I listened with an open mind to this illuminating interview between Bari Weiss at the Free Press and Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen, two of the founders of Axios, about how the public lost trust in the media.

As we watch them scramble to explain why they covered up Joe Biden?s cognitive decline, what we see instead of an apology is an excuse.

There has never been any real reckoning of what happened to them after Trump won in 2016, all through his first term, especially in 2020, when they lost much of the public?s trust for good.

The legacy media took a side, but worse, they positioned themselves as superior to the other side, which meant that not only weren?t they chasing the story, but they weren?t paying attention to those who were.

The Biden/Trump debate was Toto pulling back the curtain and exposing the Wizard of Oz. There was not much they could do after that. The jig was up.

It didn?t break news for anyone who got their news outside the bubble, however. There, the media is endlessly mocked for its pandering, weakness, and propaganda.

How it Started

How it?s going:

The opening paragraphs:

The collective post-debate gloating from conservatives is in full swing this week, as Democrats reckon with the ongoing political fallout. But the immediate response on the right has focused less on the fact of Biden?s potential mental decline than on alleging that Democrats and the mainstream press colluded to hide it.

That?s the kinder, gentler explanation. The alternative is that they are SO BAD at their jobs, such terrible reporters, so in the tank for one political party that they couldn?t see what was right in front of them for four years. Pick one.

It?s hard to sympathize when so many of us were left twisting in the wind, dealing with major issues in American life, from COVID to the protests to lockdowns to the woke madness in our schools. We needed a legacy press that would tell us the truth, not do the bidding of one political party.

True, they could have lost their jobs for it. That happened everywhere. Reporters lost their jobs for a headline, ?Buildings Matter Too.? Donald McNeil lost his job at the New York Times because some overly fragile brat tattled on him and accused him of being a racist. But so what? Someone had to stand up for objectivity and journalism, didn?t they?

What Happened to Me

The mania around race and racism was on a low simmer after Trump won the first time. Cancel culture was in full swing. We?d already gone through the first wave of a mass hysteria episode around the Me Too movement. But none of that could compare to what happened to us when we were all locked down from COVID and the George Floyd video hit the internet.

It was seen by millions all over the world within minutes. Right after the video hit, a fake image of Derek Chauvin wearing a ?Make America White Again? MAGA hat also made the rounds, driving up the rage meter just before the largest protest in American history erupted on the streets, breaking lockdowns and forcing the Left to pivot from social distancing to masks.

It would be days before the story of the fake photo was corrected. Probably even now, many still believe it was real.

The worst thing that?s ever happened to the Democrats is democracy.

It must be quite an existential crisis that, after all that, the rest of the country rejected their opinion of Donald Trump. That the guy they said was a rapist, a racist, a fascist, a dictator, a Nazi, a bigot, a transphobe, a misogynist, a Russian asset, a criminal, a felon, a fraudster, a fake, a traitor, an election denier and insurrectionist, an extremist, a terrorist, a white supremacist, a phony that they impeached twice and indicted four times, and became the first presidential candidate with a mug shot, and to be convicted of a felony still won the popular vote.

That has got to really burn.

But it isn?t the Trump side that is now in a perpetual state of shock because it existed inside a utopian bubble, cutting itself off from the rest of America. It isn?t the Trump side that cosplayed World War II for so long that it lost touch with reality about either our world now or what really happened in World War II. It isn?t the Trump side that was the empire.

Their war-torn resistance fighters were so disgusted that none of the Democrats had done enough to ?stop Hitler Trump and his Nazi leader, Elon Musk,? that their approval numbers were at historic lows. DO SOMETHING, their supporters cried.

So Cory Booker took to the Senate floor to remind them of what they still stand for. And to rally the troops. He prepared in advance for the performance of his life. He denied himself food and water to go the distance. It was, for him, a chance to audition for the part of Charismatic Leader, the democrats so desperately need.

Booker found a way: It?s not Left or Right but right or WRONG.

It?s a far cry from Obama?s ?not red states or blue states, but the United States.? The Democrats no longer believe that. They went from ?don?t normalize Trump and his supporters? to it?s more than justified to demonize, dehumanize, even terrorize them. They are ?bad people.? They?re no longer welcome. Not in our culture, restaurants, movie theaters, family gatherings, and, most of all, our democracy.

Their anger stems from their class privilege of having everything they need, yet they can?t accept losing something they want.

Here is Batya Ungar-Sargon:

Either the Democrats really are caught up in a mass delusion about who Trump is and why he won, or else they?re the drama club, and none of it was ever real.

Splendor in the Grass

I wasn?t just in the Drama Club in high school. I was the undisputed queen. Just ask anyone who went to high school with me. I was a terrible student. I barely graduated. My nickname was ?no-show Stone,? but the one thing I showed up for was the Drama Club.

That's me as Elizabeth Proctor in the high school production of The Crucible.

In case you?ve never seen or read The Crucible, Elizabeth Proctor was John Proctor's pregnant wife who was accused of witchcraft but who was spared because of the presumed innocence of her baby. Her husband, John Proctor, would be hanged.

I could never have known that all of these decades later, we?d all be living in a Salem of our own making, and I?d be once again an accused and condemned witch.

Inside the drama club, I had a magic mirror - a small group of people who thought I hung the moon. My Drama teacher thought that too. I was his favorite, at least for a time. I didn?t know the word ?grooming? back then, but looking back on it, I see that?s probably what he was doing?a pinch here, a grope there. On the last day of my junior year, he French kissed me just before I went away for summer break.

That Summer, he drove up to my house and dropped off a copy of the play Splendor in the Grass. I took that to mean I would be cast as the lead, the part Natalie Wood played in the movie. As the queen of the Drama Club, I got all of the leading roles. Of course, I would play Deannie.

But when it came time to cast the play, the part went to someone who wasn?t even in the drama club. She was the prettiest girl in school: the Head Cheerleader and the Homecoming Queen. Our teacher had broken the silent code of the drama club - nobody from the outside is allowed in. Because if they do, our fantasy world is shattered.

That?s all we had. We weren?t the popular kids, the cheerleaders, the jocks, the science nerds. We were people who didn?t belong anywhere else. But we also liked escaping into a fantasy world of being another person other than ourselves.

During the Me Too movement, my friends would always bring up our drama teacher, but honestly, I was more angry that he?d given my part away to a prettier girl.

In reality, the Homecoming Queen was the right person to play Deannie, even if our teacher probably just had the hots for her. She was good, too?better than I would have been. Because she was popular, everyone in the school came to see the play.

We were all big fish in a small pond, which gave us power we weren?t willing to relinquish. But having the whole school see our play meant reality was here, whether we liked it or not.

I often think about the drama club now when I watch Christopher Guest?s hilarious Waiting for Guffman, which is about a self-important director of a small town theater group and their delusions of grandeur.

And that?s also what I see when I look at the democrats and all of the performative protesters and activists on the Left, from Eric Swalwell to AOC to Jasmine Crocket to Chuck Schumer to Cory Booker, to all of these delusional people who believe Musk did the Nazi salute and Trump is Hitler.

They are Waiting for Guffman. They are the drama club.

It?s a cosplay fantasy, a dystopian Renaissance Faire. None of it is real. The American people have been watching this performative outrage for almost a decade. They wanted to turn the channel so badly they voted for Donald Trump a second time, and now, here they all are, once again, caterwauling about the very democracy that just took them out of power.

They still believe that doing exactly the same thing for this long will get them a different result, the very definition of insanity.

But there?s a darkness too, a rising violence. What they all mean when they say ?Hands off? is not just ?hands off? our government, but ?hands off? everything else too.

Along with keying Teslas and violent outbursts against Trump supporters, there is a hashtag making the rounds on TikTok called ?when it happens,? where users fantasize about Trump?s death.

Identity First vs. America First.

During the last Civil War, the two conflicting realities were that a country founded on freedom could not own human beings vs. the false reality that slaves could not survive as free human beings and that there would be chaos and collapse if things changed.

Now, we find ourselves once again at a crossroads with two factions believing in two completely separate realities. This time, it?s not about westward expansion but rather our migration onto the new frontier of the internet, AI, and the upcoming robot revolution. What will this country be going forward? What will be our values? What will define male and female? What will decide power?

You can see each of our potential futures laid out before us. Whole generations have come of age in virtual reality, where they can choose their own avatars and have their own audiences for their own show. It?s all performative. But to be included, you must follow the rules. If you don?t, out you go.

Like everyone else on the Left, I grew up wanting to exist in the rarified air of NPR. It was, to me, like the green light at the end of Daisy?s dock in The Great Gatsby: the place you don?t belong but the only place you want to be.

I was thrilled when NPR invited me to the studio in 2012 for an interview. I even took a picture of the parking lot?anything with NPR on it.

I?d finally made it, ma?top of the world.

I woke up with Morning Edition and spent the afternoon with All Things Considered. It required no effort at all. It was always on every time I got into my car and drove somewhere, and in Los Angeles, everyone drove everywhere.

Long before controversial CEO Katherine Maher was hired at NPR, listeners were already dropping like flies. Any honest person knows that NPR changed dramatically. Even my sister, a die-hard Democrat, joked with me in 2020 that she had to stop listening because every episode seemed to be about a ?transgender migrant crossing the border for an abortion in Texas.?

Maher?s testimony at the ?Anti-American Airwaves: Accountability for the Heads of NPR and PBS? will be seen by most on the Left as something along the lines of the House of Unamerican Activities in the 1950s and for similar reasons. Here, in the most viral exchange, Rep Gill even brings up Marxism.

Like this moment, this hearing will be shape-shifted into a story that paints them as the victims and their side as the side standing up for free speech.

The truth? They abandoned objectivity long ago, if they ever had it at all. I used to think they did. I was a faithful believer in people I thought had our best interests at heart. It took me years to understand why the Republicans have been complaining about them since their inception.

Maher is a stunner, even at her age, with her platinum blonde bob and Hepburn cheekbones. She?s probably not used to being dragged before a tribunal and made to answer for how NPR has abused the public?s trust. But abuse it, they have.

She might not also be aware that this is a revolution. No, heads didn?t roll, but the 2024 election was a triumph of the people, by the people, and for the people?a revolution made possible only by Donald Trump's alliance with Big Tech and Elon Musk especially.

To the Left, in their delusional fever dreams, they are the oppressed side. They?re the #resistance like back when German tanks rolled into Paris. But they?re not. They never were. They were always the empire. How do I know? Because I was one of them. I was an enthusiastic participant in the movement that would overtake much of American society, grow its power with the rise of the internet, and spread its fundamentalism like a fungus, one that is now killing its host.

A revolution because there was no other option.

A revolution because the kids were at risk.

A revolution because this isn?t a country that likes to be ruled over by an elite, out of touch aristocracy and never has.

Many of you have asked me to post the New York Times profile because you don?t have access to it, but I think that might violate copyright laws. So, I thought I?d read it aloud instead, with some added commentary. If you?re interested, have a listen.

Here is a link to bypass the paywall.

The first part is just me talking free-form and unscripted, so don?t be alarmed that it doesn?t sound like the usual. If you like the free-form style, let me know, and I?ll do more of them.

Song used at the end:

I posted this story already, but I thought you might like a video version. The audio will go out on the podcast feed. You can find the text here.

I have a soft spot for the Dirtbag Left now that I never used to have. Listening to them viciously destroy the Democratic Party scratches that itch. They were ahead of the curve, and the Democrats would have been better off not snuffing out the movement way back when.

But snuff it out, we did. Back in 2016, I was in a Facebook group devoted to doing nothing but hating on the ?Bernie bros.? I spent too much of my precious time trying to stop them as a movement because they threatened Hillary Clinton?s win. Like every Democrat now, I was afraid of democracy.

The Democrats find themselves in that place where the three characters from Jaws end up. They?ve tried harpoons and three barrels on him, and nothing has worked. They finally decide to try Hooper?s shark cage, even though Brody knows there?s no chance it will work. ?You got any better suggestions?? barks Hooper.

That Quint entertains the idea of bringing in Hooper?s cage at all was the miracle. And the desperation.

The Democrats are ready for the anti-shark cage, and so Bernie Sanders and AOC are on a western tour to ?stop the oligarchy.? They finally have the exact right enemy in Elon Musk and Bernie?s ?billionaires.? Musk represents the death of their dream, that no one can get there on their wits, hard work, and ambition alone. No, this is a country where no one can rise unless everyone can rise.

Trump?s tariffs are a potential solution to America?s crippling problem of income inequality that has destroyed the middle class. That?s the MAGA populism at work. Bernie's populism fixes the problem with much bigger government. The rich pay more to redistribute the wealth.

Is this finally the moment when we can Make America Socialist Again? A major step forward from FDR?s New Deal and Johnson?s Great Society? Do the Democratic Socialists have a real shot at winning the nomination away from the feckless, flaccid centrists?

Is this finally the moment when the Dirtbag Left and the identity politics utopians merge to create one big movement, a Green New Deal? Will Trump?s radical change finally be the thing that pushes the majority in a direction they never would have gone?

Recent polls show that younger generations are much more accepting and fond of socialism than older generations. It's not that hard to do the math and see what might be coming next.

How it Started

According to Neil Howe and William Strauss's 1997 book, 2008 was the crisis that sparked our Fourth Turning. This pattern plays out every 80 years, with each generation being born and living a lifetime before everything radically changes to restart America in a new direction, like the American Revolution, the Civil War, the Great Depression, and World War II.

We still don?t know how big or how bad our Fourth Turning will be. To Strauss and Howe, the $700 billion bank bailout was the moment the public woke up to the imminent disaster of income inequality and a bloated oligarchy. The bailout birthed two populist movements: Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party.

Occupy Wall Street became the Bernie movement which, after Hillary?s loss in 2016, was dissolved into the Democrat machine. The Tea Party became Trump and MAGA. The question we have to ask is which side will prevail when the Fourth Turning comes to a close, when the policies are cemented and the country is united?

According to Howe?s new book, The Fourth Turning is Here, he edges ever so slightly to the Left?s side of things because the dominant generation, the Millennials, are a ?go along to get along? personality type.

At the moment, at least to me, the MAGA side offers more for ambitious millennials, especially young men. MAGA is now the side of innovation and economic growth. If they succeed, there will be no need for a rescue mission.

But if they fail? Ben Shapiro has been dropping the prediction for a few weeks now that if Trump?s economy begins to fail, the power that will rise is the equal and opposite reaction to Trump?s populism: a lurch to the hard left.

Bernie and AOC are ready to bring the movement back.

Is this finally the moment where both Bernie and AOC have the right kind of anger and the right enemy they need to tap into the collective outrage of all of those crazy people out there losing their minds? People like this:

As SpaceX and NASA elegantly brought Crew-9 down from outer space to splash into the waters of the Gulf of America, with dolphins cresting the surface to greet them upon their arrival, the lunatics on the Left were burning up the last remnants of their political capital. They were destroying Teslas.

Yes, that?s right. With a beautiful example of American exceptionalism playing out in front of the millions watching from home, the Left took the opportunity to march around in their poopie diapers and tell America that all they know how to do is destroy things.

Anyone who might have regretted voting for Trump because they were moving too fast was suddenly reminded of why they voted for him in the first place. Because the other side is stark, raving bonkers.

They have already humiliated themselves at Trump?s address to Congress. Their approval numbers have never been lower.

It isn?t just that they are feckless, rudderless, and leaderless; they are also doing the one thing no political movement should ever do if it wants to rise to power: showing Americans that they are prepared to act out violently when they don?t get their way.

Granted, they have the luxury of an entire legacy press corps that will run cover for them, praise them, and pretend it?s no big deal. But we know it?s a big deal because we?ve been living with their violent outbursts for ten years.

Now that they?ve decided to interpret Elon Musk?s wave to the crowd as a Nazi salute, they feel more than justified to rally as a movement and wage war on a successful car company that produces electric cars. They want every wealthy liberal who ever bought a Tesla to regret it, sell it, or use one of those embarrassing stickers that signal to the mob to skip their car. They?re one of the good guys.

They hide behind billionaires this and oligarchs that, but they had absolutely no hesitation in bringing down hundreds of businesses, those that had somehow managed to survive lockdowns were then destroyed by a violent mob in the Summer of 2020. Remember Sue?s 100-year-old mattress store in Kenosha?

In their fever dream?and I promise I am not exaggerating, not even a little bit?they believe their acts of terror and vandalism against Teslas will bring down the company and force Musk into bankruptcy, so he will have to sell Twitter/X because they believe it was stolen from them.

What you see on the modern Left is failure everywhere you look. A failed legacy media, a failing Hollywood, and an empire in collapse propped up a failed political party full of failed candidates.

Here is failed Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz doing the Hitler salute while trashing a company he could never build, much less come close to making profitable.

Walz is roaring back to prove that he didn?t fail - he?s still that Great White Hope they all said he was. All he has to do is signal to the mob that he can be as vicious as they need him to be.

Here is a failed 80s heartthrob, John Cusack, who proves that old Johnny Boy never cracked open a history book. He?s not only ignorant, he displays it openly on social media:

Here is failed resistance warrior Rick Wilson, who must somehow keep the dream alive after Trump wiped up the floor with him, and very nearly destroyed his credibility.

Wilson?s infamous pre-election prediction that Trump would lose and lose badly looks a lot more like pissing in the wind, doesn?t it:

They?re not in any condition to lead this country. They?re behaving like those late-night rap sessions with Charlie on Spahn Ranch as they plot about the revolution. The look in the eyes of all the ?resistance democrats? looks a lot like the crazy eyes of those Manson girls bragging about stabbing Sharon Tate.

But here?s the thing. They?re making it all way too hard on themselves. There is an easier way. It?s been right there the whole time. It is the answer to all that ails them. It will work like a charm if only they can embrace that they are the very thing they believe they?ve been fighting against.

Embrace Your Inner Fascists, Democrats. It?s time.

The Democrats lost their minds so thoroughly and completely over Trump?s win in 2016, that they decided this was now their country and everything in it belonged to them. They amassed an unprecedented alignment of power, uniting government with all cultural and corporate institutions. It was all for one and one for all. You know, like the very definition of fascism?

All sticks bundled together as one! A fasci!

Once they claimed most of American society for themselves, they were able to build a barrier, an ?inside? that locked the bad people on the ?outside.? Then, the purges began. Break our rules, and out you go. No one was safe, not the powerful, corporations, or the people. Conform or else, which is also the very definition of fascism.

It would be Communism, except the Left needs to be seen as better, superior, smarter, more kind, more decent - not equal to everyone else. No, they don?t believe that. Fascism, that?s the answer. That?s why they plunge lawn signs in front of their houses, to tell everyone else how superior they are but also to signal to the mob that they?re on the right side.

But to embrace your inner fascists, Democrats, you will have to start telling the truth about who you are. Why hide it by now?

So let?s rewrite this lawn sign, shall we? In this home, we believe:

Dictatorship over democracy because democracy means the ?wrong? people might win. They don?t belong in OUR HOME. As fascists, you don?t even need elections at all, and you kinda didn?t, did you? Vote blue no matter who, elbow out any competition, force Biden on everyone, and then install Kamala Harris. See how close you already are?Solution: why not build gulags and have them all spirited away? So much easier. Stalin did it. Hitler did it. Mao did it. What?s the problem, Democrats?

Now, if Gwen Stefani accidentally posts a video with Tucker Carlson in it, or someone lets it slip they are friends with a Trump supporter or, gasp, voted for Trump themselves, you can simply lock them away instead of wasting all of your time and energy destroying their lives.

Lies over truth: You lie all of the time, to yourselves and to other people?the legacy media lies. Hollywood lies. Women are men, and men are women, but gender is not binary. Solution: As fascists, there is no argument. You take complete control of the press (oh, wait, you already did) and force everyone to accept your version of the truth (oh wait, you already did!) and then mandate it so all must obey (yeah, you tried that, didn?t work out so well).

Division over unity: Admit it. You would prefer to be living in a segregated society with Trump supporters banned from your restaurants, your movie theaters, your schools, and your social media. You don?t even hide it anymore. Solution: As fascists, you can simply beat them up, spit on them, knock the hats off their heads, kick them out of restaurants, and harass them on airplanes. Oh wait, you already did!

Fear over hope: The side where people are afraid to say what they really think is the fascist side. Why are people afraid? Because they know what will happen to them if they ever tell the truth. Solution: Make lists. Stalin did it. Oh, I know he?s technically not a fascist, but close enough.

Fiction over Science: Like biological men aren?t any different from biological women. There is no advantage in sports? Trans kids have always existed. It?s healthcare. It?s not a cult. There is no castrating young men. They?re not men. They?re women because trans women are women! Removing breasts and destroying the reproductive organs of young girls is perfectly fine because they?re not girls. Solution: As fascists, you don?t even need science. You can simply perform your medical experiments at will. If anyone objects, off to the gulag they must go.

You see, Democrats, the answer has always been right there. All you have to do is embrace the fascists you really are. You don?t even need a leader. It doesn?t have to be about race. It can simply be about what you really want: conform or else and all power to the state.

Spirited Away

I could never have known what it felt like to be unpersoned by the side I used to call home, to have their attack machines trained on me, on my business, on my personal safety until I walked in the shoes of Trump supporters.

I know that I have to be quiet in my town. I can?t let them know who I am because I know what that will mean. They won?t say hello to me anymore. They will walk the other way when they see me coming. Who knows what else they might do?

The most terrifying thing about it isn?t so much losing everything. I grew up poor, I struggled to pay the rent for most of my life. That?s nothing new. No, it was seeing people I thought I knew participate in the unpersoning of someone they once called a friend. Watching them remove me from their lists and not invite me to screenings or parties because I was no longer worthy of being one of them chilled me to my bones. It?s something I?ll never forget.

I always thought we were the good guys, that we knew the difference between right and wrong, that we wouldn?t dehumanize whole groups of people because we didn?t agree on everything, and tell them they were no longer welcome in their own country.

We have elections so the people decide how they want to be represented. But the Democrats don?t believe that at all, do they? They decided our elections didn?t matter because the people voting in them didn?t matter. Instead of respecting the results, they keep fighting their imaginary war, with their violence escalating to dangerous levels.

Power is not something people give up willingly, especially not those who are used to being in control of everything.

Your value inside utopia depends on your going along with all of it and doing so with a smile on your face and rationalization in your heart. I?m not really like that, they tell themselves.

Except that they are. That is exactly who they are. Do you think Rick Wilson or Jimmy Kimmel or John Cusack or any of those crazy-eyed Democrats on TikTok would hesitate to throw Elon Musk, Trump, and all of their supporters into a detainment center? They would not.

You?ve scared the crap out of America, Democrats. They?re not likely to vote for you any time soon. So why not put another line on that lawn sign to read: Fascism, it?s not so bad after all.

//

After my story Who Killed the Oscars was published in Tablet, I received this letter:

Indeed, I didn?t explain why I voted for Trump in the Tablet piece. It was already too long. No doubt many reading it thought, who cares what she thinks? She voted for Trump. I?m sure there was a time when I would have thought the same thing. I used to be a faithful, loyal Democrat. I used to be a cheerleader for Hollywood. I thought I would do anything for love. But I found out that there was one thing I couldn?t do.

But know this: it?s never been a story about what happened to me. It?s always been a story about what happened to the Left.

So let?s do a Part Two of the Tablet Piece and call it:

Who Killed the Democratic Party?

The first time I remember voting for the Democrats was back in the 1980s. I wore a Dukakis button as a Women's Only Health Spa receptionist. A customer saw my pin and said, ?Why are you voting for Du-Tax-us?? I looked at her, confused. I didn?t know why I was voting for him. ?Never mind,? she said to me. ?You probably never even went to college.?

I knew enough back then that we were different from the Republicans. That political divide had lasted since Nixon's days. They were uncool and had all of the power. We were cool but had no power. We were the subversive side, the Blue Velvet to their Top Gun.

That customer?s words tumbled around in my head long enough to motivate me to go to college and finally graduate from UCLA at 29, the first person in my family to do so. While a student there, I saw Bill Clinton speak. All of that charisma suckered me in, and now I knew why I was a Democrat. It wasn?t complicated. I?ll have what he?s having.

After I dropped out of graduate film school to chase some loser dude back to Los Angeles, my life came apart so spectacularly that I escaped to migrate online, where I would work and live for the next 30 years.

The internet changed everything. It gave so many of us a voice and a platform. Anyone could have a website online. Anyone could generate news. The question of who would control it was never asked because it was obvious. The Democrats did. We colonized it?the New Frontier in Cyberspace.

Obama was as wedded to Silicon Valley as he was to Hollywood. I was in the right place at the right time, a Good Soldier for the Left as a member of a newly mobilized army on Twitter, rallying behind our leader, the nation?s first Black president.

We were more connected than ever before at a time when more people were alive than ever before. On the ?inside,? things always felt so big, so monumental. On the ?outside,? life went on as normal among ?The Proles.? We were in the early stages of 1984 if Whole Foods catered it.

It was an alignment of power not seen since the utopian days of post-war 1950s America when government and culture aligned to snuff out the Communist threat. With an iPhone in my pocket and high-speed internet, I did my duty every day as a Good Liberal fighting the good fight.

It wasn?t until Obama?s re-election bid in 2012 that I understood I was part of a hive mind that could manipulate the media narrative and thus create the reality we wanted. We could stretch the truth?or lie?about, say, Mitt Romney and the ?Binders of women,? and it worked. The legacy press would print our headlines. Clickbait would do the rest. Eventually, it trickled down into the homes of ordinary Americans.

It wasn?t just politics. It went much deeper than that. We were different people now, better people, good people doing things, something the Left never was throughout my entire life as a child of the counterculture 60s and 70s. But to be that good, we need to target people who were that bad. We needed a receptacle for our collective sins.

In May 2016, I surprised my daughter for her 18th birthday with a getaway to New York City to see her favorite play, Hamilton, in the Richard Rogers Theater with the original cast. We would fly out for a day and then fly back. It would cost way too much money, I?d get my wallet stolen, but I only had one daughter, and you only turned 18 once.

We were both obsessed with Hamilton. We knew every word of every song. It lived inside of us. It wasn?t just that it was brilliant, funny, moving, inventive and original. It also reminded all of us what this country?s founding principles were about. Best of all, it made learning history fun and cool. It was Schoolhouse Rock for a new generation.

When taking long road trips, we would blast the soundtrack, screaming every word. We?d start at the beginning and run through the entire play. Our inside jokes were witty asides from the play that we?d quote to each other so often that we had to force ourselves to stop because, after years of this, it was getting old.

By casting so many diverse people to play historical figures and making it a hip-hop musical, Hamilton was a bridge to the Black communities that were so often excluded from the Broadway experience and elite culture in general. Hamilton was for everybody, I thought. That was eight years ago.

As a devoted Obama supporter and, in 2016, a Hillary Clinton loyalist, I was overjoyed at the prospect of the first woman president to follow the first Black president. Heading into the election, I wrote this piece:

I wrote:

The election of Hillary Clinton is one of the most important battles in the war between two Americas. One America was built and maintained exclusively by and for white men. That demographic has awakened extremists on the left and right. The other America redeems the promise of possibility for everyone, no matter their status or skin color or class. That America has produced the nation?s first black president who not only lasted one term, but two, and who now promises to make history by helping elect another Democrat to follow his two terms. Electing Hillary Clinton doesn?t just say, ?We?re electing a woman for the first time in our country?s history.? It also dares to say the first black American president was so successful he did the impossible by electing his chosen successor.

I didn?t notice back then that the Clinton campaign rented the entire Richard Rogers theater as a fundraiser. Tickets start at $2,700 a pop. I would never have thought twice about it. We were on the right side. It was an ?all-of-society? effort to stop Trump. We were the good guys fighting the good fight, so why wouldn?t Hamilton be used that way?

Lin-Manuel Miranda?s entire career exists only because of Barack Obama. 15 years ago, in 2009, in Obama?s first year in office, Miranda performed this at the White House:

Over the years, Obama would co-opt the reputations and careers of major artists like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Hanks, and, yes, Lin-Manuel Miranda. They would become ride-or-die for the president, which wasn?t something I would have noticed back then.

As Miranda?s play exploded and became instantly profitable and popular, we all took that to mean that everyone wanted to be included in our America. It was the better, cooler America. But that changed when Trump won. Now, all we could see was a hostile country that just rejected us.

Even when the cast called out Mike Pence during the performance to protest the Trump administration, I never thought about whether it was bipartisan or not. I knew it wasn?t and I agreed with it. I couldn?t see the line between art and propaganda.

But now I can. All it took was this statement by the producer of Hamilton, Jeffrey Seller, wherein the play cancels itself, hiding behind the usual gaslighting and rationalizations so common on the left:

Notice right off the language here. He is doing what all establishment Democrats and Republicans have done for eight years: ignore the voices of the people. Trump defeated them not once but twice. If you believe in the founding principles of this country, you must respect their voices. But they don?t. The message they give is not for all Americans. It is only those Americans who agree with their ongoing delusions about Trump.

What they can?t stand is that Trump is now saying this culture does not belong only to them anymore. It belongs to all of us, even the unwashed masses all of them abandoned years ago and continue to demonize in films, in plays, in comedy, in journalism, in all of their award shows. We?re to accept that this only goes one way. That they have a right to decide what our culture will be and Trump and his supporters do not.

You did this. YOU did this. You forced Trump and his supporters to beat down the walls of the castle to be included in America?s culture. This is YOUR fault. You politicized it. You pushed propaganda on all of us for years. And now, you can?t stand it that you no longer control it, can you?

Trump?s second win was a complete and total humiliation and repudiation. They still refuse to learn that lesson. They refuse to move aside and allow this country to evolve into whatever it will be now.

It?s Oscar Sunday, a ceremony fueled by one thing: publicity. We turn ordinary people into gods and goddesses by telling flattering myths about who they are and why they?re important. The ?narrative? gives voters a reason to care and almost always drives the win.

In Hollywood, they?re not planning on changing anything, just as the Democrats won?t. They haven?t noticed that, as they?re watching the band play on, the ship is made of iron and will sink.

What do they even stand for anymore? Transing the kids, open borders for cheap labor, and most importantly, the war in Ukraine. Attending the Oscars is like supporting the Democrats, like supporting Zelensky?an alignment of power like no other.

Unsuspecting dreamers who rise in Hollywood are often warned never to believe their own publicity. Anyone who has ever worked in publicity, or the Oscar race as I have, knows it?s nothing but pretty lies. It isn?t journalism. It isn?t criticism. It isn?t the truth. It?s like photoshopping a life.

The Zelensky myth is necessary to keep hope alive that the Democrats didn?t humiliate themselves when they lost to Trump a second time. No, it wasn?t their failures. It had nothing to do with selling false narratives about Hillary and Joe, forcing voters to go along with it. This is bigger than an ordinary election. They are at war with the new ?axis of evil.? And why not? They?re the ?resistance,? after all.

Zelensky?s entitled behavior in the Oval Office was proof enough that he believed his own publicity and lost perspective of who he was in this fight. He?s not the man who can demand anything from the United States. But who?s going to tell him?

Certainly not the legacy media. Not the Democrats. Not Hollywood.

Almost as soon as the war began, there didn?t seem to be any difference between celebrities, the Democrats and Zelensky. The Ukrainian Tom Cruise was suddenly everywhere, not just at award shows but on television, appearing at celebrity and news events alike, smearing together politics and culture like peanut butter and jelly. His war was supposed to be our war. If you were against it, you were ?pro-Putin.?

Warning: This post contains satire. Proceed with extreme caution. Side effects include bouts of critical thinking and unintended laughter. If you find yourself taking it too seriously, please consult with your doctor immediately.

In the hottest hell of our imaginations, two Fascists and a Communist escape into a corner bar, the Barbarossa.

The black-haired man with a tiny caterpillar mustache sits in an empty booth. He is Adolf Hitler, known to his people as Mein Fuhrer. A shorter man with a thicker, fatter mustache sits at a table in the middle of the room. He is Joseph Stalin, known as Comrade or Generalissimo. And the third man doesn?t know where to sit. Barrel-chested and wide-eyed, with a cleanly shaven face?no mustache?he is Benito Mussolini, known to his people as Il Duce.

?Sit, Benito,? Hitler says, pointing to the bar. Mussolini does as he is told.

A tiny woman with straggly grey hair flying everywhere appears but does not make eye contact with the three dictators. She hovers and awaits her orders, pulling on her white apron. Quivering in fear, she admonishes her considerable sins and accepts her fate.

?What are we drinking?? Stalin says.

?Tea for me in a porcelain cup,? says Hitler. ?And something sweet. Pralines!?

?I will just have the usual,? Mussolini says.

?Same for me,? says Stalin.

The woman scurries back into the darkness and emerges moments later with a bottle of vodka, a tall glass of milk, and a saucer of pralines, which she places before Hitler. He rubs his hands together excitedly like a schoolboy. ?Mmmmm, my favorite!? Says Hitler, ?But where?s the tea!? The woman startles and nods furiously but must first place the vodka on Stalin?s table with a shot glass and then finally serve Mussolini his tall glass of milk.

As the wench turns to leave, Hitler stews. It?s taking too long. He pounds his fist on the table, and the woman races off.

?That?s always been your problem, Adolf. You are too impatient,? Stalin says, pouring himself a glass. ?Impatient and impulsive.?

Hitler scoffs. ?Enjoy your ?water,? Joseph. Do you think we?re that stupid??

The cursed woman returns, taking care not to spill the cup of hot tea on Hitler as she carefully places it before him. Hitler dismisses her with a wave.

?Water,? Stalin says, ?How would you ever know, even it was??

?We?re already bored of your little tiresome games,? Hitler says.

Now, Mussolini pounds his fist on the bar. ?Will both of you SHUT UP? We have urgent business to attend to.?

Hitler and Stalin share a look. Then, both break into giggles.

?WHAT is so funny if I may ask?? Mussolini says.

?You, uh, have a bit of a milk mustache, Benito; it looks like mine!? says Stalin.

Mussolini slides his sleeve across his face, wiping off the milk, but remains defiant.

?Stop laughing, Adolf!?

Hitler covers his mouth to try to keep from laughing.

?Ha Ha real funny,? Mussolini says. ?I used to drink milk for breakfast. Now, It?s for my stomach. A terrible ulcer.?

?Settle down, Benito,? Hitler says. ?We did not gather here to discuss your dietary preferences.?

?You?re one to talk,? Mussolini says. ?Maybe if you?d laid off the sugar, you might have??

I?ve been watching in horror for the past ten years as the Left - aka, the people with all of the institutional power - lose their minds. I know they don?t see it that way. They think I?m the one who lost my mind. I was radicalized by the Right, they think. I had a nervous breakdown, they think. But the truth is that I haven?t changed. The only thing I did was refuse to go along with the madness.

Oh, don?t get me wrong. I went along with it at first. Even though history told me Trump couldn?t lose in 2016, I was still awash in misery and fear not just that year but every year of his presidency until the very last one when I realized everything I once believed was an illusion.

I was in a bubble, a feedback loop, built by social media, tribalism, collectivism, and a wildly dishonest legacy press. My mistake was trusting that they were telling me the truth. I was shocked to find in 2020 that they were not. They were gaslighting us, doing the bidding of the Democratic Party, just as they are doing now.

As an example of the level of hysteria we?re dealing with here, a review posted in Variety details how the Brazilian film, I?m Still Here is a ?warning? for the United States. The headline, ?It could happen here.?

Everywhere I look, I see the telltale hysteria that gripped my former party back in 2016. I was a good soldier for the Left, fighting for what I believed was the right side. The hysteria spread, infecting every corner of the Left, and at some point, we lost touch with reality.

What was this that had happened to us, I wondered. Why had we abandoned our humanity? Why did the side that used to be the good guys, at least to me, feel so comfortable sliding into dehumanizing and degrading half the country? As I began asking questions, sooner or later, I would get the same one back again, ?What happened to you?? But the right question was never what happened to me.

The Democrats have had almost ten years to figure out that the problem was never Trump. It was always us and the pristine utopian world we built for ourselves using the internet, social media, and a charismatic leader like Barack Obama. It was a New America where everyone got a seat at the table.

The Left always says the first Black president rousted the racists out of hiding, and they lost their minds. But the truth is, it was those of us on the Left who lost our minds with the first Black president. It became an addiction for us, this euphoric feeling of changing the world, of making history. Of being good.

Trump?s win kicked all of us into a level of mass hysteria we couldn?t control then or now. As you can see by the headlines, every day is the end of the world - it?s a threat to Democracy, a Constitutional Crisis, a Nazi salute, a fascist in the White House. Everyone is to be feared. Every decision they make is bad and dangerous.

The Democrats didn?t learn the lesson in 2016 that Trump represented a large portion of this country that had been abandoned and forgotten by us. We not only decided we were the chosen people to bring our new world to the promised land, but we also decided they were the bad people ? the RACISTS ? who must be kept out of our government, our culture, our institutions, our corporations ? even our restaurants, our movie theaters, and our award shows.

As with most utopias gone wrong, there was no due process or presumption of innocence. It was accuse lest ye be accused. It was apologize or else. It was guilty until proven innocent. We all lived in fear of a tyrannical mob on social media with the power to decide who gets to stay and who must go.

What was all of this madness, this hysteria we were experiencing? It was a combination of algorithms our brains were not ready for, and how we?d cut ourselves off from the everyday lives of ordinary Americans. They at least still had one foot in normal. But us? We were crippled by delusion, ruled by hysteria.

Trump threatened everything. He knocked down our carefully constructed utopian diorama with glee, and his supporters loved him for it. We just weren?t prepared for how hysteria takes hold and scares so many of us all at once. It was pure madness, and we were helpless against it.

The hysteria spread to the corporate press, who got most of their information from Twitter, which was a mass hysteria delivery device. And that hysteria trickled down into the homes of anyone watching mainstream cable news. It was at the gym, airports, and the laundry mat. It was white noise in the background, selling our delusions as our new normal ?quietly scaring Americans every day of the week.

The hysteria brought down the empire as we attacked every potential threat to our utopia - movies, books, history, statues, buildings, words, jokes, poetry, science, marriage, men, the color of our skin, the words that came out of our mouths, what we could say online and what we couldn?t. Obey the rules or else. Be quiet or else. Sooner or later, it was bound to get to the kids. And when it did, not enough of us stood up and said ENOUGH.

Usually, this would be when the FBI busts in and breaks it all up, but we controlled the FBI, so they would do nothing.

I was one of the lucky ones. I got out in 2020 after the mob turned on me one too many times. If it wasn?t true about me, everything they accused me of, there was a good chance it wasn?t true about MAGA either. And it wasn?t. If you wanted to tell my story as a former Good Liberal who was radicalized online, you can think of it like this: I was radicalized by kindness, decency, and a desire to be free.

All the Democrats and the Left ever had to do was snap out of it. See Trump and his supporters as actual human beings and not separate us and categorize us by the color of our skin and insist that the bloodshed of history still lives inside all of us. They could reach out and show some decency, let the rest of the country back inside the castle walls. But even that was too much of a risk for an empire in collapse.

But be that as it may, until the Democrats get a grip, they must be kept out of power. So herewith are guidelines for the Democrats on how to keep losing elections, and I really think they should listen to me, don?t you?

?With this Executive Order, the war on women?s sports is over.? - Donald Trump, 45th and 47th President of the United States.

What must it have felt like for all of those feminists on the Left who have spent the better part of a decade insisting Trump was an enemy to women - a rapist, a sexual harasser, an assaulter ? to see so many young girls encircling him as he helped protect their future with the swipe of his pen?

What they should be asking themselves is how it ever came to this. How did we raise a generation to believe such falsehoods about themselves or to feel the need to be something other than who they are? Or to lie about the biological differences between men and women or to teach them never to speak up when they know something is wrong.

How did it arrive with so many millions of people too afraid to stand up for them? How did we get to 2024 with the Left handing over the cornerstone of their movement to Trump?

Look no further than The Coddling of the American Mind as written in the book by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, which has now been turned into a movie:

Most people on the Left recognize there is a problem, but they won?t agree with so many of us that Trump and his tough love are the way out of it, probably not even Lukianoff and Haidt.

But the time for niceties is over. We can?t worry about whose feelings might be hurt or who might be offended. No. This is the time to save America and its young from a dominant contagion that has overtaken nearly every corner of American life.

It isn?t just the denial of science and reality. It?s that so many have become so afraid of just words that we can do nothing except blow past them and try to salvage whatever is left.

We?ve arrived all the way on the opposite end of where the Greatest Generation was when they were sent to war to save the world from Hitler. How did we get from Patton and MacArthur and Eisenhower to a generation who believe that words have the power to destroy them? Just words? Imagine George Patton arriving in modern-day America. What would he make of the nation?s young people?

Or MacArthur. The guy who said, ?It is fatal to enter a war without the will to win it.? And ?You are remembered for the rules you break.? And ?You don't win wars by dying for your country. You win wars by making the other son of a b***h die for his.?

How did we get from that to this?

I don?t know what makes Donald Trump so tough and resilient. But I do know that whatever he has, we could use a lot more of it to help us un-coddle the American mind not a moment too soon.

Hunter S. Thompson wrote in his book Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail:

The "mood of the nation," in 1972, was so overwhelmingly vengeful, greedy, bigoted, and blindly reactionary that no presidential candidate who even faintly reminded "typical voters" of the fear & anxiety they'd felt during the constant "social upheavals" of the 1960s had any chance at all of beating Nixon last year--not even Ted Kennedy--because the pendulum "effect" that began with Nixon's slim victory in '68 was totally irreversible by 1972. After a decade of left-bent chaos, the Silent Majority was so deep in a behavorial sink that their only feeling for politics was a powerful sense of revulsion. All they wanted in the White House was a man who would leave them alone and do anything necessary to bring calmness back into their lives.?

It?s hard to believe that the Democrats became so crazy that they made Trump seem like the normal one, the only person who could bring calm back into our lives.

I felt happy the other day and thought, what is this strange feeling? It wasn?t so much that I was happy with all of what Trump was doing, but he did the one thing that had been keeping me up at night - his Executive Order to end ?gender-affirming care? for minors.

I?m not foolish enough to think that these big moves Trump and his team are making will bring about permanent change, but he?s shaking the tree, standing up to the most powerful forces in the country, and doing exactly what we, the voters, asked him to do.

Trump isn?t the problem. It?s the crumbling empire that refuses to relinquish power and insists so many of its delusions and narratives must be adhered to, even now. Adam Schiff and Elizabeth Warren reminded us that they don?t really seem to care about how the election turned out. They didn?t even turn the page.

They don?t seem to have gotten the message that they?re still considered too crazy to govern. It?s the exact kind of crazy that drove Nixon to a landslide victory and eventually put Reagan in power, keeping Democrats out of the White House for the next 12 years. As things look now, that?s exactly how it will play out.

I sometimes peer into the crazy on TikTok. Women wearing red lipstick in silent protest. Young and old alike screeching and caterwauling at Trump supporters, pleading with them, mocking and dehumanizing them, then begging them to see Trump as the embodiment of all of the evil in the world. How frustrating it must be for them to know that the silent majority doesn?t agree.

How frustrating it must be that they keep screaming racists, Nazis, fascists! And still be seen as the crazier side.

With the election of DNC Chair Ken Martin and Vice Chair David Hogg, they seem to be sending a message to their voters that they?re done with the ?woke? thing, and maybe now they can un-crazy themselves with two boring ?white dudes.?

The last time the Democrats tried to un-crazy themselves, it didn?t go so well. After losing every state except Massachusetts in 1972 and the even worse Jimmy Carter presidency, the Democrats settled on the idea that bland and boring middle manager types were better than chasing the dream.

This ?bland and boring? reset doesn?t undo the crazy but disguises it. Look to the future, they say. Gun control, they say. Bring the fight to the Republicans, they say. But they still can?t solve the problem because they are the problem.

The star, their Great White Hope, their version of the ?bro-whisperer? to bring in the young people is David Hogg, mass shooting survivor turned activist influencer.

And he?s just Ken:

The worst sign is that nothing much has changed except appearances. The party is still leaning into the establishment of old, which means they aren?t sending a message to voters that they are, in any way, prepared to deal with the mess they made over the past four years.

What should worry the Democrats, not that they will pay any attention, is that there is no plan to clean house, which is what they?d need to do to have any real pitch to win back the voters they lost. They seem to be doing the bare minimum, admitting nothing, with Barack Obama still guiding the ship.

They really do think they can sweep it all under the rug ? hiding Joe Biden?s age, the Afghanistan withdrawal, the censorship machine, George Clooney op-ed, how Biden refused to leave, whatever they threatened him with, and the manufactured candidacy of Kamala Harris.

How much better would it be for them if they admitted their party had become too corrupt to function? And too crazy to lead? But they won?t because that other America still exists inside the utopian bunker they?ve been hiding in all this time.

In choosing David Hogg, the Democrats prove they have no plans to roll back the crazy, which, of course, I already knew. This goes deeper for them than politics. This is who they are. This is how they see the world.

With Martin and Hogg (which sounds like a leather boot manufacturer) they?re sending a message to those of us who have defected from the party that nothing has changed. There were no lessons learned, no reckoning to be had.

Says Adam B. Coleman:

When I was a Democrat, we believed in classically liberal principles, like freedom of speech and fairness for all people, not just some people. They elevated serious and, dare I say, likable individuals within the party. At one point, The Democrats seemed like the "cool" party with aspirational and better ideas.

But now, The Democrats are the party of dogma. There is nothing inquisitive or reflective about the party. They are verbal one-trick ponies, twisting their words to validate their end-goal ambition regardless if it works or not.

I?ve seen tweets by people who are hoping their ongoing hysteria about Trump?s first ten days will send people like me running back into their arms. But the problem has never been Trump. The problem has always been them, what they did to this country, what they did to the party, what they did to themselves.

Just like the silent majority ran from them back in 1972 and 1980, so too are we all still okay with Trump, even with the chaos, because he?s not them.

It took me four years to realize that. But once you see it, you can?t unsee it, and there is no going back, at least not until they clean house and un-crazy themselves.

So we?ll see bland candidates running for president as they attempt to tack to the center, but the crazy will follow them like toilet paper stuck to the bottom of their shoes.

The ?Mood of the Nation?

The last time the Democrats scared America, I was just a kid. I grew up in Topanga Canyon around the same time as the Manson family lived there, not to mention it being a hotbed for old-time rock n? rollers, surfers, and cults. Nothing scared me as much as Charles Manson, whose face stared out at us from the cover of magazines. Those crazy eyes, that ?X? scar between his brows.

The Intolerant Liberal is a new species that has arrived on the scene. They are not like the liberals of old. They would never make an offensive joke, and they are perfectly happy to not only point out those who do but join in on the mob that punishes them.

The Intolerant liberals have forgotten much of the great art that used to define them way back in the day. They have forgotten Shirley Jackson?s The Lottery, Arthur Miller?s The Crucible, and all of those on-point Twilight Zone episodes, like It?s a Good Life and The Monsters, are Due on Maple Street.

They?ve forgotten how funny it was to listen to Sam Kinison make one offensive joke after the next, gifting us with the necessary release of laughter, the very thing we need to stay sane.

Richard Pryor would not survive a minute in the time of Intolerant Liberals.

Therein lies Survival Tip Number One: They can?t take a joke. Oh, boy, can they not take a joke. If every single day is the end of the world, how can anything be funny? It?s not funny. It?s HARM. Social media has given them a way to dissect every joke and every word said by everyone.

Imagine how fast sanity would return if they admitted that Trump was funny.

That?s all it would take to open up the door to the Doomsday Bunker so they, too, can break free from the mass delusion that they are the ?oppressed resistance.? And yet?they can?t. They?ve never been the resistance. They?ve always been The Empire, an Empire that is now collapsing.

The richest Intolerant Liberals in the world seem to need Trump because how else to justify their wealth and privilege while they sell ice cream called ?Eat the Rich??

Note how this Intolerant Liberal throws in ?book banning,? as though they are the side that has any room to talk. Books aren?t banned because they never make it past the assistant?s desk unless they project the ideals of Utopia.

We?ve seen how books by JK Rowling and Dr. Seuss have been left off of reading lists, how warning labels have been affixed to movies because the Intolerant Liberals are so afraid of one person?s mental breakdown and ensuing social media backlash that they play it safe. Here is a screenshot of a trigger warning, posted by Kat Rosenfield:

One Last Ride?.

=It?s been a long time coming, hasn?t it MAGA? What a ride it?s been for you.

As people like me were arguing with Bernie bros about the 2016 nomination for president and were caught up in our unending phantasmagoria about a ?reality TV star? who was rising in the ranks on the Right, you were being verbally and physically attacked already, bullied at rallies, spit on, kicked, called racists, Nazis, fascists, bigots. It would only get worse.

How far you?ve come from the last inaugural when so many protesters burned cars and smashed windows, screaming, ?Not my president.?

The beautiful and elegant Melania Trump never graced the cover of any magazine. They mocked her Christmas decorations and called her an uncaring Nazi.

But almost no one got it worse than Ivanka Trump, although all the Trump kids were put through the dehumanizer the Left had become. They were called ugly and inbred. There were jokes about Trump sleeping with his own daughter just because he was proud of her and praised her, as he does all of his kids. This was mainstream on the Left, dehumanization on a grand scale.

As long as that was the version we told ourselves ? that they were the rich, hollow, power-hungry elites like the cast of Succession, we could convince ourselves we were the hard-scrabble people lifting up the minority class and making the world a better place one marginalized group at a time. But what of the majority?

It would eventually lead to the government and their media lying about you on January 6th, riding the hysteria to ban the social media app Parler from Amazon?s web server and the then-sitting president of the United States from YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

It seemed there was no place for you in America anymore. But what did you do in the face of that kind of social and political oppression? You rose up, and you fought back. You didn?t have to do it by smashing windows or protesting. You did it with true grit, organizing, fundraising, and keeping the MAGA spirit high. You never lost your faith because you knew exactly what you were fighting for and what you were up against.

And most of all, your unbreakable loyalty to Trump kept hope alive that one day there might be fairness in government, in our culture, and in our major institutions that decided it was perfectly fine to treat you like hostile invaders in your own country.

But people like me had no idea that it was happening. What we heard was that Trump?s rallies were violent, that his supporters were beating up Black people, and that his rallies were like Hitler?s. If you scare people enough, they?ll go along with anything.

We were the side that had all of the power. We were the empire. We were never the resistance. That we turned our helplessness and fanaticism into dehumanizing half the country is a shame we should never live down.

I didn?t realize it until 2020. I was so trusting of people like Rachel Maddow. I listened to NPR without even thinking about their political bias. We were the side that told the truth, I believed. We weren?t fooled by Fox News and Breitbart. How could anyone not trust NBC News? How could I ever think that what they told me on CNN might not be the whole story?

I didn?t realize until the Tom Cotton op-ed disaster at the New York Times that my information was being carefully curated. I watched all of my friends and colleagues crucify Bari Weiss on Twitter for allowing the Cotton piece to be published in the New York Times. It was harm, they said. It would get people killed, they said. It terrorized their staff, they said.

Tom Cotton was a United States Senator who merely reported what most Americans already believed. The protests were violent and destructive. A majority of Americans wanted the military to be brought in. Bari Weiss was trying to give the majority a voice in the paper of record.

But as we?d done with almost every news story since the beginning of the Trump era, we stretched the truth like taffy to suit our needs. Trump was Hitler, and this was fascism? we?d all convinced ourselves to believe, and with the help of the military ?experts,? they trotted out to agree.

The truth? They needed the protests to be as violent and chaotic as possible. They encouraged them to make Trump look bad.

By 2020, I?d already been the target of so much abuse from the Left. I was called a ?white supremacist,? a bigot, a racist, and a transphobe. Many on the Left now just assume it?s true ?that I ?went to the dark side.?

Not a day goes by that someone from my former side does not lob me with some kind of hateful insult. Just yesterday, I was told by a long-time follower of my film site that I was a ?vile person,? and they regretted ever following me for all of those years. ?Enjoy MAGA,? he said.

Joe Biden said goodbye. He wanted to mirror Eisenhower, who once warned of the Military Industrial Complex, but Biden saw something equally alarming?the Big Tech oligarchy. He sees Zuckerberg and Bezos attending Trump?s inaugural. He greatly fears the power of Elon Musk. He realizes that his side lost control of it and now, he wants all of us to be afraid.

Well, I?m sorry, Joe. I can?t play that game anymore. It?s time to say goodbye.

Farewell, Joe Biden, farewell, Democrats. Farewell, hysteria. Farewell to mandated preferred pronouns in everyone?s bio. Farewell to being forced to lie about whether or not masks work. Farewell to not being allowed to give people the benefit of the doubt. Farewell to being too afraid to ask questions about an experimental vaccine. Farewell to Critical Race and gender theory in elementary schools.

Farewell to the ruling oligarchy ? yes, Joe. You were the frontman for it. You can?t fool me. I was part of it, too. It was like a daisy chain of paper dolls?Hollywood, all major corporate and cultural institutions, Big Pharma, and all of the ads they pumped into the veins of Americans that showcased the American utopia in all of its splendor. Just take this pill, and you, too, can be with us, in the happy place.

Farewell to a government censoring speech via social media. Farewell to the absence of masculinity. Farewell to worrying about every word that comes out of our mouths, what we drive, what we wear on Halloween, what we buy, what we eat, what we watch, what we desire.

Farewell to being made to hate ourselves and everything we know to be true but can?t say out loud. Farewell to being the oppressors or the oppressed defined only by the color of our skin. Farewell to hating our history, hating our country, hating our heroes. Farewell to virtue signaling our goodness. Farewell to always being told that it?s better to keep your head down and say nothing about any of it.

Farewell to never being able to take a joke. Farewell to seeing problematic content in every movie and farewell to the warning labels now affixed to all of them. Farewell to seeing all men as predators and all women as victims.

Farewell to a country ruled by fear because our leaders can?t see it any other way. Farewell to a president who called half the country ?ultra fascists,? ?ultra MAGA,? and ?extreme MAGA Republicans.? Farewell to a government that believes its biggest threat comes from the people of the United States.

Farewell to life inside the doomsday cult, where every single day is the end of the world. Farewell to every word taken literally and seen as another chapter of Mein Kampf. Farewell to repression and sanctimony. Farewell to the long, dark winter. Farewell to lawn signs. Farewell to pretending Kamala Harris wasn?t a terrible candidate installed by the deep state.

Farewell to ever having to worry about speaking the truth. Farewell to the unshakable hopelessness, the unending sadness, the mourning of the long-forgotten Old Left. It?s never coming back. Everything has to be rebuilt. Welcome to the beginning of the rest of your life. At least now, you can have a life.

Bringing it all Back Home

Watching the confirmation hearings was bringing it all back. Adam Schiff was still out of his mind, braying like he?s Cotton Mather in the Oyer in Terminer in Salem, demanding Pam Bondi say Joe Biden ?won the election.? Why did it matter so much to him? Are there really that many Americans out there who need to hear those words said out loud?

The nominees? worth depended on whether or not they would stand up to the tyrant fascist racist rapist dictator that they impeached twice, indicted four times convicted on a bogus felony charge, all of which eventually landed in the fevered dreams of a washed-up surfer hippie from Hawaii who got himself a gun and tried to kill the president to SAVE DEMOCRACY.

And they still lost. They lost the Electoral College and they lost the popular vote. I never get tired of saying that. Talk about owning the libs. What can we do except quote Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. HA. HA HA HA.

That?s how much America hates them. After all, how hard could it possibly be to beat Hitler?

The problem with utopias is that they can?t last. They either must become more authoritarian and thus, less utopian, or they collapse. By the end of our utopia, anyone we knew could be one of those things.

A bad person. A sexist. A racist. A homophobe. A bigot. A transphobe. Toxic masculinity. White feminism. Everyone was either an abuser or a victim. The weaker we were, the more we were celebrated.

We?d snuffed out all independent thought. We were under constant surveillance by the government, advertisers, AI, algorithms, and each other. We began to wonder what real life even was anymore.

It was like Winston and Julia in 1984 trying to carve out some love and lust from the dystopia under Big Brother?s ever-watchful gaze, with children spies at the ready to tattle?and cancel?those who broke the rules.

So if you say Joe Biden won the 2020 election, like you say 2+2=5, then democracy might have a chance. But if you dare think for yourself and start looking behind closed doors and see things you aren?t supposed to see, well, now you threaten democracy.

When I pushed open the door of the doomsday bunker and escaped, I knew there was no going back. I also knew I couldn?t save anyone, much less the once-great culture I used to love. There is no saving whatever it was we used to call the Left. There is only saving America from what it had become so that all of us at least have a fighting chance.

No, it won?t be perfect. Yes, it might be chaos ? entertaining chaos ? but chaos all the same. We?ll have to learn how to tolerate each other again, live together somehow, and learn this new way of life suddenly foisted upon us with the internet. Now, we know what it looks like to shut ourselves off from people and ideas we cannot control.

If the Democrats on Blue Sky and in the Senate Confirmation hearings are any indication, nothing much has changed on the inside. They?re still transfixed by the one guy they couldn?t cancel, the one guy they couldn?t destroy.

1984 Part Two

And maybe now we?re about to find out what happens in the sequel. Does Big Brother find a way to regain power by destroying Elon Musk to retake X and make it Twitter again? Do those of us exiled and canceled remain on the outside? Does the New York Times beg Bari Weiss to come back, or The Atlantic to throw themselves at the feet of Walter Kirn, or Rolling Stone magazine, the crap rag it has become, offer Matt Taibbi millions to write for them again?

Can those on the inside who have speciated with a whole new language and belief system learn to live with the unwashed masses again? Can they tolerate offensive speech? Can it all be one big, happy, dysfunctional family?

On the inside, the news that Carrie Underwood and the Village People were playing at the inaugural birthed a fresh new crop of mass hysteria and rage. So I?m guessing Saturday Night Live won?t have Trump back any time soon. The Oscars won?t ask him to attend, and those who still believe they control this country will hold onto their collapsing empire until ashes, ashes, it all falls down.

I don?t know. But it doesn?t matter. Because today we say farewell. And oh, how sweet it is.

//

Six years ago on Medium, I wrote the following:

The Republicans have systematically turned climate change into a partisan issue, you know, like abortion, and have done so to manipulate their gullible electorate into believing the lie that there is no such thing as man-made climate change. They spew the dumbo rhetoric any time they can, that ?oh the weather changes all the time.? Or ?I don?t believe climate change is real ? even if the planet is warming, it isn?t our fault.?

Yeah, it is. You dig up fossil fuels and you burn them, that warms the planet. They were buried for millions of years which, in turn, cooled the planet, making it an ideal atmosphere for all kinds of different forms of life, including us. What?s coming next is uncharted territory for humanity. We have no idea how bad it?s going to get. We just know it WILL be bad.

I was not only furious with rage, but I was quick to blame the other side for deliberately sabotaging our noble efforts to stop the warming of the planet, as though we ourselves were not contributing to it. We acted like we could buy a hybrid here, go vegan there, recycle our plastic, and be absolved from contributing to this existential crisis we all now must face.

It isn?t that I don?t believe the planet is warming, or that sea level won?t rise, or that it is directly the fault of so many people on the planet. What has changed is that I no longer blame the other side, and I no longer see my former side as the good guys in the fight. No, I see them as hypocrites. I was a hypocrite too.

I?d been in a bubble for much of my adult life because I lived online, in virtual spaces. Yes, I was raising my daughter in public schools, but those were a bubble too. We all belonged inside the same utopia. We read the same articles. We watched the same news. Our worries were the same worries. We spoke the same language, and all of us shared the belief that the biggest threat we faced was climate change and that the biggest obstacle we faced was the Republicans.

And then, my daughter moved across the country, and I got a couple of dogs. Rather than fly and leave my dogs at home, I began driving across the country. Those drives changed everything for me, not just how I saw climate change but how I saw my fellow Americans. This was how people actually lived, not how we did, inside our haze of paper straws and cotton diapers.

I saw the trucks driving on the interstates to deliver food and goods, the many hotels that require air conditioning and heating, the slaughterhouse trucks providing food for so many in this country, and the tiny houses in the middle of the desert with one embattled air conditioner sticking out of the window.

Looking at all of this, all of these places, and all of these businesses, it was easy to see that there was no turning this thing around. There is no way to convince every state and citizen to hop aboard what is an existential crisis for the upper class. Life just isn?t like that.

Everyone wants things that work, cars that run, planes that fly. They want washing machines, dishwashers, flat-screen TVs, office buildings, emergency rooms, and new computers and tech support lines, to buy groceries they can afford, to get fruit in the middle of winter, to watch movies and doom scroll social media ? and ?every Tweet warms the planet,? as Roy Scranton once wrote.

Even if we could convince every single American to accept our fixes, what would we do about Russia, India, or China? We seemed to have gone all in on fantasy but we?re disconnected from reality.

What we believe on the Left, or at least we used to, was climate change was Armageddon, doomsday, the end of everything. Therefore, what mattered to us isn?t so much that we solve the problems to survive climate change, but that we convert everyone else to our way of thinking. If we could do that, we believed, we could start making the big changes to our country and world.

The Left is still haunted by the ghosts of the past, back when we really did have the power and the opportunity to make real change. We squandered that power, and then we blamed the other side. In so doing, we could wash our hands of real solutions, whether it was gun violence, poverty, failing schools, floods, fires, or hurricanes.

And now, in the perfect cocktail of high Santa Ana winds, no rain for months, and a city caught off guard, the fires rampaged through the beaches of the Pacific Palisades and Malibu and the mountains of Alta Dena and continue to burn.

There were rumors of not enough water, not enough firefighters, and no way to control the speed of the flames as they ripped through the dry brush, burning one house after another as we watched the tragedy unfold on live television or YouTube.

This time, the narrative swirled around California?s governor, Gavin Newsom, and the Los Angeles Mayor, Karen Bass, newly elected in 2022 as the first female and second Black person to serve. Bass had left the country in January, known as the last month of the Santa Ana cycle that comes every Fall.

From the University of California:

The region sees about 10 Santa Ana wind events a year on average, typically occurring from fall into January. When conditions are dry, as they are right now, these winds can become a severe fire hazard.

//

end

As we approach the four-year anniversary of January 6th, I keep hearing Robin Williams's words from way back: ?Reality, what a concept.?

It is not reality but unreality that so many on the Left live by. Want to know why Joe Biden?s age was covered up for so long? Why didn?t anyone speak up against puberty blockers before? Why is box office for Hollywood films in near-total collapse and ratings for cable news shows in freefall? Look no further than Obama?s unreality machine.

In that unreality, Liz Cheney is not a formerly low-level rep from Wyoming with a famous last name who was voted out in a landslide but is instead an American hero who ?put country over party? when she turned what was left of her career into a vendetta against Donald Trump. For that, she was love-bombed by the propaganda press and an instant star in the Democratic Party, the ?one good Republican,? as they saw it. Mitt Romney and Adam Kinzinger would be relegated to supporting players.

In the unreality, it makes sense for Joe Biden to bestow upon Liz Cheney the Citizens Medal to rapturous applause by the Left.

TV appearances and glowing headlines in high-minded outlets like the New York Times reminded me of that line in the Robert Redford film Quiz Show, when they ponder why Charles Van Doren would have to cheat just to win. Because ?he?s not going to get on the cover of TIME Magazine as Mark Van Doren?s son.?

And so Liz, with her sensible suits and the authoritative tone she got from her father, played an important role in the greatest scam ever perpetrated on the American public, or at least one of them, that Donald Trump was so evil, so dangerous, so powerful he could destroy not just the Constitution but democracy itself.

And that his supporters were cult-like obedient zombies who picked up their weapons and stormed the Capitol to hang Mike Pence and overthrow the government. Oh you mean the one protected by the most powerful military force the world has ever known? That government? In the unreality, you must accept that, or you will suffer severe social consequences.

The truth was never going to be enough. They needed star witnesses like Cassidy Hutchinson to toss into the media churn to keep the story on Page One every day of the Biden presidency. They needed a Soviet-style primetime show trial wherein the Trump side was not even allowed a proper defense. General Milley and Benny Thompson made guest appearances to remind everyone of what it was all really about - WHITE RAGE.

They must really think the American people are that stupid. They had lived through months of violent protesting all Summer, and they were supposed to clutch pearls at a riot at the Capitol? Yes, it was violent, but so were the protests in 2020. Ah, but those protests were ?mostly peaceful? and justified in the unreality.

It?s the government?s job to meet the needs of its people, not the people?s job to meet the needs of the government. January 6th was a day our politicians should have recognized that their unreality machine left millions of people out. And it was those unheard voices that should have been heard that day. Yes, some of them got violent and breached the Capitol, and they should be punished fairly, but that isn?t what our government did. They went to war on their own citizens, something the Left had never done, not since the Civil War.

It is my heart-warm and world-embracing Christmas hope and aspiration that all of us, the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the admired, the despised, the loved, the hated, the civilized, the savage, may eventually be gathered together in a heaven of everlasting rest and peace and bliss, except the inventor of the telephone.Mark Twain - Letter to the Editor, New York Evening World, 23 December 1890

If you grow up on the Left, you grow up without religion. After the counterculture movement split from conventional religion in the 1960s, we?d done everything we knew how to do to fill up the eternal emptiness that had us chasing everything from sex, drugs, and rock n? roll, cults in the 1970s, gurus, and ashrams, the self-help movement, the mental health movement, and eventually, we ended up back where we started.

We ?found religion,? but this time as the politics of identity, where our happiness depended on how we solved the problems of society, like racism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, and climate change. It came from needing to feel good about ourselves and our world, but it was followed by anger and resentment when we could not convert the entire country to our way of life.

The truth about the Left is that they know no other way of life. This was the problem for the Southerners after the Civil War. They, too, knew no other way of life and could not evolve out of their hatred, fear, and hysteria. All they could do was preserve it by banishing those who threatened it.

I wish I could say I?ve come out of these past several years with a renewed faith in humanity. The truth is exactly the opposite. What I saw was what collective hatred, fear, and tribalism can do to otherwise decent people. I saw what we?re all capable of when our power is threatened. I saw how easy it is to go along with the crowd, even when what they?re doing is wrong.

I always thought the people I called my heroes were made of tougher stuff. Better stuff. Kinder stuff. I always thought my side was the side of the good guys who would be immune to group dehumanization. I also did I think we would ever be the ruling class aristocracy sneering at the middle and working class, gathering all of our culture, wealth, and institutions, and hogging them for ourselves.

Now that the empire is in collapse, those with all of the power are scrambling, not just to explain it but as a way to get back some of what?s been taken. Good luck with that one.

Take yet another agonizing, unbearable column by your typical Leftist elite, Jill Filipovic, writing for The Guardian:

Worse than what, Jill? Indoctrinating children to choose their genders, then surgically or chemically sterilizing them? Or does it just come down to immigrants and their right to cross the border illegally by the millions, their safety, and our safety be damned?

Corruption? You mean like government censorship on a laptop or covering up the mental incapacity of the Commander in Chief for four years? Weaponizing the Department of Justice?

Immorality? Like what exactly? Lying to the public via the propaganda press? Calling half the country ?garbage? or ?White Supremacists? or ?Nazis??

And what rights? The right to have an opinion without losing your job, status, or social standing? Your right to play in sports as a biological female without having to compete with biological men? Oh, of course not. She means abortion, as usual. Honey, if you want an abortion, there?s a pop-up clinic down the street.

People like Jill examine half the country as insects in a jar, watching how they behave in tightly confined spaces, how they respond to being called racists, or how they are de-banked or canceled off of social media. It?s fun, right? To watch the insects get stressed and claw at the glass for a way out?

The disgust drips from every word, even as she tries to make nice-nice, now that her ass has been handed to her in a historic, humiliating defeat.

Trump won again, Jill. Eat that for breakfast.

It isn?t you people who have to learn to tolerate Trump voters. It?s you who have to apologize to them for what you?ve done not only to them but to this country. You have destroyed every great thing you ever built, and listen to you now, pretending you still have the moral high ground.

She then tries to explain why she?s writing this at all:

To paraphrase a line from Carrie, ?Shut up, Jill. Just shut up.?

These are the kinds of people I used to call home. I knew them, mingled with them, read them, RT?d them and was Facebook friends with them. Now, they terrify me.

They are the banality of evil. They are the side that would go along with segregation, even if they?ll never admit it. They?re the side that would lock arms as the Jews were carted off to camps, and no, they?ll never see themselves that way.

She writes:

Oh, poor deluded Jill. She has no idea what just happened, does she?

It would do her a world of good to start opening her mind to reality, escape the fear bunker, and start interfacing with the truth. She should read David Samuels? piece in Tablet, one I?ll be writing about in more depth for my next piece:

?Trump?s head turn was a perfect example of an event that has no explanation outside the favor of the gods, or whatever modern equivalent involving wind factors and directional probabilities you might prefer to the word ?God.? Trump was fated to win, just as Achilles was fated to overcome Hector, because the gods, or if you prefer the forces of cosmic randomness, were on his side, on that day, at that moment. That move not only saved his life by allowing him to escape an assassin?s bullet; it revitalized his chi and set in motion a series of subsequent events that generated a reordering of the entire world.?

?You can?t stop what?s coming. It ain?t all waiting on you. That?s vanity.?

A Christmas Story

I was always the first to wake up on Christmas morning. It was almost like a job. I?d scramble into the living room before the sun even came up to gaze upon the abundance of treasures beneath the Christmas tree.

I never believed Santa was real, but those presents got there somehow. It was my grandmother who enlisted my older sister to help her wrap all of the presents after the rest of us had gone to sleep. It was a magic trick she performed every Christmas to keep the illusion of Santa alive in our imaginations.

She thought she had us fooled. We let her pretend. It didn?t matter because every Christmas morning was a rare moment of pure joy. One after the other, we?d tear through the presents, not waiting for each person to finish before moving on to the next. Pure carnage but oh what fun.

I never really thought much about what Christmas really means until recently. If it is only about driving the economy or buying stuff, then it isn?t worth celebrating. But if it is about something much bigger than ourselves, a way to unify us as one people under God, well, then it means something.

I began thinking back on my life, on my childhood, and how religion fit into it. Most movies during the Hays Code era (before the 1960s and 1970s) were infused with Christian ideology, especially Christmas movies. And why wouldn?t they be?

George Bailey prays in It?s a Wonderful Life, and an angel shows up to answer his prayers.

In A Charlie Brown Christmas, they sing about the ?Newborn King,? who is, of course, Jesus. We all used to share that as a country. It was a thread that united us, along with being American citizens.

We all watched these movies because we understood the foundational principles of what made America. That isn?t true anymore. To even reference religion, as I?m doing now, is practically a revolutionary act. There is a new religion in town, a fundamentalist one that offers no path to redemption or forgiveness and demands total compliance or else.

What does any of it mean to us now? Is it really just about the list of things we buy? Is it about the movies we all treasure every year? Is it about what unites us, not what divides us? Is it about something bigger than ourselves? Are we still even allowed to say ?Merry Christmas??

I don?t have the answers; I just know that I was raised by a devout atheist who hated religion, and thus, I never thought about Christmas other than as a way to give things and get things. But now, thanks to my four years of getting to know Trump supporters, I see that and many other things differently.

I wandered out of darkness and despair toward what looked like a golden light of hope and optimism, surrounded by people our ruling class deemed ?dangerous? at best and ?human garbage? at worst. I knew every step that brought me closer to them would be one more step that separated me from everyone and everything else.

As I?ve written so often here, it was another Christmas movie, maybe the best one, that reminded me of what happened to me. It was The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. The moral of that story is that you can?t steal Christmas. It isn?t something you can buy or attain. It isn?t even something you can give.

That?s why the Whos in Whoville are still celebrating and singing even after the Grinch takes away every last symbol of Christmas. He couldn?t take away the one thing that mattered most - what was in the hearts and minds of those celebrating.

I can?t call myself a Christian or even a person of faith. I lean in, and that?s farther than I did before. But I also know I have learned the same lesson the Grinch did. I saw people abandoned by our political establishment, institutions, and culture - people who should have been angry and bitter. But they weren?t. They were happy. That?s how my heart grew and why I think differently about Christmas now.

It wasn?t Trump supporters who demanded I pick a side?it was the Left. They have imagined an unbearable reality for most of us. Perhaps it comforts people like Jill Filipovic, but for the rest of us, we choose the better way, one that values forgiveness, redemption, and humility.

And one that allows us to say, even shout, Merry Christmas.

So thank you, dear readers. When I say you saved me, I really mean it. You did. There, but for the Grace of God, Go I.

//

I wished I?d edited the OG Hero?s Journey more, but I wanted to finish it as quickly as possible. I kept thinking of things to add, and a professional editor friend of mine gave me some notes. So I tinkered with it a bit, but today, I decided to edit an extended version, a ?Director?s Cut,? as a thank you to the premium subscribers.

I?ve spent four years now unable to figure out a way to offer extra content as a perk, but I just came up with one. Now, I can add all of those things I wanted to add - like the Trump/Biden Debate, Kamala Harris, a few extra clips like this one from Megyn Kelly:

Not to mention the dismissed cases against Trump, the defamation case, etc. I added a few things here and there, and I think it is better than the first one, though it will be longer by about 20 minutes.

This is for those who might be interested or enjoyed the first ones. If you sent me money a different way and are still counted as a free subscriber, let me know so I can upgrade you.

It isn?t my favorite thing to put things behind a paywall, but I did want to add an additional thank you. In these tough times, I know money is hard to come by. That?s why almost everything I write here is free. But this is a way to appreciate those extra folks who have chipped in.

This isn?t the last thing I?ll be posting before Christmas and New Year?s but I wanted to get out anyway.

Thanks again to everyone who reads, whether you are premo or not.

Sasha

[Introduction: I made this as a special gift for Christmas or the holidays because I wanted to do something more than just a regular podcast to say thank you for your support, your friendship, your letters (yes I read them) and just for being great people. I hope that you will get something out of it. I tried to keep it short but it?s too long. Either way, it?s a learning curve! The transcript with most of the video references is below).

Every so often, I say out loud, ?Trump won.? I repeat it in my head a few times because even now, I barely believe it. Eight long years of conflict, madness, division, corruption - there have been convictions, jail time, even suicides among Jan 6ers whose lives were destroyed because they were faithful enough to Trump to have his back when the chips were down.

What our government, our media, and the ruling class wanted was to terrorize Trump supporters out of their loyalty to him. ?It?s a cult,? they continue to insist. But even after all of that, Trump won. He won the Electoral College and the popular vote.

There has never been a story like this one in all of American history, and even the Good People of the Left know that. But there have been stories like this in all the most beloved films and books. This story is one we all know. It?s called The Hero?s Journey, and any honest person knows that we just watched Trump live out his.

By the end of it, he has people like me wandering around saying ?Trump won.? His victory meant more than just winning an election. It meant the return of reality and normalcy somehow, I know it sounds crazy to say that but it?s true.

Trump refused to stand down, no matter what they threw at him. He refused to cower in the face of an assassin?s bullet. He soldiered on, as the best heroes do, passing every test, humiliating his rivals, and even those who hated Trump can?t help but be impressed.

One only needs to look at the two covers of TIME Magazine, which feature Trump as Man of the Year, to see how it started and how it?s going.

Trump didn?t write this story; his enemies did, and in so doing, they sealed their fate to become but a footnote in the unforgettable story of the greatest political comeback in American history.

Says Victor Davis Hanson:

So, how did we get here? What is the Hero?s Journey, and how does Trump?s story fit so well?

Trump?s Hero?s Journey

We could leave it at that, but I?d like to go through the stages one by one.

Part One - The Ordinary World

To massive ratings success, millions of Americans welcomed Trump into their ordinary world every week. He was already a star. People tuned in to hear him say ?You?re fired.? But they also tuned in to hear him say what was true but couldn?t be said out loud. They knew him, and they loved him. Reality TV was about to become actual reality.

In 2016, America could be divided into two groups: those who watched The Apprentice and those who did not. If you knew Trump from that ordinary world, nothing he said would shock you. But if you were like me, already insulated in a protective cocoon of extreme political correctness, a utopia where offensive language is not to be tolerated, and a class of people who would not be caught dead watching The Apprentice, his words would be paralyzing, enough to cause fits of mass hysteria that would last for years.

Trump has been a fixture in American culture since the 1980s. He mocked himself and was always in on the joke. Just one year before the Left decided he was Hitler, he hosted Saturday Night Live.

Despite Trump?s wealth and the Left?s attempts to portray him as an out-of-touch billionaire, he speaks the language of ordinary working-class Americans somehow.

Trump is the guy who eats at McDonald?s. He?s the guy who talks to the golfer and the caddy. But to make him into Hitler, it took a village of liars who had no intention of handing over power to Trump or any of the Americans who voted for him.

But Trump?s ordinary world was not politics. He was an outsider, the perfect hero to be plucked from one world and thrust into the special world, one he did not fully understand.

Part Two - The Call to Adventure (refusing the call)

The Hero is always reluctant to answer the call. Trump was asked again and again if he?d consider getting into politics. The answer was always no.

Running for president seemed to be the last thing Trump had left to do and he knew that. He was right, in those early days, to say that America wasn?t ready for people who tell it like it is.

Part Three - Accepting the Call

Trump, like so many others born outside of Manhattan, maintained a chip on his shoulder that drove him to not just become one of the Manhattan elites but to earn their respect.

So it stung when Obama called him out and humiliated him in a room full of people who thought they were superior to Trump in every way.

Obama was hitting back after the ?birther conspiracy? most on the Left deemed ?racist.? But really, he was playing his most powerful card ? that he was accepted by the ruling class, and Trump was not.

This set up the epic battle between the two men for the next decade, one Trump would ultimately win.

Obama wasn?t just accepted by the ruling class. He was their symbol of virtue. As wealth concentrated on the Left, what they, we, needed was absolution from our sins of privilege. Obama provided that. He was the closest thing we had to religion.

By contrast, Trump represented our collective sins. If we could blot out the Sun, we could somehow deny those bad qualities in ourselves. That guy over there is the bad guy. We?re not like that.

But by 2015, Trump was finally ready.

The Hero is always unprepared for what this step actually means. They might start the journey almost as a lark. But once they accept that fateful call, there can be no turning back.

Trump famously vanquished his primary opponents, picking them off one by one as a country already addicted to reality shows watched this one. That?s what it looked like, anyway. Every great reality show needs a great villain. And there was no more entertaining villain than Donald Trump.

Who would dare talk to Jeb Bush like that?

And who would dare talk to Hillary Clinton like that?

Part Four - The Mentor and the Talisman

Trump had several key mentors, including Roy Cohn and his father. But the one who matters most in Trump?s Hero?s Journey is Steve Bannon, who was busy building a populist movement that needed a tough leader like Trump. Here, Bannon talks about their first meeting.

Bannon took the long view then and now. He?d read The Fourth Turning by Neil Howe and William Strauss. Ten years after the book was written, he lived through the 2008 financial crisis. Bannon made the movie Generation Zero about what was coming next. He has always had an eye on how America must land after the Fourth Turning - in the direction of populism, not globalism.

On October 7, 2016, the infamous Access Hollywood tape dropped as an October surprise. As Bannon tells it, the wolves were at the door. Trump had a decision to make: a mea culpa with David Muir and ABC News or fight, fight, fight.

Bannon is the Yoda to Trump?s Luke Skywalker because he helped sculpt and guide the hero toward his ultimate goal. Though Trump pushed him out in his first term, Bannon remained loyal to Trump and even spent four months in Danbury prison. For Bannon, it?s never been about Trump specifically but about guiding the ship in the right direction. He needed Trump then, and he needs him now.

Part Five - Crossing the Threshold

For Trump, the 2016 election was the threshold between the ordinary world and the special world, a win that shocked even him.

Winning was supposed to mean that the American people accepted him as their president. He didn?t understand why they were protesting in the streets, as they were saying he was ?illegitimate? and #notmypresident. He won, after all, so why weren?t they treating him that way?

In 2016, those of us on the Left decided that this country, its culture, its government, and its institutions all belonged to us. If we proclaimed Trump a racist, Nazi, fascist and thus, rendered him ineligible to serve, we had every right to treat him and his supporters as unwanted invaders in our country.

Part Six: Tests, Allies and Enemies

Being a Trump ally is not for the faint of heart. He is no walk in the park, especially not then. He?ll insult even those closest to him and spend much of his time in office antagonizing the press and the swamp creatures. But Trump?s role was not to be liked by any of them. It was to represent the people who voted for him, as is.

Nonetheless, the establishment government ate Trump alive in his first term because he wasn?t a lawyer or a politician. He had to hit the ground running, and was met with oppositional forces who sought to sabotage, discredit, and ultimately push him out of power. It was a slow-moving coup, and Trump was no match for the empire.

Nancy Pelosi ripped up the State of the Union. The Democrats took the House and impeached him two years into his first term, just as Steve Bannon had predicted. Trump?s agenda to drain the swamp and close the border had to be pushed aside as he fought for his own reputation and his presidency.

Part Seven - The Approach

For Trump, The Approach was the 2020 election. Trump could see what the powerful forces that opposed him were doing to rig the election. Even I could see it as a Biden voter. It was not hard. Nothing made sense.

What we would all find out much later is we didn?t imagine it. They bragged about it in TIME Magazine.

2020 was one of the hardest years for Trump. He was in over his head and no one in DC or the media wanted to help him deal with the pandemic. They wanted ? needed ? him to fail, just as they needed the protests over the Summer to be bad enough to threaten Trump and his family.

Trump caught COVID, survived it, and then went out and did five rallies per day in hopes of making up lost ground. He knew the pandemic crashed the economy, his strongest selling point for a second term. But his campaign was starting to move the needle. Why? Because the Left had lost its mind.

The problem was they weren?t playing by the rules of the game. They made up their own rules, and Trump was no match for him. All he had was his First Amendment right to have his and his supporters voices heard, which they did on January 6th as part of a mobilization effort by MAGA to protest the election. They called it ?Stop the Steal.?

But the riot at the Capitol was Check Mate. It was over. His court cases, his attempts to convince Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley to debate the rule changes in court, his MAGA movement ? all collapsed in an instant. How convenient that was for the empire.

Had they left Trump alone and allowed him to enjoy the rest of his life in Mar-a-Lago, maybe things would have ended there. Maybe they would have actually won the war. But they weren?t quite done with Trump, and he most certainly wasn?t done with them.

Part Eight - The Supreme Ordeal

Biden?s incompetence became clear to Americans when the botched exit from Afghanistan woke everyone up to who was now the leader of the free world - someone who, despite a lifetime in government, did not listen to his military brass. 13 American soldiers dead, military equipment left behind, a humanitarian crisis left in its wake, it was a disaster.

Biden?s approval numbers crashed and they never recovered.

To cover up for their failures, they leaned into corruption.

They raided Mar-a-Lago. They indicted Trump four times. They convicted him on a bogus felony charge. And all the while, the idiots on MSNBC and the high-status voices were cheering them on. All they wanted ? needed ? to see was Trump, in an orange jumpsuit, frog-marched off to prison.

All that did was ignite the Hero?s Journey, making Trump the hero and, thus, instantly more popular. Everyone was rooting for him from the sidelines. He was a folk hero, a working-class hero, a hero of those mistreated by law enforcement. Only the ruling class couldn?t see it - they had lost their connection to the reality of everyday American life and, thus, the ordinary world.

And then came the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13th.

Just days later, a wounded Trump walked onto the stage at the GOP convention and faced a large crowd for the first time.

Trump had the wind at his back with his triumphant return to Butler, PA. Even though Americans had almost seen Trump?s head blown off on live television, but for a miraculous turn of his head at just the right time, Trump brought the tragedy full circle by doing what he has always done. He turned it into a way to entertain the crowd.

Trump picked up where he left off.

?As I was saying??

Part Nine - The Reward

What had been among the darkest days in American history, not just Trump?s four years in office, the two impeachments, COVID and the lockdowns, the Summer of 2020, January 6th, and the weaponization of the DOJ and the criminal justice system became a celebration of hope and renewal.

People who were consumed by hatred of Trump because they trusted the media now humanized him and were realizing for the first time how much they?d been lied to.

It was something you could feel: minds and hearts changing gears, people waking up and seeing Trump differently. They were openly endorsing him, supporting him, and ultimately voting for him.

He was hitting nothing but green lights, even if the villains of this story were still paralyzed by their fear and hatred of him. America was moving on.

Part Ten - The Road Back

They can keep destroying themselves, trying to destroy him, but Trump?s triumphant return was evident when he was invited to be the first president since Ronald Reagan to ring the bell at the NYSE. The city that made him now had no choice but to tip its hat.

Part Eleven - Growth and Atonement

What is so ultimately moving about this story isn?t so much Trump himself but those standing behind him, sticking by him, his ride-or-die MAGA family.

Trump has changed. He knows he defeated the most powerful and perhaps corrupt administration in American history, and there has to be eternal satisfaction in that. He rescued his legacy, his family?s name, the Trump brand, and all of us Americans who were living under the dark cloud of madness and hysteria for much too long.

But Trump?s true redemption has to be how he showed his gratitude to those thrown away like human garbage by the ruling class but gave Trump the kind of love and support to carry him through the darkest days.

Part Twelve - The Return

Trump was never Citizen Kane. He was never the guy who wanted to be loved. He was raised to be a fighter and a winner. Maybe that wasn?t what the country needed 20 years ago, but it is what the country needs right now, especially the young. He came along just in time to pull them out of their cocoons of fragility.

Not just them, all of us.

And that is why we need heroes and are so drawn in by the Hero?s Journey. We need to see David go up against Goliath and win. We need to see the powerful forces of evil vanquished. We need to believe in them so we can believe in ourselves. And so now, those of us cast out of utopia can?t stop saying those two words to remind us of what we just lived through: Trump won.

Video Credits (non-youtube links):

The Fighter, Jon KahnVictor Davis Hanson: Donald Trump is a Great Man of History (GBN News)The Hero's Journey, Marco Aslan34 year old Donald Trump asked if he'd ever run for President.Re-Live Donald Trump's Most Memorable TV Show and Movie CameosDonald Trump Teases a President Bid During a 1988 Oprah Show | The Oprah Winfrey Show | OWNA Portrait of Donald J. Trump, by Vic Berger & VICE NewsTrump's Road to the White House (full documentary) | FRONTLINEThe Kiffness (Eating the Dogs)

If I?m missing any, let me know.

I?ll admit that this Thanksgiving road trip wasn?t exactly fun. Oh, don?t get me wrong. The minute I see my daughter, I am over the moon. Thanksgiving was as it should be: warm family, good food, and giving thanks. I never want to say goodbye and I hate that she lives all the way across the country.

It was the before and the after when the trouble began. Somehow, last May?s road trip did not bring the darkness, but this one did. It was too much time spent thinking about things I?d been pushing aside for too long. I feel like I?ve been running just ahead of a tidal wave. And no, that doesn?t mean anything like depression but just the plain truth of what has become of me and my life after the past four years of moving from one side of a Civil War to the other.

Was it a Civil War, or was it a revolutionary war? I can?t really tell. I just know that it was a war with two sides. You had to pick one. However, no one on the Right punishes anyone on the Left for believing what they believe, not really. They boycott companies that sell their ideology, like Budweiser. But they don?t disinvite you to Thanksgiving.

I knew I could not discuss politics with my daughter?s boyfriend?s family, and I didn?t. Whatever they believed, I was willing to put it aside because we were all together for a holiday about appreciating everything we had. And in the big picture, I have much to be thankful for. I feel lucky in that way.

Last May I ended up in the ER twice on my road trip, once for slicing open my palm in Lincoln, Nebraska and once while trying to outrun a screaming ambulance with my elderly dog barely able to make it across the street. I tripped and landed on my elbow, breaking my arm. But the dog was fine.

Nonetheless, I wasn?t haunted last time like I have been this time. If my life was a novel, those injuries might have been warnings for something much more serious to come. Not serious like the death of a loved one or a terminal illness, but serious in a different way, a life-shattering, unavoidable way.

But my life isn?t a novel. Maybe the tidal wave finally caught up with me now that I had so much time to think. At home, I am always online, reading and listening to like-minded people and not feeling so alone. But in a car driving for hours, there was no escaping it.

This isn?t some nightmare I?m living through, and one day, I will wake up. I?ve bought a one-way ticket aboard the Counterculture Express, and there?s no turning back now.

It wasn?t so much everything I?ve been writing about and saying for the past four years that haunted me. It was what?s just happened to me in the past few months. I?ve spent almost a decade being that one person who stands on the side of those being canceled, using whatever online clout I?d attained from a life lived mostly online to defend them.

I have even stood up for those accused of being sex offenders. I?ll never forget spending much of my reputational clout standing up for a writer named Devin Faraci. Long before Hollywood blacklisted me, the worst thing they could say about me was that I was a rapist apologist. And they said it all of the time.

Later, when I began drifting away from the Left and writing here on Substack, I was interviewed by Megyn Kelly. Somehow, Devin Faraci saw it. After being a patron on his Patreon, writing columns defending him, and standing up for him at great cost - he threw me under the bus. He called me out on Twitter because he had to let everyone know that he might be a sexual assaulter, but I was now on the other side of the war, and that was worse.

But even as horrible as that was, it wasn?t what had occupied my thoughts for the past two weeks while doing something I usually love. Driving. No. It was how I?d wasted so much of my time working a 24/7 job, investing my whole life in an industry that would completely turn its back on me in the way they have. It has always been chilling to live through it, but somehow, I?d avoided really thinking about it, and now, as I drove nearly 3,000 miles to Ohio and back, I couldn?t think of anything else.

It?s Oscar season, and I?m doing what I?ve done every year since 1999: reporting on the Oscar race. Even back in May, I had a whole staff working with me to proofread my stories, remind me of breaking news, or run a contest form. Now, it?s a ghost town, and it?s just me. But driving all day means I can?t do the job alone.

I was playing with fire, I always knew, and said so many times when people asked me how I was able to get away with writing honestly here on Substack while the climate of fear and the culture of silence crippled so much of Hollywood. How had I remained untouched?

(If you have not yet listened to Part One, that is here)

Janet was dreading Thanksgiving this year. She dreaded it every year. Holidays made her feel a sense of foreboding. What was coming next, she thought, how much worse could it possibly get?

It had been a rough few weeks for Janet and countless other women in the country. She barely remembered election night except that at some point, she rooted around in a closet, dug out her ex-boyfriend?s electric razor, and ? shaved her head. Did she really shave her head?

As she lay in bed, still too depressed to make coffee, she ran a palm over her scalp and felt the stubble. She?d actually done it. She?d shaved it all off. And how could she have forgotten? One morning, she stumbled into the market in her bathrobe and was greeted with sympathetic stares by the cashier. No, it wasn?t the election they were referring to. They all thought she had cancer.

?Can I do anything for you, dear?? One of them said, touching Janet?s arm. ?You can get me a new president and a better country,? Janet had snapped back. The woman?s face melted from concern to a shared knowing of the tragedy that had just taken place. Janet could see her working it out in her mind. Janet was one of those women who shaved her head after the election.

Well, so what? Janet thought as she clutched her robe tightly around her body before ducking back into her house, slamming the door behind her. The only reason she?d gone out was that she?d emptied every wine bottle in the house, and now, she needed another glass. Yes, it was the morning, no, don?t ask her about it. Janet knew that if there was any time to remain permanently drunk, this was it.

What a terrible night that was. November 5th. She figured the election would be close but Rick Wilson had assured her that Trump would lose and lose badly.

She?d watched the results come in until she heard the independents flipped to Trump in record numbers. That was when her heart sank. It was like watching the Needle at the New York Times flip from Hillary winning by 95% to Trump winning by 95%. Now, the needles were all pointing Trump?s way again, all of the swing states.

How could this be happening? After all the ways the Democrats and the media showed the American people how evil and monstrous Trump was? Now, she had to wait months for her hair to grow out. What had she done?

The Democrats and the Left are still working their way through the seven stages of grief over the election. Many of them continue to be in denial as to how so many people could have voted for Trump and made the popular vote even close at all.

In their defense, this wasn?t just an election loss. It was the single most humiliating defeat probably in American history. They spent eight years doing nothing but selling hatred and fear of Trump. They pulled out the stops, from Hollywood to the Justice Department. Headline after headline told the Democrats that all of the evil known to mankind was embodied in this one man, and all they had to do was stop him, and their village could live on peacefully.

Trump became the monster, the volcano that required sacrifices so that it didn?t destroy the crops. He was the Devil riding into Salem. He was HITLER. Now, they?re grappling with 77 million people in America who don?t believe their hysteria anymore. It?s been punctured at long last.

But those are the rational ones. There are still many of them trapped inside the fear bunker who are now trying to survive in a country they view as full of Nazis and bigots, full of hate and white supremacy. Or else toxic masculinity won the race, and now how to raise their daughters in a country full of rapists?

But if they?re honest with themselves, really honest, they will have to face the truth. Sure, they abandoned the working class. Joe Biden got out of the race too late for them to mount a proper campaign. Kamala Harris was a terrible candidate (I threw that last one in there, though it?s a truth they have yet to accept or admit). Elon Musk rigged the election (yes, they are saying that).

But they have yet to address one fundamental question about why they lost: Why aren?t they cool anymore? Being cool means thinking critically, but that was abandoned years ago on the Left. It means being a rebel against the system, but they are the system. It means being counterculture, but they are the culture.

True, it?s hard to be cool when you are crippled by mass hysteria, and when every tweet by Trump is the end of the world, I know because I felt it too. But it started even before that, even before Trump. One might say the Left losing their cool opened the door for the rise of Trump. Why? Because Trump is and has always been cool.

He was cool in the 1980s when being rich was cool, and saying whatever was on your mind that disrupted the status quo was cool. In the 90s, he became an icon in hip-hop culture. Maybe things shifted a little when he starred on a Reality-TV series, those weren?t cool, and especially once he got into politics as Obama?s rival, that most definitely was not cool.

There?s almost nothing worse than getting dumped. You?ve done everything right. You had all the money in the world ? a billion dollars! You had all the celebrities ? Harrison Ford, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Barbra Streisand! Who could ask for anything more? Well, it turns out 76 million people.

This wasn?t just a ?don?t call me, I?ll call you? or ?we can still be friends? or ?maybe someday in the future we could?? No, this was a ?get lost, lose my number, forget you ever knew me? kind of break-up. The Democrats aren?t handling it well, to put it mildly.

They?re shaving their heads. They?re uninviting family members to Thanksgiving. They?re obsessing over everything Trump is doing and saying, refusing to go quietly. In other words, they?re turning into Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.

It isn?t enough to blame the ?woke? and the crazies for the collapse of the empire. It goes much deeper than that. Yes, they?ve lost their minds, and Americans are fleeing faster than rats off a sinking ship, but the truth is the Democrats orchestrated their own demise. Even those who think they get it, don?t really.

Bill Maher, for instance, is given pats on the back for kind of, sort of getting it but if you listen really close, you?ll hear the tell-tale TDS worming its way in. Trump is crazy, his voters are dumb.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Democrats, but this isn?t 2004, as Nate Silver has proclaimed. It isn?t 1988 or 2000, either. No, you must go much further to find a period like the one we?re living through now. You have to go back to 1972.

More specifically, the swing between 1968 and 1980, as Ben Shapiro has often discussed in books and on his podcast. His comment was one of the things that drew me to the Right because, finally, someone said something that made sense. He tweeted this in the Summer of 2020, though it would be four more years before 1980 actually arrived.

And 1980 has arrived right on time. That makes me think it?s not about just four more years of Trump. This is the long game. This is probably 12 years of Republican rule.

Navigating a moment like this depends on confronting the truth, not the preferred truth, not the denial, but the real reason why Trump won such a massive victory after the Democrats spent almost ten years trying to destroy him. The answer isn?t to double down on Trump being a ?monster? or a ?fascist? or a ?sociopath.? All that will do is postpone the inevitable, and it will only make Trump more popular.

It was like watching SEAL Team Six spelunk into a dangerous war zone and release the hostages from inside the bunker. Millions of us wandered out. We felt as though a great weight had been lifted. The sun shined once again after one long, dark winter. We were half-celebrating, half in a state of shock. ?You mean ? we?re finally free?? Yes, said the soldiers. You are free.

And as the author jotted out those words above, she thought to herself, can I actually write that? Will people say I am exploiting the suffering of the Jews during the Holocaust or still being held in Gaza? Will they say I don?t know real suffering, and how dare I write such a thing? Yes, they will say that. But no, it won?t matter anymore.

The truth is that I was always free to write it. I just had to do it outside of the doomsday cult the Left has become. It wasn?t some orb out in the middle of the Mojave. It was every major institution in America. And they most certainly aren?t giving up without a fight. Heed the words of Peter Boghossian:

Trump drove so many mad, from the Never Trumpers to the Woke Left, because they destroyed themselves trying to destroy him. Their biggest problem was that they were never fighting the real Trump. They were fighting one they invented, a supervillain whose mere presence could end democracy itself.

It?s hard to imagine such smart people losing their critical thinking ability. Power will do that to you, though. No one gives it up willingly. But still, you?d think some of them might have had an inkling America was ready for change by now.

It?s like that Milan Kundera quote about Totalitarianism:

That?s what?s happened to America in the past four years. Our SEAL Team Six came just in time to liberate us from the tyranny of the minority.

Did Rick Wilson really go into election night thinking Trump would lose that badly? How could he have been so confident to make this video the day before Election Day?

How could the disconnect from reality be that profound? And when he was thoroughly and completely humiliated, along with all the other Never Trumpers, he blamed the voters. He blamed America.

Meanwhile, a wellness check is needed on Jojo from Jerz, another who was so certain her daily rages on X, which earned her so many likes, represented, in any way, the majority in America:

The country can?t be run by people like Jojo from Jerz. She?s just too crazy. No reality has ever once entered the chat. And there are too many just like her that control the entire Democratic Party.

Even if Trump only serves one term and JD Vance is somehow beaten by a Democrat (I wouldn?t hold my breath), they can always be credited as the liberators who freed all of us, our culture, our economy, our institutions from a cult.

For those living in agony for the last four years, you can come out, come out wherever you are.

A Mental Health Crisis

Just before the election, Mark Halperin predicted a mental health crisis in this country if Donald Trump should win the election.

At first, I thought he was exaggerating, but as I watched the reaction on the Left in the wake of another shocking win, I realized he wasn?t. Isn?t it just possible there is something wrong with the messenger if these folks are shocked yet again by a Donald Trump victory? I was shocked along with them in 2016, but by 2020, I got it.

The more educated people are, the more they rely on NPR, the New York Times, NBC News, CNN, the New Yorker, New York Magazine, and the Hollywood trades?the less likely they are to see things as they really are rather than how they want them to be. And while it?s true reality distortion exists on the Right, it?s nowhere near the same level.

The media is turning the so-called ?4B movement? into a bigger story than it actually is because that, too, is a way to sell fear. These young women are the equivalent of an adolescent who is mad at her parents and refuses to eat her vegetables. NO, I WON?T DO IT!

They somehow think this will cause any man in America one second of grief. The last thing they want is to have sex with any of them. Moreover, it?s funny that they would think Conservatives would be mad that they aren?t having sex and getting pregnant because all that means is less abortions.

All of them are using whatever weapon they have to exact revenge on anyone who voted for Trump. They are people who already see themselves as victims. They see Trump and his voters as victimizers. They?re living out some kind of fantasy where they can cosplay oppression. In a weird way, Trump gave them exactly what they needed.

Inside Woketopia, the more marginalized you are, the more elevated you are. Black and trans people are treated like holy icons. Much is made of how to talk to them, how to make sure they feel safe around you because your white skin is so triggering. Each of them uses their marginalized status as a way to impose their will upon the rest of us. It?s blasphemy to criticize or confront them.

And herein lies the problem for the Democrats. They can?t confront the crazy, let alone eradicate it. They are too afraid of the activists and the bullies on social media. They?re afraid their careers will be over, like everyone else inside the doomsday cult.

A Trump win makes them all believe that they have, in one election, lost all of their power. That?s why you see so many Instagram posts about suicide hotlines but only for LGBTQIA or Queer women, or BIPOC. No white woman or man will get any sympathy for daring to use the moment to suggest they are in worse pain.

But the psychosis is real. Watch this mother use her children to draw sympathy from them ? yes, from them. Their hysteria and pain feed her need to feel like a victim. This bad thing just happened to HER, so everyone should have to pay, even her own kids.

These kids will one day realize that they have been raised by a virulent narcissist, which is what drives this movement more than anything, and perhaps they will be among those who lead the next liberation should America once again be overtaken by a cult.

The End of Days

The women on the Left have centered their entire movement on the act of aborting a child they helped produce, as though the fetus itself, that got there through no fault of its own, is their oppressor. They worry for their daughter?s inability to get an abortion, as though that?s something every girl should want.

//

For four years now, maybe longer, I?ve been saying like a mantra, ?There is no saving the Left. There is only saving the country from them.? And so America has, definitely and decisively.

But scrolling X this morning, I?m reminded of the scene in Michael Mann?s The Insider when 60 Minutes continued to remain in denial after their corruption had been laid bare:

It took 60 Minutes too long to accept what they?d participated in with the Jeffrey Wigand scandal, just as it will take the Left too long to accept what they?ve done to themselves and this country. But time marches on without them.

And as the line goes from Citizen Kane, they?re going to need more than one lesson and they?re going to get more than one lesson.

I say the Left, but it?s really the perception of reality shaped by the legacy press, the New York Times, CBS and NBC News, the Washington Post, along with MSNBC and CNN. They?ve been lying every day to the American people and for that their reputations will pay a high price.

I?ll never forget Christmas of 2020, when my nephew, who had gotten COVID and was now immune, wanted to visit. But he wasn?t vaccinated. Because of that, several members of my family became hysterical. When I shouted at them, ?HE ALREADY HAD COVID,? they sent me links to NBC news articles that said it was contagious unless you were vaccinated, which was a lie.

Donald Trump was not running against Kamala Harris so much as he was running against the media industrial complex which now, like so much of our culture, is inseparable from government.

The New York Times headline, ?Trump storms back,? is designed to pander to those who are still stuck on January 6th.

They have to sell fear because that is how they feel now that they are forced to share this country with the ?basket of deplorables.? They think they still speak for all of us but their ability to do that ended long ago. Now, they speak only for those still trapped in an elitist bubble that only wants Trump to go away.

In Breaking Away, the Cutters have everything against them. Their bike barely works, their shoes are old and tattered, and only one of them can ride. But they still want to compete in the big race against the best and the brightest rich college kids.

Something in us, something in me, feels an eternal ache to see the underdogs win. No one needs to tell us who they are, and we can see if we?re watching the same movie. The Cutters are the team we want to win despite the enormous odds against them. They?re riding in the race of their lives, fueled by a desire to prove they are just as good as the college kids. They?re not just as good, they?re better.

Good writing can be boiled down to one simple principle: be hard on your protagonist because everyone reading or watching will be invested in that protagonist overcoming the obstacles and winning. That is the Hero?s Journey, and it is the story, at least so far, of Donald Trump and his Basket of Deplorables.

And now, as we head into the last day, I find myself on the edge of my seat, just as I was when I first saw Breaking Away. Will they actually win? Can I get that lucky to taste that kind of sweet relief?

Rooting for the underdog can sometimes mean rooting for the loser, too, like in Rocky when an underdog fighter dares to dream big. Even if he doesn?t win the fight, no one comes out of it thinking of Rocky as the loser.

Or, as Google AI explains, ?Rocky's personal victory comes from going the distance, making it through all 15 rounds of the fight. Rocky's performance demonstrates that he honors his family and friends and that you can't humiliate someone who doesn't want to be humiliated.?

I can?t think of a paragraph that better describes Trump, MAGA, and the three elections that made the empire sweat and rewrote the rules of how and who can run for the presidency.

Hollywood doesn?t make movies like Breaking Away or Rocky now. They don?t see white men as having any obstacles because they?re born with ?white privilege,? and the only people worth focusing on are those people of color who are born into obstacles. These are the rules of equity Kamala Harris has lived by and believes. And the rules that might elect her leader of the free world.

It?s surreal watching the people with all the power sweat their last battle against Trump. They are the team that wants to win so badly they?ve become corrupt, relying on a propaganda press to coddle and protect Harris, as they try to cosplay making history.

But if you?re paying close attention and you?re following the plot, you?ll be able to see who the good guys are in this story and who the bad guys are. The bad guys use Harris as a shield, a symbol of virtue, to hide their own identities. They are mostly white men and women of enormous wealth who desperately need to appear virtuous lest the people rise up and challenge their power.

I?m invested now. I want the right ending. I don?t want to have to sit through the ending that wouldn?t sell a single ticket. Sure, if Harris had gotten there on her own - if she?d fought hard through a tough primary and then ran for the presidency if all of that business with Joe Biden hadn?t been so down and dirty, with everyone lying about what really happened even now, if her husband hadn?t been accused of slapping a woman because of a jealous tantrum - maybe I could celebrate the first woman of color President of the United States.

But the Democrats and the media have been gaslighting us for years now, though it?s never been quite as bad as it?s been this past year heading into their final battle.

It?s all so fake. It reminds me of what happened in the Oscar race when the rich white elites that run Hollywood decided they needed absolution and all were in agreement to start awarding people of color nominations and wins to make it seem as though things had really changed. But they hadn?t. The same people run the show now as always. They are just wearing masks.

The irony is that the real Hollywood movie is on the other side. That?s where the good writing is. There has never been a hero like Trump, especially as we watched him survive their unprecedented attacks on him, from the demoralizing raid of Mar-a-Lago, to the lurid Stormy Daniels trial, to the Fani Willis debacle, to Leticia James and her idiotic charges against him.

And all the while, the media played along, pretending like it was legit in hopes of rewriting the hero as the villain. Ah, but the people aren?t that dumb. They know bad writing when they see it.

I think of Steve Bannon, who helped unite people abandoned and invisible to our culture and government to give them a voice, something to fight for, to work toward, an American dream. He sought to build what he called ?inclusive, participatory, nationalist populism,? and now his dream has been realized as the oligarchs bleed Black and Hispanic voters.

These monsters threw Steve Bannon in jail not because of anything he did but because he said stuff they didn?t like. He inspires people they see as human garbage. And I really don?t want to watch the version of this story where all of them are rewarded for what they?ve done to working-class Americans who deserve so much better.

I became a Trump supporter because I believed in this story. I believe in these people. Everyone on the Left is miserable. They?ve hollowed out their culture. They can?t laugh at jokes. They?ve become humorless scolds. Yet, the Trump voters are not. Their happiness, their carefree spirit is infectious. Who wouldn?t want to them to win?

At the same time, the empire is the empire for a reason. They have built a system that is nearly impossible to defeat. This isn?t Breaking Away. It isn?t a matter of being the best bike rider on the track. This is deep corruption by people who have all the power and don?t want to lose it.

For most of my life, our government has been locked in a deep state, an establishment that is impossible to penetrate. People don?t just come from the outside like Trump. They need institutional backing. A whole generation is now growing up with something I never had - a big, bold challenge to that power.

Half the country doesn?t see it. They?re watching a different movie. A boring one. They have bought the lies of the media. They fear an outsider like Trump and his audacity to challenge the results of the 2020 election, with or without the riot. Ah, but that is democracy. What they represent is institutional power that they have decided doesn?t belong to any of us. That is what Trump has challenged. And that is why they seek to destroy him.

It?s breathtaking to watch, at least to me. But then again, I?m a movie kid. I like this story. I want to see the underdog, the hero, prevail.

We should prepare ourselves for a loss that isn?t really a loss, like Rocky, despite the hideous people on the left ? the bad guys ? who will want to gloat and rub it in.

Yeah, they will have won the same way they won in 2020 by pushing a fourth Obama term on the people, but no intelligent person will ever see it as fair. She has the entire legacy press propping her up, and Trump has them pushing him down and showing the worst of him day in and day out.

What Trump has done, what Steve Bannon has done, and what all of the MAGA deplorables have done is nothing less than a revolution, one the people of this country desperately needed. They?ve built a foundation. They aren?t going away. This is only the beginning.

Why? Because they love this country. They?re patriots. They know this country belongs to them ? to us ? as much as it does any American citizen. It was disgusting and unacceptable watching how the powerful shut them out of culture, the economy, social media, and politics. Who do they think they are?

So, let?s get this straight one last time. When you are born in America, you have rights given to you by God, not by the state. Those rights cannot be taken from you: free speech, the right to protest anything you want any time you want, and the right to equal protection under the law.

I hope Trump wins in a landslide. They have it coming to them, and America would be so much better off. Hand the government back to the people because whatever they?ve built, it is no longer serving our needs.

But if he doesn?t, he will finally be able to take a well-deserved rest. He most certainly earned it. His place in history is secured. There will never be another like him.

And to all of you I?ve been with for the past four years I?ve been writing on Substack, you have given me so much, taught me so much, and been so kind to me when almost everyone I knew threw me away like human garbage.

It bothers me that Trump supporters continue to be verbally and physically abused just for wearing a red MAGA hat. Because I know you, and they don?t. Like this man who recently beat up a Trump supporter:

So here is me in my MAGA hat. My dark MAGA hat to tell you thank you and godspeed, MAGA. Godspeed. Trump2024.

So let?s have it, one last dance.

The Democrats have been chasing the dragon for so long even they don?t know what they stand for anymore. Shaped by identity politics and social justice, Kamala Harris sure looks the part. But peel back even the surface layer, and there?s nothing - just the failed dreams of a utopia gone wrong.

No one says it better than Kenneth L. Khachigian at the Wall Street Journal:

Ms. Harris was unprepared to enter the rough and tumble of national politics and at the 11th hour relies on being propped up, as she has throughout her career, by patrons?Barack Obama, his operatives and a national media that is predominantly desperate to prevent Mr. Trump from re-entering office. Ms. Harris is a victim of her own success through moving up the political ladder without being fully tested by challenge and conflict.

Joe Biden wasn?t supposed to defy the rules of the Ponzi Scheme. He was supposed to do what every Democrat does. Go along with the mounting deception. But even Joe Biden?s win was a deception in and of itself. We were promised a moderate. What we got instead was a George Spahn, who allowed a cult-like movement to move into the White House.

They hid Joe Biden?s age even then. I know because I stood just five feet away from him at a donor brunch in May of 2019. I was plucked from the internet as an influencer because I?d been such a passionate and devoted Democrat, a good Liberal who voted blue no matter who, ever since George W. Bush narrowly defeated Al Gore.

I loved Joe Biden back in 2019. He was old, I knew, but he could do the job. How else to take out a one-term president with a strong economy but to pull the country back to the last time they felt safe? Pulling the country back meant a return to the Obama era. Only later would I discover what a mistake that would turn out to be.

Trump should have served a second term. He was cheated out of it, as were his supporters and all of America, who would have likely voted for him just based on the economy alone.

The Democrats could have taken the loss and rebuilt a new movement with new blood and a new direction. But the Democrats were never going to let that happen. They had to preserve the empire under Obama, an empire now in collapse. They?ve held on too long and now, there is nothing left.

Joe Biden was already too old by November of 2020. They hid him in the basement so none of us could see how fast he was declining. I could see it because I had seen where he was back in May of 2019. But instead of facing the problem head-on, the Democrats kept hiding Joe, lying to the public with their full-court propaganda press happily playing along.

They elbowed out the brave truth-tellers like Dean Phillps and RFK, Jr., And they handed Joe Biden the primary win, corrupt though it was with their army of eager beaver lawyers meddling in our elections by removing Cornel West, Jill Stein, and anyone else who dared to challenge their authority, from the ballot. They even tried to remove Trump, which forced the Supreme Court to smack them down.

Then, when Joe Biden?s age was finally exposed, and there was nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide, the Democrats instigated a coup. But Joe Biden wasn?t going along with it, shockingly. It took Obama?s yachting pal George Clooney to write an embarrassing op-ed in an attempt to push out old Joe, arguing that they should choose a candidate, speed-dating style.

Well, they didn?t do that, did they, George? They hand-picked Kamala Harris without a single vote, and you went along with it, too, didn?t you? You wiped your chin and did your duty as the Good Liberal you are. Welcome to the pages of history, for better or worse.

I knew the Democrats were in trouble even before the 2020 election. I tried warning them. I said Trump would win if they couldn?t find their way back to sanity. Oh, how naive I was. I didn?t know back then how much power the Left had amassed in the Trump era - an unprecedented alignment that reached from Hollywood across Silicon Valley to the universities and public schools through corporations and the Big Pharma monopolies.

Janet had a choice to make. Would she wear the T-shirt that said, ?What?s so funny about peace, love, and understanding?? or would she put on the one that said, ?Trump is a scab.? It wasn?t a hard choice. The election was in a week.

Every morning, Janet took her coffee to the window, where she would watch her small California town residents walk their dogs, drive their kids to school, and get in their morning fitness regime. She kept a sharp eye out for those who didn?t clean up after their dogs. There was always that one person.

This morning was no different. A woman still in her bathrobe shuffled down the street with two dogs. One looked like a collie, and the other was a tiny poodle. The bigger dog waded into a deep thicket of shrubs and did his business.

Janet watched the owner start to shuffle off. ?Aren?t you going to clean it up?? yelled Janet from her window across the street. Usually, the person she shouts at will apologize profusely and start digging around for a bag. But this woman didn?t do that. She looked at the window and flipped Janet the bird, shouting, ?Mind your own f*cking business. I?m walking AROUND!?

Janet watched the woman shuffle down the sidewalk and walk behind the bushes. That was supposed to make Janet feel shame for assuming the worst, but she didn?t. She assumed the worst because people always make bad decisions when they think no one is watching. But Janet was watching.

The woman waded her way through the bushes, sticks and dried leaves clinging to the cotton fleece of her bathrobe. She pulled at the leash of the smaller dog, who refused to follow her. The dog wouldn?t budge. ?Fine,? the woman said, propping the leash on a branch. The bigger dog was sniffing through the bushes as the woman angrily ripped off a green plastic bag and scooped up the pet waste.

Then she looked over at the window where Janet was sitting and held the bag: ?SEE!? ARE YOU HAPPY?? Then she flipped her off again, gathered up the two leashes, and shuffled back down the street.

Janet thought she didn?t have to get so upset about it. Was there a better way to handle it? Was she just supposed to have waited to see if the woman would pick it up even though she didn?t look like she would? At least Janet could help keep the street clean.

A Good Town Full of Good People

Vista Butte was a town of responsible citizens who do the right thing. People followed the rules, which is why it was so safe. There was no crime, and it was quiet. They had to work to make it quiet.

Like when they built a pickleball court in the middle of town, which drew so many kids to play after school. The court made so much noise that it disrupted the peaceful harmony of the town center, so the city decided to move it to the outskirts of town.

But it upset the school kids because they liked having a place to go after school and release their pent-up energy instead of staring at their screens all day. Did they really believe that or did their parents tell them to say that? Either way, they went door to door to get signatures to save the Pickle Ball court.

It was a waste of time because there was a perfectly good court on the East End. True, they had to pay to park, and kids would need their parents to drive them there, but they could be as loud as they wanted, and it wouldn?t disrupt the serenity of the townspeople. Janet voted against the measure because everybody in Vista Butte has to work together to keep the town quiet and clean.

As Hillary Clinton said, it takes a village.

Today, Janet was going to do some yard work before Halloween. The Santa Anas were coming, a wind storm. That meant fire season, and she needed to clean up the brush in her front yard. Firebugs get it in their heads to set off a blazing wildfire when the warm wind kicks up. Always men. No woman would do something like that.

Janet could drive down to the corner where all the migrants waited to be picked up for a day's work. It would only cost her about 50 bucks for the whole job. One guy could handle it. It wasn?t that much work. That was much cheaper than the town gardeners, who charge you $50 an hour.

Well, what the hell? She figured she might as well get in some exercise. She wasn't getting any younger, and her body wasn't getting any thinner. Yard work was a good way to get the steps in and grow her fitness circle on her Apple Watch.

Janet had five Harris/Walz signs on her lawn. One of them was just an old Biden/Harris poster, which she ripped off the top where Biden was. It was a perfect metaphor for the election: Rip off the old white guy?s name and elevate the woman of color. It didn't matter that there wasn't a primary. When you have to save the country from rising fascism, you do what you must.

But it made Janet happy, making history, even if it wasn?t exactly the democratic process. Old white men don't like getting out of the way to allow marginalized groups to rise?the history of America. The white male patriarchy is keeping all of us down.

It?s long past time for a woman to lead, Janet thought. We need change. We need to turn the page. Harris cares about the middle class. She cares about immigrants. She cares about poor people. She?s not rude or mean or crude or nasty or abusive. She?s not a racist or a sexist or a misogynist or a bigot.

Janet was ready. In fact, she'd already voted, like most women in America. Vista Butte was, Janet knew, 99% liberal. It had to be, what with all of the Harris/Walz signs everywhere.

Harris/Walz - Obviously.Harris/Walz - Save Democracy.Harris/Walz - We?re not going back.Harris/Walz - Vote for freedom.Harris/Walz - Democracy or dictator.

For a minute, she thought, why are we even bothering with an election? Maybe they should just do what they did for the primary: just place Kamala Harris. Trump is the one who is not qualified. He's a criminal; he's a felon.

Besides, Project 2025 will become the law of the land. They?ll throw Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski in prison. Abortion will be banned, and we?ll never have an election again, so why not get ahead of it now? Why are we wasting time convincing people to vote? Why are we pretending that democracy even applies in this situation? It doesn't.

We?re seriously going through all this worrying about the swing states, focusing all of our energy on undecided voters? Why is the fate of the Republic, the fate of the world's future, resting on people who are too stupid to know now who they want to vote for? That's what our elections have come down to, those people who sit in a Frank Luntz focus group. Come on.

Those are the kind of people who sit in the Starbucks line for an hour deciding whether they want the Caramel Ribbon Crunch or the Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino blended. Pick something and move on! Pick something!

It was Halloween. Janet wasn't going to allow herself to get upset, not today. Halloween was her favorite holiday. She remembered the old days when kids dressed up in costumes they made themselves. They weren?t brands disguised as costumes. Everything is advertising now.

On January 6th, I should have been huddled on my couch and glued to MSNBC. Their hysteria and fear would have validated everything I already believed about those awful extremist racists and incels waving their ?white supremacist? MAGA flags, climbing the walls of the Capitol, and fighting with police officers.

But that isn?t where I was on January 6th. I was scratching my head in confusion. A riot? People were trying to break into the Capitol? Why? Most of MAGA were standing before Trump as he spoke to them about the election we?d just lived through. He had convinced Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz to debate the election in the Senate when, all of a sudden, a riot erupted.

That was when I knew something very bad was about to happen. No, not to our government officials. I knew they?d be fine. It was the Trump supporters who would not be. They had no power.

It wouldn?t matter, I knew, that we?d seen unprecedented violence over the Summer and that those protesters weren?t treated like terrorists or insurrectionists. It was different with MAGA who were by then, already named enemies of the state.

Most people I knew on the Left had no clue what Trump supporters were really like. Most of them existed inside the protective bubble of the Left. We?d built our Shining Woketopia on the Hill after Obama rose to power. And we essentially abandoned half the country and never looked back.

We carefully curated our information streams, our language, our movies, our music, our fashion. We ?wokeified? it piece by piece until we?d come close to reaching our ideal as a society. And then Trump won in 2016 and our whole world turned upside down.

Trump supporters were, to us, everything we wanted them to be: angry white men who wanted to tie women to beds and keep them pregnant and having babies like pigs in gestational crates. They were crude and uneducated. They were racists and bigots and drove around in gas guzzlers, wrecking the planet. They were incels who hid on 4-Chan, trolls who did nothing but hurt all of the vulnerable groups, especially women.

They paraded so ridiculously around with those racist red hats and those garish flags. We were traumatized just seeing them. If we saw a Trump supporter in our neighborhood or in our public spaces, we would have to alert the manager and have them removed like a dead animal the cat dragged in.

"The essence of propaganda consists in winning people over to an idea so sincerely, so vitally, that in the end they succumb to it utterly and can never again escape from it," ?Joseph Goebbels

It was on a Sunday that the Nazi army marched into New York City and gathered at Madison Square Garden.

They came in all skin colors, white and Black and Brown, and from all different backgrounds, Asian, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, atheists, young and old, rich and poor, Left and Right, gay and straight as American citizens who desperately wanted to taste freedom again, security again, a government that cared about them again, and to Make America Great Again.

What they don't know is that they're Nazis. Barbra Streisand and Hillary Clinton have said as much, so isn?t it time that they listened?

How dare they gather, Hitler-like, at Madison Square Garden to worship at the altar of the fuhrer himself, Donald Trump. That?s what the New Yorker says, what the New York Times says, and what John Cusack says.

I know what you?re thinking. John who? John Cusack. Remember him? Once a heartthrob of sorts back in the 80s? Yeah, that guy.

We were all so in love with him. Every boyfriend we ever had was John Cusack in one form or another. But that was then. Things have changed now that fascism has arrived in America.

So to protect us from it, Cusack didn?t hold up a boom box, no. This time, he woke up in his penthouse, tossed around in his high thread count sheets, gazed upon the streets of Manhattan, and remembered Donald Trump was holding a historic rally at Madison Square Garden. He fumbled for his phone and spit out his testimony:

Donald Trump is Hitler, and his supporters are Nazis. How do we know that? That?s just what we?re all supposed to believe. So far, Trump has done nothing to warrant such an accusation ah, but we don?t really care about that. We care about the thing we police at all costs: speech. What Trump says IS fascism. Free speech is fascism.

But if you need proof, let?s say that Trump has said he will deport the 10 million migrants who flooded through America?s weakened border under the Biden/Harris administration. This was after the Democrats spent four years declaring Trump?s border policies were RACIST and FASCIST. So when Biden won, why wouldn?t they come?

It?s funny that Americans are thinking about themselves at a time like this. I mean, they should be anti-fascists, putting their own needs aside. The definition of fascism might be all power to the state against the individual, but that?s in ordinary times.

Power to the state against the individual is how you stop fascism now. Because if free people choose the guy who says he?s going to fix the border problem and yes, that might include some deportations ? that means we are no longer able to staff our labor force and grow a stronger coalition in the swing states.

So we dumped them into towns like Springfield, Ohio, and expect everyone who lives there to share our existential angst about racism. Forget about your kids in school, your social services, and your safety. All power to the state means you say nothing, you do nothing, you suck it up.

You see, the anti-fascists are the ones who demand you drop all of your friendships if you vote for the fascists. It might sound confusing, but it?s not. All you have to do is conform or else.

You might have heard that ?conform or else? is the very definition of fascism, but really, it?s how you get rid of it. You pressure everyone you know to do what we tell you to do, think how we want you to think, speak how we want you to speak or we will DESTROY YOU.

?I came for you, for you, I came for you, but you did not need my urgency. I came for you, for you, I came for you, but your life was one long emergency.? Bruce Springsteen

To be on the Left in America is to live in one long emergency. It?s depressing and exhausting, and it?s time to move on. It is the misery of the upper class, the misery of a disrupted utopia, and the misery of people who have too much power and have become too comfortable with it, so much so that they do not want to let it go.

I can?t really blame Barack Obama. What must it feel like to feel like a god, to have all of American culture worship you, upend what used to be great movies, great books, great rock and roll, and now, in its place, a reflection of you? That would mess with your head. It would be hard to let go. No wonder he keeps showing up. No wonder he demands that the only people allowed to run for president are lesser, duller versions of himself.

Imagine what it must feel like to be George Clooney, Julia Roberts, or Tom Hanks. Yes, you are among the highest-status Americans inside utopia because you have befriended the man who would be King. But none of them have come from such a high place and fallen so hard as Bruce Springsteen, who abandoned the badlands for the mansion on the hill.

Bruce Springsteen was my idol growing up in the 1980s. I wrapped my legs ?round his velvet rims and strapped my hands cross his engines. I was just a scared and lonely rider who had to know how it feels, who had to know if love was wild, who had to know if love was real.

Me and Bruce, hiding on the backstreets, going down to the river. I wore out the groove on every single album he ever produced and then could only listen to live bootlegs. Now, I can?t listen at all.

What I know about Bruce is what I know about the modern-day Left. He doesn?t know America anymore. He does not even know the kinds of people who needed his music and who made him rich. He joins the list of once and former icons who helped lift up the lost and forgotten Americans, to make them feel included in something important in our culture.

And now they sneer at them. Stephen King, Steven Spielberg, Barbra Streisand, JJ Abrams, Taylor Swift, and Beyonce sit on a pile of money given to them by the same Americans they now call Nazis.

That?s why you see idiots like Jack White or the Foo Fighters throwing a hissy fit that Trump might use their precious music at a rally. Yeah, heaven forbid the truck drivers who deliver their food or the nurses who wash off the vomit and urine after a night of partying should be able to hear their music and forget their troubles for a night.

Years from now, the question will go something like this, ?where were you when you first realized the media was lying to you about Trump??

Me, I was watching Trump speak at Mount Rushmore in 2020 just as the COVID lockdowns had abruptly ended to make way for the largest protests in American history. They said it was about systemic racism, but I knew it wasn?t. It was about Trump and all of the forces at play to remove him from power.

Yes, even the protests.

Trump was the first person of any kind of prominence to call out the madness of ?cancel culture,? the burning of cities, the violence the media suppressed, and he vowed to do something about it. I didn?t agree with everything he said, but I realized then and there that he was not who I thought he was.

At least half the country has been trapped in a mass delusion for ten years, maybe longer. What else can explain what has happened to so many of them, how they could be so consumed by hatred that they would go along with any punishment enacted upon Trump, or whomever the next person in line behind him will be. Elon Musk? JD Vance?

We joke that it?s TDS or Trump Derangement Syndrome, but I think that?s being too kind.

The good news is that more and more people are waking up to what has been done to us all in the name of preserving the American utopia built under the Obama administration. Trump had to represent racism because how else could they sell him as an ?existential threat? to the country?

Says Adam B. Coleman:

I try to remember when it started, this idea that America was under an urgent threat of rising racism and ?white supremacy.? It happened around the time of the Tea Party?s founding, the only grassroots movement I?ve ever seen coming from the Right.

For most of my life, the Republicans were the establishment party. After the 2008 Wall Street crash, the Tea Party began mobilizing and forming a powerful coalition that must have worried many in our establishment government.

Just arguing class or economics or dismantling the bloated administrative state would not have convinced hearts and minds to turn on them. They had to be so toxic Americans would never want to associate with them, help them, support them, or even listen to them.

?Once upon a time you dressed so fineThrew the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?People call say 'beware doll, you're bound to fall'You thought they were all kidding youYou used to laugh aboutEverybody that was hanging outNow you don't talk so loudNow you don't seem so proudAbout having to be scrounging your next mealHow does it feel?? - Bob Dylan

I?ve listened to Bob Dylan?s anthem of alienation, Like a Rolling Stone, so many times throughout my life, but it?s never hit home quite the way it does now as I?ve been exiled by almost everyone I once knew. How does it feel, Bob Dylan asks? It feels like tumbling through space with no place to land. It feels like being trapped in a nightmare. It feels like nothing I?ve ever gone through before.

But it?s too late to turn back now. It?s full steam ahead. Yes, I am a California Liberal voting for Donald J. Trump. Why am I doing it? Why was I willing to destroy my so-called ?career,? end friendships overnight, and lose any status I?ve attained in the past 30 years I?ve been online, which, granted, isn?t saying much? The answer is easy. I couldn?t do the other thing.

For many of us, 2020 was like Devil?s Tower in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We all had the same idea all at once, but we didn?t understand it. We might have come from everywhere, but we all ended up in the same place.

For some, it was the government?s authoritarian crackdown on masks and lockdowns. For others, it was the lies about COVID. But for me, it was suddenly seeing that unseen hands were manipulating us as a form of social control.

It sounds paranoid. I?ll grant you that. I don?t know how else to explain it. I was very much inside the insular feedback loop of the Left. I genuinely believed everything they said on CNN, MSNBC, and the New York Times.

They turned on a dime from COVID hysteria to ?systemic racism,? which allowed millions to pour into the streets - the largest protest in American history - amid a global pandemic that had closed schools, churches, and businesses. What was going on?

None of us knew. They wouldn?t tell us anything they did not think we needed to know. As I was crying out on Twitter about how crazy things were getting on the Left, Neera Tanden DM?d me. ?You?ve changed,? she said.

I was worried Biden would not win because the protests were too violent. By then, I was finding my news on the Right, where they weren?t as afraid to post videos about what was happening on the streets.

I told Neera Tanden that Trump would benefit from the public's desire for law and order. She told me to keep quiet until after the election. I told her I couldn?t do that, but it did strike me as odd that such a high-level Democrat would care what I thought. But that?s how it is on the Left. No one is allowed to stray from the mandated narrative.

Even now, most people I know on the Left have no idea how bad it got. That?s why they don?t understand the comparisons to January 6th. They only saw one violent riot but they saw it over and over again, yet more proof of social control.

It wasn?t until Bari Weiss resigned from the New York Times after exposing their unwillingness to publish the truth about what was happening on the streets for fear it was racist even just to report on it, that I realized I had to separate myself from the hive mind whose sole mission was to support the Democrats. And that?s how it went for the rest of the year. It was ?don?t ask, don?t tell? for a once-mighty movement that now cowered in fear.

But for many of us, it was the summer when we stopped trusting our institutions and our legacy media to tell us the truth about anything.

Everything that happened in 2020 was designed to push Trump out of power. I watched them all but rig the 2020 election using the same unseen hands. I walked away from that election no longer a registered Democrat for the first time in my life.

But that would only be the beginning. The Democrats had the White House, and they had four years to show America they really were the better side, the side that cared about all of us.

Instead, whatever fundamentalist cult had overtaken the Left now spread throughout our government. Biden took his role seriously, using equity for policy and staffing his administration mostly with women, women of color, and members of the LGBTQIA lobby.

And in so doing, he neglected to address the core problem for the Democrats, one that began back in 2008, the crisis that sparked the Fourth Turning. The Wall Street meltdown and subsequent bailout of the banks to the tune of $700 billion.

Two populist movements that threatened the government meant a pivot to what Vivek Ramaswamy calls ?woke capitalism.? Focus on identity politics and woke ideology, and they get to do whatever they want to the people of the United States.

They ignored the problem until it exploded in 2016 with Trump?s win. They failed to address the urgent needs of the people and instead went to war on Trump. Now, here we are, all of these years later, and the Democrats still can?t even see the problem, let alone address it.

Instead of unity, we got division. Instead of hope, we got despair. Instead of freedom, the Biden administration and the FBI began censoring speech on social media platforms.

Maybe none of that would have been bad enough to make me a Trump supporter, but it meant I could never vote blue no matter who, ever again, and worse, we now had an even bigger problem to deal with. Could we ever win an election against this unprecedented alignment of power?

I never thought I would vote for Republicans, but that is exactly what I have done, largely due to the embrace of ?gender-affirming care? for minor children who cannot consent and the lack of protection for female athletes to compete fairly.

Even now, there are no women, no feminists, no ?girl dads? in the Democratic Party. They are too afraid of the activists. So it has to be up to those of us who do have the guts to stand up to them and who are strong enough to survive their attacks.

That was when I knew I had to throw whatever power I had as an American citizen and political activist online into voting for the Republicans. But still, I was not quite ready to cross the Trump line.

Braveheart

It was the humiliation of a former president when they raided Mar-a-Lago, with the whole world watching, that was the last straw for me. It seemed there were no limits to what they could do to Trump, and all of the legacy press and their obedient voters would go along with it, believing any wild fantasy they manifested.

Trump might be selling nuclear secrets to North Korea. Trump might pull out a machine gun and spray the FBI with bullets like Al Pacino in Scarface.

It just got worse from there. The indictments, the Civil trials, the felony conviction - none of the cases were even legit. Here is Megyn Kelly running them down on the All In podcast:

And that was how I transformed from a lonely, shut-in I?m-with-her Democrat into a MAGA meme on X.

Now, I am left wondering why I wouldn?t vote for Trump. Why wouldn?t I do the one thing I know that could end this madness? I know that the minute he wins and he shows them all that he?s not a dictator and he?s not Hitler and the world won?t stop turning on its axis, all of this will finally end, and we can get back to some kind of normal life.

In This House, We Believe

When I began spending time in MAGA world, watching Trump rallies and hanging out with Trump supporters, at least online, I got to know them well. When I reported back to the Left's fear bunker, I tried to explain it to them. I tried to humanize those we?d all been conditioned to hate.

I remember seeing pictures of the faces contorted by hate when schools were ordered to allow Black students to attend ? and no, you freaks, I?m not comparing them; I?m just saying that hate is hate, dehumanization is dehumanization, and people always feel justified doing it, and history always condemns them. Always.

But they would not listen to me. They would scream at me, attack me, shun me, try to destroy my business. Even just being kind - practicing what they preached - was crossing a forbidden line.

The attacks against Trump supporters began right around 2015 when Trump?s warnings about the border were interpreted as Hitler-esque racism. That is what justified punching, kicking, spitting on, and, in some cases, even killing Trump supporters.

What is their solution to the ?MAGA problem? anyway? Gulags? Concentration camps? Re-education camps? Just exile them to the outer regions and forbid them from participating in the thriving new economy online or in our elections?

Why am I a California liberal voting for Trump? I wake up in a cold sweat every night, and panic runs through me. What have I done? But then I remember I couldn?t do the other thing.

The Case for Trump

I would have voted for Trump just on the lawfare alone, but a funny thing happened in the past few months. Trump built an unprecedented alliance with RFK, Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Vivek Ramaswamy, Nicole Shanahan, and Elon Musk. It was more than I could ever imagine would be on offer in an American election.

Trump?s choice of JD Vance might be the best of all. He chose a running mate who isn?t just window-dressing like poor Tim Walz but a strong leader in his own right.

I?m not getting my hopes up, considering that the powerful people who now control our government have turned to corruption just to cling to power. What won?t they do to stop Trump and drag the unprepared Kamala Harris over the finish line?

But it doesn?t really matter. They might win the battle. They won?t win the war.

I am so proud to be an American today. I finally know why. I know that ?Whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.? That?s the wild beauty, the untamed spirit of the American experiment.

It really does look like a brighter future for the kind of America I want to fight for. And suddenly, I feel grateful for the founders who built this crazy people-run government. It was built for moments like this when we all must come together and prove that yes, this is a Republic, and yes, we can keep it.

Trump?s gift is that he doesn?t preach from on high. He makes us all feel like we?re on the same journey, sharing the same space, all one family. How does he still manage to do that after all he?s been through? I don?t know, but I do know that?s the kind of leader, the kind of ?dad energy? America needs.

Donald Trump isn?t perfect, but then, neither am I. But I know he loves this country, no matter how many lies they tell about him. He?s changed everything, this ?Gray Champion? of the Fourth Turning. And we?re not going back.

//end

When the New York Times asked professional women if they?d ever been sexually assaulted, I answered them, and my story appeared just before the Harvey Weinstein allegations broke. It was Trump?s Access Hollywood tape that turned our world upside down. We?d convinced ourselves that America had just elected a ?racist? and a ?rapist.?

As a Democrat, you have to be willing to lie. Elections can be won if everyone is on board with the same lie. We lie about our candidates. We lie about the opposition. We lie about ourselves. Otherwise, we?d show weakness. We?d be thrust back into the era of disunity, feckless candidates, and elections we could not win. Oh, but the new Democratic Party knows better.

I lived those lies for years, pretending inwardly that even if it wasn?t the whole truth, it was for the greater good, so it was okay.

When the story broke with a credible accusation that Doug Emhoff, the ?wife guy? of Kamala Harris, slapped a woman so hard she turned around, it might have become the kind of story that dominated the headlines for weeks. Only in ordinary times would the press chase a story like that. These are not ordinary times.

If I were still a party loyalist, I, too, would be dismissing and debunking the serious allegation that Doug Emhoff went to a glitzy event at the Hotel du Cap, drank too much, and assaulted his girlfriend of three months because he thought she was flirting with another man.

I would have cheered Jen Psaki on as she helped prop up the image of Emhoff as the shining example of men who stand behind women and support them, not as the guy who allegedly paid off the nanny he knocked up to keep her quiet.

And maybe that?s why the Republicans can?t win elections. They aren?t willing to do what it takes to win. They aren?t willing to come together as one unbreakable chain that goes along with every lie.

If only those who dissent at the National Review or the Wall Street Journal were fully on board with pretending Trump wasn?t who he is - a deeply flawed candidate who happens to be tough enough to go up against the machine. Ah, but the machine didn?t get there by accident. It got there because everyone agreed that lying was the better path forward.

Tomorrow, on Saturday, Trump is returning to Butler, PA. Trump and Butler seem connected in ways that make for one of the greatest stories in American history. It wasn?t just the assassination attempt. Butler had come to stand for the quintessential town of the forgotten working class who turned to Trump as their last best hope.

Just before the 2020 election, Tucker Carlson gave the most insightful, eloquent monologue about Trump and his supporters I?d ever heard. It went viral because no one has said it better before or since. And a myth was born. Butler, PA, was the forgotten town that came alive when Trump decided to shine a light on it.

So it was already MAGA lore by the time Trump returned to Butler to campaign for his 2024 run and was very nearly assassinated. What could represent the time we?re living in better than that? The Democrats will tell themselves it?s ?just the guns,? and that their gun control would have stopped this shooter from attempting to take Trump?s life.

Yet we know that is not the truth. It wasn?t random gun violence this shooter sought, but fame. We don?t know everything there is to know about that day. The press has not exactly been drawn to this story, probably because they fear it will help Trump. So, we don?t know much about the shooter. As of right now, he remains a mystery, as does the strange coincidence of Trump being nearly killed in Butler, of all places.

In yet another strange twist of fate, Tucker Carlson and his producer, Justin Wells, happened to be filming a documentary following Trump on the campaign trail. That meant a full camera crew was ready to capture every second as it unfolded. Most of the footage shown in this documentary has never been seen before, and it is extraordinary.

Episodes 1 and 2 of The Art of the Surge are now playing on Tuckercarlson.com. Here is a clip of the assassination attempt combined with various videos from rallygoers:

It seems to have suddenly occurred to the Democrats that they have a problem with men. Oh, we know they have a problem with men. That?s all we?ve heard about for the past ten years ever since Donald Trump committed the great crime of beating Hillary Clinton.

I know because I used to be one of them ? the #stillwithher type who marched with hundreds of thousands of women to protest the Trump election. And the one who said #metoo and fought every day as a brave member of the resistance? Yeah, that was me. But to quote Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven, I ain?t like that no more.

And speaking of Clint Eastwood, you know what was a universal attraction for men and women? Masculine male heroes. And you want to know what Hollywood decided it didn?t need anymore? Masculine male heroes. Hollywood?s problem is now the Democrats? problem. The box office has become a ghost town, and men are fleeing the Democratic Party in droves.

This gave someone in the Harris/Walz campaign the bright idea to form ?White Dudes for Harris,? one of the most ill-conceived campaign pitches of my lifetime. It?s as though an extraterrestrial came down to the planet Earth and thought, ?How can we lure in the males of this species??

Apparently, the Harris campaign is spending $10 million on this mess. Do they really think they?re going to convince a single ?white dude? with that ad? Maybe the self-hating ones.

But it won?t work. The reasons they cite for choosing the Democrats are all of the main reasons so many are voting for Trump in the first place. To quote Robert DeNiro playing a man afflicted with ?toxic masculinity? in Raging Bull, it defeats its own purpose.

The only men who would proudly and publicly join that group are men who have no self-respect left because they?ve spent much of the past decade apologizing for their existence and de-centering themselves from the narrative, all the while getting a pat on the head from the women in their lives. The more wealth and power they have, the more likely they?ll put on that shirt and shake that groove thing.

And they?re surprised somehow that it didn?t work, that men didn?t flock to join a group that drained their testosterone faster than walking in on James Carville?s grandma naked. How did they think this was a good idea again? What preachy millennial childless cat lady made that call?

Meanwhile, Jen Paski does what many of the women of the Left do: attempt to redefine their idea of masculinity. Even Doug Emhoff isn?t buying it. He looks terrified, like he?s gotten in too deep, and he can?t find his way out of this mess.

I don?t want to insult Tim Walz or Doug Emhoff. I would never want to make them feel bad about things they can?t help, like masculinity, but BRUH. They would be what one might call sensitive men. No one out there is buying that Tim Walz is the masculine male role model that will bring back male voters. He?s just not that guy.\

I?ll never forget the moment when I realized what being a mother meant. It wasn?t the 18 hours of labor or crying out for the nurse to hand me my newborn daughter or that I held her to my chest for a full two weeks after I brought her home. No, it was the day she walked behind me, and I dipped my toe in the pool. When she copied me, she fell in. I didn?t realize it at first, but then I didn?t hear her behind me anymore. I turned around to see her in the pool starting to sink.

As I dove in to save her and felt that superhero strength all mothers are born with, I knew at that moment there was nothing I would not do to keep this child safe. I wasn?t just a mother, though. I was a Mama Bear. You know, the most feared animal in nature? No one messes with a mother grizzly. They know what will happen if they do.

Mama Bears are not born, they are made. It?s a pilot light that is only ignited when danger is near. Even now, with my daughter grown, just try it, pal. Just TRY IT. We are Mama Bears because we know it?s a dangerous world in many ways. No one can guarantee a life free of car accidents, mass shootings, random explosions or violent crime.

We never had a man around to protect us, which would have been nice but for me, it was my boot camp. I had to keep her safe. At some point, I had to let go and allow my daughter to live her life. But I sit here, across the country, with a pilot light forever lit. Just try it, pal. JUST TRY IT.

I knew I had to leave the Democratic Party in 2020 because I believed they?d lost their minds and lost their way. I could no longer align myself with people who believed all of this country, its government, its culture, its economy belonged to them - the party of the elites.

It wasn?t until I started venturing out of my feedback loop of the New York Times, MSNBC, and NPR that I began to see things I?d never heard about before. Had I not been listening to Blocked and Reported, I would never have heard of ?gender-affirming care? or the rising crisis of children sucked into what I now believe is a cult.

I knew some kids were trans. It didn?t become a thing until my daughter was in high school. Only one of her friends said she wanted ?top surgery? and to now be referred to as a boy?s name. But when she went to college, two of her roommates had swapped genders, a boy she had a crush on had fully transitioned to female. I did start to wonder, what?s going on?

The more I heard about it, the more I began to panic. Young girls were showing off scars where healthy breasts used to be. Young men being castrated and all of them losing their fertility long before the age of consent because of puberty blockers? And worse, there was a growing ideology that children as young as toddlers should be able to decide their gender.

But it wasn?t until I heard the stories of detransitioners that I knew we were facing a once-in-a-generation medical scandal, and everyone was too afraid to say anything about it. If you mentioned it, you would be attacked and even, at one point, banned from Twitter.

Hollywood used to give us the chance to sit under one roof and enjoy a universal story. The magic of the movies was always something we could share. We all remembered lines from famous movies like ?I?ll be back,? ?I?m going to make him an offer he can?t refuse,? ?Here?s looking at you, kid,? ?We?re gonna need a bigger boat,? and ?Forget it, Jake. It?s Chinatown.?

We got along better as a country when we could share movies. We didn?t just share the experience inside a movie theater, where we could leave our politics and our disagreements at the door. We also shared stories that became part of our shared history. We all remember the Summer of the Shark and the year Titanic won Best Picture.

But now, 24 years into the new millennium it?s all gone. Or most of it anyway. Whatever is left of Hollywood is meant only for a small portion of America. They are running out of stories to tell because their sample size is no bigger than the island of Manhattan.

But Hollywood doesn?t seem to have noticed just how disconnected they?ve become from ordinary life in America. It isn?t just that Americans have moved on because Hollywood took a side after 2016 and alienated them. They also seem to be living in a different time, back when the box office wasn?t a ghost town, and Julia Roberts and George Clooney could still open a movie.

They seem unable to let go of the past, specifically 2008, when Barack Obama won the presidency. Hollywood has never felt so useful, so full of purpose, and so GOOD as it did when it formed a powerful alliance with the Obama coalition.

I was one of those people who believed Rachel Maddow. I sat glued to her show every night. I even patrolled Trump?s entire Twitter feed to find the exact moment when he was ?turned? by the Russians.

I saw it all play out in my head. The hapless Trump in Moscow, the beauty pageant, the room with a hidden camera, the prostitutes, the embarrassing sex acts all designed as ?kompromat,? a word middle-aged white women like me suddenly threw around like we were Valerie Plame.

Rachel Maddow sounded so sincere, so intelligent, so concerned for the welfare of the country. She was an integral part of the Obama coalition in the early days. We couldn?t separate them. They stood for the America we helped build and the one Trump threatened.

I read every book on Putin I could find. I had long conversations with my friends about the danger of having a Russian asset in the White House. I believed Adam Schiff, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, and, yes, Rachel Maddow.

Yet, no one stopped to think what all of that whipped-up hysteria, that fear, that rage would do to people who might think voting isn?t enough to save the country. More would have to be done. What if it all landed in the lizard brain of a Gen-X Travis Bickle, who was prepared to lay down his life to save Ukraine?

The media will attempt to paint alleged Trump assassin Ryan Routh as a madman. They might even say he was a Trump supporter or his ideology was unknown. But that isn?t exactly true.

Kamala Harris believes she ?won? the debate. It?s hard to argue with that conclusion. But there were unintended consequences her team did not factor in. And that is sympathy for Trump, or as they would tell it on the Left, ?sympathy for the Devil.?

Please to meet you. Hope you guessed my name.

I, too, thought Kamala Harris had won the debate. By the end, I was so demoralized, so sad, and so full of despair that I just went to bed and hoped it would be gone by morning.

I knew it wasn?t just a debate. It?s much bigger than that. It?s a TIME magazine cover. It?s Frank Luntz and the Spectator declaring the debate will cost Trump the election. It?s a thousand points of light on Twitter, a once-great coalition undone by ugliness for ten long years.

It?s a Stephen Colbert monologue. It?s a Taylor Swift endorsement. It?s the center of Bill Maher?s entire universe on Friday night. It will be Saturday Night Live. It?s too big. Too insurmountable. It?s everything, everywhere, all at once.

Or is it?

When I woke up, scrolled through TikTok, and read the post-debate polls, I found headline after headline declaring voters' choice for president unmoved. It made no difference whatsoever, and, if anything, sympathy tipped in Trump?s direction, and Harris suddenly became as unlikable or ?likable enough? as Hillary Clinton.

Why?

Because the Trump haters have destroyed themselves and any good thing they ever stood for trying to destroy him, and at some point, the worm turned.

They are so close to what they believe is the total destruction of Trump they can taste it. But I watched Trump somehow survive the debate unscathed. Something about his ability to not attack Harris adequately worked in his favor. Call it the Charlie Brown effect.

Harris made the fundamental mistake of leaving her JOY? and unity hats at the door and putting on her prosecutor?s hat. Had she shown up as a gracious, respectful, serious person ready to answer serious questions, she might have won over some voters. That wasn?t what happened. She showed up as a hybrid between Hillary Clinton and the ladies of The View.

We have a brighter future ahead, she declared. But those words ring hollow since she?s been in power for almost four years. How many more false promises can the Democrats make at the people?s expense? They promised that they were the better side, the optimistic side, the unity side, the ADULTS in the room.

Not only have they failed ? in Afghanistan, at the border, at our grocery stores, in our schools, and on our streets ? but they have lurched toward corruption unseen and unprecedented in this country?s history, up to and including hiding a cognitively impaired president ? who is still in office, by the way ? and pulling a fast one on us that Kamala Harris is suddenly something new.

I have just discovered that my very long interview with the great Paul Finn of The Generation Report is finally up on YouTube. He runs a really great channel (CLICK HERE) examining the Fourth Turning. I recommend watching all of his videos. If you are interested in our interview, here it is.

He takes care to edit in images along with the audio so it?s worth a watch, though I am including an MP3 for the podcast feed.

Paul?s work is exceptional, and it?s always bothered me that he doesn?t have a larger following on YouTube. He should. I wish more people would watch his videos.

Hope you enjoy it.

There is nothing more loathsome to the average upper-crust liberal intellectual than an American holding Donald Trump?s book in one arm and the Bible in the other. At least, that?s what the stock image on Matt Bai?s column in the Washington Post tells us.

Matt Bai ? political columnist and one-time screenwriter for a DOA film about Gary Hart called The Front Runner ? is going to give the Left all the justification it needs to continue their ongoing hate campaign against ordinary Americans.

He writes:

But now? After the violent sacking of the Capitol? After Trump?s promise to behave like a dictator (well, okay, I guess if it?s only for a day)? After eight years of bigotry and baseness and flat-out lies?

To say that Trump?s voters aren?t aware of these things, or don?t fully comprehend them, or are firmly in the grip of misinformation, is to say that they?re simply fools. And I?ve met way too many rural Americans to believe that. If they?re ignorant, then their ignorance, at this point, is willful.

It?s a rebuttal to a column by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times pleading with the Left to find their humanity when it comes to Trump and MAGA.

It isn?t enough that Kristof writes:

By all means denounce Trump, but don?t stereotype and belittle the nearly half of Americans who have sided with him.

We can?t separate them, argues Bai. If they support Trump then they are the named enemy. They are not worthy of our empathy, at least not until ? he hopes ? Kamala Harris wins the presidency. Then, they might thaw out and treat them like they belong in the country they love. Don?t bet on it. Bai writes:

These voters don?t support Trump because they labor under some illusion that he?s going to rescue their communities ? not anymore. They support him because he?s willing to blow up the country if it means teaching insufferable intellectuals a lesson, and so are they. It?s the same vengeful impulse that leads to autocracy in unequal societies all over the world. It is, at its core, unpatriotic, no matter how many flags you fly, or how many ways you try to rationalize it.

Are you starting to see why The Front Runner flopped?

The Frontrunner is a rescue operation for Gary Hart?s legacy. It was the mean old media, you see, a media that has suddenly grown a conscience because now they don?t do their jobs of chasing stories lest they weaken a weak candidate like Gary Hart or Kamala Harris. Instead, they spread propaganda on why America should hate and fear Trump and his supporters lest they be accused of ?normalizing? them.

The Front Runner was bad for the same reason The Washington Post and the New York Times are unreadable: their bias suffocates any practical purpose they might have otherwise had. It?s like spending time with the kid who sits in the front of the class, always raising his hand with the right answer. After a while, you overdose on the sanctimony.

Harris has been tripping the light fantastic on the campaign trail only showing the side her campaign wants people to see. It reminds me of the many years I?ve spent covering the Oscars. The campaigns for Best Actress always follow the same pattern. They get a stylist. They make selective appearances. They show up on the rope line. They shake hands. They look great. The one thing they don?t do is interviews.

Hollywood has its greasy fingerprints all over the Harris campaign. We know that. They see it as their mission to stop Trump. So they?ve taken things into their own hands. It seems like Harris has hired awards consultants rather than politicos.

They have her projecting mostly joy and positivity. Harris has done an excellent job playing the role they?ve given her, somewhere between the blessed virgin and Eva Peron.

But they?re flirting with disaster. That?s not the real Kamala Harris. They?re hiding her from the press because they know that.

They?re gambling on Trump, showing up as obnoxious, abusive, and belligerent. Harris will do everything she can to poke and prod him into a reaction. She will call him too old. She will say we need change. She will call him a racist. She will call him a criminal.

America is being love-bombed by the Kamala Harris campaign. It?s been confusing and disorienting, but so many are going along with it because how can they not? Being love-bombed is hard to resist.

Yes, love-bombed. That is what all of this looks like. And as any dimestore trauma therapist will tell you, those who are the most insecure are the ones who must love-bomb to erase any doubt or critical thinking.

They know Kamala Harris is one bad interview away from losing this election. They know she?s still the same Kamala that turned off so much of the American public. They know that sooner or later, she will get triggered, and that temper will come out. They know they have nothing else but this big lie they?re all going along with.

None of the past four years will mean anything, not amid a storm of love-bombing. Harris can say anything, be anything, pretend anything, and she will get nothing but eyes in the shape of hearts looking back at her.

Yes, much of it is ?mass formation psychosis,? coined by Mattias Desmet, as we slouch toward a technocratic totalitarian state.

During 2020, while we were all on lockdown, those online became part of a mass formation. Once they came together as one group that would go along with no masks, then masks, then mostly peaceful protests, then systemic racism, then vaccines, then lockdowns, then ?cancel culture,? and finally, a weaponized DOJ against Trump - they were both terrorized and compliant by the end of it.

They had a volunteer army of fanatics who would punish them publicly if they said the wrong thing or stepped out of line. That kind of fear does strange things to a community, and it hasn?t gone away.

The formation is so united and so full of hatred and rage that our government could erect concentration camps or gulags and start throwing Trump and MAGA away, and all of them would celebrate. Bette Midler, Barbra Streisand, Rob Reiner, and Stephen King would cheer.

Congratulations to all of you who supported the Democrats. You won. You should be very proud of yourselves. You won in your singular support of Joe Biden for the presidency.

You won in how you attacked any primary candidate who might challenge him, you know, the one guy who told the truth about Biden?s cognitive decline? Dean Phillips? What a terrible person he was for saying the Emperor had no clothes.

You did it! You won the primary for Joe Biden. You had an entire press corp - and an army of supporters - to deflect from accusations that there was anything wrong with him. Those are deep fakes, they proclaimed. When any outlet would write a column that Joe Biden should step down or that he was not fit to hold power anymore, off with their heads! You would threaten to cancel your subscription and bully those reporters on Twitter.

But you did it!

The new Kamala Harris is a grand illusion. It looks more like an Oscar campaign for Best Actress than an election for President of the United States. But that happens when your political party is in bed with Hollywood. They have all the best writers and executives in the business to sell a more palatable version to the people.

The real Kamala Harris has proven to be not quite ready for prime time, or as she might see it, America is not quite ready for her.

We?re getting the kinder, gentler Kamala instead of the firebrand she?s been throughout her career. We?re getting the JOY? campaign to trick us all into feeling good in a time of great anxiety and malaise.

We have a media selling this falsehood to the public every day, doing the work of the Harris campaign by depicting the Trump side as ?dark.?

She can?t hide herself for much longer. Sooner or later, the firebrand will have to emerge. Harris probably hates how they keep telling her to talk less nasally, smile more, and soften herself for the cameras. The more they try to control her, the more likely she is to rebel against it - you know, maybe a little like Sarah Palin?

The real Harris is someone who had no problem calling Joe Biden a racist in an emotional tirade on the debate stage, then turning around and cackling about it as ?just a debate.? She is that competitive. But hey, no one gets into politics to lose. To quote Jack Nicholson in Terms of Endearment, ?everybody uses everything they have.?

Some might have been shocked when Harris casually snatched Trump?s big platform of No Tax on Tips. I certainly was. How could she do it so brazenly and without shame? That is the real Kamala Harris. And it?s only the beginning.