Tag: Salena Zito

What’s Next for Tucker Carlson?

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Well, now there’s no reason to watch Fox News anymore.  It should be interesting to see how Carlson decides to go forward from here.  I’m assuming he’s not hurting for money.  He should probably start a channel on Rumble and put up a paywall.  He’s one of the more interesting people in broadcasting.  People will pay to get his content.

The other possibility is he goes into politics.  That I see as more problematic.  Politics is a very dirty game.  If you don’t need to use it to make lots of dirty money it won’t be an interesting career.

I think Carlson could form some kind of relationship with the likes of Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Salena Zito, Sharyl Attkisson and a few other real journalists to produce a media outlet that would provide the kind of reporting and opinion that can’t be found anywhere else in the media.  They would have believability.  That’s something that is so sorely lacking everywhere else.

If done right and without all the overhead that comes with a Fox News or a CNN, Carlson and a few reporters could break away from the dying landscape of network and cable news shows that no one needs or wants anymore.  News and analysis.  With the internet and a few resources like Rumble and maybe Elon Musk’s Twitter who needs studios and boardrooms?

Come to think of it, Carlson interviewed Musk last week.  Maybe those two could strike up a deal where Tucker’s content was available exclusively on Twitter with some of it behind a paywall.  It could make both of them a lot of money.  And it could serve as a model for the future.  I’ve heard that Musk wants to add a “substack” option to Twitter.  Having someone like Tucker Carlson as his first big “channel” might be just the thing he needs to steer talent to his platform.

So anyway, Tucker’s “firing” could be a very opportune moment to start seeing a new journalism.  Without the bloat of the dinosaur media, a cadre of people who want to tell interesting stories that have some resemblance to objective reality could provide a service that people would be willing to pay for.  I, even I, would pay a little bit for that.

Now it’s also certain that all the usual suspects on the Left will be gunning for Tucker Carlson.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a target for the Justice Department’s attack dogs.  Their hatred for him probably rivals how they feel about Donald Trump.  After all he’s another traitor to his class.  They’ve already once gone after his family at home.  He had to move away from Washington to protect them.  This is not a trivial threat.  Hopefully he’s made enough money to be able to afford professional security services.  But no one is safe from the abuse that the FBI can bring to bear.  We’ll have to see whether these problems crop up for him.

Well, these are interesting times.  Tucker Carlson has been the only truthful voice in mainstream news commentary.  I hope that he will be able to find a way to continue shining a light on the criminal activities of the Washington regime.  There isn’t any other voice out there that has both his reach and credibility.  Hopefully someone like Musk who has the reach and also the money to set up a platform for him will come along and take advantage of this interesting opportunity.

Crime is a Problem.  Who Knew!?

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I was reading an article that Salena Zito wrote on the out-of-control crime in Philadelphia.  And I came across this information,

“A new Morning Consult-Politico poll released late last week shows over three-quarters of voters said violent crime is a major problem in the United States, with only 17% of respondents calling crime a minor problem and only 2% saying it was not a problem at all.”

Well, who’da thunk it?  I can remember just a few weeks ago the polls showed that crime was a much lower priority than inflation but magically now it’s grown.  And yet the people living in the cities where crime has become a daily ordeal will still vote overwhelmingly for Democrats and especially progressives who release criminals almost as soon as they’re caught.  In fact Philadelphia recently re-elected the Soros-backed district attorney that has turned their criminal justice system into a revolving door.

Maybe the pollsters are starting to let the cat out of the bag.  Or maybe things just keep getting worse and even the progressives living in these cities are starting to panic.  Well, I’m beyond caring whether the urban dwellers will come to their senses.  But I am interested to see if reality will have any effect on the Mid-Terms.  Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania all have tight senate and state house races.  They also have big cities that are filled with rampant crime.  It stands to reason that if these races go to Democrats, even in conditions like we have today then there is no point at which the Republicans will be able to win them back.

And that’s an important thing to know.  Cause and effect are the names we give to what we use to analyze the world around us.  When someone pulls the trigger on a gun and someone falls bleeding to the ground with a hole in his chest, we see a cause-and-effect relationship.

If we see the country falling apart, we expect to see Americans vote against the people responsible for this failure.  If we don’t see that response then we have to assume that either the people like what’s happening or voting is, for whatever reason, no longer a measure of the people’s will.

And whereas there is a difference between these two distinct reasons, the result is still the same.  And it is that result that interests me.  As I’ve stated incessantly, I’m looking for clarity.  I’m looking for the answer to the question, “Can we vote our way out of this?”

And everything I see about this election seems to confirm that this is the perfect test case.  There are just so many things going wrong at once that there’s no conceivable way to paint this situation as a coin toss.  There can’t be a starker contrast between what the two sides stand for and what results each side produce.

From the same article I read,

“As one mother in Center City pointed out, President Joe Biden was in Philadelphia one month ago and never once mentioned the violence ripping her city apart. “Which is funny,” she said, “because he said he was giving a speech on the battle for the soul of the nation. Has he looked around at the soul of this city?”

Not once in Biden’s 3,000-word speech did he say the word “crime” or “homicide” or “gangs.” He did, however, identify what he said “was happening in our country today that is not normal” — MAGA Republicans, who he said “represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic” and are “a threat to this country.”  Biden added that Republicans “do not believe in the rule of law.””

Joe Biden accusing Republicans of disbelief in the rule of law is so Orwellian that it almost makes me laugh.  That is until I remember that even if Joe Biden didn’t legitimately win the 2020 election, he still must have gotten close to 50% of the electorate voting for him anyway.  That means that almost half of Americans are either too stupid or too corrupt to reject a malevolent, cretinous liar like Joe Biden.  That is no laughing matter.

So, another data point.  Americans know that crime is out of control.  Will this influence the elections?  Stay tuned in less than four weeks for the answer.

The Rust Belt Stands Pat

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Back in May I read Salena Zito’s book “The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics,” in which she interviewed a varied sample of Trump voters in the rust belt and identified why they abandoned the Democrat Party.

Well, in this article she went and checked back with these same voters to see if they had changed their minds.  Apparently their resolve is even stronger than in 2016 that Trump is their man.  And this jibes with the polls taken in these vitally important states.  Formerly, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin were part of the Great Lakes Blue Wall that would prevent any Republican from ever entering the White House again.  But instead of adding Ohio to that Blue Wall it looks like Minnesota may be turning red instead.That would complete the Red Wall from Lake Erie to Lake Superior.  Or let us say from the Atlantic Ocean in Philadelphia to the Mississippi River at Lake Itasca in Minnesota.  Apparently the demographic future we’ve all heard so much about isn’t quite there yet.

Zito is a personal writer.  Her story isn’t about statistics.  It’s about individual people.  It’s like the Trump rallies.  There’s a personal connection.

 

27AUG2019 – American Greatness Post of the Day – Small-Business Men Get a Front-Row Seat for Everyday Life by Salena Zito

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Here’s a feel good post by Salena Zito.  She travels around some of the small town areas of the country, many of them in the red areas of the purple states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin where Trump voters live.  Actual Americans who live in actual communities.  Read it if you need a lift.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/08/26/small-business-men-get-a-front-row-seat-for-everyday-life/

 

13JUN2019 – American Greatness Post of the Day – Finding America at a Back-Roads Gas Station by Salena Zito

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Salena Zito always has a good read.  This one is a feel good account of breaking down in small town America.  Nothing profound but it might brighten your morning or remind you of a similar moment.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/06/11/finding-america-at-a-back-roads-gas-station/

 

 

After you’ve read enough sexbot articles on Drudge maybe switch to something interesting

The Great Revolt – by Salena Zito and Brad Todd – A Book Review – Part 3

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In Part 2 of this review I said that the Great Revolt is divided into a number of chapters, each named after a particular group of Trump voters that because of their circumstances either flipped from the Democrats to Trump or stayed with Trump despite an ideological conflict with him.

For each of these categories there are several individuals who exemplify the profile but live in a different location.  These locations are rural, or towns and cities located in the ten counties in question in Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

In each of these categories and in each of these locations we are shown how the Democrats started out as the natural or default political party but ended up becoming the reason to vote for the unlikely personage of Donald J. Trump.  Although the list includes some individuals who are affluent and highly educated they all reside in areas of the country that have been taken for granted and at the same time abandoned by the Democratic Elite.  The people interviewed range from pillars of the community and entrepreneurs to folks who have barely survived hard economic times that coincided with personal tragedy and challenge.  But they all look to Donald Trump to correct problems.  Economic problems, cultural problems, moral problems.  Not all of these people are conservatives or even moderates.  Some are demonstrably old school Democrats.  But what they all are is self-described Americans.  None of them think of themselves as citizens of the world.  None of them have bought into the globalist perspective and many of them are obviously mourning for the death of their homes.  Places like Erie and Freeland Pennsylvania are for all intents and purposes dead.  There aren’t any growing industries and even the few employers left are slowly moving out to the sunbelt.  Young adults leave for opportunities elsewhere.  Parents and grandparents stay because they can’t sell their houses.  Who would buy them?  All they are left with is memories of happier times when they were part of a thriving community with a future and the dignity of earning a living and raising their families.  In these places voting for Donald Trump is almost a reflex.  A final self-defensive movement.

But other examples show communities that are still viable and even thriving but even in these places the inhabitants recognize that the Democrats don’t pretend to share the values that these communities still believe in.  Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio.  These are all places that are seeing themselves ignored because they are the areas where remnant blue collar communities are supposed to disappear and be replaced by the new constituencies that are earmarked for inclusion in the “coalition of the ascendant.”

So, speaking in broad generalities, who are the Trump voters that handed him Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa?  For the most part, they are the union guys who stopped voting for Republicans after Ronald Reagan.  If we start in the worst hit spot in the Rust Belt we’re in Pennsylvania.  Places like Erie and Wilkes Barre have been deconstructed to the point that it’s remarkable anyone at all is left.  After all the industries from yesteryear shut down and off-shored to China Obama finished it off by outlawing coal.  Places like Wisconsin are comparatively healthy.  Many of the largest manufacturers are gone but entrepreneurial types have stepped in and started smaller companies in emerging industries that still employ many people and keep the areas as viable communities for families and young adults to remain in.  In between these extremes is the rest of the gradient.  What they all share was a dependence on large scale union employment in heavy industry.  And because of this history they typically voted Democrat.  And they thought of the Republicans as their class enemies.  What they didn’t see happening was the Democrats moving on from needing them or more specifically pretending to care about their votes.  Once the Democrats had built up the “Coalition of the Ascendant,” these mid-west white union workers were an embarrassment to the rest of the coalition.  They weren’t college educated and they didn’t eat the right foods or care about the right causes and they might even believe in God.  So, the best thing to do was quietly stop talking about them and wait until they dropped dead so they could be replaced with some Central Americans or Middle Easterners.  But somehow, they are still there so they are looking for a new political home.  Donald Trump provided that.  He was the first Republican since Ronald Reagan to acknowledge their plight and actually come up with a plan for helping them.  Finally, let’s sum it up.

Bottom Line

Boiling down all the cases and places it comes down to this.  Donald Trump was elected president by the Rust Belt blue collar working areas because he was willing to promise to save them.

 

In the last part of this review I’ll give my thoughts on where we go from here.

The Great Revolt – by Salena Zito and Brad Todd – A Book Review – Part 2

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In Part 1 of this review I said that there were a number of personal accounts by Trump voters in swing states that provided remarkable insight into how Trump was able to topple the Midwestern “Blue Wall.”  After finishing up the book I can confirm that this is the case.  But this only one of several facets that the book reveals about the current state of the American electorate and how it intersects with the political parties, the media, corporate America and the globalist elites in general.

I will divide the review into appropriate topics that correspond to the book’s logical components.  But first I’ll give a general synopsis of the overall conclusion of why Donald Trump was elected President of the United States.

The bottom line is that Donald Trump ended up with a healthy majority of electoral votes (304 to 227) because just ten counties in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa flipped their votes from Democrat to Republican.  Each of these counties had voted for Obama in both 2008 and 2012.  Trump was able to convince Democratic voters to vote for a Republican presidential candidate.  The rest of the book is devoted to figuring out why this happened and what the larger significance is.

The book is divided into a number of chapters, each named after a particular group of Trump voters that because of their circumstances either flipped from the Democrats to Trump or stayed with Trump despite an ideological conflict with him.

The categories are:

  • Red Blooded and Blue Collared
  • Perot-istas
  • Rough Rebounders
  • Girl Gun Power
  • Rotary Reliables
  • King Cyrus Christians
  • Silent Suburban Moms

The category names are probably transparent enough to more or less figure out what each group is defined by.

For each of these categories there are several individuals who exemplify the profile but live in a different location.  These locations are rural, town and cities located in the ten counties in question:

  1. Lee County, Iowa
  2. Howard County, Iowa
  3. Macomb County, Michigan
  4. Lake County, Michigan
  5. Ashtabula County, Ohio
  6. Stark County, Ohio
  7. Erie County, Pennsylvania
  8. Luzerne County, Pennsylvania
  9. Kenosha County, Wisconsin
  • Vernon County, Wisconsin

 

In each of these categories and in each of these locations we are shown how the Democrats went from being the natural or default choice to instead become the reason to believe in the unlikely personage of Donald J. Trump.  Although the list includes some individuals who are affluent and highly educated they all reside in areas of the country that have been either taken for granted or abandoned by the Democrat Elite.  They range from pillars of the community and entrepreneurs to folks who have barely survived hard economic times that coincided with personal tragedy and challenge.  But they all look to Donald Trump to correct problems.  Economic problems, cultural problems, moral problems.  Not all of these people are conservatives or even moderates.  Some are demonstrably old school Democrats.  But what they all are is self-described Americans.  None of them think of themselves as citizens of the world.  None of them have bought into the globalist perspective and many of them are obviously mourning for the death of their homes.  Places like Erie and Freeland Pennsylvania are for all intents and purposes dead.  There aren’t any growing industries and even the few employers left are slowly moving out to the sunbelt.  Young adults leave for opportunities elsewhere.  Parents and grandparents stay because they can’t sell their houses.  Who would buy them?  All they are left with is memories of happier times when they were part of a thriving community with a future and the dignity of earning a living and raising their families.  In these places voting for Donald Trump is almost a reflex.  A final self-defensive movement.  But other examples show communities that are still viable and even thriving but recognizing that the Democrats don’t pretend to care about the values that differentiate these communities from the progressive narrative.  Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio.  These are all places that are seeing themselves ignored because they are the areas where remnant blue collar communities are supposed to disappear and be replaced by the new constituencies that are earmarked for inclusion in the “coalition of the ascendant.”

In the next installment I’ll give my thoughts on some of the stories and what I think they mean to me, in other words, how they square with my own understanding of the American situation.

The Great Revolt – by Salena Zito and Brad Todd – A Book Review – Part 1

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The full title of this book is “The Great Revolt, Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics.”  When I was told I needed to read this I was a little resentful.  I don’t enjoy reading about politics for the most part.  This may be because lately political books are typically candidates telling us their inspirational biographies and why they are uniquely qualified to save the United States and by extension the whole free world.  Obama, Hillary, McCain, blah, blah, blah.  But I dutifully bought it two months ago and put it into the stack.

So, I started it.  It’s a combination of election analysis identifying the categories of voters who flipped the election to Donald Trump and then interviews with people in those categories.  The analysis is interesting but the interviews are riveting.  As someone who understands the anger over being categorized as a deplorable or being dismissed as unimportant or openly mocked as a defeated yesterday man with no future I was fascinated.  The stories being told by people from small towns and dying cities in the Rust Belt resonated like a tuning fork with what I felt.  Now here I am, an Italian American from Brooklyn living in New England and an engineer working in a 21st century industry and yet I feel more kinship with these unemployed factory workers and small business people than with any of the people I work with every day who don’t believe in any of the things I do.

They voted for Trump for a variety of reasons depending on the type of person or their specific circumstances but as a whole they were voting for the idea that they still counted and couldn’t be just discounted because they weren’t the coalition of tomorrow.  Their grievances weren’t progressive enough and they were too white.  They were old news.  And the interesting thing so far is that all of them that voted in 2008 and 2012 voted for Obama.  I’ve still got a bunch to read and I have to digest the analytical stuff to see what it means to my understanding of national politics but I can already see that the personal stories are the bigger news.  This proves to me that the Trump rallies were very significant.  A lot of these people voted because it was personal.  Trump reached them with his message.  It spoke to them.  These marginalized people in depressed areas of what used to be the industrial heartland resonated to a message from a billionaire New York City reality show cartoon character.  I think this means both parties have abandoned a very large swathe of Americans and if Trump can address what they want he actually could ignite a Populist Revolt.  If most people figure out that they’ve been used by both parties we could have a real awakening and some big things can get done.

I’ll get into more detail when I finish this, but I’ve already learned more about the 2016 election from reading the personal accounts than by all the political analyses that came out in the last almost two years.  I’ve met the people that made Trump president.  Zito and Todd have written an important book.