The institutional Republican leadership is lazy, rudderless, and lacking a coherent strategy. Absent a wholesale change of the statist status quo brigade, they will quietly and compliantly flush our prospects down the toilet. I marveled this entire election cycle at the lackluster performance of the RNC. State party leaders need to initiate a tsunami that results in sea change for the party.
I agree that if anything will save this country, it is Federalism. The Federal government and the military-industrial complex have, as Eisenhower wanted, achieved a center of gravity that must be dismantled before we have any hope of reclaiming sovereignty at that level of government. So, political leadership must strive to return the power to the states, and hobble the Federal government as much as possible.
Great article and perspective, Jordan, and I thank you for both!
Given his role in WWII and as President, I take your point. Very likely self-recrimination for his past decisions and a belated warning and cal to action as he considered the long-term implications of his choices.
Leaders are known to despair over things while they are the reason. Look up the Inited Food Co to see how the Eisenhower admin led a coup in Guatemala for bananas. He’s part of the Military intelligence industrial complex
I take your point and I am sure his hands are far from clean. However, I find his warning about the ascendency and the threat of the MIC no less poignant and apt, acknowledging it is likely self-recrimination.
The institutional Republican leadership is on the same team as the Dems; they benefit from the status quo more than they would benefit from getting a majority. Why mess with a good thing? This election was a textbook exercise for "no matter whom we elect, nothing changes."
Another part of Eisenhower's farewell speech that is not often cited...
"The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."
I've heard that speech before. Sadly, Eisenhower was being very disingenuous. He knew the OSS/CIA was doing awful things in, particularly, Latin America, in furtherance of giant U.S. corporations that wanted to exploit resources in countries that didn't want that exploitation. He knew what was coming because he was using it to further his administration's, and the corporations who lobbied him, economic gains. While it was perhaps a genuine attempt to warn us about what was coming, it also may have been his attempt to expiate his own culpability.
Justin Hart had a nice analysis this morning where he pointed out that the Blue states that held onto their power did so by extending the COVID voting rules of mail-in balloting, which favors the Dems big time. The red states like Florida made sure that those adaptations were removed, and we see the results.
Except: in VERY blue New York, where NYC will decide statewide elections, the Republicans took four house seats from the Democrats. Without those flips, the House might be Democratic still.
So you need to explain why Republicans did poorly in blue Michigan and well in Blue New York. The fact is, in too many places, there wasn't a reason to vote FOR the Rs except that the D's have created a disaster nationally. The Rs will lose probably three of those four flipped seats in 2024 when the Democrats don't have crime-embracing Hochul to drive up Republican voters.
I think you’re reading it incorrectly. Your article is based on the supposition that the elections were honest. I don’t think they were.
Here’s an example on the ground: Here in NY, Hochul is disliked. People are fed up with rising crime. They don’t want her quarantine camps or child covid vaccine mandates. So many lifelong democrat voters were proclaiming that they were going to vote Zeldin! What happened?
It doesn’t make sense. We know that people showed up to the polls in huge numbers. It wasn’t because they were excited to vote for Hochul! It’s because they recognized the grave threats she poses and wanted to get her OUT. People were NOT so silly as to elect her.
I think it’s a logical assumption that the public overwhelmingly chose Zeldin, but the Dems cheated with the ballots/machines.
Here is an article about it, and plenty of evidence of how they run the election fraud:
I doubt NY was stolen. The fact is that the state has probably 2/3rds democrats and 1/3rd republicans. Check the Senate results: Schumer won easily, and with a MUCH higher percentage than Hochul. That tells you what a decent Democratic Governor can expect to receive given the overwhelming dominance of the Democrats in NYC and its disproportionate weight in the state.
Zeldin drove turnout amongst republicans trying to save their state from becoming the next Illinois. They nearly did so, and they flipped FOUR house seats. That's the only place the red wave was seen outside of Florida.
Great post! The red states get redder and the blue states get bluer. Maybe another two years of Biden's America will wake them up, but it's doubtful at this point.
Red states are pretty much turning blue too considering the bills DeSantis has signed. One allows for forced vaccination. Setting up turn-key totalitarianism.
Looks like they struck "to vaccinate" with "to treat" since I last read the bill, but who's kidding who about what "treat" includes?....
71. b.
“If the individual poses a danger to the public health, a State Health Officer may subject the individual to isolation or quarantine. If there is no practical method to isolate or quarantine the individual, the State Health Officer may use any means necessary to vaccinate or treat the individual.”
Yeah, I tend to agree with you. The harder that Biden makes life for people, the more they'll clamor for their lives to be made easier at someone else's expense, i.e., "the rich," rather than demand the abolition of those policies. That's just kind of populace we have, now. And they'll vote for anyone who promises to continue that and more.
If this version of Brandon's America didn't wake them up, nothing will. I can only imagine what Brandon's American will look like in 2024. It sure won't be pretty.
I'm glad you wrote this, because now I don't have to. I agree 100% with everything you've said here, including the argument that DeSantis should stay in Florida rather than aiming for the White House, where he would undoubtedly be drowned by the swamp.
I've been saying that DeSantis needs to stay in FL too, since that is where he can do the most good, or any good at all. If he goes to DC he will just get the 'Trump treatment' or worse, and will be neutered and ineffective. No single politician can drain that swamp or even fix it.
A significant fraction of educated America refuses to accept the accurate picture you've painted here: That both parties are functionally in the thrall and service of DHS and the other security-state agencies, and that Americans have in fact willingly ceded a huge chunk of their personal freedoms.
The ones who were sucked along into all the right covid and Ukraine and BLM narratives have enjoyed the dubious luxury of assuming that it's only "antivaxxers" and "Putinists" who have to worry about YouTube and other censorship, and that if you just shut up about certain people in power, your payment processor won't decide to "fine" you, i.e., flat-out swipe your money.
There is little more frustrating than having a peer group consisting of mostly traditional Democrats who listen to explanations of these things, nod as if listening seriously, and then head right back to social-media sites to recite narratives from MSNBC et al. They refuse to accept that fact-checking outfits can be created or bought with laughable ease.
Imagine a U.S. in which merely 50 percent of the lemmings suddenly became aggressively skeptical in an instant, including the MSM. This shit would come to a head one way or another overnight.
Learning how pliable most people are -- and how susceptible I am myself -- has been more of a crushing disappointment in the past five or so years than the government doing ruthlessly authoritarian things while smiling at the public. I've been cynical about government for a while, but I wrongly believed in the ability of most people to detect bullshit even if it comes from a trusted source. The fact that this has proven laughably untrue is the really depressing part.
Anyway, excellent summary. Anyone who expects this class of Repubs to even pretend to right any budgetary or policy ships is also dreaming.
You really only need 10% hard skeptical, not 50%. If 10% of people went on a general strike, the nation would be brought to its knees. The rule on putting down insurrections is you need 10 soldiers for every terrorist/freedom fighter. If 1% of America was actively resisting, there aren't enough troops between the Feds and all the state police departments to control it.
Is worse than that because vast numbers of reservists would either ignore orders to stand against fellow citizens, not to mention that many governors would refuse to give those orders. Same with many peace officers, etc. And Americans are heavily armed and we have a lot of land: guerilla wars are hard to win.
sadly, I can't agree more...US citizens are not a freedom loving people and seek the comfort of the status quo while the 'american dream' is drawn & quartered as inflation rips away any remaining vestige of class mobility.
These are not all Red States, but maybe along the horizontal center line of US States? West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, ..... ? In the hills, so that you won't get flooded, and mountains can block tornados? A small less prosperous town, among people who cannot afford high taxes either, living on ranching and growing .... ?
Ideally most of the power should be at the local level anyhow. The least at the federal.
It's easier to hold your police chief, sheriff/mayor, school board members accountable than the folks out in Washington. Remember, what we didn't do during the American Revolution?
We did NOT send a fleet of colonists over to merry old England to march on London, overthrow King George and set our King George (Washington) on the throne instead.
The “red wave” didn’t happen on the national level for one simple reason- the Republicans had no plan and no vision. Where the red wave DID happen was in FL and that’s because their governor stood for something and has vision. Where there is no vision, the people perish is not just an expression, it’s the truth. Republicans have been silent about everything the regime has done with the exception of a handful of people- Kari Lake, DeSantis , Ron Johnson, Jim Jordan and in those states, they enjoyed a red puddle. Until the rinos are kicked out, and until Republicans grow a pair, all we have is controlled opposition , no leadership , no platform, no vision. Meanwhile , the people literally and figuratively, perish.
You forgot NY. There was a red wave in the House: four flips from D to R. Zeldin drove turnout outside NYC, and that swept four Rs to power. People turned out, desperate to end the woke-induced crime wave. They failed at the state level, but the flips are the thing that will give the Rs the house.
I am disappointed in the results, as many are, and your encouragement for local control helps, but only just a little, for folks like me stuck in purple states. I blame Trump. Anyone not paying close attention felt checking a RED mark yesterday meant voting for one of the worst, most toxic politicians in history. There, I've said it. Now I feel even better.
In addition to treating elections as an opportunity to lob wrenches into the system, I think the heterodox community needs to place further emphasis of living decoupled from the DC beast; both as open resistance to the fed within free states and as parallel polis within occupied states.
No matter what, the power of the ruling class relies upon the near-unanimous compliance of the masses. Change and revolution has always been a matter of an indefatigable minority. Simple non-compliance more than anything else insidiously erodes the hidden foundations of power. Jordan, Yuri, Chris, et al. - I ask you guys to look beyond working within "the system" and promote more content supporting working outside "the system".
Global money and influence, big tech, and main stream media made the message. The messages which were foisted on the public were false, and fabricated lies(starting with JAn 6) regarding the danger from the right. Clarity and honesty much more frequently came from MAGA candidates. Add to that, the 'set up' of voting habits brought about by covid hysteria(lies). That is, cheating.
It doesn't matter if it is "cheating" - the entire federal bureaucracy is "cheating" in the context of the US Constitution. We are where we are and need to grapple with issues in that context.
The institutional Republican leadership is lazy, rudderless, and lacking a coherent strategy. Absent a wholesale change of the statist status quo brigade, they will quietly and compliantly flush our prospects down the toilet. I marveled this entire election cycle at the lackluster performance of the RNC. State party leaders need to initiate a tsunami that results in sea change for the party.
I agree that if anything will save this country, it is Federalism. The Federal government and the military-industrial complex have, as Eisenhower wanted, achieved a center of gravity that must be dismantled before we have any hope of reclaiming sovereignty at that level of government. So, political leadership must strive to return the power to the states, and hobble the Federal government as much as possible.
Great article and perspective, Jordan, and I thank you for both!
Sorry...as Eisenhower “warned.” I doubt he wanted what has come to pass, and I cannot edit this post on the mobile app!
eisenhower was the one that started the MIC
Given his role in WWII and as President, I take your point. Very likely self-recrimination for his past decisions and a belated warning and cal to action as he considered the long-term implications of his choices.
Leaders are known to despair over things while they are the reason. Look up the Inited Food Co to see how the Eisenhower admin led a coup in Guatemala for bananas. He’s part of the Military intelligence industrial complex
I take your point and I am sure his hands are far from clean. However, I find his warning about the ascendency and the threat of the MIC no less poignant and apt, acknowledging it is likely self-recrimination.
The institutional Republican leadership is on the same team as the Dems; they benefit from the status quo more than they would benefit from getting a majority. Why mess with a good thing? This election was a textbook exercise for "no matter whom we elect, nothing changes."
Another part of Eisenhower's farewell speech that is not often cited...
"The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."
I've heard that speech before. Sadly, Eisenhower was being very disingenuous. He knew the OSS/CIA was doing awful things in, particularly, Latin America, in furtherance of giant U.S. corporations that wanted to exploit resources in countries that didn't want that exploitation. He knew what was coming because he was using it to further his administration's, and the corporations who lobbied him, economic gains. While it was perhaps a genuine attempt to warn us about what was coming, it also may have been his attempt to expiate his own culpability.
Justin Hart had a nice analysis this morning where he pointed out that the Blue states that held onto their power did so by extending the COVID voting rules of mail-in balloting, which favors the Dems big time. The red states like Florida made sure that those adaptations were removed, and we see the results.
Ballot generation vs vote earning.
Except: in VERY blue New York, where NYC will decide statewide elections, the Republicans took four house seats from the Democrats. Without those flips, the House might be Democratic still.
So you need to explain why Republicans did poorly in blue Michigan and well in Blue New York. The fact is, in too many places, there wasn't a reason to vote FOR the Rs except that the D's have created a disaster nationally. The Rs will lose probably three of those four flipped seats in 2024 when the Democrats don't have crime-embracing Hochul to drive up Republican voters.
I think you’re reading it incorrectly. Your article is based on the supposition that the elections were honest. I don’t think they were.
Here’s an example on the ground: Here in NY, Hochul is disliked. People are fed up with rising crime. They don’t want her quarantine camps or child covid vaccine mandates. So many lifelong democrat voters were proclaiming that they were going to vote Zeldin! What happened?
It doesn’t make sense. We know that people showed up to the polls in huge numbers. It wasn’t because they were excited to vote for Hochul! It’s because they recognized the grave threats she poses and wanted to get her OUT. People were NOT so silly as to elect her.
I think it’s a logical assumption that the public overwhelmingly chose Zeldin, but the Dems cheated with the ballots/machines.
Here is an article about it, and plenty of evidence of how they run the election fraud:
https://azradale.substack.com/p/opinion-voting-machines-call-it-for
https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/5-big-election-fraud-stories-breaking
https://gellerreport.com/2022/10/bombshell-dominion-error-code-uncovered-in-97-of-georgia-counties.html/
https://celiafarber.substack.com/p/midterm-election-chaos-malfunctioning
https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/mike-lindell-was-right-about-voting
This is an example of ballot harvesting, from a past election: https://kanekoa.substack.com/p/texas-democrats-paid-homeless-man
Kanekoa has lots of very well documented articles about the Dominion voting machines. Here are some:
https://kanekoa.substack.com/p/konnech-ceo-eugene-yu-worked-for
https://kanekoa.substack.com/p/konnechs-shocking-back-door-access
https://kanekoa.substack.com/p/konnechs-connection-to-the-ccps-1
https://kanekoa.substack.com/p/konnech-ceo-eugene-yus-connection
https://kanekoa.substack.com/p/bombshell-dominion-error-code-uncovered
I doubt NY was stolen. The fact is that the state has probably 2/3rds democrats and 1/3rd republicans. Check the Senate results: Schumer won easily, and with a MUCH higher percentage than Hochul. That tells you what a decent Democratic Governor can expect to receive given the overwhelming dominance of the Democrats in NYC and its disproportionate weight in the state.
Zeldin drove turnout amongst republicans trying to save their state from becoming the next Illinois. They nearly did so, and they flipped FOUR house seats. That's the only place the red wave was seen outside of Florida.
Great post! The red states get redder and the blue states get bluer. Maybe another two years of Biden's America will wake them up, but it's doubtful at this point.
Red states are pretty much turning blue too considering the bills DeSantis has signed. One allows for forced vaccination. Setting up turn-key totalitarianism.
link? to forced vax bill
https://flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2021B/7B/BillText/er/PDF
Looks like they struck "to vaccinate" with "to treat" since I last read the bill, but who's kidding who about what "treat" includes?....
71. b.
“If the individual poses a danger to the public health, a State Health Officer may subject the individual to isolation or quarantine. If there is no practical method to isolate or quarantine the individual, the State Health Officer may use any means necessary to vaccinate or treat the individual.”
thank you
People have not yet reached the breaking point. Perhaps two more years of these policies will do it for people.
If the past 2 years haven't awakened the masses then it's doubtful anything will.....too many at the trough.
Yeah, I tend to agree with you. The harder that Biden makes life for people, the more they'll clamor for their lives to be made easier at someone else's expense, i.e., "the rich," rather than demand the abolition of those policies. That's just kind of populace we have, now. And they'll vote for anyone who promises to continue that and more.
If this version of Brandon's America didn't wake them up, nothing will. I can only imagine what Brandon's American will look like in 2024. It sure won't be pretty.
Yep. The politicians don't have to pretend to care for another two years.
And DC has jurisdiction over all of them.
Exactly! It's not a Red Vs. Blue state thing, it's a Red Vs. Blue AND the full force of the growing Federal empire. Hardly a fair fight.
I'm glad you wrote this, because now I don't have to. I agree 100% with everything you've said here, including the argument that DeSantis should stay in Florida rather than aiming for the White House, where he would undoubtedly be drowned by the swamp.
I've been saying that DeSantis needs to stay in FL too, since that is where he can do the most good, or any good at all. If he goes to DC he will just get the 'Trump treatment' or worse, and will be neutered and ineffective. No single politician can drain that swamp or even fix it.
A significant fraction of educated America refuses to accept the accurate picture you've painted here: That both parties are functionally in the thrall and service of DHS and the other security-state agencies, and that Americans have in fact willingly ceded a huge chunk of their personal freedoms.
The ones who were sucked along into all the right covid and Ukraine and BLM narratives have enjoyed the dubious luxury of assuming that it's only "antivaxxers" and "Putinists" who have to worry about YouTube and other censorship, and that if you just shut up about certain people in power, your payment processor won't decide to "fine" you, i.e., flat-out swipe your money.
There is little more frustrating than having a peer group consisting of mostly traditional Democrats who listen to explanations of these things, nod as if listening seriously, and then head right back to social-media sites to recite narratives from MSNBC et al. They refuse to accept that fact-checking outfits can be created or bought with laughable ease.
Imagine a U.S. in which merely 50 percent of the lemmings suddenly became aggressively skeptical in an instant, including the MSM. This shit would come to a head one way or another overnight.
Learning how pliable most people are -- and how susceptible I am myself -- has been more of a crushing disappointment in the past five or so years than the government doing ruthlessly authoritarian things while smiling at the public. I've been cynical about government for a while, but I wrongly believed in the ability of most people to detect bullshit even if it comes from a trusted source. The fact that this has proven laughably untrue is the really depressing part.
Anyway, excellent summary. Anyone who expects this class of Repubs to even pretend to right any budgetary or policy ships is also dreaming.
It is all foretold in Brave New World and 1984. Please, everyone, reread these and ask your friends and family to do so to.
They were intended as warnings, not instruction manuals.
Likewise “The Hunger Games.” A cautionary tale for sure.
You really only need 10% hard skeptical, not 50%. If 10% of people went on a general strike, the nation would be brought to its knees. The rule on putting down insurrections is you need 10 soldiers for every terrorist/freedom fighter. If 1% of America was actively resisting, there aren't enough troops between the Feds and all the state police departments to control it.
Is worse than that because vast numbers of reservists would either ignore orders to stand against fellow citizens, not to mention that many governors would refuse to give those orders. Same with many peace officers, etc. And Americans are heavily armed and we have a lot of land: guerilla wars are hard to win.
I keep forgetting there are Internet spaces like this one where I can use normal words without them being deleted.
If you need a laugh, I will be posting a video meme tomorrow featuring Biden as Hitler in downfall.
hh
sadly, I can't agree more...US citizens are not a freedom loving people and seek the comfort of the status quo while the 'american dream' is drawn & quartered as inflation rips away any remaining vestige of class mobility.
I'd give anything to get out of Chicago.
Small towns in Red States are still cheap and safe.
My financial as well as family health situation does not allow me to move. If it did, I'd have packed my bags long ago.
These are not all Red States, but maybe along the horizontal center line of US States? West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, ..... ? In the hills, so that you won't get flooded, and mountains can block tornados? A small less prosperous town, among people who cannot afford high taxes either, living on ranching and growing .... ?
Man, this is depressing...
Ideally most of the power should be at the local level anyhow. The least at the federal.
It's easier to hold your police chief, sheriff/mayor, school board members accountable than the folks out in Washington. Remember, what we didn't do during the American Revolution?
We did NOT send a fleet of colonists over to merry old England to march on London, overthrow King George and set our King George (Washington) on the throne instead.
DeSantis is a "freedom fighter" who signed a bill that allows for forced vaccination. It's almost as if it's all a theatrical act of democracy.
Yep. There are no heroes
The “red wave” didn’t happen on the national level for one simple reason- the Republicans had no plan and no vision. Where the red wave DID happen was in FL and that’s because their governor stood for something and has vision. Where there is no vision, the people perish is not just an expression, it’s the truth. Republicans have been silent about everything the regime has done with the exception of a handful of people- Kari Lake, DeSantis , Ron Johnson, Jim Jordan and in those states, they enjoyed a red puddle. Until the rinos are kicked out, and until Republicans grow a pair, all we have is controlled opposition , no leadership , no platform, no vision. Meanwhile , the people literally and figuratively, perish.
You forgot NY. There was a red wave in the House: four flips from D to R. Zeldin drove turnout outside NYC, and that swept four Rs to power. People turned out, desperate to end the woke-induced crime wave. They failed at the state level, but the flips are the thing that will give the Rs the house.
Happy to live in FL, in spite of Nicole bearing down on me!
🙏🏼✝️
I am disappointed in the results, as many are, and your encouragement for local control helps, but only just a little, for folks like me stuck in purple states. I blame Trump. Anyone not paying close attention felt checking a RED mark yesterday meant voting for one of the worst, most toxic politicians in history. There, I've said it. Now I feel even better.
In addition to treating elections as an opportunity to lob wrenches into the system, I think the heterodox community needs to place further emphasis of living decoupled from the DC beast; both as open resistance to the fed within free states and as parallel polis within occupied states.
No matter what, the power of the ruling class relies upon the near-unanimous compliance of the masses. Change and revolution has always been a matter of an indefatigable minority. Simple non-compliance more than anything else insidiously erodes the hidden foundations of power. Jordan, Yuri, Chris, et al. - I ask you guys to look beyond working within "the system" and promote more content supporting working outside "the system".
That ^^^^
Global money and influence, big tech, and main stream media made the message. The messages which were foisted on the public were false, and fabricated lies(starting with JAn 6) regarding the danger from the right. Clarity and honesty much more frequently came from MAGA candidates. Add to that, the 'set up' of voting habits brought about by covid hysteria(lies). That is, cheating.
It doesn't matter if it is "cheating" - the entire federal bureaucracy is "cheating" in the context of the US Constitution. We are where we are and need to grapple with issues in that context.