I recently hopped in my car and drove from Seattle to Boise, Salt Lake City, Santa Fe, Flagstaff, Vegas, Bakersfield, then San Francisco, and back to Seattle. Coming from Seattle, a city that is clearly thriving in nearly every way, I started to notice little similarities in some of these other cities. Boise had a small tent city near the Capitol. Salt Lake City had obviously consolidated it’s roadways for bike lanes. And on it went. I was also recently in Milwaukee, and noticed this same trend. It was starting to adopt some of the ideas that made Seattle…
Trump Derangement Syndrome 2.0 – a mutant variant that affects his supporters
Trump Derangement Syndrome (or TDS) has evolved – as most viruses do. It used to be he made his detractors so angry that they would lose their minds, become singularly focused on whatever it was he was saying or doing, stop at nothing to destroy him, and, in doing that, expose their own selfish intentions which were nearly always bad for America. However, there is a new variant of TDS – TDS 2.0 – and it’s infecting his supporters. TDS 2.0 is the belief that there is only one man on earth who can save America and the world,…
The most important thing Tucker said
Everyone is talking about Tucker Carlson’s distillation of the January 6, 2021 security camera footage recently released to him. And well they should. As expected, he completely debunked the narrative that has gone on far too long by The Party and their stooges in the media. But let’s not blur the most important thing Tucker said (at the 6:45 mark): “[Chuck Schumer. Mitch McConnell. Mitt Romney. Tom Tillis.] They’re all on the same side. So it’s actually not about left and right. It’s not about Republican and Democrat. Here you have people with shared interests.” “The open borders people….
Conservativebrief.com: Make them stop
I’d love to know how much conservativebrief.com and deenquirer.com are paying headliner conservatives to promote them? If you follow conservatives like Ava Armstrong, Sebastian Gorka, or Dinesh D’Souza on Twitter, you’ve surely noticed the pattern of conservativebrief.com promotion: This is huge! She’s in trouble! It’s over! Court ruling a game-changer! Then, if you make the mistake of clicking on the linked article, you get a bunch of paragraphs that regurgitate everything everyone already knows about the related subject, without any news or developments of any kind. When it happens, it looks a bit like this: Here are the first…
“Celebrate similarity”
Nearly five years ago, one of the first Bubbler posts I wrote was called “Celebrate similarity.” Back then, it was simply affirming Prince questioning what we hoped to gain by celebrating what divides us instead of celebrating what unites us. Because we don’t really teach US history anymore, fewer and fewer people understand this. But the United States was founded on a set of principles that attracted a diverse set of people from all around the globe – all of whom were united by one core idea: Freedom. They came to build a better life. Hard to say whether…
The conservative marketing problem: example #1,538… gas stoves
It pains me to say it, but Joe Scarborough was right about something. On his show this morning, he was talking about Republicans talking about gas stoves, and he said, “It’s so stupid. They’re talking about gas stoves instead of Vladimir Putin threatening nuclear war… instead of China invading Taiwan.” He’s right. That is stupid. But not necessarily for the reasons he thinks. It’s stupid because, once again, the Republican Party’s disaster of a marketing department (that’s me stupidly believing they have one) is reacting to the latest ridiculous idea from Democrats instead of going on offense and talking…
Primarying a candidate is not a threat
Have conservatives learned nothing from the 2020 and 2022 elections? There are no elections. The results are already baked in. It’s all theater. There are few real elections anymore. Just ask Kari Lake in Arizona. If there were real elections, Mitch McConnell wouldn’t have a job. Nobody wants Mitch McConnell in the Senate – or anywhere near politics. Yet, here he is. He wins every time he runs. 18 Senators voted for the $1.7 trillion omnibus bill in late December of 2022. How many are really scared that someone may run against them in their next election primary. The…
Death of the written word
This morning, I read in my work email that our CEO is moving his periodic company newsletter from text and graphics to video. In his words, he is “leveraging the unique energy of video.” Meanwhile, several of the blogs I enjoy reading have recently moved from text to video. I’ve struggled with the rationale of this move. Those who are moving from text to video probably have a number of reasons. Some that I can think of: 1. Illustrating your understanding of societal trends by using the “latest” abilities 2. Trying to be more dynamic in your posts with…
Lessons from the private sector
When you leave a private sector job, all of your access to company servers, email, and other digital programs are nearly always immediately revoked. And if you have institutional knowledge that the company is afraid to lose, steps are taken to obtain that knowledge before the departure. Especially if the departure is amicable and expected. This is just standard private sector protocol. Given that, I don’t understand why President Trump revoking John Brennan’s security clearance is such a big deal. I realize that precedent is that past intelligence agency ranking members maintain their clearance so they can be consulted…
Even when you win, you lose
A few days ago, I was on a rural highway stuck behind a person going 50 in a 55mph zone. When the opportunity arose, I attempted to pass them. But like many on the road who want to control how everyone else drives, she decided to speed up to prevent me from passing. Since my being in the other lane was keeping her foot on the pedal, and there were no oncoming cars, it still worked out in my favor. All I wanted her to do was speed up and catch us up to the cars ahead of us….