Matt Drudge has one singular ability and it is enough to have provided him with a successful media outlet. And that is, the ability to track public sentiment and very simply tell people what they want to hear. Drudge used to be a Trump aficionado when that was in fashion. So did he have an epiphany and see the light of Donald Trump’s crudeness and corruption? Hell, no. He has seen a light, yes, but the light he sees is the one blinking in neon, Trump Is Done, Trump Is Done. Nobody wants to hear about Trump now. They want Trump in the rear view mirror and Drudge is only too happy to sing the praises of a solid economy and glad tidings — in marked contrast to Trump’s pathetic mewling about a 1929-level depression and WWIII.

Now, the comedy here is that Trump is ripping out what’s left of his hair and smashing the coffee pots and the TVs, when he sees this stuff. He has to believe that Drudge really did love him. No, Drudge was merely playing him back in the day because it was good copy, great clicks, the cash register rang. That isn’t the case with a pro-Trump stance anymore. Nowadays a pro-Trump stance is an identification with right-wingnuttia, which is not now in the ascendent.

I’m not saying disregard Trump as a threat. I will never say that. We have to work as if we’re fifteen points down, always, always, always. Get out the last vote like it was the deciding vote. My point is, let’s see this for the bellwether which it is. Trump is last week’s newspaper being used to wrap yesterday’s fish.

As a matter of fact, Drudge linked to one of our pieces here on PolitiZoom, once that I know of. I had an analytics company at that point showing me all my backlinks and imagine my surprise to see that Drudge linked to us. And we fit the characterization, I believe, of “hard Democrat.” Baby, we are anthrocite, adamantine, diamond Democrat on this site. And that’s how it’s going to stay.

A note I want to interject about J.D. Vance: Robert Reich has written an opinion piece in The Guardian about J.D. Vance being the “handpicked leader of the anti-democracy movement.” This is a chilling concept. Because the night of the vice presidential debate, which was only Tuesday, although it seems so much longer ago, it was widely opined that Vance would be the 2028 or 2032 GOP presidential candidate. That’s plausible. But if that is the case, and the GOP now stands for anti-democracy, not anti-Democrats, but anti-democracy, then the United States has taken a frightening turn in the historical road. And Robert Reich is now playing Paul Revere, to warn us about it.

In contrast to Trump, who has no ideology except accumulating power and wealth for himself and taking revenge on those who would deny these to him, Vance does have an ideology. He’s the emerging leader of the anti-democracy movement in the US.

Vance would never have become a senator from Ohio in 2022 were it not for the billionaire tech financier Peter Thiel, who staked $15m on Vance’s election – a major portion of all the funds that went into Vance’s race.

Thiel knew what he was buying. Vance had worked for Thiel’s California venture capital firm before running for the Senate and was part of Thiel’s libertarian community of rich crypto bros, tech executives, back-to-the-landers and disaffected far-right intellectuals.

Because Thiel had been a major funder of Trump’s 2016 presidential run, he had significant influence with Trump when urging him to pick Vance for his vice-president.

Why has Thiel been such a strong sponsor of Vance? Because Thiel sees in his protege a future leader of a political movement to turn the US away from democracy. “For Peter,” said one of the people familiar with his thinking, “Vance is a generational bet.”

Thiel is a self-styled libertarian who once wrote: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

Hello? Freedom is incompatible with democracy only if you view democracy as a potential constraint on your wealth and power.

This is key, if this is true, that the Republican party is going in this direction. Because this is not “conservatism” that we are discussing. This is oligarchy, this is plutocracy. And in this current political environment, with the Trump buffoon populist on the wane, this new concept of the authoritian city state (Singapore is cited in this article) is waxing. The premise is that, and we quote, “democratic governments are inefficient and wasteful; they should be replaced with sovereign joint-stock corporations whose major ‘shareholders’ select an executive with total power, who serves at their pleasure.”

There it is, folks. In our lifetimes we have seen “1984” go from a dystopian novel and a couple of movies, to a reality that is right around the corner. And you may have seen Big Brother debate on Tuesday.

 

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3 COMMENTS

  2. Funny I don’t believe in YOU Peter. Should I wait for the fascist takeover before deciding whether or not you’re real? And if real, should I and my fellowship figure out whether we can bypass your security to ‘discuss’ it with YOU? Inquiring minds want to know. I still wonder how those that start raging fires figure their asses won’t get burned? Is it you’ve had money and freedom from daily worries that your ego has convinced you death can’t and won’t come to YOUR estates. Just remember if YOU take our democracy, install a fascist regime and set about completing the destruction of our climate and children’s future…you should heed the lyric of the great Kris Kristofferson…freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. Thanks for working to give us a world with nothing left to lose.

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