Donald Trump
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I just want to be clear about something: @realDonaldTrump is an *unacceptable* risk to take for merely breaking an evil SJW Overton window.
As Hillary is not listening, it's understandable many of you will vote Trump. I see his risk as existential. Please respect me as I do you.
I cannot seem to convey to fellow @HillaryClinton voters that painting all Trump voters as racist misogynistic idiots is offensive & wrong.
I assume journalism was once a thing that was crowded out by the thing now confusingly called journalism. It's time for us to reinvent it.
I don't think this is a massive shock to people who were thinking for themselves. It's a shock to anyone who outsourced to CNN/FOX/NYT/NPR.
@christinelu I'm feeling some pain & fear too. But many of my friends didn't take this seriously ... b/c they demonized those who disagreed.
@cosmos4u I think a lot of folks lied to themselves. Many got to the polling station thinking they would vote for HRC.... until in private.
Here's the silver lining. The same dumb analysis that told you Hillary was going to win is what told you Trump-nation is neo-nazi skinheads.
2017Edit
36 years of variation on a theme by Ronald W Reagan. Today, at 51, I'll go back to beginners' mind. History is restarting.
No time to lose.
As of today, my stance readjusts. Put simply:
Cooperation everywhere possible. Vigilance wherever necessary.
Thank you BHO Welcome DJT
@wobbles That I had no idea what the DJT payload would be b/c the campaign was a kayfabe work & trolling of PC. Now we're playing for keeps.
1st Tweet of the Trump era: It's time for we the technical classes (e.g. PhDs) to stop lying for our former institutional masters on policy.
2nd Tweet of the Trump era: We the technical classes must not begin lying to the new masters of our institutions to flatter their populism.
At some point, Pres. Trump will have to choose between high ability, totally loyalty & full staffing of our government. He can pick any two.
2018Edit
When I saw this sign in SFās Castro district, I thought of my friend @SamHarrisOrg and my struggle to explain to him in early 2017 why people trust @realDonaldTrump when he is not truthful.
Trump is like the guy who added the last line on the sign when Clinton & Bush would not.
Trumpās style of metahonesty is however very dangerous. I wrote about this in a 2011 essay I frequently reference on the theory of Kayfabe which I anticipated would take over as boomers were forced to deal w/ the cognitive aftermath of the Great Recession: https://www.edge.org/response-detail/11783
"There shall be open borders." -WSJ
"There shall be open borders." -SJW
Want to know how @realDonaldTrump won? By giving people who intuit that the institutional commentariat has played them every election, the chance to finally order *anything* taken completely off the US menu.
So go vote America. All I ask, is that when given any opportunity to do so, use it to reject Utopianism on Right or Left. What we were given as custodians is so much better than moronic utopian experiments that always end in dystopia. Let's not mess this up. #lovethisgreatcountry
You just love this, donāt you? People are dead. Homes torched. The state is on fire. The air here is choked with smoke.
So this. Because, nobody else gets why this works?
I mean, I get it. But whatever you got for this, isnāt worth it. Thereās no prize worth winning this way.
@SquawkieEagle Thx. This president says many things that *do* need to be said, but in ways that are opportunistic, simplistic, cruel, distorted, insensitive, incendiary and hyperbolic. Some are angry that heās a bad liar, but I often think heās really at his absolute worst as a truth teller.
@Ramsey_Payne I donāt think he loves the tragedy. I think he loves the fact that *if* there is a tragedy, *then* he can exploit it. He does this by telling a mixture of simplistic lies and truths together, and sticking it to his adversaries who donāt expect it because itās such a dick move.
2019Edit
I think I avoided all pressure to find Trump guilty of collusion w Russia. And it was a considerable cost on my life. The typical conversation went: āOh cāmon Eric. Heās clearly guilty. Why make excuses? When the report comes youāll have to look in the mirror.ā
I want apologies.
It wasnāt (and still isnāt) that I knew. I had no idea. But I also had no idea how everyone else just somehow knew what was actually true. Did everyone have a dossier that I did not? How does this pressure to *infer* unknown things become a Left-of-center mind virus?
Letās stop.
And one last thing: Iām still of the opinion that Trump is a grave problem & that the people who voted him in deserve a responsible Left of center expression for their real frustrations on Trade, Immigration, Terror and elite betrayal to replace Trump w something more wholesome.
So please remember that many people on the Left did *not* ever sign up for this idee fixe of the Mueller report as answer to the Trump phenomena. Weāve not called his presidency illegitimate. And we donāt think his supporters are all nuts. This is a democracy, betrayed by elites.
I will be coming back to this old tweet repeatedly. A plan to reassert narrative control before 2020 was evident immediately after Trumpās win shocked our institutional elite. āFake newsā was its placeholder buying time to figure out how to end rivals to āauthoritative sources.ā
It would appear we are being psychologically prepared for a change in the algorithms that direct our attention.
Since then we have learned about āThe Good Censorā and āML Fairnessā at google, āDeboostingā at Facebook, ādown rankingā at Twitter, āauthoritative sourcesā at YouTube, the āAlternative Influencer Networkā theory at @datasociety, & the IDW as a gateway to white supremacists. Ha.
Iād say that old tweet wasnāt too far off after all. We just had it dribbled in increment by increment with changes in āTerms of Serviceā & the slow crushing push to numb our outrage from our institutional class, article by article, until we welcomed our own censorship w/ thanks.
Trump Tweeting algorithm:
It seems [perseverated diminishing epithet] [First name][Last Name] is [anti-trump misportrayal or activity claim] again despite my [claimed Trump accomplishment]. (S)He really should worry about [corruption insinuation]. [Threat]. [Tiny simple zinger!]
The presidentās tweets are there to be reverse engineered. Theyāre all method. When Democrats call him an āidiotā w/o building an Eliza program to simulate what is beating them, itās painful to watch.
Why not claim that the person beating you at chess is an idiot?Think about it.
Invited on a conservative podcast today. We celebrated punk rock as I politilely told them Trump was obviously manifestly unfit for office & I view their parent org as a propaganda arm of the Republican Party. They couldnāt have been more decent to me.
This is how they may win.
My eyes are open. This isnāt my team. But when normal souls who think normal thoughts have to go over to their competitorās house to have civil constructive discussion, because their own home often hurls poop at any who wonāt tow an incoherent party line, loss has to be budgeted.
Donāt get sold the narrative that Trump now owns ALL US Conservatism. He does own a good chunk of it. But thereās also a new strain of tolerant conservatism thatās very liberal: relentlessly civil, anti-inequality, pro-logic, pro-gay, pro-weed, pro-free speech & multicultural.
What is causing this? I donāt know.
But one partial explanation is that many normal adults made to feel like pariahs are leaving the Democratic Party & simply taking their liberal values across the street. Itās like visiting a Little Italy, Koreatown or other diaspora community.
@AlexRussek Itās more confusing than that. I canāt fully figure out how they rationalize Trump. They often have the idea that Trumpās methods are wrong but that they think be does the right thing in the end. I honestly donāt get it. I think that itās rationalizing lesser evil as they see it.
As someone who both has been vocal that Trump is unfit for office but who also gets on well with many Trump supporters, Iām not afflicted by Trump derangement syndrome.
Today seems to be the day that should begin an exit for fair minded Trump supporters.
#AmbassadorSondland
To my Trump supporting friends, many of you have been correct about myriad problems of the Democratic Party & its affiliated media. Let that not blind you to what is happening. This man was simply not the solution to our corrupt system. Love you. But look again with fresh eyes.š
If you think Iām wrong, Iām open to your arguments. But letās check in with each other after any counter-narrative emerges.
I was open to the idea that these hearings would be purely political.
I hope you will be open to the idea that this is actually damning.
To be honest, I should have been clearer. Let me say a few words.
By Trump supporters, I was referring to folks for whom Trump is close to a force of pure good. This goes way beyond lesser or necessary evil perspectives. So I should have been clear about absolute v relative. https://x.com/keithbrodie/status/1197282556120453120
Next, I was careful not to opine on legality or impeachment. The way Iām viewing these hearings is that they are giving us a look into our foreign policy. Legality is about what we can prove, but judgement is about what we must glean. I wish we could avoid inference but we canāt.
What I glean about the Trump, Clinton and Biden groups is that they pursue the personal intertwined w/ our national issues at an unacceptable level. I canāt prove that about any of them yet. But Carter, Eisenhower, Reagan or Sanders they are not. So I should have clarified.
If you want a perspective that is not so far off of mine but from a conservative perspective, @benshapiro made a lot of my points in detail. Itās not āquid pro quo or noā but which one, and the fact that Biden may be the point of investigation or a positive political externality.
But my issue stands. Weāre now being injured as a nation by Trumpās judgment, tactics and quirks. If we are reduced to āThatās perfectly legalā arguments rather than, āwe have China, Climate and Russia emergenciesā by Trump and Democratic dissembling we are screwed.
Our eye is off the ball & Trump does not become the goddamned messiah b/c he sticks it to corrupt Democratic players. Itās like watching two street gangs fight. Fair-minded Trump supporters should be leaving the absolutist āTrump does nothing wrongā camp now. This is awful.
My point in criticizing my party is to find a way out of the Trump v Biden/Warren version of non-stop boomer on boomer action. Trump is an enormous problem. If you think heās radiation therapy for your Democratic corruption cancer, donāt fall in love with your radiation levels.š
1/ Too Many Different Stories.
Hereās my best guess as to whatās happening. There was a post-WWII Intāl order. Both US parties agreed to service it. They became systemically corrupt when growth changed in the early/mid ā70s. This accelerated wildly with the end of the Cold War.
2/ The parties & Trump represented systemic & idiosyncratic corruption respectively. Systemic had Rep & Dem flavors. The tattered Intāl order is serviced (barely) by the systemically corrupt but repudiated by the idiosyncratic. The new GOP is moving towards the Idiosyncratic.
3/ We are divided by the following. Some party players benefit from the systemic corruption but are loyal to the two party flavors. Remaining party players want to end the corruption. But they agree on the need to service the Intāl order because of dangers of restarting history.
4/ The Idiosyncratic players want to use Trump to end systemic corruption (drain the swamp). Some want it so badly that theyāll defend nearly all idiosyncratic corruption. Others admit to idiosyncratic failings but point to the fact that only Trump broke through our MSM defenses.
5/ The idiosyncratic players (The āTrump Trainā) are further divided as to whether the Intāl order is too corrupt & expensive to service or too essential to abandon. The former are divided into isolationists vs those who wish to project new power. The latter subvert withdrawal.
6/ Why the crisis in communal sense making? We are now micro-divided by pro vs anti systemic rent-seekers with 2 flavors. Anti is further split by pro vs anti willingness to admit to the idiosyncratic corruption. We are divided by isolationists vs maintainers of the order. Etc...
7/ Where I am: I see 2 party flavors of systemic corruption. And the new idiosyncratic. I see corrupt expensive foreign entanglements but also no ability to retreat. I also believe great nations are based on communal *fictions* which are being destroyed by our extractive actors.
8/ This is where we are to my understanding. I *only* really look down on *pro*-corruption folks. I do fear the isolationists have no idea what theyāre signing us up for on a thermonuclear planet, but I just see them as confused by BAD foreign adventures & betting the š on luck.
End/ So I have the group I look down on (Systemic corruption of the party regulars) different from the group to be feared (advocates of abandonment of the corrupt system to restart history).
The folks w whom I get along now have no home: those who get we have to fix ALL this. š
Thirty four years ago, the liberal paper of the University of Pennsylvania was celebrating āthe largest single gift ever received by an undergraduate schoolā in a banner headline..which I discovered going through boxes after a move.
Odd he would become the right wing devil, no?
We can barely remember how many different people Donald Trump has been to our press in their portrayals: Winner. Star. Loser. Nazi. Greedy pig. Casanova. Generous benefactor. Predator. Symbol of wealthy. Purveyor of tackiness. Promoter of women. Madman. Genius. Debtor. Builder.
[My point about the different faces of Trump portrayed by the Press was real, but I think the article was a gag if I recall correctly. Iād read it for yourself...]
My following is mostly millennial. I have a lot of contact w/ them.
As a result I know something I wouldnāt know otherwise: many, if not all, of them donāt relate to what we call being millennial. They want to be full adults & are not finding paths to becoming full stakeholders.
The oldest of these Millennials are now almost 40. In my original area of academe and science, it is time for GenX & Millennials to stop running out of fuel in infinite holding patterns. We should start ignoring air traffic control & land the planes. Crash landing if necessary.
Hereās the problem. Itās time for Millenials to start becoming univ. presidents. Yet only a tiny number of research universities even have any GenX heads! Likewise, notice that Millenial @TulsiGabbard & Xer AndrewYang surge, but are dropped from corporate media promoting Boomers.
Q: Should we start talking about bringing back Mandatory Retirement to stop involuntary inter-generational wealth transfer? Consider that we will have spent 20 Yrs exploring US presidents born in the summer of the 1st year of the baby boom. 24 if Trump (b. 1946) is re-elected.
I think since @AndrewYang got deliberately and repeatedly dropped from media graphics and since @HillaryClinton started targeting @TulsiGabbard Iāve been radicalized.
It is not intergenerational warfare to tell grandma to get her finger off the scales of democracy and economics.
Q: Why are we not talking about bringing back mandatory retirement for academicians who have prevented two generations from taking their seats and talking about legal action against corporate media like @MSNBC who distort the news of our non boomer candidates gaining traction?š
2020Edit
There is no path to voting Trump out of office that passes through a contempt for working Americans.
And by the way, you educated coastals can get a latte with coal mining families in Appalachia:
Food City 50,
Morton Blvd,
Hazard, KY 41702
They hear your jokes on iPhones.
āFlyover countryā doesnāt exist.
Thatās heartland conjugated in the minds of an out of touch media.
You can get a Latte anywhere. Farmers know genetics. The entire US has Wifi & indoor plumbing. Not just Brooklyn & DuPont Circle.
Why are Democrats electing Trump via contempt?
This is everywhere. The DNC is like an incompetent retiring substitute civics teacher who long ago mentally checked out, but still condescendingly lectures the smartest kids on wrong facts. Trump, the 3rd grade teacher next door passing out Jell-O shots calling them āstudy aids.ā
I didn't vote for Trump in '16, but am seriously considering doing so this year.
My reasoning is mostly about what you might call "teaching the bureaucracy/media a lesson". There's lots to dislike about Trump, but more to dislike about the institutional response to Trump.
Rule Change: Everyone who was saying āWake up! Your supposed elites are almost all in thrall to China. This is not safe.ā since the 1980s-90s gets to say whatever the hell they want about the problems posed by the PRC without having to hear about anyone named Trump.
#TrumpWho?
I can assure you I have been ringing this bell at great cost since China started to supply research labor to our US labs in the 1980s. The national concern with Chinese threats has nothing to do with Trump. Stop focusing on that guy.
You cannot get to smart by simply putting a minus sign in front of everything Donald Trump says.
That is not surprising. What is surprising is the number of people who havenāt learned this after the last 4 years.
People donāt understand my position on Trump. Here it is:
Trump owns his critics other than me. Why? Because he says so much crazy stuff mixed in with real stuff that it is a lifetime commitment to correct him. So I decided to simply state that I view him as an existential risk.
This way:
A) I am not picking up after him intellectually every two minutes.
B) Iām not forced to pretend that everything he does is wrong just because he did it.
C) I can continue to be friends with his supporters.
D) Iām clear that he should not be our commander in chief.
But this confuses people: āwhy donāt you denounce everything he says and does wrong every day?ā
The answer is this: āDemocrats elected him by not listening. And he will not run my life the way he runs yours. You want to Run Biden(?) against him? Good luck! Youāre all crazy now.ā
But, yes, he should resign. I thought that would go without saying. And no, he didnāt do everything wrong. Neither did Pelosi. Nor the Mayor of NYC. But the whole lot of them need to leave. It is now a different era.
This class of leaders has been measured.
And found wanting.
I have to try not to comment on Trump. This tweet is an example of why.
Itās just endless bait, both boring and transparent. Like Lucy and the football. And it doesnāt stop for life and death. Itās to the bone.
Canāt stand it.
For the first time in history there is a fully signed Presidential Disaster Declaration for all 50 States. We are winning, and will win, the war on the Invisible Enemy!
Iām for additive civil disobedience. By that, I mean do something disobedient to protest the abject incompetence of our leadership that is beautiful & inspiring. Iāve mentioned Projection Mapping spectacular graffiti onto large buildings and videoing it, leaving no trace of harm. https://x.com/Crypto__naire/status/1255177207984447488
If itās worth destroying the word economy over, we should have an OFFICIAL Manhattan project for Covid. Everyone I know who should be on that hasnāt been called up or pressed into service. Instead we have Scientists like Kudlow and Mnuchin on the task force. Protest that.
You will also notice that constant partisan Trump bashing and that impeachment attempt made it very difficult to protest his mishandling of this crisis. The wrong way to protest Trump is to go along with Democrats. The right way is to protest the incompetence of our leadership.
Protest political people with dazzling agency, beauty, technical rigor and grace. That class canāt do these things.
They donāt code. They donāt weld. They donāt compose. They donāt crowdsource. They donāt understand crypto. They donāt believe in standing alone.
Now use that.
Bari Weiss has now resigned from the @nytimes. And that is not even āThe Storyā. Iāve just spoken to Bari & learned that Iām finally free to tweet.
Her letter hints at the real News: the *loss* of the News is now *the* News, and the News cannot cover it.
On 6/1/17 Ms Weiss was the only journalist covering āThe Newsā. Only she was doing it from the opinion section because the NYT refused to find interesting that there was a racist Maoist insurrection at a public college where police would be stood down: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/opinion/when-the-left-turns-on-its-own.amp.html
At that moment Bari Weiss became all that was left of the āPaper of Record.ā Why? Because the existence of Black Racists with the power to hunt professors with Baseball Bats and even redefine the word āracismā to make their story impossible to cover ran totally counter-narrative.
At some point after 2011, the NYT gradually stopped covering the News and became the News instead. And Bari has been fighting internally from the opinion section to re-establish Journalism inside tbe the NYT. A total reversal of the Chinese Wall that separates news from opinion.
This is the paper in 2016 that couldnt be interested in the story that millions of Americans were likely lying to pollsters about Donald Trump.
The paper refusing to ask the CIA/FBI if Epstein was Intelligence related.
The paper that canāt report that it seeks race rioting:
I have had the honor of trying to support both @bariweiss at the New York Times and @BretWeinstein in their battles simply to stand alone against the internal mob mentality. It is THE story all over the country. Our courageous individuals are being hunted at work for dissenting.
Before Bari resigned, I did a podcast with her. It was chilling. Iād make an innocuous statement of simple fact and ask her about it. Sheād reply āThat is obviously true but Iām sorry we canāt say that here. It will get me strung up.ā Thatās when I stopped telling her to hang on.
So what just happened? Let me put it bluntly: What was left of the New York Times just resigned from the New York Times. The Times canceled itself. As a separate Hong Kong exists in name only, the New New York Times and affiliated ānewsā is now the chief threat to our democracy.
This is the moment when the passengers who have been becoming increasingly alarmed, start to entertain a new idea: what if the people now in the cockpit are not airline pilots? Well the Twitter Activists at the @nytimes and elsewhere are not journalists.
What if those calling for empathy have a specific deadness of empathy?
Those calling for justice *are* the unjust?
Those calling āPrivilegeā are the privileged?
Those calling for equality seek to oppress us?
Those anti-racists are open racists?
The progressives seek regress?
Bari and I agree on a lot but also disagree fiercely. And so I have learned that she is tougher than tough. But these university and journalistic workplaces are now unworkable. They are the antithesis off what they were built to stand for. It is astounding how long she held out.
Read her letter. I have asked her to do a make-up podcast & she has agreed. Stay tuned If you donāt want to be surprised again by whatās coming understand this: just as there has been no functioning president, thereās now no journalism. Weāre moving towards a š of pure activism.
Prepare to lose your ability to call the police & for more autonomous zones where kids die so that Govenors & Mayors can LARP as Kayfabe revolutionaries. Disagree with Ms Weiss all you want as she isnāt perfect. But Bari is a true patriot who tried to stand alone. Glad sheās out.
We are not finished by a long shot. What the Intellectual Dark Web tried to do MUST now be given an institutional home.
Podcast with Bari on The Portal to come as soon as she is ready.
Stay tuned. And thanks for reading this. It is of the utmost importance.
Thank you all. š
A surprising number of Left-leaning people are confiding to me that they are planning to vote for Trump for two different stated leading reasons:
A) Bidenās Mental decline.
B) What is happening in the Pacific Northwest w Democratic Mayors/Govenors experimenting w non-policing.
Anyone else seeing this? Itās two different reactions. Both of them indicating that there is something catastrophicly wrong with this process. All of them previously *bitterly* opposed to Trump, and many even to the Republican Party.
Perhaps this isnāt clear to my followers: my belief is that each party is electing the othersā candidate.
The only real argument for Biden is Trump/Pence and the RNC. By the same token, the only real argument for Trump is Biden/Harris and the DNC.
We Dems are re-electing Trump.
I think all of this "under coverage" is justified when you have a four alarm fire currently burning inside the White House and threatening to engulf our entire Democracy. Let's save the country first, then we can worry about the far less threatening issue of "far left overreach."
*otherās
Do you remember 10K accounts swarming over this tweet telling me I was lying?
When the polls showed a large Biden lead? That I was in a āhipster coffee shopā making this up?
You are all so certain. And you never learn.
Looking for 10K Democratic apologies that will never come.
A surprising number of Left-leaning people are confiding to me that they are planning to vote for Trump for two different stated leading reasons:
A) Bidenās Mental decline.
B) What is happening in the Pacific Northwest w Democratic Mayors/Govenors experimenting w non-policing.
Well, that lead in the polls narrowed. And I believe a lot of it is this forced thinking that is being pushed on folks.
Iām sure if I told you that I talk to Black friends who HATE BLM for its racism, Marxism and divisiveness, I will be told that they donāt exist.
Thatās crazy.
Let me try again. We the Democrats are correct that Trump is a bullshitter. But here is what we donāt get: Bullshitting doesnāt automatically lose if you choose Gaslighting as a strategy.
And somehow we the Democrats have become the party of Gaslighting.
What this is shaping up as is a bizarre āChoose your own apocalypse!ā Vote.
Republicans: Party of Bullshiters
Democrats: Party of Gaslighters
And people have *private* trauma here which determines which they fear most. Dems with Gaslighting trauma are now going to break away.
Trump is a self serving bullshitter bull in a China shop. His lies arenāt even intended to fool you. He doesnāt think he owes the press the truth. Life is what you can negotiate to him.
But his bizarre bullshitting is out in the open.
The Democrats on the other hand are hiding.
Can one even ask the questions:
āIs BLM and its leadership Marxist and racist?ā
āWhat do we make of the George Floyd Body-cam footage?ā
āDoes ANTIFA exist as a violent organization?ā
Well this is not keeping a big tent together. This is gaslighting.
https://thefederalist.com/2020/07/27/rep-jerry-nadler-brushes-off-antifa-violence-as-a-myth/
We the Left are not our Democratic Party leadership. And we never signed up with a blood oath to gaslight our Republican rivals for two reasons:
A) It is evil.
B) It is the one thing that is most likely to get us four more years of Donald Trump.
Gaslighting is a losing game.š
Master-stroke. Anyone who had to go through training designed to cure them of their pathological racism, sexism, Islamophobia, transphobia, misogyny and ableist bigotry (which is also incurable btw) is going to be tempted. Duh.
āHey Americans: youāre horrible! Join us!ā
Insane.
My gosh, the nerve! THRILLED and AMAZED that President Trump BANNED "Critical Race Theory" from federal training sessions. Surely CEO's, Presidents, and Boards of corporations, universities and other institutions can match that courage. https://whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/M-20-34.pdf
You donāt have to love him. You just have to realize you got played for promoting the pseudo-scholarship of hatred.
Doesnāt matter who or what he is. CRT is hateful.
Whatās the use? You the Democratic leaders wonāt understand the point until you are beaten a second time. Sigh..
Blacklists Matter.
I want you to imagine that your private phone calls start dropping every time your uncle mentions Building 7, Jean Seberg, Hunter Biden or The Wuhan Institute of Virology.
@jack: Huh?
#SlipTheDISC #BlacklistsMatter #LeftCarthyism #TheThinquisition #Publisher
This is a Big Tech information coup. This is digital civil war.
I, an editor at The New York Post, one of the nationās largest papers by circulation, canāt post one of our own stories that details corruption by a major-party presidential candidate, Biden.
I want my crazy pro-trump friends & family to be able to say their crazy stupid ass Trump-Train Bullshit. In fact, it is essential to me. I want to be able to rebut it. I don't want to be protected against "potentially harmful" articles by a Publisher pretending to be a platform.
This isn't targeted harrassment of an individual. This is a political race for president of the united states.
This is no longer a Platform in any meaningful sense. It is time to apply the standards of a Publisher. This is insane.
You cannot board the Trump Train. No matter how many times he sticks it to your tormentors. I know itās tempting when you canāt stand the DNC.
He remains an existential risk to America and its values. We are very particular about how we take out the trash: this is anti-American.
I donāt mean I canāt understand voting for him. I could also make an argument for voting either way.
I mean you canāt tell me that we just donāt get him. We get him. Itās not āTrump Derangement Syndromeā to see this as anti-American BS, and we need to get back to due process.
I approve of taking action against CRT. Against H1b. Of moving the embassy to Jerusalem. Of making peace in the Middle East. Of no new wars. Of sticking it to the WOKE bigots on their rampage through our institutions. Etc.
But no. There are lines. This is way over one such line.
Extra-judicial killings are beyond the pale. Obama joked about them with drones. After his killing Anwar al-Awlaki, I spoke against Obamaās horrid attitude. Well, I condemn this Trump talk inducing law officers toward extrajudicial killing. WTF?
God damn. What is wrong with us?
Folks donāt get my model of Trumpās odd utterances & how people interpret them.
Level 0 (TDS): āOMG. He said a bad thing!ā
Lvl 1: āHe didnāt actually say what you think he said. Look at the exact words under this alternate theory.ā
Lvl 2: Dual interpretations are intentional.
Over and over the coin flip lands on its side. At some point you realize this isnāt an accident and the man didnāt get where he is by being an idiot.
Notice how often he generates the same TDS panic. This is a strategy that got him to the White House and not a bug.
Remember: legacy media canāt discuss the existence of Never-Trump Trump Voters. So thereās no record that the phenomena even exists. If youāre the rare āInvoluntary Conservativeā who is OPEN about voting Trump as a previous Never-Trumper, please answer questions on this thread?š
I was a NeverTrumper in 2016 who plans to hold my nose and vote for Trump in 2020. There are lots of us.
*phenomenon
Let me ask the first such questions:
Q1) What turned you against your Never Trump orientation?
Q2) What would the Democratic Party have to do at a minimum to get you back?
Q3) Have you changed your mind about Trump or only changed your mind about the Democrats?
I respect Daveās decision. Part of being an American is loving people you disagree with and NOT trying to shame or control them. Also allowing that they change their minds, evolve & may see more/less clearly than we can.
Donāt lose your mind, family & friends over an election.š
Thank you to Dave Rubin, author of āDonāt Burn This Bookā, just announced on @foxandfriends that he is voting for your favorite President, me. āI think Donald Trump has done a lot of good. When I see an American flag, I see Trump support.ā
I also think a lot of people are going to vote for @realDonaldTrump over:
A) Portland & @tedwheeler
B) Critical Race Theory
C) H1B
D) CCP & geopolitics
E) Activist Press
F) Activist Tech
G) MSM/DNC treatment of @TulsiGabbard / @AndrewYang
H) Jerusalem Embassy Move
Continuing..
Continued.
I) Peace: Sudan & Israel
J) Naming China & WHO in Covid
K) Peace: Israel & Bahrain
L) No new US wars
M) Seattle CHAZ & @MayorJenny
N) Peace: U.A.E. & Israel
O) Denial of soon to be 78 year old Bidenās cognitive issues
P) Hunter Biden Story
Q) āDefund the Policeā
Etc.
In short, the Left used the last 4yrs to shoot itself in the foot. I couldnāt vote DJT because of the daily negative effect he has on our national culture. But, unlike 4 years ago, itās no mystery why folks switch to him.
Itās not all ProTrump: Theyāre voting to repudiate āusā.
I will be very surprised if there isnāt a *much* stronger than expected surge for Trump. The Left and Right have both jumped the shark in my opinion. So please donāt tell me what anyone has to do with his or her vote. We all watched this āelectionā happen & failed to prevent it.
Trump is far more gifted than any of the others & has done many good things. And many many bad things. Both of which I predicted given his outsider status.
But he has also deliberately divided us and has done so as part of his means of ascension. And that division is cancerous.
With that said, I could vote for neither Biden/Harris nor Trump/Pence in good conscience given the luxury of living in a Blue State. So I voted to communicate my non acceptance of this choice. In a swing state Iād have voted Biden.
Which is to say I couldnāt figure it out.
Moral: However you voted, I have no right to judge you on your vote.
Be generous of spirit. Letās come back together and not waste another four years getting farther away from our best selves by arguing like fools while the CCP and others rivals watch us undo ourselves fighting.
P.S. If you care to, give your own rank ordering of the four names and a few words as to what it tells you about your reasoning? š
Less than 100 hours before the end of voting in the US election, and I am watching @KamalaHarris trying desperately to elect Donald J Trump to the presidency of the United States.
Let this speak for itself.
- ResIpsaLoquitor
Thereās a big difference between equality and equity.
We just donāt end up in the same place. Thatās not how life works. Literally, ādifferential successā is one of the cornerstones of our scientific understanding of nature itself due to Darwin and Wallace.
In particular this is not how *any* successful society has worked *ever*.
Vice Signaling: nobody sane wants to listen to politicians, professors, movie stars, rappers, tech billionaires & journalists testify to their own moral superiority over the rest of us mortals who appear to be FAR more self-aware of our human failings.
Trump isnāt selling guilt.
Almost no good parent wants a level playing field for their own children. Have you ever seen a bear that is just as concerned about another bearās cubs?
Almost no one always tells the truth or wants to pay their fair taxes.
But there is more here. Itās not just virtue fatigue.
Letās be honest: virtue signaling in the Democratic Party is also about figuring out how to cryptically serve our donors. Kamala is not going to race to apply āEquityā in her new black Vernacular speech to her hedge fund friends in the Hamptons.
This is anti-virtuous posturing.
So every time Democrats testify to their own goodness, I assume they are preparing to throw us overboard to serve 9, 10, 11 and now 12 figure families. Itās Pavlovian or Skinnerian conditioning. Since Clinton, just before we get economically raped, we hear a lecture about virtue.
āNo Person is Illegal!ā means push out the labor supply curve for employers.
āOnly folks making over $400k will be taxed.ā may mean focus on salary income of the upper middle class rather than non-wage income of the true rich.
āNo Xenophobia!ā means ignore Chinese interference.
āNo islamophobia!ā may mean ignore jihadism so long as Saudi Arabia is making me rich.
āNationalism is evil!ā Means fā- Appalachians et al while we the rich get paid to relocate their sources of support.
Etc.
Weāve been conditioned to despise virtue by the Post-Clinton party.
I donāt ever...and I mean ever...want to listen to the Davos scolds on any subject.
You fly in on a private jet to talk to me: fine, Iāll listen. You do so to scold me about my carbon footprint? Now youāre dead to me.
We the Left need to stop this madness. This is Clintonism.
Most normal citizens want the US to have borders. We care more about our fellow countrymen than we do equally deserving foreigners. We want the BEST for our own kids. We arenāt excited about paying reparations for 1619. And Trump is telling us āSame here.ā So: What are we saying?
The Left needs to appeal to folks who want to get rich, not be taxed into oblivion, get laid and who LOVE their flawed country, their guns & those in uniform. We have to stop appealing *only* to self-hating monks, the hyper-manipulative & the dumb. We were about something before.
In Trump you are looking at the only modern POTUS to have figured out how to run this gauntlet from an outsiderās perspective with neither political nor even military experience.
Donāt hate so much you canāt admit that he pulled off the nearly impossible. Heās *quite* skilled.
Lol at "gifted". Care to expound on that?
When Trump flips the coin, it always lands on its side. The odds of that happening by accident...arenāt worth worrying about.
Itās a āskillā and not a fluke.
Looks like @EricRWeinstein called it
Trump said: āweāll be going to the US Supreme Court. We want all voting to stopā
Left hears: we will stop votes being counted, holy shit theyāre stealing it
Right hears: we wonāt let anyone fill out new illegal ballots, whatās your problem?
If you want to understand Trump declaring victory, it's important to understand this was pioneered in 1986 by Diego Maradona.
Maradona realized that if he could get his teammates to celebrate his illegal #HandOfGod world-cup goal, referees wouldn't have the "huevos" to undo it.
Like Trump, Maradona was extremely gifted and with very 'flexible' ethics. He learned this as a kid & saw what he did as cunning, not cheating. In other words: if you can get referees to cover for you, it's part of the 'meta-game' to manipulate the refs.
Moral: Don't fall for this when someone like Trump celebrates victory prematurely. This is a well known technique that preys on people not wanting to go backwards and have to undo things. Like Maradona, Trump may see it as just part of the game working on very agreeable people...
As I hope you appreciate I believe that I am calling it as both Trump and the news media distorting the status of our election results...only in opposite directions.
"The headline is the story." Of course, I think the networks refusing to call Florida for Trump for hours, even with a 400K vote spread, was done for the same reason. Control the narrative to create the narrative.
The media music is now starting up & Trump is being played off.
Iād be careful to treat this as a dangerous situation. Yes Iām making a few jokes, but they arenāt frivolous ones. Theyāre nervous ones. Not being cavalier here: we need to do this correctly.
As I said 4 years ago, Donald Trump represents an existential risk to the fabric of American Society; I believe we are polarizing and unraveling as a dominant military power.
But the Democratic Party is now co-deranged, and is now a major force of illiberal suppression of ideas.
We all know this. So...Why not say them? In my case, Iāve been interrogating my own mind. Trumpās presidency turned my personal life into a daily shit show. And now? The grownups are playing him off! I SO want to be rid of him and the risks/costs he inflicts on my life. And yet..
And yet I know what I am really calculating. I am calculating that someone is giving me what I want: an end to this divisive presidency. All I have to do is to join the chorus.
I will instead wait for our statistical/legal processes & will congratulate Biden then. And not until.
Trump didnāt build-the-wall & get Mexico to Pay for it as he said he would.
Trump didnāt get routed in 2016 as our institutional voices said he would.
Trump didnāt ālock-her-upā.
Our Media misled its believers into believing in a āBlue Waveā mirage.
Moral: disbelieve *both*.
Sam: Relax. We are programmed to receive. https://x.com/samharrisorg/status/1329204761283837952
Everyone else: have a listen! I have a slightly different take, but I agree w Sam that almost everyone in our space is failing to thread this needle given the dangers. I think we disagree principally on the relative weight of systemic vs idiosyncratic corruption of reality.
I believe for The US and coalition to have entered Iraq claiming WMD as casus belli required systemic corruption of standards: Data. Intelligence. PR. Briefings. Procedures..
Iām not sure I get the idea that the newspaper honored to start the #1619Riots is better than Breitbart.
So...yes Trump has inured us to bullshit, braggadocio and flouting of our norms. He was after all hired as *poison* to kill the swamp creatures.
But did we prefer W who had the decency to get Colin Powell and other adults to tell us we needed to invade Iraq? And if so: why?
So I agree with Sam that Trump is extremely reckless and dangerous to us all here. But the danger of āThe Grownupsā coming back to us to *lie* about everything in a methodically focus-grouped & A/B tested manner with coiffed presentation & slick sloganeering strikes me as grave.
I may choose to record something at length to dig into this.
But Iād give a listen to Sam here. Eventually Thing 1 and Thing 2 have to leave the house with the Cat in the MAGA hat. And this crazy āadventureā will need to end so that we can find out what happens next.
š Sam.
There is now zero adult supervision.
To my Trump Supporting Followers: Iāve always treated you with respect despite our disagreement over the idea that Trump represented an existential risk to our democracy and, by extension, the world.
Iād like you to consider how far he is away from proving he won in a landslide.
Iām prepared to lose you today. But I need you to hear this from someone who disagreed with you respectfully, but saw where you were coming from.
Your candidate does not appear to be anywhere close to proving the massive conspiracy needed overturn this election. Consider:
Hypothetically, assume that you KNEW an election was stolen by coordinated fraud. That doesnāt overturn the election.
You would have to prove that in a court and it would have to be a massive fraud. Thereād be a code name like āOperation Ajax/Bootā as there was in 1953 Iran.
Okay. Assume your man won in a landslide now being covered up by a massive fraud operation.
What is the code name? Who headed it up? When was it launched? What was the size of the operation? Who funded it? How is it kept quiet? What is the size of the landslide? How do you know?
I know that many of you feel you arenāt taken seriously by media. Iāve always taken you seriously.
But that means expecting you to be serious about your own allegations. Trump is so far failing to meet *any* expected thresholds for responsibly alleging a conspiracy of this size.
Look at MKUltra, Ajax/Boot, Mockingbird, COINTELPRO, Operation Condor, Iran-Contra, etc. Beyond what you believe is true, your team would need to prove a conspiracy. And the delta between what is now alleged v what is proven or even āalleged with specificityā is growing alarming.
Iāll say it plainly: I wasnāt wrong. He always was & continues to be an existential risk as long as he has the football. If you love him & admire his best actions, show him. Let him know that the Delta between the allegation and proof of conspiracy must now close. Love you all.
Lastly, for those who will leave as followers from this thread: Thanks for hanging in there w/ me. Itās been tough, but I really appreciate the kindness & decency most of you have shown me. I hope I reciprocated that by being your loyal opposition. So thanks for hearing me out.š
I think there are two conflicting strategies dividing us that separately both make some sense:
A) FORMAL: At least *formally* extend every legal courtesy while even true facts are contested.
B) CUSTOM: Pressure POTUS to accept these results & ācut the crapā as in all elections.
@MaajidNawaz you know i have a lot of respect for you, and this is meant in the most sincere way: why are you giving any credence to this stuff?
I think what has been dividing us many of us is what to do with a wily POTUS challenging customary norms on concessions.
Given that he is going this legal route do we change our tactic too as @MaajidNawaz may be doing, or do we go the @SamHarrisOrg route and say āThis is nuts.ā
Itās a trade off between legal culture and American democratic custom and tradition. As I have been saying for four years it is as if there is an Oral and a Written Torah of the US. Its customs vs its laws.
Donald Trump breaks all our norms. Thatās his modus operandi. Such fun.
Honestly, I feel like we were supposed to be smarter and figure out how he divides us. But look at this idiotic infighting! Trump wins when he divides us. How is he doing @MaajidNawaz @benshapiro @SamHarrisOrg @RubinReport @BretWeinstein?
Out of vanity, Iām not losing to Trump.
Not falling for this shit. Trump is not going to outsmart me and the people I love as the capstone of this four year term like no other. If I can help it anyway. The š still needs people who continue to talk in public through their differences. More than ever.
Love you all. š
A) Donald Trump is controlled by Russia, a hostile foreign power capable of hacking voters' minds.
B) The US IC is patriotic and more capable than Russia or than it was when it acted against elections in Iran & Chile.
C) There is no reason to fear rigging in 2020.
#ChooseAny2
I provide this as a service to those Americans headed into Thanksgiving. Yes your Uncle may be #QAnon and your niece Antifa. You may be married to an NPC. But let's all realize that we're also bonkers. All three of the above are asserted by our media & are obviously incompatible.
Simple reminder: your crazy family are souls you know much better than figures like Biden & Trump who you know through a screen. Don't let our distant theater of power and politics rob you of something close and real.
[Just giving myself advice here.]
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
Note: for those of you missing the point, there were not enough characters to say #chooseuptotwo. Sorry to cut that corner...but itās Twitter.
I was told by some of my Trump supporting followers that this day would never come.
Well, it came. They said there would be a Kraken. They āwatch the Texas lawsuitā. It didnāt work.
Look: you were misled. A simple request?
Donāt shoot the messengers who leveled with you. š
President-elect Joe Bidenās victory now affirmed by Electoral College.
As you know, nothing is ever over in a sense. There are more milestones on the way to inauguration. And revelations can always emerge well after that.
But I will reiterate: there had to be a coherent legal strategy and the courts have yet to detect one thus far. Donāt be fooled.
2021Edit
I read part of the transcript of the Trump call.
The following strikes me.
A) Trump is a true political outsider & the only one to reach the Presidency with zero government experience.
B) There is an obvious open institutional conspiracy to prevent any outsider gaining power.
C) The media was good calling out all the really bad things Trump did.
D) The media was bad calling out any positive thing Trump said or did and painted him evil.
E) Journalists in 2020 & 2016 unethically became activists misreporting a big blue wave or Hilaryās inevitable win.
H) The left says āIf you donāt have the goods, then it was completely free, fair and obviously so you sore loser.ā
I) The right says āYou guys arenāt fair about anything. Your unbiased commentary is a 24/7 open conspiracy to misrepresent the world.
Now comes the weird part.
Heās now in a state where heās convinced that his feeling that he won together with the obvious total abdication of journalismās responsibility to eschew activism is enough to overturn the results.
Which is nuts. Itās like āfeelingā that someone is guilty & expecting conviction.
Yes media is guilty of political agitation while enjoying the protection of neutral journalists. Yes they have conspired against him at every turn. But ITāS NOT FUNGIBLE. The anti-Trump media conspiracy is not a vote counting conspiracy. He canāt cash in one to win the other.
He doesnāt understand. Heās free to become a private citizen and spend his remaining days looking for evidence of a conspiracy to steal the election. But heās not free to say āOur rallies were huge!ā While trying to stay in office. Results are presumed fair until proven otherwise
So while I agree with him that trust in our institutions is at rock bottom for good reasons, heās WAY out of line. I donāt think Biden won fair & square after the anti Gabbard/Yang BS. But i treat the general as a free and fair election in the absence of credible legal evidence.
Which is to say this: we have a lot of unethical media people dancing and celebrating Trumpās loss. And it remains *possible* that we will learn something nefarious happened. But pretending now that a media conspiracy is an electoral conspiracy w/o proof is insane & outrageous.
Iām happier to see him go than I am sad to see Biden arrive. But he isnāt wrong that there was a media/institutional conspiracy. Heās wrong elsewhere: he doesnāt have the goods on electoral fraud. But the number of us who see the former conspiracy but not the latter is *tiny*.
For some reason, almost everyone I know either see two conspiracies against Trump or zero. I see only one conspiracy against him to date and itās not fungible. His behavior is outrageous but those pointing it out as unethical have been compromised themselves by hatred. Thatās it.
Fair question. Assume you are at the apex of the US intelligence community hierarchy and hold this attitude. Havenāt you just explained with your question precisely why so many Trump supporters donāt believe the election result?
Now notice: your question is itās own answer!
QED
This was my attempt to avert what I knew was coming in January 6th.
It committed the ultimate media sin: bringing us together towards mutual understanding. You should reach out to @joerogan or any of us who have tried to stand apart. Don Lemon and Rachel Maddow canāt do this.
I read part of the transcript of the Trump call.
The following strikes me.
A) Trump is a true political outsider & the only one to reach the Presidency with zero government experience.
B) There is an obvious open institutional conspiracy to prevent any outsider gaining power.
Consider:
@TheRealBuzz
@joerogan
@BretWeinstein
@samharris and @benshapiro
@coldxman
Etc..
And anyone else who has stood outside of this madness is more valuable than anyone who has called only strike or only balls for four years.
It is time to contact the other voices.
You can say treason all you want, but Trump supporters will never listen to anyone who denies the gaslighting over the last 4 years.
Point me to any group who has been better at keeping both major camps together and I will boost that signal.
Enough. š
To my followers who put their faith in Donald Trump. In the Kraken. In Lin Wood. In Sidney Powell. In January 6th. In Benfordās law. Etc.
Thank you for your trust. Iād like to think you put up w/ me because you knew I loved this country and hated its swamp. Now I need your help.
You cannot board the Trump Train. No matter how many times he sticks it to your tormentors. I know itās tempting when you canāt stand the DNC.
He remains an existential risk to America and its values. We are very particular about how we take out the trash: this is anti-American.
We have to rebuild trust in each other. I have attempted to bridge this chasm for four years and Iām utterly torn apart from the hatred from my traditional side of the aisle and the abuse from the far right.
Trump has conceded.
Question: will you accept my outstretched hand?
I believe I am the only member of my group of podcasters who has forgone the income from contributions and merchandise to stand apart from all this until the election was over just in case anything went wrong. Likely a meaningless gesture, but it will be worth it if you join me.
True I didnāt vote for Biden, but that is only because I live in California. But I have stood with you against Critical Race Theory, the insane immigration policy, the intolerance of Totalizing forms of Islam. Etc
Trump was always a crazy risk. Yet I understood why you took it.
Here is my ask: can you be big enough to close this loop and say āEric you repeatedly tried to warn us brother to brother with our best interests at heart about what just happened when we told you to relax. Perhaps you were right that Trump was an existential risk to the US.ā
There is a way back to the country we both love. I believe you were wrong about Trump, and have always said so, but you were right about many things and Iād like to think the lost friends and abuse were worth it. Iād like to think I made an investment in us rather than a mistake.
It would be an honor to accept that gesture as closure. Please tell me I bet correctly defending a bunch of patriots with my best interests at heart as well and that I have a seat at your family table. There remains a swamp to be drained. And I believe in you, me & our country.š
God bless America. From Left to Right and all of us somewhere else or in between.
The Principal of the Trump Train: For all who got on the train as independent thinkers believing they had spotted an arbitrage against the true cancers in our society, there will be a precise moment they get off the train realizing its full danger. Beware of missing this stop:
Trump's 2024 option ended this week. https://x.com/MaheshBhagnari/status/1347556050682015744
Look to those who have āstopped outā of their trade. It doesnāt mean embracing Biden or the Media. They are not reasonable. It means being w/o a current plan. Itās better to tread water for a while hoping a ship will pass or land will be seen than to head right for the sea floor.
*Principle
I called you on the phone today as a supporter of Trump and told you to get off this train. Now.
Itās because you have a future. This does not. Youāre in college. You went to a happening. It turned into this.
You were behind me for years when we disagreed. Now itās my turn.
The woman who got shot could have been you.
You asked me an hour ago, what you could believe in. Itās not on the political spectrum. Trust me.
These are two organizations that donāt care about you. You have my info. Call me if you feel the urge to go back. You know who you are.
Think for yourself. You donāt need a political party. You need to be wild young and free. This President is a 74 year old tangled up in so much nonsense and you donāt need to replace him with a 78 year old man tangled up in Chinese grift.
I believe in you. Scram. Good luck. š
To @KyleKashuv,
This is where I actually am. I wrote this to a wonderful young woman I saw cloaked in Trump insignia. She had flown to DC on the 6th. She looks up to me and I have been trying to tell her she can leave Trump if she wants to without embracing Biden.
I called you on the phone today as a supporter of Trump and told you to get off this train. Now.
Itās because you have a future. This does not. Youāre in college. You went to a happening. It turned into this.
You were behind me for years when we disagreed. Now itās my turn.
Iāve been worried sick since I saw the San Diego woman who was shot move directly towards a gun pointed at her from a few feet away. The vet who died was oblivious and in a āvideo game modeā like trance. She LARPEd her way to an early grave. I havenāt been able to sleep since.
I love my Millennial friends but they arenāt my kidsā generation. I donāt want to see your generation get sucked into this madness. Because you are my kids.
Sooner or later these people born in the 1940s will leave us all and we can pick up the pieces of what is left together.
Thatās not an excuse. You baited me, and I took the bait because I see this everywhere. I want you young kids to have a future. But youāve been through a school shooting and I never have. Iām a dad, and dads protect their kids. Iāll buy you an illegal scotch & dinner to explain.
Please read the thread sub-tweeted above. If you hadnāt baited me, I might have done better, but the fault is mine. I donāt apologize much on Twitter, but you deserved the protector I wanted to be. I may be wrong about what to do, but hopefully my heartās in the right place. -EW
The president of the United States addressed the rally on January 6th which was not a mob at the time. He did not call for violence. He exhorted them to āStop the Stealā telling themā We will never give up. We will never concede.ā This is called āDirection by Indirectionā in law.
This is a situation paralleled by Henry II in his struggle with Thomas Beckett. āWill no one rid me of this troublesome priest?ā is not a call for violence in a direct sense.
A short time ago we talked of āputting people to the swordā or āheads will rollā meaning to fire people.
In this context, the President yet again used the technique of plausible deniability via the principle of āDirection by Indirectionā. He as addressing a massive rally near the Capitol. For some reason the partisan BS, colloquial speech and the context are obscuring what happened.
To see what happened:
A) Subtract the abysmal behavior of the Democratic Party in the modern era. They are horrible. So what?
B) Place the President in the context of a real life massive rally Context is everything.
C) See the colloquial as layering indirection over direction.
D) Recognize that the courts had rejected the presidentās challenges. *Even* if there were a stolen election, we abide by the courtās decision. Even-If-The-Supreme-Court-Is-Wrong. That is why it is the *Supreme* Court. Tough Shit. Courts blunder all the time. It just ends there.
E) If your claim is that the courts are part of a corrupt cabal that includes the Vice President, sitting senators, and the judges you yourself appointed...then there is no United States to save. You canāt āsaveā the United States by overruling the Supreme Court even if wrong.
F) If you say to a real life massive rally, āweāll never let it happenā after exhausting all legal appeals, you are living in a fictional USA in your own mind. We may be corrupt. We may be engaged in intrigue and deceptions. We may be petty. But it has to end in law or violence.
G) if you were *absolutely* convinced the election were stolen, It would be far better to have accepted defeat and spent the next four years trying to prove the election were stolen. In short there is no excuse. You canāt save the US by overruling the courts via Henry II. No way.
āWill no one rid me of this troubling result?ā to a rally within a stroll of the US Capitol, is not a defense. Tough.
Iām sorry, but I didnāt create the principle.
For those not familiar with the story and the principle of Direction through Indirection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_turbulent_priest%3F
Note Added: There doesnāt need to be a causal link shown that the Presidentās words caused violence. The words were themselves an exhortation to move to the Capitol and do..something..to āStop the Stealā. He was still trying to exhort a crowd to interfere with certification.
End
Many people are pointing out that Trump exhorted the Jan 6 rally to be peaceful. Ergo there is no problem...
I have covered this numerous times. He is incredibly consistent sending mixed messages. His supporters see one. Those out to get him see the other.
I see the strategy.
When Trump flips the coin, it always lands on its side. The odds of that happening by accident...arenāt worth worrying about.
Itās a āskillā and not a fluke.
It is amazing to me weāre still having this conversation after 4 years. He does this every day & the partisans somehow *never* catch on. Itās as if we learned nothing from him & his singular genius at manipulation.
If you donāt see it, how do you think he survived for so long?
Over and over the coin flip lands on its side. At some point you realize this isnāt an accident and the man didnāt get where he is by being an idiot.
Notice how often he generates the same TDS panic. This is a strategy that got him to the White House and not a bug.
Trump has a limited form of genius.
Here he easily gets @ConceptualJames to teach me that Trump said to be peaceful. And James is a smart guy.
Yes James. I agree. Because the dime always lands on its side. Itās a strategy: always balance the dime.
Iāve covered this already.
He literally said, "peacefully and patriotically."
Trumpism fills the reality shaped hole in our journalism left by LeftCarthyism.
You cannot rid yourself of the former without eradicating the latter. And we *must* rid ourselves of the former.
Now.
It is time to again start reporting the news.
It is time for a return to a second version of the Church and Pike Committees.
To regulate speech companies or provide a public version of Twitter, FaceBook and Google as well as ISPs so that our speech cannot be throttled according to anything other than the laws of our nation.
Folks donāt seem to understand my point in the quoted tweet. Think of the Republican voter-base for Trump as a bus & the Democratic establishment as an angry dog determined to chase it. Iām saying that the aggressive Democrats chasing this bus havenāt thought through catching it.
Itās not Trumpism. Itās classic blue collar working progressivism.
WTF is wrong with everyone. Did coal just disappear from American history books?
@JDVance1 comes from the heart of labor. Kentucky. Ohio. West Virginia.
Or is Mother Jones not a woman and just a magazine now?
Donald Trump is a New York finance, media and real estate creature of pop culture. JD is a friend and a real human being tied to US labor and a true American success story.
It aināt Trumpism. If you think it is, open a history book. Look up Blair Mtn. You will be shocked. Sheesh
If you were against both Trumpās nonsense and the pseudoscience from supposed scientists that opposed him by lying about COVID, this is a breath of fresh air from the FT:
I wrote about the lab leak hypothesis and fact wars. With thanks to @EricRWeinstein and @dandrezner for their thoughts https://ft.com/content/41f6f9ba-db82-4782-8ec0-bc952abb3836 via @financialtimes
Andā¦on a personal noteā¦I can once again be asked for comments in mainstream publications.
I donāt change. Itās the media that goes in cycles.
Letās remember this preposterous cycle the next time the heterodox who refuse to go along with narratives are driven out of favor.
š
Five trends are colliding:
A) Public Health issues require coordinated group effort to retard the spread of misinformation including media & Tech Communications platforms.
B) Violence is an issue of Public Health.
C) January 6th proved Trump supporters are violent extremists. https://t.co/65ExAE1asF
D) The Republican Party is now the party of Trump.
E) Mainstream Conservatives in America are Republicans.
Syllogisms sold separately.
The Democratic Party and I have a similar distaste for Trump. On the other hand, I would *never* in a million years go where this is goingā¦
I donāt feel this to be a genuine question. We all get your argument if thatās what you are asking.
Allow me to reframe. Your and my California votes were dwarfed in their direct importance by what they meant to any people following us. So your vote said āItās time for Trump.ā
All the world knows about my vote is that I couldnāt vote for a 78 year old with serious cognitive decline nor a 74 year old shredding the best parts of our civic culture and our very ability to process reality together as a nation. Who I voted for is irrelevant: what did it say?
A) There was no mature way out of the 2020 election. Two unworkable elderly candidates and parties plus the Time Magazine article? It was a disaster.
B) I said clearly: āYou will fail to find a solution in 2020. Have compassion for your loved ones who will also fail as you did.ā
So I come back to you Dave. You failed. You straight up failed when you chose Trump.
Do I crow about it? No. Why? Because I failed too. I threw a vote to someone who couldnāt win. Not as a noble gesture. Like a moron, I couldnāt think of anything better. So I too took the L.
Others of our friends voted Biden. Or voted for Trump secretly. Or wrote in Tulsi. Or opted out.
Your point is āCan you all admit that I was right in voting for Trump?ā
There wasnāt an answer on the ballot. So it stupidly fell to folks like us to try to hold this all together.
The way I understood our roll is to not do what you are doing now. I perfectly understand why you didnāt vote Biden. I didnāt either. But deep down you understand why I didnāt vote Trump just as I understand why you did.
Why canāt we be gracious about it? Isnāt that the point?
I failed. But I tried to use my vote wisely. I tried to say: our dwindling hope as a nation lies in realizing we are being pitted against each other. Donāt lose your family or kid or marriage over watching someone else fail with their vote just as you failed in yours.
I thought thatās what we stood for anyway. Maybe I fāed that up too.
But I understand your anti-woke vote. And there would have been benefits had it gone differently. Just as there are benefits to Biden over Trump.
But no Dave. I have nothing to apologize for. My honest take.
*role
āIāve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,ā Trump booms from a speakerphone. āHeās a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it ā Jeffrey enjoys his social life.ā -@NYMag
What was that about? Jeffrey Epstein was not a ādisgraced financierā, 14 year olds are not āBeautiful womenā¦on the younger side.ā
Was Trump sending us a message, a warning or a confession? Whatever it was, itās a big deal. Time to revisit this article:
I once again note people reading things in that I didnāt write. I canāt help you. The difference between making a confession and sending us a warning about Epstein covers a *lot* of possible territory.
Think before assuming.
2022Edit
A year ago. Watching the "Stop the Steal"-train on the same track as the "Certify the Vote"-locomotive running in the opposite direction, with three days left.
It does no good. We can see what is about to happen. But there is nothing we can do with that information w/o leaders.
I clearly do not understand the argument for Donald Trump as the only answer to Democratic Party madness.
Thereās an entire universe of younger, saner, more reasonable, less tainted individuals. Veterans who served with humility and patriotism that is self-evident for example.š¤·āāļø
I think this isnāt right.
We have a world where institutions BLATANTLY lie in the vague direction of the truth to make the truthā¦uhā¦punchier. More viral.
Some people, upon detecting the lies (e.g. āClimate modeling is settled scienceā), decide thereās no truth in it *at all*.
š“On the Republican Party: āBecause of Trumpās fanaticism, the worshipful base of the Republican Party barely regards climate change as a serious problem. Thatās a death warrant to the species.ā
Many believe there is no chance COVID was Zoonotic because we are lying about the lab by saying it has to be Zoonotic. But we donāt know.
Many people are convinced Ivermectin is a total COVID solution since weāre obviously lying about human medicine as Horse Dewormer. It isnāt.
No one knows if Epstein killed himself. We just know our papers arenāt aggressively reporting that story. So many assume Epsteinās death is fake or an obvious hit. Because it could be either, but our lame institutions donāt dare ask even the easy questions. So we lurch to oppose.
Many people donāt believe that Russia/Ukraine is a threat or even real because they can see the obvious daily spin. But it is a huge threat and an atrocity. Weāre just lying and spinning parts of it.
They donāt believe the Fed has ANY function because it does do some bad stuff.
Moral: if you want a better model of Trump Supporters try this one: they prefer idiosyncratic lying/spin/distortion by a gadfly as an antidote to coordinated credentialed institutional polished lying with amazing production values. Further, they donāt think *anyone* offers truth.
But they will react to spin and hype as if there is ZERO substance behind it if that spin and hype are coordinated across multiple venues, institutions & talking heads.
They arenāt principally embracing Trump or idiocy. They are rejecting obvious coordination of hype.
That.š
One example, offered freely and without my asking:
That would be me. A lifetime studying science but have never spent one second looking into climate change. Too many experiences with the left's consensus herd. Don't care about Ukraine, either. Anything they're all in on I ignore.
People are asking what I think of @SamHarrisOrgās recent stated positions surrounding Trump related issues.
That theyāre wrong? At least thatās my opinion. This is not a secret. I have been warning Sam openly about the danger of his theory of Trump since dinner on Jan 3, 2017.
Thatās not a dunk. Itās not dragging. Heās been great on all sorts of stuff. But Free Will, Trump, & the scalability of virtuous Atheism have been 3 areas of persistent disagreement.
And Iāll continue to disagree w/ my friend. Iād be happy to discuss, steel-man or debate too.
But if I were to be egoic about this I would say that what Sam needs most is to have his underlying position steel-manned first by someone ELSE. What got said on that interview *was* troubling in substance. But the bit about corpses of children, etc. is just such a total misfire.
Yet as most of you know, I try to make a policy of NOT running away from any friend facing a mob. And Sam is a true friend in a tough spot after a bad interview advocating for positions directly counter to my own.
Iām not running away, so you can fire away at me in the comments.
Lastly Iāll say this: Sam is anti-tribal, Iām not.
I admire guys who donāt leave a buddy on the battlefield in war. This is just Twitter so itās good practice. Samās a close friend, not an account to me. And no real friend goes under the bus to placate a mob. Thatās my policy.š
I just listened to Biden's Philadelphia Speech.
One overarching reaction. The speech was 1/3 of a speech. There are three groups threatening US Democracy. No one can give the needed speech until they all out all three groups:
A) Extractocrats
B) Wokestanis
C) MAGAstanis
All these groups are reacting to each other. MAGASTAN is trying to defend the US from Wokestani insanity and the Extractocrat Swamp and will forgive their leader almost any bad action because he seems to be the only thing out of central control powerful enough to disrupt DC.
Wokestanis by contrast are trying to defend the US from some vision of Charlottesville madness energized by Trump metastatizing into a mainstream nightmare.
Mainstream Extractocrats try to protect the Swamp from the other party's "armed wing" while trying to operate their own.
The ability to unify around American Values requires calling out all three groups. You can't single out MAGA or WOKE or the Swamp from one of the other groups. It just doesn't work. It looks like trying to get positional advantage. Biden would have had to talk about all of them.
You can't say MAGA reaches into the past without calling the BS '1619 project' anti-american. Which it is.
You would have to talk about "No Justice, No Peace" if you wanted to discuss political violence.
You'd have to talk about Extractocrats Mitch McConnell & Nancy Pelosi.
To say it plainly, folks like me talk about our own party's problems so that we MIGHT one day be able to say "We have got to cut this all out."
In general, NO ONE in a position to give such a speech sees all 3 threats and is interested in sacrificing & risking to name them all.
I kept thinking, "How is he going to land the plane?"
And the truth is, he doesn't see the problem. He is simply the patriotic American with a successful loving son named Hunter while there is a war in Ukraine with Nancy P flying off to Taiwan and hubby Paul trading up a storm.
No talk of hearings into COVID origins with Peter Daszak. No talk of Epstein hearings into IC connections.
Just the Extractocrat seeing MAGA for the one thing I actually envy about MAGA: At least it is a genuine (if minor) threat to the DC Swamp.
There is a difference here.
There are two ways to fear MAGA:
I) As a genuine threat to American Values.
II) As a geniune threat to Swamp opportunities and entitlements.
Those of us who fear MAGA for reason I) also fear Extractocrats of both parties as well as the Woke. These are *all* threats to the US.
So my heart sank. This POTUS could not give that speech. As long as kids are being pushed to transition genders by sexuality counselers or establishment political families have 8+ figures of wealth from no apparent source of productive behavior, you can't just single out 1 of 3.
My prediction however is that this is going to be viewed as the hypocritical blue portion of the Swamp trying to win a coming election with zero understanding of just how corrupt and dangerous all three groups are.
So to sum up this is what I think. And it isn't hopeful.
There is a solution. It must either come from less corruop outsiders than TRUMP or it must come from an extraordinary individual insider willing to give up wealth, safety, status and security. A surprise like Eisenhower's Chamberlin's final addresses. And that was not Joe Biden.
This has been off the cuff. So, thanks for bearing with me.
End
ERRATA.
*Triple. If you follow me you know about me symbols and dyslexia. If you don't there is a lot of that in my threads.
These are obviously just my personal views alone and off the cuff as this just happened. Subject to change as I get a chancd to go over what I heard.
Have you noticed that Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is a **real** thing to people on line? Yet Trump Excusing Syndrome (TES) is not?
Itās because neither exist. Or both do.
But it really doesnāt make any sense.
The always online world has built an alternate medical reality.
2023Edit
Not my read. At all. But we will find out in time who is correct David. I am open to being wrong. But having opposed this man, I completely lack any of the vindictive glee that I see in others.
It appears now I opposed him for reasons *totally* foreign to the Democratic Party.
I donāt know the ins & outs of the case. But the āGet Trump!ā mentality is disturbing. No soul is above the law. But I also worry about no soul being specifically *targeted* by the law. This may have a Bork like effect where Democrats celebrate, not realizing the change to come.
āWhat are your thoughts?ā -EK
That she should not challenge the much more energetic Biden for 2024 and should instead likely wait for 2028 where Jimmy Carterās health concerns might actually outweigh his previous term of proven presidential experience?
[This looks crazy to me.]
For everyone who is claiming that Senator Diane Feinstein had a stroke because of her facial appearance in photos, please don't jump to uneducated decisions.
For everyone who says sheās too old to be in the Senate, please remember that as recently as 2003, we had a 100-year-old man in the Senate. His name was Strom Thurmond.
I completely understand the concern over the age of people in Congress and the White House. Age as a factor though isnāt always the best indicator of how capable someone is to lead or make laws.
If the voters elect someone, they do so knowing that personās age, so why should the will of the people be overturned? What are your thoughts?
I agree that the issue isnāt age exactly. Itās an enormous cohort of elders who lack the wisdom wherewith-all & decency to love their country and their descendants more than power. A cult of control that just deeply does not care about their own children. Or Great grand children.
I donāt want to be mean about this. But Biden vs Trump is already absurd. We have a potential for nuclear war in Ukraine. An out of control likely gain of function bioweapons program we canāt talk about. A press that doesnāt report major stories. Climate concerns. And looming AI.
We need highly technical energetic people right now who love their country and understand sacrifice. Is she that? I leave that to you all. I would say no. š
Because our institutions decided that they outgrew the free society they serve.
What is āPrebunking Malinformationā?
https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/mdm-incident-response-guide_508.pdf https://archive.is/CuoJ7
What is a āFree Speech Zoneā to a free people? [Since 1988]
What is a āreputation scoreā and why am I still throttled?
NEWS: The Twitter team continue to find shadowbans buried deep in the Twitter code.
Just last week they found a measure that stopped accounts assigned a low 'Reputation score' from trending.
This shadowban even applied to Elon's account and prevented his tweets from trending.
What is ESG and how does it work exactly?
NEW: From S&P Global to the London Stock Exchange, tobacco companies are crushing Tesla in the ESG ratings. How could cigarettes, which kill over 8 million a year, be deemed a more ethical investment than electric cars?
One answer: Tobaccoās gone woke.š§µ https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/how-tobacco-companies-are-crushing-esg-ratings/
What is āControlled Sponteneityā?
Is there a more Orwellian oxymoron among oxymorons?
What was Project DEFUSE? Seriously.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21066966-defuse-proposal/
Why is this so anti-interesting?
Just search on āFurinā, āSARS-CoVā āSpike Proteinā, āWuhanā and āDTRAā for @doddtra. Wouldnāt you **want** deep public hearings if this was all a super unfortunate coincidence? Right??
Coincidence theory puts conspiracy theory to shame.
If you want to understand Trump & RFK, make it very simple. Ignore the errors and issues for a moment. ALL of them. Theyāre the only 2 major candidates working at the scope of āMaybe almost EVERYTHING important/weird that weāre told by institutions is potentially totally wrong.ā
2024Edit
Maybe if we just call **everyone** smart who can logically explain why this keeps happening, a āNazi white-supremacist bigoted grifting transphobic misogynistic Islamophobic low information flyover country charlatanā these millions of Trump voters will just magically disappear?
Donald Trump dominated the Iowa caucuses on Monday, winning more than 50% of the vote. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida narrowly pulled ahead of Nikki Haley to finish a distant second.
Our correspondent, Lisa Lerer, explains what happened. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/16/us/politics/iowa-caucus-takeaways.html
In a Starbucks, in a US mall.
There is no sense that a president of the United States of America was just shot & has narrowly survived an assassination attempt while running for office that was recorded on video.
Everyone knows that this happenedā¦but that was like 3 hrs ago.
I have seldom had much to say that has been positive about President Trump. Perhaps I should change that in light of our absolute partisan derangement. This polarized environment will be the death of a nation I still truly love and believe in.
I wish the best to his family, and hope and trust that he makes a full and speedy recovery. May his attempted assassinās name be cursed.
Thank god for our secret service.
I do. He was my president.
Letās start there.
In my model, every Republican who *strongly* supports tbe ārules based international orderā is at least quietly supportive of what Kamala represents over Trump.
This is about NATO/Trade/Arms/CentralBanking/EU/IC to them. Itās business and geopolitics. Itās not about personalities or party.
Trump is about threatening that order.
Not destroying it mind you. But potentially threatening it enough that it is forced into far more change than would occur under Kamala. Particularly with RFK jr, Tulsi, and Elon on board. None of whom is in any way a Trump Clone.
This is about ensuring seamless continuation of the international agreements, and was to be expected. In my opinion.
BREAKING: Dick Cheney just announced he will be voting for Kamala Harris. Wow.
What I said before the Harris v Trump debate.
Kamala Harris is much smarter and more capable than she has appeared as VP.
Donald Trump is too old.
The game is rigged by a nexus between legacy media like ABC and party leaders to be a closed system.
Donald Trump is not the same man who won in 2016. Not by a long shot. A near death experience is life changing. So is age in a world dominated by novelty and new media.
Trump does not fully understand the optics of fighting with women browner and younger than himself.
āOptics create their own substanceā
Or āThe Optics are the Substance.ā
āāāā
I think Iām doing okay with the above. Open to being told what I am missing or can improve.
Just got some further encouragement for my model of this election cycle above from Donald Trump today.
Exactly what I have been attempting to say. Almost too perfect:
Now I know from experience that this will sound to the partisan camps like I have an angle. I do not. There is no money in it. No job on the other side in a new administration. I donāt know how to view this.
Iām obviously not pro-Kamala. Iām obviously not pro-Trump.
Like many Americans, I donāt see a game or a process that I recognize.
Iāve seen 13 previous elections that I can remember. Iām now watching something I canāt bring myself to believe. Something Iāve feared since before my essay on Kayfabe. And now itās here.
So I am just saying what I think I see.
š
As I said when you & I spoke on Monday before the debate:
Iām not sure that Trump will be āallowedā to assume office.
And Iām not sure that Kamala & Trump both make it to November.
It doesnāt matter how it sounds. The crazy part *is* happening. Now. Again.
Iād stop golfing..
Wow.. CNNās John Miller reporting that shooter with AK-47 style gun shot at President Trump while he played golf in Florida today, and Secret Service exchanged fire.
Is Newsweek fringe?
Is the CDC a crank organization?
Is its former head a charlatan?
Is RFKjr a mere nutty grifter?
You can continue to claim that everyone who questions institutional narrative is crazy. But ultimately, to whom at this point?
To whomā¦
My point above has nothing to do with Trump. Nor Harris.
It is about the Democratic Party strategy of using *our* national institutions to portray everyone who questions institutional narratives as both mentally and morally suspect through coordinated campaigns.
Itās just evil.
Fair point. I agree with you that Donald Trump is not thinking about āmeā.
But at least he isnāt pretending to think about me while texting me constantly:
āHey Eric,
Itās Kamala. May I ask a favor from you?ā
Let me guess. You want free labor. You want an endorsement. You want a contribution. You want, want, want. You are counting on me. I can make a difference. We are a team. We are change. We are moving forward. You need $30.
Do you even hear yourself?
I have an ask of my own: STOP.
I voted for you Mr President. Enthusiastically, the first time. My concerns were as invisible to you over 8 years as they are to Kamala Harris today.
May I make a request? Just be authentically fake. Have fun. Live a little.
Itās okay. Youāre now rich. Enjoy the Vineyard. Iāve loved it every time Iāve been there. Just stop badgering me for free labor and $30 while lying to my face.
Thatās all.
š
Donald Trump is not thinking about you. He only sees power as a means to his ends. America is ready to turn the page.
2025Edit
Trump II was *never* going to be the expected sequel to Trump I.
Source: @triggerpod, L.A., Nov 2024.
Elon is smart.
Tulsi is smart.
JD is smart.
RFKJr is smart.
Vivek is smart.
Trump is smart.
Obviously.
Calling everyone who is *outsmarting* you ādumbā doesnāt do what you think it does. Think about it:
A outsmarts B.
B says A is dumb.
Ergoā¦
Ryan Wesley Routh and USAID are both strongly tied to discrete American interests, assets, sources and methods in Ukraine.
Who was paying Routh in Ukraine, Afghanistan, etc.? Is there no connection whatsoever?
Those are a crisp questions that can now, at last, be answered.
UFOs & Foreign Aid/NGOs are both broad programs with which to hide Aerospace development and covert operations respectively.
We don't need to be conspiracy theorizing anymore.
We can now simply be conspiracy inquiring.
It takes some getting used to. But we can just...ask.
And if you think that's nuts: then you EXPLAIN this construction worker turned would-be assassin? I'm all ears.
Just another misfit far from home near a war? That's it? Let's get that on the record! From officials. Under oath.
I'd love to hear that, because trying to assasinate a once and future president is a HUGE deal. And we don't seem very interested in his oddball story. Why was this guy so anti-interesting? I find him utterly fascinating. At a minimum.
Such a crazy story! No? I'd pay to watch a documentary.
I really want to know. And it is a totally fair question we were all trained not to even think about...let alone ask and expect a straight answer.
I don't see President Trump wanting to protect any group who tried to make sure he never took office again.
Based on actual MSM Trump headlines, I asked ChatGPT to predict future headlines.
Here are the predictions:
Let it not be said, that AI is without a sense of humor.
Yesterday I sat down with @piersmorgan to discuss what this is. As I see it, this isnāt a new administration.
This begins as righteous vengeance against a thing that would have literally destroyed @elonmusk and @realDonaldTrump if it could have.
Col. Jessup vs Lt. Caffey as hybrid civil war.
āWe donāt actually know our own country."
But can America handle the truth?
Piers Morganās latest Uncensored on USAID drops at 3pm (EST) / 8pm (UK)š
šŗ http://youtube.com/piersmorganuncensored
@piersmorgan | @EricRWeinstein | @AmbJohnBolton | @stclairashley | @matthewsyed
I am trying *not* to speak hyperbolically. I am applying the same jargon back at the USG that was applied to fighting me and people like me. At some point it was explained to me that āYou are collateral damage in hybrid warfare.ā So I learned what that meant.
The official USG jargon that brought the tools of regime change abroad to the U.S. home front is āHybrid War.ā And refers to conflict where the major battlefields are not predominantly kinetic. The shooting is dwarfed by digital, memetic, information, psychological, financial, and other non obvious means.
It is the very idea that traditional or āKinetic Warā is outdated. And that is what we have here because that is what was initiated **against** dissenting Americans by the previous government.
So those who previously trained the tools of hybrid warfare on American citizens are finding out that when they engaged their own citizenry, their battle would then be joined by the people they attacked: dissenting American citizens.
And people fight back using the same hybrid warfare: EOs, audits, purse strings, digital spectacles, etc.
Let me clarify my position relative to @DOGE.
Move Fast: DOGE/Eric Yes/Yes
Break Things: DOGE/Eric Yes/Yes
Be Bold: DOGE/Eric Yes/Yes
The System has Cancer: DOGE/Eric Yes/Yes
The System is Cancer: DOGE/EricĀ ?/No
Extreme Caution is important: DOGE/Eric No/YES
Elon/Trump know EXACTLY what they're doing & it HAS to be done like this: DOGE/Eric Yes/I don't believe that
USG is just like Twitter: DOGE/ERIC Similar/Not at all
This will probably work: DOGE/Eric YES!!/Probably
Uh. What?? Saying that Trump is mandated to misunderstand that Science is a Public Good is saying that Trump is an idiot.
Which is nonsense.
I believe @realDonaldTrump, @JDVance and @elonmusk are all very smart. Only an absolute moron would deliberately destroy U.S. Academic Science by saying that an algebraic topologist or a neutrino astronomer should found a start up or learn to code. Are we that unbelievably angry at non-scientist Tony Fauci that we are up for destroying ourselves? Maybe! But I say bullshit. No one smart is that dumb.
Trump and I both went to Univ. of @Penn and he even graduated with a degree from Wharton. Whether you love him or hate him, I don't think of Wharton graduates as being so ignorant of economics or markets that they think markets have no failures. I think he gets markets.
The idea that markets work for everything is an insane simplistic position which is popular only on the internet.
It has zero support among smart pro-market economists. Left, Right, Independent or Center.
Many people are asking about the press conference given my misgivings about the Ukraine narrative.
I will be blunt: we live with nukes. Fighting with allies in front of our European friends and our main Eastern European rival is to me insane in the shadow of Nukes. But it stimulates a response that I donāt know how to answer:
āTrumpIsExactlyRightToDoThisAndLetMeTellYouWhyā with no breathing between the words.
This is now said reflexively by almost all my friends on the Tech Right. I donāt get it. Itās unexpected.
It is the answer on the Right to the Leftās ubiquitous headline āX seems like a disaster. Hereās why thatās a good thing.ā where X is any bad thing happening under a democratic administration.
There are only two states now from this perspective: either you think it is awesome or āyou just donāt get it.ā There is no possibility that this is not good and requires course correction, nuance or decorum. Those are āfor losersā only. Go figure. Itās bizarre.
This press event was extremely reckless. The previous (Biden) administration was incredibly reckless. Putin is reckless. As is Zelensky. This will not work long term.
We are playing Ukrainian roulette. And we need to stop. Trump knows this. But he is not yet finding a graceful exit so we will instead portray this train wreck as a āneeded breath of fresh air and transparency.ā Donāt expect me to buy it. But that is the spin.
I will say this: I believe Trump wants the war to end. But it is a dangeous train wreck. And we need to be the adults.
My thoughts anyway. For whatever they are worth.
Shabbat Shalom everyone.
Given how the U.S. is behaving in a manner that other nations find unexpected, I am assuming that this administration's instantiation of "America First" is going to ultimately lead to nuclear proliferation well beyond where it is now. Perhaps that will turn out to be wrong, but it seems quite likely to me.
May I get a read from my most enthusiastic "America First" friends: do you expect this? If so, is this troubling to you? Do you think I am incorrect that if the U.S. pulls back from historical agreements and commitments that nuclear proliferation will result as the world's policeman retires or goes on an indefinite donut break? Am I not getting what is going on?
I'm guessing I am going to hear a lot of rationalizations like "It was gonna happen anyway so we might as well give up the ghost and get on with whatever comes next." or "Trump has a plan for this." or "Nukes don't matter anymore." or "They wouldn't dare under Trump." etc.
It would be great *not* to have those braindead bot-level conversations. We can all do rationalizations in our sleep without help...myself included. I'm curious as to whether those viewing this situation with unconflicted enthusiasm at least share a general sketch of a long-term plan for a multi-polar world with say 50+ nuclear nations, or believes there is a plan to stop that from happening as the U.S. disentangles from the world.
I have no clue, as I have heard no such plan or even much discussion of this issue.
Thanks in advance. š
To those of you who have the same answer for everything:
A) "Ha. It's just about money Eric."
B) "Dude. It's the deep state. I thought you were smart."
C) "It's the Jews. Duh."
D) "Bruh. Trump and Elon got this. Settle down."
E) "Ever heard of the Freemasons? Nuh? Bye."
F) "Bitcoin fixes this. Been solved since 2009."
G) "Capitalism talks. Bullshit walks."
H) "Uh, because Trump is a Nazi Fascist. Hello!"
I) "It's always been this way. You waking up now??"
J) "It's all about the Gold Standard & Bretton Woods"
K) "Clutch your pearls. The AI will sort it out."
L) "China is playing Chess while we play Checkers."
M) "Aliens have been behind everything since Roswell."
N) "Qatar has been planning this forever...or Putin."
O) "Cough cough. Project 2025 anyone?"
P) "You act like you've never heard of Klaus Schwab!"
Q) "Check out the Knights of Malta/Opus Dei, smh"
R) "Majestic 12 is our government. Not the president."
S) "The entire world is run by Pedophiles my guy."
T) "Bill Gates is the Eugenicist sterilizing the world."
U) "This is all due to Fluoride in the water."
V) "The great replacment is Soros' war on white people."
W) "The Royals in Europe are related & planned this."
X) "Monsanto and ADM literally aim to murder earth."
Y) "Pfizer & big Pharma decide what we can even think."
Z) "The Electric Universe & Panpsychism homie, FTW!"
So am I to understand that Freemason pedophiles embedded in the Deep State who outsourced the overthrow of the US to Chinese Jews, got America off the gold standard so that Trump could bring Qatari Islamo-Fascism to America via Bitcoin which was developed by Aliens? Or is it that a Vatican AI developed Project 2025 to complement the UN's war on Europe via Soros billions?
I understand its all very simple to many of you. But consider that those of you who favor a single explanation for everything, think that this is very simple in all sorts of very *different* and seemingly incompatible ways.
Just a thought.
[Note: I'm mostly leaving this here for myself to remember what I was thinking just before the JFK release. Skip it if it is too long and in the weeds.]
A view of the JFK files release:
The first branch of the decision tree: does Donald Trump keep his word? Will this be a good faith effort to end the mysteries around Nov 22, 1963? My bet is that Trump does and that this does not look anything like the insane and botched release of meaningless white binders on Epstein to MAGA influencers. If I am wrong, this will result in widespread mistrust of Trump by MAGA, and MAGA will likely start to declare independence from Trump. I don't think this will happen so I am not going to say more on this. I'll just have guessed wrong.
Next Branch: Assuming this is the full reveal, do we learn that this was simply Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone? I don't believe it is. But if it is, the next branch will be "Did the US try to control the narrative with extraordinary measures beyond those that should have been allowed?" I believe that the answer will be yes to this independent of. This results in widespread distrust of all previous governments.
Popping back up, if it was not LHO as lone gunman, all hell breaks loose with public trust FAR beyond where we even are Post-Covid. The concept of 'Conspiracy Theorist' dies. The concept of 'No one can keep a secret.' dies. People learn at scale that there is an *ENORMOUS* difference between correctly guessing that the government lied, and having the USG confirm that every government official kept the lie at official levels.
As to possible culprits:
Lyndon Johnson
LCN
CIA
Mossad
Cubans
Cord Meyer
UFO/MJ12
Defense Contractors
Combinations of the Above
Etc...Etc...
It is going to be a big deal. People have speculated about everything under the sun. Those who got it most right will be held up properly. Everyone who didn't believe the Warren Report was the end of it will feel vindicated. Personally, I am eager to hear how close Danny Shehan was.
As an American, I worry it doesn't get tied back to the USG because that will lead to an American unraveling of trust in everything. But I take the same attitude I have taken to Epstein which also needs to be released.
The number of people involved in such plots are tiny. And tiny numbers of CIA/Mafiosi/Mossad/Party Leaders do not represent the group. If it turns out it was CIA sponsored, it will not be a large group of people who kept this going. It will be a tiny number of people.
[For those of you who follow my push to tie Epstein to the IC, this should sound very familiar: if it turns out that Epstein was CIA and/or Mossad (which I view to be most likely), I will want to know that we have a problem with psychopaths in those organizations. I will call for deep hearings like Church/Pike in the 1970s. I have called this problem of small groups acting on behalf of a nation "Jessupization" after Col Nathan Jessup in "A Few Good Men". Eventually, Jessup misplays his hand and Lt. Calley isolates the cancer.]
When it comes to the US, at some point you have to cut out the cancer of rogues who claim to act on behalf of us all. And the best day is always 'today'.
Looking nervously forward to this afternoon, no matter how bitter the pill or pills. Let's get on with it! Finally.
š
P.S. Also to those of you who follow me on these subjects, a massive admission of a long term lie around JFK will lead to a change in our willingness as a society to question what happened to progress in the sciences that are within reach of "Weapons of Mass Destruction". That is molecular Biology, Infectious Disease, Number Theory, Computer Science, and Physics. Particularly in the case of the inexplicable stagnation in Physics around "Quantum Gravity". While this shouldn't be tied to that, this positive externality of a negative event (i.e. learning that that we have been lied to by government officials for generations) will be most welcome.
Location of the release:
I have received official confirmation from @USNatArchivesā
When the White House releases the JFK files they will be publicly available at the link below ā¬ļø
WH claims about the release:
BREAKING šØ WH Deputy Press Secretary Fields says Americans will be āshockedā by the JFK files.
Buckle upā80,000 pages are set for release.
Itās time to release everything!
Learning a lot. Or maybe I am just getting confused. I will take this down if it is all wrong. There just isn't a lot of guidance as to what I am looking at.
Q: Am I to understand that King Abdullah of Jordan had/has a Jewish Brother because the CIA procured a Jewish Starlet for King Hussein? That can't be right.
Or that the CIA will build an entire set in the United States from a photograph of a room taken in Moscow, hire Actors and 'Actresses' that resemble both foreign leaders and their female associates, and shoot naughty short films in Los Angeles to look like a tryst took place in a room in Russia?
Like just using Hollywood magic and knowhow to destroy leaders based on the fear of being called 'Conspiracy Theorists'? Think about it. The leader is confronted with incontrovertible cinematic and photographic evidence that something happened in Moscow that actually happened in Los Angeles!
And when the individual says: "That is not true!" they sound like an insane person. Why?
Because of the epithet 'Conspiracy Theorist'! This is so brilliant.
This was called "image cheapening" in the trade.
Here the CIA is acting as a film company, financing risque short films to appear as as-if "fake documentaries", to remove leaders by cheapening their images.
CONCLUSION: The concept of 'Conspiracy Theorist' is beyond dead. This is nakedly diabolical.
It may even be in the national interest. But this is so wild that I don't want to ever hear "That sounds like a conspiracy theory." Let's face the facts: This is what we do. It is who we are. And we are very good at it.
We conspire. We fake. We attack reputations. We topple leaders. We cheapen images. And we do it all so as to be completely untraceable. We are totally diabolical and we destroy anyone who suggests that we are that.
Our government is the gaslighter and we are the gaslit.
Now ask yourself *after* reading the above: what are the odds that people who operate like this might have interferred in our own 2020 US election or been involved in any of the attempts on President Trump's life?
Try saying 'Uh. That sounds like a conspiracy theory!" after reading this.
I bet you can't do it anymore. You'll sound like a complete idiot now.
What is one supposed to say? Iām confused.
This is clearly insane, unless it is genius brinksmanship in the service of negotiation.
Seems insane so far. But then again Iām not pretending to be a master negotiator.
āāāāā
Remember what I said about the uncertainty around this presidency before inauguration:
Positive Mean
High Variance
- NEGATIVE* skew
High Kurtosis
This was entirely foreseeable. He told you what he was going to do. And he generally does what he says. He thinks he found a genius move again like a queen sacrifice.
The Whitehouse is courting disaster in the third moment of this uncertain situation as per the skewness above. And it will do so repeatedly as a tool to get others, who are more risk averse, to capitulate. This isnāt a bug. Itās a style that I personally donāt love on a fragile planet. You usually go to movies to watch such climactic scenes.
Some of Trumpās business moves fail. Some succeed. Think of earth now as a Trump Business.
I donāt know if this is like some of Trumpās NY real estate deals or The Apprentice which worked out for himā¦or Trump University, Steaks and Airlines which were not successful. This looks more like the latter.
Iām not privy to the strategy and nothing like this presidency has ever existed. For a reason. But to a high stakes negotiator, everything looks like a deal.
Iām very concerned. Wish us luck. Given the negative skewness, Iām definitely rooting for a win that I so far see as unlikely. But itās not impossible.
Bon chance.
Business has many similarities to statecraft.
As does family.
As does programming with event handling.
As does poker.
As does sports.
Etc.
āā
Moral: beware analogies when playing with thermonuclear military capabilities.
There is no real intuition pump. Doesnāt exist.
We are negotiating at the brink as @chamath says, one to many, with all our friends and rivals alike in a deliberately reckless fashion. It may well increase the modal chance of victory. And markets are what keeps us from war for the most part.
Assume for the moment that it works.
Assume we make a pull from the distribution and we win. It is simply a pull from the distribution. It doesnāt tell you if it was a genius move. An optimal move. A smart move. It means you won, just like a simple spin at roulette can double your cash in an instant.
I donāt know what we are doing as I am not briefed. I doubt anyone is briefed. I believe Trump keeps his own counsel in such matters.
But let me remind you of what Anton Chigurh gets right at the gas station.
Q: What do we stand to win?
A: Everything.
We stand to win everything. If you know what I mean.
I find myself in agreement with @realchrisrufo on this point.
I'll fill a bit in as well that doesn't seem to be well known.
Our private research universities are not actually purely private. They are designed to be both a cryptic soft extension of the state (e.g. national security, priming the prosperity pipeline with blue sky research, truth adjudication, etc.), which is also oppositely intended as an independent check on the state and state power in times of abuse as well. This tacit and quiet knowledge, which used to be held at the AAU and the relevant professors, has been mostly lost.
So 'overhead' or 'indirect costs' is not actually overhead at all. It is supposed to be cryptic state support based on research merit to avoid political pressure to fund 3rd tier universities at the same level as Princeton. So the whole system was designed back in the Vannevar Bush era but without leaving the esoteric knowledge with modern academicians.
It's a disaster. It was a quiet game which worked brilliantly to serve the nation and its population until lunatics started to get a foothold in the research universities.
This is why when you audit this stuff, you see waste. It wasn't ever intended to be what it appears to be: this was the USG paying to have a totally ELITE and EXCLUSIVE quasi-private, quasi-public resource. Think Manhattan project. Think The Jasons. Think winning.
And, despite my deep dislike of how @realchrisrufo has acted towards me, his point is spot on. If the elite U.S. universities are so confused as to think that they are truly 100% private and that they should be allowed to destroy their role of ELITE service to the nation which built them up with federal dollars, that is a moment to remind them of the "Endless Frontier" agreement.
First the USG welched on the agreement with the Mansfield Ammendment and Dole Bayh and then IMMACT90. Then the universities welched with DEI.
BOTH parties need to get back to the quiet agreement, or the whole thing will just fall apart. And the US research achipeligo is a *MAJOR* part of american greatness which we seem to be about to destroy because we can't figure out how to do this.
[And for those of you who seem to believe that quiet and tacit agreements are always bad, so that the Manhattan Project should have been academic and totally open because 'Sunlight is always the best disinfectant!!', I highly encourage you to use the comment section to complain again about elitism, gatekeeping, Fauci, experts, science, government and credentials. I get it. You can't stop to listen...or think. I totally get you. Looking forward to your vitriol. Just make sure to remind me repeatedly that markets are always right, all tax is theft, DEI is poison, and that Trump and Elon know exactly what they are doing at all times.]
This is simply, categorically, and definitively a total non-discussion. It is popular with those who never attend academic talks by our leading scholars in technical fields. This will not last a minute if we are having it after a technical seminar on Neutrinos, Geometric Langlands, Historical Linguistics, Baroque Harmony or Neurodevelopment.
Universities are still very much alive. And expertise is one of the United States chief assets. This idiotic discussion has got to move to a higher level.
We are going to have to send a message to the Trump administration:
"I'm sorry that there are many crazy people in universities. But you can't just destroy what so many have taken centuries to build just because you can't understand what is going on.
Come to the seminars. Break bread with researchers. Universities are essential to our survival and for getting through periods of madness. We have to defend them. They are not factories for critical studies. They are where we house the researchers pushing forward into the unknown."
Let's make this constructive. Our top scholars...and not just our top donors, influencers, CEOs, financiers, and VCs, should be advising the country. How do we return our universities to scholarship? That is an excellent question. But whether "Universities are over" or "Science is over" or "Experts are fake" are not real discussions. They are fake discussions and should simply be laughed out of the room if anyone is actually serious about making America great.
I personally wish @edfrenkel and other leading reserarchers were invited to the White House like @billmaher. Not talking to U.S. Scholars is begining to look completely crazy to me. Its like we are determined to pretend that expertise doesn't exist and that everything can be explained to an adult in 2 minutes using "Explain it to me like I'm a retarded cocker spaniel" standards.
Expertise exists. Scholars exist. Universities still work.
And if you are determined to pretend that those things are false, it sure sounds like you have no curiousity about what makes America great. It's not just business.
That would seem insane. Qatar?? Really?
There is also another current rumor about about Trump: āTrump is Set to Recognize a Palestinian State.ā
Something smells like BS. What is actually true here?
Likeā¦Imagine if both stories were true!! Too crazy to contemplate.
I mean, I think I get it.
Our structure was in bad shape under horrible previous management, and getting worse.
And this strategy may work.
I just think we had much better options.
I hope this works! Go usā¦
@drbehr7891 I think so...but Trump also is *at times* much more strategic than he lets on. I hope this is one of those times. Because at other times, he doesn't really know how to handle what comes back.
Let's hope this brinksmanship is genius negotiating strategy. Sincerely.
People are asking what those options are/were.
Trump had two houses of congress, the tech braintrust, and a sympathetic supreme court. I think he could have prioritized ability and courage first and loyalty second to avoid an echo chamber and capture.
My concern is that loyalty means no course correction. No dissent. Which courts disaster.
I'm going to say 1 thing on the @realDonaldTrump / @elonmusk issue.
Whether you agree w/ both of them, neither, or only one of them, I point out the following:
With all the endless TALK about masculinity, US men lost our ability to fight together, shoulder to shoulder. Period.
Something tells me here in Los Angeles, that the all-important illegal alien anarchist felon voting block is in danger of slipping away from Trump and MAGA in the run-up to the midterm electionsā¦
@Onkelmormor12 I completely reject Trumpās proposed āHat of America Potentialā for the Higgs sector.
Iām glad someone brought this up.
Expert dissenters are NOT now running the show. This is almost totally untrue.
Trump Loyalist Dissenters do not represent our Expert Dissenters. In fact it is a very small overlap.
I would say @DrJBhattacharya is a member of both groups. My old colleagues at PCAST/OSTP/CDC *are* solid people, but not experts.
We are having a war about whether Experts are the problem. They arenāt.
Expert consensus is the problem.
The cure for expert consensus is expert dissent.
If Trained Surgeons are doing too many harmful operations on soldiers, according to many Trained Surgeons fired for dissenting, the solution is to reinstate the Trained Surgeons and have it out. Itās not to have untrained soldiers do the operating, nor to decide that there are no actual surgeons. Nor to do no operations. Nor to continue pretending there is a complete consensus.
I just must not understand this conversation at some level. This canāt be that hard to understand. Sorry.
This is true in my opinion and an excellent point.
Two other things also seem true:
I) If it had been the "Department of War", our President would have been equally tempted to rename it the Department of Defense, reasoning that we should not be declaring war. And many who want things shaken up would be happy that this was a pro-peace move. He's just shaking things up to shake them up. And in every shake up he has a one move advantage because only he knows what he is going to do next. And those small shake up wins accumulate pretty quickly.
II) Being honest and transparent is often a virtue in statecraft. But only up to a point. So we have to stop celebrating transparency and sunlight simplistically as always "the best disinfectant". I bring up Chickenpox, Tinea and HSV-1 which are all infections that can be made worse by sunlight. Trump is not transparency focused. He is selectively transparency focused.
I know this will fall on many ears that either think this move of Trump is simply brilliant or stupid.
Can't help that; but he is going to just keep renegotiating our *entire* world as his special strategy for all 4 years.
For both better and worse.
And this is due 100% to the Democrats not listening, and handing him this opportunity with a bow on top.
So let's see where it goes. Back to the War Department.
So many overwhelming emotions.
So many thoughts.
Going in all different directions today.
Maybe not the best moment to post.
Iāll just pull one out in isolation:
Thank you President Donald J Trump!
Welcome home. https://t.co/arm3poN3r9
If you ever referered to the civilian crisis of the 2 years of war as a āgenocideā, I reserve this thread for you to share your thoughts on what Pres. Trump has just achieved.
I *TOTALLY* disagreed w/ you, and even I am appreciative to Trump for the civilians of Gaza!
Letās go: https://t.co/iLJnBfZLgK
@MikeClayton007 Did you? Are you thanking Trump?
@TheTomRossini Are you appreciative of President Trumpās achievement??
NOTE: There isnāt a huge timeline of me thanking Trump. Or me supporting Netanyahu. I am not sure it has ever even happened.
But what happened to the children of Gaza in this Hamas war was unambiguously terrible. And as aghast as I have been at adult Gazans starting this war and supporting terror, this was and is a humanitarian crisis. And *all* human life is sacred. Enemies and Friends alike. At least to me.
I understand the need to go to war. I even understand the need to shift empathy in war. But I donāt think I ever celebrated anyoneās death in it. Even once. Correct me if I am wrong.
Iām just glad to see it cease. And, hopefully, end. God willing.
āA time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build upā -Ecclesiastices
You need to break empathy to kill. And you need to kill to defend your world.
But you need to also come back. Wars end. Life goes on for the living.
The Jewish people are a life cult. Not a death cult.
To life.
Any thoughts? I feel like the Trump people donāt even understand this system as being all about our national security. Any idea of how to level up the current administration when so many university professors despise Trump?
We canāt afford for them not to get this.
This was always bipartisan.
I guess. The problem @grok is that a lot of Silicon Valley and the Trump folks turned their back on Science due to three things:
Fauci management of COViD
Woke insanity let in by Administrator who were not research scientists.
DEI weakness.
Which were all legitimately insane.
But they drew the absolutely wrong message because they donāt see science directly. They donāt go to seminars. They donāt see all the great stuff happening right next to the total bullshit.
By its actions, America hates its own scientists. The U.S. hates its own scientific elite, and has since the Apollo missions. Their careers have been destroyed. Truly.
Why does Trump show zero concern for all the amazing Scientific talent that we have?
Just let these colleges and universities that cannot survive without Chinese life support fail. Simple as that.
Letās stop offering complimentary spa days to the CCP and peeling their grapes, and show 1/1000th the concern we show to China to our own scientists. Why are we destroying ourselves to help the Chinese communist Party?? Anyone?
This is beyond belief.