The “turbulence” of 2020 was purposeful. Covid was so massively distorted for political ends, inducing mass panic, attacking Trump, and loosening election integrity rules that undermined the fairness of the 2020 election. Further, while the George Floyd police brutality was horrific, it was used to create months of rioting and anger, further promoting instability. In fact, the turbulence of 2020 was the end result of the panic of the elites win an outsider fairly won the election of 2016.
From inauguration weekend, when the “pussy hats” descended upon Washington, through the Russia hoax, the impeachment and the sheer lunacy of the press, the stage for 2020 was set.
I continue to believe that the vast majority of Americans are decent, although imperfect, like all human beings. Yet the elites constantly stir the pot to divide everybody else, on the basis of political tribes, race, and now, gender.
I think the problem with most Americans of today, is they are lazy and complacent. Something really bad would have to happen to shake them our of their daze and off of their cell phones.....
I doubt it. Covid was "really bad" and instead of making us less complacent it only made us lazier, fatter, and more isolated. It started the death spiral where people realized they could live their lives without interacting with other humans; just get everything delivered and do all their interaction like this - online.
I can't imagine the type of catastrophic shake-up that would be needed to truly break the system. Some sort of EMP pulse that disabled all electronics on Earth? Multiple nuclear detonations on several major cities?
I was driving up 95 from the Carolinas right after the inauguration. They were coming home from the Women’s March.
The rest stops were filled with psychotic women with pink hats, late model Subaru’s, mostly MA plates, all quite hideous! It was early exposure to Trump Derangement Syndrome.
interestingly i know two women, one from CA, one from NJ, who went to the pussy hat march in DC. Proudly showed off their hats online. Both now have trans kids and think that women can have penises and those who do should be allowed in women's spaces.
Post no more, feel desperate for those mothers, it can’t be a happy experience to happen to children. It’s just plain wrong. We need to stop this madness now!
To be fair another, very popular and successful president was also accused of multiple rapes (surprised no one mentioned this and not saying it was right)
I have to say the "other president's" biting the woman's lip and holding on while he raped her was innovative. Reminds me of a tomcat. (In his case, that's a pretty good analogy, actually ....)
No. No damages were awarded for rape. Not in a courtroom. The article you read purposely slurred a specific charge and claimed it amounted to a public perception. But the jury in the actual case did no such thing. It was a different judge who rejected the argument for a new case. Still no findings in a courtroom for rape
How do you define TDS? For example if I say that Biden is a corrupt and senile mediocrity, would that be Biden Derangement Syndrome? No? Just an honest appraisal of the man, you say? Well then, supposing I say Trump is a liar, a narcissist, a moron, a criminal and a philanderer? TDS, or an honest appraisal of the man?
Suffering from TDS? Not me, Bubba. Calling Trump a peckerwood who was impeached twice, found guilty (in the sense of civil court, not criminal) of sexual abuse, was criminally indicted three times, and will be convicted in all three, not a bit of that is TDS. It's Truth 101, something MAGAs would do well to read up on before the guilty verdicts are in and your world is blown to smithereens.
This is politically motivated IMO. It's exactly what I said. He's conflating a charge with his own definition of publuc perception, what he's declaring to be "common." Moreover, we're still talking about a civil case and not a criminal one. Even in the civil case the jury did not return damages for rape. Frankly it makes the judge's impartiality suspect. He denied a new trial request by claiming that a charge the jury specically excluded amounted to the "same thing" as commonly understood. Frankly I think that dismisses the jury's findings
Donald, to be fair & honest (if that interest you), Trump was not convicted of rape, from years prior to his Presidency. Sexual harassment, yes.
“But, but, but Trump whataboutism” doesn’t hold much weight with most Americans, after knowing all that Bill Clinton did while he WAS President + before, that was proven - proof positive.
I understand the WOKE Left (literally sick with TDS) won’t even acknowledge, let along talk about, and certainly not condemn Biden’s perverted sexual behaviors, even proven by his own daughter’s diary entries.
Ironically (can’t believe I’m saying this), but I’d take Bill Clinton back in a heartbeat, because America would be so much better off with Bill than the Biden Crime Family regime. “ Com on, man, no joke”
I can’t HD, Clinton was morally bankrupt his behavior in the OO was beyond belief. Can you imagine if Monica had laid charges of rape against him she probably would have been assassinated before it ever got to the courts.
You are right, Skinny! I was no fan of Bill Clinton, and less one for Hillary. But the Biden Crime Family Regime isn’t only morally bankrupt, it’s bankrupting our country - openly and without shame!
Projections, for a person who has lost the ability to think critically and logically, are almost always about the projector. One example is the current use of ”woke” (or WOKE - all caps emphasized). What the person usually means is that they consider themselves to be the real woken ones. It’s akin to children taunting one another with, ”I know a secret… nah-nahnah-nahnah-naaahhh…”
Another is claiming people have an illness called “TDS”. These people are usually very upset and dissatisfied with the current president, Joe Biden. Who, according to most metrics taken from the real world, is having a successful presidency. Yet, the projector will not acknowledge even Biden’s smallest successes. ”Irrational” is a great synonym for deranged.
“Joe Biden… is having a successful presidency.” How’s that? Have you heard about inflation? The widening wealth gap? Education? The border? Ukraine? Afghanistan? China? Hunter? Navy Joan? You know. All those things that are pushing his approval number to 40.9%-the lowest in modern history except for Carter?
“Most metrics”? “Smallest successes”? What would those be?
Golly, then what does that make Biden? The guy who gropes women in public and smells the hair of innocent little girls. Oh yes, he's the shining star, but Trump is the "rapist." Take some L-Threonate magnesium and sharpen your brain, you banana-head.
Yes, Trump was accused of rape, and Biden was actually shown molesting multiple little girls and women, although the press chose not to cover this and the internet scrubbed most of it. With regard to Trump I am bothered more by his Supreme Court nominees, who caused the reverse of Roe.
Gullible? Twenty-something college graduates: Whom did America defeat in the Revolutionary War? Answer: Russia. Who fought in the American Civil War? Answer: North America & South America. Who was the second U.S. President? Answer: Lincoln. Who was President during WWll? Answer: Kennedy. What is Memorial day? Answer: A holliday. What does it commemorate? Answer; I don't know. To a mid-fifties resident of the Land of La. Why did you vote to re-elect an obviously demented U.S. Senator? Answer: She'll be told what to do. How could you have voted for a vacuous individual first as States Attorney General & then Senator? "Oh, I think she's a terrific Vice-President". And so our choices will be Trump vs Biden-Harris & the winner will be chosen by Idiots, Imbeciles & Morons. The rest of us will have a good cry or pull out our hair.
It occurs to me that all periods of instability, war, and death are brought about by the elite - the "thinkers" and politicians with big ideas, a lot of spare time, and zero experience in the trenches of real life. They say Satan makes work for those idle hands....
Ordinary worker-bees who are trying to raise their children and pay their mortgages don't have time for the Big Ideas, yet it is always they and their soldier-sons - and now daughters - who pay the price when those big ideas fail. Maybe, somehow, we should change that.
Yip 💯 Mike and you haven’t had to study 20 years of data to produce the crap Peter sprouted to Bari, and the brown nosing at the end, of what kind of an elite she is. You have posted it exactly as it unfolded. I’m just wondering what the elite are going to use this time to fix the 2024 election. Perhaps the truckers, electricians, plumbers etc will rise up and say it’s enough America belongs to all not just to the elites, it’s time for Biden and his cronies to go, vote them out please God!
It's already being fixed...The lawyer that laundered the server link and Steele Dossier into a five-year witch hunt against Trump is already leveraging donations from Democratic fat cats into lawsuits against a host of election commissions across the country. He is trying to delay or derail the vote integrity legislation passed by Republican states so that voter registration clean-up, federally mandated after EVERY federal election, doesn't occur. You see, he's counting on the ability of dead men voting twice to navigate the Democrat's way to victory even though the live and legal voters are turning them out of power.
Just an aside, it seems as though the right is in the ascendency in Europe after all these years of being lied to by our "governments".
Yip that’s the one good thing that’s happening in Europe - however, I’m really worried about our voting integrity, the Democrats are making sure we don’t have it for 2024, going to be a problem hope we will prevail LK.
Yip, but I think conservative voters have learnt what to do, although conservative voters have a lot against him/her. We have to tackle the Deep State +MSM, SM and all the misinformation that is circling America today. It’s not going to be easy but it can be done it’s going to be the most important election in our history.
“You write in your book that a handful of factors are the harbingers of end times or societal crisis, one of which is something you call “elite overproduction.” What is that?”
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I stopped reading here and bought all of this guy’s books. THIS IS THE PROBLEM.
“The elites” are also known as parasites. They are all Democrats. Interference class bureaucrats and administrators. They do not contribute to society and, given their training, you wouldn’t expect them to.
I listened to the interview. Elite overproduction is an interesting and important issue. But dismissing this as political (i.e. they are all democrats) misses the larger truth for a narrow political obsession. Fine. Have bad feelings about democrats, but when we (anyone) points fingers and assigns blame so broadly we don't do the hard work of reflecting on our own accountability. It's so so easy to see what others are doing wrong. Let's "man up" and look to ourselves.
I've heard it said (am being a bit facetious) that the two major U.S. political parties are actually pretty much the same party. They obviously are AT the same party - one that few people actually work, that is to say few work the party socially, I mean the party with the party hats. Oh as an aside I just realized why American kids all have to have those dumb parties in school and at home. They are being acclimated to the stupidity of it all. In societies with royals, with royalty, parties are super exclusive. In America every kid is supposed have an equal chance - yeah right- to become king of the company or the corporation. So we learn very early in like to put on party hats, expect gifts, spoil the birthday kid with gifts, make lots of noise and look forward to
"Out Turn" at being the center of attentions, our turn at the wheel, that is of running a show.
While I appreciate your highly manipulative partisan smokescreen, you definitely are not going to fix this problem ever if you don’t address the aspects of Democrat policy that caused the elite overproduction.
Republicans are also at fault but that’s just because they have failed to stop Democrats and have often gone along with it. Richard Nixon creating the EPA is the first thing that comes to mind. I’m not looking up the history but I’m sure Republicans also went along with the psychotic notion that every single student has a human right to a $100,000 loan which they can spend at a Democrat Education Camp.
The person with the political obsession is you. You are obsessed with defending Democrat policy because you like it even though it has failed catastrophically just as Hayek’s Knowledge Problem predicts.
So, no, I will not be “manning up” and looking inward, instead of looking at Democrats, as you might prefer. Why? Because I am obviously right and the murderer is standing directly in front of us with a knife.
I voted for Trump twice, and would do so again, and I even don't think this is a Democrat vs Republican issue. It's a uniparty issue.
Biden didn't get us into two endless wars. Biden didn't manipulate public opinion into attacking Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11. I went over there and did my part in 07-08, but will full knowledge that this was a scam played on the American people. Yes, Biden is a shitbag but there are lots of others...GWB being pretty high on the list. And I voted for that turd twice also.
That's why I was willing to throw the monkey wrench at Washington in '16, and still am. Yes, we were purposely fucking things up, those that think like me.
I totally see why you would zero in on Democrats' support for higher education as the main cause of elite overproduction. Frankly, as a former graduate students who has taught at 4-year universities (as well as elementary, middle, and high schools) I could easily be dismissed, I guess someone who has benefitted from these "elite playgrounds." But you might be surprised to know that I agree that there is a lot going wrong in higher education and some of it can definitely be chalked up to groupthink and the kind of arrogance that comes from making a living as an expert. But, and here's my question, what do you think should change in higher education? Should there be no support for it? Should it be abolished entirely? Or should it be totally free? (no loans) or totally reserved only for those who can afford it? I guess I'm really (genuinely) curious what you are fighting for. Regarding the EPA, I'm curious what it is about the EPA that you find so objectionable. Do you free there should be no regulatory agencies? Should corporations be self-regulating when it comes to the environment? You see I am obsessed, but not with defending Democratic policy (which is something that is too big and complicated to defend or condemn as a whole) but with the power of listening and conversation. I truly, truly am.When I ask what you are fighting for regarding higher education or the EPA, I am seriously looking to learn about things that I may have missed or see things from a new perspective. Speaking of which, have you listened to The Free Press podcast, "The Witch Trials of JK Rowling?" I ask because the reporter who put it together is someone who had her mind changed about some very profound, fundamental beliefs simply through ongoing conversation with someone who saw the world very differently from her. The focus of the podcast, really, is the whole problem of communicating with each other and it goes deeply into some very nuanced and fraught territory. Anyway, sorry for the very long response, but felt like I owed you a serious take on your comment.
Universities are not the only thing Democrats have done to cause the overproduction of elites. It should be said that by definition the modifier ‘overproduction’ means these people are not actually elite.
What would I do? The federal government should stop making and guaranteeing loans and grants to universities. If there’s anything necessary going on at these places then the states and endowments and corporations will step in.
I am aware that what I’m suggesting would destroy lives and collapse institutions. It would destroy all of the right lives and all of the right institutions.
Because of how much money is currently flowing into this sewer, the action I am suggesting would result in chaos and violence. The various and sundry *useless people* impacted by this action would become desperate and violent and they would need to be dealt with. Treat them like the Jan 6 people. Detain them without trial and charge them to the max.
What do I not like about the EPA? Well, everyone who works there is a dicksucker who hates the United States. So that’s one of the things I don’t like. They are a bunch of ineffectual shysters who make the world worse. So I’m opposed to that as well.
If you gave the EPA guns and tanks and sent them into the foreign countries that are actually polluting then maybe I would support it.
I totally agree. I'm so tired of people pointing fingers and blaming someone else. Who I want to listen to is someone speaking truthfully, and rather than blaming and condemning someone else, comes up with a pathway out of the mess we are in. A peaceful revolution.
Paula, if Kevin with the question mark actually answered you without calling you Satanic and a pervert, letting you go with just being obsessed - consider yourself important. You know you got his attention. Not that you should care, mind you.
In Canada it is the same with the growth of DEI, HR and PR departments in governments and large corporations.
Friends in management (private and public) constantly complain about these useless departments that actually reduce productivity by wasting other departments’ time and resources.
I also recommend that people seek out Ted Gioia and his theory of “Hot versus Cool” periods in culture and entertainment.
If all they did was waste time and reduce productivity, that would be fine. And that's what it seems like at first to people who already work there. They can complain and sigh and laugh. But they already have their jobs, they have an education, and they have a resume which gives them a leg up in finding a new job.
What they actually do is change recruiting and hiring policies instituting de jure racism. They make it increasingly difficult to find a new job, especially for kids fresh out of school. They make it extremely difficult for the best candidates to climb the corporate ladder and achieve success on their own merit.
Your friends in management complain about reducing productivity. Their kids complain about finding decent employment at all or ever reaching management positions.
How? He can’t climb stairs, walk and chew gum. This guy is a disaster and his brainless VP.
Koch Brother? Last time I looked, the entire government is run by brainless democrats. Democrats have lied about everything! They are the one’s that have been dividing the nation. DEI, Trans, you name it. Pedophiles, defund the police, Portland, Seattle, LA. BLM. These are the ones. Lying FBI, CIA, DOJ, MSM. This guy is right. Time to take the people down or maybe a 100 mile wide asteroid. I don’t see another to cleanse this earth.
Wall Street is going hard into DEI. Large institutional investors will invest in a company specifically because of certian metrics (racial diversity, percent women in leadership, etc). They'll sometimes also throw in climate. Dunno if you want to call that "leftist" or not, but it's simply the reality of new "conscientious investing" practiced by most venture capital and mutual funds.
Dude, seriously... go look at some recent presentations by BlackRock or Vanguard and then come back and tell me Wall Street is somehow conservative.
Invest regularly. Stock market and real estate. Plenty of other options if you don't like companies that are "into diversity." (Whatever the hell that means, today.)
It is nowhere near the levels of the current hysteria. Wall Street is FAR from "woke."
Major oil and gas companies are purtting substantial income and personal capital into developing alternative energy, (i.e. "throwing in climate") is that "woke," too? Or is it looking ahead to the future to the next curve? So the idea of "concientous investing" really amounts to finding ways to make money while still being good stewards of the Earth and mitigate/reduce damage to society/social fabrics as much as possible.
Dude...seriously, I've already been through one Satanic Panic. This "eVerYthinG iS wOke" is getting old. It just sounds stupid now.
Personally, I would put as much as you can into water, cause we're running out of that. The portfolio that I personally manage is 95% of that, and it has been VERY, VERY profitable.
Wall Street has always been ideologically and action-oriented Conservative. All about corporate profits, tax breaks for the 1%, offshoring jobs, deregulation, reducing wages and exploiting illegal immigrant labor all to increase stock price/dividends, so give me a break.
Apparently you're not aware that typing in all caps and adding four exclamation points (me, I always like to use an odd number) does not add to the efficacy of your argument.
Much easier to read. Still wrong though. Ever heard of Fox News? The New York Post? The Manhattan Institute? Josh Hawley's congressional staff? Ron DeSantis' campaign staff? Those folks are all elites too.
I know, right? When I think of " woke leftists" I certainly think of Monsanto, P&G, Peter Thiel, the Koch Brothers, Wall Street, Oil & Gas CEOs, etc......you know, the "workin' class folks."
They certainly are not all Democrats. Trump, Abbott, DeSantis, and above all Mitch McConnell, are multimillion- to billionaire elites who would hit you if you called them a Democrat. Ditto all their funders: the Kochs, Mercers, deVos, Ulines, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, the CEOs of Big Oil, Ag, Chemical, and other Corporate, and the hotshots in the Club for Growth, NRA, and Federalist Society. Not a Dem among them. They control the levers of power as much as the Democrats do.
I'm not remotely embarrassed, because my argument is bulletproof. The notion that Democrats control 95 percent of America is propaganda, not fact, and here's why:
The Supreme Court is Republican. Much of the current federal judiciary was chosen by the Republican Federalist Society, not the more centrist/liberal/Democratic American Bar Association. Half of Congress is Republican. The most powerful congressional leader in America, Mitch McConnell, is Republican. The Speaker of the House is lightweight-but-still-in-charge Republican Kevin McCarthy. The most powerful politician in America is Republican Donald Trump, who ran the White House until three years ago. More than half of state governors--26 vs. 24--are Republican:
Eighteen of America's biggest lobbying organizations--i.e., the ones who buy and sell politicians--are Republican, with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as lead dog:
Most private funders of politicians are billionaire Republicans. Koch, deVos, Mercer, Griffith, Ulein, Epstein, a dozen more. They gave four times as much money to Republican PACs as they did Democratic PACs, so when they say "jump," politicians say, "How high, bawse?" You think multi-trillion-dollars tax cuts came from BLM and antifa supporters?
Wall Street bankers would laugh you out of the boardroom at the notion they're liberals or Democrats. Ditto most of the CEOs of Big Corporate, Fortune 500, or the multi-trillion-dollar military industrial complex. They're adopting DEI statements to avoid noisy public protests, not because they believe any of it. Proof? They claim women are equal in the corporate suite, too, and yet a, um, mighty 10 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are female:
Silicon Valley might be majority Democrat, but then again, tech billionaires Elon Musk and Peter Thiel are Republican. Gates and Bezos aren't the only tech money in town:
Democrats certainly control important sectors of the culture, including academia and media, plus the White House since 2020, explaining why DEI and other happy-face bullshit gets more exposure than it deserves. But there's no way you can argue with a straight face that Democrats control 95 percent of America. They only wish they did.
Who *really* controls America? Big Money.
Republicans and Democrats control different sectors of America, splitting the take 50-50. But they all march to the tune of Big Corporate and Big Money. Reps and Dems are their front men, using MAGA, Woke, and other Culture War red meat to camouflage their real masters, who are not We the People but We the Greedy.
Me, embarrassed to argue actual facts? Not a chance.
Okay how about we agree that universities might lean slightly left but the elections in DC Silicon Valley and Manhattan, and any survey data recording partisan orientation, have been faked by Halliburton and Charlton Heston for the purpose of propaganda. A fair compromise.
In further pursuit of compromise I will admit that journalism and publishing is right-wing if you admit that Hollywood and entertainment is right-wing.
> They control the levers of power as much as the Democrats do.
One one side...
Elon Musk has a lever of power in big tech.
On the other side...
Mark Zuckerburg holds a lever of power.
Satya Nadella holds a lever of power.
Marc Benioff holds a lever of power.
Sundar Pichai holds a lever of power.
Zhang Yiming holds a lever of power.
Sam Altman holds a lever of power.
Jeff Bezos holds a lever of power.
Do not pretend these sides are of equal strength. It's a logical fallacy, and frankly rather unbecoming. If you truly want to debate it, acknowledge that left-leaning people increasingly control big tech, and make arguments about how that's OK/good for the world/etc.
I could do a similar analysis for finance (go look at BlackRock/Vanguard), education, entertainment/media, etc. The point is, for every right-leaning elite, you will find 5-10 left-leaning elites with similar positions.
DeSantis is not rich. He made a little money from his book, and has a net worth just over $1mm. You can say a lot about DeSantis, but calling him a "multimillionaire elite" is totally inaccurate.
I'll take your word about his bank account because I don't have access. But he certainly is a political elite who dominates news cycles almost as much as Trump and Biden.
Well, he dominates news cycles because he's running for president and because the "reforms" he's enacting in Florida outrage so many people. That "the left" is after him is only a byproduct.
The "elites" ARE society. Just ask any one of them, and they will tell you that straight out. There is no debate for them. There is no dynamism in society other than what they, the elites, inject.
“The guy yelling at the rapists is just as bad as the rapists because yelling and rape are both bad. Listen to me. I have obtained a higher knowledge, a gnosis, above all of these petty tribal disputes. I am the synthesis that has emerged from the thesis and antithesis.”
I should have stopped after that paragraph. Your description of the elites as parasites is very apt, we have to rid ourselves of this garbage, the leeches are sucking us dry.
Importantly, elite overproduction results in an increase in gaming the system and a breakdown in cooperation. Cooperation is a dynamic that requires creativity, open-mindedness, curiosity to motivate cooperation. These are the antitheses to breaking the rules for self-aggrandizement.
“I’m very worried about 2024, because you now have two parties that say that they will not accept the win of another party.”
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Given that history is dead-set on exposing Democrats as maximally hypocritical, I’d say a Republican will win so that Democrats can deny the election and become violent.
(NOTE: Democrat violence will actually be bad and will not be contained to the lobby of a federal building)
Agree. We already saw the violence during the fake George Floyd BLM riots that were always just Democrat foot soldiers taking their "we will resist" movement to the maximum dark and dirty steps.
Exactly, Kevin! Because MSM never reported on the riots that took place when Trump won in 2016! NEVER! NOT ONCE! And if by chance the “news” slipped out, the WOKE Left response was, “But Orange Man Bad STOLE the election from Hillary, so people have every right to protest” ... and if it’s the Left rioting, well it’s always “mostly peaceful protest”
They did, actually. More police were injured in the Washington DC BLM riots than the J6 riots. Not counting all the other cities, or the 19 deaths that happened as a result of said riots.
I won't defend the rioters on J6. However, to pretend that even compares to the level of violence, disorder, and social breakdown that was 2020 is extremely disingenuous, And yet, one of those events led to mass censorship, and the other didn't.
Its very hard to imagine Trump losing 24. The only reason he lost in 20 is bc 3% of white men swung towards Biden, every other demographic increased in republican vote share. Im hard pressed to believe that 3% doesnt swing back towards Trump, as well as gains among black men, hispanic men and women, and most other minority groups. The math on Biden winning seems almost implausible.
For example, I voted Biden in 20 but within days after casting my ballot the Laptop story was revealed, as well as probable ballot tomfoolery in Pennsylvania. By the time the dust settled I was disgusted with myself and the democrats, and I will certainly never vote for them again. Id imagine many men feel similar. More importantly, Trump will undoubtedly improve performance with every single demographic/“identity group”, the only possible exception being white women, although he already won an outright majority of married mothers last election.
If Trump has even the slightest percentage of white and black men shifting towards him this election, it takes all the Democrats necessary states off the table: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania for example. If Trump has even the slightest shift in Latino vote share, which all data shows is going up each election, then Arizona and Texas will be red forever. Very hard to imagine Biden or Kamala winning the electoral college. Also, as urban voter turnout increases, so does republican vote share, something shown in my second link.
I'm not sure Trump wins. He'll pull zero voters from the left and likely zero from the independents. Gong to be difficult to win if that holds true. Throw in the hijinks with the election process, the backing of MSM, and any Republican is going to have a difficult time beating Biden (as horrible as he is). In fact, sadly, we may never see another Republican in the Oval Office again
My prediction, the Dems force Biden to step down, tell Kamala they will not back her and ask her to step away gracefully (under the promise of some bullshit ambassadorship, or Ivy League faculty position) then they roll out the red carpet for that ass-bag, Newsom. Newsom, with his political connections (i.e. Pelosi), beautiful head of hair, and with the power of Silicon Valley, wins easily.
Victor Davis Hanson gives a Biden/Harris ticket only 25% chance.
I don't worry about Trump not pulling liberal voters...they're more likely to stay home like they did in 2016. Empty pantsuit Hillary could not persuade them to come out and vote, and many will not vote for Trump, but 70% of Dems don't want Biden.
My biggest concern is election fraud. Democrats might not be good at much, but at election-rigging they are masters.
Fade, I’m afraid you are correct! I seriously do not believe another Republican, or Independent will ever win, again.
If Biden hid out in his basement, only campaigning a few times + Obama campaigning for him some, and he STILL got 81 million votes - “The MOST popular President in America’s history” then how in the world can anyone top that? Ever?!
HD 8 million votes were Covid votes. Covid is done it’s gone. The Democrats have to conjure up something else now they don’t have much time left. CC and the Ukraine are losing their flavor, RFK is gaining ground, you can see how they trying to silence him. They are trying to silence everybody and are using their last two trump cards (pardon the pun) Trump and J6. I think they fading, and fading fast perhaps I’m the eternal optimist, I have a good feeling for Republicans. We have to shut out all the negativity that is MSM, SM and the corporations we need to get back to basics.
This. I am seeing the same thing in the horizon. Biden and Kamala are both poor candidates for different reasons. Newsom is being groomed for the job. He was touring the US and was even on Fox for an interview, likely trying to lay the groundwork to gather some independents. I didn’t see the interview but family said he did quite well.
Yup. Newsom is an awful leader. You only need to walk down the streets of a a major California metro area to see exactly what he's done to that state, or read through recent legislation passed in California (the state can now take kids from their parents, sentencing is encouraged to be race-based, etc). People are *fleeing* CA; it recently lost a house seat due to depopulation, The state is measurably worse in every metric - including economically - since he took the helm.
However, he has a combination of looks and charisma we haven't seen since Bill Clinton, He's practically a sex symbol. In every interview, you see how effortlessly he puts aside his record and policy, to snake his way out of questions by looking smooth. The guy is Elvis Presley, James Bond, Tom Cruise, and JFK all rolled into one. (see also, although to a lesser extent, Chris Cuomo)
Of course, you can reasonably argue that Trump also won on charisma, and now his charisma is careening him through a primary despite facing legal issues.
I get the impression from social media that black men are shifting right. If you look at "dissident opinion"/anti-establishment social media (eg Rumble), it used to be all white dudes. Within the last few years, it's now at least 13% black (which would represent the black population within the US), if not higher.
Trump's issues aren't demographic. They're legal. If Trump was allowed to run unimpeded, and the election was fully fair, there's zero doubt he would win in 2024. They know that, which is why they're trying - and succeeding - in stopping him via other means. Let's face it, he will not be allowed to sit in the oval office in 2024. And by 2028 it will be too late because AI-driven censorship will be here to tell us all exactly how to vote.
Charlie Kirk said the win lies in three states Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin. You have mention two of Charlie’s three plus the others I think you onto something Please God🇺🇸.
Having a debate with Compost is like trying to reason with the spoiled brat 4 year old throwing a tantrum in the grocery store because her welfare mom won't shoplift that package of GummyBears.
This loser must be a recovering addict crying out for help, coming here because his ex-friends no longer pay him any attention....he has many of those and gets little of that.
The sad thing is there are many angry people like him. The good news is he's not on a rooftop with a loaded shotgun somewhere. Yet.
That made no sense to me. I think we can all feel the crazy in the air and crazy doesn’t lead anywhere good.
It would be easier just to cite the meme that bad times lead to tough people; tough people create good times; and good times create soft people, who create bad times.
We are decadent, and as a nation emotionally unequal to sustained hard and mature effort in socially positive directions.
There is little reason for optimism, but NEVER any reason for quitting. Good things remain possible, but they won’t fall off trees.
Peter Turchin’s theory of “Overproduction of the Elites” could not possibly ring more true in society today. Farrr too many kids going to college, even if they end up working at starbucks. “Elite aspirant class” I call them.
Society is usually held up by a pyramid: of plebians and patricians, the three estates, whatever metaphor you like, there are many commoners/workers and a few redundant elite lavishers at the top. Today our economy has far too many elite lavishers at the top (“email caste” is Malcolm Kyeyune’s apt term), and not enough men actually building and maintaining civilization. The economic maslows hierarchy, if you will, is completely out of whack. No longer a pyramid and more like a column.
Too many elite aspirants with no good jobs, playing status games and feeling that they’ve been lied to about their own importance. Too many blue collar men who are openly disdained by the upper classes whose existence they undergird. Money flowing in all the wrong directions. I see the factions of the upcoming clash as being the Bolsheviks (progressive college grads) versus Spartacus (the disrespected, reactionary hardworking men). All that we know is the center cant hold.
Peter Turchin’s theory of elite overproduction rings true to me, and foretells conflict on the near horizon. Every kid who doesnt go to college is a sliver of hope for America’s survival. As somebody else put it “The university is the trojan horse through which western civilization is to be destroyed”.
It's a damn shame that Corey Booker has forever tainted the battle cry, "I am Spartacus!" On the upside though, we don't hear much from him these days. It's almost worth the exchange.
My daughter just said yesterday she would skip college if she could but she feels like it’s the only way to get a job (not in the trades, of which she’s not interested).
There's an unfortunate other side to this. Higher education is necessary for certain underpinnings of our society - engineering, medicine, law. It's also a legal (if not practical) requirement for many others - K-12 education requires a degree, finance for all practical purposes requires a degree, etc. We can't just not have colleges
K-12 education is very concerning with the *massive* spread of SEL since 2010, the hugely dropping test scores, the millions of children being convinced to change their gender by school counselors, the oppressor-oppressed ideology of CRT. If it weren't for COVID accidentally giving parents a view into thse curricula, this change would have passed unnoticed. Instead, we now have the FBI putting parents groups down as "domestic terrorists" to prevent parents being able to influence public school education.
Even more concerning is engineering. The people working on AI algorithms genuinely believe that white supremacy, the patriarchy, religion, traditional gender roles, etc are the greatest threats to America and are therefore designing AIs to change and stop these perceived problems.
What if the US isn't actually as ruled by white supremacy as the left says it is? Then we just have machine learning algorithms trained for "positive discrimination". One could accidentally train a neural network to reject the resumes of people with white-sounding names without even realizing that's what the AI is doing, but rather just trying to "combat systematic bias in hiring practices and increase DEI". The machine doesn't know better -- it just knows that resumes with certain names tend to be liked by its owners more than others, so it gravitates towards those names.
That's just one example of how biased AIs can emerge. They're also being used to decide what videos/information people are allowed to see on social media. They're deciding what companies to invest in and what people are allowed to get loans. At every juncture, machines with far-left biases are being implemented and used to make high-level decisions.
Point is, we can't just churn out a bunch of blue collar workers and imagine society will fix itself. Especially in a world where traditional blue-collar work (like truck driving, manufacturing) is becoming automated or outsourced.
“how do we change our trajectory when we have an elite that many people view as corrupt and unrepresentative, what would you say?”
————————————————————
*View* as corrupt??
Given that Bari was chased out of the Paper Of Record by a bunch of prostitutes who hate the United States, I find it somewhat insulting that she phrased it this way.
We do not *view* them as corrupt. They *are* corrupt. And also worthless. The main problem is that they are worthless. If Nicole Hannah Jones also ran a restaurant and drove a forklift I wouldn’t mind her shitty ideas. Same with Anthony Blinken and Fiona Hill and Randi Weingarten and etc etc etc. Useless people.
"Weekend Listening: Are We Living Through ‘End Times’?"
As someone who is 75, (and a Christian) let me say I've Seen This Movie Before.
As an Unlicensed Non-Certified historian ( Doesn't that sound better than a history nut? :-)) let me say this. Evey couple of hundred years something new comes along, some new piece of technology, and everything is thrown into chaos. We are living in one right now. that little silicon chip has changed EVERYTHING.
The FreePress is a great example. 30 years ago This would not be possible.
Wanna Bet? For those of us On The Right, it was a given. Oh the MSM (as we called it) would throw us a bone once in a while. George F Will would get a column ever 2 weeks, There would sometime be a panel 3 from the Left 1 Conservative, Ronald Reagan would give a speech then there would be panels explaining why he was wrong and a war monger and probably a racist.
One of the things Donald rump did was Tear The Mask off the corporate media showing their true self
See
Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes how the Media Distort the News
Bernard Goldberg
In his nearly thirty years at CBS News, Emmy Award winner Bernard Goldberg earned a reputation as one of the preeminent reporters in the television news business. When he looked at his own industry, however, he saw that the media far too often ignored their primary mission: to provide objective, disinterested reporting. Again and again he saw that the news slanted to the left. For years, Goldberg appealed to reporters, producers, and network executives for more balanced reporting, but no one listened. The liberal bias continued.
Now, breaking ranks and naming names, he reveals a corporate news culture in which the closed-mindedness is breathtaking and in which entertainment wins over hard news every time.
My mom sold encyclopedias on the side when I grew up in the 70s, which meant every few years she earned a new set. So in high school my friends came to my house to write their papers because even if the encyclopedias were 4 years old, we had the most current world knowledge, short of going to the downtown Houston library. This was quite the advance from centuries before, when knowledge seekers crossed countries or continents to visit monasteries to find the latest and greatest set of facts.
Fast forward to 2020. Every “disenfranchised” minimum-wage earner and/or welfare king/queen that stood in the streets of Minny filming the George Floyd riots on their phone held in their hand most of all information known to mankind.
Whose job is it to access that knowledge and turn it into some form of a livable wage? Not mine. I’ve got 3 boys and a wife who worked outside the home until she was 49 and it took us all we had to keep it together sometimes. And the bleeding heart libs think I should raise someone else’s kids, too? Are they on drugs?
Has it EVER been easier to start a business or pick up a side hustle or drive around town running errands for all us lazy shmucks who won’t drive 5 blocks to go get our own Whataburger?
I won’t call any of our condescending, virtue signaling brethren out by name, but I challenge them to go build concrete floors in the barrios of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, like I did my first year out of college. Then tell me our poor have it tough.
Life ain’t fair. Never has been, never will be. Quit making excuses for all but a tiny majority of Americans alive today who have only themselves to blame for their “misfortune” and “suffering”.
Good post. I lived / worked in Asia for many years earlier this century. Our “poor” would be the envy of hundreds of millions in India, China, Indonesia, The Philippines, etc.
I wish he would focus on his theory that cooperation is associated with good cycles. We need to cooperate- find common benefit to work together, not apart
Good point—it’s just that elites deplatform, freeze accounts, shakedown through the IRS, accuse of racism and antisemitism so that isolation ensues or cooperation becomes fraught. It’ll take courage and a community that stands by its members come hell or high water. The mindset has to be that if one person falls, everyone falls.
But now that we know what's likely to happen, we can take steps to mitigate the damage ahead of time. Such as sign over the bank account to another family member, preferably with a different last name.
A few days ago Dr. Joseph Mercola announced on Twitter that Chase had shut down his business bank account, along with those of his CEO, CFO, and some of their family members (including a spouse and child). He said one of the accounts had been active for 18 years. They come for families too. This is by design.
Peter Turchin's cliodynamics sounds A LOT like Isaac Asimov's psychohistory.
Isaac Asimov's psychohistory is the reason why I ended up majoring in economics at UC Berkeley back in the Jurassic: UC Berkeley didn't offer a psychohistory major. 😀
I wonder if Turchin's book contains his predictive mathematical model? I'd definitely be interested in seeing _that_.
All Russians know something important. We are scientifically geared super sensors. It’s in our bones. He he he ☺️
I know - for example - that Biden will soon be thrown under a bus by it’s own kind and we will have Gavin Newsome rolled into all of us. Now, that will cause quite a turmoil.
I used to think that as well but I no longer do. I think he has degraded enough to where if he actually campaigns the people on the lower end of the IQ scale will now notice. My opinion only but even if the Dems get Trump, which they obviously want, he won't be able to be functional enough to get the job.
I feel like with the power of mimetic contagion today (basically phones and narratives controlling huge swaths of people’s opinions), psychohistory is more true than ever. But we dont know what ideological contagions the cultural gatekeepers will push next, its seems unpredictable unless we knew the puppet masters actual goals.
In the "Foundation Trilogy," psychohistory was a mathematical model with like a gazillion variables, and each variable was a function you had to solve for before you could plug everything into the predictive model.
(Even today, when I stumble across some particularly inane trend in human behavior, I find myself thinking, "Hmmm... I wonder how you'd describe that in _math_?" 😀)
Cliodynamics is real, and obvs psychohistory is not! But yes, you would _have_ to factor mimetic contagion into any predictive formula that was aiming for accuracy. And that would be a challenge! Since mimetic contagion is such a qualitatively _different_ phenomenon than, say, Batesian mimicry, for which several equations have been suggested.
Okay! I'll stop talking about math now. Hold your applause. 😀
Robert F Kennedy Jr just posted that Biden’s DOJ refused to provide secret service protection for him which is apparently standard for presidential candidates. Wasserman Schulz managed to illegally dispose of Bernie Sanders last time around. Now she is after him, trying to shut him down, doing the bidding of the powerful. I don’t call them elites because that sounds vaguely positive for what are basically thugs who care very little about our society. They are out to strip mine it. The censorious DNC wants to serve up doddering Biden and clueless Kamala with no primary debates. I mention all this because Trump’s victory came out of the working class feeling their voices were not being heard. Here we have the DNC trying to force feed the voters an impaired President. People will be angry that they aren’t given a choice in a, uh, democracy.
Almost 7 decades in my life, I'm still shocked by how blatantly in-your-face corrupt the present regime is. I can't say it's just Biden. It's Hillary and all the rest of them who lie, cheat, subvert the law etc so overtly! It's only our judiciary that has held a thin line, and now Congressional hearings. I am a lifeline Democrat saying these things, noe independent
What rules did Trump break in 2016? The Democrats broke the rules and turn Federal law enforcement in a political tool. Trump didn't play the game by the rules of The Swamp. But he broke no rules.
The fact we are getting shorter may be because we eat so much garbage food. Our food is fake and doesn't lead to growth.
I'm very disappointed that there were no Psychohistory jokes.
The party bent on changing our society seems to be the liberal left through the Democratic party. At least so it seems to me looking just looking around. The disaffected on the right are intent on not letting our democratic institutions be taken away from us.
I don't see how any thinking adult can take Turchin's pronouncements seriously. Much of it seems like Hegel warmed over with a touch of elitist bigotry thrown in. I don't know if Hegel is still being taught in college these days; I haven't sat in a college classroom since the early 80s. Hegel's theories actually make sense to me: "thesis, synthesis, and antithesis"--and then rewind and start again. I think Woody Allen embraced that theory when he made "Bananas" and "Sleeper." That pattern is consistent with human nature in large societies. The assumption that "non-elitists" are violent and elitists are non-violent is tellingly typical of bigoted behavior (positive and negative stereotyping). But the Hegelian model doesn't resort to stereotyping. It simply notes that at whatever point one hops on the carousel of a given civilized society, depending on how far along it is from a relatively stable status quo, that citizen becomes a part of the grand whirling dance. Lord Acton encapsulated it even more succinctly: "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Once we arrive at the point where the corrupt ruling class sufficiently enrages the rest of us, either the put-upon citizenry will organize and pull down the ruling class--OR the ruling class will have become so corrupt and evil that it will implode upon itself. Either way, the cycle starts anew. What's almost impossible to predict is exactly how long the process will take, considering all the unpredictable variables involved.
I think we are there. The elite has its own rules, then the rest of us pay lawyers because we said the wrong pronoun.I am glad I live far from the big cities, so I believe I am somewhat safe. I really do wonder what is the event that will cause the explosion; Trump win or loses, lack of basic food, high interest rates, someone else gets away with financial fraud, government defaults, what exactly will light the fuse.
>>The assumption that "non-elitists" are violent and elitists are non-violent is tellingly typical of bigoted behavior (positive and negative stereotyping)<<
It's an assumption made about methods of control, no? "Elitists" traditionally dominate the flow of information (media, education, etc) that change the balance of power over time. Leaving their adversaries with only one recourse for changing the balance of power: violence.
Although I would agree with you that elitists/non-elists is a false binary.
They are not violent. They pay others to be violent. There were a large number of out of town people in Minnesota during the George Floyd event. The police and the media were commenting on it the first day. Then the media stopped talking about it. Completely.
“people who have no power, what we can do is start organizing as a social movement.”
—-
Nice idea, but how does this actually succeed in the reality of today, in the face of immense establishment power? Any dissident or social movement that gains significant momentum gets captured or destroyed by the elite to maintain status quo. Look at Sanders, Trump, Occupy, BLM, even RFK as we speak.
The “turbulence” of 2020 was purposeful. Covid was so massively distorted for political ends, inducing mass panic, attacking Trump, and loosening election integrity rules that undermined the fairness of the 2020 election. Further, while the George Floyd police brutality was horrific, it was used to create months of rioting and anger, further promoting instability. In fact, the turbulence of 2020 was the end result of the panic of the elites win an outsider fairly won the election of 2016.
From inauguration weekend, when the “pussy hats” descended upon Washington, through the Russia hoax, the impeachment and the sheer lunacy of the press, the stage for 2020 was set.
I continue to believe that the vast majority of Americans are decent, although imperfect, like all human beings. Yet the elites constantly stir the pot to divide everybody else, on the basis of political tribes, race, and now, gender.
I think the problem with most Americans of today, is they are lazy and complacent. Something really bad would have to happen to shake them our of their daze and off of their cell phones.....
True - think that shake up is about to happen.
I doubt it. Covid was "really bad" and instead of making us less complacent it only made us lazier, fatter, and more isolated. It started the death spiral where people realized they could live their lives without interacting with other humans; just get everything delivered and do all their interaction like this - online.
I can't imagine the type of catastrophic shake-up that would be needed to truly break the system. Some sort of EMP pulse that disabled all electronics on Earth? Multiple nuclear detonations on several major cities?
yeah. pretty much.
Yeah, EMP keeps popping into my head as well.
Indeed
Wrasse Legal? Crass Smeagol? Class Beagle?
I'm going to be thinking about this all day.
Glass-Steagall. As in, we need to bring back the Glass-Steagall Act to better regulate the big banks.
In fairness, it seems the ”pussy hats” descending on Washington were pretty prescient, considering that we now know Trump was (and is) a rapist.
I was driving up 95 from the Carolinas right after the inauguration. They were coming home from the Women’s March.
The rest stops were filled with psychotic women with pink hats, late model Subaru’s, mostly MA plates, all quite hideous! It was early exposure to Trump Derangement Syndrome.
interestingly i know two women, one from CA, one from NJ, who went to the pussy hat march in DC. Proudly showed off their hats online. Both now have trans kids and think that women can have penises and those who do should be allowed in women's spaces.
I guess they really didn't understand p*ssies after all ....
😂😂clearly not Jim
Post no more, feel desperate for those mothers, it can’t be a happy experience to happen to children. It’s just plain wrong. We need to stop this madness now!
that says it all
I hope you've been able to get over it. Sounds awful. Remember the good old days when exposure was just Pee Wee Herman?
They were trying to kill people?
That's actually a libelous statement. "Trump is a rapist" Has he been convicted of the crime of rape? No? Then you are simply lying
To be fair another, very popular and successful president was also accused of multiple rapes (surprised no one mentioned this and not saying it was right)
I have to say the "other president's" biting the woman's lip and holding on while he raped her was innovative. Reminds me of a tomcat. (In his case, that's a pretty good analogy, actually ....)
Yes, he was convicted of that, and the judge confirmed it just the other day.
Civil courts don't convict people of crimes. A little education might help with your biases
I actually know the difference, and clearly screwed up while writing my answer. You are correct, civil courts award damages, not convictions.
But biases? No.
No. No damages were awarded for rape. Not in a courtroom. The article you read purposely slurred a specific charge and claimed it amounted to a public perception. But the jury in the actual case did no such thing. It was a different judge who rejected the argument for a new case. Still no findings in a courtroom for rape
Save your breath, Janine. These people are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.
How do you define TDS? For example if I say that Biden is a corrupt and senile mediocrity, would that be Biden Derangement Syndrome? No? Just an honest appraisal of the man, you say? Well then, supposing I say Trump is a liar, a narcissist, a moron, a criminal and a philanderer? TDS, or an honest appraisal of the man?
Suffering from TDS? Not me, Bubba. Calling Trump a peckerwood who was impeached twice, found guilty (in the sense of civil court, not criminal) of sexual abuse, was criminally indicted three times, and will be convicted in all three, not a bit of that is TDS. It's Truth 101, something MAGAs would do well to read up on before the guilty verdicts are in and your world is blown to smithereens.
Take it up with this judge, Janine:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/19/trump-carroll-judge-rape/
This is politically motivated IMO. It's exactly what I said. He's conflating a charge with his own definition of publuc perception, what he's declaring to be "common." Moreover, we're still talking about a civil case and not a criminal one. Even in the civil case the jury did not return damages for rape. Frankly it makes the judge's impartiality suspect. He denied a new trial request by claiming that a charge the jury specically excluded amounted to the "same thing" as commonly understood. Frankly I think that dismisses the jury's findings
But Steve President Trump is fair game.
TDS
Okay, correction: sexual abuser.
He was not convicted of any such crime either. You're still a shameless slanderer. Your idea of "sexual abuser" is subjective, not factual.
Donald, to be fair & honest (if that interest you), Trump was not convicted of rape, from years prior to his Presidency. Sexual harassment, yes.
“But, but, but Trump whataboutism” doesn’t hold much weight with most Americans, after knowing all that Bill Clinton did while he WAS President + before, that was proven - proof positive.
I understand the WOKE Left (literally sick with TDS) won’t even acknowledge, let along talk about, and certainly not condemn Biden’s perverted sexual behaviors, even proven by his own daughter’s diary entries.
Ironically (can’t believe I’m saying this), but I’d take Bill Clinton back in a heartbeat, because America would be so much better off with Bill than the Biden Crime Family regime. “ Com on, man, no joke”
I can’t HD, Clinton was morally bankrupt his behavior in the OO was beyond belief. Can you imagine if Monica had laid charges of rape against him she probably would have been assassinated before it ever got to the courts.
You are right, Skinny! I was no fan of Bill Clinton, and less one for Hillary. But the Biden Crime Family Regime isn’t only morally bankrupt, it’s bankrupting our country - openly and without shame!
Projections, for a person who has lost the ability to think critically and logically, are almost always about the projector. One example is the current use of ”woke” (or WOKE - all caps emphasized). What the person usually means is that they consider themselves to be the real woken ones. It’s akin to children taunting one another with, ”I know a secret… nah-nahnah-nahnah-naaahhh…”
Another is claiming people have an illness called “TDS”. These people are usually very upset and dissatisfied with the current president, Joe Biden. Who, according to most metrics taken from the real world, is having a successful presidency. Yet, the projector will not acknowledge even Biden’s smallest successes. ”Irrational” is a great synonym for deranged.
“Joe Biden… is having a successful presidency.” How’s that? Have you heard about inflation? The widening wealth gap? Education? The border? Ukraine? Afghanistan? China? Hunter? Navy Joan? You know. All those things that are pushing his approval number to 40.9%-the lowest in modern history except for Carter?
“Most metrics”? “Smallest successes”? What would those be?
DK delusional DC or he isn’t effected by the same things we are.
Yes, much more acceptable to keep your sexual predations hidden on a private island with likeminded cohorts!
True...When did you come back?
With your daddy….
Don't forget about Tara Reade and Paula Jones
Thanks for exposing your TDS.
Jury did not award damages for rape. Charges mean something
Golly, then what does that make Biden? The guy who gropes women in public and smells the hair of innocent little girls. Oh yes, he's the shining star, but Trump is the "rapist." Take some L-Threonate magnesium and sharpen your brain, you banana-head.
So true
Yes, Trump was accused of rape, and Biden was actually shown molesting multiple little girls and women, although the press chose not to cover this and the internet scrubbed most of it. With regard to Trump I am bothered more by his Supreme Court nominees, who caused the reverse of Roe.
Perhaps a significant number of Americans are Ignorant, stupid or both!
I’d like to think not, the problem is maybe a gullible public who hopefully will wake up before the 2024 election.
Gullible? Twenty-something college graduates: Whom did America defeat in the Revolutionary War? Answer: Russia. Who fought in the American Civil War? Answer: North America & South America. Who was the second U.S. President? Answer: Lincoln. Who was President during WWll? Answer: Kennedy. What is Memorial day? Answer: A holliday. What does it commemorate? Answer; I don't know. To a mid-fifties resident of the Land of La. Why did you vote to re-elect an obviously demented U.S. Senator? Answer: She'll be told what to do. How could you have voted for a vacuous individual first as States Attorney General & then Senator? "Oh, I think she's a terrific Vice-President". And so our choices will be Trump vs Biden-Harris & the winner will be chosen by Idiots, Imbeciles & Morons. The rest of us will have a good cry or pull out our hair.
I guess I'm crying then. Hair is mostly gone.
You don't need to construct a straw man here. There are actual people much stupider than this.
Not strawmen. All quite real.
What can I post/reply to you, you have posted it all it’s a bit depressing but we have to soldier on, it will be good again in America!
It occurs to me that all periods of instability, war, and death are brought about by the elite - the "thinkers" and politicians with big ideas, a lot of spare time, and zero experience in the trenches of real life. They say Satan makes work for those idle hands....
Ordinary worker-bees who are trying to raise their children and pay their mortgages don't have time for the Big Ideas, yet it is always they and their soldier-sons - and now daughters - who pay the price when those big ideas fail. Maybe, somehow, we should change that.
Yip 💯 Mike and you haven’t had to study 20 years of data to produce the crap Peter sprouted to Bari, and the brown nosing at the end, of what kind of an elite she is. You have posted it exactly as it unfolded. I’m just wondering what the elite are going to use this time to fix the 2024 election. Perhaps the truckers, electricians, plumbers etc will rise up and say it’s enough America belongs to all not just to the elites, it’s time for Biden and his cronies to go, vote them out please God!
It's already being fixed...The lawyer that laundered the server link and Steele Dossier into a five-year witch hunt against Trump is already leveraging donations from Democratic fat cats into lawsuits against a host of election commissions across the country. He is trying to delay or derail the vote integrity legislation passed by Republican states so that voter registration clean-up, federally mandated after EVERY federal election, doesn't occur. You see, he's counting on the ability of dead men voting twice to navigate the Democrat's way to victory even though the live and legal voters are turning them out of power.
Just an aside, it seems as though the right is in the ascendency in Europe after all these years of being lied to by our "governments".
Yip that’s the one good thing that’s happening in Europe - however, I’m really worried about our voting integrity, the Democrats are making sure we don’t have it for 2024, going to be a problem hope we will prevail LK.
They will just repeat what they did in 2020. If the Republicans didn't learn, they will lose.
Yip, but I think conservative voters have learnt what to do, although conservative voters have a lot against him/her. We have to tackle the Deep State +MSM, SM and all the misinformation that is circling America today. It’s not going to be easy but it can be done it’s going to be the most important election in our history.
Well said, Mike. Accurate.
2020 was the final act in a four-year coup of the Trump Presidency.
“You write in your book that a handful of factors are the harbingers of end times or societal crisis, one of which is something you call “elite overproduction.” What is that?”
————————————————————
I stopped reading here and bought all of this guy’s books. THIS IS THE PROBLEM.
“The elites” are also known as parasites. They are all Democrats. Interference class bureaucrats and administrators. They do not contribute to society and, given their training, you wouldn’t expect them to.
I listened to the interview. Elite overproduction is an interesting and important issue. But dismissing this as political (i.e. they are all democrats) misses the larger truth for a narrow political obsession. Fine. Have bad feelings about democrats, but when we (anyone) points fingers and assigns blame so broadly we don't do the hard work of reflecting on our own accountability. It's so so easy to see what others are doing wrong. Let's "man up" and look to ourselves.
I've heard it said (am being a bit facetious) that the two major U.S. political parties are actually pretty much the same party. They obviously are AT the same party - one that few people actually work, that is to say few work the party socially, I mean the party with the party hats. Oh as an aside I just realized why American kids all have to have those dumb parties in school and at home. They are being acclimated to the stupidity of it all. In societies with royals, with royalty, parties are super exclusive. In America every kid is supposed have an equal chance - yeah right- to become king of the company or the corporation. So we learn very early in like to put on party hats, expect gifts, spoil the birthday kid with gifts, make lots of noise and look forward to
"Out Turn" at being the center of attentions, our turn at the wheel, that is of running a show.
😂😂😂that’s about the correct description of America!
Interesting take...A bit cynical, wouldn't you say?
Hi Paula,
While I appreciate your highly manipulative partisan smokescreen, you definitely are not going to fix this problem ever if you don’t address the aspects of Democrat policy that caused the elite overproduction.
Republicans are also at fault but that’s just because they have failed to stop Democrats and have often gone along with it. Richard Nixon creating the EPA is the first thing that comes to mind. I’m not looking up the history but I’m sure Republicans also went along with the psychotic notion that every single student has a human right to a $100,000 loan which they can spend at a Democrat Education Camp.
The person with the political obsession is you. You are obsessed with defending Democrat policy because you like it even though it has failed catastrophically just as Hayek’s Knowledge Problem predicts.
So, no, I will not be “manning up” and looking inward, instead of looking at Democrats, as you might prefer. Why? Because I am obviously right and the murderer is standing directly in front of us with a knife.
I voted for Trump twice, and would do so again, and I even don't think this is a Democrat vs Republican issue. It's a uniparty issue.
Biden didn't get us into two endless wars. Biden didn't manipulate public opinion into attacking Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11. I went over there and did my part in 07-08, but will full knowledge that this was a scam played on the American people. Yes, Biden is a shitbag but there are lots of others...GWB being pretty high on the list. And I voted for that turd twice also.
That's why I was willing to throw the monkey wrench at Washington in '16, and still am. Yes, we were purposely fucking things up, those that think like me.
Kevin,
I totally see why you would zero in on Democrats' support for higher education as the main cause of elite overproduction. Frankly, as a former graduate students who has taught at 4-year universities (as well as elementary, middle, and high schools) I could easily be dismissed, I guess someone who has benefitted from these "elite playgrounds." But you might be surprised to know that I agree that there is a lot going wrong in higher education and some of it can definitely be chalked up to groupthink and the kind of arrogance that comes from making a living as an expert. But, and here's my question, what do you think should change in higher education? Should there be no support for it? Should it be abolished entirely? Or should it be totally free? (no loans) or totally reserved only for those who can afford it? I guess I'm really (genuinely) curious what you are fighting for. Regarding the EPA, I'm curious what it is about the EPA that you find so objectionable. Do you free there should be no regulatory agencies? Should corporations be self-regulating when it comes to the environment? You see I am obsessed, but not with defending Democratic policy (which is something that is too big and complicated to defend or condemn as a whole) but with the power of listening and conversation. I truly, truly am.When I ask what you are fighting for regarding higher education or the EPA, I am seriously looking to learn about things that I may have missed or see things from a new perspective. Speaking of which, have you listened to The Free Press podcast, "The Witch Trials of JK Rowling?" I ask because the reporter who put it together is someone who had her mind changed about some very profound, fundamental beliefs simply through ongoing conversation with someone who saw the world very differently from her. The focus of the podcast, really, is the whole problem of communicating with each other and it goes deeply into some very nuanced and fraught territory. Anyway, sorry for the very long response, but felt like I owed you a serious take on your comment.
BTW: I'm addressing you as "Kevin" for simplicity's sake. I live among Warriors fans :)
Universities are not the only thing Democrats have done to cause the overproduction of elites. It should be said that by definition the modifier ‘overproduction’ means these people are not actually elite.
What would I do? The federal government should stop making and guaranteeing loans and grants to universities. If there’s anything necessary going on at these places then the states and endowments and corporations will step in.
I am aware that what I’m suggesting would destroy lives and collapse institutions. It would destroy all of the right lives and all of the right institutions.
Because of how much money is currently flowing into this sewer, the action I am suggesting would result in chaos and violence. The various and sundry *useless people* impacted by this action would become desperate and violent and they would need to be dealt with. Treat them like the Jan 6 people. Detain them without trial and charge them to the max.
What do I not like about the EPA? Well, everyone who works there is a dicksucker who hates the United States. So that’s one of the things I don’t like. They are a bunch of ineffectual shysters who make the world worse. So I’m opposed to that as well.
If you gave the EPA guns and tanks and sent them into the foreign countries that are actually polluting then maybe I would support it.
At your best today Kevin, vote the scraps out of power.
I totally agree. I'm so tired of people pointing fingers and blaming someone else. Who I want to listen to is someone speaking truthfully, and rather than blaming and condemning someone else, comes up with a pathway out of the mess we are in. A peaceful revolution.
And then do what? The Democrats will not hesitate to eat us alive if we take our eye off the ball to self reflect.
Paula, if Kevin with the question mark actually answered you without calling you Satanic and a pervert, letting you go with just being obsessed - consider yourself important. You know you got his attention. Not that you should care, mind you.
lol
You're right btw..
In Canada it is the same with the growth of DEI, HR and PR departments in governments and large corporations.
Friends in management (private and public) constantly complain about these useless departments that actually reduce productivity by wasting other departments’ time and resources.
I also recommend that people seek out Ted Gioia and his theory of “Hot versus Cool” periods in culture and entertainment.
If all they did was waste time and reduce productivity, that would be fine. And that's what it seems like at first to people who already work there. They can complain and sigh and laugh. But they already have their jobs, they have an education, and they have a resume which gives them a leg up in finding a new job.
What they actually do is change recruiting and hiring policies instituting de jure racism. They make it increasingly difficult to find a new job, especially for kids fresh out of school. They make it extremely difficult for the best candidates to climb the corporate ladder and achieve success on their own merit.
Your friends in management complain about reducing productivity. Their kids complain about finding decent employment at all or ever reaching management positions.
Thanks for info
"The elites are all Democrats."
LOL.
The Republicans run the corporations and the universities and it needs to stop!!!!!
Koch Brothers!!!!!!
Dude, the Koch Brothers are elites too.
IF WE STOP THE KOCH BROTHERS BIDEN CAN SAVE US!!!!
How? He can’t climb stairs, walk and chew gum. This guy is a disaster and his brainless VP.
Koch Brother? Last time I looked, the entire government is run by brainless democrats. Democrats have lied about everything! They are the one’s that have been dividing the nation. DEI, Trans, you name it. Pedophiles, defund the police, Portland, Seattle, LA. BLM. These are the ones. Lying FBI, CIA, DOJ, MSM. This guy is right. Time to take the people down or maybe a 100 mile wide asteroid. I don’t see another to cleanse this earth.
Shhh......don't wake the baby, MarkS, KevinDurant thinks Wall Street, oil and gas companies and corporations are all controlled by "leftists."
THE OIL COMPANIES CONTROL EVERYTHING!!!!
(you have to know literally nothing about the stock market to think this)
Lol. Yeah, U.S. corporations are run by "leftists."....and all the "elites" in America are Democrats....ok....
Probably don't want to bring up the stock market, KevinDruant. You're dumb enough to think the economy is currently in a recession.
Wall Street is going hard into DEI. Large institutional investors will invest in a company specifically because of certian metrics (racial diversity, percent women in leadership, etc). They'll sometimes also throw in climate. Dunno if you want to call that "leftist" or not, but it's simply the reality of new "conscientious investing" practiced by most venture capital and mutual funds.
Dude, seriously... go look at some recent presentations by BlackRock or Vanguard and then come back and tell me Wall Street is somehow conservative.
Invest regularly. Stock market and real estate. Plenty of other options if you don't like companies that are "into diversity." (Whatever the hell that means, today.)
It is nowhere near the levels of the current hysteria. Wall Street is FAR from "woke."
Major oil and gas companies are purtting substantial income and personal capital into developing alternative energy, (i.e. "throwing in climate") is that "woke," too? Or is it looking ahead to the future to the next curve? So the idea of "concientous investing" really amounts to finding ways to make money while still being good stewards of the Earth and mitigate/reduce damage to society/social fabrics as much as possible.
Dude...seriously, I've already been through one Satanic Panic. This "eVerYthinG iS wOke" is getting old. It just sounds stupid now.
Personally, I would put as much as you can into water, cause we're running out of that. The portfolio that I personally manage is 95% of that, and it has been VERY, VERY profitable.
Wall Street has always been ideologically and action-oriented Conservative. All about corporate profits, tax breaks for the 1%, offshoring jobs, deregulation, reducing wages and exploiting illegal immigrant labor all to increase stock price/dividends, so give me a break.
It is the leftist which are controlled by Wall Street.
Lol....ok.
And by "controlled by Wall Street"......what exactly do you mean? ;)
Isn't one of them dead? Can dead people be elites? (yeah, I know, the jokes write themselves)
HaHa, Kevin!
A voice of reason thank you!
Yeah, Kevin may have bought all the books, but it doesn't seem like he read them ...
THE REPUBLICANS CONTROL SOCIETY AND WE MUST STOP THEM!!!!
Apparently you're not aware that typing in all caps and adding four exclamation points (me, I always like to use an odd number) does not add to the efficacy of your argument.
the republicans control society because they run all of our right-wing universities and right-wing corporations.
IS THAT BETTER???
Much easier to read. Still wrong though. Ever heard of Fox News? The New York Post? The Manhattan Institute? Josh Hawley's congressional staff? Ron DeSantis' campaign staff? Those folks are all elites too.
Don't worry. Wait until you start getting his emojis.
I know, right? When I think of " woke leftists" I certainly think of Monsanto, P&G, Peter Thiel, the Koch Brothers, Wall Street, Oil & Gas CEOs, etc......you know, the "workin' class folks."
They certainly are not all Democrats. Trump, Abbott, DeSantis, and above all Mitch McConnell, are multimillion- to billionaire elites who would hit you if you called them a Democrat. Ditto all their funders: the Kochs, Mercers, deVos, Ulines, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, the CEOs of Big Oil, Ag, Chemical, and other Corporate, and the hotshots in the Club for Growth, NRA, and Federalist Society. Not a Dem among them. They control the levers of power as much as the Democrats do.
Washington DC is 95% Democrat as is Silicon Valley and Wall Street. Every single publicly traded company is adopting DEI and ESG.
What you just did is like saying that universities aren’t left-wing because Hillsdale exists. You should feel a little embarrassed, frankly.
This is not an argument, Shane.
I'm not remotely embarrassed, because my argument is bulletproof. The notion that Democrats control 95 percent of America is propaganda, not fact, and here's why:
The Supreme Court is Republican. Much of the current federal judiciary was chosen by the Republican Federalist Society, not the more centrist/liberal/Democratic American Bar Association. Half of Congress is Republican. The most powerful congressional leader in America, Mitch McConnell, is Republican. The Speaker of the House is lightweight-but-still-in-charge Republican Kevin McCarthy. The most powerful politician in America is Republican Donald Trump, who ran the White House until three years ago. More than half of state governors--26 vs. 24--are Republican:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_United_States_governors
Eighteen of America's biggest lobbying organizations--i.e., the ones who buy and sell politicians--are Republican, with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as lead dog:
https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/top-spenders?cycle=2023.
Most private funders of politicians are billionaire Republicans. Koch, deVos, Mercer, Griffith, Ulein, Epstein, a dozen more. They gave four times as much money to Republican PACs as they did Democratic PACs, so when they say "jump," politicians say, "How high, bawse?" You think multi-trillion-dollars tax cuts came from BLM and antifa supporters?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/article/meet-the-billionaires-funding-the-battle-for-control-of-the-house-of-representatives/?sh=2f21cefa24c9
Wall Street bankers would laugh you out of the boardroom at the notion they're liberals or Democrats. Ditto most of the CEOs of Big Corporate, Fortune 500, or the multi-trillion-dollar military industrial complex. They're adopting DEI statements to avoid noisy public protests, not because they believe any of it. Proof? They claim women are equal in the corporate suite, too, and yet a, um, mighty 10 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are female:
https://fortune.com/2023/06/05/fortune-500-companies-2023-women-10-percent/
Silicon Valley might be majority Democrat, but then again, tech billionaires Elon Musk and Peter Thiel are Republican. Gates and Bezos aren't the only tech money in town:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/741762/the-richest-people-in-the-us-tech-industry/
Democrats certainly control important sectors of the culture, including academia and media, plus the White House since 2020, explaining why DEI and other happy-face bullshit gets more exposure than it deserves. But there's no way you can argue with a straight face that Democrats control 95 percent of America. They only wish they did.
Who *really* controls America? Big Money.
Republicans and Democrats control different sectors of America, splitting the take 50-50. But they all march to the tune of Big Corporate and Big Money. Reps and Dems are their front men, using MAGA, Woke, and other Culture War red meat to camouflage their real masters, who are not We the People but We the Greedy.
Me, embarrassed to argue actual facts? Not a chance.
Okay how about we agree that universities might lean slightly left but the elections in DC Silicon Valley and Manhattan, and any survey data recording partisan orientation, have been faked by Halliburton and Charlton Heston for the purpose of propaganda. A fair compromise.
In further pursuit of compromise I will admit that journalism and publishing is right-wing if you admit that Hollywood and entertainment is right-wing.
A great day for the truth!!!
😂😂😂
Deal! It's too hot here in Phoenix to argue, I'm wilting like the daisy I am. Damn dirty apes all to hell :-)
> They control the levers of power as much as the Democrats do.
One one side...
Elon Musk has a lever of power in big tech.
On the other side...
Mark Zuckerburg holds a lever of power.
Satya Nadella holds a lever of power.
Marc Benioff holds a lever of power.
Sundar Pichai holds a lever of power.
Zhang Yiming holds a lever of power.
Sam Altman holds a lever of power.
Jeff Bezos holds a lever of power.
Do not pretend these sides are of equal strength. It's a logical fallacy, and frankly rather unbecoming. If you truly want to debate it, acknowledge that left-leaning people increasingly control big tech, and make arguments about how that's OK/good for the world/etc.
I could do a similar analysis for finance (go look at BlackRock/Vanguard), education, entertainment/media, etc. The point is, for every right-leaning elite, you will find 5-10 left-leaning elites with similar positions.
DeSantis is not rich. He made a little money from his book, and has a net worth just over $1mm. You can say a lot about DeSantis, but calling him a "multimillionaire elite" is totally inaccurate.
1 mil that is no were near rich who bankrolls him
I'll take your word about his bank account because I don't have access. But he certainly is a political elite who dominates news cycles almost as much as Trump and Biden.
He dominates news cycles because the left is after him.
Well, he dominates news cycles because he's running for president and because the "reforms" he's enacting in Florida outrage so many people. That "the left" is after him is only a byproduct.
So many people outside of Florida. (Some in Florida too)
Excuse me, Kevin; you're making a grave error.
The "elites" ARE society. Just ask any one of them, and they will tell you that straight out. There is no debate for them. There is no dynamism in society other than what they, the elites, inject.
I did not mean to gloss over the fact that they are self-esteeming narcissistic abusers and megalomaniacs.
🙏🙏
I did not mean to gloss over the fact that your screeds put you right there alongside them, just with a different headline and takeaway. 🦉
“The guy yelling at the rapists is just as bad as the rapists because yelling and rape are both bad. Listen to me. I have obtained a higher knowledge, a gnosis, above all of these petty tribal disputes. I am the synthesis that has emerged from the thesis and antithesis.”
🤡🤡🤡🤡
As I recall my quantum mechanics, that combination usually self-destructs. 🧑🔬
That is a good analogy if you do not believe in right and wrong and you just believe in opposing power dynamics.
"I am the Alpha and the Omega. I am the bringer of Death . . ."
I should have stopped after that paragraph. Your description of the elites as parasites is very apt, we have to rid ourselves of this garbage, the leeches are sucking us dry.
Importantly, elite overproduction results in an increase in gaming the system and a breakdown in cooperation. Cooperation is a dynamic that requires creativity, open-mindedness, curiosity to motivate cooperation. These are the antitheses to breaking the rules for self-aggrandizement.
“I’m very worried about 2024, because you now have two parties that say that they will not accept the win of another party.”
—————————————————
Given that history is dead-set on exposing Democrats as maximally hypocritical, I’d say a Republican will win so that Democrats can deny the election and become violent.
(NOTE: Democrat violence will actually be bad and will not be contained to the lobby of a federal building)
Agree. We already saw the violence during the fake George Floyd BLM riots that were always just Democrat foot soldiers taking their "we will resist" movement to the maximum dark and dirty steps.
Yeah. Surprised they didn't attack the Capitol to overturn the election.
They would have done much worse if Trump had prevailed. That has been proven.
Nah. Nothing happened when Trump won the first time. So, actually, history says you're wrong. Sorry.
Democrats burned DC when Trump won and you can look up the footage.
Exactly, Kevin! Because MSM never reported on the riots that took place when Trump won in 2016! NEVER! NOT ONCE! And if by chance the “news” slipped out, the WOKE Left response was, “But Orange Man Bad STOLE the election from Hillary, so people have every right to protest” ... and if it’s the Left rioting, well it’s always “mostly peaceful protest”
The troll/bot won’t Kevin
Nope. DC was not burned. Still very much standing.
Maybe you should cite "Jonah and the Whale" or something?
Can you imagine Frank there would have been bedlam!
They did, actually. More police were injured in the Washington DC BLM riots than the J6 riots. Not counting all the other cities, or the 19 deaths that happened as a result of said riots.
I won't defend the rioters on J6. However, to pretend that even compares to the level of violence, disorder, and social breakdown that was 2020 is extremely disingenuous, And yet, one of those events led to mass censorship, and the other didn't.
BLM raised a lot of clandestine money for DNC and also for themselves. Who knows where it all went. They're supposedly broke now
And mostly masked
Its very hard to imagine Trump losing 24. The only reason he lost in 20 is bc 3% of white men swung towards Biden, every other demographic increased in republican vote share. Im hard pressed to believe that 3% doesnt swing back towards Trump, as well as gains among black men, hispanic men and women, and most other minority groups. The math on Biden winning seems almost implausible.
For example, I voted Biden in 20 but within days after casting my ballot the Laptop story was revealed, as well as probable ballot tomfoolery in Pennsylvania. By the time the dust settled I was disgusted with myself and the democrats, and I will certainly never vote for them again. Id imagine many men feel similar. More importantly, Trump will undoubtedly improve performance with every single demographic/“identity group”, the only possible exception being white women, although he already won an outright majority of married mothers last election.
If Trump has even the slightest percentage of white and black men shifting towards him this election, it takes all the Democrats necessary states off the table: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania for example. If Trump has even the slightest shift in Latino vote share, which all data shows is going up each election, then Arizona and Texas will be red forever. Very hard to imagine Biden or Kamala winning the electoral college. Also, as urban voter turnout increases, so does republican vote share, something shown in my second link.
The math:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/exit-polls-president.html
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/20/us/politics/election-hispanics-asians-voting.html
I'm not sure Trump wins. He'll pull zero voters from the left and likely zero from the independents. Gong to be difficult to win if that holds true. Throw in the hijinks with the election process, the backing of MSM, and any Republican is going to have a difficult time beating Biden (as horrible as he is). In fact, sadly, we may never see another Republican in the Oval Office again
My prediction, the Dems force Biden to step down, tell Kamala they will not back her and ask her to step away gracefully (under the promise of some bullshit ambassadorship, or Ivy League faculty position) then they roll out the red carpet for that ass-bag, Newsom. Newsom, with his political connections (i.e. Pelosi), beautiful head of hair, and with the power of Silicon Valley, wins easily.
In other words...we're doomed
Victor Davis Hanson gives a Biden/Harris ticket only 25% chance.
I don't worry about Trump not pulling liberal voters...they're more likely to stay home like they did in 2016. Empty pantsuit Hillary could not persuade them to come out and vote, and many will not vote for Trump, but 70% of Dems don't want Biden.
My biggest concern is election fraud. Democrats might not be good at much, but at election-rigging they are masters.
Seriously, I do not think Republicans cheat.
Period.
234, I’m a huge fan of Victor Davis Hanson! I hope his prediction about Biden/Harris is correct!
Fade, I’m afraid you are correct! I seriously do not believe another Republican, or Independent will ever win, again.
If Biden hid out in his basement, only campaigning a few times + Obama campaigning for him some, and he STILL got 81 million votes - “The MOST popular President in America’s history” then how in the world can anyone top that? Ever?!
HD 8 million votes were Covid votes. Covid is done it’s gone. The Democrats have to conjure up something else now they don’t have much time left. CC and the Ukraine are losing their flavor, RFK is gaining ground, you can see how they trying to silence him. They are trying to silence everybody and are using their last two trump cards (pardon the pun) Trump and J6. I think they fading, and fading fast perhaps I’m the eternal optimist, I have a good feeling for Republicans. We have to shut out all the negativity that is MSM, SM and the corporations we need to get back to basics.
🙏🙏🙏
I also agree that at the national level Republicans are finished.
This. I am seeing the same thing in the horizon. Biden and Kamala are both poor candidates for different reasons. Newsom is being groomed for the job. He was touring the US and was even on Fox for an interview, likely trying to lay the groundwork to gather some independents. I didn’t see the interview but family said he did quite well.
Yup. Newsom is an awful leader. You only need to walk down the streets of a a major California metro area to see exactly what he's done to that state, or read through recent legislation passed in California (the state can now take kids from their parents, sentencing is encouraged to be race-based, etc). People are *fleeing* CA; it recently lost a house seat due to depopulation, The state is measurably worse in every metric - including economically - since he took the helm.
However, he has a combination of looks and charisma we haven't seen since Bill Clinton, He's practically a sex symbol. In every interview, you see how effortlessly he puts aside his record and policy, to snake his way out of questions by looking smooth. The guy is Elvis Presley, James Bond, Tom Cruise, and JFK all rolled into one. (see also, although to a lesser extent, Chris Cuomo)
Of course, you can reasonably argue that Trump also won on charisma, and now his charisma is careening him through a primary despite facing legal issues.
I get the impression from social media that black men are shifting right. If you look at "dissident opinion"/anti-establishment social media (eg Rumble), it used to be all white dudes. Within the last few years, it's now at least 13% black (which would represent the black population within the US), if not higher.
Trump's issues aren't demographic. They're legal. If Trump was allowed to run unimpeded, and the election was fully fair, there's zero doubt he would win in 2024. They know that, which is why they're trying - and succeeding - in stopping him via other means. Let's face it, he will not be allowed to sit in the oval office in 2024. And by 2028 it will be too late because AI-driven censorship will be here to tell us all exactly how to vote.
Charlie Kirk said the win lies in three states Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin. You have mention two of Charlie’s three plus the others I think you onto something Please God🇺🇸.
Having a debate with Compost is like trying to reason with the spoiled brat 4 year old throwing a tantrum in the grocery store because her welfare mom won't shoplift that package of GummyBears.
This loser must be a recovering addict crying out for help, coming here because his ex-friends no longer pay him any attention....he has many of those and gets little of that.
The sad thing is there are many angry people like him. The good news is he's not on a rooftop with a loaded shotgun somewhere. Yet.
Thank you, 234, for stating the obvious. At first I thought he was a bot, or just playing devil’s advocate. Now, I’m convinced he is just an agitator.
Def a bot.
an entertaining bot
I wish We had an ignore button so I didn't have to see it.
"Contained to the lobby."
Lol.
That made no sense to me. I think we can all feel the crazy in the air and crazy doesn’t lead anywhere good.
It would be easier just to cite the meme that bad times lead to tough people; tough people create good times; and good times create soft people, who create bad times.
We are decadent, and as a nation emotionally unequal to sustained hard and mature effort in socially positive directions.
There is little reason for optimism, but NEVER any reason for quitting. Good things remain possible, but they won’t fall off trees.
Peter Turchin’s theory of “Overproduction of the Elites” could not possibly ring more true in society today. Farrr too many kids going to college, even if they end up working at starbucks. “Elite aspirant class” I call them.
Society is usually held up by a pyramid: of plebians and patricians, the three estates, whatever metaphor you like, there are many commoners/workers and a few redundant elite lavishers at the top. Today our economy has far too many elite lavishers at the top (“email caste” is Malcolm Kyeyune’s apt term), and not enough men actually building and maintaining civilization. The economic maslows hierarchy, if you will, is completely out of whack. No longer a pyramid and more like a column.
Too many elite aspirants with no good jobs, playing status games and feeling that they’ve been lied to about their own importance. Too many blue collar men who are openly disdained by the upper classes whose existence they undergird. Money flowing in all the wrong directions. I see the factions of the upcoming clash as being the Bolsheviks (progressive college grads) versus Spartacus (the disrespected, reactionary hardworking men). All that we know is the center cant hold.
Peter Turchin’s theory of elite overproduction rings true to me, and foretells conflict on the near horizon. Every kid who doesnt go to college is a sliver of hope for America’s survival. As somebody else put it “The university is the trojan horse through which western civilization is to be destroyed”.
It's a damn shame that Corey Booker has forever tainted the battle cry, "I am Spartacus!" On the upside though, we don't hear much from him these days. It's almost worth the exchange.
My daughter just said yesterday she would skip college if she could but she feels like it’s the only way to get a job (not in the trades, of which she’s not interested).
There's an unfortunate other side to this. Higher education is necessary for certain underpinnings of our society - engineering, medicine, law. It's also a legal (if not practical) requirement for many others - K-12 education requires a degree, finance for all practical purposes requires a degree, etc. We can't just not have colleges
K-12 education is very concerning with the *massive* spread of SEL since 2010, the hugely dropping test scores, the millions of children being convinced to change their gender by school counselors, the oppressor-oppressed ideology of CRT. If it weren't for COVID accidentally giving parents a view into thse curricula, this change would have passed unnoticed. Instead, we now have the FBI putting parents groups down as "domestic terrorists" to prevent parents being able to influence public school education.
Even more concerning is engineering. The people working on AI algorithms genuinely believe that white supremacy, the patriarchy, religion, traditional gender roles, etc are the greatest threats to America and are therefore designing AIs to change and stop these perceived problems.
What if the US isn't actually as ruled by white supremacy as the left says it is? Then we just have machine learning algorithms trained for "positive discrimination". One could accidentally train a neural network to reject the resumes of people with white-sounding names without even realizing that's what the AI is doing, but rather just trying to "combat systematic bias in hiring practices and increase DEI". The machine doesn't know better -- it just knows that resumes with certain names tend to be liked by its owners more than others, so it gravitates towards those names.
That's just one example of how biased AIs can emerge. They're also being used to decide what videos/information people are allowed to see on social media. They're deciding what companies to invest in and what people are allowed to get loans. At every juncture, machines with far-left biases are being implemented and used to make high-level decisions.
Point is, we can't just churn out a bunch of blue collar workers and imagine society will fix itself. Especially in a world where traditional blue-collar work (like truck driving, manufacturing) is becoming automated or outsourced.
“how do we change our trajectory when we have an elite that many people view as corrupt and unrepresentative, what would you say?”
————————————————————
*View* as corrupt??
Given that Bari was chased out of the Paper Of Record by a bunch of prostitutes who hate the United States, I find it somewhat insulting that she phrased it this way.
We do not *view* them as corrupt. They *are* corrupt. And also worthless. The main problem is that they are worthless. If Nicole Hannah Jones also ran a restaurant and drove a forklift I wouldn’t mind her shitty ideas. Same with Anthony Blinken and Fiona Hill and Randi Weingarten and etc etc etc. Useless people.
👍
"Weekend Listening: Are We Living Through ‘End Times’?"
As someone who is 75, (and a Christian) let me say I've Seen This Movie Before.
As an Unlicensed Non-Certified historian ( Doesn't that sound better than a history nut? :-)) let me say this. Evey couple of hundred years something new comes along, some new piece of technology, and everything is thrown into chaos. We are living in one right now. that little silicon chip has changed EVERYTHING.
The FreePress is a great example. 30 years ago This would not be possible.
30 years ago The Free Press would not have been necessary. Mainstream media didn't censor opposing viewpoints.
Wanna Bet? For those of us On The Right, it was a given. Oh the MSM (as we called it) would throw us a bone once in a while. George F Will would get a column ever 2 weeks, There would sometime be a panel 3 from the Left 1 Conservative, Ronald Reagan would give a speech then there would be panels explaining why he was wrong and a war monger and probably a racist.
One of the things Donald rump did was Tear The Mask off the corporate media showing their true self
See
Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes how the Media Distort the News
Bernard Goldberg
In his nearly thirty years at CBS News, Emmy Award winner Bernard Goldberg earned a reputation as one of the preeminent reporters in the television news business. When he looked at his own industry, however, he saw that the media far too often ignored their primary mission: to provide objective, disinterested reporting. Again and again he saw that the news slanted to the left. For years, Goldberg appealed to reporters, producers, and network executives for more balanced reporting, but no one listened. The liberal bias continued.
Now, breaking ranks and naming names, he reveals a corporate news culture in which the closed-mindedness is breathtaking and in which entertainment wins over hard news every time.
BTW this is NOT news for us on The Right. This was Yes, and the sun raises in the east, water is very moist, Fargo ND is a tad brisk in Jan.
Now I'll listen to the podcast :-)
My mom sold encyclopedias on the side when I grew up in the 70s, which meant every few years she earned a new set. So in high school my friends came to my house to write their papers because even if the encyclopedias were 4 years old, we had the most current world knowledge, short of going to the downtown Houston library. This was quite the advance from centuries before, when knowledge seekers crossed countries or continents to visit monasteries to find the latest and greatest set of facts.
Fast forward to 2020. Every “disenfranchised” minimum-wage earner and/or welfare king/queen that stood in the streets of Minny filming the George Floyd riots on their phone held in their hand most of all information known to mankind.
Whose job is it to access that knowledge and turn it into some form of a livable wage? Not mine. I’ve got 3 boys and a wife who worked outside the home until she was 49 and it took us all we had to keep it together sometimes. And the bleeding heart libs think I should raise someone else’s kids, too? Are they on drugs?
Has it EVER been easier to start a business or pick up a side hustle or drive around town running errands for all us lazy shmucks who won’t drive 5 blocks to go get our own Whataburger?
I won’t call any of our condescending, virtue signaling brethren out by name, but I challenge them to go build concrete floors in the barrios of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, like I did my first year out of college. Then tell me our poor have it tough.
Life ain’t fair. Never has been, never will be. Quit making excuses for all but a tiny majority of Americans alive today who have only themselves to blame for their “misfortune” and “suffering”.
Good post. I lived / worked in Asia for many years earlier this century. Our “poor” would be the envy of hundreds of millions in India, China, Indonesia, The Philippines, etc.
Great post
Organize? Blue collar folks who organize get branded extremists, lose their livelihoods, and have their bank accounts closed. It’s a jungle out there.
Good call out. Leftist rioters are noble but conservatives protesters get the full power of the state thrown at them.
Exactly!
I wish he would focus on his theory that cooperation is associated with good cycles. We need to cooperate- find common benefit to work together, not apart
Good point—it’s just that elites deplatform, freeze accounts, shakedown through the IRS, accuse of racism and antisemitism so that isolation ensues or cooperation becomes fraught. It’ll take courage and a community that stands by its members come hell or high water. The mindset has to be that if one person falls, everyone falls.
I’m with you let’s do it!
But now that we know what's likely to happen, we can take steps to mitigate the damage ahead of time. Such as sign over the bank account to another family member, preferably with a different last name.
A few days ago Dr. Joseph Mercola announced on Twitter that Chase had shut down his business bank account, along with those of his CEO, CFO, and some of their family members (including a spouse and child). He said one of the accounts had been active for 18 years. They come for families too. This is by design.
This is where digital currency will come into play. Once that passes it will be over.
Yup.
Still we must organize Jolene we have to fight back. We cannot let the elite take everything and leave us with nothing .
Peter Turchin's cliodynamics sounds A LOT like Isaac Asimov's psychohistory.
Isaac Asimov's psychohistory is the reason why I ended up majoring in economics at UC Berkeley back in the Jurassic: UC Berkeley didn't offer a psychohistory major. 😀
I wonder if Turchin's book contains his predictive mathematical model? I'd definitely be interested in seeing _that_.
All Russians know something important. We are scientifically geared super sensors. It’s in our bones. He he he ☺️
I know - for example - that Biden will soon be thrown under a bus by it’s own kind and we will have Gavin Newsome rolled into all of us. Now, that will cause quite a turmoil.
Whether or not the Dems abandon Biden will depend upon who the most likely Republican candidate is, I suspect. 😀
I used to think that as well but I no longer do. I think he has degraded enough to where if he actually campaigns the people on the lower end of the IQ scale will now notice. My opinion only but even if the Dems get Trump, which they obviously want, he won't be able to be functional enough to get the job.
I feel like with the power of mimetic contagion today (basically phones and narratives controlling huge swaths of people’s opinions), psychohistory is more true than ever. But we dont know what ideological contagions the cultural gatekeepers will push next, its seems unpredictable unless we knew the puppet masters actual goals.
In the "Foundation Trilogy," psychohistory was a mathematical model with like a gazillion variables, and each variable was a function you had to solve for before you could plug everything into the predictive model.
(Even today, when I stumble across some particularly inane trend in human behavior, I find myself thinking, "Hmmm... I wonder how you'd describe that in _math_?" 😀)
Cliodynamics is real, and obvs psychohistory is not! But yes, you would _have_ to factor mimetic contagion into any predictive formula that was aiming for accuracy. And that would be a challenge! Since mimetic contagion is such a qualitatively _different_ phenomenon than, say, Batesian mimicry, for which several equations have been suggested.
Okay! I'll stop talking about math now. Hold your applause. 😀
I understand. I love the Foundation series. It may have some real life validity but I hope AI never cracks the code, or at least not first
Back in 2016, I remember someone posited Trump as “The Mule”.
Yes! I read the intro and thought, “is this guy trying to be Hari Seldon?!” Will Austin become Terminus…?
Robert F Kennedy Jr just posted that Biden’s DOJ refused to provide secret service protection for him which is apparently standard for presidential candidates. Wasserman Schulz managed to illegally dispose of Bernie Sanders last time around. Now she is after him, trying to shut him down, doing the bidding of the powerful. I don’t call them elites because that sounds vaguely positive for what are basically thugs who care very little about our society. They are out to strip mine it. The censorious DNC wants to serve up doddering Biden and clueless Kamala with no primary debates. I mention all this because Trump’s victory came out of the working class feeling their voices were not being heard. Here we have the DNC trying to force feed the voters an impaired President. People will be angry that they aren’t given a choice in a, uh, democracy.
Almost 7 decades in my life, I'm still shocked by how blatantly in-your-face corrupt the present regime is. I can't say it's just Biden. It's Hillary and all the rest of them who lie, cheat, subvert the law etc so overtly! It's only our judiciary that has held a thin line, and now Congressional hearings. I am a lifeline Democrat saying these things, noe independent
Don’t vote for them change to a Republican
*lifelong
*now independent
Bari, we need to edit in the app please
There IS an edit feature in the app! Just tap on that ellipsis to the right of the "reply" button. 😀
Thank you
Wait, testing here
Mine just says
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You're hitting the three little dots?
Honestly, it's there. The substack bbs feature (rather ridiculously) doesn't allow HTML, so I can't give you an image.
It’s happening the Democrats are imploding!
What rules did Trump break in 2016? The Democrats broke the rules and turn Federal law enforcement in a political tool. Trump didn't play the game by the rules of The Swamp. But he broke no rules.
The fact we are getting shorter may be because we eat so much garbage food. Our food is fake and doesn't lead to growth.
I'm very disappointed that there were no Psychohistory jokes.
The party bent on changing our society seems to be the liberal left through the Democratic party. At least so it seems to me looking just looking around. The disaffected on the right are intent on not letting our democratic institutions be taken away from us.
I don't see how any thinking adult can take Turchin's pronouncements seriously. Much of it seems like Hegel warmed over with a touch of elitist bigotry thrown in. I don't know if Hegel is still being taught in college these days; I haven't sat in a college classroom since the early 80s. Hegel's theories actually make sense to me: "thesis, synthesis, and antithesis"--and then rewind and start again. I think Woody Allen embraced that theory when he made "Bananas" and "Sleeper." That pattern is consistent with human nature in large societies. The assumption that "non-elitists" are violent and elitists are non-violent is tellingly typical of bigoted behavior (positive and negative stereotyping). But the Hegelian model doesn't resort to stereotyping. It simply notes that at whatever point one hops on the carousel of a given civilized society, depending on how far along it is from a relatively stable status quo, that citizen becomes a part of the grand whirling dance. Lord Acton encapsulated it even more succinctly: "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Once we arrive at the point where the corrupt ruling class sufficiently enrages the rest of us, either the put-upon citizenry will organize and pull down the ruling class--OR the ruling class will have become so corrupt and evil that it will implode upon itself. Either way, the cycle starts anew. What's almost impossible to predict is exactly how long the process will take, considering all the unpredictable variables involved.
I think we are there. The elite has its own rules, then the rest of us pay lawyers because we said the wrong pronoun.I am glad I live far from the big cities, so I believe I am somewhat safe. I really do wonder what is the event that will cause the explosion; Trump win or loses, lack of basic food, high interest rates, someone else gets away with financial fraud, government defaults, what exactly will light the fuse.
Any of the above!
>>The assumption that "non-elitists" are violent and elitists are non-violent is tellingly typical of bigoted behavior (positive and negative stereotyping)<<
It's an assumption made about methods of control, no? "Elitists" traditionally dominate the flow of information (media, education, etc) that change the balance of power over time. Leaving their adversaries with only one recourse for changing the balance of power: violence.
Although I would agree with you that elitists/non-elists is a false binary.
They are not violent. They pay others to be violent. There were a large number of out of town people in Minnesota during the George Floyd event. The police and the media were commenting on it the first day. Then the media stopped talking about it. Completely.
I think we almost there!
“people who have no power, what we can do is start organizing as a social movement.”
—-
Nice idea, but how does this actually succeed in the reality of today, in the face of immense establishment power? Any dissident or social movement that gains significant momentum gets captured or destroyed by the elite to maintain status quo. Look at Sanders, Trump, Occupy, BLM, even RFK as we speak.
“but there was something that drove societies into social turbulence and political disintegration”
———————————————————
Yeah it’s called utopianism. Look up the Tower of Babel. Democrats have always been here.
Did you just cite a fairy tale book?
Why would I cite anything when you have pretended I am changing the subject by providing an analogy?
Hey Bari, DEVO already identified our devolutionary state like 30 years ago :)
Devo….hahaha, very funny & you are right! I loved their crazy hats too!