the media leans on the jurors a little."
And, "We don't want restrictive bail laws. We're a progressive state. So what if a guy has a long history of breaking the law, including violent crime and even trying run someone over with his car? What's he gonna do, drive through a downtown Christmas parade or something. Ha! Ya, hey dere!"
Finally, when people marked their ballot for Biden and Harris, they weren't voting for those two. (Actually, most of them were voting against Trump more than for Biden. Biden couldn't even beat Bernie Sanders in the primaries without a lot of help from the Party Machine. And Harris was the ultimate identity politics pick, who had to bail on the 2020 Presidential campaign before the primaries even began, so unpopular was she among her own party's voters.) But no, they were actually saying this:
"I want a couple million immigrants a year to cross our borders illegally - I don't care from where - and I want them to bring all the fentanyl they can carry. Never mind whether they have a criminal record, are on a terror watch list, or have covid."
"I want to pay $3.40 a gallon for gas, not $2.15 a gallon. And while I'm at it, my Thanksgiving dinners have been way too cheap. I want to show how thankful I really am, by paying more for Thanksgiving dinner (and everything else) than I ever have."
"I want to have to wait to get the things I order for my kids for Christmas, or for that treadmill I bought. And I want to not be able to find what I need at the store. The Soviet Union shouldn't be the only nation in history that had bread lines."
"I want 13 of our finest to be killed due to incompetent military leadership, and I'm okay with innocent kids being killed in an errant drone strike."
"I want us to keep spending money until there's nothing left to spend, and if that means I get audited by the IRS, that's okay - I'm fine paying more in taxes, even though I only make $55,000 a year."
Now, you could argue, of course, that someone who voted for Trump voted for an insurrection. I'm okay with that, if you want to define an "insurrection" as a bunch of unorganized yahoos traipsing through the Capitol, taking selfies, all the while escorted by Capitol police, like so many docents guiding a rowdy tour group.
Or that they voted for more mean tweets. God, how I miss the mean tweets.
But they also voted for a strong economy. Cheap gas and energy independence. Low inflation. Secure borders. A President unafraid to answer questions, and who doesn't need note cards to do it, and will take them from any reporter. Who isn't told by his handlers what to do and say, and who to answer to, and when to turn his back on reporters and walk off stage. A President who has the respect of our allies and our enemies alike. Who has respect for our military, and for law enforcement.
A Vice President who doesn't cackle at the most inappropriate times. Who actually has a grasp of the issues such that he can intelligently answer a question. That doesn't embarrass us on the world stage. That, when tasked with handling a problem, doesn't avoid it instead. That doesn't need staged photo-ops with paid child actors to appear approachable and relatable.
So in 2022 and 2024, remember that you're not voting for the whom, but for the what. Don't focus on "the smiling face on your TV," because one and one does not make three. The mirror may speak, but the reflection too often lies.
Toward the end of the song, the lyrics speak this truth: "You gave me power in your own God's name." Don't forget that; they have no power but what you give them, and what you give, you can take back. Above all else, especially don't forget these words:
"You don't have to follow me,
Only you can set you free."
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