CHAFFETZ: And Kurt, what do you - what's your reaction to that?
KURT SCHLICHTER, TOWNHALL SENIOR COLUMNIST: Well, look, I'm a retired colonel, so I'm not impressed by generals just because they pin a couple stars on their shoulders. And I think the American people are coming up with that is, Professor Hanson said, and as usual he's writing everything he said.
He pointed out that Reagan Institute study that says only 45 percent of Americans approve of the military now. I cited that for my next book just the other day. In 2018, it was 70 percent. These guys have presided over a freefall of the American people's confidence in the military, which was once the only institution that we still had any respect for.
I'm listening to these guys, and all I hear is, I don't trust my soldiers. They are not going to listen to me. They won't take the vaccine. Holy cow. It would never occur to me that my troops wouldn't follow me, but I guess I was coming up under a different Army. For instance, in my Army, unlike today's Air Force, we did not ask pronouns to our signature blocks. We were serious about were fighting and serious and winning. And in fact, I was in the last war that we unequivocally won, Operation Desert Storm. It's been 30 years.
Now, if these guys were coming off a string of victories, if they had put something in the "W" column, I might be more willing to listen to them. But all I see is a bunch of guys who figure out they can't beat any foreigners, so maybe they will give it a shot with some Americans. Maybe they'll do better. But I kind of doubt that. It's an embarrassment. We need to fire everybody --
CHAFFETZ: All right, gentlemen, I've got a very short amount of time, a very short amount of time. Quickly, 20 seconds each. Why the scare tactic? What do they think they're going to achieve? Twenty second each. Victor?
HANSON: They're preempting. They want to scare conservatives and traditionalists to back and to not try to get voter I.D. and have fairer and free election. So they are planning a coup if you try that, you're planning a coup. And so they're doing this because they're losing support and they're terrified of a midterm disaster in the next year.
CHAFFETZ: A lot of truth to that. Kurt?
SCHLICHTER: Look, we are not going to be talking about this coup nonsense in 2024. We're going to be talking about Putin's successful invasion of Ukraine and the Chinese successful seizure of Taiwan. And I pray that we are not talking about thousands and thousands of American casualties. But this level of incompetence makes that almost a foregone conclusion.
Look, guys, I'm worried. And I think Dr. Hanson is worried, too. And we all need to get our military back into shape and to a warfighting frame of mind.
Is my new @townhallcom column just wishful thinking, or is the blue wave gonna be as flaccid as a Democrat on his wedding night?
“The midterm polls suck, and they might be right – if you believe them, we could be headed for anything from a blue tsunami to a blue wave to a blue trickle. But that’s a big if. To avoid that conclusion, you have to believe that the majority of polls, which are undeniably showing most of our key Senate candidates losing, are inaccurate. Now, this is where it gets tricky, because we want to believe in a massive polling miss. We want to believe that the polls are skewed Dem-ward. We want to believe that there are Republicans out there who aren’t being surveyed by these polls who are going to show up on election day and pull our bacon out of the fire. The power of wanting is potent, and it can blind you. It can make you stupid. It can make you miss the obvious. And that danger exists there. Those polls could be substantially correct, in which case we’re ...
My new @townhallcom column is totally out of patience with knuckleheads, losers, and schmucks…
“Every election cycle we hear the same stupid spiel from a certain band of pseudo-conservative quitters: “Oh no, I’m not getting my way. I’ve got no reason to vote. I’m not going to vote. The Republicans aren’t conservative enough, so I’m just going to let the communist pervert Democrats win. Waa, waa, waa.” I don’t know whether this is tactical stupidity or a cry for attention — maybe it’s both — but it’s exhausting. Boss, I’m tired. Tired of the ostentatiously blackpilling pundits and posers who think electing Democrats by sitting out the election is the way to morph the Republican Party from a bunch of crony codgers managing America’s decline like gentlemen into a party that’s making America great again. It’s not. You never win by losing. And in fact, we’ve been winning. If you’re mad because you think Donald Trump hasn’t performed, you’re not ...
