{"id":84675,"date":"2023-09-09T03:00:32","date_gmt":"2023-09-09T07:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=84675"},"modified":"2023-09-08T12:06:46","modified_gmt":"2023-09-08T16:06:46","slug":"the-republican-race-there-dont-seem-to-be-a-lot-of-takers-for-pretending-this-is-normal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2023\/09\/09\/the-republican-race-there-dont-seem-to-be-a-lot-of-takers-for-pretending-this-is-normal\/","title":{"rendered":"The Republican race &#8211; &#8220;There don&#8217;t seem to be a lot of takers for &#8216;pretending this is normal'&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.steynonline.com\/13761\/the-real-new-normal\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mark Steyn<\/a> on the establishment GOP&#8217;s attempt to run the 2024 campaign as though nothing has changed other than the calendar:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Donald-Trump-mugshot-20230824-Twitter.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right; padding: 0px 0px 10px 25px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Donald-Trump-mugshot-20230824-Twitter-460x600.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"460\" height=\"600\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-84676\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Donald-Trump-mugshot-20230824-Twitter-460x600.png 460w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Donald-Trump-mugshot-20230824-Twitter-490x640.png 490w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Donald-Trump-mugshot-20230824-Twitter-115x150.png 115w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Donald-Trump-mugshot-20230824-Twitter.png 718w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 460px) 100vw, 460px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I mentioned <a href=\"https:\/\/www.steynonline.com\/13756\/the-cost-of-rocket-science\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">on Monday<\/a> that on his long-running <a href=\"https:\/\/vdare.com\/radio-derb\/january-6th-sentencings-housing-illegals-worldwide-and-london-s-vibrant-caribbean-festival-etc\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Radio Derb<\/a> John Derbyshire drew his listeners&#8217; attention to an observation of yours truly:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>I can&#8217;t improve on Steyn \u2014 nobody can \u2014 so I&#8217;ll just quote him from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.steynonline.com\/13728\/the-voters-vs-the-party\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">that piece<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I always feel Derb thinks I&#8217;m a bit of a pantywaist on the hardcore issues, but in today&#8217;s America even a reasonably sentient pantywaist should be able to get to the nub of the issue. Here&#8217;s the bit Derb quoted:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>So two years later the American Right still talks about the justice system and the election campaign as if either term means what it does in functioning societies. As I said above, I don&#8217;t intend to comment on this week&#8217;s Trump indictment either, nor do I wish to talk about who would make the best president, who has the best platform, who has the skill-set to implement the platform &#8230; That would be all well and good if we were in, say, France, but, when the dirty stinking rotten corrupt U.S. justice system is criminalizing political opposition, there&#8217;s no point pretending this is a normal situation, right?<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s no point pretending this is a normal situation, right?&#8221; And yet at least three-quarters of the candidates in that Republican debate insisted on doing just that: This is just a normal quadrennial election in the greatest country in the history of countries where we&#8217;re renowned around the planet for our uniquely peaceful &#8220;peaceful transfer of power&#8221;, etc, etc.<\/p>\n<p>Sorry, I don&#8217;t buy that &mdash; and evidently nor does the GOP base. Which is why Trump has a forty-point lead over his nearest rival, and Nikki Haley&#8217;s alleged triumph on stage in that debate has seen her numbers soar to &mdash; <em>stand well back!<\/em> &mdash; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.realclearpolitics.com\/epolls\/2024\/president\/us\/2024_republican_presidential_nomination-7548.html\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">6.1 per cent<\/a>. The avowedly normal vice-president, senator and three governors nipping at her heels can barely muster ten percent between them. There don&#8217;t seem to be a lot of takers for &#8220;pretending this is normal&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>John Derbyshire quoted me in the context of the latest sentences on the January 6th &#8220;insurrectionists&#8221;. Dominic Pezzola broke a window at the Capitol and was given ten years; the government had asked for twenty. Joseph Biggs moved a crowd-control barrier and was sentenced to seventeen years; the government had wanted him banged up for thirty-three.<\/p>\n<p>So the prosecutors and the judges seem to have reached a cozy understanding that, whatever sentence the former demand, the Court will be totally reasonable and cut in half. You want another? The feds demanded thirty years for Zachary Rehl; the judge gave him fifteen. And this is after two-and-a-half years in gaol awaiting their &#8220;constitutional right&#8221; (<em>don&#8217;t wave that constitution at me!<\/em>) to a speedy trial.<\/p>\n<p>Oops, wait, I spoke too soon. The US Attorney wanted thirty-three years for Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, but this time the judge decided to up it to two-thirds of the feds&#8217; demand: twenty-two years. For a guy who wasn&#8217;t in Washington on January 6th.<\/p>\n<p>All this of course in an ugly and violent land where actual career criminals who like to <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2023\/09\/04\/man-strikes-60-year-old-woman-more-than-50-times-at-harlem-subway-station\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">beat up disabled women with their own canes<\/a> have the run of the playground. And with the connivance and support of the Democrat Party, even when very occasionally it all goes wrong <a href=\"https:\/\/www.powerlineblog.com\/archives\/2023\/09\/a-neoconservative-is-a-liberal-who-has-been-mugged.php\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">for one of their own<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, well. Mr Tarrio is a Proud Boy. I&#8217;m not really a Proud Boys type, if only because their founder, Gavin McInnes, has been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.steynonline.com\/11747\/collateral-sacking\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a bit of an arse about me<\/a> re Cockwombling Cary Katz and the CRTV cases. Still, I&#8217;m all about first principles &mdash; and a decade for breaking a window is not, even by lousy American standards, the verdict of a &#8220;justice&#8221; system.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mark Steyn on the establishment GOP&#8217;s attempt to run the 2024 campaign as though nothing has changed other than the calendar: I mentioned on Monday that on his long-running Radio Derb John Derbyshire drew his listeners&#8217; attention to an observation of yours truly: I can&#8217;t improve on Steyn \u2014 nobody can \u2014 so I&#8217;ll just [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,53,13],"tags":[343,1037,188,267,517,985],"class_list":["post-84675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-politics","category-usa","tag-crimeandpunishment","tag-donaldtrump","tag-electionwatch","tag-justice","tag-republican","tag-washingtondc"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-m1J","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84675"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84677,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84675\/revisions\/84677"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}