White Pill Wednesday #15
You Can't Stump the Trump
White Pill(s)
You Can’t Stump the Trump
Just take a moment to stop and think of everything that had to happen for Donald J. Trump to appear on the Joe Rogan podcast. Forget the election results and whatever feelings you may have toward it. The world’s most famous comedian interviewed the most polarizing and popular political figure of the 21st century thus far. And he wasn’t even the first one to do it.
Think about the amount of credibility that had to be lost by the political/cultural elite to the point where recording an off-scripted conversation with an arguably equally polarizing host was a winning strategy for potentially the most consequential American election to date.
Think about how much public trust was forfeit by corporate media outlets that have multimillion dollar budgets, offices around the globe, and reputations that span decades only to be upended by 2 guys and their microphones.
Think about how the will of the people had to turn so viciously against the status quo that they choose a vulgar, volatile, and voracious candidate with no political background instead of the socially safe successor of policies past.
There are a million things to be said about Trump and the current moment. You can fill entire libraries worth of books arguing the merits of his policies, political maneuvering, and public image but that is not what I aim to do here.
I am no political savant nor am I fluent in the matters of my neighbours down south. I don’t understand how the electoral college works. I don’t know inter-state politics on a granular level. I am but a humble Leaf who is just glad to be a spectator of this moment.
What I do know however is that there is a growing population of people around the world that are dissatisfied with how their nations are run, the cultural forces that dismiss their values, and are tired of being ostracized for noticing the decline.
Let’s be clear, Trump did not kill politics. He was simply the coroner that showed up to the murder scene and pointed out the dead body. All he did was take advantage of the growing discontent of the masses that came as a result of the failures of the political/cultural elite to fulfil their publicly stated mandate.
Sowing
Personally I can’t think of a single person I know of that requested for the political/cultural institutions of North America to destroy their credibility. Can’t say I remember of a single press release where a news organization or government body stated outright that they were going to publish salacious lies in order to push a narrative. Yet they have, repeatedly. And when anyone had the audacity to call them out on it they were demonized and bullied out of the conversation.
Which of the stories was it that broke the camel’s back? It’s impossible to say.
Was it the fact that the Hillary Clinton campaign commissioned the political consulting firm Fusion GPS to fabricate opposition research into Trump which led to the manufacturing and publication of the counterfeit Steele Dossier? The same dossier that enabled the media to allege that Trump was a controlled asset of the Russian government thereby labelling him as a traitor. The same dossier that made unsubstantiated claims and yet was treated as the gospel truth when it was released. News coverage of which went on throughout the 4 years of Trumps presidency on a seemingly unstoppable loop.
Just stop and think for a minute about the implications of that story. It would mean that the man running for the most powerful political seat in the world not only has ties to a foreign nation which has been at best a nuisance and at worst a mortal enemy for almost a century to the United States but that he is beholden to them and his actions are influenced by these ties.
By making this claim you are essentially saying that an enemy of the state is competing to be the ruler of the state of which he is an enemy. And that his policies will not only go against the wishes of the nation but will work to fundamentally destroy it from within.
This isn’t just something you can throw around at a cocktail party mid conversation. We used to hang people found guilty of treason for a reason. Because treasonous actions put the safety and security of the nation at jeopardy.
Don’t take my word for it - look at how Snowden exposed the secrets of intelligence agencies and their perversely invasive surveillance on not only the population they swore to protect but those living outside its borders. He may not have been charged with treason but if Snowden considers Russia to be a safe haven from the reach of the United States it kind of tells you everything you need to know about how America treats actual enemies of the state.
And what happened when the investigation into the Steele dossier found nothing of substance to implicate Trump as an alleged Russian asset or that he colluded with them to win the presidency? Did any of these newscasters or politicians lose their jobs? Did any of them face any consequences for the statements they made and the actions they took? Was there ever a point where a national conversation was had to face the fact that this was all a manufactured story from the start?
If the story was actually real and Trump was beholden to the Russians due to compromising blackmail do you really think that he would remain a free man within America’s borders? Like I said about Snowden - if it’s one thing America is really fucking good at it’s taking care of their enemies.
Even if we ignore that - look at how the political elite of the Democratic party treated Bernie Sanders in 2016. For those that don’t remember - on July 22nd 2016 WikiLeaks released nearly 20,000 emails stolen from DNC servers right before their convention. Within these emails was proof that the DNC at the least had a bias against Bernie Sanders and at worst acted intentionally to push him out in favour of Hillary Clinton.
Don’t take my word for it - here’s the link to an email from DNC National Secretary Mark Paustenbach to National Communications Director Luis Miranda stating:
Wondering if there's a good Bernie narrative for a story, which is that Bernie never ever had his act together, that his campaign was a mess.
…It's not a DNC conspiracy, it's because they never had their act together.
Mind you that’s not the only email - just one example of the 20,000 that were leaked. Now I don’t know about you but if you have one of the two major political parties actively working to remove a candidate despite the voters supporting him - that reeks of absolute disdain for the populace. It supersedes the demands of the people for the those of the ruling class by dismissing their existence as an obstacle to their goals. Do those people’s votes just straight up not count because they’re voting for the “wrong” candidate? Last anyone checked that’s not how democracies work.
And even ignoring all that - here’s a shortlist of all the times the American people have been fucked with by the powers that be.
Operation Mockingbird: a covert CIA operation that attempted to manipulate domestic American news media for propaganda purposes.
COINTELPRO: a series of covert and illegal projects conducted by the FBI aimed at surveiling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disruption American political organizations that the FBI perceived as subversive. Including feminists, anti-Vietnam war organizers, Civil Rights, and Black Power movements.
MKUltra: a human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the CIA to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used during interrogations to force confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture.
Tom O'Neill has written an extensive book on the topic where through his own research he found links between Charles Manson and the MK Ultra program that indicate an intent on the part of the CIA to use chaotic events to further their political aims.
2008 Financial Crisis Bailout: $700 Billion dollars worth of taxpayer funds were used to purchase toxic assets from the same banks that took advantage of the housing market for financial gain. 7.5 million jobs were lost, American households declined in net worth by $17 trillion, millions of families lost their homes due to foreclosures, and millions were pushed into poverty.
Biden Laptop Coverup: The New York post published a story weeks away from the 2020 election which alleged corrupt dealings involving Joe Biden, his son, and foreign nationals. Shortly after the story broke many mainstream outlets and social media platforms dismissed it as Russian disinformation.
51 former US intelligence officials signed a letter disavowing the authenticity of the story. The New York Post had their Twitter account banned and their story could not be shared on the platform even through private messages. Other platforms like Facebook followed suit and restricted the sharing of the story which Mark Zuckerberg now regrets apparently.
As much as I’d love to keep going and adding to the list I think I’ve made my point clear. Over the decades there have been endless stories and incidents where the American people had their rights and freedoms taken advantage of or abused in a multitude of ways. And as these violations progressed, the trust that the populace held in their institutions degraded slowly but surely to the point where a candidate like Trump could come along and take advantage of the resentment.
I haven’t even mentioned the Hawaii wildfires, Palestine Ohio train derailment, COVID lockdowns, abandoning of the border, billions sent to Ukraine or any number of stories that have exposed the utter disdain the political/cultural elite have for the people that they are meant to serve.
And what happens when you actively ignore the will of the people? You get what you fucking deserve.
Reaping
What makes this moment particularly special is the fact that we are living in a time where it’s practically impossible to force narratives on the public and expect them to stick - given a long enough timeline. It’s one thing to live in 1950’s America with 10 TV stations and a handful of newspapers compared to 2024 with terabytes worth of data being created and transmitted every second worldwide. For reference, an average MP3 file of a song can be up to 10 megabytes. A gigabyte is made of 1000 megabytes. A terabyte is made of a thousand gigabytes. And every day there are thousands of terabytes worth of data being created and shared worldwide.
Every second that you are reading this there are billions of people around the globe writing, shooting video, recording audio and publishing it on the internet for all to see 24/7 365. Anyone with even the shittiest of jobs in most countries can buy a phone and afford a data plan on minimum wage and have access to it all. There has never been a time in human history where information has been as accessible as it is now. And the parsing of this information is only becoming easier as AI technologies advances at an exponential rate.
As a result, this oversaturated information stream makes it almost impossible to hide or obscure stories when so much of the evidence can be referenced with a quick YouTube search. And so when enough of these scandals pile up without any effective resolution it’s easy to see why so many people have lost faith in those that pretend to serve the people. Especially when someone like Elon Musk comes onto the scene and purchases Twitter, invites journalists to investigate its censorship campaigns, and discovers that the US government pressured the most influential social media platform to do their bidding.
Is it any wonder then that in this new media landscape entertainers like Joe Rogan have audiences that eclipse that of CNN, FOX, MSNBC, and ABC combined? The most viewed Trump interview with a corporate media outlet on YouTube stands at 12 million views with NBC meanwhile Joe Rogan’s interview on YouTube alone is currently at 49 million views and 22 million on his X account. And that’s not even mentioning all the other podcasts that Trump appeared on like Theo Von, Lex Fridman, Andrew Schulz, or the Nelk Boys.
Corporate media is dying as they are not able to adapt to the current media landscape as easily as independent outlets and they have nobody to blame but themselves. They are beholden to the advertisers that make up the lifeblood of their business, the political ties they have with either party, and they mistakenly prioritize maximizing shareholder value for the sake of the truth.
If you need any more proof of this look no further than ABC’s Amy Robach being caught on a hot mic exposing that her network was pressured by the Royal Family in the UK to not cover the Jeffrey Epstein story and Prince Andrew’s ties to Epstein or else the network would lose access to interviewing Will and Kate.
Ask yourself - is ABC singular in how they manage their coverage of stories or are they more likely to be indicative of how all corporate press outlets operate? And if they are, then what else are they not telling the public for the sake of profits at this very moment? If they are willing to go as far as to cover for Epstein - what else are they capable of?
Bottom line, corporate media is losing its influence on people in a way unlike anything we have ever seen before. And even though all of the examples I’ve used are US-centric this trend is not isolated to the United States. This titanic shift is happening globally as more and more people come online and are able to contribute to the growing discourse.
There’s a reason most of the clips I’ve included so far are from the Joe Rogan podcast. Not only are they among the most popular but the JRE podcast is by far one of the most interesting and thought provoking shows in the world right now. You have everyone from comedians, biologists, mathematicians, physicists, authors, athletes, scholars, software developers, thought leaders, celebrities and everyone in between sitting down for unedited longform discussions that feel a whole lot more genuine than 10 minute shouting matches with pharma commercials in between.
Corporate journalism’s grip on the zeitgeist is dying and I for one am excited.
Conduit
Like I mentioned at the beginning of this piece - I am not interested in debating Trump’s record or policies. What I’m more interested in are the conditions that must first exist for a candidate like Trump to even be considered. And the point I keep circling back to is the fact that Trump is merely a conduit.
To me anyways, Trump is a big and long overdue FUCK YOU to the political/cultural establishment and that’s what I love most about him. He has the single greatest story that you can ever tell. The sitting president, Barack Obama, roasted him on the national stage and shortly after that Donald Trump took his fucking job.
Do you realize how absolutely insane that is? The first time Donald Trump ever ran for a position in government he wins the election despite the entire force of the establishment, including the Republican party initially, going against him. Look I don’t blame you if you’ve forgotten just how insane 2016 was but here’s a short highlight reel of how Trump was lambasted in the media only to make them eat their words.
Do you remember now? Can you feel the gravity of the moment? How the man that everyone thought was a joke was never supposed to win ended up beating the candidate that had been in politics almost all her life and had carefully calculated each step towards the presidency throughout her entire political career.
And then it got even better with 2024.
The FBI raid Mar a Lago to seize documents that Trump was accused of stealing.
Meanwhile Biden also has documents just laying around in a Corvette somewhere.
Multiple states tried to make it so that Trump could not be registered as a candidate on the ballot thereby denying voters the chance to vote for him.
Trump was indicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments even though the evidence presented was past the statute of limitations.
Trump survives not ONE but TWO assassination attempts which the media covered for all of half a second before moving on to the next story.
During the first debate Trump exposed Biden for the senile man that he always was, and the press pretended he wasn’t, only for Biden to be replaced by Kamala without any prior warning on a weekend without his staffers knowing anything about it.
How could Biden’s personal staffers not known about this? Why was there no formal press conference to announce such a monumental shift? Why was Kamala allowed to become a candidate without being a part of the primary process effectively making it so that no voters chose her as the candidate of the party?
And yet - he won anyways. Not only did he win but he absolutely dominated Kamala Harris and the forces behind her into submission.
Trump won the popular vote and is the only Republican candidate to do so since Bush in 2004.
Trump won EVERY key swing state.
Trump won the Senate.
Trump could also potentially win the house once California finishes counting their abacuses.
The man faced just about every challenge that could be thrown at him and not only did he survive but he won it all in the end. How fucking crazy is that? With a majority of the political/cultural elite going against him, the judicial system bogging him down with lawsuits, two separate assassination attempts, and plenty of other obstacles - Trump won despite it all.
I mean Jesus Christ the corporate press spent countless hours comparing Trump to Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin. Which quite honestly is a slap to the face for anyone that has lived through the reign of any of those dictators. If Trump has such Hitler-like tendencies then why didn’t he behave as such during his first term? It’s the corporate press’ accusation built on hyperbole versus a proven track record we already lived through.
Holy shit look at that it’s a week after the election and America isn’t the 4th Reich? The world is completely fine and didn’t end like the American people were told it would?
The amount of gaslighting people went through this election cycle only signals just how desperate the political/cultural elite are to hold onto their influence. Because you know as soon as Trump is going to get into office he is going to make some heads roll - as he should.
Post-Trump World
So what now? How do we navigate a post-Trump world?
What I mean by that is - what is the world going to look like as the citizenry:
Become more aware of how their government takes advantage of them.
Gain access to exponentially improving technologies to leverage their competency.
Are more eager than ever to support a candidate that voices their concerns in spite of the establishment ignoring and ostracizing them.
Well for one it’s going to be a lot more entertaining. Trump is comedic as all hell but there’s plenty more leaders like Urgente Milei of Argentina and Nayib Bukele of El Salvador with personalities of their own.
These are but the first inklings of tides turning in such significant ways. Democracies by virtue of being governments of the people, by the people, for the people are more likely than not to see changes like this arise as time goes on - so long as they remain free. If this kind of political moment can happen in America - the most economically, culturally, and militarily dominant nation on Earth - then it can happen elsewhere.
Nobody asked for this and more importantly I feel as though we would all be better off if Trump never transpired. By that I mean - had the government done its job in service of the people and had the corporate media prioritized the truth over profit - there would be no desire for Trump or a Trump-like figure to take advantage of growing resentment.
I for one would really love it if politics wasn’t something I encountered daily. More so, I’d love to not have to even think about my government and what it does on a regular basis. Would be really nice if my nation was run properly and efficiently and I, along with many others that no doubt share my view, were left the fuck alone to our own devices.
Why is there such a need to have government intervene in our lives in all these ways? The government isn’t some mystical entity that is above all reproach - they’re just people like you and I. Just as fallible, corruptible, jealous, vindictive, selfish, and every human characteristic in the spectrum along with narcissistic. They’re just people and they’re just as liable to fuck up like you or I do. Except their fuckups affect thousands if not millions of lives. So wouldn’t it be a good idea to minimize the amount of fuckups that can occur?
Wouldn’t it be great if election days were celebrations instead of this anxiety ridden battleground? Wouldn’t it be great if politics coming up in conversations with strangers don’t become a minefield as you hope the other person is emotionally mature enough to have a decent conversation? I think it would.
Whatever the next 4 years bring, I’m optimistic. The culture shock of the globohomo LGBTQAI+-2# SJW virtue signaling has run its course. People are sick and tired of the political/cultural elite pretending to care about these “values” and forcing the rest of us to adopt them at the risk of ostracization.
And it’s not even that these cultural issues don’t matter, to some extent they do. But to me it feels like they’ve taken center stage when other problems seem more pressing.
Like how the birth rate is plummeting in just about every developed country on the face of the planet.
Or how fragile our infrastructure is to not only foreign attacks but natural disasters and accidents.
Or blackbox race towards AGI that is covertly accelerating between various nations including China.
And also the UAP’s and what they mean for our place in the universe.
I have no doubt that Trump’s incredible and nothing short of mind-blowing double term presidency will go down as one of the most entertaining stories of the early 21st century history. But it sure would be nice if all this didn’t matter as much as it does.
P.S. I am launching the White Pill Wednesday podcast today around 6PM EST. I will be streaming with a live guest on 𝕏 and the link will be posted to my profile here.