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Patrick says

n Europe, we produce great writers and intellectuals

Like Marx and Hitler? I guess guys like Thomas Paine or Ben Franklin just do not measure up. What intellectual mastery has Europe produced that matches the Constitution of the United States?

Dear Lexxie (@AOC)...

(May I call you Lexxie? You can call me Dev. )

We probably wouldn't get along very well. I'm a throw-the-communists-out-of-helicopters anarchocapitalist, and that's probably too big a political gap to bridge with a few interpersonal gestures.

However, like each other or not, I'm going to assume you are asking in good faith, and I'm going to answer you.

I'm not going to answer your exact question, though. It's the wrong question. An answer wouldn't get you the information I think you are actually looking for.

It looks like you're assuming that the neo-republican "MAGA" movement works like a traditional campaign.

You develop a message about how your platform will be good for people, and your opponent's platform will be bad for them, then you get that message out on various channels, and it persuades some people to vote for you.

That's definitely how democrats work. You are the party of television.

And it's how old, pre-2015 republicans worked, too. You know, all those guys like Romney, who have been exiled to the wilderness, or, in the case of Cheney, have joined the democrats.

MAGA doesn't work like that.

We didn't vote for Trump because he persuaded us by getting XYZ message out on the UVW channel.

We voted for Trump because we were waiting for someone like Trump to come along, so we could vote for him.

That's why Trump didn't really have to do much of anything to beat you. He just had to position himself as the anti-establishment candidate, then get out of the way and let things happen, without making any major mistakes.

The field was primed for him before he ever announced that he would run.

Why?

Because of one key insight that I don't think democrats have ever had.

Elections are not about policy. They are not about personality. They are not about experience. They are not about charisma.

Elections are about trust.

Trump was elected in a landslide in 2016, 2024, and probably 2020 as well if you discard all the fake ballots, because more people trusted him, and less people trusted Clinton, Biden, or Harris.

If you think about it, it's really pretty obvious that trust is the only issue that matters.

Here's an example. Democrats campaigned against Trump by pounding on the abortion issue and cosplaying as fictional sex slaves from a kink novel for lonely cat ladies.

And it worked with your base.

Despite the fact that Trump had released a public statement that he would veto any national level restrictions on abortion, and that it was the Supreme Court, not he, who had overturned Roe-Wade in the first place, not even on ideological grounds, but because it was bad lawyering.

Why did it work?

Because those people didn't trust Trump. So anything he said about his intentions on the abortion issue was meaningless to them.

It's all about trust.

So why did more people trust Trump?

And why do I say they were waiting to vote for him before he even came along?

Because trust in Trump is rooted in distrust of the Machine.

The Machine is the system of informal, unacknowledged relationships between people who have clout in the federal government and use it to benefit themselves, to benefit each other, and to protect their power base from outsiders.

In other words, the federal government is corrupt, and the majority of Americans know it.

Resist the temptation to argue with me here, even inside your own head. We are talking about why people voted for Trump. It's important what they believe, not whether you agree with them.

Now, I could go on all day with examples of the Machine, and its fairly obvious abuse of power and funds.

I could talk about fake vaccines that turned out to be neither safe nor effective, which made a lot of money for people who are vaccinated against any liability by your own organization... Congress.

But that would sidetrack us, because you'd succumb to the temptation to argue about each one, and it's not important whether you agree. What's important, once again, is what the majority of Americans agree on.

They agree on the existence of a Machine.

They agree that the Machine has political influence which does not come from the "just consent of the governed".

They agree that the Machine is materially harming them by enacting policies which hurt them.

They agree that the Machine is materially harming them by spending their money on things that are not in their interest.

They agree that the Machine is materially harming them by failing to faithfully carry out the actual duties of the federal government.

They hate and distrust the Machine.

All of this has nothing to with Trump, because all of this became true before Trump announced he was running.

As I said, people were waiting for a Trump they could vote for. This is why.

But how did distrust in the Machine translate into trust in Trump?

Simple. Because Trump is the enemy of the Machine.

How do we know that?

Simple. It's not just because Trump told us so. If it were merely Trump telling us so, he could have been lying.

We know Trump is the enemy of the Machine, because the Machine told us so.

We saw how desperate the Machine was to convince us that Trump was an icky superplusungood double-Nazi, when his actual platform was just straight-up 1960s democrat, John Kennedy style.

We saw them hurling accusation after accusation, as if they were throwing pasta at the wall, seeing what would stick.

We saw the press elements of the Machine continuing to hold to those accusations, long after they had been proven to not just be false, but to be deliberate lies.

Every time the Machine told us that Trump was horrible, all it did was confirm what Trump was telling us... that he intended to fight the Machine.

In 2016, that was enough to get him elected.

Check the video below. Michael Moore was the only person who understood this in 2016.

Thing is he understood Trump voters, but not Trump. He thought a Trump presidency would be disastrous.

Turned that nothing much happened at all. The Machine fought him more or less to a standstill, and the only major way he moved the needle was in putting three constitutionalists on the Supreme Court.

Now, that's no small feat. Helped us a lot, and will for years to come.

But the border security system didn't get finished, Mexico didn't pay for it, etc.

Thing is, that's not important. What's important is why. We saw the fight between Trump and the Machine.

It wasn't about whether he could beat the Machine or not. It was the fact that he willing to fight it, and the fact that we could see the fight. And that proved that his intentions were at least partially what he said they were.

In 2024, he looks a lot more prepared, and has a team of heavy hitters backing him

But there's one more set of questions to ask, here.

Why did Trump run as a republican? Why is it Democrats, in particular, who are identified with the Machine?

Well, the easy answer is that you keep running Machine candidates. Obama looked like an outsider, but he integrated into the Machine with great enthusiasm the microsecond he took office. Clinton and Biden were personifications of the Machine. Harris was the same, only dumber.

But the deeper answer is that democrats have been in power for 12 of the past 16 years. And what y'all chose to do with that time was expand the Machine and integrate yourselves with it for ego-gratification and profit.

Again, resist the impulse to argue.

We may be at a disadvantage against you because we don't sign the paychecks of a legion of armed thugs, but that doesn't make us somehow dumber than you, or oblivious to what's going on.

We know what "Ten percent for the big guy" means.

And we don't stop knowing it when Comrade Squealer gets on MSNBC and launches some convoluted deflection filled with mental gymnastics we aren't morally flexible enough to replicate.

Now, you, Lexxie, can argue that you're not a part of that. Maybe it would even be true. Or partially true.

Maybe, through the awesome power of wishful thinking and historical ignorance, you actually are a sincere socialist, who thinks that statist, collectivist policies will actually benefit people, rather than just provide politicians with opportunities to steal and ruin people's live with a stroke of the pen out of sheer sadism.

But you're not asking why you lost. You didn't lose. Harris lost. You're asking why Harris lost.

Harris lost because we are aware of the Machine, and we don't like it.

Trump is just our plan A to dismantle it.

Let's all just hope we don't have to go to plan B. Plan B wouldn't be fun for anybody.

Source: https://x.com/Devon_Eriksen/status/1856767113547190756

Patrick says

DOGEWontAmountToShit says

Patrick says

I wonder if Casey finally conceding had anything to do with Gaetz dropping out.

DOGEWontAmountToShit says

Nig lips. And just get the wig at some point. A dog has better hair. No man cares about eye lashes either. You gotta fix the face and hair. Seems to have a good cocaine nose though.

At least you guys didn't have to see Lori Lightfoot almost daily in Chicagoland. #skelator If my kids were younger I'm 90% sure they might have been scared of her.

Patrick says

I do think this is a variant of all of those 'baloney polls'.

I was at the gym, and CNN is likely rearing back on its haunches in fear, because they had a woman ON AIR who stated that she didn't like Trump personally, but that he is probably the best man for the job at the present time. I practically fell off my machine. This is CNN stumbling through Mockingbird blasphemy.

I really don't know what they expect from all of their now useless minted hysterics unless they give them formal MKUltra brainwashing and arms. They are pointless yowlers now, ripe for the Kommie firing squads since they have no use except as a chorus of negativity without meaningful influence.

Ceffer says

This is CNN stumbling through Mockingbird blasphemy.

https://babylonbee.com/cleanArticle/reminder-american-women-have-until-january-20th-to-find-a-man-to-get-them-pregnant-or-one-will-be-selected-for-them