Recently a news article reviewed some of the actions by Twitter, Facebook, and the media as follows:
Guidelines were often arbitrary and seemingly meaningless. A word or phrase might be declared out of bounds with no coherent justification provided. . . A reporter whose byline appeared above an impertinent article might find himself [suspended or blocked] the following day. On occasion, an article would be “recalled” [remember when the New York Times changed its actual headlines related to “muh Russia and leaking?], requiring that [editors] be send [to take down articles on the site].
Oh, wait. That wasn’t a recent article. That was from The Conquering Tide by Ian Toll about World War II in the Pacific relating how the Japanese government controlled speech in 1943 as the war turned sour. Editors or writers found guilty of violating official “guidelines” saw their papers closed down and could themselves be drafted or sent to prison and tortured. Does this sound familiar: “Since the emperor was infallible, no past declaration could have been inaccurate...Instead, new lies were offered to prop up past falsifications and errors…”
Yet, the great Twitter purge continues. This week not only was I suspended, but also Cassandra Peterson, Gateway Pundit, and our own Daniel Bobinski and Stu Cvrk. Mostly, the crime was to retweet anything having to do with “My Pillow’s” Mike Lindell and his video on election fraud. There was one Godzilla-sized problem with all this. Time magazine this week let the cat out of the bag and all but confirmed there was election fraud to, in their words, “fortify” the election.
We return yet a third time to my analysis of the January 6 “Patriot Day” events in which I said that visit to the Capitol terrified the elites. Describing the “violent mob” that “stormed” the capital on Patriot Day, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez likened it to her own “sexual assault." It is convenient that she never mentioned this before now, almost as though her previous claims of hiding in a bathroom as the “rioters” pounded on her door proved to be entirely falsified. She wasn’t even in the Capitol Building at the time, and the “pounding” was from a security guard. Or consider Rashida Tlaib, who broke down during her account of the Capitol visitation.
Needless to say, these are not courageous people—even if they were threatened, which they were not. None of the senators or members of Congress in the hall behaved with anything even remotely akin to valor. They hid under desks, ran for basement elevators, and otherwise looked like passengers vying for the last lifeboat off the Titanic.
Since January 6, the ruling elites' behavior has painted a picture of a group anything but certain of their grip on power. Since then:
- Two U.S. Senators, Rob Portman (R-OH) and Richard Shelby (R-AL), have announced they won’t run again. Both are neverTrumpers, often in the RINO category. While Shelby is 86 and stepping down seems reasonable, one wonders if the RINO wing of the GOP was secure if both would run again.
- Claudia Tenney narrowly won her race for the NY 22 U.S. House seat. This brings the Republicans to within a four-seat shift of taking over the House. (There are still two unfilled seats).
- As mentioned in my last column, ten major Super Bowl advertisers pulled out, citing concerns about losing at least half of their customers. Now Under Armour dumped its NFL licensing deals, saying it is “retooling its reputation” and seeking to recover from its front office SJW comments over the past year. But at the same time, the company re-upped its contract with star quarterback Tom Brady.
- The Lincoln Project (or, as I call them, The George Lincoln Rockwell Project) is coming apart at the seams. Not only has co-founder John Weaver been accused by 21 men of sexual harassment, but another co-founder, Jennifer Horn, resigned. Ah, the trials and tribulations of being so holy and noble that you can slime President Donald Trump!
- This tidbit from a friend and gun aficionado visiting UT: there is no ammunition to be found there, anywhere. Store shelves, he claims, are bare.
- The Wyoming GOP censured Liz Cheney and asked her to resign for her vote to impeach President Trump last month. By the way, without the votes of 10 Republicans, the impeachment vote would have failed. Simultaneously, momentum is building to censure Senator Ben Sasse, who typically dismissed the criticism as “weird worship of one dude” (as if Barack Obama had never existed).
American Airlines shares surge after WallStreetBets shoutout
- While the GameStop saga is not the raging fire it once was, it is not over. WallStreetBets has moved on to American Airlines and other low-performing stocks, bidding up their prices and sticking it to the “hedgies” yet again.
In short, none of this has the look or feel of a group of elites in control of much of anything. Instead, the portrait of America that seems to be unfolding is that of a group of aristocrats circled around King Louis and Marie Antoinette at Versailles, hoping a slight wrought iron fence can keep out the howling mobs of culture and business- their grip on a dinghy in a maelstrom. And they may be lashed to the mast.
Larry Schweikart is the co-author with Michael Allen of the New York Times #1 bestseller, A Patriot’s History of the United States, author of Reagan: The American President, and founder of the Wild World of History curriculum website with full U.S. and World History curricula including teacher’s guide, student workbooks, tests, maps/charts, and video lessons for all units (www.wildworldofhistory.com).
