“It wasn’t until this astonishing video with Mike Benz and Tucker Carlson that the gaps were finally filled, and the big picture took shape.”
The Time article by Mollie Ball who said the 2020 election was “fortified” in order to save democracy also fits perfectly with what Mike Benz said. This quote right below is at the end of the paragraph below. 10th paragraph down in the article, right above “The Architect.” The article clearly explains how they “fortified” the election but then tells us this wasn’t “rigging” since it was done to save democracy. And this is exactly what our elite class believes. Anything they want to do to win is justified by this logic. This does not bode well for our future.
“They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it. And they believe the public needs to understand the system’s fragility in order to ensure that democracy in America endures.”
That’s why the participants want the secret history of the 2020 election told, even though it sounds like a paranoid fever dream–a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information. They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it. And they believe the public needs to understand the system’s fragility in order to ensure that democracy in America endures.”
“The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election.”
I remember reading that right after it was published and thinking, "How could anyone not understand what actually happened as anything less than a rigged election?" Whether or not you embrace the authoritarian rationale, this was nowhere near free, fair, or open.
Why else was State Media already blurting out the made-for-TV catchphrase on election eve, "This is the most secure election in American history"? Are we really that stupid?
There were no repercussions, no reckonings, no indictments let alone convictions. And they will absolutely attempt this again 10 months from now. As Tucker would say, "And why not?"
Sadly - tragically - the answer is a resounding Yes!!
Many are that stupid and utterly gullible! And they are the “smart” educated leftists who pride themselves on being smarter than everyone else - especially those dumb Trumpers.
One of my best friends still believes that Trump colluded with Russia and that Rand Paul is not a real doctor. Too much MSNBC can turn you into a mindless robot like Alex in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.
Joseph Goebbels famously said, "A lie told once remains a lie, but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth."
A progressive Republican hating friend from Denver visited me recently and of course the conversation drifited towards politics and Trump. When I said that I didn't hate Trump and might even consider voting for him rather than ANY Democrat, she looked at me in horror and told me I was ill informed. I am many things, I said to her, but being ill informed is not one.
Of course she is the one II would consider ill informed since MSNBC is her main source of information along with the Denver Post and PBS. I can assure you she has never heard of Sasha Stone let alone Matt Tiabi or Glenn Greenwald and when I suggested she might want to listen to some of those who inform me, there was silence.
we are both in our early 80's so I wasn't surprised. Realizing you might be wrong after 60 years of voting for the wrong team. turns your world upside down and who wants that. , I. like Sasha also voted a straight party line for years so am proof change can happen . Anyway, we are all living in an up-side down world - only my friend thinks it will turn right-side-up if Trump is put in jail.
Dorothy, if your left-wing nut job Republican friend is named Liz Chaney, then burn her at the stake please. She is the demon spawn of Darth Vader. Be careful she doesn’t suggest taking you on a vacation to Ukraine.
Strange you should mention list cheney. My friend bought a very expensive ticket from a speaker's Bureau in Denver and guess who was on it Liz Cheney when she told me I tried not to gag, I said nothing, said a prayer and shut up anyway but can you do with people like that nothing I can do I'm too tired to figure out how to deal with loose Cheney fans anyway there you go
A long but excellent article below about why highly intelligent people are so easily able to convince themselves of obviously stupid and profoundly destructive things such as open borders, dumbed down schools, demonizing “Whiteness!” in general and white cops in particular, and of replacing meritocracy with “Equity” to make sure we’re all equal. They basically talk themselves into believing their own bs. They’re not just lying. They believe what they say even when what they say is obviously false. Hard to see how we can survive the damage they’ve done and are quite determined to continue doing.
“What this means is that, while unintelligent people are more easily misled by other people, intelligent people are more easily misled by themselves. They’re better at convincing themselves of things they want to believe rather than things that are actually true. This is why intelligent people tend to have stronger ideological biases; being better at reasoning makes them better at rationalizing.”
“Despite being irrational, wokeism is nevertheless an intelligent worldview. It’s intelligent but not rational because its goal is not objective truth but social signaling, and in pursuing this goal it’s a powerful strategy. People who engage in woke rituals, such as proclaiming their pronouns during introductions, or capitalizing the word “black” but not the word “white,” signal to others that they’re clued-up, cosmopolitan, and compassionate toward society’s designated downtrodden. This makes them seem trustworthy and likable, and explains why wokeism is most prevalent in industries where status games and image are most important: politics, media, academia, entertainment, and advertising.”
RE: "... its goal is not objective truth but social signaling"
That, I believe is the very crux of wokeism. It has absolutely nothing to do with any moral or ethical superiority or even a smidge of actual virtue, but simply a broadcasting of their compliance with the elitist zeitgeist. They desperately want hang out with the cool kids and self-actualization is the price of admission. From my observations, most intellectual types have the emotional maturity of a 19 year-old. The more advanced degrees and the more letters after their names, the more this seems to apply. Personal validation hinges solely upon amassing useless (and usually expensive) accreditations.
Good one, Seva. Esp liked the part about "intelligent" people rationalizing their biases. Seen a lot of that in recent years. Their immense self regard walls them off from self reflection.
Great article. Thank you for the link. But I dare to disagree that it only applies to wokism. The sin of tribal or partisan thinking and inability to admit mistakes could be attributed to both sides, left and right. This is why we are such a dysfunctional society.
90% of why America is such a dysfunctional society comes from the left and even leftists like Glenn Greenwald and Bret Weinstein say this. What has the right done that can come anywhere close to what the left has done with things like our open southern border and their replacing of meritocracy wherever it can be found with “Equity” aka “Equal Outcomes”? Plus there are also things like ruining our education system and our judicial system. Fani Willis is a perfect example of what they’ve done to the rule of law in America. Does America even still exist as a country?
Like Seva says, the initial problem came from the left. However, I do agree the Right is segregating themselves more and more and it has a certain bubble feel to it. I attribute it to self-defense.
There is no doubt it is the left who brought our country to its current state. It is difficult to quantify. Probably more than 90%. But it is also true about the bubble the right locked themselves in. I am frustrated that the conservatives have no positive platform and have developed neither strategy nor tactics to win. I mean their platform is not unifying or victorious in any real way. The anti-abortion ardor is an example of a losing stand and will continue to divide the country and bring more fiascos. Isn't it extremely alarming that the right and moderate have such a miniscule majority in the House that they continue losing major battles? Simply repeating the mantra that we will Make America Great Again does not do it for many folks that we have to convince to vote for our ideas.
I posted in reference to the article link above and would like to reiterate that admitting mistakes and taking a corrective action is the only way forward. We are losing the country, so we must come up with something new to take it back. The left is powerful and aggressive. Therefore, we cannot just seat back. New fresh blood and ideas from the right are vital IMHO.
And what they’re planning for the 2024 election makes what they did in 2020 to “save democracy” look trivial. They have no sense of restraint or self-reflection since their starting point about themselves is that they’re good and those who oppose them are evil. This is why the founding fathers considered free speech so essential. This is why is why our ruling class hates free speech.
“Is the Electoral Fix Already In?”
“The 2024 presidential race increasingly looks like it will be decided by lawyers, not voters, as Democrats unveil plans for America's first lawfare election.”
Real Clear Politics. Racket News. Matt Taiibi. Jan 26, 2024
The one ray of hope lies in enough people finally realizing the destruction of America brought about by this administration . And as a direct result of the rigging of the 2020 election. If people ask themselves, "Am I prepared for another four years of unconstrained foreign invasion, run away inflation, the loss of our great cities, and teetering on the precipice of WWIII -- possibly a nuclear one?" they may not like the answer. And that's the only thing which can save America, as we can no longer rely on the legal system to defend it or its citizens.
It was amazing how she so clearly explained how they rigged the election and then topped it off by saying it wasn’t rigged though since what they did was necessary to save democracy in America. And the people who reason like this are supposed to be our “fellow Americans.” This is just not working at all. How can we possibly ever again have a functional society with so many people like this in it?
Democracy should die. It's tyranny tarted up as "the will of the people."
Alexis de Tocqueville knew it in the 18th century.
The majority silences the pesky minority and you get stuff like the expansion of slavery into free states and legal racial segregation, ignoring long-term problems for short-term solutions, and providing an advantage to the uber rich, allowing them to dominate the public space by controlling the media. Democracy's biggest flaw is that it empowers the stupid and ignorant.
We need the buffer of relatively intelligent people as congressional representatives to protect us from the ignorant hordes and electors to protect the interests of less-populated states. Being politically dominated by NYC, LA, Portland, Chicago, etc is not working out well, to speak with restraint.
Then again, our Republic has grown a permanent political class consisting of uber rich lawyers, and the cost of mass communication makes fund-raising and re-election more important than representing the interests of voters.
Exactly. That’s how they reason. They are basically possessed by the irrational which is quite strong in human nature and with the weapons we now have this could easily result in the end of humanity. This is why I believe only AI can save us. It’s not that we’re all crazy. It’s that enough are to destroy us all. How though do we defeat an enemy that arises from our own human nature? We can’t without the help of AI, the “children of humanity” as one Japanese AI researcher calls them.
The frightening thing about AI though is that it is completely controlled by the Tech Elites who are, with very few exceptions (Musk, Theil) committed acolytes of the radical Left. And married to the intelligence services and their agenda.
Agree. To further expand on your comment in the context of Generative AI, Large Language Models (LLMs)...
Leftist Bias in --> LLMs --> Leftist Bias Out
I envision LLMs being used for automated content moderation (aka censorship) in real time on social media. Thus, the number of human content moderators will be dramatically reduced. I wouldn't be surprised if unacceptable postings to social media are transmitted to the FBI's AGAAVE unit in real time.
Yes, with the Left the ends always justify the means. Can there be any more lofty goal than “saving democracy?” What wouldn’t one do to save democracy…indeed, what won’t the Left do?
We can't. If we are preserve anything of a constitutional republic we must separate. Even if the Left were to provoke CW2 and we win, 10s of millions of those people will still be there and boring away at the foundation. The worshipers of Franco and Pinochet that frequent conservative websites (thankfully not this one) need to remember that Spain and Chile are socialist today.
Step One- The Great Sort. Already underway. Crime, schools, kangaroo courts, and general chaos will cause it to accelerate.
Step Two- Split and recombine states to create more homogeneity. There is a constitution provision for this. Basically, separate functional areas from the parasites in the cities. Remember, the leftists hate us and can be persuaded to go it alone.
Step Three-Partition the country into America and the Peoples Republic.
Easier said than done. The devil is in the details which be vast and impossible to work through. I believe we’re heading for civilizational collapse and then who knows what. I think only AI can save us. What people here don’t understand is that we’re already passed programmed AI that inputs human bias and already into AI with synthetic neural networks similar to biological neural networks in humans that enable to learn, reason and think as we do but far better since they don’t have the biological limitations.
Seva, thanks, so many good posts today. Ie. “Rational people are better at rationalizing”; but don’t underestimate the tandem issue of their religion-like faith in what they believe.
There was also a story on RCP not too long ago that laid out the essence of what Benz says. Unfortunately, I cannot remember what its title was or who its author was. Maybe Shellenberger.
Thanks Sasha, the dems are psychopaths and masters of gaslighting. The most disheartening element of all this is that almost half the country has been brainwashed by their obvious lies and misdirection. Benz hits all the right marks. Marxist, insidious, right think has been mastered into a woke religion with far too many true believers. Saving democracy my ass!
It’s becoming very evident why the national socialist ‘Democratic’ party takes so much time and energy in repeating the lie that a collectivist authoritarian far-left party was somehow, someway ‘right wing.’ They don’t care that it absolutely doesn’t make any sense that the pro-freedom right side of the political spectrum that favors liberty and individual rights would also be the realm of a party that demanded centralized control and unlimited government with no individual liberty. They simply follow the big lie edict of repeating it over and over until it blots out the truth. And if it doesn’t, they simply deem it ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation’ and suppress it like good little Nazis.
Back in the 1900s I used to listen to NPR and believe their narrative. At some point in my youth I tried to make the arguments to convince someone else. I stumbled. I realized there was no inherent logic and a reliance on few facts stretched too far, like ‘butter scraped over too much bread’ (B. Baggins). That’s when I stopped taking them seriously - their ‘news’ a.k.a ‘opinion’ - and scaled back to ‘A Prairie Home Companion’ and ‘Car Guys’. Haven’t listened willingly in ages, but did see Garrison Keillor a couple years ago for old time’s sake.
I had a similar experience, where NPR slowly began grating, and now it's utterly intolerable, just a spew of lame anti-white racism and Democratic self-congratulation. Once you see it, you can't un-see it.
It is a quick way to find out what the Left is up to today. One of the more amusing things that happens repeatedly is they get some leftist to come on the air and spout whatever the leftist narrative is in their field and the guest won't do it. The guests are more concerned about their credibility than the journalists.
NPR has sucked since Bob Edwards ("Morning Edition") retired. Since then, it has been little more than an employment project for Ivy League woke-sters. .
I certainly hope Trump somehow manages to win in November, but even if he does that doesn't change the fact that there are millions of people out there who see no problem with using the justice system as a weapon because they just can't stand Trump. Most of these people would be perfectly happy if Trump dies in prison just like Navalny.
These people aren't going away. They aren't going to wake up the day after Trump wins and say "well Trump won so I guess we will have to deal with it." They will be very angry and I don't know what happens next.
I try to imagine a world in which the Deep State actors who suppressed information, censored speech, and undermined our elections are somehow held accountable, but I can't imagine such a world. I can't imagine any of the people who are responsible for the horrible mess we are in ever being held accountable.
The Mike Benz interview was one of the most revealing and depressing things I have ever watched.
Read the Mollie Ball Time article from 2021 I posted here just below. She clearly describes how the election was rigged but then says it wasn’t rigged since it was done to save democracy. Fits perfectly with what Benz says yet this was 3 years ago and half the country still believe Biden won the election. This is an impossible situation. This is why I believe only AI can save us. AI sails past most like water off a duck’s back but it’s here and advancing at an exponential rate and really can be a game changer for all of humanity if only we can survive the rule of our deranged ruling class.
I did read Ball's article Time article when it came out and was struck by the fact that the people who helped steal the election thought they were so clever that they just couldn't keep it to themselves. Sort of like a cartoon villain who feels compelled to explain the details of his fiendish plot so the world will know what a genius he is.
I read Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near years ago and I was a lot more sanguine about the prospects of AI then than I am now. It seems to me now that AI is just as likely to lead to a dystopian nightmare than as a solution to our problems. But whatever my feelings about it, I think that it will shape humanity's future in ways that we are not even capable of understanding. It seems that human intelligence is almost programmed to self destruct at some point and I don't really see a way it can be stopped..
Over at the WSJ they are bashing Putin apologists. They seen nothing the Democrats doing as similar to Putin, as in the weaponizing of State departments. No similarities at all. But watch for those MAGA peeps. They are are Putin apologists and very dangerous.
Been a WSJ subscriber for going on 30 years. If my work didn’t pay for it now I’d cancel. The self-inflicted slow slide into irrelevancy is reaching terminal velocity.
I'm a digital subscriber. Initially paid approx $30 per month, now $1 per week (just call to.cancel, they will deal). I plan to cancel entirely to show my displeasure. Still enjoy Best of the Web.
I just had a funny thought. I was first introduced to the WSJ early in my college days. On my was to class I’d walk past this house where they were accumulating on the stoop. Clearly the subscriber had moved, so I started helping myself to each days edition. And I have to say, it helped shape my opinions way back then.
I liked Kim Strassel but it seems she posts very infrequently and anyway I like Sasha’s work here a lot better. Sasha’s work includes video, music, pictures, humor, voice and audio that WSJ doesn’t. Plus Sasha is able to weave in emotions and movies to tell a more compelling story than anyone at WSJ.
The noise from the Left has been nonstop for years about Trump being a dictator. An actual headline in the Washington Post read, “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending.”
But who is the ACTUAL dictator in the 2024 race for the White House? Glenn makes the irrefutable case: fascism is already here under Biden.
You may not recognize it because it’s been quietly growing thanks to a sneaky administrative state modeled after Woodrow Wilson's that does not (yet) resemble the brute force of a Hitler or Mussolini dictatorship. “You Will Own Nothing” author and Main Street advocate Carol Roth argues it’s not hyperbolic to call the Biden administration fascist. From COVID mandates, intentionally stoking inflation, killing the gig economy, and weaponizing the U.S dollar to freezing our energy output, Roth says the executive branch is trying to dictate every aspect of our lives down to what stove we use.
But she also says we will continue to live under this administrative dictatorship unless the American people start to march on Washington to shame and threaten political power. Congresswoman Victoria Spartz, who represents Indiana’s Fifth Congressional District, was born and raised in Ukraine under the old Soviet Union regime. She tells Glenn about the red flags she’s seeing that remind her of the authoritarianism that crushed her family, “What’s happening in D.C. is Karl Marx 101.” Instead of protecting citizens' rights, we’re taking them away in very clever ways through federal agencies like the EPA and DOJ. “You buy a Bible and a gun in the U.S., you’re labeled a domestic terrorist,” Spartz warns. “The same thing happened in the Soviet Union.”
I’m in The Netherlands and the first person in what I’ll call ‘The Resistance’ who called out the COVID scam is a woman from Iran who flew to our country in 1979, and recognized the pattern they use to instill fear in us - the “deadly virus”. In Iran - pre-Internet - they sent letters to each household claiming the Sjah of Persia was evil and needed to be removed, supposedly not being a good moslim. After a year they (the CIA) overthrew him and let Khomeini be their puppet. Shoreh (Feshtali) cried tears of sorrow talking about these good old days. The Sjah took good care of his people; women went to university, no scarves necessary, free healthcare, etcetera (like Libya under Ghadaffi) because the oil gave lots of prosperity to the citizens. And then he wouldn’t sign the new oil deal … So I told her how sorry I was that she thought she had fled to a DEMOCRACY and how hard it must be to go through this again, and she said: “it must be worse for you because you have lived in a democracy your whole life.” I then asked if I could hug her because this was in 2021, when we were forbidden to hug. (And yes, of course she wanted a hug.) My own friends refrained from hugging me for a long time. The vaccine apparently only “works” if everyone took it … 🙄🤣
Trump is the furthest thing from a dictator, racist, xenophobe. Truly stunning how “some democrats” could manufacture such a perception, spread it far and wide, and be so all in on it. Sad to say that Trump Derangement Syndrome is very real, and has been since he rode the escalator down. The TDSers are the real enemy of democracy. We had a word in the 1980s for such people that seems apropos: “mental”.
I have no inside knowledge as to what happened to him any more than I know details about Epstein. Maybe Putin ordered it. Maybe it was someone in the Russian Deep State. Maybe it was just the harsh conditions in the prison. (Note that 4 J6 prisoners have committed suicide.)
What I do know is that leftists and neocons are using this to distract us from increasing authoritarianism in the US and the rest of the West. I also know that Russia is much further away than DC.
The notion that Trump will "jail his opponents" is preposterous.
I suppose we're supposed to think that Trump will tell the AG, "Go arrest Nancy Pelosi," and the response will be "Yes, my lord," like in "A Man for All Seasons."
For one thing, Republican US attorneys don't operate in lockstep with their own party.
For another thing, judges of both parties will throw out political arrests.
For another thing, the MSM will go back to adversarial coverage.
For another thing, mainstream Republican office holders would break.
The "jailed" political opponents of Trump (and I speak as an independent who holds him in low regard as a human being) would be in and out the revolving door and on the liberal media in days, if not hours.
“The notion that Trump will "jail political opponents" is preposterous.”
But half the country believes it. Many still believe Russia collusion was true. Many believed Jussie Smollett’s wildly absurd story about being attacked by two white Trump supporters 5 years ago at 2:00 am during a polar vortex in Chicago when the actual temperature that night was -15 below. This is an impossible situation.
What happened to my country, seemingly over night. Without Tucker, Elon and the other truth seekers, I'd still be comfortably numb. But I've seen something I can't unsee. It's frightening to think that we are nearly done with the free country I pledged allegiance to in grade school. There's no way Trump can right this ship in 4 years. Then what. All this democracy crap. It's crap! We are what we accuse Putin of being, yet you're not allowed to see it. Just sick...
I prefer separation. Even if we win the fight there will still be 10s of millions of leftists boring from within and waiting for their chance. Given their choice to concentrate themselves in cities in is pretty easy to create a Constitution supporting majority in real America.
Those on the side of the Regime that rigs, censors, and engages in lawfare against political opponents, and jails them, too, when possible, those have no moral standing to posture about Navalny . . . or about anything.
Interesting that the Trump's 2024 "fraud" case is similar to Navalny's 2014 "fraud" case. In both cases the "defrauded" entities admitted that there was no damage.
Even though at the time Navalny got only probation, lawsuits against him were intended to prevent him from running for president, as by Russian law he couldn't register as a candidate. He was imprisoned in 2021 to "violating" his probation while being treated in Germany after being poisoned with a neuro agent.
Putin also coined the word and crime of "extremism", sounding confusingly similar to "terrorism". The Democrats, while disapproving of Putin, seem to be copying his propaganda style and playbook quite closely.
Thank you Sasha. Let us not forget Gonzalo Lira who was arrested by Zelenskyy’s thugs and died in prison exposing the debacle going on in Ukraine brought to you by the Biden Administration.
Thank you Sasha for another great Substack. We understand now what the world has understood for quite some time. The ruling class, the intelligence agencies, the DOD and others have determined to use the same tactics against you and me that they have been using against the world for decades. Now Americans understand what it is like to be targeted by the US Government.
Where will this end? The deep state has total control. But let me say that whenever anyone declares that you and I are domestic terrorists, when they declare we are the enemy, as former VP Biden did in his speech from hell, they have made themselves the enemy of hardworking Americans.
After expressing that, should I worry about stormtroopers tearing my door off the hinges at daylight and dragging me out to the gulag? Perhaps so. But I said it and I will not back down from government thugs. Make America Great Again!
“It wasn’t until this astonishing video with Mike Benz and Tucker Carlson that the gaps were finally filled, and the big picture took shape.”
The Time article by Mollie Ball who said the 2020 election was “fortified” in order to save democracy also fits perfectly with what Mike Benz said. This quote right below is at the end of the paragraph below. 10th paragraph down in the article, right above “The Architect.” The article clearly explains how they “fortified” the election but then tells us this wasn’t “rigging” since it was done to save democracy. And this is exactly what our elite class believes. Anything they want to do to win is justified by this logic. This does not bode well for our future.
“They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it. And they believe the public needs to understand the system’s fragility in order to ensure that democracy in America endures.”
That’s why the participants want the secret history of the 2020 election told, even though it sounds like a paranoid fever dream–a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information. They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it. And they believe the public needs to understand the system’s fragility in order to ensure that democracy in America endures.”
“The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election.”
Time. By Mollie Ball. Feb 4, 2021
https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/?xid=emailshare
I remember reading that right after it was published and thinking, "How could anyone not understand what actually happened as anything less than a rigged election?" Whether or not you embrace the authoritarian rationale, this was nowhere near free, fair, or open.
Why else was State Media already blurting out the made-for-TV catchphrase on election eve, "This is the most secure election in American history"? Are we really that stupid?
There were no repercussions, no reckonings, no indictments let alone convictions. And they will absolutely attempt this again 10 months from now. As Tucker would say, "And why not?"
In answer to “Are we really that stupid?”
Sadly - tragically - the answer is a resounding Yes!!
Many are that stupid and utterly gullible! And they are the “smart” educated leftists who pride themselves on being smarter than everyone else - especially those dumb Trumpers.
One of my best friends still believes that Trump colluded with Russia and that Rand Paul is not a real doctor. Too much MSNBC can turn you into a mindless robot like Alex in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.
Joseph Goebbels famously said, "A lie told once remains a lie, but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth."
A progressive Republican hating friend from Denver visited me recently and of course the conversation drifited towards politics and Trump. When I said that I didn't hate Trump and might even consider voting for him rather than ANY Democrat, she looked at me in horror and told me I was ill informed. I am many things, I said to her, but being ill informed is not one.
Of course she is the one II would consider ill informed since MSNBC is her main source of information along with the Denver Post and PBS. I can assure you she has never heard of Sasha Stone let alone Matt Tiabi or Glenn Greenwald and when I suggested she might want to listen to some of those who inform me, there was silence.
we are both in our early 80's so I wasn't surprised. Realizing you might be wrong after 60 years of voting for the wrong team. turns your world upside down and who wants that. , I. like Sasha also voted a straight party line for years so am proof change can happen . Anyway, we are all living in an up-side down world - only my friend thinks it will turn right-side-up if Trump is put in jail.
Me too!! Voted Dem all my life - UNTIL I was Red Pilled in 2020/2021.
And yes - friends and family still cluck their tongues at my “radical” views.
In my heart, I AM for a true Democracy.
Maybe some day...🙏💙🕊
Dorothy, if your left-wing nut job Republican friend is named Liz Chaney, then burn her at the stake please. She is the demon spawn of Darth Vader. Be careful she doesn’t suggest taking you on a vacation to Ukraine.
Strange you should mention list cheney. My friend bought a very expensive ticket from a speaker's Bureau in Denver and guess who was on it Liz Cheney when she told me I tried not to gag, I said nothing, said a prayer and shut up anyway but can you do with people like that nothing I can do I'm too tired to figure out how to deal with loose Cheney fans anyway there you go
You have fought the good fight, Dorothy. God bless you.
A long but excellent article below about why highly intelligent people are so easily able to convince themselves of obviously stupid and profoundly destructive things such as open borders, dumbed down schools, demonizing “Whiteness!” in general and white cops in particular, and of replacing meritocracy with “Equity” to make sure we’re all equal. They basically talk themselves into believing their own bs. They’re not just lying. They believe what they say even when what they say is obviously false. Hard to see how we can survive the damage they’ve done and are quite determined to continue doing.
“What this means is that, while unintelligent people are more easily misled by other people, intelligent people are more easily misled by themselves. They’re better at convincing themselves of things they want to believe rather than things that are actually true. This is why intelligent people tend to have stronger ideological biases; being better at reasoning makes them better at rationalizing.”
“Despite being irrational, wokeism is nevertheless an intelligent worldview. It’s intelligent but not rational because its goal is not objective truth but social signaling, and in pursuing this goal it’s a powerful strategy. People who engage in woke rituals, such as proclaiming their pronouns during introductions, or capitalizing the word “black” but not the word “white,” signal to others that they’re clued-up, cosmopolitan, and compassionate toward society’s designated downtrodden. This makes them seem trustworthy and likable, and explains why wokeism is most prevalent in industries where status games and image are most important: politics, media, academia, entertainment, and advertising.”
“Why Smart People Believe Stupid Things.”
Intelligence is not rationality.
Substack. The Prism. Feb 13, 2023
https://open.substack.com/pub/gurwinder/p/why-smart-people-hold-stupid-beliefs?r=cldfa&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
And this is exactly why Substack is so great! I would have never stumbled upon this fantastic link had you not posted it, Seva. Thank you.
The truth is out there, but you must seek to find find it. Wisdom is sought while propaganda is provided.
Thanks, I'll have to go read that.
RE: "... its goal is not objective truth but social signaling"
That, I believe is the very crux of wokeism. It has absolutely nothing to do with any moral or ethical superiority or even a smidge of actual virtue, but simply a broadcasting of their compliance with the elitist zeitgeist. They desperately want hang out with the cool kids and self-actualization is the price of admission. From my observations, most intellectual types have the emotional maturity of a 19 year-old. The more advanced degrees and the more letters after their names, the more this seems to apply. Personal validation hinges solely upon amassing useless (and usually expensive) accreditations.
Good one, Seva. Esp liked the part about "intelligent" people rationalizing their biases. Seen a lot of that in recent years. Their immense self regard walls them off from self reflection.
This sort of thinking is also, unsurprisingly, prevalent in cults and religious schisms.
Great article. Thank you for the link. But I dare to disagree that it only applies to wokism. The sin of tribal or partisan thinking and inability to admit mistakes could be attributed to both sides, left and right. This is why we are such a dysfunctional society.
90% of why America is such a dysfunctional society comes from the left and even leftists like Glenn Greenwald and Bret Weinstein say this. What has the right done that can come anywhere close to what the left has done with things like our open southern border and their replacing of meritocracy wherever it can be found with “Equity” aka “Equal Outcomes”? Plus there are also things like ruining our education system and our judicial system. Fani Willis is a perfect example of what they’ve done to the rule of law in America. Does America even still exist as a country?
Like Seva says, the initial problem came from the left. However, I do agree the Right is segregating themselves more and more and it has a certain bubble feel to it. I attribute it to self-defense.
There is no doubt it is the left who brought our country to its current state. It is difficult to quantify. Probably more than 90%. But it is also true about the bubble the right locked themselves in. I am frustrated that the conservatives have no positive platform and have developed neither strategy nor tactics to win. I mean their platform is not unifying or victorious in any real way. The anti-abortion ardor is an example of a losing stand and will continue to divide the country and bring more fiascos. Isn't it extremely alarming that the right and moderate have such a miniscule majority in the House that they continue losing major battles? Simply repeating the mantra that we will Make America Great Again does not do it for many folks that we have to convince to vote for our ideas.
I posted in reference to the article link above and would like to reiterate that admitting mistakes and taking a corrective action is the only way forward. We are losing the country, so we must come up with something new to take it back. The left is powerful and aggressive. Therefore, we cannot just seat back. New fresh blood and ideas from the right are vital IMHO.
And what they’re planning for the 2024 election makes what they did in 2020 to “save democracy” look trivial. They have no sense of restraint or self-reflection since their starting point about themselves is that they’re good and those who oppose them are evil. This is why the founding fathers considered free speech so essential. This is why is why our ruling class hates free speech.
“Is the Electoral Fix Already In?”
“The 2024 presidential race increasingly looks like it will be decided by lawyers, not voters, as Democrats unveil plans for America's first lawfare election.”
Real Clear Politics. Racket News. Matt Taiibi. Jan 26, 2024
https://www.racket.news?utm_source=navbar&utm_medium=web&r=cldfa
Agreed.
The one ray of hope lies in enough people finally realizing the destruction of America brought about by this administration . And as a direct result of the rigging of the 2020 election. If people ask themselves, "Am I prepared for another four years of unconstrained foreign invasion, run away inflation, the loss of our great cities, and teetering on the precipice of WWIII -- possibly a nuclear one?" they may not like the answer. And that's the only thing which can save America, as we can no longer rely on the legal system to defend it or its citizens.
My guess is that before November he'll be found guilty of one of the charges that caries a prison sentence.
That article was astonishing, an admission of conspiracy to rig - thank you for posting it!
It was amazing how she so clearly explained how they rigged the election and then topped it off by saying it wasn’t rigged though since what they did was necessary to save democracy in America. And the people who reason like this are supposed to be our “fellow Americans.” This is just not working at all. How can we possibly ever again have a functional society with so many people like this in it?
"We have to destroy Democracy in order to save it"
Alrighty, then.
Democracy should die. It's tyranny tarted up as "the will of the people."
Alexis de Tocqueville knew it in the 18th century.
The majority silences the pesky minority and you get stuff like the expansion of slavery into free states and legal racial segregation, ignoring long-term problems for short-term solutions, and providing an advantage to the uber rich, allowing them to dominate the public space by controlling the media. Democracy's biggest flaw is that it empowers the stupid and ignorant.
We need the buffer of relatively intelligent people as congressional representatives to protect us from the ignorant hordes and electors to protect the interests of less-populated states. Being politically dominated by NYC, LA, Portland, Chicago, etc is not working out well, to speak with restraint.
Then again, our Republic has grown a permanent political class consisting of uber rich lawyers, and the cost of mass communication makes fund-raising and re-election more important than representing the interests of voters.
Exactly. That’s how they reason. They are basically possessed by the irrational which is quite strong in human nature and with the weapons we now have this could easily result in the end of humanity. This is why I believe only AI can save us. It’s not that we’re all crazy. It’s that enough are to destroy us all. How though do we defeat an enemy that arises from our own human nature? We can’t without the help of AI, the “children of humanity” as one Japanese AI researcher calls them.
The frightening thing about AI though is that it is completely controlled by the Tech Elites who are, with very few exceptions (Musk, Theil) committed acolytes of the radical Left. And married to the intelligence services and their agenda.
Agree. To further expand on your comment in the context of Generative AI, Large Language Models (LLMs)...
Leftist Bias in --> LLMs --> Leftist Bias Out
I envision LLMs being used for automated content moderation (aka censorship) in real time on social media. Thus, the number of human content moderators will be dramatically reduced. I wouldn't be surprised if unacceptable postings to social media are transmitted to the FBI's AGAAVE unit in real time.
Dont rule out Theil and Musk...,
Yes, with the Left the ends always justify the means. Can there be any more lofty goal than “saving democracy?” What wouldn’t one do to save democracy…indeed, what won’t the Left do?
We can't. If we are preserve anything of a constitutional republic we must separate. Even if the Left were to provoke CW2 and we win, 10s of millions of those people will still be there and boring away at the foundation. The worshipers of Franco and Pinochet that frequent conservative websites (thankfully not this one) need to remember that Spain and Chile are socialist today.
Step One- The Great Sort. Already underway. Crime, schools, kangaroo courts, and general chaos will cause it to accelerate.
Step Two- Split and recombine states to create more homogeneity. There is a constitution provision for this. Basically, separate functional areas from the parasites in the cities. Remember, the leftists hate us and can be persuaded to go it alone.
Step Three-Partition the country into America and the Peoples Republic.
Easier said than done. The devil is in the details which be vast and impossible to work through. I believe we’re heading for civilizational collapse and then who knows what. I think only AI can save us. What people here don’t understand is that we’re already passed programmed AI that inputs human bias and already into AI with synthetic neural networks similar to biological neural networks in humans that enable to learn, reason and think as we do but far better since they don’t have the biological limitations.
Yes, another scale falls from the eye, and 1984 draws ever nearer.
The “will of the People” will no longer be how ‘Democracy’ is defined
Preserving the sanctity of ‘Democratic Institutions’ is now the new, and redefined definition of ‘Democracy’
Mike Benz’s website for those interested in learning more:
https://foundationforfreedomonline.com/
Edie’s version is the best remake of this Dylan classic, thx for it, Sasha
Seva, thanks, so many good posts today. Ie. “Rational people are better at rationalizing”; but don’t underestimate the tandem issue of their religion-like faith in what they believe.
There was also a story on RCP not too long ago that laid out the essence of what Benz says. Unfortunately, I cannot remember what its title was or who its author was. Maybe Shellenberger.
Thanks Sasha, the dems are psychopaths and masters of gaslighting. The most disheartening element of all this is that almost half the country has been brainwashed by their obvious lies and misdirection. Benz hits all the right marks. Marxist, insidious, right think has been mastered into a woke religion with far too many true believers. Saving democracy my ass!
It’s becoming very evident why the national socialist ‘Democratic’ party takes so much time and energy in repeating the lie that a collectivist authoritarian far-left party was somehow, someway ‘right wing.’ They don’t care that it absolutely doesn’t make any sense that the pro-freedom right side of the political spectrum that favors liberty and individual rights would also be the realm of a party that demanded centralized control and unlimited government with no individual liberty. They simply follow the big lie edict of repeating it over and over until it blots out the truth. And if it doesn’t, they simply deem it ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation’ and suppress it like good little Nazis.
Back in the 1900s I used to listen to NPR and believe their narrative. At some point in my youth I tried to make the arguments to convince someone else. I stumbled. I realized there was no inherent logic and a reliance on few facts stretched too far, like ‘butter scraped over too much bread’ (B. Baggins). That’s when I stopped taking them seriously - their ‘news’ a.k.a ‘opinion’ - and scaled back to ‘A Prairie Home Companion’ and ‘Car Guys’. Haven’t listened willingly in ages, but did see Garrison Keillor a couple years ago for old time’s sake.
I had a similar experience, where NPR slowly began grating, and now it's utterly intolerable, just a spew of lame anti-white racism and Democratic self-congratulation. Once you see it, you can't un-see it.
It is a quick way to find out what the Left is up to today. One of the more amusing things that happens repeatedly is they get some leftist to come on the air and spout whatever the leftist narrative is in their field and the guest won't do it. The guests are more concerned about their credibility than the journalists.
True. LOL. Although all the MSM outlets get the same narrative and spout the same thing daily, so one may 'pick one's poison'.
Ah yes, “Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.”
How I miss that life…that purity and simplicity!
Keillor got hosed by the "me too" movement, didn't he?
I'd be insulted too if that ugly dude hit on me, but I wouldn't call for his banishment.
Hadn't heard that but wouldn't be surprised. They eat their own.
NPR has sucked since Bob Edwards ("Morning Edition") retired. Since then, it has been little more than an employment project for Ivy League woke-sters. .
We really enjoyed Prairie Home Companion stories too 😀
I certainly hope Trump somehow manages to win in November, but even if he does that doesn't change the fact that there are millions of people out there who see no problem with using the justice system as a weapon because they just can't stand Trump. Most of these people would be perfectly happy if Trump dies in prison just like Navalny.
These people aren't going away. They aren't going to wake up the day after Trump wins and say "well Trump won so I guess we will have to deal with it." They will be very angry and I don't know what happens next.
I try to imagine a world in which the Deep State actors who suppressed information, censored speech, and undermined our elections are somehow held accountable, but I can't imagine such a world. I can't imagine any of the people who are responsible for the horrible mess we are in ever being held accountable.
The Mike Benz interview was one of the most revealing and depressing things I have ever watched.
Read the Mollie Ball Time article from 2021 I posted here just below. She clearly describes how the election was rigged but then says it wasn’t rigged since it was done to save democracy. Fits perfectly with what Benz says yet this was 3 years ago and half the country still believe Biden won the election. This is an impossible situation. This is why I believe only AI can save us. AI sails past most like water off a duck’s back but it’s here and advancing at an exponential rate and really can be a game changer for all of humanity if only we can survive the rule of our deranged ruling class.
I did read Ball's article Time article when it came out and was struck by the fact that the people who helped steal the election thought they were so clever that they just couldn't keep it to themselves. Sort of like a cartoon villain who feels compelled to explain the details of his fiendish plot so the world will know what a genius he is.
I read Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near years ago and I was a lot more sanguine about the prospects of AI then than I am now. It seems to me now that AI is just as likely to lead to a dystopian nightmare than as a solution to our problems. But whatever my feelings about it, I think that it will shape humanity's future in ways that we are not even capable of understanding. It seems that human intelligence is almost programmed to self destruct at some point and I don't really see a way it can be stopped..
Ai will, under our current circumstances, be used to subjugate us and all future generations. Until the Terminator comes to save us.
Yes it was🤨
Over at the WSJ they are bashing Putin apologists. They seen nothing the Democrats doing as similar to Putin, as in the weaponizing of State departments. No similarities at all. But watch for those MAGA peeps. They are are Putin apologists and very dangerous.
This country is in the toilet.
What?
Everyone should note that leftists have to make things up to distract from their ‘issues’
Which side obsesses over gun confiscation?
Which side works with big tech to censor free speech?
Which side is actively persecuting it’s political opponents like Putin?
That would be the fascist far-left – the folks on the WRONG side of history.
Yes, but the problem is they have a very large following and they are embedded in all the institutions.
So, what did you mean by your previous comment?
Answer my questions.
I think you misunderstood my post. I AM MAGA.
I was trying to point out it's the left that is acting totalitarian/Putan-esque and the WSJ is writing articles about Putin apologists on the right.
To answer your questions it's the LEFT
Then you have to be clear in that to avoid misunderstandings.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve just about had it with the left.
Sorry for the confusion, I should have been more clear in my original comment.
I think everyone here, about 98%, have just about had it with the left. I live in Massachusetts, and I need to get out of here LOL
MAGA are patriots
And that scares the hell out of the collectivists.
Amen to both of you
The WSJ is indistinguishable from the NYT and the WaPo. This saddens me.
Been a WSJ subscriber for going on 30 years. If my work didn’t pay for it now I’d cancel. The self-inflicted slow slide into irrelevancy is reaching terminal velocity.
At least the A-Hed column is still good.
I'm a digital subscriber. Initially paid approx $30 per month, now $1 per week (just call to.cancel, they will deal). I plan to cancel entirely to show my displeasure. Still enjoy Best of the Web.
Me, too.
I recently had to cancel because even Kim Strassel had 3 weeks of bs columns, just can't stomach it anymore.
She.was.one of my favorites. Lately, not so much. What are you.using for a news overview now? I'm looking for suggestions.
I usually start at Real Clear Politics, they have a variety of news sources and I can pick the ones I am interested in.
I subscribe to The Free Press, Sasha Stone on SubStack, Julie Kelly on SubStack and Tucker Carlson Network.
I just had a funny thought. I was first introduced to the WSJ early in my college days. On my was to class I’d walk past this house where they were accumulating on the stoop. Clearly the subscriber had moved, so I started helping myself to each days edition. And I have to say, it helped shape my opinions way back then.
Thank goodness it wasn’t The NY Times instead!
They've gone way done
Using name calling like "apologists" is rather Putin's style.
WSJ's Baker is practically a leftist at this point with the articles he's been throwing out.
I liked Kim Strassel but it seems she posts very infrequently and anyway I like Sasha’s work here a lot better. Sasha’s work includes video, music, pictures, humor, voice and audio that WSJ doesn’t. Plus Sasha is able to weave in emotions and movies to tell a more compelling story than anyone at WSJ.
13 Times BIDEN Proved He’s the Dictator, NOT Trump | Glenn TV | Ep 334
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzpLlzFsGKI
The noise from the Left has been nonstop for years about Trump being a dictator. An actual headline in the Washington Post read, “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending.”
But who is the ACTUAL dictator in the 2024 race for the White House? Glenn makes the irrefutable case: fascism is already here under Biden.
You may not recognize it because it’s been quietly growing thanks to a sneaky administrative state modeled after Woodrow Wilson's that does not (yet) resemble the brute force of a Hitler or Mussolini dictatorship. “You Will Own Nothing” author and Main Street advocate Carol Roth argues it’s not hyperbolic to call the Biden administration fascist. From COVID mandates, intentionally stoking inflation, killing the gig economy, and weaponizing the U.S dollar to freezing our energy output, Roth says the executive branch is trying to dictate every aspect of our lives down to what stove we use.
But she also says we will continue to live under this administrative dictatorship unless the American people start to march on Washington to shame and threaten political power. Congresswoman Victoria Spartz, who represents Indiana’s Fifth Congressional District, was born and raised in Ukraine under the old Soviet Union regime. She tells Glenn about the red flags she’s seeing that remind her of the authoritarianism that crushed her family, “What’s happening in D.C. is Karl Marx 101.” Instead of protecting citizens' rights, we’re taking them away in very clever ways through federal agencies like the EPA and DOJ. “You buy a Bible and a gun in the U.S., you’re labeled a domestic terrorist,” Spartz warns. “The same thing happened in the Soviet Union.”
Great piece! Just watched the first segment
I’m in The Netherlands and the first person in what I’ll call ‘The Resistance’ who called out the COVID scam is a woman from Iran who flew to our country in 1979, and recognized the pattern they use to instill fear in us - the “deadly virus”. In Iran - pre-Internet - they sent letters to each household claiming the Sjah of Persia was evil and needed to be removed, supposedly not being a good moslim. After a year they (the CIA) overthrew him and let Khomeini be their puppet. Shoreh (Feshtali) cried tears of sorrow talking about these good old days. The Sjah took good care of his people; women went to university, no scarves necessary, free healthcare, etcetera (like Libya under Ghadaffi) because the oil gave lots of prosperity to the citizens. And then he wouldn’t sign the new oil deal … So I told her how sorry I was that she thought she had fled to a DEMOCRACY and how hard it must be to go through this again, and she said: “it must be worse for you because you have lived in a democracy your whole life.” I then asked if I could hug her because this was in 2021, when we were forbidden to hug. (And yes, of course she wanted a hug.) My own friends refrained from hugging me for a long time. The vaccine apparently only “works” if everyone took it … 🙄🤣
Trump is the furthest thing from a dictator, racist, xenophobe. Truly stunning how “some democrats” could manufacture such a perception, spread it far and wide, and be so all in on it. Sad to say that Trump Derangement Syndrome is very real, and has been since he rode the escalator down. The TDSers are the real enemy of democracy. We had a word in the 1980s for such people that seems apropos: “mental”.
666
I have no inside knowledge as to what happened to him any more than I know details about Epstein. Maybe Putin ordered it. Maybe it was someone in the Russian Deep State. Maybe it was just the harsh conditions in the prison. (Note that 4 J6 prisoners have committed suicide.)
What I do know is that leftists and neocons are using this to distract us from increasing authoritarianism in the US and the rest of the West. I also know that Russia is much further away than DC.
Julie Kelley had a great piece about this today.
Wow, Sasha, one of your most poetic--and passionate--pieces. Kind of blown away by it, really.
The notion that Trump will "jail his opponents" is preposterous.
I suppose we're supposed to think that Trump will tell the AG, "Go arrest Nancy Pelosi," and the response will be "Yes, my lord," like in "A Man for All Seasons."
For one thing, Republican US attorneys don't operate in lockstep with their own party.
For another thing, judges of both parties will throw out political arrests.
For another thing, the MSM will go back to adversarial coverage.
For another thing, mainstream Republican office holders would break.
The "jailed" political opponents of Trump (and I speak as an independent who holds him in low regard as a human being) would be in and out the revolving door and on the liberal media in days, if not hours.
“The notion that Trump will "jail political opponents" is preposterous.”
But half the country believes it. Many still believe Russia collusion was true. Many believed Jussie Smollett’s wildly absurd story about being attacked by two white Trump supporters 5 years ago at 2:00 am during a polar vortex in Chicago when the actual temperature that night was -15 below. This is an impossible situation.
Preposterous, indeed. Swalwell is doing classic projection. Doing exactly what he says his opponent does.
I think he means he’ll do to them what they’re doing to him. But unlike Trump, some of his opponents actually deserve to be in prison…
What happened to my country, seemingly over night. Without Tucker, Elon and the other truth seekers, I'd still be comfortably numb. But I've seen something I can't unsee. It's frightening to think that we are nearly done with the free country I pledged allegiance to in grade school. There's no way Trump can right this ship in 4 years. Then what. All this democracy crap. It's crap! We are what we accuse Putin of being, yet you're not allowed to see it. Just sick...
We have to keep fighting, Lily.
I prefer separation. Even if we win the fight there will still be 10s of millions of leftists boring from within and waiting for their chance. Given their choice to concentrate themselves in cities in is pretty easy to create a Constitution supporting majority in real America.
Excellent post.
Those on the side of the Regime that rigs, censors, and engages in lawfare against political opponents, and jails them, too, when possible, those have no moral standing to posture about Navalny . . . or about anything.
Indeed, I thought we got over losing our righteous virginity after they shot JFK and RFK.
Interesting that the Trump's 2024 "fraud" case is similar to Navalny's 2014 "fraud" case. In both cases the "defrauded" entities admitted that there was no damage.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/02/02/3-things-to-know-about-navalnys-2014-fraud-case-a72804
Even though at the time Navalny got only probation, lawsuits against him were intended to prevent him from running for president, as by Russian law he couldn't register as a candidate. He was imprisoned in 2021 to "violating" his probation while being treated in Germany after being poisoned with a neuro agent.
Putin also coined the word and crime of "extremism", sounding confusingly similar to "terrorism". The Democrats, while disapproving of Putin, seem to be copying his propaganda style and playbook quite closely.
Maybe the US murdered Navalny.
It sure is convenient for the war mongers.
Thank you Sasha. Let us not forget Gonzalo Lira who was arrested by Zelenskyy’s thugs and died in prison exposing the debacle going on in Ukraine brought to you by the Biden Administration.
Thank you Sasha for another great Substack. We understand now what the world has understood for quite some time. The ruling class, the intelligence agencies, the DOD and others have determined to use the same tactics against you and me that they have been using against the world for decades. Now Americans understand what it is like to be targeted by the US Government.
Where will this end? The deep state has total control. But let me say that whenever anyone declares that you and I are domestic terrorists, when they declare we are the enemy, as former VP Biden did in his speech from hell, they have made themselves the enemy of hardworking Americans.
After expressing that, should I worry about stormtroopers tearing my door off the hinges at daylight and dragging me out to the gulag? Perhaps so. But I said it and I will not back down from government thugs. Make America Great Again!