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Why am I abusing you with this information? I recently wrote about why I didn’t join Trump’s circus. Now, I want to bring to your attention how the circus works, or what I’ve come to call MAGA Inc., which is essentially the new version of “Conservatism Inc.” But instead of guys like Frank Luntz, who share bunk beds with Kevin McCarthy, you get characters like Bruesewitz.
More importantly, I oppose MAGA Inc. for the same reasons I oppose Conservatism Inc. That is, it exists for no purpose other than to deceive Republican voters, and it cannot combat the left. They’re different sides of the same coin. One is just less honest about what it is.
From my little peek under the hood, I’ve found that direct money doesn’t have to be exchanged. When it is, it doesn’t have to be much. These people are cheap dates. Federal Election Commission filings show it cost $35,000 for Bruesewitz to initially switch from pro-DeSantis to anti-DeSantis.
There are other incentives, like having access to Trump (which by itself can be lucrative for consultants who can, in turn, offer it to others for a fee), having Trump promote whatever you’re selling, having access to the Mar-a-Lago social club, and, yes, the possibility of a job in the White House because ass-kissing is the only qualification you need for a job.
Bruesewitz is reportedly considering a run for office in Wisconsin, so I suppose he believes branding himself as a “MAGA Warrior” would help him get Trump’s endorsement, even though that doesn’t go far nowadays. I don’t have a problem with people doing what they have to do to eat. But these people do it by shitting in other people’s bowls.
I don’t know what I would have received for joining the party. Maybe a signed hat from The Donald himself. Who knows. But if you want to see what MAGA Inc. looks like in action, see the response to my thread about Donald Trump Jr.’s position on transgenderism.
In a podcast released earlier this month, Trump Jr. called gender affirmation “bullshit,” said he rejects the idea of transgenderism being pushed on “kids” but then concluded that he does not mind it for adults. His words:
Incoherence is a feature—not a bug—of MAGA Inc. Trump Jr. accepts the fundamental premise that men can snap their fingers and become women with genital mutilation and hormones or women’s clothing and a tuck like Buffalo Bill in “The Silence of the Lambs.” But don’t push it on three-year-old kids. That’s the line in the sand between civilization and barbarism.
It’s worth noting Trump père feels the same way, and it’s largely thanks to Trump that the “conservative” celebrity of Jenner has cursed us (Jenner recently joined Bruesewitz in his attacks on actual conservatives). I have documented how people from Trump’s White House and campaign were critical to forming the Jenner gubernatorial candidacy in California. A non-profit funded by Paul Singer was involved, but they don’t like to talk about that.
Back on the hellscape that is Twitter, I highlighted that if, like the Trump family, you believe adults can “consent” to transgenderism, you’ve already accepted the premise that proposes children can, too. You’ve already uprooted reality, eviscerated the natural order of things, and there’s no reason why it cannot also apply to “kids,” however arbitrarily defined. Trump Jr. said he is against pushing transgenderism on three-year-olds. I agree. But my son turns four next year, so would it be more acceptable then? Oregon might allow 15-year-olds to get a sex-change operation on their own. Would it be less troubling at that age? Audrey “Aiden” Hale, the “trans man” (a woman who “consented” to becoming a man) killer of three children and three adults, was 28. These are tough questions, I know.
After I posted that thread with these thoughts, I was told the Trump camp called for people to attack me on Twitter, which I found amusing. The astroturfed “backlash” was illustrative of how inorganic the MAGA Inc. game is in practice. Twitter is their domain, where influencers can be used to shape narratives. But that’s not reflected in reality or even other social media platforms. Trump Jr. struggles to get people to agree with his DeSantis bashing on Instagram for the same reason Trump Sr. can’t get audiences at rallies to go along with it: there’s no horde of influencers to carry the laugh track.
To be clear, the problem is not criticisms of DeSantis. Every politician should be subject to scrutiny. The real problem is people who claim to have the best interests of Middle Americans at heart but don’t. Moreover, not everyone in this sphere is fake, and I appreciate the independent few.
But too many are, despite all their chest-thumping about fighting the D.C. swamp, beholden to the swamp in Mar-a-Lago in one way or another. I don’t envy them. They’re charged with keeping alive the spirit of Trump 2016 like it’s “Weekend at Bernie’s,” violently slamming chest compressions into a body that’s bled out while trying to make it dance for bystanders. You wonder if the decent thing would be to bury it and move on. But they can’t. That corpse is their meal ticket.
These people know that without Trump, they would lose a climbing ladder, so they’ll fight tooth and nail, even going at it with other Trump supporters, like Michael Caputo, who worked at Trump’s Health and Human Services; Jenna Ellis, a lawyer who served on Trump’s legal team; and Katrina Pierson, the national spokesperson for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and senior adviser to the 2020 campaign. All these people have butted heads with Bruesewitz and the army of clowns swirling around MAGA Inc.
Some of this seems like unnecessary drama, and, indeed, this is the last time I will write about it for a good while. However, the left keeps winning, our political swamps remain placid and undrained, and we are consigned to conserving yesterday’s revolution against civilization precisely because these people are leading us. MAGA Inc. is just a vulgar version of Conservatism Inc. and just as ill-equipped to do what must be done.
Note: images not loading properly, refer to article link or archive to see images
About MAGA Inc.
Am I working for Gov. Ron DeSantis out of a bunker in Florida? No. I live in Ohio and don’t work for or take money from any campaign or candidate. But I was approached by Alex Bruesewitz, a GOP consultant allied with Donald Trump, to join the Mar-a-Lago circle jerk. “Would love to connect on a project I’m working on for 2024,” he wrote me last August over Twitter. “I’m thinking you could be helpful on the messaging aspect.”Why am I abusing you with this information? I recently wrote about why I didn’t join Trump’s circus. Now, I want to bring to your attention how the circus works, or what I’ve come to call MAGA Inc., which is essentially the new version of “Conservatism Inc.” But instead of guys like Frank Luntz, who share bunk beds with Kevin McCarthy, you get characters like Bruesewitz.
More importantly, I oppose MAGA Inc. for the same reasons I oppose Conservatism Inc. That is, it exists for no purpose other than to deceive Republican voters, and it cannot combat the left. They’re different sides of the same coin. One is just less honest about what it is.
From my little peek under the hood, I’ve found that direct money doesn’t have to be exchanged. When it is, it doesn’t have to be much. These people are cheap dates. Federal Election Commission filings show it cost $35,000 for Bruesewitz to initially switch from pro-DeSantis to anti-DeSantis.
There are other incentives, like having access to Trump (which by itself can be lucrative for consultants who can, in turn, offer it to others for a fee), having Trump promote whatever you’re selling, having access to the Mar-a-Lago social club, and, yes, the possibility of a job in the White House because ass-kissing is the only qualification you need for a job.
Bruesewitz is reportedly considering a run for office in Wisconsin, so I suppose he believes branding himself as a “MAGA Warrior” would help him get Trump’s endorsement, even though that doesn’t go far nowadays. I don’t have a problem with people doing what they have to do to eat. But these people do it by shitting in other people’s bowls.
I don’t know what I would have received for joining the party. Maybe a signed hat from The Donald himself. Who knows. But if you want to see what MAGA Inc. looks like in action, see the response to my thread about Donald Trump Jr.’s position on transgenderism.
In a podcast released earlier this month, Trump Jr. called gender affirmation “bullshit,” said he rejects the idea of transgenderism being pushed on “kids” but then concluded that he does not mind it for adults. His words:
Being “liberal on the issue” is how you get Dylvan Mulvaney, who likes to dress as a six-year-old girl, when not knocking back cans of Bud Light while wearing pearls.I don’t give a shit, dude. If you’re an adult and you wanna be trans and you do it—great! If you’re happy, you’re productive. I actually don’t give a shit. I’m fairly liberal on the issue.
Incoherence is a feature—not a bug—of MAGA Inc. Trump Jr. accepts the fundamental premise that men can snap their fingers and become women with genital mutilation and hormones or women’s clothing and a tuck like Buffalo Bill in “The Silence of the Lambs.” But don’t push it on three-year-old kids. That’s the line in the sand between civilization and barbarism.
It’s worth noting Trump père feels the same way, and it’s largely thanks to Trump that the “conservative” celebrity of Jenner has cursed us (Jenner recently joined Bruesewitz in his attacks on actual conservatives). I have documented how people from Trump’s White House and campaign were critical to forming the Jenner gubernatorial candidacy in California. A non-profit funded by Paul Singer was involved, but they don’t like to talk about that.
Back on the hellscape that is Twitter, I highlighted that if, like the Trump family, you believe adults can “consent” to transgenderism, you’ve already accepted the premise that proposes children can, too. You’ve already uprooted reality, eviscerated the natural order of things, and there’s no reason why it cannot also apply to “kids,” however arbitrarily defined. Trump Jr. said he is against pushing transgenderism on three-year-olds. I agree. But my son turns four next year, so would it be more acceptable then? Oregon might allow 15-year-olds to get a sex-change operation on their own. Would it be less troubling at that age? Audrey “Aiden” Hale, the “trans man” (a woman who “consented” to becoming a man) killer of three children and three adults, was 28. These are tough questions, I know.
After I posted that thread with these thoughts, I was told the Trump camp called for people to attack me on Twitter, which I found amusing. The astroturfed “backlash” was illustrative of how inorganic the MAGA Inc. game is in practice. Twitter is their domain, where influencers can be used to shape narratives. But that’s not reflected in reality or even other social media platforms. Trump Jr. struggles to get people to agree with his DeSantis bashing on Instagram for the same reason Trump Sr. can’t get audiences at rallies to go along with it: there’s no horde of influencers to carry the laugh track.
To be clear, the problem is not criticisms of DeSantis. Every politician should be subject to scrutiny. The real problem is people who claim to have the best interests of Middle Americans at heart but don’t. Moreover, not everyone in this sphere is fake, and I appreciate the independent few.
But too many are, despite all their chest-thumping about fighting the D.C. swamp, beholden to the swamp in Mar-a-Lago in one way or another. I don’t envy them. They’re charged with keeping alive the spirit of Trump 2016 like it’s “Weekend at Bernie’s,” violently slamming chest compressions into a body that’s bled out while trying to make it dance for bystanders. You wonder if the decent thing would be to bury it and move on. But they can’t. That corpse is their meal ticket.
These people know that without Trump, they would lose a climbing ladder, so they’ll fight tooth and nail, even going at it with other Trump supporters, like Michael Caputo, who worked at Trump’s Health and Human Services; Jenna Ellis, a lawyer who served on Trump’s legal team; and Katrina Pierson, the national spokesperson for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and senior adviser to the 2020 campaign. All these people have butted heads with Bruesewitz and the army of clowns swirling around MAGA Inc.
Some of this seems like unnecessary drama, and, indeed, this is the last time I will write about it for a good while. However, the left keeps winning, our political swamps remain placid and undrained, and we are consigned to conserving yesterday’s revolution against civilization precisely because these people are leading us. MAGA Inc. is just a vulgar version of Conservatism Inc. and just as ill-equipped to do what must be done.
Note: images not loading properly, refer to article link or archive to see images
