So, this post is somewhat off topic. Voters’ Revenge is supposed to address fixing dysfunction in our current political system, via construction of a tool which promotes and even enforces methodologies that have been shown to work.
However, this post was originally created on a sub-reddit, to deal with not that, per se, but rather censorship and suppression by the MAGA persuader class ( who have the opportunity and, arguably, obligation to function as activists ) of tools like Voters’ Revenge, itself.
Voters’ Revenge is really for populists, in general, not just right-leaning ones like the MAGA movement. Hence, I never intended to post the following, here. But, my hand has been forced, because not only was it rejected at a sub-reddit called r/AskTrumpSupporters (currently being appealed), but subsequently when I tried to post a copy TO MY OWN SUBREDDIT, it was immediately censored there, also.
So, the origin story of this post is critique of a potentially very important class of reformers, as insular and even censorious; which is rejected at a sub-reddit that I have no control over; followed by censorship by some reddit algorithm, on a sub-reddit that I ‘own’; finally followed by publication at this website, which I also own.
As I point out, the same sort of dynamics are occurring in the left populism world. I’m a fan of Jimmy Dore, and suggest you listen to his show, not least because you may doubt that analogous censorship and dysfunction is occurring in that world. It most certainly is, and it doesn’t take an Einstein to see the parallels.
Well, here it is:
Re: The MAGA Persuader Class
viz. : Steve Bannon, Jack Posobiec, Charlie Kirk, Dinesh D’Souza, Dan Bongino, Raheem Kassam, MTG, Matt Gaetz, etc.From the point of view of being optimal with regards to political strategy and tactics, I don’t have much faith in these people. I’m not generally casting aspersions at their motivations or ethics, but given what I see as the enormous opportunities at the present time, which are not being exploited by the Trump campaign, the MAGA persuaders are failing to force the Trump campaign to reach a higher level. They are also failing to exert pressure ‘downwards’, on the MAGA base, to get the best out of them. In short, these persuaders are failures as activists. I am left with the uncomfortable feeling that they generally are more concerned about maintaining their careers, than of empowering the public.
It is not easy getting success as an activist, and I’d recommend to everybody to listen to Ralph Nader narrate how doors to Congressmen that were generally open to him, in the 60’s, came to be shut as the lobbyists cemented their control over Congress. Having said that, the increased difficulty, compared to the glory years of the 60’s and early 70’s, should have been taken as a challenge to get more tactical and strategic. Not to mention brutally honest about failures of the MAGA movement, and populists, in general.
Let me explain:
I’ve been a rather bitter critic of Trump’s (see my subreddit The_Donald_GoodAndBad/) However, I have voted for him twice, and if I vote this year, will certainly vote for him, again. My criticisms of Trump sometimes involve policy, but just as often concern his deficiencies as both a leader, a politician, a strategist, a tactician, a (good, i.e. honest) propagandist and a {cough}{cough} communicator.In this thread, I don’t want to discuss any policy issues. Instead, I want to discuss political strategy and tactics, relative to Trump, his campaign, his MAGA fans, and – perhaps most of all – prominent populist supporters of Trump that have an audience, and SHOULD be leading both MAGA and Trump into more productive areas. These are folks like Steve Bannon, Jack Posobiec, Charlie Kirk, Dinesh D’Souza, Dan Bongino, Raheem Kassam, MTG, Matt Gaetz, etc.
This last category (MAGA persuaders that have an audience) is of a sort of activist, and my view of activists, in general, is that they are sort of an immune system for the body politic. They are supposed to fight to correct something that they see as unjust, or counter-productive for some desirable end-goal. Thus, they should be ready, eager, and willing to slap down not only members of their tribe (in this case, the MAGA tribe), but also their leaders. Yes, including and especially Trump! (Obviously, activists from across the political spectrum can and do have opposite views about what is a disease in the body politic that they are fighting.)
So, regarding Trump and the Trump campaign as politically-dysfunctional-to-the-point-of-idiocy, exhibit A is a post of mine which may as well have never been written, considering it’s complete lack of any noticeable effect. Now, I rarely listen to any speeches by Trump (partly because they’re just not that interesting), but I do read the headlines and blurbs at thegatewaypundit.com and citizensfreepress.com, and follow some prominent MAGA types on gettr (like MTG and Karri Lake). Thus, I do have continual (and low-cost 🙂 ) input about the doings and sayings of Trump. Plus, if the Trump campaign were to take my suggestions for a ground game, I would see evidence of it with my own eyes, here in NJ.
The post I’m referring to was posted to The_Donald_GoodAndBad. It’s called “(BAD TRUMP) The Opportunity Cost of Just One Campaign Vector is $3 Billion Dollars (est.) that the Trump Campaign is Just Pissing Away”. The gist of it is that Trump could convert his ginormous social capital into political/campaign capital, basically by simply asking his millions of fans to adopt a zero-cost (to him) ground game. And if he was smart enough to focus on two issues that supersede tribal affinities of Democrat types, and run against the Democratic Party, as a whole, he could CRUSH the Democrats in the current election.
One would think that somebody connected to Trump or his campaign might have shown enough interest to at least acknowledge the existence of the ideas in that post. After all, even if Trump beats Harris, he will not be having much fun as President, if the Democrats control Congress. In this case, he’ll be opposed and harassed at every turn by Democrats (and, of course, the Deep State). We’ve already seen this movie play out, and it wasn’t pretty.
Now, frankly, I haven’t made much of an effort to contact the Trump campaign, directly. I’ve been conditioned from literally years of trying to push my vision of “Voter’s Revenge” (see votersrevenge.info). This was initially motivated mostly by my fear and loathing of TPP; hence, I initially pushed it to both the Trump and Sanders campaigns. I never heard back from them, and I doubt either Trump or Sanders learned of my proposal.
That began a long, multi-year, process that’s consumed an embarrassingly large amount of my time (contributing to my current near-penury), and encompassed me developing software design; and failing to attract coders, then coding the initial implementation, myself. I’ve also “re-imagined” the initial application, as it was sort of boring, frankly, and wouldn’t render well in a mobile device.
Efforts at evangelizing that vision are ALMOST invariably met with the same reaction. Viz., NO RESPONSE, AT ALL. Not even insulting, negative ones!
So, I’ve instead opted to try and contact persuaders. You know, the folks that evidently have some genuine activist genes, like myself. And furthermore, are populists, as the MAGA folks largely are.
AH, BUT THE RESULT HAS BEEN THE SAME. BASICALLY NO RESPONSE, AT ALL.
While this may be sort of interesting, from a psychological point view, I guess I’m not particularly interested in discussing underlying psychology, either. What I’d like to know – if anybody has any insight they’d like to share – is what happens at an organizational and ‘practical-mental’ level with these putative activists.
E.g., when I point out to MTG, on a gettr post of hers where she expresses bitterness over Mike Johnson not using his leverage, that 1) Mike Johnson is (by that time) a known back-stabber (or flip-flopper, if you want a less condemnatory phrase) 2) there’s no point in wasting emotion on his perfidy, which by then had become utterly predictable 3) that the MAGA base is not using THEIR leverage 4) that comes down to them failing to make credible electoral threats to Johnson 5) that she could, in fact, help direct the MAGA base – who she REGULARLY addresses – into more productive means of politically pressuring Johnson 6) that Pam Popper had demonstrated the effectiveness of credible, electoral threats (as highlighted on votersrevenge.info) 7) that she would be justified in getting angry at the MAGA base for being such nothing-burgers in pressing Johnson …..
Well, MTG’s reply is the same as posts and emails made to Bannon, Posobiec, Kirk, D’Souza, Bongino, Kassam, Kari Lake, Gaetz …..
And that is: NOTHING.
NOTHING. AT. ALL.
(edit: ignoring form letters)So, what process is ‘dictating’, if that’s the word, the silence of the persuaders, and their staffs? I don’t care about their psychological foibles, as much as what these folks are thinking. Not why they’re psychologically predisposed to thinking it; protective mother, paranoid father, beloved dog died early, whatever… Rather, I’d like to know what they think in their conscious minds, and what they tell their staff, if they have one.
While the country is swirling down the toilet, you’d think that if not these thought ‘leaders’, well, then, maybe somebody on their staff might actually read what I wrote, and send back even a short message that was more than a form letter. I don’t follow polls, but a credible political youtuber I do listen to, styxhexenhammer666, has predicted that the Republicans will lose the House, even though they’ll win the Senate. If these people were performing, against a Democratic Party that bears little resemblance to the Democratic Party of my youth, and utterly deserves to get CRUSHED, well I wouldn’t mind their insularity so much. Instead, we are likely to get a President Trump who will be met with 4 years of ruthless Democrats practicing political assassinations based on such incredible feces as the “Russiagate” hoax.
Oh, the joy! Just think of it, brothers and sisters.
But wait, it gets even better!
I mostly keep up with MAGA populism via Bannon’s war room, which I’m at liberty to listen to while working, in all it’s glorious 2 hour offerings. Well, some months ago, Bannon announced that the warroom now had a forum, and he encouraged people to sign up and share their thoughts.
So I did! All 2 of them. After the 2nd one also got censored, I said “never, again”.
Now, being an activist, and naturally inclined towards problem-solving (my college degree is in math and physics; I tend to look at the systemic mess our government exhibits as problems to be solved, rather than something to just emote about), my posts were in this vein. They were attempts at presenting ACTIONABLE ideas.
A common Steve Bannon utterance is “action, action, action”. Now, while he doesn’t explicitly say “tactically and strategically clever action, tactically and strategically clever action, tactically and strategically clever action”, I just naturally assume that people strive to be effective, and not just spin their wheels.
Well, apparently whatever censor has mod privileges there, doesn’t look at it that way. (I suspect a Deep State mole, BTW, but have zero proof.)
These posts, which I will link to in their resurrected form, shortly, have such competition, as follows, that are NOT being censored:
“President Trump should impose taxes of human rights protection on the imports from China”
a substantive post on a policy issues, but no actionable ideas“A Shot Heard Around The World”
a commentary; no actionable ideas“ADD RFK TO MAGA”
a one line comment; no actionable ideas“Not true on a deportable offense”
A 2 liner: “It is a misdemeanor, not a felony, for an illegal alien to vote! See attached (18 U.S.C. § 611). Not sure where Mike Davis gets that a misdemeanor is a deportable offense. “This correction is both interesting, and worth noting. However, it has no actionable ideas (though perhaps an implied one of “don’t make a fool out of yourself”)
…..
“The Truth About Hell! … It’s Real! … Escape Now!”
Details omitted.
No comment, except to say that there are no politically actionable ideas. 🙂Due to the wonders of reddit (and notepad++), you can still view my actionable ideas, which the CENSOR at warroom saw fit to keep out of reach of a website that preaches “action, action, action”.
THE POINT IS, THAT IN AT LEAST SOME INSTANCES, SOME MAGA TYPE PERSUADER, OR THEIR STAFFS, ARE ACTIVELY CENSORING IDEAS THAT COULD ADVANCE POPULISM/MAGA, INSTEAD OF MAKING FOOLS OF THE CITIZENS BY MAKING THEM SPIN THEIR WHEELS.
I don’t expect that this is generally the case, but I genuinely don’t know.
Now, it IS plausible that this is generally the case*. We live in a deeply manipulated society, which is engineered to divide the public and maintain control by the elite 3%. If it’s still available in the wayback machine, look up old versions of leftgatekeepers.com. Also, look at https://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/CIAcultCW.html to see to what extremes the CIA would go to mold public opinion.
I’m tired of writing, so with these final links, I will end this labored elaboration of my question.
I’ve elaborated on characteristics of ‘shotgun messaging’ ground game that I believe would be maximally effective @ https://www.votersrevenge.info/?p=194
And further elaborated on details of what specifics of shotgun messaging to crush the Democrats in the coming election would look like in “Also Censored at Warroom – Who Needs Effective Activism, Anyway?” @ https://tinyurl.com/27sq9d3eAs
Censored for 2.5 months at Bannon’s Warroom forum @ https://www.reddit.com/r/LeftRightGatekeepers/comments/1ezn7k7/censored_for_25_months_at_bannons_warroom_forum/
When Speaker Mike Johnson showed us – again – who he was, I wrote a spec, back in April, for a “Dump the RINO’s” website/app that could have been made for $2,000. This also elicited no reply by MTG (e.g.), and MAGA has failed to organize a Dump Johnson movement, to this day, AFAIK. (This is distinct from having a MAGA opponent to Johnson.) Note that Louisiana has no primaries, so it’s still possible (well, ignoring filing deadlines) to dump Johnson while still voting Republican.
See: Voter’s Revenge has a Baby! (SPEC for DumpTheRinos.org)
https://www.votersrevenge.info/?p=182
- Though I’d certainly exempt Charlie Kirk from such suspicions, as his Turning Point Action is too much on point for him to be a Pied Piper.