Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone

Dear Hillary,In 1996, you wrote:“The African proverb “It takes a village to raise a child” summed up for me the commonsense conclusion that, like it or not, we are living in an interdependent world where what our children hear, see, feel, and learn will affect how they grow up and who they turn out to be.”That’s still true, Hillary. But now, you are no longer protecting children. You no longer seem to care what is happening to them at the hands of the Left and the Democratic Party. The release of the Cass Report, on the heels of the WPATH Files, leaves little doubt of what amounts to medical experiments on children with irreversible, long-term damage to their bodies.Here is Helen Joyce laying out the ugly truth:But what I want to know is this — what happened to you, Hillary? Why don’t you care? Why doesn’t it motivate you and other feminists like Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, and Amy Klobuchar? You’ve not only scurried off into the shadows, but all of you have been complicit in it.To give you the benefit of the doubt, Hillary, maybe you are just ignorant. Maybe you’ve been so cut off from normal life that you no longer know what is happening in America. This isn’t likely to land on MSNBC any time soon. Like you, they are obsessed with only one person, Donald Trump.But what the Democrats have been doing is far worse than anything Trump could ever do. History will not be kind, Hillary. You might not realize this but all of you will be to blame when the hammer comes down. You might want to know a little more about it. I would like to help you.Imagine yourself back in the 1970s when you first graduated college. Remember that? Remember the young, famous feminist Hillary Rodham? Now imagine she lands in the modern day, and sees this video on TikTok.A mother celebrating her daughter’s first day of “T.” In case you don’t know, “T” stands for testosterone. Why is the mother crying, you ask? Is her child sick? No. Her child believes she was born in the wrong body and “T” is going to make her feel like herself, like a boy.Her mother is very into this identity as the mother of a “trans kid.” She has a platform on TikTok which shows her child injecting herself with hormones. She wrote this on the celebratory day of her child’s journey toward irreversible harm. 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

Six years ago, I stood a few feet away from Joe Biden at a fundraiser and was certain he was the only person who could save this country from Donald Trump in 2020.However, by the end of the election, I would leave the Democratic Party for good. I saw them as corrupt, too powerful, and dangerous to the very democracy they now claim they want to protect.Now, I wake up every morning in a panic that our last best hope of ending the monopoly of power on the Left rests on the imperfect shoulders of Donald Trump.So I guess that finally makes me a Trump supporter.It was a long, slow slide that started with simply humanizing Trump and the MAGA movement and believe me, just that alone upset my friends and family. They’re evil, they believe, because that’s what the media tells them every second of every day.If you want to know how batshit crazy they are, those Good People of the Left, educated and seemingly intelligent, look no further than Heather Cox Richardson as she attempts to explain the MAGA movement.Meanwhile, Trump humiliates all of them by showing the people who he really is, as he casually strolled into a Chick-fil-A in Georgia. 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’ve been wanting to interview John Nolte about his sublime and brilliant book, Borrowed Time ever since I read it. Well, the day has finally arrived. We chatted for about an hour about his book, his life, how he got into writing, what gave him the idea for his book, and why he may never write another one, and of course, our favorite topic, what happened to culture on the Left.Hope you enjoy the inaugural interview for this Substack. Some useful links:My review of the book—Here is a link to the audiobook:And here is the paperback. 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 could be an Election Denier right next door. They could deliver your mail, serve you a cocktail at the airport, sit next to you on the subway, or empty your garbage. They might be a grandma, a wife, or a son. They could be anyone. They could even be me.Yes, I am an Election Denier. I am someone you’ve been told to fear, someone you probably think has been captured by extremist ideology and THE BIG LIE. You might say that also makes me an “insurrectionist” and “domestic extremist.”I would say you’ve been watching too much MSNBC. The thing is, I grew up as an Election Denier because I grew up as a Democrat, and we never met an election we didn’t deny. That is, unless we won. 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

A chill went down my spine in 2020 when I realized what I’d been participating in for the four years Trump was in power. I didn’t go along with all of it. I defended Melania Trump when Twitter slut-shamed her. I defended Sarah Huckabee Sanders when the Good People of the Left mocked her makeup. But I went along with enough that, at some point, I overdosed on hate.I always thought we were the good guys and that we didn’t engage in bullying, harassment, abuse, and dehumanizing. Don’t the lawn signs count for anything? Hate has no harbor here? No human being is illegal? Practice kindness?I was the kind of person who woke up with NPR and spent the afternoon with Terry Gross and Fresh Air, then All Things Considered in the afternoon. I read the New York Times at least once a day. It made me feel smart and well-informed.I hadn’t been involved in politics much before the 2016 election. That was when I started watching MSNBC. Rachel Maddow was the North Star for the Democratic base, older unmarried women like me, the Oprah generation, who had been living our best lives for decades. All that was missing was our first female president, which we were supposed to get in 2016. 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

Unlike most people in the media, Frank Luntz spends a lot of time talking to regular folks. He and can see the objective reality of where we are now, yet they have difficulty explaining that to people on the Left.To most of them, they’ve been fighting a war against Trump and MAGA since 2016. It’s unthinkable that anyone in America, let alone a majority, would not feel the same way.Here is how the polls are lining up right now on Real Clear Politics:Why is Trump polling ahead? Let’s get into it.The people in power now can’t solve the problem; they ARE the problem. No one lays it out better than RFK, Jr., who has also been demonized and discredited by them for daring to run against Biden. He articulates what so many Americans have felt for a long time now. It’s 9 minutes but it’s worth a listen.In 2016, half of America sent a clear message to the people at the top. They were unhappy enough to send an outsider, a Reality star and real estate mogul, to the White House. That should have been the moment the ruling class had enough self-awareness to address the problem.Instead, they went to war on Trump and MAGA, demonizing them as racists and white supremacists, treating them like enemy combatants at best and human garbage at worst. That was the first clue that the Democrats and the Left had become completely disconnected from reality.Do people in the bubble see it that way? No, they don’t. Trust me. I used to live in the bubble. Their only problem is that Trump and MAGA even exist. If they can get rid of them, One Last Cancel, they can have their Woketopia back. 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 took us decades, but we finally found religion on the Left. The counterculture initially seemed great: a big bang of movies, civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, comedy, art, and investigative journalism, all in the pursuit of free expression and objective truth.My generation was raised on atheism, with the idea that if you pursue happiness, you will be fulfilled. But it doesn’t work like that. Making happiness the goal in life ultimately leads to dissatisfaction because nothing and no one will ever be enough.After the 2000 election that the Supreme Court ultimately decided, we started building our own private paradise on the Left, one that effectively shut out half the country.However, we didn’t come together as a movement until Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton faced off in 2008. What started out as a contentious battle for the first female president vs. the first Black president would result in a powerful coalition rooted in identity politics.We had in Barack Obama not just a political leader, the first US president to build his coalition via Twitter, but a spiritual leader too. Obama became not just sacred to us but Too Black to Fail. 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 the new podcast series, Finding Matt Drudge, Chris Moody wants to know two things: why Matt Drudge dropped out of sight and why he turned on Donald Trump.If it is still really Drudge running the DrudgeReport now, and not some paid lackey to push links, then it would not be unreasonable to think he’s hanging on for one last job, to do what Joe Biden, the Lincoln Project, Liz and Dick Cheney, Mike Pence and every other Never Trumper has been trying to do for the last eight years: stop Trump for good.I got online right around the same time Drudge did. For early internet pioneers, Drudge was our hero who forged a path to success by removing the middleman. Just start a website, and people will come. I was living in a guest house in Van Nuys, California, with a baby on my hip, a 1200 baud modem, and a really good idea.I launched my site, Oscarwatch.com in 1999, two years after the DrudgeReport launched. The Academy sued me in 2006, and I had to change it to AwardsDaily.com. But that was a sign I’d found success, five years after I started. For Drudge it happened instantly and almost overnight. He broke the story of the century: Bill Clinton was having a sexual affair with his intern, Monica Lewinsky.We all wanted to be Drudge. His success told us we could follow in his footsteps and maybe get that big overnight. It didn’t quite work out that way for most of us. There was only ever going to be one Matt Drudge. But everyone who came after him bit off a little piece of the Drudge legacy.We would crash the party and upstage traditional media, which was still scrambling to keep up with the fast-moving internet. Drudge was suddenly a reliable source for news. People like me pretended to be journalists, but because we had websites that reported the news, we became reliable sources, too. 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

Kara Swisher has a good strategy for Joe Biden to beat Donald Trump, which she shared on CNN. Just call Trump three things: Racist, Rapist, Fascist.There was a time when that would have worked. That time has come and gone. At best, Swisher will be ruthlessly mocked online and, at worst, completely ignored. For someone who studied propaganda, she sure has become good at peddling it. Maybe it will cycle through the Facebook feeds of whatever is left of the #resistance, a relic of the old days when CNN still influenced public opinion.This is the death rattle of legacy media and probably the Democratic Party as we once knew it. Or, as Steve Bannon says every time he begins a new episode of The War Room, “This is the primal scream of a dying regime.”By now, the CIA, the FBI, and the Democrats are waking up to the reality of life without their precious blue-checks on Twitter. They can’t control the media narrative to boost Biden and sink Trump as they did in 2020. There’s no COVID. Biden has no choice but to get out there and campaign.The Biden administration has been using TikTok throughout Biden’s first term. It was their strategy to mobilize young voters. That’s why they invited the transgender influencers to the White House. Remember that?// 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 Mr. De Niro,I trust you had a wonderful evening at the Oscars. Watching you bask in the comforting embrace of the special people was a reminder of who you really are—a movie star.By the looks of it, the Oscars are back. They have a host now and they gave their top prize to a movie people actually saw. It won a whopping 7 Oscars. There were dance numbers and jokes, beautiful people in their finery—a grand celebration to revive the lifeless body of Hollywood.I was shocked that they kept politics mostly out of it—well, until near the end when Jimmy Kimmel just had to bring in Trump—not just to mock him but to show the country which side all of you are on and to let them know, in no uncertain terms, that they are not invited to this party.Turns out, Trump really did write that:But might I say, Mr. De Niro, none of you seem able to figure out if Trump is such a criminal/fascist/dictator/rapist/racist, why he’s kicking Biden’s ass in the polls six ways from Sunday? Funny, isn’t it, Mr. De Niro? Didn’t Bill Maher ask you this same question on Real Time? You didn’t have an answer except to say that Trump is a “monster,” a “mean, nasty, and hateful person.”And that if “We want to live in a world that we want to live and enjoy living in, or live in a nightmare. Vote for Trump, and you'll get the nightmare.”Let me get this straight. You said that you would never play Trump because there is “Nothing redeemable in him.”So, Max Cady in Cape Fear, Al Capone in The Untouchables, and William Hale in Killers of the Flower Moon had redeemable traits? They were all mass murderers, Mr. De Niro, yet you not only delighted in playing those roles but also earned Oscar nominations for two of them. And I’m betting a nice fat paycheck at the end of the day.Al Capone was connected to hundreds of murders, William Hale committed a near-genocide of the Osage people, and Max Cady, well, need we be reminded?Trump is not nice to you, Mr. De Niro. That is true. He isn’t very nice to Hollywood or Jimmy Kimmel, or to the establishment. But did it ever occur to you that so many people love him because he isn’t one of you? And that your crazy ramblings about him only make his supporters love him even more?You, like Hollywood, like the Democrats, like Bill Maher, have become so disconnected from the lives of Americans that you can’t possibly understand why Trump is by far preferable. You seem to think you have the right to tell them what they should want, what they should care about, and that your own personal happiness should be a factor they consider.Have you driven through any of our cities lately? Have you driven down to the border? Have you gone to a grocery store? Have you gone into Walmart only to see everything locked up, from baby formula to batteries to deodorant? Have you driven across America to see what this country is really like?I’m guessing not. Why would you? You go from the film set to your multi-million dollar property, and you turn on MSNBC and CNN and you RAGE RAGE against the man they keep telling you is a dictator and fascist who will never leave office, take Bill Maher off the air, and then hunt you down like you’re Robert Redford in Three Days of the Condor. 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

Guess what I’m doing on Super Tuesday? I’m registering as a Republican to vote for Donald Trump in the primary in California. They won’t allow me to vote as an independent for President of the United States, so for the first time in my life, I will be one of the people I used to judge and hate.I also plan to vote red straight down the line. Oh, I realize this is like spitting in the Pacific Ocean in my state. Still, if other residents in California are starting to see what anyone driving through Los Angeles or San Francisco can see, there’s a small chance the dark blue state might start to purple.I know I’m not the only American sick of the whining, the caterwauling, the temper tantrums because the ruling class isn’t getting what they want. WAAAAA the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case on presidential immunity. WAAAAA Trump said something in one of his speeches. WAAAAA the New York Times wrote a negative column on Joe Biden.The only thing they haven’t done is prove to the American people that they’re the better option than the guy who promises to close the border, clean up the streets, crack down on crime, and get our economy back on track in a way Americans can feel, not just because Paul Krugman delivers yet another sanctimonious op-ed of Biden talking points.There are plenty of candidates for the most flattering magic mirror/propagandist for the Biden administration - Rachel Maddow, Stephen Colbert, Pod Save America, Lawrence O’Donnell but really, it’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski who has now decided to yet again beclown themselves by platforming a stupid book that looks a lot more like Mein Kampf than any revelation about Trump supporters. All so they can keep eating dinner with Joe and Jill. 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

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.sashastone.comIt took me some time to consider an “extra” for paid subscribers, and I came up with a free-form podcast, not written as an essay but just an improvisational ramble. It’s meant to be casual so, of course, it is not perfect. I hope to get better over time. The first 20 minutes will be a free preview, and the rest will be behind the paywall. I hope you …

Fear is trickling down the walls at the White House like blood from a crime scene. They try to wipe it away with a Lawrence O’Donnell monologue here, a Stephen Colbert freak out there.Any other president at any other time in American history would be sweating. But Joe Biden isn’t.It reminds me of this scene from the movie Quiz Show where the investigator, played by Rob Morrow, corners the President of NBC, played by Allan Rich, in an elevator. We have finally got you, Morrow says. Oh yeah? Rich says. Then why are you the one that’s sweating?And so it goes with the Biden administration.But there is no hiding it. Nate Silver is worried. The New York Times is worried. Politico is worried. Rolling Stone is worried. It’s so bad that they’ve given up towing the party line and are actually speaking out for the first time since Biden took office. They’re desperate for Biden to step aside and give the job to someone, anyone who will stop Trump./// 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

Donald Trump isn’t Alexei Navalny. He wasn’t poisoned or beaten or tortured, then left to die in a Siberian gulag. We aren’t under the control of a dictator like Putin. But there is no getting around the ugly truth that none of this would happen if Biden weren’t trailing Trump in the polls.News of Navalny’s death sent shockwaves through both sides of the political aisle, as each tried to grapple with the many conflicts we’re now facing, the war in Ukraine and the war on Donald Trump, but it’s the Democrats whose actions of late were put into the spotlight.Only one political party is actively trying to jail its primary political opponent, has thrown political protesters in solitary confinement, and violated the First Amendment by censoring speech on social media.How would they shapeshift their way out of this problem? It’s easy. They don’t even respect the people enough to be honest with them. Instead, they rationalize it, “Trump committed actual crimes,” they said. “Trump’s the one who chanted Lock Her Up,” they insist, as if chanting is the same as doing.Similarly, most Russians believe Navalny committed “actual crimes” because that’s the power of taking complete control of the media narrative. Putin charged him as an extremist and with “fraud,” just as our government has done to Trump. 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

A source tells Free Thinking what’s really going on.What old man in the White House? I didn’t see any old man in the White House. The President, you mean? Oh, that’s just Joe Biden. He’s fine. With age comes wisdom.Joe did nothing wrong, and even if he did, it was decided he could not stand trial. Hur is not a neurologist. He doesn’t know what’s going on in Joe’s brain. It was a stressful day. The attacks on October 7th were distracting. You can’t expect the President of the United States to handle that kind of pressure.Look at him now. He’s fine. He’s better than fine. He’s the Most Qualified Person to Serve.So what if he didn’t remember when he was Vice President. Who remembers stuff like that? He’s been in government since the 1970s. How is he to know what position he served and when. It’s confusing.Here he is eating fried chicken with Black people. Fried chicken. If Trump tried that the media would turn it into a National Security Crisis.This video alone has 26K views. People are ENGAGED. Do you think Trump’s videos get that many views? No decent person could ever support Trump. That’s why we offer them Joe. Joe. Nothing but Joe. Oh, and Kamala too.And anyway, we all know “Dark Brandon” is Obama, and Biden is basically serving his third term. I mean, why did we get rid of term limits anyway? Obama hasn’t ever left. He’s constantly influencing American culture - with his $30 million Netflix deal and his omnipresence on Twitter. If you have an entire country treating you like an actual God, and you have that big of an ego, how many people do you think would walk away from that? 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 don’t know what’s going to happen. All I can say is this: The man we saw speaking from the White House tonight, on February 8—that man will not be reelected president. Maybe Biden can become a new man. Maybe he’s had an off week. Maybe they can adjust his meds. Maybe. But probably not. Right? Probably not. —John Podhoretz, CommentaryThey’ve been lying about Joe Biden’s cognitive abilities since at least 2020. COVID allowed them to hide both Biden and Harris far from the prying eyes of the press and the public while the system won the election for them. They just needed to exist as more of an idea rather than a reality. Voters would choose them as the more moderate option. And, more importantly, take Trump out of power.But I’d stood a few feet away from Joe Biden in May of 2019. The man I saw give a speech that day and mingle in the crowd was not the man who emerged more than a year later to make minimal appearances during campaign season. He’d gotten through the primaries okay. He was old but hanging on.Heading into the election, however, it was clear something was not quite right. Now, he looked lost, with eyes that appeared vacant and unless someone was guiding him, he wandered around in a dream state.I told my friends I was worried that Biden was in the early stages of dementia, like my dad, who was consumed by it in 2018. They snapped back that Trump was a fascist, and it didn’t matter how incapacitated Biden was. They’d still vote for him.What did they know, and when did they know it?Besides ushering in a fanatical cult, the first real sign of trouble was the exit from Afghanistan in August of 2021. Word had it Biden had ignored his top brass and was arrogantly aiming for a 9/11 photo op.But with bodies falling off airplanes, 13 American soldiers dead, there was no way even the most skilled operators in the media could spin a visibly botched job. Even if it was barely a news story, the public took notice, and no doubt, world leaders did too.That “x” is Afghanistan. His numbers have never recovered.[source: Real Clear Politics] 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

“So you’re voting for Du-taxus?” a woman said to me in 1988. I was a lowly receptionist at a gym called “Women Only,” which was probably later sued out of business. I had to answer the phone with, “We have the way, Women Only, this is Sasha, may I help you?”I was undoubtedly blurting out this mouthful when the client noticed my Dukakis pin, because why wouldn’t she? I told her yes, I was, though I wasn’t “political” back then, and I had no idea why I was voting for Dukakis. He was a Democrat. Being a Democrat wasn’t something I chose. It was something I was. Some guy I was dating probably handed me the pin and told me to wear it, so I complied.Understandably annoyed, the woman said, “Figures. You probably never even went to college.” I remember this story all of these years later because it’s still surprising to me that a Republican would insult a Democrat’s lack of education. But it tells you everything you need to know about who had the power back then and who didn’t.After that, I was determined to cobble together my many city college credits and attend UCLA. I would graduate as a transfer student at the age of 29. I was older than everyone else, but I was the first person in my family to graduate. Now, I was prepared for any sudden encounter with an elitist Republican. 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

Joanna Parker paces in her office. The media narrative successfully sank the Republicans and their efforts to steal some of the Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce energy. Amateurs.After all this time, they still haven’t learned that WE control everything. Making them look like fools, waking up a whole generation to how stupid the Republicans are, was worth all of the trouble it took to hire well-paid and well-placed social media actors to whip them up into a frenzy.The Pentagon? Please. Like they care about Taylor Swift’s fan base. She played to packed stadiums all over the world with adoring fans chanting her lyrics, every single word to every single song, now that is power.She was already on our side. We just needed a viral moment to wake up her fans so they would learn early who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. Joanna thought they mostly did a good job. The Daily Beast, Rolling Stone and even CNN did their part in mocking the Republicans over the whole episode.James Carville never passes up the chance to call Trump supporters stupid. It’s practically his full-time job by now. And why shouldn’t he? What else has he got to do? We won the media narrative and maintained the moral high ground. 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

This election year promises to be one long “October Surprise” as the newly weaponized legal system, and Department of Justice go to unprecedented and extraordinary lengths not to stop Trump but to damage him enough that one of the least popular presidents in history can be once again dragged over the finish line in November.It’s so blatantly corrupt it’s hard to believe it’s actually happening. Whether you like Trump as a person or plan to vote for him or not, there should be no question that the damage done to this country and its institutions in the effort to bring down Trump has been far more destructive, divisive, and harmful than a second Trump term ever could ever be.Some have suggested that the Regime might take the inevitable last step to remove Trump from public life permanently. I don’t think they’ll go that far. Trump is worth more alive than dead.The Democrats have more power now than they’ve had since before the Civil War. Since then, they haven’t had the opportunity to build the kind of empire they wanted. Thanks to the threat of Trump and the rise of extreme wealth on the Left, that dream is now a reality. They control almost everything. Almost./ 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 am not supposed to be rooting for Trump and MAGA. I’m supposed to be one of the million and change who huddles on my couch in terror, watching MSNBC as the results from Iowa trickle in. I’m supposed to somberly nod when Rachel Maddow tells her viewers they won’t show Trump’s speech.Shut down the speech! I am supposed to say, as if any of this is normal. I will not watch it. I will not listen for myself and think for myself and judge for myself. I will instead fill my head with what Lawrence O’Donnell, Joy Reid, and the Queen of media, the Multi-Million Dollar Baby, Maddow herself tells me!“Yes, turn it off,” Bette Midler says. “Yes please!” moans Barbra Streisand. “It’s the right thing to do,” says Rob Reiner, “to save democracy.”“This is a difficult decision,” Maddow told her viewers to justify censoring Trump’s speech. Somewhere deep inside, this must humiliate the journalist she once was. On some level, she knows this is as bad as what Vladimir Putin does in Russia to protect his people from bad news.Saving Democracy includes censorship, in case you didn’t know, along with throwing your political opponents in jail and removing them from the ballot, not to mention persecuting political protesters for thought crimes and using the legacy media as your own personal propaganda delivery device. Are we sure this isn’t Putin’s Russia?Is this really where we’ve arrived as a country, as a people, as the once-mighty Left? Yes, there is no point in pretending otherwise.We’ve watched the whole game play out this past week as they twisted what Trump said — yet again — about “poisoning the blood of our nation.” They decide what his words mean; replacing “illegal immigrants” with “immigrants” makes it racist. So here is yet more proof of the person you need to fear.Oh, the lies they tell. 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

On January 6th, Trump will give a rally in Iowa. He’ll do what he’s done for seven years as a hunted man - reassure his supporters that there is nothing to fear but fear itself.Joe Biden, the President of the United States, will also give a speech that day and do what he has been doing since taking office: offer the people nothing but fear itself.Biden’s message? Be afraid. Be very, very afraid of your fellow citizens. The guy who works at the gas station, the waitress, the bus driver, the construction worker, the teacher, the pilot — all of them, and any of them could be a Trump supporter. Fear them, shun them, and help us remove them from our country. You are with us, or you are against us.They see their fight against Trump as something along the lines of the Civil War, World War II, and 9/11 all rolled into one. It would be funny if it wasn’t so terrifyingly real.It’s no wonder his approval ratings are in the toilet and that Trump is polling ahead, even after everything they’ve thrown at him. The Democrats have lost touch with reality and no longer know the country they lead.None of this would be happening, of course, if we had a legacy media that served any purpose other than to be what Devin Nunes called part of a “state-owned leftist enterprise” that also controls “everything—universities, nonprofits, bureaucracies, and the Beltway corridor.”Since Trump was elected, the stories in the mainstream press have been nothing but an advent calendar of lies.// 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

“Are you a Trump supporter now?” is the question my friends, acquaintances, and colleagues sometimes ask me. I know the answer to that question could end our relationship. So do they. Most of the time, they just don’t ask. They quietly assume that I might be, but what they don’t know can’t hurt them.Since 2016, being labeled “Trump supporter,” has given most people the green light to cut ties, publicly humiliate, attack, and dehumanize at will. What you will rarely see on the Left is empathy. What has become all too common is unfiltered, bottomless hatred. In too many cases, physical violence, and destructive protests, all justified and encouraged by the ruling class.2020 was the breaking point for me. I could no longer go along with it, especially after getting to know Trump supporters, and watching enough rallies to know the truth about who Trump really is. 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

Rob Reiner was jolted awake. Just minutes ago, he could have sworn he was holding his wife and sleeping soundly. Now, he could barely move.What was wrong with his feet?“Michele!” Reiner calls out for his wife. Silence. He glances around the room he is somehow trapped in. A small bed. Trinkets on shelves. A snowstorm outside. Where is he?Suddenly, the door bursts open, and none other than Annie Wilkes from Misery greets him, with her pig oinking behind her.Reiner stares in disbelief. He was now trapped inside one of his own movies.“Well, I see the patient is awake!” says Annie. “How are we feeling?”“Get me out of here. I directed this movie. I know what happens!”“Oh, don’t be such a fussy widget,” says Annie. “We’re just getting to know each other! I’m your number-one fan! I’ve seen every one of your movies like 100 times.”Reiner shifts uncomfortably in his bed. “What do you want with me?”“I’m the Ghost of Things to Come! Or the Ghost of Christmas future, I get confused.”“What’s wrong with my legs?”“It’s called hobbling,” she says.“Don’t worry, it won’t last long. Just long enough for me to explain how I happened to find myself in Washington DC on January 6th, 2021.”“No, come on, Annie Wilkes, is MAGA?”“Well, that’s the funny thing. I didn’t used to be. You see, I used to be Hillary Clinton’s number one fan too, bet you could never guess that. And Joe Biden’s. But the Summer of 2020 changed me. Should I hit your feet again just for fun?”“NOOOO,” Reiner screams. 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

[Part One - Here]Rob Reiner wanted to sleep. But his thoughts swirled around in his brain like a cage full of butterflies. Make it stop, make it stop.Haunted by Archie Bunker just hours ago, something about how January 6th was like the JFK assassination made Reiner’s Christmas Eve a nightmare. Maybe it all finally got to him, all those months of research looking into the history of the CIA, rogue agents, false flag operations, gaining public support for a cause, or a war, a president who was at odds with the war machine.James Carville accused him of being a crazy conspiracy theorist, like people who thought January 6th was an inside job. He wasn’t one of those guys. He followed the facts. Facts our government covered up. Most Americans would be shocked to learn about the psychological warfare, meddling in elections in foreign countries, and, of course, the CIA assassinations of world leaders.The last episode of his podcast, Who Killed JFK, discussed just that:Back when Kennedy was shot, the public had no idea that there were secret operations planned to gain public support through things like plane crashes that killed American citizens. No wonder so many tin foil hat types thought 9/11 was one of those to get us into a war with Iraq.But January 6th wasn’t anything like that. It was just proof of what we’ve all been saying about Trump and MAGA for years. This is what we warned against. A coup, an armed insurrection of violent terrorists, white supremacists attempting to overthrow the government and overturn the results of the election.But something wasn’t coming together. 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

Rob Reiner holds his phone in front of his face, and doom-scrolls Twitter. One after the other, all about the coming apocalypse, Donald Trump's potential win.The monster. The fascist. The BEAST is outpolling Uncle Joe - how is this happening? He’s indicted for felonies, a twice impeached crook, conman, and dictator. He waged an armed insurrection to attack the Capitol to overturn the election; he’s worse than Hitler, worse than Mussolini. Who are these people that support him? Why do we have to share a country with them?Reiner was getting triggered by those he trusted and followed on Twitter, like the Lincoln Project, Liz Cheney, Marc Elias, Occupy Democrats. And Call to Activism:They ARE insane, Reiner thought, those who voted for Trump. We still don’t know what to do with them, or where to put them. Hillary is right. A deprogramming facility to help ease them out of their love for that monster is the only way we can have a Democracy.You know who protects all of us, he thought. Prosecutors like Jack Smith and attorney generals like Merrick Garland. Our great president. Sure, he’s old, but so what? He does what a president is supposed to do, like spend his whole life in government. 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

[Profanity warning…..]There is a scene in David Fincher’s The Social Network where Sean Parker (played by Justin Timberlake) has Mark Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg) set up a meeting to have the most sought-after genius in tech, deliver an important message: “Sean Parker says f*ck you.”That’s what you do when you have the money Mark Zuckerberg was about to have, or if you’re the richest man in the world, like Elon Musk.Our government, in complete alignment with the most powerful entities in the country and maybe the world, has been trying to destroy Elon Musk since he bought Twitter and turned it into X. Every decision he makes is proof, they insist, that the app is about to collapse and Musk will be humiliated, ruined, and destroyed.You might recognize the pattern. They’ve done the same thing, for seven years, to Trump. They’ve had no problem weaponizing the DOJ, raiding Mar-a-Lago, and indicting him on phony placeholder charges as the media runs with the lie that it’s for “inciting an insurrection.” They’ve even tried to remove his name from the ballot in several states for something he’s not even charged with. 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

You wouldn’t know me if you met me in May of 2019, as I drove to a luncheon for Joe Biden sponsored by a big donor at one of the mansions in a wealthy pocket of Los Angeles. I’d been hand-picked as an influencer after rising in the ranks of Team Hillary on social media. I’d thrown myself into politics in 2015, panicking about climate change. “We have to win,” I thought.By the end of 2020, just one year later, I’d have left the Democratic Party for good, been yelled at by Neera Tanden on Twitter, and lost a good many of my friends and very nearly everything else, and now, by 2023, all I can think is that the Democrats have to lose. They have to be voted out.I’ve been trying to tell my story in a way that matters for three years. I have failed to convince or persuade anyone from my side. They still treat me like someone who has been radicalized online or is somehow mentally incapacitated. They still see Trump as an existential threat to “democracy” and the grassroots movement known as MAGA as domestic extremists, white supremacists and a threat to their way of life. 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

Everything you’ve heard is true. The Republicans are losing on abortion. They are not motivated to turn out the same way the Democrats are unless Trump is on the ballot, and even then, the GOP is losing at a time when they should be blowing the Democrats out of power for a generation.The war is over, and the GOP lost, at least for now. Just as they are on the right side of history with “gender-affirming care,” there is a chance that their desire to preserve life now might be well-regarded in 50 years or so, as fertility, sperm count, and population decline. Suddenly, future generations might think about how casually mothers aborted the pregnancies that are in such short supply.Maybe getting pregnant will be difficult, or carrying a baby to term, or male sperm will be ineffective, and everyone will have to turn to labs. Who knows where all of this is going, but convincing young women not to have babies when they are in their prime, fertility-wise, might backfire someday. 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

Ron DeSantis has every quality a presidential candidate needs - good looks, youth, a nice family, and a strong governance track record in Florida. What he doesn’t have, however, is more charisma than his chief rival, Donald Trump.To be fair, not many candidates, or people for that matter, have as much charisma as Trump does. It’s a once-in-a-generation thing that defies explanation. It’s just there. Even those who hate him can’t stop watching him. It’s not his looks, particularly, or his speeches — it’s the X-factor you can’t buy or attain. You have to be born with 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

Our country, at the hands of the Left, is falling apart. There is no center. It is as though termites have eaten away the foundation as we allowed so many activists to dismantle their “systems of oppression,” otherwise known as our heroes, our history, our movies, our achievements, our books, our poetry, our art. If America built it, it is corrupt, say the Woketopians.We’ve seen them edging ever so close to violence as a means to an end. We’ve ignored the warning signs because it was so much easier to demonize and dehumanize Trump and MAGA, and now, I fear, we’re heading into the danger zone.We’ve been here before. Right around the time of the Manson murders in 1969, the silent majority was waking up to what the Left had become, something not unlike today’s Left.In March of 1970, as the Manson trials were getting underway, the New York Times wrote an expose of the radical Left’s Weather Underground:The outbreak of explosions at a variety of establishment targets— corporate offices, police stations, draft and induction centers and the like—underscores a new mood among frustrated radicals. It appears to have been intensified by the outcome of the trial of the Chicago Seven as well as the various pending Black Panther trials.One letter by the Weather Underground reads as follows:“To work for the industries of death is to murder. To know the torments Amerika inflicts on the Third World, but not to sympathize and identify, is to deny our own humanity. It is to deny our right to love—and not to love is to die. We refuse. In death‐directed Amerika there is only one way to a life of love and freedom: to attack and destroy the forces of death and exploitation and to build a just society—revolution.”Charles Manson parroted these talking points to brainwash his cult. His words are indistinguishable from theirs, though noticeably less articulate. When Manson had his followers scrawl the words “death to pigs” in the blood of their victims, it was meant to throw law enforcement off track and blame Black radicals.As horrific as that sounds, we’re seeing echoes of that kind of mindset in today’s young, whipped up into a frenzy they can’t quite control. 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

A tweet about the Holocaust? Sorry, Gina Carano, you’re finished with Disney. A tweet about how violent protests lose elections got you fired? Sorry, David Shor, those are the consequences of your actions. You have to be held accountable.It’s not “cancel culture,” they insisted. It’s “consequence culture.” Intent doesn’t matter. Only impact does. Not even Thomas Jefferson was safe from the “Eye of Sauron” that sought to root out the thought criminals wherever they may have been hiding.If you wrote a headline that said “Buildings Matter Too” and lost your job? Too bad, your words caused harm. Said the “N-word” as clarification on a field trip, and your entire legacy at the New York Times goes up in smoke? Those are necessary consequences for your actions.Liked the wrong tweet, voted for the wrong candidate, praised the wrong movie, had the wrong opinion about Black Lives Matter, had a bad date, wore the wrong Halloween costume, and that was it. If you defended someone who wore “blackface” on Halloween once, you are a convicted racist, and you must apologize profusely or lose your job, sometimes both.Who gets to stay and who has to go has been the sick little game we’ve all been playing, like we’re trapped in an episode of the Twilight Zone and are one wrong opinion away from being wished into the cornfield. 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

“And so shines a good deed in a weary world,” that’s the line that ran through my head as I finished John Nolte’s first novel, Borrowed Time. The truth is that I didn’t want it to end. I didn’t want to leave that imaginative world and have to face the reality of ours.I had already started it over just before the last few chapters to stave off the inevitable. Was it the book’s protagonist I liked so much? A man blessed (or cursed) with immortality who falls in love for the first time in thousands of years with someone who does get old and die, like the rest of us?Or was it something else: A distant call from the past, back to the days when stories were meant for everyone when we would all share the plight of characters so real we could almost reach out and touch them?I read, or listen to, dozens — hundreds — of audiobooks. It’s how I pass the time on long road trips, enduring agonizingly boring chores I can’t bear to face, or when I need to turn my mind off from the day's news. I read almost exclusively mysteries, thrillers, pulpy stuff, with the occasional non-fiction book thrown in here or there about the Salem Witch Trials or Lizzie Borden.I usually don’t touch literary fiction anymore. I can’t bear to. I know what to expect because I know that world all too well by now. There will be a “lesson” in there, one I can already see coming from a mile 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

Once upon a time, there was a Paper of Record. They proudly claimed that moniker because they valued journalism. They valued getting the facts before broadcasting the headline. For decades, they built the most trusted newspaper in the land. And that newspaper was called the New York Times.Then came the internet. A gaggle of hoodie-wearing flip-flop dudebros moving fast and breaking things nearly put the Times and other outlets out of business. Now, anyone could have a website and report the news they wanted, like Matt Drudge, whose news shaped opinion rather than informed the public.The Times rallied and evolved, becoming the most-read newspaper online, where they have remained since the turn of the millennium. But clickbait changed the way news was delivered. Now, the headlines had to bring eyeballs to websites. The more outrageous the headline, the more likely the clicks, and the more ad revenue from Google and other traffic-based ad servers. 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 we watch the horrific images of Hamas's brutal attack on Israeli citizens, there is no mistaking the face of evil.This is brutality on a scale most of us here in America have never witnessed - the rapes of women who are dragged through the streets to cheers. Babies murdered in their cribs — beheaded — fathers shot while trying to help their families escape—charred remains of still-smoking corpses in gardens, doorways, and cars.For the past three years, our government has lied to us about what happened on January 6th. The Vice President stood before us and compared a riot at the Capitol to 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. 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 part of a movement on the Left that endlessly softened language to avoid offending a single person we deemed marginalized. What we couldn’t say, what we had to say … The list just kept getting longer. The judgments more severe.That Trump is an existential threat not for anything he’s ever done, but what he says is proof enough that this war we’re fighting is a war of words.I’m not allowed to use the word “sterilize,” just like I’m not allowed to use the word “mutilate” to describe what’s happening to thousands of young people all across this country. As though the words themselves are anywhere near as bad as the deeds they describe. I’ve realized lately that soft language often masks monstrosities we could not face otherwise. 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

“If they want a monster so badly, they ought to be provided by one.” ― Margaret AtwoodTheir monster is Trump. He is the entire economy of the media machine. Without him, whole news networks would die, social media would become stagnant, and, more importantly, there would be no named evil for the New Puritans to unite in fear and hatred against.Their God is Barack Obama. Yes, that’s right. We're caught in a clash of the titans that involves two movements, largely built and cultivated online, that now define two paths forward for America. Obama’s 1984-like dystopia or Trump’s populist revolt against monopolistic power at the top, not unlike Teddy Roosevelt driving a spike through the Gilded Age.Trump is, without a doubt, and these trials prove it, the man in the arena. 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 lied about who he was when he ran for president. He said he was a moderate. He isn’t. He said he would unite the country. He hasn’t. He said he would revive the economy. He didn’t.Lying is nothing new to the Democratic Party. The lies are big - The exit from Afghanistan was fine, January 6th was a violent insurrection, lockdowns were successful, the vaccine was not risky, the economy is strong, gender is a construct. And their lies are small, Stephen Colbert is funny.One of the biggest lies was that Kamala Harris was the right choice for Vice President. They lied because they had to. They lied because it was easy. They lied because no one in the media would call them out on 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

“We create the illusion that being informed is a kind of action in itself. So to wash that guilt out—to eliminate the shame and discomfort you feel over doing nothing as the world goes mad—you'll keep tuning in.” - Matt Taibbi, Hate, Inc.The other night on MSNBC, Nicolle Wallace reached her breaking point. Something must be done, or we will all live to regret it.“Something bad is going to happen,” she said. “What will we tell our children and grandchildren when it does”? Then she looked directly into the camera and said, “You good with NOTHING”?Her face flushed. Her expression, resolute.What “something” must be done? She didn’t say. Her guests couldn’t come up with a final solution either.But it’s worth asking Nicolle herself what will finally end her nightmare. Detainment camps for the “cesspool of the MAGA base"? Gulags? How do we dump the dissidents and non-compliant citizens far enough away that they can’t touch the America they once called home?//end 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

Yes, Trump can win.Many Conservatives worry that Trump can’t win. Democrats, they believe, have rigged the system in their favor, and there is no defeating them now so why even bother voting? Yes, that’s exactly where they want you to be. They want the grassroots movement that is MAGA to shut up and sit down and fade into obscurity.But here’s the truth. Trump can win on the economy alone. He can win on his own record on the economy, which ordinarily would have meant winning a decisive second term.But guess what? The Democrats face-planted, hard, on the economy. Now, Trump gets to come back and say I told you so.His entire campaign can be I told you so. 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 50th Annual Telluride Film Festival went off mostly without a hitch. It was the same beautiful town in the mountains of Colorado I’d been visiting for at least ten years. There were movies earmarked for the Oscar race, critics and bloggers, and film industry professionals scurrying from place to place. But something felt different.It wasn’t just the lack of celebrities that are usually the draw for such an exclusive, expensive fest. The actors’ strike meant they could not show up, even if a few did sneak in for a party or two. Usually, they’re everywhere. Nicole Kidman getting coffee somewhere. I once rode the gondola with Jennifer Garner.It wasn’t even so many people I used to know barely talk to me now. They used to love me, now they hate me. They have no other choice, of course. They can’t be seen fraternizing with the enemy. Those who still have the courage to say hello are few and far between. 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

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,Here once the embattled farmers stood,And fired the shot heard round the world. -Ralph Waldo EmersonYou maniacs. You finally did it. You finally made people like me actually want to vote for Trump — not just vote for him because he’s a Republican, and he’ll do the dirty job of putting the brakes on “gender-affirming care.” I was already there. But actually wanting to vote for Trump specifically, to believe that only Trump can finally end this ongoing insanity in our government, culture, and country? Well, that seemed impossible. I know the cost of crossing into enemy territory. I know that it means— into the garbage can with me. I know that it is social and career suicide. But I can’t watch them go after him like this, busting through norm after norm, relishing his humiliation, and not want to, at the very least, use my vote to protest what they’ve done. Here is Tulsi Gabbard:The first thing people will say to me is “stop lying, you were always a Trump supporter. You’ve just finally unmasked yourself.” They probably believe that’s true - it certainly makes it easier for them to sleep at night knowing their monstrous, unforgivable behavior was justified in their minds. I was with them when they protested Trump’s win in 2016. I was with them when we marched in protest throughout Trump’s presidency. I was with them all the way up until the election of 2020, when I saw for the first time the threat the new left posed to our formerly free country. I live in California, so my vote hardly matters. It’s more symbolic to say that I do not consent to my government or my tax dollars being used this way. I do not consent to a partisan, weaponized DOJ. I do not consent to show trials, performative indictments, or a two-tiered justice system. And I certainly don’t consent to mugshots of former presidents. It weakens our standing in the world. It makes us look small. It makes us look insane. It makes us look corrupt. Here are Glenn Greenwald and Patrick Bet-David:Trump must prevail because otherwise, they’ve shown us there will be no end to any of it. Once they’re done with Trump, they’ll move on to the next threat. More power for them means less freedom for us - in our lives, online, and in our culture. They will never stop on their own. They have to be stopped. #resistance cosplayLike the raid on Mar-a-Lago, the mugshot was totally unnecessary. It was petty and vindictive, yet another episode in their ongoing melodrama that casts themselves as the oppressed victims beating back centuries of White Supremacy and racism that they somehow see embodied in Trump. The Netflix series Black Mirror has two great episodes, and both offer up criticisms of what life on the Left has become. One is Nose Dive wherein people are given credit scores and worry about being judged by others. By the end, the only way out is to abandon all of it and learn how to live with people who say things that might offend. The other is Hated in the Nation, where social media users attack people using a hashtag. A hacker programs armies of robotic bees to attack those who engage in dehumanizing swarms against others.The Left believes this is Trump’s episode of Black Mirror. He is their crazed fascist racist white supremacist traitor insurrectionist seditionist rapist supervillain at the mercy of an extreme partisan Democrat DA who forced him into the worst jail in Georgia and made him take a mugshot. MAKE HIM SUFFER. Make him PAY. But maybe this is really their episode of Black Mirror. No matter what they do, they can’t kill the love the people have for Trump. Everything they do backfires on them, and his popularity only grows. This was especially true for Black voters on Tik Tok:In all of the Left’s hysteria and mania over the past seven years, they’ve done nothing to address those who have felt abandoned by what our government has become. Why? It is much easier for them to kill the messenger. Money drives politics; everyone knows that. But when Trump’s small money donors chipped in and raised $7 million almost overnight for Trump’s defense, it was proof enough of the widespread affection so many people have for Trump, and it was threatening for people who have all the money and believe that entitles them to all of the power. Well guess what? It doesn’t.Un-electable?I feel Ben Shapiro’s pain when he points out, as he does every day, that this is the grand plan for the Left, just as they did in 2022 to great effect - boost Trump and MAGA in the primary, destroy them in the general. The Daily Wire has laid out the trial dates, set conveniently to line up with the election year — they aren’t even bothering to hide it anymore and the media will never call them out on it — and this is meant to tie Trump up with court cases, win or lose, that will keep him from campaigning or make his entire campaign about his legal troubles, and not, say, the failings of the Biden administration a

Memes sprouted up online as the rare, once-in-a-generation Hurricane Hilary threatened Los Angeles. “She’s back,” they all said. No one could mistake the namesake, with or without the extra “l.”Just before the hurricane was downgraded to a tropical storm and made its way toward me, I was revisiting Disney’s Snow White in the wake of comments made by Rachel Zegler, the young star chosen to revive and rebrand the Disney princess as non-white, feminist, and woke.Gone were the seven dwarfs. Gone was the “skin as white as snow,” and there was talk of the infamous kiss that awakens Snow White to be surgically removed like the cancer it supposedly was.//end 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

“Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” - ShakespeareDespite the shock and awe of the four indictments against former president Donald Trump, the Democrats are more vulnerable than they’ve been in decades. It isn’t just the Afghanistan exit, the economy, or the cancer growing inside the presidency, it’s also the radical policies the Democrats have embraced since Biden took office in 2021.They are hemorrhaging working-class voters, especially among groups they believe belong to them, like those in the Black and Hispanic communities. They refuse to face their own failings, and why should they? With no legacy media to hold them to account, they can pretend nothing to see here, move along, move along. 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 Mr. Brooks,Your column might be the best thing written in the New York Times in the past seven years. You’ve undoubtedly been subjected to a fair amount of abuse for it. You should probably never have written it if the comments are any indication. But those are people in the bubble. They don’t represent either the majority or the future. They think they do, but they don’t. Your question, “Are we the bad guys”? The answer is yes. You are the bad guys. You have systematically dehumanized half the country because they dared to want to be represented by someone you don’t like. You have gone along with a warped distortion of who Donald Trump actually is, and you have perpetuated that lie to your own detriment. Oh, it’s much worse than that, Mr. Brooks. Are you sitting down? This is the moment just before the aristocracy you write so eloquently about comes crashing down around you. You might say you have just spotted the iceberg on the horizon. The water is too still. The ship is moving too fast. It can’t be turned around in time. The ship is made of iron, and it will sink.Like so many times before, an aristocratic minority can only stave off its ultimate collapse at the hands of the discontented majority for so long. Just look around at the abandoned mansions of the Gilded Age, a world that once was. Or take a trip to France and look at the chateaus in the countryside, or you might even look around in the American South at the plantations and high society before it was all Gone with the Wind. I’m not necessarily saying the red states are going to drag America back in time - that’s your narrative and the false opinion of the ruling class. This is about a new America waiting to be born once the establishment elite gets out of the way. You do get points for noticing, Mr. Brooks, even if it is too little, too late. You write:Are Trump supporters right that the indictments are just a political witch hunt? Of course not. As a card-carrying member of my class, I still basically trust the legal system and the neutral arbiters of justice. Trump is a monster in the way we’ve all been saying for years and deserves to go to prison.Neutral arbiters of justice? Did you really just write that with a straight face, Mr. Brooks? Do you really believe that? Yet here we have proof enough that you can’t be the good guys if you can’t even see that these investigations and indictments are designed only to stop Trump. Biden has said as much.No news on Joe Biden’s blatant corruption with his son, potentially protecting oligarchs from sanctions, influence peddling? And a DOJ that pivots to another Trump indictment every time there is bad news for Biden? Neutral? I don’t think so. Surely you’re not suggesting that, because you believe Trump is a “monster” that he deserves to “go to prison” without any trial? Is that what we call innocent until proven guilty, Mr. Brooks? Or is that what we call trial by mob? Tell me, what books have you read that paint yourselves as the good guys? Trump was never revealed to be the “monster” you promised. In fact, quite the opposite.He could have, as a fascist, shot protesters on the street in the Summer of 2020 oh wait, Biden did that when the Capitol police shot Ashli Babbitt. He could have jailed protesters, throwing them in solitary without a trial, convicting them in the court of public opinion as “white supremacists,” oh wait, Biden did that too. Censor social media outlets (oh, oops, Biden too), weaponize the DOJ (oh, darn it, Biden again), edge us closer to Nuclear war (D’OH also Biden), and attempt to jail his political opponents to hold onto power for the foreseeable future (YA, that’s actually Biden). Darnit. Will the real fascist please stand up?Trump might aspire to be an authoritarian but never had the necessary institutional support. He had just the opposite - every institution was at war with Trump every day of his presidency. I expect you’re educated enough to know that fascists require an alignment of power across all corporate, cultural, and political life — kind of like the Democrats, Mr. Brooks. Are you sure you have the right fascist? Or Tyrant or authoritarian or monster?For those who now say, “he led an armed insurrection to overthrow the US Government and install a white supremacist army to kill all the Black and Brown people,” or anything related to January 6th, I call b******t. The Trump emergency happened long before 2020, as any honest person knows.Steve Bannon accurately predicted in 2017 that the Democrats would take the House in 2018 and immediately impeach Trump. It didn’t even matter what it was for. Everything our FBI and the Democrats, along with you Never Trump Republicans, did to reject the duly elected President of the United States was unprecedented and evidence of an elite ruling class that does not want to give up its power to the people. I could spend a few paragraphs on January 6th, as I bore witness to a fake media narrative blooming out of the events that

Part 1 - America at the Hands of a Cult | Part 2 - A Religious WarAs yet another indictment of Trump rolls out, they can barely contain their excitement. Is this finally it? Will that long-awaited termination of their tormenter give the ruling class the peace they demand?They’ve been patiently waiting, spending too much of their precious time hunched over a keyboard, saliva pooling at the edges of their mouths, tongues flicking with the promise of release - will anyone put them out of their misery?The election of Trump was never allowed in their country. They would have done anything to keep him out of power. They protested violently, they negotiated with electors, they blamed Putin for Russian interference then they set about removing Trump from power from Day One. 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

“Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.” ― John SteinbeckI not only believed in the myth of Joe Biden, I helped sell it. My father had just died and it was easy for me to transpose my grief onto Joe as I tried to convince my fellow Hillary supporters that he was the only candidate to beat Trump. Yes, the “old white guy” whose moment had finally arrived. He would save us, we all thought. He was empathetic and kind. He was, I insisted, a good man.He’d once crossed the street in DC as the then Vice President to talk to my daughter’s 5th-grade class. My daughter stood just inches away from him. Who didn’t love Joe? Scranton Joe is the good man, the good father, who rode the Amtrak train home from DC every day to be with his family. He’s the forward-thinking progressive who fought for the Black community, for victims of sexual assault, and for gay rights before even Obama did.He was famously almost too young to serve when elected to the Senate in 1972. Here he is alongside his family, celebrating his birthday just one month before his wife and baby daughter would be killed in a car crash.How could so much good fortune be cut short by a tragedy that would leave his two boys without a mother? His young son Hunter suffered from a head injury while his other son Beau survived with broken bones.Joe Biden was sworn in at the hospital as his two young sons looked on with confusion. He pledged to put them first, and abandon his political career if it ever came to that.But there is another Joe Biden. It’s the one who has shunned his granddaughter he pretends does not exist. At least with the Biden name she could make something of herself. But no, says Joe. She isn’t one of us. It’s the Joe Biden who would exploit a family tragedy to hold a press conference and photo-op that was good for his image while being sworn in in1972. It’s the Joe Biden who claimed the death of his son Beau kept him from running as Obama’s successor in 2016, when the truth was that Obama didn’t want him to run. He wanted Hillary instead. "The incredible bond I have with my children is the gift I'm not sure I would have had, had I not been through what I went through [after the fatal crash]. But by focusing on my sons, I found my redemption." - Joe Biden, Yale Commencement Address, 2015As a Senator in 1972, Joe Biden would bear witness to the downfall of Richard Nixon, just two years away from resignation. He could not know all of those decades ago that he would face something far more serious than being caught on tape offering to pay off a blackmailer. No, this isn’t obstruction of justice Biden is accused of participating in. It’s out-and-out corruption, the worst kind, being a politician who traded power and influence for profit.Comparing what Biden is alleged to have done with even the most serious charges against Trump is laughable. The more of Biden’s story that is revealed, the worse the Trump hunters will look. As always, the legacy media is the only thing standing in the way of a Nixon-like downfall for Joe. They’re in way too deep now. If Biden goes down, so do they. After all, they were responsible for helping put Joe in power in 2020, to absolve themselves of the sins of Trump. Now, they will pay a price for ignoring the Biden scandal. All the President’s SonsIt’s hard to look at Joe Biden’s life and not think about East of Eden, the Steinbeck novel turned into a movie in 1955, based on the story of Cain and Abel. It’s not the same story, but it’s similar enough. The golden child, Beau, was meant to carry on the family name and was preparing to run for governor when he died tragically in 2015.The other son, Hunter, the wayward Cain, or Cal, was nothing but trouble for his father, acting out in obvious ways to get his approval and attention, but never quite getting it, engaging in corruption to enrich the Biden family. Hunter didn’t just engage in high risk behavior with cocaine and hookers, he did it on camera, uploaded it to porn sites, and left it all on his laptops, which he then abandon at a computer repair shop.He wasn’t exactly hiding it - if anything, he seemed like he was begging to get caught, to finally experience some of the much-needed consequences that might have changed his life. But they never came then and they won’t be coming now. But what about Joe? Did he have anything to do with the pay-offs by foreign leaders to buy influence? If he skimmed off the top and feigned ignorance, it would be one thing. But it’s far more sinister than that. If the allegations against him are true, Biden used the son with the dirty reputation as a go-between, knowing if they ever got caught, Hunter would take the fall. Biden would make sure he didn’t go to jail.Even as his son was spiraling into drugs and alcohol and his other son was dying of brain cancer, Joe Biden still managed to push forward to cash in on the Biden name and his position in the Obama administration.In 2013, Hunter Biden started a

This is a supplement to the piece I posted yesterday that needs clarification. It is all too easy to see both Barbie and Oppenheimer as two sides of the same coin - Barbie as the ultimate “woke” movie and Oppenheimer as a movie that attempts to vindicate or sympathize with Communism.But that would be a mistake. Barbie reflects our society now, a society not unlike what the Communist hunters most feared: ideological capture of our major institutions, our culture, our schools, and our government. I enjoyed Barbie because laughing at a silly movie was fun, but it is important to put it in context of what we’re living through now.As Critical Drinker explains: Barbie is light-hearted and not intended as propaganda, but it makes assumptions about our shared reality that really only has meaning for those on the Left who go along with it. Men are bad, women are good, but gender is not a binary, etc.Oppenheimer is about the America before the war and the America after the war. Everything changed dramatically in the wake of Hitler, Stalin, and the bombs dropping on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which would eventually take us to the Cold War. Oppenheimer was never a Communist. The film Oppenheimer is not about Communism. It isn’t even really a Left vs. Right film. There isn’t much politics involved at all. Some might react to the movie without seeing it, falsely believing it’s Communist propaganda — understandably, because of Hollywood’s reputation of late. But that would be unfair and a misread of what Oppenheimer is about. In the 1930s, amid the Great Depression, Hooverville, and the New Deal, it was a “Great Awokoning” of a kind. Those on the Left who cared about social justice started organizations to help those left behind. FDR’s New Deal, for instance, left behind Black Americans. In the book about Oppenheimer, he was so well-read, compassionate, and worldly that he understood it was an unequal society, just like Orwell or any decent person who lived back then would. That is what drew him, and Orwell, at one point, to Communism. And both would eventually abandon it once they saw where it led.Oppenheimer and Orwell were free thinkers. They valued freedom of the mind more than anything, just as I do. That is why Orwell wrote 1984, and it’s why Oppenheimer’s quote about science is such a good one:Does anyone think today’s Left still believes that? They do not. They don’t believe in freedom of the mind at all. They believe in forced conformity and ideological compliance in art, science, education, and even relationships between people, language, comedy, and everything else they control, which is almost everything.Oppenheimer’s first girlfriend, Jean Tatlock, was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. Many of Oppenheimer’s friends were also Communists. They continued to try to recruit him, but he always refused to join — he was a singular thinker and did not want to belong to any group or have any allegiances. He also, and I want to be clear here, BUILT THE ATOM BOMB THAT ENDED THE WAR. Anyone who wants to dump on Oppenheimer has to understand his place in history, and if you are applying his suspected ties to Communism as being more important than BUILDING THE ATOM BOMB THAT ENDED THE WAR, then you are no different from the screeching fanatics on the Left.Whether you think he should have built the bomb is beside the point. He helped end World War II, full stop. He was hailed as a hero for doing so. Our government wanted to build what President Ike warned against in his farewell address, the Military Industrial Complex: Oppenheimer did everything he could to prevent the arms race, which put him at odds with the government and the military. Oppenheimer was Jewish, which meant he was already an outsider and felt like one his entire life. But playing such an important part in history — with the caveat that they dropped the bomb on Japan and killed hundreds of thousands of people, of course — mattered to him. He believed he was building the bomb for Hitler, not Japan. The paranoia in our country was understandable. Communist spies were working in our government. There was a united effort to indoctrinate our citizens to their ideology. There was Communist ideology injected into Hollywood screenplays. There was a Communist movement here. Their fear was not unfounded. Many of those involved in the Communist movement in the 1930s would ultimately abandon it once they saw Stalin’s murder of millions and his extreme totalitarian ideology. Most people on the Left did not know the extent of it because then, like now, only useful information filtered through.I grew up thinking Communism was “good,” and would only later understand how that ideology had manifested in the former Soviet Union, in China, in North Korea. Has it ever worked out without becoming a dystopian nightmare? No. That’s why Winston Churchill concluded this about Democracy:Yet, with the mass hysteria after the Rosenbergs were caught and executed, and the shooti

It’s beginning to look a lot like the 1950s. No two films recall that era more than Barbie and Oppenheimer, both opening this weekend. Despite these films being completely different in every way imaginable, they have captivated the internet as a reach back in time to a forgotten world, just as the sci-fi movies of the 1950s reached forward to a world they could never know.There is something about the two of them as Romeo and Juliet on the eve of the apocalypse that has inspired the internet to reimagine a whole different movie called Barbenheimer: 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

Sound of Freedom is sailing toward $100 mil without breaking a sweat. It topped all Hollywood blockbusters, from Disney’s catastrophe, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, to Insidious, to Jennifer Lawrence’s middling sex comedy, No Hard Feelings. Only Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning could top it.For a film that cost just $14.5 million, Sound of Freedom is rounding the bases and humiliating Hollywood by the minute, as if to say - what, like it’s hard?They have one job in Hollywood: tell a great story. Why would they expect people to turn out if they can't even do that? 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 man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.” ― Thomas JeffersonNovember 8th, 2016. That was the day journalism, as we once knew it died. Gone was objectivity. Gone was a search for the truth, no matter where it led. Gone was holding the powerful to account. Gone was the desire to serve the public’s best interest.It’s been seven years now, and most of us are still in mourning. We can’t forget what journalism used to be. We sit glumly in front of yet another viewing of All the President’s Men, Broadcast News, or The Insider where reporters still cared about the truth, and all we can do is take another drink and cry. 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