Not everything is capable of compromise. At some point we have to respond appropriately and comments like Theresa Ghee's that "Revenge is not always a bad thing" are reasonable in some situations. BTW previously I was referring to the alliance with RFKJr. Yes, there is still family...and useful idiots...but do you really think RFK's family will remain the same after how he was treated? Of course we don't know how it was anyway. We can't forget that sometimes these things have real consequences that impact us personally. And maybe instead of turning the other cheek or remaining silent, we should re-evaluate our response or our perspective and speak up.
THE answer to the question is lack of courage, fear, income, desire to be accepted by the "group." It is often said that a person's character is determined by the tough times not the good times. So one ultimately must be true to oneself...except when? However what isn't discussed is the actual nature of this election as demonstrated by what has happened to date. This discussion should be about what is to come....and how much worse it will be. Anyone who believes things will improve is delusional. Biden followed in Obama's footsteps on Israel. Already censorship is discussed incessantly, most recently in California. There will be no need to be publicly shamed or supported when you won't be published at all. That is the real danger. Look at Newsom's later gambit on free speech. Don't doubt it. Censorship will impact TheFP too. And none of these discussions will occur.
The real issues are courage and leadership. People who currently identify as Democrats, let alone support Harris are equivalent to those who supported the Nazis during their rise to power....because the Democrats have already articulated their support for censorship, among other destructive policies. They incite violence all the time...remember BLM? And as Kennedy said, when were those that censored speech the good guys?
Democrats are the party of projection and they project hate speech on steroids including the insidious "lose our democracy with Trump" lies. You don't have to love Republicans, especially Establishment Republicans.. because I don't. You just have to be anti-Establishment and anti corruption to see what the last almost 4 years has wrought and the lies perpetrated by Democrats during the Trump administration and enabled by establishment Republicans...also known as the uniparty.
You do need independent thinking and courage to survive the onslaught. But you are not alone inasmuch as we all need alliances, especially with people we respect. I supported Trump in 2015 and could debate anyone at the time and win. I understood what was going on despite my frustration with Trump's inability to be articulate or great in management. But who would be nuts enough to take on the entire uniparty establishment? Look what they did to JFKJr before he ran for President?
We are less alone now. More powerful forces have emerged like Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, The All-In Pod and the really smart kids are forming an alliance against the Dems. Eric Weinstein, JFKJr, Nicole Shanahan. And many more. There is an intellectual powerhouse forming. Bari Weiss was a speaker at the recent All-In Pod Conference, along with JD Vance, Elon Musk and many many others who have cred. Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger are on the vanguard and are absolute truthtellers if you have followed their history. I subscribed to Taibbi's substack prior to his total conversion. He didn't vote in 2020. I did. I knew he couldn't bring himself at the time to see what was really happening. Then he went from a substack guy to the Twitter Files guy and everything changed. Real facts and evidence can do that....if you want to see.
One cannot forget that Trump made Jerusalem the capital of Israel during his Presidency, a monumental act of courage. You cannot forget the US was prosperous. You can remember his choice of establishment Republicans stabbed him in the back. You can remember the Russia collusion lie and the Hunter Biden laptop suppression. Those things are actually true and reveal truths that are uncomfortable.
Yet in the current climate, anyone supporting Harris supports censorship, identity politics, DEI, Iran, Hamas and a stupid war in Ukraine. Anyone supporting a US administration with essentially no President in charge who is willing to have an undemocratic Ukraine with their Western allies lob precision missiles into Russia needs their head examined...especially when Putin says that makes the US and EU at war with Russia. These aren't figments of your imagination. Anyone who actually knows facts knows the US rejected a peace deal for Ukraine. Listen to liberal Jeffrey Sachs on Ukraine. Yes there is division among this group on Israel...but not as much as you might think. And the fact remains Iran was broke under Trump and all was quiet in the middle east when he was President. The antithesis happened with Biden and his pro Hamas cohort in the White House. Oct. 7 happened while Biden was President. Never forget.
But they aren't that stupid or they wouldn't be in power or control so many institutions such that the sheep following their insanity. are Democrats unaware of real facts and easily brainwashed by propaganda dupes (no matter their credentials!)
Vaccine mandates were a Dem idea whose purpose was control. How much evidence do you need. As for friends, weak people act weak...expect it. You can maintain friends with weak people...as long as you understand who they are and don't expect them to have your back.
For intellectual support, read Tablet Magazine. Read Shellenberger. Read Taibbi. Taibbi and Shellenberger are liberals. So is Douglas Murray, courageous and super smart. The cools kids are no longer Democrats.
Politics makes us fight with the people we actually know on behalf of people who don’t even know we exist,” Timpf writes. This is a great quote. Unfortunately, I don't know how in our current environment this will ever change. I enjoyed reading this article, thank you.
"Private truths, public lies" by Timur Kuran goes into this (preference falsification) in depth. You need to make public statements of faith to avoid ostracisation. If you're a little suspect (ie have private reservations) you have to be more vocal in your public support.
Actually, I also think children are taught to weigh arguments not by their objective worth, but by who makes the argument. This necessarily leads them to tribalism bc they are literally unable to evaluate an argument on its own merits.
Taylor Swift and her army of “trapped-in-high school” FANatics are more than exemplary here. Either you’re with the queen bee or you’re not; just imagine what your fellow Swifties might think of you if you disagree with her choice for none other than President of the United States!
Thanks, that was fun. I have pretty-much avoided all that. I'd love to share directions on how, but I honestly don't know. I care about family, friends and community, but I don't care about being on a team. <shrug>
The self is a wonderful tool, it keeps us from walking off cliffs, bumping into doors or traffic, and reminding us to wear clothes before going outside. The self is also a terrible master, it is a necessary part of us, but it is not the whole of us. People do need to remember that.
If people are concerned more about what one wears, reads, looks like, or anything else superficial, do you really want to spend time with those people?
"The contemporary practice of assigning a political gloss to everything, from TV shows to clothes to dairy products..."
Except it's not people that do this, it's largely the companies/organizations/business leaders themselves. Bud Light, for example, had a marketing exec who chose to pull that stunt. Nike chooses to invest heavily in China. Certain TV show creators and writers create characters/storylines/allusions that either explicitly or subconsciously reflect a certain political lean (when they say "commenting on contemporary society," it means they've found yet another way to shit on Trump and his supporters).
The consumer is not "reading into anything" - it's there for all to read for themselves and react accordingly.
It's not like the days of Archie Bunker where the character was created to be a reactionary caricature, but ended up the most popular one at the expense of his liberal family. Nowadays, Archie would be killed off (like Rosanne), and we would have had to suffer through 8 seasons of Rob Reiner's wimpy storylines.
You can buy what you like and watch what you like and ignore the partisans, but the partisans won't ignore you.
It's also ironic, parsing through the comments, how many viruously indignant responders agreeing with the sentiment KR expresses, continue to wallow in their entrenched (binary) view.. None so blind, I guess.
Not everything is capable of compromise. At some point we have to respond appropriately and comments like Theresa Ghee's that "Revenge is not always a bad thing" are reasonable in some situations. BTW previously I was referring to the alliance with RFKJr. Yes, there is still family...and useful idiots...but do you really think RFK's family will remain the same after how he was treated? Of course we don't know how it was anyway. We can't forget that sometimes these things have real consequences that impact us personally. And maybe instead of turning the other cheek or remaining silent, we should re-evaluate our response or our perspective and speak up.
THE answer to the question is lack of courage, fear, income, desire to be accepted by the "group." It is often said that a person's character is determined by the tough times not the good times. So one ultimately must be true to oneself...except when? However what isn't discussed is the actual nature of this election as demonstrated by what has happened to date. This discussion should be about what is to come....and how much worse it will be. Anyone who believes things will improve is delusional. Biden followed in Obama's footsteps on Israel. Already censorship is discussed incessantly, most recently in California. There will be no need to be publicly shamed or supported when you won't be published at all. That is the real danger. Look at Newsom's later gambit on free speech. Don't doubt it. Censorship will impact TheFP too. And none of these discussions will occur.
Writers like you and articles like this have made me a subscriber to The Free Press.
Excellent article.
Can't help it, but my limbic brain is demanding to know who the anonymous traitor was.
Revenge is not always a bad thing.
The real issues are courage and leadership. People who currently identify as Democrats, let alone support Harris are equivalent to those who supported the Nazis during their rise to power....because the Democrats have already articulated their support for censorship, among other destructive policies. They incite violence all the time...remember BLM? And as Kennedy said, when were those that censored speech the good guys?
Democrats are the party of projection and they project hate speech on steroids including the insidious "lose our democracy with Trump" lies. You don't have to love Republicans, especially Establishment Republicans.. because I don't. You just have to be anti-Establishment and anti corruption to see what the last almost 4 years has wrought and the lies perpetrated by Democrats during the Trump administration and enabled by establishment Republicans...also known as the uniparty.
You do need independent thinking and courage to survive the onslaught. But you are not alone inasmuch as we all need alliances, especially with people we respect. I supported Trump in 2015 and could debate anyone at the time and win. I understood what was going on despite my frustration with Trump's inability to be articulate or great in management. But who would be nuts enough to take on the entire uniparty establishment? Look what they did to JFKJr before he ran for President?
We are less alone now. More powerful forces have emerged like Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, The All-In Pod and the really smart kids are forming an alliance against the Dems. Eric Weinstein, JFKJr, Nicole Shanahan. And many more. There is an intellectual powerhouse forming. Bari Weiss was a speaker at the recent All-In Pod Conference, along with JD Vance, Elon Musk and many many others who have cred. Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger are on the vanguard and are absolute truthtellers if you have followed their history. I subscribed to Taibbi's substack prior to his total conversion. He didn't vote in 2020. I did. I knew he couldn't bring himself at the time to see what was really happening. Then he went from a substack guy to the Twitter Files guy and everything changed. Real facts and evidence can do that....if you want to see.
One cannot forget that Trump made Jerusalem the capital of Israel during his Presidency, a monumental act of courage. You cannot forget the US was prosperous. You can remember his choice of establishment Republicans stabbed him in the back. You can remember the Russia collusion lie and the Hunter Biden laptop suppression. Those things are actually true and reveal truths that are uncomfortable.
Yet in the current climate, anyone supporting Harris supports censorship, identity politics, DEI, Iran, Hamas and a stupid war in Ukraine. Anyone supporting a US administration with essentially no President in charge who is willing to have an undemocratic Ukraine with their Western allies lob precision missiles into Russia needs their head examined...especially when Putin says that makes the US and EU at war with Russia. These aren't figments of your imagination. Anyone who actually knows facts knows the US rejected a peace deal for Ukraine. Listen to liberal Jeffrey Sachs on Ukraine. Yes there is division among this group on Israel...but not as much as you might think. And the fact remains Iran was broke under Trump and all was quiet in the middle east when he was President. The antithesis happened with Biden and his pro Hamas cohort in the White House. Oct. 7 happened while Biden was President. Never forget.
But they aren't that stupid or they wouldn't be in power or control so many institutions such that the sheep following their insanity. are Democrats unaware of real facts and easily brainwashed by propaganda dupes (no matter their credentials!)
Vaccine mandates were a Dem idea whose purpose was control. How much evidence do you need. As for friends, weak people act weak...expect it. You can maintain friends with weak people...as long as you understand who they are and don't expect them to have your back.
For intellectual support, read Tablet Magazine. Read Shellenberger. Read Taibbi. Taibbi and Shellenberger are liberals. So is Douglas Murray, courageous and super smart. The cools kids are no longer Democrats.
Politics makes us fight with the people we actually know on behalf of people who don’t even know we exist,” Timpf writes. This is a great quote. Unfortunately, I don't know how in our current environment this will ever change. I enjoyed reading this article, thank you.
"Private truths, public lies" by Timur Kuran goes into this (preference falsification) in depth. You need to make public statements of faith to avoid ostracisation. If you're a little suspect (ie have private reservations) you have to be more vocal in your public support.
Actually, I also think children are taught to weigh arguments not by their objective worth, but by who makes the argument. This necessarily leads them to tribalism bc they are literally unable to evaluate an argument on its own merits.
Taylor Swift and her army of “trapped-in-high school” FANatics are more than exemplary here. Either you’re with the queen bee or you’re not; just imagine what your fellow Swifties might think of you if you disagree with her choice for none other than President of the United States!
Thanks, that was fun. I have pretty-much avoided all that. I'd love to share directions on how, but I honestly don't know. I care about family, friends and community, but I don't care about being on a team. <shrug>
The self is a wonderful tool, it keeps us from walking off cliffs, bumping into doors or traffic, and reminding us to wear clothes before going outside. The self is also a terrible master, it is a necessary part of us, but it is not the whole of us. People do need to remember that.
If people are concerned more about what one wears, reads, looks like, or anything else superficial, do you really want to spend time with those people?
Politicians and almost all media want to keep us in high school.
Well said. I don't want to live like this either.
"The contemporary practice of assigning a political gloss to everything, from TV shows to clothes to dairy products..."
Except it's not people that do this, it's largely the companies/organizations/business leaders themselves. Bud Light, for example, had a marketing exec who chose to pull that stunt. Nike chooses to invest heavily in China. Certain TV show creators and writers create characters/storylines/allusions that either explicitly or subconsciously reflect a certain political lean (when they say "commenting on contemporary society," it means they've found yet another way to shit on Trump and his supporters).
The consumer is not "reading into anything" - it's there for all to read for themselves and react accordingly.
It's not like the days of Archie Bunker where the character was created to be a reactionary caricature, but ended up the most popular one at the expense of his liberal family. Nowadays, Archie would be killed off (like Rosanne), and we would have had to suffer through 8 seasons of Rob Reiner's wimpy storylines.
You can buy what you like and watch what you like and ignore the partisans, but the partisans won't ignore you.
Great article. So true on so many different points. I wish I could get my(adult) kids to read this...
The wretched 8th grade paranoia circulates among the middle aged. That is truly a nightmare.
Superb. So many good insights.
Excellent article, and such a sane POV.
It's also ironic, parsing through the comments, how many viruously indignant responders agreeing with the sentiment KR expresses, continue to wallow in their entrenched (binary) view.. None so blind, I guess.