Greymantle's Politics and Culture

Insights into the Long Game

Is China’s Navy Ready for ‘Blue Water’?

For decades, Americans have believed their nation boasts the largest navy on earth and that it dominates the world's seas. Half of that belief is no longer valid, and the other half may now be debatable.

The Seven Reasons Donald Trump Won the 2024 Election

It goes without saying that elections are decided not only by the mistakes made by the losing candidate, but by the decisions the winning candidate made that turned out to be strategically shrewd. In Donald Trump's case, not only did Trump and his advisors make a number of clever moves that helped to neutralize Trump's weaknesses as a candidate, but Trump's own resilience, relentlessness, and refusal to back down all served to strengthen his position.

The Seven Reasons Kamala Harris Lost the 2024 Election

As Greymantle has written before, and will doubtless write again on these pages, I really hate being wrong. That’s doubly true when I make a confident prediction about an important and high profile event like a U.S. Presidential election, and make the wrong call. But as my father always told me, “when you screw up […]

The Five Reasons Kamala Harris Will Win the 2024 Election

With less than 48 hours to go before U.S. election sites open on the East Coast, the nation is sitting on pins and needles. The only time in recent memory when the level of societal tension surrounding an election was at comparable levels was four years ago, in 2020, when Donald Trump, then occupant of […]

Lord of Illusions: Donald Trump as Master Magician

In this fourth and final post covering the four major-party candidates for President and VP in the 2024 U.S. election, we are going to frame Donald Trump's candidacy in an unusual way: as the performance of a master magician. A magician, in the sense that Trump resembles, more than anything else, an extraordinarily effective stage or ceremonial magician.

The Coach: Tim Walz and the Risks of ‘Common Man Progressivism’

Democratic VP candidate Tim Walz has the right background for a national office seeker. He served in the National Guard for over 20 years, was a high school teacher and coach, a Congressman and Governor of Minnesota. He also has a down to earth manner of speaking that should be connecting with voters. The question is: Does any of this matter in the toxic national political environment in which Walz is campaigning? Hence our title - The Coach: Tim Walz and the Risks of 'Common Man Progressivism'.