I agree Sasha that much of the country now sees through the mainstream media BS but there is still a huge part of the country that is on board with it. They either believe the lies or they believe that the lies are necessary to protect the country from Trump.
I have many friends, as I'm sure you do, who are still positive that January 6th was an insurrection and any argument to the contrary is seen as crazy conspiracy talk. This same dynamic happens on issue after issue, from election fraud to the Ukraine war to the COVID vaccines. I don't know what it will take for these people to see the truth. And I really can't imagine what justice would even look like if all the people who have been lying to us are held accountable.
I have been incredibly fortunate in my life and not too long ago I rather foolishly believed that America was somehow immune from the forces that have corrupted men since history began. It has been very painful for me to realize how wrong I was. I hope you are right and that enough people wake up before it is really too late and we face societal collapse but I fear that we may have already passed the point of no return.
Coincidentally I had no idea that Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi had a podcast until I listened to it this morning. We must be on a similar wavelength.
Pretty much most of the Democrats I still hang out with believe without any acknowledged skepticism anything that is said on CNN and MSNBC. This includes whatever is said about trans kids killing themselves if their parents refuse drugs and surgery, everything that is implied about thousands of innocent, unarmed black people being gunned down by police every year, and everything about Gov. DeSantis being a fascist dictator, to name a few examples. Democrats I know who had never heard of Elon Musk or Ron DeSantis in terms of their accomplishments now rave to me about what a Threat to Democracy both these men are, and how they have to be stopped in their tracks. When I ask if they have read any original data or the actual language of the bills in front of whatever legislature, they haven't done so. They still do trust their preferred press, almost unconditionally it seems.
The Democrats I know are highly educated people, and it is surprising and frustrating to have to educate them about the fact that they can't trust everything they hear on TV or their preferred news source. They are "loyal" Democrats, which nowadays has evolved to mean their party is The Good People, and "The Right" is the home of the Bad People. They wholeheartedly believe that they are being shown all the facts and are being led to the one right course of action called for in each situation.
The Democrats' apparent lack of intellectual curiosity and skepticism doesn't fit at all with who I once thought they were. Most radical Democrats claim to be atheists, for example, or to have some other personal perspective on religious beliefs. To me that implies that they question religious orthodoxies. I used to take it for granted that they did. Sometimes I wonder if I previously overestimated them, but I think the reality is that they have changed. Like people always act when they get caught up with a cult, they appear to have sunken to a lower form of thought. It's so, so creepy that they can't see from the inside that they are in one.
What Elon Musk did about Twitter was a start in the right direction. His electric car nonsense is unsustainable with current technology. It’s a waste of resources.
When people on the left discuss “separation of church and state” they’re really saying “destruction of the church for the state”. The discrediting of the church and the Jehovah’s Witnesses of child molestations by priests and elders was the necessary first step in the rise of the Church of the State that we now see.
Thank you for your comments! I am familiar with John McWhorter's work and appreciate how he brought to the foreground the religious aspects of the woke cult.
I would be very interested in any academic studies you have run across regarding similarities between woke thought and mental disorders. If you happen to recall any of the links and have time to share them, I would be most appreciative!
The above article for which you included the link above is fascinating! I am not an IT person at all, but the technical style of the writing was interesting and I could follow it. I too have been interested in the post modernist origins of woke thought. The point in the article that I agree with most strongly is that the only people who can provide an informed, accurate critique of a system are those who have first succeeded within that system. The same has been true of all the great modern artists; they were great at making traditional prior to diverging from traditional rules.
Lots of people now are seeing that the woke cult makes excuses for people who have not succeeded, excuses which are usually very morally righteous, reductionistic and absolute. The enabling environment attracts people to the cult who have been unable for various reasons to succeed in normal systems. Some of them might have been mired in restricted thinking prior to the emergence of the woke cult. Now they have a home where they can even feel superior to people who are capable of rational thinking.
Leonard Donnie Jr., WAPO top editor for 17 years, said the secret part out lid recently; “What we found has convinced us that truth-seeking news media must move beyond whatever ‘objectivity’ once meant to produce more trustworthy news,” Downie wrote in the essay.” Meanwhile, Mother Jones (something I used to subscribe to; yikes!) has this headline “Columbia Journalism Review’s Big Fail: It Published 24,000 Words on Russiagate and Missed the Point”. In sum, Democratic Press machine now says only working-class racist fools expected or want an objective media and we’ll gaslight them every time they ask for it. F them.
Another excellent piece Sasha. It’s really hard for me to see a way for the legacy media to find their way back to relevance. They don’t seem interested in doing so anyway. It’s now propaganda 24/7, brought to you by Big Pharma. And the lefties hold out their bowls like Oliver Twist - “please, sir, may I have some more?”
This was a very well written eulogy. I have to shout out this line as very witty: "Those of us who have no problem with drag shows don’t really understand why how this has suddenly become the job of the Democrats or Hollywood - to push it on our kids." I feel like most of us who are politically homeless now didn't spend all our lives on the far right--we just value the objective truth. Watching the clips you chose, when the truth mattered, makes me sad for what we have lost that my kids have never known.
The latest: it was interesting to watch TV opinion/reaction recently to the McCarthy vote. I flipped around each MSM talking head to see their response to the demands. Out of this, Hannity is now for me, unwatchable. He did not support the 20, who as we know were holding out for a floor vote on term limits, and roll back of Pelosi’s Speakership vote-of-confidence allowances.
Support or non support for those 20 became the latest litmus test, and it exposed a few more. Sasha, this is a political parallel to movies no longer being made for the customer, but instead for an agenda. House rules no longer had voter’s-will in mind, either. And any talking head who threw shade on the 20 who were making an attempt to change that, well now we know you’re also inauthentic.
Thank you, Sasha, for another stellar article. Reading it I am once again reminded of visionary Paddy Chayefsky's brilliant script for "Network" in 1976. It was so apparent that by blurring the lines between news and entertainment we were on collision course, of which to this day, we have not recovered. Bravo to the great Sidney Lumet for bringing that kick ass film to the screen. To anyone who has never seen it, I highly recommend watching. Carry on...
I second this. That movie really "woke" me up and I only saw it a handful of years ago. It's so well acted, written, and directed that the story almost takes a back seat, but when you start actually listening it hits you in the face like a brick.
Thank you Sasha for your intellectual honesty. We all need that l, right or left. You are a breath of fresh air helping to drive the pollution of lies coming from big media.
The anger and grief over the damage that is being inflicted on this great nation by the left and the media is indescribable.
The infantilizing of the masses is a long and well documented story. What can be an amazing tool becomes the cudgel with which to dominate and subjugate, in this case the internet and MSM. All opposition becomes treason to the mission.
You write: "With Carlson, you know not getting bullshit. And believe it or not, that’s the same thing Trump offers. He boasts and exaggerates, sometimes even outright lies, but overall, he’s giving it to the people straight. And that’s why they trust him and why they don’t trust the legacy media."
I have to disagree there. Since Trump will not admit that the vaxx is obviously ineffective and killing people, he's not giving it to the people straight.
I don't trust Trump anymore exactly because of the vaxx. I know one person who died suddenly at 34, another who got myocarditis, another who got tachycardia, and a fourth with an auto-immune disorder - and all those things happened after getting the vaxx. And Trump somehow still wants _credit_ for rushing the development of this poison. Ugh.
Wrong. Anecdotes are small sample sizes, which must be taken with a grain of salt, but four friends who experienced problems after receiving the vaccine is NOT "meaningless".
e.pierce and four friends walk up a mountain. The first friend reaches the top when - BAM! - someone on the far side shoots him and he falls dead. The three other friends each suffer the same fate. But luckily e.pierce knows that these deaths are just anecdotal, and anecdotes are scientifically meaningless.
Sasha, never before have I experienced a writer who’s every word seems to come straight from mind! I know that sound weird, but it’s true. I look forward to every article you write & this one was of particular interest to me as our legacy media has degraded itself to a level not seen before! I am SO sick & SO tired of the same “catchphrase” of the week being parroted from the mockingbird media day in and day out! Family/friends continue to believe what’s being fed to them via MSDNC & CNN and they vehemently hate Tucker Carlson without ever hearing one word he’s said. Many refuse to believe that Tucker’s research team is stellar and he (often times) speaks truth...they refuse to accept that! I took my head out of the sand many years ago and it’s been refreshing & liberating to realize that there might be another side to the stories that Americans are being fed! Thank you for speaking truth...
Thanks so much. I appreciate it. I just heard this woman on a YouTube video and I felt exactly the same way -- like she came to all the same conclusions about the left: https://youtu.be/dBRJorDjG88
The only point of rebuttal I will mention, that I read, was "this is not what democracy looks like..." (not sure that's verbatim).
Actually, that is exactly what democracy looks like. French revolution-esque, where they even turned on their own, as the mobs raged, burned, pillaged and beheaded anyone they suspected was not 109% committed to the rage victim mentality.
That is one of the primary reasons we were founded as a Constitutional Republic. Not a democracy.
Democracies always end up looking like our current corrupt, insane, leftists in power, in our govt, in big tech, big pharma, MSM, Hollyweird, etc.
So very proud of the narrow gate you've chosen, to reach Truth.
Once you accept that our ‘news’ is really propaganda, the things you see on it make a lot more sense. If you aren’t on board with the destruction of America, then you’ll find a lot of things that are wrong with ‘the news’. If you are obsessed with what’s wrong with America, the MSM news is the way to go.
And about Hillary- had she run a typical campaign for a Midwestern Democrat here, she would have easily won. But she ran the campaign she probably ran in NYC and LA. Trump being the bastard who was going to take on China was such an easy sell here in the Detroit area. A lot of us loved that he was a bastard and was going to take on China and support the domestic auto industry. She ran the wrong campaign here, given the economics of Michigan in 2016. Had she listened to Debbie Dingell’s insights to Michigan, Hillary would have been President. But she ran the wrong campaign here and despite that -she nearly won. You can’t run a NYC campaign here and expect a huge victory.
Don't forget about Andy Ngo and how he had his ass beaten by communist(mostly white) Antifa while covering government endorsed riots for the last four years.
Narrative creators, enforcers and followers all suffer from the same limitations. They are banal, close-minded, superficial and, above all, conformist. They can be highly educated but they are almost never brilliant.
That Hillary's team ran such a poor campaign was not a surprise because their selection to the team was because of their limitations, not in spite of them.
Great post. It motivated me to become a paid subscriber because your road to where you're at today seems almost identical to mine. It's nice to share the ride with a good communicator. I'm looking forward to more well-written, engaging articles. Congrats, and thanks!
I agree Sasha that much of the country now sees through the mainstream media BS but there is still a huge part of the country that is on board with it. They either believe the lies or they believe that the lies are necessary to protect the country from Trump.
I have many friends, as I'm sure you do, who are still positive that January 6th was an insurrection and any argument to the contrary is seen as crazy conspiracy talk. This same dynamic happens on issue after issue, from election fraud to the Ukraine war to the COVID vaccines. I don't know what it will take for these people to see the truth. And I really can't imagine what justice would even look like if all the people who have been lying to us are held accountable.
I have been incredibly fortunate in my life and not too long ago I rather foolishly believed that America was somehow immune from the forces that have corrupted men since history began. It has been very painful for me to realize how wrong I was. I hope you are right and that enough people wake up before it is really too late and we face societal collapse but I fear that we may have already passed the point of no return.
Coincidentally I had no idea that Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi had a podcast until I listened to it this morning. We must be on a similar wavelength.
Pretty much most of the Democrats I still hang out with believe without any acknowledged skepticism anything that is said on CNN and MSNBC. This includes whatever is said about trans kids killing themselves if their parents refuse drugs and surgery, everything that is implied about thousands of innocent, unarmed black people being gunned down by police every year, and everything about Gov. DeSantis being a fascist dictator, to name a few examples. Democrats I know who had never heard of Elon Musk or Ron DeSantis in terms of their accomplishments now rave to me about what a Threat to Democracy both these men are, and how they have to be stopped in their tracks. When I ask if they have read any original data or the actual language of the bills in front of whatever legislature, they haven't done so. They still do trust their preferred press, almost unconditionally it seems.
The Democrats I know are highly educated people, and it is surprising and frustrating to have to educate them about the fact that they can't trust everything they hear on TV or their preferred news source. They are "loyal" Democrats, which nowadays has evolved to mean their party is The Good People, and "The Right" is the home of the Bad People. They wholeheartedly believe that they are being shown all the facts and are being led to the one right course of action called for in each situation.
The Democrats' apparent lack of intellectual curiosity and skepticism doesn't fit at all with who I once thought they were. Most radical Democrats claim to be atheists, for example, or to have some other personal perspective on religious beliefs. To me that implies that they question religious orthodoxies. I used to take it for granted that they did. Sometimes I wonder if I previously overestimated them, but I think the reality is that they have changed. Like people always act when they get caught up with a cult, they appear to have sunken to a lower form of thought. It's so, so creepy that they can't see from the inside that they are in one.
What Elon Musk did about Twitter was a start in the right direction. His electric car nonsense is unsustainable with current technology. It’s a waste of resources.
When people on the left discuss “separation of church and state” they’re really saying “destruction of the church for the state”. The discrediting of the church and the Jehovah’s Witnesses of child molestations by priests and elders was the necessary first step in the rise of the Church of the State that we now see.
Thank you for your comments! I am familiar with John McWhorter's work and appreciate how he brought to the foreground the religious aspects of the woke cult.
I would be very interested in any academic studies you have run across regarding similarities between woke thought and mental disorders. If you happen to recall any of the links and have time to share them, I would be most appreciative!
The above article for which you included the link above is fascinating! I am not an IT person at all, but the technical style of the writing was interesting and I could follow it. I too have been interested in the post modernist origins of woke thought. The point in the article that I agree with most strongly is that the only people who can provide an informed, accurate critique of a system are those who have first succeeded within that system. The same has been true of all the great modern artists; they were great at making traditional prior to diverging from traditional rules.
Lots of people now are seeing that the woke cult makes excuses for people who have not succeeded, excuses which are usually very morally righteous, reductionistic and absolute. The enabling environment attracts people to the cult who have been unable for various reasons to succeed in normal systems. Some of them might have been mired in restricted thinking prior to the emergence of the woke cult. Now they have a home where they can even feel superior to people who are capable of rational thinking.
Leonard Donnie Jr., WAPO top editor for 17 years, said the secret part out lid recently; “What we found has convinced us that truth-seeking news media must move beyond whatever ‘objectivity’ once meant to produce more trustworthy news,” Downie wrote in the essay.” Meanwhile, Mother Jones (something I used to subscribe to; yikes!) has this headline “Columbia Journalism Review’s Big Fail: It Published 24,000 Words on Russiagate and Missed the Point”. In sum, Democratic Press machine now says only working-class racist fools expected or want an objective media and we’ll gaslight them every time they ask for it. F them.
Another excellent piece Sasha. It’s really hard for me to see a way for the legacy media to find their way back to relevance. They don’t seem interested in doing so anyway. It’s now propaganda 24/7, brought to you by Big Pharma. And the lefties hold out their bowls like Oliver Twist - “please, sir, may I have some more?”
This was a very well written eulogy. I have to shout out this line as very witty: "Those of us who have no problem with drag shows don’t really understand why how this has suddenly become the job of the Democrats or Hollywood - to push it on our kids." I feel like most of us who are politically homeless now didn't spend all our lives on the far right--we just value the objective truth. Watching the clips you chose, when the truth mattered, makes me sad for what we have lost that my kids have never known.
Ask not why children need to see drag queens; instead, ask why drag queens need to see children.
The latest: it was interesting to watch TV opinion/reaction recently to the McCarthy vote. I flipped around each MSM talking head to see their response to the demands. Out of this, Hannity is now for me, unwatchable. He did not support the 20, who as we know were holding out for a floor vote on term limits, and roll back of Pelosi’s Speakership vote-of-confidence allowances.
Support or non support for those 20 became the latest litmus test, and it exposed a few more. Sasha, this is a political parallel to movies no longer being made for the customer, but instead for an agenda. House rules no longer had voter’s-will in mind, either. And any talking head who threw shade on the 20 who were making an attempt to change that, well now we know you’re also inauthentic.
Thank you, Sasha, for another stellar article. Reading it I am once again reminded of visionary Paddy Chayefsky's brilliant script for "Network" in 1976. It was so apparent that by blurring the lines between news and entertainment we were on collision course, of which to this day, we have not recovered. Bravo to the great Sidney Lumet for bringing that kick ass film to the screen. To anyone who has never seen it, I highly recommend watching. Carry on...
I second this. That movie really "woke" me up and I only saw it a handful of years ago. It's so well acted, written, and directed that the story almost takes a back seat, but when you start actually listening it hits you in the face like a brick.
Thank you Sasha for your intellectual honesty. We all need that l, right or left. You are a breath of fresh air helping to drive the pollution of lies coming from big media.
The anger and grief over the damage that is being inflicted on this great nation by the left and the media is indescribable.
The infantilizing of the masses is a long and well documented story. What can be an amazing tool becomes the cudgel with which to dominate and subjugate, in this case the internet and MSM. All opposition becomes treason to the mission.
And (something I will never understand) the younger masses are absolutely desperate to be infantilized.
You write: "With Carlson, you know not getting bullshit. And believe it or not, that’s the same thing Trump offers. He boasts and exaggerates, sometimes even outright lies, but overall, he’s giving it to the people straight. And that’s why they trust him and why they don’t trust the legacy media."
I have to disagree there. Since Trump will not admit that the vaxx is obviously ineffective and killing people, he's not giving it to the people straight.
I don't trust Trump anymore exactly because of the vaxx. I know one person who died suddenly at 34, another who got myocarditis, another who got tachycardia, and a fourth with an auto-immune disorder - and all those things happened after getting the vaxx. And Trump somehow still wants _credit_ for rushing the development of this poison. Ugh.
While I can sympathize with that feeling, I think it is a strategic decision to hold that card close to the chest for now, if you can pardon my pun.
"Anecdotes are scientifically meaningless."
Wrong. Anecdotes are small sample sizes, which must be taken with a grain of salt, but four friends who experienced problems after receiving the vaccine is NOT "meaningless".
Wow...it's totally not a brainwashed cult, guys.
A sample size of one, multiplied by millions of other anecdotes, is not a sample size of one any longer.
Here is some science: https://drpanda.substack.com/p/vitamin-d-is-safe-and-effective
e.pierce and four friends walk up a mountain. The first friend reaches the top when - BAM! - someone on the far side shoots him and he falls dead. The three other friends each suffer the same fate. But luckily e.pierce knows that these deaths are just anecdotal, and anecdotes are scientifically meaningless.
(sorry, couldn't resist) :-)
Yeah, you typed it very well e.pierce.
Sasha, never before have I experienced a writer who’s every word seems to come straight from mind! I know that sound weird, but it’s true. I look forward to every article you write & this one was of particular interest to me as our legacy media has degraded itself to a level not seen before! I am SO sick & SO tired of the same “catchphrase” of the week being parroted from the mockingbird media day in and day out! Family/friends continue to believe what’s being fed to them via MSDNC & CNN and they vehemently hate Tucker Carlson without ever hearing one word he’s said. Many refuse to believe that Tucker’s research team is stellar and he (often times) speaks truth...they refuse to accept that! I took my head out of the sand many years ago and it’s been refreshing & liberating to realize that there might be another side to the stories that Americans are being fed! Thank you for speaking truth...
Thanks so much. I appreciate it. I just heard this woman on a YouTube video and I felt exactly the same way -- like she came to all the same conclusions about the left: https://youtu.be/dBRJorDjG88
Good article. Great observations.
The only point of rebuttal I will mention, that I read, was "this is not what democracy looks like..." (not sure that's verbatim).
Actually, that is exactly what democracy looks like. French revolution-esque, where they even turned on their own, as the mobs raged, burned, pillaged and beheaded anyone they suspected was not 109% committed to the rage victim mentality.
That is one of the primary reasons we were founded as a Constitutional Republic. Not a democracy.
Democracies always end up looking like our current corrupt, insane, leftists in power, in our govt, in big tech, big pharma, MSM, Hollyweird, etc.
So very proud of the narrow gate you've chosen, to reach Truth.
God bless.
Sasha
You Rock!
You nailed the MSM again.
When will they ever learn?
Wh will they be out of work?
Once you accept that our ‘news’ is really propaganda, the things you see on it make a lot more sense. If you aren’t on board with the destruction of America, then you’ll find a lot of things that are wrong with ‘the news’. If you are obsessed with what’s wrong with America, the MSM news is the way to go.
And about Hillary- had she run a typical campaign for a Midwestern Democrat here, she would have easily won. But she ran the campaign she probably ran in NYC and LA. Trump being the bastard who was going to take on China was such an easy sell here in the Detroit area. A lot of us loved that he was a bastard and was going to take on China and support the domestic auto industry. She ran the wrong campaign here, given the economics of Michigan in 2016. Had she listened to Debbie Dingell’s insights to Michigan, Hillary would have been President. But she ran the wrong campaign here and despite that -she nearly won. You can’t run a NYC campaign here and expect a huge victory.
The MSM has zero incentive to be truthful when their viewers and readers want to be lied to.
Don't forget about Andy Ngo and how he had his ass beaten by communist(mostly white) Antifa while covering government endorsed riots for the last four years.
Narrative creators, enforcers and followers all suffer from the same limitations. They are banal, close-minded, superficial and, above all, conformist. They can be highly educated but they are almost never brilliant.
That Hillary's team ran such a poor campaign was not a surprise because their selection to the team was because of their limitations, not in spite of them.
Great post. It motivated me to become a paid subscriber because your road to where you're at today seems almost identical to mine. It's nice to share the ride with a good communicator. I'm looking forward to more well-written, engaging articles. Congrats, and thanks!