Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone

• Welcome to the Fourth Turning Report - The Great War Edition

  [This is a slightly different kind of podcast, a news summary - and will have its own podcast feed eventually]Every Fourth Turning, at least since the founding of America, has been defined by a great war: the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World War II. When I began this Substack a few years back, the world war we might be fighting would be Iran, Russia, and China against the United States and its allies, including Israel. It made sense then. Not so much now. That was before Putin invaded Ukraine, before October 7th, before the United States government pursued Trump like he was a war criminal, before his attempted assassination, and his second win. Steve Bannon says we’re already fighting World War III.Now, as Trump declares “unconditional surrender, " everyone wonders, is this it? Is this our great war?Iran doesn’t appear to have an ally in Russia or China at the moment. Trump just met with his security advisers and will address the nation later this afternoon. It does feel a little like the post 9/11 drumbeat for war, and we’re all still wary and fearful that it might turn into “regime change” rather than a negotiated peace. We will know what their plans are soon enough. The neocons like Lindsey Graham are prepared to go all the way.Earlier today, Tammy Bruce spoke to the press from the State Department:She mentions that Trump has made the same warning, that Iran can never have a nuke, over 40 times, going back to 2011. Here is that video:Dealing with Iran has been one of the main conflicts between Trump and Barack Obama, so it’s easier to see how it started and how it’s going. Trump’s administration is not the Bush administration. If the 2008 Wall Street meltdown was the crisis that sparked the Fourth Turning and the mission is, as Steve Bannon says, to dismantle the Deep State that took us to the $700 billion bailout, then a big war in the Middle East would fracture the MAGA coalition. For his part, Benjamin Netanyu has said he believes Iran threatens America too, and indeed, they’ve been trying to assassinate Trump. If there is a graceful way to end the threat without getting into war, that’s the path Trump will want to take.A MAGA Divided Cannot Stand.MAGA is split over whether or not to aid Israel in its fight against Iran. Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, and Marjorie Taylor-Greene are locking arms with Dave Smith and Glenn Greenwald to push back against any involvement. Breitbart reports that members of the Squad have now joined Thomas Massie to limit Trump’s power on Iran:From Breitbart:While he remains the sole Republican backing such a legislative effort, several top Democrats from the far-left of the Democratic Party, including “Squad” members Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ilhan Omar (D-MN), have indicated they are signing on to the Massie proposal.Alex Jones is opposed to any help or aid in Israel’s war, writing:Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon discussed our involvement, with Bannon urging Trump and MAGA to keep their eye on the ball. He means to go after and dismantle the Deep State:Raheem Kassam sums up the internal conflict well:Ice Raids Paused, Then UnpausedThe Iran conflict is not the only dividing issue in MAGA. There is a split between those who want to support farms and hotels with their large immigrant staff, many of whom are undocumented and have worked for the companies for decades. Versus the opposing side, who insist Trump must not back off even an inch when it comes to mass deportations. Trump listened to them and retreated from his original plan to offer a potential middle ground.Federal Agents Arrest NYC Comptroller & Mayoral Candidate Brad Lander At Immigration CourtAccording to the Left, Lander was arrested for asking to see a warrant. But the truth is, he was arrested for assault, per a Fox report:New York City Comptroller Brad Lander was arrested by Department of Homeland Security(DHS) agents on Tuesday after allegedly assaulting a federal officer. The article quoted a DHS spokesperson,"Our heroic ICE law enforcement officers face a 413% increase in assaults against them—it is wrong that politicians seeking higher office undermine law enforcement safety to get a viral moment, no one is above the law, and if you lay a hand on a law enforcement officer, you will face consequences."Letitia James said:"This is profoundly unacceptable. Arresting Comptroller Lander for the simple act of standing up for immigrants and their civil rights is a shocking abuse of power. No one should face fear and intimidation in a courthouse, and this is a grotesque escalation of tensions. The administration’s rampant targeting of New Yorkers only makes our communities less safe."The Democrats had four years of the Biden administration to do something about the border. They didn’t. Instead, they encouraged millions to flood in, many of them unvetted. Yet, because the migrants represent an oppressed group, the Democrats can’t turn away. They are choosing this as one of their base issues because it feeds their ongoing delusion that they are living under a fascist dictator. No Kings vs. Army’s 250th AnniversaryThe coverage of the No Kings protest was amplified to look like a grassroots movement, even though it was well-funded and populated by the same people who had protested in the “Hands Off” event not long before. It reached roughly the same number of participants, around 5 million. This will be their playbook for the next five years.The legacy media muted the coverage of the Army’s parade, and if they covered it at all, they covered it as militaristic, fascist-like, and compared it to North Korea.Here is a balanced report by Mark Halperin, Sean Spicer, and Dan Turrentine on 2Way:Assassination NationThe Democrats will not let the crisis of the recent shootings of Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota go to waste and are currently calling the shooter the “MAGA assassin.”On the list of targets were 45 Democrats, “including dozens of Minnesota lawmakers and members of Congress such as Rep. Angie Craig, Rep. Ilhan Omar, and Sen. Tina Smith. It also included members of Planned Parenthood, philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, who has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to the organization, and several healthcare centers across the Midwest,” according to Fox9.As usual, the reaction to the shootings, horrific and tragic though they are, is far less than we saw for the assassination of the healthcare CEO Brian Thompson by Luigi Mangione, who has been turned into a martyr and a hero by the Left. Both assassination attempts against President Trump were not treated the same way by the legacy media, and coverage was muted. Again, we turn to 2way to hear balanced coverage.If you think we’re living through crazy times, you would be right. Every Fourth Turning feels transformational in good and bad ways. Change is all around us. These are just a few pressure points we are currently hitting as a country.Let me know if you like this format. Until next time.[I hope to turn this into video but I ran out of time to do it today. Next time]. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sashastone.substack.com/subscribe

  --------  

  31:59
• Happy Birthday, Mr. President

  In the Fall of 2021, Donald Trump was selling a hardcover book about his presidency called Our Journey Together. It would be self-published because it had to be. No publisher would touch it, no author would write it, and no critic would be caught dead praising it.January 6th was meant to be the end of the Trump story. He was to slink back to Mar-a-Lago, disgraced and a failure. They all said his book was a joke, a Putin-like rewrite of what really happened in his first term. Obviously, it had to be a lie - covering up the crimes, treason, and corruption.But something told me I should get that book anyway and hold onto it. It might matter someday. Maybe, I thought, the Trump story wasn’t over quite yet.So I paid the hefty price for the signed copy and waited. When the package arrived, it came in a plain cardboard box. I breathed a sigh of relief because I thought if the UPS guy knew I was buying it, he might accidentally lose some of my packages next time, or who knows what else.I knew I wasn’t a Trump supporter because I was still holding on to what I thought were my principles as a lifelong Liberal. I didn’t vote for Trump in 2020, and as long as that was still true about me, I was protected from their wrath. I would find out years later just how bad it was to admit you supported Trump, let alone voted for him.Much of what we have experienced over the past ten years will be memory-holed. No one will remember how treacherous it was back then to buy Our Journey Together. Now, I keep it to remind me of what it felt like to be that afraid and how foolish I was to give them that much power over me.That’s what Trump has done for the past ten years. He’s refused to give the mighty empire power over his story. He’s decided to tell it himself, even if he has to self-publish a book. He’ll dress up in a tux with Melania and attend Les Miz at the Kennedy Center, even if some of them boo him. He’ll celebrate his birthday on the same day as the 250th anniversary of the creation of the United States Army, even if they mobilize their infantile “No Kings” protest.Trump insists his version is the truth, and two narratives go to war every day. But the thing is, Trump’s is the better story. It’s like the end of the movie Life of Pi, where the lone survivor of a shipwreck has the choice of whether to tell the good story or the bad story. One will destroy you, and one will inspire you. It’s used as a metaphor for religion, but it works here, too.Trump’s is the better story because he’s a better storyteller. For all of Trump’s obvious gifts, that one has served him the best. He’s mastered it for his entire life, starting all the way back in high school, where he would just stand in front of a crowd and tell stories.For the past ten years, many people have needed to believe in Trump’s story, many of them discarded and forgotten by the empire. Over time, more and more people were drawn in as each side played its role. The Left hunted Trump down and cast themselves as the villains. How could they have ever thought that was a winning strategy?That is what I find most inspiring about Trump. That’s why so many of his supporters remain loyal to him and fiercely defend him, even when — especially when — he makes mistakes.In 2020, I was in a very dark place. I was caught up in the so-called #resistance. I believed Putin had Kompromat on Trump. I believed it all. I read all of the books. I hung on to every word Rachel Maddow said.But things would change in those four years. It would become dystopian on the Left. I would feel the mob's wrath one too many times just for speaking out and pushing back about things I knew to be true. I also had no other social life except Twitter and Facebook during lockdowns, where the daily ritual of hate aimed at Trump, his staff, his family, and his supporters began to feel like poison.I didn't want to be a part of it. If, for no other reason, I'd been the target of hate for so long, and I empathized with them. Worse, I knew I was wrong to dehumanize a whole group of people, no matter what the excuse was. Dehumanizing them had already led to violence on the streets before, during, and after Trump's first term.I knew enough history to have asked myself the question more than once: What would you do? What would you do in Salem in 1692? What would you do in Germany in the 1930s? What would you do in the Jim Crow South? I'm not comparing them. I'm just saying the mechanism is the same, and the person I wanted to be, and believe I am, is someone who would not go along with it, especially since my life wasn’t in danger.Thus began my journey over to Trump's side of things. I wanted to know whether our version of Trump was true. Was he a threat to Democracy? Was he a virulent racist and “white supremacist”? If I watched enough of his rallies, I might find the smoking gun. Maybe I would have enough proof to justify everything we did to try to destroy him. But that never happened.In 2020, he had survived COVID and was out doing five rallies a day, flying in on a helicopter, circling the crowd overhead, then greeting them with a handful of red hats, tossing them to the crowd. And I watched every single one of his rallies. And as time went on, something happened to me. I guess you could say I was like the Grinch.My heart grew because I saw people who had every reason to be miserable, full of hate, and resentful, as the media describes them, but who were none of those things. They were happy. They were joyful. Trump made them laugh. They danced. It was one big party—a glowing oasis of fun amid an endless, dark winter on the Left.I’ll never forget hearing Trump at a rally in Miami in the pouring rain. I remember thinking, This is amazing. The press will never cover this. They could never. They could never write about people who loved Trump that much, to stay out there as the rain pounded down.But of course, that was the story. That was the real story. That was the truth. What I saw in Trump and MAGA is what Tucker Carlson saw in this often-played video summarizing the Trump movement just before the 2020 election.Trump speaks a language called Normal American. It’s one we on the Left abandoned long ago. After years of curating our language to be pristine, inoffensive, soft, and kind, we became too fragile to speak Normal American.But Trump can talk to anyone, especially normal Americans. That's why he could fly to so many different states, land anywhere - a McDonald’s, a pizza joint, or even East Palestine, Ohio, and fit right in.Normal American can sometimes be offensive. Some of us still speak it when we think no one is watching or listening. To the Left, that means we use all of the slurs that prove we are an ist or a phobe. But no, it just means the occasional dirty joke, or talking like we all used to, without fear and at ease.What I love so much about Trump is his persistent, unshakable optimism. He refused to accept the Left's rewrite of him. They could never destroy Trump because they weren’t fighting the real guy; they still aren’t. Their ridiculous “No Kings” protest on his birthday is a fantasy about someone they invented who doesn’t exist in real life.They don’t see the Trump we all see—the guy who faced them down for a decade and triumphed. Four years of attacks, framed as a Russian asset, impeached twice, indicted four times, convicted of a felony, called a racist, a rapist, a fascist, a dictator, a criminal, a felon, Hitler and now — a King. A guy who was almost assassinated twice, took a bullet, survived it, then got on stage just days later to give a 90-minute speech. You bet that’s the better story.In all of that time, the Democrats never did the one thing they would have to do to defeat Trump: offer the people something better. The reason they don’t is that they can’t. They want America back the way it was before Trump. But it’s never coming back because we, the people, voted for it never to come back.If they think they can somehow force those who speak Normal American to ever listen to them over Trump, they’re fooling themselves. They can throw as many tantrums as they want, but that won’t fix who they are. That’s why they lost the election. It’s never been about Trump. It’s always been about them.If anything, Trump was the guy who spelunked into our Doomsday Bunker like SEAL Team Six to get us the hell out of there. You can throw all the lawn signs at us you want. We’re not going back.What watching Trump for five years has taught me is just how weak so many of those I once saw as heroes really are. They've never looked so small as they do right now, never so petty as all of them cosplaying oppression just because they lost an election and can't face the humiliation. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sashastone.substack.com/subscribe

  --------  

  26:36
• The Real Handmaids of the Woke Left

  “All you have to do, I tell myself, is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard.” - Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale.Last month, Margaret Hoover lobbed Hillary Clinton with sickeningly sweet softball questions for a lengthy interview about her new book. What book was it? Who knows, and who cares? Whatever it is, almost nothing in it will be the truth.When asked what advice she would give to the first woman president, Hillary paused — a pregnant pause that seemed to say, “Well, why can’t it still be me?” as the audience laughed. Then, she said, “Don’t be a Handmaiden for the patriarchy,” like all the women on the Right.But she’s wrong. Republican women aren’t the Handmaids. On the contrary, they’ve put the so-called “feminists” to shame. They aren’t afraid of the fanatics on the Left who tried to force all of us into compliance. They have spoken out without mincing words about scientific and biological reality.Most importantly, they have been the only women in government willing to stare down the cult that seeks to erase women. Not a single Democrat has that kind of courage, male or female. But it’s those who call themselves “feminists” who have been exposed as cowards and frauds. They are the real Handmaids.I didn’t use to think so. I thought Hillary Clinton fought for the rights of women and girls. That’s how she sold herself, anyway, and liberal women like me bought the lie. I even downloaded an audio copy of The Handmaid’s Tale, thinking it would resonate with me as part of the “resistance.”But as the story unfolded, a chill went down my spine. It didn’t remind me of the Right. It reminded me of the Left, everything that had happened to us after Trump won the first time, and how quickly mass hysteria consumed us and how obedient we all became in the wake of it.As if to prove my point, I knew I could not tell my friends we were the side living the Handmaid’s Tale. As I began to pull away from my fellow comrades on the Left and directly challenge the new rules of the Woke, I thought some women who called themselves leaders would rise up and speak out. They never did.When I realized that the transgender social contagion had captured a generation of young girls and boys, and how so many of them were waking up to what happened to them at the hands of professionals, therapists, clinicians, and experts, I waited for strong female leaders to stand up for them, to protect them. They never did.When the fanatics on the Left rewrote the rules of biological reality, like there is no difference between men and women, that “trans women are women,” whether they’re competing in sports, Jeopardy, or Chess. I thought the strong female leaders who fought so hard for Title IX would speak up and fight for women and girls to compete fairly. They never did.Hillary Clinton’s silence on these fundamental rights to protect women and children has been deafening. Even though her history will be written by pandering sycophants like I used to be, who will never call her out for her silence and complicity, some of us will never forget.She and the other “feminists” leave quite a legacy. A whole generation of young women raised to sell themselves out, women like Olympic athlete Simone Biles, who exposed herself as a Handmaid on X by attacking Riley Gaines in a deeply personal way, calling her a “sore loser.”But imagine if Biles had to compete against biological men. Would she stand by and say nothing? Would she chant “trans women are women”?The real fight for women’s rights, and the rights of children, has exposed the so-called feminists like Hillary Clinton, Jane Fonda, Gloria Steinem, and every female Democrat in Congress as too weak and ineffectual ever to be real leaders.They’ve turned a blind eye to stories of girls being forced to share a dorm with a man pretending to be a woman whose visible erection gave him away. They said nothing when a sex offender infiltrated the Wi Spa in Los Angeles and exposed himself to little girls and women, with protesters outside chanting Trans Women are Women.The Democrats haven’t just gone along with it; they’ve gaslighted and shamed any Republican who dares to try to end the madness. They work hard every day to make sure young girls are told they do not have the right to speak up for their own protection, for fairness in sports, because it will ruin their lives if they do.Handmaids don’t speak out. They can’t. Handmaids do as they’re told. Handmaids live in fear. Handmaids bow to their authoritarian leader. That’s not the women on the Right, Hillary, that’s you.Whatever the feminist movement used to be, it’s been hijacked by approval-seeking narcissists who cling to abortion as the only act of empowerment they have left. They do not realize that all that does is further erode the rights of women. If babies don’t matter, then mothers don’t matter. If mothers don’t matter, civilization collapses.The first thing cults do is separate children from their mothers. It’s easy to see why. If you break that bond, they can be more easily controlled—both the women and the children.Like Hillary Clinton, Simone Biles might not know what Riley Gaines has suffered when she was trapped in a classroom and held hostage as activists surrounded her, screamed at her, and mocked her fear—all of giving a speech.Instead, Biles and the rest of the Handmaids of the Left have basked in the adoration bestowed upon them by the cult that rewards them for their obedience.But because of their “don’t ask, don’t tell” strategy of dealing with a problem they can’t solve, it’s been left up to a growing chorus of voices speaking out - loudly, boldly, and without fear.What does Hillary think that Trump, the man she called a rapist and a misogynist did what she never could, that he signed an Executive Order to protect women in sports.What does she think about his proclamation that it’s time to end the madness of “gender-affirming care?” Does it bother her that a man has done the dirty work? Who knows, no one will ever ask her that question. She exists in her own insular bubble, a padded cell that keeps the hard questions out.But the man she insists we should all fear is the one who helped rescue women and children from the clutches of fanaticism.It Takes a Village to De-Trans AmericaThe list of those who have stuck their necks out includes women and men from all backgrounds, on the Left and the Right. Megyn Kelly has become a singular force in the movement. As her media empire has grown, so has her voice. Her videos are seen by millions every day. The story of how this war was won cannot be told without her.The women of the Right that Hillary Clinton smeared deserve much credit, too, for staring down the cult and using their power in Congress to give victims a platform.Many women who still consider themselves Democrats are out there fighting, uniting with Republicans to pass legislation, like Jamie Reed, a former gender clinician who now goes state to state, ensuring bills protecting children from “gender affirming care” are passed.Those the Left shunned and exiled for speaking inconvenient truths are also out there fighting, like Jennifer Sey, who has launched a clothing company called XX-YY Athletics, which celebrates female athletes and points out the differences between the sexes.Here is their latest ad.And then there are the parents who are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore.Outspoken Detransitioners like Chloe Cole and Prisha Mosley have given a face to the destructive effects of social contagion.There are even many in the gay and trans communities who understand cultists have hijacked their movement, and many of them are out there fighting too./// This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sashastone.substack.com/subscribe

  --------  

  41:07
• Original Sin and the Party of Creeps

  I wasn’t sure I’d be able to finish the Jake Tapper/Alex Thompson book, Original Sin. I downloaded the audiobook, narrated by Tapper, to listen to as I drive across the country from California to Ohio to see my daughter for her birthday. Out my window, I see the same running commentary of the real America I witnessed years ago, which changed my mind about Trump and MAGA. When you see Trump’s name arising in unexpected places in nearly every state, from Arizona (“Viva Trump”) to Nebraska to Iowa to New York, you know something significant has shifted in this country.It felt like a secret cry for help among forgotten and abandoned Americans. I see it even now:I was not encouraged by the book’s first chapter, which describes a world where the Democratic Party isn’t corrupt, where they don’t hand-pick candidates and then force everyone to “Vote Blue No Matter Who,” where identity politics don’t rule the day, and where the democratic process is allowed to play out. What a load of garbage. To quote Deep Throat in All the President’s Men, “Oh, but it’s touching.” Just imagine Gavin Newsom attempting to challenge Kamala Harris. She might be the world’s worst candidate, but all points lead back to her; you have to start there, whether they had a primary or not. They knew that, which is why they skipped the foreplay and went straight to a first-ever installed candidate for president. So I didn’t think listening to an entire audiobook shaped by a false premise and awash in false media narratives would be a good use of my time. Maybe I’d listen to, I don’t know, the new Mark Twain biography.As Victor Davis Hanson points out, Jake Tapper is an unreliable narrator because there would be no Biden cover-up if the media had done its job:Had Original Sin been written by Tom Wolfe, Gore Vidal, or even Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi, it would have been the searing indictment of a deep state plot foiled by Mr. McGoo, told with bemused irony. But it is dead serious, for better or worse.But I must say, in the end, I’m glad I stuck with it. It might not be the definitive account of the rise and fall of a once-mighty empire I would have wanted, but it is a surprisingly revealing look behind the curtain all the same.Could it really be that Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg were brought in to “direct” Joe Biden with better light, sound, and acting coaching? Yes. Could it be that Rob Reiner and Jane Fonda broke down in hysterics at some mansion in the Hollywood Hills after the debate? Yes. If the aim was to scapegoat Joe Biden, they failed. He comes off as the most sympathetic, a victim of a massive machine of creeps that chewed him up and spit him out. Do they legitimately believe we would sympathize with some fat cat in Hollywood who threatens never to write another check unless they push Biden out? We’re supposed to care about what the donors think? Tapper seems to have emerged from the grim experience with a bit of a perspective shift. At least now, he’s able to talk about the problems the Democrats have in a way he hasn’t in the past ten years. The value of Original Sin, at least for someone like me who fled the party in disgust in 2020 after watching them use their power to take our elections away from the people and decide their outcome, isn’t so much that there are any new revelations. But it’s a book written from the inside, with access to over 200 voices anxious to be heard. That meant following the events as they unfolded in real time, and let me tell you, there is pleasure in that. I found it cathartic, not just because the Democrats had it coming, and got everything they deserved, but for the sheer joy of witnessing the most most powerful people in the world have their asses handed to them by the very democracy they claimed they wanted to protect. That George Clooney, Steven Spielberg, and Jeffrey Katzenberg were so heavily involved in the politics of the Democrats makes it all look like the Wizard of Oz, pulling back the curtain and exposing the ugly truth. Hollywood might make this into a series for HBO or Netflix, but since the co-founder and chairman of Netflix, Reed Hastings, was one of the fat cats who threatened to withhold funds unless the Democrats got rid of Biden, I’m guessing we won’t get the whole story. But if they wanted to tell it like it really happened, it would make one hell of a tale.The Story That Writes ItselfHollywood doesn’t have the guts to tell the whole story. They can’t because they’re part of it. They’re way too cozy with the Democrats, and if they really wanted to tell the truth, they’d have to admit, as with Michael Corleone, they are part of the same hypocrisy. At best, they could cobble together something that paints Trump as the ultimate evil that vain and selfish Joe and Jill Biden allowed to take back power. The real story is how they built a powerful coalition and had no choice but to turn to corruption to preserve that power. This would make a great long-form series.Episode One—The “hope and change” candidate lights up the world and chooses an “old white guy” to be his Veep, just as JFK did with LBJ, a cynical ploy to make his youth and inexperience (and, in this case, skin color) more palatable for a nervous electorate. Episode Two - The “hope and change” guy doesn’t like the “old white guy” as the successor of his powerful coalition, which now includes all of culture, all corporations, all institutions, all media, and all social media. Why go backwards? The “old white guy” with a stutter who just lost his beloved son to brain cancer was no longer useful to the “hope and change” guy. No one thinks much of it as he’s kicked to the curb and embarrassed as not electable enough, not desirable enough, and past his sell-by date. So, the “hope and change” guy picks the “Wall Street Sweetheart,” the former First Lady and Secretary of State, to become the “first woman POTUS.” With the help of a grassroots populist movement and an “Old Socialist” challenging the “Wall Street Sweetheart,” the party is fractured, and Trump wins. Episode Three - The establishment and the Obama coalition decide that Trump should not be allowed to rule, forget democracy! Who needs it? No “old white guy” was supposed to win, least of all that guy. Millions pour into the streets in an orgy of self pity, imagined oppression, fragility, privilege and narcissism — mass hysteria takes hold, cancel culture grips the left. Hundreds lose their jobs as they desperately try to undo the election results and get rid of Trump. They impeach him, they frame him, they smear him, they attack him. The OG “old white guy” waiting in the wings isn’t looking so bad. An easy, lateral move. An establishment pick. One “old white guy” for another.Episode Four - 2020 is its own whole episode. It has to be. It was the year the Democrats sold their souls to the Devil to cling to power. They spent $1 billion with a “well-funded cabal” of elites to fund and amplify the racial protests, change election laws, $400 million to collect ballots, and trot in experts to lie about everything from the laptop to COVID to the protests. They censored Americans on social media, and the FBI forced censorship of the laptop. The country sinks. Media credibility is destroyed. Large swaths of the electorate abandon the Democrats. But the “old white guy” wins. So finally, he gets his dream at long last, to be president of the United States. Episode Five - The “old white guy” is finally the savior he always dreamed he’d be. He became a blank check for Black Americans, trans Americans, and especially women of color. He would finish what the “hope and change” guy started. Are we topless at the White House?But the “old white guy” bungles the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and his approval ratings tank. Americans don’t see a nice old grandpa anymore. They see George Spahn, who just moved the Manson Family into the White House, and now they’re running the country.Now what? He goes after Trump and MAGA, calling them fascists, extremists, and a danger to society. If the “old white guy” can’t have the presidency, then no one will.The “old white guy” isn’t so nice anymore. Trump is indicted four times, convicted, and takes a mug shot that goes viral. They’ve sold their soul to the Devil, after all, they’re not going to give up power so easily. Episode Six - The final battle. Trump teases and torments the “old white guy” and forces him to debate. Trump mocks him mercilessly at his rallies for not knowing where he is. For Trump, beating him will be a cake walk for anyone not sucked into the false reality pushed by the legacy media.Trump and Biden debate rematch. The “old white guy” crashes and burns so hard it nearly sets Rob Reiner’s hair on fire. “He just lost the election,” Dana Bash scribbles on a note to Jake Tapper. What now for the empire that was never the resistance?Trump survives an assassination attempt at Butler the following month. His entire campaign is transformed. Elon Musk joins his dream team. This was our last best hope for America. We wanted out. We wanted something new. We wanted to be set free:But inside the Bubble, it’s Original Sin. It’s denial. It’s a legacy press that lies to the monarchs, lies to their voters, sending them cascading into yet more hysteria. Please make the bad orange man go away! For the sake of democracy! Please give us our utopia back! Jane Fonda, Steven Spielberg, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, David Simon, Jon Stewart, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, and Rob Reiner are losing their minds. It’s a dystopia full of aging, frustrated aristocrats who can’t keep democracy down. We’re about to lose our democracy, they cry. Biden will lose us our democracy, they insist. How can this be happening? Get rid of the “old white guy.” GET RID OF HIM! For the sake of democracy! “We need a new nominee,” says George Clooney. Who’s we? What happened to democracy? Now, the duly elected nominee, aka “the old white guy,” must step aside to save democracy? Yes, that is where the Democrats arrived in their pitiful last gasp to salvage and preserve their power. They cynically install the “woman of color” because they know all points lead to Kamala Harris. Their flock will fall in line as they always have. Push him out, push the “old white guy” out in a palace coup worthy of a fading, useless, self-serving monarchy on the brink of collapse. Trump wins again. We see the “old white guy” grinning in the oval office and having the last laugh. They used him. They lied to him. They flattered him. Then, they kicked him out, all because they were exposed and couldn’t hide the truth anymore.As the scene fades to black, we see a close-up on Jake Tapper lying in bed, working it all out. Holy s**t, he thinks. Someone has to tell this story. He picks up the phone, “Alex? Hi, it’s Jake. I was wondering if we might talk.” I mean, come on. It’s Ishtar Part Two. It writes itself.Do I think you should read Original Sin? Absolutely. It might not be the whole truth. It might be spin for the Democrats to regroup and recover. It might be reputation laundering for the media. But for me, it was an early Christmas present, if only for the delicious pleasure of watching them squirm as their corrupt plot to cling to power unravels. I can’t think of anything more satisfying than that. Original Sin proves two things: the Democrats are creeps and they got exactly what they deserved.Somewhere in Iowa, 8pm.// This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sashastone.substack.com/subscribe

  --------  

  32:28
• All the President's Media

  Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson writing an exposé of the conspiracy and cover-up to hide Joe Biden's cognitive decline is like the Watergate burglars writing a book about Nixon's alleged corruption. The conspiracy and cover-up are coming from inside the house.“A cancer on the Presidency”To most of us who aren’t inside the bubble of the Left, the Tapper/Thompson book looks more like a rescue mission than a Mea Culpa. They have a book to sell, and they know who their best and most profitable buyers are - people who read the New Yorker with disposable income who have thrown money at the Democrats for almost a decade, all with the promise that they’d make the bad orange man go away.What I know after a decade of irresponsible fear-mongering is that the “original sin” was the moment the Left, with all of the power, called itself “the resistance,” and with the help of a complicit press corps, went to war on a duly elected president and his supporters.Everything that came after that, up to and including Biden’s decision to run, was the result of a ruling class that refused to relinquish power, did not respect the voices of the people, and used everything in the kingdom to systematically dehumanize, demonize, and exile the other half of the country, or anyone who did not go along with them.As part of the resistance after the 2016 election, I should have seen who Trump really was — the guy on Celebrity Apprentice, the real estate playboy we all knew from the 1980s. But in our collective fever dream, we thought he’d somehow been captured and compromised by Putin, and had transformed into an evil fascist, racist, rapist dictator second only to Hitler.We drew a line. We were on this side, and anyone who voted for, was kind to, or associated with anyone on the other side was kicked out of utopia. We owned everything, so we could raise the drawbridge and forget about everyone else. We cultivated a dystopian fear bunker that policed thought and speech and strictly forbade any truth-telling lest it hurt the Democrats and helped Trump.That’s all they had left because everything else had failed. So, when a crazed lunatic surfer dude believed he was “saving democracy,” he picked up a gun and tried to shoot Trump. That was proof enough of the damage caused by the once-respected legacy press, and it was their “original sin.”And even after that, a freaked-out, unhinged group of people on TikTok actively call for the assassination of Trump with their “when it happens” and “somebody just do it,” memes.So when James Comey posts a photo of a message in the sand to “86” the 47th president, it takes on a different meaning than just a funny joke. He was, after all, the FBI director, and whatever happened with that other shooter in Butler?Their “original sin” has divided us, polarized us, and worst of all, betrayed our trust far worse than not reporting on the Biden story. Lying about Trump was worse. Making him a supernatural receptacle of all the evil in the world was worse.They’re still out there doing it now - like Lawrence O’Donnell, Tim Miller, Rick Wilson, Rachel Maddow — All the President’s Media perpetuating the kind of groupthink via deception that got them into this mess.Ten years of pumping hysteria into the veins of Americans, and what do they have to show for it? Nothing. Selling fear worked for a while, until it didn’t. After ten years of it, with a new generation coming of age that wasn’t plugged into cable news or the legacy media, Americans went looking for normalcy that they somehow found in Donald Trump.All anyone had to do was what I did, and what so many other people did: take a look for ourselves at Trump and MAGA. Once we did that, we’d never trust the media ever again.Follow the MoneyThe reason the excerpt in the New Yorker is about George Clooney is for their target audience. Who else would care? Frontloaded with Clooney’s journey to Sudan and subsequent charity work seems designed to signal to the reader that the fate of the Democratic Party wasn’t up to some actor past his prime. No, he was important. And for a time, he was.Nothing illustrates the disconnect of today’s Democratic Party better than the fundraiser in LA that “shook Clooney to his core” because Joe Biden didn’t recognize him. All that money, all that power, all that celebrity, was exactly the wrong message to sell to a beleaguered working class sick of the sight of them.His house in the South of France, his “big movie” for Netflix, his phone call to Julia, and his brush with politics all explain his New York Times op-ed that forced Joe Biden out and put Kamala Harris in. Clooney said that Biden “saved democracy” in 2020 and could save it again by stepping aside.Imagine that kind of hubris to believe Joe Biden had the power to save Democracy and that somewhere deep inside, George Clooney believed he could save it too. What they mean is to save their empire, to preserve their power. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sashastone.substack.com/subscribe

  --------  

  37:03

More Arts podcasts

Trending Arts podcasts

About Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone

Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone: Podcasts in Family