I want to be Magnanimous

November 5th, 2024 - Americans delivered a mandate, they are absolutely sick of wokeism, radical gender ideology, open borders and anti-American/Western sentiment.

Turns out, saying your country is shitty and that everyone who's white is racist and everyone who's black is a victim - is a terrible and losing message.  Well over a decade on into this mentality, you'd think the Democratic Party might be catching on to this truth.

Not to mention the infantilization of men - especially minorities.  Offering interest free loans upwards of 20K, that ultimately don't even have to be paid back - ONLY for black men (also don't forget legalizing weed) - is the most offensive and ineffective policy making I can remember.

So now, a day after the day after, my Facebook wall is replete with grief and grievances, not about how terrible a candidate Kamala was and how awful her policies were, or even how it might be time to step back and reflect on what went wrong; no, the anger and sadness is STILL, even now, directed at the racist/sexist/homophobic Hitlerian Republicans.

Okay.  Good luck with that.

I would love if the left could zoom out and get some perspective and understand a few things -

• Our country was founded in 1776, not 1619, and it was rooted in freedom, not racism.
• Equality of outcome is NOT the American way or an American value - equal opportunity is.
• Racism is real - but it is not the cause of all disparities or injustice.
• Western Values do not equate to white supremacy.  
• Being color blind in regards to race is a virtue and something to strive for. It's how my generation was raised, and will NEVER change.
• A secure border is of paramount importance, especially for legal immigrants who have come into our country the right way and are the first to lose out when illegals cut the line in front of them.
• Cops are the good guys, almost always.  
• Putting more criminals in jail and keeping them there makes the streets safer.
• Women must be protected from men in sports and locker rooms.
• Children with gender dysphoria must be protected from chemical castration and surgical butchery.
• Climate Change is real, but our move towards a clean energy economy must be smart and efficient and must include fossil fuels along the way to ensure prosperity and energy independence.
• Free market capitalism is the ONLY system in history to actually lift people out of poverty and increase prosperity.
• Price controls are Communist and don't work.
• Minimum wage mandates put people out of work.  My Lowe's in Burbank is now quite literally cashier free - automated kiosks only in the main store outside of the garden and lumber departments.
• Tiny houses, eating bugs and other draconian ideas from leftists are anti-American and anti-prosperity.  Americans in general don't hate rich people, because Americans intuitively understand that they can be rich too if they work hard enough.

Until the Democratic Party gets a handle on these fundamental truths - and still insists on disparaging the middle class as perpetual villains, they quite literally will never win a Presidential election ever again.

The GOP, for all of it's flaws and imperfections, is now decidedly the party of the working class and legal immigrants.  Trump moved the numbers tremendously on just about every demographic from this very large group.

He got votes from -

• 25% of all Black men.
• 42% of all Latinos.
• 38% of all Asian
• 53% of all other minorities

That last stat is especially astounding when we see that in 2020 Biden carried the non-Black/Latino/Asian minority vote by 55% and this year Harris dropped to 45%.  That is stunning, but given the ridiculously radical positions of the Democrat Party over the last decade - not surprising at all.

The stat that I heard that did actually surprise me, Kamala actually did worse with women than Biden did, she lost women voters to her opponent.  Guess "Joy" and "Brat" weren't really a thing after all.

And now legacy media pundits are saying that in 2028 it's very likely that both New Jersey and New York will be swing states - seeing as Trump only lost both of them by around 5 points this time around.  Consider this - New York City went 42% for Donald Trump.  Holy shit.

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Look, I really WANT to Magnanimous and Gracious and Conciliatory to my dear liberal friends who are in pain over their candidates defeat and Trump's very large mandate victory.  I really do want to.

But as long as I'm getting messages like this - (a real post from a real person who also makes his living as an entertainer) - it's tough to play nice.

This should come to no surprise to anybody, but I'm a non-white, non-straight person. I'm all for love and peace and working through our differences, but some differences are irreconcilable.  

If you voted for what's-his-name, do us both a favor and unfollow this account because you voted against my rights and, to a degree, my existence. I appreciate that you enjoy my performances enough to follow me, but you may not appreciate what I have to say as I come to terms with the ultimate ramifications of this election.

Alrighty then.  Request granted. Good luck with that.

As long as lovely people like this guy insist on demonizing the next POTUS (duly elected by nearly a 5 million vote majority) which in turn clearly demonizes the 71 million Americans who voted for him - there's going to be not only a lot of tension for a long time, but there also 100% will NEVER be a Democratic Party candidate in the White House ever again.

Take a deep breath, step back - understand that it is not acceptable to call Trump LITERALLY HITLER, because if you do - you are implying that I and 71 million others just voted for Hitler.   

I don't know about you, but if I truly believed that the President was LITERALLY HITLER, I would do something about it besides post a black square for my profile picture on Facebook or post quotes by Maya Angelou.   Yeah, LITERAL HITLER in the White House?  Time to arm up and take direct action, no doubt.

I have often said, you can say whatever you want about a political candidate - but I'm modifying my position.   

You can say whatever you want about a political candidate, but don't forget that if you go beyond calling their policies terrible or beyond calling their personality distasteful (ie you say that securing the border is RACIST and Trump is LITERALLY HITLER) - then we have a problem.

You've reached a point where you are not just impugning the candidate, you are getting to the point where your demonization is so great that it automatically paints all of his supporters as demons themselves.   

You can't say that "Trump is LITERALLY HITLER but you're a good guy."  That doesn't really work.  There is a degree of anger you are allowed with a politician, but it really can't go beyond pointing out terrible policies and your distaste for an unpleasant human being.

When you do say that Trump is LITERALLY HITLER or even when you say he's a "racist, rapist, misogynist piece of filth" - you've backed yourself into a corner where everything else you add (which may be important and legit) will be ignored by all the people you just disparaged by declaring their candidate of choice sub-human.

That dog isn't going to hunt.   This game of demonizing our president, that I tolerated from 2016-2020 isn't really going to be a thing with me any more.  

I truly WANT to be Magnanimous.  But if you insist on not only demonizing Trump but ignoring your own parties mistakes and flaws - then I'm going to politely ignore you.  If you are my friend I will still care for you. If I don't know you then I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you may still be a good person - but either way, I'm not going to let you know that your attitude is what brought Trump into the White House and is what will guarantee that JD Vance is the 48th POTUS.

Sorry, not sorry.

  

Disposable Friendship

 I wasn't going to write about this, I had told myself very early on after it happened that I shouldn't waste any thoughts or energy on a dude who was crazy and who had decided to blow up a 15 year friendship over politics.

But really, I need to write it down here, because I know I'm going to forget most of the details of what happened.

There was no actual face to face confrontation - this all happened on Facebook.

For months, my long time acquaintance (who I genuinely thought was my friend) Jeff Sherid had been taken to the woodshed by yours truly over politics, specifically the presidential race and my refusal to indulge Sherid's fever dreams over the character of Donald Trump.

I would not engage about Trump or his character - simply put, it didn't interest me as there have been these discussions and pontifications from both sides for going on almost a decade at this point.  I get it, Trump is LITERALLY HITLER.  I don't really care.  Arguing about this doesn't interest me.

In general I don't argue over dead horses, I've learned this - being the token conservative in a group of 8 great friends from Berkeley California - it is pointless to dwell on points that are at an impasse.

So Sherid, his frustration building at my refusal to engage or accept his premises about DJT, all while during this I was calmly dismantling him on other issues, in my usual brusque and efficient manner - decided one day out of the blue that he'd had enough.

He posted a long and rambling manifesto about DJT and then explicitly tied all of Trump's worst traits, mostly his worst trait (according to Sherid) of being a racist - to me.

This in and of itself is kind of whatever, it's happened to me before, albeit from people who knew me much less than Sherid, but when it comes to people coming after me because of my politics - I wouldn't say I'm used to it, but I would say that I could take it or leave it.  I'm never happy to hear nasty insults, but I am a grown ass man who is 54 years old.  It really doesn't phase me that much.

However, the big fuck up on Sherid's part was that he posted this in public on Facebook and tagged me (so that every one of my FB friends would see it - including coworkers, professional contacts, and my extended family members) and then tagged everyone we both were friends with, so this went deep into the roster of my poker game and beyond.

The final straw for me was how upset my wife was at reading Sherid's garbled craziness.  As readers of this blog know, she's been through a lot lately - and that Sherid felt justified in making the love of my life cry (or even worse was unaware that his vicious words would have this effect) got me pretty well pissed off.

I was at a rather low point about an hour into this mess, with my wife in tears and a couple of fellow poker players, who clearly had decided to not be my friend, obliviously chiming in the comments about politics - completely seemingly unconcerned or unphazed at the unhinged nastiness of Sherid's insults to me personally - when a beam of light appeared in the comments in the form of my dear friend and neighbor who also plays poker with me.  She also, incidentally, believes that Trump is LITERALLY HITLER, but she didn't bring that up.  Instead she defended me, my honor, my character, and made it plain that she strongly disagreed with Sherid's assessment of me and his attacks.

I felt a wave of relief wash over me - I was not alone, and someone who actually mattered to me was putting on armor and fighting for me.  

A few minutes later another dear friend, came to my defense.

And after that, it was like an avalanche - friend after friend after friend, heaping praise on me and sometimes calling out Sherid for being an asshole.  It was rather glorious, and my faith came back.  My faith in my poker game, my faith in my friends, my faith in decency.

And almost all of my defenders likely still think Trump is LITERALLY HITLER.  And it doesn't matter.

The mob is scary, and no one wants to be outed as someone who would defend a Hitler lover; but probably upwards of two dozen of my liberal poker buddies took that chance.  A handful of closeted DJT supporters also weighed in, but honestly, they were more reluctant - as no doubt they have gone through what I was going through and knew all too well what the mob was capable of.

In the end, these was my parting texts to Sherid.  Shockingly, he did not respond at all.

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I just can't believe that you would do that Jeff, I don't really care what you think about me, your feelings are your feelings and that's fine. 

But what really makes me angry is that you have tagged a bunch of people that I love so that they can read your garbled manifesto about what a racist piece of shit I am.

It really breaks my heart. You may find it hard to believe, but I valued our friendship, and I valued our differences, and our ability to remain civil when talking about them.

And you've thrown it all away, which is your right, of course, but to try to drag others into this grievance of yours, it's just unconscionable.

I really do wish you well, that you can somehow find your way out of the anger that you have built around you, but I'm not going to waste any time or energy on you going forward.

---

And after a bunch of my friends had chimed in -

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And this will be my last text to you, but I hope you are now seeing the slowly growing wall of liberals who are also my dear friends, who are defending me and calling you out for being wrong here.

You fucked up.  You alienated one friend in me, and then quite a few others it seems.

Enjoy Las Vegas by yourself.

---

And so that was it - well, that and this post I put in the comments of his post and tagged him with -

---

Hi Jeff - I've removed my tag from this post so people who come to my page will no longer see it.  I would ask you to untag all the people here who care about me and who have come to my defense, but I know that will likely never happen.

You have decided to torch a 15+ year friendship over politics, apparently because you don't like losing a political argument over and over and your views don't hold up to scrutiny.  I'm sad for you in your anger and loneliness.

But I'm also angry that you thought you could drag our friends into this fray, instead of calling me or even texting me like a man, you went out like a little bitch.  And now you've found out that almost none of them agree with you - and with what you've done, you've lost them as well as me.

I will indeed be blocking you permanently on Facebook.  I never want to think of this whole mess you decided to create EVER AGAIN.

I don't want to waste any more of my energy on you at all - I've already spent too much time upset at your pathetic attempt to shame me in front of my friends.

You also made my wife cry late last night when she finally read your craziness, so that really is the final straw.  I can forgive what you've done to me, but what you did to my wife - and you know what she's gone through - just makes me furious.  You can sincerely GO FUCK YOURSELF for that.

I will be archiving all the great comments of my friends sticking up for me here and keeping them in the private Pepper Street Poker group where you are now and forever more banned.  I will never again read your garbled mess of a manifesto, it can wither and die here on your page, a monument to your anger and desperation.

---

Felt pretty good after posting that.  Not gonna lie.

But after all was said and done, I will admit, that was a saddening experience - and it made me reflect on all the other friends and family in my life who have cut me off in various ways over politics.

True, none of them were done as psychotically as this, but I have had more than one cousin and more than one long time friend, not just unfollow but permanently block me on social media and then actively avoid me IRL.  

****

And now, it's the morning after - the day after election day in America in 2024, and we all know who won and it wasn't even close, and I told you this was going to happen a week ago.

Donald J. Trump was the 45th POTUS and now he will be the 47th as of January 6 next year, when Kamala Harris herself will have to certify the election results.

Am I happy?  Sure.  And I'm not surprised at all.  I follow politics very closely and anyone paying half attention and not only watching MSNBC would know that this was by far the most likely outcome.

My team won.  Go Dodgers.  Yay.

That's about the extent of my happiness on DJT's win.

What I am struggling with, is to not be happy at the "suffering" of my dear liberal friends (misguided on politics as they may be) who are "gutted" and "stunned" (actual posts on FB this morning) at these results.

I'm trying to not be happy over their anguish, and I'm also trying - and failing - to not be thinking "What the fuck did you expect?"

Seriously, what the fuck did you expect?

I have written here and posted elsewhere, for months, that the unprecedented lawfare was just handing Trump the presidency.  Americans hate a rigged system, they hate things that are unfair.  They don't want a fixed game in any way shape or form.

Biden's DOJ directly targeting 45, and directly influencing local prosecutors in other cases to go after him as well - was the ultimate example of a stacked deck and the absolute height of stupidity in terms of strategy against a political opponent.

You want your enemy to win?  Try to demonize him and arrest him.  You did this to yourself.

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I'm also shaking my head at California, and the cognitive dissonance of it's voters.

Overwhelmingly, we approved Prop 36, a great piece of bipartisan legislation that summarily overturns the awful Prop 47 that saw thousands of criminals unleashed on our streets and crime exploding across the state.  Prop 36 makes a second shoplifting offense a felony, and reinstates most of the harsher sentencing guidelines.

In LA County we also kicked our horrific District Attorney to the curb.  George Gascon had made it his mission to coddle and release criminals at an unprecedented rate.  He was responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent Angelinos, not to mention the destruction of their families.  He is now gone and a "moderate" prosecutor will be taking over.  Hochman is his name and he has ruffled feathers by making the crazy promise to put criminals in jail.

And then, with sanity seemingly returning, these same voters turn around and vote more than 2 to 1 for Kamala Harris.  

Literally she was responsible in large part for Prop 47.  

She also advocated for organizations who raised funds to bail out rioters.

And on and on and on - radical policy after radical policy she helped put into place.

Of course when she ran for president in 2024 she wouldn't even address all the terrible policies she advocated for in 2019 in the primary that she briefly ran in.  She wouldn't even comment, when asked point blank, if she voted for Prop 36!   A proposition that won by over 70% in California!  How desperately sad and out of touch do you have to be?

Terrible candidate, terrible policies and terrible ideas.  $20,000 loans that didn't need to be paid back and weed for black people.  Communist style price controls. Raising corporate taxes to the highest level in the developed world. And these are the ideas she was promoting - never mind all the terrible ideas from her past that she wanted to implement.

Ban fracking.  Decriminalize illegal border crossings. Mandatory gun by backs.  Just awful.

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And so today, my facebook wall is replete with blacked out profile pictures, anguished pleas and cries, proclamations of our country's racism and misogyny. 

Sigh.

Many don't get it and never will.  But clearly, the majority of the country does.  That's right - MORE than 47%, which was the ceiling many said Trump would never breach. That ceiling has been shattered and the message is clear.

This is a popular vote victory, a mandate from the masses.  And I can't help be inspired and excited by OUR DEMOCRACY in action.

LITERLLY HITLER is our president, and it's morning in America.