2020 election, Dona;ld Trump, Media, Millennials

My Swiss Army Twitter Knife

If you’ve done any background on Gore v Bush (2000), even at Wikipedia, you’ll know there’s a lot of precedence that will be carried over to the cases now before several courts. I hope SCOTUS makes the ruling universal to every state that employed Dominion-Smartmatic or open-ended mail-in voting, or employed the types of vote-mishandling proved in the major areas of the target states I listed yesterday.  (PA, MI, WI, GA, AZ, NV, and VA and NM).

A lot of down-ticket races will be affected and at least one-senate run-off race in GA will likely become unnecessary.

Therefore, today, Nov 29, you should be encouraged.

If these predictions prove out, Twitter will also suffer huge losses.

Twitter’s past-12 month’s performance began at 30.91 and sits today at 45.23, hitting an all-time high of 52.43, just four days before the election. Financially thing had been looking up, all of it thanks to Donald Trump. And Hate.

Look for Twitter’s financial profile to change…quickly. So, if you own any, Sell. But if you think Twitter will survive, and someone like Donald Trump buys it, Buy at around $15.

But that’s just financials. Some Twitter personnel, possibly Jack Dorsey, may face criminal investigations, depending on whether they will be treated as a getaway driver in this election heist or as part of the pre-election conspiracy to take Trump down. One is worse than the other in terms of prison time.

For Twitter, a defeated Donald Trump possibly would be financially more beneficial in that he may hang around, and as their principal income source, could keep their stock market position steady…also proving their cynical “hate-filled” heart is in the trim. But if a re-elected President Donald Trump departs Twitter, as more likely will be the case, their daily head count will drop like a rock as will advertising revenues. But they likely have a Plan B for that exigency, largely based on the narcotic effect of being a Twitter-member has on millions of both conservative #NeverTrump, GOP-types as well as devoted pro-Trumpers.

Dorsey and team may think they can hold onto these millions as a local pusher might who’s turned an entire Presbyterian parish in Yonkers onto meth. Not just a crime and a sin, but bragging rights in certain urban circles.

We’ll see.

But it’s about this narcotic nature of this Twitter-Ecstasy that sinks beneath the veneer of politics that I want to delve into today.

My Bona fides 

A boatload of powerful egos on our side whose self-image is largely defined by how many people Follow them are found on Twitter. It reminds me of magazine writers who do an article, then walk away, never noticing or replying to the hundreds of comments, many of which are better written that the published article itself. It’s all about stardom, and as we know, Stars never acknowledge a fan-follower on Twitter. Only if they show up at a book-signing, or send a thousand dollars to their action fund, do they “earn” a Follow back. By comparison, all the way back to 1980s I never wrote a letter to an editor at National Review that was not replied….by that author. I only assume that was Bill Buckley dicta, for he replied to every letter written to him I recall reading.

WFB never really lived to see the Twitter fame-race, but I did when I finally signed up 10 years ago this week.

Twitter’s was already beginning to consume younger Gen X and Millennials who were prevalent in the political blogosphere when I began writing in 2008. I wrote as a (free) diarist at Red State from 2008 until 2011, and had gotten to know a couple of their staff who managed the site from behind-the-curtain. One, a good friend still, told me that Red State’s editor-in-chief had become enamored with Twitter, and had begun to “mail-in” his daily briefings, plus slacking off on the oversight of his site managers, who literally were running off readers with crude scolds befitting their age and immaturity. Coming from Fortune 500 management this was a modern sign of mangers dreaming of higher pastures, where, since the 90s, instead of rising within the organization, they hopped hopping from one job to another in order to rise. In the word-smithing business this is most common among individuals whose depth is, in the words of Jack Garner, “as as shallow as a pool of warm spit.” A lot of that goes around on Twitter, both Left and Right. RedState’s editor was just a year younger than my youngest son, (“My Baby”), mid-30s at the time. My behind-the-curtain friend believed that Twitter was diverting off a lot of his time, as a more advantageous way to advance his prospects….not to mention more fun, making more friends, more quickly, and infinitesimally more succinctly, 140 characters at the time, than by the daily regimen of a minimum of 500 words article. (I’m old school, the Chesterton School, and am fond of essays, where 2000 words equals a10-15 minute If you are in love with yourself, and lazy, consider the possibilities. One can gain tens of thousands of followers on name-power alone, or just by knowing other people on a first name and correspond regularly. Name-dropping, once a social no-no at Manhattan cocktail parties, has become the principal selling point of Twitter and it several fanatics…especially those who’ve chosen to earn their living seated comfortably in front of a computer…which has largely been the definition of two generations’ ideal of a good profession.

Besides this internal business plan, there is also something psychologically affirming in the stature one can get from Twitter, so easily measured for near-instant gratification simply by numbers. There is also something inherently lazy about it that is also appealing to young men especially who grew up in schools with small networks of chums, from private schools, to law schools and grad schools. The unmistakable aroma of elitism. (Example: I do a series of pieces called “Famous  Common People I have Known”  and besides defining characters from my youth in East Kentucky, such as Mick Hensley, who broke my nose for lying (twice) I wrote about people I knew in the Old USSR, Ukraine and the Balkans, almost all of whom lived at the lower end of the social spectrum. Annoyed with this, one of the younger editors at RedState, seeking an equivalency I suppose, on a private email group there tried to describe his experiences to mine by listing the various single-malt scotches he’d tasted.

“Yes, but not in Scotland”, I boastfully lied.

After 9 years on Twitter I still only Follow 1640 and have 1523 Following. I do have a few prominent followers, two historians, who had to have one of my essays here to cause them to follow me. One is from the Buckley days at NR who only knew me by my real name, and is no fan of Trump, although his biographies define a type of heart in American figures that also beats in Donald Trump. But I like him.

I come to Twitter largely to observe, take notes, and to pimp my essays. At my age I can sort out the vainglorious and prideful “click chasers” from the deeper-down “love America first” pretty easily.  Besides a few “conservatives” I admire, I follow most every Veteran and Christian who comes across my timeline, as a show of gratitude and respect. And a select few cat-and-dog-and even horse lovers I’ve come to know through mutual acquaintances. Some mornings at my AM Twitter time, around 5:30-6:00, I’ll see my Notifications upward to 30, all between 6 to 8 of my followers in a back and forth the night before about their cat, or some smart-alecky lady in Seattle, or a mistreated vet. I always feel obliged to do the likes, but rarely comment, unless I note somethings was “well-spake”. Lots of  Attaboys and emoticons.

My one-on-one correspondence is with less than a dozen, most of the patriotic or current news variety. Their followers are several times my own, and I send them links to my most recent essays, and they move them into their much larger networks. Without them I’d be sharing my thoughts with my wife’s family in Facebook or my sons, who can talk your ear off, and haven’t the attention-span to stay with 1500 words in one sitting.

I get up very early, 4-to-5 (cats, more than 10 and I’m allergic to every damned one of them) who have no idea of daylight savings, so it’s like a nursery in an old-style maternity ward; feeding time comes around the same time every day.

I spend about an hour on Twitter each morning, beginning around 5.

Then I’ll visit Twitter twice more, around noon, just before Rush, and around 7 PM, which is almost bedtime in our ward, for about an hour. Total, 2 to 3 hours tops. The majority of my wordy Tweets are against the usual media suspects; CNN, ABC, WAPO and New York Times, The Hill, HuffPo, especially against their news lede that are unrepentently stupid, dishonest or grovelingly obsequious, which are standard fare for a long list of media criminals, only a short-list mentioned here. I also consider any reference to Joe Biden as a sentient being to be a high crime among Media, for I know they are not star-struck children, (well maybe HuffPo, Newsweek, The Hill), so assume they are cynical “manipulators” as Ayn Rand defined in 1971, (likely way before your time, but I was in law school then) when this craziness among the young was still in its first generation.

I like Twitter because it tells me what the Enemy is thinking and saying to one another. Much of it not gas-lighting one another or their delirious belief that millions of us even pay attention to them now.

But it and it also tells what so many on our side are thinking and saying, for many are also capable of displaying the me-me-me, impatient, foot stomping side of teat-fittery, and in the past two weeks have displayed that quickness to throw in the towel, or to whine “Where’s Barr?”, revealing their own sad imitation of what we’ve all laughed about the Screamin’ Karens of the Left.

Sadly, I’ve had to unfollow several the past several days, but am still gratified that before they pulled all the boxes down from the Legos shelf at Walmart, that they and their 8K-30K followers still voted for Trump.

Beyond finding out what the Enemy is doing, thinking, or trying to gas-light, I really don’t pay very much mind to Twitter. But it’s a great venue for analysis.

I like Christian apologetics, that of presenting Christian values to non-Christians (i.e, atheists) only not using Christian totems, but rather explaining things in terms of Nature, as in Man’s natural desire to be free. I was once very good at this in the classroom.

Twitter is not conducive to this type of convivial exchange, by design. Contemplative thinking is the last thing Twitter wants to inspire.

In short, of all those blades on my Swiss Army Twitter, I only use that single long blade for slicing and that toothpick inserted at the end for digging around small areas, although I do a Follow a lady in northern Virginia who could wield several of those other blades with great effect; the short blade like a shank, easily hidden in the hand, the sawing tool which could painfully separate from several of his/her members. Even the beer opener could open clogged nasal passages;  although if I know her, she has a 10-blade knife for optimum utility. Twitter has tossed her several times an I think she has more aliases than Satan.

If in a firefight, I’d want her on my shoulder.

Twitter has attempted, and largely succeeded in conditioned many on our side to think in 24-hour increments, using a variety of bells and whistles. (Trust me, they treasure our participation as much as their witless Karen’s.) Like the meth addict, a daily dose of Hate nourishes some Trumplicans to the point they can’t get through the day without a fix. The thought that Trump might win then drop Twitter, or that the entire hate-filled Media may go to jail, is the equivalent of going cold turkey…a consideration they really don’t want to contemplate just now.

Personally, I’d like to see Twitter burnt to a cinder.

Just remember, the technology will always be there, even if Congress should proscribe all the evil things it can no longer do. And the technology’s manipulators will always be trying to find a way back into your liquor cabinet.

Just keep faith with your mates and keep your higher Cause at the top of your priorities.

But wherever there is politics there are always vipers.

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