At Tuesday’s debate, and specifically in her closing statement, Kamala Harris reiterated a slogan that her handlers cobbled together. “We can’t go back.” Harris debuted this dog with fleas back on July 24 in Milwaukee, the site of her campaign launch just a couple of days after the coup atop the Democrat Party took the nomination away from Joe Biden and foisted her upon a heretofore unwilling American public: Kamala Harris vowed on Tuesday that Americans were “not going back” to the “chaos” of the Donald Trump years, as she made her campaign trail debut in battleground Wisconsin with just over 100 days left before the election. In an fiery speech a day after securing enough Democratic delegates to win the party’s nomination, the vice-president sought to frame the contest against Trump as a choice between starkly different visions for the country, casting his as regressive and backward-looking and hers as optimistic and forward-looking. “Do we want to live in a country of freedom, compassion and rule of law or a country of chaos, fear and hate?” she asked, drawing roaring applause and chants of “Kamala” – reflecting an enthusiasm that has eluded Democrats in recent months. Yes, we know what they’re getting at. Harris is attempting to stoke the sky-screaming angst of her base, who lost their collective minds over the idea that Donald Trump could be president for four more years. She’s also making a veiled threat to the rest of us; namely, that if Trump were to return to the White House, the angsty sky-screamers will return to the streets to offer a redux of the civil unrest they broke loose in the summer of 2020. And not just that summer, either. Let’s remember Kamala Harris’ record on that score. During the debate, Trump noted that she raised money for a bail fund that sprung George Floyd rioters out of the fun house. But that was only part of the disgraceful conduct for which she was responsible. Remember this? So when Team Harris admonishes us that “we can’t go back,” they’re letting you know that if you disagree, and win the day on Nov. 5, you’ll be subjected to the same anarchy and violence she advocated when Trump was last president. That this woman would dare to bring up Jan. 6 is a political profanity of the lowest depths imaginable. You might be tempted to write off the cognitive dissonance of her remarks to Stephen Colbert contrasted against Jan. 6 sanctimony as evidence of her low IQ, and you might not be wrong, but Kamala Harris is a composite. She isn’t a political entity with any real agency, just as Joe Biden was not. And she didn’t come up with “we can’t go back.” It’s a terrible, offensive slogan, but someone far more intelligent and sinister than Kamala Harris gave it to her to say. Yes, anarchy and violence, or the threat of it, lies at the heart of “we can’t go back.” Less prominent in that package is a return of some sort of viral pandemic like the one that poisoned the last year of Trump’s first term. It has to be that. Otherwise, what could the slogan possibly mean? Polling shows most Americans were wealthier and happier for the bulk of Trump’s term than they are now. The number of respondents who say the country is on the wrong track is staggering — the RealClearPolitics polling average shows a 60.3–29.4 blowout of “wrong track” over “right track.” Do you really think these people are trying to convince persuadable voters that continuing down the path of national and individual debt, Latin American–style inflation, forever wars, unlimited Third World migration, never-ending racial agitation, transgenderism, and climate change nuttery is a preferable status quo? Not without the threat it isn’t. “We can’t go back” is the aggressive admonition of a ruling elite that has lost the ability to create or even to preserve anything but its own political power. It’s an expression of entitlement, a declaration of contempt for those unworthies without connections to its favored institutions or who lack its woke pieties. It’s an exercise in demoralization. No, you may not have a patriotic America. You may not express yourself freely if we don’t sanction your expressions. You may not have your internal combustion vehicle, your gas stove, your AR-15, or even your ethnic heritage unless it contains a suitable modicum of approved past oppression. We can’t go back to any of that. You will own nothing and be happy. Just read her tax plan, which she didn’t write. And no, you are not allowed to ask who did. Here is where I’ll reiterate a frustration I expressed in one of this week’s Spectacle Podcast episodes. Because two weeks ago, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsed Trump, and when he did, Trump became the candidate of all those Americans that the “we can’t go back” crowd has in its crosshairs — a constituency that encompasses a majority of the country. More so than ever, Trump is the candidate of what Angelo Codevilla, writing here at The American Spectator, called the “country class” some 14 years ago. For whatever his faults might be, he is nevertheless the antithesis of that ruling class — wealthy without political advantage, unbeholden to state power, hostile to the elite, and now targeted by them for destruction. Trump is locked in a death struggle with the elite; either he will drain that swamp or it will drain him. Wrapped in that struggle is the future of this nation. We will either go back to a constitutional republic or perish under the decline and depravity of “Our Democracy.” Trump needs to address this. He hinted at it ever so softly during the debate but so far hasn’t made it the central theme of his campaign. That’s frustrating to see. But given the laughable, sloppy bias of ABC moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis, with their one-sided (and mostly inaccurate) fact-checking and slanted questions, the opportunity to properly posture this election has never been greater. “We can’t go back?” Damn right we can. We must. America will either reclaim its heritage as a free, self-governing, prosperous, and moral nation, perhaps with a few upgrades we can all agree on from past mistakes, or we will cease to exist. And the people screeching “we can’t go back” would be the only possible beneficiaries of this spiraling status quo. They don’t mind the ruin if they can rule over it. We have to go back, Kamala. Maybe you should go back to California. READ MORE: The Debate Was Fixed Probing the Anti-Racism Racket The post The Worst Campaign Slogan of All Time appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

When ABC moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis asked President Donald Trump why women should trust him on the issue of abortion, he quickly pivoted to question the pro-abortion extremism of Harris, Walz, and their fellow progressive Democrats. The former president pointed to their substantial record of support for late-term, partial-birth, and “born-alive” abortions:  They’re radical. The Democrats are radical in that … Her vice presidential pick says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine. … You should ask, will she allow abortion in the eighth month? Ninth month? Seventh month?  Harris immediately dismissed him, but Trump doubled down, asking her directly, “Would you do that?” He continued: You could do abortions in the seventh month, the eighth month, the ninth month, and probably after birth. Just look at the former governor of Virginia. The governor of Virginia said, ‘We put the baby aside, and then we determine what we want to do with the baby.’  But Harris just laughed his point off again, saying, “That’s not true.” She didn’t need to provide any other answer because ABC moderator Linsey Davis chimed in with a well-timed fact check: “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born.” The only problem with the moderator’s intervention is that the clam was completely false.  Legalizing Infanticide Though late-term abortion procedures often begin with the severing of the umbilical cord or the administration of a lethal injection into the amniotic sac, head, or heart, the Charlotte Lozier Institute reports that nearly 70 percent of late-term abortion providers report that they “do not induce fetal demise before beginning the abortion.” If the infant is born alive before the abortionist can kill it, the child’s chances at life depend on the state in which he or she is born.  Take Gov. Tim Walz’s home state of Minnesota, for example. Just last year, Walz legalized infanticide in the state by surreptitiously altering language in a bill to legalize the “denial of life-saving medical care to infants born alive after botched abortions.”  Since 1976, Minnesota law had required physicians to “preserve the life and health of the born alive infant.” But Walz stripped down the language to simply require “care for the infant who is born alive,” allowing medical personnel to withhold life-saving care should the mother so choose. A child born alive in an abortion attempt might not be killed by the same methods used in utero — crushed by forceps or injected with a lethal dose — but deliberate negligence is no less nefarious.  Democrats would quibble about the terminology: Minnesota doesn’t technically have a law that says physicians can kill infants. But they do have laws that allow mothers and medical personnel to perform an abortion, the intent of which is to kill the unborn child. And if things don’t go as planned and the child is born alive, mothers and medical personnel cannot be held responsible for achieving their original intent through different means — even if that means turning their backs on a helpless infant. (RELATED: The Debate Was Fixed) Preventing Care for Infants Born Alive Walz is extreme on abortion to the point that even former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked him to “tone it down.” But his fellow Democrats are equally comfortable with infanticide. The House of Representatives voted in January 2023 on the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would have required physicians to preserve the life and health of the child and transport the child born alive to a hospital for continued care. Every Democrat save one voted against the act.  Dogmatic Democrat opposition to saving the lives of children born amid an abortion procedure provides cover for abortionists. D.C.-based abortionist Cesare Santangelo notoriously stated that, if the mother “delivered before we got to the termination part of the procedure … we would not help it.” Santangelo’s clinic came under additional scrutiny from the pro-life movement when the remains of 115 children were found in a box of medical waste from the clinic, including five babies who were killed by late-term or born-alive abortions.  Harris Is an Abortion Radical It’s no surprise that Harris didn’t want to answer Trump’s questions about where she’d draw the line on abortion access. Pro-abortion extremists don’t like discussing late-term abortions, and most Americans don’t support abortion without gestational limits.  Harris has been an outspoken abortion radical for years. She doesn’t believe in limits. But now she’s running for president, and her views on abortion are wildly out of step with American voters, 66 percent of whom agree that “abortion should be legal in, at most, the first three months of a pregnancy.”  Florida’s Amendment 4, which provided the ostensible pretext for ABC’s original question to Trump, would strike down the state’s current six-week abortion and prevent gestational limits on when women can procure abortions. Trump said on Tuesday night that he plans to vote against it. (RELATED: ABC Moderators Go After Trump. Harris Remains Blurry.)  And though the former president’s personal convictions give many pro-life activists cause for doubt — he struggles to present a coherent view beyond opposition to late-term or born-alive abortions, for example — the political calculations are apparent. American voters simply do not have the luxury of pretending that the cause of life would fare better under Harris. The solutions offered by a second Trump term might not be ideal, but he is willing to acknowledge some of the evils carried out under our current abortion regime. Mary Frances Myler is a contributing editor at The American Spectator. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2022.  READ MORE by Mary Frances Myler:  As Students Return, So Do Pro-Palestinian Protests ‘Missionaries of Evil’: Africa Is the New Frontier for LGBTQ Activism Planned Parenthood Mobile Clinic Provides Abortions and Vasectomies at DNC The post Harris and ABC Lied About Late-Term Abortions appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

In 1990, in the midst of a heated — and racially charged — U.S. Senate race in North Carolina between Republican incumbent Jesse Helms and Democratic challenger Harvey Gantt, Chicago Bulls superstar guard Michael Jordan issued one of his most famous lines. Jordan, who grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina, and won a national championship in 1982 for the famed University of North Carolina Tar Heels basketball program, was asked whether he would endorse Gantt. Jordan’s memorable response, which OutKick founder and syndicated radio host Clay Travis subsequently adopted for a book title, was: “Republicans buy sneakers too.” Jordan, in other words, refused to politicize his brand and thus risk sacrificing sales of his signature Air Jordan sneakers, which Nike had first unveiled six years earlier. It was an admirable assertion of political neutrality — a refusal to bend the knee to those mandating a stifling and homogenous political correctness. As Jordan would later tell ESPN during the filming of its docuseries The Last Dance, which aired in 2020, “I never thought of myself as an activist. I thought of myself as a basketball player.” Jordan’s neutrality from decades ago was criticized, during the ESPN miniseries, by someone who knows a lot about exacerbating race relations: former President Barack Obama. In response to that criticism, Jordan doubled down, effectively flipping two middle fingers to the 44th president: “It’s never going to be enough for everybody, and I know that. Because everybody has a preconceived idea for what I should do and what I shouldn’t do.” As a lifelong college basketball fan of University of North Carolina archrival Duke and a 1990s-era childhood pro hoops fan of the Bulls’ perennially hapless Eastern Conference rival, the New York Knicks, I am loath to credit Michael Jordan. But in this instance, “MJ” was spot-on. In today’s hyper-politicized era, it raises an obvious question: Do Republicans still buy sneakers too? Taylor Swift seems to think not. In a viral Instagram post earlier this week, the megastar singer-songwriter endorsed Kamala Harris for president. Citing a litany of left-wing pet causes, such as “LGBTQ+ rights,” in vitro fertilization, and the pro-abortion euphemism of “a woman’s right to her own body,” Swift concluded that Harris is a “steady-handed, gifted leader” who has earned her vote. Swift is the first-ever music industry billionaire, so perhaps she has cynically concluded that she simply does not need conservative or Republican patronage. It’s been at least a decade and a half since Swift sang something approximating country music, and she may simply no longer care about alienating the southerners and churchgoers who disproportionately constitute country music’s fanbase. Swift, who is dating Kansas City Chiefs all-pro tight end Travis Kelce, was on hand in Las Vegas in February to see Kelce’s Chiefs prevail in a thrilling Super Bowl overtime victory over the San Francisco 49ers. She stood just offstage as NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell recognized star Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes, for the third time this decade, as Super Bowl MVP. Mahomes is an evangelical Christian who has spoken about how he prays before every game to “thank God for those opportunities.” Mahomes’ wife, Brittany, furthermore, “liked” an Instagram post last month from former President Donald Trump. It is thus not a very well-kept secret that Kelce’s own quarterback Mahomes, as well as Mahomes’ wife, Brittany, are a contemporary conservative Christian power couple. All of that makes it even more remarkable that Mahomes, when asked at a press conference earlier this week what he thought of Swift’s high-profile presidential endorsement and whether he himself would be issuing an endorsement of his own, stuck to Jordan’s neutrality position. As Mahomes put it: “I don’t want my place and my platform to be used to endorse a candidate. … I think my place is to inform people to get registered to vote. It’s to inform people to do their own research, and then make their best decision for them and their family.” Hear, hear. Mahomes — like Jordan before him — intuitively understands something that Swift does not. Americans routinely tune into sports games on their TVs and listen to music on their radios as a distraction from our chaotic news cycles and the political tumult of the day. It is not merely a commercial proposition — that Republicans might also buy Air Jordans, and pro-lifers might also purchase Swift albums. It is certainly that. But it is also a matter of basic decency — of using one’s massive platform in order to assuage, and not exacerbate, the domestic tensions that have brought our politics to a frenzied fever pitch. Swift’s endorsement won’t move the needle. But it is condemnable. Let’s seek out celebrities who would elevate us and play into our better angels — not those who would tear us apart and tear us down. To find out more about Josh Hammer and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM READ MORE: The Real Reason Democrats Fear Losing in November The Debate Was Fixed Five Quick Things: Easy Predictions For 2024 The post Do Republicans Still Buy Sneakers Too? appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Season two of Amazon’s mega-funded The Rings of Power isn’t good. Season one wasn’t good, either, and despite having two years to correct the problems, the show continues to feel like the furthest thing from what J. R. R. Tolkien would have wanted. I can hear Tolkien thundering from across the pond, punching up through the earth to try to stop the abuse. The writers for this show made a lot of mistakes. There are too many characters, and the writers haven’t given us much reason to care about any of them, let alone feel invested in any of the narrative threads. For me, though, the show’s central flaw is the dialogue. It was the main issue in the first season, and it continues to be so in the second as well. When characters speak, it often feels contrived and overly serious, with mixed metaphors and clichés that would drive Tolkien, the linguist who had the genius to invent his own languages, absolutely mad. Here are some of the worst offenders: Galadriel, talking with fellow elf Elrond about how Halbrand (really Sauron in disguise) deceived her from seeing his true form, says, “He played me like a harp, but the melody was not of my choosing.” The line is long-winded, using 14 words where three would suffice: “I was deceived!” Then there’s the delivery. Morfydd Clark speaks the simile with such an aura of solemnity that it feels unnatural, forced, like bad role-playing in a game of D&D. Another line, which the Elf high king Gil-Galad speaks, “Like an ember that has been too long removed from a fire, our people must return to their home.” Again, the line itself is sort of cheesy, and it’s a bit of an odd metaphor (do embers need to go home or just burn out?), but this time, the actor, Benjamin Walker, speaks with little more life than a stone. Essentially, though, the writers of this show don’t seem to be letting the meaning of the language guide the dialogue. This is a flaw in some fiction, too, where “sounding romantic” becomes a higher priority than actually having the characters say romantic things that feel true to experience. In Tolkien’s novels, characters aren’t always so internally conflicted as they are in The Rings of Power. The good guys, most of the time, are simply good. Yes, the characters are vulnerable to corruption, but the heroes’ primary modes are toward goodness and nobility. Tolkien isn’t afraid to affirm the reality of moral goodness, as well as the foreboding presence of actual evil. In The Rings of Power, on the other hand, I struggled to find characters who served as examples of virtue. It’s not clear that the good guys are good. In fact, it’s made explicit in the show that Galadriel is called toward darkness. As a result, she’s constantly restless, torn between her desire to hunt Sauron down and the guilt of knowing that she let the dark lord deceive her. Maybe these internal struggles like Galadriel’s are an attempt to modernize the characters and make them more relatable. In any case, what’s lost amid the heavy-handed dialogue and characters’ constant moral agony is the original flavor of Middle-earth. The dialogue in The Rings of Power is akin to the creations of AI language systems like ChatGPT. ChatGPT knows how to sound human, but it can never understand the meaning of the human language it generates. It can gesture and simulate, but it can never truly symbolize and communicate. Similarly, the writers of The Rings of Power choose dialogue that sounds serious, deep, and grand, but with no substance undergirding the words, they sound trivial and frankly ridiculous. The Rings of Power is trying to replicate the grandeur of Tolkien’s world, but the writers’ focus is on creating a dramatic effect, not the moral and imaginative foundation that made Middle-earth come alive in the first place. They want you to feel something without earning it. They want the emotional payoff of people going on journeys but have characters magically teleport all over Middle-earth in no time at all. They expected the audience to reward the show as a product of enormous investment. Clearly, the show took effort. Many scenes are stunningly beautiful, and the effects and CGI are remarkable too. However, when it comes to the meat of the story — the characters and their relationships — the show falls short. Reading Tolkien’s book and its appendices, which is surely what the author intended anyway, is still an option. Peter Biles is a writer and contributor for Young Voices. A novelist as well as an essayist, he is the author of three books, most recently the novel Through the Eye of Old Man Kyle. Follow him on X @biles_peter and read more at his Substack, Battle the Bard.  The post <i>The Rings of Power</i> Has ChatGPT Syndrome appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

At this point, the American people and the media should probably recognize an important truth: The spectacles that presidential candidates partake in during the weeks just before a presidential election are not debates. The only similarity they bear to the intellectual war waged between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in 1858 is that both candidates are standing on a stage. We should probably call the modern spectacle a “show.” Or maybe a “squabble” would be better. As with most squabbles, it’s rather unclear who won the debate on ABC News on Tuesday night. If you ask Daniel J. Flynn, it was a draw and Donald Trump was facing down three opponents, not one. Dov Fischer agrees. Debra Saunders says Kamala won on style and Trump on policy. Melissa Mackenzie and Scott McKay think Trump won the soundbite competition (arguably the most important outcome of the debate). (LISTEN: The Spectacle Ep. 144: 9/11 and the Morning and Decade After. Trump v. Harris: The Draw) As wonderful as all of these analyses are (you should certainly go read and listen to them), they are written by people, and people are biased. So, because this is a column on artificial intelligence, I asked AI — which is ostensibly not biased — who won the debate. ChatGPT gave it to me nice and short: Prompt: Who won the 2024 presidential debate on ABC News and why? ChatGPT: In the 2024 presidential debate hosted by ABC News, Kamala Harris was widely regarded as the winner. Analysts praised her calm and composed performance, which contrasted sharply with Donald Trump, who appeared defensive and frustrated throughout the debate. Harris effectively baited Trump on several issues, including his criminal charges and past controversial statements, which led him to stray off-topic and engage in rambling defenses. This tactic helped her maintain control of the debate, while Trump’s reactions played poorly to swing voters and suburban audiences. Harris was successful in positioning herself as a forward-looking candidate, calling on Americans to “turn the page” on Trump. In contrast, Trump focused heavily on past grievances, such as the results of the 2020 election, which he falsely claimed was stolen from him. Despite attempts by Trump to steer the conversation towards topics like immigration, he often veered into conspiracy theories, which further weakened his standing. Many commentators believe that this debate showcased Harris’s ability to handle high-pressure situations and strengthened her position as a viable alternative to Trump. While the race remains competitive, Harris’s performance likely boosted her momentum going into the final stretch of the campaign. ChatGPT was nice enough to point me to its sources, including USA Today, and Politico — I supposed AI can only be as unbiased as its sources. This is, of course, subjective, but I think it’s fair to say that Trump hardly appeared “defensive and frustrated” (although, I’ll admit, Harris was successful at baiting Trump a time or two). But that’s ChatGPT, owned and run by left-wing Silicon Valley. (RELATED: Kamala Harris Has a Plan — To Take, Take, Take) What about Grok? Prompt: Will the debate impact the election? Grok: The impact of the Harris-Trump debate on the 2024 election is shaping up to be a mixed bag, according to various analyses and sentiments expressed on platforms like X. Here’s a light-hearted take: Perception of Victory: Kamala Harris is widely seen to have outperformed Donald Trump, with polls among debate watchers giving her a clear edge. However, as history shows, winning a debate doesn’t automatically translate to winning an election. Remember, debates are part spectacle, part substance, and while Harris might have won the spectacle, the substance’s effect on voter swing is less clear-cut. Voter Sentiment: X posts and polls suggest a nuanced impact. While Harris’s performance was strong, potentially energizing her base and swaying some undecideds, Trump’s core supporters remain largely unshaken, viewing his performance through the lens of his established persona. The debate might not have been the game-changer some hoped for or feared, given Trump’s previous debate performances didn’t hinder his victories. Market and Betting Odds: There’s some indication of immediate reactions in betting markets, swinging slightly in Harris’s favor post-debate, suggesting at least a temporary shift in public confidence or at least in the bettors’ confidence. Long-term Effects: The real question is whether this debate will spawn weeks of discussion and media cycles that could influence voter turnout or preference, similar to what was observed with Biden’s debate performance. However, as some users on X pointed out, unless it leads to sustained negative coverage or a significant gaffe that permeates beyond the debate night, its direct impact might be overstated. In essence, while Harris might have won the night with her tactical prowess and fact-based jabs, the election’s outcome hinges on much more than a single debate. The electorate’s decision will brew over time, influenced by policy, personality, and perhaps, unpredictably humorous or absurd moments yet to come in this election cycle. I would argue that this response is more balanced (Grok has the distinct advantage of summarizing X, which gives it a mix of opinions to pull from). I should note that I had Grok in “fun mode” and the introduction promised a “light-hearted take.” In terms of humor, Grok failed this one in epic fashion. (READ MORE from Aubrey Gulick: It’s Not About the Cats. It’s About America.) As usual, feel free to take to the comment section and let me know what you think of AI’s take. And if you’re looking for better debate analysis than AI can give you, listen to Melissa and Scott’s full breakdown of the debate: This is a weekly column at The American Spectator dedicated to exposing the left-wing bent of generative AI machines. If you enjoyed it and want to see what else ChatGPT or Grok comes up with, feel free to leave ideas for prompts in the comments section below! The post Who Won the Debate? AI Says Kamala Did. appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

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