Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone

(If you have not yet listened to Part One, that is here)Janet was dreading Thanksgiving this year. She dreaded it every year. Holidays made her feel a sense of foreboding. What was coming next, she thought, how much worse could it possibly get?It had been a rough few weeks for Janet and countless other women in the country. She barely remembered election night except that at some point, she rooted around in a closet, dug out her ex-boyfriend’s electric razor, and … shaved her head. Did she really shave her head?As she lay in bed, still too depressed to make coffee, she ran a palm over her scalp and felt the stubble. She’d actually done it. She’d shaved it all off. And how could she have forgotten? One morning, she stumbled into the market in her bathrobe and was greeted with sympathetic stares by the cashier. No, it wasn’t the election they were referring to. They all thought she had cancer.“Can I do anything for you, dear?” One of them said, touching Janet’s arm. ”You can get me a new president and a better country,” Janet had snapped back. The woman’s face melted from concern to a shared knowing of the tragedy that had just taken place. Janet could see her working it out in her mind. Janet was one of those women who shaved her head after the election.Well, so what? Janet thought as she clutched her robe tightly around her body before ducking back into her house, slamming the door behind her. The only reason she’d gone out was that she’d emptied every wine bottle in the house, and now, she needed another glass. Yes, it was the morning, no, don’t ask her about it. Janet knew that if there was any time to remain permanently drunk, this was it.What a terrible night that was. November 5th. She figured the election would be close but Rick Wilson had assured her that Trump would lose and lose badly.She’d watched the results come in until she heard the independents flipped to Trump in record numbers. That was when her heart sank. It was like watching the Needle at the New York Times flip from Hillary winning by 95% to Trump winning by 95%. Now, the needles were all pointing Trump’s way again, all of the swing states.How could this be happening? After all the ways the Democrats and the media showed the American people how evil and monstrous Trump was? Now, she had to wait months for her hair to grow out. What had she done? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

The Democrats and the Left are still working their way through the seven stages of grief over the election. Many of them continue to be in denial as to how so many people could have voted for Trump and made the popular vote even close at all.In their defense, this wasn’t just an election loss. It was the single most humiliating defeat probably in American history. They spent eight years doing nothing but selling hatred and fear of Trump. They pulled out the stops, from Hollywood to the Justice Department. Headline after headline told the Democrats that all of the evil known to mankind was embodied in this one man, and all they had to do was stop him, and their village could live on peacefully.Trump became the monster, the volcano that required sacrifices so that it didn’t destroy the crops. He was the Devil riding into Salem. He was HITLER. Now, they’re grappling with 77 million people in America who don’t believe their hysteria anymore. It’s been punctured at long last.But those are the rational ones. There are still many of them trapped inside the fear bunker who are now trying to survive in a country they view as full of Nazis and bigots, full of hate and white supremacy. Or else toxic masculinity won the race, and now how to raise their daughters in a country full of rapists?But if they’re honest with themselves, really honest, they will have to face the truth. Sure, they abandoned the working class. Joe Biden got out of the race too late for them to mount a proper campaign. Kamala Harris was a terrible candidate (I threw that last one in there, though it’s a truth they have yet to accept or admit). Elon Musk rigged the election (yes, they are saying that).But they have yet to address one fundamental question about why they lost: Why aren’t they cool anymore? Being cool means thinking critically, but that was abandoned years ago on the Left. It means being a rebel against the system, but they are the system. It means being counterculture, but they are the culture.True, it’s hard to be cool when you are crippled by mass hysteria, and when every tweet by Trump is the end of the world, I know because I felt it too. But it started even before that, even before Trump. One might say the Left losing their cool opened the door for the rise of Trump. Why? Because Trump is and has always been cool.He was cool in the 1980s when being rich was cool, and saying whatever was on your mind that disrupted the status quo was cool. In the 90s, he became an icon in hip-hop culture. Maybe things shifted a little when he starred on a Reality-TV series, those weren’t cool, and especially once he got into politics as Obama’s rival, that most definitely was not cool. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

There’s almost nothing worse than getting dumped. You’ve done everything right. You had all the money in the world — a billion dollars! You had all the celebrities — Harrison Ford, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Barbra Streisand! Who could ask for anything more? Well, it turns out 76 million people.This wasn’t just a “don’t call me, I’ll call you” or “we can still be friends” or “maybe someday in the future we could…” No, this was a “get lost, lose my number, forget you ever knew me” kind of break-up. The Democrats aren’t handling it well, to put it mildly.They’re shaving their heads. They’re uninviting family members to Thanksgiving. They’re obsessing over everything Trump is doing and saying, refusing to go quietly. In other words, they’re turning into Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.It isn’t enough to blame the “woke” and the crazies for the collapse of the empire. It goes much deeper than that. Yes, they’ve lost their minds, and Americans are fleeing faster than rats off a sinking ship, but the truth is the Democrats orchestrated their own demise. Even those who think they get it, don’t really.Bill Maher, for instance, is given pats on the back for kind of, sort of getting it but if you listen really close, you’ll hear the tell-tale TDS worming its way in. Trump is crazy, his voters are dumb.I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Democrats, but this isn’t 2004, as Nate Silver has proclaimed. It isn’t 1988 or 2000, either. No, you must go much further to find a period like the one we’re living through now. You have to go back to 1972.More specifically, the swing between 1968 and 1980, as Ben Shapiro has often discussed in books and on his podcast. His comment was one of the things that drew me to the Right because, finally, someone said something that made sense. He tweeted this in the Summer of 2020, though it would be four more years before 1980 actually arrived.And 1980 has arrived right on time. That makes me think it’s not about just four more years of Trump. This is the long game. This is probably 12 years of Republican rule.Navigating a moment like this depends on confronting the truth, not the preferred truth, not the denial, but the real reason why Trump won such a massive victory after the Democrats spent almost ten years trying to destroy him. The answer isn’t to double down on Trump being a “monster” or a “fascist” or a “sociopath.” All that will do is postpone the inevitable, and it will only make Trump more popular. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

It was like watching SEAL Team Six spelunk into a dangerous war zone and release the hostages from inside the bunker. Millions of us wandered out. We felt as though a great weight had been lifted. The sun shined once again after one long, dark winter. We were half-celebrating, half in a state of shock. “You mean … we’re finally free?” Yes, said the soldiers. You are free.And as the author jotted out those words above, she thought to herself, can I actually write that? Will people say I am exploiting the suffering of the Jews during the Holocaust or still being held in Gaza? Will they say I don’t know real suffering, and how dare I write such a thing? Yes, they will say that. But no, it won’t matter anymore.The truth is that I was always free to write it. I just had to do it outside of the doomsday cult the Left has become. It wasn’t some orb out in the middle of the Mojave. It was every major institution in America. And they most certainly aren’t giving up without a fight. Heed the words of Peter Boghossian:Trump drove so many mad, from the Never Trumpers to the Woke Left, because they destroyed themselves trying to destroy him. Their biggest problem was that they were never fighting the real Trump. They were fighting one they invented, a supervillain whose mere presence could end democracy itself.It’s hard to imagine such smart people losing their critical thinking ability. Power will do that to you, though. No one gives it up willingly. But still, you’d think some of them might have had an inkling America was ready for change by now.It’s like that Milan Kundera quote about Totalitarianism:That’s what’s happened to America in the past four years. Our SEAL Team Six came just in time to liberate us from the tyranny of the minority.Did Rick Wilson really go into election night thinking Trump would lose that badly? How could he have been so confident to make this video the day before Election Day?How could the disconnect from reality be that profound? And when he was thoroughly and completely humiliated, along with all the other Never Trumpers, he blamed the voters. He blamed America.Meanwhile, a wellness check is needed on Jojo from Jerz, another who was so certain her daily rages on X, which earned her so many likes, represented, in any way, the majority in America:The country can’t be run by people like Jojo from Jerz. She’s just too crazy. No reality has ever once entered the chat. And there are too many just like her that control the entire Democratic Party.Even if Trump only serves one term and JD Vance is somehow beaten by a Democrat (I wouldn’t hold my breath), they can always be credited as the liberators who freed all of us, our culture, our economy, our institutions from a cult.For those living in agony for the last four years, you can come out, come out wherever you are.A Mental Health CrisisJust before the election, Mark Halperin predicted a mental health crisis in this country if Donald Trump should win the election.At first, I thought he was exaggerating, but as I watched the reaction on the Left in the wake of another shocking win, I realized he wasn’t. Isn’t it just possible there is something wrong with the messenger if these folks are shocked yet again by a Donald Trump victory? I was shocked along with them in 2016, but by 2020, I got it.The more educated people are, the more they rely on NPR, the New York Times, NBC News, CNN, the New Yorker, New York Magazine, and the Hollywood trades—the less likely they are to see things as they really are rather than how they want them to be. And while it’s true reality distortion exists on the Right, it’s nowhere near the same level.The media is turning the so-called “4B movement” into a bigger story than it actually is because that, too, is a way to sell fear. These young women are the equivalent of an adolescent who is mad at her parents and refuses to eat her vegetables. NO, I WON’T DO IT!They somehow think this will cause any man in America one second of grief. The last thing they want is to have sex with any of them. Moreover, it’s funny that they would think Conservatives would be mad that they aren’t having sex and getting pregnant because all that means is less abortions.All of them are using whatever weapon they have to exact revenge on anyone who voted for Trump. They are people who already see themselves as victims. They see Trump and his voters as victimizers. They’re living out some kind of fantasy where they can cosplay oppression. In a weird way, Trump gave them exactly what they needed.Inside Woketopia, the more marginalized you are, the more elevated you are. Black and trans people are treated like holy icons. Much is made of how to talk to them, how to make sure they feel safe around you because your white skin is so triggering. Each of them uses their marginalized status as a way to impose their will upon the rest of us. It’s blasphemy to criticize or confront them.And herein lies the problem for the Democrats. They can’t confront t

For four years now, maybe longer, I’ve been saying like a mantra, “There is no saving the Left. There is only saving the country from them.” And so America has, definitely and decisively.But scrolling X this morning, I’m reminded of the scene in Michael Mann’s The Insider when 60 Minutes continued to remain in denial after their corruption had been laid bare:It took 60 Minutes too long to accept what they’d participated in with the Jeffrey Wigand scandal, just as it will take the Left too long to accept what they’ve done to themselves and this country. But time marches on without them.And as the line goes from Citizen Kane, they’re going to need more than one lesson and they’re going to get more than one lesson.I say the Left, but it’s really the perception of reality shaped by the legacy press, the New York Times, CBS and NBC News, the Washington Post, along with MSNBC and CNN. They’ve been lying every day to the American people and for that their reputations will pay a high price.I’ll never forget Christmas of 2020, when my nephew, who had gotten COVID and was now immune, wanted to visit. But he wasn’t vaccinated. Because of that, several members of my family became hysterical. When I shouted at them, “HE ALREADY HAD COVID,” they sent me links to NBC news articles that said it was contagious unless you were vaccinated, which was a lie.Donald Trump was not running against Kamala Harris so much as he was running against the media industrial complex which now, like so much of our culture, is inseparable from government.The New York Times headline, “Trump storms back,” is designed to pander to those who are still stuck on January 6th.They have to sell fear because that is how they feel now that they are forced to share this country with the “basket of deplorables.” They think they still speak for all of us but their ability to do that ended long ago. Now, they speak only for those still trapped in an elitist bubble that only wants Trump to go away. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

In Breaking Away, the Cutters have everything against them. Their bike barely works, their shoes are old and tattered, and only one of them can ride. But they still want to compete in the big race against the best and the brightest rich college kids. Something in us, something in me, feels an eternal ache to see the underdogs win. No one needs to tell us who they are, and we can see if we’re watching the same movie. The Cutters are the team we want to win despite the enormous odds against them. They’re riding in the race of their lives, fueled by a desire to prove they are just as good as the college kids. They’re not just as good, they’re better. Good writing can be boiled down to one simple principle: be hard on your protagonist because everyone reading or watching will be invested in that protagonist overcoming the obstacles and winning. That is the Hero’s Journey, and it is the story, at least so far, of Donald Trump and his Basket of Deplorables. And now, as we head into the last day, I find myself on the edge of my seat, just as I was when I first saw Breaking Away. Will they actually win? Can I get that lucky to taste that kind of sweet relief? Rooting for the underdog can sometimes mean rooting for the loser, too, like in Rocky when an underdog fighter dares to dream big. Even if he doesn’t win the fight, no one comes out of it thinking of Rocky as the loser. Or, as Google AI explains, “Rocky's personal victory comes from going the distance, making it through all 15 rounds of the fight. Rocky's performance demonstrates that he honors his family and friends and that you can't humiliate someone who doesn't want to be humiliated.”I can’t think of a paragraph that better describes Trump, MAGA, and the three elections that made the empire sweat and rewrote the rules of how and who can run for the presidency. Hollywood doesn’t make movies like Breaking Away or Rocky now. They don’t see white men as having any obstacles because they’re born with “white privilege,” and the only people worth focusing on are those people of color who are born into obstacles. These are the rules of equity Kamala Harris has lived by and believes. And the rules that might elect her leader of the free world. It’s surreal watching the people with all the power sweat their last battle against Trump. They are the team that wants to win so badly they’ve become corrupt, relying on a propaganda press to coddle and protect Harris, as they try to cosplay making history.But if you’re paying close attention and you’re following the plot, you’ll be able to see who the good guys are in this story and who the bad guys are. The bad guys use Harris as a shield, a symbol of virtue, to hide their own identities. They are mostly white men and women of enormous wealth who desperately need to appear virtuous lest the people rise up and challenge their power. I’m invested now. I want the right ending. I don’t want to have to sit through the ending that wouldn’t sell a single ticket. Sure, if Harris had gotten there on her own - if she’d fought hard through a tough primary and then ran for the presidency if all of that business with Joe Biden hadn’t been so down and dirty, with everyone lying about what really happened even now, if her husband hadn’t been accused of slapping a woman because of a jealous tantrum - maybe I could celebrate the first woman of color President of the United States.But the Democrats and the media have been gaslighting us for years now, though it’s never been quite as bad as it’s been this past year heading into their final battle.It’s all so fake. It reminds me of what happened in the Oscar race when the rich white elites that run Hollywood decided they needed absolution and all were in agreement to start awarding people of color nominations and wins to make it seem as though things had really changed. But they hadn’t. The same people run the show now as always. They are just wearing masks. The irony is that the real Hollywood movie is on the other side. That’s where the good writing is. There has never been a hero like Trump, especially as we watched him survive their unprecedented attacks on him, from the demoralizing raid of Mar-a-Lago, to the lurid Stormy Daniels trial, to the Fani Willis debacle, to Leticia James and her idiotic charges against him.And all the while, the media played along, pretending like it was legit in hopes of rewriting the hero as the villain. Ah, but the people aren’t that dumb. They know bad writing when they see it. I think of Steve Bannon, who helped unite people abandoned and invisible to our culture and government to give them a voice, something to fight for, to work toward, an American dream. He sought to build what he called “inclusive, participatory, nationalist populism,” and now his dream has been realized as the oligarchs bleed Black and Hispanic voters.These monsters threw Steve Bannon in jail not because of anything he did but because he said stuff they didn’t like. He inspires people

The Democrats have been chasing the dragon for so long even they don’t know what they stand for anymore. Shaped by identity politics and social justice, Kamala Harris sure looks the part. But peel back even the surface layer, and there’s nothing - just the failed dreams of a utopia gone wrong.No one says it better than Kenneth L. Khachigian at the Wall Street Journal:Ms. Harris was unprepared to enter the rough and tumble of national politics and at the 11th hour relies on being propped up, as she has throughout her career, by patrons—Barack Obama, his operatives and a national media that is predominantly desperate to prevent Mr. Trump from re-entering office. Ms. Harris is a victim of her own success through moving up the political ladder without being fully tested by challenge and conflict.Joe Biden wasn’t supposed to defy the rules of the Ponzi Scheme. He was supposed to do what every Democrat does. Go along with the mounting deception. But even Joe Biden’s win was a deception in and of itself. We were promised a moderate. What we got instead was a George Spahn, who allowed a cult-like movement to move into the White House.They hid Joe Biden’s age even then. I know because I stood just five feet away from him at a donor brunch in May of 2019. I was plucked from the internet as an influencer because I’d been such a passionate and devoted Democrat, a good Liberal who voted blue no matter who, ever since George W. Bush narrowly defeated Al Gore.I loved Joe Biden back in 2019. He was old, I knew, but he could do the job. How else to take out a one-term president with a strong economy but to pull the country back to the last time they felt safe? Pulling the country back meant a return to the Obama era. Only later would I discover what a mistake that would turn out to be.Trump should have served a second term. He was cheated out of it, as were his supporters and all of America, who would have likely voted for him just based on the economy alone.The Democrats could have taken the loss and rebuilt a new movement with new blood and a new direction. But the Democrats were never going to let that happen. They had to preserve the empire under Obama, an empire now in collapse. They’ve held on too long and now, there is nothing left.Joe Biden was already too old by November of 2020. They hid him in the basement so none of us could see how fast he was declining. I could see it because I had seen where he was back in May of 2019. But instead of facing the problem head-on, the Democrats kept hiding Joe, lying to the public with their full-court propaganda press happily playing along.They elbowed out the brave truth-tellers like Dean Phillps and RFK, Jr., And they handed Joe Biden the primary win, corrupt though it was with their army of eager beaver lawyers meddling in our elections by removing Cornel West, Jill Stein, and anyone else who dared to challenge their authority, from the ballot. They even tried to remove Trump, which forced the Supreme Court to smack them down.Then, when Joe Biden’s age was finally exposed, and there was nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide, the Democrats instigated a coup. But Joe Biden wasn’t going along with it, shockingly. It took Obama’s yachting pal George Clooney to write an embarrassing op-ed in an attempt to push out old Joe, arguing that they should choose a candidate, speed-dating style.Well, they didn’t do that, did they, George? They hand-picked Kamala Harris without a single vote, and you went along with it, too, didn’t you? You wiped your chin and did your duty as the Good Liberal you are. Welcome to the pages of history, for better or worse.I knew the Democrats were in trouble even before the 2020 election. I tried warning them. I said Trump would win if they couldn’t find their way back to sanity. Oh, how naive I was. I didn’t know back then how much power the Left had amassed in the Trump era - an unprecedented alignment that reached from Hollywood across Silicon Valley to the universities and public schools through corporations and the Big Pharma monopolies. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

Janet had a choice to make. Would she wear the T-shirt that said, “What’s so funny about peace, love, and understanding?” or would she put on the one that said, “Trump is a scab.” It wasn’t a hard choice. The election was in a week.Every morning, Janet took her coffee to the window, where she would watch her small California town residents walk their dogs, drive their kids to school, and get in their morning fitness regime. She kept a sharp eye out for those who didn’t clean up after their dogs. There was always that one person.This morning was no different. A woman still in her bathrobe shuffled down the street with two dogs. One looked like a collie, and the other was a tiny poodle. The bigger dog waded into a deep thicket of shrubs and did his business.Janet watched the owner start to shuffle off. “Aren’t you going to clean it up?” yelled Janet from her window across the street. Usually, the person she shouts at will apologize profusely and start digging around for a bag. But this woman didn’t do that. She looked at the window and flipped Janet the bird, shouting, “Mind your own f*cking business. I’m walking AROUND!”Janet watched the woman shuffle down the sidewalk and walk behind the bushes. That was supposed to make Janet feel shame for assuming the worst, but she didn’t. She assumed the worst because people always make bad decisions when they think no one is watching. But Janet was watching.The woman waded her way through the bushes, sticks and dried leaves clinging to the cotton fleece of her bathrobe. She pulled at the leash of the smaller dog, who refused to follow her. The dog wouldn’t budge. “Fine,” the woman said, propping the leash on a branch. The bigger dog was sniffing through the bushes as the woman angrily ripped off a green plastic bag and scooped up the pet waste.Then she looked over at the window where Janet was sitting and held the bag: “SEE!? ARE YOU HAPPY?” Then she flipped her off again, gathered up the two leashes, and shuffled back down the street.Janet thought she didn’t have to get so upset about it. Was there a better way to handle it? Was she just supposed to have waited to see if the woman would pick it up even though she didn’t look like she would? At least Janet could help keep the street clean.A Good Town Full of Good PeopleVista Butte was a town of responsible citizens who do the right thing. People followed the rules, which is why it was so safe. There was no crime, and it was quiet. They had to work to make it quiet.Like when they built a pickleball court in the middle of town, which drew so many kids to play after school. The court made so much noise that it disrupted the peaceful harmony of the town center, so the city decided to move it to the outskirts of town.But it upset the school kids because they liked having a place to go after school and release their pent-up energy instead of staring at their screens all day. Did they really believe that or did their parents tell them to say that? Either way, they went door to door to get signatures to save the Pickle Ball court.It was a waste of time because there was a perfectly good court on the East End. True, they had to pay to park, and kids would need their parents to drive them there, but they could be as loud as they wanted, and it wouldn’t disrupt the serenity of the townspeople. Janet voted against the measure because everybody in Vista Butte has to work together to keep the town quiet and clean.As Hillary Clinton said, it takes a village.Today, Janet was going to do some yard work before Halloween. The Santa Anas were coming, a wind storm. That meant fire season, and she needed to clean up the brush in her front yard. Firebugs get it in their heads to set off a blazing wildfire when the warm wind kicks up. Always men. No woman would do something like that.Janet could drive down to the corner where all the migrants waited to be picked up for a day's work. It would only cost her about 50 bucks for the whole job. One guy could handle it. It wasn’t that much work. That was much cheaper than the town gardeners, who charge you $50 an hour.Well, what the hell? She figured she might as well get in some exercise. She wasn't getting any younger, and her body wasn't getting any thinner. Yard work was a good way to get the steps in and grow her fitness circle on her Apple Watch.Janet had five Harris/Walz signs on her lawn. One of them was just an old Biden/Harris poster, which she ripped off the top where Biden was. It was a perfect metaphor for the election: Rip off the old white guy’s name and elevate the woman of color. It didn't matter that there wasn't a primary. When you have to save the country from rising fascism, you do what you must.But it made Janet happy, making history, even if it wasn’t exactly the democratic process. Old white men don't like getting out of the way to allow marginalized groups to rise—the history of America. The white male patriarchy is keeping all of us down.It’s long past time for a woman to

On January 6th, I should have been huddled on my couch and glued to MSNBC. Their hysteria and fear would have validated everything I already believed about those awful extremist racists and incels waving their “white supremacist” MAGA flags, climbing the walls of the Capitol, and fighting with police officers.But that isn’t where I was on January 6th. I was scratching my head in confusion. A riot? People were trying to break into the Capitol? Why? Most of MAGA were standing before Trump as he spoke to them about the election we’d just lived through. He had convinced Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz to debate the election in the Senate when, all of a sudden, a riot erupted.That was when I knew something very bad was about to happen. No, not to our government officials. I knew they’d be fine. It was the Trump supporters who would not be. They had no power.It wouldn’t matter, I knew, that we’d seen unprecedented violence over the Summer and that those protesters weren’t treated like terrorists or insurrectionists. It was different with MAGA who were by then, already named enemies of the state.Most people I knew on the Left had no clue what Trump supporters were really like. Most of them existed inside the protective bubble of the Left. We’d built our Shining Woketopia on the Hill after Obama rose to power. And we essentially abandoned half the country and never looked back.We carefully curated our information streams, our language, our movies, our music, our fashion. We “wokeified” it piece by piece until we’d come close to reaching our ideal as a society. And then Trump won in 2016 and our whole world turned upside down.Trump supporters were, to us, everything we wanted them to be: angry white men who wanted to tie women to beds and keep them pregnant and having babies like pigs in gestational crates. They were crude and uneducated. They were racists and bigots and drove around in gas guzzlers, wrecking the planet. They were incels who hid on 4-Chan, trolls who did nothing but hurt all of the vulnerable groups, especially women.They paraded so ridiculously around with those racist red hats and those garish flags. We were traumatized just seeing them. If we saw a Trump supporter in our neighborhood or in our public spaces, we would have to alert the manager and have them removed like a dead animal the cat dragged in. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

"The essence of propaganda consists in winning people over to an idea so sincerely, so vitally, that in the end they succumb to it utterly and can never again escape from it," —Joseph GoebbelsIt was on a Sunday that the Nazi army marched into New York City and gathered at Madison Square Garden.They came in all skin colors, white and Black and Brown, and from all different backgrounds, Asian, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, atheists, young and old, rich and poor, Left and Right, gay and straight as American citizens who desperately wanted to taste freedom again, security again, a government that cared about them again, and to Make America Great Again.What they don't know is that they're Nazis. Barbra Streisand and Hillary Clinton have said as much, so isn’t it time that they listened?How dare they gather, Hitler-like, at Madison Square Garden to worship at the altar of the fuhrer himself, Donald Trump. That’s what the New Yorker says, what the New York Times says, and what John Cusack says.I know what you’re thinking. John who? John Cusack. Remember him? Once a heartthrob of sorts back in the 80s? Yeah, that guy.We were all so in love with him. Every boyfriend we ever had was John Cusack in one form or another. But that was then. Things have changed now that fascism has arrived in America.So to protect us from it, Cusack didn’t hold up a boom box, no. This time, he woke up in his penthouse, tossed around in his high thread count sheets, gazed upon the streets of Manhattan, and remembered Donald Trump was holding a historic rally at Madison Square Garden. He fumbled for his phone and spit out his testimony:Donald Trump is Hitler, and his supporters are Nazis. How do we know that? That’s just what we’re all supposed to believe. So far, Trump has done nothing to warrant such an accusation ah, but we don’t really care about that. We care about the thing we police at all costs: speech. What Trump says IS fascism. Free speech is fascism.But if you need proof, let’s say that Trump has said he will deport the 10 million migrants who flooded through America’s weakened border under the Biden/Harris administration. This was after the Democrats spent four years declaring Trump’s border policies were RACIST and FASCIST. So when Biden won, why wouldn’t they come?It’s funny that Americans are thinking about themselves at a time like this. I mean, they should be anti-fascists, putting their own needs aside. The definition of fascism might be all power to the state against the individual, but that’s in ordinary times.Power to the state against the individual is how you stop fascism now. Because if free people choose the guy who says he’s going to fix the border problem and yes, that might include some deportations — that means we are no longer able to staff our labor force and grow a stronger coalition in the swing states.So we dumped them into towns like Springfield, Ohio, and expect everyone who lives there to share our existential angst about racism. Forget about your kids in school, your social services, and your safety. All power to the state means you say nothing, you do nothing, you suck it up.You see, the anti-fascists are the ones who demand you drop all of your friendships if you vote for the fascists. It might sound confusing, but it’s not. All you have to do is conform or else.You might have heard that “conform or else” is the very definition of fascism, but really, it’s how you get rid of it. You pressure everyone you know to do what we tell you to do, think how we want you to think, speak how we want you to speak or we will DESTROY YOU. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

“I came for you, for you, I came for you, but you did not need my urgency. I came for you, for you, I came for you, but your life was one long emergency.” Bruce SpringsteenTo be on the Left in America is to live in one long emergency. It’s depressing and exhausting, and it’s time to move on. It is the misery of the upper class, the misery of a disrupted utopia, and the misery of people who have too much power and have become too comfortable with it, so much so that they do not want to let it go.I can’t really blame Barack Obama. What must it feel like to feel like a god, to have all of American culture worship you, upend what used to be great movies, great books, great rock and roll, and now, in its place, a reflection of you? That would mess with your head. It would be hard to let go. No wonder he keeps showing up. No wonder he demands that the only people allowed to run for president are lesser, duller versions of himself.Imagine what it must feel like to be George Clooney, Julia Roberts, or Tom Hanks. Yes, you are among the highest-status Americans inside utopia because you have befriended the man who would be King. But none of them have come from such a high place and fallen so hard as Bruce Springsteen, who abandoned the badlands for the mansion on the hill.Bruce Springsteen was my idol growing up in the 1980s. I wrapped my legs ‘round his velvet rims and strapped my hands cross his engines. I was just a scared and lonely rider who had to know how it feels, who had to know if love was wild, who had to know if love was real.Me and Bruce, hiding on the backstreets, going down to the river. I wore out the groove on every single album he ever produced and then could only listen to live bootlegs. Now, I can’t listen at all.What I know about Bruce is what I know about the modern-day Left. He doesn’t know America anymore. He does not even know the kinds of people who needed his music and who made him rich. He joins the list of once and former icons who helped lift up the lost and forgotten Americans, to make them feel included in something important in our culture.And now they sneer at them. Stephen King, Steven Spielberg, Barbra Streisand, JJ Abrams, Taylor Swift, and Beyonce sit on a pile of money given to them by the same Americans they now call Nazis.That’s why you see idiots like Jack White or the Foo Fighters throwing a hissy fit that Trump might use their precious music at a rally. Yeah, heaven forbid the truck drivers who deliver their food or the nurses who wash off the vomit and urine after a night of partying should be able to hear their music and forget their troubles for a night. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

Years from now, the question will go something like this, “where were you when you first realized the media was lying to you about Trump?”Me, I was watching Trump speak at Mount Rushmore in 2020 just as the COVID lockdowns had abruptly ended to make way for the largest protests in American history. They said it was about systemic racism, but I knew it wasn’t. It was about Trump and all of the forces at play to remove him from power.Yes, even the protests.Trump was the first person of any kind of prominence to call out the madness of “cancel culture,” the burning of cities, the violence the media suppressed, and he vowed to do something about it. I didn’t agree with everything he said, but I realized then and there that he was not who I thought he was.At least half the country has been trapped in a mass delusion for ten years, maybe longer. What else can explain what has happened to so many of them, how they could be so consumed by hatred that they would go along with any punishment enacted upon Trump, or whomever the next person in line behind him will be. Elon Musk? JD Vance?We joke that it’s TDS or Trump Derangement Syndrome, but I think that’s being too kind.The good news is that more and more people are waking up to what has been done to us all in the name of preserving the American utopia built under the Obama administration. Trump had to represent racism because how else could they sell him as an “existential threat” to the country?Says Adam B. Coleman:I try to remember when it started, this idea that America was under an urgent threat of rising racism and “white supremacy.” It happened around the time of the Tea Party’s founding, the only grassroots movement I’ve ever seen coming from the Right.For most of my life, the Republicans were the establishment party. After the 2008 Wall Street crash, the Tea Party began mobilizing and forming a powerful coalition that must have worried many in our establishment government.Just arguing class or economics or dismantling the bloated administrative state would not have convinced hearts and minds to turn on them. They had to be so toxic Americans would never want to associate with them, help them, support them, or even listen to them. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

“Once upon a time you dressed so fineThrew the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?People call say 'beware doll, you're bound to fall'You thought they were all kidding youYou used to laugh aboutEverybody that was hanging outNow you don't talk so loudNow you don't seem so proudAbout having to be scrounging your next mealHow does it feel?” - Bob DylanI’ve listened to Bob Dylan’s anthem of alienation, Like a Rolling Stone, so many times throughout my life, but it’s never hit home quite the way it does now as I’ve been exiled by almost everyone I once knew. How does it feel, Bob Dylan asks? It feels like tumbling through space with no place to land. It feels like being trapped in a nightmare. It feels like nothing I’ve ever gone through before.But it’s too late to turn back now. It’s full steam ahead. Yes, I am a California Liberal voting for Donald J. Trump. Why am I doing it? Why was I willing to destroy my so-called “career,” end friendships overnight, and lose any status I’ve attained in the past 30 years I’ve been online, which, granted, isn’t saying much? The answer is easy. I couldn’t do the other thing.For many of us, 2020 was like Devil’s Tower in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We all had the same idea all at once, but we didn’t understand it. We might have come from everywhere, but we all ended up in the same place.For some, it was the government’s authoritarian crackdown on masks and lockdowns. For others, it was the lies about COVID. But for me, it was suddenly seeing that unseen hands were manipulating us as a form of social control. It sounds paranoid. I’ll grant you that. I don’t know how else to explain it. I was very much inside the insular feedback loop of the Left. I genuinely believed everything they said on CNN, MSNBC, and the New York Times. They turned on a dime from COVID hysteria to “systemic racism,” which allowed millions to pour into the streets - the largest protest in American history - amid a global pandemic that had closed schools, churches, and businesses. What was going on?None of us knew. They wouldn’t tell us anything they did not think we needed to know. As I was crying out on Twitter about how crazy things were getting on the Left, Neera Tanden DM’d me. “You’ve changed,” she said. I was worried Biden would not win because the protests were too violent. By then, I was finding my news on the Right, where they weren’t as afraid to post videos about what was happening on the streets.I told Neera Tanden that Trump would benefit from the public's desire for law and order. She told me to keep quiet until after the election. I told her I couldn’t do that, but it did strike me as odd that such a high-level Democrat would care what I thought. But that’s how it is on the Left. No one is allowed to stray from the mandated narrative.Even now, most people I know on the Left have no idea how bad it got. That’s why they don’t understand the comparisons to January 6th. They only saw one violent riot but they saw it over and over again, yet more proof of social control.It wasn’t until Bari Weiss resigned from the New York Times after exposing their unwillingness to publish the truth about what was happening on the streets for fear it was racist even just to report on it, that I realized I had to separate myself from the hive mind whose sole mission was to support the Democrats. And that’s how it went for the rest of the year. It was “don’t ask, don’t tell” for a once-mighty movement that now cowered in fear.But for many of us, it was the summer when we stopped trusting our institutions and our legacy media to tell us the truth about anything. Everything that happened in 2020 was designed to push Trump out of power. I watched them all but rig the 2020 election using the same unseen hands. I walked away from that election no longer a registered Democrat for the first time in my life.But that would only be the beginning. The Democrats had the White House, and they had four years to show America they really were the better side, the side that cared about all of us. Instead, whatever fundamentalist cult had overtaken the Left now spread throughout our government. Biden took his role seriously, using equity for policy and staffing his administration mostly with women, women of color, and members of the LGBTQIA lobby.And in so doing, he neglected to address the core problem for the Democrats, one that began back in 2008, the crisis that sparked the Fourth Turning. The Wall Street meltdown and subsequent bailout of the banks to the tune of $700 billion. Two populist movements that threatened the government meant a pivot to what Vivek Ramaswamy calls “woke capitalism.” Focus on identity politics and woke ideology, and they get to do whatever they want to the people of the United States.They ignored the problem until it exploded in 2016 with Trump’s win. They failed to address the urgent needs of the people and instead went to war on Trump. Now, here we are, all of these years later, and the De

When the New York Times asked professional women if they’d ever been sexually assaulted, I answered them, and my story appeared just before the Harvey Weinstein allegations broke. It was Trump’s Access Hollywood tape that turned our world upside down. We’d convinced ourselves that America had just elected a “racist” and a “rapist.”As a Democrat, you have to be willing to lie. Elections can be won if everyone is on board with the same lie. We lie about our candidates. We lie about the opposition. We lie about ourselves. Otherwise, we’d show weakness. We’d be thrust back into the era of disunity, feckless candidates, and elections we could not win. Oh, but the new Democratic Party knows better.I lived those lies for years, pretending inwardly that even if it wasn’t the whole truth, it was for the greater good, so it was okay.When the story broke with a credible accusation that Doug Emhoff, the “wife guy” of Kamala Harris, slapped a woman so hard she turned around, it might have become the kind of story that dominated the headlines for weeks. Only in ordinary times would the press chase a story like that. These are not ordinary times.If I were still a party loyalist, I, too, would be dismissing and debunking the serious allegation that Doug Emhoff went to a glitzy event at the Hotel du Cap, drank too much, and assaulted his girlfriend of three months because he thought she was flirting with another man.I would have cheered Jen Psaki on as she helped prop up the image of Emhoff as the shining example of men who stand behind women and support them, not as the guy who allegedly paid off the nanny he knocked up to keep her quiet.And maybe that’s why the Republicans can’t win elections. They aren’t willing to do what it takes to win. They aren’t willing to come together as one unbreakable chain that goes along with every lie.If only those who dissent at the National Review or the Wall Street Journal were fully on board with pretending Trump wasn’t who he is - a deeply flawed candidate who happens to be tough enough to go up against the machine. Ah, but the machine didn’t get there by accident. It got there because everyone agreed that lying was the better path forward. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

Tomorrow, on Saturday, Trump is returning to Butler, PA. Trump and Butler seem connected in ways that make for one of the greatest stories in American history. It wasn’t just the assassination attempt. Butler had come to stand for the quintessential town of the forgotten working class who turned to Trump as their last best hope.Just before the 2020 election, Tucker Carlson gave the most insightful, eloquent monologue about Trump and his supporters I’d ever heard. It went viral because no one has said it better before or since. And a myth was born. Butler, PA, was the forgotten town that came alive when Trump decided to shine a light on it.So it was already MAGA lore by the time Trump returned to Butler to campaign for his 2024 run and was very nearly assassinated. What could represent the time we’re living in better than that? The Democrats will tell themselves it’s “just the guns,” and that their gun control would have stopped this shooter from attempting to take Trump’s life.Yet we know that is not the truth. It wasn’t random gun violence this shooter sought, but fame. We don’t know everything there is to know about that day. The press has not exactly been drawn to this story, probably because they fear it will help Trump. So, we don’t know much about the shooter. As of right now, he remains a mystery, as does the strange coincidence of Trump being nearly killed in Butler, of all places.In yet another strange twist of fate, Tucker Carlson and his producer, Justin Wells, happened to be filming a documentary following Trump on the campaign trail. That meant a full camera crew was ready to capture every second as it unfolded. Most of the footage shown in this documentary has never been seen before, and it is extraordinary.Episodes 1 and 2 of The Art of the Surge are now playing on Tuckercarlson.com. Here is a clip of the assassination attempt combined with various videos from rallygoers: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

It seems to have suddenly occurred to the Democrats that they have a problem with men. Oh, we know they have a problem with men. That’s all we’ve heard about for the past ten years ever since Donald Trump committed the great crime of beating Hillary Clinton.I know because I used to be one of them — the #stillwithher type who marched with hundreds of thousands of women to protest the Trump election. And the one who said #metoo and fought every day as a brave member of the resistance? Yeah, that was me. But to quote Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven, I ain’t like that no more.And speaking of Clint Eastwood, you know what was a universal attraction for men and women? Masculine male heroes. And you want to know what Hollywood decided it didn’t need anymore? Masculine male heroes. Hollywood’s problem is now the Democrats’ problem. The box office has become a ghost town, and men are fleeing the Democratic Party in droves.This gave someone in the Harris/Walz campaign the bright idea to form “White Dudes for Harris,” one of the most ill-conceived campaign pitches of my lifetime. It’s as though an extraterrestrial came down to the planet Earth and thought, “How can we lure in the males of this species?”Apparently, the Harris campaign is spending $10 million on this mess. Do they really think they’re going to convince a single “white dude” with that ad? Maybe the self-hating ones.But it won’t work. The reasons they cite for choosing the Democrats are all of the main reasons so many are voting for Trump in the first place. To quote Robert DeNiro playing a man afflicted with “toxic masculinity” in Raging Bull, it defeats its own purpose.The only men who would proudly and publicly join that group are men who have no self-respect left because they’ve spent much of the past decade apologizing for their existence and de-centering themselves from the narrative, all the while getting a pat on the head from the women in their lives. The more wealth and power they have, the more likely they’ll put on that shirt and shake that groove thing.And they’re surprised somehow that it didn’t work, that men didn’t flock to join a group that drained their testosterone faster than walking in on James Carville’s grandma naked. How did they think this was a good idea again? What preachy millennial childless cat lady made that call?Meanwhile, Jen Paski does what many of the women of the Left do: attempt to redefine their idea of masculinity. Even Doug Emhoff isn’t buying it. He looks terrified, like he’s gotten in too deep, and he can’t find his way out of this mess.I don’t want to insult Tim Walz or Doug Emhoff. I would never want to make them feel bad about things they can’t help, like masculinity, but BRUH. They would be what one might call sensitive men. No one out there is buying that Tim Walz is the masculine male role model that will bring back male voters. He’s just not that guy.\ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

I’ll never forget the moment when I realized what being a mother meant. It wasn’t the 18 hours of labor or crying out for the nurse to hand me my newborn daughter or that I held her to my chest for a full two weeks after I brought her home. No, it was the day she walked behind me, and I dipped my toe in the pool. When she copied me, she fell in. I didn’t realize it at first, but then I didn’t hear her behind me anymore. I turned around to see her in the pool starting to sink.As I dove in to save her and felt that superhero strength all mothers are born with, I knew at that moment there was nothing I would not do to keep this child safe. I wasn’t just a mother, though. I was a Mama Bear. You know, the most feared animal in nature? No one messes with a mother grizzly. They know what will happen if they do.Mama Bears are not born, they are made. It’s a pilot light that is only ignited when danger is near. Even now, with my daughter grown, just try it, pal. Just TRY IT. We are Mama Bears because we know it’s a dangerous world in many ways. No one can guarantee a life free of car accidents, mass shootings, random explosions or violent crime.We never had a man around to protect us, which would have been nice but for me, it was my boot camp. I had to keep her safe. At some point, I had to let go and allow my daughter to live her life. But I sit here, across the country, with a pilot light forever lit. Just try it, pal. JUST TRY IT.I knew I had to leave the Democratic Party in 2020 because I believed they’d lost their minds and lost their way. I could no longer align myself with people who believed all of this country, its government, its culture, its economy belonged to them - the party of the elites.It wasn’t until I started venturing out of my feedback loop of the New York Times, MSNBC, and NPR that I began to see things I’d never heard about before. Had I not been listening to Blocked and Reported, I would never have heard of “gender-affirming care” or the rising crisis of children sucked into what I now believe is a cult.I knew some kids were trans. It didn’t become a thing until my daughter was in high school. Only one of her friends said she wanted “top surgery” and to now be referred to as a boy’s name. But when she went to college, two of her roommates had swapped genders, a boy she had a crush on had fully transitioned to female. I did start to wonder, what’s going on?The more I heard about it, the more I began to panic. Young girls were showing off scars where healthy breasts used to be. Young men being castrated and all of them losing their fertility long before the age of consent because of puberty blockers? And worse, there was a growing ideology that children as young as toddlers should be able to decide their gender.But it wasn’t until I heard the stories of detransitioners that I knew we were facing a once-in-a-generation medical scandal, and everyone was too afraid to say anything about it. If you mentioned it, you would be attacked and even, at one point, banned from Twitter. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

Hollywood used to give us the chance to sit under one roof and enjoy a universal story. The magic of the movies was always something we could share. We all remembered lines from famous movies like “I’ll be back,” “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse,” “Here’s looking at you, kid,” “We’re gonna need a bigger boat,” and “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”We got along better as a country when we could share movies. We didn’t just share the experience inside a movie theater, where we could leave our politics and our disagreements at the door. We also shared stories that became part of our shared history. We all remember the Summer of the Shark and the year Titanic won Best Picture.But now, 24 years into the new millennium it’s all gone. Or most of it anyway. Whatever is left of Hollywood is meant only for a small portion of America. They are running out of stories to tell because their sample size is no bigger than the island of Manhattan.But Hollywood doesn’t seem to have noticed just how disconnected they’ve become from ordinary life in America. It isn’t just that Americans have moved on because Hollywood took a side after 2016 and alienated them. They also seem to be living in a different time, back when the box office wasn’t a ghost town, and Julia Roberts and George Clooney could still open a movie.They seem unable to let go of the past, specifically 2008, when Barack Obama won the presidency. Hollywood has never felt so useful, so full of purpose, and so GOOD as it did when it formed a powerful alliance with the Obama coalition. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

I was one of those people who believed Rachel Maddow. I sat glued to her show every night. I even patrolled Trump’s entire Twitter feed to find the exact moment when he was “turned” by the Russians.I saw it all play out in my head. The hapless Trump in Moscow, the beauty pageant, the room with a hidden camera, the prostitutes, the embarrassing sex acts all designed as “kompromat,” a word middle-aged white women like me suddenly threw around like we were Valerie Plame.Rachel Maddow sounded so sincere, so intelligent, so concerned for the welfare of the country. She was an integral part of the Obama coalition in the early days. We couldn’t separate them. They stood for the America we helped build and the one Trump threatened.I read every book on Putin I could find. I had long conversations with my friends about the danger of having a Russian asset in the White House. I believed Adam Schiff, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, and, yes, Rachel Maddow.Yet, no one stopped to think what all of that whipped-up hysteria, that fear, that rage would do to people who might think voting isn’t enough to save the country. More would have to be done. What if it all landed in the lizard brain of a Gen-X Travis Bickle, who was prepared to lay down his life to save Ukraine?The media will attempt to paint alleged Trump assassin Ryan Routh as a madman. They might even say he was a Trump supporter or his ideology was unknown. But that isn’t exactly true. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

Kamala Harris believes she “won” the debate. It’s hard to argue with that conclusion. But there were unintended consequences her team did not factor in. And that is sympathy for Trump, or as they would tell it on the Left, “sympathy for the Devil.”Please to meet you. Hope you guessed my name.I, too, thought Kamala Harris had won the debate. By the end, I was so demoralized, so sad, and so full of despair that I just went to bed and hoped it would be gone by morning.I knew it wasn’t just a debate. It’s much bigger than that. It’s a TIME magazine cover. It’s Frank Luntz and the Spectator declaring the debate will cost Trump the election. It’s a thousand points of light on Twitter, a once-great coalition undone by ugliness for ten long years.It’s a Stephen Colbert monologue. It’s a Taylor Swift endorsement. It’s the center of Bill Maher’s entire universe on Friday night. It will be Saturday Night Live. It’s too big. Too insurmountable. It’s everything, everywhere, all at once.Or is it?When I woke up, scrolled through TikTok, and read the post-debate polls, I found headline after headline declaring voters' choice for president unmoved. It made no difference whatsoever, and, if anything, sympathy tipped in Trump’s direction, and Harris suddenly became as unlikable or “likable enough” as Hillary Clinton.Why?Because the Trump haters have destroyed themselves and any good thing they ever stood for trying to destroy him, and at some point, the worm turned.They are so close to what they believe is the total destruction of Trump they can taste it. But I watched Trump somehow survive the debate unscathed. Something about his ability to not attack Harris adequately worked in his favor. Call it the Charlie Brown effect.Harris made the fundamental mistake of leaving her JOY™ and unity hats at the door and putting on her prosecutor’s hat. Had she shown up as a gracious, respectful, serious person ready to answer serious questions, she might have won over some voters. That wasn’t what happened. She showed up as a hybrid between Hillary Clinton and the ladies of The View.We have a brighter future ahead, she declared. But those words ring hollow since she’s been in power for almost four years. How many more false promises can the Democrats make at the people’s expense? They promised that they were the better side, the optimistic side, the unity side, the ADULTS in the room.Not only have they failed — in Afghanistan, at the border, at our grocery stores, in our schools, and on our streets — but they have lurched toward corruption unseen and unprecedented in this country’s history, up to and including hiding a cognitively impaired president — who is still in office, by the way — and pulling a fast one on us that Kamala Harris is suddenly something new. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

I have just discovered that my very long interview with the great Paul Finn of The Generation Report is finally up on YouTube. He runs a really great channel (CLICK HERE) examining the Fourth Turning. I recommend watching all of his videos. If you are interested in our interview, here it is.He takes care to edit in images along with the audio so it’s worth a watch, though I am including an MP3 for the podcast feed. Paul’s work is exceptional, and it’s always bothered me that he doesn’t have a larger following on YouTube. He should. I wish more people would watch his videos.Hope you enjoy it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

There is nothing more loathsome to the average upper-crust liberal intellectual than an American holding Donald Trump’s book in one arm and the Bible in the other. At least, that’s what the stock image on Matt Bai’s column in the Washington Post tells us.Matt Bai — political columnist and one-time screenwriter for a DOA film about Gary Hart called The Front Runner — is going to give the Left all the justification it needs to continue their ongoing hate campaign against ordinary Americans.He writes:But now? After the violent sacking of the Capitol? After Trump’s promise to behave like a dictator (well, okay, I guess if it’s only for a day)? After eight years of bigotry and baseness and flat-out lies?To say that Trump’s voters aren’t aware of these things, or don’t fully comprehend them, or are firmly in the grip of misinformation, is to say that they’re simply fools. And I’ve met way too many rural Americans to believe that. If they’re ignorant, then their ignorance, at this point, is willful.It’s a rebuttal to a column by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times pleading with the Left to find their humanity when it comes to Trump and MAGA.It isn’t enough that Kristof writes:By all means denounce Trump, but don’t stereotype and belittle the nearly half of Americans who have sided with him.We can’t separate them, argues Bai. If they support Trump then they are the named enemy. They are not worthy of our empathy, at least not until — he hopes — Kamala Harris wins the presidency. Then, they might thaw out and treat them like they belong in the country they love. Don’t bet on it. Bai writes:These voters don’t support Trump because they labor under some illusion that he’s going to rescue their communities — not anymore. They support him because he’s willing to blow up the country if it means teaching insufferable intellectuals a lesson, and so are they. It’s the same vengeful impulse that leads to autocracy in unequal societies all over the world. It is, at its core, unpatriotic, no matter how many flags you fly, or how many ways you try to rationalize it.Are you starting to see why The Front Runner flopped?The Frontrunner is a rescue operation for Gary Hart’s legacy. It was the mean old media, you see, a media that has suddenly grown a conscience because now they don’t do their jobs of chasing stories lest they weaken a weak candidate like Gary Hart or Kamala Harris. Instead, they spread propaganda on why America should hate and fear Trump and his supporters lest they be accused of “normalizing” them.The Front Runner was bad for the same reason The Washington Post and the New York Times are unreadable: their bias suffocates any practical purpose they might have otherwise had. It’s like spending time with the kid who sits in the front of the class, always raising his hand with the right answer. After a while, you overdose on the sanctimony. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

Harris has been tripping the light fantastic on the campaign trail only showing the side her campaign wants people to see. It reminds me of the many years I’ve spent covering the Oscars. The campaigns for Best Actress always follow the same pattern. They get a stylist. They make selective appearances. They show up on the rope line. They shake hands. They look great. The one thing they don’t do is interviews.Hollywood has its greasy fingerprints all over the Harris campaign. We know that. They see it as their mission to stop Trump. So they’ve taken things into their own hands. It seems like Harris has hired awards consultants rather than politicos.They have her projecting mostly joy and positivity. Harris has done an excellent job playing the role they’ve given her, somewhere between the blessed virgin and Eva Peron.But they’re flirting with disaster. That’s not the real Kamala Harris. They’re hiding her from the press because they know that.They’re gambling on Trump, showing up as obnoxious, abusive, and belligerent. Harris will do everything she can to poke and prod him into a reaction. She will call him too old. She will say we need change. She will call him a racist. She will call him a criminal. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

America is being love-bombed by the Kamala Harris campaign. It’s been confusing and disorienting, but so many are going along with it because how can they not? Being love-bombed is hard to resist.Yes, love-bombed. That is what all of this looks like. And as any dimestore trauma therapist will tell you, those who are the most insecure are the ones who must love-bomb to erase any doubt or critical thinking.They know Kamala Harris is one bad interview away from losing this election. They know she’s still the same Kamala that turned off so much of the American public. They know that sooner or later, she will get triggered, and that temper will come out. They know they have nothing else but this big lie they’re all going along with.None of the past four years will mean anything, not amid a storm of love-bombing. Harris can say anything, be anything, pretend anything, and she will get nothing but eyes in the shape of hearts looking back at her.Yes, much of it is “mass formation psychosis,” coined by Mattias Desmet, as we slouch toward a technocratic totalitarian state.During 2020, while we were all on lockdown, those online became part of a mass formation. Once they came together as one group that would go along with no masks, then masks, then mostly peaceful protests, then systemic racism, then vaccines, then lockdowns, then “cancel culture,” and finally, a weaponized DOJ against Trump - they were both terrorized and compliant by the end of it.They had a volunteer army of fanatics who would punish them publicly if they said the wrong thing or stepped out of line. That kind of fear does strange things to a community, and it hasn’t gone away.The formation is so united and so full of hatred and rage that our government could erect concentration camps or gulags and start throwing Trump and MAGA away, and all of them would celebrate. Bette Midler, Barbra Streisand, Rob Reiner, and Stephen King would cheer. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

Congratulations to all of you who supported the Democrats. You won. You should be very proud of yourselves. You won in your singular support of Joe Biden for the presidency.You won in how you attacked any primary candidate who might challenge him, you know, the one guy who told the truth about Biden’s cognitive decline? Dean Phillips? What a terrible person he was for saying the Emperor had no clothes.You did it! You won the primary for Joe Biden. You had an entire press corp - and an army of supporters - to deflect from accusations that there was anything wrong with him. Those are deep fakes, they proclaimed. When any outlet would write a column that Joe Biden should step down or that he was not fit to hold power anymore, off with their heads! You would threaten to cancel your subscription and bully those reporters on Twitter.But you did it! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

The new Kamala Harris is a grand illusion. It looks more like an Oscar campaign for Best Actress than an election for President of the United States. But that happens when your political party is in bed with Hollywood. They have all the best writers and executives in the business to sell a more palatable version to the people.The real Kamala Harris has proven to be not quite ready for prime time, or as she might see it, America is not quite ready for her.We’re getting the kinder, gentler Kamala instead of the firebrand she’s been throughout her career. We’re getting the JOY™ campaign to trick us all into feeling good in a time of great anxiety and malaise.We have a media selling this falsehood to the public every day, doing the work of the Harris campaign by depicting the Trump side as “dark.”She can’t hide herself for much longer. Sooner or later, the firebrand will have to emerge. Harris probably hates how they keep telling her to talk less nasally, smile more, and soften herself for the cameras. The more they try to control her, the more likely she is to rebel against it - you know, maybe a little like Sarah Palin?The real Harris is someone who had no problem calling Joe Biden a racist in an emotional tirade on the debate stage, then turning around and cackling about it as “just a debate.” She is that competitive. But hey, no one gets into politics to lose. To quote Jack Nicholson in Terms of Endearment, “everybody uses everything they have.”Some might have been shocked when Harris casually snatched Trump’s big platform of No Tax on Tips. I certainly was. How could she do it so brazenly and without shame? That is the real Kamala Harris. And it’s only the beginning. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

How do you solve a problem like Kamala Harris? If you criticize or attack her, you’ll be seen as a “racist” by the powerful people on the Left, which fuels their momentum and reminds them of their collective sense of purpose.Why is she ahead in the polls now? Because it feels good to vote for her, it’s as simple as that. It’s time for a woman, they proclaim, especially a woman of color.Kamala Harris has now made history four times as the first woman and first woman of color District Attorney, Attorney General, Senator, and Vice President. She only has one more win for a clean sweep, President of the United States.They tried so many different ways to recapture the magic of the 2008 Obama coalition only to realize it was there the whole time. All they needed was the “female Obama.” Everything else fell into place.Their Obama/Trump origin story of the angry white man who tried to destroy the angelic Black man is all coming back in a Proustian rush. Let’s finish the job, they all think. Let’s finally vanquish the bad orange racist man forever with our warrior, Queen Kamala.So what do you do? How to beat her? For one thing, you don’t allow her to define your campaign. MAGA is not the party of darkness. MAGA is the party of joy. The Democrats have given us one long dark winter since Biden took office. They can’t just suddenly pretend that Harris wasn’t part of that.Their propaganda machine is astonishing:Imagine how the Bidens must be feeling right about now. Are they feeling any joy™? Do they like it that George Clooney and Reid Hoffman pushed him out and selected Kamala Harris? Do you think they’re feeling joy™, watching the mania play out with happy smiles, laughter, and awkward dancing from Tim Walz? Yay we got rid of Joe, aren’t we happy?I want Trump to win not just because of the lawfare that sets a dangerous precedent going forward, especially with Harris as president. But also because I worry that the nation’s schoolchildren will be indoctrinated into the madness of the Left starting as early as preschool. Just imagine the kinds of Executive Orders Harris will sign.But beating them is not going to be easy. We now see they will do anything, say anything, tell any lie, become anybody, corrupt the system any way they want just to win.The Trump campaign has their work cut out for them.Start with this:They are not the party of JOY™What Trump did with “fake news,” he can do with the word, “Joy™” Take it back.Joy™, per the Harris/Walz campaign, translates to: “Let them eat cake.”Let them eat fentanylLet them eat high crimeLet them eat inflationLet them eat the flood of illegal immigrantsLet them eat high gas pricesExamples:Attacking Her Directly Will BackfireThe rules on the Left are different from the rules on the right, as we learned from this poll that showed white Liberals dumb down their speech when talking to minorities, and Conservatives don’t.The press won’t be hard on her for that same reason. They’re deathly afraid of being called racists. They could lose their jobs for that. Independents might feel the same way, protective of her and hostile toward Trump and Vance.Let the Trump/Vance team now be the party of hope and change, because for millions of Americans, that is exactly what it is.Barack Obama owns “hope and change,” but the only change they meant was making history. The change that’s needed now is about class, not race. But using these words will put the Harris side on defense and will probably make them angry, making it harder to take the high road.How to Campaign against Kamala HarrisThe first thing you need to know about campaigning against Harris is that she did not come to play. She has been preparing for this moment nearly all of her life.Harris is no amateur when it comes to winning elections. There is nothing she does better than what she is doing right now: making history by winning an election against a white man.She already believes this is her ultimate battle against the “evil racists” who stormed the Capitol. Someone on Twitter made a video intercutting her January 6th speech with the riots and the violence in the Summer of 2020. But listen carefully to what she says.The Good White Liberals see themselves as saviors, so even just mentioning the riots in 2020 is strictly verboten, but everyone should remember how they hid much of that from us and shamed us for caring about the people whose lives and businesses were destroyed.Harris has been making history all of her life with only wins and no losses, but she also prepared a statement, a quote from her mother, when asked about it.She said the same thing on the Oprah Show where they called her the “first African-American female District Attorney.”Her star continued to rise when she was profiled on Lifetime right around that same time:That led to her being name-checked in the New York Times even before Barack Obama won in 2008.Harris aligned with Obama early, and their relationship has been essential, not just because she had the golden

A few days ago, a reporter from one of the trades asked me for an interview. I knew there could only be one reason she would want to interview me, and it wasn’t to talk about how I ran a website for 25 years on the Oscar race.It wouldn’t be that I raised a baby as a single mother and launched my site out of a guest house in Van Nuys, California, or that I’d worked as a sports photographer, a fake horoscope writer, a film reviewer, a janitor, and a teacher’s aide to raise my daughter without sending her to daycare and somehow built a successful business anyway.No. This had to be about my politics and why they changed.How did a Barack Obama devotee, an I’m With Her Hillary Clinton supporter, and a Joe Biden faithful from way back find my way into not only voting for Trump but actively trying to help the Republicans defeat the Democrats?Now that’s a story, “How Did an Oscar Blogger become a far-right radical?”The pitch wasn’t exactly about that. It was more about how I plan to navigate being a dissident heretic while also running a successful business in an industry that is now the same organism as the government.I’ve been asked this question many times by people on the Right and have given many interviews to explain “what happened to me.” But this is the first time anyone on the Left, or inside the bubble of the Left, asked me to explain it.And that’s because one, two, three, all eyes are on me. I did a boo-boo on Twitter that now has me in the crosshairs at long last. It was one thing when I stood up for JK Rowling or Ansel Elgort or when I pushed back on the hysteria that Green Book was “racist.” When Trump is involved, it’s bigger than just your average internet pile-on. This time it could mean the end of whatever it is I’ve built over at AwardsDaily.com.The story will be about how my politics changed, or more specifically, why I felt like I could get away with a satirical tweet that said “White Power” while mocking the “White Dudes for Harris.”Is it bad to mock white people? I thought they were fair game. Or is just saying those words bad? Some people decided that it meant something beyond that. I don’t check my mentions anymore, so I had no idea this wave of hysteria was even occurring. But then a friend wrote to “ask me about it.”It was as though I was secretly joining the white power movement on Twitter and was signaling to all of my friends in the KKK that, look, it’s cool to be white people celebrating our whiteness again! Of course, it’s not. It’s just that they have a habit on the left of memory-holing their insanity and moving the goalposts. We’re all supposed to keep up.Four years ago, there could have been no “white dudes for Biden” or “white dudes for Barack Obama.” It would be called any number of things, from white saviorism (which this most surely was) and even borderline racism. But not in 2024! Anything goes because they say so.I could have deleted the tweet and apologized profusely. But I know the game, brother. They once called me a “white supremacist” for saying it wasn’t only white people who committed hate crimes (fact check true). But in my world, no matter how crazy or blatant the hypocrisy gets, you should never say a word about it.Apologize and beg for forgiveness. Maybe they’ll give you a break. No, they won’t. They will screenshot the tweet and send it around and around. By the end of this madness, it will land in the lap of a reporter who wonders, “What happened to her?”How did Orwell know enough to write Children's Spies in 1984? How did he know the young would be so susceptible to fanaticism? Because, of course, he knew. That’s why capturing the youth is so important to cults and utopias and why they separate the kids from the parents, as the Democrats are trying to do now.It’s my own fault. I could have shut up, kept my head down, and complied with all of the demands—think they do, write like they do, believe what they believe, and always apologize for “mistakes made.” I could have done that. But then I think about Winston Smith and 1984. How did Orwell know?He knew that utopias must become totalitarian dystopias because how else to maintain the purity and the vision? We’re living everything from that book, even a government that has now been weaponized to punish thought crimes.They have condemned and convicted Trump and his supporters as “racists,” which means anything can be done to them, and no one will say a thing. Steve Bannon is in prison for the crucial months leading up to the election. The last time someone was in jail for that crime was Ring Lardner of the Hollywood Ten.If Orwell wanted to write a book that would call out to the future to warn us that this isn’t what we want for our country, much less our culture, then loudmouths like Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and me will have to take the hit because no one else will.Winston Smith is an obedient member of Oceana whose thoughts take him to dangerous places. Big Brother doesn’t like him remembering great books or l

[This is the podcast version of an already posted story]It’s too late for me. I followed the feminist lie through most of my life, only to wake up much too late to have lived it a better way. You see, it takes a while to realize that it really is about the warm body next to you. It is about the laughing children and grandchildren. It is about the stories, the recipes, the memories, the picnics, the vacations.No, life is never going to be perfect. There will be problems with every family, unforgettable tragedies, broken hearts, and dreams deferred. And there are sometimes mothers who become addicted to drugs. Not everyone grows up easy. Some of us barely make it out alive.As I watched The Machine surround JD Vance like a pack of hyenas going in for the kill, I was disgusted on so many levels. I am sure if the Right had that kind of power, they’d probably abuse it, too. People are people, and power corrupts. But still, the level of depravity was shocking, even for them. The absence of empathy in a culture defined by trauma is what defines the new Left. Their trauma. Someone else’s trauma. Trauma from our past. Every kid growing up on the Left will be fed one psych med or another. When Donald Trump was shot, there was just a moment where there was a pause. Wait, they all seemed to think, are we supposed to feel something?Yes, you are supposed to feel something. It’s called humanity. Empathy. I have been cursed with too much empathy. I get a double dose from each of my parents. My dad loved his cat Freddy so much he couldn’t bear to get him “fixed,” so he let him out to produce untold amounts of wild kittens. One day, Freddy was hit by a car, and my dad never really recovered. He loved that cat. My mom had so much empathy that for a while there, she couldn’t bear to see her chickens sitting on unfertilized eggs, so she went to the pet store and bought fertilized eggs so they could hatch. But she kept producing too many roosters and didn’t know what to do with them, so she moved the roosters to another property she owned. I joked with her that it was like a male prison. Please, send over some hens. And me, well, I can barely clip the leaves off of a basil plant without feeling bad about it. I save spiders. One video of an abused dog will ruin my entire year. It’s a curse—too much empathy. But that’s what I feel when I think about JD Vance, what he’s gone through in life, and how he’s come out of it such a fine young man with a beautiful family and a promising future.It reminds me of that wonderful scene in The Shawshank Redemption, written by Stephen King before he became Trump deranged, and back when Hollywood could still make great movies. JD Vance said something, so what? You can’t grow up with a foul-mouthed Mamaw and not fire off a zinger now and again. I grew up with that kind of mother, a mouth so foul she’d make a sailor blush. I often remember her screaming at cars that drove by, “You mother f*cking c*cksucker!” That’s probably why I can’t shut up. And probably why JD can’t either. But that’s not why he’s my hero. That’s a different story entirely. It has to do with growing up like a weed. You don’t really belong any place. You grow up strong anyway because something in your DNA makes you a survivor. No hothouse flower was he, nor carefully tended garden plant, but a fast-growing, persistent, ever-present weed. I grew up not that differently than he did—the kind of family where the men leave, and the women go a little crazy. At least there were no drug addicts, but I know what it is to long for normalcy so bad it aches. I know what it is to visit “normal” families and feel envious that there were two parents, that they sat down and ate dinner, and there was lunch money.I know what it is to keep going, no matter what ghosts chase you. I know what it is to be underestimated by everyone, but never let anyone stop you. I never fought in the Iraq war like he did. I couldn’t last one day of training to be a Marine. And I’m pretty sure I couldn’t become a Senator like he did, much less a candidate for the Vice Presidency. But I know what it is to try at life anyway. JD Vance is my hero because everything he’s done so far in life has not killed his faith in himself, his family, his mother, and his country. I would say in his God, but I don’t know if he is religious, and I would feel like a phony if I said it that way. I’m not quite there yet. I guess I just mean this life can take you down. If you can somehow survive it, it’s a miracle.Donald Trump said JD Vance cares about family to explain away why he is adamant about supporting mothers with kids. You’d have to grow up the way he did and the way I did to understand why someone would be so protective of the family unit. He did not have it growing up, but it was something he longed for. I know that because I felt the same way.If the worst thing he ever did was generalize about “Childless cat ladies,” that’s not that big of an offense. The second part of it was

[This was already posted as a story, here is the podcast version]Trump is under no obligation to debate Kamala Harris, who was hand-picked for the nomination without so much as a single vote. They can’t just change the rules and expect everyone else to comply. On the other hand, it might not be a bad idea. Trump can do the job the media will not. A debate might be the only time Harris will be made to answer any tough questions before the election. True, Trump runs the risk of the debate going badly for him and tipping the race to Harris - and he should listen to smarter minds than mine — but here are some things to consider. He towers over herIf it’s a standing debate people should see the height differential. Do we want a tiny woman of 5’2 facing off Putin and Xi? Even Hillary Clinton, at 5’5, is taller than Harris. Here is Harris and Biden. Trump should debate town hall-style or a standing debate for this reason. Americans are looking for strength, not weakness. Harris likes attacking powerful men, but it often backfires.Her attacks on men often seem, at least to me, like sound and fury signifying nothing. She tends to ask the same question repeatedly, and because it looks and sounds serious, we’re all supposed to see her as “tough.” But much of the time, there is no THERE there.Harris went along with pushing Al Franken out of the Senate. She was a passionate believer in Russiagate and is thought of by women on the Left as the Trump destroyer. I have my doubts. * Trump can make her look bad by coming off as a kinder, gentler version of the villain the media sells. * Trump should be the sane one, not the crazy one.* Trump should be nice when she is being mean.* Trump should always pivot away from personal attacks against him to how they should be serving the people, as in, “If you spent half as much time trying to make life better for Americans instead of trying to put me in jail maybe your approval numbers would be higher.”* “All you had to do in four years was offer people something better. You never could. That’s why they want me back. They’re desperate for anyone who will care about them instead of focusing only on identity politics.”* “The American people are disgusted by how authoritarian this administration became. Harris will only make that worse. You won’t recognize this country after she gets through with it.”* “This election shouldn’t be about making history for one person. It should be about making America great again for all people.”Question her competence since becoming VeepHarris has always been greeted with admiration and love by the media. She has failed upwards in her career, thanks to her mentorship by very powerful men, including Barack Obama.That’s not to say she isn’t a good Attorney General or Senator. But as Vice President, she failed. She was the worst Vice President in United States history.As long as Trump stays completely away from race or her sexual past and keeps it focused on her incompetence, she will flail.She Betrayed Joe BidenHarris betrayed Joe Biden not once, but twice. First, she launched an emotional accusation of racism against him:She even sold t-shirts.She then wrote it off as “just a debate.” Even sycophant Stephen Colbert was taken aback by this lame excuse.She was lying at the debate, later to Joe, or to Colbert. Either way, she was lying. She acted loyal to Joe Biden, but when it came down to it, she was happy to agree to the 25th Amendment her good friend Joe to force him out. That’s the story, anyway. Trump should call her out on that. Who else will? If Trump does not debate her, the American public will never hear any of it. The Last Person in the RoomPer Joe Biden, Harris was “the last person in the room” on his worst decisions—the last person in the room on Afghanistan, the last person in the room on the border, and the last person in the room on inflation. Harris owns all of it. She owns being that close to Joe Biden “multiple times per day” and saying nothing of his cognitive decline. Here, just after the debate, she insists Biden is capable and just had a bad night. Did she really believe that or was the plan already in the works and she was playing the part of the loyal Veep?She owns the withdrawal from Afghanistan. If Joe Biden didn’t know what he was doing, she most certainly didn’t. Is that who we want as Commander in Chief?Afghanistan:The BorderHarris must be held accountable for the rapes and murders because of the failed border policy.Here is a montage of the crisis at the border, with the rapes and murders intercut with Harris’ excuses. InflationIt goes on and on. This administration has been one failure after another. She will never be held accountable unless Trump debates her. How she loses her cool…For the entirety of Harris’ career, you can count the number of hard interviews or criticisms she’s received on one hand. When confronted, which is rare, she doesn’t handle it well. As Bob Dylan would say, “She breaks just like a little girl.” AND

Just when you thought America was No Country for White Men, the Democrats have once again rewritten their own rules. White people, even white men, are in. And all to show up for the coronation of the first woman of color to win an election without ever having won a primary. It was never losing democracy. They were worried that the wrong people would have a say in this democracy. And in their minds, it was white men. Well, what a difference a Joe Biden stepping down makes. Next, on the Greatest Show on Earth will be the choice of Veep. Desperate not to fumble the ball on their way to making history, it has been decided that it must be a WHITE MALE, preferably heterosexual.After five years or more of de-centering white men and heterosexuality from movies, culture, and politics, it’s the white guy they now need. But it can’t be a white guy at the top of the ticket. The dream machine would never get away with that. He has to ride shotgun, like a driving instructor at the DMV.We’re all supposed to pretend like history is really being made when, in fact, it’s history being manufactured. Harris did nothing to earn her place except be a woman of color. I would not call that DEI, only because it’s an easy way for self-righteous people to get up on their high horses and start lecturing you about racism. No, I would talk about equity instead. If someone hands you a job you either aren’t ready for or don’t deserve, you never get the credit. The white person giving you the job gets the credit. But if you fail, you’re on your own.For white people, especially rich white people, that’s the greatest thing ever. Finally, real purpose at long last. Finally, absolution for their sins of wealth and privilege. The hunt for a white dude to fill the slot of Veep is looking like The Bachelor back when all the contestants were white, a legacy that would come back to haunt them later. So far, none of the shrill social justice warriors are demanding Harris pick someone other than a white male. They care about winning, too, so whatever.The problem for them is that the names buzzing about now are all politicians who might upstage Harris. How to pick the Tim Kaine of the bunch and still defeat Trump? We know identity matters on the Left more than anything, so this isn’t really about whether Harris can do the job. It’s whether they can prop her up to make it seem like she can. Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, Arizona’s Mark Kelly, and Minnesota’s Tim Walz all would have done better in the primary than Harris if there had been a primary. They have twice her accomplishments and a better record. But for now, they will merely be a symbol of reassurance, like a security camera to ward off criminals. I guess “normie white guys” are good for something after all. Vote for Kamala Harris or you’re a racist!No group is more narcissistic and yet more self-hating than liberal white women. I should know. I was one. We spent so many decades on self-improvement to try to rid ourselves of the self-hate. Therapy that went nowhere except to make us focus even more on ourselves. Drugs that perhaps took the edge off like booze used to do. Fitness, meditation, and eventually Ozempic. That must be why the Harris campaign thought gathering all of those white women on a Zoom call to “show up” for Harris was a good idea. Suddenly, the Harris campaign is defined by “white power.” A white Veep to temper Harris, and now, white women to get a strict talking-to about how they have to do everything they can to ensure the woman of color wins. But just in case, they’re hitching a white man along for the ride. To sum it up in agonizing, torturous detail is Ariell Fodor, one of those terrifying millennial women who want to control everything we say, think, do, eat, and drive. They all read “white fragility,” and they’ve already de-centered themselves from the narrative. She probably has an abandoned Tumblr out there populated with cancel culture call-outs and social justice screeds. White power at long last, courtesy of the Harris campaign:Not to be outdone, the white men were ready too.The Great White Heterosexual Man ScareI didn’t need this political election to see that the Left has all but eliminated heterosexual men from the narrative. They’ve vanished from movies almost completely. If they do exist, they’re shunted to the background as the girl boss saves the day.It now seems obvious that what was threatening about Trump has been his unapologetic masculinity. It isn’t that Trump showcases it, but he is a masculine man who has a long history of womanizing. That he could win an election against a woman drove the first major mass hysteria event on the Left, and sparked the Me Too movement. All manner of sexuality is allowed in parades, in parks, and in restaurants as long as the male is gay or trans. Heterosexual men are seen as perverts and predators if they express any of their sexuality.And it’s their sexuality that the Democrats are attempting to target with this new ad

Republicans have a problem: a fast-moving narrative that will dominate the news cycle for the next few months if they allow it to. This comes courtesy of some eager beaver operative who dug up this clip of JD Vance from 2021 that has now gone viral.The old me would have joined the outrage train on X, distorting what he said into an opportunity to wax sanctimonious and proclaim that it’s great to be a woman who chooses not to have children, and how dare he say such a disgusting, sexist thing?She made news. Lots and lots of news, which shows you what the GOP is up against.Team Kamala now has a great piece of propaganda to juice her already energized base.The “Childless cat ladies” echoed what James Carville said about the Democrats not too long ago, that they were dominated by “preachy women” and that it was alienating voters, especially men."Both of them are essentially saying the Left is dominated by a certain kind of woman, whether childless or not - meaning - they are up in everyone’s business all of the time.I know that kind of woman. I was that kind of woman. The kind that used to be a powerful consumer demographic back in the 90s, in the Oprah era, but no longer is. Women who have been sidelined by the social justice movement that has decided feminism is too exclusionary. So what else did we have except to ask to speak to the manager and fuss over politics?When Hillary lost our entire world collapsed. It was as though there was nothing left. We were the center of the universe one minute and invisible and powerless the next.If anything, Vance’s comments hurt women who can’t have children more, not those who have chosen not to have them. Women have struggled with infertility, even with IVF. Aniston might be one of those women; if so, my heart goes to her. I live with regret every single day of my life that I aborted babies I could have and should have had.Now, the abortionists want young women to see their babies as just a “clump of cells” and that it doesn’t matter. But guess what? It does matter, and they’re lying to women about it right now. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

It began with the nation’s first Black President, but it would become much bigger. It would become a movement that captured every major institution in this country, including public schools, universities, corporations, and nearly all of culture. This could not last only two terms. No, this had to last forever.When Donald Trump won in 2016, the power concentrated in the Obama coalition refused to step aside. Trump was the problem. His supporters were the problem. They didn’t like this new utopia that had become America and wanted change. But that change would never be allowed to take place.The coup began even before Trump took office. A group of powerful elites decided it was their choice who could and could not represent the people. If one of them offended the ruling oligarchy, he was seen as a “racist” and had to be stopped by any means necessary.They used every lever of power to stop him, to remove him, and to destroy him. They did this with the full cooperation of the nation’s press corps. They did it in full view of the Security State. And they did it with the enthusiastic support of their voters.Get him. Destroy him. Remove him.I was one of them. I wrote endless pieces about why Hillary Clinton had to win because history had to be made. I spent years pushing woke ideology into the film industry. It made me feel important. I was part of a movement, something bigger than myself. I had the admiration of my friends and pats on the back by powerful people. Why would I ever give that up?I believed Donald Trump was a racist because the Democrats told me so. I believed he was a Russian spy because I watched Rachel Maddow. I believed he was a danger to our country because I read the New York Times, and I believed that the only thing that mattered in our lives was that those of us who were among the white majority did everything we could to elevate the oppressed minorities.I This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

"Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don't have the strength."— Theodore RooseveltIn 1912, Teddy Roosevelt was on his way to deliver a speech when he was shot in the chest with an assassin’s bullet. James Strock writes:The history of 1912 leaves breadcrumbs if we summon the humility to look.In the moment Roosevelt was, to put it mildly, controversial. Seeking a third term as president, he split his political party. Longtime accusations of “Caesarism” were given new life.Nonetheless, Roosevelt’s undoubted courage under fire was acknowledged, including by political adversaries in the closing weeks of a hard-fought campaign.Trump was shot in Pennsylvania, but he gave his speech in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the same city where Roosevelt gave his 112 years ago.Politically, and in a variety of ways, TR and Trump are worlds apart. But they have one thing in common. They’re the Man in the Arena.As I watched Twitter watch the last night of the Republican National Convention, I felt something shifting inside of me. I don’t know if it was the vulnerability on Trump’s face, his sadness after his brush with death, or his courage to give his speech anyway and do it for 90+ minutes that elevated me beyond our usual politics and forced me to look at who we are.Strock does much of this in his excellent column on the failed assassination and how ugly things have gotten in the press to bring us to this point. That was only half of the story. The other half is how so many gathered around to “judge” how well Trump did and whether or not this means he will win in a landslide or whether it’s now a toss-up.They want Biden’s debate and Trump’s speech to level the playing field. There’s just one problem. They’re not the same things, and everyone knows it. Trump was polling ahead of Biden even before the debate. He’s still polling ahead because there is no fixing what the Democrats have done to this country. For now, Trump has the wind at his back, whether or not he gave a great speech. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

“President Trump represents America’s last best hope to restore what — if lost — may never be found again. A country where a working-class boy born far from the halls of power can stand on this stage as the next vice president of the United States of America.” - JD VanceTulsi Gabbard’s voice is greatly missed from the Republican National Convention. However, it still resonates profoundly in our culture, especially after Vice President Kamala Harris insulted JD Vance’s love of country and called her out as only Tulsi Gabbard can.So many of us, especially on the Left, don’t think much about the people who put their lives on the line every day in service of this country. However, in JD Vance, Trump found someone who can offer more than just empty words.According to Military.com:Vance, 39, is the first post-9/11 veteran to find a spot on a major party ticket and, if elected, would likely be the first Marine veteran to serve as the second-in-command… He is the first veteran on a major party ticket since John McCain in 2008.”That mattered when the Gold Star families took to the stage to “say their names,” a chant heard over and over again since the catastrophic exit from Afghanistan, the first real sign to the American people and to the world that the leader of the United States did not know what he was doing.What a difference eight years makes. When he was still green as a politician and not yet the leader he is today, Trump famously made fun of a Gold Star dad after he read out loud the Constitution at the Democratic National Convention in 2016. The press made much of it at the time, but they’ve said nothing about how our government memory-holed the deaths of 13 American soldiers.Say their names.Democrats and the media have repeatedly excused the disastrous military operation that would ultimately destabilize the global order — nothing to see here; move along, move along. It wrecked Biden’s approval ratings, and they’ve never recovered.Say their names.Up until Night 3 of the Republican National Convention—Make America Strong Again—there had never been any major ceremony or remembrance of the fallen. We saw their military funerals. There was a hearing in Congress.But their names, faces, and personal stories had never been properly memorialized in any major way, not in the State of the Union, and wholly forgotten during the first presidential debate of 2024.Say their names.The general public has never called them heroes. That changed last night.Before their appearance at the RNC, a short documentary played with interviews from the Gold Star families, all of them angry that the Biden administration had mostly ignored them while Trump hadn’t. He’d given them his time. He knew their children, they said. That matters if you’re the Commander in Chief, a job neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris are suited for.When the families finally appeared on stage, tears were already streaming down the faces of almost everyone in the hall, as they often are when we come together to talk about military deaths. We know they died serving their country. Some grown men could be seen openly weeping at the unimaginable loss of an avoidable tragedy./// This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

Beautiful, elegant, strong—when Sarah Huckabee Sanders glided out on stage on Night 2 of the Republican National Convention, I could not help but think of the film Carrie. In it, the shy wallflower emerges as the beautiful prom queen moments before she’s sabotaged by two mean and bitter people who want nothing but her total humiliation.But of course, they don’t realize what they just stepped in as Carrie turns to them, flips the switch that turns on her supernatural powers, and enacts her revenge.It’s one of the best scenes in film history made when Hollywood could still make great movies, and Stephen King wrote great books rather than endless anti-Trump tweets.Sarah Huckabee Sanders didn’t need to set the place on fire. Her success is her best revenge, as she’s now the Governor of Arkansas, the first woman to hold that position. Take that, bitter leftists.What a moment that was. They did everything in their power to crush her, to humiliate her, to shame her, to destroy her. And guess what? It failed spectacularly, just as it has with Trump.I remember back in 2018 when Michelle Wolf told unfunny jokes, selling a version of Sanders that doesn’t, in fact, exist. Her words stung, and Sanders’ reactions reflected that. Even though I was a loyal Democrat back then, I loudly criticized Wolf and my Democrat friends for defending her.And when she was refused service at the Red Hen, a thing that happened in the Jim Crow South or Nazi Germany, Stephen Colbert did his usual sociopathic ranting disguised as humor.I always thought we were the guys, I said. Are we the side that now mocks the way women look? Oh, she’s supporting Trump; they told me back then. She is normalizing a fascist. She deserves what she gets.It was blatant hypocrisy from the side that proclaims tolerance and love. But there they were, as mean as Nancy Allen in Carrie.That’s who you are now, I told them. You’re the mean girls. It was verbal abuse disguised as comedy, but it still wasn’t enough. Look at how far they had to go in an attempt to destroy her, destroy Trump, and defeat the grassroots movement known as MAGA.Maybe that assassin wasn’t killing Trump because he thought he was Hitler. But did it matter that much? It seemed to manifest their collective hatred, with nowhere to go except pulling the trigger. Too bad you missed means two different things, depending on which side you’re on.If you can imagine, we’re at the moment where people on Twitter are arguing over whether it’s cancel culture to fire someone who said they were upset that Trump was almost assassinated but happy that one of his supporters died.For the record, no, I don’t support firing some dumb woman who works at Home Depot because she wrote a disgusting Facebook post. But I also would not want someone with a dark heart like that working for me.We should never let them off the hook for who they were and what they did, especially to people like Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who did nothing to deserve it except work for Donald Trump.I heard her tell the same story about Trump she recounted at the RNC on a podcast a few years ago—I don’t remember which one—and it humanized Trump in my eyes. It made me think differently about him, and I understood their relationship better. For Sanders, Trump is a ride-or-die, as she explains here.That wasn’t the only bright spot of the night, but it was the most remarkable. Nothing has ever felt as satisfying as watching her living her hot girl summer phase - an invisible EFF YOU to the haters.It was a night for powerhouse mama bears who have lost their loved ones either to high crime or the fentanyl epidemic, something the Democrats seem to care nothing about. Oh, those people in the red states, they don’t matter, the racists.Like Madeline Brame, who blew the roof off the joint and earned the rare standing ovation from Trump.And Sara Workman:And Anne Funder:Real people, real problems. Your move, Democrats.// This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

“Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” ―George Bernard ShawLast night, at the RNC Convention, Make America Wealthy Once Again, Donald J. Trump walked into the room like the Gray Champion he is, battle-scarred but standing tall. Teddy Roosevelt would be proud. His supporters gave him the hero’s welcome he deserved. There was not a dry eye in the house.It was apparent to anyone watching that this wasn’t your grandfather’s Republican Party anymore. The head of the Teamsters Union, Sean O’Brien? Big Tech whiz kid David Sacks and a former model named Amber Rose? Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.It’s Donald Trump’s party now, and he’ll build it the way he wants with what Steve Bannon calls “inclusive, participatory, nationalist populism.”If the party could leave it to Trump, he’s got this. He’s got this so hard.A clip with Pastor James Roemke doing a great Trump impression before the blessing.And a powerful new Trump campaign ad:Unfortunately, we know the Republican Party, right? We know they can’t just take the W. They will mess it up somehow, as James Lindsay says:There’s an old joke that used to cycle around Hollywood. A filmmaking crew walks through the desert and comes upon a beautiful oasis. The writer can’t stop talking about how beautiful it is. The director envisions ways to bring it to the big screen. The producer? He whips it out and starts taking a leak. “What are you doing?!!” the others cry out. “Don’t worry,” the producer says, “I’m making it better.”And so it goes with some of the old-guard Conservatives who are now grumbling about the MAGA takeover of the GOP. They want the party to be what it once was. But those days are gone, brother, and they ain’t coming back. It’s millennials and Zoomers from now on.Welcome to the Fourth Turning. Once the dust settles and it’s all over, we’ll hopefully have a freer country that feels brand new. We’ll have rescued the country from the grips of the bloated leviathan that now rules over it with an authoritarian fist. It will be a country for the people, by the people, and of the people, and oh, how sweet it will be. If only the GOP could get out of their own way.The Changing of the MindsThere is no chance I would have ever been accepted or invited into the old GOP. I lived my life exactly the wrong way, according to them. I followed the feminist lie and believed that the only thing I needed to do in life was serve myself. I had casual sex, I never got married, I had a child out of wedlock, and I had abortions. I’m not proud of it. I would take it all back if I could. I promise not a day will go by that I don’t mourn the loss of what could have been.I did not see my life differently because I found religion or because I’m now a Conservative (I am in some ways but not in others). I see my life differently because I changed my mind.There is nothing wrong with changing your mind. It’s healthy. And it’s brave. It took guts for the beautiful Amber Rose to take to the stage at the RNC and explain how and why she changed her mind. Her father, who served in the military, loved Donald Trump. She told him he was a racist, and her father said, prove it. But don’t listen to me, let her tell it: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

When I found my way to Trump’s rallies in the Summer of 2020, I felt like I had crawled out of a desert searching for signs of life. No one could know my discovery. I had to keep it a secret. If anyone found me out, I would be MAGA. I would be a Trump supporter, and that would be the end of my career and most of my relationships.Despite how often I’d become the target of the fanatical mobs that rule over social media and the Left writ large, I’d knew not to cross the Trump Line. That would be the last straw. I would be shunned, I knew.Yet, every time I got that notification from Right Side Broadcasting’s YouTube channel that Trump was about to take the stage, even now, four years after I first began watching them, my mood was immediately lifted.I love those people, I would always think. I didn’t belong anywhere but I somehow belonged there. They still had their senses of humor well intact. They loved this country and were proud of their heritage and patriotism. They were every skin color, every gender, even gay and trans - all under the same tent, an Island of Misfit Toys - all MAGA.Once I figured out what great people they were, how their time with Trump was precious, I began to worry. What was going to happen them, I wondered. My side had all of the power. They were the Empire and they wanted nothing but the total obliteration of MAGA and especially Trump.I thought, if only they could thaw out their systematic dehumanization campaign, if I could somehow break the spell cast upon them by the media and their social media feedback loops, then they could just shrug and move on with their lives.But that isn’t what happened. We summoned a hungry beast that needed to be fed. It was anger at having a political enemy, but there was more to it than that. It was a sadistic, indulgent bacchanalia of hatred that united the Left and became its main form of entertainment.Who are Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert if they aren’t sucking on the bones of Trump night after night? Whatever audience now remains to watch their terrible shows or the MSNBC power lineup is there for one reason and one reason only. The beast is hungry, and the beast must be fed.I too once felt the hate within me. It connected me to my community online. It seemed like nothing else mattered all of a sudden except this rising hysteria none of us could manage. We began purging anyone accused of assault or racism. There was no due process. It was simply a matter of tossing them out of utopia.We’d be fine after that, at least for a little while. But the beast always got hungry again; sooner or later, it would return to Trump.We were winners when it was just us, Obama, and our online paradise. Now, we were holding back the inevitable pendulum swing, desperate to cling to the past, unable to relinquish our war on Trump. If only we could stop him for good and destroy him forever, things would return to normal.But they never did. For me, the hatred began to feel like toxic sludge in my veins. I couldn’t take it, not for one more minute. I knew enough about history to know what we were doing was wrong. Yet, how do you convince the New York Times, MSNBC, CNN, Hollywood, and the entire Democratic Establishment that what they’re engaging was not just bad for our country but dangerous?It didn’t occur to me until much later, long after I escaped the bubble of the Left, that they needed to hate Trump because it was the only way they could feel something, anything.Their addiction meant they needed a stronger and stronger hit. It wasn’t enough to call him a rapist or racist. It had to get all the way to dictator, all the way to a threat to end American democracy as we once knew it.Arthur C. Clarke wrote in 2001 that “newspapers of Utopia … would be terribly dull.” And that’s what’s happened to culture on the Left. It’s boring without Trump. They kept dragging him back to their cable news shows daily, dragging him back to the headlines in the New York Times. On X, Trump humiliation was the only fun they seemed allowed to have.Trump, then, was their release valve. They were dancing with the Devil and they liked it, they liked it. It became an abusive relationship for them, with Trump’s defiance keeping them engaged in the fight. The more he fought back, the more satisfying it was to see him crushed.Here is Megyn Kelly: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

Dear New York Times Editorial Board,In your haste to make nice with your paying subscribers—I am one, too, by the way—you decided to swap out journalistic ethics for fear and hyperbole once again. Trump, you declare, is “dangerous” and unfit to lead.Now, I know it’s been hard on you folks lately, with your otherwise reliable audience turning on you once you spoke the truth about Joe Biden. You had to show them that you’re still on their side. But in so doing, you fail to make the case for why Trump is unfit and end up looking like Goldilocks, who can’t decide which bowl of porridge is just right.The one thing we know for sure is that your commitment to destroy Trump remains unshakable. Even a president with dementia or possibly Parkinson’s isn’t as big of a threat.With a desaturated, billowing United States flag bathed in a sea of darkness, we get three definitive statements:How so? Are you referring to when he said, “march peacefully and patriotically to the Capitol to have your voices heard”? Or the time he and his supporters chanted “Lock her up” but then didn’t? Or is it his threats to deport immigrants who flooded the border by the millions under Biden’s watch? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

“Schadenfreude can’t get much better than watching the Republican Party self-humiliate with an abject inability to win while controlling the House, Senate and White House.” - Daniel Henninger, WSJOh, I beg to differ, Mr. Henninger. It most certainly can get better. How about a political party that rigged the game in its favor and had nearly all of the legacy press in its pocket suddenly in the spotlight for the biggest political cover-up in modern American history?The puppet masters are mad that the puppet has gone rogue! If that isn’t sweet, sweet Shaudenfreude, I don’t know what is.Democracy keeps getting in the way of saving democracy!The New York Times has now published not one but two op-eds to force Old Joe out of power. According to the Times, “Donald Trump’s candidacy for a second term poses a grave threat to American democracy.”What exactly is Trump's threat to democracy? They never really say. Maybe it’s something different for everyone. For Black voters, the mean old Republicans want to strip away their voting rights. For women, it’s abortion. For people like Molly Jong-Fast, it’s ideological. They can’t get Trump to accept the rigged election of 2020. Say it! Say it! Confess, witch!For those who don’t know anything, it’s Project 2025, the biggest “threat to democracy” of all, even though they have no idea what’s in it.// This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

Team Joe wasn’t a popular place to be back in May of 2019 when I was invited to a fundraiser in Hancock Park at the home of wealthy donor Cynthia Telles. The Democratic Primary had only just begun, but it was wide open then and almost no one wanted Joe, an old white guy.For four years, the party had lost its mind and lost its way over Trump. They seemed to believe he was such a bad president they could reach for the sky. Big structural change! A democratic socialist! The first gay president! But I knew that a one-term president with a strong economy doesn’t get voted out.Maybe they’d swap out for someone like Joe Biden, some of us believed. What harm could he do? He could be a one-term stop-gap measure to bring down Trump without rocking the boat too much. Calm from chaos, the adults back in the room, rolling the country back to the last time they felt safe under Barack Obama.Indeed, Joe Biden was old, white, and male—not the future the Democratic Party wanted—but Joe could win. The Vice President would be where we’d find our dynamic candidate to step up once Biden’s first term was over.Even Biden seemed to understand his role in the coup. He wouldn’t have to do much, and he wouldn’t even have to campaign at all. There was a massive, unprecedented alignment of power ready and willing to win the election for him.I sensed he knew this after he emerged from the mansion with the donors who paid more to sit down with him. He reminded me of so many celebrities I’d seen in the past who knew they would be getting nothing but favorable coverage. They aren’t worried. They’re confident. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

It’s hard to believe I’ve become a completely different person than I was four years ago. Not only am I a Trump supporter now, which in and of itself is hard to grasp. But I’m also a Swiftie. Who would have ever thought it? Not me.In March of 2020, my one and only daughter was sent home to live out the last few months of her senior year at college. She would end up having her graduation on my balcony in Burbank. Everything shut down. Half of the restaurants would eventually go out of business.No parties, funerals, church, movies, or school. The clouds rolled in, and the darkness came, which never lifted because, for the Democrats in power, they liked it dark. How else to justify their endless manufactured crisis, their “existential threat” of a man who doesn’t exist?After the Summer of protests and riots literally unmasked the lockdowns for what they were—social justice was more important than a global pandemic, said the experts—I followed the yellow brick road into the belly of the beast. When the curtain was pulled back for me, I could finally see the deception, the delusion, the lies.But that’s only part of the story. That’s how I found my way to Trump and MAGA. I did it because I needed to know if it was true. Was Trump the next Hitler? Were his supporters “Brown Shirts” and frothing, angry “white supremacists.” By then, I’d already been swarmed online and called a “white supremacist” myself by my colleagues for reasons that are too absurd to recount.It would be easy to say that “what happened to me” was that I was isolated for too long and gravitated toward the wrong kind of people. That’s probably how my friends and family explain it. Or maybe they think I had some kind of mental breakdown, that the trauma of lockdowns broke my brain. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

When Barack Obama gently took Joe Biden’s hand and led him offstage at a $30 million fundraiser in Los Angeles, it was hard not to see the whole thing as over. Like over over. Like the Fonz jumping the shark over.Fonzie wasn’t the guy who jumped sharks. He was the King of Cool. There was nothing cool about jumping sharks, just as there was nothing cool about being on a stage with Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Jack Black, and Jimmy Kimmel.It was all so yesterday. Oh sure, no one in the bubble of the Left would ever admit just how over it all was, but take it from me, someone who has been covering Hollywood for over 25 years. These celebrities can barely get people to watch their films because they no longer fill the necessary role of entertainers. They have elevated themselves to high positions of power and still think they can use their celebrity to influence voters. Maybe a long time ago, that was true. It isn’t true anymore.In 2001, Julia Roberts and George Clooney paired up for Oceans Eleven, which made nearly $200 million at the box office. Last year they starred in a romantic comedy called Ticket to Paradise, which made only $68 million.If the Democrats are counting on Hollywood to save them, they might be in for a shock. Hollywood is barely surviving. Everyone is terrified. No one is working. With layoffs, buyouts, and studios collapsing, the once-mighty empire has become a shell of its former self.We’ve passed through some kind of gate of history where even celebrities don’t rank. No one watches them on awards shows, nightly talk shows, or SNL. Anyone can be a star on TikTok or YouTube, so it’s harder for celebrities to stand out. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

“Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.” - George Orwell, 1984Rick Wilson thinks he’s won - throw Steve Bannon in Federal Prison on July 1st; that’s one less mover and shaker in MAGA world. A party, a celebration, as yet another scalp is claimed to lay at the feet of the wealthy libs who pay him the big bucks to go Trump hunting.Four months is a long time to take out one of the most important voices in the MAGA movement. That people like Rick Wilson are celebrating tells you everything you need to know about the opposition, not to mention the people running this country.They don’t believe in democracy, not really. They believe in rigging elections, jailing their opponents, silencing dissent, and forcing voters to be represented by people who are nowhere near up to the job.We saw the Lincoln Project as knights in shining armor riding in to protect my demographic of unmarried career women from Trump. Save us, we cried, as we paypal-ed fat donations to ease our fragile nerves. We spared no expense to rid our otherwise pristine village of that toxic masculinity and virulent racism.I began my journey toward Conservatives by listening to guys like Rick Wilson. I read his book, Running Against the Devil. I wrote about and praised him for being smarter than the Democrats. I listened to Charlie Sykes at the Bulwark and made friends with Joe Walsh on Twitter. Even just that, I had my friends screaming at me: how could I be friends with racists? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

Don’t let Joe Biden’s creepy grin fool you. He’s not confident. He’s terrified. They all are. Imagine being them right now. Imagine having all of the power, all of the culture, all of the institutions, and most of the administrative and security state; imagine the impeachments, the indictments, the endless attacks against Trump for eight years, and he’s still the frontrunner to be President of the United States in 2024.Biden knows the system might help him win in 2024 just as it did in 2020. He has to keep the threat of Trump alive, and he may convince low-information voters to pull the lever for Joe. Nothing makes that easier than calling Trump a convicted felon. Yes, they finally got there. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

As Trump wows the public at rallies, Biden seethes behind the castle walls, demanding that his nemesis be convicted and jailed.The next big news day for the regime will be Verdict Day! Oh, how they will celebrate.And lest you get carried away with the fantasy that maybe they’ll acquit Trump in the city that made him, think again. There is little chance that the jury will go home to their friends and family and confess they passed on the chance to save Democracy because they had a sudden case of reasonable doubt.Corrupt president, corrupt prosecutor, corrupt judge, corrupt jury. And Rachel Maddow will declare justice was served and Joe Biden will pretend that a bookeeping error was a big enough crime to warrant indicting a former president.Reasonable Doubt? It’s been eliminated, along with due process and the presumption of innocence. The only thing that matters is whether or not Bette Midler and Stephen King can sleep at night and that Joe Biden gets to sit in the Big Boy chair at the White House and stare back at us with his tiny, angry, squinty eyes and bark about bloodbaths, dictators and “good people on both sides.”But nothing Biden has done to Trump has helped move the needle in the polls.The Democrats and Never Trumpers probably wonder how it is that Donald Trump can still be this popular after everything they’ve thrown at him. They keep doubling down on the hyperbole and overblown attacks against him, resorting to lying outright to win over a handful of low-information voters. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

In 2024, the most radical act imaginable is telling the truth. Nellie Bowles has done just that with her new book, Morning After the Revolution. She lays out in painful but funny detail the madness we’ve all just lived through that almost no one will talk about. Bowles is too nice to humiliate the New York Times outright; she was their “golden girl,” after all, once upon a time. But her book humiliates them all the same, just by doing good reporting and telling the stories they refused to tell. In one riveting, tragic, hilarious passage, Bowles describes what happened at the Wi Spa in Los Angeles:“Wi Spa billed itself as “a convenient and affordable place to de-stress and be pampered,” but one summer week in 2021 it became a site of great stress because of one (allegedly, partially) erect penis that had manifested in the women’s room.”She continues: “The spa, in Los Angeles’s Koreatown, has separate men’s and women’s areas where people go naked. The penis went bobbing through the women’s space. The penis had been seen soaking in the women’s communal soak pools. Women enjoying their spa time were upset. One went to the front desk asking for help, saying there were children present and that there was a man in the bathroom. The front desk could not help. The person with the penis had a California driver’s license that listed their gender as “female.” The penis was white, and some of the women who didn’t want to see it were black Hispanic, which in the summer of 2021 might have helped draw knee-jerk public sympathy, but apparently did not.”For a movement afraid of harm being done by mere words, they seemed to be perfectly comfortable with real harm being done to young girls, to women in sports, and pre-teens sucked into “gender-affirming care.” Bowles doesn’t just describe what happened at the spa; she tracks down the sex offender himself and discovers that, yes, he’d done it deliberately, and, yes, he was erect while doing so. But was there ever any major reckoning in the press? No.I quickly searched the New York Times for “Wi Spa,” and of course, there was nothing about this scandal, even though it was such an interesting story. Why didn’t they want to touch it? Because it called into question their absolutism about “trans women” being women. The Times should be as thoroughly humiliated by Morning After the Revolution as NPR should be after Uri Berliner’s essay. They no longer care about chasing the story at all costs. They only care about serving the ideology at all costs. It shouldn’t be surprising that the Times and other “prestige” outlets would pan Bowles’ book and attempt character assassination on her. What else are they going to do? Admit that they gaslighted Americans and allowed themselves to be manipulated by a “Lord of the Flies” contingent of crybaby brats who felt unsafe around reporters like Donald McNeil? Will they come clean and admit they essentially work for the Biden administration as a slightly more sophisticated version of Joe and Mika? Not a chance. The publisher isn’t taking their criticisms seriously, nor should they. Instead, they celebrated their takes:The negative reviews read like a chapter in Bowles's book. The Washington Post’s Becca Rothfield disguises her resentment and embarrassment by casting Bowles as the condescending elite. The lady doth protest too much, methinks:She writes:The real question is not about whether there are “Narrative Enforcers” at the New York Times, as Bowles alleges, but why there is a market for so many books like this, even though they are all so predictably indistinguishable from one another. Bowles’s book appeals for the same reason that other conservative memoirs of political “growth” do: because they reassure their readers that progressivism is not a genuine political philosophy but an almost biological byproduct of youth, like acne. Bowles and her ilk are thereby absolved from contending with the principles of those who oppose them, or from seeing their political nemeses as rational moral agents.Then there is Laura Kipnis at the New York Times, whose CV reads exactly like Rothfield’s: academia, awards, universities, citations, more awards, more citations. They could be the same person. She writes, “By fringe, she means trans. She’s peeved that some trans women are trying to redefine feminism in ways that seem to her to be anti-woman, resents that lesbians risk being erased by trendy all-purpose queerness and fears that as a married lesbian mother she will have her own rights swept away by anti-trans backlash. Given the Dobbs decision, all precedents are possibly imperiled, but the culprit isn’t transgender-rights activists. It’s the religious right and the Supreme Court, both of which get a pass from Bowles, as do Donald Trump and every elected Republican.”And there it is, the message loud and clear: those bad people on the Right are the problem, not us, not the crazies who have destroyed nearly every great thing about American culture, and have

Bill Clinton once said, “Democrats fall in love, and Republicans fall in line.” We had to fall in love with him, that’s for sure, because by 1992, baby, we’d kissed a lot of frogs. Falling in love with him meant overlooking his blatant, unending womanizing. We believed, or we convinced ourselves to believe, that his personal life should be private.Our gold standard had been JFK, after all. His womanizing was seen not as a character flaw but as evidence of his superiority among men. He was so handsome, so charismatic, and such a great leader, why wouldn’t Bill Clinton want to follow in his footsteps?And he did. If Hillary Clinton didn’t care, why should we? The stoic, ever-stalwart wife took her place alongside other tolerant First Ladies like Eleanor Roosevelt and Jackie Kennedy.The two parties have switched places. The Republicans fall in love or have with their once-in-a-generation star, Donald Trump, and it’s the Democrats who fall in line. Unfortunately for them, they’ve spent the last four years consumed with hatred over one man who threatens their power.They readied their army for war once they realized America was on the precipice of dramatic change. That would mean blunting Trump’s win in 2016 - and failing. It would mean destroying his one-term presidency - and failing. It would mean raiding Mar-a-Lago, indicting him four times, impeaching him twice, and attempting to throw him off the ballots in several states, and now, a criminal trial in New York, that will very likely fail. Even if they squeeze out a conviction, most voters aren’t going to care.For the Democrats, it’s all come full circle. They are now trying to convict a former president on nothing more than a sex scandal. The thing they most feared once upon a time is now their most powerful weapon. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

As college protests sprouted like mushrooms in Joe Biden’s America, the fanaticism of the Left seemed to catch many by surprise. How could it have gotten this bad? How could they seem so crazy, these educated college students? And why isn’t Joe Biden doing anything about it?It isn’t that it’s gotten this bad. It’s been this bad for a while. It was just covered up by the mainstream media on the Left, who were invested in only one narrative: MAGA supporters are the violent ones, the dangerous ones.Well, what a difference four years makes. Now that we’ve seen protests so violent not even NBC could ignore them, Democrats are scrambling, doing damage control for what looks like a big headache for Joe Biden’s embattled re-election bid. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

Joe Biden has been a failure as the leader of the United States. There has never been one moment in the past four years when he has thought of us, the American people. He has only thought of himself and how badly he does not want to lose to Donald Trump, so he stands before the press at the White House Correspondents Dinner, and he lies.He lies about January 6th. He lies that Trump said there would be a “bloodbath” if he lost, a false media narrative that should have shamed every so-called “journalist” sitting in that room, and most of all, he lies about what threatens the American people. It is not Trump. This country is facing far more serious problems, and yet no one has apparently told Joe Biden.The past couple of weeks have been an unmitigated disaster for the Biden presidency, even if the press, the obedient sycophants that they are, won't admit it. Someone thought it was a good idea to free Biden from his gilded cage and set him loose on regular folks - to let Joe be Joe.In March, the New York Times laid it out:What could possibly go wrong? Well, everything.Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Biden did not just have a major brain freeze while reading off the teleprompter, it also wasn’t hard to see that most of the “Joe being Joe” events were staged.When Biden read the instructions—that he was supposed to pause so the crowd could erupt in rehearsed chants of Four More Years—his face froze, and for a minute, he looked lost and confused. Yes, that’s the President of the United States, in case you were wondering.Biden seems increasingly like a fake president, not a real one. And that’s just fine for the people at the top. What does Howard Stern care about real life? They’ve been detached for so long, they can’t see beyond the safety of their own bubble.That’s not true for much of America, which is so desperate for real leadership that they’re willing to disregard Trump’s failings as a luxury they can’t afford. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe