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→ Nigel Farage defends TikTok
The “TikTok sensation” that is Nigel Farage has come out batting for his use of the controversial Chinese app, saying that “TikTok is what Gen Z do.”
Speaking to journalist Michael Tracey at the Republican National Convention today, Farage said he was “reaching out to young voters” and “it’s working”. He told Tracey that “everyone’s jealous of me.”
Here’s my interview with Nigel Farage on TikTok, Chinese espionage, and divine intervention pic.twitter.com/xlgUuJDi26
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) July 18, 2024
Farage said he was “deeply conflicted” about using the app that stands accused of being a tool of Chinese espionage, and which could be banned in the US soon. He must be really hating all the newfound attention…
→ You did it, Kamala
In an unlikely turn of events, the wildly unpopular Vice President — whose low ratings have been a key justification for Joe Biden staying in the race — is currently more popular than the President.
Kamala Harris is beating Biden in favourability by 43% to 38% and her unfavourability score, 48%, is 10 points lower than the President’s in a new AP-NORC poll. And his disastrous debate performance doesn’t even appear to be the key issue driving his unpopularity. The same poll in January found Biden doing only a few points better, at 57% unfavourability and 40% favourability. Harris’s unfavourability is on a slight decline after staying above 50% for more than two years.
This reality — that Biden is getting his clock cleaned by one of the least popular vice presidents in American history — appears to finally be setting in. Biden reportedly asked aides this week whether Harris could win, before he reported having tested positive for Covid and jetted off into the sunset (or Delaware).
→ Napoleon beats Macron in popularity contest
“A leader is a dealer in hope,” Napoleon Bonaparte once said. And France’s current leader, President Emmanuel Macron, is struggling to give his people any hope at the moment.
French pollsters are so bored they literally tested Napoleon (yes that one).
He’d beat Macron 62-38. pic.twitter.com/MOC9fc32Us
— François Valentin (@Valen10Francois) July 17, 2024
The recent snap elections saw embarrassing rejections of Macron’s centrist platform in favour of both Right-wing and Left-wing parties, and the French are starting to wonder if he lives up to his historical predecessors. A new poll shows Bonaparte beating Macron 62-38 in a one-on-one electoral bout, and that if Napoleon were to come back to life today 47% would be ready to vote for him. Apparently St. Helena is nice this time of year, Emmanuel…
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SubscribeRank in order of declining lack of appeal: Biden, Harris, Macron.
Tough one.
You forgot Napoleon.
I consider the poll results unsurprising. If anything, I can’t believe Napoleon doesn’t win by a greater margin. Too many people reflexively think of him as the ‘bad guy’. The real history is far more complicated. Napoleon was a leader of men, the leader of his nation, and the leader of his people. Those other three are not leaders in any sense of the word. They’re supervisors, collaborators, managers, executives, or whatever else you want to call the leaders who don’t lead in today’s world. Biden isn’t even that because of his obvious senility. If there were a true crisis and everything went to hell, I’d probably follow the average homeless person before I’d follow any of the three.
Napoleon, on the other hand, I might consider. He at least seems competent. He doesn’t equivocate. He doesn’t form committees to study the question. He doesn’t build consensus or any of that collectivist BS. He actually makes decisions, comes up with a plan, and executes it, delegating authority where appropriate and demanding loyalty and competence from his advisors and officers. People crave strong and resolute leadership. It’s probably instinctive. I saw one of the people interviewed after last Sunday’s assassination attempt say, without being prompted, that he would take a bullet for Trump. I’ll wager there were more in the crowd who would say the same. I doubt I could find anybody who’d take a bullet for Biden, Harris, or Macron except for the people who get paid to do it. People will recognize a strong leader when they see one. In a crisis situation, people will look for leaders. In difficult times, people look to unite behind someone who will bring change and direction. If history tells us anything, it’s that people will overlook a great many flaws for a leader who speaks to them and who projects strength and firm determination in the face of adversity. History also tells us when a true leader emerges, the managers, executives, supervisors, and various other pretenders don’t stand a chance. At the end of the day, the quote “a leader is a dealer in hope.” pretty much says it all. Napoleon understood that. The managers and bureaucrats pretending to be leaders in our current era clearly do not.
If it’s true that Biden has gotten to a point where he’s actually asking about other candidates, I have to believe he will drop out at some point. I’ve always been of the opinion that Biden wasn’t even that enthusiastic about running in 2020, but the party bosses and leaders and elites came to him and begged him to run as the best hope of defeating Trump. I happen to believe they were right. As sad as it is to say, the Democrats will have to get pretty far down the totem pole of fame and influence in the party before they find anyone who’s more likely to beat Trump than Bidien even in his present diminished state. Putting Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket would, if poll results are to be believed, put the Democrats about where they were before Biden’s awful debate performance. They’d have to get down to obscure governors before they could find someone both not from a deep blue state and with enough influence in the party to actually win. The anti-woke sentiment is real. The anti-California sentiment is also real.