PS: Good morning, Achmed!

𝐹𝑖𝑟𝑠𝑡 𝑜𝑓𝑓, "𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑔𝑜𝑙𝑑?" 𝑆ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑚𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑜𝑙𝑑...
Yeah. Joke's on Trump. I'd be surprised if there is any gold left.
(Perhaps there's a market for tungsten? I hear that's worth about $25 an ounce.)

𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑤𝑎𝑦 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑠...
It sure does, Mr. Moderator.

Happy Wednesday! ☮️

PS: I meant to write "... it's not that we *don't* trust ya...", but then, the other way works.

PS: "Today I heard about Trump's plan to sell off gold and create new debt to build a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?" Holy cow! I thought someone in the ZeroHedge comments was kidding when he wrote that!

First off, "what gold?" Show me the gold in Fort Knox. It's been about 70 years since it's been audited - just want to make sure nothing's corroded or whatever... it's not that we trust ya', just, you know, verifying.

Yes, $8 1/2 more trillion over 4 years + a month sounds about right. Only thing is, that's under the assumption they just spend like madmen, as usual. Once the interest starts becoming 1/2 of all revenue, you get to that "suddenly" part of the "gradually, then suddenly" line (if I have the line right). It'd be like realizing that under this new CC that they gave you, the worst risk they'd ever seen, with that 35% APR and your current balance, your minimum payment amount is about half your net income. Things get bad... they start running out of burrito coverings ...

I'm sure some of those .jpgs of yours will work great for the site, Adam - haven't looked yet. Have a good day.

PS: Good evening, gentlemen,

Hulk Hogan Republicanism is, apparently, mainstream because Idiocracy or something. (Not that the other side of the uniparty is any less dumb.) Today I heard about Trump's plan to sell off gold and create new debt to build a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? At least ending daylight savings time makes sense. Maybe he should try minting a $45 Trillion Dollar Platinum coin.(?) (Because the U.S. is on track to be nearly $45 Trillion in debt by the end of Trump's second shift.)

https://i.ibb.co/XDvx4g4/Kung-Flu-Fighter.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/fvzdG5Y/Kung-Flu-Fighting.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/p03JQ98/Snowman.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/w7s0DhG/Trump-Rally.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/2q2ZZJ3/Christmas-on-the-Subway.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/MDBg1qm/Icecream.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/hcJ1RSV/Checking-the-Signal.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/5B52rB5/Toy-Train.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/bQgMG8t/One-Horse-Open-Sleigh.jpg

Anyway... I hope you guys are doing well. Nothing new going on here. Been raining the last few days. But warm, so that's nice. Most the plants got to go back outside and get some rainwater which they love. (They don't really prefer to be inside. But they also don't like freezing.) Looks like I'll have to bring them back inside for the weekend. I guess we'll see.

Happy Wednesday! ☮️

PS: ", I think Alexander Turok is giving voice to the view, or position, that if hostile forces control a major, monopolistic-like institution in a society, the best strategy is often NOT to say "We are done with this!" Sometimes it can be the right way."

We are done with this means separation, if not geographically, in some other ways. No, we can't regain America completely like that. For some of our institutions, I really believe letting the burn down and rebuilding later is the best way. I don't mean literally - [not a legal disclaimer from a former fire bug, BTW] - but the university bubble is one that really should be made or let to pop. Instapundit has been using that "bubble" term for a long time now.

We're talking about the finances, but since the morally hazardous Gov't-backed and -issued student loan business is what supports huge unnecessary (for the country and said student) enrollment and all the D.I.E. stuff, the "studies" departments, and the whole stupid atmosphere of these days, it should and hopefully will burst with a prick from the financial side. (Steve Sailer has mentioned the demographics - not race this time, but just age - to where there should be a lull in college-aged students coming in even without whatever else. One wonders if that's the impetus for "stapling of green cards" BS and MOAR foreign students - who stay here forever.)

The university system is just one institution that the ctrl-left still dominates. Should the right stay out of politics? No. I understand about having the right (in both senses) elites for the country, That's a tall order when it comes to the world of Globalist elites who have no regards for ANY country. I get that we can't have MAGA controlled by the Hulk Hogans and such. What did Bill Buckley, erudite as he was, do for the right, though?

I'm trying to think of the type of guy we need to be one of said beneficial elites. It'd be a cross between Tucker Carlson, Steve Sailer, and Alex Jones, maybe, have to experiment with the proportions of DNA... ;-}

PS: Sorry for the delay in my response, Mr. Hail. I was off the web most of the day, picking up a car from the shop a ways out, talking to these country gentlemen for an hour or more, and getting some big meal that had me nearly comatose upon arrival home.

"A good portion of the Sailer-commentariat is actually anti-Trump outright -- I think especially here of Mr. Anon (a PS reader) and prime_noticer and many others -- although few go so far as to adopt such a 'persona' as Alexander Turok's, to do so."

I wonder how Mr. Sailer feels about Trump, especially at this point, when he has at least made a big effort to try to turn things around (we'll see...) Steve hasn't written very much about Trump. I don't think he is really against Trump's policy, but I think he does not like the low-brow ways of Trump. That's not at all what has me exasperated by Trump at all, which brings me to Mr. Anon here (and there - TUR).

It's easy to get exasperated with the man when you see/hear him talk. I get the same feeling Mr. Anon does at times. Trump is all about Trump, but I do think that this time around the work he's doing for himself (his own ego) is also in pretty good alignment with what we need done. No, he can't change his personality, but he can learn. I think he's learned a lot in 8 years.

PS

I dropped a link to Peak Stupidity at the Alexander Turok blog. Maybe he will show up here to defend his honor, or to look in the comments for the latest Adam Smith art.

(Christmas being almost here, Adam Smith may be working on Christmas-themed art even as we speak.)

PS

-- When does criticism from the Right go too far? --

To be more direct in my point (continued from earlier comment), I think Alexander Turok is giving voice to the view, or position, that if hostile forces control a major, monopolistic-like institution in a society, the best strategy is often NOT to say "We are done with this!" Sometimes it can be the right way. But even at best there is a danger of it inflating into something unproductive:

"Reading? Math? Those things are for NERDS, and radical feminists and the great surfeit of Black-geniuses we have such as Harriet Tubman (p.b.u.h.). Real White-men should never 'read' or learn things unless they are GAY! Vote Elizondo-Mountain-Dew-Camacho 2028!"

To tie it back into the subject of this post: a criticism I would make of my own side in 2020-2021, the Anti-Panic side (actually a "coalition" of sides, camps, and outraged individuals), is that a lot of were probably a little too willing to say "Experts are ALWAYS wrong! I NEVER trust the 'experts'!" I think this was an understandable reaction at the time, but it can easily spin off into bad directions.

Towards the most important question of our times, if we are to reverse Third Worldization there needs to a highly morally serious core, a new elite that really-truly believes in the cause and is not out for some sort of self-serving purposes. That elite, which would institute an anti-Third Worldization regime at some time in the coming years, cannot rest on a base of "The experts are always wrong." Because they would themselves have to be the experts. (Experts in reversing Third Worldization.)

PS

"did you get a lot of extra traffic to your site?"

Yes, but I don't know the true magnitude because the statistics function on Wordpress has not worked reliably well in many years. Probably a fair number. But estimating with reliability would require more info on the Substack and how Wordpress picks up Substack.

In the early 2010s, and I believe still in the mid-2010s, every visit would reliably be recorded, including every search-term that brought people in. That stopped being true a long time ago: Now almost no search-terms are recorded. For a variety of reasons, I think Wordpress' traffic-tracking function no longer works. It's one of many signs of the big break-down in how "the Internet" works. Everyone has commented on how much worse Google-search is, for example. There is a lot more chaff than was true in the 2000s-era Internet.

A big reason the post got relatively little attention (only twenty 'Likes') is that it wasn't promoted by Substack's algorithm. The old model of browsing websites was that a person would directly "log on" once a week or once a day or once every few days to iSteve.com or any other specific website, to see what was new. Now, people rely on things coming through a "feed." Any item that doesn't come through such a path doesn't end up in front of your eyes. Twitter has another form of this, which we don't know quite how the current version works. Some say that Twitter now punishes external-links even more than had been true in the late-2010s, early-2020s pre-Musk era.

So the short answer is: It's unclear.

PS

I like the Alexander Turok writings because as I see it he is being critical from a constructive perspective: as a critic of the Right from the Right (or Alt-Right, really, to use an anachronistic term).

True, he adopts a needlessly confrontational tone or posturing; but that very tone or posturing is liberating for what he's up to. It removes one completely from the kind of groupthink that becomes so powerful around elections and which has become especially salient in these late 2010s and early 2020s on both sides. (Both sides are stuck in reactive-mode; "the others guys did WHAT? The other team said WHAT? I am outraged!")

A good portion of the Sailer-commentariat is actually anti-Trump outright -- I think especially here of Mr. Anon (a PS reader) and prime_noticer and many others -- although few go so far as to adopt such a 'persona' as Alexander Turok's, to do so.

The problem with doing what Alexander Turok does is that you can slide into doing "critique for critique's sake," which I think may be behind what bothers you about his writing (more even than "being wrong," which is not unimportant of course).

PS: Also, Mr. Hail, did you get a lot of extra traffic to your site?

PS: You've mentioned that this Alex Turok has a left-wing point of view, Mr. Hail. He's plain wrong about so much in his post.

"Many imagine these people as Starbucks baristas, adjunct professors, Dr. Jill Biden, and various other unaccomplished people. But they're also doctors, lawyers, engineers, and businesspeople." Yes, we imagine the former. Engineers are educated, but most are not stupid - they generally are Conservative, as are businessmen. Lawyers and doctors - it's probably 50/50.

It's that first crowd that we, not imagine but, KNOW, are left-wing highly educated idiots.

What many good people on the right are trying to push is for Conservative men, especially, to go into trades or other non-degree-requiring work (unless they are engineering/science/math/computer types), so that:

1) They don't get indoctrinated.
2) They don't end up 4 or 5 years later making low money with a (2010) mortgage-sized debt on their shoulders.

I don't know exactly what Matt Walsh said, but I doubt he'd have a problem with people sending their kids to Hillsdale or other Christian colleges.

"The disparity by race and college education is higher. Trump won 66% of non-college whites and 45% of college-educated whites." 45% of college White people, sure - how many of the other 55% were these baristas and studies majors and other non-productive people, and how many were women, with lots of overlap?

The thing is, put political strategy for winning elections aside and think, "Do we want to pander to these people? Why should we push for policy that helps them - none of it aligns with what's good for the country?" If it's all just about winning elections for the GOP (what Walsh seems to think is most important for the right), why not pander harder to Hispanics?

This guy is just confused. I'd say he's trying to gaslight the right even, but I can't be sure he just isn't stupid. Sorry, Mr. Hail - I don't like this guy either.*

Now, I didn't watch the GOP convention, and I'm glad I didn't, because, no I want nothing to do with Hulk Hogan, the rappers, and whomever else they brought in. I understand that we don't want to go the Idiocracy route. Perhaps it's that convention that had people worried.

* And that's not because I'm going back to his pro-Panic positions on TUR 4-5 years ago. I'd almost forgotten about that, almost ...

PS: I read the Alex Turok substack post that you linked to, Mr. Hail. I don't agree with it all. I'll have to write back a little later on this.

PS: Sorry for the ambiguity, Mr. Hail. Your 2nd interpretation is what I meant. In fact, as I was reading your comment, I read (2) and thought "yes, that's what I meant."

Trump is not a numbers guy at all, unless it involves real estate budgets, I guess. Even with his tariffs, an idea that he's had for a long time and one that I strongly support, I'm not sure HOW he thinks tariffs can offset the entire income tax revenue, unfortunately. (... for a number of reasons.)

"The big negative with Trump, as has been true all along, is that he is not a morally serious person." That's a good way to put it. Yeah, I wrote that he doesn't have ("uphold" would have been better) principles. I could have said he doesn't have integrity, but then that's something slightly different.

PS

A thought-provoking new column by Alexander Turok, on the Sailerian topic of "the dumbing down of the U.S. Right" especially evident since the mid-2010s (but in some form visible throughout the 2000s and 2010s and having reached impossible-to-ignore status by the 2020s):

https://alexanderturok.substack.com/p/whats-with-the-online-rights-bizarre

("What's With The Online Right's Bizarre Haredi-LARP?" Alexander Turok, Substack, December 4, 2024.)

____________

"(....) It brings to mind a quote by Kurt Vonnegut. "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." You start off making a strategic decision. Having Hulk Hogan speak at the Republican convention will alienate some high-class voters, but it will attract low-class voters, and there are more low-class voters. But not everybody gets the memo that it's just a political strategy. To them, Hulk Hoganism is the Republican party. Telling them to give it up is like telling the Democrats to cool it with the LGBT stuff, a sacrilege. Zoomer Republicans who came of age under Trump never knew anything different. (....)"

PS

"By the summer of '20, we had even more information, and Trump had too. While Americans had had it with the Totalitarianism, Trump failed there. He doesn't actually have principles, I have to say again. By this time, he should have fired the whole lot of the Panickers."

I agree with the sentiments there. But I would amend or challenge one part: What does it mean, what do we understand it to mean, that Trump "had" information by x or y or z point?

(Interpretation 1.) The line can be interpreted to mean that Trump had read, heard, or been "briefed" on 'new' information by x month; for example, via the conduit-to-sanity we remember fondly as Dr Scott Atlas. Atlas a stepping-stone to the entire Anti-Panic movement or coalition that had emerged in the first six months of 2020. The Anti-Panic side was correct on the important facts the start.

(Going from memory from having read Scott Atlas' book, he started to be indirectly influential by some time in July 2020, was formally in the White House Corona-Panic Task Force by about mid-August 2020, and remained as an adviser until around mid-December 2020. His influence was relatively limited compared to the overwhelming weight of Reality and Truth, Justice, and Light on his side.)

(Interpretation 2.) The line that Trump "had" more information by mid-summer 2020 can also be interpreted to mean the info "was technically available," but that Trump paid it no attention. That he didn't care about the technical details or which side was right (or "more right") on the huge debate at the time.

I feel confident the second is more correct, judging by the weight of DJT's statements, posturing, and actions.

The big negative with Trump, as has been true all along, is that he is not a morally serious person. There are signs of this all throughout his "act," and I remember distinctly having this feeling in the early weeks of his formal political-campaign presence in mid-2015, but eventually coming to support him, at first because "at least it makes a statement" (the entry-drug into the narcissistic political-demagogue's world).

DJT's talents are as a showman, a showboater, a marketer, a self-promoter, a campaigner. None of the above traits are bad things per se. Some of would of us would tend to think they ARE objectively bad for being inherently deceptive. But the more important thing is what you DO with such powers or mass-swaying abilities. Soemone using those tactics to bring a morally serious, principled, positive, non-nepotistic, classic Western-style functional regime into place and take active measures to actually fight Third Worldization (instead of just talking or tweeting about it), that is a good thing.

The warning, back to the ancient Greeks, against "demagogues" has in mind people exactly like Trump. Emotionalistm over rational thought; the whipping up og people for little constructive purpose (generally aiming for self-promotion via destruction of 'weaker' leader-figures), not really standing on a morally serious base of principles, and indeed perhaps truly "not caring" about things beyond his own ego and inner circle. The wealthy-elite Arab father-in-law of one of DJT's daughters, out of nowhere has been appointed special envoy to the Arab world (and most his appointments have been like this). And that is to say nothing of the well-crafted puppet-strings attached to Trump by the array of powerful dual-citizens with another Mid-East, including the shockingly-unethical behavior of billionaire Kushner family, shocking, at least, to us lowly-ordinary White-Christians.

In the real world -- of mass-democracy, oligarchic manipulation, Big Tech, and the stable constellation of forces we call the Regime -- Orange-Man defenders will say that a character like this IS NEEDED and that my criticisms are all weak, the complaints of a loser, or something similar to that. I see this implicitly a lot, and sometimes explicitly.

The problem with such team-spirit boastfulness is: leadership-quality and character do matter. They matter, at least, during certain key, rubber-hits-the-road historical moments. The Corona-Panic of 2020 was one such case. The lessons of that shameful two-year nightmare I don't think have been learned at sufficient scale, here at the five-year mark. There is, rather, more of a conspiracy of silence on it all.