The extent of last Tuesday's bloodbath shines a spotlight on the uncomfortable fact that all of these aforementioned factions are partially correct in their autopsy of the results. It takes a perfect storm for the GOP to lose a clean sweep of fundamentally red states like MS/SC/KS/IA/TX.
The Zombie Right are correct in calling out the disjointed and counterproductive nature of the tariffs, along with the Chudded-out clownishness of the Administration. The ICP/Online Right are correct in calling out the shortsighted decision to get involved in Iran and the overall mishandling of the "Epstein Files". The MAGAverse is correct in pointing out that the congressional GOP's fecklessness demoralized much of the base, and that many of the energizing issues behind the 2024 election are simply resolved/irrelvant.
The only path forward is synthesizing a candidate/movement that's able to capture a critical mass within each of these factions. In other words, someone with the normie sensibilities and free-market policies of Mitt Romney, the immigration hawkery and aggressive feistiness of Trump, and the foreign policy realism + countercultural vibes of someone like Massie.
This Goldilocks candidate probably doesn't exist. I truly wish Vance had simply carried out his Senate term until 2028, since he'd be well-positioned to thread this needle.
The most corrupt admin in history? I keep hearing the right chattering class say this, but no one ever offers any example other than Susie Wiles and Trumps family digital coins.
If trump admin is that corrupt I would like to know how, not just chattering class opinion, when the right chattering class is mostly failed at this point.
Most of the stuff hasn't come out. But selling pardons, offering exclusive access to Truth Social posts for the purpose of insider trading, the digital coins, officials doing pay for play (stuff is already emerging about DHS), the comical Alina Habba-Ric Grenell fight where both sides are involved in dubious deals, and the Kimberly Guilfoyle scandal (a lot of officials are doing the same shit) are just some of the evidence. The Susie Wiles stuff is pretty bad on its own. I'm not sure why you have a dismissive attitude towards it.
The worst corruption scandal involving the executive branch was the Teapot Dome Scandal in the early 20s. But that's basically a normal week for the Trump admin.
Dude, it's Donald Trump. Were you born in 2010 or something? Before politics he was famous for bankrupting businesses, shady real estate deals, tawdry beauty pageants, get rich quick books, seedy casinos, gaudy aesthetics, etc. We supported him in spite of that because he was the only one unfiltered enough and with good instincts on immigration and political correctness to break through establishment politics. Once you start hearing talk of amnesty from him, all that's left is the negative.
I as well. There was another piece that highlighted "Corruption" as the reason we lost but a list of these offenses are never given. Would like to hear those fleshed out.
My concern is how much kingmaker influence Trump will have in the 28 primary. He will obviously endorse whoever kisses his ass the hardest, but closeness to him will guarantee defeat in the general election. Difficult to see how 2028 goes well
I could also see him step back, like he did during the TXSen primary and let it play out. He didn't end up endorsing until close to the date of the runoff so we could see a similar path playout where he doesn't endorse until the field is much narrower
Another one succumbs to TDS, pour one out for our fallen brother.
Ok rage-baiting headline aside, Scott in this article makes the same mistake many others have, of sawing off the limb he's hanging onto. I personally hate the idea of having to cling to Trump and his team like a tree branch in a flash flood, but that's basically the situation we're dealing with here. This is a three-sided bar fight between: a Democratic party that has been almost completely captured by socialists and islamists; a Republican old guard whose politics are laughably outdated and out of touch but still command significant resources and influence; and the MAGA coalition which is splintering because everyone wants their hand on the tiller and no one knows how to row in the same direction. It is fairly obvious that this election is the inevitable result of the first two groups teaming up against the third. But only two of these groups have a long-term plan.
The Democrat's plan need not be stated or elaborated on. Total autocratic control through an elite socialist autocracy. I don't need to write an epistle on why this must be avoided at all costs.
The MAGA plan is Trump's plan and it is more complicated with a lower chance of success. He wants to maximize the sovereignty of the US by reducing the influence of other nations and our dependence thereon. Almost every Trump initiative is aimed at this goal. A non-exclusive list in no particular order:
- Immigration. Nothing needs to be said here.
- Ballot security. Note again that BOTH other factions are fighting him on this.
- Peace initiatives which reduce our need/temptation for foreign intervention, and mitigate the effects of these conflicts on our markets. It need not be said what the Ukraine War has done to food and energy prices in the last five years. Both other factions would prolong this conflict.
- Energy independence: flipping Venezuela, better exploitation and transport of our natural resources, more new nuclear.
- Tariffs, there are three main goals here, in order of achievability:
1. To mitigate foreign exploitation of our economy
2. To facilitate the return of key strategic industries to the US
3. To reshape the structure of Federal revenue in order to eliminate the deficit, pay off the debt, and allow for the elimination of Federal income tax
Unfortunately this is going to require some short term economic pain, but so far we haven't seen as much as its critics were expecting/hoping for.
- Team Trump and all its issues, up to and including potential corruption. I don't like downplaying political corruption but A) I don't see a lot of evidence for it, and B) it sounds like little league stuff compared to the national-scale wholesale looting of the country that the Democrats and their country-club GOP frenemies routinely engage in. And the root of this is still the same talent problem that constitutional conservatives have faced for years now. The best political normie talent goes to the Democrats and then to the country-club GOP because that's where the money and connections are, and there's very little risk of being persecuted by an American political, legal, and academic establishment who hold crushing Trump and anyone who supports him as the only thing they can all agree on. Trump doesn't normally seek 'loyalty first,' in his first administration he picked competent people who he thought he could rely on to get the job done. But as those people spent the first four years undermining him and stabbing him in the back at every opportunity, he was left with no choice in his second administration but to prioritize loyalty and deference over competence. With an administration packed with less competent loyalists, his chances of achieving his goals are low. With competent quislings, his chances are effectively zero.
- Neutralizing Iran and taking control of the strait of Hormuz. Ironically the point of this is to -reduce- our dependence on Israel, not to increase it. Iran is the deep root of most Middle Eastern conflict, forcing us to rely on Israel as a counterbalance and source of consistent intelligence in the region, and a nuclear Iran is unacceptable as a longstanding tenet of US policy. However I think something forced his hand here, not that he never intended to deal with it, but certainly not in the first congressional term and possibly not even during his own presidency. His language towards Iran is that of urgency and irritation, he wants this over with so that he can focus on more important things because the blowback from this in the current political climate was predictable, to say the least. I think Scott is jumping to conclusions with Iran because he doesn't know what actually led Trump to pull the trigger on Iran when he clearly would have rather not. Trump and Senator Kennedy have hinted at this, but at this point no one actually knows.
On the other hand, the country-club GOP has no plan except to kiss the Democrat's hindquarters for eighteen months out of each Congressional term, and pretend to oppose them for the other six. It took me a long time to see this but, just as cucks and simps (and not women) are the real enemy in the Gender Wars, the old-guard Republicans are the real enemy of Heritage Americans. I'm not saying the Democrats and assorted Leftists aren't our enemies, but they would be helpless without the explicit surrender and implicit support of the GOP. To milk the analogy further, this is much like how females would be helpless in any actual conflict against males and rely on -other- complicit males for 99% of their political power. In much the same way, it is the threat of persecution by our compromised legal system and their misguided three-decade campaign against "vigilante justice" which prevents rioting Antifa goons from being surrounded and strung up by a lynch mob of pissed-off white men. To this end, the country-club GOP are hindering Trump's agenda at every turn in order to sabotage his movement and regain their lost constituency rather than putting their full support behind him to defeat the Democrats once and for all. Unfortunately their propaganda power is extremely underrated, and our beloved columnist appears to have been caught up in it. I hope he gets better.
So to sum up, we are out of options in America. If we support Trump and his band of misfits, America is probably still doomed but there is a slim chance we make it through. If he (and by extension his MAGA movement, which will not survive Trump being discredited) is eliminated by the joint efforts of his rival political factions, we are definitely doomed. What is needed right now is to ride out the storm and maximize our chances of winning in 2028. The best way to fail at this is to split the coalition, demoralize the base, and allow a Ted Cruz or Sarah Huckabee Sanders to capture the GOP nomination. To this end we must be focused on keeping the administration on course, clearly and effectively communicating Trump's successes to the normies, and, critically, -helping- Trump succeed in making conditions better for everyday Americans so that the other factions have nothing to campaign on in '28. We also HAVE TO get to work right now to amplify the inevitable failures of the incoming Democrat majority and make them the clear and obvious villain for the next cycle.
Trump needs to shift what voters think about the economy from inflation and gasoline prices to a manufacturing renaissance driven by cheap electricity. The tax cuts and deregulation are working. Trump needs to lean into it.
I had always said that in the long run being so loyal to Trump was gonna cost us. I wasn't even saying you couldn't support Trump I never once advocated voting democrat. The problem is Trump knew he had an audience that loved him no matter what and didn't need to deliver on policy.
Even putting his name on the Kennedy Center, and then threatening to destroy it, if it is taken down. This harmed all workers at the building, including the National Symphony Orchestra.
Scott is talking about the corruption about insider trading and many other things.
- official executive branch actions, tariff announcements, or social media statements posted by the president can directly cause specific stock prices to swing.
-Crypto Personal token drops, crypto platforms (such as World Liberty Financial), and Trump-branded NFT digital trading cards generated significant revenue from domestic and international buyers
- Promoting items such as $59.99 Bibles, $399 sneakers, $99 fragrances, and official watches during campaign cycles led critics to argue he converted political momentum into personal commercial sales.
- U.S. Secret Service, State Department, and military personnel were required to pay room rates, golf cart rentals, and security fees directly to Trump-owned businesses while accompanying him on trips.
-Shortly after leaving the White House in 2021, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner secured a $2 billion investment for his private equity firm, Affinity Partners, from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF)—overriding objections from the fund's internal panel
The extent of last Tuesday's bloodbath shines a spotlight on the uncomfortable fact that all of these aforementioned factions are partially correct in their autopsy of the results. It takes a perfect storm for the GOP to lose a clean sweep of fundamentally red states like MS/SC/KS/IA/TX.
The Zombie Right are correct in calling out the disjointed and counterproductive nature of the tariffs, along with the Chudded-out clownishness of the Administration. The ICP/Online Right are correct in calling out the shortsighted decision to get involved in Iran and the overall mishandling of the "Epstein Files". The MAGAverse is correct in pointing out that the congressional GOP's fecklessness demoralized much of the base, and that many of the energizing issues behind the 2024 election are simply resolved/irrelvant.
The only path forward is synthesizing a candidate/movement that's able to capture a critical mass within each of these factions. In other words, someone with the normie sensibilities and free-market policies of Mitt Romney, the immigration hawkery and aggressive feistiness of Trump, and the foreign policy realism + countercultural vibes of someone like Massie.
This Goldilocks candidate probably doesn't exist. I truly wish Vance had simply carried out his Senate term until 2028, since he'd be well-positioned to thread this needle.
Save us, Jasmine Crockett.
The most corrupt admin in history? I keep hearing the right chattering class say this, but no one ever offers any example other than Susie Wiles and Trumps family digital coins.
If trump admin is that corrupt I would like to know how, not just chattering class opinion, when the right chattering class is mostly failed at this point.
Most of the stuff hasn't come out. But selling pardons, offering exclusive access to Truth Social posts for the purpose of insider trading, the digital coins, officials doing pay for play (stuff is already emerging about DHS), the comical Alina Habba-Ric Grenell fight where both sides are involved in dubious deals, and the Kimberly Guilfoyle scandal (a lot of officials are doing the same shit) are just some of the evidence. The Susie Wiles stuff is pretty bad on its own. I'm not sure why you have a dismissive attitude towards it.
The worst corruption scandal involving the executive branch was the Teapot Dome Scandal in the early 20s. But that's basically a normal week for the Trump admin.
I’m not dismissive. I feel betrayed. I have defended Trump at length. If it is anything lIke as corrupt as you are suggesting, America seems lost.
Dude, it's Donald Trump. Were you born in 2010 or something? Before politics he was famous for bankrupting businesses, shady real estate deals, tawdry beauty pageants, get rich quick books, seedy casinos, gaudy aesthetics, etc. We supported him in spite of that because he was the only one unfiltered enough and with good instincts on immigration and political correctness to break through establishment politics. Once you start hearing talk of amnesty from him, all that's left is the negative.
I as well. There was another piece that highlighted "Corruption" as the reason we lost but a list of these offenses are never given. Would like to hear those fleshed out.
My concern is how much kingmaker influence Trump will have in the 28 primary. He will obviously endorse whoever kisses his ass the hardest, but closeness to him will guarantee defeat in the general election. Difficult to see how 2028 goes well
I could also see him step back, like he did during the TXSen primary and let it play out. He didn't end up endorsing until close to the date of the runoff so we could see a similar path playout where he doesn't endorse until the field is much narrower
Another one succumbs to TDS, pour one out for our fallen brother.
Ok rage-baiting headline aside, Scott in this article makes the same mistake many others have, of sawing off the limb he's hanging onto. I personally hate the idea of having to cling to Trump and his team like a tree branch in a flash flood, but that's basically the situation we're dealing with here. This is a three-sided bar fight between: a Democratic party that has been almost completely captured by socialists and islamists; a Republican old guard whose politics are laughably outdated and out of touch but still command significant resources and influence; and the MAGA coalition which is splintering because everyone wants their hand on the tiller and no one knows how to row in the same direction. It is fairly obvious that this election is the inevitable result of the first two groups teaming up against the third. But only two of these groups have a long-term plan.
The Democrat's plan need not be stated or elaborated on. Total autocratic control through an elite socialist autocracy. I don't need to write an epistle on why this must be avoided at all costs.
The MAGA plan is Trump's plan and it is more complicated with a lower chance of success. He wants to maximize the sovereignty of the US by reducing the influence of other nations and our dependence thereon. Almost every Trump initiative is aimed at this goal. A non-exclusive list in no particular order:
- Immigration. Nothing needs to be said here.
- Ballot security. Note again that BOTH other factions are fighting him on this.
- Peace initiatives which reduce our need/temptation for foreign intervention, and mitigate the effects of these conflicts on our markets. It need not be said what the Ukraine War has done to food and energy prices in the last five years. Both other factions would prolong this conflict.
- Energy independence: flipping Venezuela, better exploitation and transport of our natural resources, more new nuclear.
- Tariffs, there are three main goals here, in order of achievability:
1. To mitigate foreign exploitation of our economy
2. To facilitate the return of key strategic industries to the US
3. To reshape the structure of Federal revenue in order to eliminate the deficit, pay off the debt, and allow for the elimination of Federal income tax
Unfortunately this is going to require some short term economic pain, but so far we haven't seen as much as its critics were expecting/hoping for.
- Team Trump and all its issues, up to and including potential corruption. I don't like downplaying political corruption but A) I don't see a lot of evidence for it, and B) it sounds like little league stuff compared to the national-scale wholesale looting of the country that the Democrats and their country-club GOP frenemies routinely engage in. And the root of this is still the same talent problem that constitutional conservatives have faced for years now. The best political normie talent goes to the Democrats and then to the country-club GOP because that's where the money and connections are, and there's very little risk of being persecuted by an American political, legal, and academic establishment who hold crushing Trump and anyone who supports him as the only thing they can all agree on. Trump doesn't normally seek 'loyalty first,' in his first administration he picked competent people who he thought he could rely on to get the job done. But as those people spent the first four years undermining him and stabbing him in the back at every opportunity, he was left with no choice in his second administration but to prioritize loyalty and deference over competence. With an administration packed with less competent loyalists, his chances of achieving his goals are low. With competent quislings, his chances are effectively zero.
- Neutralizing Iran and taking control of the strait of Hormuz. Ironically the point of this is to -reduce- our dependence on Israel, not to increase it. Iran is the deep root of most Middle Eastern conflict, forcing us to rely on Israel as a counterbalance and source of consistent intelligence in the region, and a nuclear Iran is unacceptable as a longstanding tenet of US policy. However I think something forced his hand here, not that he never intended to deal with it, but certainly not in the first congressional term and possibly not even during his own presidency. His language towards Iran is that of urgency and irritation, he wants this over with so that he can focus on more important things because the blowback from this in the current political climate was predictable, to say the least. I think Scott is jumping to conclusions with Iran because he doesn't know what actually led Trump to pull the trigger on Iran when he clearly would have rather not. Trump and Senator Kennedy have hinted at this, but at this point no one actually knows.
On the other hand, the country-club GOP has no plan except to kiss the Democrat's hindquarters for eighteen months out of each Congressional term, and pretend to oppose them for the other six. It took me a long time to see this but, just as cucks and simps (and not women) are the real enemy in the Gender Wars, the old-guard Republicans are the real enemy of Heritage Americans. I'm not saying the Democrats and assorted Leftists aren't our enemies, but they would be helpless without the explicit surrender and implicit support of the GOP. To milk the analogy further, this is much like how females would be helpless in any actual conflict against males and rely on -other- complicit males for 99% of their political power. In much the same way, it is the threat of persecution by our compromised legal system and their misguided three-decade campaign against "vigilante justice" which prevents rioting Antifa goons from being surrounded and strung up by a lynch mob of pissed-off white men. To this end, the country-club GOP are hindering Trump's agenda at every turn in order to sabotage his movement and regain their lost constituency rather than putting their full support behind him to defeat the Democrats once and for all. Unfortunately their propaganda power is extremely underrated, and our beloved columnist appears to have been caught up in it. I hope he gets better.
So to sum up, we are out of options in America. If we support Trump and his band of misfits, America is probably still doomed but there is a slim chance we make it through. If he (and by extension his MAGA movement, which will not survive Trump being discredited) is eliminated by the joint efforts of his rival political factions, we are definitely doomed. What is needed right now is to ride out the storm and maximize our chances of winning in 2028. The best way to fail at this is to split the coalition, demoralize the base, and allow a Ted Cruz or Sarah Huckabee Sanders to capture the GOP nomination. To this end we must be focused on keeping the administration on course, clearly and effectively communicating Trump's successes to the normies, and, critically, -helping- Trump succeed in making conditions better for everyday Americans so that the other factions have nothing to campaign on in '28. We also HAVE TO get to work right now to amplify the inevitable failures of the incoming Democrat majority and make them the clear and obvious villain for the next cycle.
Trump needs to shift what voters think about the economy from inflation and gasoline prices to a manufacturing renaissance driven by cheap electricity. The tax cuts and deregulation are working. Trump needs to lean into it.
I had always said that in the long run being so loyal to Trump was gonna cost us. I wasn't even saying you couldn't support Trump I never once advocated voting democrat. The problem is Trump knew he had an audience that loved him no matter what and didn't need to deliver on policy.
He's actually been good on delivering policy. The problem is he delivered some policies that shouldn't have been done.
Even putting his name on the Kennedy Center, and then threatening to destroy it, if it is taken down. This harmed all workers at the building, including the National Symphony Orchestra.
Excellent article! My thoughts to a tee- one of your best articles ever, regardless.
Scott is talking about the corruption about insider trading and many other things.
- official executive branch actions, tariff announcements, or social media statements posted by the president can directly cause specific stock prices to swing.
-Crypto Personal token drops, crypto platforms (such as World Liberty Financial), and Trump-branded NFT digital trading cards generated significant revenue from domestic and international buyers
- Promoting items such as $59.99 Bibles, $399 sneakers, $99 fragrances, and official watches during campaign cycles led critics to argue he converted political momentum into personal commercial sales.
- U.S. Secret Service, State Department, and military personnel were required to pay room rates, golf cart rentals, and security fees directly to Trump-owned businesses while accompanying him on trips.
-Shortly after leaving the White House in 2021, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner secured a $2 billion investment for his private equity firm, Affinity Partners, from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF)—overriding objections from the fund's internal panel