Mars, Venus and Planet Earth

I have written several times over the years about the strong liberal leanings that are evident in the voting patterns of young, single women in the United States.

This liberal bias is even more pronounced when comparing women to men among the college educated.

Single, young white females typically vote Democrat at least 2/3 of the time according to most exit polls in recent years.

Unmarried women of all ages and races voted 68%-31% for the Democrat in House races in 2022.

Married women overall voted 56%-42% for Republicans.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/election/2022/exit-polls/national-results/house

I came across an interesting article by John Burn-Murdoch in The Financial Times recently that looks at the gender divide issue from a wider global perspective.

It seems that the United States is not the only country that is seeing a widening gap between increasingly liberal political views among its young women compared to its men.

There is no country that this gap is larger than in South Korea.

Source: https://www.ft.com/content/29fd9b5c-2f35-41bf-9d4c-994db4e12998

The data also seems to suggest that as the young women in a society move to the left politically the young men are moving to the right.

What is also interesting is that this ideological gap has almost totally come about within the last 10-15 years.

This divergence in views based on gender is something we have never seen before.  Shifts in political ideology have historically moved generationally as all members of a generation share the same general formative experiences and reach significant milestones at the same stages of life. 

John Gray did not know how right he was when he wrote his best selling book over 20 years ago.

Young men and women truly seem as if they are living on different planets today.

However, what is now causing young men and women of the same generation, who have grown up together, gone to school together and now work together have such diametrically opposed political views?

In previous blog posts I hypothesized that young, single women in the United States have become more liberal politically than their male counterparts due to two factors.

1) an innate need for security that pushes them to support large government safety net programs

2) a need to belong that is provided by the large number of "causes" that make up the progressive agenda

It can be argued that both of these are the result of the fact that there are now more young, unmarried women than we have ever had in history.

In fact, the most recent Census Bureau data indicates that 29% of all mid-life adults today(age 30-49) have never been married.

That is almost twice what it was in the year 2000 and over four times what it was in 1970.

Source: https://www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resources/data/family-profiles/marino-geographic-variation-percentage-mid-life-never-marrried-adults-2021-fp-23-13.html

The numbers are even higher for those under age 35.

And higher still for college educated, young women who vastly outnumber college educated, young men making it even more challenging to find a marriage partner.

During the Black Lives Matter and Antifa protests of 2020 I made the observation that a large percentage of the protestors were young, white, single women.

In fact, they vastly outnumbered the protestors who were Black.

It defied logic.

How was defunding the police or emptying prisons going to make single women feel more secure?

The same can be said for several more of the larger liberal, progressive causes of today.

How is allowing a biological male to use a women's restroom going to make her feel safer?

How does allowing biological males to compete with females in athletics advance the opportunities for women?

Is there any group today that feels more lonely, is more misunderstood and wants to belong than young, single, college-educated white women? 

Many have no man in their life. There are no children or likely prospects that marriage or children will occur soon due to the imbalance between male and female college graduates. They live in rental apartments in large cities leading hectic, anonymous lives with little sense of community and huge sums of student loan debt.

They have no family of their own or children they belong with. They can belong with a "cause".

On the other side of the planet, what is driving the enormous ideological political chasm between young men and women in South Korea?

It appears to involve an explosion of young, single women in that country.

42.5% of people in their 30's in South Korea are unmarried. That is up 13.3 percentage points compared to just 10 years ago.

Most troubling in South Korea is that the institution of marriage does not seem to be of much interest to either men or women anymore. Only one-third have a positive view of marriage.

Source: https://www.wionews.com/world/south-koreans-losing-interest-in-marriage-report-finds-630642

Of those who still look at marriage positively, the majority are men.

Only 28% of women viewed marriage positively in South Korea.

The attitudes on marriage have even given rise to a new word in Korean---"bihon"---which describes someone who has willingly chosen to be single.

A subset of young South Korean women have taken it a step further and started a women's movement based on four NO's. (Hat tip to Alex Berenson for pointing me to this info).

NO to dating

NO to sex with men

NO to marriage

NO to childbirth

What could go wrong?

In a country in which cultural norms do not look kindly on out of wedlock births, the effect of what is going on in South Korea on that nation's birth rate is predictable.'

Fewer marriages means there are fewer babies being born in South Korea.

South Korea now has the lowest birth rate in the world.

The total fertility rate (TFR) is .72 and is expected to go even lower. A 2.1 rate is considered necessary to maintain a stable population meaning each woman would, on average, give birth to 2.1 children during her lifetime. 

North Korea's TFR is estimated at 1.79, still below replacement, but well more than double that of the South. 

North Korean leader Kim Jung Un recently told women in that country that it is their national duty to have more children to strengthen its national power.

The reality is that if the North's birth rate goes up, and the South's continues to fall, Kim Jung Un's heirs might conquer the South without firing a single shot or missile. After all, demography is destiny.

My theory is that the same fundamentals that I believe are behind the move to liberalism in the United States also applies to young women in South Korea.

High rates of young, unmarried women drives an innate desire for security that they see as being provided by big government and the lack of a mate and children means there is a need to "belong" to something. That includes belonging to a movement based on NO's.

However, what explains the apparent movement of young men to conservatism?

On his Twitter feed, John Burn-Murdoch, offers two theories.

The first is that young men are just reacting negatively to the "wokeism" in young women.

He calls it "negative polarisation".

"If you are going to be woke, I am going to be anti-woke."

This ideological polarization that Burn-Murdoch describes is not a positive sign when it comes to getting more men and women together in marriage either.'

A study done in 2020 that was reported in The Hill found that only 3.6% of marriages in the United States included a Democrat and a Republican. That is less than half the number of mixed race marriages in the United States! It is pretty incredible to think that it is more likely to have a mixed race marriage than to find a Republican and Democrat married to each other today.

Only about 17% of marriages have a Democrat or Republican and an Independent. In other words, about 80% of marriages involve partners who have similar political views. (Hat tip again to Alex Berenson for referencing this study in a recent Substack).

Burn-Murdoch's second theory is that this ideological divide is caused by social media  where young women and men increasingly inhabit different parts of that world and rarely are exposed to each other.and any divergent views.

We really have created a Mars and Venus without leaving planet Earth.

What is my take from all of this?

I wrote the following words exactly one year ago today in a blog post titled "The Natural Order Has Become Disordered". that was looking at the political divide between young men and women and single and married women in the United States.

There is one fundamental truth that underlies all of this.

Women who are married and those with children are much happier than those who are single or who do not have children.

One final factoid that gets us back to where we started.

Women who are married are much, much happier than women who are single.

Women who have had children are also happier than those who are childless. 

Contrast the percentage of women who say they are "very happy" at all ages between those married with children and those unmarried and childless.

Why is it a problem that there are so many single people in the United States today?

Why is it a problem that the birth rates have been dropping for years?

These are both having the effect of further destabilizing our society by interfering with the necessary social and relationship infrastructure.

Human beings are social animals.

They need meaningful human connections and relationships in their lives to thrive.

In families. In friendships. In day to day life.

God established a natural order in his design for humans to live happy and fulfilled lives

Men and Women each bringing their unique gifts to society.

Marriage and commitment between men and women.

Children born of those unions.

Families supporting each other.

Supportive friends and communities built on a bedrock of values, beliefs and faith.

Do you want to know why everything seems off these days?

The natural order has become unordered.

Don't take my word for it.

What do the facts and data say about it?

It does not matter if it is the United States, South Korea or some other place else on Planet Earth.

There is a natural order and it has become disordered.

The disorder has affected single, young women the most.

However, the effects have the potential to erode the most fundamental underpinnings of society.

There are those that think the greatest risk to Planet Earth is climate change.

Think again.

The Illusion of Prosperity

Last week's GDP numbers came in at what looked like an impressive 3.3% annual rate for the fourth quarter, 2023 in the United States.

The mainstream media fell all over themselves trumpeting the news.

CNN called it "shockingly robust"

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/25/economy/fourth-quarter-gdp/index.html

U.S. News and World Report referred to "boom" times.

The New York Times said that the U.S. economy "continues to defy expectations."

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/25/briefing/us-economy-growth-north-korea-threats.html

MSNBC reported that Biden-era economic growth exceeded all expectations.

Source: https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/biden-era-economic-growth-exceeds-expectations-yet-rcna135690

What I am having a difficult time understanding is that in light of these GDP numbers how is it that polling shows the American people have a very negative view about the condition of the economy?

Gallup's polling on economic confidence in December, 2023 showed that 45% believed the economic conditions in the U.S. were poor and another 33% believed that conditions were only fair.

Just 3% described economic conditions as excellent.

Source: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1609/consumer-views-economy.aspx

Gallup's Economic Confidence Index is at one the lowest levels it has been in the last 30 years.

It has been in negative territory almost the entirety of the Biden administration.

Source: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1609/consumer-views-economy.aspx

How can there be this large of a disconnect between what the government numbers say and what the American people believe?

This is of particular interest in this case because GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is supposed to be the best indicator of the health of a nation's economy and its prosperity in that it is the sum total of the value of all the goods and services produced during a specific period.

All of this is better understood in considering the basic formula for how GDP is calculated.

The best analysis and explantation as to why the GDP number looks good on paper, but it is not being felt by the American people, is the fact that private consumption (by individuals and private sector businesses) is lagging while government expenditures are exploding.

You can see this graphically in this chart by E.J Antoni that shows that in the GDP numbers Government Expenditures (the G in the formula above) has exceeded Personal Consumption Expenditures (the C in the formula above) in each of the last six quarters.

That is not the way it is supposed to work in a growing, healthy economy.

The bottom line is that the federal government increased federal debt by $834 billion in the fourth quarter but that only resulted in an overall total increase in GDP of $328 billion.

 

Put another way, there is a big difference when the private sector borrows and invests in plants, equipment and inventories that have an expected future return and when government borrows to mainly fulfill past political promises.

There is a lot of waste and leakage between the amounts borrowed and it becoming real added value in the economy.

And the federal government has been borrowing like no tomorrow since the debt ceiling limit was suspended in June,2023.

As I pointed out in an earlier blog post, borrowings have been the single largest revenue source for the federal government over the last six months.

You can see below how the $834 billion of federal borrowings in the 4th Q fiscal quarter dwarfed other revenue sources.

In just eight months since the federal debt ceiling was suspended, federal debt has increased almost $3 trillion.

Credit: https://twitter.com/RealEJAntoni/status/1750987793663135854

Each dollar of borrowing will also require more and more interest to be paid on that debt in the future that will be a further drag on economic activity.

Antoni believes that given the current trend in government spending, GDP, price indices and interest rates we could possibly see interest costs on the federal debt go from $1 trillion currently to $3 trillion by 2030.

Even if indexed for inflation, the $1 trillion could become $2 trillion. That is close to the what is currently collected in total individual income taxes per year.

It is hard not to conclude that all of this borrowing and government spending is just providing an illusion of prosperity in the GDP numbers.

Everyone in the mainstream media and the D.C. bureaucracy thinks everything is great.

It seems that only everyday Americans realize that something is seriously amiss.

Beware the illusion of prosperity.

Truth and Lies

Exactly four years ago today I wrote a blog post about a mysterious and deadly virus that had gripped the Chinese city of Wuhan.

At that point, only five cases of the virus that would eventually be named Covid-19, had been identified in the United States.

It would be the first of almost 200 blog posts I would write about Covid over the next several years.

When I wrote that initial blog post it was suggested that the virus originated in a wet market in Wuhan in which bats and other unauthorized animals had been sold.

However, even at that early date in January, 2020, I reported that I was troubled that the outbreak could very possibly be traced to a Chinese biolab in Wuhan that was known to be studying the highest risk pathogens in the world.

More troubling are reports that this virus may have escaped from a Chinese biolab that is located in Wuhan and was involved in studying the highest risk pathogens in the world.

U.S. scientists were worried about the risks that pathogens like this could escape from facilities like this one as evidenced by this article in The Scientist back in 2015.

As a result, the United States ceased funding any of this "gain-of-function" research back in 2013 because it determined the risk of creating a pandemic was much greater than any information gained from the research.

It is worthwhile to note that at that time this decision was made there was research being done in the U.S. on an engineered coronavirus. Note as well where the surface protein came for that virus.

Ralph Baric, an infectious-disease researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, last week (November 9) published a study on his team’s efforts to engineer a virus with the surface protein of the SHC014 coronavirus, found in horseshoe bats in China, and the backbone of to one that causes human-like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in mice. The hybrid virus could infect human airway cells and caused disease in mice, according to the team’s results, which were published in Nature Medicine.

Little did I know that at the same time that I was writing that blog post in late January, 2020,  Dr. Anthony Fauci was desperately working behind the scenes to steer any suspicions away from the lab leak theory as well as cover up his involvement in the funding of gain of function research on coronaviruses at the Wuhan lab.

The full truth of what went on with the origins of Covid and the subsequent illogical response by the public health establishment is coming into better focus with each succeeding day.

Senator Rand Paul in his book Deception does a great job in detailing what appears to be a coverup perpetrated by Dr. Fauci and others involving Covid.

Source: https://www.amazon.com/Deception-Great-Cover-Up-Rand-Paul/dp/1684515130

Dr. Paul drew much of the material for his book from emails obtained under FOIA requests involving Fauci and others at the National Institute of Health and other government agencies.

What is particularly revealing in those emails was the time and effort Fauci spent at the end of January, 2020 working to discredit the lab leak theory both within the public health community and with the media.

A few excerpts from Deception.

Fauci's efforts at working to discredit the lab leak theory reached a fever pitch on January 31, 2020.

Based on the emails, it appears that Fauci did not sleep that night.

He had to be living in mortal fear knowing the hand he had in all of this.

Why else would he be emailing and phoning people in the wee hours of the morning on that day?

Is that something that would be normal for someone who should not be particularly concerned with the origins of the virus but should be focused on how to protect the American public from it?

For example, Fauci sent an email to his second in command at 12;29 am that morning that included a paper on the gain of function work that had been going on at the Wuhan lab. Fauci told him that it was "essential we speak this morning. Keep your cell phone...read this paper...you will have tasks today that must be done".

At 3:00 am Fauci sent another email out to the individual in government whose duties included chairing the committee that was supposed to screen all gain of function funding requests and disapprove any that were considered too dangerous. He sent along an article suggesting the virus was natural in origin

The problem for Fauci and the NIH was they had been funding the gain of function research at Wuhan but had purposely not sent the funding request for the required exception to the gain of function ban that was in place.

All of this explains a lot of what followed.

Fauci and the NIH were living in fear of it being found out they were funding the work on the coronaviruses at Wuhan.

They also knew that the purpose of the work was to create a virus that was more contagious and deadly than was currently in place in nature.

Knowing all of this, it undoubtedly caused Fauci and the NIH to overreact and recommend the draconian response to the virus they did knowing that it was totally at odds with established protocols in dealing with a pandemic.

Fear and guilt had to be enormous motivating factors in what Fauci and his brethren did next.

They could not leave any stone unturned in the Covid response knowing what they appeared to have unleashed.

What would the response be if the truth came out and Fauci had not gone all out in the response in order to stop the virus?

As I wrote in that first blog post, the science was clear on what the public health response should be.

The most effective way to stop an outbreak of a virus such as this one is to aggressively isolate and quarantine those that are ill so as to not infect other people. They need to be identified, treated aggressively by medical professionals, and isolated.

What did Fauci and his public health officials do instead?

They shutdown the economy and schools and quarantined and isolated the healthy. That was completely counter to over 100 years of hard learned pandemic guidelines.

You see how absurd it all was in a recent interview of Francis Collins (Fauci's former boss at NIH) in which he admitted "mistakes were made"

“If you're a public health person, and you're trying to make a decision, you have this very narrow view of what the right decision is, and that is something that will save a life. doesn't matter what else happens, so you attach infinite value to stopping the disease and saving a life. you attach zero value to whether this actually totally disrupts people's lives, ruins the economy, and has many kids kept out of school in a way that they never might quite recover from. this is a public health mindset… and that was really unfortunate, it's another mistake we made."

This is how a public health person is supposed to think?

You attach infinite value in saving one life but zero value on what you are doing as a result to millions and millions of others that totally disrupts their lives, ruins the economy and keeps kids out of school such they may never recover from it?

I thought their responsibility was PUBLIC HEALTH? Does that not include a broad view of all elements of health in a society--physical, mental and economic?

If you are in public health how do you totally disregard the lives of 100's of millions of people, the economy, business owners, schoolchildren and the damage your policies are causing to focus on the narrow view of single lives balanced against the needs and future of society?

That is especially true in that early in the pandemic it was clear that there was minimal risk to most everyone under the age of 70. These were individuals for which it was easiest to isolate and protect.

I questioned what was being done in April, 2020 at the height of the lockdowns in a blog post "Two-Faced Fauci". Little did I know how accurate I was in describing Fauci at that early juncture in the pandemic.

I also have a hard time in understanding how Dr. Fauci can stand up at those press conferences and say that his sole focus is on health recommendations to the President. He is being charged with overseeing the public health of the United States. Yes, that includes the nation's short term response to the virus. However, how do public health concerns also not extend to the longer term implications of the economic shutdown. He says he is not an economist. In my view, it is not enough for him to say that it is not his concern. There is a public health component in that as well that he should be considering and weighing in his recommendations.

 

We also have the recent testimony of Fauci that the six feet recommendation on social distancing was totally made up as there was no scientific basis for it at all.

Source: https://nypost.com/2024/01/10/news/fauci-admits-to-congress-that-certain-covid-social-distancing-guidelines-lacked-scientific-basis-sort-of-just-appeared/

More and more studies have also confirmed that face mask mandates were not effective tools to protect against the virus. I cited research (read "Unmasking Masks" that i wrote in July, 2020) about the limitations of masking at the beginning of the pandemic. However, Fauci and others totally disregarded the science. They wanted to make sure it looked they were doing something to protect the public. 

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/21/opinion/do-mask-mandates-work.html

Dr. Deborah Birx wrote in her book that "15 days to slow the spread " was just the term they used to convince Trump to approve the initial lockdown. They all knew that it was just the start and they wanted to lockdown much longer.

Source: https://www.independentsentinel.com/dr-birx-admits-they-lied-about-the-15-days-to-flatten-the-curve/

Of course, I am not even touching on the experimental Covid vaccines, the vaccine mandates that followed and all the lies surrounding how safe and effective they would be in preventing the disease and transmission. After all, preventing the disease and its transmission would be the only logical reason to justify a mandate to begin with.

Do you remember, as I do, all of the statements that were made that the vaccines would stop the virus and create a dead end for transmission? We were told it was the only way to end the pandemic.

Fauci made that claim himself in May, 2021 in an appearance on Face the Nation.

Source: https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/553773-fauci-vaccinated-people-become-dead-ends-for-the-coronavirus/

Who were they misleading and lying to?

It wasn't just the American people. They were also lying to the President of the United States.

It should also be remembered that in the early days of the pandemic President Trump stated that he had seen evidence that Covid-19 had originated in that Wuhan lab.

However, every chance Fauci got he contradicted Trump and argued that the origin of the virus was entirely within nature. He consistently stated there was nothing to the theory that the Covid-19 virus came out of work done at the Wuhan lab.

Of course, consider the recent finding of Dr. Richard Ebright of Rutgers University, who has closely examined the chemical and biological makeup of Covid-19 and compared it to the proposal that the EcoHealth Alliance developed and sent to the Wuhan lab that was funded by Fauci and the NIH.

When it came to the media trusting Trump or Fauci on this question you know who they believed.

This CNN article from May, 2020 says it all.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/05/politics/fauci-trump-coronavirus-wuhan-lab/index.html

Now, before we play the game of “he said, he said” remember this: Only one of these two people is a world-renowned infectious disease expert. And it’s not Donald Trump.

In short, Fauci’s view on the origins of the disease matters a whole lot more than Trump’s opinion about where it came from. Especially because, outside of Trump and his immediate inner circle, most people in a position to know are very, very skeptical of the Trump narrative that the virus came out of a lab – whether accidentally or on purpose.

There is truth and there are lies.

Four years later it should be pretty clear where the lies were coming from.

Will Dr. Fauci or anyone else be held accountable for the lies, deceit and malpractice now that four years have passed and the truth is becoming more apparent every day?

The Great Divide

There are those that claim that the United States is more divided than it has ever been.

I believe that is overstated.

Many forget that there were very stark divisions going back to the Revolutionary War with only about a third of the colonists actively supported the rebellion against the British.  About 20% were Loyalists who were completely against acting against the British Crown and the remainder were neutral.

Of course, consider the division that existed on the issue of slavery in the mid-1800's that led to the Civil War 

We have seen significant rifts in public opinions leading up to the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War and the abortion issue during my lifetime.

However, with all that being said, a recent polling survey reveals some startling evidence of what underlies much of the division we see in the United States today.

It shows a shocking and stunning divide and disconnect in the views of the urban elites in this country compared to the rest of America.

You could call it The Great Divide.

The polling survey was completed recently under the auspices of the Committee To Unleash Prosperity.

Source: https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Them-vs-Us_CTUP-Rasmussen-Study-FINAL.pdf

For purposes of the survey, the Elites were defined as those having a graduate degree, a household with more than $150,000 of household income,  and living in a zip code with more than 10,000 residents per square mile. 

A subset of the Elites included graduates of Ivy League universities and other elite institutions such as Northwestern, Duke, Stanford and the University of Chicago. This sub-group was labeled as "Ivy League Graduates" in the survey results.

Look first at how the Elites view the status of their personal finances compared to everyday Americans.

74% of Elites and 80% of Ivy League Graduates said their personal finances were getting better these days compared to only 20% for everyone else.

40% of Americans say things are getting worse for them compared to almost no Elites saying the same.

Source: https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Them-vs-Us_CTUP-Rasmussen-Study-FINAL.pdf

You could probably not have a greater divide than that.

It probably should not surprise you after seeing these responses that the Elites strongly approve of Biden as president.

84% approve of Biden compared to 44% for Americans overall,

Source: https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Them-vs-Us_CTUP-Rasmussen-Study-FINAL.pdf

What I found most troubling in the survey results is the authoritarian bent in the survey responses when it came to individual issues.

It is clear that these Elites  really believe that they know best.

Elites were three times more likely to say that there is too much individual freedom in the United States compared to the views of everyone else.

Source: https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Them-vs-Us_CTUP-Rasmussen-Study-FINAL.pdf

Of course, these Elites were the same people who were largely responsible for setting Covid policy and also believed that parents who spoke out against school closures needed to be investigated by the FBI. 

Interestingly, there is a significant difference even within the Elites on the issue of individual freedom based on age.  Among members of the Elites who are 55 or older, just 10% think there is too much individual freedom in the United States today. However, a majority (54%) of Elites under the age 35 believe it.

That is a sobering finding for anyone looking to the future of America.

You get a better sense of how the Elites believe that individual freedom should be curtailed when you look at their responses involving one of their pet issues----climate change.

The Elites largely favor banning a number of modern conveniences that are an integral part of the fabric of American life in the name of fighting climate change.

Somewhere between 60% and 80% of Elites favor banning gas stoves, gas powered cars, non-essential air travel, SUV's and private air conditioning.

None of these proposals gets more than 25% support among the rest of Americans.

Source: https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Them-vs-Us_CTUP-Rasmussen-Study-FINAL.pdf

Those views are shocking especially when you consider that there is no clear scientific consensus on whether we are really experiencing climate change. In addition, even if we are experiencing change, it is unclear whether any of these proposals would have the slightest effect globally when considering a myriad of other factors---China and India emissions, sun activity, cloud cover, ocean activity and other possible effects.

None of that matters to the Elites.

They think they know best and believe you have too much freedom to make your own decisions on how to live your life.

I can't help but wonder what our Founding Fathers would think of all of this.

After all, they were the Elites in that day and age.

They generally were all prospering under British rule. They had a lot to lose by rebelling against the British crown.

However, they desired individual freedom and the ability of the people to make decisions in their collective interest rather than the whims and will of an authoritarian class.

It is well worth keeping all of this in mind in this election year.

There is a Great Divide between what the Elites believe and want for you and this country compared to what normal American voters believe is in their best interest and in the people's business.

Be aware of this divide. 

You, your family and friends may find yourselves being led to a place on the wrong side of that Great Divide without even knowing it.

Are the candidates you are voting for doing the bidding of the Elites or are they interested in protecting the rights and freedoms of everyday Americans?

It might be the most important consideration of all in who you vote for in 2024.

This and That---January 22, 2024

A few random observations, charts and factoids to provide some context on what is going on in the world as we begin 2024.

DeSantis and Ramaswamy Drop Out Of GOP Race

In the wake of the Iowa caucus results both Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy have dropped out of the race for the nominee to be the Republican candidate for President in 2024.

This comes after just 110,000 voted were cast in Iowa. That is not even half of what it normally takes to win a U.S. Congressional sear.

Both immediately endorsed Donald Trump.

As I pointed out in my blog post right before the Iowa caucus, it shows just how the nomination process has accelerated over the decades.

In 1968, Bobby Kennedy did not even get into the race for the Democrat nominee until March 16 of that year.

All but two Republicans have dropped out of the race after one state caucus compared to the 14 legitimate candidates that began.

It is logical to ask how can a mere 110,000 votes compared to the more than 74 million votes cast for a Republican candidate in the last election determine who the nominee is?

However, Vivek and DeSantis are not out of the race because of Iowa alone. Trump leads the field by 60 points in the two most recent national polls.

Source: https://www.realclearpolling.com/latest-polls/election

DeSantis was only polling at 7% in New Hampshire in the RealClearPolitics average over the last five polls conducted in that state before he dropped out yesterday.

Source: https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/republican-primary/2024/new-hampshire

DeSantis clearly saw no path forward and it was better to get out now and try to salvage his reputation for another day. After all, he is only 45 years old. Vivek is 38. Both have a lot of politics ahead of them.

It also made no sense for either to endorse Haley. You don't advance your political career by betting on the long shot choice this late in the game.

Every Republican candidate is now out except for Trump and Nikki Haley. This is the one-on-match up the anti-Trumpers have been hoping for.

As I wrote before, Haley could not have a better situation to take on Trump in the next two contests. Tomorrow they vote in blue state New Hamspshire that is not known to be a Trump stronghold and Nikki's home state of South Carolina is next later in February..

We will see if Haley can gain any of the momentum coming out of New Hampshire that she desperately needs going to South Carolina. 

We will also see if there are enough voters opposed to Trump to deny him the nomination.

The reality is that if she cannot defeat Trump in her home state of South Carolina I think we will see her have to drop out as well and endorse Trump.

A 25+ point loss to Trump in New Hampshire may mean that Haley does not even stay on the ballot for South Carolina. It may be better to drop out than get embarrassed in her home state.

This race looks like it could be over before we even get to Super Tuesday in early March.

Are Borrowings Supposed To Be Your Biggest Revenue Source?

You probably know that the federal government printed a lot of money to meet spending requirements during Covid.

The Federal Reserve printed the money and then lent it to the federal government.

Would it surprise you to know that over the last six months that borrowed money is the biggest revenue source for the federal government?

I knew it was bad I did not know it was quite this bad.

Here is a summary of where the revenues came from in the federal government's fourth quarter (July 1, 2023-September 30, 2023).

This was in a tweet from Stephen Moore citing numbers puts together by @EuroConOfficial.

Credit: https://twitter.com/StephenMoore/status/1745923645073924326

I went to the U.S. Treasury website for the first quarter 2024 numbers (October 1, 2023-December 31, 2023).

Borrowings were down but they are still almost equal to individual income tax collections as a revenue source.

However, for the last six months, borrowings are over $1.3 trillion compared to less than $1.1 trillion in individual income tax collections.

Consider what this means.

To balance the federal budget at current levels of spending would require that individual income taxes  be doubled.

When you see how out of control the budget situation is in Washington, D.C. you begin to see why there are many who do not believe that the answer to fixing it is to send anyone there other than an outsider there.

Does the U.S. Stock Market Make Any Sense?

The stock market in the United States has defied gravity and remains close to all-time highs despite higher interest rates and concerns about a softening economy.

Source: https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/SPX/

For example, consider the fact that the combined market caps of Apple and Microsoft alone ($5.8 trillion) in the S&P 500 is greater than the entire Japanese NIkkei 225 Index which is the second largest stock market in the world.

 

Another point of reference is the fact that the price-earnings ratio of the S&P 500 is now 8 times the value of international stocks generally.

There has never been a time in which the United States market has been more overvalued compared to international stocks.

Something would seem to have to give at some point.

Do U.S. values revert to the mean or do international stocks advance to make up the difference?

Long-Term Use of Antidepressants

We hear so much about white privilege and white supremacy that you would wonder how any white person could be depressed.

It would seem to follow that we would see the highest level of depression in those who are bearing the brunt of white privilege.

How then do you explain this chart on the long-term use of antidepressants?

White women age 45 and over account for 58% of all those who have used antidepressants for at least five years.

The chart is a little misleading as it is not adjusted for population. 

However, even on a per-capita basis, long-term use of antidepressants is higher with whites (especially white women age 45+) than minorities.

Notice the substantial increase generally in the long-term use of antidepressants beginning in 2010 that is reflected in the chart.

Why?

Demographics of the U.S. Psychology Workforce

Who are the psychologists treating those who are depressed?

The psychologists in the U.S. are overwhelmingly female---69%.

Source: https://www.apa.org/workforce/data-tools/demographics
2021 Data

This is particularly true for psychologists under the age of 45 where about 80% are female (blue in chart below).

Source: https://www.apa.org/workforce/data-tools/demographics
2021 Data

81% of all psychologists are also white.

Source:https://www.apa.org/workforce/data-tools/demographic
2021 Data

Do you think there might be something to conclude in all of this?

Continuing To Confound His Critics

We are two days beyond the Iowa GOP Caucus and five days from the New Hampshire primary next Tuesday.

What have we learned about the Republican Presidential race since my last blog post?

Two of the five remaining candidates that were on the Iowa ballot have dropped out---Vivek Ramaswamy and Asa Hutchinson.

Vivek quickly endorsed Trump after suspending his campaign.

Source: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4047227-vivek-ramaswamy-2024-race-donald-trump-iowa-caucuses/

Donald Trump won the Iowa caucus as expected. However, even more importantly, he met the high expectations that had been set for him in recent polling. 

I wrote this in that blog post the morning of the votes in Iowa.

Trump's biggest problem tonight is that the polls have established high expectations for him. If he does not win by 30 points it is going to feel like a loss.

 Trump won by 30 points.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/01/15/us/elections/results-iowa-caucus.html

DeSantis exceeded the expectations that had been suggested in recent polling by five points or so but I wrote that I believed he needed to take 25% of the vote to gain some momentum heading to New Hampshire.

I mentioned in my previous blog post that the DeSantis team said before the caucus that they had 60,000 signed commitment cards for their candidate. If that was true, only a little more than 1/3 of them showed up to vote.

Of course, the weather clearly affected turnout and it did not help DeSantis that the networks called Trump the winner 15 minutes after voting started.

In the end, only 110,000 total votes were cast in Iowa compared to 185,000 in 2016.

Nikki Haley had registered 20% support in the last poll done before the caucus and her 19% vote percent had to be disappointing to her team.

Of course, that did not stop Haley from claiming after the Iowa vote that it was now a two person race despite finishing third in Iowa.

Source: https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/iowa-caucus-republican-primary-2024/card/haley-after-finishing-third-in-iowa-calls-it-a-two-person-race-F7Ssqi0bS2EwcBV4nvpu

 

It is true that Haley could not be better positioned to challenge Trump than in the next two primaries on the calendar--New Hampshire and South Carolina.

New Hampshire tends to be a blue state. It twice voted against Trump in the general election. The primary is also an open primary allowing unaffiliated voters to vote in the election. Since there is no Democrat primary this means that you could have many Independents voting in the Republican election who do not like Trump and want to send a message. Both of these factors favor Haley.

Haley also has the opportunity to make a splash in her home state of South Carolina that follows New Hampshire later in February (February 24). However, it is a two-edged sword for her. If Haley cannot defeat Trump in her own state how can she be expected to beat him nationwide?

What continues to be interesting to me are the mainstream media personalities and political pundits who cannot understand how Trump is dominating the Republican field.

Jake Tapper on CNN seemed shocked at Trump's margin of victory and suggested his supporters voted for him based on "lies".  One of the "lies" supposedly is that Trump was cheated in the 2020 election.

Tapper and others suggest that this is a "fringe" position.

However, a Rasmussen poll done in May, 2023 found that 62% of all voters believed it was very or somewhat likely that cheating affected the results of the 2020 election.

That view was held by 80% of Republicans, 64% of Independents and 45% of Democrats.

53% of Republicans, 46% of Independents and even 32% of Democrats believed it was VERY LIKELY.

Source: https://twitter.com/Rasmussen_Poll/status/1742170916090474727/photo/1

Does that look like a "fringe" idea?

CNN cut off Trump's victory speech claiming they were not going to televise his anti-immigrant views.

Did Tapper forget that Trump married an immigrant and his mother was also an immigrant?

Is there no difference any more between a legal and illegal immigrant?

Source: https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/1747108634797228153

An excerpt from CNN at the time that they cut away from Trump's speech.

Source: https://www.mediaite.com/news/cnns-jake-tapper-dumps-out-of-trump-victory-speech-just-as-he-starts-to-rant-about-immigrant-invasion/

MSNBC, NBC and other mainstream news outlets did not televise the speech at all.

They say they have a responsibility to not spread his "lies".

Isn't it interesting that was the same reason they did not report the Hunter Biden laptop story in October, 2020.

What was truth and what was the lie?

Source: https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/1747769799013528013

They call themselves "news" networks?

The mainstream news experts don't seem to understand how it is that Trump is dominating the vote and the polls .

Let's consider a couple of reasons why Trump is dominating right now.

1. Voters do not trust the establishment and think that Trump has been unfairly treated from the moment he first ran for President. That continues to this day. He has been ruthlessly targeted every step of the way. (Russian collusion, two impeachments, a questionable election, selective prosecutions).

It is more apparent every day that there are two systems of justice in place in Washington. One for Trump and another for the Democrats who control the D.C. bureaucracy. (Trump got 4% of the vote in D.C. in 2016 and 5% in 2020. Putin's opponent did better than that in Russia!)

A good example was revealed this week. The Department of Justice disclosed in a filing in federal court that it had obtained Hunter Biden's iCloud contents back in 2018 pursuant to a search warrant related to the tax evasion investigation of Hunter by the IRS. This is the same tax fraud case that was going to be swept under the rug until two IRS whistleblowers came forward last year and called out the special treatment Biden was getting from the DOJ.

That filing reveals that the iCloud contents confirmed that Hunter's laptop that they got in 2019 was genuine. Despite knowing this for over one year, the IRS stayed silent when The New York Post broke the story about the laptop several weeks before the 2020 election. In fact, the FBI had previously told media and social media outlets to be aware of possible Russian disinformation in the campaign. On cue, 51 supposed "national security experts" stated that the laptop story had all the earmarks of a Russian plot and the story was censored by all the large media outlets in the lead up to the election. The FBI said nothing even though it had known the contents on the laptop were genuine back in 2019. 

Is this even handed justice? Election interference?

That filing also indicated that traces of cocaine were found in the gun pouch of the handgun that Hunter illegally obtained by lying on his federal firearm application. However, the DOJ was originally going to give Biden a plea deal that would have required no jail time for a charge that carries up to a 5-year prison sentence. That plea deal was blown up when a federal judge started asking some questions when it was brought to her for approval.

It seems that there have been a lot of lies told to the American people over the last few years.

Jake Tapper, Rachel Maddow and the rest seem to be selective in considering what they consider to be lies and truth.

People know that there is something seriously wrong with the D.C. establishment. They also know that putting another Washington insider is not going to make anything better.

Despite his flaws, they know there is no better person than Trump to take on that establishment.

 

2. The other big thing voters are paying attention to is the state of the nation.

Trump has tons of detractors. They don't like his bombast, they call him a buffoon or don't like his mean tweets. However, the big thing he has going for him is that people can easily assess how things were going for them and the country when he was President versus how they have been going the last three years.

It is an easy, binary choice for voters.

Were things better when Trump was President or are they better now?

I wrote the following in July, 2021 when most political observers were writing off any hope of Trump being relevant in 2024 as to what could bring voters back to Trump.

An implosion of the country under the Democrats and Biden/Harris. Trump has many critics but hard times have a way of focusing people on what is most important. Trump's personality is the most cited reason why many did not like him. When people are in trouble they are less concerned with personality and more concerned about performance. A deteriorating situation in the country will make Trump a lot more attractive to more people than you can imagine. 

The British also wrote off Winston Churchill in the 1930's as being coarse, intemperate and of unreliable judgment. That view changed when Great Britain had their backs against the wall in World War II. Hard times have a way of getting people to focus on ability compared to appearances.

Consider as well the comments that JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said in Davos, Switzerland yesterday about Trump while at the World Economic Forum meeting.

Dimon is hardly a right wing Republican. Most of his political donations have been to the Democrat party.

He made it clear he believes Biden is making a big mistake by trying to paint 70 million plus voters from the last election as extremists because they supported Trump.

He also stated that Trump was "kind of right" about most of the big issues.

JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon said that former President Donald Trump was "kind of right" about NATO and immigration and urged Democrats to "be a little more respectful" of voters who are backing the ex-president's 2024 campaign.

During a CNBC "Squawk Box" interview conducted in Davos, the site of the World Economic Forum's annual meeting, Dimon on Wednesday said that Americans who adhere to the Make America Great Again movement were fond of Trump's policies and not necessarily backing the former president's personal conduct as they head into ballot booths.

"When people say MAGA, they're actually looking at people voting for Trump, and they think they're voting — they're basically scapegoating them, that you are like him. But I don't think they're voting for Trump because of his family values," Dimon said.

"He's kind of right about NATO. Kind of right about immigration," the chief executive continued. "He grew the economy quite well. Tax reform worked. He was right about some of China."

In the meantime, it appears that Biden's campaign strategy is nothing more than claiming Trump supporters are extremists.

I have yet to hear one concrete proposal from Biden as to what he will do differently in a second term other than he is going to save "democracy." I guess that involves maligning voters who don't like your policies, using the media to censor Trump and using your DOJ to try to throw your opponent in jail.

I have previously written that I prefer Ron DeSantis as the 2024 Republican candidate.

I believe he is the superior candidate to face Biden or someone else that the Democrats may substitute for him on the general election ballot in 2024.

However, I am smart enough to understand why Donald Trump has the support he does.

How come the supposed media experts have so much trouble seeing it?

The one thing that can be said to be absolutely true is that Trump continues to confound his critics.

That is no lie.