:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(745x260:747x262)/Jesse-Waters-Donald-Trump-122125-a20926886f924edcad1799f363ceaaf5.jpg)
Jesse Watters claims Donald Trump told him he is constructing the new White House ballroom as a “monument” to himself — and that he’s doing it “because no one else will.”
The Fox News host recounted the alleged conversation while speaking at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, a multiday conservative conference and festival in Phoenix, on Saturday, Dec. 20. A video of the moment has since been posted on X.
100%, they are trying soooo very hard to find bottled lightning again for a repackaging, but Trump’s actual political capital, the base of armed nationalists, they hate politicians. They hate “fake” people.
And you can say what you want about Trump’s honesty, but he’s not “fake.” He’s genuinely a despicable, deplorable old sack of hate, and people, particularly dumb ones, are so desperate for something “real” that he makes them feel good. They are not going to get people to feel good about some career schlub like Vance or anyone else.
Honestly, the only person who had a remote chance of rallying the right back under one war-banner was Charlie Kirk, the right was grooming the fuuuuck out of him to be the next huge media darling, and he actually could have led a sizeable contingent of the midwest christian whites who are scared of anything with seasoning.
Anyone can be sucked into a cult.
Racism is a sign low intelligence.
Intelligent people can be tricked and walked down a road into crazy.
I’ve tried to save so of my friends from q- anon. “You want adrenichrome? I can buy it for you online right now, ship it to your door! No one is harvesting children for it, it’s widely available and doesn’t make you immortal!!!”
I’ve seen smart people devolve. That’s the real shame. Stupid people do stupid things. Trump made a lot of smart people stupid as well. Which isn’t good for anyone.
We’re an emotionally driven species that feels first, and thinks second, and those thoughts are just made up on the spot to explain the feeling.
This is a wildly vulnerable system that people have been exploiting for as long as we’ve had language, and it’s about to get so, so, SO much worse with things like mass surveillance and AI.
I have a very close family member, my last living family member, who fell down the Qanon/conspiracy pipeline hard, lost everything when people started panicking about Covid. Was real smart otherwise but now basically has nothing after predictably getting arrested for weapons charges and endangering minors and spending a year in prison and now lives in a halfway house making nutso videos that youtube won’t even publish. I cannot explain why some people fall so hard and deep and just lose all sense of logic and reason, and these are the people I am most afraid of, because I have no idea how many of them are around us, just barely holding it together.
There’s a good documentary called “the brainwashing of my father” or something like that. It’s very good.
You tapped into things I’ve thought about a lot. Being a salesman, being interested in cults and history (shout out to behind the bastards)
We a rationalizing machines not thinking machines. We have a hunch instantaneously and tend to fight to protect that hunch even when proven wrong. It’s a real problem.
My father went from making videos about the homeless needing help to “a million immigrants a day cross the boarder!!!”
It was tragic to see him fall. He died a a couple years ago. I rember him as the good man he used to be.