The Viper Pit
Suffering Through the Manufactured Mirage of the Democratic Convention
As the curtains close on the DNC Convention, let's reflect on a few critical insights.
Firstly, recognize the event for what it is: an elaborate spectacle. The participants are akin to actors, performing scripted roles on a grand stage. Understanding this, the proceedings can be viewed almost as a form of entertainment, albeit one veiled in illusion that scarcely reflects the true state of affairs.
This leads me to the second, more substantive point.
I moonlight as an executive and financial performance coach, guiding high achievers in honing their execution skills, enhancing their ability to sensemake complex situations, and sharpening their financial savvy.
One of my core maxims is you don’t willingly subject yourself to toxic garbage.
That means you avoid where possible things like heavily processed food, seed oils, overdrinking, and a sedentary lifestyle.
Moderation is fine. Some of the most productive nights of my life were spent in the company of friends and business prospects smoking cigars and offering up far too many toasts.
But on a day to day basis, if you want to maintain the energy, productivity and lifespan to execute on a high level, you need to avoid toxic shit.
That maxim applies to your physical body.
But equally, it applies to your mental well-being and the information you consume. Just as you would avoid physical toxins, so too should you protect your mind from the toxic clutter of misinformation and sensationalism that pervades much of our media landscape. This dual application of my maxim is essential for maintaining both physical vigor and mental clarity, allowing you to perform at your best in all aspects of life.
It’s why I rarely read the NYT or listen to NPR anymore (and you wouldn’t catch me dead listening to MSNBC).
You know it’s a potpourri of half truths, outright lies and silly statist propaganda designed to cater to and blind the lowest common denominators out there.
It’s the age old maxim from computer programming, GIGO - garbage in garbage out.
If you’re info-diet is composed of this crap, you’re going to be a walking talking NPC automaton.
While producing this newsletter is both a passion and a professional endeavor, I often grapple with whether to watch events like the DNC Convention as an aspiring well-informed citizen. Truthfully, there's little necessity or desire on my part to do so.
I'm well aware that the participants are merely performers, assuming roles far removed from their authentic selves.
After all, over the past four years, we've observed their true characters, unmasked and unveiled.
Why do I give a sh*t about a highly staged production where the intent is to lie to the middle 40% of the country in an effort to persuade them that what they’ve actually seen with their own 2 eyes and heard with their own 2 ears over the last 4 years isn’t reality?
The runaway inflation that bankrupted the country, the invasion at the border that brought in 15 million illegals, the quasi-recession we’ve been suffering through for the last 5 years, the fictitious job growth that almost entirely went to illegals and government positions, the eruption of war across the globe and a dozen other policy plagues.
That’s the reality.
Not the ‘centrist’ highly staged Hollywood production we saw over the last few days where the woman who’s the #2 in the existing Administration pretended she had nothing to do with the last 4 years.
To preserve my sanity and keep my blood pressure in check, I opted out of watching the entire event.
Fortunately, the utility of Twitter allows one to catch the highlights or focus on select clips, distilling the essence without enduring the entirety.
After all, if I wanted to see a constant barrage of lies, falsehoods and meaningless opinions, I'd watch MSM news every day.
Nevertheless, in a masochistic gesture of diligence, I did subject myself to watching the speeches by Kamala Harris and Michelle Obama.
Kamala was entirely predictable and sadly what we’ve come to expect from the woman with no votes, no interviews and no accomplishments to point to in recent history.
It was full of JOY!™️ And 30 minutes or so of empty platitudes with zero policy and zero relation to reality.
On the other hand, her delivery was commendably solid—free from any slurring, bizarre cackling, or the empty ramblings we’ve often seen. That’s the advantage of delivering a well-crafted speech from a teleprompter, written by someone else.
But again, it’s all an actor on a stage reading her lines.
Words, not actions. Because we’ve seen the actions over the last 4 years.
And it ain’t pretty.
At a minimum, if you’re going to run from your track record and rely merely on words, shouldn’t the lead candidate for President at least answer a few questions from the press?
I mean, if you’re going to have the nuclear codes, shouldn’t you at least have the tenacity to answer softball questions from a compliant press?
Let’s see how much longer she can keep up this game of Journalist Dodgeball.
On the other hand, Michelle O’s speech was exceptionally nauseating.
As she’s known to do, Michelle whined for 45 minutes about those taking ‘more than they need’ and the privilege of ‘others’.
This is particularly rich and galling from a woman that charges $750K for a one hour speech and has 4 multi-million homes and a net worth approaching $100M.
She also complained that people that look like her (black? female? linebackers?) will never enjoy the affirmative action privilege of generational wealth.
Again, the gaslighting and spiteful lying to our face is particularly galling considering both her children enjoy $10M+ trust funds.
All in all, intelligent informed people know this was a grand, Wizard of OZ caliber charade.
Unfortunately, for the all-too-many Americans who still believe that 'the news' actually delivers the news, I must admit that the Democrats were quite successful in executing their agenda.
They took a party and its respective candidates who have left a trail of destruction and radical leftism across their respective careers, and made it seem like they were ordinary, patriotic Americans fighting for a better life for everyone.
Whether it was Kamala who has presided over the destruction and descent of one of the greatest former cities in America (SF) and the country, or Tim Walz who they’ve rebranded as Coach and a ‘veteran’ despite his repulsive record of Stolen Valor and damage done to Minnesota, they at least suppressed the worst elements of their party (Pro-Palestinian jihadists, BLM, antifa and other commie freak elements).
I mean, talk about pivots. When’s the last time you saw a Democrat with an American flag that didn’t involve a can of gasoline and some matches?
So I’ll give credit where it’s due. While highly staged and fictitious, the Democratic Convention was immensely successful in rebranding elitist grifters and wannabe commies as flag-waving, patriotic Americans.
While there was still an abortion and vasectomy on demand truck outside, there was little mention inside of 3rd trimester abortions, child mutilation without parental consent, mandatory injections of an experimental shot under threat of loss of employment, life and liberty, support for Jihadists and pro-Hamas subversive elements that took over college campuses this year, and the rest of the Democratic base that’s been on display for the past 4 years.
And that’s a win (for Democrats, not America).
Here are a few other lowlights:
The demented corpse whose own party buried multiple knives in his back rose from the dead to give a 60 minute rage-filled fictitious speech that was mostly angry yelling about debunked nonsense and rivaled some of the great totalitarian rants in history.
I was undecided about even mentioning him since he’s utterly irrelevant at this point and relegated to the dustbin of history.
His unhinged speech reminded everyone that he’s never been a good person and will go down as the worst President in history despite vicious spin by the media and Democratic insiders to recast the truth of the last few weeks when he was told remove yourself from the equation or we’ll do it for you.
Don’t fall for the myth. He’s always been an ugly, low IQ corrupt scumbag fleecing his public office for private gain. His grave deserves to be a public urinal for future generations.
The Democrats marched out race grifter Al Sharpton and the Central Park rapists to complain about Donald Trump. Nevermind the fact that it was a liberal Democrat that [rightfully] prosecuted them.
If you believe they were ‘exonerated’ and were innocent and unjustly prosecuted, maybe give a quick read thru this Tweet Thread.
When interviewed, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo astonishingly claimed she was unaware that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) had significantly revised downward the 'official' job numbers from the past year by nearly one million jobs.
Even more baffling, Raimondo professed ignorance about what the BLS actually is. This is akin to the Treasury Secretary admitting to not knowing what the SEC is.
How is it conceivable that the Commerce Secretary is not only clueless about the existence of the BLS but also uninformed about their major adjustment that effectively wiped out one million purported jobs from previous reports?
It's utterly baffling.
I’ve written and lectured for years that a wide swath of the government’s numbers are fraudulent.
Whether its border crossings, where just interceptions are counted and the ‘ones that got away’ we pretend don’t exist.
Or crime, where whole cities and regions have stopped reporting the numbers (and making arrests/prosecutions) and people have the nerve to say violent crime is at its lowest levels in years.
I mean, even in the areas where this Administration has allegedly done decent work like jobs, they just revised downward by nearly 1M despite never acknowledging that the jobs that actually were created nearly all of them went to ‘new arrivals’ or government workers.
And either way, none of them even came close to keeping up with crippling inflation these amateurs cursed the country with.
Cynics and TV commentators like to excuse the above by saying, “Well, both parties lie.”
Indeed they do, but there’s a big difference between puffery and lying about a verifiable track record that’s visible and citable.
Trumps lies and exaggerations are mostly in the realm of possible, or at least truth adjacent, and then get distorted (or outright edited) by a biased press.
Things like “He told us to inject bleach” or “fine people on both sides” which can be easily debunked just by watching the entire video where they allege Trump said these things. Once you watch, it’s obvious the media fabricated the Big Lie and then continues to double down on it.
Hell, Biden spent an hour yelling at the crowd rehashing some of the same tired hoaxes including the “fine people” hoax.
Harris' fantastical lies on the other hand don't pass the straight face test with any remotely infomed person.
In a recent appearance she claimed that she, not Trump, is the true candidate of border security.
This is Orwellian sophistry.
Even with her statist Pravda-caliber propagandists at the NYT and other media running cover for her, this is laughable.
Such as a recent NYT article which boasts about Harris’ “Joy!” and '“Move to the Center.”
But this only works with a functionally retarded and ill informed citizenry. And only when there is not malfunctioning press corps.
She deserves to be mercilessly mocked for this lunacy.
This election features two candidates, both with a highly visible track record. It’s literally the ‘Border Czar’ with the worst record on border security in our nation's history by a wide margin, versus the best.
Harris running on border security is like Clinton running on marital fidelity, or Epstein on proper childcare.
They can lie all they want.
The reality is not a single democratic policy over the last 20 years has benefited the country.
The absolute best thing that can happen would be for government to get out of the way on nearly every single issue.
We’d have a boom for the ages between the hyper growth of tech and AI productivity matched with the Gundo Bros advancements in tech hardware.
Perhaps my favorite part of the Convention, came the day after. With Democrats patting themselves on the back after their successful hoodwinking, RFK Jr. stole the limelight and lobbed a grenade right into the middle of the media circle jerk destroying any additional honeymoon or bounce.
RFK gave not only gave one of the greatest speeches in recent American political history, but threw the full weight of his campaign behind President Trump.
To my knowledge, I’m not sure anyone has stood on mainstream tv with a bigger audience and laid out clearly and brilliantly some very uncomfortable facts about chronic disease, childhood illness and the wholesale poisoning of the food and environment by Big Ag, Big Food and Big Pharma along with one of the most brutal indictments of the corrupt and anti-democratic Democratic party.
The DNC fully expected that RFK Jr would just roll over after getting screwed. They assumed he would obediently fall in line after they destroyed his campaign and tried to silence & sideline him. Turns out RFK Jr isn't Bernie Sanders. And that miscalculation has cost the DNC dearly
Will it be enough to swing the election? We won’t know until November (or maybe December if we see the type of widespread manipulation and fraud we saw in 2020).
But it was enough to shift the gloating sycophantic media coverage and entirely change the online narrative back to Trump.
With the exception of Bill Clinton in 1992, there really hasn’t been a viable Democratic party or candidate since JFK. And we all saw what the deep state did to him.
If Kennedy tossing his hat in with Trump and taking on the real pandemic of chronic disease, Democrats and the Deep State is enough to give Trump the ‘W’ and put Kennedy in charge of reassessing American health, it will be one of the most profound sacrifices any American has made for their country in our history.
Robert Kennedy Jr.
There are critical points in every election cycle that make the history books. RFK Jr. ending his campaign and tossing his support to Trump in the swing states just might be one of them.
Whether or not he is successful and Trump ends up the winning candidate, the sacrifice RFK has made over the last 12 months has been incredible. The man literally risked his career, his reputation and his life (disgracefully, Joe Biden denied him Secret Service protection even though both his uncle and father had been assassinated by the US Security/Deep State).
Had the Democrats and the DNC been an actual real party that represents the people as it’s charged with doing, there is a very high probability that RFK would be the next President. Had the DNC held a primary, RFK would almost certainly have smoked Cadaver Joe and at that point, no serious person thought Kamala was a serious candidate.
Nevertheless, we all know how things turned out. The Democrats refused to hold a primary, and the administration insiders, donors and Mockingbird Media covered up for an obviously mentally deficient Biden.
When the world learned how cognitively damaged he truly was, his own party stabbed him in the back and pulled a midnight coup forcing him to step down thus elevating the Nothing Lady.
Kennedy noted in his speech that both his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, and his father, Senator Robert Kennedy, who were tragically assassinated, held a strong belief in the importance of open debate and engaging in interviews.
He noted they would have been "astonished to learn Harris had not done a single interview or unscripted encounter with voters” in the nearly five weeks she's been leading the party.
"This is profoundly undemocratic. How are people to choose when they don’t know whom they are choosing, and how can this look to the rest of the world?" he asked. "My father and my uncle were always conscious of America’s image abroad, because of our nation’s role as the template for democracy, a role model for democratic processes, and the leader of the free world. Instead of showing us her substance and character, the DNC and its media organs engineered a surge of popularity for Vice President Harris based upon, well, nothing.
"No policies, no interviews, no debates, only smoke and mirrors and balloons in a highly produced Chicago circus."
RFK’s courage to tackle the silent epidemic of chronic disease and the pervasive destruction of children’s health through the poisoning of our food, environment and culture is heroic to say the least.
Take fluoride for instance. At doses merely double the recommended amount, it has been shown to reduce IQ levels. This isn't the stuff of conspiracy theories—it's a substantiated reality, and it's merely one fragment of a broader, more sinister picture.
The situation unfolding around our children in today's culture is not just troubling—it borders on criminal negligence. Yet, amid the distractions of political spectacle, such as the theatrics at the DNC convention, where manufactured joy masks deeper troubles, critical issues go unaddressed.
Consider the following troubling trends:
- Literacy rates among children are at their lowest in decades.
- Childhood obesity has reached unprecedented levels.
- Our children are exposed to a hazardous mix of chemicals, with fluoride as just one concerning example.
- They inherit the heaviest financial burdens seen in history, saddled with debt from the outset of their adult lives.
- The long-term effects of excessive screen time on their cognitive development remain largely unknown.
- Allergies are escalating to never-before-seen rates.
- Children receive mixed and often confusing messages regarding sex and gender.
- The news media consistently disseminates misleading information.
- Neurological diseases such as autism, juvenile diabetes, and cancer rates are skyrocketing.
- Societal division is at the most severe it has been in our lifetimes.
This scenario seems almost engineered to disadvantage our youth—a quiet war waged with invisible weapons. Ironically, these were once flagship concerns of the Democratic Party.
In 2004, issues like water fluoridation, chemical additives in food, and vaccine safety were prominent on their agenda. Even in 2016, these topics were vigorously championed. But today, that faction of the party seems to have disappeared, turned on its head, with hardly anyone speaking out about the shift.
Here’s the speech in full. I highly recommend you watch it.
And the transcript for those that prefer to read: https://im1776.com/2024/08/24/rfk-address-to-the-nation/
RFK and Nicole Shanahan are gddamn rockstars.
For those small minded cynics chirping that she spent $20M only to have her own ticket quit and drop out, consider this.
People with means spend money on all types of things, including politics, charity and material toys.
There are hundreds of luxury yachts floating around in excess of $20M.
The $20M Shanahan spent is potentially the greatest ROI we’ve seen for a just and noble cause in the history of humanity.
If we can change the conversation around the toxic triad of Big Food, Big Pharma and Big Ag and take a long hard look at the failing institutions and regulatory system in America that has chronic disease and obesity exploding over the last 40 years, then RFK and his running mate will have done an immense service to the country.
And if RFK throwing his weight behind Trump helps him win the election, he will also have saved the country from the people who have done everything in their power possible to destroy it over the last 16 years (and especially the last 4).
They are both heroes for that, win or lose.
And RFK Jr. rightfully deserves a place with his Uncle and Father in the annals of history.
What I’m Reading and Watching….
This is a terrific letter from Tim Ferris’ trainer Coach Sommer) to Tim. It can be applied far beyond just strength training:
“Hi Tim,
Patience. Far too soon to expect strength improvements. Strength improvements [for a movement like this] take a minimum of 6 weeks. Any perceived improvements prior to that are simply the result of improved synaptic facilitation. In plain English, the central nervous system simply became more efficient at that particular movement with practice. This is, however, not to be confused with actual strength gains.
Dealing with the temporary frustration of not making progress is an integral part of the path towards excellence. In fact, it is essential and something that every single elite athlete has had to learn to deal with. If the pursuit of excellence was easy, everyone would do it.
In fact, this impatience in dealing with frustration is the primary reason that most people fail to achieve their goals. Unreasonable expectations timewise, resulting in unnecessary frustration, due to a perceived feeling of failure. Achieving the extraordinary is not a linear process.
The secret is to show up, do the work, and go home.
A blue collar work ethic married to indomitable will. It is literally that simple. Nothing interferes. Nothing can sway you from your purpose. Once the decision is made, simply refuse to budge. Refuse to compromise.
And accept that quality long-term results require quality long-term focus. No emotion. No drama. No beating yourself up over small bumps in the road. Learn to enjoy and appreciate the process. This is especially important because you are going to spend far more time on the actual journey than with those all too brief moments of triumph at the end.
Certainly celebrate the moments of triumph when they occur. More importantly, learn from defeats when they happen. In fact, if you are not encountering defeat on a fairly regular basis, you are not trying hard enough. And absolutely refuse to accept less than your best.
Throw out a timeline. It will take what it takes.
If the commitment is to a long-term goal and not to a series of smaller intermediate goals, then only one decision needs to be made and adhered to. Clear, simple, straightforward. Much easier to maintain than having to make small decision after small decision to stay the course when dealing with each step along the way. This provides far too many opportunities to inadvertently drift from your chosen goal. The single decision is one of the most powerful tools in the toolbox.”
When one acknowledges that impatience is essentially a form of cowardice, it becomes simpler to endure the discomfort of the present moment.
Patience is indeed a virtue, characterized by the acceptance of suffering. -MK
Interesting Post from a Center-Left High IQ Friend of Mine.
If he sees it this way, it begs the question how any moderate with an IQ over 110 can look at Kamala and Trump…and then choose Kamala.
“In today's political theater, we essentially have two factions: the Trump Party and the Not Trump Party. Trump’s gravitational pull on American politics is so immense that he monopolizes the narrative, whether demonized or deified. The spectacle at both national conventions, where Trump’s name echoed almost equally, underscores his ubiquitous influence.
Fast forward to the upcoming election: if Trump remains in the electoral fray and we sidestep any eleventh-hour shocks, he’s positioned to win. This reality, frankly, astounds me, and the responsibility lies squarely with both parties.
Policy-wise, Trump eclipses the Democrats by leagues. On every critical issue—be it immigration, taxation, foreign intervention, or the tech and economic policies surrounding AI and cryptocurrencies—Trump’s positions resonate more with practical governance than the Democrats' alarmingly misguided stances. The Democratic platform, from my vantage point, is a parade of potential catastrophes, a lineup so fundamentally flawed it borders on the absurd.
Yet, Trump is not without significant faults. His penchant for controversy and governance by chaos—marked by allegations of corruption and authoritarian tendencies—casts a long shadow over his policy acumen. The question then becomes: do we choose the Trump Party or its antithesis? Our system, corrupt and constrained as it is, offers no third way.
If coerced to choose, logic dictates selecting the side with policies that promise sanity, hoping fervently that Trump’s more destructive tendencies can be mitigated. Interestingly, Trump’s presidency might ensure a more robust system of checks and balances. The bureaucratic resistance he faces could potentially curb his excesses, unlike under Democratic rule, where the administrative state might rubber-stamp or even abet overreaches.
In sum, Trump’s governance—though marred by significant concerns—may inadvertently bolster our checks and balances more effectively than a Democratic administration predisposed to harmonize too closely with an unchecked administrative state. This paradox, that Trump might inadvertently strengthen our system against authoritarian drift, is a bizarre testament to the convoluted times we navigate.”
Alright, who did this?? 😂😂😂
Best of Twitter
Memetic Warfare
Parting Words…
That's it for this week folks! Hope you enjoyed. If you did, please share it with a friend.
Always look forward to your Sunday morning writing
A great read!