Authenticity vs. Curated Facade

Every campaign season is accompanied by exaggeration, deception, accusation, and a healthy dose of flat out lies. It is true for both sides, and this time around is no different. What is different this time is the crystal clarity of the consequences stemming from the policies of each candidate.

In a typical election, each candidate will emphasize what they believe are the strengths of their policies, the positive outcomes that will result from them, and the negative outcomes that will result from their opponents’ policies. Voters must then try to cut through all the hyperbole and decide whose policies have the higher probability of success. However, this election is unlike any we’ve had in more than a century, in that both candidates have held high office in the last two successive administrations. Voters don’t have to cut through any hyperbole or decide who is more believable, they can simply look at what the real-world results were of each candidate’s policies. There will likely never be another election in our lifetime with as much hard evidence upon which to base a decision.

This comparison might seem unfair to Kamala Harris since she was Vice-President, and not President, during the last four years. As soon as Biden dropped out of the race and Harris became the candidate, she could have plausibly made the argument that the policy outcomes from the Administration in which she served were not a direct result of her policies, but of Joe Biden’s policies, which she was duty bound to support as Vice-President. She chose not to make that argument. Instead, she doubled down and adopted all of Biden’s policies as her own. Thus, from a policy perspective, she is effectively the incumbent running for re-election.

And what about those policy outcomes? Here are the top three:

• Economy – grocery and gas prices are much higher now than they were four years ago, even accounting for normal inflationary increases since then.

• Illegal Immigration – the huge surge of illegal immigration during the last three years has led to increased crime, a flood of fentanyl into the US, fewer jobs for US citizens, and a massive strain on state and federal resources.

• Wars and foreign policy – the world has become a much more dangerous place during Biden/Harris Administration with two major wars now in their 2^nd and 3^rd years respectively. Russia has publicly threatened to use nuclear weapons, and Iran either has, or is about to have, a nuclear weapon of their own for the first time.

These three perilous conditions did not exist during the administration of President Trump. They were all born during the Biden/Harris administration. This is an immutable fact of history. These are the top three concerns for voters in every poll and dwarf all other issues by a large margin.

By the end of the Trump Administration, inflation and interest rates were at historic lows, food prices were stable, there were no wars in the world, and illegal immigration was effectively halted. With this direct evidence of the results of each candidate’s policies on the same three top issues, this election shouldn’t be remotely close.

However, we now live in a world where a large part of the major news media blatantly and unabashedly favors one candidate. In addition, much of the information we get about the candidates is now highly filtered and censored. Even with this, the three Biden/Harris policy outcomes cited above are so visibly catastrophic and impactful, both to the USA and the world, no amount of biased and/or censored coverage should be able to hide their effect.

But it has. The race is stunningly close. Part of the reason for this is that the news media has focused more on candidate personality and likability than on policy outcomes. A significant number of voters are apparently deciding to base their vote solely on likability, even if it results in a continuation and probable expansion of the above three disastrous issues.

We know there has always been, and will always be, some people who make their voting decisions whimsically or in protest of something. Policies don’t matter to them. It will be truly sad if turns out that critical thinking and objectivity in our society has devolved to the point that the number of people who vote as if they were choosing a prom queen is now large enough to carry an election. What makes this even worse is that the likability characteristics for one of the candidates (Harris) are entirely contrived.

Donald Trump’s personality has been well known to everyone for a long time. He hides nothing, often to his own detriment. He has never tried to masquerade as someone or something else. People like him or hate him based on that reality. On the other hand, the personality and likability of Kamala Harris is being carefully synthesized and curated by both the media and Democrat elites right before our very eyes. All her public appearances are highly controlled and scripted. She is steadfastly kept away from any situation where extemporaneous responses would be required (like a press conference). The greatest fear of the media and Democrat elites is that the faux facade they’ve created (joy, joy, happy, happy) will crack and reveal the vacuous parasite underneath. The only reason for doing this is a complete lack of confidence in the “likability” and capabilities of the real Kamala Harris.

Given the manifestly observable records of each Administration, a Harris victory in this election would be a shocking validation of the effectiveness of media censoring and the ability to create and sustain a false image of a candidate. It would also be equally shocking to realize that such a large portion of our population is not only unconcerned about the seriousness of the economy, immigration, and war, but that they value personality (even a fake personality) over the directly observable real-world outcomes that have resulted from the policies of that candidate.