Despite Harris’ candidacy, I’m actually optimistic – The American Spectator | US News & PoliticsThe American Spectator

TJust look at the headlines from this Labor Day weekend. Positivity is not exactly a success right now.

After all, we just found out that the Hamas animals that our part-time presidential administration worked hard to broker a peace deal with our ally Israel on their behalf decided it was better to slaughter six hostages — including an American citizen whose parents spoke at the Democratic convention two weeks ago — than have the Israelis rescue them from an underground torture chamber.

One of last week’s columns in this space asked whether our diplomats are idiots for wasting their time trying to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. We officially know the answer to that question, and it’s no surprise. Shockingly, however, there are Israelis on the streets calling not to destroy Hamas, but instead to make a deal with them, which is tantamount to surrender.

We still have relatively reliable polls showing that Kamala Harris didn’t have much success at that convention, but she also defies the political gravitas you might expect from one of the least popular vice presidents in American history.

This was despite the fact that Harris gave an interview on CNN that was recorded rather than live, was far shorter than the 50 minutes it was scheduled to be (Harris’s responses to questions from the fawning Dana Bash were only 16 minutes long), and had what can only be described as an emotional support animal in Tim Walz, who likely had the opposite effect of what was intended; Walz towered over Harris as she sat in a chair that nearly swallowed her whole for the duration of the interview. It was as if the Democrats had nominated a DEI version of Master Blaster from the film Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

No, Kamala is not tall enough to play Tina Turner’s character in that movie. And she certainly doesn’t have the presence that Tina had.

Harris’ tax plan is straight out of Juan Peron’s nation-destroying Argentine playbook. No one really believes her when she tries to steal parts of Donald Trump’s MAGA agenda that the administration she serves actively fought against — how can you claim you don’t support tip taxes when you hire 80,000 IRS agents to monitor tip taxes? — and yet the presidential race is still tied, or maybe even ahead in the polls?

It is not only foreign policy and electoral politics that look apocalyptic.

In Aurora, a Denver suburb previously known primarily for the exploits of James Eagan Holmes, who shot and killed a dozen people 12 years ago during a premiere of The dark knight rises in a local theater, the sins of an open border have discovered America.

In that city, the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua has set up shop in several apartment complexes, where they’re terrorizing residents in New Jack City fashion, patrolling the premises with long guns and harassing anyone who moves freely through the premises. The suburb’s mayor and several city council members have reacted with outrage, vowing to do something about the problem. But Colorado’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, who was Pete Buttigieg before Pete Buttigieg was cool (yes, I realize P-Butt isn’t exactly cool), denies that the Tren de Aragua occupation even exists.

Interestingly enough, the name “Tren de Aragua” comes from a failed government project by Hugo Chavez, the late communist dictator of that country. About 15 years ago, the Chavista government hired a bunch of people to build a railroad in the Venezuelan province of Aragua. The project failed, like so many communist ventures, and the union members left unemployed by the failure turned to theft and extortion in an attempt to emulate their government’s achievements. (READ MORE from Scott McKay: Five Quick Things: Who’s Lying About Their Work at McDonald’s?)

Fifteen years later, Chavez’s successor Nicolas Maduro decided to export that competition to America, and our idiot politicians fell for it.

That doesn’t exactly produce happy results for apartment residents in Aurora, Colorado, and other lower-income places.

And what is our media focused on while all this is happening? Apparently Trump committed a serious offense against the U.S. military when he showed up at Arlington National Cemetery at the request of several Gold Star families to participate in a ceremony honoring the 13 Americans who died during the chaotic evacuation of Kabul three years ago.

There was an altercation between cemetery staff and a member of Trump’s team, but it is unclear who was at fault. Team Trump was rude enough to take photos of his appearance at Arlington.

It’s all so stupid that it’s actually shocking that it could even fill one news cycle, let alone three.

Then there’s the story of San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Ricky Pearsall, who was shot in the chest by a 17-year-old punk who coveted the rookie first-round draft pick’s Rolex. Pearsall survived and even walked to the ambulance that came to get him. The bullet miraculously missed all major organs as it passed through his torso; it didn’t even damage San Francisco’s reputation for public safety, because, well, there’s nothing left to damage.

Yes, everywhere you look there is a Parade of Horribles riding at slow speeds through the streets. No, there is no quick fix, not even by the good guys.

But be optimistic.

I haven’t gone crazy. It’s always darkest before the dawn, and sometimes you just have to hit rock bottom first.

Are we there yet? No. It can definitely get worse. But it can also get better. And maybe things are starting to change a little bit.

After all, it is the least woke film of the past decade, Deadpool and Wolverineis now the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time. And the new Reagan biopic starring Dennis Quaid and Penelope Ann Miller is currently No. 2 at the box office.

The slaughter of Hersh Goldberg and the other five Hamas hostages, as grotesque and horrific as it was, is a pretty clear sign that Israel is wiping Hamas out of Gaza. If the terrorist scum holding those hostages believed they had another day to live and fight for, they would have moved the hostages instead of killing them. Their depravity was born of desperation, and that means that as painful as the news was, the Israelis may now be able to get the job done in Gaza quickly, despite their idiotic left-wing union members.

We are finally coming to a consensus to roll back the mass migrant invasion at our southern border, while even Kamala Harris, the Biden administration’s so-called “border czar,” suddenly supports Trump’s border wall concept. You could call that a political and demographic profiteering by the Democrats, and that wouldn’t be wrong, but on the other hand, there’s no doubt that the Latino criminal gangs have worn out their welcome — and everyone knows who the welcome wagon was for them. (READ MORE: Trump is running for his first term, not a second)

Harris is no sure thing

And those polls? Well, understand that many of those polls that show Harris’s numbers are grossly oversampling Democrats. There’s also such a thing as response bias, something Ryan Girdusky ably described at The American conservative last week. Girdusky noted that old white lefties are by far the most likely people to fill out polls, and their frequency of answering the phone when others are too busy or otherwise refuse is very likely to skew the numbers in those demoralizing surveys you see.

There’s a reason Nate Silver has suddenly become so unsure about Harris’ chances of winning.

A Trump victory in November will not be a tonic for all that ails the country and the world, culturally, politically or economically. But based on past performance, one could say he is a tourniquet.

And if things aren’t going his way, especially after Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s endorsement a week and a half ago, it at least appears that the momentum of Harris’ Team Incompetence campaign has stalled.

Or perhaps it is the incurable, delusional, sunny optimism that our readers have come to know in this column that is rearing its head again.