Everyone has a limit. Everyone.
And when pushed to that limit we all have a choice, push back or submit.
Tony Bobulinski reached his. And it has doomed the Democrats’ chances in this election cycle regardless of what happens on Tuesday.
In his widely-censored interview with Tucker Carlson Bobulinski’s ‘disgust circuit’ was on full display. I’ve talked about this in the past.
Normally the disgust circuit is triggered through the classic “Nuts and Sluts” shaming technique used on Republicans or anyone else the powers that be want removed from the public stage.
“Nuts and Sluts” is easy to understand. Simply accuse the person you want to destroy of being either crazy (the definition of which shifts with whatever is the political trigger issue of the day) or a sexual deviant.
This technique works because it triggers most people’s Disgust Circuit, a term created by Mark Schaller as part of what he calls the Behavioral Immune System and popularized by Johnathan Haidt.
The disgust circuit is also easy to understand.
It is the limit at which behavior in others triggers our gut-level outrage and we recoil with disgust.
The reason “Nuts and Sluts” works so well on conservative candidates and voters is because, on average, conservatives have a much stronger disgust circuit than liberals and/or libertarians.
Bobulinski’s disgust circuit kicked in the second House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff crossed the line, accusing him of being a Russian disinformation agent.
It was clear as day for anyone watching. Bobulinski didn’t try to hide it.
And that was quite enough of that.
That’s where his deadline to the Bidens and Schiff came from and that’s where this story is at its most interesting.
He told Schiff, the Bidens and everyone else on Capitol Hill, “You can play your reindeer games but you cannot under any circumstance make me the fall guy for it.”
Whatever he did in his business with the Biden’s he’s owning up to. Sure, his motivations for coming forward now may be as suspect as Hunter Biden’s dealings with the Chinese government.
He may have seen the writing on the wall, covering himself in the case of a Trump victory next week. He may even be a key witness in the FBI’s investigation opened in 2019 into the Bidens’ shady business dealings.
But I don’t really care about all of Bobulinski’s reasons. There may in fact be a lot of them. But the primary one on display the other night with Tucker Carlson was that of disgust.
That’s when he was at his most authentic. That’s where his real motivation came from. Adam Schiff is up to his eyes in the corruption in Ukraine.
So is Nancy Pelosi. So is Mitt Romney. So is Cindy McCain by proxy. Victoria Nuland, Hillary Clinton and likely Barack Obama himself.
Schiff has been given cover for over three years to make the most outrageous accusations and they be allowed to stand.
The media is not only complicit in this outrage, they have been rewarded with attention, showered with money by desperate victims of Trump Derangement Syndrome stoked by that same media through the crudest of propaganda techniques.
Now that we’ve reached the eve of the election the stakes for them are so high, since we can see them, that they’ve now sunk even further into the abyss of D.C. Swamp.
This prompted Gleen Greenwald to loudly resign from The Intercept, the company he helped found, when his story on BidenGate had to be gutted to be published.
We found Greenwald’s limit as well.
But Greenwald is supposed to do this. This is the minimum a good journalist is supposed to do when confronted with censorship and cover up. Good on Glenn, this was his moment to lead.
Bobulinski, on the other hand, is different.
Given the way things work in D.C. I’m sure no one ever thought Bobulinski would go through with his threat, because he’s opening himself up to loss.
And yet he did.
Because he has a limit. Joe Biden and his skeezy family haven’t found theirs yet.
That limit defines who we are and what we’re willing to fight for. It stares back at us in the mirror every morning.
And it’s obvious that Bobulinski’s limit was his family’s name and what that name was going to stand for. They figured he would cower in fear because of their power.
Schiff et. al. never thought this guy would be the one to finally break ranks and stand tall. People like Schiff never think that because of the guy they see in the mirror every day.
It’s their Achilles’ heel.
We’re a few days from an election that can best be described as a singularity. A black hole sucking the light out of the world where all of the narratives and agendas of the post-World War II era of human history boil down to a simple choice.
Courage or fear.
Joe Biden and the whole of The Davos Crowd are running a campaign of fear. Fear of COVID-19, fear of Trump, fear of phantom white supremacists, fear of intimacy, race, color, the words we speak and, worst of all, our children.
Remember them? The ones told they have to isolate themselves lest they kill grandma? Imagine, partisan hacks, cheering on the political chaos in the U.S., being a six-year old again living with that guilt.
These are the people Tony Bobulinski finally woke up to who he was dealing with and what their limits were.
Trump, for all of his faults, has done nothing but project courage and bravery. And those are words I would never have ascribed to him in all the years of watching him manipulate the press and politicians in New York.
I watched him appease his enemies in the early days of his first term, terrified of the media backlash, and wasn’t shocked. Disappointed? Yes. But not shocked.
And he wobbled early on with the vipers surrounding him during the early days of the Coronapocalypse.
But as this year has gone along he’s risen to the task. Gotta give credit where it’s due. He led with his chin out and his Twitter feed sharp.
He’s leaving it all on the field, as Scott Adams put it the other day.
We forget that in 2016 we voted for Trump because Hillary Clinton triggered so many people’s disgust circuit.
No. Not. Her.
As my wife told a female friend of ours, “I’ve waited 25 years to vote against that bitch.” And she did.
We took a flyer on Trump because he wasn’t Hillary and he would be hilarious. Mission mostly accomplished. Today I give him credit for raising his game.
Today men of dubious character have stood up against men without any shred of it.
What’s your limit? And what do you do after Tuesday when the real fight or our future begins?
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This is a refreshing and reasonable read on this situation, in the midst of a media blackout and the mountain of anti-Trump deflection being posted online in the past few days by those who seem to be doing everything possible to distract from Bobulinksi and his very credible accusations.
It’s also I think a fair portrayal of Trump, for once — complimentary without being sychophantic, and critical without being obnoxious. Thank you for a rare piece of reason in a sea of intellectual garbage.
Nick,
I’m glad you liked it. Thank you.
Tom, bravo. I have two close friends who have insights from senior people who have dealt directly with Trump this year. He’s far from perfect, but their honest assessment was of a man who was acting in the best interest of the country. Very far removed from the media and TDS portrayals of him. A major fallacy I see is that many Americans think physicians and military leaders leave their politics at the door. Hahaha – what a joke. MSM bleats the falsehoods that they are the true arbiters of unbiased opinion. Thanks for your work and sharing it.
I think you’re wrong about ‘I watched him appease his enemies in the early days of his first term, terrified of the media backlash’ – I think Trump is a VERY smart guy, a master gamesplayer, and the ‘appeasement’ was the necessary sacrifice of a small player, or bit of ground, to keep the longer game alive, surrounded as he was by vicious enemies whom he rightfully understood had to be tackled one at a time, as he slowly built a cadre of trusted fellow warriors around him with which to finally seriously go after ‘the swamp’ as promised, and I think the next four years are going to be one of the great battles of history. The notion he was doing anything out of fear of media backlash seems, if you’ll excuse me, kind of ridiculous, they were already dumping as much crap on him 24/7 as they could, and his continual calling out of them as ‘fake news’ (truthfully of course) hardly indicates any ‘fear’ of anything they might do, it’s been pretty much open warfare between the two sides since before he was elected. Otherwise good column.
The biggest tactical mistake that Trump has made was appointing swamp creatures almost every time there was a position to be filled. While I understand the tactic of “keeping your friends close, and your enemies closer”, that does not mean putting your enemies in positions to harm you.
Most of his appointees appeared to be self-defeating, and are actually refilling the swamp instead of draining it.
You know I don’t think the cleanskin players that Trump needs around him exist. By the time a person has enough experience in a particular field, say like law or law enforcement , they are already compromised, that is already deep in the swamp. If they were not deep in the swamp they would never have risen hight enough in the system to qualify for leadership. There was also a deep naivety about the people that Bannon and Trump surrounded themselves with. Bannon has spoken more extensively about the people they installed and I was amazed that some of the people he admired to me were completely hopeless , he gushed over Sarah Palin for example. So I think that Trump is in a very difficult position and clearly he does have some obligations that he has to fulfil , Sheldon Adelson comes to mind. Possibly if he gets a second term he might do better but for example where can he find a true patriot that is qualified to replace Wrey at the FBI? Mnuchin is a really bad choice also but again who could fill his shoes and also be a cleanskin? It is a very difficult situation and to be continually hiring and firing will only bring chaos. People like Barr and others are putting their careers first and the country second, obviously Barr has stalled his investigation until after the election hoping Trump will lose and if he does push ahead with a real investigation after aTrump win he will be person non-grata with the swamp for the rest of his career. Fear of the swamp is palpable. The charging of Steve Bannon is an example of what happens if you are not a swamp critter, Flynn is stil swinging in the gallows, not quite dead , but ruined for life.The entire Western world has a severe lack of courageous people ready to stand up for their nations , cowardice rules, only Trump has the conviction and belief to try to do the best thing for his country at this point.
Yes! I see Trump the exact same way. He was naive and underestimated the power of the Swamp and it’s creatures. I really hope he wins. Thanks for your writing.
Thanks for chiming in Tim. This is about so much more than Biden v. Trump.
Thanks for the article. Best analysis and writing I have seen in a while.
“I’ve waited 25 years to vote against that bitch.”
Effing priceless.
BRAVO
She’s kinda awesome!