https://outsidevoices.substack.com/p/aut...-thread-on

This has been covered before, but this is the full essay by Darryl Cooper.

I found this part most true to me, and as a Bush Republican, not a populist Trumper:

"...It’s hard to describe to people on the Left, who are used to thinking of American government as a conspiracy and are weaned on stories about Watergate, COINTELPRO, and Saddam’s WMD, how shocking and disillusioning this was for people who encouraged their sons and daughters to go fight for their country when George W. Bush declared war on Iraq.

They could have managed the shock if it only involved the government. But the behavior of the press is what radicalized them. Trump supporters have more contempt for journalists than they have for any politician or government official, because they feel most betrayed by them. The idea that the corporate press is driven by ratings and sensationalism has become untenable over the last several years. If that were true, there’d be a microphone in the face of every executive branch official demanding to know what the former Secretary of Labor meant when he said that Jeffrey Epstein “belonged to intelligence.” The corporate press is the propaganda arm of the Regime these people are now seeing in outline. Nothing anyone says will ever make them unsee that, period.

This is profoundly disorienting. Again, we’re not talking about pre-2016 Greenwald readers or even Ron Paul libertarians, who swallowed half a bottle of red pills long ago. These are people who attacked Edward Snowden for “betraying his country,” and who only now are beginning to see that they might have been wrong. It’s not because the parties have been reversed, and it’s not because they’re bitter over losing. They just didn’t know. If any country is going to function over the long-term, not everyone can be a revolutionary. Most people have to believe what they’re told and go with the flow most of the time. These were those people...."

Another key section:


"...Many Trump supporters don’t know for certain whether ballots were faked in November 2020, but they know with apodictic certainty that the press, the FBI, and even the courts would lie to them if they were. They have every reason to believe that, and it’s probably true. They watched the corporate press behave like animals for four years. Tens of millions of people will always see Brett Kavanaugh as a gang rapist, based on an unproven accusation, because of CNN. And CNN seems proud of that. They helped lead a lynch mob against a high school kid. They cheered on the most deadly and destructive riots in decades.

Conservatives have always complained that the media had a liberal bias. Fine, whatever: they still thought the press would admit the truth if they were cornered. They don’t believe that anymore. What they’ve witnessed in recent years has shown them that the corporate press will say anything, do anything, to achieve a political objective, or simply to ruin someone they perceive as an opponent. Since my casual Twitter thread ended up in the mouths of Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump, I’ve received hundreds of messages from people saying that I should prepare to be targeted. Others don’t think that will happen, but even most of them don’t think it’s an irrational concern. We’ve seen an elderly lady receive physical threats after a CNN reporter accosted her at home to accuse her of aiding Kremlin disinformation ops. We’ve seen them threaten to dox someone for making a humorous meme.

Throughout 2020, the corporate press used its platform to excuse and encourage political violence. Time Magazine told us that during the 2020 riots, there were weekly conference calls involving - among others - leaders of the protests, local officials responsible for managing them, and members of the media charged with reporting on the events. They worked together with Silicon Valley to control the messaging about the ongoing crisis for maximum political effect. In case of a Trump victory, the same organization had protesters ready to be activated by text message in 400 cities the day after the election. Every town with a population over 50,000 would have been in for some pre-planned, centrally-controlled mayhem. In other countries we call that a color revolution...."

His full essay was very on point.


I will say that I was once a Bush republican. I thought he stood separate from the group known as RINOs. I was wrong.

I was encouraged by the rise of the TEA Party.

I was discouraged by the 180 of several -- too many -- so-called TEA Party candidates once they were elected.

I am a conservative (I would even contend a VERY conservative) populist.

I will never pull the lever for an avowed far-leftist.

I will never pull the lever for an incumbent Republican candidate unless their actions while in office are worthy of my support.

I will never pull the lever for a first-time Republican candidate simply because they are running as a Republican.


I have in the past and will continue to use the option of write-in. Which has always been myself.

I have never actually been a republican. The party that I have consistently supported with both money and votes has been the Libertarian. But I wish they were more pragmatic about politics, and they have let too many crazies in their midst.

I have usually voted for Libertarians because Texas has never been a swing state, so I was free to lodge a protest vote. I really like Jo Jorgensen, and would have voted for her in 2020, but the party back-benchers forced Spike Cohen on her as VP candidate, and he is a true nut case.

I went to the same church as GHWB and Barbara, knew them but not really well or close, but did like them both immensely. GWB always struck me as being the dumb one in the family, although that was a family where being the dumb one was not really all that dumb. I was very disappointed in GHWB's presidential term. I thought he should have made Jack Kemp his VP, turned domestic policy over to Kemp, and made foreign policy and national security his focus.

I don't really have the visceral, emotional hatred of Bill Clinton that seems to be the secret handshake to be a republican these days. I didn't agree with everything, by a long shot, but I think he was a pragmatic guy that republicans could have worked with if only they hadn't been so obsessed with Monicagate. I think Bill intended to move democrats closer to the center, but republicans basically said, "F U, we don't care if you move the center, we still won't work with you." And I think that got both parties headed toward more extreme positions.

GWB was a strange one to me. He was actually a good, and very bipartisan, governor of Texas. For his second term as governor, he was actually endorsed by democrat Bob Bullock, who had been his LtGov (Texas elects them separately). But I think he got to DC and was totally overwhelmed by the Cheney-Rumsfeld folks (the same folks who undid his father, IMO, and I understand from mutual church friends that Barb agreed with me on that). When campaigning, GWB said he would reduce the size of the federal government and get us out of the nation-building business, but as president he took about the hardest possible 180 on both of those.

I thought Obama was an extreme leftist, probably Marxist/socialist at the core, although he couldn't come right out and be honest about that and get elected.

I was encouraged by the TEA Party, but discouraged by the TeaBaggers who took the name but not much else after the republican debacle of 2008.

I don't think I could ever vote for another democrat. I have done so in local elections in the past, but they have just gone off the rails to the left. In this last election cycle and since, they have pretty much gone hard socialist/communist.

I am in the position of counting on republicans to save me from the socialist/communist democrats (since libertarians don't really have the muscle), but they are doing a terrible job. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, but I wish my enemies had better enemies.

(07-14-2021 12:48 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I have never actually been a republican. The party that I have consistently supported with both money and votes has been the Libertarian. But I wish they were more pragmatic about politics, and they have let too many crazies in their midst.

I have usually voted for Libertarians because Texas has never been a swing state, so I was free to lodge a protest vote. I really like Jo Jorgensen, and would have voted for her in 2020, but the party back-benchers forced Spike Cohen on her as VP candidate, and he is a true nut case.

I went to the same church as GHWB and Barbara, knew them but not really well or close, but did like them both immensely. GWB always struck me as being the dumb one in the family, although that was a family where being the dumb one was not really all that dumb. I was very disappointed in GHWB's presidential term. I thought he should have made Jack Kemp his VP, turned domestic policy over to Kemp, and made foreign policy and national security his focus.

I don't really have the visceral, emotional hatred of Bill Clinton that seems to be the secret handshake to be a republican these days. I didn't agree with everything, by a long shot, but I think he was a pragmatic guy that republicans could have worked with if only they hadn't been so obsessed with Monicagate. I think Bill intended to move democrats closer to the center, but republicans basically said, "F U, we don't care if you move the center, we still won't work with you." And I think that got both parties headed toward more extreme positions.

GWB was a strange one to me. He was actually a good, and very bipartisan, governor of Texas. For his second term as governor, he was actually endorsed by democrat Bob Bullock, who had been his LtGov (Texas elects them separately). But I think he got to DC and was totally overwhelmed by the Cheney-Rumsfeld folks (the same folks who undid his father, IMO, and I understand from mutual church friends that Barb agreed with me on that). When campaigning, GWB said he would reduce the size of the federal government and get us out of the nation-building business, but as president he took about the hardest possible 180 on both of those.

I thought Obama was an extreme leftist, probably Marxist/socialist at the core, although he couldn't come right out and be honest about that and get elected.

I was encouraged by the TEA Party, but discouraged by the TeaBaggers who took the name but not much else after the republican debacle of 2008.

I don't think I could ever vote for another democrat. I have done so in local elections in the past, but they have just gone off the rails to the left. In this last election cycle and since, they have pretty much gone hard socialist/communist.

I am in the position of counting on republicans to save me from the socialist/communist democrats (since libertarians don't really have the muscle), but they are doing a terrible job. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, but I wish my enemies had better enemies.

Well said... thanks for sharing this.

Why we believe there was election fraud: because the evidence and facts show there was fraud, tons and tons of it.

If he was of a different predisposition, he could have written just as long an essay about how the 2016 election was stolen from Hillary. I look forward to the rebuttal being posted here.