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Goldman Slashes US Immigration Forecast As ‘America First’ Agenda Takes Hold

Vice President JD Vance spoke earlier to companies working “in the national interest” at the American Dynamism Summit, sponsored by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. In his address, he highlighted the significant progress achieved in just two months under a competent administration in securing the southern border and strengthening national security—following the previous administration’s globalist policies that sparked an illegal alien invasion crisis.

“Last month, migrant crossings were down 94%, to their lowest number all time, and that happened just in two months of serious border enforcement… Last month, for the first time in over a year, the majority of job gains went to American citizens born on US soil,” VP Vance told the crowd at the summit in Washington, DC, earlier this morning. 

.@VP: “Last month, migrant crossings were down 94%, to their lowest number all time, and that happened just in two months of serious border enforcement… Last month, for the first time in over a year, the majority of job gains went to American citizens born on U.S. soil.” pic.twitter.com/syjhDBXeVi
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 18, 2025
Providing more context on VP Vance’s immigration figures, analysts from Goldman, including Jan Hatzius, Alec Phillips, and others, stated that US immigration policy has tightened significantly over the past two months, reducing the annualized inflow of humanitarian and other non-visa immigrants from 1.4 million to 200k. They noted that while deportation levels remained stable, total net immigration fell from 1.7 million in December to 700k in February.

Given the faster-than-expected decline in immigration, the analyst expects net inflows to reach 500k by the end of the year, down from a previous estimate of 750k. The contribution of immigration to labor force growth is also expected to slide and provide more job opportunities for Americans. 

Further color from analysts… 

How Much Has Immigration Fallen Since the Inauguration?

Immigration policy in the US tightened considerably in the first two months of 2025. We estimate that this resulted in a decline in annualized inflows of humanitarian and other immigrants (asylum seekers, parolees, people receiving temporary protected status, and illegal entrants; this includes all immigrants other than visa and green card recipients) to an annualized 0.2mn in February, down from 1.4mn in December 2024 (left, Exhibit 1).

While official statistics from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) show a moderate increase in arrests of unauthorized immigrants since early January, the increase has not led to a notable change in the number of deportations. The right side of Exhibit 1 shows that total immigrant outflows due to deportations remained in line with past trends. The number of outflows due to voluntary and other enforcement returns—which tend to be proportional to immigration inflows—declined over the past two months as inflows moderated.

Even though the number of deportations did not increase meaningfully, the sharp decline in immigration inflows still brought net immigration into the US down to an annualized pace of 0.7mn in February, from 1.7mn in December 2024 (Exhibit 2).

In our prior report, we highlighted the risk that the…

JFK Files Released… Here They Are

Update (2120ET): Roughly 80,000 pages of JFK files have finally been released in the form of 1,123 PDF files on the National Archives website, after President Donald Trump announced on Monday that they would be made public.

Click Here to access

“So, people have been waiting for decades for this, and I’ve instructed my people… lots of different people, [director of national intelligence] Tulsi Gabbard, that they must be released tomorrow,” Trump said during a visit to the Kennedy Center in Washington.

“You got a lot of reading. I don’t believe we’re going to redact anything. I said, ‘just don’t redact, you can’t redact.'”

The files, so far, still point to Lee Harvey Oswald as the culprit. That said, Jefferson Morley, VP of the Mary Ferrell Foundation, said in a statement that it’s still missing a lot of information…

“The first JFK files release of 2025 is an encouraging start. We now have complete versions of approximately a third of the redacted JFK documents held by the National Archives (1,124 of approximately 3,500 documents ). Rampant overclassification of trivial information has been eliminated and there appear to be no redactions, though we have not viewed every document. Seven of ten JFK files held by the Archives and sought by JFK researchers are now in the public record. These long-secret records shed new light on JFK’s mistrust of the CIA, the Castro assassination plots, the surveillance of Oswald in Mexico City, and CIA propaganda operations involving Oswald. The release does not include two thirds of the promised files nor any of 500-plus IRS record, nor any of the 2,400 recently discovered FBI files. Nonetheless, this is most positive news on the declassification of JFK files since the 1990s.”

A few notable findings:

Cuban diplomats initially assumed the CIA killed JFK in order to get revenge on the botched Bay of Pigs invasion.

“If the Yankees or CIA assassinated Kennedy to resume the assault on Cuba, then a third world war would start,” one diplomat said, according to journalist Sean Davis.

In a separate deposition, one American intelligence operative noted that multiple CIA assets connected to a particular CIA agent had been spreading “misinformation” that Cuba was behind the assassination in the immediate wake of JFK’s murder. -Sean Davis, X

Upon learning of JFK’s assassination, Cuban diplomats immediately assumed the CIA killed JFK for the purpose of finishing what it started with the Bay of Pigs invasion: “If the Yankees or CIA assassinated Kennedy to resume the assault on Cuba, then a third world war would start.”… pic.twitter.com/nZQhWEWUSU
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) March 19, 2025

A topic of note is Lee Harvey Oswald’s trip to Mexico City just months before the assassination.
Oswald visited the Soviet embassy in Mexico, looking for a visa, and his request was handled by a loose-cannon USSR intelligence officer.
Oswald was presumably looking for a visa to… pic.twitter.com/udnnFBfyZx
— Clandestine (@WarClandestine) March 19, 2025
This file has CIA, FBI and Secret Service interviews.

*  *  *

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Here’s…

“GenderQueer” Newborns? Jersey Hospitals Now Ask For Newborn’s “Preferred Pronouns” And “Sexual Orientation”

Just when you thought the insanity was starting to subside with Democrats out of office, we learn last week that New Jersey hospitals are now requesting parents to specify their baby’s preferred pronouns and sexual orientation , according to a report from the NY Post.

Inspira Health’s “Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Questionnaire” asks parents to “identify” their baby as “Male, Female, Transgender, GenderQueer,” or “Additional gender category.”

The healthcare system, which runs multiple hospitals and centers in South Jersey, introduced the form last year to comply with a new state law requiring providers to collect demographic and identity data “in a culturally competent and sensitive manner.”

One 34 year old resident told the Post: “That form is completely crazy, and anyone who would dictate a baby’s sexual orientation probably has an agenda. If I was told to fill this out, I’d rip it up in front of them. It feels like we’ve entered ‘The Twilight Zone.’”

Another mom-to-be commented: “Identifying my baby as gay on Day 1 is insane. I had no idea about this form and I’m shocked.”
Photo: NY Post

New Jersey State Sen. Holly Schepisi (R-Bergen) criticized the form, calling it “lacking such common sense” and having “no medical value.” She noted how overwhelming childbirth is, saying, “To be handed that sort of form in the midst of all that has no medical value, it makes no sense.”

Schepisi sparked debate by sharing a photo of the form on Facebook, with many questioning its authenticity. She plans to introduce a bill next week to restrict such data collection to patients 16 and older, arguing the mandate was rushed through the legislature with little scrutiny.

“What was the genesis of this bill?” she asked. “How did it move so quickly with barely any committee hearings on it?” She also speculated that the data might be sold for an undisclosed purpose.

The NY Post report claims that the bill, introduced by Democratic State Sens. Joseph Cryan and Angela McKnight on June 23, 2022, was modeled after an Indiana law. Democrat Herbert Conaway, who also worked on it, defended the measure, stating, “The bill is designed to provide public health officials with the data they need to develop public health measures that effectively serve all New Jerseyans.”

He emphasized that “no patient or parent is obligated to answer any question that makes them uncomfortable.”

An Inspira Health representative confirmed the form is “required by New Jersey law” but that parents “are permitted to decline to provide this information.” The health system sought a waiver from the state, but it has not yet been granted. Meanwhile, NYC hospitals confirmed they do not collect such data, the report concludes. 

Tyler Durden
Tue, 03/18/2025 – 18:00…

Markets Need More Than Rate-Cuts To Recover

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

The consensus narrative tells you that markets are weak because of Trump’s tariffs. However, that is a typical excuse that makes no sense. If tariffs were the cause of concern, markets would have tanked in 2016 and in 2021. Remember that Biden maintained and increased all of Trump’s tariffs. Between 2016 and 2024, the tariffs imposed by the European Union and China on the United States were much larger than levies against them. However, you never read or heard that the EU and China tariffs were going to destroy the economy or lead to massive inflation.

The mainstream consensus narrative always wants you to believe that tariffs are fine if imposed by socialist countries and evil if imposed by the United States. However, if the market was alarmed by tariffs and the disastrous impact they may have on the economy, German and Japanese bond yields would not have soared. Instead, they would have plummeted as investors sought refuge. Furthermore, if the world feared a US economic disaster, Treasury bond yields would not have declined.

German and Japanese bond yields would be declining and US yields rising if that were the case. What is happening is the opposite. The German 10-year bond yield has risen 21% in 2025, and the Japanese equivalent has soared 34%. The US 10-year Treasury yield has declined 5.6%.

What is really going on? Many market participants are addicted to money printing and dovish central banks. In fact, two generations of traders have only seen rising debt, liquidity injections, and negative real rates, which helped justify increasingly demanding equity and risk asset price valuations. Thus, the market greeted bad economic data with optimism, anticipating another round of monetary laughing gas.

The reason why markets are so volatile is because few know what to do when inflation remains persistent. The Fed panicked twice in 2024 and conducted a misguided dovish policy. It delayed the reduction of the balance sheet in June despite rising inflation expectations and loose financial conditions. In September, the Fed decided to implement an unjustified large rate cut despite concerning core inflation figures and exceedingly loose financial conditions, the loosest in five years. The Fed’s excessive optimism about the disinflation path led to a significant increase in margin debt and exposure to equity markets.

Consensus estimates assumed three or four rate cuts in 2025. However, in November the Fed went hawkish and started to worry about a persistent inflation that was already evident in its previous two dovish moves. Markets did not care and continued to believe that inflation would drop magically despite soaring deficit spending and record debt as well as the highest money supply growth in twenty months. By January, market participants started to worry about persistent inflation. The Fed decided to be serious about inflation and provide hawkish messages coinciding with the end of elections.

Were you not surprised to see how the Fed was unusually dovish and optimistic throughout the campaign and elections and suddenly went hawkish and tightened monetary policy…

Predicting The Shape Of Future Military Conflicts

Authored by Christian Milord via The Epoch Times,

It’s difficult to forecast how military conflicts will unfold once they are initiated, but military realists can identify likely scenarios based upon precedent as well as current ongoing conflicts. What might future conflicts look like and what types of platforms would be utilized in these kinetic and non-kinetic environments?

In a highly informative and thought-provoking book, “Unit X—How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley are Transforming the Future of War, 2024,” authors Christopher Kirchhoff and Raj Shah attempt to map out what might occur in both defensive and offensive scenarios. Unit X refers to the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), which was the brainchild of Raj Shah, a former F-16 pilot with the Air National Guard.

Shah came up with the idea of an experimental innovation unit after experiencing as a pilot the almost obsolete mapping and navigation capabilities of his fighter aircraft. He had a difficult time knowing for sure whether or not he had crossed a particular prohibited Middle East national border.

Moreover, there were outmoded methods of aircraft scheduling during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Middle East aviation command center that scheduled air operations was still using markers and whiteboards instead of computers for data analysis and the scheduling of hundreds of inbound and outbound aerial missions.

After Shah left the Guard, he had a desire to find solutions to these problems by seeking answers from the Pentagon and venture capital innovators who were forward thinkers. This is where Christopher Kirchhoff entered the picture as a specialist in disruptive and emerging technologies.

Kirchhoff had advised a number of tech companies and the government on national security matters. In the beginning of the DIU venture in 2016, it was tough sledding to create an innovation unit at the Pentagon for two reasons.

First, the Pentagon already had the entrenched Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which was formed in 1958 as a response to the Soviet Union’s Sputnik moment. DARPA had developed the ARPANET, a predecessor of the internet, as well as aerial drones, GPS, night vision goggles, and more. However, DARPA’s failure rate from design to prototype, to testing to production was more than 80 percent.

Next, according to the authors, tense relations existed between the Dept. of Defense (DOD) and California’s Silicon Valley incubator startups. Private sector innovators were impatient with the bureaucratic obstacles encountered when interacting with the Pentagon, while the Pentagon was dissatisfied with some of the innovative technologies coming out of Silicon Valley.

In the first year of the DIU, there were intense discussions, and funding was difficult to garner. However, with some assistance from former Defense Secretaries Ash Carter, Mark Esper and James Mattis, some of the bureaucratic hurdles were overcome and the DIU got off the ground. Relations with Silicon Valley gradually improved in the second and third year. Retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who is a Middle East combat veteran currently at the Hoover Institution, also played a role as an adviser…

Newsom’s Podcast Disaster: Why The Left Is Fuming And The Right Smells A Rat

With Kamala Harris’s spectacular failure in the November election, California Governor Gavin Newsom – despite running his state into the ground, may be Democrats’ best hope at victory in 2028. But his latest endeavor – theThis is Gavin Newsom Podcast – has left both progressives and conservatives scratching their heads. 

While Newsom pitched the show as a platform for engaging with both ideological allies and opponents, his first two guests – TPUSA co-founder Charlie Kirk and former Breitbart EIC Steve Bannon – have turned the effort into a full-blown spectacle.

The reaction from the left? Absolute fury. The reaction from the right? Distrust and ridicule. And from the voters? A mixed bag that could spell serious trouble for Newsom’s future ambitions.

Some key stats, according to a poll of 1,000 California voters conducted by Capitol Weekly (h/t Yashar Ali):

While 54% said they had heard of the podcast, just 0.57% of California voters have listened to it, and 58% said they weren’t likely to listen.
Favorability amongst liberals has dropped from 46% to 30%
Republicans polled overwhelmingly viewed Newsom as insincere – calling him “fake,” and “pandering.”
Newsom’s net favorability dropped from +4 to -6, a 10 point swing
Just 13% of voters had an improved view of Newsom, and only 1 out of 5 polled said it made them want to tune in again.
Charlie Kirk

When Newsom announced that Charlie Kirk would be his first guest, progressives braced for a battle of ideas. Instead, they got a softball exchange where Newsom lavished Kirk with praise – agreeing with him 125 times and “appreciating” his ideas 52 times. Even Kirk, who makes a living bashing Newsom’s policies, found it over the top. “Governor Newsom was being overly effusive in his praise of me,” Kirk chuckled on his own podcast, before launching into his usual tirade about Newsom ruining California.

NEW: California Governor Gavin Newsom tells Charlie Kirk that his son is a massive Charlie Kirk fan.
Newsom: My son really wanted to meet you.
Kirk: You let him to take off school?
Newsom: No. Of course not. He’s not here for a good reason.
Kirk: Well you cancelled school… pic.twitter.com/Bh21YArY36
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) March 6, 2025
The backlash in Sacramento was swift. The Sacramento Bee’s Robin Epley declared the show “sucked,” while Los Angeles Times columnist Mark Barabak predicted Newsom might “talk himself to political death.” But the real political firestorm erupted when Newsom doubled down, inviting Steve Bannon as his next guest.

Newsom Ditches Wokes

Meanwhile, the interviews have further alienated Newsom’s traditional base. In a conversation with Kirk, he blasted the term “Latinx” as out of touch and mocked workplace pronoun declarations. Then, in an even more incendiary moment, he dismissed California’s 2013 policy allowing transgender students to compete in sports according to their gender identity, calling it “deeply unfair.”

California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, long considered an LGBTQ ally, broke with his party, saying that transgender athletes playing in female sports is “deeply unfair” on the first episode of Newson’s new podcast…

NORTHCOM Deploys Guided-Missile Destroyer For “Southern Border Mission” As Hemispheric Defense Takes Shape

The USS Gravely (DDG-107), an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer in the US Navy, departed Naval Weapons Station Yorktown on the Virginia Peninsula on Saturday. The warship will operate in US and international waters in support of the “southern border mission,” according to a press release published by the US Northern Command. 

The USS Gravely is en route to support our #southernborder security mission. Read more at https://t.co/AgqTDMBCyb pic.twitter.com/E01vkLOHDf
— U.S. Northern Command (@USNorthernCmd) March 15, 2025
“USS Gravely’s deployment will contribute to the U.S. Northern Command southern border mission as part of the DOD’s coordinated effort in response to the Presidential Executive Order. Gravely’s sea-going capacity improves our ability to protect the United States’ territorial integrity, sovereignty, and security,” Gen. Gregory Guillot, Commander, USNORTHCOM, stated. 

USNORTHCOM explained that Gravely’s mission will be “restoring territorial integrity at the U.S. southern border and reinforces the nation’s commitment to border security by enhancing maritime efforts and supporting interagency collaboration,” adding, “The ship’s deployment highlights the Department of Defense and Navy’s dedication to national security priorities, contributing to a coordinated and robust response to combating maritime related terrorism, weapons proliferation, transnational crime, piracy, environmental destruction, and illegal seaborne immigration.”

Ship tracking website Vessel Finder showed Gravely’s position (20 hours ago) off the Virginia Beach coast, transiting south… 

USS Gravely’s advanced radar and electronic warfare systems allow the US military to track multiple drug cartels—now designated as foreign terrorist organizations—threats simultaneously, including aircraft, missiles, and surface vessels.  

As we’ve been detailing, the US government has been conducting round after round of signals intelligence (SIGINT) operations near the US-Mexico border and over Mexico using spy planes and CIA drones… 

USAF Spy Plane Runs SIGINT Operation Near Cabo As US Preps For Potential Cartel Fight

USAF Spy Jet Flies Second SIGINT Operation On US Border With Focus On Narco Hub

Border Czar “Expects” Kinetic Warfare Between US Troops & Mexican Drug Cartels

US Designates Mexican Cartels As “Foreign Terrorists,” Signaling Financial Warfare Looms

US P-3B Orion Spy Plane Spotted Over Mexico As SIGINT Ops Target Cartels

CIA Reportedly Flying MQ-9 Spy Drones Over Mexico As Cartel Fight Nears

What you see above is part of the preliminary work to disrupt, dismantle, and eliminate the command and control structures of drug cartels that kill 100,000 American lives per year. 

Remember, the Chinese are heavily involved as well… 

Of course, Democrats are melting down on social media over the deployment of the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer to the region—potentially the Gulf of America.

pic.twitter.com/2lZF5hCNMy
— Mostly Peaceful Memes (@MostlyPeacefull) March 16, 2025
The party is full of open-border globalists who have flooded the nation with millions of unvetted migrants, including thousands of terrorists, while offering no solutions to the ongoing migrant crisis that has overwhelmed local, state, and federal governments. That’s because Democrats see illegals as future voters and weaponized their rogue federal judges to obstruct President Trump’s efforts to restore national security by blocking deportations. 

There’s a broader theme for readers to understand: “Making Sense Of Hemispheric Defense In Trump Era.”

Tyler Durden
Mon, 03/17/2025 – 06:55…

Globalist Games: They Play, We Pay

Authored by J.B.Shurk via AmericanThinker.com,

Canada’s Liberal Party selected central banker Mark Carney to lead the country as prime minister.  

He only recently became a politician, but already he’s sitting at the head of the class!  No worries, though.  He has the kind of résumé all globalists in good standing with Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum would envy.  He ran not only the Bank of Canada, but also the Bank of England.  He’s a central banker extraordinaire!  He loves printing funny money and manipulating markets.  Artificially created inflation is his jam, man!

Carney is the most recent iteration of the World Economic Forum’s standard operating procedure for captured governments (and Canada is most definitely WEF-captured): Whenever possible, put bankers in charge of those pesky territorial designations nostalgically known as nation-states.  France’s petit fromage, Emmanuel Macron, was a Rothschild & Co. investment banker.  Former U.K. prime minister Rishi Sunak was a Goldman Sachs and hedge fund guy.  Don’t be surprised when more transnational bankers seemingly come out of nowhere and immediately dominate the politics of other pseudo-sovereign countries.  Investment banking — and more specifically, central banking — is the lifeblood of globalism.  Why?  Because once a bank is big enough, it gambles with the futures of entire nations (and the millions of individual lives therein) as if they were mere poker chips.

So the globalist cabal claims another section of the world map!  Or retains its claim over Canada, I should say.  Everyone knows that soy-boy Justin Castreau (he cried during his farewell press conference, for Pete’s sake!) and his former deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, call Herr Schwab “Daddy.”  Germany’s Dr. Evil makes a natural father figure for both Canucks.

Kooky Chrystia is that crazy-eyed woke-tard who promised to use nuclear weapons against the United States if President Trump imposes reciprocal tariffs and turns off the American money spigots that have long subsidized Canada’s socialist system.  She is a Canadian Karen not likely to go away.  I’m sure Daddy Klaus will give her another chance to scream, “I am womyn, hear me roar!” after central banker Mark Carney completes Canada’s transition to a “green energy”–reliant vassal state of the international money-printing guild.  When the draft dodgers, hippies, and Chinadians up north have gorged on enough of Carney’s WEF-style globalism for Reichsführer Schwab to deem the peasants sufficiently subjugated, he can install Chrystia as prime minister without any resistance.  Once in place and empowered to finish off what’s left of Trudeau and Carney’s castrated Canada, she will probably rename her censorship-loving slave state “Not-so-Freeland-ia” in honor of her favorite grandpa’s fascist proclivities.  

No wonder President Trump remains worried about the U.S.-Canada border.  King Charles III’s North American refuge has become a hornet’s nest of globalists, communists, and woke Nazis.  Perhaps after the southern wall is finished, the builders should hightail it up to the 49th parallel and get busy.  Forget the “global warming” malarkey.  A WEF-engineered winter is most definitely coming.

Of course, Canada is but one territory being pursued in the globalists’ board game of central bank Risk.  The WEF-ers are rolling the dice and capturing lands all over the planet.  

For three years, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and America’s very own CIA have all been yelling,…

When Blue Jeans Were A Symbol Of Freedom

By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

From Grok:

“For Soviet youth especially, blue jeans represented more than just fashion; they embodied individuality, rebellion, and a connection to the freedoms of the West, standing in stark contrast to the collectivist and restrictive Soviet system. Owning or wearing them became a subtle act of defiance, reflecting a broader yearning for personal expression and a lifestyle beyond the constraints of Soviet rule.”

We will circle back to why I think this is very important but let’s set the stage:

Two weeks ago we published Where the Economy is Headed.

One point was that much of the current data, particularly on the job front, seemed “optimistic” and would likely decline and/or be revised down.
We highlighted several areas of the economy that were causing concern, and those concerns have only increased in the past two weeks.
Last weekend we published You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet.

We presented our arguments for why there is no Trump Put, at least anywhere near today’s levels.
We first started to fixate on the risk that all the attention on trade deficits would impact capital flows, which have materially helped the U.S. and were a part of the American Exceptionalism trade.
We highlighted that a large percentage of revenue for companies in the S&P 500 comes from other countries! (This will tie into today’s title).
We laid out two scenarios that could turn markets around, and we haven’t seen either occur yet.
On Friday, we published An American Brand, which to some extent was a prelude to today’s report.

Is the American Brand being affected in such a way that it could hurt sales of American brands?
As I am increasingly nervous about the steps being taken and their impact on our economy and brands, and want to take the time to re-iterate why late last year and early this year we were optimistic.

We specifically use Grok as a source in this piece, under the assumption that of all the AI out there, Grok is most aligned with the administration.

The Goal

The working assumption, one that has solidified over time, is that:

The president wants to return manufacturing to the U.S. and leave a legacy of rebuilding the middle class!
Fully in support of rebuilding the middle class. How can you not be? A middle class that feels safe and secure in their jobs, a middle class that can afford the American Dream, etc. would be awesome. It is not like the middle class is non-existent, but there is room for improvement.

Completely support the need to manufacture more, especially things we need to ensure safety and security. We’ve been pounding the table from an investment standpoint that anything that can be construed as important to National Security should equate to National Production. “Drill Baby Drill” is merely the tip of the iceberg. We’ve argued for “Refine Baby Refine,” where it is not just the extraction of commodities, but the extraction AND processing that is crucial to our success from a National Security standpoint. But it goes well beyond…

How Barack Obama Built An Omnipotent Thought-Control Machine… And How It Was Destroyed

Authored by David Samuels via TabletMag.com,

Rapid Onset Political Enlightenment

If anyone in the future cares enough to write an authentic history of the 2024 presidential campaign, they might begin by noting that American politics exists downstream of American culture, which is a deep and broad river. Like any river, American culture follows a particular path, which has been reconfigured at key moments by new technologies. In turn, these technologies, which redefine both space and time—canals and lakes, the postal system, the telegraph, railroads, radio and later television, the internet, and most recently the networking of billions of people in real time on social media platforms—set the rules by which stories are communicated, audiences are configured, and individuals define themselves.

Something big changed sometime after the year 2000 in the way we communicated with each other, and the means by which we absorbed new information and formed a working picture of the world around us. What changed can be understood as the effect of the ongoing transition from the world of 20th-century media to our current digital landscape. This once-every-five-centuries revolution would have large effects, ones we have only just begun to assimilate, and which have largely rendered the assumptions and accompanying social forms of the past century obsolete, even as tens of millions of people, including many who imagine themselves to reside near the top of the country’s social and intellectual pyramids, continue to imagine themselves to be living in one version or another of the long 20th century that began with the advent of a different set of mass communications technologies, which included the telegraph, radio, and film.

The time was ripe, in other words, for a cultural revolution—which would, according to the established patterns of American history, in turn generate a political one.

I first became interested in the role of digital technology in reshaping American politics a decade ago, when I reported on the selling of Barack Obama’s Iran deal for The New York Times Magazine. By the time I became interested in the subject, the outcome of Obama’s campaign to sell the deal, which had become the policy cornerstone of his second term in office, was a fait accompli. The Deal seemed odd to me, not only because American Jews were historically a key player in the Democratic Party—providing outsized numbers of voters, party organizers and publicists, in addition to huge tranches of funding for its campaigns—but because the Deal seemed to actively undermine the core assumptions of U.S. security architecture in the Middle East, whose goals were to ensure the steady flow of Middle Eastern oil to global markets while keeping U.S. troops out of the region. A Middle East in which the U.S. actively “balanced” a revisionist anti-American power like Iran against traditional U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia and Israel seemed guaranteed to become a more volatile region that would require exactly the kinds of active U.S. military intervention that Obama claimed to want to avoid. Nor…