On August 8, 2022, the FBI executed a search warrant and conducted what is generally described as a raid on Donald J. Trump’s residence at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach Florida. It has been a big deal news story since the event. Lefties celebrate it as a triumph of law and order, vindication of their years long campaign to discredit, disqualify and disparage the 45th President of the United States, and the death knell of Trump’s nascent run for a second term. Righties are outraged (appropriation of left wing social/political culture) at the dual standards of justice and harassment of their hero. As usual, pundits miss the obvious.
A Brilliant Strategy
The raid was a masterstroke by Democrats, whose potential 2024 candidates for President are comically weak (e.g. Harris, Buttigieg, Newsom, Warren, Sanders, O’Rourke). They are hopelessly outmatched by the non-Trump Republican hopefuls (e.g. DeSantis, Abbott, Noem, Tim Scott, Haley, Pompeo). By far the Democrats’ best hope for ’24 is to face Donald Trump, who would inspire fierce support and opposition from the right and left, and who would almost certainly lose the middle.
Love him or hate him or both, Donald Trump is predictable. Among other predictable behavioral traits is his utter inability to let a gauntlet lie where it has been thrown. A pugilist obsessed with “winning”, he cannot put aside his ego to pursue a greater good. If he were to pick a Republican candidate to support, be consistent in that support, and settle for the role of elder statesman-kingmaker-policy driver, he would be the primary force behind an historical shift of power in the direction of more restrained government. He cannot do that.
Tin Pot Bananas
In early 2010, after the financial collapse and election of extreme liberal progressive Obama (the former having significantly contributed to the latter), my wife and I purchased property in Panama and commenced the process of obtaining permanent residency status. We gained that status in 2012 and moved to Panama full time in 2014. The idea was to have a second home outside the US and a right of entry to which we could flee when the US collapsed economically and politically.
Panama was the choice largely because the president (Martinelli) was a businessman focused on economic development, vastly improved infrastructure and a market driven economy. He was also corrupt (it could not be otherwise in Latin America), taking massive bribes from developers and government contractors. He lost his reelection campaign to an equally corrupt member of one of the traditional ruling families (Varela).
During Varela’s five-year term, he did absolutely nothing to facilitate economic, political, and social progress. He spent 100% of his time attempting to imprison his predecessor. After three years of living full time in Panama, we gave up trying to work long distance and returned to living primarily in the US. We still have our permanent residency status and some property in Panama, but we have given up on that country’s future.
The US political establishment is at least as corrupt as any in Latin America, but the stakes are much higher and the politicians are far more subtle and sophisticated.
The Biden administration’s obsession with destroying Trump and eliminating him from future efforts to hold Federal office, are indistinguishable from our Martinelly/Varela Panama story.
Joe Biden is the Big Banana all right (or “Big Guy” if you like) – and he wears a tin (foil) hat.
The United States is no longer a republic. I will discuss what it is in future posts.
