Donald trrump

Why those ‘Dark Brandon’ memes are so revealing

There’s no way to explain the “Dark Brandon” meme without sounding insane so we might as well just embrace it. In October 2021, during an interview at the Sparks 300 NASCAR race, the crowd began to chant “Fuck Joe Biden.” The interviewer, whose subject was Brandon Brown, optimistically suggested that the crowd was chanting “Let’s go Brandon.” “Let’s go Brandon” became a cheeky means of mocking President Biden among Republicans. Even Ted Cruz could be seen with a “Let’s Go Brandon” sign, and Biden playfully acknowledged the meme when he said at the 2022 White House Correspondents' Dinner, “Republicans seem to support one fella, some guy named Brandon. He's having a good year. I'm kind of happy for him.

Cockburn does Dallas

Dallas, Texas Howdy from the Lone Star State, where Cockburn is braving 100-degree heat, overpriced IPAs and America First applause lines to bring you coverage of CPAC Texas. The conservative conference has come to the Hilton Anatole in Dallas for the second year — and is once again headlined by former president Donald Trump, set to speak this evening. Appropriately, the hotel’s two bars are called “Media” and “Gossip,” as if they’d been purpose-built for your intrepid correspondent. Cockburn managed to finagle his way into the $375-a-head Cattleman’s Ball for free on Friday night, where he sat at a table with a cadre of fellow hacks, chief among them John Fredericks, the “Godzilla of Truth.

sean hannity cpac texas dallas

Republicans want populism but how much?

With last night's primary elections, the story of the Republicans' risky approach to the 2024 election is clear: GOP voters want a party that is populist, but they are at odds over what kind of populist that needs to be. The media's framing of the 2024 narrative has been clear from the outset, and as per usual it's the framing preferred by the Democratic Party. The entire lens of definition is Donald Trump. His endorsements supposedly reign supreme over a beholden GOP electorate, and this is leading them to nominate extreme, flawed, "election-denying" candidates who put their chances of taking the Senate and key battleground governorships at risk, even in what more honest pundits allow will be a wave year for Republicans in the House.

The top five things Paul Krugman has gotten wrong

Every two years or so, the Spectator World issues a takedown of New York Times columnist and “expert” economist Paul Krugman, who has a notable history of being wrong about absolutely everything. Well, it seems it's that time of year again. The Australians are getting in on the Krugman-dunking game so why shouldn't we? Here’s Cockburn's authoritative ranking of Paul Krugman's Greatest Hits. Krugman denies the recession Fresh from his New York Times opinion piece titled “I Was Wrong About Inflation,” Paul Krugman decided it was time to be wrong about the recession. On Brian Stelter's CNN show Reliable Sources, Krugman said, “I think that what's happening now is that there's been a kind of a negativity bias in coverage.

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Life after liberalism

Liberalism is dying, and the American right is ascendant. That’s the lesson of the last six or eight years of national politics. Barack Obama should have been the beginning of a generational renewal for the Democratic Party. Instead the Democrats have been prisoners of their past. They looked backward in 2016 and nominated Hillary Clinton. After she failed, they reached even further back to nominate Joe Biden, a man born during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. Biden is not simply old; he’s nostalgia personified. He’s a throwback to a time when Democrats were less radical, when the party of FDR and JFK, and even of Bill Clinton, could lay claim to being an everyman’s party.

The War on Normal

The eagerly anticipated midterm elections, now in a countdown, will no doubt reveal vast electoral dismay and division. Inflation, recession, crime, and border invasions are half of it. The Democratic-inspired War on Normal is the other. However impressive GOP victories might be, the fifty-year-old progressive hegemon will endure. Identity hustles, handouts, lawlessness, and cultural rot won’t disappear after the midterms. Disparate impact, non-binary fantasies, and Supreme Court oppositionists in primal breakdowns will persist. Beyond November, cunning propagandists with opportunities at thought control unprecedented in human history will seek to discredit their adversaries. Militants will intimidate authorities. The commercial republic and its assets are the prize.

Trump endorses Eric

Erics across Missouri and indeed this great nation of ours were delighted on Monday when Donald Trump endorsed them for Senate. In Missouri, two candidates, Eric Greitens and Eric Schmitt, have been duking it out for months in the Republican Senate primary. Both have courted Trump, both claim to be America First, and both accuse the other of being a RINO. After begging for some attention from The Donald, the Lion of America at last stepped forward with an endorsement: I trust the Great People of Missouri, on this one, to make up their own minds, much as they did when they gave me landslide victories in the 2016 and 2020 Elections, and I am therefore proud to announce that ERIC has my Complete and Total Endorsement!

Listening and learning at the Young Americans for Freedom conference

Last week, Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) hosted their National Conservative Student Conference with more than 350 attendees from all across America (and parts of Ireland). While Cockburn already mentioned this event in another article, it's worth expanding a bit on what was an interesting right-wing confab. The conference itself had a total of 29 speakers, ranging from Oliver North to Dr. Ben Carson to Zuby. It was held in the local JW Marriott hotel, and conducted via a tight, almost straitjacketing schedule. Staff were constantly hurrying people along to the next event, so much so that the attendees ended up with little free time.

The ‘natcons’ are here to stay

Cast your mind back to the 1990s for a moment. The left, dispirited at their generation-long rout at the hands of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and enraged by the ratification of limited-government trends at the hands of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, were looking for a new rallying point. By the end of the decade, the intellectual left had settled upon a new epithet: “neoliberalism.” Although the term was not brand new, it exploded in popularity in left academic journals and soon in left media too. Simply put, “neoliberalism” means “democratic capitalism.

Trump’s pandemic failures will haunt his 2024 bid

In all likelihood, Donald Trump will soon announce his re-entry into the presidential stakes — a decision that, with the exception of Grover Cleveland and Teddy Roosevelt, is largely unique to American history. In so doing, he plans to build on the success he had in office, the Supreme Court's decisions on abortion and other matters, and the Biden administration's mistreatment of the economy, the border and the culture. But one thing that will absolutely prove to be problematic for Trump when it comes to a primary — which he will absolutely have, given the machinations of multiple politicians who take issue with his approach or who will seek to supplant him — is a defense of his own performance in the last year of his presidency, facing a global pandemic.

Mike Pence mouths his talking points

Former vice president Mike Pence spoke to a crowd of college students on Tuesday as part of the Young America’s Foundation National Conservative Student Conference, which Cockburn attended. Pence appeared alongside others, including Kirk Cameron, Ted Cruz, and Ben Carson. When Pence eventually came out, he received a standing ovation and cheers, as warmly welcomed as Cruz had been the night before. He then proceeded to lay out his “freedom agenda” which toed the line between caricature and pander. In a world of sharp wit and cutting remarks, Pence is more like a club. It was not that Pence’s speech was ineloquent, but rather that he trod on old ground that conservatives were already well acquainted with.

Where in the world is J.D. Vance?

Cockburn loves campaign gossip, and the latest gossipy article from the Daily Beast does little to inspire confidence in Ohio GOP Senate hopeful J.D. Vance. Last week, Vance made a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Israel, which is pretty far from his home state in the Midwest. And apparently the fact that he wasn't campaigning in the Buckeye State has ticked off more than a few Ohioans. This isn’t the first of Vance’s abandonment issues. He’s been missing from Ohio speaking events and conferences, and even ghosted some of his donors according to the Beast’s source in the GOP. This comes a few days after the Beast posted about Vance’s finance issues, stating plainly in the very first line that “The J.D. Vance Campaign is broke.

The attack on Lee Zeldin was an attack on our Constitution

On Thursday, a man jumped onstage and tried to kill one of the two candidates running for New York governor. Fortunately, he failed. Even so, the incident was terrifying, not only because it endangered Representative Lee Zeldin but because it underscores two grave problems facing America. One is the failure of our law enforcement system to treat serious crimes seriously, both to deter them and punish the offenders. This failure makes it a misnomer to speak of our “criminal justice” system. It’s not providing justice, and it's not deterring crime, especially violent crime. The second is the danger violence poses to our established constitutional order, beyond its danger to any individual.

The January 6 committee is dismantling Trump

Joe Biden and Bennie Thompson may be laid up with Covid, but the January 6 committee, to borrow a phrase from Donald Trump, was ready to fight like hell on Thursday. “Doors have opened, new subpoenas have been issued, the dam has begun to break,” declared Representative Liz Cheney at the outset. “He chose not to act,” added Representative Adam Kinzinger, slamming “Trump’s dishonor and dereliction of duty.” Speaking of slamming, it was the footage of Trump smacking the lectern on January 7, as he stumbled through a video intended to display his displeasure with the violence that he fomented, that displayed the real Trump. Vexed, exasperated, distressed. “Yesterday’s a hard word for me,” he announced. “I don’t want to say the election is over.

Democrats are stuck with Biden

The New York Times and the Washington Post sent up flares last weekend: one way or another, they said, Joe Biden is on borrowed time. The last man standing who ended up the answer to Anyone But Trump turned out so inadequate for the job that Deep State media gave him a vote of no confidence and said he should go. The Times wrote a scathing summary of What Everyone Knows: that Biden at 79 is a wreck. In their words, the man "is testing the boundaries of age and the presidency." He can barely walk unassisted. He has zombie moments on stage. He is fully dependent on wife Jill to nudge him onward, redirect him, get him back on the TelePrompTer — and even then he will read anything there, including stage directions, Ron Burgundy-like. Not a pretty picture.

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It’s time for Donald Trump to go

As the war on normal escalates, and a silent majority nationwide grows weary of blue-state chaos, GOP opportunities in the midterm elections and 2024 are vast. But Donald J. Trump and his client army stand in the way of broad Republican victories, impeding the revival of values — freedom, faith, and family — they brandish exclusively as their own. Trump empowers the progressive left. Red-Meat Republicans and Devil-Trump Democrats are locked in a never-ending scorpion dance. For many voters, especially women, Trump’s astonishing boorishness preempts policy evaluation. The nation is the loser. Nonetheless, Donald J. Trump has millions of devotees who — fed up with gilded deceit and leftist disdain — like his crazy.

Don’t expect much from Biden’s Middle East trip

It took Barack Obama less than three months to fly to the Middle East for a visit, landing in Iraq to visit the tens of thousands of US troops stationed there at the time. Donald Trump’s first overseas trip as president was to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (also three months into his tenure), where he basked in the limelight, watched in awe as his face was plastered on buildings in Riyadh, and hovered over a glowing orb with King Salman. Now, eighteen months into his presidency, Joe Biden will be spending a few days this week in the region, making stops in Israel, the West Bank, and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for a summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Doug Schoen’s hacky ‘Hillary can win’ columns, ranked

Cockburn spent this morning mentally reliving the trauma of the 2016 election after reading the latest installment of Doug Schoen’s shilling campaign for another Hillary bid for the presidency. Schoen, a Democratic pollster and former employee of Clinton's, has an entire CV of pro-Hillary op-eds to his name. Here now is the definitive ranking of his pro-Clinton hack jobs. 5. ‘The Hillary Moment,’ November 21, 2011 This daring ode, the first in the series, speaks of his deep infatuation with the Queen of Chillin’ in Cedar Rapids long before she sparred with The Donald. Here, he begs for Obama to step down after his first term lest he lose to the Republicans — a take that didn't age well after 2012. “Mrs.

Combatting the cucked coffee conglomerates

Cockburn is always looking for a good roast to accompany his morning swig of Bailey’s. Luckily, if you’re a card-toting member of the Grand Old Party, own at least one gun, and supported the Iraq War when it was in vogue, you have a plethora of options. On his search to find a coffee that can’t be cucked, Cockburn initially found Black Rifle Coffee Company, which might bring with it a connotation of Ben Shapiro or National Review to any attuned Republican ear. Veteran-owned with blends named “AK-47” and “Coffee, or Die,” the company has poised itself to become any patriot’s official blend, even recently becoming the official coffee of the Dallas Cowboys. Of course, this is not without controversy, on both left and right.

Cassidy Hutchinson broke every rule of being a DC aide

Cassidy Hutchinson, the young woman who testified recently in front of the January 6 Committee, seems unaware that she violated the six basic rules of being a staff aide. She doesn't even know her career is over; in fact, she thinks her efforts will be kickstarting her into fame. Someone should put her in touch with Monica Lewinsky. To understand Cassie's failure requires one to understand the Washington, DC ecology. There are the top-level predators, like Trump and Mark Meadows, his chief of staff, and there are the staff aides like Cassie. So Rule 1 of being a staff aide is knowing your place, followed quickly by Rule 2, never forget you will not be a staff aide forever. The little bird that sits above the rhino's tail seems important, and in a way she is.