Gird Your Loins: 2024 is Going To Be Hell

Think it’s bad now? You ain’t seen nothing yet. The Democrat party of treason is going to wage all out war on the dying American citizen.

Thoughts on the hell ahead; From across the web:

Starting with a raucous presidential election cycle that begins on January 15 in Iowa (Ballotopedia).

Expect a whirlwind. Joseph Sternberg: What seems likely to be an awful U.S. presidential election in November is only part of the story. Hyperventilation about Donald Trump’s supposedly authoritarian instincts and well-founded concerns over Biden family corruption will motivate the major parties’ bases. But don’t lose sight of the global significance of this contest, given the security and economic threats and challenges confronting the winner (WSJ).

Lots of people do not think like we do…. When Hamas slaughters infants in their cribs, rapes women in front of their husbands and takes them captive back to Gaza, and tortures and murders civilians, that isn’t because of some outsized grievance. It’s because they  do not have the same values as Westerners. Pretending that members of Hamas are simply freedom-loving people who seek material prosperity, quiet family lives and tolerance for those who think differently isn’t just wrong; it’s catastrophically wrong (Townhall).

An Extraordinary Year

By Jim Geraghty, December 28, 2023:

…2023 has been a rough year, with evil on the march in far too many corners of our globe. And I don’t mean that as hyperbolic dudgeon over our usual misguided political opponents; I mean human-rights-abusing, innocent-slaughtering, blood-dripping-from-their hands, straight-up unadulterated evil. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now approaching its third year, has now claimed more than 10,000 innocent civilian lives, including more than 560 children. We all gasped in horror at the scale and sheer demonic sadism of the Hamas massacre of Israelis on October 7. China’s ongoing genocide of the Uyghurs — that’s not just our assessment, but the assessment of the U.S. government and the United Nations — continues apace, with the regime in Beijing brushing off criticism from beyond its borders. As I write this, Iranian proxy groups continue to take potshots at U.S. naval vessels in the Red Sea.

For me, it’s been an extraordinary year in covering these conflicts, stepping out of my comfort zone and reporting for National Review from Ukraine, Taiwan, and Transnistria, a world tour of trouble spots spurred less by a midlife desire to transform myself into Arthur Kent, the “Scud stud” from the Persian Gulf War, than the opportunity to visit those contested spots of land, and the sense that some places deserve to be seen in person. I’m not going to lie, it was difficult and emotionally draining to hear accounts of a man who had to help move the corpses left behind in Bucha, or the account of a mom in Odesa who fled, with her teenage son, six-year-old daughter, and family dog, from eastern Ukraine as the Russian forces advanced toward their home. But it’s worth it to make sure the world knows what happened and doesn’t forget.

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Massacres, torture, bombings — there’s a good reason why a lot of people want to turn away when they hear about horrors like these. But those who perpetuate these evils are betting that the rest of the world will avert their eyes, move on, and forget. Recognizing evil brings an inherent obligation to do something about it, and confronting evil is never easy or cheap.

I don’t want to be alarmist or gloomy, but it feels like a lot of long-simmering conflicts, both at home and abroad, are coming to a boil. The 81-year-old man sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office doesn’t always make a lot of sense these days, but Biden had a moment of lucidity and clarity in October when, shortly after returning from Israel, he said, “the decisions we make today are going to determine the future for decades to come.”

(Wouldn’t you love to know what he was reading in the President’s Daily Brief in the preceding days?)