Robert M Smith, Jr.

Husband of 52 years, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, Latter-day Saint, retired attorney, conservative who likes golf, skiing, and travel.

[Robert M Smith, Jr. @rmsj51]

What strange politics we have. The Democrats under President Biden ran up the cost of everything by obscene inflation, and immediately pivoted to blaming Trump and making the midterms all about lowering the cost of living. Republicans then took a shellacking while job creation was booming, unemployment was falling, poverty rates were at a record low, medium household income was at an all time high, GDP was growing at 3.4%, consumer spending was up, private domestic investment was up big, manufacturing expanded for the 10th consecutive month, with production reaching its highest level in 5 years, while inflation was 3.4%, down from 9.1% in 2022. Go figure.

[Robert M Smith, Jr. @rmsj51]

@ConceptualJames Wacko.

[James Lindsay, anti-Communist @ConceptualJames]

Canada remains batshit under its lying leadership.

[Ulisses Soares @Ulisses__Soares]

Yesterday I had the privilege of representing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in a special interfaith meeting at Palacio San Martín in Buenos Aires, Argentina, alongside Pope Leo XIV and other important civic and religious leaders.

I was especially touched by the Pope’s expressions of respect for human dignity and the importance of uniting our efforts to protect human life and the world in which we live.

Echoing these teachings of Jesus Christ, our prophet President Dallin H. Oaks has recently urged all of God’s children to become peacemakers by following the first and second great commandments of loving God and neighbor.

May each of us live by these principles and continue to find common ground with those with whom we share this beautiful world.

[Alayna Treene @alaynatreene]

Letter from WH counsel Will Scharf to incoming House Oversight chair Robert Garcia on future Democratic investigations:

"Beyond being inconsistent with the clear, well-recognized constitutional limitations on your
investigative functions, threats to executive branch officials designed to deter them from public
service, or process designed merely to abuse or instill fear in the recipient may cross the line into
blatant criminality. And issuing unlawful subpoenas with the intention of depriving citizens of their
constitutional rights and privileges may warrant further investigation."

[Ramin Parsa @ramin_parsa]

JD Vance is exactly what I said he was from the jump: an opportunistic vulture, a chameleon with no core, and a man who will never earn my support.

He hated Trump. Called him “America’s Hitler.” Called him “reprehensible.” Said he was a “Never Trump” guy who couldn’t stomach him and voted third party.

Then the political winds shifted, Trump became useful, and suddenly Vance was the loudest convert in the room. Now that the 2026 midterms went sideways, he’s quietly sliding the knife in again… blaming the Iran conflict and America’s relationship with Israel for the losses while the President he serves still defends the decision as necessary. That’s not loyalty. That’s self-preservation. A real Vice President doesn’t publicly undercut the Commander-in-Chief’s agenda the morning after a defeat. It’s unprofessional, unprecedented, and cowardly.

Vance has no executive experience and almost no real legislative record. As a freshman senator with roughly two years in office, he sponsored dozens of standalone bills (around 57). None that he introduced as primary sponsor became law. Zero. He was a junior senator who talked a lot, introduced culture-war messaging bills, and failed to deliver. What makes anyone believe that record qualifies him to be Commander-in-Chief? Leadership isn’t vibes and podcasts. It’s results under pressure. He has neither.

Worse, he still refuses to rebuke Tucker Carlson. Carlson has spent the last year aggressively platforming and amplifying antisemitic garbage and conspiracies that attack the very foundation of the Republic. Vance calls him a friend and won’t “throw him under the bus.” That’s not principle… it’s another calculation. When forced to choose between standing with the President, the country, and basic decency versus protecting a media ally, Vance chose Tucker. Every time.

America needs men of actual character and proven leadership. Marco Rubio has both. He’s a Patriot who has stood firm, delivered results, and earned respect across the movement. A Rubio/DeSantis ticket would be formidable. Vance is another Mike Pence… useful when it suited him, disposable when the heat arrived, and ultimately not worth a footnote in the history books.

Character is destiny. Vance has shown his. He can keep squirming, distancing, and hedging. The rest of us who actually care about America First, loyalty, and winning will move on without him.

[Stephanie Morgan @FreedomMomUSA]

Perspective.

[Erika Kirk @MrsErikaKirk]

To see leftist podcasters, comedians, and commentators laugh about political assassination as though it’s entertainment and the destruction of a human life is a punchline, is beyond disgusting.

My husband, Charlie Kirk, was killed in an act of political violence, something our two children and I will live with every day for the rest of our lives.

A culture that laughs at assassination is one of profound moral decay. It threatens the very foundation of our country and the principles that hold our democracy together.

You do not have to agree with someone’s politics to recognize the value of their life. This should not be so hard.

Political violence must never be something this country tolerates, excuses, or celebrates.

[James Lindsay, anti-Communist @ConceptualJames]

Communism, and from it much of the evil of the 20th century and that we face in the world today, got itself back off the ground 109 years ago and became a terror in the world. Its countless victims should be an inspiration to us all to value and treasure our liberty.

[Liza Rosen @LizaRosen0000]

🎯🎯🎯

[Robert M Smith, Jr. @rmsj51]

@overton_news Look in the mirror. You’re describing yourself.

[Department of State @StateDept]

Communism is the most barbaric, evil ideology the world has ever seen.

Today and every day, we mourn the tens of millions of innocent men, women, and children slain at the hands of this wicked ideology.

[Gad Saad @GadSaad]

Politician: I hate your culture, your civilization, your religion, your society, your people. I hate your music. I hate your dogs. I hate your literature. I hate your personal freedoms and liberties. I hate everything about you. Everything.

Electorate: Sure but do you hate Trump?

Politician: Yes.

Electorate: Well then, I see no reason not to vote for you. You've earned my vote.

[James Lindsay, anti-Communist @ConceptualJames]

Appeasement never works.

You can't appease your way out of Communism.

You can't appease your way out of Fascism.

You can't appease your way out of antisemitism.

You can't appease your way out of Jihad.

Containment. Strangulation. Destruction.

[Liza Rosen @LizaRosen0000]

Follow her.

[Robert M Smith, Jr. @rmsj51]

@EricLDaugh This is pure political hate speech.

[Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh]

🚨 JUST IN: CNN is facing major blowback for giving airtime to Scott Galloway after he insinuated ELON MUSK should be EXECUTED for being a "traitor to the west"

Anderson Cooper just acts like it never happened 😠

PROTECT ELON AT ALL COSTS 🙏🏻

Galloway said: "We lined up the Rosenbergs against a wall. This is a traitor to the West, and he should be held to the same standards as every other traitor in the West."

He doubled down on Election Day: "We took the Rosenbergs and put them up against a wall and executed them for being traitors. And I realize this is an incendiary statement, but I'll make it, and I believe it."

Any conservative who said this about a Democrat would be banned from every network for life!

[Maye Musk @mayemusk]

It’s wonderful to get around at 99 years old, instead of depending on family and friends.🥰🥰

[James Lindsay, anti-Communist @ConceptualJames]

Much of what's happening to us is something called "accelerationism," which is the idea of accelerating certain trends and processes such that their high velocity collapses them for radical social and political change.

Historically, accelerationism more specifically referred to accelerating the processes and "contradictions" of capitalism in order to get capitalist systems to collapse from within so they could be replaced, typically by some sort of socialism.

In our current situation, there are two kinds of political accelerationism that are called "L/acc" and "R/acc" (usually l/acc and r/acc in the lowercase, but I want to make the letters clear so I'm using the capitals). These refer to "Left Accelerationism" and "Right Accelerationism."

Both of these models operate under the Rules for Radicals (Saul Alinsky) model of "Your enemy's reaction is your real action." The objective is to get your enemy to overreact politically so it discredits their side and enables your own.

A great deal of the Woke Leftist activism, including how they weaponized cancel culture, was designed to run the L/acc playbook under the Alinsky doctrine. The idea wasn't just to advance their own power but also to trigger an extremist reaction on the Right that they could use to advance their Leftist causes in the next turn of the game.

L/acc is usually phrased "accelerate Right in order to rebound Left." The objective is to anger and provoke the Right so much that they overreact and overstep to justify a rebound to the hard(er) Left than the Left could achieve on its own.

The Groypers and Groyperism, on the other hand, are running the R/acc playbook, also under the Alinsky doctrine. This is why Nick Fuentes is always pushing Democrats and this idea that the GOP and Trump and MAGA are frauds that have failed everyone, while pushing the dynamics of MAGA to an unsupportable extreme.

R/acc is usually phrased "accelerate Left in order to rebound Right." The strategy is to get Democrats elected in the short term, use the problems that causes to radicalize more people to a hard-Right (Woke Right) position and cause so they can get a right-wing dictator somewhere down the line. The Groypers and Fuentes espouse this doctrine explicitly, unlike their Leftist peers.

The mechanism in both cases is to create a sense of existential fear in the other side and to push moderates away. Imagine a Leftist telling people there's only antiracists and racists (e.g., Kendi). Part of the goal of this push is to get moderates who reject their idea of "antiracism" to decide to be racist in a defensive way. They can say they were pushed to become "more right-wing" or "forced to adopt white identity politics to defend themselves." That's L/acc.

What this existential dread, and often anger, hurt, and hate, is designed to produce are people who were formerly reasonable moderates who adopt the friend-enemy distinction in politics to choose a political war-tribe. Reason, truth, goodness, etc., are all thrown out the window for a political war-tribe hellbent on defeating the "enemy."

L/acc aims to weaponize the friend-enemy distinction on the Left in order to operationalize the friend-enemy distinction on the Right.
R/acc aims to weaponize the friend-enemy distinction on the Right in order to operationalize the friend-enemy distinction on the Left.

What we've been referring to as political tribalism or polarization or whatever is in fact the increasing adoption of the friend-enemy distinction by both sides through repeated cycles of this game, which is being run deliberately in order to destabilize our country (you can say it here: Russia, Russia, Russia, or, if you want, color revolution).

It's L/acc to R/acc to L/acc to R/acc to L/acc to R/acc over and over and over again until America is sufficiently politically war-tribalized to become internally dysfunctional and at threat of destroying itself until finally one side or the other gets a dictator.

You might think it matters to either side which side gets their dictator, but that's only for the fools pulled into the game. The organizers of this game realize a dictator is a dictator is a dictator, and a dictator is the end of freedom either way. The details of how the autocracy will be run can be worked out and adjusted after the Constitution is removed and burned and no one has any of their individual liberties secured to oppose them.

In fact, you could argue that these sides, whatever plays out in the streets, are working together, not apart, to rip our countries to shreds.

The answer, of course, is not to play this game at all. Not playing it isn't just avoiding it, though. It's also exposing it. That means exposing the game itself and how its being played to undermine us, including the people playing it, along with its operational goals.

Going further Right due to Leftist provocation is playing the L/acc game, which aims to eventually "rebound Left."

Going further Left due to Rightist provocation is playing the R/acc game, which aims to eventually "rebound Right."

Noticing this game is being played by extremists in a back-to-back iterated fashion is key to understanding how polarization agents (Russia, Russia, Russia) are tearing us apart from within.

[Prof. Brian Keating @Briankeating]

I am a professor at the @UofCalifornia. I am appalled by the conduct of one of its Regents, Scott Galloway, appointed in August by Governor Newsom.

@profgalloway is one of only 26 voting Regents entrusted with governing a university system serving hundreds of thousands of students & employing tens of thousands of faculty & staff.

Twice, first on a live Pivot episode featuring Hillary Clinton & on Prof G with Fareed Zakaria, Galloway called Elon Musk a “traitor to the West.”

He invoked Julius & Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed for espionage, and declared that Musk should be held to the same standards.

He didn’t explicitly demand Musk’s execution. But invoking the deaths of two convicted spies while calling an American citizen a traitor makes the implication hard to miss.

Musk has not been convicted of treason. Indeed, “treason against the West” isn’t even an actual crime.

Now imagine UCLA alumnus @BenShapiro, appointed a UC Regent, saying the same about George Soros.

Would the Governor defend his right to serve? Would Regent leadership shrug and call it provocative commentary? Or would there be demands for resignation?

But there’s something worse here than another of Scott’s trademark podcast rants.

He sits on the Regents’ Academic & Student Affairs Committee.

The committee’s charter says it oversees student conduct, faculty conduct, academic personnel, & campus climate, among other responsibilities.

This is not some honorary title.

The Board sets university policy, controls institutional budgets, & appoints senior university leadership.

You can unsubscribe from a podcast.

A student who finds Scott’s comments morally repugnant can’t unsub from the Regents.

UC bylaws require Regents to serve the public trust with a “high degree of ethics and candor,” including as private citizens.

Professors owe students intellectual integrity. Regents bear an even greater duty: they govern institutions that teach it.

Yet a Regent serving on the committee responsible for student & faculty conduct invokes executions while labeling a fellow citizen a traitor.

What does that say to our students?

That intellectual restraint is expected of the governed but optional for those who govern?

That standards of conduct depend on whether the target of your rhetoric is politically fashionable to despise, as long as the audience applauds?

This isn’t about defending @ElonMusk. He needs no defense from me.

Nor is it about silencing Scott. As if that were possible. He’s free to express his opinions, however reckless they may be.

But freedom of speech is not freedom from accountability, and holding a university office of public trust is not an entitlement.

There is an enormous moral chasm between exercising your right to speak recklessly and demonstrating the judgment required of one of the 26 people who govern our great public university.

The UC Board of Regents isnt a podcast sponsors can boycott. It’s a public trust.

One final irony. At @NYUStern, Galloway teaches Brand Strategy, including a session on crisis management.

His own prescription for leadership in a crisis is unequivocal: acknowledge the problem, have leadership take responsibility, and “overcorrect.”

He’s praised the departure of corporate leaders as evidence of effective crisis management.

Now Galloway himself sits on the UC Board of Regents.

Will he hold himself to the standards he teaches, or does accountability apply only to other people’s institutions?

Professor lecture thyself!

I believe Scott Galloway should seriously consider whether his continued service on the Board of Regents is consistent with the ethical standards and responsibilities of that office, or whether he should resign.

I welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues with Galloway directly, including what standards we should expect of those entrusted with governing the world’s best university.

Scott, you have an open invitation to join me on @Into_Impossible for an honest conversation.