FRIDAY short TAKES.

I can't wait for this election to be over.  People are tired of the bullshit.  And the bullying.  And the argumentum ad Hitlerum.  "Like the massive overuse of the charge of 'racist' during the Obama years, the 'fascist' label has lost its power to do damage."  And of Flibbertigibbet.  “Somehow believing that accusing Donald Trump of being a fascist is a winning closing argument – nothing could be further from the truth. They’re in real trouble and they know it.”  And her political agenda.  “We’re left with the consequences of these failed, progressive policies.”  It's not hard to see why.  "She is what she always was: an incompetent, dull-witted woman who achieved her success through horizontal negotiations and pretty privilege."  Her panic is palpable.  "Kamala is turning out to be the starburst firework that ends the show for DEI and she’s in real trouble out on a stage she cannot climb down from."

The progressive moment is well and truly over.  None too soon.  "The Gore campaign failed to win enough votes in 2000, and the Clinton campaign failed in 2016. It is not the fault of those progressives who refused to support them."  Perhaps we can have a different sort of Friday short takes in another week.  "I don’t know who is going to win this election, but at the end of the day, I would rather be on the side of authentic rabble, then the arrogant establishment."  The only response to nonsense from Democrats is laughter.  Democrats don't have a sense of humor.  This week's meme suggested itself.

By next week we'll see how well that commentary held up.  The weekly round-up of pithy elaborations on traditional Cold Spring Shops themes follows.

1.  Can we get out of the haunted house?  "People are tired of the one long winter by the Democrats."

2.  To the moon, Kamala.  Buzz Aldrin endorses Trump.

3.  All hail the messiah.  "Before Trump there was Obama.  Obama's presidency was the most polarizing in modern history up to that time."

4.  Buyers' remorse?  "Even more important will be the experience of the American people, who in large measure have come to regret the election that put Joe Biden in the White House four years ago."

5.  Turn the page!  "Americans, we have to lower the temperature in our politics. We have to stand for an America not of extremism and fury, but of decency and grace, just like Joe Biden does."

6.  Rejecting Weimar America?  "Call it the constituency of normality, the non-trans, pro-capitalist, pro-American demographic that understands that men cannot be women, that you cannot have a country without a secure border and that big government is essentially at odds with individual liberty and general prosperity."

7.  The peculiar consequences of denying coherent beliefs.  "The news media find themselves in a peculiar position, having gone along for years with the gathering mental illness of the Democratic Party, like incompetent parents in a large dysfunctional family, offering unconditional support for their kids’ intolerable and unacceptable behavior."

8.  Government is bound to be clumsy.

9.  Yes.  Next question?  "Did Kamala Perform a Bey-t and Switch in Houston?"

10.  Novelists, miserable people.  "The vestiges of the Puritan personality disorder mean that character must always align with politics."

11.  The value of bourgeois norms.  "We all have our own internal sense of what’s over the line."

12.  Indeed.  "Government supplies money in proportion to failure, the private sector supplies money in proportion to success."  How's Amtrak been working out, for example?

13.  Strident Democrat politicians.  "Kamala started her coup campaign as a journey of joy, but has ended up as a screeching angry harridan."

14.  Who said politics is logical? "When your opponents are accusing you of trying to subvert democracy, maybe don't suggest that it 'makes a lot of sense' to ignore the will of the voters."

15.  A knowingness to their provocations!  "My takeaway is that both sides are a tad crazy, but the MAGA side at least has some fun with it."  Yes, the joy is with Team Trump.  We'll see about the votes.

16.  Sock puppets are like that.  "Joe Biden, whatever his faults and infirmities, played an important role as a symbolic figurehead for what functioned in practice as a radical bureaucratic regime. Even as his administration pursued policies far outside the Overton window of American politics, it was difficult for anyone to believe that 'Scranton Joe' believed in any of the things that his party was said to be doing."  That's why his whole party must be turfed out.  "It should be clear to everyone that the Democrats have betrayed their very name, abandoning the rule of law and all but the pretense of democracy."

17.  Chortle.  "Not much has changed on the kindergarten left, except that most of them grew up to get tenure."

18.  Think about The Future.  "After four or eight years of Harris, what would be left of the American system, individual rights, freedom of speech, honest elections?"

19.  The antithesis of brat vibes is depressing and exhausting.  "To be on the Left in America is to live in one long emergency."

20.  Remember the corona tyranny?  "Thanks to responsible corporate citizenship, toilet paper remained cheap in 2020. You just had to camp outside your local grocery to get it. Goods were still rationed, just not through prices."

21.  Farewell to football.  "If kids don’t play the game, in 20 years, there is no game."

22.  Indeed, particularly when Bob Uecker is yarnin'.  "Baseball is a game made for radio. The sport itself is played to a rhythm that lends itself to stories."