127 Comments

I can identify with JD. I grew up in a failing steel town in Ohio, probably one or two rungs above the socioeconomic status that he had. I’m from a stable family, but it was definitely a lower middle class with two parents who didn’t graduate from college. Like him, I attended an Ivy League law school, have held an important (although not elected) position in the federal government, and now make money that is beyond my wildest dreams. And I will achieve a degree of generational wealth for my family.

In doing this, I have not joined any high society clubs, sought the favor of senators, former cabinet secretaries, lobbyists, elite opinion makers etc. I am just damn good at what I do so and have succeeded based on merit (and with help from the Mrs.).

I have run from those emoluments because they make for a caged life—to be part of the elite, you have to do the elite things all the time. Instead, I bought several acres on a hill in rural West Virginia and built my own getaway house—an escape from the madness that surrounds DC (where I live and work).

WV is from where most of my family originally hails; they came to Ohio bc steel mills were nicer workplaces than coal mines. So in some ways, I have returned to my ancestral homeland, just as much as JD yearns to do someday, according to his acceptance speech. I really think he is the future of the GOO, and I hope it proves out in November.

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Huge respect to you, Joshua!

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You are too kind good sir! You fostered a wonderful community here on the Substack platform.

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Congrats to you! But please stop calling them elites. They're not "better" than us.

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Fair! And thank you. Hard work and smarts still get one a long way in America.

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It does! 💪🏻

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I always tell my children that we have one saying in our house: Life is pretty easy if you work hard all the time.

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Parasites?? 🙂

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That one works! 🪱🐛🪱

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Same. I grew up in North Philadelphia in a family of 8 with a concrete backyard that was 10" by 10." My mother counted 65 kids running under the shower my father put up for us one hot summer day.

My father worked at Tastykake all week, drove a beer truck on Saturday, and caddied at Cedarbrook Country Club on Sunday so all his kids could attend Holy Angels Grade School, Archbishop Kennedy High School, etc. and get a first-class religious and private education.

We became lawyers, builders, business owners, writers, etc. and worked hard, paid taxes, and gave back generously to a country that gave us so much.

My dad never got over the death of his best friend and brother, MIA 1st Lt. Uncle Frank J. Curley in the Pacific Theatre in WWII. He taught us about the duty to give back to the nation that gave us so much.

https://poetslife.blogspot.com/2005/12/frank-j-curley-mia-usaaf-in-memoriam.html

My wife's green beret brother gave 21 years all over the world and grew fruit to feed Americans.

When I once asked him if I could write a book about his missions and combat experience he said, "Why? I didn't do anything 15,000 other guys didn't do."

https://poetslife.blogspot.com/2012/11/ruggles-orchard.html

So, yeah, I like J.D. Vance and the fact that he is on the ticket.

Genuine, moral, generous, giving, loving, devoted to his family and Jesus Christ...and accomplished like DJT.

A producer, not a taker.

It will be remarkable to see what they do together to retore morality, patriotism, hard work, common sense, and traditional American life for my children and grandchildren and all Americans regardless of who they are.

With the CCP/PLA attacking us with unrestricted warfare daily, and especially with 5th generation cybersecurity and social media war tactics in their 100-year plan to have us grow their food and buy their shitty products, I sleep better at night knowing J.D. and The Donald will soon be there to meet, countermand, and successfully countermand the foreign and domestic commies and their evil.

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Since my upvote has been disabled (by the FBI directing the Substack minions), I'll say thank you, in person (maybe we should all have our upvotes disabled, if it encourages direct human contact, instead of the substitution of a sterile "click.")

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Vance is someone I can admire. I too grew up lower middle class to a broken family in the suburbs of failing steel towns. "Failing" may be too generous - they were pretty well already failed by the time I was a kid.

While I haven't had the kind of wild success Vance & fellow commenter Joshua have seen - by the grace of God that's yet to come - I've been lucky and have done well for myself.

Working as a pleb in the Silly Valley software industry turned me into a self-describing communist. The class system there was obvious and grating. Never a Leftist tho - Comrade Lenin had contempt for leftists. I cured this error of thinking by going abroad & living in a Communist country for half a decade.

(Spoiler alert: big-C Communist states never ever succeed at creating a classless society. Fo sho.)

Needless to say I no longer advocate communism. Yet I remain unimpressed with the well-credentialed silver spoons who sit at the top of our society. The country is in decline and the buck stops with the current ruling class.

Hierarchy is inescapable - someone's gonna be on top - even and especially when we pretend no one is. What matters is the quality of the elite. Whether they are up to the task at hand.

JD Vance is a shining example of the right kind of person making it to the top. He shows what America can and should be all about. He has my vote.

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Geoism FTW. gameofrent.com

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You, like JD and my family of Refugees, prove that the American dream is alive. One of my craziest and now wealthiest friends is an Army Vet from West Virginia, she's a successful Federal contractor. It takes lots of hard work to climb to the top, but it's absolutely possible in the US.

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When admirers spend time effing around his past and the policies and movements he has supported, they’ll find out.

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I'm going to have to disagree with you. There are things that need to be discussed Maybe he has, but I would appreciate knowing where they are. He was an ardent never Trumper and towed the line for the RINOs. Has he addressed that? And please don't start acting like preschoolers in the sandbox as the socialists do. There are questions that should be asked and answered. You start the name calling and degregation and you become no better than the cancel culture of the facists.

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Leftist media and Democrats would have gone crazy no matter who Trump picked. What was music to my ears was Wall Street wailing. Too long has the Republican party been in thrall to corporate interests.

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Spot on. Don’t fall for their games and demoralization campaigns. Stay the course.

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The black pill agents are coming out in droves on all of the socials about JD my friend. Stay the course is right they’ve hit X hard I can’t keep up with them. I could use everyone’s help shooting out the Truth about Vance.

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What do you think about his sponsoring by/connection to Peter Thiel (not sure of the spelling)? This seems worrying to me - that’s he all in with the mass surveillance state, face recognition etc. Whitney Webb has a lot to say about Vance, and none of it is good. (See her interview with Jimmy Dore).

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Whitney Webb is a classic example of connection without consequence. According to her, everybody is controlled opposition (which means nobody is). Here is a great investigative piece by Diana West about Webb's newest book, showing that she doesn't do journalism, she just flings around these connections & uses questionable sources: https://www.conservativehq.com/post/diana-west-fact-checking-whitney-webb-on-the-existence-of-blackmail-material-on-j-edgar-hoover

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As much as I admire the work Whitney Webb puts into writing, she reminds me of a free-wheeling gear without a brake, regardless of her claims of conducting thorough research. I'm listening to her most recent podcast at Unlimited Hangout with independent journalist Stavroula Pabst (it's not on the website yet) and they are discussing Peter Thiel in a way that makes him sound evil and nefarious. My inner BS detector started looking for interviews of and articles about Thiel and I eventually came to the conclusion that not only is he credible and sane, but is open about the technology he supports. I believe our country should invent and manufacture defensive "weapons" since our enemies are fundamentally one step ahead. It might be important to let Iran know that they should not threaten us or the countries around them. Just my opinion.

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Thiel isn't "evil and nefarious?" Anyhow, US voters are going to have a limited choice of candidates on the ballot, and there's something suspicious about each of them, but a guy "associated" with Peter Thiel might be the least bad option.

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You sadly don't know about Thiel. Might want to do some research. Don't disregard someone offering up good questions about someone. You shut them down (or try) and you become the cancel culture of the conservatives.

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I agree with Diana West. Webb was interesting the first few times I listened to her until I started researching her findings and analyzed her overall presentation.

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Do a deep dive into her family and bloodline and you will discover that she’s a limited hangout. A little research opened my eyes.

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Interesting. I’ll have to check that out. Thanks, because I was alarmed after skimming her article.

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So leftist techniques of ad-hominem attacks are cool if it suits your agenda? Whitney is one of the most thorough investigative journalists out there. It isn’t her fault our political system is utterly corrupt. All I needed to know of Vance was his Zionism to understand he is a traitor to America, just like Biden, Harris. Trump, RFK Jr. The powers that shouldn’t be make certain we never have an actual choice, they always control both candidates. You need to stop falling for it already.

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Agree, Obviously you need financing at that level of state craft, but I would like Yuri's opinion especially because he forgot to mention it in the article.

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On the spectrum of billionaires, Thiel is the least evil of them all. Brilliant thinker who has built successful companies. Far better than the ones sponsoring Kamala and RINOs.

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I hope you’re right. These billionaires all seem unhinged to me, and too in thrall to futuristic technologies that would have the whole world under surveillance. In my opinion, it won’t be the criminals that such surveillance will hamper or stop, but ordinary people wanting to take more than one flight a decade, or whatever the unhinged deem is necessary to ‘save the planet’ or whatever evil nonsense they come up with to further line their own pockets. Hawaiian paradises have to be kept for the billionaires after all…

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One of my law school professors pointed out that a compensatory factor for laws/regulations with flaws is that there is (or can be) a certain looseness in the legal system. Judges may adjust outcomes to come closer to what seems like a reasonable outcome, other accommodations are made, the law isn't very enforceable anyway because of imperfect information and only is applied in extreme cases, etc.

My concern is that this automated surveillance will remove all the "looseness" from the legal system. So that laws and regulation that were once tolerable because most of the time no one noticed they were violated become intolerable. Contracts with your home insurance company that were oppressive on paper, but not a problem in practice because they don't come by to inspect suddenly give insurance more power than an HOA because of drones....

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Interesting, and worrying…But then, what isn’t worrying about the stupidity and wickedness that is on-going today?

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Thiel, while brilliant, has chosen to embrace and promote the ancient vice of sodomy. Being gay is always a choice, and always very bad choice. Perhaps Thiel was molested as a boy like the majority gay men were, but it's still a choice to live a gay life.

I'm afraid Thiel will work to normalize this vice yet more and draw young men into it, creating unspeakable suffering for them while shortening their lives dramatically. Choosing to be gay shortens life even more than choosing to smoke does.

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Does Thiel still live in Austria?

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Vance is the right choice for another reason. One more brutal, in a way.

Why does Rachel Maddow think Lord of the Rings is a fascist tract? Abortion, of course. Tolkien = Catholic = Bad. This is why Vance was a brutal choice. His mission, typically Marine in nature, is to make the Left go full retard with the Catholic hate. Provoke them into "showing their ass," as it were. At a minimum they will get very distasteful very quickly.

Honestly, it's all so fabulous. We Catholics do really come into our own when we accept just how much we are hated and why that's a good thing. Kamalala DingBat? Theologian Joe? Barrry Obama? Spare me. The French Revolution was an unfortunate interlude for us. Will outlast them all, but in the meantime, by all means lose the election by alienating us (and the unions we still control).

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He actually understands that you can't take the leftists seriously. So many Republicans play their game of diversity, worrying about racist accusations and such, when that is baked into the cake; they will always call you that unless you become a Democrat and support all Dem positions. JD understands that imo.

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Need to understand that the socialists include both Republicans and Democrats. Republicans "play the game" because they have either been paid off or threaten over something.

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Yeah a good chunk of Republicans are controlled opposition. Effectively. It's hard to see how they aren't. The Dem positions are so stupid how do they not knock them down.

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Give me death or give me liberty...but never give me government. I am ignoring all of these political clowns.

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🎯

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As we all should. Especially as they are only "the temporary help" anyway.

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What disturbs me about Vance is his support for tariffs, contrary to well-established economics, and his praise for Lina Khan and her authoritarian interventions into business (fortunately mostly failing legal challenges).

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We disagree on this. I love Lina Khan and think she's the best part of the Biden administration. JD's thoughts on her give me a lot of hope. In many ways he's young and inexperienced, but he's also thought through many issues to see what truly works for a lot of Americans, and he's done so without a lot of lobbyists (of course a lot of small T tech lobbyists, which I don't love, but feel like his influences are hopefully the best of a bad bunch). There are so many people who want to buy him, and hopefully he's just obstinate enough not to listen.

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That we know of. Remember how so many people just like today fawned over Mike Pence. Well, we know how that turned out.

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I was not just a little concerned when I heard that Trump had picked JD Vance. There has been plenty of commentary on the subject. Thank you for writing on this subject, after reading your take, I am able to breathe a little easier.

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KaMaola! Hahaha

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JD Vance. American success story or another Dan Crenshaw?

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Great post, 'Yuri'. I grew up like Vance without the drugs, etc. I completely distrust anything in Sodom on Potomac so I will be keeping an eye on this cat; still a little suspicious of the vile forces in D.C.

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To say I'm still disappointed Vivek is not VP is an understatement. I'm going to vote for Trump obviously but I'm allowed as a hillbilly to question his hillbilly cred for precisely why I should. Could he be subverting the subverted and subverters idk?. I'm going to have to observe more. But I'm not going rah rah cause I'm told to. Plus the Democrats and what they have done and the deep state apparatus that was implemented under Obama began with the Patriot Act and the creation of DHS must be accounted for. It's just not OK what they have done to people. Not just here either. The Darien Gap for starters is a symptom of the apathy the deep state exudes for mankind in service to their God The State.

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Don't forget that the Patriot Act and DHS happened under a Republican President. People, please wake up to the FACT that the socialists involved both democrats and republicans. Remember the bill that would have stopped the FISA court? Passed.

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They snuck that while banking on constitutes being afraid and trickle down misinfo but most people at that time didn't realize how deep the power would corrupt, kicking the can, Obama turned it into the intelligence surveillance industrial complex

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My point still stands. The taking down of the US involves both Republicans and Democrats.

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I don't like it, am not arguing with you and even though I stand by Bush as my choice that election I don't have to like it. I bitch about who I vote for. At least I put some skin in the game. As much of a peasant as that makes me. Lol

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Amen. The entire f’ing system needs overhaul. Start with campaign finance & Electoral college and continue thru with the myriad of problems. Big doubt anything changes. Time will tell.

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Maybe Vivek will be put in charge of dismantling one of the corrupt agencies.

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Those agencies aren't going anywhere.

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Pessimism is the rational expectation.

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No, dear. It is called reality. Thanks.

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Reality is a point in time. Optimism and pessimism are attributes of the future. You get to pick your attribute. Reality just is.

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Dang, that’s good. Tweet (X?) it, hire a billboard, put it on your merch. Get that out any way you can.

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Hopefully all of them

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But he just loves Lisa Khan and her insane attempts at regulation and interference with business.

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Then call him on it and see how he responds and then if that doesn't sit well ask him about that. He seems like someone who is able to be open as far as ensuring that citizens are aware of what's going on.

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Don't trust the cuckoo.

The institutions, regulations, 'experts', managerial class are all rotten. We can't trust this system anymore call it left or right or whatever.

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That’s why it needs to be fixed, not destroyed.

Many seem to want to flush out the baby with the bath water.

Our system (the Constitution with its checks and balances) worked pretty/very well until relatively recently, when the Democratic Party took a hard left and institutionalized “the ends justify the means” as their operating principle.

The “means” now include lawfare (a new term), imposing DEI wherever possible (thus eliminating merit), co-opting major corporations and the federal bureaucracy, and allowing unlimited immigration….. and any other way to subvert the system that they can dream up.

We need to find a way to fix our constitutional republic, not eliminate it.

And, like it or not, Trump/Vance 2024 is our best hope of doing so…..

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There isn't going to be a fix. Socialists knew over 100 years ago that the best way to take out the US was from within. Hatched the plot and slithered their way into the judiciary, education, monetary and governmental systems of our country. Trump isn't a savior. Thinking him (or anyone honestly) as that is a very dangerous slippery slope. People forget so easily that he had 4 years to "drain the swamp." I know all the excuses and all the promises that the false propaganda of things like the X22 Report like to try to indoctrinate you to believe.

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Why is it a dangerous, slippery slope to try and fix things?

I would say that not trying to fix things and just let it all fall apart (or worse, actively helping to bring it down) is a hell of a lot more dangerous….because the only other option is dictatorship, either from the Left or the Right, and that can only result in mass murder or slavery for a substantial chunk of the population.

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Sorry you missed my point. Too many people worship Trump as their savior. That is a slippery slope. But then I have a Biblical worldview hence my point.

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And you may well be right, there may not be a fix.

But it can’t hurt to try……and Trump and a new administration is the only realistic option.

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Ludicrous to proclaim that he’s the only option.

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You may think that it’s ludicrous and try to wish away reality, but the fact is that we have two realistic options, unless you plan to sit it out.

Barring divine intervention, we are limited to a choice between the Vice President of the current administration, who has promised to “finish the job” (ie: finish us off), who is widely acknowledged as a lightweight who is not Presidential material and who’s policies positions made her the most “liberal “ member of Congress in 2019.

And the other option is to reelect Donald Trump. He did a good (maybe great) job as President, especially considering the forces arrayed against him. The economy was booming, inflation was low, and the border was secure. Then came Covid.

The only black mark against him was his Covid response. That should have been handled much better, but I see that as more of a failure (and coverup) by Drs Fauci and Collins (who were advising Trump) than by Trump himself. Modern American presidents expect and receive the best advice available….. Trump was lied to and manipulated, as Dr Birx admitted in her book.

No other candidate has the slightest chance of being elected.

Bobby Jr cannot possibly win this time around. 3rd party candidates need to prepare for years, battling state governments and setting up the infrastructure to compete against the two party system.

It’s simply not going to happen and any other interpretation of that reality is delusional.

Sorry

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Pretty much agree, biggest reason for not burning down the whole system is the fact that, if it’s true the USA is the longest standing form of government... mostly because founding documents and constitution were soundly written by true patriots, men who had mindfully and meticulously put so much thought, prayer, and devotion into the creation of and implementation of their works. These men had no “looking glass” to predict the future, but they were highly educated in a manner that is not offered, or available anywhere today, and without ANY OF OUR MODERN DAY LUXURIES at hand. Not even a ball point pen to write with! There is nary a man alive with the kind of intelligence and heart I would trust to attempt such a feat as to rewrite any of it, less it be Christ himself! We are a highly conflicted nation, “We the People” have largely become complacent, lazy, and self absorbed, failed to demand gov transparency, failing to require reconciled budgets and audit our government strictly and religiously. Some say, nothing has been hidden from us, everything going on now has been done and highly publicized in media. So then, have we just been paralyzed by fear and in a state of denial, is this why we have yet to act on what’s being done to our country? I guess. But then too, our Government has become so secretive and compartmentalized to the point that maybe (that’s a big if) a handful of people in DC or elsewhere, truly are aware at anytime what is really going on with the entire big picture.

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Some of it would be a relatively simple fix, if (and a big if) there is the political will and the right leadership.

An example is the federal bureaucracy. Our government didn’t become systemically corrupt, secretive, oppressive, and authoritarian until Barak Obama politicized the bureaucracy, especially appointing political hacks to control agencies that had been previously non-political. “Joe Biden” continued and extended the practice. Good leadership would make the bureaucracy non-partisan again, and keep it out of politics.

That’s just one example, but the point is that the problems are soluble, even the deficit and debt. But they will require good management and fiscal discipline and it’s absolutely certain that it won’t come from the Democratic Party and the people currently running the government. They are ideologically and politically incapable of doing anything different from what’s happening now.

I don’t look at Trump as a savior, just as the only realistic chance of changing course before disaster.

People often forget that a change in administration is not just about changing Presidents. It’s about changing the thousands of people who run the government…. which changes everything.

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Expertocracy, taxes and overregulation (under the pretence of safetism) is rampant since decades. So it is not a recent development and nothing to do with left or right.

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🎯

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Vance seems good, except his appearance of itching for a war with Iran and being in the grip of Israel.

Any thoughts on that?

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The PayPal mafia and Necon Zionist puppets wouldn't install a S&B Yaley manchurian liberal hillbilly JDV so they can impeach or assisinate Trump to get their war with Iran. C'mon John, that's all just VDS from shitlibs on the left. The right is our only hope of restoring the country to greatness. If you have to choose a mental prison to keep yourself a tax paying wage slave of the collapsing empire, at least choose the right one.

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“If you have to choose a mental prison to keep yourself a tax paying wage slave of the collapsing empire, at least choose the right one.”

A rare cogent reasoning to vote the lesser of two evils scenario.

Alas, we are already in prison, courtesy of our own two-party duopoly

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You can escape it at any moment by rejecting all of the prepared political theater and letting others see the prison bars they've put in front of themselves.

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"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move all the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre." - Frank Zappa

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Agreed. And thank you for your work and insight.

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Exactly right. People just don't want to take off the one party glasses to see that the socialists are people from the republicans and democrats.

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Just asking a question… relax.

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Oh sorry… I missed the sarcasm. I am usually quicker.

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No worries. Happens to me every day online.

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DING, DING, DING…we have a winner!🏆 👏

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He sounds like amazing guy

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Would like to see a meme with Kamala's face on a camel. Camels are known for spitting in a human's face if one stands in front of them. Living in CA I have always referred to her as KAMEL Harris because of the camel trait of spitting. For she has spit in our faces daily since day one in her job as attorneys general and now as VP. I know it mean, but so is she.

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