Wow. I like your newsletter, always look forward to the read when it comes out a few times per week. I don't know what kind of online conversations you're subjected to outside of this substack, but I hope today's missive got that out of your system. Maybe just don't engage them? Let your writing speak for itself and don't rise to the bait if people are trolling you?
The piece earlier this week was one of the largest viewed ones ever, but it definitely received a LOT of blowback. My inbox was overflowing with negative trolls. Tomorrow's weekly recap is going to contain some examples of what I've been receiving this week.
Is it out of my system? We'll see. I will say that the nice messages and encouraging thoughts by readers like you have REALLY been appreciated this week. Thanks for reading and offering your thoughts.
I think Trumps Gaza plan was deliberately insane to shake the Middle East out of 70+ years of the same old same old. Now I read that Egypt and Qater are working very hard on an alternative. And that seems like progress. Repeating the ‘pour money on the Palestinians’ process makes 0 sense to me.
THAT is how Trump works. He throws out the insane idea to get people to think out of the box and start a conversation. Once you know that, you take everything he says with a grain of salt and a little humor. Then you watch the chips fall.
There are three executive orders (EO’s) that Trump has signed that are worthy of support by everyone across the moderate political spectrum
The first of these EO’s recognizes that open borders are politically unacceptable and that the age of mass migration is over. Importing millions of people who will work for next to nothing just to be here destroys the wages of working class Americans and drives up housing costs when we can't house our own citizens. People cannot overpopulate their home country and just expect to move to greener pastures. There are no more green pastures. They need to voluntarily reduce their own country's population to an environmentally sustainable level, stay home and work there to improve their living conditions.
His second important EO addresses the insanity of gender identity which denies the reality of human sexuality and results in men invading women’s sports, restrooms, locker rooms and prisons. Women need and are entitled to privacy from men. Even more diabolical is the mutilation of innocent children (many who would grow up gay) in pursuit of the impossible because you can’t change your birth sex.
Finally his EO that corrects the craziness of DEI which discriminates against whites, Asians and men in attempting to cure past discrimination against others is absolutely the correct approach. Who could believe that creating a new privileged class and a new discriminated against class would provide a solution to the problem? Not to mention that it’s clearly unconstitutional.
It would well serve both Democrats and independents to get behind these changes even as they choose to vigorously oppose other aspects of his agenda.
I appreciate your articles . A friend once described knee-jerk liberals as blue MAGA and that rings true about your angry commenters. I must admit I have taken to calling Trump Shitler, though.
Funny… liberals are hyperbolic so NOBODY likes them… the right just straight up lies and makes shit up as of it were fact, run with it… totally more acceptable than hyperbole
So here’s my issue with these kinds of articles that have honestly become a dime a dozen… what’s your solution? I don’t necessarily disagree with the sentiment but I hear a lot of complaining (which is ironic because you’re complaining about others complaining) but I see no solutions except… sit down and shut up? I was born and raised and live in a a rust belt welfare county in Ohio, blue turned red over the past decade. Myself and others in our town have spent the past decade exhausting ourselves in conversations with our peers trying to rationalize with them and “meet them where they’re at” over their politics and to what end?? You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink and I’m fucking exhausted trying to get the horse to drink so yeah, maybe I’ll yell and scream and exaggerate because the horse won’t fucking listen. So again, tell me what I’m supposed to do? Not “liberals” not “the party” not some vague idea or internet trolls… me, a singular person.
I’m a liberal who’s more worried than the author is, but from a strategic standpoint, I’ve come to some of the same conclusions about what works and what doesn’t.
There’s a liberal commentator named Luke Beasley who made a point similar to of one the author’s: describing Trump’s actions as-is can be *more* shocking to people than speaking about him in alarming terms. If you call Trump a fascist or protest without a specific message, it becomes a debate about the definition of fascism and makes Trump’s actions seem less extreme to many people. That’s just how human nature works.
To demonstrate the lesson in practice, Beasley went on a pro-Trump podcast where the hosts kept trying to bring the discussion back to a debate about the label fascism. Beasley didn’t entertain it. Instead, Beasley said he would not discuss labels, and he focused on specific actions. He pinned the hosts down into revealing that they unequivocally support Trump’s actions on Jan 6. There are many moderates who would find that admission more disturbing than hearing a Trump fan predictably say that he doesn’t think Trump is a fascist.
“Trump is a fascist” is less effective than:
“After campaigning on it for months, Trump pardoned Jan 6 rioters who beat and tased cops and called for hanging Trump’s own former VP, Mike Pence, because Pence wouldn’t go along with Trump’s plan to overturn the election. JD Vance claimed days before that Trump wouldn’t do that, but you can’t trust what he says, apparently. After all, Vance did say after he was caught fabricating stories about Haitian TPS migrants eating their neighbors’ cats that he’s all for “making up stories” to get the American people’s attention.”
“In the aftermath of American citizens’ homes being burned down by the LA wildfires, Trump said he would withhold disaster aid to California until they pass a Voter ID law, which won’t help to rebuild a single home. Doesn’t he claim to be for helping all Americans?”
“Trump’s admin is barring the Associated Press news organization from press conferences because they won’t commit to saying “Gulf of America.” What does that have to do with getting prices down?”
Hey man, I really appreciated your reply and honestly I felt it was more constructive than the original post. I get it, I understand the change in strategy and as I said in my original comment I didn’t necessarily disagree with the sentiment expressed I had more of an issue with how it was expressed… but I guess it did grab my attention and generate discussion which is useful. Admittedly it’s difficult for me to read these articles and not feel like there’s a subtle (or maybe obviously aggressive) shift in responsibility and blame from those that voted for him to those that didn’t and that’s a game I’m tired of playing. Besides that, I gotta ask.. so, when ARE we allowed to call it a coup? When ARE we allowed to invoke hitler/nazi similarities? Again, I get it… if ya wanna win ya gotta be willing to play the game but what do you do when it’s not a game anymore?
I appreciate your replies too. I felt similarly about how it was expressed. The Trump era has really driven home for me how different we human beings can be philosophically and psychologically.
Interesting take on Trump’s Gaza plan. I don’t see how it does not amount to ethnic cleansing? He has said he wants to remove the Palestinian people from the land, put them in refugee camps, and not let them back in. From Brittanica: “ethnic cleansing, the attempt to create ethnically homogeneous geographic areas through the deportation or forcible displacement of persons belonging to particular ethnic groups.” The only argument against Trump’s plan being ethnic cleansing is that he doesn’t necessarily want to create an ethnically homogenous area? He just wants the Palestinians out and for America to take over the land. What am I missing? How is this not a plan to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip?
I generally believe in your own belief in “purple”. There is not much of a middle anymore. However, what’s missing from your analysis of Musk is the destruction of the families of fired fed workers. Some will lose their homes. They have a right to scream. I’ll continue to read your purple musings but will hope for a bit more of an empathetic understanding. That is a purple principle I support.
Nobody protests when private sector workers get laid off. FAANG fired tens of thousands of workers over the last two years. Nobody, I mean nobody, from the public sector called in favors with media and got all the attention swung into private sector workers, there were no protests, nothing. All of a sudden you reduce some recent hiring classes of Feds, you trim those in a probationary period, and people act like it’s a genocide. THIS is what he’s talking about.
The only one here calling it genocide is you dude. Your comment fully plays into Tim Hs… complete lack of empathy or my god I’ll even take sympathy at this point? Federal government is not private industry and it’s an ignorant viewpoint to hold those two industries in equivalence. There was something I once heard about “two wrongs….” But can remember what it is. Weak argument, always has been always will be.
Federal government is a service and it’s a major source of waste. If the employees there are supposedly so good, they will find new jobs. If, as most of us suspect, it’s a jobs program for midwits with too many degrees, they’ll learn the hard way.
A service yes, but to who? Cmon man, do you really mean to its workers????? Or to the general public that rely on services that cannot be capitalized on by the private sector? Like so many you’ve been brainwashed into believing you don’t directly or even indirectly benefit from the public services that the federal workforce provides and willfully ignore the waste that exists in federal government as contracts with private industry. You’re painting with broad strokes here thinking every career service employee was given “charity” when lots went into service to… provide services? “Midwits with too many degrees” you’re obviously someone that not only wants to criticize the system, which I can at least understand, but you go a step beyond and want to punish people with higher education and federal employees in general as if this is their fault and they deserve this… and that’s what I can not get in board with.
So that’s your argument then? You’ve figured out I’m a federal employee and so that discredits all the points I’ve made? Okay well then you’re right, as a midwit government parasite making peanuts to protect rural lands from natural disasters as a public service I’ll leave and find employment with a private firefighting contractor that was just awarded *checks notes* 40million dollars of government grants. You win man, good luck out there.
Wow. I like your newsletter, always look forward to the read when it comes out a few times per week. I don't know what kind of online conversations you're subjected to outside of this substack, but I hope today's missive got that out of your system. Maybe just don't engage them? Let your writing speak for itself and don't rise to the bait if people are trolling you?
Thanks Steve, I appreciate that.
The piece earlier this week was one of the largest viewed ones ever, but it definitely received a LOT of blowback. My inbox was overflowing with negative trolls. Tomorrow's weekly recap is going to contain some examples of what I've been receiving this week.
Is it out of my system? We'll see. I will say that the nice messages and encouraging thoughts by readers like you have REALLY been appreciated this week. Thanks for reading and offering your thoughts.
PA
I think Trumps Gaza plan was deliberately insane to shake the Middle East out of 70+ years of the same old same old. Now I read that Egypt and Qater are working very hard on an alternative. And that seems like progress. Repeating the ‘pour money on the Palestinians’ process makes 0 sense to me.
THAT is how Trump works. He throws out the insane idea to get people to think out of the box and start a conversation. Once you know that, you take everything he says with a grain of salt and a little humor. Then you watch the chips fall.
And for you (too) few moderates out there:
There are three executive orders (EO’s) that Trump has signed that are worthy of support by everyone across the moderate political spectrum
The first of these EO’s recognizes that open borders are politically unacceptable and that the age of mass migration is over. Importing millions of people who will work for next to nothing just to be here destroys the wages of working class Americans and drives up housing costs when we can't house our own citizens. People cannot overpopulate their home country and just expect to move to greener pastures. There are no more green pastures. They need to voluntarily reduce their own country's population to an environmentally sustainable level, stay home and work there to improve their living conditions.
His second important EO addresses the insanity of gender identity which denies the reality of human sexuality and results in men invading women’s sports, restrooms, locker rooms and prisons. Women need and are entitled to privacy from men. Even more diabolical is the mutilation of innocent children (many who would grow up gay) in pursuit of the impossible because you can’t change your birth sex.
Finally his EO that corrects the craziness of DEI which discriminates against whites, Asians and men in attempting to cure past discrimination against others is absolutely the correct approach. Who could believe that creating a new privileged class and a new discriminated against class would provide a solution to the problem? Not to mention that it’s clearly unconstitutional.
It would well serve both Democrats and independents to get behind these changes even as they choose to vigorously oppose other aspects of his agenda.
I appreciate your articles . A friend once described knee-jerk liberals as blue MAGA and that rings true about your angry commenters. I must admit I have taken to calling Trump Shitler, though.
Dear Purple America…Fuck you!
What does “bludgeon them to death with ennui” mean? Is ennui the word you meant to use there?
Funny… liberals are hyperbolic so NOBODY likes them… the right just straight up lies and makes shit up as of it were fact, run with it… totally more acceptable than hyperbole
So here’s my issue with these kinds of articles that have honestly become a dime a dozen… what’s your solution? I don’t necessarily disagree with the sentiment but I hear a lot of complaining (which is ironic because you’re complaining about others complaining) but I see no solutions except… sit down and shut up? I was born and raised and live in a a rust belt welfare county in Ohio, blue turned red over the past decade. Myself and others in our town have spent the past decade exhausting ourselves in conversations with our peers trying to rationalize with them and “meet them where they’re at” over their politics and to what end?? You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink and I’m fucking exhausted trying to get the horse to drink so yeah, maybe I’ll yell and scream and exaggerate because the horse won’t fucking listen. So again, tell me what I’m supposed to do? Not “liberals” not “the party” not some vague idea or internet trolls… me, a singular person.
I’m a liberal who’s more worried than the author is, but from a strategic standpoint, I’ve come to some of the same conclusions about what works and what doesn’t.
There’s a liberal commentator named Luke Beasley who made a point similar to of one the author’s: describing Trump’s actions as-is can be *more* shocking to people than speaking about him in alarming terms. If you call Trump a fascist or protest without a specific message, it becomes a debate about the definition of fascism and makes Trump’s actions seem less extreme to many people. That’s just how human nature works.
To demonstrate the lesson in practice, Beasley went on a pro-Trump podcast where the hosts kept trying to bring the discussion back to a debate about the label fascism. Beasley didn’t entertain it. Instead, Beasley said he would not discuss labels, and he focused on specific actions. He pinned the hosts down into revealing that they unequivocally support Trump’s actions on Jan 6. There are many moderates who would find that admission more disturbing than hearing a Trump fan predictably say that he doesn’t think Trump is a fascist.
“Trump is a fascist” is less effective than:
“After campaigning on it for months, Trump pardoned Jan 6 rioters who beat and tased cops and called for hanging Trump’s own former VP, Mike Pence, because Pence wouldn’t go along with Trump’s plan to overturn the election. JD Vance claimed days before that Trump wouldn’t do that, but you can’t trust what he says, apparently. After all, Vance did say after he was caught fabricating stories about Haitian TPS migrants eating their neighbors’ cats that he’s all for “making up stories” to get the American people’s attention.”
“In the aftermath of American citizens’ homes being burned down by the LA wildfires, Trump said he would withhold disaster aid to California until they pass a Voter ID law, which won’t help to rebuild a single home. Doesn’t he claim to be for helping all Americans?”
“Trump’s admin is barring the Associated Press news organization from press conferences because they won’t commit to saying “Gulf of America.” What does that have to do with getting prices down?”
Hey man, I really appreciated your reply and honestly I felt it was more constructive than the original post. I get it, I understand the change in strategy and as I said in my original comment I didn’t necessarily disagree with the sentiment expressed I had more of an issue with how it was expressed… but I guess it did grab my attention and generate discussion which is useful. Admittedly it’s difficult for me to read these articles and not feel like there’s a subtle (or maybe obviously aggressive) shift in responsibility and blame from those that voted for him to those that didn’t and that’s a game I’m tired of playing. Besides that, I gotta ask.. so, when ARE we allowed to call it a coup? When ARE we allowed to invoke hitler/nazi similarities? Again, I get it… if ya wanna win ya gotta be willing to play the game but what do you do when it’s not a game anymore?
I appreciate your replies too. I felt similarly about how it was expressed. The Trump era has really driven home for me how different we human beings can be philosophically and psychologically.
Interesting take on Trump’s Gaza plan. I don’t see how it does not amount to ethnic cleansing? He has said he wants to remove the Palestinian people from the land, put them in refugee camps, and not let them back in. From Brittanica: “ethnic cleansing, the attempt to create ethnically homogeneous geographic areas through the deportation or forcible displacement of persons belonging to particular ethnic groups.” The only argument against Trump’s plan being ethnic cleansing is that he doesn’t necessarily want to create an ethnically homogenous area? He just wants the Palestinians out and for America to take over the land. What am I missing? How is this not a plan to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip?
I generally believe in your own belief in “purple”. There is not much of a middle anymore. However, what’s missing from your analysis of Musk is the destruction of the families of fired fed workers. Some will lose their homes. They have a right to scream. I’ll continue to read your purple musings but will hope for a bit more of an empathetic understanding. That is a purple principle I support.
Nobody protests when private sector workers get laid off. FAANG fired tens of thousands of workers over the last two years. Nobody, I mean nobody, from the public sector called in favors with media and got all the attention swung into private sector workers, there were no protests, nothing. All of a sudden you reduce some recent hiring classes of Feds, you trim those in a probationary period, and people act like it’s a genocide. THIS is what he’s talking about.
The only one here calling it genocide is you dude. Your comment fully plays into Tim Hs… complete lack of empathy or my god I’ll even take sympathy at this point? Federal government is not private industry and it’s an ignorant viewpoint to hold those two industries in equivalence. There was something I once heard about “two wrongs….” But can remember what it is. Weak argument, always has been always will be.
Federal government is a service and it’s a major source of waste. If the employees there are supposedly so good, they will find new jobs. If, as most of us suspect, it’s a jobs program for midwits with too many degrees, they’ll learn the hard way.
A service yes, but to who? Cmon man, do you really mean to its workers????? Or to the general public that rely on services that cannot be capitalized on by the private sector? Like so many you’ve been brainwashed into believing you don’t directly or even indirectly benefit from the public services that the federal workforce provides and willfully ignore the waste that exists in federal government as contracts with private industry. You’re painting with broad strokes here thinking every career service employee was given “charity” when lots went into service to… provide services? “Midwits with too many degrees” you’re obviously someone that not only wants to criticize the system, which I can at least understand, but you go a step beyond and want to punish people with higher education and federal employees in general as if this is their fault and they deserve this… and that’s what I can not get in board with.
How much do you make in your employment with the Federal Government?
So that’s your argument then? You’ve figured out I’m a federal employee and so that discredits all the points I’ve made? Okay well then you’re right, as a midwit government parasite making peanuts to protect rural lands from natural disasters as a public service I’ll leave and find employment with a private firefighting contractor that was just awarded *checks notes* 40million dollars of government grants. You win man, good luck out there.