You could be right, Jamie. Either way you write and think with the precision and color of a nano tech RGB laser pointer! Gold.
In my mind I summarize your ask like this: I know the smart kids have asked you to go along with some stupid shit… but they’re still the smart kids. Don’t give up on them and vote for the narcissistic bully”.
And to your credit you steelman the counter perspective better than many, (while still gently mocking some of the core assumptions). I sense you and Daniel Pinchbeck have similar blindspots when it comes to the smart kids/grown ups on the left. There is a sense that given enough time, and notwithstanding a few casualties and the loss of some “freedoms”, they’ll get it right in the end.
Life long lefty, here, but I don’t share this faith anymore. This difference could be, partly, because the left hasn’t come after you (yet) for wrongthink. If you haven’t been censored, fired or deplatformed for not going along with the Covid program (for sound scientific reasons) for example, then it might seem less real in some ways. Covid tyranny, every bit as much as wokeism, has ransacked the embodied left in ways that will be difficult to ever recover from. It sounds like you still don’t give those concerns much weight.
If you had felt the wrath of the imperial left in your life (I have), or had vaccine injured friends and family (I do), you might not trust the smart kids anymore either and you’d know then — in your bones — what more than half of the country (according to Rasmussen) is feeling and why they’d vote against the lefty smart kids knowing full well it may not go their way.
As a recovering smart kid myself, I know damn well you might be right about the downstream of another 4 years of trump. I also know in a complex chaotic living system like this it’s never just one variable that determines an outcome. We each and all have a role to play in the future no matter who is in the white-house.
Excellent article Jamie. I hope you hit home for those who've been robbing themselves of perspective, or who have been robbed of perceived choice through an onslaught of manipulation. Sometimes it is hard to see the wood from the trees but I feel you did a very good job of trying to bring some level headed sense making here, with a smattering of wit and irreverence too that made it also entertaining for me. Bravo for making a stand.
I am in the third bucket in the Swing state of PA. I seriously think this helped me to decide clearly my vote tomorrow. Thanks. Between your blog and Noahopinions I learn so much.
I think my biggest item is that I now do see clearly, while war is not great. The World as we know it is changing and has been since 2016. The Eurasian powers I wish were our Allies, but they are not. If we do not hold them in check they will expand as much as possible and ensure the US falls hard and they will not let us get back up. I guess we will see how the dice rolls out.
Can’t believe I’m the first to like or comment - this is extremely excellent and should be read and shared widely. Voices that can speak truth across the divides like this need to be heard.
Refreshing. Could have used this article a few weeks ago for a "spiritual" online community I've been shock observing, but thanks none the less for giving me a bit of "I'm not alone in my observations". Chronic hermit empath here, I lack the fortitude and communication skills to be much of a participant in any arena it would seem. I glean a great deal of my understanding from dreamwork. Thank you for adding a bit more to my observational library. Not sure what I'll ever be able to do with it, lol. But it is comforting to know there are others out there who aren't completely asleep at the wheel and making an effort on the ground for a more intentionally holistic and grounded now=future-minded trajectory. If that makes sense.
Thanks for the great piece! I was on the Zoom that you did with Daniel Pinchbeck the other day and was somewhat frustrated that you didn’t get more space to express your thoughts. I’m glad you wrote them down here on substack. Very informative. I’m German though, so not voting in the US election. Will share the piece with American friends!
I've often questioned my own sanity in this election...so many of my closest friends have fallen into the camp you address here. How did I escape capture? Why did my intelligent, kind, and compassionate friends all got sucked into a whirlpool of crazy? I sometimes wondered if I was the crazy one, unable to take off my own blinders.. .Yet all the arguments you make here are exactly the ones I kept trying to articulate to my community again and again. Clearly, it's November 6th and none of this was enough. But I'm always grateful to read your words and know that there are others who see what I see, and care in the ways I care. I'm hoping you have more wisdom to get us through the next few years, too.
having a global perspective and developing an historical perspective help a ton. If you're trying to find or keep your bearings within the hottake troll laden cess pool that is The Discourse in America, you're stuffed!
Yes — education in history, political ideology, economic and global affairs — even rhetoric, philosophy and postmodernism helps. Having the capacity for critical thinking is the minimal bar. This might be the argument for a liberal education and study abroad. A college degree offers no guarantee of mastery in any of these areas.
Brilliant. A very long article that reads like a short one, and full of needed wisdom. Unfortunate that there's been a glitch in reality and all the people who should be reading this are stanning Charles Eisenstein and his crazy nonsense. Or maybe this will go massively viral, let's hope and pray so.
Thank you for your considerable and considered efforts here. I really appreciate the brevity, too. I love it when you get on a roll and lay it out in your inimitable style! This is the Hail Mary sent high into the end-zone as the timer runs out on the Infinite Game. Sending you and yours peaceful winds from the southern Willamette Valley to CO. 💚🤞🫣
brevity! It was damn near impossible to cram it down any further, but short it was not. We have such a tiny shared reality these days that in order to make any counter intuitive point halfway worth making, you've gotta back up and sketch an entire parallel universe first...
Shit… I meant LEVITY. Although the case could be made that - like Guy James commented - you made a long read feel as concise/condensed as humanly possible given the challenges of fractured realities and attention spans.
Reading this a couple days later, I think you nailed the cause of the result. I'm one of those who got labeled with TDS while consorting with anti-regimers who I generally agree with on many fronts - just not on the conclusion they arrived at as to how to use their voting calories. It's been a source of dread for the last few weeks. I'm older than most of them by a couple decades and I think that makes a difference.
I read an interesting piece yesterday https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/bernie-would-have-won. She traces the source of the anti-regime bucket to the way the Dems treated Bernie in the lead up to 2016. It makes sense to me, but that trajectory requires blinders and I think the anti-regimers chose to put them on - as opposed to those who chose to stay the course despite the issues (I have a couple kids who were die-hard Bernie supporters who didn't go anti-regime).
In any case, this was a great read a couple days post hence while trying to imagine a way forward. I think the anti-regimers aren't likely to admit they miscalculated and with any luck they'll recognize that labeling their once friends with TDS put them into wierd MAGA company. If RFK Jr gets kicked to the curb as you predict, they may be eating some crow.
Thank you for the piece, Jamie. A lot of good signal in here.
I may not fully resonate — I ultimately decided not to vote because, in short, I see huge corruption on both sides and I believe the complexity of this election is so gargantuan that it is impossible to predict the downstream effects — but I appreciate you taking the time. It helps all of us further refine our sensemaking with new angles and data points.
I kind of knew you'd take sides, even if i wish you didn't. Your style serves it well, though.
Still, the way i see it, you're othering much. Exagerating, often. Speculating with "if this then that" ― indeed, both sides are doing it. My sentiment is also that trying to persuade anyone of anything with "you've been brainwashed, sorry" doesn't work.
But as this rethoric technique is certainly having an effect, I wish you'd have balanced your piece by doing the exact same exercise for the other side. Arriving to a kind of neutral position (i salute your doing of some of that in aknowledging the Anti-Regime). So that in the end, people could form a better opinion by themselves. Because what you're saying is essentially "you're confused? listen to me".
I'm no citizen of the USA, so i'm not to be persuaded of anything. Nevertheless, i believe that the biggest argument in favor of the anti-regime is just that : change. Change is needed in the world, and given its state, it's not gonna be much pleasurable. But people might feel the need for it is bigger than staying in the dangerous safety of the uncomfortable comfort zone. Tearing the band-aid kind of thing. We shall see. Change will happen either way. For the better, through more or less worse.
Did you tho? As Howard Zinn said “you can’t be neutral on a moving train” I’m 100% for lively and vibrant agonistic liberalism One side does a better job of permitting it than the other That’s all (and that’s everything)
Thanks for your reply, appreciate you taking the time.
I know at some point (moving train) we need to act on our fundamental beliefs, and you did in your own way. Kudos for the leap of vulnerabiliy revealing this part of yourself.
As i said, we shall see what happens; regarding your estimates of possibilities as much as regarding unexpected things that arise. But not only see : act, indeed, somewhat un-neutrally towards the more beautiful world we know is within reach (paraphrasing Charles E.)
Thank you so much, Jamie. Gloriously comprehensive and achingly sad.
Shout-out to Abi and Daniel for sharing their experiences with the last Trump administration in the FGP chat. Michael Lewis wrote a whole book, The Fifth Risk, in 2018 about the damage to the civil service that was already in swing back then. And that was before Schedule F.
You could be right, Jamie. Either way you write and think with the precision and color of a nano tech RGB laser pointer! Gold.
In my mind I summarize your ask like this: I know the smart kids have asked you to go along with some stupid shit… but they’re still the smart kids. Don’t give up on them and vote for the narcissistic bully”.
And to your credit you steelman the counter perspective better than many, (while still gently mocking some of the core assumptions). I sense you and Daniel Pinchbeck have similar blindspots when it comes to the smart kids/grown ups on the left. There is a sense that given enough time, and notwithstanding a few casualties and the loss of some “freedoms”, they’ll get it right in the end.
Life long lefty, here, but I don’t share this faith anymore. This difference could be, partly, because the left hasn’t come after you (yet) for wrongthink. If you haven’t been censored, fired or deplatformed for not going along with the Covid program (for sound scientific reasons) for example, then it might seem less real in some ways. Covid tyranny, every bit as much as wokeism, has ransacked the embodied left in ways that will be difficult to ever recover from. It sounds like you still don’t give those concerns much weight.
If you had felt the wrath of the imperial left in your life (I have), or had vaccine injured friends and family (I do), you might not trust the smart kids anymore either and you’d know then — in your bones — what more than half of the country (according to Rasmussen) is feeling and why they’d vote against the lefty smart kids knowing full well it may not go their way.
As a recovering smart kid myself, I know damn well you might be right about the downstream of another 4 years of trump. I also know in a complex chaotic living system like this it’s never just one variable that determines an outcome. We each and all have a role to play in the future no matter who is in the white-house.
Eyes up. Hearts open. Into the breach.
Excellent article Jamie. I hope you hit home for those who've been robbing themselves of perspective, or who have been robbed of perceived choice through an onslaught of manipulation. Sometimes it is hard to see the wood from the trees but I feel you did a very good job of trying to bring some level headed sense making here, with a smattering of wit and irreverence too that made it also entertaining for me. Bravo for making a stand.
I am in the third bucket in the Swing state of PA. I seriously think this helped me to decide clearly my vote tomorrow. Thanks. Between your blog and Noahopinions I learn so much.
I think my biggest item is that I now do see clearly, while war is not great. The World as we know it is changing and has been since 2016. The Eurasian powers I wish were our Allies, but they are not. If we do not hold them in check they will expand as much as possible and ensure the US falls hard and they will not let us get back up. I guess we will see how the dice rolls out.
welp, you just made the brain damage exercise of writing this thing worth it. thanks!
Can’t believe I’m the first to like or comment - this is extremely excellent and should be read and shared widely. Voices that can speak truth across the divides like this need to be heard.
Refreshing. Could have used this article a few weeks ago for a "spiritual" online community I've been shock observing, but thanks none the less for giving me a bit of "I'm not alone in my observations". Chronic hermit empath here, I lack the fortitude and communication skills to be much of a participant in any arena it would seem. I glean a great deal of my understanding from dreamwork. Thank you for adding a bit more to my observational library. Not sure what I'll ever be able to do with it, lol. But it is comforting to know there are others out there who aren't completely asleep at the wheel and making an effort on the ground for a more intentionally holistic and grounded now=future-minded trajectory. If that makes sense.
Thanks for the great piece! I was on the Zoom that you did with Daniel Pinchbeck the other day and was somewhat frustrated that you didn’t get more space to express your thoughts. I’m glad you wrote them down here on substack. Very informative. I’m German though, so not voting in the US election. Will share the piece with American friends!
On a bus so will be brief. Thank you for this clarity and sweep
I've often questioned my own sanity in this election...so many of my closest friends have fallen into the camp you address here. How did I escape capture? Why did my intelligent, kind, and compassionate friends all got sucked into a whirlpool of crazy? I sometimes wondered if I was the crazy one, unable to take off my own blinders.. .Yet all the arguments you make here are exactly the ones I kept trying to articulate to my community again and again. Clearly, it's November 6th and none of this was enough. But I'm always grateful to read your words and know that there are others who see what I see, and care in the ways I care. I'm hoping you have more wisdom to get us through the next few years, too.
having a global perspective and developing an historical perspective help a ton. If you're trying to find or keep your bearings within the hottake troll laden cess pool that is The Discourse in America, you're stuffed!
Yes — education in history, political ideology, economic and global affairs — even rhetoric, philosophy and postmodernism helps. Having the capacity for critical thinking is the minimal bar. This might be the argument for a liberal education and study abroad. A college degree offers no guarantee of mastery in any of these areas.
Your friends and mine... 😔
Brilliant. A very long article that reads like a short one, and full of needed wisdom. Unfortunate that there's been a glitch in reality and all the people who should be reading this are stanning Charles Eisenstein and his crazy nonsense. Or maybe this will go massively viral, let's hope and pray so.
Thank you for your considerable and considered efforts here. I really appreciate the brevity, too. I love it when you get on a roll and lay it out in your inimitable style! This is the Hail Mary sent high into the end-zone as the timer runs out on the Infinite Game. Sending you and yours peaceful winds from the southern Willamette Valley to CO. 💚🤞🫣
brevity! It was damn near impossible to cram it down any further, but short it was not. We have such a tiny shared reality these days that in order to make any counter intuitive point halfway worth making, you've gotta back up and sketch an entire parallel universe first...
Shit… I meant LEVITY. Although the case could be made that - like Guy James commented - you made a long read feel as concise/condensed as humanly possible given the challenges of fractured realities and attention spans.
Reading this a couple days later, I think you nailed the cause of the result. I'm one of those who got labeled with TDS while consorting with anti-regimers who I generally agree with on many fronts - just not on the conclusion they arrived at as to how to use their voting calories. It's been a source of dread for the last few weeks. I'm older than most of them by a couple decades and I think that makes a difference.
I read an interesting piece yesterday https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/bernie-would-have-won. She traces the source of the anti-regime bucket to the way the Dems treated Bernie in the lead up to 2016. It makes sense to me, but that trajectory requires blinders and I think the anti-regimers chose to put them on - as opposed to those who chose to stay the course despite the issues (I have a couple kids who were die-hard Bernie supporters who didn't go anti-regime).
In any case, this was a great read a couple days post hence while trying to imagine a way forward. I think the anti-regimers aren't likely to admit they miscalculated and with any luck they'll recognize that labeling their once friends with TDS put them into wierd MAGA company. If RFK Jr gets kicked to the curb as you predict, they may be eating some crow.
Thank you for the piece, Jamie. A lot of good signal in here.
I may not fully resonate — I ultimately decided not to vote because, in short, I see huge corruption on both sides and I believe the complexity of this election is so gargantuan that it is impossible to predict the downstream effects — but I appreciate you taking the time. It helps all of us further refine our sensemaking with new angles and data points.
🙏🏼💙
You’re a fucking hoot! ;)
I kind of knew you'd take sides, even if i wish you didn't. Your style serves it well, though.
Still, the way i see it, you're othering much. Exagerating, often. Speculating with "if this then that" ― indeed, both sides are doing it. My sentiment is also that trying to persuade anyone of anything with "you've been brainwashed, sorry" doesn't work.
But as this rethoric technique is certainly having an effect, I wish you'd have balanced your piece by doing the exact same exercise for the other side. Arriving to a kind of neutral position (i salute your doing of some of that in aknowledging the Anti-Regime). So that in the end, people could form a better opinion by themselves. Because what you're saying is essentially "you're confused? listen to me".
I'm no citizen of the USA, so i'm not to be persuaded of anything. Nevertheless, i believe that the biggest argument in favor of the anti-regime is just that : change. Change is needed in the world, and given its state, it's not gonna be much pleasurable. But people might feel the need for it is bigger than staying in the dangerous safety of the uncomfortable comfort zone. Tearing the band-aid kind of thing. We shall see. Change will happen either way. For the better, through more or less worse.
Cheers for your passion to leading through fire 🎇
Did you tho? As Howard Zinn said “you can’t be neutral on a moving train” I’m 100% for lively and vibrant agonistic liberalism One side does a better job of permitting it than the other That’s all (and that’s everything)
Thanks for your reply, appreciate you taking the time.
I know at some point (moving train) we need to act on our fundamental beliefs, and you did in your own way. Kudos for the leap of vulnerabiliy revealing this part of yourself.
As i said, we shall see what happens; regarding your estimates of possibilities as much as regarding unexpected things that arise. But not only see : act, indeed, somewhat un-neutrally towards the more beautiful world we know is within reach (paraphrasing Charles E.)
Thank you so much, Jamie. Gloriously comprehensive and achingly sad.
Shout-out to Abi and Daniel for sharing their experiences with the last Trump administration in the FGP chat. Michael Lewis wrote a whole book, The Fifth Risk, in 2018 about the damage to the civil service that was already in swing back then. And that was before Schedule F.
Appreciate you, this work, and the laughs I had reading this. ❤️