Maybe the Parties Did Flip?

Recently, someone noted that Trump, RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Elon Musk all used to be Democrats.  In fact, Ronald Reagan had been a Democrat in his younger days.  Reagan often said that the party left him rather than he left the party. Tulsi had run for president as a Democrat during the 2020 primaries, but she soon broke with her party on topics such as LGBTQ, the border, and foreign policy.  Her views on all of these would have been mainstream Democrat in 2008 when Obama won the presidency, but were now viewed as 'far right' positions.  RFK Jr. has been an environmentalist for all of his professional life and a vaccine skeptic for nearly 20 years.  He was a Democrat through all that time until last year, when he became an independent.  Then he supported the Republican to Make America Healthy Again.  Why didn't his message resonate with his old party?  Elon voted for Biden in 2020.  However, the censorship that followed led him to buy Twitter.  Like RFK Jr., he is clearly on the environmentalist side of the aisle - traditionally aligning with Democrats - but he too switched to the Republican candidate.  Elon has tweeted this image to show how he didn't leave the party, it left him:

Remember, Obama opposed same sex marriage in 2008, the trans issue was on the far fringe, and Democrats were the anti-war party.  Today, Trump is anti-war, has no issue with same sex marriage, and opposes transgenderism with regard to minors.

When the party flip story is told, it is always about racism.  Democrats grew into anti-racists and Republicans - the party created to oppose slavery - adopted racism to win votes.  No.  That is false.  However, it does seem that the parties have traded some policies over the years.

Topsy Turvy

The current election is seeing a realignment of the parties.  We have Republicans for Democrats and Democrats for Republicans, unions for Republicans and rich industrialists for Democrats.  It's going topsy turvy.  Here are a few highlights:

1. Former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney has endorsed Kamala Harris for president.  He is following his daughter, Liz Cheney (R), in this.  She was one of 2 Republicans on the J6 Select Committee that put all the blame on Trump, ignoring that he had offered to call up the National Guard beforehand.

2. Congressman Robert F Kennedy Jr. (D) suspended his independent run for the presidency and has endorsed Donald Trump.  The Kennedys are Democratic Party royalty, so this is more significant than the Cheneys going to Harris.

3. Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D), who ran for president in 2020, has endorsed Donald Trump.

4. Elon Musk voted for Biden in 2020, but is now endorsing Donald Trump.

5. Alan Dershowitz has declared "I am no longer a Democrat."  That doesn't mean he is voting for Trump, but he probably isn't voting for Kamala either.

When I was a youth, the Democrats were the party of free speech and the Republicans were the ones who wanted to put warnings on music lyrics, video games, and so forth.  Now, the Democrats are the party of censorship and the Republicans are the party of free speech.  How did that happen?  In the 1990s, the Democrats wanted to stem the tide of illegal immigration to protect American workers from low wage competition.  Today, the Democrats have opened the floodgates, and the country is awash in illegal immigrants.  What happened there?  I remember when the Democrats were the anti-war party, but now Trump is the anti-war candidate.  What explains that shift?

A realignment is underway in the United States and around the world.  The world order that was created in the wake of World War II is undergoing dramatic changes, breaking old party alliances and creating new ones.  That some prominent Republicans have thrown their support to Harris and Democrats have backed Trump just shows how upside down the world is at the moment.

Money Not So Decisive

Michael Bloomberg has ended his presidential campaign after having dumped $500 million dollars on his brief run.  For that kingly sum, he won American Samoa.  Yes, he won 49.9% of the votes, which is 175 votes.  No, that isn't a misprint.  Tulsi Gabbard was second with 103 votes.  Wow, what a huge turnout.  Of course, Bloomberg won delegates in states where he didn't carry the state, accumulating 60 delegates.  Meanwhile, Joe Biden's campaign was close to insolvency and yet he won 10 delegates for every one Bloomberg won.  Huh?  Conventional wisdom says Bloomberg should have dominated the field thanks to his money advantage.

Bloomberg spent more on his short-lived primary campaign than Hillary Clinton spent on the primaries and general election combined.  As has been demonstrated time and again, money does not automatically mean victory.  Well-funded incumbents have been trounced by shoe-string campaigns.  For example, Eric Cantor outspent Dave Brat by 40 to 1 and still lost in 2014.  Joe Crowley outspent Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez by 18 to 1 and lost in 2018.  Jeb Bush started the 2016 campaign with a daunting $100 million war chest but he flopped.  His campaign won 4 delegates.

What Bloomberg needed to do was hire a Russian strategist.  According to Rachel Maddow, the Russians were able to swing the national election in 2016 for the bargain sum of $200,000 to $300,000 in Facebook ads.  Or did they?  If Bloomberg couldn't win even one state with $500 million, how credible is it that Russia swung the election with 0.05% of that amount?  It isn't.