Here: Present at the Creation - Claremont Review of Books
I would appreciate other people’s reactions to it. I lived through this era myself and can testify to the accuracy of the memories of the person being interviewed re the change in the Left.
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Don’t expect a long reply from anyone here when you post such a short critique. Address several points and I’ll think about replying with hundreds of words.
On one particular issue, the interviewee is FOS. Trump did not lose Georgia; out of state Democrat donations bought Georgia.
The same outcome is developing in the upcoming Walker/Warnock race. Warnock is being funded by out of state money to promote his lies (All politicians lie.) while Walker does not enjoy the millions in non-voter financial support.
With few exceptions, that is how elections are determined today…buy the most TV time = get the most votes. A lie told on TV goes a lot farther than one that grows by unassisted word of mouth.
So can we expect out-of-state Democrat donations to buy all elections in the future?
I’m guessing that they will try to buy the crucial ones that could go either way. It does always work. I recall a recent local election where the voters were so fed up with the Democrat incumbent that they elected a candidate that spent only a few hundred dollars while the incumbent spent hundreds of thousands.
I get emails on a regular basis from Democrats running in other states. Same for Republicans, but not nearly as much.
I think you mean “It doesn’t always work”, and yes, you’re right.
If you’re going to cheat, you can’t be too blatant about it. Most of the American people would not be happy to know that one side was massively cheating, even if it meant cheating for their side. We’re not Kenya (yet).
I too get emails daily from various Democrat fund-raisers, pleading for money, even asking me to take a survey affirming just how wonderful Mr Biden in office has been. (Apparently, I’m one of the ‘top Democrats in my area’. Of course these ‘surveys’ always end in a demand for money. They treat their potential donors with the same contempt as Republcan fund-raisers do.)
Now, speaking of elections, a question for you, and anyone else reading this: Is there anyone we can do, (especially via the web since if anyone is reading this, they are at least minimally web-savvy) to increase voter registration (and participation in November) for our side?
Prior to 2020, I spent a fair amount of time on YouTube, looking for the sorts of videos that attracted patriot viewers (and there were many), and which had comment sections (not all allow comments).
Often these videos would have tens, even hundreds, of thousands of viewers, and a proportional number of comments … ie hundreds, even thousands.
I believe that these videos – often anti-PC – were and are viewed disproportionately by young males … and judging from the comments, red-pilled ones. This is just the demographic that has the lowest voter registration/participation count.
So I would post something in the comments section, along the lines of, “We can laugh at these PC morons now, but if we don’t turn out in massive numbers to elect patriots, they will become the government. So register and vote … have a ‘Voting Party’ on election day, before and/or after voting … to make sure your like-thinking friends vote. If you know anyone who lacks easy transportation to the polls, take them yourself.” And then I would post some links re. registering to vote, like these:
https://vote.gov/
Online Voter Registration of states w/ovr
How to Register to Vote | USAGov
Once I had my message written, it was just a question of finding new videos and copy-and-paste, (although I changed the wording slightly each time to try to fool the guardian algorithms that YouTube probably has [anyone know anything definite about this?] to screen out advertising bots.)
It took me a couple of minutes per video. Of course, subsequent comments would push mine down the queue, and eventually off-screen, so that my message would only be visible to those who scrolled down because they wanted to read lots of comments.
So, I tried to recruit other patriots to do the same, although without much luck. (A couple of people joined in briefly.) That is, my aim was to have a ‘Register to vote’ message near the top of the comments queue (or stack, for the computer scientists reading this) for as long as possible. But for this to happen, a couple of dozen people needed to spend half an hour or so a day (or more, for the really dedicated) doing it.
Now … my question is: does anyone have any thoughts on this idea? I’m pretty sure it was aimed at the right demographic. For most of those videos, 90% or more of the comments were from red-pilled people, and, to the extent that one can judge from style and vocabulary, probably not from older people, but rather from young males. I would also guess – less sure now – that the non-college-educated were well represented among them – just the group we need to reach.
However – I would like to know more about (1) who watches YouTube videos, (2) who reads the comments, (3) YouTube’s screening algorithms. And anything else that’s relevant, such as the kind of messaging re. voting that actually has some impact on people.
It’s war, and we need all the reliable intel we can get. I’m sure the marketing people from a dozen big woke corporations have done this sort of work. Can we steal some information from them?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Yes, I left out the “NOT”. Generally, nothing works right every time it’s attempted.
One thing concerning the effort to “get your message to every voter” is that the percentage of voters that are aware of your existence is infinitesimal…and of that group, the percentage of voters that are listening to you is infinitesimal…and of that even smaller audience, the percentage of voters that agree with you will be proportional to the forcefulness of your messages.
That is why elections are often won by those who buy or are given the most TV time.
When you and I were young, it was the support of newspapers and preachers that candidates wanted. Now it’s that of TV networks and talk show hosts.
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With respect, you guys are wringing your hands in futility. Why does money buy elections? Because of the way we (people in general) behave in groups. The propagandists have figured it out, and it’s hopeless. The only choices we have govern how fast our golden age goes to hell.
Trump was fun, he was a thumb in the eyes of all of the bad guys. But it was not going anywhere, because a thumb in the eyes isn’t a coherent political strategy. Trump is just a guy who enjoys sticking his thumb in the eyes of idiots, but the machine is far too complicated and broken for a guy like him to fix.
Podhoretz is a good writer, I’ve read his stuff for many years. The last guy who we elected that read his kind of stuff was Reagan. That was a long time ago.
Who thinks Kevin McCarthy or Mitch McConnel will fix anything, or even not be an obstacle to fixing things? They’ll get power and then hop in place. Better than top speed to hell, but that’s all.
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Yes, no single individual – unless he’s very wealthy, or has magical powers – can do much to influence events. If you, or I, don’t vote … it will almost certainly make no difference whatsoever to the election.
But … if we extend that reasoning to every patriot … the Left will come to power unopposed, with tremendous moral authority among the broad middle. I think philosophers call it the ‘fallacy of composition’: what’s true for any single unit of a collective is not true for the whole. If you lose two or three brain cells, no big deal. But if you lose two or three hundred million…
So … we must be politically active. We must engage the enemy.
However, there is a central important truth in the observation about the impotence of the isolated individual, and it’s this:
A thousand isolated individuals, acting alone, without co ordination or communication with each other, have little power.
But get them together in a serious organization … and things change qualitatively.
In the 1930s, the Communist Party USA never had more than about 100 000 members, probably closer to half that until the war began, when their membership went up. But those individuals were dedicated, organized … and they had a strong influence on American history.
To take one example: they played an important role in organizing the industrial trade unions, the CIO, in steel, auto, rubber, maritime, longshore, etc. By the end of the period of organizing – say, the late 1940s – they controlled 11 national unions, 1/3 of the CIO, and were strong influences in many others. And they had hundreds of thousands of sympathyzers, including in influential places, like Hollywood.
We must learn from the enemy, and emulate them: we need a serious organization of dedicated patriots.
At the moment, this is not possible on a national scale – we have too many would-be chiefs with big egos, and not enough Indians. So, for the time being, we need to organize on the local level: community defense groups, like the people at the USCPT (USCPT.org) are doing. One step at a time … we can’t jump over our own heads.
You generalize. I am not “wringing my hands” at all…just stating the truth as I see it about how few people are affected by what you or I express in words daily.
Despite the ability of each of us to broadcast instantly to millions of people whatever may be the message of the moment, essentially NOBODY IS LISTENING.
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This reminds me of an old fantasy of childhood: what if I could read people’s minds? You eventually realize that would be the worst of all possible worlds - you’d go crazy with the cacophony and the dangerous knowledge. The internet, and the plethora of social media it has created, is just a sliver of that and it’s completely disheatening.
I live in a very affluent suburb of San Francisco. The social fabric is disintegrating. We have a DA who is nearly as bad as the idiot who got recalled in SF, and she just got re-elected easily. The CVS pharmacy near my home has locked up alot of their stuff on the shelves, because people just come in, fill up a cart, and walk out and nobody can do anything about it. Try to stop them, you go to jail.
I feel like I’m on a slow-motion train wreck, watching it happen, and I’m powerless to do anything about it. People won’t see it until it’s too late. Prayers to a supreme being won’t avert it, nothing will. I’m very comfortable, ready to retire, and I know that there won’t be a safe haven when the wreck happens. It won’t be safe on a beach in Bali or a cave in Afghanistan. I’m just hoping it doesn’t happen for awhile. The millennials will be the ones who will be holding the sack of shit bequeathed to them. I hope they’re happy in their woke dystopia.
Things like the election of two batshit crazy lib senators in Georgia make me convinced that it’s not just fruitloops California, it’s everywhere. Trump didn’t lose Georgia, the GOP nominated two contemptible weasels as their opposition. That’s our brave new world. When the wreck happens, good people won’t fix it - the age of assigning blame and finding scapegoats will commence.
No one knows the future.
What we must do is to prepare for a major, sharp breakdown of the social/economic/legal order, in which the organs of the state no longer function to preserve order even in the sclerotic way that they do now in the Blue states.
It may not happen. I have a very bright acquaintance who can make a strong case that we will just slide slowly, slowly, slowly into ruin … no sack of Rome, no taking of Constantinople.
Maybe. Or maybe not. I hear the building creaking, glasses of water beginning to slide across slick tabletops …
So we need to organize, at the local level. If you are surrounded by liberal chowder-heads whose illness is incurable, think about moving to a ‘Redoubt State’ like Wyoming.
In any case, we should try to form groups of people in our areas who could respond in such a way as to increase our chances of survival – unlooted – in case of a major disaster.
It’s not too hard, assuming you can find half a dozen like-minded people. Get together for a meal and talk about how to organize. First thing is, everyone should be a ‘prepper’. Then try to arrange a method of communication, should the phone system and net go down. (BaoFeng UV5R. $20. I can supply videos on how to use them. Or even these, at 3 for $33
[Amazon.com]. Something is better than nothing.)
Ideally, standardize on tools, the one starting with A and ending with the digit 5. See who has specialist knowledge: legal, medical, military, ‘engineering’ in the broad sense (does anyone know how to deal with a fallen power pole and possible live wire?)comms, (ham radio)… Go to the range together. Talk about how to expand your numbers … there are bound to be local groups which are patriotic – American Legion, VFW, Republican Party … and don’t forget our friends the Libertarians.
If there are any reasonably-priced First Aid courses around, send some of your people on them. I don’t think they cover everything that we need to prepare for (when I went on one, I dind’t learn a thing about sucking chest wounds), but they’re a start.
The key idea: if something really bad occurs, you don’t want to be sitting and wondering, ‘What do I do now?’ or worse yet, ‘Whoa, I wish I had bought __, ____, ____, …’
If you have a group, you don’t have to know everything. You can take advantage of the division of labor and specialization, the trick that brought us out of the stone age.
A group of three can become a group of a dozen. A group of a dozen, a group of a hundred. Once you’ve got several dozen people together, you’re really in business. And the news will bring people out of their stupor.
The people at the USCPT.org are doing something like this. It’s what the Oathkeepers and the ThreePercenters should have done, and what the so-called ‘militia movement’ should be doing.
Take every opportunty to deploy to help out in natural disaster emergencies like global cooling caused fires [you’re in California!!!] , floods, hurricanes. (Some special etiquette is called for in those situations: you can’t just turn up and start helping, you’ve got to check in with whoever’s in charge. There’s a good book by a Mormon fellow on this, which I’ll try to find.
The Houston Branch of the Texas State Militia even take part in Jimmy Carter’s Habitat for Humanity program. Wonderful PR, and an opportunity for people like me to learn some elementary building techniques. A fellow in Washington State volunteered his militia unit to help guard a local mosque after it was supposedly threatened. Excellent PR.
We’ve got to start now.
Wyoming, the state that gave us Lynn Cheney. I’d rather fight hordes here than survive in some hovel in Wyoming, the first winter would be worse than hell.
The preppers won’t have to worry about tripping over me in the frozen tundra. If California drives me out, I’ll probably find a place in Florida and hope. Let’s face it, no state is immune to the disintegration occurring., but it might be fun fighting the hordes in the Florida keys.