If there is a red wave, you know the left will simply blame it on Biden, messaging and misinformation.
And since the woke left truly does control the institutions - the media, the administrative state, K-12 education, academia, Hollywood, Madison Avenue, corporate HR and PR departments, social media moderators, Big Tech, passive and ESG investing, and the search engines - winning elections won't matter since there are no levers in DC that can change anything. Put whoever you want in charge of the IRS, the FBI or the CFPB - it won't matter. The bureaucrats know they can slow-walk any new initiatives and wait out the new director.
These sorts of people are like the Jacobins, Progressives, Communists and Fascists - utopians who will never reflect seriously on their beliefs since it comprises their entire identity. They cannot be reasoned with, or convinced they are wrong. They can only be endured until they wear themselves out.
The best weapon however is mockery, since as a humorless cabal they cannot figure out how to parry it. And it won't come from people their age - it will come from the younger generation.
I feel called out by you, Sasha. My career as a writer in Hollywood has been crushed by this nonsense. When you have longtime reps telling you they can't get you that job because you're a happily married straight white man it's painful. And listen, I'm sure it's painful for others who have been excluded from these opportunities for whatever reasons are out of their control. That said, I'm not a nepotism baby. I fought for every inch and made my own breaks with talent, hard work and a little bit of luck. And now I don't even know what I'm allowed to write. My last feature script I showed my reps was met with a "we can't go out with this". When I asked why, they told me it might offend people. Okay. Then I was up for a job on a cable series that I was perfect for. I met with the show creators. We hit it off. As they walked me out of the meeting they told me not to take any other jobs that might conflict with this and I'd be hearing from them quickly. I got ghosted. When my reps went back to them to find out what happened I was passed over for a diversity and inclusion hire. Okay.
So here I sit scared to even post under my own name because that would end what little is left of the career I built for myself out of my imagination. And I keep trying to engineer ways to blast my way back in because I still have so many stories to tell and things I still want to say.
But the business is cracked. A business built on giving customers what they want and making tons of money along the way has been replaced by a coded messaging propaganda machine. If the politics don't line up the theme or the journey of the character with the Democratic message, forget about sending it out. Only a few writers are allowed to get away with that.
So here I sit. Voting Red/Republican for the first time in my life because I'm wishing and hoping we can stop this nonsense and get back to business as usual. Because if we don't get back to business as usual the businesses out there are all going to fail and money will dry up. If we're living in fear of expressing ourselves, being ourselves, feeding ourselves, and protecting ourselves all of the time then this is all going to be over sooner than later.
And maybe the message is to come out from behind my fake online identity (I'm not really Fred Mertz) and be myself. I believe women have the right to choose. I believe gay and lesbian people should have all the same rights as straight people. I believe in a lot of things Democrats believe in, but what I don't believe in is ending free speech and policing thought. That Vice clip you posted is like watching a horror movie. Comedy is dead. Even those clips you posted didn't make me laugh. You know why? Because everything doesn't need to be political. Once we can rip that out of our collective brains and mouths and go back to observing life and how similar we all are instead of how different we all are I might be able to get a decent writing job again.
I hope Tuesday is the beginning of the end of this vicious cycle and we can get back to escapism without political indoctrination. We need to dream again to get out of this nightmare we're in.
Your incredibly insightful analysis of current events, cultural trends and the sweep of history is a joy to read and brings so much craziness into sharp focus.
I anticipate that next week will, as Joe Rogan quipped, look like the moment the elevator opens on The Shining. The degree to which the cathedral refuses to accept the verdict of the congregation and how that plays out over the next few months will tell the tale in the short term. There are hundreds of plates spinning on top of rods that they have to respin with the daily version of printed reality to match the spin of their imagined utopia. This election will knock a lot of plates on the floor.
Sometimes when that happens, the performer will decide to blow up the whole theatre to obscure the source of the error. That's when decades or even centuries of history happen in a week or two. Ask yourself if there is anything you have seen to date that tells you that this isn't a greater-than-trivial possibility. At this point, I am reduced to prayer, leaving these comments, and gently chewing this bullet I hold between my rear molars.
Keep it coming, Sasha. The accumulation of written truth and an inevitable regression to the mean may save us yet. It's a thin reed, but it has gotten us this far.
It’s so awesome to read your writing Sasha and listen to your podcast in large part because you have lived fully in a wide range of groups. The other parts about being articulate, insightful, organized, timely, comprehensive and truthful are nice too. I watch the betting sites to see how midterms will go and there is a big edge to conservatives. I trust money bets more than polls.
one of my friends is a lifelong democrat as you were to expect from somebody working at a public university and in the past we had some good and sometimes heated discussions . So i was stunned when he showed up at one of our republican party meetings , after questioning his sanity for a minute and then asked if i needed to check his temperature ( jokingly ) the question came up why he decided to switch parties , he responded that actually he was not switching , well after getting some confused looks he added "at least not permanently " he called himself a temporary republican and there even is a group at the university that he works at that by now has ballooned to 75 members !
their reasoning is very simple , they believe that the democratic party has gone too far , they have lost their way and they lay the blame at the feet of progressives like AOC and party leaders who embraced them and their ideas like pelosi and schumer . they believe that the only way to save the party is to tear it down and then rebuilt it , the first step to this is to force a robust discussion within the party by inflicting significant losses in upcoming elections especially in deep blue areas . it is one thing to lose races in a state like Texas but if democrats lose - or notch out narrow wins - in states like NY , WA, OR or CA than this is bound to shake things up and this is what they want so just as the russians allied with americans to defeat hitler even though they had different world view those democrats for now fight with republicans to defeat the ultra left
So I've done a number of pieces on this topic (check out The Point if you want) but the self-description flashed me immediately back to a story I did on the Massachusetts Cultural Council called "Sandwiches Against Racism." Unlike the woman in Sasha's excellent piece, this performative anti-racist written "selfie" is from the leader of said government agency - if you play buzzword bingo, this will win every time:
As a Black, gay, cis-gendered, able-bodied, educated, Boston-based male artist, married to a white man, and the father of a Vietnamese child, I believe that racial equity, anti-racism, decolonization, diversity, inclusion, access, and all the words used to describe these incredible social justice movements are acts of love. Through these actions, we are showing love to people who may have never been loved, or felt loved, by this country.
It seems I'm late to the party. But just in case someone is still here reading I'll leave my 2 cents. Hopefully they are wheat pennies. I think the Democrat party will see an exodus that mirrors the silent exodus the Catholic Church has experienced in the West - “gradually, then suddenly.”. The lesson the Democrats refused to learn is that mothers and fathers will protect their children at the cost of church and organization membership and even friendships. They also refused to learn that "all politics is/are local". People see their food and fuel costs rise by 50% to 100% and they naturally blame the "Marie Antoinette's" in DC who never seem to suffer the consequences of their decisions. I’m not as confident that common sense will prevail on Tuesday. "Lost" ballots always seem to go one way.
"I do not doubt that what has brought us to this point comes from a good place. The activists believe they are making a better world."
NO. WRONG.
MAYBE you could say that about the so-called progressives of the early 1900s. But even that effort devolved into the near-mainstreaming of eugenics. Then we saw tangible results of progressive/communist thinking in Germany (national SOCIALISM), Stalin's USSR, Mao's China, and elsewhere, most recently in Venezuela. These horrific, murderous failures haven't chastened so-called progressives one bit.
Some naive activists may still believe their outlooks will make for "a better world." Their leaders at the World Economic Forum and the rest of the "Great Reset" crowd in the Biden administration, multinational corporate C-suites, corrupts NGOs, and elsewhere know better, which is why they so often engage in a level of corruption that can only be explained if you believe that "I have to get mine while it's still there to be had" (see BLM leadership, Biden family, et al).
These people realize that all they really have left is a blind pursuit of power and control by any means necessary which will benefit only them when things completely fall apart, because they know the actions they are pursuing are causing things to completely fall apart. But they don't care.
Sasha, redo Nevada. Gonna be redder than that here. Even after gerrymandering by the Dems. The Republicans might even flip the NV House and will probably get the NV Senate. Just look at the Robertson-Titus race. It's a great example of what you wrote about.
The current desperation is lost on me. Under no circumstance will the Republicans gain a veto-proof majority. Months after Roe being overturned, nothing seems to have changed. Linking a mid-term loss as losing democracy is so preposterous a 3rd grader wouldn’t conceive something so stupid. Unless there’s a secret plot for. Biden to resign, and Trump takeover ( absolutely impossible), the wolf crying is doing more to harm their case for maintaining full control.
If there is a red wave, you know the left will simply blame it on Biden, messaging and misinformation.
And since the woke left truly does control the institutions - the media, the administrative state, K-12 education, academia, Hollywood, Madison Avenue, corporate HR and PR departments, social media moderators, Big Tech, passive and ESG investing, and the search engines - winning elections won't matter since there are no levers in DC that can change anything. Put whoever you want in charge of the IRS, the FBI or the CFPB - it won't matter. The bureaucrats know they can slow-walk any new initiatives and wait out the new director.
These sorts of people are like the Jacobins, Progressives, Communists and Fascists - utopians who will never reflect seriously on their beliefs since it comprises their entire identity. They cannot be reasoned with, or convinced they are wrong. They can only be endured until they wear themselves out.
The best weapon however is mockery, since as a humorless cabal they cannot figure out how to parry it. And it won't come from people their age - it will come from the younger generation.
I feel called out by you, Sasha. My career as a writer in Hollywood has been crushed by this nonsense. When you have longtime reps telling you they can't get you that job because you're a happily married straight white man it's painful. And listen, I'm sure it's painful for others who have been excluded from these opportunities for whatever reasons are out of their control. That said, I'm not a nepotism baby. I fought for every inch and made my own breaks with talent, hard work and a little bit of luck. And now I don't even know what I'm allowed to write. My last feature script I showed my reps was met with a "we can't go out with this". When I asked why, they told me it might offend people. Okay. Then I was up for a job on a cable series that I was perfect for. I met with the show creators. We hit it off. As they walked me out of the meeting they told me not to take any other jobs that might conflict with this and I'd be hearing from them quickly. I got ghosted. When my reps went back to them to find out what happened I was passed over for a diversity and inclusion hire. Okay.
So here I sit scared to even post under my own name because that would end what little is left of the career I built for myself out of my imagination. And I keep trying to engineer ways to blast my way back in because I still have so many stories to tell and things I still want to say.
But the business is cracked. A business built on giving customers what they want and making tons of money along the way has been replaced by a coded messaging propaganda machine. If the politics don't line up the theme or the journey of the character with the Democratic message, forget about sending it out. Only a few writers are allowed to get away with that.
So here I sit. Voting Red/Republican for the first time in my life because I'm wishing and hoping we can stop this nonsense and get back to business as usual. Because if we don't get back to business as usual the businesses out there are all going to fail and money will dry up. If we're living in fear of expressing ourselves, being ourselves, feeding ourselves, and protecting ourselves all of the time then this is all going to be over sooner than later.
And maybe the message is to come out from behind my fake online identity (I'm not really Fred Mertz) and be myself. I believe women have the right to choose. I believe gay and lesbian people should have all the same rights as straight people. I believe in a lot of things Democrats believe in, but what I don't believe in is ending free speech and policing thought. That Vice clip you posted is like watching a horror movie. Comedy is dead. Even those clips you posted didn't make me laugh. You know why? Because everything doesn't need to be political. Once we can rip that out of our collective brains and mouths and go back to observing life and how similar we all are instead of how different we all are I might be able to get a decent writing job again.
I hope Tuesday is the beginning of the end of this vicious cycle and we can get back to escapism without political indoctrination. We need to dream again to get out of this nightmare we're in.
Sasha you nailed it again!
Your incredibly insightful analysis of current events, cultural trends and the sweep of history is a joy to read and brings so much craziness into sharp focus.
Thank you.
I anticipate that next week will, as Joe Rogan quipped, look like the moment the elevator opens on The Shining. The degree to which the cathedral refuses to accept the verdict of the congregation and how that plays out over the next few months will tell the tale in the short term. There are hundreds of plates spinning on top of rods that they have to respin with the daily version of printed reality to match the spin of their imagined utopia. This election will knock a lot of plates on the floor.
Sometimes when that happens, the performer will decide to blow up the whole theatre to obscure the source of the error. That's when decades or even centuries of history happen in a week or two. Ask yourself if there is anything you have seen to date that tells you that this isn't a greater-than-trivial possibility. At this point, I am reduced to prayer, leaving these comments, and gently chewing this bullet I hold between my rear molars.
Keep it coming, Sasha. The accumulation of written truth and an inevitable regression to the mean may save us yet. It's a thin reed, but it has gotten us this far.
Another powerful piece Sasha. Thank you.
I'll be sharing this far and wide.
It’s so awesome to read your writing Sasha and listen to your podcast in large part because you have lived fully in a wide range of groups. The other parts about being articulate, insightful, organized, timely, comprehensive and truthful are nice too. I watch the betting sites to see how midterms will go and there is a big edge to conservatives. I trust money bets more than polls.
one of my friends is a lifelong democrat as you were to expect from somebody working at a public university and in the past we had some good and sometimes heated discussions . So i was stunned when he showed up at one of our republican party meetings , after questioning his sanity for a minute and then asked if i needed to check his temperature ( jokingly ) the question came up why he decided to switch parties , he responded that actually he was not switching , well after getting some confused looks he added "at least not permanently " he called himself a temporary republican and there even is a group at the university that he works at that by now has ballooned to 75 members !
their reasoning is very simple , they believe that the democratic party has gone too far , they have lost their way and they lay the blame at the feet of progressives like AOC and party leaders who embraced them and their ideas like pelosi and schumer . they believe that the only way to save the party is to tear it down and then rebuilt it , the first step to this is to force a robust discussion within the party by inflicting significant losses in upcoming elections especially in deep blue areas . it is one thing to lose races in a state like Texas but if democrats lose - or notch out narrow wins - in states like NY , WA, OR or CA than this is bound to shake things up and this is what they want so just as the russians allied with americans to defeat hitler even though they had different world view those democrats for now fight with republicans to defeat the ultra left
Brilliant, insightful analysis and diagnosis of our greatest national affliction.
Thank you for such a great read. I look forward to seeing what happens after Tuesday.
Another great column. Thank you Sasha
For giving us a reasoned voice
So I've done a number of pieces on this topic (check out The Point if you want) but the self-description flashed me immediately back to a story I did on the Massachusetts Cultural Council called "Sandwiches Against Racism." Unlike the woman in Sasha's excellent piece, this performative anti-racist written "selfie" is from the leader of said government agency - if you play buzzword bingo, this will win every time:
As a Black, gay, cis-gendered, able-bodied, educated, Boston-based male artist, married to a white man, and the father of a Vietnamese child, I believe that racial equity, anti-racism, decolonization, diversity, inclusion, access, and all the words used to describe these incredible social justice movements are acts of love. Through these actions, we are showing love to people who may have never been loved, or felt loved, by this country.
It seems I'm late to the party. But just in case someone is still here reading I'll leave my 2 cents. Hopefully they are wheat pennies. I think the Democrat party will see an exodus that mirrors the silent exodus the Catholic Church has experienced in the West - “gradually, then suddenly.”. The lesson the Democrats refused to learn is that mothers and fathers will protect their children at the cost of church and organization membership and even friendships. They also refused to learn that "all politics is/are local". People see their food and fuel costs rise by 50% to 100% and they naturally blame the "Marie Antoinette's" in DC who never seem to suffer the consequences of their decisions. I’m not as confident that common sense will prevail on Tuesday. "Lost" ballots always seem to go one way.
"I do not doubt that what has brought us to this point comes from a good place. The activists believe they are making a better world."
NO. WRONG.
MAYBE you could say that about the so-called progressives of the early 1900s. But even that effort devolved into the near-mainstreaming of eugenics. Then we saw tangible results of progressive/communist thinking in Germany (national SOCIALISM), Stalin's USSR, Mao's China, and elsewhere, most recently in Venezuela. These horrific, murderous failures haven't chastened so-called progressives one bit.
Some naive activists may still believe their outlooks will make for "a better world." Their leaders at the World Economic Forum and the rest of the "Great Reset" crowd in the Biden administration, multinational corporate C-suites, corrupts NGOs, and elsewhere know better, which is why they so often engage in a level of corruption that can only be explained if you believe that "I have to get mine while it's still there to be had" (see BLM leadership, Biden family, et al).
These people realize that all they really have left is a blind pursuit of power and control by any means necessary which will benefit only them when things completely fall apart, because they know the actions they are pursuing are causing things to completely fall apart. But they don't care.
I want to distrust you.
I really do. I have a million reasons to.
I can't, after that. You are a fucking American. Welcome to the Club. You fucking amazing woman.
GET SOME!
Sasha, redo Nevada. Gonna be redder than that here. Even after gerrymandering by the Dems. The Republicans might even flip the NV House and will probably get the NV Senate. Just look at the Robertson-Titus race. It's a great example of what you wrote about.
The current desperation is lost on me. Under no circumstance will the Republicans gain a veto-proof majority. Months after Roe being overturned, nothing seems to have changed. Linking a mid-term loss as losing democracy is so preposterous a 3rd grader wouldn’t conceive something so stupid. Unless there’s a secret plot for. Biden to resign, and Trump takeover ( absolutely impossible), the wolf crying is doing more to harm their case for maintaining full control.