Some takeaways from the #IACaucus results in this thread, the first official votes of the 2024 election.

Before the vote, I said I was confident in 4 things:

1) Turnout would be down. ✔️
2) DeSantis would over-perform his polling. ✔️
3) Haley wouldn't finish second. ✔️
4) Haley would be closer to Vivek than DeSantis. ✖️

So I was right on 3/4. But there are details in there that must be further discussed, so we shall. Turnout Would Be Down.
Make no mistake, this was a dominant performance by former President Trump. He more than doubled the record for largest caucus win ever (previously set by Dole 1988, who didn't win the nomination btw). Before we get into some other ominous signs within the turnout, though, that needs to be acknowledged from the jump. It is clear 'muh polls' were right about his support. Congratulations to him and his team. Tip of the cap. You blew the roof off the joint. Give them their flowers.

My man is the first elected official to snap the spines of the demonic teachers' unions in a major urban population center. This is a generational accomplishment. All he does is win on policy, which is what matters most. Except when it doesn't...

https://twitter.com/ChristinaPushaw/status/1740133759276437603

The problem is it's very hard to build an uber-lucrative following in this business with a narrative of winning on policy, because much of the GOP base doesn't actually care about policy despite its claims to the contrary. We are not the people we claim to be.

With a night to sleep on it and reflect, thought I'd share some thoughts on the Colorado Supreme Court being the first to do the kinds of things I've been predicting for most of this year we were going to see. Let's try and look at this from several different angles. Legal
People whose opinions I respect, including some that aren't even in the Trump Ride or Die camp, believe the opinion is basically junk. However, never forget this:

We are not a nation of laws, and never have been, but a nation of political will, and we will always will be.

With the release of the latest Iowa Poll, and the Caucuses now just 35 days away, I think it is time to have a blunt conversation about the state of things. Not just Iowa, but beyond. And I'm going to tell you what I really think, because that's what I do. And therefore, I'm not sure anybody is going to like it, but that's just my way lol.

This is in Politico Playbook this morning. Trump campaign meeting with corporate media who hates us all, but they’re conspiring together to destroy @RonDeSantis. The same media that tried to impeach Trump and is trying to put him in prison now, nevertheless toasting his campaign. All the same people the Trump campaign is schmoozing now will of course go all in to defeat him in the general.

From a Little Birdie who was there at the same restaurant and witnessed it firsthand:

“Not a single conservative media outlet was there. All corporate and left-wing media. On the one hand, it is noteworthy the Trump campaign felt the need to travel the length of the country for a debate their candidate supposedly doesn’t think is worth his time. But to actually see these two supposed mortal enemies yucking it up, to see the liberal media completely in bed with the Trump campaign like that, it was surreal.” This just goes to show the Trump campaign/team thinks this is all just politics. And they can reel in these vipers for some silly "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" 1-dimensional chess. Meanwhile, enemy media speaks with forked tongue. Its father is the father of lies. They advocate for murder, human trafficking, gender mutilation, etc. out in the open. The true doctrines of demons.

The Trump campaign isn't using the enemy media. It is using them. They are the ones playing 4-D chess here. At the same time the Trump campaign is buying the high-end steak dinners and bottomless glasses of wine, these same people are coordinating with the deep state to destroy Trump and anyone adjacent to him -- even to the point of imprisonment.

Meanwhile, Trump and his team again acting as if this is all a game, except they're the ones being played (and us). This isn't pro wrestling with heroes and heels and Hulk Hogan goes from a real American to Hollywood. This is an outright Cold Civil War, and only one side will win. The other will be lost to history. We're playing a game. They're playing for keeps.

This is what I mean when I say our side just isn't serious. But the other side is as serious as a Covid jab-inducing heart attack.

Gather round, boys and girls, as I spin you a tale in this thread that is about much more than #conferencerealignment in #CollegeFootball. Oh, it is about much more than that. For this tale contains much of what is now eroding nearly all our cultural institutions in real-time. There's a dash of everything contributing to our current decline in the cauldron here: institutional myopia, ideological blinders, no self-awareness, hubris to think you can ignore market economics, fake victimology, greed, and most definitely good old fashioned elitism.

Although it'll probably fall on mostly deaf ears here, where too many are emotionally/financially invested in an outcome so they can't/won't be able to, since I like how Twitter is increasingly democratized let's try to have an adult conversation about #TrumpIndictment. THREAD: It looks like this DOJ case is only about the Mar-A-Lago raid and the classified documents allegedly found. Hence, Trump being indicted in Miami. However, that jury pool won't be as biased against him as the one in Manhattan. Trump received 46% of the vote in Miami-Dade in 2020.

Finally got home and have time to share my top 5 thoughts on the #DeSantis2024 announcement today fwiw.

1) Obviously the tech glitches at the beginning were sub-optimal and drained some of the voluminous energy that was building going in. If the campaign fails, obviously we… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 2) Regardless of the clumsy start, the bottom line is this was the biggest story on the planet today, produced the highest-attended presidential announcement in history, and the campaign raised some serious cash. You can’t ask for more than that as a campaign. What DeSantis… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

It ain’t about the name on the front: Trump, DeSantis, Cruz, McCain, Romney, etc.

It’s about the name on the back: ‘merica.

When we’re dumb, we let them make it about themselves. When we’re smart, we make them make it about us.

We can’t afford anymore dumb. We have two pit bulls in this primary at least, when there were past years we weren’t sure we had any. And right when we need a proverbial killer, too! The absolute dumbest thing we could, then, is create an environment where we don’t make them truly show us the alpha dog.

Amen. So what happened? IMO, first clue was denial of natural immunity and no pursuit of focused protection (herd immunity) in 2020. At first I thought that was because they were tacitly admitting virus wasn't natural, and thus unsure how beholden it was to the laws of nature.

https://twitter.com/kylamb8/status/1623320969250054144

But then we started rolling out the jabs without updated national antibody data, because by then we had numerous studies that showed natural immunity remained sturdy against their chimeric concoction. So then why not pursue a traditional vaccine strategy to achieve herd immunity?

Unless you want to impact culture with your religious beliefs, or see openly homosexual content, life in Beijing and Shanghai isn't much different than San Francisco or on most of our elite university campuses. Those responsible are now in charge of our military. It's not 1984. This also won't be undone by a mere election, either. Remember when Trump wanted to ban gender dysphoria, and Milley and the Pentagon just ignored him? This thing is rotten at the core. THE CALLS ARE COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE.

This tweet of mine received several snarky, blue check-marked replies this weekend. Including this one from Ben, who is a journalist that in the past I've had pleasant and professional interactions with. Which is why I chose this one to respond to respectfully in this thread.

https://twitter.com/Bencjacobs/status/1617180342229651461

I don't believe we should use such language flippantly, or make such claims loosely. Setting aside the self-refuting notion that things were so serious we had to halt our entire way of life worldwide and now to claim it wasn't really that bad, I'm happy to clarify.

You’re learning why we lost so much ground despite all the elections we won. Because most of those we voted for and watched/read/listened to were playing for access like it’s high school. When successful politics is really about confrontation and leverage, as you’re seeing now. Access is based on relationships and ambition. Leverage is based on policy and personnel. The Right has been about access for decades, just trading out tribal chieftains and their simps/proxies every few cycles. The Left has been about leverage, and transformed the whole country.

The last time a NFL player died on the field from a cardiac event was Chuck Hughes in 1971. But that was a very different time. In that era, coaches smoked on the sidelines in-game. Players smoked, even at halftime of the Super Bowl. Nor did we have the early detection for heart disease that we do now, either in society or professional sports. The percentage of deaths by heart disease from those who suffered from it in America has dropped 67% since 1970.

This analysis from Trump isn't even correct btw. GOP base (pro-life) voters turned out massively in November. GOP actually won the national generic ballot slightly more than the RCP Polling Average projected.

https://twitter.com/SteveDeaceShow/status/1609686528699125761

Democrat based turned out massively, too, prompted by its unmarried women contingent in protest of the overturning of Roe. However, if GOP had performed as well with independents as it should've in this environment, "red wave" still would've happened.

And finally, it begins. Finally getting into Twitter files as they relate to Covid thanks to @elonmusk. This thread confirms everything many of us suspected all along. First thing that stands out in this thread is initial attempt to get Twitter to suppress started under Trump!

https://twitter.com/davidzweig/status/1607378386338340867

Of course, Trump trying to stop supply chains from being raided, or people from being swindled, isn't the same motivation as what came later. But that doesn't matter.

Mary did it, George! I wouldn’t have a roof over my head if it wasn’t for you, George.

This old thing? I only wear it when I don’t care what I look like. “Gotta go home and see what the wife is doing.”

“Family man.”

And now, our perennial live tweeting of #ItsAWonderfulLife. You are now in Bedford Falls.

Dang it, if @pnjaban is truly gonna run and try to change things, then I’m a sucker for redemptive causes. So here’s my penny advice after 16 years of activism, much of it within the GOP. The GOP is mostly a false flag. To truly conquer it, you have to treat it as such. Hostile takeovers only. It is not your friend, and rarely even an ally. Access-based glad-handing won’t work. This is a leverage game. All politics is truly a leverage game.

So what have we learned from the 2022 election? We learned a lot, and if you believe in the ideals of American Exceptionalism as I do you learned some painful truths. And even the ones that came with bright spots may also come with painful results. Let's discuss... The hope, which the data we were being given beforehand indicated, was another layer of patriot had awakened after these disastrous last couple of years. That hope sadly wasn't realized. Those of us already awakened were more so. We didn't grow our base, we deepened our resolve.