theamericanconservative--2020-11-21--Trump’s Legal Battle for the Election is a Mess

Despite some potential evidence of actual fraud , the president 's legal team have kneecapped themselves at every turn .
Having spent far too much time in recent days sifting through claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election , I watched the press conference with Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell Thursday with interest .
Here are several key takeaways , in no particular order : 1 ) The decision to use electronic voting in the United States was bound to lead to this kind of mess At this point , the Trump administration has filed so many lawsuits @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has made such far-reaching claims of fraud , that it ’ s nearly impossible to sort through them to know what , if anything , has actually been proven .
However , one thing they certainly have shown , beyond any reasonable doubt , is that electronic voting is a terrible idea .
Notice , I do not say that anybody has proven that any fraud actually took place using electronic voting machines in the 2020 election .
They haven ’ t .
Sidney Powell has presented many troubling questions about the vulnerabilities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yet , however , we have no hard evidence that anybody actually exploited those vulnerabilities ( if they exist ) .
This is a distinction that many Trumpists are unfortunately failing to make .
Casting broad doubts about the security of voting machines does not prove that the election was stolen .
Such doubts , even if they turn out to be well-founded , will almost certainly be insufficient to convince any judge to invalidate a single vote , let alone overturn the entire election result .
However , what ’ s certain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the kind of doubt and suspicion that Sidney Powell , et al , are casting on it .
It was only a matter of time .
For this reason alone , the states should never have touched electronic voting .
When a vote is cast on a piece of paper , you can see that paper , hold that paper , and store that paper ; you can pull it out later , and match signatures , and recount it .
But once a vote goes into a computer , and becomes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nobody—except for those who designed and control the software—knows or can physically see what became of that vote .
Keeping copies of the physical ballots does nothing to assuage these concerns , since in most cases there will be no recount of those ballots .
The computer ’ s processor and memory thus have the final say .
No amount of technical mumbo-jumbo or even actual security can ever eradicate the appearance of the untrustworthiness of electronic voting .
Inevitably somebody will ask , “ If clever people make fake videos featuring global @ @ @ @ @ @ @ then why couldn ’ t clever people also fake votes ?
” There ’ s no convincing riposte to that question .
In some cases , perception is reality .
Electronic voting is one of those cases .
The perception that a voting machine can change a vote ( whether or not this is true ) casts a pall of doubt on democracy itself .
The country needs to get out of the electronic voting business , ASAP .
2 ) There is a lot of bad reporting in the media , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump , his legal team and the magnitude , complexity and implausibility of their claims Trump ’ s lawyers spent a lot of time at the podium lecturing the media on their “ fake ” reporting on the fraud claims .
No doubt , after four years of mainstream media malpractice , they have reason for making this claim .
However , the moralistic lecturing was myopic and counterproductive , simply because even honest journalists ( if there are any left ) have been left with their heads spinning by the quantity and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is putting out there right now .
Any honest person approaching the fraud claims without a pre-determined position on their validity ( something that is , unfortunately , all too rare ) has inevitably been left feeling overwhelmed and confused .
There ’ s just too much information .
There are too many conflicting claims .
There isn ’ t enough time to adjudicate each one of them properly .
Not only is some degree of media skepticism to be expected , it ’ s actually the only responsible thing to do , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fraud claims , and the stakes at play .
One of the central claims being made by Trump ’ s legal team is that there exists a vast national and global conspiracy involving a network of shadowy electronic voting companies , communist regimes , foreign dictators , vote routing , switching and deleting involving complex algorithms , and the complicity of numerous Democratic governors and election officials .
The evidence proffered so far to support this claim is a single affidavit by an unnamed Venezuelan official , and a number of non-specific allegations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Should we—should the media—simply assent to these claims , based solely upon the heat of Sidney Powell ’ s rhetoric , and a single affidavit ?
How seriously should we even take them , given that the clock is ticking , and it is hard to imagine the Trump team actually proving these allegations by the safe harbor deadlines , whether they are true or not ?
How much effort should they expend chasing every new bone Sidney Powell and MAGA surrogates throw their way ?
“ Dianne Feinstein ’ s husband !
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ !
Raids by U.S. military !
Spain !
Hugo Chavez !
Nancy Pelosi ’ s chief of staff !
Bill Gates !
Cuba !
” And so on and so forth .
It ’ s exhausting just trying to keep up .
However you look at it , much of it is extraordinarily confusing and , frankly , prima facie unbelievable .
Of course , truth is sometimes stranger than fiction .
Powell could be right .
But how likely is it that all her increasingly wild allegations should come together just as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how surprised should we be that people outside the MAGA camp are skeptical ?
3 ) The whole thing feels like intellectual blackmail Rudy Giuliani complained that his team is preparing and presenting cases that would normally take months , if not years to prepare and argue in normal circumstances .
The media should give them time to make their case , and wait for the evidence , he said .
But who ’ s fault is this ?
The Trump administration had four years to investigate Dominion , Smartmatic , and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They could have convened bipartisan committees to investigate voter fraud and the vulnerabilities of these voting machines .
In 2016 , even after he won , Trump claimed that there were millions of fraudulent votes .
If he really believed that , why didn ’ t he do something meaningful about it while he was in office ?
Posting about it on Twitter doesn ’ t count .
Sidney Powell has raised some good questions about electronic voting , if only that people will readily believe wild claims of fraud using it .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a few days ago , most of us had never even heard of Dominion , Smartmatic and Scytl , etc .
Now we ’ re being told that we must simply believe Powell ’ s theory that these companies stole the election .
Countless MAGA followers are posting that they are absolutely sure , without the slightest shadow of a doubt , that Dominion is behind the electoral theft .
This feels mad .
“ She ’ s a competent lawyer !
” her supporters say .
“ She ’ s brilliant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s a patriot !
” Maybe she is all of these things , but I ’ m not going to make a judgment about the outcome of a presidential election , or assent to a vast , complex , and highly implausible theory , based upon such thin gruel .
I need time .
I need evidence .
I need witnesses and counter-witnesses , examined and cross-examined .
And being told by the MAGA crowd that I must assent to the theory , and to declare certainty that an election is invalid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , without any of these , feels like intellectual blackmail .
The simple fact is , this process should not be happening under the gun like this .
And that ’ s on Trump , not the media .
4 ) Trump ’ s legal team is making an amateur error in its approach to convincing the public A thousand doubts does not constitute proof .
Amateur debaters often fall into the trap of trying to win a debate by listing as many arguments as they can come up with .
The mistake @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by sheer quantities of evidence .
In reality , this almost always backfires .
When you pound people over the head with argument after argument , they tend to become confused , bewildered , and , in the end , resentful .
They resent not having the chance to really think through any one claim or argument in detail .
Inevitably they begin to suspect that you ’ re just trying to pull a fast one on them .
Usually , they ’ re right .
Trump and his legal team have fallen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conference , they made repeated reference to the “ hundreds ” of sworn affidavits they have gathered , and the large number of their lawsuits .
However , while hundreds of affidavits may be “ evidence , ” in the legal sense of the term , they do not amount to proof .
A journalist for The Blaze reviewed the affidavits filed in Michigan and noted that many of them do not actually contain allegations of fraud .
Instead , they often have to do with circumstantial things , such as how GOP @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” by election officials , or described “ fraudulent ” behavior that could plausibly be interpreted as election officials following normal procedures that GOP challengers simply failed to understand .
Maybe some of the affidavits obtained by Trump ’ s legal team contain slam-dunk proof of widespread fraud , but if they do , they are being lost in the noise .
Expert debaters know that the best way to win an argument is to select only the very best arguments , and to focus on those .
If you go for quantity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ low quality evidence in your arguments .
Your audience , which is not so much weighing each piece of evidence ( an impossible task ) , as whether you are the sort of person who should be trusted , will often only remember your bad or weak arguments .
The result is that they will write off everything else you say , as coming from a fundamentally unreliable source .
Trump and his surrogates have raised important questions about election integrity .
Unfortunately , however , they have also repeated and promoted numerous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Trump began retweeting every claim of fraud that came across his Twitter feed , without any effort to fact check them .
Many of them have subsequently been proven to be baseless .
It should come as no surprise that those who are not already on board the Trump Train are reacting to each new claim made by Trump with deep skepticism .
The tragedy is that some of these claims may be valid .
However , Trump ’ s carelessness with the truth has fatally undercut his ability to lead a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) The fraud ‘ investigation ’ is being conducted ass-backwards Trump , his legal team , and MAGA supporters all began with the conviction that the election was stolen .
Then , they went in search of the proof .
People are skeptical of the effort , because that ’ s the worst possible way to go about an investigation .
The point of conducting an investigation is that you do not know the answer .
You have a hypothesis or a suspicion , but not proof .
The Trump admin has , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ certitude .
Unfortunately , this isn ’ t just bad epistemology , it ’ s also insanely reckless , since , by definition , the very claim calls into doubt the very existence of democracy in America .
The word “ coup ” is being tossed around by MAGA followers carelessly .
To say that ’ s a loaded word is an understatement .
But Trump and his team have left themselves no escape route .
Even if incontrovertible evidence shows up at some point that the election was not stolen , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ always believe that it was .
At this point , there is nothing that could convince them otherwise .
Clearly , having a large body of citizens who believe that their government is illegitimate comes with potentially catastrophic unforeseen consequences .
Nobody in the Trump administration or MAGA crowd seems to be giving any thought to this .
Damn the torpedoes .
Given that it ’ s Trump , we can expect him to throw out outrageous claims without making any real effort to determine if they ’ re really true .
However @ @ @ @ @ @ @ truth over political expediency .
Whatever our political affiliations , our duty is to investigate with indifference to the outcome , rather than seeking ways to substantiate our personal preferences .
When faced with a choice between truth and winning , choose truth , every time .
6 ) The U.S. electoral system is a mess Rudy Giuliani has at least this much right .
The evidence Giuliani and his team have collected of conflicting processes and procedures around the country , the reports of irregularities , the evidence of actual fraud , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ push less secure voting methods , may not be sufficient to actually overturn the result .
But it absolutely is sufficient to suggest that the whole system is a mess , and vulnerable to exploitation .
While I believe the odds of Trump ’ s fraud claims leading to the election being overturned are slim ( although I am keeping an open mind on the question ) , we can at least hope that the whole sordid episode leads to some serious and much-needed bipartisan electoral reform , so that this does not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , that ’ s only going to happen if cooler heads prevail , and reckless rhetoric only leads the country down a dark road of further division and strife .
John Jalsevac is currently working towards a PhD in philosophy .
Prior to grad school , he worked for over a decade as a journalist , editor , and pro-life activist .
His previous journalism and creative writing have appeared in The Public Discourse , Gilbert !
Magazine , Dappled Thing , LifeSiteNews , and others .

Having spent far too much time in recent days sifting through claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, I watched the press conference with Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell Thursday with interest.
Here are several key takeaways, in no particular order:
1) The decision to use electronic voting in the United States was bound to lead to this kind of mess
At this point, the Trump administration has filed so many lawsuits, with so many affidavits, and has made such far-reaching claims of fraud, that it’s nearly impossible to sort through them to know what, if anything, has actually been proven. However, one thing they certainly have shown, beyond any reasonable doubt, is that electronic voting is a terrible idea.
Notice, I do not say that anybody has proven that any fraud actually took place using electronic voting machines in the 2020 election. They haven’t. Sidney Powell has presented many troubling questions about the vulnerabilities of electronic voting machines. As of yet, however, we have no hard evidence that anybody actually exploited those vulnerabilities (if they exist).
This is a distinction that many Trumpists are unfortunately failing to make. Casting broad doubts about the security of voting machines does not prove that the election was stolen. Such doubts, even if they turn out to be well-founded, will almost certainly be insufficient to convince any judge to invalidate a single vote, let alone overturn the entire election result.
However, what’s certain is that electronic voting is highly vulnerable to the kind of doubt and suspicion that Sidney Powell, et al, are casting on it. It was only a matter of time. For this reason alone, the states should never have touched electronic voting.
When a vote is cast on a piece of paper, you can see that paper, hold that paper, and store that paper; you can pull it out later, and match signatures, and recount it. But once a vote goes into a computer, and becomes a series of 1s and 0s, nobody—except for those who designed and control the software—knows or can physically see what became of that vote. Keeping copies of the physical ballots does nothing to assuage these concerns, since in most cases there will be no recount of those ballots. The computer’s processor and memory thus have the final say.
No amount of technical mumbo-jumbo or even actual security can ever eradicate the appearance of the untrustworthiness of electronic voting. Inevitably somebody will ask, “If clever people make fake videos featuring global leaders that are undetectable as frauds, then why couldn’t clever people also fake votes?” There’s no convincing riposte to that question.
In some cases, perception is reality. Electronic voting is one of those cases. The perception that a voting machine can change a vote (whether or not this is true) casts a pall of doubt on democracy itself. The country needs to get out of the electronic voting business, ASAP.
2) There is a lot of bad reporting in the media, but a lot of the blame rests on Trump, his legal team and the magnitude, complexity and implausibility of their claims
Trump’s lawyers spent a lot of time at the podium lecturing the media on their “fake” reporting on the fraud claims. No doubt, after four years of mainstream media malpractice, they have reason for making this claim.
However, the moralistic lecturing was myopic and counterproductive, simply because even honest journalists (if there are any left) have been left with their heads spinning by the quantity and magnitude of the claims the Trump administration is putting out there right now.
Any honest person approaching the fraud claims without a pre-determined position on their validity (something that is, unfortunately, all too rare) has inevitably been left feeling overwhelmed and confused. There’s just too much information. There are too many conflicting claims. There isn’t enough time to adjudicate each one of them properly. Not only is some degree of media skepticism to be expected, it’s actually the only responsible thing to do, given the complexity and magnitude of the fraud claims, and the stakes at play.
One of the central claims being made by Trump’s legal team is that there exists a vast national and global conspiracy involving a network of shadowy electronic voting companies, communist regimes, foreign dictators, vote routing, switching and deleting involving complex algorithms, and the complicity of numerous Democratic governors and election officials. The evidence proffered so far to support this claim is a single affidavit by an unnamed Venezuelan official, and a number of non-specific allegations of data anomalies on election night.
Should we—should the media—simply assent to these claims, based solely upon the heat of Sidney Powell’s rhetoric, and a single affidavit? How seriously should we even take them, given that the clock is ticking, and it is hard to imagine the Trump team actually proving these allegations by the safe harbor deadlines, whether they are true or not? How much effort should they expend chasing every new bone Sidney Powell and MAGA surrogates throw their way?
“Dianne Feinstein’s husband! George Soros! Scytl! German servers! Raids by U.S. military! Spain! Hugo Chavez! Nancy Pelosi’s chief of staff! Bill Gates! Cuba!” And so on and so forth.
It’s exhausting just trying to keep up. However you look at it, much of it is extraordinarily confusing and, frankly, prima facie unbelievable. Of course, truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. Powell could be right. But how likely is it that all her increasingly wild allegations should come together just as she has laid them out? And how surprised should we be that people outside the MAGA camp are skeptical?
3) The whole thing feels like intellectual blackmail
Rudy Giuliani complained that his team is preparing and presenting cases that would normally take months, if not years to prepare and argue in normal circumstances. The media should give them time to make their case, and wait for the evidence, he said.
But who’s fault is this? The Trump administration had four years to investigate Dominion, Smartmatic, and the dangers of electronic voting in general. They could have convened bipartisan committees to investigate voter fraud and the vulnerabilities of these voting machines.
In 2016, even after he won, Trump claimed that there were millions of fraudulent votes. If he really believed that, why didn’t he do something meaningful about it while he was in office? Posting about it on Twitter doesn’t count.
Sidney Powell has raised some good questions about electronic voting, if only that people will readily believe wild claims of fraud using it. These questions should be pursued, however, a few days ago, most of us had never even heard of Dominion, Smartmatic and Scytl, etc. Now we’re being told that we must simply believe Powell’s theory that these companies stole the election. Countless MAGA followers are posting that they are absolutely sure, without the slightest shadow of a doubt, that Dominion is behind the electoral theft. This feels mad.
“She’s a competent lawyer!” her supporters say. “She’s brilliant, she’s honest! She’s a patriot!” Maybe she is all of these things, but I’m not going to make a judgment about the outcome of a presidential election, or assent to a vast, complex, and highly implausible theory, based upon such thin gruel.
I need time. I need evidence. I need witnesses and counter-witnesses, examined and cross-examined. And being told by the MAGA crowd that I must assent to the theory, and to declare certainty that an election is invalid and that a coup has been perpetrated, without any of these, feels like intellectual blackmail.
The simple fact is, this process should not be happening under the gun like this. And that’s on Trump, not the media.
4) Trump’s legal team is making an amateur error in its approach to convincing the public
A thousand doubts does not constitute proof. Amateur debaters often fall into the trap of trying to win a debate by listing as many arguments as they can come up with. The mistake is in thinking that people are convinced by sheer quantities of evidence.
In reality, this almost always backfires. When you pound people over the head with argument after argument, they tend to become confused, bewildered, and, in the end, resentful. They resent not having the chance to really think through any one claim or argument in detail. Inevitably they begin to suspect that you’re just trying to pull a fast one on them. Usually, they’re right.
Trump and his legal team have fallen into this trap. At the press conference, they made repeated reference to the “hundreds” of sworn affidavits they have gathered, and the large number of their lawsuits. However, while hundreds of affidavits may be “evidence,” in the legal sense of the term, they do not amount to proof.
A journalist for The Blaze reviewed the affidavits filed in Michigan and noted that many of them do not actually contain allegations of fraud. Instead, they often have to do with circumstantial things, such as how GOP challengers felt they were being “treated” by election officials, or described “fraudulent” behavior that could plausibly be interpreted as election officials following normal procedures that GOP challengers simply failed to understand.
Maybe some of the affidavits obtained by Trump’s legal team contain slam-dunk proof of widespread fraud, but if they do, they are being lost in the noise.
Expert debaters know that the best way to win an argument is to select only the very best arguments, and to focus on those. If you go for quantity of evidence, inevitably you will include low quality evidence in your arguments. Your audience, which is not so much weighing each piece of evidence (an impossible task), as whether you are the sort of person who should be trusted, will often only remember your bad or weak arguments. The result is that they will write off everything else you say, as coming from a fundamentally unreliable source.
Trump and his surrogates have raised important questions about election integrity. Unfortunately, however, they have also repeated and promoted numerous false claims. Starting on election night, Trump began retweeting every claim of fraud that came across his Twitter feed, without any effort to fact check them. Many of them have subsequently been proven to be baseless.
It should come as no surprise that those who are not already on board the Trump Train are reacting to each new claim made by Trump with deep skepticism. The tragedy is that some of these claims may be valid. However, Trump’s carelessness with the truth has fatally undercut his ability to lead a productive inquiry into voter fraud.
5) The fraud ‘investigation’ is being conducted ass-backwards
Trump, his legal team, and MAGA supporters all began with the conviction that the election was stolen. Then, they went in search of the proof.
People are skeptical of the effort, because that’s the worst possible way to go about an investigation. The point of conducting an investigation is that you do not know the answer. You have a hypothesis or a suspicion, but not proof.
The Trump admin has, from the very beginning, claimed absolute certitude. Unfortunately, this isn’t just bad epistemology, it’s also insanely reckless, since, by definition, the very claim calls into doubt the very existence of democracy in America.
The word “coup” is being tossed around by MAGA followers carelessly. To say that’s a loaded word is an understatement. But Trump and his team have left themselves no escape route. Even if incontrovertible evidence shows up at some point that the election was not stolen, a significant portion of the MAGA crowd will always believe that it was. At this point, there is nothing that could convince them otherwise.
Clearly, having a large body of citizens who believe that their government is illegitimate comes with potentially catastrophic unforeseen consequences. Nobody in the Trump administration or MAGA crowd seems to be giving any thought to this. Damn the torpedoes.
Given that it’s Trump, we can expect him to throw out outrageous claims without making any real effort to determine if they’re really true. However, it is our responsibility to prioritize truth over political expediency. Whatever our political affiliations, our duty is to investigate with indifference to the outcome, rather than seeking ways to substantiate our personal preferences. When faced with a choice between truth and winning, choose truth, every time.
6) The U.S. electoral system is a mess
Rudy Giuliani has at least this much right. The evidence Giuliani and his team have collected of conflicting processes and procedures around the country, the reports of irregularities, the evidence of actual fraud, and the ongoing efforts of Democrats to push less secure voting methods, may not be sufficient to actually overturn the result. But it absolutely is sufficient to suggest that the whole system is a mess, and vulnerable to exploitation.
While I believe the odds of Trump’s fraud claims leading to the election being overturned are slim (although I am keeping an open mind on the question), we can at least hope that the whole sordid episode leads to some serious and much-needed bipartisan electoral reform, so that this does not happen again.
But in the end, that’s only going to happen if cooler heads prevail, and reckless rhetoric only leads the country down a dark road of further division and strife.
John Jalsevac is currently working towards a PhD in philosophy. Prior to grad school, he worked for over a decade as a journalist, editor, and pro-life activist. His previous journalism and creative writing have appeared in The Public Discourse, Gilbert! Magazine, Dappled Thing, LifeSiteNews, and others.


theamericanconservative--2020-11-23--The Greatest Scandal of our Lifetime

The Greatest Scandal of our Lifetime

What if I told you that thousands of lives could be saved during this pandemic if we followed the science ?
Instead of following the science , governments around the world are implementing the exact opposite of effective measures to combat the pandemic .
Governments and health officials from first world countries are pursuing lockdowns and advising patients to wait until their symptoms worsen before going to the hospital seeking treatment .
Sadly , this is the approach many countries have taken for the COVID-19 virus .
Lockdowns are destroying lives economically , mentally , and physically , while the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the destruction of the middle class and the poor .
Also egregious is the lack of an outpatient treatment plan for people who come down with Covid .
In the NIH ’ s recommended treatment protocol , there is no recommended treatment for non-hospitalized patients .
‘ Isolate in your home and wait until your condition gets so bad you have to go to the hospital ’ is the NIH ’ s position .
A patient ’ s treatment only begins once they are hospitalized .
This is akin to using dial-up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ internet .
It does not have to be this way .
We can effectively provide outpatient treatment care to patients with the virus in a safe and cheap manner .
Many heroic doctors are focusing on the vital task of fighting COVID-19 in the early stages of the illness .
Since March , there have been copious amounts of research , studies , and treatment of patients that have shown success against the illness .
Antivirals , vitamins , existing vaccines , aspirin , exercise , sleep , and proper air filtration all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases of Coronavirus in mild to moderate patients .
Prestigious doctors such as Dr. Peter McCullough of Baylor University Medical Center in Texas , and Dr. Paul Marik of the Eastern Virginia Medical School , among many others , have devised home treatment or outpatient care regimens for mild cases and prophylaxis .
There have been numerous ( many peer-reviewed ) studies which have shown that antivirals like Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin are effective in combatting the illness in mild to moderate stages .
Simply strengthening your immune system with vitamin D , vitamin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ionosphere ( Quercetin and EGCG ) along with proper exercise and rest goes a long way in preparing the body to effective combat Covid-19 .
Also , the MMR vaccine could provide protection from the most severe effects of Covid as well , according to doctors .
While we wait for antibody cocktail treatments and a potential vaccine , these other treatments must be strongly recommended and pursued by the general public , especially those most susceptible to the illness .
Masks , social distancing , and early effective treatments are the best @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
However , this is not the case in many first world nations , including the United States .
Lockdowns are considered the most important way to slow the spread of the virus .
This lockdown mindset is a totalitarian mindset .
It is a mindset that rejects humanity .
The more humane approach is that espoused in the Great Barrington Declaration .
Protect the elderly and sick in their homes while the young and healthy return to society through measured social distancing .
However , the elites in most governments hate this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ treatments and strengthening of the immune system can effectively combat the virus .
Lockdowns show a disregard for humanity , and the unintended consequences will be felt for decades .
There is a better approach than destroying our society and our humanity .
It is the approach of the Great Barrington Declaration paired with the promoting of outpatient treatments for the virus .
This is the only way for society to regain its humanity and stop the totalitarian mindset of our elites .
We are in a war with the virus .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We can not wait years for a double-blind randomized study of antivirals while thousands are being infected and being told to isolate at home until they can ’ t breathe and only go to the hospital when it is possibly too late .
While businesses and jobs are being lost and lives are being destroyed , there is no excuse for government health organizations like the NIH to not recommend early treatment care .
Dr. Peter McCullough said , “ Medicine is both an art and a science .
In this pandemic , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in randomized trials , in a new drug development , and the body count has been through the roof .
[ What is needed is ] clinical judgement , careful observation , being able to quickly adapt to new concepts.
” Treating COVID-19 too late is part of the lockdown mindset .
By denying early outpatient treatment care , the elites are chipping away at our liberties , forming us into a submissive society where we follow everything the government says .
The only problem is that the elites in these governments have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recommending outpatient treatment .
Their denial of humanity and freedom to choose during this pandemic has been criminal , and we must never forget what they want and plan to do with their authoritarian mindset of complete ineptitude .
This sordid tale is the greatest scandal of our lifetime .

What if I told you that thousands of lives could be saved during this pandemic if we followed the science?
Instead of following the science, governments around the world are implementing the exact opposite of effective measures to combat the pandemic. Governments and health officials from first world countries are pursuing lockdowns and advising patients to wait until their symptoms worsen before going to the hospital seeking treatment. Sadly, this is the approach many countries have taken for the COVID-19 virus. Lockdowns are destroying lives economically, mentally, and physically, while the elites are becoming richer and profiting off of the destruction of the middle class and the poor.
Also egregious is the lack of an outpatient treatment plan for people who come down with Covid. In the NIH’s recommended treatment protocol, there is no recommended treatment for non-hospitalized patients. ‘Isolate in your home and wait until your condition gets so bad you have to go to the hospital’ is the NIH’s position. A patient’s treatment only begins once they are hospitalized. This is akin to using dial-up internet compared to today’s high-speed internet. It does not have to be this way. We can effectively provide outpatient treatment care to patients with the virus in a safe and cheap manner.
Many heroic doctors are focusing on the vital task of fighting COVID-19 in the early stages of the illness. Since March, there have been copious amounts of research, studies, and treatment of patients that have shown success against the illness. Antivirals, vitamins, existing vaccines, aspirin, exercise, sleep, and proper air filtration all play a pivotal role in preventing severe cases of Coronavirus in mild to moderate patients. Prestigious doctors such as Dr. Peter McCullough of Baylor University Medical Center in Texas, and Dr. Paul Marik of the Eastern Virginia Medical School, among many others, have devised home treatment or outpatient care regimens for mild cases and prophylaxis. There have been numerous (many peer-reviewed) studies which have shown that antivirals like Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin are effective in combatting the illness in mild to moderate stages. Simply strengthening your immune system with vitamin D, vitamin C, Zinc, and a Zinc ionosphere (Quercetin and EGCG) along with proper exercise and rest goes a long way in preparing the body to effective combat Covid-19. Also, the MMR vaccine could provide protection from the most severe effects of Covid as well, according to doctors. While we wait for antibody cocktail treatments and a potential vaccine, these other treatments must be strongly recommended and pursued by the general public, especially those most susceptible to the illness.
Masks, social distancing, and early effective treatments are the best tools we have to combat this illness. However, this is not the case in many first world nations, including the United States. Lockdowns are considered the most important way to slow the spread of the virus. This lockdown mindset is a totalitarian mindset. It is a mindset that rejects humanity. The more humane approach is that espoused in the Great Barrington Declaration. Protect the elderly and sick in their homes while the young and healthy return to society through measured social distancing. However, the elites in most governments hate this plan because they deny that early effective treatments and strengthening of the immune system can effectively combat the virus. Lockdowns show a disregard for humanity, and the unintended consequences will be felt for decades. There is a better approach than destroying our society and our humanity. It is the approach of the Great Barrington Declaration paired with the promoting of outpatient treatments for the virus. This is the only way for society to regain its humanity and stop the totalitarian mindset of our elites.
We are in a war with the virus. In war, urgency is a necessity. We cannot wait years for a double-blind randomized study of antivirals while thousands are being infected and being told to isolate at home until they can’t breathe and only go to the hospital when it is possibly too late. While businesses and jobs are being lost and lives are being destroyed, there is no excuse for government health organizations like the NIH to not recommend early treatment care. Dr. Peter McCullough said, “Medicine is both an art and a science. In this pandemic, we have focused on the science, in randomized trials, in a new drug development, and the body count has been through the roof. [What is needed is] clinical judgement, careful observation, being able to quickly adapt to new concepts.”
Treating COVID-19 too late is part of the lockdown mindset. By denying early outpatient treatment care, the elites are chipping away at our liberties, forming us into a submissive society where we follow everything the government says. The only problem is that the elites in these governments have been dreadfully wrong with lockdowns and not recommending outpatient treatment. Their denial of humanity and freedom to choose during this pandemic has been criminal, and we must never forget what they want and plan to do with their authoritarian mindset of complete ineptitude. This sordid tale is the greatest scandal of our lifetime.


theamericanconservative--2020-11-23--What If We Aren’t Living in the End Times?

Fearmongers left and right offer fever dreams about a country in decline .
What if they 're all wrong ?
President Donald Trump ’ s four years in the White House changed many aspects of American politics , but none quite as apparent as the influx of apocalyptic political posturing on both sides of the aisle .
Have we now reached the apex ?
It is difficult to say , but all signs point to no .
When it comes to American politics in the year 2020 , there is simply no chill .
What ’ s behind the surge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ brakes on the clown car ?
For a culture in which especially younger adults are having much less sex , it seems fair to ask if a certain amount of the Armageddon narrative is being promulgated out of sexual frustration as well as those manipulating that sexual frustration .
Much has been made of the 2008 recession and fairly so .
The economic impact of lockdowns and quarantines can ’ t be overstated .
But we also can ’ t forget about the ongoing Sex Recession .
To put it less politely : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ balls .
Not just physically , either .
Culturally , sexually , politically , and religiously—you name it—the populace is yearning for a climax and a resolution .
They want the episode to end , finally .
They want the cameras to pan back and do the post-show interviews with the biggest stars .
Even when it doesn ’ t happen , growing droves of voters flock to the politicians who promise that satisfying finish and post-game wrap up .
Seth Abramson will finally expose once and for all the labyrinthine conspiracy of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re the most corrupt , despicable crowd ever to stain the lily-white and heretofore unimpeachable surface of American politics ; Candace Owens just owned Ilhan Omar so hard that she ’ ll never recover and her secret identity as an al-Qaeda Manchurian candidate who supports abortion in order to decrease the birthrate of Christians will finally be exposed .
The anti-Trump media is basically the heroic French Resistance of World War II ; Trump has been chosen by God Himself to lead the last stand against a global Satanic conspiracy .
But…what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t just random or “ crazy ” ?
What if they are a psychological need that people have for things to matter and a deep aversion to the deep mediocrity of our times ?
What if the last thing people want to hear is the horrible news : our lives , our era , just aren ’ t very remarkable ?
As the late great author Walker Percy wrote , his protagonist was “ living in fact in the very century of merde , the great shithouse of scientific humanism where needs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a warm and creative person , and prospers like a dung beetle , and one hundred percent of people are humanists and ninety-eight percent believe in God , and men are dead , dead , dead ; and the malaise has settled like a fall-out and what people really fear is not that the bomb will fall but that the bomb will not fall….
” There ’ s a good argument to be made we ’ re still living in that century of merde and that the acceleration of technology hasn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So let ’ s take a look at the apocalyptic visions of the American left and right , the immanentizing of the progressive eschaton and Drumpf doomsday dolor and its cousin the quacking hysteria of QAnon and earnest Millennialism of Trump worshipers .
First , the view from the center and the liberal left as well as their numerous media backers and scriptwriters .
Trump—whose policy record has been largely indistinguishable from any prior milquetoast Republican—has been routinely chastised and branded in the media as the next Adolf Hitler , Benito Mussolini @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he shared some of the strongman personality characteristics , you ’ d be hard pressed to find any average American whose life changed drastically under number 45 , except , maybe , for CNN ’ s heroic Jim Acosta in his epic quest for press freedom .
What the last four years of Trump ’ s presidency did change , however , was the media and the institutional left ’ s acceleration into pure , unfiltered narcissistic self-righteousness .
By branding Trump as a dangerous man of immense dictatorial menace , a dying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the resistance and a misled and confused progressive base was able to pat itself on the back for chipping away at the Greatest Threat Of All Time .
Yes , Obama may have droned some innocent teenagers and unwittingly caused the return of mass slavery , but we have bigger things to worry about , dammit !
They ’ re putting kids in cages !
In a privileged , distorted parody of the journalists and organizations that took great risk in standing up to the actual dictators and mass-murdering regimes of the past—many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their lives—the American mass media has LARPed with reckless abandon , highly publicized gestures , and foaming-at-the-mouth op-eds wherein they trumpeted their own supposed heroism and grand pursuit of truth ( which was mysteriously missing during the run-up to the Iraq war and other national tragedies ) .
The Washington Post changed its slogan to “ Democracy Dies in Darkness , ” champing at the bit to nobly defend the republic from the bad orange man , while the Post steadily blew any of its remaining credibility by claiming that everything from an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the wallpaper was a Russian conspiracy .
Rachel Maddow of MSNBC helpfully informed viewers in North Dakota and the Midwest that they could freeze to death if Russia decided to shut down the power grid in the middle of winter .
Just the facts , folks .
Some media figures made things up altogether for dramatic effect .
Louise Mensch ’ s sincere claim that Steve Bannon was about to be executed for espionage was one of the most notable examples in the past few years .
Meanwhile Trump—a president who takes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and who is an expert manipulator of the media cycle , if nothing else—was in reality doing little more than changing tax percentages , coordinating empty Israeli-Arab normalization deals , and parading his own symbolic gestures on the world stage .
After years of whipping themselves—and in turn , the American anti-Trump population—into a frenzy , the media ’ s narcissism came to a spectacular conclusion this month after Joe Biden was projected to be the winner of the 2020 U.S. presidential election .
Two false stories began to circulate : one from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were setting off fireworks in celebration of Biden ’ s heroic victory , while MSNBC ’ s Ari Melber insinuated church bells in France were also a passionate response to the Blue Wave .
In reality , fireworks were launched in the UK for Bonfire Night—a celebration that has taken place annually since before the United States was even founded—and church bells rang out in France for Mass .
But for an American mass media that had become so absorbed in its own resistance narrative , it was only logical that the entire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s electoral defeat too .
The Washington Post gave itself a pat on the back , humbly declaring that the media “ might have saved democracy , ” while Stephen Colbert proudly revealed that he ’ d cried at the news of Trump ’ s defeat .
But where does the media go from here ?
Without the bogeyman in office , and the ensuing scandals , how will the fourth estate keep its ratings from falling back into a pre-Trump slump ?
Without an adversary as impressive as Trump , do journalists @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Biden-Harris administration from the sidelines ?
The answer is obviously yes : they will largely do that and intensify their demonization of Christians and conservatives in their search for new baddies to blame for all the wrongs of this world .
Now , to take a look from the right , we are presented with a slightly more diverse and nuanced view .
Indeed , after enduring sustained assault from the cultural left for decades , the right has plenty of voters who know Trump isn ’ t the real deal but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of America ’ s judicial future and institutional pushback against the left on critical race theory and other initiatives .
Nonetheless , it can ’ t be denied that the American right is suffused by a lot of childish behavior and apocalyptic mumbo-jumbo as well .
One dominant narrative popular among some white evangelicals holds that Trump is God ’ s modern King Cyrus—a Gentile Persian king who helped rescue the Jews from Babylonian servitude .
Israelis jumped right onboard the supreme silliness , issuing a coin ( which you can get for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ featuring Trump and King Cyrus to celebrate the opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem in 2018 .
Other out-there theories run the gamut from vague beliefs that Trump will usher in the end times ( hey , there are still two months minimum , so it ’ s still possible : don ’ t give up hope ) and that he ’ s been secretly arresting all the pedophile , blood-sucking freaks who backed Hillary Clinton in 2016 .
The 100-dimensional chess of Trump is otherworldly , and its only doubters are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ checks from Brooklyn , for sure .
Right-wing pundits thunder about the impending downfall of the republic and decry pink-haired Maoist madmen who swarm the streets .
BLM leadership are Chinese-trained saboteurs and demon-worshipping occultists sent to institute the next phase of the New World Order .
What if the fever dreams of the left and right are just a cope ?
What if we ’ re living in the ultimate anticlimax ?
Instead of a 1,000-year Reich , what if we ’ re living in a 1,000-year *psyche* ?
What if all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ countdown and more like a tired rerun where we ’ re running out of ways to amuse ourselves to death ?
We ’ re living in a time of low social trust , accelerating technology , neo-feudal late stage capitalism , and half-assed social democratic proposals to try to salvage some form of unity out of a fractured polity and declining family structure .
Is this really the end or just the beginning of a long decline ?
What if we ’ re all a hammer looking for a nail ?
What if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can ’ t get no satisfaction ?
What if we ’ re not living in the end times and we ’ re actually the “ middle children of history ” going through the tired throes of an Empire in decline ?
What if there won ’ t be a currency collapse and a second Great Depression ?
What if there won ’ t be a giant cataclysmic war or final showdown full of screaming Chinese communist commandos and heroic patriots resisting their invasion from atop the hills of Tennessee ?
What if there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coming to chew up tanks and spit fire as she scoops conservatives away in her bewitching bosom and takes them to her free health care gulags ?
What if “ no Trump , no KKK , no fascist USA ” comes true and things become so tolerant and peaceful and full of fair-trade hemp harmony that it ’ s all kind of…mind-blowingly boring ?
What if you aren ’ t a vital operator in a story of the final battle between good and evil but are actually just a person struggling through the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has for…all of human history ?
Wouldn ’ t that be sad and kind of just a little , tiny bit moderately disappointing ?
Wouldn ’ t it be so much more fulfilling if you fit somewhere in the script , if you were one of the super elite or educated few who really gets it ?
Wouldn ’ t it be so much more truth-y to feel like this is all part of a grand , cosmic destiny in which you ’ re a warrior for eternal truth ?
Well , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us , “ you can ’ t always get what you want.
” Paul Brian is a freelance journalist .
He has reported for the BBC , Reuters , and Foreign Policy , and contributed to The Week , The Federalist , and others .
Charlie Nash is a journalist who has written for Mediaite and the Spectator .

President Donald Trump’s four years in the White House changed many aspects of American politics, but none quite as apparent as the influx of apocalyptic political posturing on both sides of the aisle.
Have we now reached the apex? It is difficult to say, but all signs point to no.
When it comes to American politics in the year 2020, there is simply no chill.
What’s behind the surge in sky-is-falling rhetoric? Who cut the brakes on the clown car?
For a culture in which especially younger adults are having much less sex, it seems fair to ask if a certain amount of the Armageddon narrative is being promulgated out of sexual frustration as well as those manipulating that sexual frustration.
Much has been made of the 2008 recession and fairly so. The economic impact of lockdowns and quarantines can’t be overstated. But we also can’t forget about the ongoing Sex Recession.
To put it less politely: America has a serious case of blue balls. Not just physically, either.
Spiritual blue balls.
Culturally, sexually, politically, and religiously—you name it—the populace is yearning for a climax and a resolution. They want the episode to end, finally. They want the cameras to pan back and do the post-show interviews with the biggest stars.
Even when it doesn’t happen, growing droves of voters flock to the politicians who promise that satisfying finish and post-game wrap up.
Seth Abramson will finally expose once and for all the labyrinthine conspiracy of Trump and Co. and just how they’re the most corrupt, despicable crowd ever to stain the lily-white and heretofore unimpeachable surface of American politics; Candace Owens just owned Ilhan Omar so hard that she’ll never recover and her secret identity as an al-Qaeda Manchurian candidate who supports abortion in order to decrease the birthrate of Christians will finally be exposed. The anti-Trump media is basically the heroic French Resistance of World War II; Trump has been chosen by God Himself to lead the last stand against a global Satanic conspiracy.
But…what if these grand dreams and fears aren’t just random or “crazy”? What if they are a psychological need that people have for things to matter and a deep aversion to the deep mediocrity of our times?
What if the last thing people want to hear is the horrible news: our lives, our era, just aren’t very remarkable?
As the late great author Walker Percy wrote, his protagonist was “living in fact in the very century of merde, the great shithouse of scientific humanism where needs are satisfied, everyone becomes an anyone, a warm and creative person, and prospers like a dung beetle, and one hundred percent of people are humanists and ninety-eight percent believe in God, and men are dead, dead, dead; and the malaise has settled like a fall-out and what people really fear is not that the bomb will fall but that the bomb will not fall….”
There’s a good argument to be made we’re still living in that century of merde and that the acceleration of technology hasn’t changed the underlying malaise Percy describes.
So let’s take a look at the apocalyptic visions of the American left and right, the immanentizing of the progressive eschaton and Drumpf doomsday dolor and its cousin the quacking hysteria of QAnon and earnest Millennialism of Trump worshipers.
First, the view from the center and the liberal left as well as their numerous media backers and scriptwriters.
Trump—whose policy record has been largely indistinguishable from any prior milquetoast Republican—has been routinely chastised and branded in the media as the next Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, or Joseph Stalin. And although he shared some of the strongman personality characteristics, you’d be hard pressed to find any average American whose life changed drastically under number 45, except, maybe, for CNN’s heroic Jim Acosta in his epic quest for press freedom.
What the last four years of Trump’s presidency did change, however, was the media and the institutional left’s acceleration into pure, unfiltered narcissistic self-righteousness. By branding Trump as a dangerous man of immense dictatorial menace, a dying industry was able to cast itself as the resistance and a misled and confused progressive base was able to pat itself on the back for chipping away at the Greatest Threat Of All Time.
Yes, Obama may have droned some innocent teenagers and unwittingly caused the return of mass slavery, but we have bigger things to worry about, dammit! They’re putting kids in cages!
In a privileged, distorted parody of the journalists and organizations that took great risk in standing up to the actual dictators and mass-murdering regimes of the past—many of which paid for their actions with their lives—the American mass media has LARPed with reckless abandon, highly publicized gestures, and foaming-at-the-mouth op-eds wherein they trumpeted their own supposed heroism and grand pursuit of truth (which was mysteriously missing during the run-up to the Iraq war and other national tragedies).
The Washington Post changed its slogan to “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” champing at the bit to nobly defend the republic from the bad orange man, while the Post steadily blew any of its remaining credibility by claiming that everything from an electricity outage in Vermont to the color of the wallpaper was a Russian conspiracy.
Rachel Maddow of MSNBC helpfully informed viewers in North Dakota and the Midwest that they could freeze to death if Russia decided to shut down the power grid in the middle of winter. Just the facts, folks.
Some media figures made things up altogether for dramatic effect. Louise Mensch’s sincere claim that Steve Bannon was about to be executed for espionage was one of the most notable examples in the past few years.
Meanwhile Trump—a president who takes great enjoyment in riling up his opponents and who is an expert manipulator of the media cycle, if nothing else—was in reality doing little more than changing tax percentages, coordinating empty Israeli-Arab normalization deals, and parading his own symbolic gestures on the world stage.
After years of whipping themselves—and in turn, the American anti-Trump population—into a frenzy, the media’s narcissism came to a spectacular conclusion this month after Joe Biden was projected to be the winner of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Two false stories began to circulate: one from ABC News claimed Brits across the Atlantic were setting off fireworks in celebration of Biden’s heroic victory, while MSNBC’s Ari Melber insinuated church bells in France were also a passionate response to the Blue Wave.
In reality, fireworks were launched in the UK for Bonfire Night—a celebration that has taken place annually since before the United States was even founded—and church bells rang out in France for Mass.
But for an American mass media that had become so absorbed in its own resistance narrative, it was only logical that the entire world must have been celebrating Trump’s electoral defeat too.
The Washington Post gave itself a pat on the back, humbly declaring that the media “might have saved democracy,” while Stephen Colbert proudly revealed that he’d cried at the news of Trump’s defeat.
But where does the media go from here?
Without the bogeyman in office, and the ensuing scandals, how will the fourth estate keep its ratings from falling back into a pre-Trump slump?
Without an adversary as impressive as Trump, do journalists sink back into their seats and cheer the Biden-Harris administration from the sidelines? The answer is obviously yes: they will largely do that and intensify their demonization of Christians and conservatives in their search for new baddies to blame for all the wrongs of this world.
Now, to take a look from the right, we are presented with a slightly more diverse and nuanced view.
Indeed, after enduring sustained assault from the cultural left for decades, the right has plenty of voters who know Trump isn’t the real deal but are still immensely grateful for his safeguarding of America’s judicial future and institutional pushback against the left on critical race theory and other initiatives.
Nonetheless, it can’t be denied that the American right is suffused by a lot of childish behavior and apocalyptic mumbo-jumbo as well.
One dominant narrative popular among some white evangelicals holds that Trump is God’s modern King Cyrus—a Gentile Persian king who helped rescue the Jews from Babylonian servitude. Israelis jumped right onboard the supreme silliness, issuing a coin (which you can get for the low price of $70) featuring Trump and King Cyrus to celebrate the opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem in 2018.
Other out-there theories run the gamut from vague beliefs that Trump will usher in the end times (hey, there are still two months minimum, so it’s still possible: don’t give up hope) and that he’s been secretly arresting all the pedophile, blood-sucking freaks who backed Hillary Clinton in 2016. The 100-dimensional chess of Trump is otherworldly, and its only doubters are libtards, Satanists, and smug blue checks from Brooklyn, for sure.
Right-wing pundits thunder about the impending downfall of the republic and decry pink-haired Maoist madmen who swarm the streets. BLM leadership are Chinese-trained saboteurs and demon-worshipping occultists sent to institute the next phase of the New World Order.
What if the fever dreams of the left and right are just a cope?
What if we’re living in the ultimate anticlimax?
Instead of a 1,000-year Reich, what if we’re living in a 1,000-year *psyche*?
What if all this drama isn’t the final countdown and more like a tired rerun where we’re running out of ways to amuse ourselves to death?
We’re living in a time of low social trust, accelerating technology, neo-feudal late stage capitalism, and half-assed social democratic proposals to try to salvage some form of unity out of a fractured polity and declining family structure. Is this really the end or just the beginning of a long decline?
What if we’re all a hammer looking for a nail?
What if we’re thrusting wildly but still can’t get no satisfaction?
What if we’re not living in the end times and we’re actually the “middle children of history” going through the tired throes of an Empire in decline?
What if there won’t be a currency collapse and a second Great Depression? What if there won’t be a giant cataclysmic war or final showdown full of screaming Chinese communist commandos and heroic patriots resisting their invasion from atop the hills of Tennessee?
What if there’s no giant robot Godzilla AOC coming to chew up tanks and spit fire as she scoops conservatives away in her bewitching bosom and takes them to her free health care gulags?
What if “no Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA” comes true and things become so tolerant and peaceful and full of fair-trade hemp harmony that it’s all kind of…mind-blowingly boring?
What if you aren’t a vital operator in a story of the final battle between good and evil but are actually just a person struggling through the ups and downs of life like everyone has for…all of human history?
Wouldn’t that be sad and kind of just a little, tiny bit moderately disappointing?
Wouldn’t it be so much more fulfilling if you fit somewhere in the script, if you were one of the super elite or educated few who really gets it? Wouldn’t it be so much more truth-y to feel like this is all part of a grand, cosmic destiny in which you’re a warrior for eternal truth?
Well, as Trump’s rally-finale tune always reminds us, “you can’t always get what you want.”
Paul Brian is a freelance journalist. He has reported for the BBC, Reuters, and Foreign Policy, and contributed to The Week, The Federalist, and others. Charlie Nash is a journalist who has written for Mediaite and the Spectator.


theamericanconservative--2020-11-23--Civil War II, Here We Come

Civil War II, Here We Come

How exactly do panicking pundits expect the coming conflict to play out ?
Every nightmare scenario is ridiculous , and pretty close to where we 're at .
The last straw was Rudy Giuliani stripping down to his borats and shouting “ Never concede !
Wolverines !
” The Second Civil War had begun .
“ Newspaper ” ( so called because it once contained news and was published on actual paper , for the elderly ) columnists at The New York Times and Washington Post , now the Ministry of Truth , tried hard enough to warn us it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ National Mall , and school kids know the names : Krugman , Friedman , Bruni , Rubin , and Boot .
All perished in the White Guilt Plague of 2026 , its origin traced to the Oberlin campus .
The key event in the Second Civil War , the Great Confiscation of Guns , took place even before the struggle proper unfolded .
Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez ( whose name graced the aircraft carrier USS AOC , now in the process of being handed over to the Native American nation , spa , and casino @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Texas ) , standing outside Fox headquarters , challenged anyone with one of those automatic guns with the handle on top to take a free shot at her .
This was a clever solution to the problem of the people who have guns living nowhere near and having nothing to do with those who oppose guns .
After over 200,000,000 people showed up , waves of millenials descended on the crowd .
As most of the attacking wave only had one hand free ( no one set down their Starbucks ) the confiscation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ patriots were rendered unable to reproduce due to pistols-in-their-belt-related accidents .
Reinforcements were unavailable when QAnon , Boogaloo Boys , Oath Keepers , Proud Boys , and seven Michigan militias all turned out to be the same guys and they couldn ’ t get anyone to take their shifts at Chick-fil-A .
The Maddow Division ( General Maddow , her bearded face in relief wearing a black beret over shaggy hair , adorns a million t-shirts ) struck south on Citibikes .
The advance was delayed when the second wave ’ s surge-priced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the black UN helicopters never showed up , again , but the division ’ s clever use of weaponized sarcasm caused Tr*mp supporters ( while the name is banned , for historical clarity we use here the term Tr*mp rather than “ The T word ” ) to quit the field and return to their RVs .
It also turned out wearing bright red MAGA hats made for relatively easy targeting after Apple released its “ Kill Kinda Kaucasians ” app .
Still , many of Maddow ’ s troops suffered after being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ photos from old Hollywood movies of white actors playing Asian roles .
Postal workers hiding ballots accidentally then discovered the secret Fox transmitter which had been broadcasting mind control instructions not only to vote Republican , but also to purchase MyPillow , items from that fishing store that has way too much stuff for just fishing , and massive amounts of Flexi-Seal people didn ’ t need so it ’ s in the garage now behind the cooler .
The conservative economy collapsed .
The images of conservative children forced to eat soy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ran out haunt even the toughest Resistance fighters to this day .
Thoughts and prayers .
But those images of children are nothing compared with the nightmare unleashed when Nancy Pelosi liberated the Kids ‘ N Kages camps along what used to be America ’ s southern border ( known today as “ Newer New Mexico 2.0 ” ) After being fed only expired Taco Bell products in what was assumed to be a failed humanitarian gesture by the Venezuelan Red Cross , the migrant children were each awarded H-1 visas posthumously .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Maxine Waters ’ late night comedy show to explain how after she impeached Tr*mp , Pence , Barr , Kavanaugh , several junior Senators , and Tucker Carlson she was briefly seated as America ’ s first woman president before her untimely accidental death at the hands of a meth-addled Hillary Clinton wearing a Joker mask .
The conservative last stand took place , appropriately , on the steps of the Supreme Court .
Just before losing power , the final conservative government expanded the bench to 78 judges , all cloned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Roy Cohn Tr*mp kept in a vial around his neck .
No monument marks their abortive battle to prevent freedom , no plaque records their final words ( “ lower capital gains taxes ” ) and even their ashes were lost in the changeover from Obamacare to the Bidencare plan which provides unlimited free visits to a doctor but requires travel to Germany for appointments ( “ You can keep your own doctor as long as he speaks German ” ) .
It is considered a step toward healing that once a year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Thunberg Youth Brigade a few old conservative men are allowed to observe a minute of unhinged ranting in honor of their fallen comrades before being forced to convert to Islam .
A small group of survivors is rumored to exist deep in the jungle .
Occasional broadcasts have been monitored , typically scraps of argument among libertarians and conservatives over the value of military intervention .
Events moved quickly once fighting ended .
The Amulet of Democracy was restored as Chelsea Handler and Chelsea Clinton brought their halves together and matched perfectly .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Jr. and his siblings were granted political asylum at that new Walmart out by where the high school used to be before COVID .
Their father , the former president , now earns a modest living on OnlyFans .
Reparations money ( “ Biden Bucks ” ) was mostly squandered on timeshares and everyone is still angry .
The collapse of the National Bank of Venmo could not be prevented once it was revealed the app really did cheat the person who just had a salad when dividing up a check .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ format allowed CNN to reclaim its title as “ America ’ s Most Trusted New Source.
” Ken Burns is still waiting to get started on his documentary about the Second Civil War , explaining he is contractually bogged down with 11 more years of footage from Kandahar to review first .
Three states are locked in a court battle to rename themselves “ Obama.
” Locally , a consortium of Chinese investors purchased The American Conservative , renamed it TicTAC and converted it into a dating app for people who are certain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Microsoft went bankrupt when Windows 2025 proved so bulky it required the user to have a second computer .
The creation of two Internets , one for porn and one no one uses , proved popular .
The end of elections saved the nation trillions .
The previous campaign process was replaced with a mass Zoom call , with the president being the last person to stay online after everyone else left early claiming “ mic problems.
” It mattered little ; after 2020 presidents have simply serially been impeached and a new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ under investigation .
The 25th Amendment was crowned “ America ’ s Favorite ” ( pepperoni took second place ) in a contest after the naming rights to our foundational document , now known as the Domino ’ s Pizza Constitution , were sold to pay for free college for everyone .
Of course every American remembers where they were when Secretary of Why-Is-She-Still-Around Kathy Griffin announced the gender transition of 97 percent of Americans had really screwed up the NFL .
The subsequent rise in attendance at WNBA games was not foreseen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the original Ukrainian , replaced Hamilton on Broadway despite the controversial Obama nude scene .
America ’ s largest industry remained Patreon accounts as Etsy devolved into a market for the wealthy to purchase human organs .
The U.S. government is currently looking for a new place for a capitol building , because after the move out of Washington to a Brooklyn WeWork prices have really gone up .
Negotiations to invite Canada in as a roommate to share the rent are underway .
The good news is the important things are still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made by the heads of the intel agencies when they meet at Jeff Bezos ’ house .
American troops are still in Afghanistan .
And the Rolling Stones have announced their for sure this time final tour .
Even after a second civil war some things don ’ t change .
Peter Van Buren is the author of We Meant Well : How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People , Hooper ’ s War : A Novel of WWII Japan , and Ghosts of Tom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Percent .

The last straw was Rudy Giuliani stripping down to his borats and shouting “Never concede! Wolverines!” The Second Civil War had begun.
“Newspaper” (so called because it once contained news and was published on actual paper, for the elderly) columnists at The New York Times and Washington Post, now the Ministry of Truth, tried hard enough to warn us it was coming. Statues now line the National Mall, and school kids know the names: Krugman, Friedman, Bruni, Rubin, and Boot. All perished in the White Guilt Plague of 2026, its origin traced to the Oberlin campus.
The key event in the Second Civil War, the Great Confiscation of Guns, took place even before the struggle proper unfolded. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (whose name graced the aircraft carrier USS AOC, now in the process of being handed over to the Native American nation, spa, and casino formed out of the former state of Texas), standing outside Fox headquarters, challenged anyone with one of those automatic guns with the handle on top to take a free shot at her. This was a clever solution to the problem of the people who have guns living nowhere near and having nothing to do with those who oppose guns.
After over 200,000,000 people showed up, waves of millenials descended on the crowd. As most of the attacking wave only had one hand free (no one set down their Starbucks) the confiscation proceeded slowly. Sadly, several thousand patriots were rendered unable to reproduce due to pistols-in-their-belt-related accidents. Reinforcements were unavailable when QAnon, Boogaloo Boys, Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and seven Michigan militias all turned out to be the same guys and they couldn’t get anyone to take their shifts at Chick-fil-A.
The Maddow Division (General Maddow, her bearded face in relief wearing a black beret over shaggy hair, adorns a million t-shirts) struck south on Citibikes. The advance was delayed when the second wave’s surge-priced Ubers did not arrive on time and the black UN helicopters never showed up, again, but the division’s clever use of weaponized sarcasm caused Tr*mp supporters (while the name is banned, for historical clarity we use here the term Tr*mp rather than “The T word”) to quit the field and return to their RVs.
It also turned out wearing bright red MAGA hats made for relatively easy targeting after Apple released its “Kill Kinda Kaucasians” app. Still, many of Maddow’s troops suffered after being deeply offended as the MAGA line displayed photos from old Hollywood movies of white actors playing Asian roles.
Postal workers hiding ballots accidentally then discovered the secret Fox transmitter which had been broadcasting mind control instructions not only to vote Republican, but also to purchase MyPillow, items from that fishing store that has way too much stuff for just fishing, and massive amounts of Flexi-Seal people didn’t need so it’s in the garage now behind the cooler. The conservative economy collapsed. The images of conservative children forced to eat soy products when their regular high-fructose food supplies ran out haunt even the toughest Resistance fighters to this day. Thoughts and prayers.
But those images of children are nothing compared with the nightmare unleashed when Nancy Pelosi liberated the Kids ‘N Kages camps along what used to be America’s southern border (known today as “Newer New Mexico 2.0”) After being fed only expired Taco Bell products in what was assumed to be a failed humanitarian gesture by the Venezuelan Red Cross, the migrant children were each awarded H-1 visas posthumously.
Pelosi blamed herself and regularly called in to Maxine Waters’ late night comedy show to explain how after she impeached Tr*mp, Pence, Barr, Kavanaugh, several junior Senators, and Tucker Carlson she was briefly seated as America’s first woman president before her untimely accidental death at the hands of a meth-addled Hillary Clinton wearing a Joker mask.
The conservative last stand took place, appropriately, on the steps of the Supreme Court. Just before losing power, the final conservative government expanded the bench to 78 judges, all cloned from the last available saliva sample from Roy Cohn Tr*mp kept in a vial around his neck. No monument marks their abortive battle to prevent freedom, no plaque records their final words (“lower capital gains taxes”) and even their ashes were lost in the changeover from Obamacare to the Bidencare plan which provides unlimited free visits to a doctor but requires travel to Germany for appointments (“You can keep your own doctor as long as he speaks German”).
It is considered a step toward healing that once a year under the watchful eyes of the Greta Thunberg Youth Brigade a few old conservative men are allowed to observe a minute of unhinged ranting in honor of their fallen comrades before being forced to convert to Islam. A small group of survivors is rumored to exist deep in the jungle. Occasional broadcasts have been monitored, typically scraps of argument among libertarians and conservatives over the value of military intervention.
Events moved quickly once fighting ended. The Amulet of Democracy was restored as Chelsea Handler and Chelsea Clinton brought their halves together and matched perfectly. The Ancient One Biden returned. Don, Jr. and his siblings were granted political asylum at that new Walmart out by where the high school used to be before COVID. Their father, the former president, now earns a modest living on OnlyFans.
Reparations money (“Biden Bucks”) was mostly squandered on timeshares and everyone is still angry. The collapse of the National Bank of Venmo could not be prevented once it was revealed the app really did cheat the person who just had a salad when dividing up a check. The conversion to an all-Three Stooges marathon format allowed CNN to reclaim its title as “America’s Most Trusted New Source.”
Ken Burns is still waiting to get started on his documentary about the Second Civil War, explaining he is contractually bogged down with 11 more years of footage from Kandahar to review first. Three states are locked in a court battle to rename themselves “Obama.” Locally, a consortium of Chinese investors purchased The American Conservative, renamed it TicTAC and converted it into a dating app for people who are certain they know better then everyone else.
Microsoft went bankrupt when Windows 2025 proved so bulky it required the user to have a second computer. The creation of two Internets, one for porn and one no one uses, proved popular. The end of elections saved the nation trillions. The previous campaign process was replaced with a mass Zoom call, with the president being the last person to stay online after everyone else left early claiming “mic problems.” It mattered little; after 2020 presidents have simply serially been impeached and a new person sworn in who is immediately placed under investigation. The 25th Amendment was crowned “America’s Favorite” (pepperoni took second place) in a contest after the naming rights to our foundational document, now known as the Domino’s Pizza Constitution, were sold to pay for free college for everyone.
Of course every American remembers where they were when Secretary of Why-Is-She-Still-Around Kathy Griffin announced the gender transition of 97 percent of Americans had really screwed up the NFL. The subsequent rise in attendance at WNBA games was not foreseen. The musical Biden, translated from the original Ukrainian, replaced Hamilton on Broadway despite the controversial Obama nude scene. America’s largest industry remained Patreon accounts as Etsy devolved into a market for the wealthy to purchase human organs. The U.S. government is currently looking for a new place for a capitol building, because after the move out of Washington to a Brooklyn WeWork prices have really gone up. Negotiations to invite Canada in as a roommate to share the rent are underway.
The good news is the important things are still the same. Most decisions are still made by the heads of the intel agencies when they meet at Jeff Bezos’ house. American troops are still in Afghanistan. And the Rolling Stones have announced their for sure this time final tour. Even after a second civil war some things don’t change.
Peter Van Buren is the author of We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, Hooper’s War: A Novel of WWII Japan, and Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the 99 Percent.


theamericanconservative--2020-11-24--It’s Time for Conservatives to Dump Trump

U.S. President Donald Trump gives thumbs up to supporters from this motorcade after he golfed at Trump National Golf Club on November 22 , 2020 in Sterling , Virginia .
( Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images ) It ’ s time for conservatives to dump Trump .
He ’ s a loser and a disgraceful one at that .
Though he scored a political achievement of historic magnitude by transforming the political debate in America and setting the Republican Party upon a new course that could prove powerful in coming years , he now has reached a point with his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ party and his cause .
And by continuing to defend the man and refusing to call him out , Republicans and conservatives are likewise hurting their own cause .
The object of politics in America is to build up a body of support within the polity that is sufficient to win elections and govern effectively .
Trump couldn ’ t do that .
He couldn ’ t even talk to people who weren ’ t already in his camp , the voters he needed to pull into his coalition in order to command @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the country on a new course .
He could talk only to people already wearing MAGA hats .
It ’ s great to fire up the base , and Trump did it as well as anybody .
But without also expanding that base , he couldn ’ t operate effectively on the margin of politics , where all battles are won and lost in a democratic system .
His popular vote total earlier this month , more robust than many anticipated , demonstrated that he actually could have pulled together that governing coalition—not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or done in the heat of the campaign ( his fate was already sealed by then ) but in terms of what he could have accomplished if , throughout his term , he had devoted his governance to the arts of coalition-building .
The Republican electoral performances in congressional and state-legislative elections bolster the view that a successful presidential term was possible for Trump if he had known how to pull it together or had any real desire to do so .
Without a governing coalition , he couldn ’ t achieve any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he had both houses of Congress in his sway .
Without a capacity to converse with the American people in soothing and inspiring ways , he couldn ’ t find a means of getting America out of any inherited military involvements in the Middle East , as he had promised to do during the 2016 campaign .
Without any zest for the heady brew of true leadership , he couldn ’ t take charge of the COVID crisis in a way that would enhance his public standing and his support .
He couldn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ solutions on the critical issues of immigration or health care .
And so he lost the election .
That makes him a presidential failure .
The voters are sovereign , and any president rejected by them after four years is , by definition , a failed president .
Jimmy Carter was one .
So was George H. W. Bush .
And now there ’ s Donald Trump , whose failure was a product of his own massive shortcomings .
It ’ s easy to understand why the president ’ s true-blue supporters continue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He took on the establishment on their behalf and , for a time , had it on the ropes .
He stood up for the forgotten , the displaced , the maligned , the ignored , the “ deplorables ” —in short , the victims of the policies and actions of the country ’ s meritocratic elites , who have dominated political discourse ( though not always political outcomes ) for the past half-century .
It ’ s easy to see why these Trump supporters also consider him a martyr based on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years ago—the stealthy effort to undermine his authority through deep-state machinations ; the establishment bloodhounds braying after him as a traitor to his country without any credible evidence ; the rabid allegations of “ obstruction of justice ” that were quickly set aside at impeachment time ( when , if there had been any merit to them , they would have been brought forward ) ; the frenzied impeachment assault itself .
This is all valid thinking .
The Trump opposition refused to accept the legitimacy of the election in a host of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was a disgrace , rendered all the more so by the prospect now , with Joe Biden ’ s election , that those who perpetrated these reprehensible actions will never be held to account .
But democratic politics is always about the future , not the past .
And the future belongs to those who can orchestrate it .
Trump paved the way with his instinctive understanding , back in 2015 and 2016 , that millions of Americans were disoriented , disgusted , and frightened by the direction of the country .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that had been ignored by the political class , including just about the entire Republican Party .
But he lost the election for all the reasons outlined above , and now he needs to go , like Marvin K. Mooney .
Not only could he not build a governing coalition when the path to one was discernible , he is now making it nearly impossible for anyone else to do the job .
The country won ’ t soon turn to a party that sanctioned and accepted Trump ’ s ripping and tearing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ democratic legitimacy , meshed as it is with the country ’ s hallowed system of peaceful leadership succession .
And consider the two remaining Senate races in Georgia , where Republican incumbents are struggling to stave off Democratic challenges that , if successful , will turn the Senate over to the opposition .
By clinging to power and making an issue of his outlandish claims on the electoral outcome , Trump is creating unnecessary difficulties for those two incumbents at the crossroads of American politics at a crucial moment .
There is no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of victory on November 3 .
In light of that , he should concede gracefully in the interest of the country , as even Richard Nixon did in 1960 when a challenge to John Kennedy ’ s vote totals would have been more credible than what we see today .
But Trump can ’ t do that because he can ’ t rise to the level of character and selflessness even of Richard Nixon , not known as one of our more honorable presidents .
And so he will continue in his shenanigans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as is his wont and habit .
But that doesn ’ t mean his party and conservative-minded Americans have to go down that path with him .
It ’ s time for them to dump Trump .
Robert W. Merry , former Wall Street Journal Washington correspondent and Congressional Quarterly CEO , is the author of five books on American history and foreign policy .

It’s time for conservatives to dump Trump. He’s a loser and a disgraceful one at that. Though he scored a political achievement of historic magnitude by transforming the political debate in America and setting the Republican Party upon a new course that could prove powerful in coming years, he now has reached a point with his antics whereby he’s hurting his party and his cause. And by continuing to defend the man and refusing to call him out, Republicans and conservatives are likewise hurting their own cause.
The object of politics in America is to build up a body of support within the polity that is sufficient to win elections and govern effectively. Trump couldn’t do that. He couldn’t even talk to people who weren’t already in his camp, the voters he needed to pull into his coalition in order to command a majority of the electorate and set the country on a new course. He could talk only to people already wearing MAGA hats. It’s great to fire up the base, and Trump did it as well as anybody. But without also expanding that base, he couldn’t operate effectively on the margin of politics, where all battles are won and lost in a democratic system.
His popular vote total earlier this month, more robust than many anticipated, demonstrated that he actually could have pulled together that governing coalition—not based on anything he could have said or done in the heat of the campaign (his fate was already sealed by then) but in terms of what he could have accomplished if, throughout his term, he had devoted his governance to the arts of coalition-building. The Republican electoral performances in congressional and state-legislative elections bolster the view that a successful presidential term was possible for Trump if he had known how to pull it together or had any real desire to do so.
Without a governing coalition, he couldn’t achieve any truly impressive legislative successes, even when he had both houses of Congress in his sway. Without a capacity to converse with the American people in soothing and inspiring ways, he couldn’t find a means of getting America out of any inherited military involvements in the Middle East, as he had promised to do during the 2016 campaign. Without any zest for the heady brew of true leadership, he couldn’t take charge of the COVID crisis in a way that would enhance his public standing and his support. He couldn’t give the country any lasting solutions on the critical issues of immigration or health care.
And so he lost the election. That makes him a presidential failure. The voters are sovereign, and any president rejected by them after four years is, by definition, a failed president. Jimmy Carter was one. So was George H. W. Bush. And now there’s Donald Trump, whose failure was a product of his own massive shortcomings.
It’s easy to understand why the president’s true-blue supporters continue to cling to him even now. He took on the establishment on their behalf and, for a time, had it on the ropes. He stood up for the forgotten, the displaced, the maligned, the ignored, the “deplorables”—in short, the victims of the policies and actions of the country’s meritocratic elites, who have dominated political discourse (though not always political outcomes) for the past half-century.
It’s easy to see why these Trump supporters also consider him a martyr based on the vicious backlash that greeted his election four years ago—the stealthy effort to undermine his authority through deep-state machinations; the establishment bloodhounds braying after him as a traitor to his country without any credible evidence; the rabid allegations of “obstruction of justice” that were quickly set aside at impeachment time (when, if there had been any merit to them, they would have been brought forward); the frenzied impeachment assault itself.
This is all valid thinking. The Trump opposition refused to accept the legitimacy of the election in a host of ways, some truly nefarious. It was a disgrace, rendered all the more so by the prospect now, with Joe Biden’s election, that those who perpetrated these reprehensible actions will never be held to account.
But democratic politics is always about the future, not the past. And the future belongs to those who can orchestrate it. Trump paved the way with his instinctive understanding, back in 2015 and 2016, that millions of Americans were disoriented, disgusted, and frightened by the direction of the country. He redefined the issues and political fault lines that had been ignored by the political class, including just about the entire Republican Party.
But he lost the election for all the reasons outlined above, and now he needs to go, like Marvin K. Mooney. Not only could he not build a governing coalition when the path to one was discernible, he is now making it nearly impossible for anyone else to do the job. The country won’t soon turn to a party that sanctioned and accepted Trump’s ripping and tearing at the sinews of America’s democratic legitimacy, meshed as it is with the country’s hallowed system of peaceful leadership succession.
And consider the two remaining Senate races in Georgia, where Republican incumbents are struggling to stave off Democratic challenges that, if successful, will turn the Senate over to the opposition. By clinging to power and making an issue of his outlandish claims on the electoral outcome, Trump is creating unnecessary difficulties for those two incumbents at the crossroads of American politics at a crucial moment.
There is no serious evidence that electoral irregularities robbed Trump of victory on November 3. In light of that, he should concede gracefully in the interest of the country, as even Richard Nixon did in 1960 when a challenge to John Kennedy’s vote totals would have been more credible than what we see today. But Trump can’t do that because he can’t rise to the level of character and selflessness even of Richard Nixon, not known as one of our more honorable presidents.
And so he will continue in his shenanigans, bringing further opprobrium upon himself, as is his wont and habit. But that doesn’t mean his party and conservative-minded Americans have to go down that path with him. It’s time for them to dump Trump.
Robert W. Merry, former Wall Street Journal Washington correspondent and Congressional Quarterly CEO, is the author of five books on American history and foreign policy.