How To Denounce your Father

Fake stoic Ryan Holiday subjected his own father to a public struggle session for voting the wrong way in 2016 and 2020

Comrades: The red guard struggle sessions will continue until morale improves - never trust a “stoic” who holds one against his own family.

Sanpaku sociopath eyes?

Ryan Holiday is a bestselling author who has branded himself as the millennial stoicism guru. Yet he does the opposite what he preaches. In both 2016 and 2020, he publicly denounced his father for voting for Trump. A normal human being would never dream of disgracing their parents. Enlightened “expert” Ryan is proud of holding the same struggle sessions that tore many families apart and led to countless deaths during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. My father and grandfather were subjected to those horrors, and I would never dishonor them this way. Ryan is making the rounds whining about how the Naval Academy disinvited him from pontificating to its cadets, yet he donated $10,000 to remove Confederate statues from the Barstrop County courthouse.

I will break down his 2016 open letter because it is a case study of the Cluster B narcissist Trump Derangement Syndrome that has only gotten worse over the past decade.

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Dear Dad, Please Don’t Vote For Donald Trump

I originally submitted this piece to the New York Observer where I am an editor-at-large and a columnist on media and culture. Editorial decided it would no longer accept columns of this nature on this topic. I have the utmost respect for the leadership at the Observer, but I respectfully disagree with that decision.

Strong start with an insufferable humble-brag.

Dad, let me start this letter by saying that it isn’t my intention to embarrass you. I find that I can express myself in writing better than I can when we talk on the phone (in fact, if anyone likes this piece, that will be, in its own way, a compliment to you — I developed as a writer sitting alone in my room as a kid, trying to find ways to respond to your overwhelming parental logic) and so when I heard that you were leaning towards voting for Donald Trump, I felt inclined to put my thoughts down so they would be clear.

Pure narcissism. If it isn’t his intention to embarrass his father, then he should not write an open letter to the world calling him out. This is all about elevating his own ego to virtue signal at the expense of his poor father.

“I’m complementing you, not embarrassing you, father! Now bow to my mob!”

It’s fitting that I would write to you here anyway, because the Observer has its own father issues when it comes to Donald Trump (Mr. Trump is the publisher’s father-in-law.) This is a newspaper that, despite its sincere and passionate reporting on anti-Semitism and its frontline investigations on the rise of Russia as a national security threat, has found itself endorsing and defending Trump, even as he veers dangerously towards courting anti-Semitism and justifying Russia’s authoritarian methods (when he isn’t complimenting the tactics of Saddam Hussein.) Having been associated with my own fair share of controversial people, I empathize with the position, Jared Kushner, the paper’s owner, must be in.

Jared Kushner is Jewish. Ivanka Trump converted to marry him and their three children are Jewish. Trump is the most pro-Israel president in a generation. Meanwhile, leftist universities have been taken over by the woke jihad. And yet Trump is literally Hitler.

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I get that elections are complicated. Yet I cannot help but feel that the right choice has become increasingly simple. Not easy, but simple. The choice is simple because it’s hard for me to think of a single person who violates more of what you taught me as a child. The case against Donald Trump as a candidate — even as a person worthy of two seconds of anyone’s serious attention in our busy lives — is clear to me precisely because of what I learned from you, Dad.

I remember the trips we took to Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay. This is where people like Grandma and Grandpa first arrived in America, you told us. It was here that they stopped on their way to the American Dream, fleeing the terror of their homeland and hoping for a better life. You taught us that it was honorable and brave to be an immigrant and that what made America special was that we opened our arms to these people. Do you remember taking us to the Civil War battlefields and explaining how many of the men who fought and died in that war were fresh off the boat, paying for their citizenship to this country in blood — dying to eradicate the scourge of slavery, a plague they had nothing to do with creating in the first place? That was what made America great, you said.

Broken NPC chip glitches with condescension and false equivalencies. Legal immigrants who came through Angel and Ellis Island are not the same as millions of illegals pouring across the Rio Grande. No American soldiers fought and died for open borders. Ironically, Americans Ryan’s ethnicity are blamed for slavery even though it ended 150 years ago.

But you didn’t just teach us to admire white European immigrants either. It was from you that I learned to respect just how hard Latino, Asian, and Middle Eastern immigrants worked to make a life for themselves here. You told me what it was like picking fruit in the California heat, and explained how they took jobs that other people weren’t willing to do — because they wanted to support their families just like everyone else. You also took the time to explain how many immigrants were entrepreneurs — starting restaurants and small businesses from donut shops to car dealerships (we’ve invested together in a few of those small businesses) and how their efforts made the world better for everyone.

Awkwardly went out of his way to be inclusive of all colors. If the low-wage slaves won’t pick the fruit, then who will? Mass migration made the world better for everyone. There were no trade-offs or downsides at all. You’re a bigot if you suggest it lowered wages, strained services, and damaged social cohesion.

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When I was in Austria a few years ago, I called Mom and had her do some research to find the location of the refugee camp that Grandpa was sent to when he was just a little younger than I am now. It’s an apartment complex now, which I guess goes to show how quickly we can forget the kind of thinking that creates such horrors. Experiences like these — they color the way I see the world, which is why, I imagine, you encouraged us to travel and study history. Those trips are why I find it so repulsive to hear Donald Trump talk about how Mexicans are “rapists” and how his solution is building a literal wall — “We’re going to have a big, beautiful wall that nobody’s crossing” — to keep these kinds of people out. I find it disgusting to hear him talk about banning Muslims from America. That’s not what you taught me. That’s not how this country is supposed to work. Mom and half our relatives wouldn’t be here if it was.

Ryan lives on a 40-acre ranch with fences around it. Doubt he has any Muslim or Mexican neighbors and friends. Even lower chance he knows or cares about all of the rapes by Muslim grooming gangs in the UK and illegals in America. The stoics would not throw around the words repulsive, disgusting, and literal wall.

I told you that a few weeks ago we had someone out at the house to repair some damage from the floods. As I was walking the property with the guy, he asked me if I owned a gun. I said that I did — this is Texas after all. “Good,” he said, “you’ll need to have something when them sand niggers come and try to take this country from us.” Then he told me about how he was glad Donald Trump was speaking the truth and taking things in the right direction.

I know you don’t agree with this man. And I don’t think it’s fair to hold a candidate accountable for every fringe group that attaches themselves to their platform. But doesn’t it alarm you to see a candidate who seems to stoke these kinds of fires — directly or indirectly? Surely you must be shaking your head at Trump’s repeated refusal to distance himself from these people.

I’m sure this story happened and wasn’t made up. Quite the twist to create a red herring, then say that it isn’t fair to hold a candidate accountable for his worst supporters. Still waiting on the Dems to disavow Antifa instead of saying it’s just an idea.

Ryan should read his tattoos more often:

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… I’ve tried to think about why we’ve been so forgiving of Donald Trump. Is it because his opponent is a woman? Does it say something about us? Have we all collectively lost our sense of where the line is and we’re just hoping that someone will finally draw it for us?

I realize that most of these issues I’ve brought up are personal ones, but isn’t all politics personal? That’s a lesson I learned from you, too. I remember asking whether you supported the Republican or the Democrat candidate in some local election when I was a kid, having heard some friends’ parents talking about it. You told me that people got too caught up in party affiliation and that what really mattered was character and whether you could work together with the person (and whether they could do the job). That’s how I’ve tried to think all my life. I’m thinking about it now that it really matters.

Narrative violation! The gender card did not apply here. When NYU theater professors experimented with swappinng the genders of Trump and Clinton while reading the same script from their debates, the lib crowd favored favored the female Trump. Science!

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The baffling reality is that when it comes to Trump, it’s difficult to critique him on much besides his personality and (lack of) character — because that is all there is. Maybe you can make an exception for some of these comments, I’ve certainly said dumb things before. We all have. Maybe we chalk them up to media mischaracterizations as some of the Trump supporters I know have (given what I write about in this column, I’m the last one to think the media is completely fair or trustworthy). But even making allowances for that, I know for a fact, no matter what the talking heads on TV are trying to tell moderate conservatives, is that you and he stand very far apart on most of the economic principles and civil policies in which you have always believed.

I remember long trips in the car and the conversation we had about civics and governance. The basics you taught me about the free market, about capitalism, about the government staying out of people’s business. Now that I’m an adult, I’ve come to fully understand and truly appreciate why you taught me these lessons. I see how they’ve contributed to my own success. I also see how the few policies or firm beliefs Trump might actually have fly in the face of all of them.

Ryan wrote a book in 2013 about how the media lies and manipulates. Yet he still falls for MSM propaganda. When you know how the sausage is made, but you continue to shove it into your face.

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Besides repeatedly donating money to Democratic (and Republican) candidates from whom he tried to get favors, Donald Trump has said publicly that there should be “some form of punishment” for women who get abortions (though he later backtracked under pressure). He’s advocated economic policies that the experts say will start trade wars with China and Mexico. He cheered Brexit because it might drive traffic to his Scottish golf courses (the definition of a conflict of interest), has hinted at using federal resources to go after personal enemies like Jeff Bezos, admits he would continue to let his children run his numerous international businesses while in office, supports “opening up” our libel laws to reduce freedom of the press, and apparently believes that global warming is a lie created by China.

I suppose it would be one thing if these beliefs came from some unique ideological framework but we both know they don’t. He’s a man who reacts, a man who speaks before he thinks (something you always taught me to avoid). These aren’t the meticulously crafted positions of an educated leader surrounded by qualified and informed policy experts — as Trump famously said, he advises himself. There is a quote I read from Winston Churchill recently. During World War One, someone asked why he was reading the work of a certain anti-war poet. “I am not a bit afraid of Siegfried Sassoon,” Churchill said, “That man can think. I am only afraid of people who cannot think.”

The clash between the instinctual and the institutionalized. In Ryan’s PMC world, leaders must regurgitate word salad from their qualified experts. They cannot imagine operating any other way.

I think that’s why I am so scared, Dad. That’s why I am writing you this letter. I don’t think this man has done a lick of thinking in years — except about himself and the irrational prejudices and fears which rule his increasingly erratic and bizarre life.

If my understanding of where you sit it is correct, you are inclined to agree with most of the criticisms I’ve just made and yet are swayed by very few of them. As is true for a lot of Americans, I know you’ve been disturbed with a lot what Trump has said and wish sincerely that someone else was running in his place. The problem is — the reason you can’t help but feel pressure to give him the benefit of the doubt or vote for him reluctantly — is that you feel a profound and real distrust towards Hillary Clinton.

A grown man is scared of an election. The opposite of stoicism. If you don’t consoom goodthink, you are not thinking!

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I wasn’t old enough to experience the anger and disillusionment that the Clintons brought to the White House. I get the sense that you see them as thoughtless, careless self-aggrandizers who believe themselves to be above the law. Given the evidence, this is a more than fair assessment. You have real, negative experiences with the last administration and the vague memories of the scandals and noise of that era probably makes another four years seem unappealing. I get it. It was J.K. Galbraith who said that politics was a matter of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. I don’t disagree with you we are dealing with less than ideal options. But surely, unpalatable is better than disastrous.

Then again, no one is saying you have to vote for Hillary. I’m just asking if you could not vote for Donald Trump. Vote for a third party candidate. For a write-in, you could take a page from Trump’s people, who when they initially had trouble finding people to speak on his behalf at the convention, apparently just put “George Washington” in as a placeholder. Or, what about just not voting in this election? Is that not a powerful statement in its own right? One does not need to endorse disaster just because they resent unpalatable.

The only real talk of this entire screed. The Clintons and Obamas are self-aggrandizers. If I were the father, I’d vote for Trump at this point just out of spite. Ryan has wasted thousands of words to suggest voting third party, not voting, or writing in George Washington.

Mitt Romney has said that he was finally motivated to get involved in this election when his son asked him, “When the grandkids ask ‘What did you do to stop Donald Trump?’ what are you going to say?’”

I was so happy to be able to tell you a few weeks ago that you have your first grandchild on the way and that he’s expected to arrive just three days before the election. I think that’s why I am writing this letter too, as my way of asking myself what am I going to do to make sure the world he enters is just a little bit better than the one I came into thirty years ago. I guess I am writing this letter to ask that you, as his grandfather, do what you can to ensure the same.

Mitt Romney is so stunning and brave! RINOs like him let the left trample over them in their long march and still got called racist/sexist for their troubles. After this grandstanding, he sucked up Trump to get a job in the administration and all he got was this iconic troll photo.

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So that when he does ask, not that many years in the future, looking back at what was hopefully just a painful aberration in this nation’s history, we both have a good answer to how we faced this challenge in front of us. And that we acted — despite any personal feelings, or complications or doubts — with principle and courage.

Dad, please don’t vote for Donald Trump. Everything you’ve taught me about what is wrong in the world is everything that man represents. And if you won’t do it for me, do it for your grandchild. Give him something to be proud of — and thankful for.

Your Loving Son,

Ryan

A loving son would never do this. Imagine using your son as emotional blackmail on your father. This is the type of dude who would ban relatives from his house for not getting jabbed or voting he right way. Too bad for Ryan, this is not a painful aberration - MAGA and Trump will live rent free in his head for the rest of his life.

Can you reason with a demoralized person?