Podcast
Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone
Hosted by Sasha Stone · EN
Essays on politics and culture from Sasha Stone's Substack. A former Democrat and Leftist who escaped the bubble to get to know the other side of the country and to take a more critical look at the left. Sashastone.substack.com
www.sashastone.com
www.sashastone.com
119episodes
Episodes
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How The Media's Elitism Cost Them Their Credibility
Apr 12, 202500:39:42Summary readyI listened with an open mind to this illuminating interview between Bari Weiss at the Free Press and Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen, two of the founders of Axios, about how the public lost trust in the media.As we watch them scramble to explain why they covered up Joe Biden’s cognitive decline, what we see instead of an apology is an excuse.There has never been any real reckoning of what happened to them after Trump won in 2016, all through his first term, especially in 2020, when they lost much of the public’s trust for good.The legacy media took a side, but worse, they positioned themselves as superior to the other side, which meant that not only weren’t they chasing the story, but they weren’t paying attention to those who were.The Biden/Trump debate was Toto pulling back the curtain and exposing the Wizard of Oz. There was not much they could do after that. The jig was up.It didn’t break news for anyone who got their news outside the bubble, however. There, the media is endlessly mocked for its pandering, weakness, and propaganda.How it StartedHow it’s going:The opening paragraphs:The collective post-debate gloating from conservatives is in full swing this week, as Democrats reckon with the ongoing political fallout. But the immediate response on the right has focused less on the fact of Biden’s potential mental decline than on alleging that Democrats and the mainstream press colluded to hide it.That’s the kinder, gentler explanation. The alternative is that they are SO BAD at their jobs, such terrible reporters, so in the tank for one political party that they couldn’t see what was right in front of them for four years. Pick one.It’s hard to sympathize when so many of us were left twisting in the wind, dealing with major issues in American life, from COVID to the protests to lockdowns to the woke madness in our schools. We needed a legacy press that would tell us the truth, not do the bidding of one political party.True, they could have lost their jobs for it. That happened everywhere. Reporters lost their jobs for a headline, “Buildings Matter Too.” Donald McNeil lost his job at the New York Times because some overly fragile brat tattled on him and accused him of being a racist. But so what? Someone had to stand up for objectivity and journalism, didn’t they?What Happened to MeThe mania around race and racism was on a low simmer after Trump won the first time. Cancel culture was in full swing. We’d already gone through the first wave of a mass hysteria episode around the Me Too movement. But none of that could compare to what happened to us when we were all locked down from COVID and the George Floyd video hit the internet.It was seen by millions all over the world within minutes. Right after the video hit, a fake image of Derek Chauvin wearing a “Make America White Again” MAGA hat also made the rounds, driving up the rage meter just before the largest protest in American history erupted on the streets, breaking lockdowns and forcing the Left to pivot from social distancing to masks.It would be days before the story of the fake photo was corrected. Probably even now, many still believe it was real. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sashastone.substack.com/subscribe
Summary
The "Resistance" or the Drama Club?
Apr 7, 202500:31:33Summary readyThe worst thing that’s ever happened to the Democrats is democracy.It must be quite an existential crisis that, after all that, the rest of the country rejected their opinion of Donald Trump. That the guy they said was a rapist, a racist, a fascist, a dictator, a Nazi, a bigot, a transphobe, a misogynist, a Russian asset, a criminal, a felon, a fraudster, a fake, a traitor, an election denier and insurrectionist, an extremist, a terrorist, a white supremacist, a phony that they impeached twice and indicted four times, and became the first presidential candidate with a mug shot, and to be convicted of a felony still won the popular vote.That has got to really burn.But it isn’t the Trump side that is now in a perpetual state of shock because it existed inside a utopian bubble, cutting itself off from the rest of America. It isn’t the Trump side that cosplayed World War II for so long that it lost touch with reality about either our world now or what really happened in World War II. It isn’t the Trump side that was the empire.Their war-torn resistance fighters were so disgusted that none of the Democrats had done enough to “stop Hitler Trump and his Nazi leader, Elon Musk,” that their approval numbers were at historic lows. DO SOMETHING, their supporters cried.So Cory Booker took to the Senate floor to remind them of what they still stand for. And to rally the troops. He prepared in advance for the performance of his life. He denied himself food and water to go the distance. It was, for him, a chance to audition for the part of Charismatic Leader, the democrats so desperately need.Booker found a way: It’s not Left or Right but right or WRONG.It’s a far cry from Obama’s “not red states or blue states, but the United States.” The Democrats no longer believe that. They went from “don’t normalize Trump and his supporters” to it’s more than justified to demonize, dehumanize, even terrorize them. They are “bad people.” They’re no longer welcome. Not in our culture, restaurants, movie theaters, family gatherings, and, most of all, our democracy.Their anger stems from their class privilege of having everything they need, yet they can’t accept losing something they want.Here is Batya Ungar-Sargon:Either the Democrats really are caught up in a mass delusion about who Trump is and why he won, or else they’re the drama club, and none of it was ever real.Splendor in the GrassI wasn’t just in the Drama Club in high school. I was the undisputed queen. Just ask anyone who went to high school with me. I was a terrible student. I barely graduated. My nickname was “no-show Stone,” but the one thing I showed up for was the Drama Club.That's me as Elizabeth Proctor in the high school production of The Crucible.In case you’ve never seen or read The Crucible, Elizabeth Proctor was John Proctor's pregnant wife who was accused of witchcraft but who was spared because of the presumed innocence of her baby. Her husband, John Proctor, would be hanged.I could never have known that all of these decades later, we’d all be living in a Salem of our own making, and I’d be once again an accused and condemned witch.Inside the drama club, I had a magic mirror - a small group of people who thought I hung the moon. My Drama teacher thought that too. I was his favorite, at least for a time. I didn’t know the word “grooming” back then, but looking back on it, I see that’s probably what he was doing—a pinch here, a grope there. On the last day of my junior year, he French kissed me just before I went away for summer break.That Summer, he drove up to my house and dropped off a copy of the play Splendor in the Grass. I took that to mean I would be cast as the lead, the part Natalie Wood played in the movie. As the queen of the Drama Club, I got all of the leading roles. Of course, I would play Deannie.But when it came time to cast the play, the part went to someone who wasn’t even in the drama club. She was the prettiest girl in school: the Head Cheerleader and the Homecoming Queen. Our teacher had broken the silent code of the drama club - nobody from the outside is allowed in. Because if they do, our fantasy world is shattered.That’s all we had. We weren’t the popular kids, the cheerleaders, the jocks, the science nerds. We were people who didn’t belong anywhere else. But we also liked escaping into a fantasy world of being another person other than ourselves.During the Me Too movement, my friends would always bring up our drama teacher, but honestly, I was more angry that he’d given my part away to a prettier girl.In reality, the Homecoming Queen was the right person to play Deannie, even if our teacher probably just had the hots for her. She was good, too—better than I would have been. Because she was popular, everyone in the school came to see the play.We were all big fish in a small pond, which gave us power we weren’t willing to relinquish. But having the whole school see our play meant reality was here, whether we liked it or not.I often think about the drama club now when I watch Christopher Guest’s hilarious Waiting for Guffman, which is about a self-important director of a small town theater group and their delusions of grandeur.And that’s also what I see when I look at the democrats and all of the performative protesters and activists on the Left, from Eric Swalwell to AOC to Jasmine Crocket to Chuck Schumer to Cory Booker, to all of these delusional people who believe Musk did the Nazi salute and Trump is Hitler.They are Waiting for Guffman. They are the drama club.It’s a cosplay fantasy, a dystopian Renaissance Faire. None of it is real. The American people have been watching this performative outrage for almost a decade. They wanted to turn the channel so badly they voted for Donald Trump a second time, and now, here they all are, once again, caterwauling about the very democracy that just took them out of power.They still believe that doing exactly the same thing for this long will get them a different result, the very definition of insanity.But there’s a darkness too, a rising violence. What they all mean when they say “Hands off” is not just “hands off” our government, but “hands off” everything else too.Along with keying Teslas and violent outbursts against Trump supporters, there is a hashtag making the rounds on TikTok called “when it happens,” where users fantasize about Trump’s death.Identity First vs. America First.During the last Civil War, the two conflicting realities were that a country founded on freedom could not own human beings vs. the false reality that slaves could not survive as free human beings and that there would be chaos and collapse if things changed.Now, we find ourselves once again at a crossroads with two factions believing in two completely separate realities. This time, it’s not about westward expansion but rather our migration onto the new frontier of the internet, AI, and the upcoming robot revolution. What will this country be going forward? What will be our values? What will define male and female? What will decide power?You can see each of our potential futures laid out before us. Whole generations have come of age in virtual reality, where they can choose their own avatars and have their own audiences for their own show. It’s all performative. But to be included, you must follow the rules. If you don’t, out you go. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sashastone.substack.com/subscribe
Summary
All Things Not Considered
Mar 30, 202500:35:36Summary readyLike everyone else on the Left, I grew up wanting to exist in the rarified air of NPR. It was, to me, like the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock in The Great Gatsby: the place you don’t belong but the only place you want to be.I was thrilled when NPR invited me to the studio in 2012 for an interview. I even took a picture of the parking lot—anything with NPR on it.I’d finally made it, ma—top of the world.I woke up with Morning Edition and spent the afternoon with All Things Considered. It required no effort at all. It was always on every time I got into my car and drove somewhere, and in Los Angeles, everyone drove everywhere.Long before controversial CEO Katherine Maher was hired at NPR, listeners were already dropping like flies. Any honest person knows that NPR changed dramatically. Even my sister, a die-hard Democrat, joked with me in 2020 that she had to stop listening because every episode seemed to be about a “transgender migrant crossing the border for an abortion in Texas.”Maher’s testimony at the “Anti-American Airwaves: Accountability for the Heads of NPR and PBS” will be seen by most on the Left as something along the lines of the House of Unamerican Activities in the 1950s and for similar reasons. Here, in the most viral exchange, Rep Gill even brings up Marxism.Like this moment, this hearing will be shape-shifted into a story that paints them as the victims and their side as the side standing up for free speech.The truth? They abandoned objectivity long ago, if they ever had it at all. I used to think they did. I was a faithful believer in people I thought had our best interests at heart. It took me years to understand why the Republicans have been complaining about them since their inception.Maher is a stunner, even at her age, with her platinum blonde bob and Hepburn cheekbones. She’s probably not used to being dragged before a tribunal and made to answer for how NPR has abused the public’s trust. But abuse it, they have.She might not also be aware that this is a revolution. No, heads didn’t roll, but the 2024 election was a triumph of the people, by the people, and for the people—a revolution made possible only by Donald Trump's alliance with Big Tech and Elon Musk especially.To the Left, in their delusional fever dreams, they are the oppressed side. They’re the #resistance like back when German tanks rolled into Paris. But they’re not. They never were. They were always the empire. How do I know? Because I was one of them. I was an enthusiastic participant in the movement that would overtake much of American society, grow its power with the rise of the internet, and spread its fundamentalism like a fungus, one that is now killing its host.A revolution because there was no other option.A revolution because the kids were at risk.A revolution because this isn’t a country that likes to be ruled over by an elite, out of touch aristocracy and never has. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sashastone.substack.com/subscribe
Summary
[Listen] The New York Times Profiles Me
Mar 26, 202500:30:34Summary readyMany of you have asked me to post the New York Times profile because you don’t have access to it, but I think that might violate copyright laws. So, I thought I’d read it aloud instead, with some added commentary. If you’re interested, have a listen.Here is a link to bypass the paywall.The first part is just me talking free-form and unscripted, so don’t be alarmed that it doesn’t sound like the usual. If you like the free-form style, let me know, and I’ll do more of them. Song used at the end: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sashastone.substack.com/subscribe
Summary
[Watch] How the Left Became so Intolerant
Mar 24, 202500:15:20Summary readyI posted this story already, but I thought you might like a video version. The audio will go out on the podcast feed. You can find the text here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sashastone.substack.com/subscribe
Summary
Here Comes the Pitch for Socialism
Mar 21, 202500:24:06Summary readyI have a soft spot for the Dirtbag Left now that I never used to have. Listening to them viciously destroy the Democratic Party scratches that itch. They were ahead of the curve, and the Democrats would have been better off not snuffing out the movement way back when.But snuff it out, we did. Back in 2016, I was in a Facebook group devoted to doing nothing but hating on the “Bernie bros.” I spent too much of my precious time trying to stop them as a movement because they threatened Hillary Clinton’s win. Like every Democrat now, I was afraid of democracy.The Democrats find themselves in that place where the three characters from Jaws end up. They’ve tried harpoons and three barrels on him, and nothing has worked. They finally decide to try Hooper’s shark cage, even though Brody knows there’s no chance it will work. “You got any better suggestions?” barks Hooper.That Quint entertains the idea of bringing in Hooper’s cage at all was the miracle. And the desperation.The Democrats are ready for the anti-shark cage, and so Bernie Sanders and AOC are on a western tour to “stop the oligarchy.” They finally have the exact right enemy in Elon Musk and Bernie’s “billionaires.” Musk represents the death of their dream, that no one can get there on their wits, hard work, and ambition alone. No, this is a country where no one can rise unless everyone can rise.Trump’s tariffs are a potential solution to America’s crippling problem of income inequality that has destroyed the middle class. That’s the MAGA populism at work. Bernie's populism fixes the problem with much bigger government. The rich pay more to redistribute the wealth.Is this finally the moment when we can Make America Socialist Again? A major step forward from FDR’s New Deal and Johnson’s Great Society? Do the Democratic Socialists have a real shot at winning the nomination away from the feckless, flaccid centrists?Is this finally the moment when the Dirtbag Left and the identity politics utopians merge to create one big movement, a Green New Deal? Will Trump’s radical change finally be the thing that pushes the majority in a direction they never would have gone?Recent polls show that younger generations are much more accepting and fond of socialism than older generations. It's not that hard to do the math and see what might be coming next.How it StartedAccording to Neil Howe and William Strauss's 1997 book, 2008 was the crisis that sparked our Fourth Turning. This pattern plays out every 80 years, with each generation being born and living a lifetime before everything radically changes to restart America in a new direction, like the American Revolution, the Civil War, the Great Depression, and World War II.We still don’t know how big or how bad our Fourth Turning will be. To Strauss and Howe, the $700 billion bank bailout was the moment the public woke up to the imminent disaster of income inequality and a bloated oligarchy. The bailout birthed two populist movements: Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party.Occupy Wall Street became the Bernie movement which, after Hillary’s loss in 2016, was dissolved into the Democrat machine. The Tea Party became Trump and MAGA. The question we have to ask is which side will prevail when the Fourth Turning comes to a close, when the policies are cemented and the country is united?According to Howe’s new book, The Fourth Turning is Here, he edges ever so slightly to the Left’s side of things because the dominant generation, the Millennials, are a “go along to get along” personality type.At the moment, at least to me, the MAGA side offers more for ambitious millennials, especially young men. MAGA is now the side of innovation and economic growth. If they succeed, there will be no need for a rescue mission.But if they fail? Ben Shapiro has been dropping the prediction for a few weeks now that if Trump’s economy begins to fail, the power that will rise is the equal and opposite reaction to Trump’s populism: a lurch to the hard left.Bernie and AOC are ready to bring the movement back.Is this finally the moment where both Bernie and AOC have the right kind of anger and the right enemy they need to tap into the collective outrage of all of those crazy people out there losing their minds? People like this: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sashastone.substack.com/subscribe
Summary
The Democrats Should Embrace Their Inner Fascist.
Mar 20, 202500:31:50Summary readyAs SpaceX and NASA elegantly brought Crew-9 down from outer space to splash into the waters of the Gulf of America, with dolphins cresting the surface to greet them upon their arrival, the lunatics on the Left were burning up the last remnants of their political capital. They were destroying Teslas. Yes, that’s right. With a beautiful example of American exceptionalism playing out in front of the millions watching from home, the Left took the opportunity to march around in their poopie diapers and tell America that all they know how to do is destroy things. Anyone who might have regretted voting for Trump because they were moving too fast was suddenly reminded of why they voted for him in the first place. Because the other side is stark, raving bonkers.They have already humiliated themselves at Trump’s address to Congress. Their approval numbers have never been lower. It isn’t just that they are feckless, rudderless, and leaderless; they are also doing the one thing no political movement should ever do if it wants to rise to power: showing Americans that they are prepared to act out violently when they don’t get their way.Granted, they have the luxury of an entire legacy press corps that will run cover for them, praise them, and pretend it’s no big deal. But we know it’s a big deal because we’ve been living with their violent outbursts for ten years. Now that they’ve decided to interpret Elon Musk’s wave to the crowd as a Nazi salute, they feel more than justified to rally as a movement and wage war on a successful car company that produces electric cars. They want every wealthy liberal who ever bought a Tesla to regret it, sell it, or use one of those embarrassing stickers that signal to the mob to skip their car. They’re one of the good guys. They hide behind billionaires this and oligarchs that, but they had absolutely no hesitation in bringing down hundreds of businesses, those that had somehow managed to survive lockdowns were then destroyed by a violent mob in the Summer of 2020. Remember Sue’s 100-year-old mattress store in Kenosha? In their fever dream—and I promise I am not exaggerating, not even a little bit—they believe their acts of terror and vandalism against Teslas will bring down the company and force Musk into bankruptcy, so he will have to sell Twitter/X because they believe it was stolen from them. What you see on the modern Left is failure everywhere you look. A failed legacy media, a failing Hollywood, and an empire in collapse propped up a failed political party full of failed candidates. Here is failed Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz doing the Hitler salute while trashing a company he could never build, much less come close to making profitable. Walz is roaring back to prove that he didn’t fail - he’s still that Great White Hope they all said he was. All he has to do is signal to the mob that he can be as vicious as they need him to be. Here is a failed 80s heartthrob, John Cusack, who proves that old Johnny Boy never cracked open a history book. He’s not only ignorant, he displays it openly on social media:Here is failed resistance warrior Rick Wilson, who must somehow keep the dream alive after Trump wiped up the floor with him, and very nearly destroyed his credibility. Wilson’s infamous pre-election prediction that Trump would lose and lose badly looks a lot more like pissing in the wind, doesn’t it:They’re not in any condition to lead this country. They’re behaving like those late-night rap sessions with Charlie on Spahn Ranch as they plot about the revolution. The look in the eyes of all the “resistance democrats” looks a lot like the crazy eyes of those Manson girls bragging about stabbing Sharon Tate. But here’s the thing. They’re making it all way too hard on themselves. There is an easier way. It’s been right there the whole time. It is the answer to all that ails them. It will work like a charm if only they can embrace that they are the very thing they believe they’ve been fighting against.Embrace Your Inner Fascists, Democrats. It’s time.The Democrats lost their minds so thoroughly and completely over Trump’s win in 2016, that they decided this was now their country and everything in it belonged to them. They amassed an unprecedented alignment of power, uniting government with all cultural and corporate institutions. It was all for one and one for all. You know, like the very definition of fascism?All sticks bundled together as one! A fasci!Once they claimed most of American society for themselves, they were able to build a barrier, an “inside” that locked the bad people on the “outside.” Then, the purges began. Break our rules, and out you go. No one was safe, not the powerful, corporations, or the people. Conform or else, which is also the very definition of fascism.It would be Communism, except the Left needs to be seen as better, superior, smarter, more kind, more decent - not equal to everyone else. No, they don’t believe that. Fascism, that’s the answer. That’s why they plunge lawn signs in front of their houses, to tell everyone else how superior they are but also to signal to the mob that they’re on the right side. But to embrace your inner fascists, Democrats, you will have to start telling the truth about who you are. Why hide it by now?So let’s rewrite this lawn sign, shall we? In this home, we believe:Dictatorship over democracy because democracy means the “wrong” people might win. They don’t belong in OUR HOME. As fascists, you don’t even need elections at all, and you kinda didn’t, did you? Vote blue no matter who, elbow out any competition, force Biden on everyone, and then install Kamala Harris. See how close you already are?Solution: why not build gulags and have them all spirited away? So much easier. Stalin did it. Hitler did it. Mao did it. What’s the problem, Democrats? Now, if Gwen Stefani accidentally posts a video with Tucker Carlson in it, or someone lets it slip they are friends with a Trump supporter or, gasp, voted for Trump themselves, you can simply lock them away instead of wasting all of your time and energy destroying their lives. Lies over truth: You lie all of the time, to yourselves and to other people—the legacy media lies. Hollywood lies. Women are men, and men are women, but gender is not binary. Solution: As fascists, there is no argument. You take complete control of the press (oh, wait, you already did) and force everyone to accept your version of the truth (oh wait, you already did!) and then mandate it so all must obey (yeah, you tried that, didn’t work out so well). Division over unity: Admit it. You would prefer to be living in a segregated society with Trump supporters banned from your restaurants, your movie theaters, your schools, and your social media. You don’t even hide it anymore. Solution: As fascists, you can simply beat them up, spit on them, knock the hats off their heads, kick them out of restaurants, and harass them on airplanes. Oh wait, you already did!Fear over hope: The side where people are afraid to say what they really think is the fascist side. Why are people afraid? Because they know what will happen to them if they ever tell the truth. Solution: Make lists. Stalin did it. Oh, I know he’s technically not a fascist, but close enough. Fiction over Science: Like biological men aren’t any different from biological women. There is no advantage in sports? Trans kids have always existed. It’s healthcare. It’s not a cult. There is no castrating young men. They’re not men. They’re women because trans women are women! Removing breasts and destroying the reproductive organs of young girls is perfectly fine because they’re not girls. Solution: As fascists, you don’t even need science. You can simply perform your medical experiments at will. If anyone objects, off to the gulag they must go.You see, Democrats, the answer has always been right there. All you have to do is embrace the fascists you really are. You don’t even need a leader. It doesn’t have to be about race. It can simply be about what you really want: conform or else and all power to the state.Spirited AwayI could never have known what it felt like to be unpersoned by the side I used to call home, to have their attack machines trained on me, on my business, on my personal safety until I walked in the shoes of Trump supporters. I know that I have to be quiet in my town. I can’t let them know who I am because I know what that will mean. They won’t say hello to me anymore. They will walk the other way when they see me coming. Who knows what else they might do?The most terrifying thing about it isn’t so much losing everything. I grew up poor, I struggled to pay the rent for most of my life. That’s nothing new. No, it was seeing people I thought I knew participate in the unpersoning of someone they once called a friend. Watching them remove me from their lists and not invite me to screenings or parties because I was no longer worthy of being one of them chilled me to my bones. It’s something I’ll never forget. I always thought we were the good guys, that we knew the difference between right and wrong, that we wouldn’t dehumanize whole groups of people because we didn’t agree on everything, and tell them they were no longer welcome in their own country.We have elections so the people decide how they want to be represented. But the Democrats don’t believe that at all, do they? They decided our elections didn’t matter because the people voting in them didn’t matter. Instead of respecting the results, they keep fighting their imagina...
Summary
Who Killed the Democratic Party?
Mar 12, 202500:39:17Summary readyAfter my story Who Killed the Oscars was published in Tablet, I received this letter:Indeed, I didn’t explain why I voted for Trump in the Tablet piece. It was already too long. No doubt many reading it thought, who cares what she thinks? She voted for Trump. I’m sure there was a time when I would have thought the same thing. I used to be a faithful, loyal Democrat. I used to be a cheerleader for Hollywood. I thought I would do anything for love. But I found out that there was one thing I couldn’t do.But know this: it’s never been a story about what happened to me. It’s always been a story about what happened to the Left.So let’s do a Part Two of the Tablet Piece and call it:Who Killed the Democratic Party?The first time I remember voting for the Democrats was back in the 1980s. I wore a Dukakis button as a Women's Only Health Spa receptionist. A customer saw my pin and said, “Why are you voting for Du-Tax-us?” I looked at her, confused. I didn’t know why I was voting for him. “Never mind,” she said to me. “You probably never even went to college.”I knew enough back then that we were different from the Republicans. That political divide had lasted since Nixon's days. They were uncool and had all of the power. We were cool but had no power. We were the subversive side, the Blue Velvet to their Top Gun.That customer’s words tumbled around in my head long enough to motivate me to go to college and finally graduate from UCLA at 29, the first person in my family to do so. While a student there, I saw Bill Clinton speak. All of that charisma suckered me in, and now I knew why I was a Democrat. It wasn’t complicated. I’ll have what he’s having.After I dropped out of graduate film school to chase some loser dude back to Los Angeles, my life came apart so spectacularly that I escaped to migrate online, where I would work and live for the next 30 years.The internet changed everything. It gave so many of us a voice and a platform. Anyone could have a website online. Anyone could generate news. The question of who would control it was never asked because it was obvious. The Democrats did. We colonized it—the New Frontier in Cyberspace.Obama was as wedded to Silicon Valley as he was to Hollywood. I was in the right place at the right time, a Good Soldier for the Left as a member of a newly mobilized army on Twitter, rallying behind our leader, the nation’s first Black president.We were more connected than ever before at a time when more people were alive than ever before. On the “inside,” things always felt so big, so monumental. On the “outside,” life went on as normal among “The Proles.” We were in the early stages of 1984 if Whole Foods catered it.It was an alignment of power not seen since the utopian days of post-war 1950s America when government and culture aligned to snuff out the Communist threat. With an iPhone in my pocket and high-speed internet, I did my duty every day as a Good Liberal fighting the good fight.It wasn’t until Obama’s re-election bid in 2012 that I understood I was part of a hive mind that could manipulate the media narrative and thus create the reality we wanted. We could stretch the truth—or lie—about, say, Mitt Romney and the “Binders of women,” and it worked. The legacy press would print our headlines. Clickbait would do the rest. Eventually, it trickled down into the homes of ordinary Americans.It wasn’t just politics. It went much deeper than that. We were different people now, better people, good people doing things, something the Left never was throughout my entire life as a child of the counterculture 60s and 70s. But to be that good, we need to target people who were that bad. We needed a receptacle for our collective sins. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sashastone.substack.com/subscribe
Summary
I Thought Hamilton Was for America. I Was Wrong.
Mar 7, 202500:29:58Summary readyIn May 2016, I surprised my daughter for her 18th birthday with a getaway to New York City to see her favorite play, Hamilton, in the Richard Rogers Theater with the original cast. We would fly out for a day and then fly back. It would cost way too much money, I’d get my wallet stolen, but I only had one daughter, and you only turned 18 once.We were both obsessed with Hamilton. We knew every word of every song. It lived inside of us. It wasn’t just that it was brilliant, funny, moving, inventive and original. It also reminded all of us what this country’s founding principles were about. Best of all, it made learning history fun and cool. It was Schoolhouse Rock for a new generation.When taking long road trips, we would blast the soundtrack, screaming every word. We’d start at the beginning and run through the entire play. Our inside jokes were witty asides from the play that we’d quote to each other so often that we had to force ourselves to stop because, after years of this, it was getting old.By casting so many diverse people to play historical figures and making it a hip-hop musical, Hamilton was a bridge to the Black communities that were so often excluded from the Broadway experience and elite culture in general. Hamilton was for everybody, I thought. That was eight years ago.As a devoted Obama supporter and, in 2016, a Hillary Clinton loyalist, I was overjoyed at the prospect of the first woman president to follow the first Black president. Heading into the election, I wrote this piece:I wrote:The election of Hillary Clinton is one of the most important battles in the war between two Americas. One America was built and maintained exclusively by and for white men. That demographic has awakened extremists on the left and right. The other America redeems the promise of possibility for everyone, no matter their status or skin color or class. That America has produced the nation’s first black president who not only lasted one term, but two, and who now promises to make history by helping elect another Democrat to follow his two terms. Electing Hillary Clinton doesn’t just say, “We’re electing a woman for the first time in our country’s history.” It also dares to say the first black American president was so successful he did the impossible by electing his chosen successor.I didn’t notice back then that the Clinton campaign rented the entire Richard Rogers theater as a fundraiser. Tickets start at $2,700 a pop. I would never have thought twice about it. We were on the right side. It was an “all-of-society” effort to stop Trump. We were the good guys fighting the good fight, so why wouldn’t Hamilton be used that way?Lin-Manuel Miranda’s entire career exists only because of Barack Obama. 15 years ago, in 2009, in Obama’s first year in office, Miranda performed this at the White House:Over the years, Obama would co-opt the reputations and careers of major artists like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Hanks, and, yes, Lin-Manuel Miranda. They would become ride-or-die for the president, which wasn’t something I would have noticed back then.As Miranda’s play exploded and became instantly profitable and popular, we all took that to mean that everyone wanted to be included in our America. It was the better, cooler America. But that changed when Trump won. Now, all we could see was a hostile country that just rejected us.Even when the cast called out Mike Pence during the performance to protest the Trump administration, I never thought about whether it was bipartisan or not. I knew it wasn’t and I agreed with it. I couldn’t see the line between art and propaganda.But now I can. All it took was this statement by the producer of Hamilton, Jeffrey Seller, wherein the play cancels itself, hiding behind the usual gaslighting and rationalizations so common on the left:Notice right off the language here. He is doing what all establishment Democrats and Republicans have done for eight years: ignore the voices of the people. Trump defeated them not once but twice. If you believe in the founding principles of this country, you must respect their voices. But they don’t. The message they give is not for all Americans. It is only those Americans who agree with their ongoing delusions about Trump.What they can’t stand is that Trump is now saying this culture does not belong only to them anymore. It belongs to all of us, even the unwashed masses all of them abandoned years ago and continue to demonize in films, in plays, in comedy, in journalism, in all of their award shows. We’re to accept that this only goes one way. That they have a right to decide what our culture will be and Trump and his supporters do not.You did this. YOU did this. You forced Trump and his supporters to beat down the walls of the castle to be included in America’s culture. This is YOUR fault. You politicized it. You pushed propaganda on all of us for years. And now, you can’t stand it that you no longer control it, can you?Trump’s second win was a complete and total humiliation and repudiation. They still refuse to learn that lesson. They refuse to move aside and allow this country to evolve into whatever it will be now. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sashastone.substack.com/subscribe
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Zelensky Believed His Own Publicity
Mar 3, 202500:26:35Summary readyIt’s Oscar Sunday, a ceremony fueled by one thing: publicity. We turn ordinary people into gods and goddesses by telling flattering myths about who they are and why they’re important. The “narrative” gives voters a reason to care and almost always drives the win.In Hollywood, they’re not planning on changing anything, just as the Democrats won’t. They haven’t noticed that, as they’re watching the band play on, the ship is made of iron and will sink.What do they even stand for anymore? Transing the kids, open borders for cheap labor, and most importantly, the war in Ukraine. Attending the Oscars is like supporting the Democrats, like supporting Zelensky—an alignment of power like no other.Unsuspecting dreamers who rise in Hollywood are often warned never to believe their own publicity. Anyone who has ever worked in publicity, or the Oscar race as I have, knows it’s nothing but pretty lies. It isn’t journalism. It isn’t criticism. It isn’t the truth. It’s like photoshopping a life.The Zelensky myth is necessary to keep hope alive that the Democrats didn’t humiliate themselves when they lost to Trump a second time. No, it wasn’t their failures. It had nothing to do with selling false narratives about Hillary and Joe, forcing voters to go along with it. This is bigger than an ordinary election. They are at war with the new “axis of evil.” And why not? They’re the “resistance,” after all.Zelensky’s entitled behavior in the Oval Office was proof enough that he believed his own publicity and lost perspective of who he was in this fight. He’s not the man who can demand anything from the United States. But who’s going to tell him?Certainly not the legacy media. Not the Democrats. Not Hollywood.Almost as soon as the war began, there didn’t seem to be any difference between celebrities, the Democrats and Zelensky. The Ukrainian Tom Cruise was suddenly everywhere, not just at award shows but on television, appearing at celebrity and news events alike, smearing together politics and culture like peanut butter and jelly. His war was supposed to be our war. If you were against it, you were “pro-Putin.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sashastone.substack.com/subscribe
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