July 12, 2023
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
Globalists Want Anyone But Trump And Their Slate of Candidates Proves It
By Bill Wilson
Expect Never Trumpers to re-emerge from the woodwork just as they did in 2020, attempting to discredit the former President and argue that Trump lacks “electability” and should be replaced by a more centrist candidate. What they are really saying is a candidate who can be more readily controlled.
Anti-Trump sentiment is already brewing in the legislative branch as the likes of Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Sen. Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota) have made it clear they want a replacement. Other GOP leaders are also echoing this sentiment. For a few brief months, anti-Trumpers appeared enamored with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, but that initial interest appears to have faded.
A GOP senator spoke to The Hill anonymously saying, “many Republican senators who never liked Trump would take anybody [else], but I do think that DeSantis’s star has fallen, clearly, on the Hill”. The senator elaborated, “there was a time in November where I heard a lot of chatter from Republican senators about ‘DeSantis is pretty interesting.’ I haven’t heard him discussed [recently.]”
Globalists on both sides of the aisle know Trump is a threat to their continued reign of power and are terrified of having that control yanked back from them as it was in 2016. Mounting economic unrest, the growing possibility of serious conflict with foreign adversaries, a porous border, and rising crime are creating chaos under Biden and the public wants a change in course.
Never Trumpers who benefit from business as usual would like to roll back the nation to a Pre-Trump Republican Party beholden to globalists, lobbyists and war hawks. However, a bulk of conservatives and a growing share of swing voters support Trump-era policies including curbing immigration, reducing foreign meddling, and taking a strong stance against global powers when it comes to trade.
Trump changed the political landscape and support for his America First set of principles and willingness to focus on elevating the middle class has not fizzled out, as much as beltway hacks would like to hope it has.
The most recent Morning Consult poll shows Trump leading all other GOP contenders by double-digits, with Trump earning 57% of the vote among GOP primary contenders and DeSantis coming in second at 19%. Former Vice President Mike Pence comes in a distant third at 7%, and largely-unknown Vivek Ramaswamy earns 6%. Nikki Haley and Tim Scott earn 3%, and five other candidates earn less than that.
The same poll shows Trump beating Biden in the general election by 3 percentage points (outside of the margin of error) for the first time since Morning Consult began tracking the two in December. DeSantis, who again only has the support of a fifth of GOP primary voters, is shown losing to Biden by two percentage points.
It is still early, and the margins are close when looking at a head-to-head poll between Trump or another GOP candidate and Joe Biden, but nonetheless the numbers do not indicate Trump would be a weaker candidate, they indicate just the opposite.
We can also look at Trump and DeSantis’ favorability over time, and see that Trump has been steadily gaining, while DeSantis’ support began strong in December of last year and has declined since then. Of the candidates other than Trump or DeSantis, the only one who has seen a substantial rise is businessmen Vivek Ramaswamy, who now enjoys modest single-digit support.
Meanwhile, Trump’s support has risen steadily over the past six months. Even in DeSantis’ home state of Florida, a new Mainstreet Research poll shows Trump ahead of DeSantis by 20 percentage points 50% to 30%. In that poll, Trump does particularly well against DeSantis among Hispanics, leading the Florida Governor by a full 39 percentage points among Hispanic voters. Trump also polls very well with low-income voters, coming out a full 42 percentage points ahead of DeSantis among voters earning less than $20,000 a year.
Polling earlier this year by CNN/SSRS found that restoring the policies of the Trump Administration is important to 85% of likely Republican primary voters, indicating that whether these voters support Trump or a someone else, the way he governed is what they expect from the GOP nominee. Forty-three percent said restoring Trump-era policies is “essential” while 41% said they are “important”. Only 15% of likely GOP voters said restoring Trump-era policies are not important.
Restoring the policies of the Trump Administration and rejecting the globalist elite agenda holds significant appeal for certain demographic groups. Specifically, women, white voters, low-income voters, and white-non-college voters exhibit a strong inclination towards this trajectory.
Among GOP primary voters, 86% of women consider it important to restore the Trump Administration's policies, slightly surpassing the 83% of men who share the same sentiment. In terms of income, lower-income voters display a slightly higher inclination than higher-income voters towards restoring these policies, with 87% of voters earning over $50,000 expressing the importance compared to 83% of higher-income voters.
Of all the groups, white non-college voters exhibit the strongest desire to reinstate the policies of the Trump Administration, with a striking 91% considering it important. In contrast, 75% of college-educated whites share the same viewpoint.
Favorability ratings of the other GOP contenders also point to the fact that the slate of would-be Trump challengers are not coming from the positions of strength they would need to replace Trump.
A recent YouGov poll shows former Vice President Mike Pence has lower support among voters who supported Trump in 2020 than left-wing environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. does. Sixty-one percent of 2020 Trump voters hold a favorable view of Kennedy, while just 54% hold a favorable view of Pence. How is a candidate who held office along-side Trump and still can’t get his polling numbers higher than a left-wing Democrat going to make a good GOP primary pick?
Then there is Former New Jersey governor Christ Christie, who has more support from Democrats than he does within his own party. Just 27% of 2020 Trump voters hold a favorable view of Christie, while 28% of Biden 2020 voters do.
Nikki Haley arguably does better than the others, but still only 56% of 2020 Trump voters hold a favorable view of Haley, and so do 19% of Biden voters.
Tim Scott arguably polls the best, with 59% of 2020 Trump voters saying they have a favorable view of him, yet in GOP primary polling he is at about 7%.
Never Trumpers can and will use every strategy open to them to smear, attempt to imprison, and wrangle votes away from Trump. However, the argument that he is ‘unelectable’ compared to the alternatives is absurd, and following that advice is more likely to result in four more years of Joe Biden than it is to result in anything else.
Bill Wilson is the former president of Americans for Limited Government.
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2023/07/globalists-want-anyone-but-trump-and-their-slate-of-candidates-proves-it/
Video: Fox News Receives Horrible Update
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJk8cbBE4l4
Video: New Axios Story Exposes ‘Uncle Joe’ Is a Total Fraud
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PyqEM2X7MM
Video: Biden Impeachment Witness Indicted — And On The Run. Cover-Up?
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PyqEM2X7MM
Inflation crashes down to 3 percent annualized with 2022 price spikes baked into the cake, but core inflation remains elevated at 4.8 percent
By Robert Romano
Inflation over the past 12 months has crashed to 3 percent in June according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics after a massive uptick following the more than $6 trillion that was printed, borrowed and spent into existence for Covid coupled with the economic lockdowns and production halts—literally too much money chasing too few goods.
As a result, inflation rose from just 1.4 percent annualized in Jan. 2021 when Biden took office to 5.4 percent by June 2021, to 7.5 percent by Jan. 2022 right before Russia invaded Ukraine and peaking at 9.1 percent in June 2022 before it finally took its toll, the economy overheated, Americans maxed out their credit cards and demand began to sink.
The drop is owed entirely to the June 2022 reading of 9.1 percent falling off the 12-month chart, when inflation grew 1.3 percent for all items in a single month, including a 60 percent increase in gasoline, a 98 percent increase in fuel oil and a 38 percent increase in piped gas service after Russia invaded Ukraine in Feb. 2022, further exacerbating the global supply chain crisis as oil and energy markets were severely impacted.
As a result, gasoline is down 26.5 percent the past 12 months, fuel oil is down 36.6 percent and piped gas service is down 18.6 percent.
But with those energy price spikes now in the rear view mirror, core inflation still remains quite sticky, that is, inflation minus food and energy, still coming in at 4.8 percent the past 12 months.
In fact, prices are still way up almost everywhere else, with the current slowdown in prices owed no thanks food, the prices of which have grown by 5.7 percent the past 12 months.
Electricity is still up 5.4 percent the past year.
New cars are up 4.1 percent.
Medical care commodities are up 4.2 percent.
Shelter is up a whopping 7.8 percent.
And transportation services are up 8.2 percent.
Another important fact to consider is that through almost all of the price hikes, wages did not keep pace with the price hikes, as consumer prices grew faster than nominal wages as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In Jan. 2021, average weekly earnings were growing at 7.36 percent annualized, dropping to 4.55 percent in June 2021 as millions more reentered the labor force and staying down there at 4.8 percent by June 2022.
Until finally, with annualized inflation down to 3 percent currently, wages have caught up, growing at 3.7 percent over the past twelve months. That makes June 2023 the first time since March 2021 that has happened, although the mismatch between earnings and inflation during Covid can easily be discounted.
25 million jobs were lost by April 2020 to the lockdowns and production slowdowns, particularly hitting lower wage workers. Those who lost their jobs weren’t counted in the survey. Suffice to say by the end of 2020, more than 16 million jobs had been recovered and through 2021, as the economy more fully reopened, the impact of the inflation against wages could be seen.
That was more than two years where Americans were effectively getting poorer by the measure of wages versus inflation, and now, briefly, for a single month, Americans can get their heads above water. But to make a real difference, incomes will need to grow faster than consumer prices for years in order to catch up.
Unemployment is still near record lows, currently at 3.6 percent in June and the Federal Reserve is projecting it to keep rise steadily to 4.1 percent this year and up to 4.5 percent in 2024, an implied 1.3 million jobs losses between then and now, as it sees inflation continuing to cool off from its current levels.
But the sticky inflation remains, the volatility of energy markets notwithstanding, and could see prices on the 12-month chart once again rising above their current level going forward. That is, depending on what the Fed does with interest rates moving forward. In June, it held the Federal Funds Rate steady at 5 percent to 5.25 percent, but it also said “additional policy firming” might be necessary: “In determining the extent of additional policy firming that may be appropriate to return inflation to 2 percent over time, the Committee will take into account the cumulative tightening of monetary policy, the lags with which monetary policy affects economic activity and inflation, and economic and financial developments.”
The truth is, the inflation might already be out of the system but for whatever reason, the Fed did not begin hiking rates until inflation had already reached 7.5 percent by Feb. 2022 prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It was at least a year late to the call, lulled into complacency by Bernankean zero-bound interest rates and overestimating the long-term impacts of the Covid recession.
And with inflation still bleeding into non-energy areas, especially food, shelter and medical commodities, more rate hikes may be in store as the economy continues to overheat and American households tighten their belts. That will continue until either the higher interest rates break the back of the inflation, a recession ensues, or both. As usual, stay tuned.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.