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TheLastRefuge Profile picture
@TheLastRefuge2
Aug 16, 2022 • 20 tweets • 6 min read • Read on X
I'm going to reemphasize x infinity, because it's the greatest thing I have seen on Twitter in years. @ellencarmichael deserves a follow, because her earnest political outlook is so authentic (it saves a million words). THIS is the authentic outlook of the republican party.
Please do not disparage her or ridicule the perspective. Instead, absorb -genuinely- what Carmichael is saying, along with the replies to her suggestion from the professionally republican followers she maintains.

It is the greatest visible example of the GOP disconnect in years.
The only other moment that comes close to just sitting there as a representative example of the professional political disconnect, was the 2016 South Carolina republican primary debate; and the audience reaction to MAGA Trump as presented. Image
In 2016, President Trump first introduced the professional republican class (the GOP betters) to the concept of America-First economic nationalism.

They were clueless. The audiences sat puzzling their puzzlers wondering what was this jibberish.. what was this odd policy.
In New Hampshire, then Candidate Trump introduced China as a geopolitical and economic threat.

Jeb's infamous and incredulous "c'mon man'... represented the GOP audience view. WTF are you talking about, they said... China? What is this nonsense.
Until Trump, the catchphrase from the GOP "betters", this is generations of outlook talking points, included the acceptance of:

..."The United States is a service driven economy"...

Bush Sr.
Clinton
Bush Jr.
Obama

30+ years of the same mantra. Until Trump.
It's funny in retrospect, but even today the professional political class of Republicans do not understand the basic inflection point that Trump represented.

That incredulous disconnect is still so brutally visible as to surface in the Carmichael tweet.

That's the value of it.
Bush, McCain, Romney, Jeb, et al,... none of them connected to the issue of, or even the concept of, "economic nationalism."

The entire apparatus of the GOP as a professional political party couldn't fathom what was at the nucleus of middle-class voter pain. Trump did.
What is this attraction?... said dozens of the best paid political consultants and Wall Street cocktail party invitees.

It must be because Trump's a TV reality media star they reconciled in their echo-chamber. Yeah, yeah, that's it, the rubes know him from TV.

Gottabe... Image
That disconnect I am describing, still permeates the professional GOP apparatus to this very day.

Hedge funders, Donors, Wall Street, Multinationals, the apparatus that supports the architecture of one wing of the 2-party club dynamic, just can't fathom the appeal of Trump.
Sacrilegious words like "tariffs", "reciprocity", "trade equity", "protectionism" had long been banned from better conservative circles.

Books burned. Mention amid Wharton School lesson plans strictly forbidden. By the time of Trump, an economic code of Omerta existed.
But like the flickering flame of liberty, the embers of economic nationalism still existed.... barely alight, but smoldering.

Here's comes Trump with the bellows, and BOOM, just like that, YES, it reignites.... America-First is introduced. Worse yet, it comes without apology. Image
Trillions, on a global level, suddenly at stake. Billions on a corporate and even personal level suddenly at risk, for the professional political class.

Wait, he,.... what,... tariffs?

Oh, hell no, they thought. Hell no. This system he speaks of is unimaginable. The horror. Image
Peel all the skin off the onion, and even though they (like Carmichael) might not be able to understand it, that's the core of the disconnect.

Economic nationalism is the unifying theme of MAGA.
Economic nationalism is what creates the largest populist tent in the history of republican politics.

Blacks, whites, latinos, asians, all colors all creeds, all races, all united.... because the "working-class" is the unifying element.

MAGA is the voice of the working class.
The working class is what keeps all the shit working. We are the binding of our patchwork quilt of a constitutional republic.

The working class that had been beaten, put down, isolated, disconnected from policy, ridiculed for not having pedigree, all of it. United in MAGA.
It's a massive political tent. The biggest political coalition in the history of American politics.

However, you have to be in the working-class in order to understand the working class. That's the GOP problem. Image
Candidate Trump introduced the professional GOPe to economic nationalism.

President Trump then initiated economic nationalism.

The MAGA working class immediately felt the benefits of economic nationalism. Image
This is what unifies the MAGA base and attaches to President Donald Trump.

This is what the GOP professional political class just do not understand, and even more dislike. DeSantis, Noem, Haley, Pence, Cheney et al.

None of them carry a multiracial working-class coalition. ImageImageImageImage
/END Image

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More from @TheLastRefuge2

TheLastRefuge Profile picture
May 1
1. Something really weird is going on here....

It didn't just surface with this oddity.

FOR THE RECORD: I have two decades of documented direct connection between Qatar and the CIA.
2. Here is another QATAR example, of just brutally odd statements that run counter to reality. This time by Steve Witkoff.

theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/03/2…
3. And it just continues... Note the 7-minute mark with Tucker Carlson, and his recent statements to Megyn Kelly.

Read 7 tweets
TheLastRefuge Profile picture
Apr 30
1. The absolute key to the first quarter GDP result is to remember that ‘imports‘ are a deduction in the economic equation of Gross Domestic Product.  The GDP is the valuation of all goods and services produced in the USA *minus* the value of imports.

cc: The insufferable @RandPaul

bea.gov/news/2025/gros…Image
2. The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) releases the results of the first quarter GDP.  The overall economic growth seems low at 0.3% until you look at how U.S. companies responded in February and March to the tariff announcement.

Companies proactively purchased massive amounts of products in advance of the tariffs leading to an overall increase in imports of 41.3%.  Which results in a 5.3% deduction to GDP.  Every dollar of those imports is a deduction to the GDP equation, giving the false appearance of lower domestic production.Image
3. There was a massive surge in import goods purchases of 50.9% versus the prior period [Table 1, line 20].  That’s the largest periodic increase in import purchases I have ever seen.  Simultaneously, fixed asset investment in equipment for domestic production surged 22.5% [Table 1, line 11].

Put both of these metrics together and what you see are U.S. companies building consumer inventory from overseas (imports) while simultaneously preparing themselves to shift production into the USA. 

The massive import purchases are a bridge to cover the time needed to shift the manufacturing from overseas to the USA.  This is exactly what we want to see.
Read 8 tweets
TheLastRefuge Profile picture
Apr 18
1. I'm getting hit with a lot of newly awakened people wondering about AG Pam Bondi; wondering if the stuff from her old days surfacing is accurate.

I will try to encapsulate and provide receipts. The issues with Pam Bondi are much more serious than most understand.

Pam Bondi was the Florida Attorney General during the incident when George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin.

“When I worked with Governor Scott to appoint State Attorney Angela Corey to the case involving Trayvon Martin, I did so with the full confidence that a swift and thorough investigation would be conducted."Image
2. On the evening of February 26, 2012, in Sanford Florida, George Zimmerman fired one shot into the heart of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, fatally killing him.

The Sanford Police lead investigator into the shooting was Chris Serino; the Police Chief was Bill Lee, and the local prosecutor was Norm Wolfinger.

Detective Chris Serino questioned and investigated George Zimmerman, who used a traditional “self-defense” justification for the shooting.  Eventually the case went to trial and the same “self-defense” justification was used in court.  Despite what you might have heard in the media, it was never a “stand your ground” defense.  It simply was not needed.

In addition to questioning Zimmerman, Serino documented two eye-witnesses to the shooting.  One woman in an apartment who saw the initial encounter between Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, and another eye-witness, a man in an adjacent apartment who saw and partially recorded, the entire confrontation as it unfolded on the pathway approximately 20 feet from him.

The second witness called 911 and described in real time what he was seeing.  Trayvon was straddling George in an “MMA style” position and slamming Zimmerman’s head into the sidewalk.  During the 911 recording you can hear Zimmerman calling out, “help me; somebody help me.” [NOTE: Both of those witnesses as well as the recording were later buried but came out at trial.]

After a thorough investigation, all of the statements by George Zimmerman were corroborated by the eye-witnesses, the forensic evidence, the audio recording, and all the physical evidence found at the scene.  Detective Chris Serino gave his investigative report to Police Chief Lee along with the recommendation that Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense was valid and justified.  Serino and Lee then consulted with prosecutor Norm Wolfinger who reviewed the evidence and agreed.Image
3. Trayvon's father, Tracy Martin, was in a new relationship with his girlfriend Brandy Greene. Ms. Greene was a corrections officer.

Ms. Brandy Greene was eventually put into contact with a Florida “civil rights lawyer” named Benjamin Crump.  After some back-and-forth positioning and discussion, Crump decided to champion a wrongful death case for the Martin family against George Zimmerman, the City of Sanford and the Sanford Police Department.

Benjamin Crump hired a PR firm run by Ryan Julison to create media pressure.  Using his civil rights contacts, Crump requested support from groups like Al Sharpton, Dream Defenders, and allies in the DOJ.  That approach led to AG Eric Holder and eventually President Barack Obama.

Additionally, having worked previously (2007) with Florida prosecutor Pam Bondi in the Martin Lee Anderson case, Benjamin Crump called the now Florida Attorney General Bondi for support. 

The detective (Serino) sided with George Zimmerman.  The Police Chief, Bill Lee, agreed with Serino and the evidence.  The local Sanford prosecutor (Norm Wolfinger) refused to bring a case against Zimmerman based on the evidence.

…. Enter Florida AG Pam Bondi, who told Florida Governor Rick Scott a special prosecutor was needed for her friend Ben Crump.
Read 11 tweets
TheLastRefuge Profile picture
Apr 15
1. OK you want to go there? I'm game.

Bongino said "Mistakes were made." You concur. So, let's look at these FBI "mistakes."

Start with this one. This was an FBI mistake? Image
2. 40 FBI agents investigated Trump for two years, knowing there was nothing to investigate.

"mistakes were made?" Image
Image
3. “If these allegations are true and accurate, the Justice Department and FBI are – and have been – institutionally corrupted to their very core to the point in which the United States Congress and the American people will have no confidence in the equal application of the law. Attorney General Garland and Director Wray, simply put, based on the allegations that I’ve received from numerous whistleblowers, you have systemic and existential problems within your agencies.”

drive.google.com/file/d/1EuxPN1…
Read 24 tweets
TheLastRefuge Profile picture
Mar 27
1) **ahem** Also, every argument for retention of 702 is a false premise. Americans either have a 4th Amendment, or we do not. It really is that simple.

Want to conduct electronic surveillance on an American; want to read their "private papers," GET A WARRANT!

This is my hill!
2) Why is this my hill?

Because every downstream action for the surveillance state is predicated on the legal arguments behind FISA 702.

Real ID, facial recognition surveillance, metadata collection, AI enhanced trace and tracking, etc, all of it is contingent upon the arguments within the FISA 702 issue as it relates to the 4th amendment.

If FISA 702 is not a violation of the 4th amendment protection against unlawful search and seizure, then all domestic downstream DHS surveillance, collection and exploitation is similarly not a violation.

If FISA 702 is determined to be a violation of privacy, a violation of the 4th amendment to be secure in your papers and effects (which it is), then all approaches to conduct domestic electronic surveillance through the network of DHS data assembly is also a violation of privacy.

This is a privacy argument that has not reached SCOTUS. It is still being fought with success at state level.

If you are being monitored without a warrant, you have no privacy. The core argument behind 702 authorizes warrantless monitoring.Image
3) This is why the DC system supports FISA 702 with such severity. It is essentially the path through which the U.S. Govt is authorizing itself to conduct surveillance.

This is why the SSCI will not confirm a nominee without them supporting 702. Congress demands every member of the national security apparatus approve domestic surveillance, on behalf of the Intelligence Community who create and operate the systems.

Remove 702 authority and Palantir stock drops overnight. Why? Because the predicate of their domestic product intents, the surveillance software, are dependent on the legal arguments behind it.

Destroy 702, you destroy the 'one ring.'Image
Read 4 tweets
TheLastRefuge Profile picture
Mar 27
Billions of dollars of German auto manufacturing (assembly) investment in Mexico were just vaporized by President Trump. Image
This is a very big kick in the teeth to Germany.  Previously in a long-term strategy to avoid U.S. tariffs, German automakers invested billions in auto assembly plants in Mexico.  Ex. the BMW parts were shipped from Germany and the cars assembled in Mexico.  Now that investment is worthless as the vehicle will be taxed at a rate of 25% regardless of whether it is assembled in Germany or Mexico.
It cannot be overstated how big a hit this will be to the German economy specifically.  That’s why EU President Ursula von der Leyen is couching her words very carefully.

Germany drives the economic engine of the EU, and the Germans care about their money far more than they care about the security of Ukraine.

“As I have said before, tariffs are taxes – bad for businesses, worse for consumers equally in the US and the European Union,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement. “We will now assess this announcement, together with other measures the US is envisaging in the next days.”

The EU outlook, specifically financial support, toward the EU/NATO Ukraine strategy will change in 3.... 2....1....Image
Read 8 tweets

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