Politics X Is Becoming a Drag on the GOP The platform rewards worthless and increasingly niche content. Credit: image via Shutterstock When Elon Musk purchased Twitter in December 2022, conservatives celebrated with unmitigated jubilation. Twitter, which had engaged in systematic censorship and deplatforming, arm in arm with malicious actors in the intelligence community, presented a unique and unprecedented threat to American free speech and expression. Some of those threats, particularly the censorship of the New York Post’s Hunter Biden coverage, were potentially election-deciding. For conservatives incensed by Big Tech’s direct intervention in the American electoral process, Musk’s $44 billion Twitter acquisition felt like a long-overdue and much-needed victory. It was thrilling to watch Musk follow up on his victory with acts of petty justice. He fired large swaths of Twitter’s workforce—employees who seemed to harbor personal loathing for the Republican electorate and their leader, President Donald Trump. Musk restored previously banned accounts, including Trump’s, and pledged to publish the site’s algorithm, which he did in 2023. His moment of triumph was perhaps best symbolized by the now-infamous “sink” stunt—his way of telling the world, “Let that sink in.” Nearly three years later, however, despite great satisfaction with justice dealt and the restoration of unfairly censored voices, it’s difficult to argue that Elon Musk’s X has enhanced conservative—and by extension, American—discourse. Generally, there’s more evidence that conservative discourse has been fundamentally degraded. While media reports on rising hate speech on X are often exaggerated or alarmist, the reality is that, more than ever, X is a platform where “crap is king.” Musk’s algorithm punishes external links, undermining the business models that promote long-form content creation. This ostensibly reduced clickbait, but has turned the platform into a shock-jock factory, rewarding shallow, attention-grabbing content that effectively serves as a one-for-one replacement for clickbait. Influencers are now locked in an arms race for views, driven by a pay-per-view incentive structure that has degraded the quality, reliability, and depth of information—especially in the chaotic “For You” section. This influencer-driven frenzy has already shaped the 2024 election. The immigration debate, once focused on the southwestern border, has shifted to Springfield, Ohio, where locals claim Haitian migrants are, as Donald Trump put it, “eating the dogs, eating the cats.” The pet-eating narrative, which subsequently defined the first presidential debate between Trump and Vice President Harris, was concocted on X. Tucker Carlson, whose hit podcast now resides on the platform, added to the GOP’s messaging chaos by hosting a guest who labeled Winston Churchill the “chief villain” of the Second World War and questioned the merits of the Allied cause. While provocative, this sort of misstep from a campaign surrogate in the days before early voting began in Pennsylvania was hardly productive. As The American Conservative’s own Scott McConnell recently pointed out in an excellent piece, neither presidential campaign has managed to build momentum or secure a sustainable lead in the polls. He astutely highlights the Trump campaign’s lack of message discipline, which has squandered key moments that should have shifted the race. This seeming inability of the right to maintain a coherent message—even in the wake of multiple assassination attempts—may partly reflect Trump’s personality, but it increasingly mirrors the influence of X’s content model. Even Trump’s posts, once renowned as 240-character works of comedic brilliance, have lost their luster. They have morphed into multi-paragraph screeds. Brevity, even for Donald Trump, is the soul of wit. I could be wrong about the impact this message fragmentation will have on the election; I certainly hope that I am wrong. It’s possible that a firehose of content can act as some sort of marketing blitzkrieg, and that quantity can truly outstrip quality. But one does worry that Republican messaging has become a little bit too “online” when the Arizona GOP places contextless billboards instructing voters to “eat less [sic] kittens” right off the swing state’s interstate. Not to mention another party-funded billboard that features Elon Musk’s photo, but not that of Arizona Senate nominee Kari Lake. The fact is that most American voters remain—rightfully—squarely in the “normie” camp. I enjoy scrolling on X as much as the next politico, but the platform is generally incomprehensible or frightening for most Americans, especially older Americans. The issue set promoted and discussed on the site may percolate out to a wider audience, but it’s often received without necessary context and winds up making the discussing parties appear, for lack of a better term, weird. Yes, hyper-informed Zoomers will scroll long enough to find out that Springfield, Ohio’s city manager did, in fact, receive reports of Haitian animal sacrifices. An equally large, if not larger, subset of voters will scratch their heads in confusion and wonder if conservatives have lost their minds. It’s a fundamental disconnect in information diets that has come to define our politics, but ultimately, political campaigns are responsible for meeting voters where they are, not where they’d like the voters to be. The legendary GOP consultant Lee Atwater famously remarked that “perception is reality.” Voters who aren’t scrolling X perceive some degree of weirdness, creating a reality that GOP campaigns across the country are being forced to confront. At its worst, X is beginning to render evidence for some of the sensational accusations levied against the right in recent years. Anybody who has spent any time on the platform has noticed the near-ubiquity of generally distasteful content. This includes racist content, which seems to be supercharged by the algorithm preference system for some reason or another. I’m not going to pearl-clutch about the efficacy of hosting that sort of content, but I will note that it’s a turn-off for the decent-minded people that make up the vast majority of the American electorate. When Elon Musk is so closely associated with the conservative movement, the conservative movement is rendered responsible for the ongoings of his algorithm. The election looks like it’s going to be another nail-biter, and given the last decade’s egregious polling misses, no serious observer can claim to have a wholly accurate read on the race. The United States is suffering from a deep, unyielding malaise. This creates political gravity that might prevent Vice Kamala President Harris from winning the Oval Office. But regardless of the outcome, it’s likelier than not that X’s pay-per-view model has damaged the coherence of the Republican Party and its message. If Harris is able to squeak out an unlikely victory, X’s influencer rat-race might be identified as a cause of failure during the electoral post-mortem. The post X Is Becoming a Drag on the GOP appeared first on The American Conservative.

Uncategorized Zelensky’s Victory Plan Contains No Victory and No Plan The outline that has emerged in the press is a repetition of old demands. (paparazzza/Shutterstock) After attending the UN General Assembly high-level week, U.S. President Joe Biden and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky will head to Washington where they will discuss Zelensky’s request for permission to use Western long-range missiles to strike deeper inside Russian territory. The Biden administration has asked Zelensky for an accounting of how such strikes would advance a Ukrainian military victory. Zelensky has said that his Ukrainian victory plan is now complete and promised that his presentation will include the requested accounting, as it lays out what is required to accomplish a series of identified steps to victory. Although the details of the plan have not been revealed, the press has reported an outline of the plan. The outline of the Ukrainian victory plan seems to lack both victory and plan. Zelensky says the scheme is a “bridge to strengthening Ukraine” in order to “contribute to more productive future diplomatic meetings with Russia.” On September 15, he told CNN that the plan is to “strengthen [Ukraine] before peace summit to be in a strong position because diplomatic decisions or solutions, they’re good when you’re strong.”  He says also that, for the plan to succeed, it needs to be approved and implemented before Biden leaves office. “The plan relies on quick decisions of our partners, which should be taken from October to December,” he said. Fearing a change in policy under a potential Trump administration, Zelensky says that the plan needs to be implemented “today, while all the officials who want the victory of Ukraine are in official positions.” Zelensky told CNN that his plan is built on four points and a fifth post-war point, each of which is meant to contribute to victory by making Ukraine “very strong” so that they are “ready for the strong diplomacy.” Those points include aspects of “security,” “military support,” “geopolitical place” and “economic support,” with special mention of the role of the Kursk offensive. But the points as suggested seem to be better described as a repetition of Zelensky’s oft-repeated demands than as a plan, and to hold little hint of how they advance the hope of victory. The geopolitical facet seems to involve pressing Biden for “an official invitation to join NATO” and Europe for “a clear pathway to European Union membership.” But it is not clear how either geopolitical point advances the cause of victory. Russia has never opposed Ukrainian membership in the EU, and they will never permit Ukrainian membership in NATO. Indeed, the Istanbul draft peace agreement stipulated that Ukraine was free to join the EU but that they would not be allowed to join NATO. EU membership contributes nothing new, and NATO membership remains a nonstarter. Russia went to war to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO; they are not going to end the war to allow it.  In December 2021, Russia presented the U.S. and NATO with a proposal on security guarantees. Failure to successfully negotiate them would result in “military-technical measures,” which, it turned out, were the invasion of Ukraine. The key demand was that NATO not expand further. “As far as I remember, they started the war because of this,” Zelensky has said. So an official invitation to join NATO does not advance a goal of ending the war; it is the surest way of ensuring its continuation. Military support means a continuous supply of advanced weapons, including long-range missile systems and the freedom to use them without restrictions. Zelensky told CNN that it is not only about “strong military support” being “available” to Ukraine but also “that we have to be free how to use one or another item.” Far from a step toward ending this war, fulfillment of this point has been defined by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin as  expanding the war by “changing the nature of the conflict” so “ that NATO countries…are at war with Russia.” As for security guarantees, the West has had a harder time agreeing to them than has Russia. Russia has agreed to various security arrangements, including Ukraine receiving security guarantees from various countries. Zelensky previously confirmed that Ukraine was prepared in Istanbul to agree to exchange a guarantee of “neutrality” for “security guarantees for Ukraine.” It is the West that has been reluctant to provide Ukraine with these commitments to ensure their security out of concern for direct confrontation with Russia.  Aside from economic support, which for the Russians is probably neither controversial nor provocative, that leaves the role of the Kursk offensive. Zelensky says that the war will only end when Ukraine is “very strong. And the other side knows that you’re very strong.” That can only happen, Zelensky told CNN, when the “Russian people are in danger,” when they “understand the price of war.” He says that it is only when Ukraine is “strong” that Putin “will sit and negotiate.” That is the role of the Kursk offensive, which had three goals: to acquire land to trade during negotiations, to make the Russian people “understand the price of war,” and to divert Russian troops from the Donbas front to Russia. Zelensky told CNN that the “idea” behind the Kursk invasion “was to move some Russian forces there.”  And I think,” he added, “it was right idea.” It may have been the right idea, but it did not work. It has made Ukraine weaker, not stronger. By most accounts, Russia has stopped the advance of the Kursk invasion and taken some land back at an enormous cost in life and equipment for Ukraine while intensifying and accelerating the advance on Pokrovsk and into Donbas. Rather than weaken Russian efforts near Pokrovsk, it weakened Ukraine’s. It also seems not to have affected Russians’ perception of or support for the war, and it has failed to advance negotiations for two reasons. First, Russia is unlikely to be pressured or tempted to negotiate a small piece of strategically noncritical land that is being temporarily occupied for a huge swath of very important land that it feels it went to war to protect and that it feels it is capable of holding. The second is that the Kursk offensive manifestly did not improve the odds of negotiations. On the contrary, it scuttled them. Potential negotiations that could have prevented much suffering in Ukraine this winter with an agreement by both sides to cease strikes on each other’s energy and power infrastructure, per a Washington Post report, “were derailed by Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s western Kursk region.” Future peace talks to end the war have also been made less likely by the Kursk invasion. Zelensky’s four points compose more of a reiteration of his wish list than they do a plan. And there is nothing in those four points that points to enhanced chances of negotiations or victory. Unless the full disclosure of the details alters the appearance of the points, there will be nothing in Zelensky’s “Ukrainian victory plan” that contributes to victory or constitutes a plan. The post Zelensky’s Victory Plan Contains No Victory and No Plan appeared first on The American Conservative.

The following article, Nutjob Zelensky Is Here To Help Elect Harris, was first published on Conservative Firing Line. How far will the Democrat Party go to elected Kamala Harris? For starters, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are willing to bring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the United States of America in the midst of a presidential election to lobby for a victory in November. Zelensky arrived Sunday in Pennsylvania, a swing state, before … Continue reading Nutjob Zelensky Is Here To Help Elect Harris ...

Your Gov. Has Already Sold You Out To Enslavement By The United Nations. Rebel Call 9-23-2024 - IT'S ALL COMING TO AN END & ITS HAPPENING JUST LIKE WE ALL SAID IT WOULD! - 10,462 views September 23, 2024 REBEL CALL - FAIR USE FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES - Mirrored From: https://www.youtube.com/@REBELCALL2024

This is so sad....

“It’s not like getting to the South Pole." The post ‘Tommy’: The concept album Ray Davies has never heard first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, and Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, have a rivalry that stretches back twenty-five years. In this showdown, Kamala has won, leaving Newsom deeply resentful. Subscribe to The American Spectator to receive our fall 2024 print magazine, which includes this article and others like it. Egotistical and occasionally impulsive when his ego is threatened, Newsom responded to Kamala’s nomination as the Democratic presidential candidate by mocking the Democratic insider–led coronation. “We went through a very open process, a very inclusive process,” he said on the Pod Save America podcast in August. “It was bottom-up, I don’t know if you know that. That’s what I’ve been told to say!” Newsom would feel less aggrieved if anyone but Kamala Harris had beaten him out. This article is taken from The American Spectator’s fall 2024 print magazine. Subscribe to receive the entire magazine. The roots of this rivalry trace back to a 1999 fight over Newsom’s then-girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle. Once she and Gavin began dating, Kimberly was eager to relocate from Los Angeles to San Francisco to be with him. That’s where things got messy. Guilfoyle was the ex-girlfriend of Newsom’s best friend, Billy Getty, with whom Newsom was having escalating conflicts over their joint business ventures. That year, Billy had married Vanessa Jarman, who was close friends with Kamala Harris. It seemed that, as Billy and Vanessa grew closer to Kamala Harris, they correspondingly grew further apart from Newsom. Tensions peaked when, according to Newsom and Guilfoyle’s version of events, Harris tried to stop Guilfoyle from getting a job at the San Francisco district attorney’s office because of her loyalty to Billy and Vanessa. The couple did not want Billy’s ex to come back to town to date his increasingly estranged business partner. Newsom’s relationship with his best friend was entirely severed, a sad circumstance that Newsom likely saw as stemming from Kamala Harris’ machinations. By 2003, Newsom and Harris had reached a similar junction: each was attempting to make his or her first major ingression in politics. Newsom, then the golden boy of San Francisco’s elite, was seeking the San Francisco mayor’s office while Harris was seeking to unseat the city’s incumbent district attorney. Both were in a position to compete for these roles because of one man: then–San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. Brown picked Newsom to succeed himself as mayor, lent him his endorsement, and did everything he could to get him elected. The Associated Press even branded Newsom “Mayor Willie Brown’s hand-picked successor.” Brown’s support stemmed from the fact that Newsom was the son of his longtime friend, William Newsom. In Kamala’s case, Brown propped up her run against the incumbent district attorney because he and Harris had previously dated (when he was 60 and she was 29, and while his divorce with his then-wife was still pending, no less). The media awkwardly avoided acknowledging this likely motive for Brown’s elevation of Harris, and he insisted that he had done so because of her talent and abilities. (Brown had additionally appointed Harris to two state commissions.) Harris, for her part, tried to claim that Brown’s support was not aiding her in the district attorney race and that he was an “albatross hanging around [her] neck.” She told a local news outlet: “His career is over; I will be alive and kicking for the next 40 years. I do not owe him a thing.” Both Newsom and Harris won, thanks in large part to Willie Brown. In 2010, Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom, their careers still in parallel, each won election to state positions. Harris was elected California’s attorney general, and Newsom was elected lieutenant governor. This was an imbalance that made Newsom bitter and jealous. The budget for the lieutenant governor’s office allowed Newsom just three full-time employees, which looked pitiful in comparison to his rival Harris’ staff of 4,700 and budget of $735 million. Newsom spent much of his tenure as lieutenant governor raging against the smallness of his office. After Newsom and Harris secured reelection to their respective positions, public speculation immediately turned to which higher office each of these ambitious politicians, who occupied roughly the same center-left position on the political spectrum, would seek. It was widely speculated that, if the two rivals went up against one another in an election, it would end their political careers because they shared so much of the same political base, which would create a lane for a third challenger to have a breakout win. One political insider, for example, said that a face-off between the two would be a “murder-suicide” because they were “political twins.” When California Senator Barbara Boxer announced her retirement soon thereafter, it was up to Harris and Newsom to decide who would get that office, and who would get the governor’s mansion. Newsom seized on to the governor’s mansion by calling Harris to tell her that he would not be seeking Boxer’s seat, essentially handing the race to her. Harris announced that she would seek the Senate seat, and Newsom said shortly afterward that he would create an exploratory committee to run for governor. Both hoped that these moves would position them to achieve their shared political ambition: the presidency. *****  In a cooling of the tensions, Harris lent Newsom her endorsement for governor and briefly joined him on the campaign trail. Politico wrote that the two “presented a unified front,” even as their feud was publicly known. Willie Brown said of their longtime rivalry: “They have to work that out.” And they seemed to. In 2019, when Harris was waging her own presidential campaign, Newsom likewise lent her his endorsement and held a fundraiser for her. Alas, before he was able to head a scheduled campaign event for her in Iowa, she dropped out of the race.  Even after Biden picked Harris to be his vice presidential nominee, Newsom had every reason to believe that he would come out on top in their long-running race to the summit of the political ladder. While Newsom would be able to make waves as the executive of the most populous state in the union, Harris would be consigned to secondary status. Moreover, Harris’ performance in the 2020 Democratic primary — not to mention the disaster that was her first year in the vice presidency — boded poorly for her chances at ever attaining the presidency. Political insiders reported to California newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, that Newsom was glorying in Harris’ struggles. Later, sources told those papers that Harris had loved watching Newsom squirm when he faced a recall election.  While Harris was stuck playing Biden’s loyal deputy, Newsom took every opportunity to elevate his political profile. This included a pseudo-campaign tour of red states, a debate against then-presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, and high-profile international trips. Speculation abounded nationally that he was setting himself up to take over for Biden in the 2024 election should the president decide to withdraw. Indeed, Newsom was actively preparing for that eventuality. Here’s how Newsom went wrong in that endeavor: He played it too conservatively.  In the face of relentless questions in 2023 about whether he intended to replace Biden, Newsom felt compelled to deny them for fear of being seen as overly ambitious and power-hungry. Those were critiques that he had previously faced in his political career — and they had cost him greatly. When Newsom launched his first bid for the governor’s mansion in 2009, San Francisco political leaders, led by the Board of Supervisors, were angered by his prioritization of his political ambitions over his job as mayor. They waged an attack against him that culminated in the destruction of his gubernatorial campaign.  In the case of 2024, Newsom feared that Biden’s allies would blockade his future ambitions in reaction to his positioning himself as Biden’s successor. It was certainly the case that Biden’s people were upset by the California governor’s naked ambitions. Additionally, Newsom feared that Californians were becoming increasingly alienated by his centering of his national ambitions. After all, his approval ratings were reaching all-time lows, and the common explanation for this was that Californians felt they were being sidelined by Newsom’s designs on higher office.  In reaction to these fears, Newsom went all-in for Biden. He became the president’s most vocal advocate and adamantly defended him on cable show after cable show. To further quash speculation that he was positioning himself as Biden’s replacement, Newsom declared that Harris should replace Biden were he to step down. In hindsight, Newsom should not have done any of this. Had he pledged support for Biden without devolving into sycophantic servitude or completely renouncing his own presidential ambitions — even to the point of endorsing Harris — he could have kept himself in a prime position to seize the nomination when Biden’s cognitive decline inevitably became too obvious for him to continue in the race.  When Biden’s cognitive decline was made glaringly apparent in the June 27 presidential debate, it was not too late for Newsom to reconsider his sycophantic stance. He could have signaled hesitation with Biden’s continuance in the race or claimed ignorance of the severity of the president’s decline. Instead, driven by fear, he remained locked in a state of groveling subservience. He was more supportive of Biden’s presidential bid than any other Democrat. Newsom even embarked on a three-state tour to campaign for the president. Newsom’s stubbornness caused him to cling to his narrative that Biden had delivered a “masterclass” in governing and was the best choice for the presidency.  Another reason Newsom clung to his support for Biden was Kamala Harris. He feared that, should Biden step down, she would be his successor. This prospect was unacceptable to him both because of their longtime rivalry and because of the fact that her election would derail his chances at the presidency until at least 2032 — by which time he would have been out of office for six years. Alas, the one-man show of Newsom begging the public to disbelieve their eyes and ears failed to prevent Biden’s ousting from the race. When Biden announced he was withdrawing, Newsom still had an opportunity to enter the race. He could have acted before Biden endorsed his vice president, or after the endorsement but before the party’s major figures rallied behind her. Harris’ disaster of a vice presidency and lack of political talent called out for a rival to jump in. Newsom likely determined, however, that his repeated claims of having no presidential ambitions and his position as Biden and Harris’ top supporter would make an entry into the race appear disingenuous and manipulative. Fearing that overt ambition might damage his future prospects at higher office, he felt trapped by his own statements. With Newsom out of the race, Kamala walked, not ran, to the nomination.  Kamala’s race card — though powerful — was not necessarily a trump card, and yet Newsom had let her win this hand. *****  Since Kamala’s seeming victory in their long-running feud, Newsom’s position on the political stage has been significantly diminished. While Newsom was Biden’s top surrogate, he’s hardly acted as a surrogate for Harris. He criss-crossed the country campaigning for Biden, but he has only held a fundraiser for Harris. Newsom has acknowledged his diminished role, saying, “At the end of the day, it will be swing states that will be determinative, and if I can fill a void that others can’t, then I’ll be there.”  Newsom did not even speak at the Democratic National Convention apart from ceremonially delivering California’s delegates. Instead, he appeared bitter over Harris’ success. The week of the convention, the Los Angeles Times described Newsom as having “the tight smile of a disappointed runner-up; the kind you see at the Oscars when they flash on the best actor nominees just before pulling away to show the winner take the stage.”  If Harris wins the presidency, she will blockade Newsom’s future ambitions and deny him a Cabinet role. Yet this political rivalry may have another decade in it. If Harris loses, Newsom could go on to beat her in the next round. Ellie Gardey Holmes is Print Editor of The American Spectator and author of Newsom Unleashed: The Progressive Lust for Unbridled Power. Subscribe to The American Spectator to receive our fall 2024 print magazine. The post How Kamala Bested Newsom in Their Decades-Long Feud appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.