Political Spectrum Reality Check

Nazis are on the left with the communist. Many people believe the lie that Nazis are conservative. But it's even more nuanced than that. Here's a great 7 minute explainer, not perfect (by his own admission) but really well done.

There's some good news for Canadian conservatives

Canadian conservatives need to hear this:

Meanwhile in the U.K., a leftward shift

The conservative party in the U.K. has admittedly gone off the rails and well into woke territory. You lose the confidence of the electorate when you lose sight of your vision that brought you to power, or by the vision itself resulting in failure.  In the case of the Tories in the U.K., the former situation led to their downfall.  They needed a reality check.

The unfortunate result is a massive Labour Party win that means further leftward drift and erosion of what made the United Kingdom great in the first place.  The Labour Party ran on "change", nothing more specific than the notion that the country was going in the wrong direction.  This was the exact approach Obama took in 2008; don't say anything (or at most very little) about what type of change you plan on making, just tap into the discontent and let the voters assume you mean exactly what they are thinking. Be a Tabula Rasa for them. 

And while the country was definitely headed in the wrong direction in many respects, and the conservative Tories were in dire need of a slap in the face wake up call, the price is likely to be steep for that correction. Are we going to see a decade of Labor party leadership? What damage will they do to Britain while in power?  Could they seek to rejoin the E.U. for example?

Saying the right things is one thing, doing the right things is not likely to follow.  Let's hope the conservatives get their act together in the next few years.

Conservatives finally getting around to using the law

Texas AG follows up on Elon Musk's complaint about Media Matters and it's about time conservatives start using the law against the left. They refuse to do so at their own peril. The culture war can only be won if you actually, you know, fight it.

Meanwhile in Canada, conservatives continue to surge

A television channel in Canada, normally landing between far left and very far left, faces the reality on the ground in Canada.  That reality? Justin Trudeau is destroying the liberal left (the Liberal party) and as a bonus, the socialist left (NDP) and it's starting to look irreversible for the left, at least for the next federal election.

Gleeful.

Finland the latest E.U. country to swung right

Meanwhile in Finland, voters in yet another European country are turning to conservative parties. 

Yep, Canada has conservatives

Alberta, the Texas of Canada, has proven it remains conservative, and anti-Justin-Trudeau.  I'm proud of my western compatriots.

Conservatives are proving Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals work

The case of the ongoing Bud Light boycott is setting an example for other ESG-compliant companies. This proves that Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals rules work. First off, here's the continuing saga of the ABInBev, Bud Light's parent company:

They are hurting and it keeps getting worse.  Now consider these Alinsky Rules for Radicals principles:

"Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." This is precisely what has happened to Bud Light.  It has become the example of what conservatives will do if pushed too far. Perhaps its isolation as a target will strike some fear into other companies to not hop on the woke bandwagon for the sake of a few more sales, or a social governance checkmark from the left.

"Keep the pressure on." /"The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition." Yep.  Self explanatory - no one has dropped the boycott despite half-whispered apologies from Bud Light's management. And it will have much longer lasting and further-reaching consequences if the pressure continues - beyond ABInBev.

"Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. There is no defense. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage." / "A good tactic is one your people enjoy."  These two go hand in hand.  Much of the social media about Bud Light is mockery.  It's fun (albeit a juvenile ploy that won't win you any serious debates) and it's unrelenting nature is doing nothing to allow Bud Light's management to rest, think through their responses and react effectively.

This is proving to be a potentially pivotal moment in the woke culture war on common sense. It also should be heartening for conservatives to see that we are not powerless in the culture war.  We have a tactic that works for us just as it works for the left.  It also should be a reality check; these tactics can and do still work for the left.  We still have to understand how to stand up to them when they are employed against us.

The opportunity of a century lies before you!

Jack Chapple has an interesting take on demographics in the 21st century, arguing that only one country will be able to emerge from a global downturn in population [SPOILER ALERT: If you want to skip over the details behind his predicted winner, it's Egypt].  Here's his argument, before I move on the my own premise which is markedly different.

A lot of what he points out is simply factual.Developed countries have a serious demographic challenge that no one has really every overcome to this point.  Global population is expected to start to decline at some point in this century (or perhaps the next).  As Chapple points out, this creates economic challenges on a global scale.  Not to mention, it may create demographic challenges that are even more catastrophic than economic ones.  

Peter Zeihan sees the same demographic trends, which seems undeniable.  He sees different winners emerging than does Chapple:

Regardless of who might win globally, and I do think that the United States will be fine, there is the opportunity of a century for conservatives in the United States, and really the entirety of Western civilization that may pass us by if we do not seize it right now and begin building ahead for it.

I'm speaking of what I have argued in favor of doing before, what Jeff Deist has also argued before.  De-urbanization. I'll argue for it again now with an additional flavor added because it serves two purposes with one effort. 

Technology has finally enabled de-urbanization.  You do not need to live close to a major city to be able to commute to your job (in large part, manufacturing and some other industries remain aside).  That means you can live in a small town, or some other remote rural location and work from home. This obviates the need for office space, for commuter trains, for massively expanded super highways in urbanized locations, for subways, for as many bank machines, and coffee shops etc.  Most of those things do not go away, they morph and disperse into a more diffused set of locations.   Small towns grow, big megalopolis sized cities shrink.  Why?  Housing costs, crime stats, quality of life differences, among other reasons.

This requires a lot of transition.  Much as the United States and much of the Western world are transitioning production away from China (finally), with the adjunct pains of transition, transition to a more rural or at least less urban nation will be painful in the short term.  New fiber optic cabling spanning tens of thousands of miles must be laid. That's a primary requirement.  But so too will be water, sewage handling, fuel pipelines, medical facilities, police services, and everything necessary to support smaller local communities that are spread further apart.  These things do not happen overnight and they certainly do not happen without a concerted political effort to make the option to de-urbanize possible.  That's what needs to be happening right now.

There are certainly benefits for conservatives if this geographic shift occurs.  Urban centers tend to be far more liberal and rural areas and smaller towns tend to be far more conservative.  This is an environment that offers home field advantage as it were, in terms of political momentum.  Smaller communities tend to be more religious, more friendly, and cleaner.  They also may help level the playing field between mega-corporations and mom and pop shops. It could help regrow the entrepreneurial spirit that made America a great economic power . 

Here's the added benefit that not only benefits conservative demographics, it argues against the inevitability of population decline and global economic stagnation: rural populations have higher birth rates than urban populations.  It's easier to raise children in an environment that is safer, that has more room for them to play, that does not require tens of thousands of extra dollars spent on car payments and mortgages and commutes and enhanced security etc. With less distraction there's more opportunity to procreate. There's more time to spend with family.  That benefits conservatives.  It benefits America, and it benefits America's contribution to global population.  It's a win win win.

Lastly, here's a bonus thought on this; it would be easier to co-opt the environmental movement to get the political effort started because you can argue it will result in a significantly lower carbon footprint without the need for such a massive volume of commuters. As conservatives, we just need to get out in front of this because this opportunity of a century will not remain available forever.  States should probably start this effort on a localized basis.  If you live in Kansas for example, this is something that can be started in a more localized effort, which makes it easier and the chances that you can succeed that much higher.

The fallacy of the logic and facts approach

You have to talk to people in terms that they will understand.  I don't mean intellectually understand, I mean in a way that resonates with them.  The problem with conservatives is we believe in facts and we believe in logic. Facts and logic can bring you to the truth, but that in itself is not a universal truth because many people operate illogically.  That's a fact conservatives often overlook.  The logic and facts approach is pure fallacy in many situations.

When talking to a woke liberal, we often forget that facts don't matter to everyone.  What resonates with people are things that affect them emotionally.  Take for example the notion that inflation has recently been at historical highs. Telling someone that fact has far less emotional impact than saying simply "I can't afford eggs anymore."  Implicit in that latter statement are a couple of fundamental notions that all revolve around empathy;

• it is likely they are in the same boat, or a similar one and have similar complaints
• complaining sounds whiney and woke liberals love that (snarky but not untrue)
• they can sympathize and feel bad for you (woke SJWs have to have an underdog to protect)

You have not only started a discussion with something that they can empathize with and also get behind trying to solve.  It's the start of a more pliable conversation instead of a debate.  You have started on what is probably common ground or at least at a place of empathy or sympathy.  The way forward at least exists from that point.  Hammering someone with facts will more have the opposite effect; entrenchment.

We don't do enough as conservatives to understand our audience and with each generation that happens it gets harder and harder to do because each generation has been Overton windowed further away from the fundamental truths of life.  I'm not talking just religion here, I'm talking about even the fundamental basics of common sense (e.g. 2 genders).

We have to understand that we are currently on the losing side of the culture war.  We have not lost but we are losing.  That means we have to work both harder and smarter.  I'm not suggesting I have all the answers as to who.  But I think one of the key notions is that we need better understanding.  We need to understand how to connect, but in order to do that we need to understand the map, the lay of the land as it currently exists.  We cannot change beliefs for the better without having both a starting point and an end point.

Here, as an example of trying to get to that understanding, Ken Ham discusses the state of Gen Z as it pertains to (lack of) religious belief.  It's a specific but excellent example of how to change the direction of society from a massive leftward drift to back on course.

Wait, didn't that already happen?

 The FBI is purging conservatives? I thought they'd already finished that.

Conservative Party of Canada votes out party leader

Meanwhile in Canada, conservatives voted out a leader who was a Canadian version of a RINO.  He lost to Trudeau in the last election.  He flip flopped.  He has been a simp when it comes to the trucker convoy when it presented a golden opportunity for conservatives to embrace populism.

Good riddance to bad baggage. 

The best Canadian candidate (who won't win)

With the Canadian election tomorrow and the Liberal Party's mysterious late resurgence in the polls vs. the Conservative Party, I thought I'd share a video with an interview with the leader of the underdog People's Party of Canada (the closest thing we have to Trump).  

In a comment on a YouTube post I mentioned I thought it was a wasted vote to support a party with only ~6% support in the polls (which may be a mirror of that U.S. guy with a 17% lead over president Trump in 2020).  Unfortunately I still believe that's true, but Maxime Bernier is a smart guy and he should have been chosen as the leader of the Conservative Party rather than the current leader.  His positions make the most sense.  Rather than just giving him and his newer party short shrift, I thought it would be beneficial to share his interview by Jordan Peterson. 

"This is why we will win" is wrong

 I often hear conservatives look at something ridiculous the Left has done or observe how pompous they are being or how much they have overreached and they say "This is why we will win" or "This is why they will lose". It's wrong.  And it's thinking like that that makes me think, "This is why we will lose".

That sort of lackadaisical thinking is a recipe for failure.  Democrats will not lose because of something they have done, or gotten wrong or their hubris.  They will never admit to their base they got something wrong.  Their base doesn't care if they got something wrong either.  They often win because of their overreach.  Republicans lose because of their under-reach. And the same is true for elections: if we under-reach, if we do nothing and hope that obvious, common sense of the population will lead to victory for conservatives, this is why we will lose.

Action matters.  Democrats are willing to cheat, willing to change rules, willing to march, willing to do anything to win.  It's not moral but it often gets the results they seek.  We must, on the right, not expect the rest of the populace to open their eyes in numbers so large it overcomes the Democrats' efforts at subterfuge.  It rarely happens.  RARELY.  And in an era of win-at-all-costs on the left, it will not happen now.

Mobilization matters.  Money matters.  Hours of voluntary efforts at outreach (not protests which are frankly a waste) to moderate voters matter.  Organization matters.  Rules for Patriots matter.

Whenever I hear a conservative say "this is why we will win", I want to blow an air horn at them and yell "Wake up!" (well yell first because they'll be deaf after the air horn).  Smug complacency is not a recipe for success it is a substitute for it.  Effort.  Mobilization.  Money.  Strategy. Hard work in the face of a massive societal disadvantage. Action.  This is how we will win. Not why.  Why implies surety.  There is no surety. The only certainty is failure without effort.

Next time you hear a conservative offer that platitude, challenge them on it.

Why the far left are fooling themselves, and why conservatives must join them.

 If you are a progressive you have to be ecstatic right now.  You ousted Trump (by fair means or foul is inconsequential), and the mainstream media and social media Big Tech have conservatives on the run, about to be routed perhaps forever. You have a president who is willing to do whatever he told you and doesn't cares about the labor unions who supported him and now have workers getting laid off. Democrats control the house and senate and are trying to kick Republicans out of the house and senate entirely. As exciting as all of that sounds to you, you should be very, very worried. 

Progressives, you are fooling yourself and conservatives, now is the time to join with progressives to stop what all Americans, all Westerners, hell - all people of the world need to be are in danger of becoming.  Unnecessary.

I know that sounds strange but it's true.  I urge you to consider the following, before it gets to late to do anything.  If you are a progressive, conservatives do indeed sound radical and dangerous, but that is only if what you are hearing in the mainstream media is 100% true.  I urge you to consider taking in information from some non-traditional non-mainstream sources and see the news you are missing or are being filtered out of your line of sight. It's not going to harm you or poson your mind to look or listen. You may disagree with these conservatives, but they are not bark-at-the-moon crazy.  They have legitimate concerns that are not being addressed, and in fact it's worse - they are being silenced.

The concern you should have is that you are next.  Think about it.  If you were a dictator and wanted to move to an Orwellian police state, who would you need to silence first?  The gun-toting live free or die conservatives.  How do you silence them?   Make them look crazy and take away their ability to make a difference.  Silence them into submission and make them apologize for that which the do not need to apologize.  Herd them into a persecuted minority.  Once you have accomplished that, then you can do the same with those who are on board with your agenda because their agenda isn't actually your agenda.  They will have been useful puppets up to a point, but after the conservative  resistance is destroyed, the progressive crowd can be turned on itself similarly. Once there is no one left but the elite-supporting low-information proletariat the elite can do anything they want.  ANYTHING.  Their agenda is to achieve self-serving wealth-generating elitist goals. If there is no one left to fight back then they can do anything - lower the minimum wage, offshore all jobs, take away benefits, take away rights - whatever it takes to maximize their own wealth, at everyone's expense.  

These are not the 1%, they are the 0.001%. 

You don't believe me?  You realize that is exactly what Putin has done in Russia in his corruptocracy. He used to be Soviet KGB, now he's a self-serving elite. It's the same thing that exists in China but they are still functioning as a normal-appearing government.  This is what president Trump was railing against.  It's why they fought so hard to destroy him.  That you wanted him destroyed was mere convenience.  

You want to put conservatives in re-education camps?  What happens when it's your turn?  Doesn't that frighten you?  It should, because you are indeed next.  The elites do not want to change America to a more inclusive place, they want it more exclusive.  

Conservatives.  You've been abused by the left as much as by the elites of both parties.  You've been disillusioned by those you thought were on your side within the halls of power from Chief Justice Roberts, to Mitch McConnell to Paul Ryan to Bill Barr, all have let you down.  The truth is you have no allies there.  You cannot gain allies in the mainstream media or Big Tech.  Their goal is to eradicate your resistance to their agenda by negating you as a political force. Everything you try will be stopped sooner or later.  There is but one group that you can align with, if they realize it in time.  Progressives.

Why?  Because the underlying truth is that this  is not about conservatism, liberalism, libertarianism, progressivism or even capitalism or socialism.  It's about those inside making sure that they work together to disenfranchise everyone who can stop them.  The only way to stop them is for EVERYONE on all sides of the political spectrum to but their grudges aside and focus on stopping the elite from fundamentally changing America. They do not want equality of opportunity.  They do not even want equality of outcome unless it is an outcome that maximizes their power and wealth and minimizes everyone else's.  We need allies, and we only need to awaken allies.  That takes incentives not invectives.  That's the only way to stop what's happening.  We need to awaken progressives to what's going on, not antagonize them.

Big Tech tries to silence conservatives before the election

Jim Jordan recaps just some recent examples for us:

It's time conservatives engaged in litigious warfare

How do you fight fake news?  Lawsuits.

Dr. Steve Turley looks at some of the current situations, and there's a conclusion to be drawn; lawsuits may work.

Conservatives Against Models - a really bad idea

I work in data and analytics in my daily life.  I've seen the power of models, and while they are not perfect, they are truly powerful tools.  I've also heard on shows like Rush Limbaugh and other conservative pundits (for example on Patriot Radio on SiriusXM),  decrying models.  As a conservative I will state unequivocally, we ignore and discount models at our political peril.

While it is true that statistical models can provide wildly inaccurate results (for example millions of COVID-19 deaths, hurricane paths that make no sense, etc), that is because not the model, but of the assumptions baked into the model by the creator(s) of that model.  Garbage in, garbage out. 

But models have also successfully predicted what vintage of wine and from what region will be a particularly good vintage, or bad.  Models have extremely accurately predicted consumer behaviors to an alarmingly amazing degree.  In the latter case I know personally as I have both used and created models with stunning predictive ability.  Groups like Camebridge Analytica have thrived on the amazing amount of data available in public to predict behaviors.

Models are used for a startling amount of things.  Just because models often lead to incorrect results do not discount them - if a model is set up to predict a specific outcome in a specific way, it will do exactly that.  Garbage in, garbage out.  But to discount and denigrate models as a whole is to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Models can predict election outcomes with razor precision if they are built properly. Now it is especially true since machine learning can lead models to self-improve over time. If we turn conservatives against models holistically, we are dooming ourselves to being out-campaigned by Democrats who understand the power of smart-campaigning leveraging model-driven insights.

This is no I'm-trying-to-keep-my-job warning.  Models are the future of everything; from airline safety to stock price predictions, to pandemics, to human health and genetics, o music popularity to farming and beyond.  I work in the industry and see how over time, people are learning to better set models up for success and the models are teaching themselves to get better over time.  That is not to suggest that they will replace humans, but that they can be leveraged as truly useful tools, if they are properly trained (and yes training models is a real thing).

Here's an example of Artificial Intelligence, leveraging modeling of behavior, learning to play hide and seek, and then, even to break the rules:

Surprising Canadian Election Results

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won re-election last night, winning an election he had no business being close to winning given all of his scandals (not to mention his glaring, drama teacher phoniness).  But the polls between the Liberals and Conservative Party of Canada were within fractions of a percentage point of each other, and it could have gone either way.  So the result is not a shock, but there are some very interesting takeaways nonetheless.

It's worth noting that the Liberals won a minority government.  That means a snap election could be called at any time if a non-confidence motion is agreed to by the other parties.  Typically minority governments last less than two years.

But the results are interesting for two specific reasons. Here are the results as of this morning:

The first reason that this is unusual is clear: the Conservative party won the largest vote share but not the most seats in parliament.  People in the United States who are familiar with the popular vote versus the electoral college results will be familiar with the phenomenon.  There are groups in Canada, mainly far-left-leaning who will take the opportunity to point out that our voting system is not fair.  It's not in the Conservative Party's interest to join this fight.  Parties in Canada rarely garner 40% of the popular vote.  The Liberals (socialist lite) and New Democrats (socialist) would form coalition governments in Canada forever if there was some form of proportional representation.

Besides which, these results are rare:

It marks only the second time in Canada’s history that a governing party will take power with such a low share of the vote. David Moscrop, a political theorist at the University of Ottawa, tweeted that “the last and only time a party has formed government with less than 35 percent of the national popular vote was John A. Macdonald in 1867—with 34.8 percent.”

...Even more unusual in Monday night’s vote, it appeared the Liberals were not even the first place party in terms of absolute number of votes.

Elections Canada official website pointed out how rare this is:

...A party forming a government may receive a smaller share of the popular vote but still win more seats than its principal competing party. This has happened three times since Confederation: in 1957, 1962, and 1979. In 1925, the Liberal government continued in office although it won both fewer seats and fewer votes than the Conservatives.

There's another interesting result.  Party support is highly regionalized.  The Atlantic provinces are predominantly Liberal (though less so than in the last election).  Quebec is predominantly  Bloc Quebecois (a regional party focused mostly on provincial issues).  Ontario, the most populous and central geographically province,  is typically split between conservative (suburban and rural) and liberal (urban) voters and is the real battleground.  It's also where the socialist NDP find support.

The West is predominantly very conservative except right on the coast where there is socialist and liberal support.  The far north has very little representation in parliament but it is split between liberal and socialist support.

The regionalization has been a growing trend over the last decades and it might have reached the point where Ontario becomes the battleground province and the focus of elections going forward.  Again this is similar to typical U.S. elections where battleground states garner the majority of election efforts to the detriment of other areas.

The short term takeaways are obvious for the Conservative Party of Canada - it has grown voter share but not efficiently.  It needs to focus on growing support in suburban Ontario. It can take some comfort in the fact that it won a plurality of the vote, beating the liberals in that regard.  It must look for openings to work with other parties to force another election sooner rather than later (the caveat being it's got to build it's regional support smartly in the meantime).

More Trudeau is not a good thing for Canada, but it looks like we will have to deal with it for a while.

Hey Conservatives, Stay in your lane!

Slowly but surely, conservatives are still being silenced. McCarthyism is alive and well in progressive liberal circles and this is the latest salvo in the war on free speech just because - different ideas.  This is truly scary and if you don't realize that, regardless of your political persuasion, you are on the road to serfdom.