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Chinese EV Battery Maker SVOLT Shuttering Operations In Europe Due To Trade War, Poor Demand

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Chinese EV Battery Maker SVOLT Shuttering Operations In Europe Due To Trade War, Poor Demand

Chinese EV battery maker SVOLT is shuttering operations in Europe on the heels of a yearslong regulatory conflict between European lawmakers and EV manufacturing based in China.

As we have reported over the last year, EU authorities have been doing everything in their power to stifle EV production based in China, fearing that the lower cost models coming from the east are warping the European market and putting domestic producers at a disadvantage.

Now, the consequences are starting to rear their heads. Chinese EV battery maker SVOLT Energy plans to shut its European operations by January 2025, in a move that clearly points to China’s retreat from the market – and declining EV sales in Europe, according to Nikkei. 

SVOLT, linked to Great Wall Motor, will close its German subsidiaries and lay off staff, according to a source.

Poor EV sales and financial pressures have driven Chinese battery maker SVOLT to shut all of its European operations, including its Frankfurt office, according to the same report.

The Nikkei report says that all SVOLT Europe employees will be laid off, though some were recently offered positions at the company’s China headquarters. The exact number of affected staff remains unknown, and SVOLT has not commented on the matter.

In 2020, SVOLT announced plans to invest €2 billion in two battery plants in Germany’s Saarland, creating up to 2,000 jobs. However, it halted plans for a plant in Lauchhammer due to losing a key customer and concerns over tariffs and subsidies.

A lawsuit and local protests have also delayed a planned factory in Ueberherrn until 2027. SVOLT’s Heusweiler plant, intended to produce battery packs, was set to open in July, but reports suggest the company has now ceased all production in Germany.

Meanwhile, just like in the U.S., the EV market in Europe is cooling. New car sales in the EU dropped 18% in August, with Germany down 28%, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. EV market share fell 44%, with Chinese brand BYD selling only 218 cars in Germany, or 0.1% of the country’s EV sales.

SVOLT, spun off from Great Wall Motor in 2018, counts Geely Auto, XPeng, and Great Wall among its clients but has struggled financially, reporting a cumulative loss of 4.4 billion yuan ($618 million) from 2019 to 2022.

The company aimed to raise $2.1 billion through a Shanghai IPO in 2022 but abandoned the plan a year later.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/26/2024 – 07:35

The US Was Inadvertently Responsible For The Sino-Indo Border De-Escalation Deal

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The US Was Inadvertently Responsible For The Sino-Indo Border De-Escalation Deal

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

India announced earlier this week that it and China agreed to patrol their disputed border area in the way that it was before June 2020’s lethal Galwan River Valley clashes. This was made possible by China finally complying with India’s long-standing request, which in turn paved the way for their leaders to hold a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of this week’s BRICS Summit in Kazan. What many don’t realize, however, is that the US was inadvertently responsible for facilitating their deal.

This analysis here from early May explains how summer 2023’s scandal about an alleged Indian assassination attempt against a Delhi-designated terrorist-separatist with dual American citizenship on US soil was a turning point in their ties. The US then continued with its good cop, bad cop game against India prior to pushing Canada to escalate its related dispute with India earlier this month. Even before the latest developments, however, Indo-US ties had already noticeably soured over this issue.  

India and China held multiple rounds of talks on their disputed border since 2020, but no breakthrough had occurred until Indo-US ties became characterized by distrust as a result of summer 2023’s scandal and all that followed. China realized that those two’s previous level of trust will never return, which assuaged its concerns that India is playing a leading role in the US’ containment policy. It was this shift in perceptions that then led to China reconsidering its informal policy towards their border dispute.

China had been reluctant to return to the status quo ante bellum since this was seen as a unilateral concession that could signal weakness and worsen its hand in the South China Sea. The drastic downturn in Indo-US ties, however, led to the aforesaid being perceived as a pragmatic means for managing the abovementioned concerns about India containing China in coordination with the US. The improvement of Sino-Indo ties could therefore place limits on the future improvement of Indo-US ones.

Finally complying with India’s long-standing request for resolving their post-Galwan tensions and consequently placing their partnership back on track amidst the dramatic downturn in Indo-US ties could preclude the possibility of India participating in the US’ containment scheme. No improvement in Indo-US ties would occur at the expense of Sino-US ones if that happens after this sensitive problem is finally patched up by then and India thus no longer has the same threat perception of China as before.

China and India have natural economic complementarities, and if the world’s two largest countries ever found a way to unleash their full mutual potential upon resolving their sensitive territorial issues and correspondingly restoring mutual trust, then global affairs would begin to revolve around them. That’s why the US has sought to divide-and-rule them through information warfare and its Kissingerian “triangulation” policy, but this failed after it went too far pressuring India over summer 2023’s scandal.

About that, the US never respected India as an equal partner and instead sought to subjugate it as a vassal by demanding that India comply with the West’s unilateral sanctions against Russia, which was unacceptable for both economic and principled reasons. The US also feared India’s astronomical rise as a Great Power since the start of the special operation, fueled to a large degree by discounted Russian energy, since this accelerated multipolar processes to the detriment of its unipolar hegemony.

That explains why it exploited summer 2023’s scandal to worsen their ties, meddled in this year’s earlier general elections, and even helped overthrow the Bangladeshi government a few months ago in order to pressure India into complying with these demands and then punishing it when this didn’t happen. Military and trade ties remain stable for now, but it can’t be taken for granted from India’s perspective that this will remain the case as their political ties continue to deteriorate over summer 2023’s scandal.

They can quietly manage their competition in Bangladesh and try to find a modus vivendi there, while the US’ meddling wasn’t direct nor intense enough like in other elections to seriously worsen their ties, which is why summer 2023’s scandal remains the most troublesome of their disputes. Instead of letting it subside, the US continues exacerbating it at periodic intervals, both on its own and via its Canadian proxy. This informed India that the US has malicious intentions and can never be fully trusted again.

Accordingly, India was therefore pleased that China finally decided to comply with its long-standing request for resolving their post-Galwan tensions and getting bilateral ties back on track, which showed the US that India will never become its vassal. Additionally, India also demonstrated that it’s influential enough to further accelerate multipolar processes to the detriment of the US’ unipolar hegemony as revenge for being mistreated, though its wayward partner still might not change its ways.

Even on the off chance that it does, the mutual trust that used to characterize their ties before summer 2023’s scandal will never return, thus ruling out the possibility that India will contain China in coordination with the US in the future. This is especially so after China just removed the primary irritant in their relations over the past four years that was responsible for driving the military dimension of Indo-US ties that prompted the People’s Republic to speculate that India was trying to contain it with the US.

In retrospect and provided that the incipient Sino-Indo rapprochement continues, the US’ pressure campaign against India might be seen as a game-changer due to how tremendously it’s poised to reshape the global systemic transition’s strategic dynamics. The meaningful improvement of Sino-Indo relations could lead them closer to unlocking their full mutual potential, which would revolutionize International Relations if successful and thus bring an even swifter end to the US’ unipolar hegemony.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/25/2024 – 23:25

Watch: Trump And Rogan Have A Wild Interview

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Watch: Trump And Rogan Have A Wild Interview

Former President Donald Trump appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast Friday, where they discussed a wide range of topics for three hours.

Watch:

Highlights:

Getting rid of income taxes:

Hoaxes perpetrated against Trump:

Why Democrats are in favor of illegal immigration:

Trump on bad White House hires:

Keeping Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas in check:

The two discussed the horrible condition California is in thanks to Gov. Gavin Newsom:

Trump on getting shot:

Trump on Musk:

“Surreal” – On what it was like when Trump won the 1st time:

“I want to be a whale psychiatrist” – Offshore windmills and how they affect whales:

“You’ve said a lot of wild shit!” – Why Trump became so popular:

Trump on Barron:

“Big pharma wasn’t thrilled” – Trump on pressure not to work with RFK Jr.:

Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/25/2024 – 23:06

These Are The World’s Best Bars In 2024

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These Are The World’s Best Bars In 2024

Mexico City has been named the world capital of cocktails, with the famed Handshake Speakeasy bar taking the top spot in ‘The World’s 50 Best Bars 2024‘ by William Reed.

As Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, the annual roundup is based on the votes of more than 600 industry experts from around the world, from bartenders and cocktail connoisseurs to consultants, critics and drinks reviewers.

The podium is completed by Bar Leone, in Hong Kong, and Sips in Barcelona, the latter of which took the top spot last year.

Infographic: The World’s Best Bars in 2024 | Statista

You will find more infographics at Statista

The highest ranked US bars are Double Chicken Please, in New York City (at 14th)…

…and Overstory (also in NYC) at 15th on the list.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/25/2024 – 23:00

Stepping On The Snake

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Stepping On The Snake

Authored by T.L.Davis via Substack,

One can roll all of the majority of grievances into one basic event, the government stepping on the snake. The famous Gadsden Flag of “Don’t Tread On Me,” a warning to the Brits to mind their own affairs, or they might get bitten, is a favorite of the patriots against the decades-long process of violating their rights. It’s a warning revived during the Tea Party days, now fifteen years hence. But they have been stepping on them.

What the US Government loves to do, is step on the snake; to grind it into the ground and since 1787, they have not been bitten. It’s our responsibility to future generations to retaliate for the injustices of our time. Each generation has a duty, as I see it, to deliver the nation to the next generation with a full compliment of rights and freedoms.

In that endeavor, we have thus far failed, but a new day dawns.

It’s difficult to imagine the depth and width of patriotic zeal that has slowly been eroded over the past few centuries, but it is a great reservoir that the current regime continues to draw on to inflict mass casualties on the people without significant backlash. This is largely due to a misunderstanding of loyalty.

The government likes to project symbols as the objects of loyalty, while eroding freedoms in darkness. So they shine a bright light on the flag “Old Glory,” as it’s sometimes called, that represents the past obedience of the government to its charter, the U.S. Constitution. In the meantime, they have hollowed out that document by ignoring it all along the way, from Executive Branch expansion as a means of doing a backward illegality that is the purview of congress, i.e., all spending bills have to originate in the House. But if the Executive Branch creates FEMA or the EPA, it becomes incumbent on congress to fund it with the excuse that they could simply defund it, should it get out of control. Well, that’s exactly what’s happened over and over again, except the House doesn’t have the political will to stand up for the people and defund anything. They have been terrorized by the bureaucrats that give example after example of bad things that they will be blamed for if they defund a single thing.

They like to shine a bright light on the capitol building and the Washington Monument, even the White House to appeal to patriotism, while none of those things function as intended. During the whole of the Biden Administration, the Executive Branch has run itself. The DOJ doesn’t worry about committing crimes, because who is going to hold it accountable? FEMA and the border patrol fall under their purview as well as the FBI. No one can hold them accountable, but they can defund them. Our congress, who has oversight, has been unwilling to restrain its excesses.

All of this is a challenge to patriots to do something about it, knowing that whatever they might do will be cast as an attack on the flag, the congress or the cynically termed “democracy.” We saw that on January 6th. It had a chilling effect on the right to assemble and petition for a redress of grievances as intended. The constitutional right violates the security of the corrupt government and is suddenly deemed unpatriotic, an insurrection, rather than what it was, a right to petition the government to correct an openly and arrogantly stolen election.

The point is, the government will fight back with everything it has to keep the people enslaved to their bastardization of the constitution and the denial of rights of the people. It takes a brave population to shrug off those charges, repudiate the “unpatriotic” theme with action, but look at what’s been endured since January 6th, 2021 and you’ll understand the lengths to which they will go and the methods by which you can operate.

First, don’t give them a timeline, or an opportunity to infiltrate. The very existence of opposition assembly arises from Obama and sending SEIU out to do his bidding against those who protested Obamacare. I know, I was there, I saw it, including the buses and the sign-in sheets by which these public servants were paid for their time to counter unpaid, patriotic, citizen-organized protests. This is a tactic that has been used over and over with Antifa and BLM in later-stage government’s attacks on freedom of speech and the right to assemble.

Anytime the government sponsors or pays counter-protesters, it is a violation of the First Amendment. Simple as that. They are acting unlawfully. To counter all of this, the people must be much more aware of their rights and especially the law with the willingness to report such crimes to the Sheriff or DA of the jurisdiction. That, specifically, is in violation of 18 USC 41 Conspiracy against rights, where any two people gathered to deny any right, in this case, intimidate you from exercising one’s right to petition the government for a redress of grievances through fear for one’s safety, they have committed a crime. One can tell the difference by where the “counter protesters” are placed. If it is within sight and sound of original protesters, the right has been violated.

This all points to one ultimate conclusion. If the government is invested in denying any right of the people, it actually serves as an injury for which consequences can be expected. That is the justification, the act in defense of the constitution that defeats their claims of “unpatriotic acts.” In order to be unpatriotic, one has to be defying the constitution, not the illegal actions of the government itself. Denying that criticism, through counter-protestors or censorship of social media is in violation of the law.

While I admit this all sounds like official gobbledegook that has no weight or stamina in a corrupt court, it is. But I’m not arguing the law, but the justification for consequences for stepping on the snake. Getting one’s mind right for the upcoming festivities is as important as any other preparation. It will endure one during hard times knowing that despite what the captured media might say, they acted rightfully and legally in the eyes of compatriots. This was the preparatory work not done prior to January 6th.

There will be another January 6th, they’re begging for it and will, like then, create it, if it won’t be brought to them wrapped in shiny paper and a ribbon. The response, unlike then, must be a full-throated denunciation and demand for the real criminals to be exposed.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/25/2024 – 22:35

These Are The Most Common Origins Of Immigrants

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These Are The Most Common Origins Of Immigrants

A world map showing the most common origins of immigrants by country reveals some prolific immigrant nations as well as the influence that conflict and economic collapse can have on migration patterns.

As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, the most common pattern around the world is neighbors providing the most immigrants to one another.

This is for example the case in the U.S. and Mexico, which are the biggest source of immigrants to each other.

It is the same between Albania and Greece or Honduras and El Salvador, for example.

Infographic: The Most Common Origins of Immigrants | Statista

You will find more infographics at Statista

This is based on data from the United Nations Population Division.

This pattern is disrupted however, when many people leave their country at the same time due to conflict, war or poverty. Venezuelan immigrants are now the largest group in nine neighboring countries, while six neighbors of the Democratic Republic of the Congo have taken in large groups of their citizens.

For Somalia, its five neighbors.

Ukrainian immigrants as of 2020 already were the biggest group in four neighboring nations, equal to Syria and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Then there are also those nations which are known to send immigrants all over the world, not just in their direct neighborhood. Among them are India and China, with their citizens being the largest group of immigrants in neighboring nations as well as on the Arabian Gulf in the case of India and in Canada and Australia in the case of China.

In Europe, Poland is the most prominent nation of emigration, with Poles being the largest group of immigrants in the United Kingdom, Germany and some Scandinavian nations.

Only a handful of countries have a more unique major immigration partner that is not their neighbor. These instances are often tied to colonialism.

The biggest immigrant group in Equatorial Guinea and Morocco are from France, while for the Netherlands it is Suriname, for Portugal Angola, for France Algeria, for Cuba Spain and for New Zealand the United Kingdom.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/25/2024 – 22:10

The US Is Now More Dependent On Fossil Fuel Power Than China

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The US Is Now More Dependent On Fossil Fuel Power Than China

By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com

Increased use of natural gas for power generation has made the United States more dependent on fossil fuels for its electricity supply this year than China, the world’s top carbon emitter.

Since June 2024, high U.S. summer electricity demand has been mostly met by increased gas-fired power generation, while a rebound in hydropower in China has limited to some extent the share of coal in its electricity supply.

As a result, fossil fuels – including natural gas and coal – have had an average share of 62.4% of total electricity output in the United States since June. This compares to a lower fossil fuel share in the coal-dominated power system in China, where fossil fuels accounted for 60.5% of generation between June and September, according to data from energy think tank Ember reported by Reuters columnist Gavin Maguire.

The rise in natural gas power output could undermine the current U.S. goals of making the grid zero-carbon by 2035.

U.S. power generation from natural gas surged by 20% in the first nine months of 2024, compared to the same period of 2019. The share of gas in power supply has jumped to 43% from 38% five years ago.

In recent years, power demand in the United States, the single largest portion of which is delivered by gas-fired power plants, has soared and is expected to continue to surge with rising electrification and more electricity necessary to power and cool data centers.

U.S. power-generating companies are announcing plans for the highest volume of new natural gas-fired capacity in years as the AI boom is driving demand for electricity.

During the first half of 2024, electricity-generating firms unveiled plans for the new gas-powered capacity equal to all capacity announced in 2020, according to data from Sierra Club cited by Bloomberg last month.

Natural gas-fired electricity generation in the United States has jumped year-to-date compared to the same period last year, as total power demand rose with warmer temperatures and demand from data centers.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/25/2024 – 21:45

39% Of US Couples Met Online

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39% Of US Couples Met Online

Today’s daters are taking matters into their own hands. Seemingly no longer satisfied with the potential partners that life throws at them at work, in school and in their circle of friends, Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below that an increasingly large number of heterosexual daters is opting to meet their partner online.

Surveys carried out and analyzed by Stanford University show that between 1995 and 2017 the number of heterosexuals who met their partner on the internet rose sharply from 2 percent to 39 percent.

Infographic: How Couples Met | Statista

You will find more infographics at Statista

With the help of dating apps like Tinder and eHarmony, but also through social networking sites like Facebook, daters reconnected with old friends and acquaintances (8 percent of couples who met online), were introduced to someone (11 percent) or – in the majority of cases – met someone completely new on their own (81 percent).

The authors of the survey concluded that the main draw of looking for a stranger online was a larger set of choices than when leveraging friends and family, which was especially useful when “searching for something unusual or hard‐to‐find.“

In a similar vein, meeting your partner in a bar or restaurant was also on the rise between 1995 and 2017.

Stanford researchers excluded homosexuals from their analysis because they constitute a minority sexual orientation, making meeting someone online a more obvious choice for them than for heterosexuals.

These were usually in a “thick dating market” (quote from Stanford) and therefore normally also able to identify several potential mates in their offline lives, according to the research.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/25/2024 – 21:20

American Horror Story: How We Create Our Own Worst Nightmare

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American Horror Story: How We Create Our Own Worst Nightmare

Via SchiffGold.com,

A simple internet search confirms the overwhelming buzz in the air: Americans across the board are more concerned with the economy than any other political issue.

This concern is overwhelming across both aisles, seems to be growing, and has remained a large issue for years. Recent polling data shows that when combined, concern about inflation & prices, and jobs & the economy create a supergroup that more than doubles any other individual worry. While party lines are more rigid than we would like to believe, it seems as though a candidate who embraced this fear and found a solution could have absurdly high mass appeal.

While both presidential candidates have seen the recent trends and more strongly espoused their economic plans, it seems almost impossible to focus on the economy too much. While the lack of overwhelming emphasis on economic issues might seem like a simple misunderstanding between politicians and citizens, the root of high inflation and economic uncertainty is much more linked to voter’s own desires than they would ever want to believe.

Citizens, whose actively informed assent is supposed to be one the primary bases of government, have an odd habit of wanting the best for themselves. The declaration’s explicit promotion of our right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” has created a foundational belief that anything short of thriving is not fulfilling the promise of America.​​ While what it means to thrive is defined differently by person, most Americans believe that our access to material goods, pleasures, and freedom from worry should be constantly growing. While this desire is not unique to Americans, the state’s embrace of its role as a servant makes us less skeptical of politicians who promise to give national success in every area. We only apply strong scrutiny to the high-flying claims of the opposing sides’ candidates because we believe that the high-flying promises of our own candidates are merely necessary to the fulfillment of their duty. While in many countries all politicians are more obviously known to be self-seeking charlatans, our institutions’ relative freedom from corruption have allowed us to live under the illusion that we are always one president away from “getting it right.”

This desire creates an endless loop where candidates who do not paint a rosy picture of the future lose favor with the public. While the American political and economic system has created unprecedented human thriving, our desire to select candidates who claim to “do it all” is the root cause of our economic woes. 

It may seem fatalistic to claim that positive and multi-focused candidates are the problem. There is nothing inherently wrong with having a diverse policy agenda, but the short term cycle of elections necessitates that plans will skew towards the near future. It is possible to have less inflation, more economic growth, and less taxes, but not immediately. The best that a candidate can hope for is to time everything right so that all the key metrics of economic success are most appealing in the months leading up to their hopeful reelection. People cling to the idea that we can fix all of our problems without associated pain or adjustment periods. We must embrace willing restraint from indulgence if we are to secure the free and prosperous future we dream of. Candidates fuel our ignorant belief that we can be reckless in the present without sacrificing the future, because they know they will be able to escape blame for a collapse that comes many years after they leave office. This negative cycle is not a direct result of our electoral process, or even of the candidates themselves.

This cycle is allowed to continue because of the economic ignorance and low impulse control of voters.

We damn our children by choosing to maximize our own comfort, not fully understanding how it will affect them, or even ourselves in 15 years. 

We will not be able to escape this cycle until basic economic principles are more rigorously taught in schools. When forced to choose between two big-spending candidates, choosing the candidate who creates freer market conditions will always be the better choice, because that type of unpredictable and rapid growth can sustain far more spending than the tepid stagnation of a wannabe command economy. While the choice is obvious, it is far from a safe choice. The candidates are not the problem, rather, they are a reflection of our desires. Our desires and understanding must be formed through our upbringing and education in a way that will allow us to cut through empty promises and simplistic hedonism. Wanting low prices, low taxation, a healthy military and a strong healthcare system is natural, but we must be wise enough to know that those things must come slowly.

Fiscal responsibility is boring and painful, but it is the only way to simultaneously secure “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/25/2024 – 20:55

Quiet Before The Storm

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Quiet Before The Storm

Authored by J. Peder Zane via RealClearPolitics,

“I just can’t wait for this campaign to be over.”

       –The American people

Enjoy these last nasty days of the presidential election – they are the quiet before the storm. As long as the race continues, each side’s anger is reined in by the hope of victory. Once a winner is declared, the loser’s rage will erupt. This political Vesuvius promises to inflame the land as events unfold in these final days to maximize furious disappointment

Donald Trump’s side is becoming ever more confident of victory. In recent weeks, RealClearPolitics Polling Averages show Harris’ national lead evaporating while Trump has moved slightly ahead in all six battleground states. Betting markets are now giving Trump the edge.

Still, the polls are very close, and Harris may win. If Trump could insist that he won the 2020 race when all the polls predicted his defeat, just imagine his response if he fails when he appeared to be succeeding. He will not go quietly into the good night.

Kamala Harris, meanwhile, has settled on a closing argument that focuses on Trump’s alleged unsuitability for office. As the candidate herself describes her opponent as an unstable threat to the Constitution, her surrogates are once again comparing him to Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini. They honestly believe this rhetoric, which will make it impossible for them to bow to his ascension.

We have seen this movie before. The Democrats refused to accept Trump’s victory in 2016; he still won’t concede that President Biden won in 2020. As before, neither side will blame themselves for defeat; they will lash out at their perceived enemies. Each will advance their favored conspiracy theory – Trump will rail against the press and deep state, Democrats against foreign influence and misinformation – but both will cast the result as illegitimate.

This is what happens when you are controlled by tribal emotion, when your politics are governed by psychology rather than policy. People have too much invested in the outcome – literally, their sense of self – to engage in soul searching (at least in the short run).

Because of the different structures of each party, a Harris loss would be far more destructive to the country.

In its current incarnation, the GOP is a bottom-up party. None of its ranking eminences wanted Trump to be the nominee in 2016; almost all of them hoped he would go away after his 2020 defeat. The MAGA rank and file felt differently.

If Trump loses, he will fume and smolder and inflame the body politic. Millions of his supporters will be outraged. But they are largely powerless to influence events. Jan. 6 may have been a dark day in American history, but it was a brief action by a small number of people that was never repeated. Most Republicans condemned the assault and resigned themselves to living peaceably during the Biden presidency. If Trump loses once more, party leaders will, as in 2020, admit defeat and denounce efforts to overturn the result. Frankly, they will be happy to turn the page on the Trump era.

The Democrats, by contrast, are a top-down party. While no one should be surprised by a repeat of the contained violence their supporters unleashed around Trump’s inauguration, the real action will occur once more in the corridors of power.

In a repetition of Trump’s first term, party leaders will refuse to accept his election. An army of Democratic Party lawyers is amassed, awaiting instructions on how, and where, to challenge the results. If, as the polls suggest, Democrats retake the House, they have already floated the idea of refusing to seat him, invoking the Civil War-era 14th Amendment to claim he is a Jan. 6 “insurrectionist.” Assuming that gambit fails, they will almost certainly launch multiple impeachment efforts against him while their stenographers in legacy media continuously cast him as an existential threat to the Republic. As during Trump’s first term, every day will be a nonviolent version of Jan. 6. You cannot, after all, find common ground with Hitler.

It pains me to say that the next four years will be more bitter than the last eight. We, the people, have painted ourselves into a corner by turning to the unforgiving world of politics to find identity and meaning. Will we ever find the courage to say enough?

J. Peder Zane is a RealClearInvestigations editor and columnist. He previously worked as a book review editor and book columnist for the News & Observer (Raleigh), where his writing won several national honors. Zane has also worked at the New York Times and taught writing at Duke University and Saint Augustine’s University.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/25/2024 – 19:15