102 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.

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

"... 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, ..."

😂😂🤣

Expand full comment
founding

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.

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

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

Expand full comment

Exactly. Those were my main concerns .

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment
founding

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

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

Why were they unable to cheat adequately in 2024?

Expand full comment

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).

Expand full comment

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. .

Expand full comment

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?

Expand full comment

Mental and spiritual illness

Expand full comment

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

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

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

Expand full comment

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..

Expand full comment
founding

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?

Expand full comment

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

Expand full comment
founding

Ya think?

Expand full comment

"horizontal marketing" - nice turn of phrase

Expand full comment

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

Expand full comment

LOL I stand corrected to a brilliant assertion LOL..

Expand full comment

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'.

Expand full comment
founding

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

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

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

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

All that and he still voted for Harris? WTF?

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment
founding

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

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

"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

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

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

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

Yep, them bioweapons be winning, spray painted with skypainting

Expand full comment
founding

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. 😀

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

Well said!

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

Mirroring my comment offered earlier today (9 hrs ago) on John Leake's post "A Little Learning" (https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/a-little-learning):

"Attitude is known in many bodies of conscious work to be of high importance, defining one's experiences in life. Interesting to note how little this is addressed in politics and political critique.

The attraction to K. Harris lies in your statement: "... fosters their belief that they are educated." Translation: arrogance. These urban centres seethe with arrogance, believing they know all there is to know, putting themselves above those who are not "educated, with a bestowed degree for regurgitation."

K. Harris' attitude speaks condescension , arrogance, dismissiveness, and disdain ... preferring to speak plainly; also known as a supreme C----. Attractive to those holding the same attitudes. Today's MSM with the likes of Tapper; Whippie Goldberg; et al hold the same attitude. Disdain for democracy and for anyone who is not them/ their shared vitriol."

Expand full comment

RIght, let's just censor the shit out of anyone saying anything other than what we're saying. We need more bureaucrats - Whoopie and the girls on the View will say, as they call Donald Trump Hitler and dangerous to Democracy. Apparently the author of this article agrees, hence his vote for Kamala, no matter his reluctancy...he bid the doing of the dems, with the stroke of his pen.

Expand full comment