THE TYGRRRR EXPRESS

8/23/23 GOP Debate

Rich men North of Richmond question.

Ron DeSantis: Reverse Bidenomics

Chris Christie: I was a conservative Republican in a blue state. Truth and accountability. 

Tim Scott: I vote against spending packages in the Senate. Biden caused inflation.

Vivek Ramaswamy: I’m not a politician. I’m an entrepreneur. Politicians run from something. I’m running to something. 

Nikki Haley: Biden didn’t ’t do this to us. Our Republicans did this to us too. They passed trillions in spending. Trump added 8 trillion to the debt. I think it’s time for an accountant in the White House.

Mike Pence: I’m very proud of the Trump-Pence record. I’m the best prepared, most tested, most qualified proven conservative in this race. 

Ramaswamy: Declare war on the federal administrative state. 

Pence: I balanced budgets and cut taxes. Now is not the time for on the job training. 

DeSantis: We were wrong to lock down the country during Covid. Fauci should have been fired. 

Ramaswamy: Do you want a Super Pac puppet or a patriot who speaks the truth?

Doug Burgum: The economy, energy and national security are all tied together. 1.2 trillion dollars of green new deal spending in the IRA is subsidizing China. Solar panels are produced in China in a factory run by coal.

Asa Hutchinson: I’m a pro-life governor. We shrunk the size of government. 

MAUI and climate change:

DeSantis: I’ve handled real crises as Governor.

Ramaswamy: The climate change agenda is a hoax. More people are dying of bad climate change policies than climate change.

Christie: Ramaswamy sounds like Chat GPT. 

Haley: Invoked Margaret Thatcher. Climate change is real. China and India have to lower their emissions. 

Scott: This is childish. America can do for anyone what she has done for me. Bring jobs home from China.

ABORTION:

Haley: A federal ban would require the House and 60 Senate votes. We need consensus.

DeSantis: We had the biggest election landslide in Florida history. Abortion didn’t hurt us. Democrats favor abortion up until birth. Different states have different approaches. 

Pence: I’ve been a champion for life. Consensus is the opposite of leadership. A ban after 15 weeks is appropriate. 

Burgum: No federal abortion ban. 10th Amendment. Get the feds out of our lives. 

Hutchinson: It’s ok to address abortion at the federal level. 

Scott: We cannot let California, New York and Illinois have abortion on demand until birth. That’s immoral. A 15 week abortion ban at the federal level is appropriate. Our creator gave us inalienable rights including life.

Haley: Ask Biden and Harris if they favor 38, 39 or 40 weeks.

CRIME and HOMELESSNESS:

Pence: Blame Democrats and the defund the police movement. The Trump-Pence tax cuts expire in 2025 if we don’t elect a GOP president. Shut down the Department of Education. 

Christie: I ran a US Attorney’s office. Woke prosecutors are refusing to do their jobs. I’d hire an AG who would have the 93 US Attorneys prosecute violent crime at the federal level. Joe Biden sponsored the 10 year mandatory minimum for gun felonies that Hunter committed.

Ramaswamy: More cops. We have a mental health epidemic. More mental health institutions. People are hungry for purpose and meaning. We will stand for the rule of law. 

Pence: We are not looking for a new national identity. We need government as good as its people. 

Ramaswamy: We are in a dark time. 

DeSantis: Crime is at a 50 year low in Florida. George Soros funds radical leftist DAs. I fired Soros DAs. 

Burgum: In small towns, neighbors help neighbors. I understand small town values. 

Hutchinson: Enforce the law. More addiction counseling. Trump has undermined the law by attacking judges. 

TRUMP:

if Trump is convicted, would you still support him as the nominee? Hutchinson and Christie said no.

Christie: Trump’s conduct is beneath the dignity of the USA. 

Ramaswamy: Trump was the best president of the 21st century. Christie’s campaign is based on vengeance against Trump. 

Christie: Trump disrespected the Constitution. 

Scott: Pence did the right thing by certifying the 2020 election. Fire Merrick Garland and Christopher Wray. Only 17% of Republicans have confidence in our DoJ. 

DeSantis: This election is not about January 6, 2021. It’s about January 20, 2025. My military service taught me to focus on the mission at hand. 

Pence: I kept my oath to the Constitution that day. There is no higher importance. 

DeSantis: Mike did his duty, but let’s move on. 

Hutchinson: Trump is morally disqualified from the White House again due to January 6th. Hutchinson referenced the “insurrection” and invoked the 14th Amendment argument (which has been debunked). 

Christie: Mike Pence stood for the Constitution. He deserves our thanks for putting the USA above his personal ambition and pressure. 

Haley: Pence did the right thing. The American people should decide if Trump is fit to be in charge again. We need a new generational leader. We can’t win a general election with the most disliked politician in American.

Burgum: Pence was right. Talking about Trump takes time away from talking about China.

Ramaswamy: I’d pardon Trump. 

Pence: I put the Constitution first and I always will. Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election in 2024 when we win. 

UKRAINE: 

DeSantis: Europe is not pulling their weight.

Ramaswamy: An invasion of another nation nowhere near us is not our problem. Stop worshiping Pope Zelensky. 

Christie: Trump called Putin brilliant. We must stand up against an autocratic killer. 

Pence: The leader of the free world must lead. The Reagan Doctrine said we fight Communism on their soil. If we give up Ukraine, Putin will advance on a NATO nation. Putin is a dictator and a murderer. 

Ramaswamy: The real threat we face is Communist China. Ukraine is not a priority for the USA. 

Haley: The world needs to know the difference between right and wrong. Only 3% of our budget has gone to Ukraine. A win for Russia is a win for China. Vivek wants to hand Taiwan to China. He wants to stop funding Israel. 

Ramaswamy: Nikki is on the board of Lockheed and Raytheon. 

Haley: Ramaswamy has no foreign policy experience and it shows. 

Ramaswamy: I love Israel’s border and tough on crime policies. 

Haley: America needs Israel. They are a middle East Bulwark.

DeSantis: No troops to Ukraine. 

CHINA: 

Burgum: Russia is China’s gas station. China imports 10 million barrels of gas per day. Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal emboldened China. 

Scott: Our most pressing safety issue is the Southern border because of Fentanyl. Finish the border wall. 

Burgum: Losing 300 people per day due to overdoses.

SOUTHERN BORDER:

Hutchinson: Border patrol can use lethal force if necessary. Bring in Mexico as a partner. Use economic pressure. After 9/11, we launched the Global war on Terror and protected the Southern border.

DeSantis: I’ll send the military and special forces into Mexico to kill the cartels. 

Pence: We secured the Southern border and reduced illegal immigration by 90%. Biden let everyone in. I negotiated the wall funding and the Remain in Mexico policy. We got the Mexicans to deploy their National Guard to their Southern border. 

Christie: We have to have law and order in this country. We can’t reward people who came illegally. Those who came illegally must be sent back. 

EDUCATION:

DeSantis: We need education and not indoctrination. Lockdowns hurt our kids. I brought back civics in Florida. 

Ramaswamy: This is the civil rights issue of our time. Stop paying single women to have children. Eliminate the Department of Education.

Burgum: Not every school is indoctrinating kids. II go to the schools and sit in and personally observe. Give states block grants for education. 

Haley: We have to get kids reading. We need reading remediation. Parents should have school choice. Put vocational lasses back in high school. Biological boys don’t belong in girls locker rooms. 

MENTAL PRESIDENTIAL FITNESS TEST FOR OLD PEOPLE:

Pence: We don’t need a president who is too old or too young. We need someone who knows how the government works. School choice for all parents. 

Ramaswamy: The people can separate a thinking person from an automaton. 

Hutchinson: We need more computer science education. Every school must offer this. This is how we compete with China. 

FAITH:

Scott: America is founded on Judeo-Christian values. Break the backs of the teachers unions. 

MANDATORY MILITARY SERVICE:

DeSantis: I served, but service should be voluntary. Being president is about the mission, not the individual.

UFO ENCOUNTERS:

Christie: Joked that Marsha MacCallum is from New Jersey, which is why he got the UFO question. The president has to always level with the American people always. I went after the teachers unions, they are the biggest threat to kids, not UFOs. 

CLOSING STATEMENTS: 

Burgum: Biden’s inflation is choking us. Our cities are less safe. Our economy is being crushed by Biden. I’ll secure the border and get this economy sprinting. Innovation, not regulation. We win the cold war with China by growing our economy. 

Hutchinson: Our nation is in trouble because of failed leadership. The solution is not Biden or Trump. A president’s number one responsibility is to bring out the best of our people. 

Scott: The American dream is alive, well and healthy. If you take out a loan, you pay it back. If you commit a violent crime, you go to jail. If you’re born a man, you play sports with men. 

Christie: I’m the only one on this stage who beat a Democrat incumbent in an election. The truth and accountability matter. 

Haley: My  husband is in Afghanistan there. We must protect America here. We will put transparency in classrooms, secure the border, and back our law enforcement. 

Pence: Biden has weakened America at home and abroad. The Afghanistan withdrawal, the war on energy, the border, etc. Proven leadership at the national level. God is not done with America. 

Ramswamy: We were taught to celebrate diversity rather than Americans bound by a common set of ideals. God is real, 2 genders, fossil fuels are a requirement for human prosperity, parents determine the education of their children, the nuclear family is great, 3 branches of government not 4, the Constitution is supreme. 

Desantis: We will send Biden back to his basement and reverse the decline. 

My recent encounter with a random individual in a Missouri bathroom will last in my memory bank forever. The person has most likely already forgotten me, but they will never be forgotten. In the 15 to 30 seconds we interacted, life lessons were taught and learned. Memories came flooding back. My own biases were as clear as my reflection staring back at me from that bathroom mirror.

 

After washing my hands and preparing to exit the restroom, the other person walked in. To my horror, a woman had just entered the men’s bathroom. My first reaction was panic. Was this the women’s bathroom? Admitting error was out of the question. My words were defiant, telling this young female that “This is the men’s room!” The conversation quickly deteriorated when the equally defiant teenage woman said “I’m a man.”

 

This had all the makings of a nightmarish transgender conversation. Whatever one feels about transgender issues, a public restaurant washroom is not going to be the place where every divisive social issue gets solved. However one feels about gender pronouns, a bathroom is a place to engage in unmentionable activities, wash your hands, and leave. Arguing about gender was not going to solve the problem. My one-word perplexed question to this individual was a simple “What?” This brought a response that left me dumbfounded at myself.

 

“I am a man. I have long hair.”

 

Color me gobsmacked. This had nothing to do with transgenderism, pronouns, or other terms that barely existed before 2015. This was an issue as old as time itself. I mistook a boy for a girl simply because the teenage boy had long hair.

 

After apologizing to the boy twice and even thrice, all I could meekly muster to say was that, “When I was 21, my hair was longer than yours.” Who was I kidding? My hair was longer several months ago.

 

Kids do sometimes turn into their parents, but I had just turned into my late grandfather. All I needed was a Yiddish accent and a rolled-up newspaper to chase hooligans away.

 

My grandfather was an old-school Eastern European immigrant who fled the Holocaust and spoke broken English. He never accepted that boys could have long hair. In the 1980s and early 1990s, he would introduce me to his friends with the sarcastic taunt of, “This is Eric. He’s my new granddaughter.”

 

When my hair went from shoulder length to mid-back, he told me that I looked like a “Calderone.” The man spoke five languages, but Italian was not one of them. Calderone sounded Italian. My father intervened and spoke to my grandfather in Yiddish. My father explained to his father that a Calderone was a person, not a thing. After impatiently inquiring who this Calderone guy was, my father replied, “Your grandfather says you look like the drug dealer on Miami Vice.” At least that drug dealer was male.

 

Eventually I explained to my grandfather that “The hair does not make you sell the drugs. I have long hair. I don’t do drugs.” While he never accepted my long hair, he did eventually accept that my Y chromosome existed. My gender was male, without ambiguity.

 

In the 1980s, guys with long hair were either in a rock band or they were transients. A young stoned teenager on the Santa Monica Third Street Promenade once remarked to me that my “third album sucked.” My anger quickly subsided when my friends reminded me that I was never in a band. At least this guy who hated my non-existent music understood that cool guys had long hair.

 

Misgendering has existed ever since society decided that men had to have short hair and women had to have long hair.

 

Beyond that, not every conflict is due to raging political issues of the day. Occam’s Razor is still valid. The simplest explanation is often the truthful one.

 

To anyone who has ever been misgendered, join my club. It happens to the best of us.

 

Now to flout society’s conventions and grow my hair long again, because I can. At age 51, I’m old enough to remember when that truly was an act of rebellion.

 

I hope the Missouri kid keeps his hair long for as long as he wants without further hassles.

 

Whether you believe there are two genders or two hundred of them, one thing is as clear as the Cowsills: I’m a guy, and “There ain’t no words for the beauty and the splendor, the wonder of my hair!”

Liberals created and keep fueling the MAGA movement

 

Donald Trump’s third straight presidential run has conservatives split between “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) die-hards and those singing Bob Seger’s “Turn the page.” Liberals uniformly oppose Trump for a litany of reasons. Many liberals see Mr. Trump as Frankenstein’s monster. These liberals fail to realize this makes them Frankenstein. They created Trump, nurtured him, and continue eight years later to feed, fuel and motivate him and his MAGA movement.

 

Understanding Trump’s initial rise requires returning to 2011. Governor Mitt Romney cleaned President Barack Obama’s clock in their first presidential debate. The Obama team realized a positive reelection campaign like Ronald Reagan’s 1984 “Morning in America” or Bill Clinton’s 1996 “Bridge to the 21^st Century” would fail during tough economic times.

 

Romney was like Mr. Rogers, only nicer. Obama’s team successfully painted polite Midwesterner Romney as a racist, sexist, heartless, plutocratic vulture capitalist who enjoyed firing people. Obama verbally decked Romney and punched his way to a second term.

 

Romney and Senator John McCain before him pulled punches out of fear of blowback from criticizing America’s first partially black president. With Hillary Clinton in 2016, Republicans faced the same quandary.

 

Republicans needed a street brawler. Rudy Giuliani underperformed in 2008.  New Jersey’s Chris Christie underwhelmed in 2012. Both opted out in 2016. Only Donald Trump remained.

 

Republicans overlooked Trump’s behavior because he was a ferocious counter-puncher. No blow was out of bounds. Rosie O’Donnell started a feud with him for laughs. He made her cry.

 

Trump’s campaign was also a fist in the eyes of smug late-night comedians. Seth Meyers roasted Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, calling him a “joke.” John Oliver dared Trump to run. Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel ridiculed him. They stopped laughing after he won.

 

Yet the biggest gift American liberals gave Trump was a clear policy lane. His undisciplined personal style aside, Trump was remarkably disciplined on policy. Voters felt economic angst, and Trump repeatedly hammered the same two themes of trade and immigration he had addressed for over 30 years.

 

Democrats focused on social issues. Voters understood at the time that abortion was legal and gay marriage was law of the land. Climate change registered at the bottom of opinion surveys.

 

On election day, Trump campaigned in Wisconsin. Hillary partied with A-list celebrities. Trump’s victory equated to “Caddyshack” Rodney Dangerfield defeating Ted Knight’s Judge Smails. The slobs defeated the snobs.

 

Eight years later, many Democrats still have not learned. Some prop Trump up under the belief he cannot win. More plausibly, they cannot ignore him. The more President Joe Biden’s approval languishes, the more Democrats frighten voters with “Orange Man Bad.”

 

Democrats mock Trump, his policies, and worst of all, his voters. Indicting Trump and raiding his Mar-A-Lago home under flimsy charges emboldens him. He successfully paints his critics as wacky conspiracy theorists who insist he is a Russian spy. His supporters rush to defend him when he claims, “They’re not after me. They’re after you. I’m just in the way.” Most Trump voters are not racists, sexists, conspiracy theorists or insurrectionists. They just want a better life.

 

Democrats created MAGA by condescendingly dismissing Trump voters as society’s filthy dregs. Trump reminded these voters that their lives also matter.

 

With spiraling inflation, food and fuel prices, and crime, Democrats need better answers than blaming Trump. Even those questioning his policy prescriptions concede that at least he has them. Democrats attacking voters as Gaea-killing transphobes give Trump his opening.

 

Had Democrats sacrificed Obama’s identity politics, Romney may have served two very moderate terms. Flaming culture wars would have been on the back burner of a quiet, non-controversial technocratic administration.  Trump would have spent a decade building bigger, better golf courses.

 

A 2024 Trump win would again be by default. He can win if enough voters believe Democrats, as in 2016, remain indifferent to their survival.