It All Cliques

Austin, Texas

I’m making this its own post because of the important point.

Ultimately, the jihad against Joe Rogan isn’t about politics at all, his or anyone else’s, or what words he has used or has never used, or what context he may or may not have used them, or what kind of guests he may or may not have had on his show. If all he ever did was talk about the color of a lemon being yellow and he drew the same audience numbers, they would still hate him for that. Yes, that’s a hint to what it’s really all about. Just stick with me.

When I first became a ham, I got my license based on and after the loosening of standards and increase of privileges that happened in the early 1990s. (The “no code tech,” for those of you who know.) And I came into a world that was at the time full of guys who got their licenses before that. It was then I learned quickly and the hard way, that people whose climb up the ladder was difficult have a soul-encompassing contempt for people whose climb up the same ladder was not as difficult. If you listened to ragchewing in the mid-’90s, you remember all the lame snark from what definitely sounded like middle aged and older hams about “twenty eight three sounds like twenty seven three these days.” Nyuk nyuk nyuk. Hardy har har, real funny, not. If you get that which laughably passes for the punchline in that, then you’re probably a ham yourself.

Provided he was still alive, Edmund Hillary would be the person in this world who would be the most disgusted at the idea of installing a gondola to the top of Everest.

If you noticed that the U. S. Supreme Court had a lot of unanimous decisions that went against Brandon and the Democrats throughout 2021, there was a politically subversive reason for that. Brandon and the Democrats were seriously talking up court packing. SCOTUS libs might be libs, but they’re also on SCOTUS. People who are part of a club of nine don’t want to be part of a club of more than nine, if they can at all help it. The SCOTUS libs voting contrary to their ideology was their way of clapping back at Brandon and the Dems, and telling them to fuck a court packing plan.

It’s also why the most elite universities are very loath to expand their annual number of admissions slots, in spite of the increasing population over time.

What this all means is that, just as those who climbed up the ladder want the degree of difficulty to remain the same through eternity, they also don’t want that many people or that many more people on top of the roof.

Lots of people have climbed Hamburger Hill, but only scant few Everest, for a reason.

Cliques are, well, clique-y, and engage in cliqueishness. That’s why the word “clique” exists.

Awhile back, I speculated on what were the real reasons why the Deep State had it out for Trump. One of the three reasons I came up with is the nature of cliques. Trump was the first President in American history who was neither a military general nor had ever been elected to anything prior. (I bet that, before 2016, there were people who had incorrectly believed that prior election to some public office or military general was a base Constitutional prerequisite and qualification to be President.) Aside from those obvious quantifiable differences, in many qualitative ways, he didn’t do it the “usual” way that “serious” modern American Presidential politics prescribe. Chief among which is that he never let his political mind simmer in the juices of “permissible” ideological frameworks. He never schlepped between the troika of National Review, Heritage Foundation and CPAC, as lamestream conservatives who seriously presented themselves as serious Presidential candidates of mainstream visibility for quite a few decades up until 2016 believed was de rigueur. Though to be fair, when he started making overtures of running in the 2012 cycle early in 2011, he did start going to CPAC regularly, but, as far as I know, not until then.

Because I am cursed with the ability to remember history before three weeks ago, it means I remember that, before Trump got into the race and rode down the escalator in June 2015, the Republican candidates that were already in for 2016 were conventional wisdom collectively called “the strongest Republican field in a generation.” Yet, Trump, who never did it the “right” way, had little problem beating all of them. Now, between you me and the gatepost, part of that was because the others actually weren’t that strong, and this “strongest Republican field in a generation” talk was nothing more than the typical bullshit yammering of a media-ideological bubble blind to most of the real world. I mean, c’mon, how strong could they have been if Donald Trump was able to take them all and fairly handily?

This had to steam the people that Trump beat and the people helping them. Even if they eventually presented an aura of red team unity in public, and even if they agreed with most or all of what Trump proposed to do or actually did. Don’t doubt me on this. They were told all this time how great they were, and it all came crashing down in pretty short order at the hands of this bull in the china shop.

And that’s not even counting the people on the other side who were both personally frosted at Trump doing it the “wrong” way yet succeeding, and who had zero imperative to show a publicly deferential face for partisan or ideological reasons. The Deep State has entered the comments.

It’s the same thing with Joe Rogan. His listener and viewer ship is way higher than even the best rated political cable talking head shows in the United States. And he didn’t do it the “right” or the “traditional” way. Which in the sense of a serious career in public facing media, means “paying your dues,” as so many in that business put it, and going town to town, up and down the dial. (“As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!”). Which means a lot of people who did do it the “right” way are out to get him, and will use anything they can get their hands on to take him down, even if they have to beclown themselves and/or be blatantly and obviously hypocritical in the process. And that includes “traditional” media types who either agree with Rogan or are sympathetic to him. Don’t doubt me on that either.

Remember, cliques are clique-y and engage in cliqueishness. And the road to the top for you isn’t supposed to be any easier or much different than it was for the people who have already made it.

And there’s a reason why jealousy is one of the seven deadlies.

Advertisement