Meant to add that it may have been true at one point that it required exceptional talent to reach D.C., and let's remember the format for the Lincoln-Douglas debates:
"Lincoln and Douglas agreed to debate in seven of the nine Illinois Congressional Districts; the seven where Douglas had not already spoken. In each debate either Douglas or Lincoln would open with an hour address. The other would then speak for an hour and a half. The first then had 30 minutes of rebuttal."
90 minutes of extemporaneous speech on the major topics of the day -- go!
And surely any time either of them froze, the moderator stepped in with a helpful "Thank you Mr. Lincoln/Thank you Mr. Douglas" or a friendly reminder that "you have 58 minutes remaining, sir." Great column!
I have watched Trump, RFK Jr. and DeSantis speak multiple times for two hours. None of the three used notecards nor teleprompter when I was there. Trump has a unique (and funny and often irritating, sort of) speaking style, but his points are solid, coherent, and appropriate for audience. He would lose in some kind of "I know more facts than you do" conversation, but he knows enough and knows how to convey them. RFK Jr and DeSantis would "win" any of the deep-facts conversations of any length.
Trump, DeSantis, and Kennedy can all speak without notes for 90 minutes with, each in their own way, quite a bit of competence.
It has been my observation that when people speak on genuine matters with true passion for the topic or task, and from a perch of applicable knowledge, they do not need cue cards or teleprompters, or any aid at all.
Which conversely speaks to how disingenuous most DC’ers really are , save for a few such as you have mentioned. The left in particular are empty shells of humanity, devoid of true knowledge , or passion for anything but themselves
In the last 10 years I've watched Reagan stumping for Goldwater at least 10 times just to be lulled back to a time when a man could talk about important subjects with great thoughts and grand points with incredible style, then a few years later as he gains enough popularity to win 49 states for a second term, but starts getting pilloried with 49 times the vehemence by a growing number of media, gaining more steam as it gets more watered down, with an increasing number of less talented members, the wrath on one side increasing, its targets decreasing to just one side, which becomes 50% less truth spoken to power on the left side, 50% more talking points parroted against the right side, with an increasing ignorance overall, decreasing enthusiasm overall, with increasing polarization, and decreasing engagement, so now the media is despised by 100% of normal Americans, making America more sick overall. I used to love reading the newspaper, but now I barely make it through the box scores. But hey! I'm here on Chris Bray's substack and loved today's column!
Politicians made their names back then with stem-winders. Daniel Webster, John Calhoun. . . Seems that the Civil War changed things, so that late 1800s political speeches were shorter and less learned, but it took many decades to degrade to soundbite-focused rhetoric.
Listen to RFJ Jr talk about nearly anything on a podcast. His grasp of the underlying problems dwarfs Trump & Biden. Tulsi seems to know her stuff. DeSantis. Vivek. There is hope. There is talent. We just have to push past these clowns.
I hate to say this aloud, but I've thrown in the towel. Here's why. See if it makes sense to you.
Observing life over the years, I came to a very basic conclusion about human nature. It's going to *sound* pejorative, but strip away connotation and take it objectively and without judgement, at least for the first reading.
Any normally functioning human, acting on external stimuli, if given the choice between a easier task and a harder task, will strongly trend toward the easier task.
I think that the core of this is evolutionary, and it's an instinctive attempt to conserve energy.
Now, it's possible to motivate humans toward the harder task but it has to be either for a clearly perceived net gain (immediate or deferred), fear, or deeply, deeply held belief--but the latter really goes back to either fear (of eternal damnation, of the police, etc.) or reward (eternal life, a better job, etc.).
For almost my entire life I've lived in socio-economic environment in which the *easier* path has been encouraged, either tacitly ("finish your assignment and you can have free time"), or actively ("a new labor-saving device!", "a new national holiday!"). There has never really been a reversal of this trend. Within my recollection JFK got closest with his national goal of putting a man on the moon by '69.
In fact, today any such public pronouncement to the contrary would be seen as bad news...suicidally bad news for a public figure to utter. And the converse, good news, is also the easy way out, thus mirroring this basic law I'm proposing.
All things being equal, the easier way wins out over the harder way. We are about 80 years into a national trend of allowing ourselves the easier path, and fooling ourselves into thinking that there's no contrary costs to this practice.
We won't reverse this short of a prolonged national trauma that requires the nation to take the harder--but more effective--course. It will need to be popularly perceived as essential to our continued survival. The switch away from fossil fuels could have done this, except that the early proponents fell to hyperbole, thus corrupting their own argument. The argument relied on an element of trust, since both the symptoms and the putative consequences were not readily apparent, but they blew on early scare tactics.
Historically, authoritarian leadership can overcome this, but since The Enlightenment, when the common man learned that--by God!--his opinion was every bit as good as Voltaire's humanity is drifting toward an ungovernable rabble.
It was like giving the keys to a Ferrari to a 13 year old male.
The opening: "The annual meeting of Congress is always an interesting event. The representatives of the States and of the people come fresh from their constituents to take counsel together for the common good.
After an existence of near three-fourths of a century as a free and independent Republic, the problem no longer remains to be solved whether man is capable of self-government. The success of our admirable system is a conclusive refutation of the theories of those in other countries who maintain that a "favored few" are born to rule and that the mass of mankind must be governed by force. Subject to no arbitrary or hereditary authority, the people are the only sovereigns recognized by our Constitution."
"The United States will last only so long as it takes for a majority of voters to figure out that he can vote for the candidate who promises him a personal benefit that will be paid out of the public purse."
Even everyday people. Watch a "man in the street" interview from, say, 1965, even up to 1990 or so, and then watch an interview now. It's...not pretty.
That is my favorite example, Chris, of the decline in political discourse. Pretty soon, our politicians will have first grade readers: Look! Look! Orange man bad.
This piece relates to the thing which still baffles me practically every day. I have tunnel vision or some type of comprehension deficit. For the life of me I cannot understand how these people are such patently obvious low quality shlubs and simultaneously so diabolically clever. Maybe I overestimate their anti-social capacities, but God knows it’s been on constant display for my lifetime. Maybe it’s the 2% super villains and the other 98% are the flying monkeys “just following orders”. But I believe that we are all savants at something and I think these people are just really good at being little shits and not much else.
Everybody in DC, Republican and Democrat, at a certain rank, knows all about Joe Biden. They know he’s a POS, he’s on the take, he’s a deviant, and he’s a few fries short of a happy meal these days. That includes the people on “our side”, which probably means nothing these days. And yet it takes national exposure for 90 minutes for the Establishment to have a very vocal revelation about how they are just now seeing it. No, it’s that you MFers are found out. And Trump knew this would be the case. Which is why he agreed to the debate and the CNN venue and all that. He knew what it would look like. Honestly his arguments were pretty rudimentary. But it was more than enough. But Trump is the dumb one and Washington is full of political “apex predators”. Right.
The ripple effect of last Thursday is going to be huge. But we still have I overcome the cheating. They will do it again. Right in our faces because they have nothing else. Joe isn’t going to release his bony grip on the Oval Office. Much nonsense to follow.
Martin Amis - genius, darkly comic novelist. Two points for that.
Repetition, consistency, and the lack of imagination that allows people to grind out the same bullshit, tirelessly, year after year. Their greatest ability is that they all just keep...doing it.
Exactly right. The lie of Joes sharpness has been exposed so the natural reaction is to lie and say they never saw it before. There may be a few apex predators but it’s mostly passive-aggressive pathological liars.
Really, the beltway is loaded with addicts. Their drug is power and position, they will feed their craving like any junkie - lie, cheat, steal, whatever it takes to get their next fix. And their next fix never satisfies their craving so they seek higher and higher positions. They’ll even switch teams if it will satisfy their addiction for a few months.
A cat is rather stupid, compared to us. But it is very intelligent in matters relating to being a cat.
It is the same with politicals; they are very good at the traits and abilities needed to climb the corporate ladders of the party/civil service/whatever it may be called in a nation.
But they are very bad at most other things.
Or "being little shits" as you put it, though I'd dispute the "little"-part.
Politics is our era attract psycopaths, power hungry people w/ lust for power. It's no longer a job serving your country but a path to riches and power/contol. We, as a nation, have a huge problem on our hands.
You know, while I agree with most of this, a while back I came to realize that when Mr. Joe Everyman sits in a bar, drinking beer, and says to his friends (who sagely nod), "That Newsome is a moron..." they are falling into one of the very worst self-inflicted situations imaginable:
They are underestimating the capabilities of their enemy, making themselves much easier prey for the sucker punch.
Almost none of the "career politicians" at the state level and above are as dumb as you think, and likely are at least as smart as you are. And I mean the collective "you", not you individually. I'm in there, too.
...and as you say, they are very much better at doing "cat things".
So that when they say dumb things, it's because they've determined that it's what their direct and indirect constituencies will accept.
Ain't no such thing as "too cynical" I've come to realise.
And I mean cynical both in the vulgar sense and as the philosophical school of thought.
Today (July 1st) we got a bunch of new laws, as is traditional. One of them takes the cake. Soda bottles and any liquid container with a plastic cap must now be desgined so the cap is attached to the container, even when opened.
To forcibly remove the cap is a crime.
Thanks to this law, the climate is now saved.
If you hear a banging sound, that's me mimickig a woodpecker...
“Maybe it’s the 2% super villains and the other 98% are the flying monkeys “just following orders”. But I believe that we are all savants at something and I think these people are just really good at being little shits and not much else.” Mostly this - & the big money (Blackrock) keeping it alive.
"For the life of me I cannot understand how these people are such patently obvious low quality shlubs and simultaneously so diabolically clever."
Hah!
You know what I think it is? It relates to the statistic that purports to show that while the average citizen mistrusts congress, they are pleased with their own representative. You see this same phenomenon when people discuss the public school system: for the most part, they criticize it, but when asked about the school their kid attends, oh, it's just great!
So when I see a guy like Schumer on TV, I reflexively think "Would I *ever* buy anything from this man?" and resounding answer is "Fuck NO!", his constituents see him as a clever guy to have on their side.
Same with AOC. These people are "performative icons" first and foremost.
In Robert Heinlein’s classic novel Starship Troopers the military was all volunteer, but only veterans could run for office, vote, be police officers and have full citizenship. That’s beginning to look better and better.
I'd take any form of requirement that people who run for office should be expected to DO SOMETHING -- work at some demanding job for a period of years, run a business, serve in the military, anything. No one who works as a political staffer may ever run for an elected office.
I like the Russian technique from centuries ago. Any prince in line to the throne, had to survive alone on an island for one year. Maybe only had a knife and his clothes. Do you think that would work?
I have 4-5 favorite quotes/verses/poems that I printed on 3x5 cards in order to commit to memory. TR's Man in the Arena is just behind Kipling's 'If' and 1 COR 13 for (IMHO) some of the greatest words ever written.
Each, in their own rights, declare--unapologetically--what right looks like--I have never managed a full day living up to any of them.
When I saw 'Dolt in the Arena'--my stomach tightened. I knew something bad was coming.
I was almost, nearly, upset that you might use a North Star of mine in a way that I can no longer lean on it when needed. Thank you for putting the quote in its entirety. In fact, that quote is from a speech he gave that contains many more truth bombs:
First of all, you're 100% correct. They deserve nothing but disdain. Thursday night's display should--across 'the fruited plain' as the late, great Rush Limbaugh used to say--be the beginning of the end of the Democrat Party and all mainstream/legacy media. Wooden stake to the heart dead.
Sadly--we are so morally adrift--that it is only Sunday evening and the spin about 'Trump lies' and 'one bad night' are in full tilt.
It is in indictment of the ENTIRE classless, talentless, vacuous state of politics, their lackeys, the media--and each and every corporate donor. THE ALL KNEW THE ENTIRE TIME. SINCE 2019!
Remember the disdain the left had for Reagan when it was evident he was suffering from dementia? Cruel.
Biden sadly doesn't have an authentic cell in his body, so I feel nothing but a schadenfreude -filled disgust for the entire family.
Thank you for the reminder that not a single one of these clowns is worthy of our attention/energy beyond attempting to vote them out.
A few days camping with like-minded families has turned Mr Bray into an article writing maniac. I think this is 5 in 3 days. It is great to have you back--but I'll take a 2 week Bray drought monthly for you to get out into the real world.
We are winning. We need to be optimistic. The enemy is desperate and in retreat. Our friends, colleagues, family members who support these fools are lost souls. They don't understand why they are so unhappy--pray for them. Be kind, but don't give an inch.
When you are Godless, single, without family--the only religion these people have is the climate and intersectionality. I bet most of them are like Holly Hunter in Broadcast News when she burst into tears on her bed in a hotel room. They are all living lies--and we should hope and pray they find themselves back into the light.
The leaders? The politicians, media, deep state actors? To the gallows with them...after a trial of course.
Let's go orthogonal on Teddy for a second, shall we? Rather than talk about how he'd compare to current popular leadership, let's see how his philosophies would be accepted.
Reading the quote you supplied, NONE of it sounds like the easy path does it? It seems that at the time he said those words, publicly, there was still a popular appetite for challenge and effort. Because anyone saying those words, or even admitting to thinking them of value, is up Shit's Creek.
Not only is there no such current appetite, you'd be thought a fool by the common man.
Should be but will not be the "beginning of the end of the Democrat Party and all mainstream/legacy media" because the public education system has been taken over by the Left and destroyed, while the legacy media tells people not to believe their own eyes, so they don't.
I read about the 'backfire effect' years ago. Similar to confirmation bias in which we only seek out information that confirms our beliefs--the backfire effect is a doubling down on one's position immediately after learning of facts that destroy your belief.
The degree to which one backfires or digs in is in direct correlation to the degree that such belief is core to one's own view of oneself.
These sad lefties, if they actually hear and believe the truth of COVID--that thread, when pulled, will unravel their entire view of the world.
It took me 10+ years to honestly look at Iraq, GWB & Cheney. I was a soldier at the time. I bought in. Big time. The truth I denied for years, and my complicity in it all--it still hurts.
So, yes our public schools should be washed of all public unions, curriculums re-written, and districts shrunk to about 1/4 of their current size---maybe 1-2 high schools and all the elementary/jr high schools that feed a high school--is the max size of a school district with parents serving on the school board. In fact, it is illegal to be on a school board without children in the district...that would fundamentally change everything.
But once we internalize bad ideas-they are stuck for some time.
"It took me 10+ years to honestly look at Iraq, GWB & Cheney. I was a soldier at the time. I bought in. Big time. The truth I denied for years, and my complicity in it all--it still hurts."
YES! EXACTLY!
Me too for a lot of stuff, but by God, once you bite down and swallow it, first in private, your gut feeling is that you've *really* accomplished something important to your own survival/success.
Not sure we need government schools at all. We were more literate during the many decades before government schools. My wife has always said education is so important the government has to do it. I've always answered that because it's so important, it has to be left alone. Food production is surely a more important, urgent need--but who other than the worst Soviets and Chi-coms (and now Bill Gates and the World Economic Forum) would want bureaucrats/apparatchiks/parasites in charge of our food? Much of our current shit storm comes directly from public (think Frau Dr. Jill Biden!) schools.
I had been a public school teacher right out of college. I stay for 7 years, but could not stay longer, knowing what I was doing.
When our daughter was approaching school age we *really* hashed out all this stuff. We did the best we could under the circumstances. It could have been better, but only in an absolute sense: given the circumstances it was pretty close to the best.
Needless to say it was not public education, and we really only started encountering the introduction of inflexible dogmas very late in HS, and then of course at her east coast liberal arts college.
But the way it is now, public education is a self-sustaining cesspool of poor ideas. By sending your kid private, you are in essence *paying* to not have things. Special ed, ESL/Bilingual, non-tracked classrooms, rampant multiculuralism, group identity awareness.
This is probably more of a reflection of my limited thinking about school. I have fond memories of school, but also some very incompetent teachers as well--mostly in high school--but by and large a good experience.
EdD's are a joke. That and likely 60-70% of the liberal arts undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs should be wiped from existence.
Less is more. You're probably right in that pods, charter, private schools could carry the water.
That's funny. Remember when SNL, doing a GWB impression, used the word 'strategery'? That still cracks me up and I use it all the time--mostly acting like I mean what I say. At the core, still a teenage boy...
Yes. I agree with everything you said. I too struggled with Iraq et.al. but once I did it was liberating. I suddenly could see other things clearly as well, things I had seen in my peripheral vision but ignored. The federal DOE should be dissolved and the feds out of public schools entirely. Total local control.
Turns out there's a branch of Congress that's good for something after all -- the Library.
2 things I noticed: 1) Teddy's voice did not match my preconceptions at all; 2) Donald Trump could recite nearly those same words tomorrow and the speech would be a home run.
Teddy spoke with the mid Atlantic accent which we have been told by countless "authorities" was artificial and limited only to actors. It isn't true, there has always been abundant evidence that it wasn't true, yet once again, "academics" have demonstrated their fraudulence.
Maybe Turkey’s statement that “Washington is the only ecosystem composed entirely of apex predators” should be modified to “Washington is the only ecosystem composed of *wannabe* apex predators.” People with the psychopathic need to do whatever they need to do to have it all without any limits, even if it means eating broiled babies or starting World War III, but lack the basics such as a modicum of intelligence to do so. Most of them are placed there because of their fealty to Daddy Warbucks’ money after all. Being a meat puppet after selling your soul to Mammon requires blind obedience, not independence of thought.
I don't know why this image came to mind--but as I was reading your post--the image of those two men debasing a Senate room by sodomy leapt to mind. Amoral, degenerate, talentless, soulless, black-hearted freaks of nature.
When I think of the current class of DC occupants in juxtaposition with the Lincoln Memorial--Gettysburg Address & 2nd Inaugural Address--which has made me weep every time I've been there--it turns my stomach.
I was astounded when that vid floated around! How humiliating for our country.
Can you imagine Putin or Xi watching that? They must think our country IS Babylon. They could not, in their wildest dreams, think that anyone would shame their "parliament" building like that. I'm soooo embarassed.
Nailed it again Chris! “ I assert with confidence that there aren’t twenty members of Congress, or a dozen directors of federal agencies, who could run a Panda Express”. Sadly many of them might be smarter than the voters who elected them because they did figure out how to get the voters to vote for them. Sigh.
Almost no one in DC, not the congresscritters or their aides, the bureaucrats, the presidential aides or advisors could run a lemonade stand let alone a panda express
Boebert, MTG, Rand, Massie are the ONLY ones I can think of that have actually signed a paycheck for workers. The majority of them are lawyers, ran for office right after passing the Bar and have been there ever since.
That video of Eleanor Holmes Norton parking sums up so many things. My question: who in her own family did not take the car keys from her and hide them? It's all kind of amusing, until someone gets killed.
About 10 years ago my late father, a WW2-Korea-Vietnam era combat veteran, USAF fighter pilot, lost his drivers license (flu vaccine induced partial paralysis and microstrokes), and went almost straight to a doctor he knew, a German guy that loved american military vets, and got that doctor to remove the driver's license restriction somehow. We found out later that that doctor also apparently also prescribed opioids like candy.
My brother was scared shitless, worried about a horrible accident.
Ironically, the last drive my late father took (as a driver) was in the middle of the night to the hospital after hallucinating that he had received military orders to report for duty to make a flight to Reno in a helicopter that was on the roof of the hospital. Weirdly(?) he had a doctor's appointment the next day with a neurologist.
And that was just the beginning of a strange journey on the road to hospice "care".
From family experience, that woman must be demented. It was the first concrete thing I noticed about my mother’s dementia. Oblivious, she continued to drive until banned, but even after that she would steal the keys and drive to her favourite place. Once there, confusion reigned. Backing up was impossible. Take that woman’s keys and get her out of Congress!
Hiding the keys, for real, it's a thing. (I know it's not an easy thing. I have stories.) As for Norton being in Congress, because she's representing the District of Columbia (Washington DC) she doesn't actually have a vote, thank goodness.
I am just gonna say everything I’m a part of “ is the only ecosystem composed entirely of apex predators.” For example, the Rosales Family Homeschool is the only ecosystem composed entirely of apex predators. 😂 wow, I low key understand why they talk themselves up so much now. That line is 🔥 🤣
They won't *need* to worm their way out because in today's climate, they won't have to to explain away *anything* to their readership, no matter how egregious, because now it's tribal, and whatever a member of my tribe does or says, even if it is exactly the same thing we oppose when done/said by members of the other tribe, well, it's just fine if we did/said it.
And this is where it's profoundly different from the previous eras I've lived thru: e.g., when Nixon was caught, you basically had silence from his supporters, not a lame and hypocritical defense.
OK, you make a cogent argument with examples like Norton, Feinstein and Nadler, but...there are a lot more out there who aren't addled and brain dead yet who (IMHO) knew without a doubt that Biden was suffering from the onset of dementia. And most, if not all of the media knew this, too!
This business of "Gee, if only we'd known..." is pure, unadulterated BS! Their "willing suspension of disbelief" (to quote someone who used to be famous) is obvious to the most obtuse. They knowingly put this country at risk for no better reason than pure, self-serving political greed. They should be held accountable and we should never, ever give them a pass on that!
JT you are right on! All 545 swamp creatures in DC know the truth and are merely serving their true masters. They are all in on the grand scam, lining their own pockets as salve for the wound of knowing they are not the ones in control, but controlled by those more evil than they.
Apex parasites says it all, and includes them all just to varying degrees.
Meant to add that it may have been true at one point that it required exceptional talent to reach D.C., and let's remember the format for the Lincoln-Douglas debates:
"Lincoln and Douglas agreed to debate in seven of the nine Illinois Congressional Districts; the seven where Douglas had not already spoken. In each debate either Douglas or Lincoln would open with an hour address. The other would then speak for an hour and a half. The first then had 30 minutes of rebuttal."
90 minutes of extemporaneous speech on the major topics of the day -- go!
But those days are long gone.
The Lincoln - Douglas debates were a long time ago - at least 20 years.
Well done. You have been assigned a column at the Washington Post.
And surely any time either of them froze, the moderator stepped in with a helpful "Thank you Mr. Lincoln/Thank you Mr. Douglas" or a friendly reminder that "you have 58 minutes remaining, sir." Great column!
If it didn't happen in my lifetime, it didn't happen.
lol
I have watched Trump, RFK Jr. and DeSantis speak multiple times for two hours. None of the three used notecards nor teleprompter when I was there. Trump has a unique (and funny and often irritating, sort of) speaking style, but his points are solid, coherent, and appropriate for audience. He would lose in some kind of "I know more facts than you do" conversation, but he knows enough and knows how to convey them. RFK Jr and DeSantis would "win" any of the deep-facts conversations of any length.
Trump, DeSantis, and Kennedy can all speak without notes for 90 minutes with, each in their own way, quite a bit of competence.
Ted Cruz. Mike Lee. Thomas Massie. Rand Paul. A few others. A previous generation of Democrats: Jerry Brown, Bruce Babbitt, Bob Kerrey, Paul Tsongas.
Add Senator John Kennedy to that list. It is unfortunate that we can name them all individually, though...
Senator Kennedy is a shining jewel amongst the rubbish. I wish he were my senator instead of that grifter Bernie Sanders.
It has been my observation that when people speak on genuine matters with true passion for the topic or task, and from a perch of applicable knowledge, they do not need cue cards or teleprompters, or any aid at all.
Which conversely speaks to how disingenuous most DC’ers really are , save for a few such as you have mentioned. The left in particular are empty shells of humanity, devoid of true knowledge , or passion for anything but themselves
Daniel Patrick Moynihan!
Hah!
Great minds, huh? :^)
Moynihan...
The beat goes on... :^)
In the last 10 years I've watched Reagan stumping for Goldwater at least 10 times just to be lulled back to a time when a man could talk about important subjects with great thoughts and grand points with incredible style, then a few years later as he gains enough popularity to win 49 states for a second term, but starts getting pilloried with 49 times the vehemence by a growing number of media, gaining more steam as it gets more watered down, with an increasing number of less talented members, the wrath on one side increasing, its targets decreasing to just one side, which becomes 50% less truth spoken to power on the left side, 50% more talking points parroted against the right side, with an increasing ignorance overall, decreasing enthusiasm overall, with increasing polarization, and decreasing engagement, so now the media is despised by 100% of normal Americans, making America more sick overall. I used to love reading the newspaper, but now I barely make it through the box scores. But hey! I'm here on Chris Bray's substack and loved today's column!
nailed it. Corporate media is the enemy of the people.
Politicians made their names back then with stem-winders. Daniel Webster, John Calhoun. . . Seems that the Civil War changed things, so that late 1800s political speeches were shorter and less learned, but it took many decades to degrade to soundbite-focused rhetoric.
Watch Nixon speak, or anyone from that era. The degradation has been extremely rapid.
Listen to RFJ Jr talk about nearly anything on a podcast. His grasp of the underlying problems dwarfs Trump & Biden. Tulsi seems to know her stuff. DeSantis. Vivek. There is hope. There is talent. We just have to push past these clowns.
bsn
On her YouTube channel, Tulsi Gabbard has a video in which she calls Biden insane. She's terrific, isn't she?
Exactly. Why do the major parties push the worst candidates to the top? Maybe because the more qualified ones can’t be handled?
Like they handled JFK, Nixon, and Reagan and subverted Trump.
I hate to say this aloud, but I've thrown in the towel. Here's why. See if it makes sense to you.
Observing life over the years, I came to a very basic conclusion about human nature. It's going to *sound* pejorative, but strip away connotation and take it objectively and without judgement, at least for the first reading.
Any normally functioning human, acting on external stimuli, if given the choice between a easier task and a harder task, will strongly trend toward the easier task.
I think that the core of this is evolutionary, and it's an instinctive attempt to conserve energy.
Now, it's possible to motivate humans toward the harder task but it has to be either for a clearly perceived net gain (immediate or deferred), fear, or deeply, deeply held belief--but the latter really goes back to either fear (of eternal damnation, of the police, etc.) or reward (eternal life, a better job, etc.).
For almost my entire life I've lived in socio-economic environment in which the *easier* path has been encouraged, either tacitly ("finish your assignment and you can have free time"), or actively ("a new labor-saving device!", "a new national holiday!"). There has never really been a reversal of this trend. Within my recollection JFK got closest with his national goal of putting a man on the moon by '69.
In fact, today any such public pronouncement to the contrary would be seen as bad news...suicidally bad news for a public figure to utter. And the converse, good news, is also the easy way out, thus mirroring this basic law I'm proposing.
All things being equal, the easier way wins out over the harder way. We are about 80 years into a national trend of allowing ourselves the easier path, and fooling ourselves into thinking that there's no contrary costs to this practice.
We won't reverse this short of a prolonged national trauma that requires the nation to take the harder--but more effective--course. It will need to be popularly perceived as essential to our continued survival. The switch away from fossil fuels could have done this, except that the early proponents fell to hyperbole, thus corrupting their own argument. The argument relied on an element of trust, since both the symptoms and the putative consequences were not readily apparent, but they blew on early scare tactics.
Historically, authoritarian leadership can overcome this, but since The Enlightenment, when the common man learned that--by God!--his opinion was every bit as good as Voltaire's humanity is drifting toward an ungovernable rabble.
It was like giving the keys to a Ferrari to a 13 year old male.
A fairly random example of mid-1800s presidential rhetoric is this James Polk speech in late 1847: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/third-annual-message-6
The opening: "The annual meeting of Congress is always an interesting event. The representatives of the States and of the people come fresh from their constituents to take counsel together for the common good.
After an existence of near three-fourths of a century as a free and independent Republic, the problem no longer remains to be solved whether man is capable of self-government. The success of our admirable system is a conclusive refutation of the theories of those in other countries who maintain that a "favored few" are born to rule and that the mass of mankind must be governed by force. Subject to no arbitrary or hereditary authority, the people are the only sovereigns recognized by our Constitution."
Who was it said:
"The United States will last only so long as it takes for a majority of voters to figure out that he can vote for the candidate who promises him a personal benefit that will be paid out of the public purse."
That sounds today like it came from an alternate universe or some alien planet, doesn't it?
James Polk is by far the most underrated POTUS.
Even everyday people. Watch a "man in the street" interview from, say, 1965, even up to 1990 or so, and then watch an interview now. It's...not pretty.
Metaphor for US society as a whole.
As much a commentary on the citizen voter as on the intellectual midgets elected to office.
There you go!!!!
I really hate to say this, but the voting franchise is far, far to broad, and the current sentiment is to make it broader still.
The average Joe on the street is just not up to it, currently.
There was a reason many of the founders wanted to restrict the vote to property owners, read stakeholders.
Every country has the government it deserves.
Joseph de Maistre
That is my favorite example, Chris, of the decline in political discourse. Pretty soon, our politicians will have first grade readers: Look! Look! Orange man bad.
DC is made up of apex parasites, utterly useless at everything but sucking the life out of the host.
"apex parasites"!!
🎯
there it is!
LIKE!
nailed it
Bingo!! Perfect!!
This piece relates to the thing which still baffles me practically every day. I have tunnel vision or some type of comprehension deficit. For the life of me I cannot understand how these people are such patently obvious low quality shlubs and simultaneously so diabolically clever. Maybe I overestimate their anti-social capacities, but God knows it’s been on constant display for my lifetime. Maybe it’s the 2% super villains and the other 98% are the flying monkeys “just following orders”. But I believe that we are all savants at something and I think these people are just really good at being little shits and not much else.
Everybody in DC, Republican and Democrat, at a certain rank, knows all about Joe Biden. They know he’s a POS, he’s on the take, he’s a deviant, and he’s a few fries short of a happy meal these days. That includes the people on “our side”, which probably means nothing these days. And yet it takes national exposure for 90 minutes for the Establishment to have a very vocal revelation about how they are just now seeing it. No, it’s that you MFers are found out. And Trump knew this would be the case. Which is why he agreed to the debate and the CNN venue and all that. He knew what it would look like. Honestly his arguments were pretty rudimentary. But it was more than enough. But Trump is the dumb one and Washington is full of political “apex predators”. Right.
The ripple effect of last Thursday is going to be huge. But we still have I overcome the cheating. They will do it again. Right in our faces because they have nothing else. Joe isn’t going to release his bony grip on the Oval Office. Much nonsense to follow.
Martin Amis - genius, darkly comic novelist. Two points for that.
"...just really good at being little shits."
Repetition, consistency, and the lack of imagination that allows people to grind out the same bullshit, tirelessly, year after year. Their greatest ability is that they all just keep...doing it.
Exactly right. The lie of Joes sharpness has been exposed so the natural reaction is to lie and say they never saw it before. There may be a few apex predators but it’s mostly passive-aggressive pathological liars.
Really, the beltway is loaded with addicts. Their drug is power and position, they will feed their craving like any junkie - lie, cheat, steal, whatever it takes to get their next fix. And their next fix never satisfies their craving so they seek higher and higher positions. They’ll even switch teams if it will satisfy their addiction for a few months.
LIKE!
Compare it to nature, especially animals:
A cat is rather stupid, compared to us. But it is very intelligent in matters relating to being a cat.
It is the same with politicals; they are very good at the traits and abilities needed to climb the corporate ladders of the party/civil service/whatever it may be called in a nation.
But they are very bad at most other things.
Or "being little shits" as you put it, though I'd dispute the "little"-part.
Politics is our era attract psycopaths, power hungry people w/ lust for power. It's no longer a job serving your country but a path to riches and power/contol. We, as a nation, have a huge problem on our hands.
You know, while I agree with most of this, a while back I came to realize that when Mr. Joe Everyman sits in a bar, drinking beer, and says to his friends (who sagely nod), "That Newsome is a moron..." they are falling into one of the very worst self-inflicted situations imaginable:
They are underestimating the capabilities of their enemy, making themselves much easier prey for the sucker punch.
Almost none of the "career politicians" at the state level and above are as dumb as you think, and likely are at least as smart as you are. And I mean the collective "you", not you individually. I'm in there, too.
...and as you say, they are very much better at doing "cat things".
So that when they say dumb things, it's because they've determined that it's what their direct and indirect constituencies will accept.
It tends to be cynical as hell.
But this is just my two cents... :^)
Ain't no such thing as "too cynical" I've come to realise.
And I mean cynical both in the vulgar sense and as the philosophical school of thought.
Today (July 1st) we got a bunch of new laws, as is traditional. One of them takes the cake. Soda bottles and any liquid container with a plastic cap must now be desgined so the cap is attached to the container, even when opened.
To forcibly remove the cap is a crime.
Thanks to this law, the climate is now saved.
If you hear a banging sound, that's me mimickig a woodpecker...
Geez, how stupid is that? Paper straw wrapped in plastic anyone? We have morons in charge.
“Maybe it’s the 2% super villains and the other 98% are the flying monkeys “just following orders”. But I believe that we are all savants at something and I think these people are just really good at being little shits and not much else.” Mostly this - & the big money (Blackrock) keeping it alive.
"For the life of me I cannot understand how these people are such patently obvious low quality shlubs and simultaneously so diabolically clever."
Hah!
You know what I think it is? It relates to the statistic that purports to show that while the average citizen mistrusts congress, they are pleased with their own representative. You see this same phenomenon when people discuss the public school system: for the most part, they criticize it, but when asked about the school their kid attends, oh, it's just great!
So when I see a guy like Schumer on TV, I reflexively think "Would I *ever* buy anything from this man?" and resounding answer is "Fuck NO!", his constituents see him as a clever guy to have on their side.
Same with AOC. These people are "performative icons" first and foremost.
Their staff isn’t stupid, and neither are the lobbyists advising them.
The benefit of having elected officials who are so dumb is that they don’t ask many questions about the policies the party tells them to support.
In Robert Heinlein’s classic novel Starship Troopers the military was all volunteer, but only veterans could run for office, vote, be police officers and have full citizenship. That’s beginning to look better and better.
I'd take any form of requirement that people who run for office should be expected to DO SOMETHING -- work at some demanding job for a period of years, run a business, serve in the military, anything. No one who works as a political staffer may ever run for an elected office.
I like the Russian technique from centuries ago. Any prince in line to the throne, had to survive alone on an island for one year. Maybe only had a knife and his clothes. Do you think that would work?
That would certainly thin the crowd of would-be tsars!
bsn
Would certainly thin out the crowd!
That was a practice here. It was weekends at Epstein’s island.
I believe the the root of so much of our pathology is that the elected leaders and their staff literally cannot do anything else.
Or from a political family. Here in Canada, we need to make a rule that no Trudeau can ever again run for office. Ever. Ad infinitum.
I have 4-5 favorite quotes/verses/poems that I printed on 3x5 cards in order to commit to memory. TR's Man in the Arena is just behind Kipling's 'If' and 1 COR 13 for (IMHO) some of the greatest words ever written.
Each, in their own rights, declare--unapologetically--what right looks like--I have never managed a full day living up to any of them.
When I saw 'Dolt in the Arena'--my stomach tightened. I knew something bad was coming.
I was almost, nearly, upset that you might use a North Star of mine in a way that I can no longer lean on it when needed. Thank you for putting the quote in its entirety. In fact, that quote is from a speech he gave that contains many more truth bombs:
https://www.audible.com/pd/Citizenship-in-a-Republic-Audiobook/B085PQ2C36?action_code=ASSGB149080119000H&share_location=pdp
First of all, you're 100% correct. They deserve nothing but disdain. Thursday night's display should--across 'the fruited plain' as the late, great Rush Limbaugh used to say--be the beginning of the end of the Democrat Party and all mainstream/legacy media. Wooden stake to the heart dead.
Sadly--we are so morally adrift--that it is only Sunday evening and the spin about 'Trump lies' and 'one bad night' are in full tilt.
It is in indictment of the ENTIRE classless, talentless, vacuous state of politics, their lackeys, the media--and each and every corporate donor. THE ALL KNEW THE ENTIRE TIME. SINCE 2019!
Remember the disdain the left had for Reagan when it was evident he was suffering from dementia? Cruel.
Biden sadly doesn't have an authentic cell in his body, so I feel nothing but a schadenfreude -filled disgust for the entire family.
Thank you for the reminder that not a single one of these clowns is worthy of our attention/energy beyond attempting to vote them out.
A few days camping with like-minded families has turned Mr Bray into an article writing maniac. I think this is 5 in 3 days. It is great to have you back--but I'll take a 2 week Bray drought monthly for you to get out into the real world.
We are winning. We need to be optimistic. The enemy is desperate and in retreat. Our friends, colleagues, family members who support these fools are lost souls. They don't understand why they are so unhappy--pray for them. Be kind, but don't give an inch.
When you are Godless, single, without family--the only religion these people have is the climate and intersectionality. I bet most of them are like Holly Hunter in Broadcast News when she burst into tears on her bed in a hotel room. They are all living lies--and we should hope and pray they find themselves back into the light.
The leaders? The politicians, media, deep state actors? To the gallows with them...after a trial of course.
bsn
Teddy Roosevelt wouldn't recognize these shit-eaters at all, if that's any consolation.
Truth.
Let's go orthogonal on Teddy for a second, shall we? Rather than talk about how he'd compare to current popular leadership, let's see how his philosophies would be accepted.
Reading the quote you supplied, NONE of it sounds like the easy path does it? It seems that at the time he said those words, publicly, there was still a popular appetite for challenge and effort. Because anyone saying those words, or even admitting to thinking them of value, is up Shit's Creek.
Not only is there no such current appetite, you'd be thought a fool by the common man.
Should be but will not be the "beginning of the end of the Democrat Party and all mainstream/legacy media" because the public education system has been taken over by the Left and destroyed, while the legacy media tells people not to believe their own eyes, so they don't.
I read about the 'backfire effect' years ago. Similar to confirmation bias in which we only seek out information that confirms our beliefs--the backfire effect is a doubling down on one's position immediately after learning of facts that destroy your belief.
The degree to which one backfires or digs in is in direct correlation to the degree that such belief is core to one's own view of oneself.
These sad lefties, if they actually hear and believe the truth of COVID--that thread, when pulled, will unravel their entire view of the world.
It took me 10+ years to honestly look at Iraq, GWB & Cheney. I was a soldier at the time. I bought in. Big time. The truth I denied for years, and my complicity in it all--it still hurts.
So, yes our public schools should be washed of all public unions, curriculums re-written, and districts shrunk to about 1/4 of their current size---maybe 1-2 high schools and all the elementary/jr high schools that feed a high school--is the max size of a school district with parents serving on the school board. In fact, it is illegal to be on a school board without children in the district...that would fundamentally change everything.
But once we internalize bad ideas-they are stuck for some time.
bsn
"It took me 10+ years to honestly look at Iraq, GWB & Cheney. I was a soldier at the time. I bought in. Big time. The truth I denied for years, and my complicity in it all--it still hurts."
YES! EXACTLY!
Me too for a lot of stuff, but by God, once you bite down and swallow it, first in private, your gut feeling is that you've *really* accomplished something important to your own survival/success.
Good one!!!
Not sure we need government schools at all. We were more literate during the many decades before government schools. My wife has always said education is so important the government has to do it. I've always answered that because it's so important, it has to be left alone. Food production is surely a more important, urgent need--but who other than the worst Soviets and Chi-coms (and now Bill Gates and the World Economic Forum) would want bureaucrats/apparatchiks/parasites in charge of our food? Much of our current shit storm comes directly from public (think Frau Dr. Jill Biden!) schools.
You are right, in my opinion.
I had been a public school teacher right out of college. I stay for 7 years, but could not stay longer, knowing what I was doing.
When our daughter was approaching school age we *really* hashed out all this stuff. We did the best we could under the circumstances. It could have been better, but only in an absolute sense: given the circumstances it was pretty close to the best.
Needless to say it was not public education, and we really only started encountering the introduction of inflexible dogmas very late in HS, and then of course at her east coast liberal arts college.
But the way it is now, public education is a self-sustaining cesspool of poor ideas. By sending your kid private, you are in essence *paying* to not have things. Special ed, ESL/Bilingual, non-tracked classrooms, rampant multiculuralism, group identity awareness.
This is probably more of a reflection of my limited thinking about school. I have fond memories of school, but also some very incompetent teachers as well--mostly in high school--but by and large a good experience.
EdD's are a joke. That and likely 60-70% of the liberal arts undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs should be wiped from existence.
Less is more. You're probably right in that pods, charter, private schools could carry the water.
bsn
"...the backfire effect is a doubling down on one's position immediately after learning of facts that destroy your belief."
Most clearly seen with Palin's attempted defense of her use of the word "refudiate".
That's funny. Remember when SNL, doing a GWB impression, used the word 'strategery'? That still cracks me up and I use it all the time--mostly acting like I mean what I say. At the core, still a teenage boy...
bsn
Yes. I agree with everything you said. I too struggled with Iraq et.al. but once I did it was liberating. I suddenly could see other things clearly as well, things I had seen in my peripheral vision but ignored. The federal DOE should be dissolved and the feds out of public schools entirely. Total local control.
Your own eyes is *all* you can believe.
Jeez. Talk about being the first to lay down your pistol in a Mexican stand-off...
Apex douchbags, apex parasites, yes.
Since you brought up Teddy Roosevelt, I happened across another speech of his a few weeks ago:
Audio: https://www.loc.gov/item/99391599/
Transcript: https://www.loc.gov/collections/theodore-roosevelt-films/articles-and-essays/sound-recordings-of-theodore-roosevelts-voice/#RPR
Turns out there's a branch of Congress that's good for something after all -- the Library.
2 things I noticed: 1) Teddy's voice did not match my preconceptions at all; 2) Donald Trump could recite nearly those same words tomorrow and the speech would be a home run.
Teddy spoke with the mid Atlantic accent which we have been told by countless "authorities" was artificial and limited only to actors. It isn't true, there has always been abundant evidence that it wasn't true, yet once again, "academics" have demonstrated their fraudulence.
Maybe Turkey’s statement that “Washington is the only ecosystem composed entirely of apex predators” should be modified to “Washington is the only ecosystem composed of *wannabe* apex predators.” People with the psychopathic need to do whatever they need to do to have it all without any limits, even if it means eating broiled babies or starting World War III, but lack the basics such as a modicum of intelligence to do so. Most of them are placed there because of their fealty to Daddy Warbucks’ money after all. Being a meat puppet after selling your soul to Mammon requires blind obedience, not independence of thought.
I don't know why this image came to mind--but as I was reading your post--the image of those two men debasing a Senate room by sodomy leapt to mind. Amoral, degenerate, talentless, soulless, black-hearted freaks of nature.
When I think of the current class of DC occupants in juxtaposition with the Lincoln Memorial--Gettysburg Address & 2nd Inaugural Address--which has made me weep every time I've been there--it turns my stomach.
bsn
I agree. Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural—I find it difficult to imagine that he made such a speech. How one yearns for such simple eloquence!
I was astounded when that vid floated around! How humiliating for our country.
Can you imagine Putin or Xi watching that? They must think our country IS Babylon. They could not, in their wildest dreams, think that anyone would shame their "parliament" building like that. I'm soooo embarassed.
Exactly. Humiliating.
bsn
Is it possible to debase a room previously occupied by the likes of Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden?
Good point CB. We are led by weak men. We are now reaping--just the beginning of the reaping, of what we have sown for the past 50 years.
bsn
Nailed it again Chris! “ I assert with confidence that there aren’t twenty members of Congress, or a dozen directors of federal agencies, who could run a Panda Express”. Sadly many of them might be smarter than the voters who elected them because they did figure out how to get the voters to vote for them. Sigh.
Almost no one in DC, not the congresscritters or their aides, the bureaucrats, the presidential aides or advisors could run a lemonade stand let alone a panda express
Boebert, MTG, Rand, Massie are the ONLY ones I can think of that have actually signed a paycheck for workers. The majority of them are lawyers, ran for office right after passing the Bar and have been there ever since.
agree
Don't forget they have a paid army of consultants.
That video of Eleanor Holmes Norton parking sums up so many things. My question: who in her own family did not take the car keys from her and hide them? It's all kind of amusing, until someone gets killed.
I want to see her try to parallel park.
About 10 years ago my late father, a WW2-Korea-Vietnam era combat veteran, USAF fighter pilot, lost his drivers license (flu vaccine induced partial paralysis and microstrokes), and went almost straight to a doctor he knew, a German guy that loved american military vets, and got that doctor to remove the driver's license restriction somehow. We found out later that that doctor also apparently also prescribed opioids like candy.
My brother was scared shitless, worried about a horrible accident.
Ironically, the last drive my late father took (as a driver) was in the middle of the night to the hospital after hallucinating that he had received military orders to report for duty to make a flight to Reno in a helicopter that was on the roof of the hospital. Weirdly(?) he had a doctor's appointment the next day with a neurologist.
And that was just the beginning of a strange journey on the road to hospice "care".
From family experience, that woman must be demented. It was the first concrete thing I noticed about my mother’s dementia. Oblivious, she continued to drive until banned, but even after that she would steal the keys and drive to her favourite place. Once there, confusion reigned. Backing up was impossible. Take that woman’s keys and get her out of Congress!
Hiding the keys, for real, it's a thing. (I know it's not an easy thing. I have stories.) As for Norton being in Congress, because she's representing the District of Columbia (Washington DC) she doesn't actually have a vote, thank goodness.
So nice to hear the Marshall stacks again, white-hot tubes, gain set to 11. Brother, you can shred.
I am just gonna say everything I’m a part of “ is the only ecosystem composed entirely of apex predators.” For example, the Rosales Family Homeschool is the only ecosystem composed entirely of apex predators. 😂 wow, I low key understand why they talk themselves up so much now. That line is 🔥 🤣
Apex predators? On an island of misfit toys, maybe. These are people who are incapable of doing the right thing because they have no moral compass.
LIKE
You all realize “they” would not have this power if it were not for the Media?? Hmmmm…..
I think the senile Biden thing may have exploded the gaslighting by the media
https://ombreolivier.substack.com/p/the-gaslighting-will-continue-until
It will be interesting to watch journalists worm their way out of their obvious complicity. The Scarboroughs should pack their bags and just leave.
They won't *need* to worm their way out because in today's climate, they won't have to to explain away *anything* to their readership, no matter how egregious, because now it's tribal, and whatever a member of my tribe does or says, even if it is exactly the same thing we oppose when done/said by members of the other tribe, well, it's just fine if we did/said it.
And this is where it's profoundly different from the previous eras I've lived thru: e.g., when Nixon was caught, you basically had silence from his supporters, not a lame and hypocritical defense.
And it's why we're damned.
I agree. They will condone whatever needs to happen. Machiavelli for their win….
AGREE
OK, you make a cogent argument with examples like Norton, Feinstein and Nadler, but...there are a lot more out there who aren't addled and brain dead yet who (IMHO) knew without a doubt that Biden was suffering from the onset of dementia. And most, if not all of the media knew this, too!
This business of "Gee, if only we'd known..." is pure, unadulterated BS! Their "willing suspension of disbelief" (to quote someone who used to be famous) is obvious to the most obtuse. They knowingly put this country at risk for no better reason than pure, self-serving political greed. They should be held accountable and we should never, ever give them a pass on that!
JT you are right on! All 545 swamp creatures in DC know the truth and are merely serving their true masters. They are all in on the grand scam, lining their own pockets as salve for the wound of knowing they are not the ones in control, but controlled by those more evil than they.
Apex parasites says it all, and includes them all just to varying degrees.
AGREE
Chris, this is good!