Over Reach

Nancy Pelosi and the MSM are breathlessly announcing the demise of the hated Trump. He caved on the shutdown/border showdown and now it is just a matter of time before he resigns, is impeached or neutered by the fearsome force which is the Democratically controlled House of Representatives. And even if he limps home to finish his term, there is just no way for him to get re-elected after this debacle. And Russia – Pelosi is more than happy to suggest Trump is Putin’s puppet.

I didn’t think much of Trump calling off the shutdown. No doubt he had his reasons and he is pushing the idea that it is a three week hiatus; but the fact is that Trump lost that round and losing is not something which Trump is very good at. I don’t hold out much hope that the Dems will suddenly see the light on the border in three weeks and vote the funds. Nor do I think that going the “Emergency” route is likely to work simply because there will be a judge somewhere who will enjoin the Emergency declaration.

Nope, Trump needs to do something which is immune to Congressional funding and which is a much less juicy judicial target. That something is, frankly, building the wall by Presidential fiat. The how is to use Department of Defence and Department of Homeland Security funds and get going. The “Wall” itself is a not particularly good idea – there are more sophisticated ways of controlling the Southern border – but it is a huge symbol of determination. It needs to get started and if that means an end run around Congress, Trump’s predecessor did that same sort of end run to get ObamaCare up and running.

However, the Wall per se is not going to be enough to turn it around for Trump. He actually needs to take the fight to the Democrats and to the deep state itself. The indictment of Roger Stone (for “crimes” which have nothing to do with Russian collusion but rather having to do with lying to Congress – a crime everyone from James Comey to Lisa Page and Andrew McCabe have committed from inside the FBI/DOJ) means it is time to start laying out the criminal conduct of the FBI/DOJ. It means it is time to re-open the question of Hillary’s emails and how the FBI entirely mishandled that case.

The Democrats are going to spend the next two years throwing muck at Trump. It will do Trump no good at all to sit on the evidence of ongoing Democratic Party/FBI/DOJ criminal actions.

At the same time, we will have the pleasure of watching the Democratic Party nominate a Presidential candidate. My clever middle son suggests that their best bet will be the sort of candidate who I would not vote for in a million years. (My older son is too busy gloating to give the matter much thought.) The list of potential Democratic Party Presidential nominees I would not vote for is very long indeed. But Sam’s point is well taken. If the Democrats want to beat Trump they can’t work on the basis that virtually any candidate can get the job done. After all, the most qualified (and entitled) candidate of her generation lost.

Trump is going to spend the next six months to a year shoring up his base as the cliche goes. But as he does that he is also going to be picking away at key Democratic Party support. A few points in the black community, a few more with Hispanics, done right Trump could be formidable.

This is particularly true if the Democrats have a real donnybrook of a nomination fight. In a field with Irish Hispanics, fake Indians and Jamaican East Indian gals who slept their way to the top, the entertainment potential is Huge. And there is nothing more vicious than an identity-driven, virtue signalling, fight on the left. Particularly when most of the contenders have come up in an environment in which any sort of accommodation or concession will be seen as betrayal. The Twitter brigades will be out in full force and there will be no need for Russian bots to thoroughly demoralize the many losing sides in the Democratic race.

Trump was certainly hurt by the shutdown/border retreat.

But, if you are going to shoot a lion you better be damned sure to kill the lion. Trump’s retreat was not a mortal blow, the question is whether it was a flesh wound or something more serious. We’ll see over the next few weeks and then the next year.

The hyenas in the Democratic Party and the MSM have, I suspect, once again over-reached.

New Year, New Attitude

Alberta’s truckers are planning to drive to Ottawa in February to express their displeasure with the feds refusal to get on with building pipelines and the lunacy of the Trudeau carbon tax. Leaving aside the rigours of driving the trans-Canada in February, this is a very un-Canadian sort of activity. Because it is activity. Canadians normally sit around the bar grumbling, they don’t “do” anything which is what our masters in Ottawa and the provincial capitals count on.

While the truckers are driving in protest, an Alberta rancher is taking a stand against that province’s carbon tax. Remembering that Alberta’s Premier originally introduced the carbon tax to, somehow, gain social licence for the much-needed pipelines and noting that those pipelines have not even been started, rancher Sheila Griffith is refusing to pay the carbon tax portion of her propane bill.

While the truckers will make better copy, Ms. Griffith represents a far greater threat to “business as usual”. If more than a few people join her the Alberta government will, quite quickly, notice a hole in its budget. Apparently, the propane company will just tack the unpaid portion onto her next bill – but it will not halt delivery.

These two items, as well as the appearance of “yellow vests” at other Alberta protests, suggests that in Alberta at least, people are getting fed up with simply being ignored. They are getting fed up with the Tweedledum/Tweedledee routine of Trudeau and Scheer.

Simple, direct, action will not change the Liberal’s fixation on the tax grab which is the carbon tax or the endless kowtowing to minority First Nations opposition to pipelines or Quebec’s reluctance to replace Saudi oil with Alberta oil. It might have a small effect on Scheer’s fixation on being so bland that he wins the next election by default (a bad strategy but apparently all he’s got.) What it does do is set up the conditions for a revolt at the ballot box come October.

Right now Maxime Bernier needs to be in Alberta. He needs to visit and encourage Ms. Griffith and go to a trucker’s rally or two.

Canadians are very reluctant to actually do “civil disobedience”. It is not who we are. The fact there are large protests tells me that, in Alberta at least, a tipping point has been reached. A smart, insurgent, politician and political party would be taking full advantage.