Before President-Elect Donald Trump had time to change the White House drapes back in 2016, serious political commentators found themselves scrambling to make sense of Trump’s black swan victory. A consensus soon emerged that the vast swath of forgotten Americans sent Trump to DC as a shot across the bipartite ruling class’ bow. The people whose ancestors had built the country were sick of being betrayed by their nominal representatives. The conventional thinking went that politics – Republican Party politics in particular – would never be the same.
Establishment Republicans wasted no time doing what they do best: ignoring their voters and striving to reassert the status quo ante. If you look at the Trump administration’s failures, most of them were caused by interference from his own party. It was John McCain who foiled the Obamacare repeal and Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell who thwarted the border wall. When congressional Democrats put on impeachment theater to distract from their dirty dealings, a number of Republicans voted for it. People forget that it was Republican governors in states like Arizona and Georgia who ensured Trump would lose the presidency.
But it turned out that getting rid of the flyover rubes’ champion didn’t quash the ideas he popularized. So the GOPe shifted to the other tactic they do best. They trawled the alphabet soup agencies for pliant glowies they could run as MAGA skinsuits. Their MO is always the same: Get a focus-grouped shill to beat the drum for the economic side of Trump’s agenda while declaring the demographic and religious elements out of bounds. The result is a candidate who favors what Democrats were pushing for in 2012, but with lower corporate taxes.
It’s not just the party bigwigs, either. Look around the Conservative mediascape, and you’ll see that every outfit from NRO to Daily Wire to TPUSA is mouthing the same Mammon Mob line.
With one notable yet forbidden exception.
Founded by Christian nationalist Nicholas J. Fuentes, AF rose from the pack of right-wing dissident movements that came to prominence in the Trump years. AF’s groypers distinguished themselves by being smart and clean-cut while others descended into grotesque self-parody.
And no less important, they were effective.
By showing up at Q&A events and putting establishment mouthpieces on the spot, the groypers exposed the skinsuits’ lack of morals. This tactic culminated in TPUSA head Charlie Kirk changing his “green card stapled to every diploma” stance on immigration.
Fuentes’ team has also put on three political action conferences, each bigger than the last. AFPAC has grown out of the budget hotel where it began to hosting sitting congressmen and major media figures at lavish resorts.
And it’s that latter development which led to AF’s biggest achievement to date.
In the runup to this year’s elections, Nick endorsed a number of outsider candidates, some of whom he interacted with through AFPAC:
- Paul Gosar
- Wendy Rogers
- Mark Finchem
- Blake Masters
- John Gibbs
- Kari Lake
- Kris Kobach
- Joe Kent
The last name on that list has special significance, which we’ll get into soon.
But first, here’s a list of this year’s primary results:
That’s right. Every AF-endorsed candidate has won or is winning a (disgracefully drawn-out) race.
With the sole exception of Mr. Kent.
Why is Joe Kent the only candidate on the list above who’s missing from the winners’ circle?
Because Nick rescinded AF’s endorsement after Kent went on record with the following:
What’s left to say? If Joe Kent didn’t already exist, the GOPe “Don’t look behind the curtain!” types would’ve had to build him in a factory.
It also turns out that Joe Kent is CIA.
Not that it should have mattered. Kent got endorsements from Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, and Donald Trump himself.
But then Nick Fuentes told his organization to destroy Kent’s campaign.
Full disclosure: I was doubtful that the groypers could have much effect on Kent’s Washington congressional race. They even had to cancel a planned rally in Kent’s district due to lack of time.
Yet instead of coasting to an easy win, Joe Kent is fighting for his political life in a race he was projected to sweep but is now on track to lose.
To my knowledge – and I kept pretty close tabs on this one – nobody else in the dissident scene was trying to spoil Joe Kent’s campaign.
If Kent had won or lost in a landslide, you could rightly argue for more and larger forces at play.
But as of this writing, the most probable outcome is that Kent loses by under a thousand votes. The second most likely result is takes the silver by a few hundred-vote margin.
That means the groypers did this. Joe Kent disavowed them, and they groyped him.
Which, combined with their favored candidates sweeping the primaries, makes AF a serious political movement. The only serious one in dissident politics, in fact.
It’s no coincidence that they worship Jesus Christ as their God and king.
November should be fun.
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How was Kent polling before AF’s disavowed him?
Every poll I’ve seen had him finishing in second place, which would have put him in the general, since Washington has open primaries where the top 2 vote getters advance.
Keep in mind, he was running against Beutler, who voted to impeach Trump. The race was supposed to be his to lose.
The most recent poll I saw, a Crosscut poll from last month, had 59% of Republicans voting for the Trump-backed candidate, which was Kent.
AF must’ve definitely had a hand in Kent’s third place spot, and they’ll be a formidable group come November.
Excellent news! God willing, it seems like the American political system is not quite broken beyond repair just yet. If He is merciful, we may be able to leave the ammo box closed.
We’ll see. The fact that election officials are taking three days to count votes at the state and _district_ levels betrays dysfunction I’d call Third World if it wasn’t an insult to the Third World.
The most brazen is the AZ governor’s race. They keep finding more ballots to count but claim to have no idea how many are left in total.
Still, you have a point in that a) these are local or state races and b) dissidents have proven the ability to affect outcomes at those levels.
True, wouldn’t do to be premature. Still, many of the more blackpilled among us would have thought even this much to be impossible.
Fair.
This article completely ignores the effect of Heidi St. John. Heidi has been accusing Kent of being fake right and even a Bernie Bro, and so far she’s siphoned off 22,000 votes that would have put Kent over the top.
The polling always showed Kent beating St. John. Without him in the race, she would have defeated Beutler, so Kent was the spoiler candidate all along.
This has been a bizarre race from the beginning. The three “America First” candidates all vowed to drop out in favor of whoever received the Trump endorsement. Kent got the nod, the other guy dropped out, and St. John stayed in for vague hand-wavy reasons that didn’t make sense to me. (Something about a purported whisper campaign against her that she attributed to Kent’s campaign.) She’s a popular figure in the local homeschooling community, trying to kickstart a career on the national speaking circuit. If anyone was the spoiler to try and split the MAGA vote and allow Herrera-Beutler the win, I’d have to point at St. John.
There was a ton of outside money, and for a while at our house the anti-Kent direct mail flyers were arriving almost daily, with masterful (and highly deceptive) visual rhetoric using iconography, visual metaphor, and partial quotes to portray Kent as a carpetbagger, CIA plant, secret democrat, etc. https://www.joekentiscia.com/ is a pretty good web example of the sort of professional propaganda we were getting.
Why do I say deceptive? Because I checked the references and listened to the interviews.
Kent’s no saint, mind you. He hired a bunch of DC bigshots for his campaign who ran roughshod over local businesses and then generated a bunch of he-said-she-said intra-campaign drama. Kent himself, from a distance, seems distinctly uncomfortable stepping outside of moderate republicanism, given how he reacted to Fuentes and Torba. I do wish I’d taken the opportunity to hear him speak in person.
Finally, Herrera-Beutler’s campaign felt phoned in (that’s funny, because she was famous for her phone-in “town hall” conference calls). It was like she either a) didn’t expect to lose or b) didn’t expect to win. Very few campaign signs around the county, and very little direct mail, yet she had way more money to throw around than anybody else. I don’t know what she did with it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
A man who takes offense at Christ is indeed no saint.
A man who lived in Maryland before moving into the district he seeks to represent is a carpetbagger.
A man who twice voted for Bernie Sanders isn’t a secret Democrat. He’s just a Democrat.
A man who admits to working for the CIA, and that concerns over this relationship are legitimate, glows in the dark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0tgqnWhESI&t=1398s
I can’t comment on Kent’s faith. He purportedly attends a church here, but I haven’t been able to discover which one. I haven’t seen any positive proof of him taking offense at Christ—I’ve seen him take offense at Fuentes and Torba. Establishing exactly why feels like an exercise in mind-reading to me. Perhaps you’ve seen evidence I haven’t though? I’ll grant half a point because he did downplay religion in favor of big-tent populism, and I agree, I’m finally beginning to see the danger there.
Living in Maryland for a time for military service, or for working in the Trump campaign, doesn’t really phase me. Speaking as a local, the biggest argument here is that he’s not from the district, but from originally from Portland. But again, there’s sympathy for Portland refugees on this side of the river, and at least he’s not from California. I’m only going to give this charge a quarter point.
As for the matter of voting for Bernie Sanders, this is one of those half-truths I mentioned. Yes, he did, in a primary (I’m only aware of one occurrence) where many republicans crossed over to try and throw the D primary to a candidate that they thought would be easier for Trump to beat. He was also working for the Trump campaign at the time this happened, and voted for Trump in the general election, so I don’t think the charge holds any water. 0 points, and -1 points if it comes in blue with a picture of Kent yelling next to a picture of Sanders smiling. 🙄
Thanks for the interview link. I’ve seen another interview where he addressed the matter, but not in as much depth. I don’t know what to think on the CIA thing. Unlike some folks, I don’t see a connection with the CIA as an immediate red flag. Does it make sense that a special operator working in Afghanistan would get connected with the glowies? Yes, it does. Saying that he doesn’t like the direction the CIA has taken since strikes me either as disingenuous or naive. It helps me that he freely admits the connection, and understands the concern. The argument that he could easily have covered it up completely does stick. This one is either 0 or 1, and it’s inside a Schroedinger box.
Anyway, Kent won because Trump endorsed him, and he talked a good game about America First and MAGA-style populism. Like with any politician, we’ll have to see what fruit he produces and if it matches up with the talk.
After conceding that every factual assertion made by what you called deceptive propaganda is true, you handwave away the logical but uncomfortable conclusions.
Anyone who doesn’t see working with the CIA as an immediate red flag has not been paying attention. The Agency’s collaboration with child trafficking rings alone is enough to classify them as a criminal organization. As Kent himself said, they were part of the successful deep state effort to thwart Trump.
But all the red flags you need are Kent downplaying Christianity in a Christian nation and race issues in a time when being white is de facto outlawed.
While Kent whines about how discussing race is divisive, race hustler Tim Wise goes on Twitter and calls for Trump supporters to be jailed and crushed and their kids orphaned. He’s neither banned nor censured.
And this is why democracy leads to disaster, and Conservatives deserve what they’re getting.
Telling a portion of the truth in order to lead someone to a false conclusion is deception, and the mailers I received were deceptive in this way, as was the site I linked. The slick, manipulative designs looked like outside money hiring expert propagandists. That was an important data point for me, as much as anything about the candidate himself: moneyed outside interests didn’t seem to want him.
Yes, the CIA connection is a red flag. Yes, the CIA appears to be run as a criminal organization and involved in deep evils. But I’m also willing to believe that innocents get caught up in that machine all the time, and don’t even realize what’s being done in a neighboring black budget line. Association does not automatically impute guilt, and furthermore it doesn’t necessarily follow that Kent’s a CIA plant. Maybe my heuristic is bad, and it’s safer to assume the worst, but that’s not my natural bent.
Choosing the best candidate in a high-stakes race like this can’t really be done by logical deduction. A candidate might quote the bible and recite the creed at every campaign stop and be a devil. We have to discern through the fog of war.
I mainly replied in the beginning to give a local perspective on a race that has weirdly gained a national spotlight, with all the distortions that come with outsiders commenting on local politics. I wasn’t 100% sold on Kent, just more convinced by him than St. John or Herrera-Beutler. A full accounting of this conclusion would be tiresome and full of logical leaps, the sort made by all voters, even the ones trying to be responsible citizens pay attention.
Democracy leads to disaster, yes, and as far as I can see from historical record, so has every other form of government that relies on human wisdom. Yet Christ continues to tarry, and God in His wisdom continues to institute human governments and appoint human rulers who refuse to acknowledge Him.
In our earthly wandering He has appointed us to live in such democracy at such a time as this. If we draw the metaphorical conclusion that in our exile we’re to seek the good of the city, as it were, what else would you recommend we do, aside from pray, vote, and pray some more?
(BTW, a side note, I don’t think email notifications are working for the comments section here. I haven’t seen a single one from your replies.)
There’s something baffling about your comments. Maybe you can help me understand.
Do you think no one notices your persistent attempts to avoid admitting error, rationalize your poor voting decisions, project your lapses in judgment onto my readership, and assume an unwarranted position of judgment over them?
If yes, you may lack sufficient self-awareness to comment here. If no, it’s certain you lack sufficient respect for other commenters.
Cut it out with the obfuscation and FUD posting. This is your one warning.
As your guest, I apologize. I did not intend to offend either you or your readership.
Apology accepted. Thank you.
This post aged poorly didn’t it?
In fact, the “groypers” are a group of homosexual misogynists who don’t reflect Christian values at all and whom serious people consider a joke at best and an obvious fishing operation. One can be not anti-White and pro-Christian and still reject the racial and ethnic insults the Fuentes cult like to throw around.
In fact, there aren’t any “groypers” at the local church picnic or volunteering at the pancake breakfast, because the “groypers” don’t actually ever do anything to help real working class White Christians in their local communities. They are always online trolls who live hedonistic pagan lifestyles in big cities. All they do is race bait and hurl racial insults. That’s not Christian in any way, and people who are pro-White and Christian don’t actually hate or feel the need to insult members of other racial groups, who are also made in the imago Dei.
In fact what Joe Kent said was pretty much spot on: the homosexual mommy’s boy deep state troll Fuentes has a right to say whatever he wants so long as it doesn’t incite violence, but no serious Christian man wants to be associated with him or is disgusting and needlessly misogynistic, culturally insensitive, racially insulting, divisive behavior.
Before writing garbage like this, you should go talk to guys at church who have stable families and jobs working with their hands. Talk to a firefighter or welder or someone like that who has been married 20 years. This man is going to say one of three things: “Nick who?” or, “I support his freedom of speech but I don’t like his attitude,” or, “That’s a deep state gay op and that little mommas boy who has never had a real job or a girlfriend is obviously a fag.”
And that man is wiser than you.
Confess now that Jesus is the Christ whom God raised from the dead, and that there is no other Name by which we are saved.
Time’s up, Nature Boi. You forfeit all moral authority. Banned for witchery.