Thoughts on a Sunday morning

I haven't kept track of the number of Republican candidates for the office of President in 2024. Not that it matters. Soon they will start dropping out one by one. DeSantis has plateaued and is on his way down. Christie, who is my choice for the Republican nominee is last in the polls, I believe largely because he is taking the wrong strategy. You don't win by attacking Trump. Doing that just provides more fodder for his followers. I don't think that there is a strategy that would influence the Trump faithful. They're not interested in truth. What they want to hear is rhetoric that supports what they want to believe. Civility, reason and objective thinking have no part in the present political climate.  

All Trump has to do is say something, anything, whether it makes sense or not and the faithful nod their heads, wave their arms and erupt in wild agreement. He proclaims that the ballots were fake, the election was rigged and the crowd shouts in angry agreement. He says that "I am being indicted for you" (this is a characteristic of the Savior/Jesus Complex) and the crowd becomes wildly indignant. As for all the noise being made about his present legal issues, I think it is just that...noise, that will fizzle out and disappear.  

On November 18, 1978 James Jones, an American preacher who moved his temple from San Francisco to Jonestown, Guyana called on his followers to commit mass suicide before killing himself. Authorities found 909 bodies; men, women and children. How to explain the hold that Jones had on his followers? What would happen if Trump told his followers to arm themselves and march on the Department of Justice? Sounds far-fetched...until you consider that many on the far right are calling the present divisiveness in the country a cultural 'war', and there were cries to "hang Pence" during the January 6th insurrection, as well as self-proclaimed freedom fighters decked out in tactical clothing with weapons in the crowd.

My guess is that the names on the ballot in 2024 will be Biden/Harris and Trump/?. Margorie Greene is working awful hard to ingratiate herself to Trump, McCarthy and others. She is such a loose cannon that I doubt if even Trump would select her as a running mate but I wouldn't be shocked if it happens.

Another four years of Biden/Harris concerns me. The blatant moves toward socialism are upsetting. I don't want to see student loans forgiven. I don't want to see illegal immigrants coddled. I don't want to pay reparations to blacks whose ancestors were slaves. Most of all I don't want to see Biden die or be unable to perform his duties. In a Kamala Harris administration there would be no room for straight white male conservatives. Her whole deal is apologizing to minorities of all flavors. 

As I stroll through antique/junk shops I continue to look for a Barry Goldwater campaign button. I voted for him 60 years ago in 1964 and as it stands now he'll get my vote in 2024.