Right after the last election, it felt like you could be open about your politics if your politics weren't elite progressive. “Vibe shift,” I was told. “Silent majority,” I was told. So I started being a little more open. I wasn't wearing a MAGA hat to work, but I tentatively rolled the idea around that I didn't have to live a double life, that I didn't have to live in fear of losing my job.
That lasted about three months. I lost three friends who still won't text me back. Then it became clear: WE might have won an election. But THEY still controlled higher ed, big tech, legacy media, Hollywood, journalism. They still control everything. Minneapolis drove this home for me. America wanted mass deportations. Until legacy media and a small percentage of motivated activists convinced America we didn't.
Every artist being terrified of coming out against the elite progressive regime isn't new. It isn't a vibe shift. It just means that nothing changed. Until we have parallel institutions, we can't be surprised that the side that has captured all the levers of power gets to control the temperature.
No, I know why they stopped texting me, it's because I voted for Trump, and I know this because they TOLD me it, but thanks for being incredibly mean for literally no reason and ignoring my anecdotal point anyway.
Not that I disagree but crying about losing some anti-White subversives you deemed friends is mega cringe. This not even about losing money or job, who gives af about some mentally ill freaks
How does your friend not texting you back mean “they” still are in control? Would a world of parallel institutions, etc. compel people to continue to be your friend?
I won’t even mention the right wing turn of Silicon Valley, various universities (though not all) capitulating to anti-woke agreements with the federal government to preserve funding.
I agree with this. But I’d add that Trump is ultimately not serious enough about the mission - assuming the mission to be possible at all, which I doubt. Progressive leftism will destroy American and progressive leftists will be victims too.
I think the vibe shift has more to do with high prices and inflation instead of mass deportations.
On RCP, Trump’s handling of the economy is at -25 while his handling of immigration is -8, a 17 point difference.
The mass deportations may have hurt Trump a bit with independents, but what’s really driving Republicans to sour on him is the economy. Trump at a -18 overall approval rating gives leftists “permission” to attack Trump. The Iran War has exacerbated the economic problems.
If the midterms were a referendum on the mass deportations, Republicans would do fine. But if the midterms are a referendum on the economy, then Democrats could get their wave. It may already be too late, but it’s imperative the Iran War be ended as soon as possible, no matter the shrieking from the Israel lobby.
The vibe shift relates more to culture tastemakers than the general public. The economy was great for his first term pre-COVID. Yet, you could be fired for sharing a Trump meme.
The sluggish economy, and the Iran War, are more responsible for his declining approval with voters. But the mass deportations is what turned the culture against him.
I think you’re right that a majority of people disapprove of the mass deportations and that Democrat and independent “influencers” that crossed over to vote for Trump got scared over mass deportations. But I don’t agree that “conservative” celebrities are avoiding Trump because of immigration. Rather, it’s Trump’s unpopularity, caused by voter frustration over the economy, that makes it risky associating with Trump.
If Trump had a weak immigration policy but the same approval ratings, everyone would still be avoiding him. But if he had better approval ratings with the same immigration policy, he’d have more “conservative” celebrities like Carrie Underwood and Fernando Mendoza associating with him.
The Iran War and gas prices definitely hurt a lot but like Scott said this all started a long time before that. People never had the stomach for anything perceived as mean or bad optics.
It’s true the vibe shift started before the Iran War. That being said, the Iran War pushed Trump into Biden level unpopularity, not deportations.
Throughout Trump’s second term, his approval rating for immigration has always been better than his approval for the economy, often by 10-20 points. If mass deportations were the number one issue driving the vibe shift, we’d see it at the issue level polling.
In Trump’s first term, his approval over the economy provided a buffer for people’s negative views of his immigration policy. In the second term, it’s the reverse.
I'm not talking about the economics, which we could have a vigorous debate about. I am of the opinion that exponential trade deficits are a problem.
I'm talking about how any inflation that happens can be blamed on tariffs. It's not a good place to spend political capital, and Trump is spending lots of political capital.
Cutting healthcare subsidies is political capital. Tariffs are political capital. Iran is political capital. Deportations are political capital. His personal corruption is political capital.
Winning 51% of the vote isn't enough political capital to do all these things.
It really didn't help that Trump changed his mind daily on which countries/goods should have tariffs and how much. It's like he didn't realize that people need to make economic plans and don't appreciate feeling like Charlie Brown when Lucy keeps fucking with the football.
Trump has always been able to lawyer his way out of his crappy business dealings or using shenanigans to strong arm people. Well now he’s at the real big boys table and he can’t run to a court now.
Consider Iran, he’s basically talking to himself…just this last week ( of May) is a perfect example of this. He’s negotiating with himself - he’s a master baiter on the fishing boat.
I’ve been wondering whether he might actually be going senile, what with his constant empty boasting and baseless threats, followed up with assurances that a “deal” is imminent, back and forth, every day.
I wish he’d just fucking resign and let someone competent take over.
I think he’s used to getting away with anything and everything. He does have a few sound positions but the tactics are always over the top and the thinking is day to day.
Given the legal situation I think it was always doomed to be constantly changing.
If he wanted to do tariffs he should have gotten a bill through congress.
This is a common problem. Biden never would have made his big immigration fuck up if he had to pass a bill through congress. While I can think of good uses of executive power, its usually a bad sign when you can't get a majority.
This is the correct way to look at things. I support the tariffs, but in retrospect we would be better off had Trump spent his valuable political capital on ways to get prices lower. Love them or hate them, the tariffs are not why people voted Trump in 2024. People wanted the first term Trump economy back.
How did people expect him to bring back manufacturing jobs and be "great again" without tariffs? That was a big reason people voted for him in areas like the Rust Belt.
Could argue that instead of going after the movement of goods he should gone after the movement of foreign capital...then again the general public would never sacrifice the short term in favor of the long term
They've wound down the deportations to a significant degree but the economy (which just means prices to voters) isn't good and the war is seen as unnecessarily having a bad effect on it.
They did not wind down deportations at all, they're accelerating. Just because people have the attention spans of goldfish and no object permanence does not mean that physical reality has changed.
Daniel's right to some extent. The daily arrests might be down a bit because at the height they were doing the neighborhood sweeps and thats when Renee and Alex happened. Its still a priority though
I think it’s funny that you think this is a situation that’s going to get better. After a year of fractally bad decisions, do you honestly think that Trump is going to start governing well now? This is not a President who had the bad luck to encounter a bad economy. Between the tariffs and the war and the deportations, every bad decision he’s made has been a choice. And he’s got nearly three years of choices left to make, and the possibility of a really bad economic crash on top of it.
The deportations have been fantastic, the tariffs have been fine, even if we would have been better off not doing them. The Iran War was dumb, but it’s feasible we could negotiate an end of the conflict relatively soon.
So yeah, I think Trump’s approval can improve. I don’t know if it can improve enough before the midterms, gun to my head I’d guess no. But Trump having a -12 approval rating maybe gets Paxton or Husted over the finish line whereas a -24 risks Paxton, Husted, Sullivan getting swept. I don’t think it’s inevitable for Trump to stay at -18 or get worse.
The number of government programs he cancelled - it turns out conservatives like government more as much as anyone else. At some point people have to wake up ?! No pun intended. Biden’s administration was run of the mill corruption , this crew is a mafia.
The Daily Wire failed in it's attempt at cultural output not just because conservatives don't actually want it but because the 'boniface option' and their subscriber base isn't big enough.
They needed bigger distribution across a Netflix or Apple or Hulu or Peacock and some money. They needed to attract big spending advertisers who wanted those eyeballs and views.
From what I can tell it was aimed almost entirely at existing Daily Wire subscribers and people in their ecosystem.
Taylor Sheridan wins because he has the access to the eyeballs and viewers ahead of other people.
They could have tried going indie horror route that proved last month to be successful beyond all possible expectations. Just do what Blumhouse does. But instead they tried to build their own Netflix with DailyWire+
Yeah, I’m one of those people who wants more reliably non woke entertainment, but you would have to get it to me. Where would I even encounter a DW show as I’m not a DW subscriber ?
There’s a lot of truth to this, though I think the ICE raids aren’t the decisive factor necessarily. The Newark attacks are done by the same dedicated base of leftist terrorist we’ve been dealing with for 10 years.
I think underrated is the murder of Charlie Kirk. It effectively killed RW ground game among the youth, turned Kirk into a joke, and within days leftist cockroach Adam Cochran had created a counter narrative that a Groyper had done it, which even Jimmy Kimmel repeated, and leftists pushed this lie everywhere—confusing and placating all the angry Facebook moms who then wrote off left wing terror.
Then you get Candance Owens and the Retard Right turning the whole thing into the most batshit conspiracy theory you’ve ever heard, which also worked to diminish TPUSA.
Worst of all, you wouldn’t even have the Newark riots if Trump and Blondi did their job and went after leftist terror. He had a short window, with a ton of political capital to crush leftists and he didn’t. We know who is funding these groups, how and where they organize, and they just did nothing. Leftists became even more confident, realizing they can kill or impede us and nothing will happen to them, no consequences will result. And they’ve been on that high ever since. The feckless response taught them that Trump can be impeded, and that if you can win an argument just shoot people.
You are right about Kirk, but not so much on the response to ICE protests. They have arrested plenty of people at these demonstrations, including multiple Democratic lawmakers and candidates. The DOJ is dedicated far more attention and resources to Antifa than ever before, and they've entrapped a number of leftists in terror schemes. Kirk's murderer faces the death penalty.
Some people seem to think the solution is a Sharpeville Massacre or something. If Trump started gunning down left-wing demonstrators or arresting leftists on made-up charges, his approval ratings would obviously tank.
As much as I'd love to see Antifa get what they deserve, I do agree that it would do more harm than good. I don't disagree that Antifa aren't entirely without repercussions. It's more that after CVille and Jan 6th we saw MASSIVE consequences for our guys, including internet censorship, cutting of funding, debanking, deplatforming, etc but Antifa groups haven't received this treatment. They seem to have only grown in power since then. It's not so much arresting them on MADE UP charges, as arresting them on the crimes they blatantly commit all the time.
A bigger issue, as I stated below, is the lack of RW lawyers and legal staff to handle so many cases.
Plus, Trump's "antifa as a terrorist group" designation is laughable.
The murder of Charlie Kirk is the biggest catastrophe in Trump’s second term. Trump has been wildly successful with his deportations, but not being able to leverage Charlie’s murder to go after leftists has been a terrible failure
Even before Scott posted this article I was just saying today, that so much of these leftists attacking ICE facilities and their resurgent dominance could have been stopped with a massive crackdown and making it déclassé to be a leftist. We were put through worse after UTR and Jan6
I think Trump gets that extreme measures have to be used ro put down left wing violence. But Trump can only do what a unanimous Republican can get behind. Another problem with the Iran War is the loss of political capital that would have been needed to carry out a “scary” crackdown.
I think one of the biggest reveals here, is that institutional federal and social problems cannot be fixed anymore by federal government, even with a well-intentioned executive effort. There is no federal solution to "draining the swamp". In my opinion, eventually the individual states are going to have to take back some of their sovereignty to fix problems, like punishing Antifa violence within their own states. It is the only way governmental reform is going to happen. I think you'll see this more, in fits and starts over the next generation. Sometimes it'll be left states doing it for their niche issues, sometimes it'll be right states. But it will be a net win for the reform process itself?
Trump's presidencies will be remembered in retrospect, for initiating this needed realignment and reform though.
He might have believed that, but I think the bigger issue is the lack of right wing lawyers and legal staff to actually help out with these cases. Most law students are forced to work for leftist NGOs or law firms while students or any prospective lawyer was discouraged from going to school by their conservative parents.
Candice Owens is incredibly popular with MAGA (them being racist and all😆). She violated the Israel policy - any criticism of Israel is antisemitism.However she is completely insane.
I've been surprised about how The assassination of Charlie Kirk turned out from a cultural and political perspective. Previously, I would've said that everyone is replaceable. I'm not much for podcasts and whatnot so I barely knew who the guy was until he got killed, but apparently he had some special cache that nobody else can replicate. So there's a lesson: sometimes political assassination works. Yay. I guess.
Scott, it isn’t rocket science. The economy is awful for most people, and Trump won’t just admit it and promise to do better; he needs to insist it is your fault.
People hate that they are struggling while he is $5 billion richer, lecturing them about the value of sacrificing for the country and saying Hunter Biden working for Burisma like 10 years ago is the real extent of corruption.
Also, his disastrous, illegal, unethical war in Iran has cost him the moral high ground.
I have said people are sick of Trump. You have now basically admitted it.
Exactly, the economy is fine. Trump can’t snap his fingers and take us back to 2019 prices. High gas prices suck and I’ll believe that there are some people who buy enough gas that this makes a real difference, but most people just love to bitch.
He isn’t $5bn richer because he made some honest investments. Think about why he’s $5bn richer and ask yourself how Americans feel about that, and the kind of people who would elect a criminal when they can’t afford groceries.
What killed the vibes was the ever-growing realization among Americans under 60 that the “left vs right” paradigm is a Masonic ploy to keep us focused on goyslop entertainment and Roman-style political games rather than see how the Federal Reserve has enslaved us to an economic system that’s about as “free” as the gulags. Trump marketed himself as the savior from corporatist corruption, the one who would “drain the swamp” of its lobbyists and bureaucrats. Instead, he’s filled it to the brim with the technological elite who want to pave red states over with data centers and send their young men to war in Iran. The vibe shift is Americans waking up and realizing the “American Dream” was indeed more fantasy than reality, and Trump was just the latest, lowest-IQ version of it.
> The Iran War only made things worse, but it didn’t initiate the vibe shift’s reversal. A lot of factors are responsible, but Trump actually trying to deliver what he campaigned on—namely mass deportations—is what got the ball rolling.
Insofar as we can make any claims here, the 2028 odds are the best we've got to go on, and they were steady through all of the ICE stuff. The Iran War is what sunk them, and it's likewise crippled his standing with the young White guys who are, besides being the voters who'd turn out for him but nobody else, the engine of his side of the culture war.
Now, this does get overstated. Most Trump voters still like the guy. But being able to say "Mean tweets, world peace" with a straight face was legitimately a huge part of what normalized Trump support to the public. It's not necessarily the most pertinent issue, but "He didn't start any new Middle East wars" is *the* line that finally made it okay for normies to talk about liking him.
Totally agree. Even though I can kind of get with the Iran War (I don’t want Iran to have a nuclear weapon any more than the Trump admin does), there was a much clearer pro Trump argument made prior to bombing Iran
Trump's biggest drop in approval ratings, -6 points, did not come from any of the ICE shootings. It came from the Liberation Day tariffs. For once I agree with the rest of the commenters here, that the vibe shift is more due to Trump's mishandling of the economy rather than his immigration policy.
I'm not talking about the economics, which we could have a vigorous debate about. I am of the opinion that exponential trade deficits are a problem.
I'm talking about how any inflation that happens can be blamed on tariffs. It's not a good place to spend political capital, and Trump is spending lots of political capital.
Cutting healthcare subsidies is political capital. Tariffs are political capital. Iran is political capital. Deportations are political capital. His personal corruption is political capital.
Winning 51% of the vote isn't enough political capital to do all these things.
Why do there even need to be pop artists at all? When I was a kid in the 1970s, back when the *grownups* were in charge, everyone was satisfied with orchestras playing Sousa marches.
I don't think I've heard his music in decades, if you don't count my own iPod.
Thats what I though as well while reading the article. Isn’t more aura when you DON’T have any pop slop artists – has beens or not? They are all auraless slop compared to orchestra
Android Substack doesn't let me edit my comment, so I'd like to add Copland's *Fanfare for the Common Man.* You used to hear it played during every fireworks show, but now it's always pop/rock.
The globalists knew exactly who to put the screws to. Joe Rogan and co were Making Trump Cool Again and that absolutely could not be allowed.
Also Conservative Cultural Content has always been cringe. DW's mistake was trying to make every product 'Atlas Shrugged' or trying to 'un-cancel' outcasts like GC instead of just making good entertainment. Seriously guys we JUST got the 'naggy uncool church lady' label transferred to the Left, please quit trying as hard as we can to snatch it back from them.
Nice writeup! I've been writing an article series titled "The Abysmal State of the American Cultural Right", and it touches on a lot of what you've touched on here.
The base wanting mainstream culture actually has a lot to do with the Millennialification of the Right. Millennials are now the majority and have the highest purchasing power, and that includes the base, which is increasingly being made up of Millennials and Gen X. The Boomers are dying off, so the Right-wing base will inevitably shift demographically.
Mainstream culture is what Millennials, Gen Z, and even Gen X were primed into. Another issue is the sheer lack of awareness among these cohorts of DailyWire even making an entertainment pivot. For instance, plenty of my friends, who are Millennials and Gen Z, were not even aware that the Daily Wire tried to make entertainment of their own.
It's very hard to start from scratch, and the Right unfortunately SUCKS at that.
I totally agree with your take on the culture stuff. The MAGA boomers just want movies where Red America are the good guys. If they could have every movie be Rocky IV they would be satisfied. Matt Walsh is a professional complainer whose only belief is the world is getting worse. He’s got nothing to offer as an alternative because he has no positive vision of the future mostly because he hasn’t done the reading. I think there’s an appetite among younger elite conservatives for something like Shakespeare or Brothers Karamazov but it’s not profitable yet. As for why the vibe shift is happening it’s because of Epstein and Iran it’s really that simple. Sure immigration was a bad news cycle but it wasn’t that bad comparatively. The woke tried to make it Floyd 2.0 and failed to do so and the reaction was split on partisan lines. Epstein and Iran on the other hand totally changed the game and that’s when the podcast bros flipped. You can call people dumb for caring about it but when Trump protected Epstein clients and started a war that hurts America and benefits Israel that’s what really turned off everyone except Fox News boomers. To dismiss people pointing this out on twitter is coping as much as someone complaining about America250
The cancellations don’t signal much of anything. Most popular entertainment figures don’t want to associate with Republicans. This predates Trump by decades and by several campaign cycles. Heart didn’t want Sarah Palin using “Barracuda.” Twisted Sister banned Mitt Romney from using “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” And Mike Huckabee was barred from using Boston’s “More Than A Feeling.” The press wants to magnify Trump’s “failure” in this respect.
I remember Springsteen getting really pissed off when someone on Reagan's team (who obviously paid zero attention to the lyrics) used *Born in the USA* at some campaign rally.
Right after the last election, it felt like you could be open about your politics if your politics weren't elite progressive. “Vibe shift,” I was told. “Silent majority,” I was told. So I started being a little more open. I wasn't wearing a MAGA hat to work, but I tentatively rolled the idea around that I didn't have to live a double life, that I didn't have to live in fear of losing my job.
That lasted about three months. I lost three friends who still won't text me back. Then it became clear: WE might have won an election. But THEY still controlled higher ed, big tech, legacy media, Hollywood, journalism. They still control everything. Minneapolis drove this home for me. America wanted mass deportations. Until legacy media and a small percentage of motivated activists convinced America we didn't.
Every artist being terrified of coming out against the elite progressive regime isn't new. It isn't a vibe shift. It just means that nothing changed. Until we have parallel institutions, we can't be surprised that the side that has captured all the levers of power gets to control the temperature.
The reaction of the media and normies to the completely justified shootings in Minneapolis was a huge blackpill for me.
Me too. I no longer see these people as my countrymen tbh.
Big Woke didn't make your friends not text you back, dude. Maybe you're just unpleasant to be around.
No, I know why they stopped texting me, it's because I voted for Trump, and I know this because they TOLD me it, but thanks for being incredibly mean for literally no reason and ignoring my anecdotal point anyway.
I have plenty of friends who voted for Trump, but I probably would stop talking to them if they were being a whiny victim about it.
You seem like a complete asshole.
Yes You are on target. Follow Christopher F Rufo. He wr ote an eye-opening book: America's Cultural Revolution. The Rot is very Deep! Blessings!
Not that I disagree but crying about losing some anti-White subversives you deemed friends is mega cringe. This not even about losing money or job, who gives af about some mentally ill freaks
How does your friend not texting you back mean “they” still are in control? Would a world of parallel institutions, etc. compel people to continue to be your friend?
I won’t even mention the right wing turn of Silicon Valley, various universities (though not all) capitulating to anti-woke agreements with the federal government to preserve funding.
I agree with this. But I’d add that Trump is ultimately not serious enough about the mission - assuming the mission to be possible at all, which I doubt. Progressive leftism will destroy American and progressive leftists will be victims too.
I think the vibe shift has more to do with high prices and inflation instead of mass deportations.
On RCP, Trump’s handling of the economy is at -25 while his handling of immigration is -8, a 17 point difference.
The mass deportations may have hurt Trump a bit with independents, but what’s really driving Republicans to sour on him is the economy. Trump at a -18 overall approval rating gives leftists “permission” to attack Trump. The Iran War has exacerbated the economic problems.
If the midterms were a referendum on the mass deportations, Republicans would do fine. But if the midterms are a referendum on the economy, then Democrats could get their wave. It may already be too late, but it’s imperative the Iran War be ended as soon as possible, no matter the shrieking from the Israel lobby.
The vibe shift relates more to culture tastemakers than the general public. The economy was great for his first term pre-COVID. Yet, you could be fired for sharing a Trump meme.
The sluggish economy, and the Iran War, are more responsible for his declining approval with voters. But the mass deportations is what turned the culture against him.
I think you’re right that a majority of people disapprove of the mass deportations and that Democrat and independent “influencers” that crossed over to vote for Trump got scared over mass deportations. But I don’t agree that “conservative” celebrities are avoiding Trump because of immigration. Rather, it’s Trump’s unpopularity, caused by voter frustration over the economy, that makes it risky associating with Trump.
If Trump had a weak immigration policy but the same approval ratings, everyone would still be avoiding him. But if he had better approval ratings with the same immigration policy, he’d have more “conservative” celebrities like Carrie Underwood and Fernando Mendoza associating with him.
No, the mass deportations are about the only thing going for him.
The Iran War and gas prices definitely hurt a lot but like Scott said this all started a long time before that. People never had the stomach for anything perceived as mean or bad optics.
It’s true the vibe shift started before the Iran War. That being said, the Iran War pushed Trump into Biden level unpopularity, not deportations.
Throughout Trump’s second term, his approval rating for immigration has always been better than his approval for the economy, often by 10-20 points. If mass deportations were the number one issue driving the vibe shift, we’d see it at the issue level polling.
In Trump’s first term, his approval over the economy provided a buffer for people’s negative views of his immigration policy. In the second term, it’s the reverse.
Tariffs were a mistake.
I'm not talking about the economics, which we could have a vigorous debate about. I am of the opinion that exponential trade deficits are a problem.
I'm talking about how any inflation that happens can be blamed on tariffs. It's not a good place to spend political capital, and Trump is spending lots of political capital.
Cutting healthcare subsidies is political capital. Tariffs are political capital. Iran is political capital. Deportations are political capital. His personal corruption is political capital.
Winning 51% of the vote isn't enough political capital to do all these things.
It really didn't help that Trump changed his mind daily on which countries/goods should have tariffs and how much. It's like he didn't realize that people need to make economic plans and don't appreciate feeling like Charlie Brown when Lucy keeps fucking with the football.
Trump has always been able to lawyer his way out of his crappy business dealings or using shenanigans to strong arm people. Well now he’s at the real big boys table and he can’t run to a court now.
Consider Iran, he’s basically talking to himself…just this last week ( of May) is a perfect example of this. He’s negotiating with himself - he’s a master baiter on the fishing boat.
I’ve been wondering whether he might actually be going senile, what with his constant empty boasting and baseless threats, followed up with assurances that a “deal” is imminent, back and forth, every day.
I wish he’d just fucking resign and let someone competent take over.
I think he’s used to getting away with anything and everything. He does have a few sound positions but the tactics are always over the top and the thinking is day to day.
Given the legal situation I think it was always doomed to be constantly changing.
If he wanted to do tariffs he should have gotten a bill through congress.
This is a common problem. Biden never would have made his big immigration fuck up if he had to pass a bill through congress. While I can think of good uses of executive power, its usually a bad sign when you can't get a majority.
This is the correct way to look at things. I support the tariffs, but in retrospect we would be better off had Trump spent his valuable political capital on ways to get prices lower. Love them or hate them, the tariffs are not why people voted Trump in 2024. People wanted the first term Trump economy back.
How did people expect him to bring back manufacturing jobs and be "great again" without tariffs? That was a big reason people voted for him in areas like the Rust Belt.
Could argue that instead of going after the movement of goods he should gone after the movement of foreign capital...then again the general public would never sacrifice the short term in favor of the long term
They've wound down the deportations to a significant degree but the economy (which just means prices to voters) isn't good and the war is seen as unnecessarily having a bad effect on it.
They did not wind down deportations at all, they're accelerating. Just because people have the attention spans of goldfish and no object permanence does not mean that physical reality has changed.
Daniel's right to some extent. The daily arrests might be down a bit because at the height they were doing the neighborhood sweeps and thats when Renee and Alex happened. Its still a priority though
I think it’s funny that you think this is a situation that’s going to get better. After a year of fractally bad decisions, do you honestly think that Trump is going to start governing well now? This is not a President who had the bad luck to encounter a bad economy. Between the tariffs and the war and the deportations, every bad decision he’s made has been a choice. And he’s got nearly three years of choices left to make, and the possibility of a really bad economic crash on top of it.
The deportations have been fantastic, the tariffs have been fine, even if we would have been better off not doing them. The Iran War was dumb, but it’s feasible we could negotiate an end of the conflict relatively soon.
So yeah, I think Trump’s approval can improve. I don’t know if it can improve enough before the midterms, gun to my head I’d guess no. But Trump having a -12 approval rating maybe gets Paxton or Husted over the finish line whereas a -24 risks Paxton, Husted, Sullivan getting swept. I don’t think it’s inevitable for Trump to stay at -18 or get worse.
The number of government programs he cancelled - it turns out conservatives like government more as much as anyone else. At some point people have to wake up ?! No pun intended. Biden’s administration was run of the mill corruption , this crew is a mafia.
Yeah but the high prices were never gonna come down nominally...
The Daily Wire failed in it's attempt at cultural output not just because conservatives don't actually want it but because the 'boniface option' and their subscriber base isn't big enough.
They needed bigger distribution across a Netflix or Apple or Hulu or Peacock and some money. They needed to attract big spending advertisers who wanted those eyeballs and views.
From what I can tell it was aimed almost entirely at existing Daily Wire subscribers and people in their ecosystem.
Taylor Sheridan wins because he has the access to the eyeballs and viewers ahead of other people.
Good points.
They could have tried going indie horror route that proved last month to be successful beyond all possible expectations. Just do what Blumhouse does. But instead they tried to build their own Netflix with DailyWire+
Yeah, I’m one of those people who wants more reliably non woke entertainment, but you would have to get it to me. Where would I even encounter a DW show as I’m not a DW subscriber ?
There’s a lot of truth to this, though I think the ICE raids aren’t the decisive factor necessarily. The Newark attacks are done by the same dedicated base of leftist terrorist we’ve been dealing with for 10 years.
I think underrated is the murder of Charlie Kirk. It effectively killed RW ground game among the youth, turned Kirk into a joke, and within days leftist cockroach Adam Cochran had created a counter narrative that a Groyper had done it, which even Jimmy Kimmel repeated, and leftists pushed this lie everywhere—confusing and placating all the angry Facebook moms who then wrote off left wing terror.
Then you get Candance Owens and the Retard Right turning the whole thing into the most batshit conspiracy theory you’ve ever heard, which also worked to diminish TPUSA.
Worst of all, you wouldn’t even have the Newark riots if Trump and Blondi did their job and went after leftist terror. He had a short window, with a ton of political capital to crush leftists and he didn’t. We know who is funding these groups, how and where they organize, and they just did nothing. Leftists became even more confident, realizing they can kill or impede us and nothing will happen to them, no consequences will result. And they’ve been on that high ever since. The feckless response taught them that Trump can be impeded, and that if you can win an argument just shoot people.
You are right about Kirk, but not so much on the response to ICE protests. They have arrested plenty of people at these demonstrations, including multiple Democratic lawmakers and candidates. The DOJ is dedicated far more attention and resources to Antifa than ever before, and they've entrapped a number of leftists in terror schemes. Kirk's murderer faces the death penalty.
Some people seem to think the solution is a Sharpeville Massacre or something. If Trump started gunning down left-wing demonstrators or arresting leftists on made-up charges, his approval ratings would obviously tank.
As much as I'd love to see Antifa get what they deserve, I do agree that it would do more harm than good. I don't disagree that Antifa aren't entirely without repercussions. It's more that after CVille and Jan 6th we saw MASSIVE consequences for our guys, including internet censorship, cutting of funding, debanking, deplatforming, etc but Antifa groups haven't received this treatment. They seem to have only grown in power since then. It's not so much arresting them on MADE UP charges, as arresting them on the crimes they blatantly commit all the time.
A bigger issue, as I stated below, is the lack of RW lawyers and legal staff to handle so many cases.
Plus, Trump's "antifa as a terrorist group" designation is laughable.
Trump could have learned a lesson from Putin here
The murder of Charlie Kirk is the biggest catastrophe in Trump’s second term. Trump has been wildly successful with his deportations, but not being able to leverage Charlie’s murder to go after leftists has been a terrible failure
Even before Scott posted this article I was just saying today, that so much of these leftists attacking ICE facilities and their resurgent dominance could have been stopped with a massive crackdown and making it déclassé to be a leftist. We were put through worse after UTR and Jan6
As an anti-woke economic conservative, it’s nice to read these comments for a reminder that maga is a fundamentally cursed and unprincipled movement
I think Trump gets that extreme measures have to be used ro put down left wing violence. But Trump can only do what a unanimous Republican can get behind. Another problem with the Iran War is the loss of political capital that would have been needed to carry out a “scary” crackdown.
I think one of the biggest reveals here, is that institutional federal and social problems cannot be fixed anymore by federal government, even with a well-intentioned executive effort. There is no federal solution to "draining the swamp". In my opinion, eventually the individual states are going to have to take back some of their sovereignty to fix problems, like punishing Antifa violence within their own states. It is the only way governmental reform is going to happen. I think you'll see this more, in fits and starts over the next generation. Sometimes it'll be left states doing it for their niche issues, sometimes it'll be right states. But it will be a net win for the reform process itself?
Trump's presidencies will be remembered in retrospect, for initiating this needed realignment and reform though.
He might have believed that, but I think the bigger issue is the lack of right wing lawyers and legal staff to actually help out with these cases. Most law students are forced to work for leftist NGOs or law firms while students or any prospective lawyer was discouraged from going to school by their conservative parents.
The "dirty filthy hippies" proto-meme from 1968 and onwards could be an example.
Candice Owens is incredibly popular with MAGA (them being racist and all😆). She violated the Israel policy - any criticism of Israel is antisemitism.However she is completely insane.
I've been surprised about how The assassination of Charlie Kirk turned out from a cultural and political perspective. Previously, I would've said that everyone is replaceable. I'm not much for podcasts and whatnot so I barely knew who the guy was until he got killed, but apparently he had some special cache that nobody else can replicate. So there's a lesson: sometimes political assassination works. Yay. I guess.
Scott, it isn’t rocket science. The economy is awful for most people, and Trump won’t just admit it and promise to do better; he needs to insist it is your fault.
People hate that they are struggling while he is $5 billion richer, lecturing them about the value of sacrificing for the country and saying Hunter Biden working for Burisma like 10 years ago is the real extent of corruption.
Also, his disastrous, illegal, unethical war in Iran has cost him the moral high ground.
I have said people are sick of Trump. You have now basically admitted it.
Up until the Iran War the economy is fine, and even today inflation adjusted gas prices are significantly below what they were in the Bush years.
Exactly, the economy is fine. Trump can’t snap his fingers and take us back to 2019 prices. High gas prices suck and I’ll believe that there are some people who buy enough gas that this makes a real difference, but most people just love to bitch.
Anecdotally, my investment account reached a new high today.
Same and my company has had its best year in a decade.
He isn’t $5bn richer because he made some honest investments. Think about why he’s $5bn richer and ask yourself how Americans feel about that, and the kind of people who would elect a criminal when they can’t afford groceries.
What killed the vibes was the ever-growing realization among Americans under 60 that the “left vs right” paradigm is a Masonic ploy to keep us focused on goyslop entertainment and Roman-style political games rather than see how the Federal Reserve has enslaved us to an economic system that’s about as “free” as the gulags. Trump marketed himself as the savior from corporatist corruption, the one who would “drain the swamp” of its lobbyists and bureaucrats. Instead, he’s filled it to the brim with the technological elite who want to pave red states over with data centers and send their young men to war in Iran. The vibe shift is Americans waking up and realizing the “American Dream” was indeed more fantasy than reality, and Trump was just the latest, lowest-IQ version of it.
“The federal reserve has ENSLAVED US!!!”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Blame data centers”
> The Iran War only made things worse, but it didn’t initiate the vibe shift’s reversal. A lot of factors are responsible, but Trump actually trying to deliver what he campaigned on—namely mass deportations—is what got the ball rolling.
Insofar as we can make any claims here, the 2028 odds are the best we've got to go on, and they were steady through all of the ICE stuff. The Iran War is what sunk them, and it's likewise crippled his standing with the young White guys who are, besides being the voters who'd turn out for him but nobody else, the engine of his side of the culture war.
Now, this does get overstated. Most Trump voters still like the guy. But being able to say "Mean tweets, world peace" with a straight face was legitimately a huge part of what normalized Trump support to the public. It's not necessarily the most pertinent issue, but "He didn't start any new Middle East wars" is *the* line that finally made it okay for normies to talk about liking him.
Totally agree. Even though I can kind of get with the Iran War (I don’t want Iran to have a nuclear weapon any more than the Trump admin does), there was a much clearer pro Trump argument made prior to bombing Iran
Trump's biggest drop in approval ratings, -6 points, did not come from any of the ICE shootings. It came from the Liberation Day tariffs. For once I agree with the rest of the commenters here, that the vibe shift is more due to Trump's mishandling of the economy rather than his immigration policy.
Tariffs were a mistake.
I'm not talking about the economics, which we could have a vigorous debate about. I am of the opinion that exponential trade deficits are a problem.
I'm talking about how any inflation that happens can be blamed on tariffs. It's not a good place to spend political capital, and Trump is spending lots of political capital.
Cutting healthcare subsidies is political capital. Tariffs are political capital. Iran is political capital. Deportations are political capital. His personal corruption is political capital.
Winning 51% of the vote isn't enough political capital to do all these things.
Why do there even need to be pop artists at all? When I was a kid in the 1970s, back when the *grownups* were in charge, everyone was satisfied with orchestras playing Sousa marches.
I don't think I've heard his music in decades, if you don't count my own iPod.
Thats what I though as well while reading the article. Isn’t more aura when you DON’T have any pop slop artists – has beens or not? They are all auraless slop compared to orchestra
Android Substack doesn't let me edit my comment, so I'd like to add Copland's *Fanfare for the Common Man.* You used to hear it played during every fireworks show, but now it's always pop/rock.
His Iran debacle at the behest of Israel is the nail in the coffin. He’s basically a neocon but more transactional. Not our guy for sure
Agree with Neophyte: it's the economy.
Trump was elected by people angry with inflation, and made it worse with tariffs. Immigration's actually his least bad issue.
The rest is commentary.
Tariffs were quickly cancelled, unlike Iran War
The globalists knew exactly who to put the screws to. Joe Rogan and co were Making Trump Cool Again and that absolutely could not be allowed.
Also Conservative Cultural Content has always been cringe. DW's mistake was trying to make every product 'Atlas Shrugged' or trying to 'un-cancel' outcasts like GC instead of just making good entertainment. Seriously guys we JUST got the 'naggy uncool church lady' label transferred to the Left, please quit trying as hard as we can to snatch it back from them.
Nice writeup! I've been writing an article series titled "The Abysmal State of the American Cultural Right", and it touches on a lot of what you've touched on here.
The base wanting mainstream culture actually has a lot to do with the Millennialification of the Right. Millennials are now the majority and have the highest purchasing power, and that includes the base, which is increasingly being made up of Millennials and Gen X. The Boomers are dying off, so the Right-wing base will inevitably shift demographically.
Mainstream culture is what Millennials, Gen Z, and even Gen X were primed into. Another issue is the sheer lack of awareness among these cohorts of DailyWire even making an entertainment pivot. For instance, plenty of my friends, who are Millennials and Gen Z, were not even aware that the Daily Wire tried to make entertainment of their own.
It's very hard to start from scratch, and the Right unfortunately SUCKS at that.
I totally agree with your take on the culture stuff. The MAGA boomers just want movies where Red America are the good guys. If they could have every movie be Rocky IV they would be satisfied. Matt Walsh is a professional complainer whose only belief is the world is getting worse. He’s got nothing to offer as an alternative because he has no positive vision of the future mostly because he hasn’t done the reading. I think there’s an appetite among younger elite conservatives for something like Shakespeare or Brothers Karamazov but it’s not profitable yet. As for why the vibe shift is happening it’s because of Epstein and Iran it’s really that simple. Sure immigration was a bad news cycle but it wasn’t that bad comparatively. The woke tried to make it Floyd 2.0 and failed to do so and the reaction was split on partisan lines. Epstein and Iran on the other hand totally changed the game and that’s when the podcast bros flipped. You can call people dumb for caring about it but when Trump protected Epstein clients and started a war that hurts America and benefits Israel that’s what really turned off everyone except Fox News boomers. To dismiss people pointing this out on twitter is coping as much as someone complaining about America250
The cancellations don’t signal much of anything. Most popular entertainment figures don’t want to associate with Republicans. This predates Trump by decades and by several campaign cycles. Heart didn’t want Sarah Palin using “Barracuda.” Twisted Sister banned Mitt Romney from using “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” And Mike Huckabee was barred from using Boston’s “More Than A Feeling.” The press wants to magnify Trump’s “failure” in this respect.
I remember Springsteen getting really pissed off when someone on Reagan's team (who obviously paid zero attention to the lyrics) used *Born in the USA* at some campaign rally.