US Presidential Election Deja Vu All Over Again

As I watched the election results roll into the CNN newsroom, eating the cookies I received for my birthday and sipping my rooibos tea at our condo in Tokyo, it became apparent to me that my prediction was right.  I had told my wife the day before that Donald Trump would probably win. This is one time when I wished I were wrong.

How did it happen that a former president who was defeated by Joe Biden in 2020 could come back again in 2024 and win?  I blame it all on Joe Biden.

It all started sometime in 2019, when Joe Biden ran for the Democratic Party nomination with the promise that he would be a transitional president. I believed him, as did many other people like myself who are Never Trumpers. In hindsight, we should have been a little less gullible and foreseen what power with a touch of narcissism can do to someone, even Biden. Oh well.

As part of the 2019 campaign, Biden promised the party elites that he would pick a black female vice president. He dutifully did that, selecting Kamala Harris.  Yes, the same Kamala Harris who failed miserably in her own presidential bid. The same Kamala Harris who went on record with multiple far left views that would bite her in 2024. This was Biden's first mistake.

But due to sheer incompetence by Trump in his handling of COVID as well as the overall disarray of his administration, Biden and Harris were elected in 2020.  So what does Biden do first? He starts writing checks to U.S. citizens with the thought that we needed money to survive the downtime that the pandemic inflicted on workplaces across the US.

Well, apparently he wrote too many checks, because that additional money in our pockets, piled on top of the extra money that Trump had doled out during his administration for similar reasons, led to price inflation. It surely wasn't the only cause of inflation, but it did contribute to it. I remember receiving money at the time, wondering why I received it because we were financially comfortable enough to do without it.  But hey, I wasn't complaining! Sure, send more money Joe! This was Biden's second mistake.

Biden's next blunder was loosening all border immigration directives that were imposed by Trump. This caused an enormous influx of migrants to flood the border, overwhelming the folks that had to deal with the crazy number of asylum seekers. This was Biden's third mistake, and probably the biggest one. Border states started busing migrants to northern cities, causing unexpected havoc for local governments and citizens.  Then Biden, after three years of this, finally tightened up the border, and the influx stopped. What took you so long?

So Trump had two big issues that affected everyday life for millions of Americans - inflation and the border - to pin on the Biden administration, and by extension, to Harris.

But it gets worse. Remember that Biden said he was a transitional president, right? Well, he reneged on that promise, and decided to run again. And the Democrat Party, who apparently have no spine, let it happen. This is despite Biden having already celebrated his 80th birthday, and his obvious cognitive decline. This mistake is owned by the Democrat Party, with an assist from Biden.

Finally, when the Democrat Party elites finally convinced Biden to step aside, who did Biden endorse? His VP Kamala Harris of course. And the Democrat Party fell into lockstep over that endorsement, and anointed her the nomination without any challenges.  This mistake is Biden's with an assist from the Democrat Party.

So the mistakes added up, and well, you see what happened.  So I got a text from a good friend on the night of the election informing me and another buddy that Trump had won, and it would benefit the country.  He's obviously a conservative, and obviously optimistic. Well, we'll see. I look forward to January 20th, 2025, to see what will happen next. I'll have plenty of cookies and tea ready.