American Taqiya

With the circus going on in the Senate, it is easy to become enraged and lose sight of the big picture here. We are all, I imagine, seeing red at this point. This may all work out in our favor, in the long run, but that would be the mindset of optimism, which often leads to disappointment. Let's see where we're at.

We're in a political war, and there are three big battles in front of us: the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court battle is well underway, and it is already half lost. The reality of the situation, that they've managed to drag a crying woman before a national audience, is really hitting home. The nominee is now effectively on trial. This, by the way, is all Senator Grassley's fault. I like him, but this is his fielding error. The time to file the sexual assault allegations was anytime between 36 years ago and the end of the vetting process of the Senate hearings. Feinstein waited until after that time to unleash the allegations. Grassley allowed the process to be derailed, because he is weak. The correct approach is: you never give them an inch. Not ever, not for any reason. They need a sip of water? Have to go pee really, really bad? No, no, no. It's so easy. Just one step. Now, look where we're at.

Liberal accuser: Kavanaugh touched me inappropriately 36 years ago.
Grassley: I'll allow an exception, to show how fair we are, and because I know the process will reveal how absurd the claim is.
** a week passes **
Liberal accuser: Kavanaugh was the ringleader of a band of DC gang rapists in the 1980's!!!

You see how quickly that escalates? You crack the door an inch, and they come barging in. Every. Single. Time. It's easy to understand why Grassley made his decision. As soon as he failed to bend over backwards for the poor abused woman (remember, we assume guilt in these kinds of things), then his name would be drug through the mud for weeks, as a sexist villain, and worse. The thing about this is, with a few exception, no one really believes the woman. No one believes she sat on these allegations for 36 years, while Kavanaugh was nominated to incrementally higher judgeships, and only decided to come clean at the very last possible minute, in a way that just so happens to work out perfectly for Democrats trying every trick in the book to sabotage and delay. No one believes there was a roving rape gang in Maryland that only targeted loony liberals. No one thinks it's believable that none of the other dozens of victims of the alleged rape gang have come forward, or that all witness provided by the accusers have refuted the claims. No one believes her. No one. It's American Taqiya. They are pretending to care about our rules, like rule of law, so they can use them against us. They don't care one iota for abused women, or they wouldn't rally around a clearly fraudulent claim, nor ignore cases with actual evidence, like that of the DNC chairman.

The Supreme Court nomination has been turned into a trial, but not a legal one. There is no presumption of innocence, the burden of proof is not on the prosecution, and there is no requirement to prove the claim beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt. All they have to do is whip up the media/mob frenzy enough to scare a couple of fence-sitting RINOs, make them fear about the wrath they'll incur from voting YES. The Republicans, who own the committees, have allowed the judiciary committee to degenerate into a lynch mob. The conclusion is yet to be seen. We might still "win" this battle, but it is half lost no matter the outcome. This is the new norm for conservative nominees: utter insanity.

The Supreme Court battle isn't really lost, so long as the Senate is held. PredictIt gives 2/3 odds of holding it. I think we'll actually gain seats. If the Democrats win the Senate, then there will be no more Republican-appointed judges until the next time a Republican Senate and presidency are coincident. To get a real conservative appointed, we need more like 55 seats to be safe, given the RINO predilection to treachery. If the Republicans gain seats - and the Senate circus is only helping us there - then Trump just appoints another nominee in November, even more conservative than the last one. From Trump's perspective, this could turn into a huge win. It would be unfortunate if Kavanaugh had his career and reputation destroyed. Watching him refuse to back down, and realizing how hardened this process will make him, he really is a fantastic candidate at this point. On the other hand, his emotional reaction shows that he and his family really were caught off guard by this. They naively believed that progressives are just people who prefer different approaches to the same end goals we want, instead of what they really are, which is communist insurrectionists. The thing that people like Kavanaugh don't comprehend is that the liberals truly believe that all evil stems from white conservatism, and Trump is the next...you know who. When Trump is Hitler, then fake rape allegations to sabotage a Supreme Court nomination, or fake Russia allegations to trigger an FBI investigation motivated for impeachment, aren't even moral dilemmas. Of course that's what you do, to stop neo-Hitler.

But, this could all turn out OK for us. In some capacity, I wish the communists would torture every federal judge. Nothing like a new justice whose hatred for the radical left oozes out of every pore. But if he gets borked, things will be fine for us so long as we hold the Senate. For better or worse, Trump doesn't mind using people up. He pushes them hard and discards them as needed. He doesn't exactly throw supporters to the wolves, but he demands more loyalty than he gives. Like the left, he is willing to sacrifice a man for the cause. I hope Kavanaugh understood that going in. He is caught between two massive human grinding wheels. I suspect he went in with full faith in the righteousness of the system. God help him.

Of the three big battles, the one that really matters is the Senate. A loss in the Supreme Court could turn into a victory. The Democrats expose themselves as insane liars, and we still get a conservative appointee. A house loss would be painful, but not fatal. A Senate loss would be, to my mind, the demarcation of the end of the republic. The day the mob finally took over the Supreme Court, and got away with it. But, if Republicans can pull a hat trick: hold the House, gain the Senate, and get Kavanaugh or another strong conservative appointed, it's hard to see how the Democrat party could survive such a heavy defeat.

We're Going to Need Some More Awards

Awards of prestige come and go. Sometimes they are created because a new field arises. For example, the Turing Award - considered the "Nobel Prize for Computing" - was created because Computer Science was not yet a field of study when the Nobel prizes were created. Sometimes awards die. The International Lenin Peace Prize died with the Soviet Union. (One wonders hold long until that is resurrected.) There are numerous Oscar Awards that have been abandoned. Overall, Tinseltown awards are on the decline. This year I didn't hear any news about the Emmy Awards at all, did not even know they had occurred, until hearing reports that they had, again, reached some new low-water mark for viewership. These awards may not be on the endangered list, but they've certainly lost a great deal of prestige.

Two other major awards have lost their luster without about half the populace. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a newly elected President Obama for...wining the election, it seems. Apparently he was awarded for his campaign promises, and not just because of his ethnicity. (We'll take their word for it that it wasn't racially motivated). At the time, the award drew great scorn, since he hadn't done anything noteworthy to actually promote peace. The committee told us that the award could be awarded not just post factum, but also pre-emptively to encourage a peaceful outcome. (We notice that they don't similarly give Nobel prize to unaccomplished chemists or physicists in the hopes they'll be spurned to some great scientific discovery.) Perhaps they should have given him two Peace Prizes, because he went on to oversee a foreign policy that was just as bad - and arguably worse - as that of his predecessor. The Nobel became the Hail Mary play of peace prizes. There are some who say - a very few of them - that the Nobel Peace Prize might be redeemed if it is rewarded to President Trump, for his pivotal role in ending the 70-year war on the Korean peninsula. More likely, it would just mean the award would lose prestige for its remaining fans. The only way to restore the legitimacy of the prize would be to retract it from Obama. Still, some will demand that it be revoked from Arafat and Kissinger as well. Well, the Nobel committee certainly can't please everyone when politics are involved. But, as long as they've awarded it to Obama, and not to Trump, they have a serious credibility problem.

The other prize that's become about meaningless for everyone to the right of Glenn Beck is the Pulitzer, which is awarded to a number of writers each year. The domain is inherently subjective, so there will naturally be arguments about who deserved it and didn't. However, the awarding body decided to get political and awarded a journalism prize for coverage of the Trump-Russia scandal. That is, they gave a big-boy prize for serious reporting of a pretend crime. As that whole episode transitions from current calamity to historical absurdity, this will look worse and worse for the Pulitzer, and cast a shadow of doubt on all recipients. The only proper action would be to recall all fake-news recipients. Which, of course, they won't do, and the award will become nothing but the official reading list of the Democrat Party.

It's clear that we need new awards for journalism and peace. Some names come to mind. The Julian Assange Award for Bureaucratic Transparency. The Glenn Greenwald Award for Objective Journalism. The Sara A. Carter Award for Independent Journalism. For peace, it's hard to say no to the Donald J. Trump Peace Prize, with it's focus on peace through strength & mutual self-interest, national sovereignty, and self-determination. Now, someone might counter that calling it the Trump Prize makes it inherently political, since he's a politician, and isn't that what we're trying to avoid? We would kindly remind such a person of O'Sullivan's Law, the observation that all organizations that aren't explicitly right-wing will become left-wing over time. Observe the pattern that the Nobel Peace Prize, Pulitzer, and various awards were not inherently political, but succumbed to O'Sullivan's Law to their own slow but certain demise. No, by calling it the Trump Prize we inoculate it from left-wing capture, and ensure it becomes the gold-standard of peace prizes for all eternity.

Similar to journalism, an award might be necessary for guerrilla journalism. During the Wikileaks releases of Democrat emails, each dump would be pored over by an army of unpaid investigators at Reddit's the_donald forum. The voting mechanism meant interesting finds were elevated to the top and received the most exposure. As far as I can tell, it's the world's only example of an organized but de-centralized mass investigation. Of course, the media has completely ignored or demonized it all, but one day I think it will be looked back on as a remarkable event. Also, a Canadian girl on Twitter discovered that Reddit user stonetear was a Clinton staffer trying to get help destroying criminal evidence under subpoena. And, most notably, James O'Keefe has engaged in such substantive undercover journalism that we wonder if the other outlets are even trying. (We'll, we don't wonder that much.)

Another category which is in need of a major award is political blogging. The blogs vary a great deal, so it's tough to peg down what a category is. For instance, the Gateway Pundit is very different from the ZBlog, which is very different from Chateau Heartiste. One is practically a news outlet, one a sage political philosopher, and one a clever Trump bro. Can they all compete for the same award? Details to be solved, but I see no reason no to make those awards a feature of the eternalvigilance.com site once it's running. Who knows, maybe someone will mistake it for something prestigious.

Finally, and most importantly, there needs to be an award for an art form that was only made possible by the information revolution: online trolling. It seemed that the Troll of the Year Award would go to whichever 4chan prankster convinced the liberals that the A-OK hand-sign was actually a secret white-power gesture. However, even that ruse appears to have been eclipsed. After Diane Feinstein brought forth her claims of sexual assault four decades ago by the Supreme Court nominee (itself an epic trolling of the American people), who else came forward but...Michael Avenatti, the Creepy Porn Lawyer! He made these tweets and, while he has since locked down his Twitter account, I assure they are real, as I had to check for myself when they first came out.

It's looking like this guy just got trolled, hard. Someone in 4chan is taking credit, but has not provided any evidence. This trolls not just CPL, but the mainstream media that were infatuated with him and his prostitute client for...weeks? Months? And it trolls the entire nonsense that is these last-minute sexual charges against conservative candidates. (Even dorky virgins.) This isn't minor, as much as they'll try to downplay it. Look at that last screenshot. Ten thousand retweets. Forty thousand likes. Who knows how high they got before he privatized his account? I'd like to see a list of those who retweeted.

This is the most epic troll, at least since Rachel Maddow released Trump's tax returns. And, think about it, Trump was certainly behind that little masterpiece. Did Trump troll the Creepy Porn Lawyer? We might never know, but I'd plan for this to be the first eternalvigilance.com Troll of the Year Award winner.

Cold Anger

Over at the Conservative Treehouse, Sundance likes to talk about Cold Anger, a persistent and calculated determination to destroy one's enemies. It is near impossible to counter, or even to measure. For instance, no polls predicted the 2016 election outcome, the flipping of states like Michigan and Wisconsin, except one. It asked, how do you think your neighbor will vote? It got a better accuracy because its indirectness better captured the pervasive Cold Anger felt across the Rust Belt.

Having spent last weekend at the Schlafly / Gateway conference, and this weekend working the long lines of a Trump rally, it's quite clear that Cold Anger has only intensified. The left's descent into madness has only hardened our resolve. As always, there are no former Trump supporters. He slowly gains support. We don't have to recruit them, either. Our strength infuriates the left, and their deranged behavior pushes moderates towards us. That is the power of Cold Anger. "Sit by the river long enough, and the bodies of your enemies will float by." They do so much of the work for us. This circus that the Senate has become, the paid protestors, the fake martyrdom of Corey "Spartacus" Booker, the predictable last-minute sexual assault allegations, this is a gold mine for those of us out trying to help flip Senate seats. There are two likely outcomes: either Kavanaugh is appointed, or his career is destroyed by blatantly false allegations of minor long-past misconduct, and the right is fueled to flip every Senate seat up for grabs. In either case, Cold Anger makes its way onto the Supreme Court, either in the form of Kavanaugh, who must have Cold Anger spilling out of his eyeballs by this point, or in Trump's follow-up nominee. You know how Trump works. He'll make sure the next one is even more right-wing, because that is the proper response to bullying.

People are so irate they can hardly stand it anymore. A call-to-arms is not even necessary at this point. The most important realization I've made in the last couple weeks is the degree to which we're all on the same page. Young & old, old-school conservatives & the newly converted, Christian & secular, Fox News watching & internet sensations...all have a shared understanding of who the enemy is, what the problems are, and - to a large degree - how to fix them. We all know that the leftists are our common enemy, and they must be fought tenaciously on every front, and never given even one inch of ground. The freedom movement is unified. When Stefan Molyneux is giving a Sunday sermon to underscore the moral deficiencies of the left, you can be sure that the differences among us are minor. There is no schism in the movement. The old people are delighted at all the young people getting involved. And the young people are amazed to see that the old-timers are so "woke". There is a lot of excitement right now. People are agitated, and motivated. I highly recommend attending a Trump rally if given the opportunity. (Plan to get in line many hours in advance.) The energy level is simply indescribable. The left's program of lies, slander, and deceit has only served to remind us, again and again, who the real enemies are, and to remind us, again and again, that Trump is leading the fight against them. He exposes the right's prior champions - like the neocons - as the frauds they are. The crowds embrace him not as a popular politician, but a war-time hero. 

Understanding Cold Anger gives us a conceptual framework that reveals missteps when they occur. A recent one was the reaction to Nike's endorsement of a political activist. Nike is infected with a disease called liberalism, and the best response we have is to kill the host with Cold Anger. That means never buying another of their products again, encouraging all like-minded acquaintances to do the same, and to subtly humiliate those who continue to wear the brand. That's a powerful behind-the-scenes action that Nike can't counter. Their failing business would send a message to all other companies tempted to pander to the left. Burning Nikes is not Cold Anger. Burning Nikes backfired, because it motivated many leftists to go buy a bunch of Nike products as a show of support. Nike will now be a status symbol of leftist losers, which was largely the intention of the ad campaign to begin with. (To the extent the company was behaving rationally.) Cold Anger means to assume formlessness. Burning Nikes is just virtue signaling, and it gives our enemies something to rally around.

Another example of failing the mindset of Cold Anger was at the Trump rally, where maybe a couple hundred protestors showed up. Cold Anger means ignoring them. Let them tire themselves out for hours, only to be completely drowned out - even standing outside - by the roaring crowd during Trump's speech. That is a recipe for demotivation. There were a couple people who couldn't help but taunt the protestors. One carried an enormous sign that said BLM ARE RACIST THUGS. That destroys the Cold Anger. It gave the protestors something on which to fixate their outrage. The guy holding the sign was just another pathetic loser relishing the attention he could get. He's only hurting us in our objective, which is to win political battles through persuasion and by having the more energized base.

Cold Anger isn't something that fizzles away in an election cycle. It takes a long time to build, and a long time to dissipate. It sustains us to make the long-term efforts needed. We become the sea, relentlessly pounding the shore. Cold Anger is what fuels me to write, month after month, in an unpaid blog. Otherwise, the agitation would become unbearable. The posts help readers handle their own agitation and serve as just one more outlet in building consensus. Cold Anger lets us work quietly towards our goals, while maintaining our sanity to go about our normal lives. Many leftists do not enjoy such a partitioning of concerns and thus their lives are entirely miserable. Cold Anger protects us from the narcissism that plagues the left. We assess reality constantly, and how our opponents deviate from it to the peril of everyone. Fighting back becomes a mission that doesn't leave much time to dwell on me, my career, and whatnot. We are more concerned with our children, and protecting the advanced civilization we inherited so that they might inherit it also.

Psychologically, we are much healthier than our opponents. Less depressive, less neurotic, less self-focused and certainly less self-hating. The freedom movement is full of funny, happy, and intelligent people. The right is not driven by hatred, and we fully embrace the Christian ethos of hating the sin but forgiving the repentant sinner. We love converting them, and we always like hearing transformation stories. We always welcome new people. There is plenty of Cold Anger to go around. So embrace Cold Anger, let it fuel you and unite you with other link-minded patriots. We have an abundance of energy, great friendly people, a worthy mission, and an almost superhuman leader.

Trump Rally!!!

The Boss is coming to my town tomorrow. If you're close, come on down to Springfield, Missouri, and come early. The tickets already issued are double the venue capacity. I'll be in a bright green volunteer's T-shirt, gathering signatures for the state Republicans office and working to boost the high energy needed to flip the state's Senate seat. Claire McCaskill is in real trouble, and this recent debacle in the Supreme Court nomination hearings is what motivated me to finally get off my ass, away from the internet, and to join the world of the living in real political action. The Kavanaugh hearings are going to be a big lever for us to pull to get voter enthusiasm going. The Democrats have turned the Senate into a circus, and there's no reason for one of their head clowns to have a big, fat MO next to her name.

If you aren't in Missouri, check if there is a race in your district, and do whatever you can to help. I never intended to be this partisan, but this is effectively a referendum on Trump's election. We need to send a loud message so he can do his job. Help rally some votes. Midterm election turnouts are low, so the field is ripe to get some low-energy conservative friends motivated enough to make the drive to the polling station.

I hear through the grapevine that one of my old acquaintances will also be attending the rally, as part of the "Peace Protest." It's hilarious. Eight years of Bush, he started two wars, and they protested all the time. Eight years of Obama, he started two wars, and dead silence. Now Trump has started no wars, has actually ended one in Korea, and they're suddenly the peace protestors again. Insane. I'm going to try my best not to get into it with them. Wish me luck!

Freedom Heartland

I spent the weekend in St. Louis at a conference jointly hosted by the Phyllis Schlafly Eagles and Jim Hoft of the Gateway Pundit, who has some photos up on his site. The lineup can be found here. Missing from the list is Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was added last minute. Headliner Candace Owens was absent. Apparently she has something big in the works.  James O'Keefe, who did make it, unveiled that he has an expose on deep-state operatives in the government coming out this week.

I'll provide a quick review for anyone interested.

For me the biggest draw was Stefan Molyneux. I have criticized him at least a couple times on this blog for behaving like a narcissist when challenged. Also, I had started to write a review of his book Art of the Argument, and a critique of his Preferred Ethics theory, but found both to be so terrible that I couldn't compel myself to finish either effort. He is brilliant nevertheless, and a compelling performer to boot. A rare combination of intellectual horsepower and communicative talent. He did a lecture on how the three temptations of Christ are a metaphor for our current political crisis. It's interesting, because Stefan used to be one of the foremost atheists on the internet. Gradually he's become more accepting of Christianity and has toyed with the idea that Christianity is inseparable from western society. Now he's broken lose and given a sermon more compelling than you're likely to find on any given Sunday. He really delivered on a speech that was very appropriate for the audience.

Charlie Kirk was also very impressive. He's only 24 and has built a substantial network across American campuses - really taking the fight into the belly of the beast. He's knowledgeable, clear-headed, and very likable. He might be the most valuable guy in the whole freedom movement, because he goes right onto campus and tries to nip the indoctrination in the bud. He notes that when students are brainwashed by the prog cult, we're not likely to deprogram them until they're in their 30s, but often enough they're lost forever. If you're looking for someone to support, your dollars won't be wasted on Charlie Kirk.

Stephen Moore is an affable economist who has served as an aide to Trump. Quite likeable and compelling, he has a slideshow I'd like to get my hands on to share here. Representative Steve King from Iowa gave a talk. He's the one who committed absolute heresy when he tweeted that "We can't restore our civilization with out peoples' babies." He was very intelligent and lucid, and is certainly not just pandering to the anti-immigration crowd. Pamela Geller is an absolute firecracker and warrior. You leave feeling like you don't want to disappoint Pamela. (Apparently Phyllis Schlafly had a similar effect on people.) Ed Martin was the event MC and did a fantastic job. Gregarious might be his middle name. Polish PM Dominik Tarczynski was extraordinary. He is a warrior and 100% set on saving not just Poland, but western civilization. He's the kind of guy you would want to share a foxhole with. Duke Pesta, a frequent guest of Stefan Molyneux, gives testimony to the Marxist takeover of American education and frames it as our core critical issue. He notes that there has been no reform whatsoever in education, and he and Dr. Mary Byrne made the case that Education Secretary Betsy DeVoss is our enemy in this fight.

There were many other excellent speakers. Those I've mentioned were the ones that particularly stood out to me. Honorable mention should go to to Gregory Whitestone, whose 20-minute session Inconvenient Facts: How rising temperatures and increasing CO2 are benefiting the Earth and humanity was so lib-triggering that one member of Antifa (who were outside protesting) infiltrated the speech to shout "Scientists lie, people die" until he could be escorted out. The display of nonsense really helped highlight the serious discussions going on throughout the conference.

The primary theme of the whole weekend is that we are effectively fighting marxist insurrection, and that if we don't fight, no one is going to do the job for us. There was a lot of criticism of Republicans, and people noting that we have to fight them almost as much as the Democrats. This group is the real deal. It is so energizing to attend a conference like this and be surrounded by like-minded people, and to see the new and old guards in tight unison on this matter. (The Eagles conference is in it's 47th year, although the collaboration with GatewayPundit is new.) It's a movement, frankly, and it's one with a lot of energy, a lot of moral and intellectual support, and a lot of talent. This event was not merely for entertainment, education, or networking. It's a call to arms. They're looking for leaders and doers. As Ralph Reed noted, it doesn't matter how theoretically correct we are if we don't pragmatically win. They also note a leadership vacuum. There is no one on the left, besides wild-eyed socialists, and they're saying the establishment conservatives don't have anyone in the pipeline either. The window is open for the freedom movement to fill the void, and there is a lot of talent potential.

I had mentioned a while back that this blog will be getting re-branded soon, and moved off the Google platform. I suppose now is as good a time an any to unveil the new domain. eternalvigilance.com There is nothing there yet, but work has begun on it. I can't be sure of a timeline, because I will also be volunteering some time to help get the Senate seat flipped here in Missouri. The blog migration will coincide with a new focus towards action. There is nothing wrong with analysis. It's an essential activity. But, as long as it's a democracy, and if we don't have the votes, it's just pointless academics.

Hyperbole? Hardly!

This blog sure has made some extreme commentary in the last few days, hasn't it? For example, Book Burners, Coming to a Campus Near You ended on a dire note.

Will [progressives] manage to proceed, like their book-burning forbearers, to inflict unimaginable horrors the moment they are empowered to do so?

Surely I can't seriously believe that today's leftists would engage in the same sorts of crimes as the ideological tyrannies of the 20th century - like the Nazis - can I?

Similarly, the final paragraph of Critical Crazy warned:

If they succeed in regaining power, they will do everything in their power to destroy us before they inevitably destroy themselves.

Surely "destroy" is a mere metaphor for beating us soundly in a fair election, right?

The final note of The Only Cardinal Sin of the Cult is Conservatism sounded like:

They will always work against you, no matter how rational or upstanding you may be, and they will kill you if they are ever empowered to do so. 

Okay, that's three in a week. Surely it must be hyperbole! I must be making grandiose dramatic proclamations to instill fear in my audience.

Well, that's not case. My prognosis is honest, sober (on most nights), and relies on (1) evidence of what has happened before, and (2) evidence of what is happening now. Many would say that suggesting catastrophic future consequences is a slippery slope fallacy. I say that many apply the slippery slope fallacy in a way that is its own fallacy, by assuming that slippery slopes can't exist. Its only a fallacy if there isn't a slippery slope. We could clarify the issue by giving the fallacy a different name. How about, being wrong? But that's probably not a fancy enough phrase for a lot of people. I prefer a slippery slope policy. The policy is, if you see enough people slide down a slippery slope to their doom, stay away from it.

The slippery slope at hand here is communist insurrection. It always works in about 4 steps.

1. Identity a privileged oppressor class that is maliciously holding back the masses from widespread prosperity.
2. Leverage the concocted grievances to gain power.
3. Imprison, murder, and otherwise destroy the oppressing class.
4. Destroy the host country.

It's that pesky item number four that always gets them. Well, try try again. They'll get it right eventually, I'm sure. As it turns out, there was quite a bit of disagreement between Trotsky and Lenin/Stalin on the matter. Trotsky was all about exporting the revolution globally. Stalin was too, but preferred national socialism because international communism needed a strong host country with which to launch the assault. Trotsky was right. Or, at least, less wrong. You can't have a strong host nation of communism, because communism destroys the host. The communist revolution must happen globally so that no pesky capitalist superpowers can bankrupt you in an arms race. Communism today would have to succeed through some sort of neo-Trotskyites, who would seek to incrementally impose a unipolar socialist system. Neo-Trotskyite really has a better ring than neocon, don't you think? See, we can use fancy sounding phrases too.

Back to the list, we seem to be now at item number 2, scratching on number 3. The deplatforming of conservatives from social media, without even trying to provide evidence of wrongdoing, definitely fits into the "otherwise destroy" department. They have hijacked the justice system to overthrow the elected president, and will imprison him if they ever get half a chance. Dinesh D'Souza was a political prisoner. Manafort is a political prisoner. Yes, they technically committed crimes. The problem is those laws are only enforced for dissidents against the liberal order. If I pluck you out of a crowd of people crossing the street and throw you in jail because you didn't vote for me, you are a political prisoner, even if technically you were jaywalking.

And really the other part, the murder thing, we're pretty much there. Let's see, they shot a GOP Congressman, they critically injured a Senator, one attempted to stab a California candidate while screaming anti-Trump hatred, not to mention the Brazilian candidate who was recently stabbed within an inch of his life by a pinko. BLM-inspired murders of whites and cops basically defined the end of the Obama era. So they're not doing a lot of murdering, yet, but they're trying. It's starts with the fringe lunatics and works its way from there. And they're all crazy at this point. What really is the fringe with them? Look at your facebook feed, if you still have one. They're quite convinced that white conservatives are the one and only force of evil in the word. They've swallowed item number one entirely. They'll support a reign of terror against us, to remove a scourge and save the universe.

Recently, an LGBT student group at a college in London defended Stalin's gulags and proposed that anyone who questioned transgenderism be sent to one for re-education. A lecturer associated with the group had composed a list of academics who were deemed bigots in need of expulsion, by staging fake hate crimes if necessary. The group has been suspended by the student union, but no other action has been mentioned, nor should it be expected. Imagine, if you will, that a group defended what the left imagines to be the right-wing equivalent to their communist dictatorships. (It's always amusing that their bogeyman for right-wing extremism has 'socialist' right in the name, but no matter.) If a group of students, in London, defended concentration camps as humane, and suggested sending their political adversaries to one, there wouldn't be a mere suspension of the group. There would be the expulsion of the individual participants from the college, widespread global media outrage for days and weeks, and probably criminal prosecution by the state since Europeans have no freedom of speech.

Some other headlines (or what should be headlines): A deranged lefty (but I repeat myself) threatened a mass shooting Trump's hotel in DC. Another one threatened to shoot up a MAGA meetup in NYC. In Nevada, a lefty professor (more repeating myself) protested Trump by taking a gun into a bathroom in his college (a gun-free zone), and shooting himself in the arm. Joe Scarborough suggested that Trump is a far graver threat to America than the 9/11 terrorists. This is all from the last few days. Extremist calls for censorship and violence against us are commonplace. They're a daily occurrence. The leftist rise to power has many historical examples by now. There is no reason at all to believe that "this time they won't get violent." They say, "we will get violent." And they actually are, getting violent. It's as clear as can be.

Book Burners, Coming to a Campus Near You

I've heard of an old trick for killing wasps. Place a pot of water near the nest. Wasps flying overheard will see their own reflections, move to attack the intruders, and end up drowning themselves in the pot. It sounds implausible, but I've been told it's effective, by someone who would know.

Recently, the New York Journal of Mathematics was pressured to retract an article it had published (source), not because the article had been proven wrong in any way, but because it was found to be offensive. The article considered the Greater Male Variability Hypothesis, a proposed mechanism that explains why those at the top of fields like math and physics are nearly all men. The theory can be traced all the way back to Darwin himself, who noted that males tend to exhibit greater variability across the animal kingdom. There is a logical explanation to Mr Darwin's observation. Males can engage in some genetic gambling because there is a strong upside to high fitness. A successful male can mate with many females, and, indeed, we humans have two times more female ancestors than male, for that very reason. Females don't enjoy the same upside. They can't become simultaneously impregnated by many parters, or increase their rate of gestation, so they play conservatively at the genetic gambling table. This variability means that the extreme tail of the IQ distribution is male-dominated, which accounts for why the tiny minority of super geniuses are, almost universally, men. Conversely, the strong majority of prisoners and the homeless are also men. It's a double-edge probability distribution. [Note that this isn't exactly the theory of the author, who proposes that greater sexual selectivity by females drives the gender variability differences. But that still boils down to females being less inclined to take reproductive risks.]

Well, it's clear why such a theory would be offensive to progressives. It violates their primary tenet, which is that all unequal outcomes must be caused by hatred, oppression, and quasi-mystical forces like "whiteness" and patriarchy. Thus the article isn't merely a banal discussion on the effects of variance on probability distributions, but heresy! When the elite of Athens became uncomfortable with Socrates' philosophy, what did they charge him with? Why, heresy and corrupting the youth, of course.

On August 16, a representative of the Women In Mathematics (WIM) chapter in his department at Penn State contacted him to warn that the paper might be damaging to the aspirations of impressionable young women.

Well, there you have it. Some things never change. They pretend to defend women by lobbying for the suppression of scientific literature on the grounds that girls are too naive and helpless to co-exist with it. I certainly hope my young daughter - who claims to want to program computers like dad - is never exposed to these damaging probability models! After the controversy arose, the National Science Foundation insisted their name be removed as funders. Golly, can't have the taxpayers knowing what they paid for. The paper had previously been accepted at another journal, but then rejected by the editor prior to publication because of the "very real possibility that the right-wing media may pick this up and hype it internationally." Those damn right-wingers and their mathematics journals! No matter, the author can always be forced to drink the hemlock.

The paper was rejected on purely political grounds. This is the modern-day book burning, but it's even worse. 80 years ago burning books certainly was a means of censorship, but its effect was ceremonial. As Helen Keller noted,

You may burn my books and the books of the best minds in Europe, but the ideas those books contain have passed through millions of channels and will go on.

It is true (although many great works of antiquity have been lost to us by similar actions). Still, the modern censorship is much more pernicious because it cleanly strikes the work from the scientific record. It's memory-holed as if it never existed. Apparently, the paper can't even be republished. I had trouble finding the "damaging" research. I believe that this may be it, although it doesn't list the co-author, so possibly it's just an exploratory pre-cursor to what was actually published.

The damndest thing has been seeing the left become the side opposed to science, Darwin, and intellectual freedom. They now carry the banners of censorship, of discrimination, of imperial foreign policy, of anti-democratic governance, of rogue intelligence agencies, of devout faith in the corporate media, of the subjugation of rationale to personal beliefs. This is precisely what we are accused of! They destroy literature while calling us Nazis. Like the wasp, they attack furiously at their own reflection. Will they shortly come to the same end as the wasp, or will they manage to proceed, like their book-burning forbearers, to inflict unimaginable horrors the moment they are empowered to do so? I, for one, am hedging my bets.

The Futility of Problem Solving

I happened upon an article on Unz titled The Idiocy of the Average - and Why it Matters. I am unfamiliar with the author, but a scan of his history shows he is prolific over a number of interesting topics. I'm going to add him to the sidebar.

The post is sobering, quantifying the large numbers globally that are unable to perform basic data comprehension and analysis. While I recommend the article in its entirety, here's an example of the hardest of the six levels of questions asked in surveys by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

The test was administered to 15-year-old students across the globe. (Notably missing is Africa, where only Tunisia - whose population is of Arab and European descent - is listed. No sub-Saharan countries are represented by the survey.) Results show that, in all countries outside east Asia, the number of students proficient in level 6 questions is less than 10%, and mostly less than 5%. The USA only measures at 2%! I find this statistic hard to believe. Perhaps the organization is in the business of producing alarming results for its own benefit. Still, the Asians do significantly better.

The example question shown above amounts to making some observations and computing the rate of something. It's a skill that we'd expect a good mechanic to possess. That makes it an interesting benchmark for comparison. IQ and national economic success are well correlated. In fact, your income level is six times more dependent on the national average IQ than your own IQ. The article mentions that the national metrics are even more sensitive to the "smart fraction" than the overall average. As a nation becomes more technologically advanced, the extra impact of the smart fraction should diminish because the tasks of the technician become more complex, and more technicians are needed.

There's a belief among techno-utopiasts that technology will solve all our problems. It's hard to see how technology could solve the problem of widespread technological illiteracy. Illiteracy isn't even the right word, it's more like...incapability. If someone can't conquer the rate x times = distance equation, where the numbers have been pre-selected to be trivially calculated, it's not clear how they would have the cognitive wherewithal to understand a rear differential on an F150, to manage logistics for a medium-sized company, or analyze market trends and financial figures. In short, to do the things that the modern economy requires.

Certainly, much technology exists to make the job of the technician easier. Diagnostic machines analyze vehicle issues, for example. These things have a tendency to make the easy problems easier, and the hard problems harder, because, when the diagnostic tools fail, the mechanic must troubleshoot a system that is very complex, and which he does not dive into often enough to be well-acquainted with. We see the same in software. Tooling improves efficiency, but can cause real headaches when it fails. So a shop might get by hiring a number of wrench (or code) monkeys, but it is essential that they have at least some competent employees to handle the inevitable difficult issues that arise.

Some people believe that eventually even white-collar jobs, like software development, will be replaced with artificial intelligence. The longer I work in the field, the more I believe that to be a pipe dream. Mostly what programmers do is to translate business needs into a technical solution. How would the robots be given the business requirements? As best I can tell, the only thorough description of a firm's business logic is the software itself. By the time we've described to the machine what the business should do, we've already written the code! Auto mechanics won't go away either. Robots might be developed to do some handy tasks, like removing rusty bolts from tight spaces, or even to entirely remove the starter from a 97 Dodge Dakota. But they'll only ever be a fancy tool to aid the mechanic, and will require their own programming and maintenance.

When I was in grad school, one of the PhD candidates was working on applying artificial intelligence to programming. He quickly realized that writing code was far too complex a task, so he reduced the scope to modifying code in response to runtime exceptions, such as correcting off-by-one errors, which frequently occur because most programming languages count starting at zero. The efforts bore more frustration than success. Even simple code changes could not be reliably automated.

We aren't going to automate ourselves out of our own stupidity. Which is good, of course, or there would be no need for us at all. Still it raises problems of only slightly less significance than the eradication of all humans by our robotic superiors. Conservatives imagine that anyone can lift themselves up by their bootstraps to prosperity. But people have only so much potential. The more advanced we become, the more people that get left behind entirely. The military has an ASVAB cutoff that equates to an IQ of about 85. Below that, they reckon, and a person's ability to contribute is not worth the cost. What do we do with such people? Feed them? Feed them to the pigs? Similarly, the liberals think anyone can be educated to prosperity. Which is funny, given all their efforts to destroy education. Apparently, only 2% of Americans have strong mathematical abilities after 10 years of STEM-obsessed government education. To the left's credit, they've noticed the disparity, as evidenced by their constantly blaming it on oppression by whites, men, Christians, etc. The conservatives are much less wrong than the liberals on the matter, but we are still left with a big problem. And, as we know, We Must Solve Our Problems or it's Just Going to be Communism.

On the other hand, maybe that post - written here over a year ago - isn't accurate. It's starting to look like it'll be communism whether we solve our problems or not. Look at the stats for level 3 problems. The provided example can be solved by multiplying three numbers. 52% percent of American students fail the test! Yet they all will get to vote. The results speak for themselves. Some of these Congressmen are so stupid it hurts. Maxine Waters would probably pass the level 1 test and proceed no further. That would mean that 26% percent of American voters can't even tell she's an idiot (and a much higher percentage, it would seem, in her California district). Does it really matter that much if we solve our problems? Look at Trump. A record-breaking economy that the Democrats said would be impossible, taxes cut, ISIS defeated, North Korea denuclearizing, NAFTA renegotiated to the benefit of both the US and Mexico, NATO countries starting to pay their fair share for defense, Congress working to pass their first true budget in two decades. The man slays problems for breakfast. And yet, it's not clear now whether Republicans will even hold the house in November.

A democratic government that grants a universal vote to all citizens (and non citizens), where the average voter can't solve even very simple problems, will eventually be brought under by its own inability to solve problems. It's inescapable. There is no technological solution to this problem.

Critical Crazy

Today Trump tweeted about border security.

Under our horrible immigration laws, the Government is frequently blocked from deporting criminal aliens with violent felony convictions. House GOP just passed a bill to increase our ability to deport violent felons (Crazy Dems opposed). Need to get this bill to my desk fast!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 7, 2018

He referred to the Democrats in Congress as Crazy Dems. Well, that about sums it up. After the antics in the Senate Judiciary Committee this week, what's to argue? The problem isn't that they're crazy. The problem is that they're all crazy. Nary a voice of reason stands out. A nuclear weapon explodes once its fissionable material hits critical mass. One suspects that social organizations must have a similar limit of critical crazy.

The Senate Judiciary hearings are a strong sign that no one is left dispensing meds in the loony bin. As mentioned the other day, it's hard to imagine what upside the Democrats could gain from these televised tantrums. The only reason to assume some nefarious underlying order was the discovery that a Soros-funded organization was paying protestors to disrupt the proceedings. Well, that should give some pause. Soros has a history of funding successful color revolutions in other countries. Perhaps there is some strategy, but it's hard to comprehend. It's unclear whether Soros has a controlling stake in the organization, or is just a donor. All they seem to have accomplished is to make a mockery of the process. Perhaps that is the goal, but at the cost of hardening the resolve of both the nominee and the Republican majority in that body. I get the feeling that the spectacle reveals a tail-wags-dog kind of scenario. We talk about the media being the propaganda wing of the Democrat party, but it's looking more like the media is in charge, because these shenanigans only benefit them. They get some drama they can broadcast to boost viewership, getting more eyeballs on their endless morality mongering, and selling more dishwasher detergent to more dim-witted Democrats. The activists get to feel like they're fighting the fash. Nowhere seems to be the guy saying, "maybe we shouldn't turn this looming political setback into a lasting political disaster."

Today Barrack Obama decided he couldn't help but deliver a political speech at the University of Illinois, a college I once attended, but did not graduate.The former president just couldn't help but gather a national audience and then bitch endlessly about his successor. That's all it is, really. Sure, he's trying to rally the troops towards a glorious midterm electoral victory, but the approach is just to complain, complain, complain. Trump should be grateful - if he isn't - because Obama has the touch of death when it comes to influencing elections. Heck, maybe Hillary will step up to the plate, throw on a fake accent, and show us all the clever ways she's concocted to insult half the country. We can only hope. And Obama, man, he just cannot reign in that hubris. "Just remember where that economic recovery started." He also said that 3% growth wasn't going to happen, and that manufacturing jobs weren't coming back. He has no claim to an economy where those things are true. He displays his moral superiority to Trump with brilliant oratory devices, such as, "well at least I didn't say this or do that, like Trump does." One of my gripes with Trump is that he engages in little fights with people he should just ignore, but Obama really takes petty narcissism to a whole other level. This is supposed to motivate people? Again, there seems to be no voice of reason here. Maybe this is just all they have left as the coup they initiated fizzles out.

These are just a couple examples of the trend of which wer'e all aware. The media has removed all pretense of impartiality. The DOJ is a politicized anti-democratic cesspool. The politicians run on platform of Trump hatred, with a little open-borders and MS-13 lovin sprinkled in. The stakes are getting pretty high here. They're all way to emotionally invested in all this to back down now. Many won't ever find their way back to sanity. If they succeed in regaining power, they will do everything in their power to destroy us before they inevitably destroy themselves. Now is a critical time.

The Only Cardinal Sin of The Cult is Conservatism

I saw a headline yesterday that said the Aretha Franklin family is upset about the eulogy she received at her nine-hour funeral. Finally, a bit of sanity in all this! Which aspect was it that went too far? Was it the hijacking of the funeral as a political referendum against the sitting president? Was it former president Clinton ogling the female entertainers? Was it a megachurch pastor groping Ariana Grande, or making racial epitaphs by saying her name sounded like something off a Taco Bell menu?

No, they're upset that one of the pastors was mildly conservative. He spoke against the epidemic of single-parent black families (now at 72%) and said that blacks can't honestly protest that black lives matter until blacks stop killing each other at high rates. It's an appeal to traditional family values, to take responsibility for you own problems rather than blaming others. As I said, it's mildly conservative...thus totally unacceptable to the Franklin family.

Observe that, if a racist sexual predator and a conservative are stood before progressives, they will be offended by the presence of the conservative. What kind of monster would it take for the progressive to be less offended by the conservative? We've already seen that they'll side with Muslim terrorists over a conservative, or with MS-13 gang members. You can be sure that if we resurrected Mao or Stalin, liberals would praise the murderous dictator and denounce the man suggesting that maybe families should include fathers.

In their mind, conservatives are literally the worst. Worse than dictators, worse than murderers and gangsters. There is nothing more evil than your traditional values. They will always work against you, no matter how rational or upstanding you may be, and they will kill you if they are ever empowered to do so.

Congressional Right-Wing Bootcamp

The major story of the day seems to be about the Kavanaugh committee hearing. It appears that the Democrats are up to their usual tricks. First, they made much ado about "documents". Kavanaugh was a staff secretary to President Bush. The liberals have decided that they must have access to all of Bush's documents to be informed about Kavanaugh as justice. Yes, they are demanding that they get access to some of the most sensitive documents in government, which of course were not written by Kavanaugh, nor do they have any relevance to his judicial record. It's just the same trick that Adam Schiff played when he stuffed his counter-memo with classified material, so that he could cry foul when it was inevitably redacted. They know it's a ludicrous demand, but they need someone to tell them no about something so they can play Oppression Olympics.

The other fabricated outrage was that Kavanaugh refused to shake hands with the father of a school shooting victim. It's technically true, but of course the context is molded to fit the narrative. It was a scripted event where Kavanaugh was harangued immediately as he attempted to depart for recess. He observed the irate stranger for a moment or two (this was after numerous interruptions by paid protestors), turned, and walked off. To those who staged the event - Dianne Feinstein, who invited the protestor, and the media, who were surely cued in to expect it - it was probably the perfect outcome. They got an encounter they can easily frame us Trump's nominee snubbing a victim. A liberal's dream come true! There are those calling Kavanaugh's behavior a faux pax. After all, he could have at least shaken the man's hand, right?

Kavanaugh did exactly the right thing. Liberals love to set traps. They can't win on rationale, of course, so they engage in outrage peddling and gotcha journalism. It seems so easy to shake the man's hand. Why couldn't he even do that!?? Because shaking his hand would have condoned this completely unacceptable behavior. Why should Supreme Court nominees be ambushed by random strangers at their own hearings, at the behest of Democrats already trying to derail the proceedings? And how could Kavanaugh have anything to do with any shooting; past, present, or future? I guess they want to publicly shame him because he isn't likely to overturn the 2nd Amendment. I know we get used to their antics, and it becomes routine, but really just think about how disgraceful this is.

Whenever the liberals set these little traps, you can't really decide whether to win or lose the encounter. They'll do everything they can to make you lose and, because they control the media narrative, will likely succeed. But there is always one choice to be made. There is always the choice of whether or not to adopt their moral framework. Conservatives normally do, so even when they win, we all still lose. What have conservatives actually conserved? Very little. It's what happens when you accept the liberal premise and just bicker over implementation details.

Instead of caving in to the pressure and indulging a man who was breaking all standards of protocol and decorum, Kavanaugh casually disregarded him, with a hint of disdain. That is exactly the correct response. I'm actually proud of this nominee. We can clearly see why Trump - who's success was in rejecting the liberal moral framework - would have chosen him. His cool rejection conveyed more than any amount of arguing ever could. The goal was to lower his status by showing that he could be disrespected, but Kavanaugh did not take the bait. The media still want to portray it as some victory, and they are making a mistake. There's this expectation that politicians should be politically correct. So they expect Kavanaugh should have shook his hand and put on a smile and pretended to be concerned about his own berating. Well, Kavanaugh isn't a politician. He's a judge. It doesn't matter if he kisses babies or not. The more the video is shown, the more people will see a great demonstration of how to deal with leftist agitation. They'd be best to let it get memory-holed.

In fact, this whole thing is a mistake by the left. They aren't going to change the outcome. Gorsuch was voted on by party lines, except three Democrat senators from deep-red states broke ranks to confirm him. The vote would have been just the same with no hearings at all. The same with this. It's just political theater. The outcome of this will be twofold. First, it broadcasts to the whole nation that the Democrats are desperate losers. That's all this is. Desperation, and losing. After disregarding all pretense of civil behavior, they will still lose the battle. No one wants to side with the desperate losers. Second, it hardens the resolve of the moderate right. Think of the Republican senators sitting through these hearings. Think of Ted Cruz. I always assumed that Cruz would be resentful of how the primaries went and provide problems for Trump. I was wrong; he's 100% MAGA. What choice does he have? Trump's enemies are making a mockery of the justice nomination process. What could be more sacred to a patriotic US Senator than that? He knows his best ally in his fight against these lunatics is Trump, and many other Republicans are realizing it. Think of Kavanaugh. He's getting quite an eye opener - if he wasn't already aware - of how deceitfully and viciously the left treat Trump and anyone associated with him. How could he not, after this, be sympathetic to Trump and spiteful towards the left? We should be glad they're putting on this circus! It's like right-wing boot camp for incoming Supreme Court justices and sitting senators.

Cabal Incarnate

This isn't a funeral, it's a roast!

For some reason that thought popped into my head a week or two ago. I thought it a funny concept, that one's own funeral could just be a roast. You know, we have this habit of venerating the dead beyond reasonable measure; to grant them a level of respect and dignity which they were never afforded in life. A roast could be a way to acknowledge the deceased's inevitable human faults and provide closure in a way that pretending sainthood can't really do. Call it a premonition - given the past week's events - but I never imagined that the roast would be of anyone but the deceased!

This week we've seen two high-profile funerals politically hijacked by speakers who just can't help but take pot shots at the sitting president. It is enormously disrespectful. Not particularly to Trump, which is common enough to be unremarkable. It is disrespectful to the deceased. Aretha Franklin was a legendary musician. Why should her memorial be tainted by petty politicking? Is the family not outraged? And McCain's funeral as well. As a US Senator and POW, he certainly deserved a respectful wake with all the state and military ceremony. Sure, he was a treasonous swamp rat, but those honors were earned in either case.

It's quite ironic that Trump was uninvited to the events, but was effectively the headlining act. It's downright cruel to John McCain, when you think about it. But Trump didn't do that. No, the people McCain and his family selected as attendees and speakers were the culprits. They shoulder the blame. Even his own daughter couldn't help but jab at Trump, while speaking at her father's wake. We saw a couple weeks ago that liberals can't help but politicize their own children's murders. So this shouldn't be surprising, but still it is. The one thing I always get wrong about them is to underestimate how brazen they can be.

It's also ironic that the media had to lie about flag positions and whatever else to make Trump appear petty, when it is obvious to anyone of sound mind that McCain's dying wish for Trump's absence at his wake set a new pettiness high-water mark. Since the left can't even see that the act was petty, they certainly can't see what a gift it was to the president. Imagine he had been invited to the funeral, as a speaker, even. The media would have either accused him of being insufficiently respectful (as they've already done) or would have accused him of egotistically stealing the focus from the deceased onto himself (like so many of the speakers are actually doing). Of course, had he politely declined to attend, he'd be accused of disrespecting a decorated war vet and, by extension, all veterans. He would have confronted a decision in which all options are politically damaging. McCain did Trump a solid by uninviting him. Then, the speakers and media coverage made it about Trump anyway, handing him the political victory on a platter. He didn't even have to do anything but make a statement where he acknowledged his political differences with McCain but gave respect to his service and offered condolences to the family. And then McCain's allies made it a political referendum on Trump and CNN made that a weeklong extravaganza. They just love losing. They must. Constant free press. A public spectacle of uncouth behavior by all his political foes. What more could a braggadocious chief executive ask for?

But more than a gift to him, it's a gift to us. For those of us who know the game is rigged, who know what "drain the swamp" means. It's hard to talk about the deep state, or the oligarchy, or the cabal (pick your term, they're all roughly equivalent), and not sound just a bit kooky. It shouldn't be so, of course. That well-placed people conspire to maximize their power is merely human nature, which the Founders labored greatly to control. It also happens to be the left's entire platform, the Marxian belief that social power struggles permeate all facets of life. (And, apparently, death.) And yet, when we say it, the connotation is of a nutty conspiracy theorist. Not because we are irrational, but because they control the media narrative.

The question always becomes, "who is the they?" It's a good question, and it can be difficult to answer. Well, we don't really have to answer the question any more. They kind of do that for us now. There must hardly be a McCain voter out there who hasn't noticed that his own running mate was snubbed, but his opponent and opponent's running mate were both invited to speak. CNN made sure everyone knew. So they know. How many of those McCain voters do you reckon became Trump supporters? I can't find any numbers on it, but 90% sounds like a good conservative guess. Almost everyone who voted McCain over Obama went on to vote Trump over Clinton. Trump was deliberately snubbed, but the Clintons were invited on as royalty. Everyone has noticed this. The liberals have made sure of it, and are positively gloating about it. Well, maybe we are too. All we have to do is point at the headlines and say, "this is exactly the kind of shit I've been talking about." And everyone knows exactly what we mean. Not necessarily at the higher level of conscience. At that level, the left will still dismiss us with whatever excuse they might conjure up. But at a lower level, they know. Humans are social animals. We instinctively observe social cliques and power alliances. So, at some level, everybody knows. Who are the powerful elite, the cabal? Well, turn on CNN. Clearly McCain was, the liberal media is, and so are Obama, Biden, Clinton, other Clinton, Bush, etc. Donald Trump isn't. Sarah Palin isn't. (Nor is Bernie Sanders, all acquiescences considered.) It's clear to every Republican sitting at home that their vote for Trump wasn't the same as their vote for McCain, Bush, or Romney. And for those who were "anti" voters, who voted against Obama or Clinton, well they might be realizing that their McCain vote wasn't such a strong political statement after all. A vote for McCain was to oppose Obama but still endorse the cabal. A vote for Trump was a rejection of all that.

McCain voters also remember that ten years ago the liberal media maligned him as a racist, prodded at his questionable war record, etc. Now the media laud him as a man of unimaginable virtue and dignity. They were always on the same side. 2008 was two candidates vying to be figurehead of the Cabal. They were of the same party, effectively. Those contests can still get serious and ugly, but the resulting power dynamics are similar in either outcome. Trump wrenched away the Cabal's hold on the Republican party and leverage himself into power. It was a coup. He broke past the uniparty gatekeepers with his agenda and campaign rhetoric. There is clearly a counter coup underway, and they use their substantial powers of the state security apparatus and allied corporate propaganda outlets.

This stuff is all pretty clear to us, the kinds of people who spend their time reading dissident right-wing blogs instead of watching or reading the corporate news. But it's not obvious to everyone. Most people try to believe the consensus narrative because it's easier that way, and socially safer. But these images and stories hit at us a more primal level. It's the kind of thing Scott Adams would call killer persuasion. Talking about the Cabal will seem less kooky after this. Our belief that the power dynamics are primarily establishment vs dissident rather than Democrat vs Republican, or even liberal vs conservative, will gain just that much more traction. People have now seen it with their own eyes. Rejecting it at the conscious level will generate all the more cognitive dissonance. The Cabal may be consolidating their efforts, but at the same time they are taking form. One theme that runs throughout this blog is that political power in a democracy depends on plausible deniability. The Cabal's ability to deny its own existence has diminished. As battle lines draw up and people are forced to chose sides, the hidden alliances reveal themselves.