Here's my theory: This is all just women being cruel to each other in the name of Intrasexual competition. Same as it ever was. "You look good with short hair" extrapolated to society at large.
Ever since I got wise to it, I've been depressed by the way women simply destroy each other. The modern phenomenon of trying to get your girlfriends to be bigger sluts than you are is just the latest and worst example.
Check out Warriors and Worriers by Joan Benenson: "In Warriors and Worriers , psychologist Joyce Benenson presents a new theory of sex differences, based on thirty years of research with young children and primates around the world. Her innovative theory focuses on how men and women stay alive. Benenson draws on a fascinating array of studies and stories that explore the ways boys and men deter their enemies, while girls and women find assistants to aid them in coping with vulnerable children and elders. This produces two social worlds for each sex which sets humans apart from most other primate species. Human males form cooperative groups that compete against out-groups, while human females exclude other females in their quest to find mates, female family members to invest in their children, and keep their own hearts ticking. In the process, Benenson turns upside down the familiar wisdom that women are more sociable than men and that men are more competitive than women."
Women and girls will make someone a pariah, a queen bee and her court and in-group and out-group status is rigidly enforced, though the victim may change in an instant. Boys and men establish hierarchies and while an individual might be low ranking in that hierarchy, they're not excluded from the group and their contribution is expected.
After reading about this I apologized to my daughters for not realizing how cruel their "friends" were. Girls express dominance through cruelty. Boys do it with physical violence. I'd bet that a significant number of the men who are reading this had an experience wherein physically confronting a bully resulted in friendship, or at the least peace. I'm a little disappointed that my 11 year old grandson had a friend distract someone who had been bullying him so he could sucker punch the guy, but only a little bit.
If you ever find yourself in prison, or even the felony ward of jail, I suggest that you immediately discard all notion of fairness or dignity in physical combat. In your college dorm, on the other hand, winning a fight the wrong way is more dangerous to your reputation than losing it.
One of the things I've noticed over the years is how much bullshit there seems to be in the martial arts, particularly in the pre-internet age when you couldn't fact-check Sensei Steve down at your local McDojo.
At this point, I'm of the opinion that the most effective martial art is "Some Skill" coupled with "Ferocity."
Same way a wolverine chases an entire wolf pack or a bear off a dead elk.
There's also the fact that most people don't really want to fight, because biology tells us we could suffer an injury that won't heal -- so if you are ever clearly overmatched, sometimes just prolonging the conversation in a respectful way can save your life.
I am absolutely alive today because I talked my way out of getting killed in a jail cell by three young black dudes who thought I'd disrespected them by, ah -- well, I disrespected them, I took their Doritos off their trays because I was hungry. I told them I'd buy them a steak in the real world, and if they ever catch up to me I'll make good on that.
The real ones are mma, boxing, muy thai, and wrestling. Everything else will get your as kicked in a real fight. There are some karate guys who switched to mma with some success
When my middle nephew started HS he said he was worried about the experience. I said first day of school, beat someone up and you'll have problems with the system but not with the fellow students. Joking of course.
They retired his Football # as an offensive lineman. 6 8 and 270 in HS. His Div 1 years (full scholarship) was about 310. The prize was the scholarship. There's video on youtube of him destroying an opponents knee on purpose. The kid was trash talking my nephew's friend, a black kid. 'We are going to get you n...'. The kid ended up as a town cop for a bit and now is trying to work his way up in MMA fighting. After that event, the coach sat him down "REMEMBER THE GOAL!!!!" Years later my nephew said he'd do it again.
He was bullied in HS and my sister got involved. Because he was so big, no matter what the circumstances he would be blamed. The 2 bullies, the principal, him, sis and 2 cops had a talk. It's a football town. In PA. Serious to the point of excessive town support. The cops said 'Anything happens in town, anything, and we will check you out. 1 AM, 2 AM we will check you out. Understand?' Yes sir we understand.
God has seen fit to make me very aware of female dynamics. I've been surrounded by women my entire life (2 sisters) and I've been blessed with 3 daughters. I also work with mostly women.
My mother was one of five sisters, no brothers. My ex wife was one of five sisters, no brothers. I've learned a little about female group dynamics in my time.
At any one time in their adult lives, one of my mom's sisters or her wouldn't be talking to another, but don't an outsider dare criticize any of them in front of any of them. At my mom's funeral I asked one of my cousins (there are 17 of us) if our mom's loved each other more than their husbands or kids. Fiercely defensive.
Ronnie, I appreciate your post. I’m going to read that book, because that theory sounds like the best match for a phenomenon I’ve seen and puzzled about in multiple settings - family, friends, and professional groups. There is always some friendly competition among the guys, but basically if you want to be part of a group of guys and you’re not a complete pain in the ass or grossly incompetent, you’re in. Most of the women seem to always be looking for an opportunity to slit each other’s throats. I have actually had several interactions with friends of my wife talking shit to me, and shocked them a bit with the response ‘only my wife gets to talk to me like that, and she usually apologizes afterward’.
My future wife was stunned when I told her the most unattractive thing most women do as they exit their 20s is to adopt the short haircuts. The fact that it is universally cheered by other women on social media is just sad.
Imagine being a pretty women. You never hear the truth in your life. Other women lie to you constantly because they hate you. Men lie to you constantly cause they want to sleep with you. Basically, your dad is the only person who will tell you the truth and who listens to their parents?
I am reminded of the "Girls" episode where Lena Dunham's character (a repulsive neurotic) spent a sordid tryst of a weekend with Patrick Wilson's character (a doctor who looks very much like a movie star). Who could blame Dunham for scripting a literal sexual fantasy? But it was akin to me starring in my own biopic where Kate Beckinsale just can't keep her hands off me. The BoPo dynamic allows progressives to say "you go girl!" when everyone else who lives in the real world saw a fantasy acted out by a sad fat girl.
I will publicly admit that I watched the whole series then bought the DVDS.
The whole show was HUGELY self-aware. You couldn't do it again today. Lena KNOWS that she is repulsive and it gets played for laughs or impact again and again.
We always want to impregnate the "fittest birds" we can. When you're a sixteen-year-old varsity football player, that means you can see two twin girls in your high school and know which is the ugly one, to quote The Last Psychiatrist.
When you're 50 and up, it means any young woman who will have you, because her child with you will be healthier than the child of even the most Helen-Mirren-esque old lady.
That being said, I'm trending in the opposite direction. With every year that passes, I'm less interested in the women I see around me, and I find fewer of them to be attractive. This is likely just my mind preparing for death or something like that!
My genes would impregnate all of them! I have not hit the old age stage where i dont want to yet. I was hoping this would taper off by forty. You know how hard it is to have adult time with the wife with three kids under 4?
But there are some compensations. Life gets a lot less angsty and contentment can bloom when what you have called the "electro-magnets" get switched off. And there is time for digressive wormholes like this most excellent and enlightening site!
In discussing the realities of the differences between the "elite" set and the rest of us, I told a friend's son that everything he was seeing will make sense as soon as he comes to understand that to them, we're *all* n-words. If you actually go back and read what MLK actually said, he spent a fair piece talking about the plight of poor white people under the oppressive system he was trying to overturn. (With the full resistance of the corrupt FBI at the behest of their cross-dressing, boy-hungry pervert boss Hoover)
The corrupt democrat political machines in the south (Crump machine, Texas machine, Byrds in Virginia, etc) that King referred to as the "Bourbon interests" that traced all the way back to reconstruction treated **everybody** like negroes. Only acceptable whites...the "right sort" of whites, meaning people who were in on it...had the franchise of the vote. The wrong sort didn't...which is what the Battle of Athens was about. That was the exception rather than the rule.
Now go back and read the transcripts of the texts between Peter Strzock and his girlfriend where they talked about voters. How they could "smell" the Wal-Mart shoppers. Replace "Wal-mart shoppers" with "negroes". Tell me there's even an iota of difference between the kind of mind making the statements.
These people are Klanners. They just wear a different mask.
At some point we all become natives. My neighbors consider me an immigrant and a carpetbagger. Being from the North and marrying a Southern Belle means I ain’t from around here.
Wife’s family has been in the same area for generations and they are outsides which, actually, is not a bad thing. Avoids some genetic issues. Think banjos and Ned Beatty.
""Toward the end of the Reconstruction era, something very significant happened. (Listen to him) That is what was known as the Populist Movement. (Speak, sir) The leaders of this movement began awakening the poor white masses (Yes, sir) and the former Negro slaves to the fact that they were being fleeced by the emerging Bourbon interests. Not only that, but they began uniting the Negro and white masses (Yeah) into a voting bloc that threatened to drive the Bourbon interests from the command posts of political power in the South.
To meet this threat, the southern aristocracy began immediately to engineer this development of a segregated society. (Right) I want you to follow me through here because this is very important to see the roots of racism and the denial of the right to vote. Through their control of mass media, they revised the doctrine of white supremacy. They saturated the thinking of the poor white masses with it, (Yes) thus clouding their minds to the real issue involved in the Populist Movement. They then directed the placement on the books of the South of laws that made it a crime for Negroes and whites to come together as equals at any level. (Yes, sir) And that did it. That crippled and eventually destroyed the Populist Movement of the nineteenth century.
If it may be said of the slavery era that the white man took the world and gave the Negro Jesus, then it may be said of the Reconstruction era that the southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow. (Yes, sir) He gave him Jim Crow. (Uh huh) And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, (Yes, sir) he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man. (Right sir) And he ate Jim Crow. (Uh huh) And when his undernourished children cried out for the necessities that his low wages could not provide, he showed them the Jim Crow signs on the buses and in the stores, on the streets and in the public buildings. (Yes, sir) And his children, too, learned to feed upon Jim Crow, (Speak) their last outpost of psychological oblivion. (Yes, sir)
Thus, the threat of the free exercise of the ballot by the Negro and the white masses alike (Uh huh) resulted in the establishment of a segregated society. They segregated southern money from the poor whites; they segregated southern mores from the rich whites; (Yes, sir) they segregated southern churches from Christianity (Yes, sir); they segregated southern minds from honest thinking; (Yes, sir) and they segregated the Negro from everything. (Yes, sir) That’s what happened when the Negro and white masses of the South threatened to unite and build a great society: a society of justice where none would pray upon the weakness of others; a society of plenty where greed and poverty would be done away; a society of brotherhood where every man would respect the dignity and worth of human personality. (Yes, sir)"
Wow! This is fascinating. "They separated southern churches from Christianity." King's theology wasn't airtight, but this is a mighty salient point. The damage done by a possibly coordinated campaign against poor people (or people who were on the verge of not becoming poor, maybe) in general, regardless of skin color, leads to the results we see today, referenced in the post on marriage, abortions, crime, etc.
Though I was born just a few minutes away from where King was murdered in Memphis, I had no idea his platform extended to everyone impacted by what's now obvious: United we stand, divided we fall. Where the "we" is everyone who's looking to carve out a non-crap life in the States.
There's a reason why you never hear about the populist themes in King's speeches. You get selected highlights in "history" class because the dangerous stuff...the stuff they killed him for...they know most people won't go find on their own. So they come up with a fictional version of King and sell that.
Also note that "integration" was permitted to exist for all of, what, 20 years before the powers that be started ginning up the same racial hatred -- only this time it's black people being told they're better than poor whites by virtues of their genetic and cultural heritage. Same playbook, just flipped.
Great Post. Years ago, I read Jim Brown's autobiography. One of the things he talks about is the failure of LBJ's Great Society. He says that it should have been focused on social class rather than race. By making it about race, it drove a wedge between the poor white people and the poor black people who should have been natural allies. I've thought a lot about that over the years.
I think you can view the elites of today as a downstream product of the hippie era and boomer power. If you were wickedly successful in, say, 1950, you could have a hot wife, hotter mistress, a beautiful house and a flashy car to flaunt your wealth. Eat filets and send your children to elite schools and whatnot. Status could be gleaned from things. I think in the 1960s and 1970s, material things were eschewed in favor of ideas. Given enough time, ideas became the currency of the elite, fostered in big universities and promulgated by their graduates--remember, admission to these institutions was far less Byzantine then. But how to flaunt it, show that your ideas represent your status as truly enlightened? Use your privilege gleaned as the first widely college educated generation to enact these ideas slowly on cultural institutions; transmit them to your children who will do the same. Enter the cultural relativism stemming from postmodernism that has widely defined our age. To prove you’re in the “elite” you have to signal that you stem from the school of the right ideas. Because it’s not cool to go buy an Escalade and flaunt your power. But you have to ensure that you’re insulated from it, by making elites such as yourself the font of the ideas that systematically pull the ladder up from anyone unlucky enough. Every goddamn one of the leftist talking heads: hippy turned rich boomer parents, Ivy university, a career spent preserving the power. I think “luxury beliefs” replacing material things as cultural currency among the elite explains it.
Also, Iskra Lawrence is fairly attractive. Lizzo, no. But then I’ve always had some thing for the zaftig girls.
David Brooks is detestable and intellectually absurd (arguing that Obama was the heir to Burkean conservatism ruined him for me) to me such that I haven’t bothered, but I probably should.
Part of a very strange group of “conservatives” who stake their identities on approval by the MSNBC crowd. I’m sure he had some good ideas somewhere. But anyone who could seriously argue that the guy who put fuel on the racial fires of America and ushered wokeism into policy (though Dubya’s NCLB did some of this) represents the.....heir to true Burkean conservatism....is made stupid enough in my view to discredit or at least cast aspersions on their thoughts. If I said that a dude who went around torching Mid-Century homes was the legitimate heir to Frank Lloyd-Wright, you’d rightly have a hard time taking any valid architectural criticism I proffer seriously.
You’ve recommended Fussell’s Class several times now; I must say that I think it’s outdated now. It was written over 40 years ago in what was essentially a different country.
I’m not sure it was ever that accurate. I grew up in the heart of Philadelphia’s Main Line and I can tell you that the TOOS guys weren’t driving around in Buicks.
I believe that the themes of the book are evergreen:
0-The people at the bookends of the status spectrum are totally secure in their position, and nothing they do can change their class status.
1-Meanwhile, the people in the middle are profoundly insecure.
2-Taste, behavior, habits, etc. are far more important in class distinction than how much money they have (or don’t).
3-By reading Class and internalizing some of the maxims therein, a status insecure person could probably “pass” one level higher than their true station in life, but by having cared enough to execute such a scheme, they’d drop right back down to their former level!
I know quite a few “top out of sight” people in my rough age cohort (I’m 34) from college and then from my career. The ones with SERIOUS inherited, generational wealth (let’s say $100 million and above) all have a few things in common:
0-They work, but they don’t have to. Some of them work for the family business, while others are interested in making their own mark. That subset generally wants to exist outside of their family’s large shadow, rather than luxuriate in the shade.
1-They dress modestly, and most of what they wear is accessible to many people. They have nothing to prove, and anyone who matters knows who they are, so they tend not to gravitate toward overtly branded luxury items (e.g., an LL Bean tote instead of a garish Louis Vuitton bag or a rarefied Hermes bag).
2-They drive modest cars, and they generally view flashy cars as exceedingly déclassé. I went to college with a girl who is part of the fourth generation of a multi-billionaire dynasty that owns an investment bank (Stephens). She drove an older BMW X5 with a few door dings (and dressed just like everyone else). I also went to school with a fellow who is from one of the most prominent families in Atlanta. He drives an older Toyota truck with a camper top. He never had any need to work, but he does (and very diligently).
3-They enjoy many luxuries - multiple vacation homes, lavish vacations, private air travel - but never talk about it in mixed company (or post about it on social media).
The OG X5 was a favorite of the truly wealthy. Knew a guy who was worth ~900m; successful businessman who had a privately held company worth 700 million, sold it, and immediately built a billion dollar energy empire. Sadly passed away last December. Daily drove a black, impeccably maintained 2003 X5 from new until 2021. His wife owns a Grand Cherokee and their son (who runs the family foundation) has a 2012 550i. The family also has a Dassault Falcon and 200m in homes in WV, Palm Beach, Jackson Hole, etc.
useless fact of the day: since Dassault makes military planes as well as business jets, most Falcons have wings that are either clear derivatives or modified-for-economy version of their fighter jets' wings. This is how at least one Falcon ended up with the Mirage's radar guidance system and Exocet missile pods "for training purposes". Cue Alex Jones; that plane was then used in an attempted false-flag attack on the US frigate Stark in the Iran–Iraq War.
Inside aerospace stories are to me what inside auto stories are to most people around me. A guy who I went to school with ended up working for GD. We happened to be in the same city at the same time and met up for drinks. He told me about space force shit.
The wealthiest guy I knew in college drove an early 80s Honda Civic station wagon with dents in every body panel but ran flawlessly. Money was for investing not flaunting.
And let's not forget that the hippies didn't actually want to improve anything. They hated society, and endeavoured to tear it down, simply because it was a brake on their own narcissism.
As a longtime Deadhead I suppose that it's accurate to describe me as hippie-adjacent and I don't hink that the hippies wanted to tear down society so much as create their own society. The may have felt alienated from white bread American culture but they understood the need for culture and community. Ain't no time to hate, barely time to wait.
This is basically the Henderson theory, with a few thoughtful mods.
It's worth noting that the philosophy of "elite via possessions" has always stood on unsteady ground in America, largely because until recently there was so much blue-collar money to be made. A city cop or garbageman who worked overtime could live better than a professor. This is lampshaded a bit in a Frasier episode where Niles tries to impress his plumber by mentioning his E-Class Benz, only to have the plumber reply that he has an S-Class.
Elite via idea, or "luxury belief", is a superior way to go because the idea pipeline is more recherche than the money pipeline.
I know that Frasier episode well, and have a sort of parallel within my own family. My maternal grandfather and paternal grandfather both worked for Borg Warner (later GE) Chemical. The former worked in the plant and the latter was an SVP of R&D and a decorated chemist. My maternal grandfather, with nothing more than an 8th grade education and Appalachian farm-cultivated work ethic, made more per year than my paternal grandfather, pulling in well over 100k in the early 90s with overtime as a chemical operator. That he wasn’t educated and worked in the plant (as opposed to the downtown high rise where, by that point, my paternal grandfather had a nice office) caused a significant clash when my parents began dating. The issue was compounded by my mother’s brand new Nissan 200sx* (this would’ve been 1985 or 86) in comparison to which my father’s 1973 Monte Carlo looked like a dud. The paternal grandparents couldn’t attack his money, since they knew he had it, but education and “WV hick vs. NYC raised snobbery” was always the barb. I was naturally raised to resent such attitudes.
*My mother and her brothers, and their respective children, all got new cars upon turning 16. Though I turned 16 after his untimely passing, he’d willed that I be given money for a car. Hence my old Golf was a sort of gift from him. That said, he owned two vehicles during my lifetime: a 1994 Dodge Caravan, the door panels of which eventually fell off; and a 1997 Jellybean Ford Taurus, which he purchased already with the rust on the floorboards for $1100. While he could’ve driven an S550 if he’d felt inclined, I merely attempted to coax him into a newer Impala or 300. Never happened.
So what I'm hearing is over time this is the heirarchy that the 'cool people/fancy f**ks' whatever have resorted to that allowed for a 'flex' or status symbol:
This is my only nod to planned obsolescence in the industry. The death of Pontiac was that 3800 powered Bonnevilles lasted long enough with neglect that they could be seen inhabiting ghettos in great numbers.
The Germans are great at figuring out how to make their cars hard for poor people to own.
Oddly enough, the Rolls-Royce Shadow had a similar problem in the UK, to the point where one CAR columnist suggested that the best use of the R-R marketing budget would be to buy every Shadow for sale and crush it.
They - and frankly society as a whole - would be better off if they figured out how to make it hard for poor people to ACQUIRE their cars.
As aristocratic as this is going to sound, I believe there's a strong case to be made that in a healthy, functional society, the poor can't have nice stuff.
Liked for the Frasier reference. Also I (love) hate you for making me google words like 'recherche'. You're the ONLY online publisher or real life American I've known in 15 years to have a bigger vocabulary than me.
I think 'luxury belief' can have unknown tails and cannot necessarily work better. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I expect chaos and general 'averaging down to the lowest common denominator' as a consequence.
I will simply note that this ties neatly into your pulling up the ladder operational theory you've been running for some time but reconciles some incongruities.
The problem is, as I see it, is that they're all inbred morons.
Honestly. I have worked many times with the harvard and yale 'elite' and I have found, uniformly, that none of them were any smarter than I was. Honestly, few were as smart. They have just become the inbred royal class of America, who spout all sorts of 'truisms' send their children to 4 year social clubs where they can make connections and marry the right sort of people.
They write papers for themselves and so on and so forth, but you rarely see anything of value come from there. Anything of value they tend to 'discover' you will always find somebody who didn't go to their prestigious schools behind them doing the actual work, while they take all the credit.
It's not about intelligence - it's about access. And they engage in so much of their behavior not just to prove to themselves how much better they are than all of us - but to hold on to that position. Sure the news media always says great and kind things - that's because everyone in the news media came from one of these elite families and went to one of these elite institutions.
It's just another puppet show for the rubes, of which -sadly- we have far too many thanks to our heavily downgrade public schools and unlimited immigration policies.
So as with all rich and affluent royalty, they're stupid, easily conned, easily led down rabbit holes, and easily taken advantage of by overly charismatic characters (history is FULL of such people and the havoc they have wreaked because of all the inbred kings and queens who were stupid enough to follow them).
This is really no different.
That's how we got stuff like CRT, BLM, Renewable Energy, etc.
As for that target store? Sure they're 'losing money' up front, but you better believe that they're getting some massive payoff behind the scenes thanks to their accountants, who DIDN'T go to an Ivy League school and figured out how to give their bosses their sackcloth, while still keeping it lined with gold.
Going to Harvard or Yale in the modern era was NEVER about getting a better education than what was available at Penn State or UCLA. It was about making friends with J. Clayton Moneybags III, so he could give you a million-dollar no-show board job in 30 years.
In Eddie's defense, he can probably build some sweet stuff and hunt for food, which will be important when the world comes to an end. Who will be laughing then, I wonder!
It's not a very good one. Colleges are 60% women or something close to that now. I send my girls off to college to "discover themselves" Moms ok with it because while I don't ask the details of her life before she met me, I'm also not retarded. We met in our thirties. There has to be a better way. I look forward to Jack's arranged marriage substack in 18 years.
The fantasy of Peter Gibbons’ neighbor in Office Space no longer requires a million dollars, merely enrollment at your nearest non-commuter school largely bereft of the Oberlin/Lena Dunham crowd. Ask me how I know....
Not sure about this, Jack. Here in the UK my anecdotal evidence is of an explosion of gay girls and more many girls than boys going trans. To be cynical, at best a waste of talent...
The motivation for reopening the Target is obvious and right on the surface. It's the best decision for the larger business, because it results in a ton of favorable free media. I'm sure a green eyeshade calculated how much it is worth, but I'm also sure it was a large positive number.
The vast majority of Americans genuinely want a world where no one is disadvantaged by race. They even want to affirmatively uplift people who have suffered historical discrimination - provided that it does not negatively affect their own situations. Charging in and saying "we're going to stay in this community notwithstanding the challenges" is a message people all across society, in both political camps, overwhelmingly like.
"The motivation for reopening the Target is obvious and right on the surface. It's the best decision for the larger business, because it results in a ton of favorable free media. I'm sure a green eyeshade calculated how much it is worth, but I'm also sure it was a large positive number."
I was thinking about that -- but there's also nontrivial downside involved with the decision. Target gave $10M of Danegeld to the self-appointed representatives of the people who looted their store, which seems reasonable in the insane modern context. But the decision to reopen the store comes with tremendous unforeseen risk, not the least of which is having to close it in the future because you can't keep people from taking all the stuff again and again. In fact, Target just announced that the store down the street from the rebuilt one will close, likely because they can't take the PR hit of shutting down the Special Target For Exhausted People Of Color:
Sherman same thing in DC, a big deal was made that Walmart was opening 4 stores in the "underserved" neighborhoods of the district. I think only one store got opened and it closed less then three years later. Walmart stated in a press release that the numbers were just not working.....
That's one reason why there wasn't any significant rioting or looting in Detroit during the Summer of George Floyd. Detroiters know what happens when you burn your city down. Also, Mayor Duggan and polied chief James Craig made it clear that they weren't going to tolerate it and kept arresting folks no matter the activist lawsuits.
However, the 1967 Detroit riot was not a race riot, at least not like the 1943 Detroit riot, when white folks and black folks were killing each other. That started on Belle Isle when someone didn't like someone else talking to their woman and spilled over into the city. My grandfather's black employees at his junk shop called him and warned him to say home and safe. He didn't listen and caught a brick in his head tossed through his car window.
The '67 riot started when a "blind pig", i.e. an unlicensed after hours bar that was patronized by a number of returning combat Vietnam vets, got busted by the DPD, which was 93% white. As the cops and arrestees were milling around outside on 12th Street, someone chucked a beer bottle at the police and it was on.
It wasn't so much blacks vs whites in 1967 as it was a general breakdown of social order and the rioting was mostly in black or commercial neighborhoods. Businesses got burned and snipers were shooting at firefighters. One can understand shooting at cops, but firefighers? That's pretty anti-social. Of course the cops hardly acted like saints. As the rioting was happening, some cops likely murdered three black teens and injured some white hookers and others at a motel about a mile from where the riot started. John Hersey, who wrote Hiroshima, wrote a book about it called the Algiers Motel Incident.
Coincidentally, the number of people killed in both riots was the same, 43, but in the '67 riot I believe that it was mostly looters getting shot.
I remember staying up late at night watching a small, portable black and white tv, watching heavily armed National Guard soldiers and armored personnel carriers patroling amidst burning buildings less than 20 minutes from where I was sitting.
The '67 riot is today somewhat glorified as an "uprising" but it wasn't like Detroit blacks took actions against a racist power structure. Mostly they burned down businesses, many of which employed blacks. You can see news photos of burned out shops whose black owners had painted "black owned business", thinking it would protect their life's work from the mob.
The locals are too stupid to buy good food and will buy junk food because they don't know any better. Their "Betters" need to be around to keep them from starving and obesity (funny combo)
I was talking to a childhood friend last night about a related topic.
Our hometown has moved “upscale” recently. What was as recently as three years ago the location of a Feed and Seed store (with dirt floors) is now a high end steakhouse that serves, among other things, a 50 oz Tomahawk for $195 or a 12 oz Filet for $65.
Fortunately for locals, there is another “steakhouse” nearby that will sell you a sirloin for less than $9 PLUS the salad bar has Jell-O!
The locals have a lot of heartburn about development, Airbnb / STR traffic, declining affordability, etc. - entirely understandable.
They could easily move just ~15 miles away into Southeast Tennessee, which a family friend recently described to me as “Shitville USA.” There are manifold food options in the “town” - TWO gas stations, one of which will cook you a Hunt Brothers Pizza (if they aren’t sold out) AND a Hardee’s! Only a five mile drive away, diners willing to travel will find a Dollar General AND a Subway that keeps irregular hours.
I've dealt with similar situations that cost the company exorbitant sums just because they took a little bit of heat off one of the executive staff. All sorts of non-quantifiables are thrown around to justify "the right thing to do". It's fun to be the guy who gets thrown out the office window in that meme when you actually cost it out as "the right thing to do" for the company.
It's hard to understand how hard the average corporation sucks its executives' dicks until you see it on paper. At the insurance company there was a dude who pulled down $2M a year but demanded a $30k car allowance because, you know, why not?
I'm a junior member of the executive team. I was basically hired to deal with shit the senior execs don't want to (suck sr exec dick and pussy). When they say make it go away, they mean at any cost.
"The vast majority of Americans genuinely want a world where no one is disadvantaged by race."
There was a time I would have agreed with that statement. That time was more than 10 years ago. Oh there are -some- groups that still feel that way, but not the vast majority. Especially now that the demographics are flipping and the former majority is becoming the minority and everyone is already moving to start on the oppression.
Elites want to stay elite. Welfare policies and abortion policies are two of the ways the government helps keep poor people poor, because (apparently) a significant portion of the population will take government crumbs and keep voting for the left. Poor and lazy people depend on the government, enriching and empowering the elite. Independent stable people don’t depend on the government, so the elites want chaos and no stability in the family.
"The goal of the High is to stay where they are. The goal of the Middle is to change places with the High. The goal of the Low is to establish a world where all men are equal."
Equality is a loaded word. I’d say we all are equal in the eyes of God, but I’m old fashioned that way. We can never be equal in any other way. It is critical for those without to lust after the things that others have to make the chaos system work. If people were willing to work had and be satisfied with what they have I dare say we would all be happy, and we can’t have that now, can we?
Yes, the missing piece is outright malice. They hate you and your kind, think that they are better than you and actively push policies and trends to keep you down and them on top. The magic words they virtue signal to one another are as fireflies do.
1-There is no obvious, overt coordination re: dissemination of “luxury” beliefs, but it is remarkable to read articles with very similar themes published on the same day from the likes of The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and the New York Times. E.g., “Here’s Why President Biden’s Age is a Non-Issue,” etc.
2-I sent the article to Jack, I knew it would resonate with him, and he promised to write about it; talk about patronage! ~$5 / month to have him on speed dial!
3-Who wants to dissect the Met Gala from last night? What did y’all think about the roach? Who was serving lewks? Did Anna miss a trick by neglecting to invite Dylan Mulvaney to attend?
X1000 times this. This is how class warfare works. The Eloi/Corpo Left (whatever you want to call them) all went to the same schools, lived in the same areas, grew up and moved in the same circles.
They don't need to be directed because they all implicitly and intuitively understand their role in the 'revolution' and therefore what needs to be done and what they need to do.
I absolutely think the opinion piece writers and journos coordinate just slightly out of the public eye. Whether it's Facebook groups or something more intelligent like setting up PGP email groups it's not a stretch to say coordination is occurring on some level and that they get their ducks in a row before rolling out pushes for particular agendas. There's a Foundation/think-tank/news publication pipeline or idea-laundering scheme running in the background for stuff like Climate Refugees, for instance.
OTOH, I think that current event reactions - such as burying the race or whatever of an active shooter are done without coordination and that is where indoctrination comes into play per Tim.
I think with journalists/commentators some of it is that, perhaps more than anything, they're writing to impress each other. Hence they all end up parroting each other's words. It's a midwit thing. Rush Limbaugh used to compile clips of all the talking head using the exact same turn of phrase to cover a story.
And it's all confirmation bias anyway - who's really looking for an outside-the-box take from their favorite commentator, Mr. Baruth excepted? Anybody who doesn't use the same copypasta will find themselves Googling the name of the lawyer Tucker Carlson is using.
There is an element of confirmation bias, but it is not limited to that. There is what I will term authenticity/idea laundering where an idea is made to seem common and common sense and all the experts agree sort of thing so it can't merely be confirmation bias across the board.
I mean - we famously have evidence of coordination via GamerGate, Senor Baruth here has mentioned Facebook groups for auto-journos, it's not hard to think maybe this is just a pattern amongst this group.
As for exact same turn of phrase - in the modern era local news outlets are being given what to say from on high in some instances and there are video clips showing this.
You can go to think tanks and NGOs and the like and read articles that they publish only to see these same ideas echoed later in various publications (the Foundations themselves generally have a PR friendly screed but you can glean stuff between the lines and look into the histories of their board members). It's not a secret at that point, it's just a little bit behind the scenes for the average guy to go find and a level of effort I'm generally not interested in giving because I am lazy. The ideas and arguments aren't being generated by the journalists themselves and it is an exceedingly rare journalist (it seems to me) that is interested in doing actual journalism or even capable of evaluating topics by themselves.
Not to mention Hunter’s laptop where Bilkin gets the spooks to sign a letter that it looks like Russian disinfo and the press dutifully fall in line with information agencies.
It gets even better. There’s an article today on Taibbi’s stack on how the NYT, Wash Post, CNN, Twitter, Facebook got together over the summer of 2020 and war gamed suppression of an embarrassing leak regarding Burisma & Biden.
And if you think Hunter is dirty (which he undoubtedly is both literally and figuratively), just look into Mitch McConnell’s family. The guy’s father in law (from whom he’s received fortunes in cash gifts) has a long-standing business partnership with the Chinese military, and his sister in law is on the board of the bank of China. The uniparty marches to a crooked beat.
Also, let's not forget how journalism has changed. For most of its existence, journalism was the bastion of the smarter, sharper members of the working class. It was very much a blue collar job. Over the course of the last decade or two, it has morphed into the career of choice for the idiot kids of the elite. Instead of playing a working wage, big city journalists are paid a pittance, while being supported by their wealthy parents. Rather then the people in power being on the other side of the class divide, they are all on the same team now. No need for conspiracies, as they are all motivated to pull in the same direction. If everyone they know agrees with the same view, then it must be right.
's--Eric, you must have read or saw the same report I read that in the immediate post war period there were mulitple dailys in most major cities that offered opportunity for blue collar reporters to have a long career reporting on the city where they grew up but begining in the late 1970's to early 1980's there was tremedous consolidation of media companies (think USA Today that owns 300+ papers) and the implementation of a 5 step pay scale caused writter to start at one paper and jump to a bigger paper where the 5 steps went higher. Therefore reducing the trust in media because the writters were always changing and reporting without embedded knowledge of the local community.
I think there’s also a fair amount of copycatting going on amongst competing media outlets where one comes up with an idea, stance, or terminology, and the others jump on board. “Hey, did you see what they did there? That’s brilliant, rewrite the scripts for the six o’clock using that”.
An example of this is the now fashionable term “baseless” as in “Donald Trump’s baseless claims that the election was rigged”. It’s a nice and polite legal way to condescendingly say “he’s a fucking liar and an idiot”. You just know that their lawyers came up with that one with no fear of retribution.
I noticed this use of the word a couple of years ago with an anchor that actually sneered when she said it. No bias there! Pretty soon everyone was using the term, and I still hear it getting hauled out every once in a while today.
I was being tongue in cheek because I know that the Met Gala doesn’t play with this audience.
JB knows that I find all this culture war shit comical; as I messaged him yesterday: “I operate in a state of moderately amused nihilistic lassitude when it comes to social justice.”
The pipeline of ideas seems to originate in universities then disseminate in NYC at the right sort of events to people in the publishing world. At that point the concepts tumble down through layers of publications until they reach BuzzFeed, just like GM used to debut options in the Cadillacs and let them drift down to Chevrolet via the intermediate brands.
Re #1, from a coincidental standpoint there is a lot of thematic overlap between this article and this mornings headline article from NRO regarding 24% of today's youth self reporting as LBGTQ+. (How did THAT not autocomplete on my Android phone?)
The trans women in sports issue is where I think Maintenance Costs analysis comes up short. I can certainly see the Henderson and Hanania sides of that argument, but it’s the children of the elite themselves that are losing races to Lia Thomas. Or eventually losing athletic scholarships to someone born male.
Trans women aren’t to my knowledge playing sports like basketball or boxing that are open to the lower classes. They are doing things like swimming, track and field, bicycling, etc that are much more “elite-coded” at the college level. The self-interest argument would seem to fall apart when it’s their own daughters’ spots on the line.
I’m open to being corrected here though, because my knowledge is limited to what I read in the news and my own memories of HS athletics 20+ years ago. There may be a deeper point I’ve missed.
So long as the elites' daughters are able to get into their Ivy League indoctrination center I'm not sure they much care for whether or not there's a spot on a sports team for them. After all, the girls made it into the right school anyhow. There are other clubs to join, and if they do happen to like sport, well, that's why God invented intramurals.
Athletic scholarships/preferential admissions in expensive sports are a well known way for kids who can’t quite cut it academically to get into elite schools though.
So if that pathway narrows, it’s a real tangible loss for that class.
I think they are rely on TG competitors to stay rare -- and it helps elite sons who go TG almost equally to how it hurts elite daughters, so it's a bit of a wash.
We’re I applying to HYPS this year, I’d just write, “I stand with Dylan Mulvaney!” a hundred times instead of writing an essay. It worked with that kid and Stanford a couple of years ago.
From what I understand, that kid is from the "talented tenth". His folks are loaded and he might even be a legacy there. It was performative as he was already likely to get admitted.
He is a Muslim with an Arab sounding name. Attended Princeton Day School. Also admitted to Princeton and Yale.
You’re 100% correct that it was performative. On the part of Stanford.
The performance was meant to convey the message that your long years of striving for excellence are as nothing when compared to this young man’s bootlicking and forelock tugging.
But non-elite kids aren’t the ones playing these sports.
If upper class trans women were taking over basketball (a sport that a girl from any economic background can play, and one that really is a path to college for kids who wouldn’t otherwise go) that would be one thing. But little girls from the inner city aren’t fighting for swimming scholarships.
The Fallon Fox/Boyd Burton case is quite interesting. I have no interest at all in watching biological males beat each other into bloody messes. But watching biological females do it actually makes me sick to my stomach. So, I can only imagine what a female fighter's loved ones feel when they see someone with the bone structure and muscle mass of a grown-ass man knee their precious in the face. Kinda makes a swim meet look pretty inconsequential.
There's a huge gap between Fairfield, CT hedge fund manager nepo babies and inner city Detroit kids. Plenty of regular old middle class kids participating in swimming and track and field.
You also mentioned cycling, which at the collegiate level is the home of creaking 15 year old CAADs purchased for $300, not the elite. The children of the elite started racing cyclocross because their dads forced them to at age 7 and have either given up on the sport or are racing professional u23s at that point.
Trans people are (and remain) rare, a fact that gets lost in the current hysteria over all things trans.
Even if every trans girl in America played on sports teams in direct proportion to their numbers (which they do not, because they are disproportionately poor, as Jack notes, and poor people don't play as many sports, including even basketball), most girls wouldn't play against more than one or two trans athletes in their high school sports careers. And, of the trans athletes, only a few of them would have both the talent and the drive to make their biological advantage count fully. So, while there would be a few very noticeable edge cases, most things wouldn't change.
It's also worth noting that they will likely accept the sacrifice. Jack is correct to skewer the elites' professed racial beliefs; many of them are just as racist as Stephen Miller. But most of them genuinely believe in LGBTQ+ equality. They don't know Black or Latin people who aren't exceptional tokens. They do know plenty of gay people, and by now most of them also know a trans person or two around the edges.
I agree with you that the scale of the issue is maybe out of proportion with its coverage in the news recently. But I do wonder who is pushing the sports thing hardest and why. Polls that I’ve seen put trans women in women’s sports among the least popular LGBT questions posed, far behind marriage equality, access to trans health care, basic civil rights, bathroom access, and so on.
But the proposition “trans women are women” and the proposition “women should have their own protected division of sports” seem impossible to square. And it’s the latter that’s losing, at least at the moment. It’s hard to see how the reason for that is self-interested in the same way that so many other social movements are.
Queering the schools isn't specifically about turning kids gay or trans, it's about turning them into fucked up, mentally ill, unstable people who will be the vanguard of the revolution.
Jack has alluded to bring a bit more docile because he needs to raise a son. I’ve written I’m surprised more don’t go off the rails. Sterilize them when they’re16 and what do they have to lose. Bombs away
People willingly sacrificed their kids to Moloch and Huitzilopochtli so I guess it shouldn't be surprising that today folks sterilize their kids to serve contemporary idols, but my five year old grandson specifically asked for me to pick him up after kindergarten today and when his dad came to pick him and his older brothers (who walked over after school) their two year old sister was thrilled to see me and I can't see sacrificing the only immortality we have to some current fad.
One should not underestimate the role of environmental estrogen and microplastics. My tinfoil is wrapped extra tight so I think that may have been part of the plan all along as far as not being able to get a goddamn coke in a glass bottle anymore but maybe that is reading too much into it and it really was just to save on transportation costs but the end result is the same.
The acid test will be seeing how many trans students get female scholarships in the next few years. If the numbers get too high, we'll start hearing about a backlash in the New Yorker.
I’m curious to see this play out as well. Seems like a place where they could overreach.
I’m very much “live and let live”, I find the Bud Light et al discourse tiring and stupid, and I can’t support the outright bans on healthcare that are in vogue now (counseling & waiting periods yes, bans no) but for both safety and fairness reasons I don’t want my daughter ever competing in athletics with someone born male.
To the contrary, I think the Bud Light thing is VERY important because it helps the normies realize how much the average American corporation DESPISES them. But I see your point.
When Holly Holm and Ronda Rousey were very much in the news, it occurred to me that I could probably kill either of them with my bare hands despite being twice their age and also not having seriously sparred in a gym since I was thirty-two years old. Sexual dimorphism is no joke.
I used to do MMA. I was ok at best but we "sparred" and rolled (jiu jitsu) with women. Not only could you kill them with your bare hands, you could do it easily.
My ex is 5'11. I'm 5'6 and have never lifted except on a Soloflex machine. We were arguing once and I dumped her purse out on our bed. She shoved me. I swayed a little on my feet. Reflexively, I shoved her back. She moved about two feet. It's just not a fair competition.
I recently had 'Expendables 3' playing in the background during a workout and noticed when the credits rolled that Rousey was the blonde stronk wahmen hire. For whatever reason they very obviously avoided any pan-down ass shots. Lame.
I had a very formidable woman, who has been arrested for winning street fights in her neighborhood, try to sucker punch me a while back. It didn't land. God bless her for trying. It was at that moment that I knew she really loved me, because why else would you go that far!
How many screwed up women have you been involved with Jack? Surely this stuff is not all just humor and has left impact on your psyche, or altered your outlook over time.
I think it's interesting that some of the folks who have a problem with circumcising boys for religious reasons have no problem with disecting the same boy's penis and turning it into a quasi simulcrum of a vagina to be his "true self".
I'm of the believe that almost all highly competitive womens sports are stupid with few exceptions. The amount of women not running around because they tore their ACLS playing soccer or volleyball in high school is way too high. Their bodies are not meant for the abuse. Combat sports for women? You've gotta be fucking kidding me.
My wife played softball for her prep school and bowled for her college; it cost her a lot in terms of injury to do that and on many days I get around better than she does despite being a decade older and being filled with metal.
When kids from the Midwest or Appalachia start applying to the “good” schools as trans athletes to game the scholarship systems, then you’ll really see it.
Did you see about that Republican Indiana city councilman who has publicly identified as a "native American lesbian woman of color" (he has Cherokees on both sides of his family, well, at least a much as Liz Warren does)? He's already getting death threats.
Webb “decided to come out and finally feel comfortable announcing my true authentic self,” even though he hasn’t changed his appearance or conservative views in any way.
“It is with great relief that I announce to everyone that I identify as a woman and not just any woman but as a woman of color as well,” he said in the April 12 post. “I guess this would make me gay/lesbian as well, since I am attracted to women.”
Indeed, Mr. Webb said he is happily married to his wife Brandy Webb, with whom he has six children.
“I am continuing to retain my preferred pronouns of he/him, and I am married to my beautiful wife Brandy,” Mr. Webb said Monday on Fox News Channel’s “Jesse Watters Primetime.” “She’s running for the Muncie City Council in tomorrow’s election.”"
Jack, some of the best writing I've ever read. I've been pulling on all those threads for the past while, but you've woven them together beautifully. Well done, sir!
Thank you! It's one of the rare articles that I didn't write all at once. Most of it got done last night. This morning I took a look and removed the stuff I thought might make me even MORE unemployable!
"The Department of Publishing Propriety today announced that it has not been able to conclude the investigation of a Substack author alleged to have distributed unapproved works. Although several subscribers have been compelled to comply, the Department could not review the alleged material, due to the lack of an available floppy drive."
I'd say that it also explains the incredible hatred of Trump. He was one of them, a NYC liberal, but one not following the rules of the elite community. No, not the affairs or comments about women. They obviously don't care about that. But rather, he gave hope to those that they felt deserved none. God knows, and heaven forbid, he might even give them some power.
I think he is someone who has had an extraordinary personal journey. I don't know him and barely know people who DO know him, but it's obvious that some sort of change overtook him in the second half of his life. Perhaps it's as simple as this: he saw what the generational elite did in other countries and wanted to try a bit of political power himself.
He can work a crowd better than any politician or rock star that I've ever seen. It could be a persona but he gives off a vibe that he genuinely likes his supporters and Americans in general.
No one that gets into politics is a boy scout and you have to have a big load of Narc in you to go for that job. Do I like Trump? Nope, not really. Wouldn't want to be a relative of his. I'd vote for him again in a second.
Here's my theory: This is all just women being cruel to each other in the name of Intrasexual competition. Same as it ever was. "You look good with short hair" extrapolated to society at large.
Ever since I got wise to it, I've been depressed by the way women simply destroy each other. The modern phenomenon of trying to get your girlfriends to be bigger sluts than you are is just the latest and worst example.
We at least try to stop men from being feral while actively encouraging it in women.
Check out Warriors and Worriers by Joan Benenson: "In Warriors and Worriers , psychologist Joyce Benenson presents a new theory of sex differences, based on thirty years of research with young children and primates around the world. Her innovative theory focuses on how men and women stay alive. Benenson draws on a fascinating array of studies and stories that explore the ways boys and men deter their enemies, while girls and women find assistants to aid them in coping with vulnerable children and elders. This produces two social worlds for each sex which sets humans apart from most other primate species. Human males form cooperative groups that compete against out-groups, while human females exclude other females in their quest to find mates, female family members to invest in their children, and keep their own hearts ticking. In the process, Benenson turns upside down the familiar wisdom that women are more sociable than men and that men are more competitive than women."
Women and girls will make someone a pariah, a queen bee and her court and in-group and out-group status is rigidly enforced, though the victim may change in an instant. Boys and men establish hierarchies and while an individual might be low ranking in that hierarchy, they're not excluded from the group and their contribution is expected.
After reading about this I apologized to my daughters for not realizing how cruel their "friends" were. Girls express dominance through cruelty. Boys do it with physical violence. I'd bet that a significant number of the men who are reading this had an experience wherein physically confronting a bully resulted in friendship, or at the least peace. I'm a little disappointed that my 11 year old grandson had a friend distract someone who had been bullying him so he could sucker punch the guy, but only a little bit.
I'm not a fighter, but as I understand it, "Sucker Punch" is the first step to winning any real-world fight.
Strike first, strike hard, no mercy
If you ever find yourself in prison, or even the felony ward of jail, I suggest that you immediately discard all notion of fairness or dignity in physical combat. In your college dorm, on the other hand, winning a fight the wrong way is more dangerous to your reputation than losing it.
So I've heard.
One of the things I've noticed over the years is how much bullshit there seems to be in the martial arts, particularly in the pre-internet age when you couldn't fact-check Sensei Steve down at your local McDojo.
At this point, I'm of the opinion that the most effective martial art is "Some Skill" coupled with "Ferocity."
Same way a wolverine chases an entire wolf pack or a bear off a dead elk.
There's also the fact that most people don't really want to fight, because biology tells us we could suffer an injury that won't heal -- so if you are ever clearly overmatched, sometimes just prolonging the conversation in a respectful way can save your life.
I am absolutely alive today because I talked my way out of getting killed in a jail cell by three young black dudes who thought I'd disrespected them by, ah -- well, I disrespected them, I took their Doritos off their trays because I was hungry. I told them I'd buy them a steak in the real world, and if they ever catch up to me I'll make good on that.
"DON'T YOU GET IT?! YOU'RE ALL TRAPPED IN HERE WITH ME!!!"
The real ones are mma, boxing, muy thai, and wrestling. Everything else will get your as kicked in a real fight. There are some karate guys who switched to mma with some success
When my middle nephew started HS he said he was worried about the experience. I said first day of school, beat someone up and you'll have problems with the system but not with the fellow students. Joking of course.
They retired his Football # as an offensive lineman. 6 8 and 270 in HS. His Div 1 years (full scholarship) was about 310. The prize was the scholarship. There's video on youtube of him destroying an opponents knee on purpose. The kid was trash talking my nephew's friend, a black kid. 'We are going to get you n...'. The kid ended up as a town cop for a bit and now is trying to work his way up in MMA fighting. After that event, the coach sat him down "REMEMBER THE GOAL!!!!" Years later my nephew said he'd do it again.
He was bullied in HS and my sister got involved. Because he was so big, no matter what the circumstances he would be blamed. The 2 bullies, the principal, him, sis and 2 cops had a talk. It's a football town. In PA. Serious to the point of excessive town support. The cops said 'Anything happens in town, anything, and we will check you out. 1 AM, 2 AM we will check you out. Understand?' Yes sir we understand.
God has seen fit to make me very aware of female dynamics. I've been surrounded by women my entire life (2 sisters) and I've been blessed with 3 daughters. I also work with mostly women.
My mother was one of five sisters, no brothers. My ex wife was one of five sisters, no brothers. I've learned a little about female group dynamics in my time.
At any one time in their adult lives, one of my mom's sisters or her wouldn't be talking to another, but don't an outsider dare criticize any of them in front of any of them. At my mom's funeral I asked one of my cousins (there are 17 of us) if our mom's loved each other more than their husbands or kids. Fiercely defensive.
Ronnie, I appreciate your post. I’m going to read that book, because that theory sounds like the best match for a phenomenon I’ve seen and puzzled about in multiple settings - family, friends, and professional groups. There is always some friendly competition among the guys, but basically if you want to be part of a group of guys and you’re not a complete pain in the ass or grossly incompetent, you’re in. Most of the women seem to always be looking for an opportunity to slit each other’s throats. I have actually had several interactions with friends of my wife talking shit to me, and shocked them a bit with the response ‘only my wife gets to talk to me like that, and she usually apologizes afterward’.
Ronnie, know it's an old thread, but thanks for the tip. I have just ordered the book.
My future wife was stunned when I told her the most unattractive thing most women do as they exit their 20s is to adopt the short haircuts. The fact that it is universally cheered by other women on social media is just sad.
Imagine being a pretty women. You never hear the truth in your life. Other women lie to you constantly because they hate you. Men lie to you constantly cause they want to sleep with you. Basically, your dad is the only person who will tell you the truth and who listens to their parents?
Scott, A very old post, but I am sending that to my daughter!
I am reminded of the "Girls" episode where Lena Dunham's character (a repulsive neurotic) spent a sordid tryst of a weekend with Patrick Wilson's character (a doctor who looks very much like a movie star). Who could blame Dunham for scripting a literal sexual fantasy? But it was akin to me starring in my own biopic where Kate Beckinsale just can't keep her hands off me. The BoPo dynamic allows progressives to say "you go girl!" when everyone else who lives in the real world saw a fantasy acted out by a sad fat girl.
Lena Dunham's character a repulsive neurotic. Art imitating life.
Admitting to watching "Girls" in public takes some stones. Her work is as repulsive as her looks.
Remember when the gratuitous nudity on HBO was enjoyable? Pepperidge Farms remembers.
I will publicly admit that I watched the whole series then bought the DVDS.
The whole show was HUGELY self-aware. You couldn't do it again today. Lena KNOWS that she is repulsive and it gets played for laughs or impact again and again.
Most American women aren't unattractive, under the 80 or 90 extra pounds they all seem to be carrying these days.
Maybe it's due to my old age, but I pretty much find 95% of non overweight adult women under 40 attractive.
It's your genes being smart.
We always want to impregnate the "fittest birds" we can. When you're a sixteen-year-old varsity football player, that means you can see two twin girls in your high school and know which is the ugly one, to quote The Last Psychiatrist.
When you're 50 and up, it means any young woman who will have you, because her child with you will be healthier than the child of even the most Helen-Mirren-esque old lady.
That being said, I'm trending in the opposite direction. With every year that passes, I'm less interested in the women I see around me, and I find fewer of them to be attractive. This is likely just my mind preparing for death or something like that!
So good to know that I'm of the age where pursuing the hot MILF librarian is finally an appropriate thing.
I have some bad news for you. There are no hot milf librarians.
Then I'm expending exactly the right amount of effort on the project.
There sure as hell were in the library near my house in Powell!
My genes would impregnate all of them! I have not hit the old age stage where i dont want to yet. I was hoping this would taper off by forty. You know how hard it is to have adult time with the wife with three kids under 4?
I have seven kids, but only one under 4. My wife spends a lot of time on her back.
Apparently! Nice job
Sorry to reply to such an old post, but I have a few years on you. Trust me, modern life has many, many ways up its sleeve to reconcile you to death!
I'm afraid you are thoroughly correct.
But there are some compensations. Life gets a lot less angsty and contentment can bloom when what you have called the "electro-magnets" get switched off. And there is time for digressive wormholes like this most excellent and enlightening site!
In discussing the realities of the differences between the "elite" set and the rest of us, I told a friend's son that everything he was seeing will make sense as soon as he comes to understand that to them, we're *all* n-words. If you actually go back and read what MLK actually said, he spent a fair piece talking about the plight of poor white people under the oppressive system he was trying to overturn. (With the full resistance of the corrupt FBI at the behest of their cross-dressing, boy-hungry pervert boss Hoover)
The corrupt democrat political machines in the south (Crump machine, Texas machine, Byrds in Virginia, etc) that King referred to as the "Bourbon interests" that traced all the way back to reconstruction treated **everybody** like negroes. Only acceptable whites...the "right sort" of whites, meaning people who were in on it...had the franchise of the vote. The wrong sort didn't...which is what the Battle of Athens was about. That was the exception rather than the rule.
Now go back and read the transcripts of the texts between Peter Strzock and his girlfriend where they talked about voters. How they could "smell" the Wal-Mart shoppers. Replace "Wal-mart shoppers" with "negroes". Tell me there's even an iota of difference between the kind of mind making the statements.
These people are Klanners. They just wear a different mask.
"My wife thinks anyone who didn't come here on the Mayflower is an immigrant."
And native Americans think everyone is an immigrant and gave Thanksgiving as a going away party. See what happened there.
I'm a native American myself.
Both my parents' families go back at least three generations as Americans.
At some point we all become natives. My neighbors consider me an immigrant and a carpetbagger. Being from the North and marrying a Southern Belle means I ain’t from around here.
You'll forever be an outsider because you don't share your given name with 15 of your ancestors.
Wife’s family has been in the same area for generations and they are outsides which, actually, is not a bad thing. Avoids some genetic issues. Think banjos and Ned Beatty.
To quote the man himself:
""Toward the end of the Reconstruction era, something very significant happened. (Listen to him) That is what was known as the Populist Movement. (Speak, sir) The leaders of this movement began awakening the poor white masses (Yes, sir) and the former Negro slaves to the fact that they were being fleeced by the emerging Bourbon interests. Not only that, but they began uniting the Negro and white masses (Yeah) into a voting bloc that threatened to drive the Bourbon interests from the command posts of political power in the South.
To meet this threat, the southern aristocracy began immediately to engineer this development of a segregated society. (Right) I want you to follow me through here because this is very important to see the roots of racism and the denial of the right to vote. Through their control of mass media, they revised the doctrine of white supremacy. They saturated the thinking of the poor white masses with it, (Yes) thus clouding their minds to the real issue involved in the Populist Movement. They then directed the placement on the books of the South of laws that made it a crime for Negroes and whites to come together as equals at any level. (Yes, sir) And that did it. That crippled and eventually destroyed the Populist Movement of the nineteenth century.
If it may be said of the slavery era that the white man took the world and gave the Negro Jesus, then it may be said of the Reconstruction era that the southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow. (Yes, sir) He gave him Jim Crow. (Uh huh) And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, (Yes, sir) he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man. (Right sir) And he ate Jim Crow. (Uh huh) And when his undernourished children cried out for the necessities that his low wages could not provide, he showed them the Jim Crow signs on the buses and in the stores, on the streets and in the public buildings. (Yes, sir) And his children, too, learned to feed upon Jim Crow, (Speak) their last outpost of psychological oblivion. (Yes, sir)
Thus, the threat of the free exercise of the ballot by the Negro and the white masses alike (Uh huh) resulted in the establishment of a segregated society. They segregated southern money from the poor whites; they segregated southern mores from the rich whites; (Yes, sir) they segregated southern churches from Christianity (Yes, sir); they segregated southern minds from honest thinking; (Yes, sir) and they segregated the Negro from everything. (Yes, sir) That’s what happened when the Negro and white masses of the South threatened to unite and build a great society: a society of justice where none would pray upon the weakness of others; a society of plenty where greed and poverty would be done away; a society of brotherhood where every man would respect the dignity and worth of human personality. (Yes, sir)"
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/our-god-marching
Wow! This is fascinating. "They separated southern churches from Christianity." King's theology wasn't airtight, but this is a mighty salient point. The damage done by a possibly coordinated campaign against poor people (or people who were on the verge of not becoming poor, maybe) in general, regardless of skin color, leads to the results we see today, referenced in the post on marriage, abortions, crime, etc.
Though I was born just a few minutes away from where King was murdered in Memphis, I had no idea his platform extended to everyone impacted by what's now obvious: United we stand, divided we fall. Where the "we" is everyone who's looking to carve out a non-crap life in the States.
There's a reason why you never hear about the populist themes in King's speeches. You get selected highlights in "history" class because the dangerous stuff...the stuff they killed him for...they know most people won't go find on their own. So they come up with a fictional version of King and sell that.
Also note that "integration" was permitted to exist for all of, what, 20 years before the powers that be started ginning up the same racial hatred -- only this time it's black people being told they're better than poor whites by virtues of their genetic and cultural heritage. Same playbook, just flipped.
Oh no!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dVAvjHerivE
Great Post. Years ago, I read Jim Brown's autobiography. One of the things he talks about is the failure of LBJ's Great Society. He says that it should have been focused on social class rather than race. By making it about race, it drove a wedge between the poor white people and the poor black people who should have been natural allies. I've thought a lot about that over the years.
This writing is why I subscribe.
Agreed. I love how Jack gets into the weeds sociologically.
Id still subscribed without comments but I’d also subscribe with only comments. This place feels like the old internet before everything sucked
Good. Mission accomplished.
I think you can view the elites of today as a downstream product of the hippie era and boomer power. If you were wickedly successful in, say, 1950, you could have a hot wife, hotter mistress, a beautiful house and a flashy car to flaunt your wealth. Eat filets and send your children to elite schools and whatnot. Status could be gleaned from things. I think in the 1960s and 1970s, material things were eschewed in favor of ideas. Given enough time, ideas became the currency of the elite, fostered in big universities and promulgated by their graduates--remember, admission to these institutions was far less Byzantine then. But how to flaunt it, show that your ideas represent your status as truly enlightened? Use your privilege gleaned as the first widely college educated generation to enact these ideas slowly on cultural institutions; transmit them to your children who will do the same. Enter the cultural relativism stemming from postmodernism that has widely defined our age. To prove you’re in the “elite” you have to signal that you stem from the school of the right ideas. Because it’s not cool to go buy an Escalade and flaunt your power. But you have to ensure that you’re insulated from it, by making elites such as yourself the font of the ideas that systematically pull the ladder up from anyone unlucky enough. Every goddamn one of the leftist talking heads: hippy turned rich boomer parents, Ivy university, a career spent preserving the power. I think “luxury beliefs” replacing material things as cultural currency among the elite explains it.
Also, Iskra Lawrence is fairly attractive. Lizzo, no. But then I’ve always had some thing for the zaftig girls.
Read Bobos in Paradise and Class (Fussell)
David Brooks is detestable and intellectually absurd (arguing that Obama was the heir to Burkean conservatism ruined him for me) to me such that I haven’t bothered, but I probably should.
I don’t have intellectual congruence with most of what I read, but I still read it.
That's a luxury, and I'm not saying on an emotional basis. I hope to some day have this.
The biggest impediment is time.
I read 6+ hours most days and find myself with many things un-read when I go to sleep.
He exists as the house "conservative".
Part of a very strange group of “conservatives” who stake their identities on approval by the MSNBC crowd. I’m sure he had some good ideas somewhere. But anyone who could seriously argue that the guy who put fuel on the racial fires of America and ushered wokeism into policy (though Dubya’s NCLB did some of this) represents the.....heir to true Burkean conservatism....is made stupid enough in my view to discredit or at least cast aspersions on their thoughts. If I said that a dude who went around torching Mid-Century homes was the legitimate heir to Frank Lloyd-Wright, you’d rightly have a hard time taking any valid architectural criticism I proffer seriously.
You’ve recommended Fussell’s Class several times now; I must say that I think it’s outdated now. It was written over 40 years ago in what was essentially a different country.
I’m not sure it was ever that accurate. I grew up in the heart of Philadelphia’s Main Line and I can tell you that the TOOS guys weren’t driving around in Buicks.
I believe that the themes of the book are evergreen:
0-The people at the bookends of the status spectrum are totally secure in their position, and nothing they do can change their class status.
1-Meanwhile, the people in the middle are profoundly insecure.
2-Taste, behavior, habits, etc. are far more important in class distinction than how much money they have (or don’t).
3-By reading Class and internalizing some of the maxims therein, a status insecure person could probably “pass” one level higher than their true station in life, but by having cared enough to execute such a scheme, they’d drop right back down to their former level!
I know quite a few “top out of sight” people in my rough age cohort (I’m 34) from college and then from my career. The ones with SERIOUS inherited, generational wealth (let’s say $100 million and above) all have a few things in common:
0-They work, but they don’t have to. Some of them work for the family business, while others are interested in making their own mark. That subset generally wants to exist outside of their family’s large shadow, rather than luxuriate in the shade.
1-They dress modestly, and most of what they wear is accessible to many people. They have nothing to prove, and anyone who matters knows who they are, so they tend not to gravitate toward overtly branded luxury items (e.g., an LL Bean tote instead of a garish Louis Vuitton bag or a rarefied Hermes bag).
2-They drive modest cars, and they generally view flashy cars as exceedingly déclassé. I went to college with a girl who is part of the fourth generation of a multi-billionaire dynasty that owns an investment bank (Stephens). She drove an older BMW X5 with a few door dings (and dressed just like everyone else). I also went to school with a fellow who is from one of the most prominent families in Atlanta. He drives an older Toyota truck with a camper top. He never had any need to work, but he does (and very diligently).
3-They enjoy many luxuries - multiple vacation homes, lavish vacations, private air travel - but never talk about it in mixed company (or post about it on social media).
The OG X5 was a favorite of the truly wealthy. Knew a guy who was worth ~900m; successful businessman who had a privately held company worth 700 million, sold it, and immediately built a billion dollar energy empire. Sadly passed away last December. Daily drove a black, impeccably maintained 2003 X5 from new until 2021. His wife owns a Grand Cherokee and their son (who runs the family foundation) has a 2012 550i. The family also has a Dassault Falcon and 200m in homes in WV, Palm Beach, Jackson Hole, etc.
useless fact of the day: since Dassault makes military planes as well as business jets, most Falcons have wings that are either clear derivatives or modified-for-economy version of their fighter jets' wings. This is how at least one Falcon ended up with the Mirage's radar guidance system and Exocet missile pods "for training purposes". Cue Alex Jones; that plane was then used in an attempted false-flag attack on the US frigate Stark in the Iran–Iraq War.
Inside aerospace stories are to me what inside auto stories are to most people around me. A guy who I went to school with ended up working for GD. We happened to be in the same city at the same time and met up for drinks. He told me about space force shit.
The wealthiest guy I knew in college drove an early 80s Honda Civic station wagon with dents in every body panel but ran flawlessly. Money was for investing not flaunting.
And let's not forget that the hippies didn't actually want to improve anything. They hated society, and endeavoured to tear it down, simply because it was a brake on their own narcissism.
I always liked how Ayn Rand described Woodstock as hippies gathering in a muddy field to recreate the Dark Ages.
Love it!
"Dennis! There's some lovely filth down here!"
I saved that article/speech/whatever so I can read it whenever I want. It's magnificent.
"The Anti-Industrial Revolution."
As a longtime Deadhead I suppose that it's accurate to describe me as hippie-adjacent and I don't hink that the hippies wanted to tear down society so much as create their own society. The may have felt alienated from white bread American culture but they understood the need for culture and community. Ain't no time to hate, barely time to wait.
Also, the music was very, very good.
This is basically the Henderson theory, with a few thoughtful mods.
It's worth noting that the philosophy of "elite via possessions" has always stood on unsteady ground in America, largely because until recently there was so much blue-collar money to be made. A city cop or garbageman who worked overtime could live better than a professor. This is lampshaded a bit in a Frasier episode where Niles tries to impress his plumber by mentioning his E-Class Benz, only to have the plumber reply that he has an S-Class.
Elite via idea, or "luxury belief", is a superior way to go because the idea pipeline is more recherche than the money pipeline.
Cf. Paul Fussell
I know that Frasier episode well, and have a sort of parallel within my own family. My maternal grandfather and paternal grandfather both worked for Borg Warner (later GE) Chemical. The former worked in the plant and the latter was an SVP of R&D and a decorated chemist. My maternal grandfather, with nothing more than an 8th grade education and Appalachian farm-cultivated work ethic, made more per year than my paternal grandfather, pulling in well over 100k in the early 90s with overtime as a chemical operator. That he wasn’t educated and worked in the plant (as opposed to the downtown high rise where, by that point, my paternal grandfather had a nice office) caused a significant clash when my parents began dating. The issue was compounded by my mother’s brand new Nissan 200sx* (this would’ve been 1985 or 86) in comparison to which my father’s 1973 Monte Carlo looked like a dud. The paternal grandparents couldn’t attack his money, since they knew he had it, but education and “WV hick vs. NYC raised snobbery” was always the barb. I was naturally raised to resent such attitudes.
*My mother and her brothers, and their respective children, all got new cars upon turning 16. Though I turned 16 after his untimely passing, he’d willed that I be given money for a car. Hence my old Golf was a sort of gift from him. That said, he owned two vehicles during my lifetime: a 1994 Dodge Caravan, the door panels of which eventually fell off; and a 1997 Jellybean Ford Taurus, which he purchased already with the rust on the floorboards for $1100. While he could’ve driven an S550 if he’d felt inclined, I merely attempted to coax him into a newer Impala or 300. Never happened.
Easy credit caused this mess. Used to be you had to be accomplished to snag a Mercedes or BMW.
We all know who drives them now, don't we?
There's some irony here; as the cars get better and more durable, they also become more accessible.
Buying a new Cadillac for cash every year and getting 40 cents on the dollar for the old one really separated the men from the boys...
...that being said, however, homes were so much cheaper forty years ago you had extra money for stuff like that.
Look at all the strivers on Rennlist worrying whether or not the GT3 they financed will depreciate!
If you have to finance ANY car that costs as much as a house, you can't afford it.
Well, you know that everyone on the internet is a fiscally prudent individual who ONLY pays cash for their toy cars, right?
So what I'm hearing is over time this is the heirarchy that the 'cool people/fancy f**ks' whatever have resorted to that allowed for a 'flex' or status symbol:
Home
Job (somewhat overlapping)
Car
Watches/Clothing/Shoes
Chipotle vs McDonalds??
Politics/Social causes/ bullshit Du Jour (Today)
I don't like the direction this is going.
This is my only nod to planned obsolescence in the industry. The death of Pontiac was that 3800 powered Bonnevilles lasted long enough with neglect that they could be seen inhabiting ghettos in great numbers.
The Germans are great at figuring out how to make their cars hard for poor people to own.
Oddly enough, the Rolls-Royce Shadow had a similar problem in the UK, to the point where one CAR columnist suggested that the best use of the R-R marketing budget would be to buy every Shadow for sale and crush it.
They - and frankly society as a whole - would be better off if they figured out how to make it hard for poor people to ACQUIRE their cars.
As aristocratic as this is going to sound, I believe there's a strong case to be made that in a healthy, functional society, the poor can't have nice stuff.
As someone who owns a bmw…. Idiots.
Liked for the Frasier reference. Also I (love) hate you for making me google words like 'recherche'. You're the ONLY online publisher or real life American I've known in 15 years to have a bigger vocabulary than me.
I think 'luxury belief' can have unknown tails and cannot necessarily work better. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I expect chaos and general 'averaging down to the lowest common denominator' as a consequence.
Your expectation has already been proven out to some extent, and will be more so in the future, IMO.
I have seen the word recherché 5 times in my life. All of them from jack.
I will simply note that this ties neatly into your pulling up the ladder operational theory you've been running for some time but reconciles some incongruities.
Thanks for writing this.
THIS> its all about pulling up the ladder behind them. I've long viewed the state of immigration through this lens as well.
The problem is, as I see it, is that they're all inbred morons.
Honestly. I have worked many times with the harvard and yale 'elite' and I have found, uniformly, that none of them were any smarter than I was. Honestly, few were as smart. They have just become the inbred royal class of America, who spout all sorts of 'truisms' send their children to 4 year social clubs where they can make connections and marry the right sort of people.
They write papers for themselves and so on and so forth, but you rarely see anything of value come from there. Anything of value they tend to 'discover' you will always find somebody who didn't go to their prestigious schools behind them doing the actual work, while they take all the credit.
It's not about intelligence - it's about access. And they engage in so much of their behavior not just to prove to themselves how much better they are than all of us - but to hold on to that position. Sure the news media always says great and kind things - that's because everyone in the news media came from one of these elite families and went to one of these elite institutions.
It's just another puppet show for the rubes, of which -sadly- we have far too many thanks to our heavily downgrade public schools and unlimited immigration policies.
So as with all rich and affluent royalty, they're stupid, easily conned, easily led down rabbit holes, and easily taken advantage of by overly charismatic characters (history is FULL of such people and the havoc they have wreaked because of all the inbred kings and queens who were stupid enough to follow them).
This is really no different.
That's how we got stuff like CRT, BLM, Renewable Energy, etc.
As for that target store? Sure they're 'losing money' up front, but you better believe that they're getting some massive payoff behind the scenes thanks to their accountants, who DIDN'T go to an Ivy League school and figured out how to give their bosses their sackcloth, while still keeping it lined with gold.
Going to Harvard or Yale in the modern era was NEVER about getting a better education than what was available at Penn State or UCLA. It was about making friends with J. Clayton Moneybags III, so he could give you a million-dollar no-show board job in 30 years.
Yes, and as a 'dating service'.
Can't have our daughter marrying Eddie from Pig's Knuckle, AR.
In Eddie's defense, he can probably build some sweet stuff and hunt for food, which will be important when the world comes to an end. Who will be laughing then, I wonder!
The Beautiful People don't sully their hands with productive labor. You know that.
This explains why i don’t like yard work. I must be beautiful
Nah, they just pay for gym memberships.
Unless Eddie is Ben Gazzara in Road House
It's not a very good one. Colleges are 60% women or something close to that now. I send my girls off to college to "discover themselves" Moms ok with it because while I don't ask the details of her life before she met me, I'm also not retarded. We met in our thirties. There has to be a better way. I look forward to Jack's arranged marriage substack in 18 years.
Factor in the vastly greater percentage of men who go gay or trans, and it's obvious that colleges are literally Surf City. Two girls for every boy.
Which is why the promiscuity is so dramatic.
That is a wildly different experience than where I went to college!
The fantasy of Peter Gibbons’ neighbor in Office Space no longer requires a million dollars, merely enrollment at your nearest non-commuter school largely bereft of the Oberlin/Lena Dunham crowd. Ask me how I know....
According to the internet, only Chad, Tyrone, RayRay and Pookie get all the ladies.
That, sir, is what the kids call "a cope".
Not sure about this, Jack. Here in the UK my anecdotal evidence is of an explosion of gay girls and more many girls than boys going trans. To be cynical, at best a waste of talent...
I want that job!
Well royalty was unquestionably inbred.
The whole of Europe ruled by different branches of the same clan of asshole for a thousand years.
The motivation for reopening the Target is obvious and right on the surface. It's the best decision for the larger business, because it results in a ton of favorable free media. I'm sure a green eyeshade calculated how much it is worth, but I'm also sure it was a large positive number.
The vast majority of Americans genuinely want a world where no one is disadvantaged by race. They even want to affirmatively uplift people who have suffered historical discrimination - provided that it does not negatively affect their own situations. Charging in and saying "we're going to stay in this community notwithstanding the challenges" is a message people all across society, in both political camps, overwhelmingly like.
"The motivation for reopening the Target is obvious and right on the surface. It's the best decision for the larger business, because it results in a ton of favorable free media. I'm sure a green eyeshade calculated how much it is worth, but I'm also sure it was a large positive number."
I was thinking about that -- but there's also nontrivial downside involved with the decision. Target gave $10M of Danegeld to the self-appointed representatives of the people who looted their store, which seems reasonable in the insane modern context. But the decision to reopen the store comes with tremendous unforeseen risk, not the least of which is having to close it in the future because you can't keep people from taking all the stuff again and again. In fact, Target just announced that the store down the street from the rebuilt one will close, likely because they can't take the PR hit of shutting down the Special Target For Exhausted People Of Color:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11965589/The-stores-closed-doors-rampant-theft.html
Look at all the headlines recently about stores closing:
Walmart closed two stores in black areas in Atlanta
Walmart closed roughly half their stores in Chicago (I lived there for nearly 5 years and never saw a Walmart - guess what part of town they’re in)
Whole Foods closing a prominent location in San Francisco
(These examples above are just off the top of my head)
Sherman same thing in DC, a big deal was made that Walmart was opening 4 stores in the "underserved" neighborhoods of the district. I think only one store got opened and it closed less then three years later. Walmart stated in a press release that the numbers were just not working.....
Detroit STILL hasn't recovered from the race riots of the late 60s.
That's one reason why there wasn't any significant rioting or looting in Detroit during the Summer of George Floyd. Detroiters know what happens when you burn your city down. Also, Mayor Duggan and polied chief James Craig made it clear that they weren't going to tolerate it and kept arresting folks no matter the activist lawsuits.
However, the 1967 Detroit riot was not a race riot, at least not like the 1943 Detroit riot, when white folks and black folks were killing each other. That started on Belle Isle when someone didn't like someone else talking to their woman and spilled over into the city. My grandfather's black employees at his junk shop called him and warned him to say home and safe. He didn't listen and caught a brick in his head tossed through his car window.
The '67 riot started when a "blind pig", i.e. an unlicensed after hours bar that was patronized by a number of returning combat Vietnam vets, got busted by the DPD, which was 93% white. As the cops and arrestees were milling around outside on 12th Street, someone chucked a beer bottle at the police and it was on.
It wasn't so much blacks vs whites in 1967 as it was a general breakdown of social order and the rioting was mostly in black or commercial neighborhoods. Businesses got burned and snipers were shooting at firefighters. One can understand shooting at cops, but firefighers? That's pretty anti-social. Of course the cops hardly acted like saints. As the rioting was happening, some cops likely murdered three black teens and injured some white hookers and others at a motel about a mile from where the riot started. John Hersey, who wrote Hiroshima, wrote a book about it called the Algiers Motel Incident.
Coincidentally, the number of people killed in both riots was the same, 43, but in the '67 riot I believe that it was mostly looters getting shot.
I remember staying up late at night watching a small, portable black and white tv, watching heavily armed National Guard soldiers and armored personnel carriers patroling amidst burning buildings less than 20 minutes from where I was sitting.
The '67 riot is today somewhat glorified as an "uprising" but it wasn't like Detroit blacks took actions against a racist power structure. Mostly they burned down businesses, many of which employed blacks. You can see news photos of burned out shops whose black owners had painted "black owned business", thinking it would protect their life's work from the mob.
To A LOT of people, they were race riots.
Anyway, the point is that Detroit's still a ruin because of that disorder.
Evil corps are making Food Deserts.
The locals are too stupid to buy good food and will buy junk food because they don't know any better. Their "Betters" need to be around to keep them from starving and obesity (funny combo)
</sarcasm>
I was talking to a childhood friend last night about a related topic.
Our hometown has moved “upscale” recently. What was as recently as three years ago the location of a Feed and Seed store (with dirt floors) is now a high end steakhouse that serves, among other things, a 50 oz Tomahawk for $195 or a 12 oz Filet for $65.
Fortunately for locals, there is another “steakhouse” nearby that will sell you a sirloin for less than $9 PLUS the salad bar has Jell-O!
The locals have a lot of heartburn about development, Airbnb / STR traffic, declining affordability, etc. - entirely understandable.
They could easily move just ~15 miles away into Southeast Tennessee, which a family friend recently described to me as “Shitville USA.” There are manifold food options in the “town” - TWO gas stations, one of which will cook you a Hunt Brothers Pizza (if they aren’t sold out) AND a Hardee’s! Only a five mile drive away, diners willing to travel will find a Dollar General AND a Subway that keeps irregular hours.
Sound like you must be talking about Blue Ridge?
Here’s this for you:
https://www.piratewires.com/p/let-them-eat-crack?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=55605&post_id=118603047&isFreemail=false&utm_medium=email
Excellent substack, too.
You never pay a ransom. You pay a bounty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haThIxPnYro
I've dealt with similar situations that cost the company exorbitant sums just because they took a little bit of heat off one of the executive staff. All sorts of non-quantifiables are thrown around to justify "the right thing to do". It's fun to be the guy who gets thrown out the office window in that meme when you actually cost it out as "the right thing to do" for the company.
It's hard to understand how hard the average corporation sucks its executives' dicks until you see it on paper. At the insurance company there was a dude who pulled down $2M a year but demanded a $30k car allowance because, you know, why not?
I'm a junior member of the executive team. I was basically hired to deal with shit the senior execs don't want to (suck sr exec dick and pussy). When they say make it go away, they mean at any cost.
"The vast majority of Americans genuinely want a world where no one is disadvantaged by race."
There was a time I would have agreed with that statement. That time was more than 10 years ago. Oh there are -some- groups that still feel that way, but not the vast majority. Especially now that the demographics are flipping and the former majority is becoming the minority and everyone is already moving to start on the oppression.
Elites want to stay elite. Welfare policies and abortion policies are two of the ways the government helps keep poor people poor, because (apparently) a significant portion of the population will take government crumbs and keep voting for the left. Poor and lazy people depend on the government, enriching and empowering the elite. Independent stable people don’t depend on the government, so the elites want chaos and no stability in the family.
"The goal of the High is to stay where they are. The goal of the Middle is to change places with the High. The goal of the Low is to establish a world where all men are equal."
Equality is a loaded word. I’d say we all are equal in the eyes of God, but I’m old fashioned that way. We can never be equal in any other way. It is critical for those without to lust after the things that others have to make the chaos system work. If people were willing to work had and be satisfied with what they have I dare say we would all be happy, and we can’t have that now, can we?
LEGAL equality is one thing. The "equality" the aristocrats speak of is the reduction of human beings to interchangeable machine parts.
The Pedantry Department would like to highlight the following to the author: "Black-male-while-female couples."
Is the Veblen quote from Theory of a Leisure Class?
That's quite a different kind of couple, isn't it?
Wait a minute.
Black male WHILE female?
The hell's goin' on here?
Makes driving marginally safer and you get double coupons from the New Yorker set.
Great Corey Haim's Ghost, you're right!
Yes, the missing piece is outright malice. They hate you and your kind, think that they are better than you and actively push policies and trends to keep you down and them on top. The magic words they virtue signal to one another are as fireflies do.
Exactly. They're Klanners. Except their uniform is Patagonia jackets instead of white sheets.
0-Sometimes the Kate Uptons transform into Lizzos (without the transracial element) or pumpkins or whatever as discussed here in one of my all-time favorite pieces from the back catalog: https://avoidablecontact.substack.com/p/some-brief-notes-on-the-labor-dispute-at-jared-the-galleria-of-jewelry?utm_source=%2Fsearch%2FJared%2520galleria&utm_medium=reader2
1-There is no obvious, overt coordination re: dissemination of “luxury” beliefs, but it is remarkable to read articles with very similar themes published on the same day from the likes of The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and the New York Times. E.g., “Here’s Why President Biden’s Age is a Non-Issue,” etc.
2-I sent the article to Jack, I knew it would resonate with him, and he promised to write about it; talk about patronage! ~$5 / month to have him on speed dial!
3-Who wants to dissect the Met Gala from last night? What did y’all think about the roach? Who was serving lewks? Did Anna miss a trick by neglecting to invite Dylan Mulvaney to attend?
When indoctrination is done properly, no overt coordination is necessary.
Well, from what central planning department does “the current thing” emanate?
Masturbation on twitter?
While I believe you are right isn't the whole idea of indoctrination a covert affair?
Agreed. Plus they all know who is fed info from on high, so they know who they have to follow. No need to make it overly complicated.
X1000 times this. This is how class warfare works. The Eloi/Corpo Left (whatever you want to call them) all went to the same schools, lived in the same areas, grew up and moved in the same circles.
They don't need to be directed because they all implicitly and intuitively understand their role in the 'revolution' and therefore what needs to be done and what they need to do.
I absolutely think the opinion piece writers and journos coordinate just slightly out of the public eye. Whether it's Facebook groups or something more intelligent like setting up PGP email groups it's not a stretch to say coordination is occurring on some level and that they get their ducks in a row before rolling out pushes for particular agendas. There's a Foundation/think-tank/news publication pipeline or idea-laundering scheme running in the background for stuff like Climate Refugees, for instance.
OTOH, I think that current event reactions - such as burying the race or whatever of an active shooter are done without coordination and that is where indoctrination comes into play per Tim.
That’s great framing; I am thinking of the second phenomenon.
Perhaps the first - on a long enough timeline - assures the second.
I think with journalists/commentators some of it is that, perhaps more than anything, they're writing to impress each other. Hence they all end up parroting each other's words. It's a midwit thing. Rush Limbaugh used to compile clips of all the talking head using the exact same turn of phrase to cover a story.
And it's all confirmation bias anyway - who's really looking for an outside-the-box take from their favorite commentator, Mr. Baruth excepted? Anybody who doesn't use the same copypasta will find themselves Googling the name of the lawyer Tucker Carlson is using.
There is an element of confirmation bias, but it is not limited to that. There is what I will term authenticity/idea laundering where an idea is made to seem common and common sense and all the experts agree sort of thing so it can't merely be confirmation bias across the board.
I mean - we famously have evidence of coordination via GamerGate, Senor Baruth here has mentioned Facebook groups for auto-journos, it's not hard to think maybe this is just a pattern amongst this group.
As for exact same turn of phrase - in the modern era local news outlets are being given what to say from on high in some instances and there are video clips showing this.
You can go to think tanks and NGOs and the like and read articles that they publish only to see these same ideas echoed later in various publications (the Foundations themselves generally have a PR friendly screed but you can glean stuff between the lines and look into the histories of their board members). It's not a secret at that point, it's just a little bit behind the scenes for the average guy to go find and a level of effort I'm generally not interested in giving because I am lazy. The ideas and arguments aren't being generated by the journalists themselves and it is an exceedingly rare journalist (it seems to me) that is interested in doing actual journalism or even capable of evaluating topics by themselves.
All of that most certainly happens and it's barely hidden, if at all.
I think it's all so ingrained in them that they can't even comprehend what they're doing as coordination. To them, it's just how things are done.
Emergent behavior, not planning. I can believe that.
Not to mention Hunter’s laptop where Bilkin gets the spooks to sign a letter that it looks like Russian disinfo and the press dutifully fall in line with information agencies.
This has been an utterly disgraceful chapter in American history, and raw evidence of Uniparty at work.
I've read the books. I'm pretty sure Harry Potter saves us all.
It gets even better. There’s an article today on Taibbi’s stack on how the NYT, Wash Post, CNN, Twitter, Facebook got together over the summer of 2020 and war gamed suppression of an embarrassing leak regarding Burisma & Biden.
https://www.racket.news/p/who-helped-overturn-the-pentagon
And if you think Hunter is dirty (which he undoubtedly is both literally and figuratively), just look into Mitch McConnell’s family. The guy’s father in law (from whom he’s received fortunes in cash gifts) has a long-standing business partnership with the Chinese military, and his sister in law is on the board of the bank of China. The uniparty marches to a crooked beat.
Well said.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList
They were famously caught coordinating stories via the “Journolist” Google group during, I think, the W administration. Ezra Klein was involved.
Something similar is still obviously in existence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r18Ab8cb5s
Also, let's not forget how journalism has changed. For most of its existence, journalism was the bastion of the smarter, sharper members of the working class. It was very much a blue collar job. Over the course of the last decade or two, it has morphed into the career of choice for the idiot kids of the elite. Instead of playing a working wage, big city journalists are paid a pittance, while being supported by their wealthy parents. Rather then the people in power being on the other side of the class divide, they are all on the same team now. No need for conspiracies, as they are all motivated to pull in the same direction. If everyone they know agrees with the same view, then it must be right.
True. It's now a nepo baby hobby job, differing from "Super Trofeo driver" only in the details.
I think it’s been that way longer than a single generation
A proud muckraking and yellow journalism tradition must be upheld!
But also yes definitely a longer timeline than one generation
's--Eric, you must have read or saw the same report I read that in the immediate post war period there were mulitple dailys in most major cities that offered opportunity for blue collar reporters to have a long career reporting on the city where they grew up but begining in the late 1970's to early 1980's there was tremedous consolidation of media companies (think USA Today that owns 300+ papers) and the implementation of a 5 step pay scale caused writter to start at one paper and jump to a bigger paper where the 5 steps went higher. Therefore reducing the trust in media because the writters were always changing and reporting without embedded knowledge of the local community.
I think there’s also a fair amount of copycatting going on amongst competing media outlets where one comes up with an idea, stance, or terminology, and the others jump on board. “Hey, did you see what they did there? That’s brilliant, rewrite the scripts for the six o’clock using that”.
An example of this is the now fashionable term “baseless” as in “Donald Trump’s baseless claims that the election was rigged”. It’s a nice and polite legal way to condescendingly say “he’s a fucking liar and an idiot”. You just know that their lawyers came up with that one with no fear of retribution.
I noticed this use of the word a couple of years ago with an anchor that actually sneered when she said it. No bias there! Pretty soon everyone was using the term, and I still hear it getting hauled out every once in a while today.
For sure. The Climate Change industry is essentially one big paid think tank. Remember Climategate?
0- Thanks for sending me down that rabbit hole
I liked p diddy's getup, and asap rocky's entrance, the rest was about as gaudy and eccentric as I hoped for
I was being tongue in cheek because I know that the Met Gala doesn’t play with this audience.
JB knows that I find all this culture war shit comical; as I messaged him yesterday: “I operate in a state of moderately amused nihilistic lassitude when it comes to social justice.”
Is there ANY rapper who uses their real name instead of some stupid gang alias?
Some of the greatest:
J Cole
Chuck D, who was Carlton Douglas but that's not too far
DMC, aka Darryl McDaniels
Tupac (Shakur)
Nasir Jones, or NAS
Kendrick Lamar
Kanye West
Slick Rick, whose first name was Richard
Andre "Dr. Dre" Young
Aubrey Drake Graham
Louis Eric Barrier, also known as Eric B
That being said, the latter-day trend of Young Dolphs and Yung Gravy and Lil Wayne and so on... goofy shit.
Yung Gravy?
Sounds like something I WON'T be ordering from that Chinese place down the street that's open 24 hours but never takes out the garbage.
Lil’ Poopy
https://youtu.be/BCdKBlDIHzg
Oh, for fuck's sake...
Ludacris
Killer Mike
The pipeline of ideas seems to originate in universities then disseminate in NYC at the right sort of events to people in the publishing world. At that point the concepts tumble down through layers of publications until they reach BuzzFeed, just like GM used to debut options in the Cadillacs and let them drift down to Chevrolet via the intermediate brands.
That's at the relatively elite level. At the grassroots, the Ed Schools are a major vector for social contagions.
Re #1, from a coincidental standpoint there is a lot of thematic overlap between this article and this mornings headline article from NRO regarding 24% of today's youth self reporting as LBGTQ+. (How did THAT not autocomplete on my Android phone?)
You’re giving the “elites” way too much credit to justify the MaintenanceCosts basis on that one…
The Eloi are eating themselves slowly, they are just too rich to notice.
The trans women in sports issue is where I think Maintenance Costs analysis comes up short. I can certainly see the Henderson and Hanania sides of that argument, but it’s the children of the elite themselves that are losing races to Lia Thomas. Or eventually losing athletic scholarships to someone born male.
Trans women aren’t to my knowledge playing sports like basketball or boxing that are open to the lower classes. They are doing things like swimming, track and field, bicycling, etc that are much more “elite-coded” at the college level. The self-interest argument would seem to fall apart when it’s their own daughters’ spots on the line.
I’m open to being corrected here though, because my knowledge is limited to what I read in the news and my own memories of HS athletics 20+ years ago. There may be a deeper point I’ve missed.
So long as the elites' daughters are able to get into their Ivy League indoctrination center I'm not sure they much care for whether or not there's a spot on a sports team for them. After all, the girls made it into the right school anyhow. There are other clubs to join, and if they do happen to like sport, well, that's why God invented intramurals.
Athletic scholarships/preferential admissions in expensive sports are a well known way for kids who can’t quite cut it academically to get into elite schools though.
So if that pathway narrows, it’s a real tangible loss for that class.
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/10/college-sports-benefits-white-students/573688/
I think they are rely on TG competitors to stay rare -- and it helps elite sons who go TG almost equally to how it hurts elite daughters, so it's a bit of a wash.
We’re I applying to HYPS this year, I’d just write, “I stand with Dylan Mulvaney!” a hundred times instead of writing an essay. It worked with that kid and Stanford a couple of years ago.
From what I understand, that kid is from the "talented tenth". His folks are loaded and he might even be a legacy there. It was performative as he was already likely to get admitted.
He is a Muslim with an Arab sounding name. Attended Princeton Day School. Also admitted to Princeton and Yale.
You’re 100% correct that it was performative. On the part of Stanford.
The performance was meant to convey the message that your long years of striving for excellence are as nothing when compared to this young man’s bootlicking and forelock tugging.
Yeah. The difference is that for the non-elites, excelling at some sport is the only hopes their children have of getting into an elite school.
So, in effect, it's another way of pulling up the ladder. The MaintenenceCosts test passes yet again.
But non-elite kids aren’t the ones playing these sports.
If upper class trans women were taking over basketball (a sport that a girl from any economic background can play, and one that really is a path to college for kids who wouldn’t otherwise go) that would be one thing. But little girls from the inner city aren’t fighting for swimming scholarships.
The Fallon Fox/Boyd Burton case is quite interesting. I have no interest at all in watching biological males beat each other into bloody messes. But watching biological females do it actually makes me sick to my stomach. So, I can only imagine what a female fighter's loved ones feel when they see someone with the bone structure and muscle mass of a grown-ass man knee their precious in the face. Kinda makes a swim meet look pretty inconsequential.
"But watching biological females do it" Okay, okay, I'm still talking about MMA here guys, jeesh.
As the man once rapped:
IT'S COOL WHEN THEY DO IT
IT'S A PROBLEM WHEN I DO IT
Yeah, nothing more feminine that two women beating each other up.
There's a huge gap between Fairfield, CT hedge fund manager nepo babies and inner city Detroit kids. Plenty of regular old middle class kids participating in swimming and track and field.
You also mentioned cycling, which at the collegiate level is the home of creaking 15 year old CAADs purchased for $300, not the elite. The children of the elite started racing cyclocross because their dads forced them to at age 7 and have either given up on the sport or are racing professional u23s at that point.
Trans people are (and remain) rare, a fact that gets lost in the current hysteria over all things trans.
Even if every trans girl in America played on sports teams in direct proportion to their numbers (which they do not, because they are disproportionately poor, as Jack notes, and poor people don't play as many sports, including even basketball), most girls wouldn't play against more than one or two trans athletes in their high school sports careers. And, of the trans athletes, only a few of them would have both the talent and the drive to make their biological advantage count fully. So, while there would be a few very noticeable edge cases, most things wouldn't change.
It's also worth noting that they will likely accept the sacrifice. Jack is correct to skewer the elites' professed racial beliefs; many of them are just as racist as Stephen Miller. But most of them genuinely believe in LGBTQ+ equality. They don't know Black or Latin people who aren't exceptional tokens. They do know plenty of gay people, and by now most of them also know a trans person or two around the edges.
First, I appreciate the response.
I agree with you that the scale of the issue is maybe out of proportion with its coverage in the news recently. But I do wonder who is pushing the sports thing hardest and why. Polls that I’ve seen put trans women in women’s sports among the least popular LGBT questions posed, far behind marriage equality, access to trans health care, basic civil rights, bathroom access, and so on.
But the proposition “trans women are women” and the proposition “women should have their own protected division of sports” seem impossible to square. And it’s the latter that’s losing, at least at the moment. It’s hard to see how the reason for that is self-interested in the same way that so many other social movements are.
None of this Trans business is supposed to make sense.
It's really about sowing chaos and ripping society apart, in order to give the Marxists their chance to impose the Revolution on us.
Queering the schools isn't specifically about turning kids gay or trans, it's about turning them into fucked up, mentally ill, unstable people who will be the vanguard of the revolution.
Chaos. Anarchy. Diversity.
Jack has alluded to bring a bit more docile because he needs to raise a son. I’ve written I’m surprised more don’t go off the rails. Sterilize them when they’re16 and what do they have to lose. Bombs away
People willingly sacrificed their kids to Moloch and Huitzilopochtli so I guess it shouldn't be surprising that today folks sterilize their kids to serve contemporary idols, but my five year old grandson specifically asked for me to pick him up after kindergarten today and when his dad came to pick him and his older brothers (who walked over after school) their two year old sister was thrilled to see me and I can't see sacrificing the only immortality we have to some current fad.
One should not underestimate the role of environmental estrogen and microplastics. My tinfoil is wrapped extra tight so I think that may have been part of the plan all along as far as not being able to get a goddamn coke in a glass bottle anymore but maybe that is reading too much into it and it really was just to save on transportation costs but the end result is the same.
The acid test will be seeing how many trans students get female scholarships in the next few years. If the numbers get too high, we'll start hearing about a backlash in the New Yorker.
I’m curious to see this play out as well. Seems like a place where they could overreach.
I’m very much “live and let live”, I find the Bud Light et al discourse tiring and stupid, and I can’t support the outright bans on healthcare that are in vogue now (counseling & waiting periods yes, bans no) but for both safety and fairness reasons I don’t want my daughter ever competing in athletics with someone born male.
To the contrary, I think the Bud Light thing is VERY important because it helps the normies realize how much the average American corporation DESPISES them. But I see your point.
When Holly Holm and Ronda Rousey were very much in the news, it occurred to me that I could probably kill either of them with my bare hands despite being twice their age and also not having seriously sparred in a gym since I was thirty-two years old. Sexual dimorphism is no joke.
I used to do MMA. I was ok at best but we "sparred" and rolled (jiu jitsu) with women. Not only could you kill them with your bare hands, you could do it easily.
My ex is 5'11. I'm 5'6 and have never lifted except on a Soloflex machine. We were arguing once and I dumped her purse out on our bed. She shoved me. I swayed a little on my feet. Reflexively, I shoved her back. She moved about two feet. It's just not a fair competition.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone happier about anything than my friend Matt when we all watched Holm knock Rousey the fuck out.
It was predictable once you realized that Holm was a single mom from ABQ, BITCH!
Rousy was a one trick pony. Her trick got figured out
I recently had 'Expendables 3' playing in the background during a workout and noticed when the credits rolled that Rousey was the blonde stronk wahmen hire. For whatever reason they very obviously avoided any pan-down ass shots. Lame.
If they sucker punched you, it would hurt/sting. But they'd only get 1 shot at that.
I had a very formidable woman, who has been arrested for winning street fights in her neighborhood, try to sucker punch me a while back. It didn't land. God bless her for trying. It was at that moment that I knew she really loved me, because why else would you go that far!
How many screwed up women have you been involved with Jack? Surely this stuff is not all just humor and has left impact on your psyche, or altered your outlook over time.
Live And Let Live might be morally correct - maybe - but the nutcases only ever take it as a sign of weakness.
Maybe a few Antifa or BLM thugs found in pieces in the trunk of a Lexus in New Jersey and Nobody Knows Nothin would get the message across.
I think it's interesting that some of the folks who have a problem with circumcising boys for religious reasons have no problem with disecting the same boy's penis and turning it into a quasi simulcrum of a vagina to be his "true self".
They hate Christians and apparently religious Jews. Thats all there is to it. No logic and no reason.
"They hate YOU. We're just in the way."
- Christians to Jesus.
I'm of the believe that almost all highly competitive womens sports are stupid with few exceptions. The amount of women not running around because they tore their ACLS playing soccer or volleyball in high school is way too high. Their bodies are not meant for the abuse. Combat sports for women? You've gotta be fucking kidding me.
My wife played softball for her prep school and bowled for her college; it cost her a lot in terms of injury to do that and on many days I get around better than she does despite being a decade older and being filled with metal.
When kids from the Midwest or Appalachia start applying to the “good” schools as trans athletes to game the scholarship systems, then you’ll really see it.
Yup. Expect reams of articles about who is SINCERELY TRANS and who is not.
Reminds me of that "Night Court" episode where the defendant made it clear that he DIDN'T think he was God.
He was RUNNING for God.
Did you see about that Republican Indiana city councilman who has publicly identified as a "native American lesbian woman of color" (he has Cherokees on both sides of his family, well, at least a much as Liz Warren does)? He's already getting death threats.
Webb “decided to come out and finally feel comfortable announcing my true authentic self,” even though he hasn’t changed his appearance or conservative views in any way.
“It is with great relief that I announce to everyone that I identify as a woman and not just any woman but as a woman of color as well,” he said in the April 12 post. “I guess this would make me gay/lesbian as well, since I am attracted to women.”
Indeed, Mr. Webb said he is happily married to his wife Brandy Webb, with whom he has six children.
“I am continuing to retain my preferred pronouns of he/him, and I am married to my beautiful wife Brandy,” Mr. Webb said Monday on Fox News Channel’s “Jesse Watters Primetime.” “She’s running for the Muncie City Council in tomorrow’s election.”"
That was DELICIOUS to watch!
Jack, some of the best writing I've ever read. I've been pulling on all those threads for the past while, but you've woven them together beautifully. Well done, sir!
Thank you! It's one of the rare articles that I didn't write all at once. Most of it got done last night. This morning I took a look and removed the stuff I thought might make me even MORE unemployable!
Would that content make its way into the anthology, assuming it goes to print?
It depends on whether the Uniparty manages to get the death sentence for the sins of one's father into the law books!
"The Department of Publishing Propriety today announced that it has not been able to conclude the investigation of a Substack author alleged to have distributed unapproved works. Although several subscribers have been compelled to comply, the Department could not review the alleged material, due to the lack of an available floppy drive."
If they dredge that one back up, they better make dueling legal again as well.
I'd say that it also explains the incredible hatred of Trump. He was one of them, a NYC liberal, but one not following the rules of the elite community. No, not the affairs or comments about women. They obviously don't care about that. But rather, he gave hope to those that they felt deserved none. God knows, and heaven forbid, he might even give them some power.
"If you have one bullet, save it for the traitor"
Is he a traitor now or was he an impostor then? Thus exposing how they are all impostors, and that is why he must be destroyed.
Or is he an impostor now? Playing a role. After all he is still alive.
I think he is someone who has had an extraordinary personal journey. I don't know him and barely know people who DO know him, but it's obvious that some sort of change overtook him in the second half of his life. Perhaps it's as simple as this: he saw what the generational elite did in other countries and wanted to try a bit of political power himself.
He can work a crowd better than any politician or rock star that I've ever seen. It could be a persona but he gives off a vibe that he genuinely likes his supporters and Americans in general.
No one that gets into politics is a boy scout and you have to have a big load of Narc in you to go for that job. Do I like Trump? Nope, not really. Wouldn't want to be a relative of his. I'd vote for him again in a second.