"The most distant object easily visible to the eye is M31, the great Andromeda Galaxy some two and a half million light-years away. But without a telescope, even this immense spiral galaxy - spanning over 200,000 light years - appears as a faint, nebulous cloud in the constellation Andromeda. In contrast, details of a bright yellow nucleus and dark winding dust lanes, are revealed in this digital telescopic image.
Narrow band image data recording emission from hydrogen atoms, shows off the reddish star-forming regions dotting gorgeous blue spiral arms and young star clusters. While even casual skygazers are now inspired by the knowledge that there are many distant galaxies like M31, astronomers seriously debated this fundamental concept in the 20th century. Were these "spiral nebulae" simply outlying components of our own Milky Way Galaxy or were they instead "island universes" - distant systems of stars comparable to the Milky Way itself? This question was central to the famous Shapley-Curtis debate of 1920, which was later resolved by observations of M31 in favor of Andromeda, island universe.”
"You've probably noticed things no longer work as well as they once did. For example, the store's online inventory says something is in stock and when you get to the store, it's not on the shelf. A small issue, but telling nonetheless. Or you might call a local government agency to get an explanation of how a new fee is calculated, and nobody's ever available to explain it - or sort out your punitive late fee even though you paid on time.
You've probably noticed services cost a lot more now, but the quality has eroded. Sure, it's easy to blame it all on the pandemic, but quality has been eroding as costs have risen for years.
You've probably noticed massive cost overruns in public projects. That $1 billion bridge is now $3 billion - oh, sorry, make that $4 billion. If we ever get it finished, better estimate $5 billion.
You've probably noticed that enormous investments in infrastructure, education, reducing homelessness, etc. don't actually improve the situation or fix what's broken. Even the most basic projects take years or decades, congestion and homelessness increase, and education that's not aligned with the real economy flounders on.
You've probably noticed that all the highly paid analysts, academics, think-tank gurus, private-sector hotshots, etc. are either clueless, incoherent or delusional. All their "solutions" boil down to one recommendation: keep the feeding trough filled to the brim, no matter how many hogs are gorging themselves.
Incompetence is now so ubiquitous, so embedded, so obvious and so intractable that we finally have to recognize that America has institutionalized incompetence. Why? That's an interesting question with no one answer. Broadly speaking, self-interest is all that matters. Every decision is made to maximize self-interest while cloaking the predation with sickly-sweet propaganda of the most transparent type.
Institutions protect insiders because every insider must mask their self-interest and the general failure of the institution. Insiders protect other insiders lest transparency reveal the insiders' skims and scams and the failure of the institution to fulfill its purpose.
Risk is to be avoided at all costs because any failure might reveal the systemic failure of the entire organization. So as Louis-Vincent Gave recently explained, CYA Is the Guiding Principle Of Our Time. If insiders just maintain the status quo and don't rock the boat with any risky innovations or policies, no one will look too deeply at the systemic failures or the rising risks of the whole rotten mess collapsing. This is how we've devolved to doing more of what's failed spectacularly. Indeed, spectacular failure is the excuse for bigger budgets, more staffing, more studies, etc.
America's core businesses are monopoly and corruption. In either case, the customer/end-user can be ignored because they have no real choice. Or the choice is false: your choice of healthcare insurance provider, Internet provider, etc. is between two equally predatory companies. As a result of the network effect, quasi-monopolies abound in Big Tech. Yes, there are alternative platforms for posting videos other than YouTube, but few will see your content because "everybody goes to YouTube." So content providers have to not just promote their content, they have to promote the alternative platform in a system that's rigged to favor the monopoly-platforms.
Corruption also limits transparency and competition just like monopolies and cartels. Insiders rig the hiring process so cronies and relatives get the jobs, and so on. Those tasked with oversight look the other way because their cushy post-retirement position awaits them if they just keep their mouth shut.
Then there are the incompetent elites at the top. They've punched all the right cards - elite university, multiple diplomas, internship with the right judges, investment bank, etc. - but they've learned absolutely nothing other than how to navigate a corrupt system that protects or even rewards incompetence. What the ruling elites learn in America is somebody will bail me out. The government will fund the financial bailout, the fines will be wrist-slaps, the university will slip me into a highly paid position out of the limelight, and so on. And always, always, always, the feeding trough will be filled to the brim, no matter what the cost or the incompetence. Sacrifice and discipline have been reduced to platitudes in America's elites, whose core competence is issuing mea culpas when caught.
An enormous percentage of well-paid "work" is compliance-related. As the pursuit of self-interest has decayed competence, we've become obsessed with monitoring and ticking endless boxes to conform to accepted practices, whether they make sense or not. This is the essence of BS work: all the compliance busy-work has nothing to do with the actual production of goods and services or innovation or excellence; as the late David Graeber said of BS work: everyone doing it knows it's worthless.
Compliance is the perfect cover for institutionalized incompetence. The irony is rather rich: systemic incompetence is papered over by incompetent compliance measures, all of which drain the feeding trough. There's only one way left to fill the feeding trough being drained by systemic incompetence: trillions in "free money" forever. That this extravaganza of endless "free money" debauches the currency is ignored, because all the ruling incompetents have been trained to be utterly confident that somebody will bail me out.
And so we face the ultimate irony: bailing-out-everything destroys the entire rotten system. Competence now means successfully navigating incompetent systems corrupted by self-interest. This means avoiding all risk and leaving everything as it is, lest someone notice the systemic failure. What we've institutionalized is run to failure: we'll just keep doing more of what's failed spectacularly until the entire status quo collapses in a fetid heap of greed, self-interest and gross incompetence."
“With his iconic red beanie and famed ship ‘Calypso,’ Jacques Cousteau, the French marine explorer, inventor, filmmaker, and conservationist sailed the world for much of the late 20th century, educating millions about the Earth's oceans and its inhabitants - and inspiring their protection.” - Ker Than, for National Geographic News.
"The Number of Americans That Have Filed for Unemployment Benefits
in 2020 Exceeds the Number That Voted for Trump in 2016"
by Michael Snyder
I am not trying to make a political statement with this article. I am simply pointing out that the number of Americans that have filed initial claims for unemployment benefits in 2020 is almost unimaginable. In 2016, a total of 62,984,828 votes were cast for Donald Trump. Here in 2020, a total of 63,600,000 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits since the middle of March. So the number of Americans that have filed for unemployment during this pandemic is now greater than the number of Trump voters in the last election. Of course if Hillary Clinton had won in 2016, we would be saying the exact same thing about her in a couple of weeks. Back in 2016, she received a grand total of 65,853,514 votes. The point is not to assign political blame to one side or the other, because neither side knew that COVID-19 was coming. Rather, I am trying to get my readers to understand that we have witnessed a collapse in employment during this pandemic that is absolutely unprecedented.
And more layoff announcements keep rolling in with each passing day. For instance, we just learned that ESPN will be laying off hundreds of workers: "ESPN could lay off hundreds of employees in the coming weeks, sources told Front Office Sports. One source pegged the potential number of job losses between 300 and 700 employees. Another estimated 400 possible lost jobs. The cuts are expected to hit hardest among ESPN employees who work behind the camera." For many, working in sports television is a dream job, and it hurts me to think that many of those employees will soon lose jobs that they truly love.
Elsewhere, Amtrak has just announced that they could soon be eliminating 2,400 more jobs: "Amtrak will need to cut 2,400 more jobs and could see “drastic impacts” on its rail service if Congress does not intervene and provide emergency funding for the passenger rail provider, the company announced Thursday. In a letter to lawmakers, Amtrak President and CEO William Flynn requested nearly $4.9 billion in fiscal year 2021 to help it close massive budget gaps it faces amid the pandemic."
I know that I am probably boring my readers by discussing layoff announcements day after day after day, but I am trying to make a very important point. We are not in any sort of a “recovery”. Instead, we have entered a horrifying economic downturn which isn’t going to end any time soon. If they actually believed that it was going to end soon, all of these big corporations would not be laying off large numbers of workers. And without jobs, a whole lot of people out there are deeply, deeply suffering.
Right now, millions upon millions of Americans haven’t been paying rent, haven’t been paying their mortgages, haven’t been making their vehicle payments and haven’t been making their credit card payments. And I was absolutely stunned to learn that payments are being made on only 11 percent of federal student loans right now: "Less than 11% of people with federal student loans are repaying them during the pandemic, according to data analyzed by higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz. That means about 4.6 million out of 42 million borrowers are continuing to pay down their debt."
Eventually the federal government will be requiring everyone to start making their payments again, but for now this break is helping a lot of people get through this very challenging time. But when will this challenging time finally be over? After the election? In 2021?
So many Americans are looking forward to having economic conditions return to “normal”, but the truth is that our entire system is in the process of melting down and things are never going to be as good as they once were. For decades, we enjoyed an unprecedented bubble of debt-fueled prosperity that allowed us to have a massively inflated standard of living, but now that bubble is bursting.
But for the moment, there is still one bubble that has stubbornly refused to end. Thanks to the Federal Reserve, stock prices continue to go up even in the midst of this economic depression, and this has made the gap between the ultra-wealthy and the rest of us wider than ever before: "The poorest 50 percent of Americans, or roughly 165 million people, collectively owned about $2.08 trillion in wealth in the second quarter of 2020, according to Federal Reserve data released last week. That’s less than the net worth of the nation’s 59 richest billionaires, who have a combined fortune of about $2.09 trillion, Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index shows - a number that’s grown this year despite the COVID-19 crisis kneecapping the global economy."
Just think about that. 59 Americans have as much wealth as the 165,000,000 poorest Americans combined. And overall, billionaires around the world are now worth more than 10 trillion dollars: "Billionaire wealth reached record high levels amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a report by UBS and PwC found, as a rally in stock prices and gains in technology and healthcare helped the wealth of the world’s richest break the $10 trillion mark.
The report, covering over 2,000 billionaires representing some 98% of the cohort’s total wealth, found billionaire wealth grew by more than a quarter during the early months of the pandemic to reach $10.2 trillion in July, breaking the previous record of $8.9 trillion at the end of 2019."
I believe that the months ahead are going to represent a major turning point for our country. Millions of Americans will have their hopes brutally crushed by the outcome of this upcoming election, and millions of others will be plunged into despair as our nation continues to be rocked by one major crisis after another. If your life is defined by the system that the elite have created, the times that are approaching are going to be exceedingly difficult for you because that system is failing.
But if you choose to live for the things that really matter, you won’t be overwhelmed no matter how bad things get. And as bad as things are right now, the truth is that all of this is nothing compared to what is eventually coming."
"What would it hurt for me to give that homeless guy a couple bucks? Who the hell cares if he spends it on beer? Maybe beer is a step up for him from the harder stuff that knocked him onto the streets in the first place. Maybe, just maybe, he’s actually going to spend it on food (homeless people do eat, right?). Maybe, he really is a desperate human being who is trying to change his situation.”
- Dan Pearce
○
And these days, there but for the grace of God go you or I...
"The president is, shall we say, in an altered state right now."
– House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
"Fresh out of hospital last week, POTUS called off negotiations on a bailout bill. This surprised us. We figured the Trump team would no more want to stand between voters and their free money than they would between a hungry Doberman and a greasy steak… But by Wednesday, Trump’s craven ministers had spelled it out for him: “Hey, you’re behind in the polls.” Within hours, the president was tossing out the meat. He said he was “ready to sign” a giveaway to the voters of $1,200 each.
Total Fraud: As a “stimulus” measure, this is a total fraud. All it will really stimulate is the Robinhood traders, neighborhood drug dealers, web-based retailers… and inflation. But the false money, delivered under false pretenses, may give voters a false sense of prosperity. And then, economists will look at the spending that will inevitably follow – which they say makes up 70% of GDP – and say: “Wow… What a recovery!”
But if you really could “stimulate” growth by dropping money from helicopters, the skies would be full of them. Even as a “relief” measure – to the poor, “hardworking” Americans, who have lost jobs and income in the COVID shutdown – “stimulus checks” are a fraud. The official unemployment rate is only 8%.(Officially", you know better, Good Citizen. - CP) If that is true, it means that 92% of the workforce is still working. And yet, Mr. Trump is proposing to send out 160 million checks – with his name on them. In other words, The Great Benefactor would send $1,200 each to about 150 million people who still have jobs. As an emergency relief measure!
Bombs Away: But the president didn’t stop there. He also proposed to immediately give the airline industry some $25 billion. Why? Because the big four U.S. airlines – American, Delta, Southwest, and United – are holding about 50,000 employees by their heels… threatening to drop them. With the collusion of their unions, they say either they get money from the government… or it’s bombs away.
The last time air transportation workers blackmailed the government was back on August 3, 1981, when the air traffic controllers went on strike. They wanted more money, shorter hours… the usual things. Instead, Ronald Reagan gave them 48 hours to report for work. Those who didn’t – 11,000 of them – were fired. Not furloughed. Not slapped on the wrist. They lost their jobs – permanently. No muss. No fuss. Planes continued flying. New air traffic controllers were hired. Problem solved. This time, no problem will be solved. The president didn’t defy the blackmailers… He gave in to them.
Real Threat: Of all the dumb things that have been done with the public’s money, this has to rank as one of the dumbest. But it is a natural and inevitable phase of late, degenerate capitalism. First, the government destroys real capitalism. Then, it supports an ersatz version. Business… government… leaders and followers – all are altered by a new reality.
Together, the big four U.S. airlines earned about $37 billion in free cash flow during the last six high-flying years. You’d think they might have held on to a little of the money… just in case they ran into some headwinds. Nope. Instead, they spent every penny, and – their reality altered by the Federal Reserve’s ultra-low interest rates – borrowed $14 billion more in order to buy their own shares (thus rewarding their shareholders). And now, short on capital of their own, they look to the feds for a bailout… and threaten to throw their employees out of the cargo door if they don’t come through with the money.
Real Loss: But why should the public pay for more employees than the industry needs? If you pay money to someone to do something with no real value – say, run a poverty program… attack Iraq… provide PR services for a senator… attend a climate change symposium… hand out loans under the Paycheck Protection Program… serve on the Federal Reserve board – you might just as well throw the money away.
But wait… the money is counterfeit anyway. What difference does it make? Well, yes… But even counterfeit money can be used to buy things. Money is just the measure of the loss. The real loss is the time, food, fuel, parking places, machinery, and all the other things that are used up. Those are real… and they can never be recovered. Time goes by. It doesn’t come back.
Let’s suppose you work for the federal Economic Development Administration (which the Government Accountability Office recently found to be completely useless)… or for a company such as Uber, that loses money year after year. You drive your car to work… park… sit at a desk… use electricity… eat lunch… go to a meeting… go home. Everything you do, everything you touch, everyone you talk to – all of it makes the world a poorer place. Money just tells us “how much.”
More Giveaways: But as the week bumbled along, the altered state became clearer and clearer. Nobody in government – neither Republican nor Democrat – cares about wasting money… time… or anything else. Instead, all seem intent on squandering the last of the nation’s solvency. On Thursday, Trump’s man at the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, said he was willing to increase the amount of the giveaway. And it was worth letting the Democrats win this round, he seemed to say, if it got the money to the voters before November.
And then, on Friday came more thick steaks from POTUS himself. Here’s Bloomberg: "Trump Says He Now Wants Bigger Stimulus Than Democrats Offering." “I would like to see a bigger stimulus package, frankly, than either the Democrats or the Republicans are offering,” Trump said on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program, saying he’s going in the “exact opposite” direction from his earlier stances. “I’m telling you something I don’t tell anybody else because maybe it helps or maybe it hurts negotiations,” Trump told Limbaugh. “I would like to see a bigger package.”
Wow… What a guy! What a week! What a hopeless mess! Regards,"
"Each week, I send you three potentially life-changing ideas to help you be a slightly less awful human being. This week, we’re talking about 1) shame and its repercussions, 2) the desire many have to “go back” to the early days of their relationship, and 3) the MFM newsletter is officially a year old! Some thoughts and comments for you all. Let’s get into it.
1. Have you no shame? – One of the big bugaboos in the self-help world these days is shame. The idea is pretty simple. There are things that you and I resent and loathe about ourselves. These things tend to be irrational - like we think our ankles are too veiny or that we’re as dumb as a sack of bricks, even though we aced our SATs and our ankles are sexy as f**k.
As a result, we hide these parts of ourselves. And in this hiding, we develop all sorts of unhelpful emotional and behavioral ticks- like we become extra anxious when our ankles are exposed or malicious and callous when defending our ideas.
Basically, the idea goes that most of the ugly, awful stuff that drives people to pick up a self-help book (or newsletter) in the first place is driven by shame. And if we can just uproot that shame in ourselves, to unhide it and express it to the world, then things will be just grand.
But the problem is that there’s a word for someone who has uprooted and rid themselves of all shame. That word is “shameless.” And it’s pejorative for a reason. The last time I checked, shameless people were not at the zenith of emotional health, they were the frauds and charlatans and raging dickheads of the world. So, what the hell is going on here? Shameful or shameless - which is the lesser evil?
Lucky for you, I wrote like a 4,000-word article getting to the bottom of this. Check it out: Read: "The Best Way to Resolve Your Shame" (or read in the iOS App) Go on… don’t be ashamed to read it!
2. Are you sure you want to go back? – One of the most common relationship-related questions I get is whether that passionate “fire” present in the early days together can ever be revived. It’s a common question, often found on the cover of women’s magazines and implied in the gaudiest of travel brochures - as if the delirium of romance were as simple as buying the right perfume or booking the ocean view on your next beach vacation.
I generally find this idealism about romantic love to be misguided. Indeed, long-time readers will be more than familiar with my arguments that, on its own, love is not enough, and the fantasy that it can be is a relatively recent cultural invention.
Those who have been with a partner for a long time can easily become nostalgic for the wild, topsy-turvy emotional tempest of the early-stage romance and convince themselves that for some reason, they need it back to be happy. The truth is that love evolves and changes shape. What often creates that early passion is that you’re two insecure, bumbling humans trying to figure out if it’s worth opening up to someone in the first place.
Anyway, this topic came up recently in a round of Ask Mark Anything questions last week. In case you don’t know, each quarter I sit down and answer about a dozen reader questions (as determined by voting here). I then post the video for site members.
The whole Q&A session runs about 45 minutes and aside from rekindling the lost fires of love, in this session I also talk about: keys to creating friendships, the ethics of intervening in a family member’s life, self-help addiction, selecting good books to read, and the intricacies of lying to oneself. Check it out: Watch: "Ask Mark Anything #13" . Aside from getting access to the AMA videos, site members also have access to my online courses, a few dozen member-only articles and the full archive of previous MFM newsletters. You can learn more about becoming a site member here.
3. A year in the books – Last October, while on a much-needed vacation (remember those?), I decided, somewhat on a whim, to try out sending a weekly newsletter to my readers. There wasn’t a whole lot of strategizing behind it initially. For much of 2017-2019, writing articles for the website felt like abstract promotion as people’s attention moved more and more to social media platforms and a weekly email seemed like a way to get back in touch with readers directly.
To my surprise, this newsletter invigorated my writing in a way I did not expect. For one, it forces me to show up every week, whether I feel like it or not. And while I occasionally have weeks where I gripe and moan, for the most part it’s been a wonderful consistency in what is an otherwise chaotic and unpredictable profession.
But the real joy is the intimacy and interaction it’s brought back with you, my readers. Now, each Monday, three of my ideas go out to around half a million people. And each week, anywhere from a couple hundred to a couple thousand of you reply with your thoughts, disagreements, and suggestions. There’s an accountability and immediacy to the relationship that I have not felt since my early days as a blogger.
A side effect of that immediacy is that this newsletter has become a living, breathing, evolving thing. In the early months, I still treated it similar to how I treated my website: I wrote up declarative, advice-driven content with a kind of finality to it and posted it, thinking that was that. But as the weeks went on, I started to realize a few things. One, I’m wrong about a lot of things. Two, readers catch those mistakes and let me know, sometimes en masse. And three, by incorporating feedback, disagreements, and follow-up topics, the newsletter morphs into a kind of slow-moving conversation, where I can revisit topics and update prior beliefs with new information.
That baked-in feedback mechanism and willingness to evolve and improve upon itself is something that’s sorely lacking from public discourse at the moment. It’s not present in the media in any significant way. Blogging used to be like that, but blogging hardly exists anymore. And it was never possible on social media, because… since when was there any f***ing nuance on social media?
As a result, this newsletter has felt like a kind of lifeline of normality in these crazy times. And while there have been a few stressful weeks where I’ve struggled to put my thoughts together or where I’ve lodged at least one of my feet firmly into my mouth, overall it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made in a long, long time. So, thank you for being a part of it, for continuing to read, and for participating in this continual weekly project of being slightly less awful human beings together.
“People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it. Better yet, build it. Predicting the future is much too easy, anyway. You look at the people around you, the street you stand on, the visible air you breathe, and predict more of the same. To hell with more. I want better.”
"America is at a crossroads with revolution on our doorstep. On one side are the Patriots; those who seek to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. On the other side are Marxist insurrectionists; those who believe that America is evil and the cause of so many problems in world.
At the risk of sounding like I’m saying, “I told you so,” I told you so. If you’ve been reading tea leaves from the news lately, you may have already figured out what’s coming at us in the next few months. If so, the following may simply affirm your observations. But I wanted to put this out there so everyone knows what to expect and therefore won’t be surprised.
My seven predictions for how 2020 comes to an end:
Prediction 1: Trump will win the election in a landslide. I know, the media is telling you the polls are tight, but just look around. Trump rallies are packed to the gills while Biden can’t fill the bleachers at a high school football field. Trump supporters hold huge boat parades while we see NONE for Biden. Trump supporters hold freeway caravans around that country that take up all lanes of a freeway, while an attempted caravan for Biden in Las Vegas drew only 30 people. Just like in 2016, pollsters today are making it look like it’s a close race. This is gaslighting – they’re telling you something that runs directly opposite of what your own eyes are telling you, but they’re expecting you to believe what they say.
Prediction 2: On the evening of November 3, Joe Biden will not concede the election, even though the vote will clearly be for Trump. Hillary Clinton has publicly stated that Joe should not concede, so the seed has been planted in our minds to expect this. And, because we’re expecting it, we won’t be shocked by it.
Prediction 3: Massive mail voter fraud will create confusion and Marxists (e.g. Democrats) will insist that “every vote counts.” They know Americans want to be fair so Marxists will play on that. They will cry and wail and plead that every vote needs to get counted, so they’ll ask for sympathy for voters who didn’t follow confusing new election rules about how to cast their mail-in ballots. That will be their story, but many votes will be fraudulent. As they’ve demonstrated on America’s streets, Marxists don’t care about following laws; they care about power.
Prediction 4: Because of massive mail fraud ballots showing up late, election results WILL be delayed. The deceptive Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook and the clearly biased Jack Dorsey at Twitter have already announced they will flag any posts or tweets that claim a victory for Trump. They KNOW Trump will have more than enough votes to win, but as Zuckerberg already told us, we should expect results to take “DAYS OR EVEN WEEKS.” In other words, Facebook and Twitter are well-aware of the planned mail-in voter fraud, and they’re already providing cover for it. The planned vote count confusion will be dragged out as long as possible. The Marxists’ intention is to keep confusion swirling at least until December 14 in hopes that the electoral college won’t be able to identify a winner. Expect ballots to keep showing up out of nowhere.
Prediction 5: If Marxists cannot keep up the façade until December 14, some states will obfuscate the electoral process by choosing not to follow the rules laid out in the 12th Amendment. In fact, both may happen. Either way, by attempting to throw the electoral college into confusion, Marxists (again, the Democrats) will make a push for the electoral college to be eliminated. Believe me when I say you don’t want this. Students of the Constitution know that if the electoral college is eliminated, the Republic will be gone.
Prediction 6: Expect Nancy Pelosi to be acting all patriotic and concerned about the Constitution during the chaos, but rest assured, it’s a passive-aggressive act. She is among the Marxist vanguard in both houses of Congress orchestrating the whole mess. You will also see some Marxist-friendly governors making a lot of noise.
Prediction 7: While Marxists in Congress are messing with the electoral process, Marxists on the streets (Antifa and BLM) will intensify their violence by burning, looting, and murdering even more than what we’ve seen to this point. There’s already a movement that seeks to lay siege to the White House. Not only do the puppet masters want all the street chaos to distract our attention from what’s going on in the electoral process, the street Marxists see this election as their only chance to either grab power or put up with Trump for four more years. The protestors have been trained to instigate violence, and copy-cat wannabes will want to join in. Street Marxists will view these riots as the fight of their lives: it will get intense.
To perpetuate the riots, puppet masters like George Soros will continue pouring money into organizations that fund them. Also remember that Antifa and BLM have threatened to go into the suburbs. Their purpose for doing so is to trigger the Soccer Moms who wants peace at all costs. Marxists will hope that these suburban moms will apply pressure on their elected representatives to give in to the Marxists so the violence will end. Life on American streets will be unpredictable and dangerous.
The Marxists are desperate, so the fighting will be like nothing the country has ever seen before. I predict we’ll see horrific things happening in our cities and on our streets, and traditional media (read: Marxist-friendly media) will be spewing twisted truths and lies about everything listed above. And we can’t forget that social media giants favor the Marxists in this revolution, so they will be squelching debate in whatever ways they can.
The final months of 2020 will be an emotional roller coaster, but in the end, I predict Trump prevails. It’s not going to be pretty, and many who are now thinking life will return to normal after November 3 will be sadly mistaken. They will be wondering what happened to the country they once knew.
Whether the Democrats implode or not after all this happens remains to be seen, but it is my prayer that when the dust settles, all the Marxists plotters and schemers will be exposed and truth will be recognized as truth. And then… maybe then… Trump can get on with his promise to drain the entire swamp."
"'Adjustment Day' Looms As America's Headed For Violent Civil War"
by Jeff Costello
"On October 1st, with little fanfare, Politico published an extraordinary opinion piece that may be the most important thing I’ve read all year. Titled “Americans Increasingly Believe Violence is Justified if the Other Side Wins,” the essay was penned by three “senior fellows” at the Hoover Institution, New America, and the Hudson Institute, as well as a professor of “political communication” at Louisiana State University and a professor of government at the University of Maryland (that’s five authors, in case you lost count). The major takeaway is presented in the graph that appears below:
Click image for larger size.
Way back in November of 2017 (my, how long ago that seems...) a mere 8% of both Democrats and Republicans held that it is legitimate to use violence to advance their political goals. Actually, there’s nothing “mere” about it. It ought to surprise us that such a sizeable percentage of both parties could hold such a radical view. Also surprising is Republicans running neck and neck with Democrats. Contrary to how they are perceived by Leftists, conservatives are slow to embrace the idea of violence, or any sort of punitive measures against their opponents. Their Achilles heel, in fact, is commitment to “fair play.”
We must remember that when these numbers were compiled it had been a year since the 2016 election. A year of unhinged rhetoric by the Left, and repeated calls for Trump to be assassinated. Madonna spoke about her fantasies of blowing up the White House, and “comedian” Kathy Griffin held up an effigy of Trump’s severed head. Of course, those were the unserious, tongue-in-cheek threats. Countless other people made similar threats, quite openly, and seemed to be pretty serious about it. To my knowledge, none of them was charged with a crime.
As Trump Derangement Syndrome continued to spread, it was actually a healthy sign that more Republicans began to entertain the idea of using violence as a political tool. Leftists presented themselves as having no boundaries. There was no low to which they would not stoop, no trick too dirty. They were threatening to attack and kill not only the President, but his supporters, and, in fact, the entire white race. They made it quite clear that they could not be reasoned with. Faced with an enemy like this, violence was bound to become more attractive, or at least more justifiable, in the eyes of even the most mild-mannered Republican voter.
Almost a year later, in October 2018, the percentage of Democrats condoning violence had jumped to 13. It had become obvious to them, at this point, that the results of the 2016 election were not going to be reversed, though many still held out the hope that Robert Mueller would uncover some dirt that would prove Trump’s undoing. True to form, conservatives lagged behind (see what nice people we are?), with a mere 11% condoning violence. Still, the number had risen. At least part of this has to be attributed to the Kavanaugh hearings (of September-October), which were a wakeup call for many Republicans, including Lindsay Graham, who seems to have sort of lost his innocence as a result. The hearings proved once and for all, if any more proof had been needed, that liberals have no principles whatever, and that attempts to play fair with them will only backfire. One can’t really blame Republicans for that 11%. Please pass the ammo.
By December 2019, things had gotten genuinely scary. The trend had continued. And how. This was the month that the House approved articles of impeachment against Trump. Earlier in the year, in April, the Mueller report was made public, revealing that we had been subjected to two solid years of hysteria about “Russia collusion” for absolutely no reason whatever. The libs were frustrated, to put it mildly. 16% of them now condoned violence. Republicans were behind the curve again, but not by much, with 15% of them thinking the same way.
But we hadn’t seen anything yet. That was before COVID and BLM. By June of the current year, these percentages had doubled, and Dems and Republicans were now equally in favor of breaking heads: 30% of both groups now condoned violence to advance political goals. Let us pause to consider this number once more: 30%. Let us also pause to consider that this poll was conducted at the beginning of June, when the George Floyd riots had just gotten going.
By September 1st, the percentage of liberals condoning violence had risen by just three points. Still, at 33% this constitutes one third of all Dems. The more interesting result came from the Republicans, however. The percentage in question had risen to 36%, and for the first time, Republicans rated as more violence-approving than Dems. If you will read the fine print, you will find that the September poll’s margin of error is 2.0 percentage points. Thus, the three percentage points separating Republicans from Democrats are statistically significant; conservatives are now demonstrably more in favor of violence than liberals.
Has the sleeping giant awakened? We were slow to consider violence an option. Unlike liberals, after all, we really do have principles, and we did not want to be like them. But they have pushed us to this point, and it’s difficult to see how there can be any debate about that. Months of watching our cities burn. Months of our history being torn down. Months of draconian lockdowns and arbitrary rules imposed by Democrat governors and mayors. Months of being told that we had to shelter in place, while BLM was given free rein to loot and burn. Months of being told we have no right to defend ourselves; that if you are white, you are automatically guilty. Countless lives and businesses destroyed. Given all of this, and more, it’s surprising that the number isn’t 56% - or 76% or 86%. But since many conservatives are probably afraid to say they might condone violence, I think we can round that 36% up a bit. Quite a bit.
The other day I spoke with a friend who lives in New York. He told me that he recently drove to his local rifle range, which he has visited many times in the past. He had not been there for several months, however, and when he arrived he was shocked to find a line stretching out the door (made up entirely of white people) and what wound up being a 45-minute wait. When he finally got inside, he asked the proprietor about the large turnout and was told that it had been like this every weekend since the BLM riots began, and that the numbers were increasing. I hope all those folks brought their own ammo, because my friend also told me the store was completely sold out. And this was New York, not South Carolina.
Two weeks prior to the Politico essay, The Hill published an opinion piece by a former federal prosecutor titled “Why Democrats Must Confront Extreme Left-wing Incitement to Violence.” It’s a weak and cowardly piece of writing but is nevertheless interesting on multiple levels. The author begins by asserting that Right-wing groups “by far pose the greatest threat of violence.” He bases this on a study by something called the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). This group looked at 900 cases of politically motivated plots or attacks since 1994, and concluded that Right-wing extremists had claimed the lives of 329 people, whereas “Antifa members haven’t killed any.”
This is like somebody saying, in January of 2020, “Over the last 25 years, seasonal flu has claimed the lives of 890,000 Americans, but COVID-19 hasn’t killed any Americans. Therefore, the flu is the real threat.” This would have been a ridiculous position, because COVID was something new and entirely unknown. We had no way of knowing, in January, how dangerous COVID was going to be. And, since then, it has, in fact, claimed far more American lives than the flu ever takes in a given year.
Similarly, since May we have seen Left-wing violence the likes of which this country has not seen since the 1960s. And this phenomenon is fundamentally new because it has been condoned and encouraged by state and local officials, prominent Democrats in Congress, and establishment journalists and pundits. The authors of the CSIS study warn of the dangers posed by groups like the “boogaloos,” a group of “Right-wing, anti-government extremists” bent on “creating a civil war in the United States.” Oddly enough, I’d never heard of the boogaloos until reading this article, and I think I’m pretty “plugged in.”
I know nothing about this group, but I do know one thing for certain: if the boogaloos, or any other “Right-wing extremists” took to the streets and behaved as BLM and Antifa have behaved - looting, burning, assaulting, threatening, or even just blocking traffic - they would have been crushed within twenty-four hours. All the might of state and local police forces and federal law enforcement would have been unleashed against them, and the cops would not have played nice. Many “Right-wingers” would have wound up dead or injured, and the survivors would have faced extensive criminal charges.
This, gentle reader, is why “Right-wing violence” is not the greater threat. Left-wing violence is taking place with the approval and support, financial and otherwise, of the establishment. It is a threat to all ordinary Americans, especially white Americans. Right-wing violence only poses a threat (so far, a very mild one) to the establishment.
The author of The Hill piece, while claiming that Right-wingers pose the greatest threat, wishes nonetheless to warn liberals that their own people are becoming far more violent and that they need to address this problem. This is after referring to the riots we’ve seen since May as “overwhelmingly peaceful social justice protests.” But he fears Democrats aren’t listening:
Perhaps Democrats are afraid of leaving the impression of a false equivalency between extreme right- and left-wing violence. Perhaps they are fearful that acknowledging the threat posed by extreme left-wing incitement gives credibility to Trump’s false narrative that Democrat-run cities are burning because of left-wing violence (they are not burning) and his promotion of outlandish conspiracy theories, such as that people in “the dark shadows” allegedly control Joe Biden.
In other words, the author, a Leftist in deep denial about the threat posed by the Left, wonders why the Left is in such deep denial about the threat posed by itself. You can’t make this stuff up.
In August, Joe Biden asked “Does anyone believe there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is reelected?” This was widely interpreted by conservatives as a threat. The truth is that the violence will continue regardless of who wins the election. Trump’s reelection will guarantee further violence by the Left. But since Democrats have encouraged the violence and done nothing to contain it, there is every reason to believe that it will continue if Biden wins. Indeed, the “hands off” attitude the establishment has taken to Left-wing violence makes it almost inevitable that the violence will escalate, meaning that it will become more deadly. The Far Left has been emboldened.
If Biden does win, and if the Democrats manage to gain complete control of Congress, we can look forward to an assault on the first and second amendment rights of Americans, in the form of hate speech legislation and gun control. Further, Biden and Harris have signaled that they will pack the Supreme Court - simply by repeatedly refusing to answer the question of whether they will. Democrats are also likely to grant statehood to the District of Columbia (thus increasing their numbers in Congress), amnesty millions of illegals and put them on a fast track to citizenship, and abolish the Electoral College.
This is, quite simply, a recipe for civil war - of some kind or other. It is certainly a recipe for the further fragmentation of the country. 62% of white men voted for Trump in 2016, and none of them wants what I have just indicated the Democrats have to offer. The elimination of the Electoral College, if it happens, could be the country’s tipping point toward dissolution. It would mean that millions of Americans in the heartland of the country (most of them white) would be politically disenfranchised. The situation in the US is already volatile; the disenfranchisement of large numbers of citizens would make it much worse. This is particularly true given that those citizens are the backbone of the country: their decency, hard work, and tax money keep it afloat. It is unlikely that those people would readily accept living at the mercy of a combination of urban elites and non-white freeloaders.
Of course, the same situation would be created if demographic projections are borne out, and whites become a minority by 2044, regardless of what happens to the Electoral College. And the re-election of the hapless Trump would not even slow this process. Given demographics, our long-term prospect is a Democratic takeover. So that even if Democrats lose in 2020 - even if they lose big - everything I projected above about what the Democrats will do when they take power is still going to happen, it just may take a little longer.
My own prediction for what will happen to the US is that it will eventually split up along racial and political lines. Already, there is hardly any “union” to assess the state of. Further, all signs now indicate that this is not going to be a peaceful process. The Left began the violence, and they have now succeeded in pushing a whopping 36% of conservatives to approve of answering violence with violence.
Some of my readers will greet these claims with skepticism. Average Americans find it impossible to imagine their country disintegrating in violent conflict. This is the result of years of propaganda about the “stability” of our Republic, the “miracle” of our peaceful transfer of power every four years, yada yada. Average Americans are bizarrely oblivious to just how violent this country really is and always has been (something that has not escaped the notice of the rest of the world): sky-high rates of murder, rape, and assault; urban riots every few years; the assassination of political figures; regular “spree killings”; and a civil war that claimed the lives of around 700 thousand people. Average folks may not want to think about it, but a second civil war is quite plausible.
My readers on the Right, who are far more discerning than average folks, may be skeptical for different reasons. According to some of them, the chances of violent civil war or revolution are zero, since the establishment has far greater firepower. As I said above, if the Right took to the streets like BLM, they would be mercilessly crushed. But suppose they did it again. And again. And suppose the anger that sent them out into the streets did not diminish, but increased. It is naïve to think that determined individuals, through persistent guerilla warfare and other forms of resistance, cannot destabilize a government - especially when the government is run by decadent, out-of-touch elites who inhabit an ideological and social bubble. It has happened before, and can happen again.
Of course, the goal should not be “revolution.” There is no reason to want to “take over” the United States, because it is not desirable that the United States should continue to exist. We don’t want to live with these people anymore, even if we are the ones “in charge.” Instead, what we should aim for is independence - in other words, the partitioning of the country; carving our own country out of this country and saying goodbye to those other people. Folks, it’s either that or persuade the Europeans that we have the right of return. But that’s not going to happen.
So here are my predictions for the near future:
Left-wing violence will continue, indeed it will escalate. However, white conservatives will be increasingly willing to challenge Leftists in the streets. The Politico numbers persuasively suggest that this is likely, and we already see signs of it (notably, the Kyle Rittenhouse episode).
A Trump loss will further radicalize many white conservatives. A Trump win will also radicalize white conservatives, because the response will be even more violence from Leftists. The continued anti-white rhetoric, which shows no signs of abating, will also do the work of radicalization. I predict that we will see more acts of domestic terrorism perpetrated by Right-wing groups, and that many new such groups will spring up in the next several years. These acts will be heavily condemned by all the usual suspects, but this will have little effect, since the double standard is now too obvious. Even Mom and Dad, drinking Snapple and watching Hannity, will now approve of Right-wing violence.
Unlikely? Look at that chart above and think again. How likely is it that the trend has peaked at 36%?
I also predict that we will see cases of mini-secessions, in which towns, cities, and counties that are largely white and Republican will begin resisting the power of state and federal governments (e.g., not enforcing certain laws). This will make parts of the country hard to govern. These areas will become a mecca for white conservatives. They will grow in population and geographic reach, as new arrivals take residence just over county or city lines. Tired of the dirty looks they get, many non-whites and liberals will go elsewhere. In short, there will be de facto secession before secession is ever made official.
By the way, had I made prognostications about “civil war” as little as a year ago, I would have done so with the caveat “probably not in our lifetime.” Now I am definitely not so sure. It’s hard to believe, but the scenario envisioned by Chuck Palahniuk in Adjustment Day is becoming more plausible with each passing week."
