Ryan Knoppe

blue check

[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.

[Paul Graham @paulg]

In Texas they found 117 potential noncitizens out of 18 million voters. That's .00065%. And that's an an upper bound; these are merely "potential" noncitizens.

This is a fake problem.

[PBS News @NewsHour]

A new NPR investigation reveals the Department of Justice withheld portions of the Jeffrey Epstein files that contain allegations involving President Trump. https://t.co/KlVpX9joUm

[Sheldon Whitehouse @SenWhitehouse]

“The Justice Department has withheld some Epstein files related to allegations that President Trump sexually abused a minor, an NPR investigation finds.” https://t.co/43FAFiyhJf

[Ryan Knoppe @RKnoppe]

@pdoocy You’re a shill for the Republican Party. Everyone knows it and nobody takes you seriously.

[Ryan Knoppe @RKnoppe]

@StephenM Ever heard of checks and balances? You dweeb

[Ryan Knoppe @RKnoppe]

@elonmusk Cringe

[Michael Patrón @michaelpatron0]

Here is some insight on how tariffs work. For the most part I don't see anyone that actually understands them at all. Take the backpack below. This item prob costs 15 USD to manufacture. When imported to the US, a tariff is a tax that applies a % to the cost of the...

[Ryan Knoppe @RKnoppe]

@elonmusk God you are such an idiot

[Ryan Knoppe @RKnoppe]

@elonmusk Definition of cringe

[Ryan Knoppe @RKnoppe]

@elonmusk This is pure misinformation. It took 2 seconds of googling to see that this is not the Reuters news company. Don’t listen to wannabe dr. Evil.

[Ryan Knoppe @RKnoppe]

@elonmusk Now do republicans

[Ryan Knoppe @RKnoppe]

@JDVance It’s called checks and balances you nincompoop

[Ryan Knoppe @RKnoppe]

@elonmusk Did everyone tell you not to do a nazi salute at the presidential inauguration?

[Andrew Yang🧢⬆️🇺🇸 @AndrewYang]

And we are back! I will give my x earnings to someone who reposts this message and follows this account. Will pick a winner at random on Sunday am. Good luck!! 😀

[Ryan Knoppe @RKnoppe]

@wolffdew So that’s the level of expectations we live by know? Women’s rights in Afghanistan?

[Ryan Knoppe @RKnoppe]

@Brandenemiller I’m 40 but thinking the exact same thing

[Arnold Schwarzenegger @Schwarzenegger]

I don’t really do endorsements. I’m not shy about sharing my views, but I hate politics and don’t trust most politicians.

I also understand that people want to hear from me because I am not just a celebrity, I am a former Republican Governor.

My time as Governor taught me to love policy and ignore politics. I’m proud of the work I did to help clean up our air, create jobs, balance the budget, make the biggest infrastructure investment in state history, and take power from the politicians and give it back to the people when it comes to our redistricting process and our primaries in California.

That’s policy. It requires working with the other side, not insulting them to win your next election, and I know it isn’t sexy to most people, but I love it when I can help make people’s lives better with policies, like I still do through my institute at USC, where we fight for clean air and stripping the power from the politicians who rig the system against the people.

Let me be honest with you: I don’t like either party right now. My Republicans have forgotten the beauty of the free market, driven up deficits, and rejected election results. Democrats aren’t any better at dealing with deficits, and I worry about their local policies hurting our cities with increased crime.

It is probably not a surprise that I hate politics more than ever, which, if you are a normal person who isn’t addicted to this crap, you probably understand.

I want to tune out.

But I can’t. Because rejecting the results of an election is as un-American as it gets. To someone like me who talks to people all over the world and still knows America is the shining city on a hill, calling America is a trash can for the world is so unpatriotic, it makes me furious.

And I will always be an American before I am a Republican.

That’s why, this week, I am voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

I’m sharing it with all of you because I think there are a lot of you who feel like I do. You don’t recognize our country. And you are right to be furious.

For decades, we’ve talked about the national debt. For decades, we’ve talked about comprehensive immigration reform that secures the border while fixing our broken immigration system. And Washington does nothing.

The problems just keep rolling, and we all keep getting angrier, because the only people that benefit from problems aren’t you, the people. The only people that benefit from this crap are the politicians who prefer having talking points to win elections to the public service that will make Americans’ lives better.

It is a just game to them. But it is life for my fellow Americans. We should be pissed!

But a candidate who won’t respect your vote unless it is for him, a candidate who will send his followers to storm the Capitol while he watches with a Diet Coke, a candidate who has shown no ability to work to pass any policy besides a tax cut that helped his donors and other rich people like me but helped no one else else, a candidate who thinks Americans who disagree with him are the bigger enemies than China, Russia, or North Korea - that won’t solve our problems.

It will just be four more years of bullshit with no results that makes us angrier and angrier, more divided, and more hateful.

We need to close the door on this chapter of American history, and I know that former President Trump won’t do that. He will divide, he will insult, he will find new ways to be more un-American than he already has been, and we, the people, will get nothing but more anger.

That’s enough reason for me to share my vote with all of you. I want to move forward as a country, and even though I have plenty of disagreements with their platform, I think the only way to do that is with Harris and Walz.

Vote this week. Turn the page and put this junk behind us.

And even if you disagree with me, vote, because that’s what we do as Americans. https://t.co/eHFZ723I4H

[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC]

Organizing ask: I need every Boricua on here to take that rally clip and drop it in your family WhatsApps and group chats. 🇵🇷🇵🇷🇵🇷🇵🇷🇵🇷

ESPECIALLY if you have family in these states. And give them the link to https://t.co/0UX182dJe5 while you’re at it.

Ya tu sabes ⬇️

[Ryan Knoppe @RKnoppe]

@BGrueskin @maxwelltani I just cancelled as well @washingtonpost