Bruce Bain

@rkken2902 @greggnunziata @RobGeorge

@greggnunziata @RobGeorge Your logic has earned you a new follow. There must be dozens of us who think this way. 😂

I'm so tired of this. I cast one D vote in my life, for a politician I oppose, only when my party nominated a former D who should have been constitutionally disqualified, and I could trust the other two branches were in conservative hands. It was a conservative vote. And I won't shut up.

One of the most notable failures of the leftwing pundit and academic commentariat scene over the 15 years is how they completely misdiagnosed the dynamics of what was happening on the American right. They dreamt up fantastical conspiracy theories about the history of "neoliberalism" and "market fundamentalism," both pejorative caricatures. And they focused their energies on attempting to show how all of their own political grievances, which were mostly economic in nature, traced back to Mises, Hayek, Friedman, and/or Buckley. In the process, the left punditry almost entirely missed the emergence of the Postliberal right, which also shares their own animosity toward Mises, Hayek, Friedman, and Buckley. When Deneen's book appeared in print, they joined Obama in soft praise for its "provocative" thesis. When JD Vance burst onto the scene with Hillbilly Elegy, they accepted him as a respectable and perceptive critic of alleged free market "excesses" from the right (and only really soured on him when he became a Trumpist cultural warrior). They barely even noticed Adrian Vermeule's rehabilitation of Nazi theorist Carl Schmitt, save to also afford it intellectual respectability since (a) he was a Harvard elite who coauthored with progressives and (b) there was also a progressive strain of Schmittian rehabilitation in this same period. The left-pundits of this era also spilled barrels of ink trying to prove that Pat Buchanan's cultural crankery transmitted to the present day via the late-life political alliances of Murray Rothbard. In reality, Rothbard was simply trying to latch himself onto Buchanan, whose movement predated and was much larger than the paleolibertarian scene. And now that Buchananite movement has grafted itself into Trumpism as well, without any discernible influence of Rothbard whatsoever. The result is that the left-pundit class of the 2010s now struggles to comprehend the divisions on the right, even though the evidence is all around them. They can't process how much Buckley's Fusionism is despised by the Postliberal & Buchananite crowds that migrated into Trumpism. They can't comprehend how Postliberals like Deneen, Vermeule, and Pappin embrace anti-capitalist economic narratives that are not far removed from their own positions. They don't understand how the same Postliberals have adopted their own narratives and pejorative screeds about "neoliberalism" and "market fundamentalism." All they can do is repeat the same old tropes of the 2010s "neoliberalism studies" genre, and hope that by repeating the name "Trump" enough they can somehow make it stick to him. x.com/PhilWMagness/s…

@charliedbecker So there’s someone out there drop shipping obscure used books? Also, thanks for doing everything you are doing to preserve knowledge.

Here’s the first half of my latest essay! Is an AI company buying all the used books? (I don’t think so, not this time.)

@whypostlibfail Will an audiobook be available?

PREORDER WHY POSTLIBERALISM FAILED HERE: shop.acton.org/collections/fe…

@ArmyRecognition @TrentTelenko Screw Qatar, there are far more deserving recipients for these interceptors.

U.S. Clears 500 Patriot Interceptors for Qatar to Restore Missile Defense Capacity.

Russia is not remotely a Christian nation.

@SpaghettiKozak @Noahpinion You can be for civil rights but also respect property rights and capitalism, which he did not.

@Bruce_W_Bain @Noahpinion Also the reason I asked if you would have opposed Alinsky in that era is because Alinsky was mostly a civil rights activists living in a time when racial discrimination was rampant and in some places, the law of the land. So you're saying you'd be on the side of that?

Extremists feed off of each other. Each backlash gets more extreme. In 20 years your choice will be between "Hitler didn't go far enough" and "Legalize all crime and ban private food sales". And no one will complain because that would be BOTH-SIDESING

Again, the “left wing” thing is meaningless to them and this conversation. Qatar only cares about advancing the interests of the Muslim Brotherhood, and they’ve poured billions into US universities both directly to the schools themselves and to student protest groups to make Palestine the Omni cause for critical theorists. They’ve also clearly bought Tucker Carlson, openly bribe the Trump administration, and have bought many “right wing” influencers to push propaganda to undermine the US-Israel relationship. Like all of our adversaries, they don’t care about “left” or “right” as we understand it. They use and inflame that framing to get us at each other’s throats and it’s working. The goal is to destroy Liberalism and useful idiots in the US are all too happy to help. Perhaps you should take some time to understand geopolitics beyond the left/right lens.

@Bruce_W_Bain @Noahpinion Also I don't think the govt of Qatar is particularly left-wing or Alinsky influenced. It sounds like you need to throw out everything you thought about politics and start over from scratch.

I am against Marxists no matter the era, and I am against so called conservatives using Marxist tactics. To answer “which leaders” on the left: Soros, Fink, Schwab, CCP Government, Qatari Government as high level leaders, most of academia and journalism as mid level players/conduits of propaganda. On the right: Russian Government, Qatari Government (yes they are supporting both sides), Peter Thiel as high level leaders. JD Vance, Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, Curtis Yarvin as mid level players/conduits of propaganda. Although I think it’s dumb we use the left/right paradigm (which was made for 18th century France). The real political spectrum, especially in the US should be viewed through the lens of Liberalism (in the classical sense) vs Authoritarianism.

@Bruce_W_Bain @Noahpinion Which leaders, specifically? Also, you seem to have great disdain for the book and writer. Does that mean that were you alive during that era, you'd be opposing the side Alinsky was supporting?

@SpaghettiKozak @Noahpinion Most people don’t have to understand the tactic to be manipulated into using it. The average radical I’m sure has no idea of the playbook they are employing, but their leaders do. Also, I’ve never listened to or liked Glenn Beck. The woke right is just as guilty here.

@Bruce_W_Bain @Noahpinion If you think any significant political faction in the US is under the influence of a 60s radical most people have never heard of, you cannot be helped. My guess is you never heard of them until Glenn Beck started ranting about him in the Obama era.

@SpaghettiKozak @Noahpinion Not enough to understand the enemy we face.

@Bruce_W_Bain @Noahpinion How many average people do you think have even read that book or would even recognize it?

@BonkDaCarnivore Newsom’s trolling of Trump is the only good thing he’s done as a politician.

Gotta admit, his troll game is on point. For those who don't know, Trump's latest Dear Leader move is to put his face on your PASSPORTS. So get them renewed ahead of this if you don't want 10 years of bad luck

@PhilWMagness @ProjectLiberal

One of the reasons I am not a postliberal is that postliberal morality is nonexistent. They consider it permissible to deceive, smear, indulge in extravagant intellectual self-contradictions, and instrumentalize the faith for worldly gains, provided that it is all done in service of attaining political power for their cause. They consider the exercise of that power to be innately "virtuous" since they aim to impose a nebulously defined "common good" from the top down, and yet postliberals show no virtue in their own daily behavior. They further justify this strategy based on a similar rationalization by Carl Schmitt of engaging in deceptive worldly political alliances in the service of a falsely-invoked "Christian" cause. And yet everything about how they conduct themselves screams hypocrisy and performative righteousness - the exact vices that Christ called out in the Sermon on the Mount.

The iron law of woke (right) projection never misses. The woke/postliberal right regularly presents themselves as the only possible alternative to the left, accusing Reagan conservatives of being unable to win elections. In reality it is the woke right that undermines real conservatives in general elections and hands the left winnable seats.

Yep. And in the 20 years he has been at Harvard, Vermeule has made no inroads of any note in expanding the non-left share of their faculty. If anything, he's the token crazy Carl Schmitt guy that other Harvard profs point to as an excuse to never hire another conservative.

Nobody likes gerrymandering but *how* we get rid of it is extremely important and most people aren’t pushing serious solutions. The most common “solution” I hear is “nonpartisan” districting commissions. The problem is there is no such thing. These commissions will always be filled by people with some kind of agenda and will be biased one way or another. The left has proven much more adept at capturing and subverting institutions that are supposed to be nonpartisan (like the universities) which is why Democrats always push the “nonpartisan committee” solution. A better alternative is to uncap the house (more, smaller districts) and set math based limits on how most districts can be shaped. This will greatly limit the effects of gerrymandering.

I hate gerrymandering. I've long advocated for proportional representation and ranked choice voting. I've long supported a ban on gerrymandering across the board. But recently Republican mid cycle redistricting has been engineered purely to manufacture majorities through cheating, in a year they know they're destined to lose. Virginia's recent victory against it is beautiful precisely because it calls the GOP's bluff and exposes their hypocrisy. Between now and 2030, Democrats must meet this escalation with even greater escalation. We should push for these redistricting efforts harder in every Democratic-run state. Ultimately, if Republicans shrink to a small enough minority, Democrats will finally have the majority needed to pass the anti-gerrymandering and electoral reforms we've championed for years. Only through overwhelming GOP defeat can we end this cycle once and for all.

Like Israel, Ukraine demonstrates the ability to defend America and our allies with superior defense technologies and combat capabilities. Too many Republicans want to abandon Ukraine; too many Democrats want to abandon Israel. Geopolitical malpractice.

Example: "Everything is values-laden anyway, so we're justified in doing sectarian values education in the name of achieving [our view of social or communal] justice." Example: "Everything is state religion anyway, so we're justified in doing state religion in the name of achieving [our view of social or communal] justice." Example: "Everything is socialization (indoctrination) anyway, so we're justified in doing indoctrination in the name of achieving [our view of social or communal] justice." Example: "Everything is racist anyway, so we're justified in doing specific racism in the name of achieving [our view of social or communal] justice." Example: "Everything is revisionist history anyway, so we're justified in doing revisionist history in the name of achieving [our view of social or communal] justice." Example: "Every approach to knowledge is just a way of knowing anyway, so we're justified in doing fake science ("other ways of knowing") in the name of achieving [our view of social or communal] justice." Example: "Everything is religious in the end anyway, so we're justified in shoving our religion on people in the name of achieving [our view of social or communal] justice."

@GBNT1952 @TylerBoliver His ties and sympathies to Russia are well known, this shouldn’t be a surprise.

This is bullshit and you know it, General. You of all people have seen the real intel. Our enemies want and push war against us relentlessly, specifically through proxies and irregular warfare, facts that you are astutely aware of, yet you are actively running an op to undermine our side as if we are the aggressors. The real question is why are you pushing this narrative and for what purpose?