“I Love Trump’s VP Pick!”

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“I love Trump’s VP pick!” writes reader J.P….

“He’s young but also brilliantly smart and articulate. Something we desperately need these days.”

Monday, Donald Trump outstretched his arm, unfurled his index finger… and tapped Ohio’s Sen. J.D. Vance upon the shoulder.

Yesterday, we asked you this question:

Were you for Donald Trump’s vice presidential selection of J.D. Vance? Or were you against it?

Most readers were with J.P. They were for it. For example, reader B.B.:

I support President Trump’s VP selection. I love the way he picked the best person for his plan, not the most popular or favorite person. I also like that Vance was against him at one time. It will take two independent strong leaders working together to shift the platform into clean-house mode. 

Next we come to reader R.S.:

J.D. Vance is a brilliant pick. He understands the plight of the American family better than 99% of all of the elected politicians in our Congress. He is an intellectual with common sense. He will be an extraordinary vice president. We are fortunate to have someone like him willing to serve.

Reader B.N. adds — with indirect reference to Mr. Trump’s near-murder:

I agree with the selection because Vance’s primary role is president-in-waiting and, if Trump continues to act outside of establishment constraints, Vance has a good chance of becoming president during the next four years… Securing a vice president who has brains and, so far, good character is very important for the country.

Meantime, reader H.H. dispatches this note past the 49th parallel:

I’m from Canada and I think Trump’s choice for VP is bang on! Well-thought-out choice. This is what America needs at this very important time. As well, we here in Canada need the same change of government. We’re hoping for that change by October 2025, and it can’t come soon enough. With a Republican victory in the USA in November 2024 and a conservative victory in Canada in October 2025 we will radically change the political and economic climates for the betterment of both societies and cultures.

There you have the general flavor. Yet not all readers declared for the honorable Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio.

Reader C.D. — EMPHATICALLY — informs us that:

I PERSONALLY BELIEVE HIS CHOICE OF VICE PRESIDENT WILL REDUCE HIS CHANCES OF A LANDSLIDE WIN. IT CLEARLY SHOWS AN EXTREME-RIGHT MOVEMENT THAT MANY INDEPENDENTS AND MINORITIES WON’T BUY.

Reader M.W. embraces the man — but not the choice:

Picking Vance is a mistake. Trump needs a guy like Vance in the Senate pushing his agenda. The RINO governor of Ohio will appoint a RINO to replace Vance.

Meantime, reader B.K. believes Sen. Vance puts forth a false face:

Keep in mind Vance is a former banker with ties to three investment firms. Mithril Capital was co-founded by Bilderberg Peter Thiel. Think grooming of Vance for the future subversion of America.

Unless you seriously believe hillbillies are allowed into Yale Law School with a yearly cost of $71,000…

Trump and Vance will destroy America just the same as Biden and Harris are doing, just in a little more palatable way for the right. Absent the DEI and gender rhetoric and maybe a few less babies killed at abortion clinics…

Trump and Vance will play their role and even throw a victory or two our way to make it seem like the GOP are the good guys; but don’t be fooled by the theater. 

Finally, reader P.B. trains her cannons not on Sen. Vance — but on us:

It’s not nice of you to call him a hillbilly. What happened to respect of a government official and a military serviceman?

We remind P.B. that this fellow authored an autobiographical work. He titled it Hillbilly Elegy.

At all events, we have taken aboard each and every one of your notes. And we thank you for dispatching them.

We conclude with a question:

Why would a man attempt to murder Mr. Trump?

The answer is politics itself — the inherent nature of politics.

Below, we repost our reflections on political warfare versus market warfare… and why political warfare invites violence.

Read on…

The Inescapable Tragedy of Democratic Politics

By Brian Maher

No man can avoid politics. All are in siege. No rival field of human enterprise approaches politics’ ferocity. War is the extension of what by other means… in Mr. Carl von Clausewitz’s grim telling?

The answer of course is politics. Yet we begin to suspect the old Prussian missed the bullseye.

That is, we maintain politics is itself a field of warfare. War is not an extension of it — but an equal of it.

Politics disunites, divides, disrupts, discombobulates — as war itself disunites, divides, disrupts and discombobulates. Democratic politics offer no exception. They in fact constitute proof of it. Assume a democratic election…

In one corner you have Candidate X. In the opposing corner you have Candidate Y…

The Essence of Electoral Politics

Each candidate is little more in this world than a liar, jackleg and rogue. Yet both fellows appear before the voters, hopeful of election. Both roar their flubdubberies before eager and attentive crowds. Both shout their propagandas and thump their chests.

Each denounces the other as a very arm of Satan. Amazingly, both are often correct. Come the election. 50.1% of voters yank a lever for X.

49.9% pull one for Y. Thus X claims the laurel. He proceeds instantly against the desires, hopes and interests of the vanquished 49.9%.

Each day they live they cringe, wither and chafe beneath X’s atrocities… helpless as worms on fishermen’s hooks. Only upon some distant November can voters heave this jackal out. Assume voters do heave him out…

Y — or perhaps even some Z — comes in.

X’s voters must then endure their own parallel hells until the following election. The same pitiful calculus applies to elections at any level of American government… down to canine-catcher.

In Politics, Smaller Is Better

And the higher the office the higher the menace. The mayor of Why, Arizona, may impose his torments upon his outvoted victims — as may the mayor of Whynot, North Carolina. Yet each batch of victims is free to flee.

The bordering hamlet might run to saner and more tolerable settings. And so the oppressed can flee, refugees from oppression. The same asylum-seeking applies to states.

Has a California or an Oregon or an Illinois gone lunatic? For many they have. But a Texas or a Tennessee or a Utah holds out its beacon. Meantime, alienated Texans, Tennesseeans and Utahians can flee to California, Oregon or Illinois.

These local competitions form a severe brake on the natural rascalities of politics, particularly in the American system.

These local competitions, in fact, form the crowning glory of the American device of government. It goes by the term federalism.

But to escape a president? A fellow must jump the Rio Grande to the south, the 49th parallel to the north or oceans east and west to get away. If he chooses to linger on, he must rot down four years until he takes another go at the vote.

And if the demon wins reelection? Our poor wretch must endure another four years under occupation — for a total of eight.

How can partisans of Mr. Trump endure an additional four years of Mr. Biden’s atrocities?

How can partisans of Mr. Biden endure an additional four years of Mr. Trump’s atrocities?

Now contrast the political system with the market system…

Voting in the Marketplace Is Entirely Different

Free markets — authentically free markets — lack entirely the violent combats central to politics. They are scenes of peace, tolerance… and justice.

Let us once again present a parallel case to our previous electoral bout, our political bout…

A Coca-Cola holds itself out before the American people, for example. It is Candidate X in our market race.

“Vote for me,” yells this candidate. I’m the “real thing.” Behind another podium stands a Pepsi-Cola — Candidate Y. “No. Vote for me,” counters this fellow. Drink me “for the love of it.”

The fickle and capricious voter proceeds to choose. Out comes his wallet, containing his vote for the one or the other. Yet does his individual vote injure, usurp or ruffle the opposing voter? Does he club the other voter over the head to enforce his preferences… as he does in politics?

He does not.

Satisfied Voters

A voter for either Coca-Cola or Pepsi-Cola is a satisfied voter. Crucially, neither would deny the other his soft drink of choice. Multiply this one example countless times and in countless directions.

McDonald’s versus Burger King, Honda versus Ford, Nike versus Adidas, Walmart versus Target… it is all one.

What emerges is a picture of majestic electoral peace and serenity. A vote for any of them is peaceful as a dove.

The voter on the free and open market holds no gun against any ribs. Yet when he steps into the vote booth on Election Day— conversely — he places a gun directly against a fellow’s ribs.

To pull a lever is to pull a trigger.

Red State vs. Blue State

Chain a red-state American to a blue-state American. Compel them to vote between any product on the free and open market. The blue-state voter may razz the red-stater’s ghastly and barbarian tastes. The red-state voter may in turn razz the blue-stater’s effete and supercilious tastes.

Yet neither attempts to dragoon or bayonet the other. Each concedes the other’s freedom to vote his own way, as he might, unhindered. And so peace prevails between them. But give them the choice of Trump versus Hillary or Trump versus Biden…

They will fall into savage Hatfield versus McCoy combat. That is because the loser understands he must endure his sufferings for the following two years, four years or six years.

We must therefore conclude the free market’s voting system is vastly superior to political voting.

A vote in the marketplace is a “win, win” deal, as our co-founder Bill Bonner styles it. Both the purchaser and the producer gain from the transaction.

What is politics then but a colossal “win, lose” deal? What is more, market voting improves the world in ways large and small…

Voting in the Free Market Improves the World

On the unimpeded market each business must compete for the consumer’s vote. That vote injures no one and menaces no one — as we have established. It also benefits the many. It benefits the many because a vote sends a signal. It tells the outvoted producer to field an improved product — else take the consequences. And an improved product elevates this world that much higher.

If a business fails the market’s harsh and ruthless voting, the voters may yank its candidacy altogether. It goes the way of the Whigs. Yet here is perhaps politics’ greatest crime, its most scarlet of sins:

It has drained away “social power”… and channeled it off into state power. That is, politics has stripped society’s power and liberty — and placed them in the state’s hands.

Social Power vs. State Power

Albert Jay Nock, dates 1870–1945, was a gentleman and thinker of deep and penetrating insight.

Nock sobbed about the loss of social power during the New Deal:

If we look beneath the surface of our public affairs, we can discern one fundamental fact: namely, a great redistribution of power between society and the State…

Every assumption of State power, whether by gift or seizure, leaves society with so much less power. There is never, nor can there be, any strengthening of State power without a corresponding and roughly equivalent depletion of social power…

Heretofore in this country sudden crises of misfortune have been met by a mobilization of social power. In fact (except for certain institutional enterprises like the home for the aged, the lunatic asylum, city hospital and county poorhouse), destitution, unemployment, “depression” and similar ills have been no concern of the State but have been relieved by the application of social power.

As the frog in its pot acquiesces to the gradually warming water… the citizen has acquiesced to his gradual loss of social power:

New generations appear, each temperamentally adjusted — or as I believe our American glossary now has it, “conditioned” — to new increments of State power, and they tend to take the process of continuous accumulation as quite in order.

The lingering vestiges of social power are in the state’s sights. And many voters, it appears, are hot to sign these away.

Is There Any Alternative to Politics?

Do we propose an alternative to the political arrangement? No — not earnestly. We merely diagnose a disorder. We do not prescribe a cure. We have previously held out the relative virtues of monarchy. But this we did largely to take razzes at cherished democratic theories and their drummers.

You say the system under which we wallow is the best on offer in this fallen world of sin and evil. Let us not make the perfect the enemy of the good.

You may very well be correct. You are very likely correct. Yet as old Ben Franklin never said: Democracy is two wolves and one sheep voting — voting on which will appear upon the lunch plate.

What if you are the lamb?

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