Kamala May Lose This
Kamala May Lose This
NEW: Domino Theory podcast. Guest Steve Yates on China’s fentanyl war, the media, and the election
We’ve rebooted the Simon and Whiton podcast as “Domino Theory.” Below is my lead-in argument that Kamala’s strategy is not working as she had hoped. While Trump could still tighten his points on the economy, immigration, and China, Kamala’s attempt to redo Biden’s remain-in-basement strategy and win with the media and Big Tech isn’t likely to succeed.
If you like podcasts—ours comes in both video and audio form—please take a look at the linked episode. After my lead-in below, I have included excerpts from Mark and guest Steve Yates about China’s fentanyl war on the USA, the Chicom view of the U.S. election, Taiwan’s confusing politics, snowflakes in the newsroom, and why comedians are now more trusted than most journalists. Watch the full episode for an admission about the worst pitch I ever made.
The Lead-In
Let’s talk about Kama-Lama-Ding-Dong, Kamala Harris, the vice president of our great nation and the Democrat nominee for president. It’s about two months until the election and early voting begins soon and will pick up a lot of steam in about a month.
Last Thursday, Harris finally did something most presidential candidates do several times a week--she gave an interview. This one went to CNN, the once-respected news network turned Trump-deranged political tabloid.
Harris’s performance fit well with her campaign so far. The strategy there has been to say as little as possible of substance and hope that enthusiastic media support, lots of donor money, and enough dislike by some of Donald Trump’s style will push her over the finish line.
I don’t think the strategy is working. Furthermore, this campaign style, which is basically an updated version of keeping Joe Biden in his basement during the 2020 campaign, means she is missing the opportunity to sharpen up her policies and talking points before she has to debate Trump sooner or later—and a debate is currently scheduled for September 10.
Harris knows she is in trouble on two big issues: inflation and the border. On inflation, she is trying to blame the supermarkets for price gouging, which is a hoot for a notoriously low-margin business. On the border, she is trying to deflect to the phony legislation that Democrats tried to pass in Congress earlier this year purporting to do more and spend more on the border. That was legislative theater intended to shift blame to Republicans. But everyone knows that Biden-Harris policy changes opened the border and let in millions of illegals, including some bad hombres. Everyone knows that the polices under Trump were better at controlling the border.
When foreign policy comes up in the campaign, Trump usually warns that we are close to World War III because of Biden-Harris policies. Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, tried to throw some help to Kamala’s campaign—not usually part of the national security advisor’s job description. Bloomberg reported that he said: “Vice President Harris has been a central member of the Biden foreign policy team. She’s had the opportunity to engage herself with President Xi and with Premier Li, so she is known to both of the top leaders in China.”
I’m sure they were both super impressed by their brush with Kama-Lama-Greatness. Interesting footnote: It turns out that Mark’s imprisoned boss, Jimmy Lai, is also known to both of those men. I wonder who scares them more.
This presents an interesting decision tree. On one branch: Was Kamala really involved in foreign policy? If so, how does she explain the disaster in Afghanistan, Iran’s march across the Middle East, failure in Ukraine, and the unrequited romancing of Chinese officials by Biden-Harris cabinet members. Or, the other branch: Was Sullivan lying, and Harris somehow managed not to influence or learn much about foreign policy despite technically being on the National Security Council these past four years. That’s my where I’m putting my money. Either way, voters have no idea what Harris would do differently than Biden on China…or other foreign policy issues…or really even any issues. So far, all we’ve gotten is fluff.
Podcast listeners can get this full episode of Domino Theory from Spotify:
Mark Simon on the continued implosion of the media:
I think the biggest thing that's happened in major media is basically they're not economically viable anymore.
And what's happened is… the way you keep your job in network news, which is ABC, CBS, or NBC, is you not be the one who loses the most. In other words, they're all going down. So you just want to be the one that goes down the least…
CNN is probably for sale. I know they are. I just read today their approach, and I've heard the same thing probably almost on a bimonthly basis with somebody coming up with an idea to buy them. And the value has been going down. But I think no one's going to turn this around. And the reason why is if you don't have owners who are desperately trying to grow a business, what they're trying to do is manage the decline… I have a very dismal view for what I would call the mainstream media. The problem with that is I don't know who's replacing it.
Steve Yates on Trump, shocking the system, and phony claims about isolationism:
But I also think we're outside of partisan politics with it. I don't see Trump as just the Republican nominee, I see him as representing a force that is outside the party system. And in some ways outside the system as a course correction to both dominant parties.
I'm still a Republican and I support him in this election. But what I see as the course correction is this narrative of, “We are going to support our commitment to allies. If they're attacked, we're going to stand by them. But they are going to face tough negotiations and some public jawboning about balancing risk and reward in that.”
And they are going to have to carry more of the burden in their own region. We're not going to be the first call of 911 and we're not going to be the overwhelming donor and risk taker in conflicts. Now, I say that we may end up doing that, but I see this as a trajectory more than an absolute adjustment.
I reject entirely this discussion about isolationism. I think it's stupid. It's mostly coming from academic airheads who are overpaid miscreants who don't actually engage in real world policy. Some of them get to be Secretary of State and national security advisor, but what can I say? Really, there is no such thing as isolationism.
And I say this as a grieving father of a fentanyl victim. There is no such thing as isolationism. The world comes and grabs our rear ends, whether we like it or not. Our only choice is whether and how to respond, and I see that Trump is shepherding in this coalition, and it's not just Republicans with RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, and there will be others, this is going to be something that's going to make some Republicans uncomfortable, but I see this as a systemic course correction.
Mark Simon on people trusting comedians more than journalists:
One of the last worlds that people are going to is comedy. The one thing that just completely blows me away. I was, I listened to Joe Rogan sometimes, not all the time. He's really out there sometimes. And you would think some of the stuff he says would just disqualify him… But I think people keep coming back to him because they have to, and you see how desperate some candidates are to get on his show… Shouldn't we be able to trust our news anchors, the people whose job is to be impartial and talk, but instead we've got an MMA commentator or comedian who is now more trusted and has a bigger audience than any news network.
Steve Yates on the changing media:
The younger demographic is going to direct subscription, if anything, and they're going to things like TikTok to just get very small dose things from influencers or maybe primary sources. Every once in a while, I talk to people of that age group, and I'm shocked by their thought process that's actually better than I would have expected.
And then I'm shocked by the hypnosis they're putting themselves under with no ability to understand the world as I understand it. But I think that we have this combination of the cable subscription on all the time, or people just going direct.
[With] sources like Google AI or the Google algorithm, the problem has been profound.
I think in our work 15 years ago, you could rely upon a Google news service to gather things for you and somewhere along the way it started making decisions for you rather than letting you make decisions for what you wanted to consume. And I think what it's done is just pushed people to direct subscribe.
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