Trump Or Clinton Victory Could Depend On Non-Voters

[This article was submitted for publication to Canada Free Press on 4 November 2016 but was never published.

When I enquired as to reason why - I received the following response:

CFP-Copy
09/11/2016

Dear David,

Apologies.

I just site searched the article and found it in our spam folder. For some reason unknown to us, a few of our writers — in the last week— had their submissions arrive in spam.

Not sure why this happened, but sorry it did

Brian and Judi

Russian conspiracy theorists - here is something for you to go ballistic about.]



It would indeed be ironic if the next President of the United States was determined by the number of previous voters who this time did not exercise the most fundamental right bequeathed to them by their forefathers - the inalienable right to vote.

An increase in this class of non-voters has become more likely with the release of a Washington Post-ABC News poll - which found 46% of likely voters saying Trump is more honest and deserving of trust as against 38% for Clinton. That is seen as a wide lead for Trump since both he and Clinton were tied when the same question was asked by the Washington Post-ABC poll in September.

Clinton's decline comes amidst some extraordinary events:

1. the FBI reopening an investigation into Clinton’s private email server, having found more emails on the private computer of her senior aide Huma Abedin.

2.Interim Democratic National Committee Chairperson Donna Brazile being caught out - whilst a contributor at CNN - feeding two questions to the Clinton camp likely to be asked in a Democrat debate without the knowledge of her Presidential opponent Bernie Sanders.

3. An undercover video surfacing that tied Robert Creamer - a White House visitor on 340 occasions meeting with President Obama 45 times - to plans to incite brawls at Trump rallies and illegally bus voters to polling stations.

These latest developments could influence many previous voters - both democrats and disenchanted republicans intending to vote for Clinton - into not voting.

Bernie Sanders supporters are no doubt outraged by the treatment accorded to him by two Democratic National Committee Chairpersons.

Brazile's predecessor Senator Debbie Wasserman Schultz had been forced to resign that position after hacked emails revealed a plot to embarrass and undermine Sanders in the Democratic primaries as the Democratic Party nominee.

Brazile survives - defiant, unrepentant and unscathed.

Many other Democrats might not be prepared to vote for a candidate who could be embroiled in a lengthy FBI investigation extending well into her Presidency - that could both hamstring her administration and impact on her decision making capacity.

Republican voters - such as the Bush family - affronted and publicly distancing themselves from Trump's policies and his sometimes irrational and explosive behaviour not to mention his alleged sexual indiscretions - will now reflect on voting for Clinton in the face of these latest developments but decide they still cannot vote for Trump. They could opt to vote for neither.

The crowds flocking to Trump's rallies are far larger than Clinton's. One can reasonably conclude that the enthusiasm of Trumps's supporters far outweighs that of Clinton's - and that the likelihood of Trump voters turning out to vote will probably not diminish no matter what happens in the next few days.

Voter turnout dipped from 62.3% of eligible citizens voting in 2008 to an estimated 57.5% in 2012.

The low 2012 turnout could be explained by the fact that President Barack Obama was running for his second term whilst enjoying a high popularity rating.

It would therefore be more circumspect to accept the figure of 62.3% as setting the bar that both Trump and Clinton should be watching closely as the votes are being counted.

If the voter turnout is less than 62.3% - then Trump is more likely to win. If higher than 62.3% - then Clinton is more likely to win.

There is no doubt that this has been the most volatile Presidential election campaign ever and that the popularity of both Trump and Clinton is very low.

Hopefully dedicated past voters choosing to not vote in 2016 will never again be faced with this difficult choice of rejecting both the Republican and Democratic parties nominees.


[PS:I received the following reply from Fox News pollster Larry Sabato on 10 November 2016 after I sent him this article:

David,

It’s an excellent piece. I am going to share it with my entire team; I want every one of them to read it.

I appreciate your kind words. Most people wrote to suggest an early retirement — or a firing squad! So I salute your humanity.

Best wishes,

Larry

Dr. Larry J. Sabato
Director, Center for Politics
University Professor of Politics
University of Virginia
sabato@virginia.edu]

Mattis-Bolton accord can sway Trump to dump PLO for Jordan

[Published 2 April 2018]

President Trump’s possible call for Jordan to replace the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) as Israel’s negotiating partner under Trump’s soon-to-be-released “ultimate deal” will be considerably strengthened if Trump’s newly-appointed National Security Adviser - John Bolton - and Secretary of Defense - James “Mad Dog” Mattis - concur on such a move.

Bolton has supported this strategy since 2009– telling Eric Shawn on 21 January 2018:

“I hope at some point the Administration recognizes and perhaps it is already quietly – that the two-state solution isn’t going anywhere. If anything I would say to King Abdullah of Jordan – “Be prepared to reassert Jordanian sovereignty over part of the West Bank – negotiate with Israel”. I think that’s a far better outcome than the continued pursuit of a mythical – I believe – unattainable viable Palestinian state”

Mattis has favoured the Obama-Kerry strategy – pointing out to the Aspen Security Forum in July 2013:

“We have got to find a way to make the two-state solution that Democrat and Republican administrations have supported, we’ve got to get there. And the chances for it, as the king of Jordan has pointed out, are starting to ebb because of the settlements and where they’re at, are going to make it impossible to maintain the two-state option.”

Mattis further reasoned:

“I paid a military security price every day as the commander of CentCom because the Americans were seen as biased in support of Israel and that moderates all the moderate Arabs who want to be with us, because they can’t come out publicly in support of people who don’t show respect for the Arab Palestinians. So he [Secretary of State John Kerry] is right on target with what he’s doing. And I just hope the protagonists want peace and a two-state solution as much as he does.”

Kerry however failed miserably – being unable to get the PLO back to the negotiating table after a PLO walk-out in April 2014 following nine months of unsuccessful negotiations on proposals specifically formulated by Kerry to resolve the long-running conflict.

Today:

1. Moderate Arabs – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Oman - have come out publicly - joining Jordan and Egypt in meeting with Israel in the White House – without PLO participation - to discuss Gaza’s deteriorating situation.

2. The PLO refuses to resume negotiations with Israel on the two-state solution: creating a second Arab State – in addition to Jordan – in the territory covered by the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.

3. The PLO will no longer accept America as sole mediator and is demanding an international conference be convened by mid-2018

The media have castigated Trump for appointing Bolton – typified by highly-credentialled columnist George Will claiming:

“Bolton will soon be the second-most dangerous American.”

Yet Will himself had written in the Washington Post on 17 April 1987:

“May 14 will be the 30th Anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, June 6 will be the 20th anniversary of the Six Day War. The West Bank has been held by Israel longer than it had been held by Jordan, the 1967 aggressor, which ever since has presented itself as the aggrieved party. Today, as every day since 1948, the key to peace is direct negotiations between Jordan and Israel, not a committee”

Mattis’s jocular remarks on meeting Bolton at the Pentagon - caught in an off-microphone exchange – signals Mattis could have already changed his thinking:

"I heard you're actually the devil incarnate and I wanted to meet you"

A Mattis-Bolton accord on Jordan replacing the PLO in future negotiations with Israel will undoubtedly reinforce Trump’s preparedness to make this long-overdue call.

Palestine - Romney Recognizes Reality - Rejects Arab Revanchism

[Published 21 September 2012]


Republican Presidential Nominee Mitt Romney has made a valuable contribution to the public debate in exposing the utter folly of those who continue to still believe in the possibility of the creation of a second Arab state in former Palestine – in addition to Jordan - for the first time ever in recorded history.

Nineteen years of intensive efforts to bring this new Arab state to fruition have seen very little in tangible returns despite the most influential negotiating team ever assembled in history – the United Nations, the European Union, Russia and the United States – having been involved for the last nine years.

After two substantive offers by Israel to cede its claim to more than 90% of the West Bank in 2000/2001 and 2008 in favour of the Palestinian Authority - and after Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005 – the resumption of further negotiations without preconditions remains deadlocked.

If those negotiations are ever resumed - the likelihood of any concluded agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is very remote – unless the Palestinian Authority recognizes Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people and agrees to any newly created state of Palestine being demilitarised.

Mr Romney seems to have concluded that such Israeli demands will never be accepted – asserting:

“… the Palestinians have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace, and that the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish. Now why do I say that?

Some might say, well, just let the Palestinians have the West Bank and have security, and set up a separate nation for the Palestinians. And then come a couple of thorny questions. I don’t have a map here to look up geography, but the border between Israel and the West Bank is obviously right there, right next to Tel Aviv, which is the financial capital, the industrial capital of Israel, the center of Israel. It’s, what, the border would be seven miles from Tel Aviv to what would be the West Bank. Nine miles. The challenge is, the other side of the West Bank, the other side of what would be this new Palestinian state would either be Syria at one point or Jordan. And of course, the Iranians would want to do through the West Bank exactly what they did through Lebanon, and what they did into Gaza. Which is the Iranians would want to bring missiles, that armament, into the West Bank and potentially threaten Israel. So Israel, of course, would have to say, “That can’t happen. We’ve got to keep Iranians from bringing weaponry into the West Bank.” Well, that means that, who, the Israelis are going to patrol the border between Jordan, Syria and this new Palestinian nation? Well, the Palestinians would say, “No way. We’re an independent country. You can’t guard our border with other Arab nations.”

And then how about the airport. How about flying into this Palestinian nation? Are we going to allow military aircraft to come in? And weaponry to come in? And if not, who’s going to keep it from coming in? Well, the Israelis. Well, the Palestinians are going to say, “We’re not an independent nation if Israel is able to come in and tell us what to land at our airport.”

These problems — they’re very hard to solve. And I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes. Committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel. And these thorny issues. And I say, there’s just no way. So what you do is you move things along the best way you can, you hope for some degree of stability. But you recognize this is going to remain an unsolved problem. We live with that in China and Taiwan. We have a potentially volatile situation, but we sort of live with it. And we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately somehow, something will happen and resolve it. We don’t go to war to try and resolve it imminently."

Commonsense is the hallmark of Mr Romney’s reasoning – something that is lacking in those that are so blind that they cannot and do not want to see.

Negotiations under the Oslo Accords were founded on – and have foundered on – the Arab failure to reject a series of Arab fictions and falsehoods appearing in the 1964 Charter of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Chief among them are claims that:

1. Only Arab – not non-Arab - residents of former Palestine are entitled to statehood

2. Palestine within the boundaries it had during the British Mandate is an indivisible territorial unit and an indivisible part of the Arab homeland

3. The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine and everything based on them are null and void

4. The establishment of the State of Israel is illegal, regardless of the passage of time

5. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood.
Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.

In endorsing these fictions and falsehoods by themselves failing to recognize the State of Israel for the last 64 years - the Arab world – with the exception of Egypt and Jordan - has ensured that any hope of Oslo leading to the creation of a 22nd Arab state located in former Palestine will ever occur.

Mr Romney still hopes against hope that something will happen to resolve this 130 years old seemingly intractable dispute between Arabs and Jews.

Perhaps the first step in the right direction would be an earnest attempt to try and restore -as far as is now possible - the territorial status quo existing prior to the creation of the PLO Charter in 1964 – when Jordan then occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem - and Egypt occupied Gaza..

That would result in the dispute between Jews and Arabs being realistically seen for what it is – a border dispute between Israel, Jordan and Egypt to resolve the allocation of sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza – the last remaining areas of former Palestine where sovereignty remains undetermined between Arabs and Jews.

Replacing fiction and falsehood with historic, geographic and demographic facts is the ball that Mr Romney needs to pick up and kick downfield - should he become America’s next President.

Come to think of it – President Obama should do exactly the same thing if he is returned to the White House for another four years.

Recognizing reality and rejecting Arab revanchism is certainly the only way to now score a goal.