I’ve written a lot about the problem of the Trump administration’s permanent critics. Some of these people still claim they’re only trying to “help” Trump by offering advice, others will flat out admit they’re trying to get Republicans to stay home on Election Day. It’s not really mysterious at this point who these people are or what they’re really about.
The defining characteristic of these networks, and why they were able to gain so much support from many naive people who had been outspoken Trump supporters in the past, is that they claim to be attacking Trump “from the Right”: They agree with you. They know all the based things to say. They might have even been around for a long time. Their only humble request, their only noble goal, is that they want more of the good things that Trump promised to deliver in 2024 and 2020 and 2016.
Whenever you point out that a criticism is not fair or that what they’re reacting to isn’t even real, these bad faith critics will pretend it is a sign that you just didn’t care about an issue as much as they do. This is usually followed by an oft-repeated but demonstrably untrue claim about something the Trump admin did or didn’t do.
I’m sure every one of you has had an argument like this before by this point, maybe even with someone who used to be fine and who you otherwise generally agree with.
One of the biggest mistakes I see well-meaning people make is treating this kind of argument like an actual debate. When someone comes at you like this, you’re not actually discussing Trump’s immigration policy or whatever anymore, you’re discussing how they feel. You can’t argue someone out of a feeling.
What people are often doing when they lie to your face or act unreasonably is trying to display control over you: “I can make you discuss something that isn’t even real. I choose what we talk about and when.” “I can do bad stuff and I bet you won’t do anything about it. You can’t do anything about it, actually, because I’ve got all these other people on my side who have my back.” Others are just building a case against you to justify their existing feelings, with nothing you say or do affecting their predetermined conclusion.
Again, it’s important to get out of argument or debate mode when you encounter this behavior. If someone lies all the time, you can’t have a real discussion with them. If someone is actually just trying to make you lose and put your enemies in power, it’s unproductive to litigate whatever point they’re making: You already know where they’re always going to end up and some things should never be acceptable to you.
Would you argue with a male-to-female transexual over whether or not they were a woman? Do you think that you’d both make good points and present your evidence and reach a better understanding of the issue together, like you might in a normal argument? No. They’re delusional and have a big network of people to fall back on to support their delusions. There is pretty much nothing that you can say as an individual in a debate to alter that dynamic with them.
Even engaging in this kind of word game, acknowledging the underlying premises as valid and accepting the issue as an open question, is only going to mislead outside observers. Sometimes you’re smarter for the arguments you don’t bother to have. The only way to win is often not to play.
I think what American conservatives want far more than for their leaders to reach a common understanding with the popular figures who constantly accuse them of treason, betrayal, sabotage, whatever, is for them to lead and make it clear that this is not how people are going to act if they want to stay in our circles. Many conservatives will claim that they want you to surrender to their demands when they actually just want you to be strong and win.
What does setting these boundaries mean in practice? Well, you shouldn’t just go around disavowing people because the media asks you to. President Trump perfected the response to this kind of trap: “If you tell me to jump, I’m never going to do it. You can’t make me do anything. I’m in charge, not you.” You also should always be open to well informed and good faith criticism, even if it’s harsh.
At the same time, pretending there’s still a genuine internal political disagreement occurring with the people who act in these ways all the time is contributing to the problems they cause.
A lot of people on the Left were really happy to announce the outbreak of the “MAGA Civil War” and want to draw it out for as long as possible. They’re going to keep asking about it. Every mixed answer, “I disagree about this or that but…” however reasonable and well-crafted it might seem, only raises more questions. At the end of the day you are going to have to admit that there’s not an actual conversation occurring anymore. There are not two sides to these debates.
Vice President JD Vance was recently asked about his relationship with Tucker Carlson at a press conference. Although Vance has been a great Vice President and I’m going to be happy to support him as the Republican nominee in 2028, I think he gave what’s going on now too much credit.
I’ve mentioned the concept of land acknowledgements several times before. It’s an old meme at this point: Libtards would have to begin every meeting by saying they live on stolen land. It sounded ridiculous and undermined whatever followed. It moved attention away from whatever was actually important about these events and towards a ritual that didn’t mean much at the end of the day.
“I refuse to disavow” has become just another land acknowledgement for the Right. You can make reasonable criticism of someone’s behavior without mentioning your personal relationship at all. In fact, you should if it’s necessary.
We have our private lives and our public lives. Vance and Carlson’s private relationship is no one’s business but theirs. One of the best moments of Singapore’s longtime Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew was when he coolly shut down a reporter’s questions about his wife. In Western countries we’ve gotten kind of used to invasive throwaway questions and answers like that. We don’t really need to hear about these things. In fact, hearing about them can be a distraction.
The real thing people are concerned about with Carlson is his public behavior: He’s saying things that aren’t true in order to hurt our electoral chances in the upcoming midterms, in effect working to put Democrats in power.
It’s not subtle what someone is trying to accomplish when they claim that immigration enforcement in the United States has shut down at a time when we’ve actually hit all-time highs of immigration arrests for three months in a row.
It’s not subtle what someone is trying to do when they say the Trump administration is barely doing anything about anti-white discrimination when actually it’s done far more to tackle the problem than any of its predecessors since the issue first emerged.
This isn’t a political debate occurring here, with two equally valid sides that you should weigh and carefully evaluate. This isn’t like “I know we disagree about tax policy but we can still be friends.” There’s no disagreement in a traditional sense: The things Tucker is saying are not based in reality and I doubt he believes them in any meaningful way. There are many figures who have been acting in this way for years now and are still bizarrely treated as genuine participants in political discourse.
Some of the biggest names in conservative media did the “I refuse to disavow” dance with Candace Owens for months after Charlie Kirk was murdered. Owens’s behavior only got worse and the attacks on Erika Kirk and Charlie Kirk’s friends at TPUSA escalated into one of the most disgraceful public spectacles in recent memory. Many conservative figures were laughing all the way to the bank as this was going on.
From the very beginning people should have been pushing back hard against these lies instead of talking about Ben Shapiro and cancel culture and “my friend Candace is such a nice person.” I don’t want to hear about any of that stuff when there’s a big immediate problem that’s getting worse. It was a distraction from real issues.
After a certain point you have to rip the Band-Aid off. You don’t have to performatively condemn someone and everything they ever did or write them off forever or endorse people who hate you and might be doing similar things but for the wrong reasons. You should just say, for yourself and everyone who is counting on you, what’s actually important: “This is not real and it’s not OK.” That’s the only thing people should be hearing about this stuff.
I think it’s really important that everyone stop tolerating bad faith attacks and bad faith people. These behaviors and these figures are not really part of our thing. It’s all so vestigial now, like an appendix that burst but hasn’t been removed yet. I think part of the reason “discourse” in “the scene” got so bad is that when some participants made it clear they weren’t trying to achieve good outcomes or working within reality anymore, others kept engaging like there was still a normal conversation occurring. It was like watching a disease spread.
Knock on wood, but I think the tide genuinely is turning against this stuff. What these people have been saying is too obviously fake and the people who have been saying it are too obviously damaged. Not only has President Trump not forgotten his promises to the base, he’s delivering on them in bigger ways than ever before. Everyone who has been predicting that the sky was going to fall for the last two years straight has been proven totally wrong. Lots of unreliable people who were only casually engaging with politics are getting bored and moving on to other stuff, others unable to cope with the constant twists of fate have become very stupid and discredited themselves.
Cultural moments of lies, panic, and paranoia are not sustainable for very long. The trash always ends up taking itself out and the cream always rises back to the top. I am seeing a lot of new clarity and focus as we enter the final sprint to the midterms and I think that’s only going to become more noticable.
Americans need to win and love a winner. Despite the noise online, there is not a huge constituency for the people who are trying to make us lose. We actually outnumber them by a lot. I think it’s well past time to move beyond these discourse cycles and these people. It’s time to step over it all. Trump won, we don’t have to do this anymore.
“Attacking Trump from the Right” is the linguistic angle that many well meaning people fall for. But who has done more for the Right than Donald J. Trump in the past hundred years? Reagan actually betrayed us with amnesty, outsourcing all our industry, no-fault divorce in CA as governor, and nominated Sandra Day O’Connor. How is undermining the guy (Trump) who actually delivers over and over again for us somehow protecting the Right side? It’s word play. It’s the Right’s version of “Antifa” who declare, “See we call ourselves ‘anti-fascist,’ so we must be the most Left and the purest. Anyone who attacks our views and methods is undermining the Left.” Just replace the words “fascist”with “leftists” and “Left”with “Right” and you have these charlatan commentators’ argument.
Too many want to return to controlled opposition. Too many want to play the outraged dissenter. Too many want to shake their fist at the clouds.
Trump was right; they got tired of winning however, there is no turning back