173 Comments

After all that, Stephens still voted for Harris?

And there's nothing in there about Covid restrictions and mandates. I know the NYT doesn't like to acknowledge that there were problems with those, but I have no doubt that those were on the mind of many a Trump voter.

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Stephens has stage 5 TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome). People with this affliction launch into hyperbolic fear-mongering nonsensical tirades at mere mention of the name ‘Trump’ and all critical thinking immediately shuts down. Otherwise they go about normal lives, frequently successful in many competitive fields. Most are Dems but the Republican variety are termed ‘Never Trumpers’. Stephens contracted this disease while working at the Wall St. Journal. He sought treatment in the equivalent of a sanitarium for this disease, the New York Times, where he won’t stand out. There they all have it.

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I have a very close friend who is stuck in TDS land. He lives in a liberal pseudo counter culture community (Woodstock, NY) and is surrounded by a crowd of people who all think the same and share many post sixties values. But to stray away from these is considered heresy so everyone just goes along with.

I’m so glad I walked away from that nonsense in 2016 when I saw the love and peace crowd become advocates for war and hatred. I’m not the only one but sadly most aging hippies seem stuck in TDS although they’ve never even considered it. After all, they are always on the right side.

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likewise with the radical lesbian culture, which I politically walked away from. I voted for Hillary of course, but then woke up in 2017. "No one else" in my community as well as the northern California/ southern Oregon Herbal women's community has awakened. I remain outside - shunned yet happily so.

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So much for being non conformists. You can only be a true rebel when you walk away from your peers - not from your parents like so many do.

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Long before Trump I was desperate for the Dems to reform themselves into something sane. Still waiting.

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They will not, as a group, reform themselves. The reformation comes individually…And when it occurs, one person at a time, we find ourselves that we are Dems no more!

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Absolutely true Luna - I still remember those days in my youth marching against war and injustice. Then when I noticed that many of the people by my side were not very peaceful, an epiphany surfaced - it became clear that before there will ever be peace in this world, there needs to be peace in my world 🌎 definitely its an inside job. Still working on it.

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"... Stephens contracted this disease while working at the Wall St. Journal. He sought treatment in the equivalent of a sanitarium for this disease, the New York Times, ..."

😂😂🤣

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Except he wrote a very clear explanation of why she lost, so I’m not in agreement with the TDS explanation or he would have never told the obvious truth about her.

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But he still can’t describe or “get” Trump without using the same talking points of the non-stop biased news pundits who detest him. The same accusations are circulated with a new one thrown in occasionally.

Interesting to call it Trump’s “avoidable comeback.” I call it his inevitable comeback.

I’m one of those who originally supported him (first choice was Dr. Ben Carson). Why? Because he was not of the political class. Our GOP national leadership talked the right game but never walked it. I was more & more frustrated by excuses & inaction. Done w/ platitudes. I wanted an outsider. Trump was my no. 2 after Dr. C. Then Dr. C pulled out ( great joint presser) & Trump was my candidate. He fulfilled every promise in those 4 yrs. 2020 election was a horrid low & full of fraud. Still no way Joe got 81 million votes. no one before or since.

Trump supporters willed him to run again bc we don’t trust folks like McConnell to look after our interests. Only Trump tunes in & has ideas to fix things. But for him…. Who?? I can’t name one with the stature, guts, stick to it ness, drive, & brains, courage to plow through the waste, empty promises, & hubris we’ve dealt with ad nauseum.

So in my view his comeback was inevitable not avoidable. He didn’t have to sign on, but he does care about our nation & We the People. Seems few to none in government or private life do who can actually get things done. Pulling in RFKjr, Musk, & other tallentts is genius. A typical politico would never have done that.

My take isn’t worth much but I felt compelled to speak out.

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It's the NYT version of a limited hangout. He admitted that there were major problems with Harris but then said that he "reluctantly" voted for her because he feared what Trump would do.

The NYT does this kind of thing all the time. Stephens may not personally have TDS, he just is paid to write as if he does.

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likewise. after reading that he voted harris, i threw his reasoned argument into the trash! just another tds posing as considerate. incredible.

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He is probably still wearing a mask. They don’t get it. What they did to us with the lockdowns and mandates was so horrible I can’t see how they come back from this loss. And rfk and trump will hopefully be releasing all that has been hidden about what they knew about the shots and the lab made virus.

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Hahahaaaa! Truly.

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Exactly. Those were my main concerns .

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Yes, and after all that still vote for Harris? Follow the MSM/talking points narrative? Speak up earlier? Afraid to be harangued and negatively labeled that which the liberal left have labeled anyone with an inkling of alternate thought? Afraid to be ejected from the liberal pack, to be doxxed and hunted down? Worried about being tarred and feathered, or worse? Ending thusly secures continued acceptance within the herd, toning down the somewhat-critical observations.

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They were on my mind and besides finding Harris’s candidacy an affront to intelligence and honesty, the democrats infringements on free speech and informed consent made me vote a straight republican ticket for the first time in my 70 years. Hopefully their drubbing will wipe out those currently in control but they are very slow learners

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Yes, mandates and censorship are hallmarks of totalitarian regimes, and the Dems did that, actions speak louder than words.

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They sure are.

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My thoughts exactly. I was shocked when I read that.

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As many have commented, after this cogent explanation of what the dems did wrong, how the author could STILL vote Harris tells me that he is a Democrat who just can't bring himself to move that pen to another name regardless of party. If he can't convince himself to do that, why did he write this piece?

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Mental and spiritual illness

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It's because he knew it would be read by friends and associates. He's a part of the identity politics and is too afraid to admit it. Or go against it. He sees what happened to Naomi Wolf and Alex Berringer, and how they were ostracized. Alex (when I last checked) was still trying to appease them. Naomi has found even greater success, friendship, and trusted associations after being dropped by friends/associates (publicly - she says they say they agree with her, but don't dare have their names published).

Yup... these are the types that have your back... so they know where to stick the knife in. They're so afraid of speaking their minds. I'll tell you, as an old man who doesn't really care what other people think (and I respect their rights to think differently) it's very liberating. And as long as I'm presenting cogent arguments and being considerate of other's views, I find a better megaphone and pointers to fact to help enlighten others... only if they're open to reading/accepting it though. Some "intelligent" people are sheltered, ignorant and completely averse to any other thoughts, and I pity them.

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As an older Woman yes Woman you are spot on and we have the sme issued in UK but instead of turning out En mass for Reform psrty the limp wristed Tories stayed at home. So we have to endure 5 years of Wokery from Labour who only polled 23% of the voting British populace but have a colllosal majority of seats vs Reform with 14% of the votes and 5 seats. We now rely on Tommy Robinson to bring us truth about govermments.

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It starts with his misuse of tense. As an opponent of alcohol prohibition, and again during Camelot, the Democratic Party once STOOD for fairness and freedom, much as did founder Jefferson. There was a lengthy period from Andrew Jackson to Woodrow Wilson when it was the party of racism, genocide and slavery. FDR was under the spell of Modern Monetary Policy and never quite grasped that if a free trade between an Apache hunter and a Pima salt boiler, that kept the Pima family in smoked meat and shoe leather while giving the Apache family relief from muscle cramps during the summer heat, were to happen, both traders needed to agree on the terms. We cannot mandate people off barter and onto banknotes, then dictate the terms of their trade from behind a desk in DC, without destroying the fairness of the trade. And it ultimately took a Republican named Eisenhower to scrap Wilson's Segregation of the Army and the Post Office.

Those brief periods of freedom and fairness were rare. If Democrats are to stand on them, they must practice freedom and fairness more often.

Harris is like a Parisian brat who grew up watching Robespierre use the guillotine. She has yet to pose a solution that did not involve punishment and tyranny, because to her, every problem is a neck because she knows of no other tools.

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I found her quotes regarding "the swipe of her pen" being able to imprison people absolutely terrifying and pathological in the acceptance and demonstration of the abuse of power from her position, totally devoid of morals. And that people followed her and wanted her to be the most powerful person on the earth?

See the definition of "satanic" in a dictionary.

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I see her more like Don Quixote tilting at nonexistent windmills.

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The difference is that Don Quixote had high moral values and pure ideals, Señora Cackle does not not.

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It doesn't make any sense to me either. Wht was his point?

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"because of my fears" He wrote the truth out loud. If we look at almost all of the insanity over the last 4 plus years, fear was the catalyst.

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It's because he's is a neocon warmonger shades of Dick Cheney, the likes of whom have invaded and largely taken over the Democrat party.

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Right? Hes literally talking about himself when he blames "liberals" and "Democrats". What an extreme lack of self awareness.

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Another dipsh*t with TDS. Rather than focusing on Trump, the Democrats should be asking themselves why did 14+ million LESS people vote for Harris than Biden.

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Probably because 12,000,000 of those Biden votes did not exist...

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You know that, and most people without TDS know that. The Democrats have to either (a) admit they cheated in 2020 or (b) had an unbelievably unappealing candidate in 2024. All the apologists in the media need to be pressed on this question.

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Why were they unable to cheat adequately in 2024?

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More attention was focused on it along with awareness being at an all time high. Poll watchers were moe aggressive this time around. Censorship manipulating of narratives and facts took a blow with Musk's acquisition of Twitter (X).

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Probably because the GOP got rid of Rona the Romney and replaced her with Michael Whatley and Lara Trump who cleaned house and found ways to stop enough of the cheating to prevent another steal. .

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Closer to 20M

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Interesting that he did not mention that democrats support the WEF using the UN and the WTO to usurp power and control away from the American people. It appears that a sizable number of people are not ready for central planing and finding happiness in owning nothing.

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Stephens couldn't mention the WEF/UN or communism because he works for their news outlet. Cackles has connections with the NWO crowd and that I suspect is the real reason she got the nomination without competition.

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Yes owning nothing and sick as a dog from the j@b

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I just do not see how anybody could vote for Chameleon.. I do not believe she is a practicing Lawyer either because Lawyers can talk.. She may have a lawyer degree, but she never practiced it, makes me think she was propped up in every position she had.. She was selected and the plan was to insert her, well it did not work.. That is what the democrats get for picking a weak candidate for VP due to her skin color of looking black but not being black or for blacks like Obama, it did not work.. She was not deserving of being VP, and definitely not fit for President..

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She was an expert in horizontal marketing going way back to her early days with Willie Brown. So perhaps "propped down" would be a better descriptor?

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"horizontal marketing" - nice turn of phrase

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Wonder if that's how she got her law license?

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Ya think?

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She was selected by tthe plan of what was inserted in her,if I can say that.

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"Kamala Harris the Sugar Baby Tree" [photo image]

https://ace.mu.nu/archives/kamala%20harris%20tree%2001.jpg

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LOL I stand corrected to a brilliant assertion LOL..

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What's scares me is the amount of people, in SF and other places, who think she was a strong candidate. What did they put in those mandated injections. I heard she required that her staff be up to date with all the latest injections. She's a fascist narcissist , but Judge Joe Brown calls her like she is, simply, a 'ho'.

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But over 80% of her staff left. Love Judge Joe Brown.

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Someone pointed out that she used to sound different. Maybe she has actual brain damage from covid or the counter measure. Or maybe she’s on meds or drinks. Wouldn’t be surprising, I notice more and more in those around me and some public figures also misspeaking, memory loss, unclear thoughts

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Nowhere in this diatribe was any mention of Trumps policy to lead and govern this country back to sanity. No credit given to the rank and file's confidence in Trump.

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Stephens is either a fool or a tool. His fundamental argument is that liberals, unlike Trump, have no idea what is important average Americans. Our country is being overrun with intentionally imported illegals and huge numbers of citizens are getting priced out of the American Dream, but he voted for Harris because he is concerned about what Trump may do to "civic life". He wants endless war in the Ukraine, but that somehow endless "entangling alliances" are good for the "conservative movement". Both those of these thoughts are nuts.

Why didn't he just write, I am paid house lackey for the Liberal Establishment and the only way I can write anything close to the truth is if I still bow down to their false Gods and absurd beliefs. Besides, I live in a heavily Red State so I can throw my vote away and can prove my moral superiority, like Liberals, by doing a completely irrelevant gesture that has no personal costs to me. And besides, the pay is good and now I can still get invited to Upper East Side parties because, as the Enlightened Ones know, that's what's important. What a clown.

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"Why didn't he just write, I am paid house lackey for the Liberal Establishment and the only way I can write anything close to the truth is if I still bow down to their false Gods and absurd beliefs." It's in his byline that says New York Times. LOL

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So true.

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Any analysis that doesn't consider medical tyranny; attacks on personal freedoms; attacks on body sovereignty; attacks on constitutional rights; support and participation in illegal and immoral wars; etc etc is missing the point. In biggly fashion.

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What is not understood is that the top echelon of the Democratic Party are terrorists. Obama, Clinton, Biden, etc., and it ripples out from there.

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All that and he still voted for Harris? WTF?

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It reminds me of James Comey who blurted out enough to hang Hillary Clinton and then exonerated her. And the lawyer Hur who had enough on Biden to electrocute him for treason and gave him a pass as an old incompetent man, but not incompetent enough for the left to replace him until too late and he may have gotten his revenge on them.

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He says " Democrats have become the party of priggishness, pontification and pomposity. " Didn't he leave something rather MAJOR out? The Democratic party is the party of lies, censorship, lawlessness, intimidation, and violence. It is the party of the warmongers. It is the party of chaos at the border and Antifa (Harris helped get them out of jail). But centrally, it is the party of LIES. In my view, Bret Stephens destroys his credibility when he admits he actually voted for Harris. I think Stephens has totally misunderstood the appeal of Donald Trump to his supporters who value Trump's authenticity, his straightforwardness, and his humor. To Stephens Trump is "obnoxious." The rest of us would just call that personality. Bret Stephens doesn't have a clue.

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Trump's "entirely avoidable comeback"? Too funny.

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In his TED talk, Bill Gates displays significant overconfidence in his understanding of biologic & medical science. While he possesses some scientific knowledge, he lacks a thorough grasp of biological sciences, particularly the unpredictable outcomes of evolution by natural selection. Although computer hardware & software programming is quite complicated it pales in comparison to the billions and billions of years of variability that has shaped life on Earth.

The level of complexities & unpredictable outcomes of evolution stem from the countless environmental variations and life adaptations, which have influenced changes in living things over the EONS of interactions and biological processes. These processes have recently revealed even atomic-particle energy phenomena, such as quantum entanglement are affecting biological systems. The vast history of microscopic and biochemical changes sets the stage for ongoing evolution, highlighting nature's production of complexity …… This process also is explaining why about 95% of all species that have existed are now extinct.

Therefore, I urge caution regarding scientists doing genetic modifications of infectious agents by Manipulating genetic material and reintroducing (injecting it into)organisms can lead to unpredictable and potentially dangerous developments comes. Ignoring the inherent risks may allow these agents to evolve in ways that make them more infectious and capable of crossing species barriers. It’s a reminder of the unpredictable power of nature

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Delmar, I believe you commented on the wrong article. Bill Gates had nothing to do with this one. But maybe it’s just open season on Mr. Gates and surely he deserves the criticism.

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I will put it simply. You are overlooking the fact that he knows how to kill while he is simultaneously implying he is helping you.

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Yep, them bioweapons be winning, spray painted with skypainting

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Off topic but read it anyway. Gates and the Good (eugenics) Club have a religious like belief that they are really the new gods that can "fix" our poorly worked biological evolution. What they do not understand, even a Trump or Harris, is that as biological beings we are do generally function quite well without their interference. Imho.

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Yes what that science fiction remake with Tom Cruise fimed in Newark NJ. The alien spacecraft swarmed all corners of the attacking humans obliberating everthing and all with their advaced laser weapons and superior advanced army. When all seemed lost all of sudden as tvey opened doors ofctveir craft they started falling to the ground and dying. Why ? Because they encounted earth air with gadzillion viruses their immune systems had to defense to. The End.

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Had no defence to

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They believe they know rather than realizing their extremely limited knowledge

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He made a comment in 2012 that is often quoted about the population of the world and how we could get it down by about 10-15% of the then current total using “vaccines and reproductive medicine” (I may have quoted wrong, but it was very similar.). So he told us back then just what the plan was. I wonder if Mr Brilliant knows the birth rate in the entire world has gone down. Maybe someone should tell him he achieved his goal and he will go away. 😀

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I'm thinking he needs a shot of his own medicine. What's good for the goose...

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Harris didn't lose because she's black, or a woman, or anything like that. She can't talk off the cuff, has to refer to notes, had NO policy ideas formed, spouted actual Marxist epithets and sounded like water circling the toilet with her redundant vapid word salads going nowhere whenever commenting on the current situation facing Americans. One week before the release of reams of research re the Covid vaccine, the Democratic party decided to jump into a war in Ukraine, pivoted off "Get The Shot" and can only talk about the various genders and how normal people are hurting the poor transgendered and the LGBTQIA-etc.,etc.,etc. community; Americans endured a fake pandemic caused by a bioengineered bundle of toxic proteins cooked up in a lab in North Carolina and given a finishing gain-of-function nanoparticulate boost allowing it to stay aloft, the better to infect you with, my dear; we heard nothing from her about proposals to improve small businesses after being trounced by the Big Brother Big Box businesses, how to improve the economy, health "care" (that's really just medical terrorism pushed onto us by Big Pharma) and improve the average American's wages. We were sick of being told the racial problems in America are caused by anyone white because all whites enjoy "white privilege;" We were sick of remembering having been herded like frightened compliant sheep into health centers and drug stores and forcibly injected with medications that haven't been properly tested according to U.S. law, and are really MILITARY COUNTERMEASURES in a biological and chemical war committed on Americans. That's why Kamala lost. Amazed the Dems just can't figure that out after four years of everyone having to enure their draconian dystopian crap.

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Wow I like that term: “medical terrorism”

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She was an absolutely terrible candidate, her running mate was as bad or worse, she offered nothing, said nothing, and did nothing as VP. If RFK Jr was the democrat running mate, then you would’ve had someone of substance even if you disagreed on a few topics. At least you knew he read a book. The knot heads on the mainstream are blaming the electorate and are so out of touch, it’s disgusting and revealing.

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It's illuminating if viewed from old-school civics assumptions about how things work, but they don't work that way any more--if they ever did. Harris has more weaknesses, and Trump has more strengths that the author lists. And many core factors in play aren't mentioned at all: the hidden levers of power being revealed by the WEF themselves; the importance of steady decent paying jobs for a strong social fabric, the fact that lower current levels of inflation over the last year or so don't erase the jumps prices took for the three years prior, now embedded; the fact that people can tell when they are being manipulated by stereotypes of race and class, and can't simply be herded into the Dem Pen; the fact that the Democratic Party has become, at best, agnostic; that political players are pretending Safe and Effective was real, while the rate of signing up for boosters is remarkably low....not everyone has caught onto every game in the casino, but not everyone is a rube either.

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Well said!

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