Real Clear
Clinical Psychologist and Psychoanalyst addresses relevant political and social issues of our times in a straightforward and honest manner. Taking on anti-logic factions that are growing in society. News and opinions that you can rely on for integrity and depth!
Real Clear
Pre-Debate Analysis, Harris's Questionable Rise to Prominence
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We discuss the political upheaval following Biden's departure, shedding light on Kamala Harris's surprising rise to prominence despite her initial unpopularity and numerous gaffes. Additionally, we scrutinize Tim Walz's erratic behavior and its implications, emphasizing the necessity of cognitive sharpness in our leaders for the preservation of democracy.
In another revealing segment, we take a hard look at Kamala Harris's tax proposals, including the contentious 4% surcharge on incomes over $100,000 to fund universal Medicare and the radical idea of taxing unrealized capital gains. As we approach the pivotal debate on September 8th, 2024, we challenge you to consider the profound impacts these policies might have on our medical system and the fabric of capitalism. Are these reforms visionary solutions or impractical dreams? Join us for a thought-provoking discussion that promises to challenge your perspective and prepare you for the upcoming political battleground.
But caring that guy's mental state. I've said it for years now. He's cogent, but I undersold him when I said he was cogent. He's far beyond cogent, In fact I think he's better than he's ever been intellectually, analytically, because he's been around for 50 years and you know I don't know if people know this or not Biden used to be a hothead. Sometimes that Irishman would get in front of the reasoning, Sometimes he would say things he didn't want to say. This is and I don't really you know what. I don't really start your tape right now because I'm about to tell you the truth and F you if you can't handle the truth. This version of Biden, intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever, Not a close second, and I've known him for years. The Brzezinski's have known him for 50 years. If it weren't the truth, I wouldn't say it.
Speaker 2:That, of course, was MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, not long after President Biden's disastrous debate with Donald Trump. Of course, we all saw what we saw, but we're being told that we didn't see what we saw. That's just the sort of thing that you see in a battered woman's shelter that the abusive male tells them they're not actually being abused. That's what's meant by gaslighting in its worst form. We were all being told that we weren't actually seeing a decompensating individual. In fact, we've been told this since 2020. Just about everybody who was paying attention would admit privately, at least in my experience, that there was something wrong with Joe Biden. He was non-composmentis and yet in public, if anybody uttered such a thing, they were labeled as a conspiracy theorist. This is one of the greatest national gaslighting episodes in American history that the American people were being told that they should not believe their actual eyes. The American people were being told that they had a sharp commander-in-chief. Remember that when there were questions in this election cycle about President Biden's competency, his henchmen came out into public and stated almost on cue, in unison that he's sharp and focused. And even after that debate, where clearly he was in the phases of serious cognitive decline, agents of the administration in the form of serious cognitive decline. Agents of the administration, in the form of Joe Scarborough and others, continued to keep up the presentation that your eyes aren't actually seeing what they're seeing Up until that point, and, shortly thereafter, white House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told us that attempts to accurately appraise President Biden's cognitive decline were quote cheap, fakes, unquote. Why am I bringing this up a few months after these sorts of things occurred? Well, now we're being told that we have two candidates that are viable, and we do have two candidates who do not have age-related cognitive decline, and that's a good thing. By the way, the fact that Joe Biden was forced out I don't say stepped down, because he really didn't, he was forced out by Nancy Pelosi. She actually threatened him and told him that she was going to come out as former speaker and condemn him. That's right condemn, not just speak against him. She was going to imply that he was immoral for continuing to run. The problem now is, even though we have two people who are viable candidates for office, at least cognitively and neurologically, and that's a good thing for the country. It really is. Whether you're on the Trump side or the Harris side, it's a good thing that Americans have a choice between two people who have functional brains. That's good for democracy.
Speaker 2:What is questionable is the new ascendancy of Kamala Harris. Right up until just a few months ago, she was a laughingstock in the political community. She has been the most unpopular vice president in American history by the polls, and the administration kept her hidden since she bumbled the border in about her first month. She had a disastrous interview about the border very early into the Biden administration and from that moment on, they made obvious efforts to keep her cloaked and out of public visibility. Every time she speaks, she is obviously uncomfortable. If you watched her interview on CNN, which was clipped and edited God only knows what was edited out of that, because if that's what they ended up with and that was the best that she could provide it really was horrible From a visual standpoint. She's sitting next to Tim Walz, looking like a child, she's sitting low and she's clearly uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:Tim Walz was also uncomfortable and somewhat bizarre, frankly, when asked about his public credibility, he made statements such as his record is obvious and everyone knows everything about him. No, we don't. You've been the governor of Minnesota. No one knows where the hell that is. No one cares about what happens there, except in 2020, when the origins of national destruction emanated from those areas.
Speaker 2:Tim Walz is a strange character. One of the things that I have noticed in Tim Walz is his tendency to project elements of himself onto others and then also to become really strangely hypomanic when speaking. Now, don't worry, I'll get onto JD Vance in a second, but Walz has made statements that the Republicans are just weirdos and so forth, and can you imagine them going home playing with their dogs? Perhaps that's useful to some degree. I don't know. I started to think about those comments after he made them and JD Vance is kind of an odd guy, but Tim Walsh appears really odd. It seems to me that his accusations of the Republican Party and its candidates are projections of his own character. In fact, tim Walz's own brother has come out publicly and stated that he would not trust his brother to have the country's fate in his hands.
Speaker 2:So we're being told here that Kamala Harris is the next coming of President Obama, who was an incredible politician. Think what you will about his policies. President Obama was one of the best politicians of our lifetime. His ability to enervate a crowd, his capacity to speak effectively as a politician was unparalleled, is the best since Reagan. Kamala Harris have you listened to her? Every other sentence she breaks out into some sort of cackle. It's unlistenable. To hear Kamala Harris is to wish for her to shut up. I hate to say that it sounds cruel, but to hear her is to wish for her to be quiet, and that's why she's only done one interview with a news station that's in their pocket and who would edit out unfavorable parts of the conversation?
Speaker 2:Something else about Kamala Harris that is pretty clear to anybody watching is that she is visibly uncomfortable in interviews. Now this has been attributed to some sort of incompetence and being quick on her feet, a sort of dialogic unease on her part, and I think that's probably true. But I've begun to wonder, however, whether her discomfort actually reveals a sort of morality in her, in the sense that she knows she's perhaps not fit for this job. Her discomfort in being observed and listened to and interviewed may reveal an inner knowledge on her part that she shouldn't be doing what she's doing. President Trump has made some pretty stupid maneuvers to call her stupid. He shouldn't do that from his perspective, because it's really not good politics. It makes him look low and well, that's usually his style. I disagree with it. I think it's very poor politics and it debases our politics, something I really don't like about Trump. However, just because Donald Trump says something in an unbelievably inartful and low way doesn't mean he's wrong.
Speaker 2:Kamala Harris, in my view, doesn't appear to be able to think this is a serious problem If you watch her interviews and her speaking, if she's not purely on a teleprompter, if she's even being asked a mildly challenging question, she's tripped up immediately. Now it can be very difficult to tell when this sort of thing happens whether it is a product of someone's anger at being challenged or whether it is an incapacity at realigning one's mind to answer the question at hand. I can't really know, but since she doesn't seem ever able to do this, I'm erring on the side that this is a cognitive limitation. Now, I'm not going to call her stupid like Trump did. I think that's inaccurate. It's very difficult to get to the station where she is while being stupid. But what do we mean by stupid? I think she's got average intelligence. I'm not sure that's enough to run the country.
Speaker 2:The last time we had a president with average intelligence was Warren Harding. His IQ is rated to be one of the lowest in history and he ascended to office based on his looks and charm. He actually ended up having a heart attack because of this. He was unfit for office. You can read the stories about President Warren Harding. They're really stunning. He wrote in his personal memoirs and letters about how he was basically overwhelmed by the office, and again we're being told that this isn't happening. Much like in 2020, when any of us who were paying attention said Biden looks very delayed, he looks very incapacitated. We were told nope, he's just fine. You're being ageist.
Speaker 2:Now, as we're observing Kamala Harris, we're being told she is actually one of the best political candidates that we can think of. She's the second coming of Obama. I don't think so. No one's believing this, however, since Trump is really not a great political candidate. I think his policies are pretty decent, but he's not a very good political candidate. The election is at a 50-50 split. Even Nate Silver is waffling back and forth and he's pretty accurate. I like the fact that he uses probabilities instead of just pure polls. We do not know how this election is going to unfold. It's anybody's game right now.
Speaker 2:Now, getting on to JD Vance as the pick for vice president. This was a foolhardy decision. Now, vance is obviously a very intelligent man and he comes from a relatable history, something that most Americans can look at and admire his tenacity and intelligence and ability to climb out of the hole that he was born into. If you haven't read Hillbilly Elegy, it's worth a read. But this is not a good candidate.
Speaker 2:Trump didn't do much for his ticket. He really should have hired Byron Donalds. Byron is a deep MAGA man and is a very quick and intelligent African-American Republican from Florida. My own speculation is that Trump didn't hire Byron because Byron is really an alpha man and Trump doesn't want him standing next to him sharing the stage with him. And secondly, I think Trump probably evaluated the pick based on a few things, but also the name, and Trump-Vance is a good-sounding ticket. Donald Trump is a billboard guy. He's a slogan man, so something as superficial as name combination may have loaded into his calculus to a great degree, but Vance doesn't do anything for the ticket. If you look at the field, he could have chosen other very competent people who would have energized dormant sides of the Republican Party.
Speaker 2:The Republicans really do need to start making inroads into minority communities. They've been slow at that, to their detriment, and I think they're starting to learn, but they're slow learners. The good thing about JD Vance is that he's very quick on his feet and very eloquent and very targeted in conversations with reporters and interviewers. In fact, he's doing so well in his interviews. I think he's starting to be sidelined because they don't want to give him the airspace. The same really can't be said for the Harris ticket. Their interviews are disastrous. If they ever have them. They come across as hokey and odd Again Tim Walz's projection on his opponents. So this is where we stand. We have a debate coming up on Tuesday and I'm going to release my episode reviewing the debate early first thing on Wednesday morning.
Speaker 2:I think everyone should be watching this. This is one of the most momentous elections in American history. There's no question. We have two drastically different directions that the country could take. Now, of course, the president doesn't determine everything economic, and I actually loathe the fact that presidents claim that economies are made or torn down by their policies. It's actually not true and shouldn't be true in any functioning market system. That being said, there are very distinct paths that this country could take.
Speaker 2:Donald Trump for all the objections against his personality, which I think are valid in many cases, he's quite a moderate president, quite a centrist when it comes down to it. His economic policies I view to be fairly sound for the country and yet he's a wild card when it comes to foreign policy. So there is some hesitation on some sides of the aisle. There are also people, like General HR McMasters, who remark on Trump as getting a lot of things right but also being a freewheeling person who was difficult to predict and work for. It is is in that position. So he has this expectation that his companies and administrations should run fluidly if brilliant geniuses, if winners are in the right positions and if something doesn't go well, he just takes the head off. Well, it's very difficult to engender trust and collegiality in a system like that. I'm not sure that's the greatest way to run a White House administration. Former Chief of Staff General John Kelly also agrees with that analysis that Trump was quite a difficult person to be around and to work for.
Speaker 2:But Harris has the same reputation with her staff. People were terrified of her. She was irascible. She was a very incompetent leader. So you have to be careful about the narrative that percolates through the mainstream media, which is Trump bad, therefore alternative good. That's profoundly untrue. The more accurate rubric is like Trump decent strategist, very rough around the edges, debases our politics, the alternative, difficult to get along with, potentially incompetent. No evidence of strategy.
Speaker 2:I would also encourage you to look back at one of my episodes regarding the radical nature of Harris's tax plans. She's starting to shift towards the middle because there was some blowback from people like myself and many other news outlets throughout the country calling out her radical tax plan. She'd like a 4% surcharge on income over $100,000 for universal Medicare, which would completely destroy the medical system and would also take money out of your pocket that you didn't sign up for, and it would be a surcharge, not a tax. Did you get that? And again, as mentioned, it's even within the realm of possibility to tax unrealized capital gains. This country is over. That is the death knell to capitalism Game over.
Speaker 2:And some people listening may say oh, that's a good thing. Yeah, it's a good thing compared to what you have to ask the question if you don't like something, is it better or worse than something realistically possible as an alternative? You can't simply say no, it's not as good as my ideal, of course it's not. None of us are able to compare reality with our utopian fantasies. Okay, so there we are, on Sunday, september 8th 2024. We've got one of the most important debates in election history coming up on Tuesday. No-transcript.