As those of you who watch geopolitical commentators on YouTube know, Chas Freeman, who was Nixon’s translator on his famous visit to China and later became the ambassador to Saudi Arabia, is a particularly calm, clear-sighted and collected individual. To give you an idea of his temperament, here’s a recent video: Freeman has become increasingly unforgiving over time for the gross incompetence of US actions.
So this humble blogger took notice. Reader johnnyme found these comments Late A wide-ranging interview by the South China Morning Post:
The United States is in the midst of a mounting constitutional crisis that will culminate with the election on November 5th and the transition to the inauguration of the next President on January 20th. Those in Beijing who have come to believe that there is no longer a realistic path to peaceful unification and that the only viable way to end China’s division is to resort to force may see this period of turmoil in Washington as an opportunity to do so. This, in my view, would be a tragic mistake. The civilian government in Washington may collapse at the end of the year, but the U.S. military will not, and Americans will have no choice but to direct their anger at China if they hold it responsible for the war over Taiwan.
One has to assume that Freeman still has many connections and significant personal opinions. It might be easy to dismiss his views if they were just one opinion. But people with very different frames of reference have voiced similar concerns. Matt Taibbi, for example, expressed doubts about whether the 2024 presidential election would take place when discussing with Walter Kim RFK Jr.’s speeches devoted to Trump.
We have noted that it would not be hard to spoil the 2024 election. This concern is usually focused by the Democratic team on the inept efforts of Trump and his allies to contest the 2020 results. Perhaps they will do better this time. Or one could say that casting doubt on Kamala’s victory would undermine “democracy.” The slight problem with this position is that it shows that the Democratic Party is very aggressive in tweaking the dial. Witness Sanders’s dwindling victory in Iowa, or the 125,000 votes that disappeared in Brooklyn, or the entire documentary based on poll workers witnessing fraud in California, or now the scorched earth campaign against RFK Jr., who also claims that party activists pressured his allies to refuse to speak to the media (compare that to the treatment of Ross Perot and you can see his claim is not far off the mark).
But despite all the lamentations about Trump’s violence, there is nothing really resembling a Brownshirt show (just look at Israeli settlers to see what that looks like), except for the perfectly legal kind of thing where some states are threatening to prosecute women who get abortions even out of state. Why does that even exist? Trump is leading. The Democrats are not leading, even with the Kamala festivities. And Trump only got votes, money, and media attention from RFK Jr.’s endorsement.
Consider further this account of a discussion a trusted reader had with a Democratic superdelegate. Though coming from a single source, it is a series of conflicting admissions. Here is a summary of the superdelegate’s report:
The overall view is
a) The Democratic National Convention did not go very well. No policy was discussed at all. And it was now clear that there was a serious budget deficit. Furthermore, the proposed policies, which he specifically named price controls, were a total failure.
b) The failure to have special guests Beyonce or George W. Bush show up was a total incompetent disaster and a bad look. Apparently that guest was supposed to be Beyonce, but she was very upset about something that happened earlier in the day, presumably with Kamala Advance.
c) Trump was already leading in the actual polls, but now he’s also way ahead in the pro-RFK debate. According to him, the media polls are actually wrong.
d) He reiterated that Kamala’s ideas were not literally the ideas of anyone with a DNC brain. He predicts Kamala will be a disaster. There were multiple tantrums last week that left aides in tears.
e) He still believes Trump will win.
This tweet came out shortly after. The superdelegate said that the speaker was indeed a convention attendee and that officials were “freaking out.” It doesn’t have many views on Twitter, but to know exactly how widespread this tweet is, we need to go all the way back to TikTok, where it was originally posted. Important remarks:
When I first got interested in politics, I thought of the Democrats as the people’s party. At the Democratic National Convention this week, I felt like I was in a building filled with the most elite and naive people in the world. The atmosphere was self-indulgent, let’s have a big party and forget all our problems…I felt totally disconnected from the people I know who are struggling to buy groceries and pay rent.
Former Democratic campaigner
Remarks after attending the Democratic National Convention pic.twitter.com/rRxroTc7yy
— TestDummy (@TestDummy04) August 25, 2024
So, given Trump’s likely trajectory of becoming a dictator (and perhaps doing Pol Pot-like things), and the strange sense of fear they have instilled in many of their supporters, it seems more likely that Democrats would disrupt the election than Republicans. Anyone familiar with election rules and constitutional procedures is welcome to correct me, but as I read the Constitution, there is no mechanism to delay the voting in a presidential election. Therefore, merely declaring martial law in a few key states due to violence by Trump supporters (whether real, fabricated, or exaggerated) could stop voting in those states and make it impossible to continue the election.
Another scenario that Lambert favors is one in which aliens land on Earth and we have to put everything on hold to deal with the threat. I’ve long wondered why John Podesta is so obsessed with aliens. With all of our great visual fakery, it wouldn’t be hard to concoct a vastly improved and longer-lasting space war. Readers have noticed an increase in UFO sightings in recent years.
Lambert further points out that these sightings have been concentrated in the United States, specifically around nuclear facilities. My own explanation is that these sightings are actually US experiments with advanced visual and possibly signal deception techniques.
Needless to say, I hate being forced to think this way. Perhaps Freeman and Taibbi have inhaled too much swamp steam. I can only hope so.
