As 2024 kicks off I want to be clear about alerting the Defender Gear Patriots about what lies before us. We have an election looming largely on the horizon and the circus is definitely coming to town. 

Do you remember the last one?

The year of 2020 gave us COVID, George Floyd, riots, BLM, ballot-counting integrity, and one of the nastiest presidential elections we have ever seen. 

The snowball of 2024 has been rolling around getting bigger and bigger. 

In fact, Catherine Herridge, Senior Investigative Reporter at CBS News, has officially predicted 2024 to be a “Black Swan Event”, which is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences. In other words, we are staring down the barrel of potential catastrophe – contested elections, civil war, terrorist threats, other world powers taking up arms together, or a myriad of other alternatives. 

It has gotten so bad that Robert F. Kennedy, a traditional democrat, was forced by the DNC to become an Independent because his presence on the Democratic primary ballot presents a significant problem to President Biden being the Democrat candidate for President.  Democratic primary debates have been canceled to protect the incumbent from any challenges to his policies. 

The tone and optics of this speech were chilling. The leader of the most powerful nation on Earth effectively labels millions of patriotic Americans as extreme and a danger to society. I fully expected to hear President Biden order his DHS to go get the MAGA crowd and send them out to re-education camps. The FBI went after Catholic Churches and Pro-Lifers considering them domestic terrorists and threats to democracy. The rhetoric had clearly become much more hostile against anyone who opposes the approved policies of the current regime.

So what does this mean to you and me?

It’s a question I ask a lot these days.

We all are trying to figure out if we actually matter to the constituency and if they view America in the same honorable reverence we do. 

Do you remember Joe the Plumber from the 2008 election? His name is Samuel Wurzelbacher and he stood up and challenged President Obama’s tax policy as it would hurt small business owners. In that small window of history, we saw that well-spoken Americans can make solid waves against the political machine. The big draw was that “Joe” represented each of us. Once that connection was made, President Obama had to chart a different course. 

In 2024, who is the next “Joe the Plumber”?

Is it you?

Do you have the ability to articulate where America has been and where we need to go? Do you know the candidates’ positions enough where you could have a solid dialogue? 

Wrong. 

Our next post will focus on defining democracy.

What is it? What is it not. How is it supposed to work? The point here is that we have to start educating not just our children but our family, friends, neighbors, co-workers and those we come in contact with. We cannot let the media educate them because that’s not what the media does. 

Therefore I want to encourage you to join Defender Gear in 2024 as we focus on “Saving Democracy”. Watch our series here!

More to come…

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoO914FGQ5Y

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/blackswan.asp

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/09/01/remarks-by-president-bidenon-the-continued-battle-for-the-soul-of-the-nation/

https://www.c-span.org/video/?522563-1/president-biden-remarks-democracy