Gonzalo N. Escobedo

[Gonzalo N. Escobedo @Escobedogn]

@Fippermom @roddreher Yeap!

[Gonzalo N. Escobedo @Escobedogn]

@AmericaFirst316 @GregoryKBovino Keep calling them “anchors” and similar derogatory names. They are here, they are born citizens, deal with that reality. Maybe conservatives can start trying to appeal to them and try to gain their support.

[Gonzalo N. Escobedo @Escobedogn]

@teodiofidel @DoctorPauls @DineshDSouza Or when you start harassing people based on their ethnicity, arresting people when they are at their court appearances, using a hateful rethoric calling US citizens “anchor babies “, it is not surprising why the GOP lost our support.

[Gonzalo N. Escobedo @Escobedogn]

@JudithGaFa @EmmaRincon “They all..” that’s the problem when talking using generalizations. Could it be that those who were in favor of more strict enforcement changed their mind after witnessing the cruel, brutal methods used in the last 2 years? Many citizens have been harassed and profiled.

[Gonzalo N. Escobedo @Escobedogn]

@JudithGaFa @EmmaRincon Yeah… after “educating “ them about why their parents should be deported, is it reasonable to expect they’d turn around and vote for republicans? Let’s see reality, put yourself in their shoes. That was a big factor in Texas!

[Gonzalo N. Escobedo @Escobedogn]

@JudithGaFa Será por el desprecio y desdén con que son tratados por los MAGA? La crueldad con que ICE se ha conducido? La retórica imperante?

[Edward Feser @FeserEdward]

A demolition of the "most pro-life president ever" nonsense, from @JVanMaren. The reality: "Abortions have increased since Dobbs, as a national network of abortion pill distributors has effectively nullified pro-life laws in over a dozen states by shipping deadly drugs across state lines. The Trump administration could stop this by reversing the Biden-era Covid policy that eliminated the in-person dispensing requirement for abortion pills. Despite intense lobbying from pro-life leaders, it has yet to do so. In October, the Food and Drug Administration approved a second generic abortion pill, lowering costs and expanding access."

That's just for starters. Read the whole thing to understand the scope of the betrayal. As the article notes, most of the credit for the pro-life advances made during the first Trump administration goes to Mike Pence, not Trump. Yet the Trumpoids, despite always whining about alleged pro-life "ingratitude," have thrown Pence under the bus.

[Edward Feser @FeserEdward]

A dead-on analysis, and these policy failures all trace to the lack of moral character necessary for statesmanship. Future generations will marvel that so many people sympathetic to traditional morality could delude themselves that a man so devoid of virtue could be a good leader

[Bernard Stanford ✡︎ @stanfordNYC]

Republicans are going to have a terrible night, and the simple reason why is that Trump has put up perhaps the worst *performance* this term of any president in a century or more.

Remember that he entered with an actual mandate: the House and Senate, a popular vote victory and a swing-state sweep, and 6-3 Supreme Court. Democrats were afraid enough to vote for mild but real immigration restrictionist legislation in the Laken Riley Act. Everyone wondered how far the "Vibe Shift" would go.

Trump managed to turn that into essentially zero durable wins whatsoever. He personally *hates* the very idea of legislation, the notion that he would have to spend time going back and forth with Congress, learning details and making compromises. So he simply didn't do it! He didn't make a compelling case for abolishing the filibuster. He didn't try communicating clearly to the public in support of popular bills to get to 60 votes. He just decided not to do it at all.

So they passed an unpopular tax cut, some funding for ICE, and a sop to the crypto industry, and that was basically it. Least productive Congress in decades, due to the tastes of one man.

Trump adopted one of the worst macro policies we've ever had: high deficits, high tariffs, and attacks on central bank independence. We managed to pay higher interest rates while still having high trade deficits AND weakening the dollar. Just a total failure.

On immigration, perhaps THE signature issue, Trump essentially min-maxxed effectiveness and backlash. Instead of trying to leverage the political moment for new laws and a self-deportation agenda (that is, walling off the economy to remove the benefit of irregular presence in the US), he opted for a maximally aggressive approach. The administration spent attention, funds, legal manpower on stunts like deporting random people to Salvadoran prisons with essentially no due process. ICE and Border Patrol were encouraged to be aggressive and confrontational, which helped contribute to the shooting deaths of American protestors. It turns out, that's extremely unpopular!

What about the approach of going after employers? The obvious vector? Trump hated that idea! He repeatedly has said he doesn't want to target businesses (especially farms) that use large amounts of illegal labor. This is just an incomprehensible position. Instead of charging a few dozen businessmen and removing the incentive for millions of illegal workers to be here, you arrest people off the street one by one at the cost of thousands of dollars in manpower per each, while their crying wives and kids post TikToks about it.

Upshot on immigration: electoral strength turned into a crippling electoral weakness in exchange for deporting maybe 6% of the illegally present population.

The tariffs were a total shitshow. Embarrassing rollout, no underlying theory of action at all. No targeted focus on key industries. Our country tariffed products we can't grow. We tariffed *inputs* of our own valuable exports. The schemes and amounts changed constantly, sending the stock market reeling and presenting scenes of chaos to the world.

Trump's messaging throughout has been generationally bad. While facing nearly 2:1 unpopularity, he spends his days posting AI slop, saying he'll rename New Mexico or invade allies, among other bizarre remarks. He brags about a ballroom and a pool repainting while gas hits records. At no point has he ever attempted any kind of message discipline.

Then there are the deeply unpopular attacks on rule of law, his "game-recognize-game" pardons for all manner of scammers and criminals, the crypto schemes that he and his family engage in, the evilly conceived and embarrassingly executed legal attacks on Comey, Jerome Powell, and others. With his monthslong stand on NOT releasing the Epstein files, he became maybe the first president ever to stake out a 99-1 issue on the 1% side.

That's not even getting into Iran, DOGE, his candidate recruitment choices, or countless other things. Simply put: Trump has managed to royally screw up virtually every single facet of his presidency. It's been undeniable, voters have noticed, and there's really no escape from it. This is what the GOP base chose in early 2024, and this is the world they're living with now. Where they handed the reins of history to a fat, vain, washed-up old man and let him drive.

[Rod Dreher @roddreher]

Above everything else, this right here is why Republicans got wiped out tonight. The leader of the party lives in an epistemic bubble of megalomania, where facts, reason, and data mean nothing. All the bad policies followed from this.

[Catholic Pebble @CatholicPebble]

If you could only read one passage of the Bible, it would have to be the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes.

For some reason, I feel the Beatitudes do not get the attention they deserve. Perhaps it is because they paint a picture of the life on this Earth as being truly a valley of tears.

Our Lord mentions those who are poor in spirit, humble, small and simple; those who mourn and suffer. Those who do not attract attention. They may be invisible. They crave not what the world has to offer, neither riches nor praise. They do not detest God's creation but treat it all, including themselves, as dust.

You may think they're boring. They may not follow the latest news nor do they take too much interest in worldly dramas. They may not even talk much. They do not pose as excessively humble, they do not spend too much time making sure everyone knows how pious they are.

They are traditionalist at heart, but without the obligatory social cues such as pipes or cigars. If they speak Latin, it's because they love the language of the Church, not because they get to sound intellectual. If they don't speak Latin, they don't decide to learn it just because. Perhaps they know their language learning abilities are limited.

If they go to TLM, they do not consider themselves any better. If they go to NO, they adore the Eucharist, understanding that they are there to witness a sacrifice. If they suffer a clown Mass unintentionally, they weep silently, offering their pain to God. They don't monetize it.

They know they don't deserve any of the Sacraments.

They cry and ask for God's help, very much aware they don't deserve it.

They plead with the hierarchy but they never demand. Demanding means something is owed to you. They know they are but dust and what is owed to the dust? Nothing indeed. They do demand that what is owed to God be given to God but not because it suits them. It's simply because they love justice.

Which one of us here lives the Beatitudes? Which one of us knows everything is a gift? We all demand. We all believe we deserve. We are not poor in spirit. When we mourn, we do it in a way that makes the Earth tremble, so that everyone knows how bad we have it. We are not meek or merciful; we may be weak on the one hand or cruel on the other. But we know not what mercy truly is. Above all, we do not feel blessed when persecuted. We complain a lot.

If there is a piece of advice I could give to everyone on X, including myself, it is this: meditate on the Beautitudes daily. Pick one each day and contemplate what it means. Read what the Church teaches on them, what the saints commented, and implement it into your own life. Little by little, step by step.

I can promise you it will suck in earthly terms. But each of these Beatitudes carries eternal rewards that make it absolutely worth it.

Let us suck to the world so we can be more pleasing to God.

[Gonzalo N. Escobedo @Escobedogn]

@1996FordBronco @grok @FeserEdward Who was the most anti-life GOP administration?
https://t.co/4sYln7NbYA

[Edward Feser @FeserEdward]

Oh, you mean like the chief executive who pledged to keep abortion pills accessible (and has kept that pledge), promotes IVF, has said that pro-lifers need to be flexible on the Hyde amendment, and has actively fought state-level measures against abortion? That executive?

[Gonzalo N. Escobedo @Escobedogn]

@heofonbeorht @DrKwasniewski He already did, this man with his vitriolic and narcissistic attitudes has caused enormous damage to the TLM cause.

[Gonzalo N. Escobedo @Escobedogn]

@raymundoabrego @DeniseDresserG @Pao_Sanzfan1 @Claudiashein No

[Gonzalo N. Escobedo @Escobedogn]

@AmericanAir we have been on board of flight AA2291 waiting on the DFW runway for over 30 minutes with no air conditioning on board. Is this how you respect your customers?

[Gonzalo N. Escobedo @Escobedogn]

@Ferhaaz @Cuauhtemoc_1521 Gomez Farías fue el que orquestó la traición.

[Gonzalo N. Escobedo @Escobedogn]

@mam180331763572 @VigiaCiudadano7 La policía de caminos ya no existe.

[Gonzalo N. Escobedo @Escobedogn]

@TaqueroDelMame @OmarZM_01 @AnaPOrdorica Imaginen el olor que esa cantidad de metano va a generar!

[Shane Ryan @ShaneRyanHere]

People will think I'm crazy for this take, but I'm a big believer in the psychological impact of narratives on teams. Yes, Belgium looked so much better tonight and we looked lost. But this team had a boatload of good vibes behind them, and in the last 48 hours that vanished, and replacing it was a story of implicit political corruption that turned them into the bad guys, or at least the beneficiary of the corruption. You can't tell me that doesn't put pressure on the team, change the vibe, and take a psychological toll that impacted what happened on the field. American fans, serious and casual, should be pissed at this interference. We overturned a red card and our reward was losing what made this team so much fun until now.