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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023

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Since it’s election denialism day. Let’s talk strategy on the Hunter laptop. I believe this is an accepted fact now: The FBI had possession of the laptop a year prior to the election and had verified it while being aware Guiliani and others had a copy. Hunter and Joe also knew he had a copy.

Guiliani’s behavior makes sense to me. You have a bombshell on the opposition so you release it last minute for maximum effect.

But what about the lefts/fbi play? The play they ended up choosing was do nothing until it’s released then claim it’s a Russian plant. Now the fbi ran with something going to happen from Russia that is misinformation to their media and social media partners. Those who did that I guess have plausible deniability they just meant a “general threat” and weren’t aware it was “Hunters verified laptop”. I have my doubts those people hadn’t been read in on the laptop.

My question is why wasn’t this leaked earlier? Prevent the October surprise by getting it out earlier? Ideally even perhaps the primaries so you just didn’t have to deal with Joe. All it would have taken is telling Warren or Sanders about it and then they go get a copy from Isaacs.

Instead the path chosen seems to have been let’s run a psy-op to protect Biden. It just seems like frequently when given choices people seem to be choosing let’s just lie to them.

I guess the conclusion I can come up with is the people with access to the laptop were not fans of a lot of the Democratic Party and weren’t fans of Trump.

I know the Sanders people have long thought the official DNC was against them. And I’m no Sanders fan. But the fact no one tipped them off to the laptop when it could have been used seems interesting. Along with what felt like a successful media-op which I guess was organized by the FBI.

Alternative strategy Guiliani actually have played it wrong and should have released it earlier to let it get digested instead of late to swing a few voters. And Isaac perhaps was more partisan since he didn’t get a copy to the left.

The FBI's behavior makes perfect sense if you assume a couple of things that I think are pretty evidently true:

  1. The bulk of the actors were personally acting corruptly. That is, with a corrupt motive to protect Joe Biden.
  2. They were not particularly competent. At least no so competent that they know when to leak the news so Biden wins.
  3. They knew they could not coordinate internally over official communications systems regarding their corruption, even with other corrupt officials they had high certainty shared their corrupt motives.

Part 3 means that the corrupt actors know they can only communicate through "the blob". Via selective leaks to each other to indicate when to coordinate a thing. The perfect timing of a release of an "October surprise" is not something these things are good at. Deputy director of Delaware field office, no matter his/her partisanship, does not have confidence in his choice of perfect timing to leak obviously harmful information on his preferred presidential candidate. Thus, you default to not leaking, and hope it all stays under wraps till midnight on the 2nd Tuesday of November.

Then it leaks. But now the path forward is obvious to all the corrupt actors: Use your previously cultivated corrupt media fences to spread a cover up, as it only need last a few weeks, this is something intel agency leakers know they are good at coordinating.

So that is all you really need to think.

I largely agree with these type of takes. Honestly wish we had a Bernie bro or normie Dem to comment.

One thing interesting for these scenerios is it means normie Dems don’t think they have any bench of electable Dems at the national level. If they did they could have used this to push Biden aside.

The other interesting thought for these type of views is it means a large part of the beuracracy believes this is true:

Electing Trump is worse than lying to the American people and having a large part of America lose faith in Institutions.

A part of the reason for asking these questions is I would like a different explanation than a large part of our government is down with lying to Americans. Kristen Anderson is another person who from my view seems like he chose lie to Americans over honesty. It just seems like a lot of people are choosing this.

A part of me would be absolutely fine if these guys just ran with Biden is super corrupt but well Trump is uniquely bad. I might vote for that. But I’m voting against those who lie to me.

Hi.

I guess I’m what passes for a garden-variety Democrat, and I think you’re assuming some conclusions.

The FBI had spent four years losing credibility by investigating people too hard, not hard enough, or at all. Longer if you count the Clinton “re-opening” nonsense. When faced with yet another kingmaking opportunity, are you surprised they decided not to take the initiative?

More generally, I think you’re too inclined to view your enemies as monolithic. The continuum looks more like this:

  • Giuliani/Russia/aliens faked the laptop
  • the laptop is real, but I haven’t bothered to look at it
  • Hunter is a tool, but what’s it got to do with Biden Sr.?
  • the implications of Biden’s involvement are real, but it’s not disqualifying
  • Biden should be disqualified, but these are unusual times
  • Biden should be disqualified, but I will work to cover that up for the greater good

Notice that only the last one requires lying! Combine that with some unthinking solidarity, and you will see people parrot a party line without any malice. Go team.

There are far more people as you go up the continuum. I’m personally in the third or fourth camp.


Edit for clarity:

I don't find it hard to believe that the last couple groups are overrepresented in the Intelligence Community™. I also think it's a mistake to draw conclusions about the Democratic Party, general bureaucracy, prospects for the country, etc. based on those guys.

So then what’s your response for them taking an active position instead of remaining neutral and keeping their mouth shut?

It’s a bold lack of strategy, Cotton. They kind of picked the worst option.

No, I think the FBI is more likely to be low down on the continuum. Including flailing around with half-assed denials, regardless of what they know is true.

Not sure what you mean. But it sounds like your saying slider your not a conspiracy theorists they did lie to you and knew they were lying to you. Since when I google your meme it comes up as a bold strategy that worked.

I actually don’t mind saying Trump is bad and I’d prefer not to vote for him but I think we could have a lot of healing if more on the left started saying this was a bad thing our allies did to them.

That's what I was suggesting, yeah.

There's a Venn diagram. One circle, people who knew ahead of time. The other, people who loudly insisted it was fake. The guys in the middle are your conspiracy. I think this overlap is pretty small, but yeah, screw those guys.

The more I look...I dunno. I'm getting the impression that the FBI clammed up and thus mostly stayed out of the second circle. Still looking for examples of official statements.

Interesting. I had never seen before that someone from the fbi said it was real. But ya the intel thing I’ve seen.

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