Your Bubble Is Undermining Our Democracy
Everyone gets in a bubble. We all do. The key thing to remember is that we all get in a bubble and need to be conscious about it enough to know and step outside it. One of the great benefits of living in Middle Georgia, working in Atlanta, and regularly dealing with the national media is being mindful of both my bubble and theirs.
This is one reason I’ve been so cautious with my own side about calling so many people groomers who are not, but disagree with us on the issue of transgender rights, etc. When you use a word too much, it starts to lose its impact and we should not let groomer become for us what racist has become for the left. That doesn’t mean there are no groomers. Follow LibsofTikTok and you’ll see how many young teachers really are trying to groom and indoctrinate kids. But that does not mean we should abandon nuance.
On the other side, the bubble is harder and harder for even good members of the press to break out of. As a result, the Democrats and their friends in the media are really starting to suck badly at politics. Unfortunately for you and me, we’re all starting to suffer because of it.
Back to our bubble for a minute though.
What happened on January 6th was really bad. A group of people, fueled by lies, tried to storm the United States Capitol and stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote. Perceiving Mike Pence as a threat, they erected a gallows and some went in search of him.
“If progressives were more mindful of their global history, they would understand that the thing historically most destabilizing to society is high inflation.“
A woman named Ashley Babbit got killed by a police officer in the process. In the security footage, members of Congress were fleeing as the mob was trying to break through into the Speaker’s Lobby. Babbit attempted to smash through a window to open the door for the mob and a Capitol police officer shot and killed her.
In the right-wing bubble, Ashley Babbit is a patriot and the police officer who killed her is the bad guy. In the real world, Babbit was the bad guy and the officer was doing his job. But to say that is to be condemned within the right-wing echo chamber. It is, nonetheless, the truth. No amount of pushback undermines that truth and no mythology will reshape her legacy in the history books.
President Trump’s continued advance of his lies about the election should be disqualifying for 2024 and, frankly, his own base is angrier and angrier at his inability to move on.
In Georgia, Trump voters rejected just about every one of his candidates and the two who won would have won without his support. Trump rejected good, popular candidates for those who have bitterly clung to the 2020 fantasy. He got a black eye from many of his own supporters who are tired of being his agent to relitigate his failures.
In Pennsylvania, Trump voters are increasingly angry that Trump endorsed the fringe GOP candidate who is now the GOP gubernatorial nominee when a long-time, loyal Trump congressman was preferable. But that guy, Congressman Barletta, was unwilling to bitterly cling to the stolen election fantasy and chose to campaign about Pennsylvania’s future, not Trump’s past.
Now, in Alabama, Trump is backing a Chamber of Commerce hero who helped get gas tax increases. She’s the lobbyists’ favorite and not a conservative. She’s an establishment puke who Trump endorsed after having endorsed Mo Brooks originally. Trump’s base in Alabama is rallying to Mo Brooks. They’re tired of getting suckered by Trump getting suckered by others.
Trump’s refusal to get outside his own bubble and move on from his petty grievances will deservedly cost him support as much of his base moves to DeSantis. In fact, overwhelmingly DeSantis seems to be consolidating Trump’s base leaving the establishment wing of the GOP divided between an assortment of candidates, none of whom will be willing to step aside to let that wing of the party consolidate. It will be 2016 all over again, but Trump is managing to break up his own base.
Regardless of the squabbling, the GOP will be better positioned than the Democrats because the Democrats suck so bad at politics right now.
For starters, only people in the press and Democrats truly do care passionately and obsessively about January 6th. Over 80 million people voted for Joe Biden (yes, it is true and your refusal to acknowledge it is because of your own bubble in which you know no one who voted for him) and only 19 million watched coverage of the January 6th committee in prime time.
Essentially, like with the actor Mark Hamil who popped popcorn to watch it, the hearing was a religious gathering of progressives who commune together in outrage over Trump. Undoubtedly, some of them watched in their N95 masks to complete the virtue signaling. The rest of America had a life that night.
No matter how much the Democrats and press keep telling us, January 6th was not almost a coup, it was not almost the end of democracy, and it amounted to nothing. Joe Biden is President. The Supreme Court, the military, the elected Congress, etc. still had layers of constitutional power to stop the nonsense. It is a lie that has been repeated and believed inside the Democrat bubble so often that they all believe it. But the reality is that our democracy was fine and our constitutional order survived.
In the Democrat/media bubble, routinely suggesting democracy nearly ended on January 6th goes hand in hand with delegitimizing the Senate, the Supreme Court, and demanding dissenting and opposing voices be silenced. They have all become talking points from the left that contradict each other and make the left feel like they have a winning hand with voters. One cannot undermine the legitimacy of Senate, the Supreme Court, and the First Amendment while screaming about how awful January 6th was.
They do it anyway.
These same members of the Democratic Party pioneered Attorneys General around the country refusing to defend lawfully passed acts in state legislatures if they offended the left. All these things are constitutionally egregious but get a pass inside the Democrat/media shared bubble.
Most recently, a man showed up to kill Justice Bret Kavanaugh and most of the major press ignored or buried it. Some Democrats, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, refused to even condemn it. The Washington Post labeled it a local crime story. The Demcrat-controlled House of Representatives is still refusing to pass legislation to expand security for the Court.
Over the last several weeks, more than a dozen pregnancy centers run by Christian charities have been vandalized and are firebombed with minimal coverage from the press. We keep getting lectures about right-wing extremism with left-wing extremists get as much of a pass as Hunter Biden did.
Last year, the press defended, deflected, and minimized the rampant rioting that destroyed small businesses and lives. Those riots were far more costly than what happened on January 6h.
But tell me again how January 6th was the worst thing ever.
What also gets a pass is the Democrats’ dogma on climate change. It is directly related to their handling of January 6th.
Just as their shared talking point with the left is that January 6th was nearly the end of our democracy, they share the talking point that we are at a tipping point in the environment and so should not produce more oil and gas.
Republicans tend to have a few bright lines. They tend to be pro-gun and pro-life. Democrats, at this point, have to be anti-police, pro-abortion, anti-gun, anti-oil, pro-trans and a laundry list of other litmus tests. That anti-oil stand is doing far more damage to the country than the Republicans being pro-gun. Democrats and much of the media reading this will viscerally jump to school shootings and that, again, is because of their bubble.
Oil prices have a variety of factors that impact them. But, objectively, in a futures market, the President’s declared war on fossil fuels has stifled investment in the industry. The Democrats’ vilification of the one industry that keeps us running has led to decreased investment, decreased drilling, decreased exploration, and decreased production.
Certainly, there are international factors outside the President’s control. But the press and Democrats, in their bubble, refuse to even acknowledge or report on the vast array of measures the President could deploy. For starters, the President could walk back his publicly stated desire to end the fossil fuel industry. He could re-open ANWR and get rid of governmental pressure on Wall Street to stop investing with or doing bank loans for the fossil fuel industry. He could expand leases, deregulate, expedite approvals, and do a great deal to get gas below $3.00 a gallon without even dealing with the external issues outside his control.
Not only will Biden not do that, but the press will not talk about it or both sides will flagrantly deny the possibility of it working. They have all bought the climate change rhetoric and, in their bubble, they cannot see the backlash coming. They attribute it to bad messaging instead of bad policy.
And here is what is coming — a Republican surge.
And here is the irony.
If progressives were more mindful of their global history, they would understand that the thing historically most destabilizing to society is high inflation. The economic turmoil of Germany led to Hitler. Economic turmoil in Iran led to the Ayatollah. Economic turmoil and high inflation lead to the very things the Democrats and media are so concerned about with Januray 6th.
By refusing to lower gas prices through increased domestic production, energy prices have soared in the United States and inflation outpaces the rest of the world. But to stop the inflation, lower the political temperature, and calm Americans, Democrats and their friends in the press will have to do what dogma in their bubble won’t let them — end the war on fossil fuels and start a robust plan to drill in the United States.
But they cannot and will not do it. Instead, they deflect, make excuses, deny, and blame.
Their recalcitrance is forcing a demographic shift to the GOP, which will expand fossil fuel production and will take the credit for doing it. Biden cannot shut down the domestic fossil fuel industry down in the next two years. The GOP can get it fired back up starting in two years and, when prices fall, good luck getting Americans to buy back into the left’s climate change narrative.
How on earth did Democrats start sucking so badly at the basics of politics and policy?
Saying the GOP is a threat and must be rejected is the exact message to get the GOP elected because, for now, the biggest threat to the American voter is the Democrats’ own policies.
Trump won because he appeared to care about conservatives, fight for them, call BS on the left, not take a beating without giving as as good as he got.
Too bad that was driven more by his ego than actual conservative values. Henceforth he is addressed as Mr. President, take that and go away.
One cannot claim the election was stolen from Trump while accepting the down ballot Republican wins across the country.
Money quote...
One cannot undermine the legitimacy of Senate, the Supreme Court, and the First Amendment, [not enforce laws, not condem violence against their dissenters], while screaming about how awful January 6th was.
...the biggest threat to the American voter is the Democrats’ own policies.
The success of liberal policies have always been the biggest threat to America. We no longer have two parties that have different ideas about how to achieve the promise of America and bolster the Constitution. Although Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema provide a glimmer of hope.
we live in the greatest country on earth. Period. We should be a shining beacon of hope, a city on a hill during this global inflation and we aren't. Why? Because godless Progressives don't believe in drawing distinctive lines. They don't like Truth. They don't like Good and Evil. They don't like Right and Wrong. They like grey. They like grey because they can shift the edges around at a whim to hide whatever inconvenient fact(s) have come up that counter their latest position.
HRC and her failure to get elected in 2016 kicked off the clearest view of the Grey Effect.
For four years we made fun of the people who couldn't come to grips with America disagreeing with their choice for president and electing Donald J. Trump. They were deranged to the point of irrationality in opposition to Trump.
Now, the Right has those people as we enter the second term of Hillary Will Never Be President with Joe Biden. However, now, Trumpers are the ones who have become deranged and irrational, unable to come to grips with the fact that America deselected Donald J. Trump, for whatever reason.
Move on. It is over. We have an opportunity to secure Washington DC for a decade or more. Don't waste it.