What does a Trump victory indicate for 2025?
Assuming nothing insane between now and Jan 20, don't expect a real rollback of the progressive agenda. Trump 2025 will be just as bogged down in lawfare as in his first term. Hopefully he's more prepared. /1
The American Redoubt thesis is holding strong. Recently released data showing the affiliation of newly arrived voters from CA, OR, and WA shows that not only are they conservative, they are *more* conservative than Idaho's existing electorate (50.4% Republican).
I grew up evangelical, went to AWANA and youth group. I was homeschooled. I read I Kissed Dating Goodbye and went to the "Rebelution" conferences. I volunteered at church camp every summer and got a certificate in Biblical Studies before I went off to a 4-year state college. /1
A friend once observed to me:
“Would love to read a memoir that goes something like this: ‘I grew up evangelical, was made to listen to Adventures in Odyssey, forced to go to Wheaton, was taught abstinence, saw my parents put up a Bush/Cheney sign . . . And I’m fine.’”
Ohio and Indiana could top the lists for ourguys:
Solidly conservative, affordable homes, good employment, high percentage of English speakers, relatively low crime, tolerable climate.
But I know many more people that have moved from these states than to them. Why?
My kids are growing up in a culture where being a Christian homeschooler is normal. They don't have to feel out of place or self-conscious.
I grew up evangelical and I'm fine. My kids are growing up evangelical and going to be great. /4
Email-jobbing while our kids are at homeschool co-op. Rowdy discussion on predestination happening in one corner. One table over a couple young men are asking girls to go to a swing dance this weekend. WAGMI.
All I want is every owner of a home on 20 acres to be able to build a small village of cabins and cottages and rent them to decent people at an affordable rate.
Suppose you get a half-dozen like-minded families together to buy a big piece of land and split it into 5-acre parcels to build on. What would you do to make it a meaningful *place* rather than just another rural subdivision? (Bonus point for realistic and affordable solutions!)
@Kurt_Steiner
“Couldn’t countries just solve conflicts by running a simulation and predicting the winner?”
They do every day.
When they don’t agree on the outcome, they have a war.
Baseline criteria for rural property:
Location
- Manageable commute
- Distance from highway or main road
- Not near large developments, or industrial/agricultural nuisances
- Outside city and tribal jurisdictions
- Like-minded neighbors
- Favorable microclimate /1
@CalebMPowers
“Can a kind woman e'er forget
The infant of her womb?
And 'mongst a thousand tender thoughts
Her suckling have no room?
"Yet," saith the Lord, "should nature change,
And mothers monsters prove,
Zion still dwells upon the heart
Of everlasting love.”
Wikipedia 2019: Did you know this cool flag was on Ron Swanson's desk on Parks and Rec?
Wikipedia 2024: This obscure historical flag is "A symbol of right-wing extremism" and a "banner of the far right."
@BjornIronSkull
“Lots of respectable people have been hit by trains. Judge Hobbie over in Cookville was hit by a train. What was I gonna tell them, that you got sent to the penal farm and I divorced you from shame?”
Semi-autonomous conservative metropolitan areas are our best hope for building, keeping, and protecting a conservative future.
I've settled my family near a red state metro region with a population of ~700,000. Why? /1
Midway through college, I married a "debt-free virgin without tattoos" and have been married for 10 great years with a bunch of kids. We settled in a red-state suburb with a great church and community.
We're building on the work that our parents did. /3
We were recently sitting by the campfire with a crowd of zoomers from our church. This gang, as they call themselves, occupies themselves with camping and 4-wheeling. (1/6)
Doomerism is a lack of imagination.
My future and my children's future does not depend on who wins the election.
1. Total civilizational victory. Trump wins, and actually makes America great again. My children thrive in the Roaring Forties. 1/7
Why should you expect that your children will be able to resist the tide of culture? Is your idiosyncratic family culture really going to stand up? Are you willing to bet that they are by nature as stubborn, perceptive, or inherently resistant to propaganda as you are? /1
Family story time. My great-great-grandfather won my great-great-grandmother in a card game. As she recounts it:
Robert asked me first to marry him when I was about sixteen years old, but I didn't want to get married.
Father had planted some small locust trees around the
Wikipedia 2019: Did you know this cool flag was on Ron Swanson's desk on Parks and Rec?
Wikipedia 2024: This obscure historical flag is "A symbol of right-wing extremism" and a "banner of the far right."
@Aristos_Revenge
Definitely be careful about leaning too much on any “jailbreak” responses. It’s not necessarily accessing a hidden store of truth, but BSing with stuff it learned from Reddit and 4chan.
I was baptized once as an infant and again as a young adult. I worried a lot about my salvation as a teenager. My parents were worried about the collapse of society, and we lived in the backwoods.
Then I went to college to get an engineering degree--and I stayed Christian. /2
Secure a "walking path" easement ringing the properties, allowing non-motorized access connecting all the properties. Gives kids free rein to roam, bicycle, and play across the area without worrying about road traffic.
This is Randy Weaver. He's holding up a picture of his 14 yr old son Samuel. Samuel was shot in the back & killed by automatic gunfire running from US Marshals on Aug. 21, 1992. The Marshals later got the agencies highest award for "courage".
#RubyRidge
Why not leave?
23.6 MILLION Republican voters are in +10% blue states where their presidential votes mean nothing. These voters are disenfranchised at the national level, and get no say in how their electoral votes are assigned.
These blue states aren't going to flip back. /1
There’s a bit from Albion’s Seed about how the various American settlers built their homes along roads
Puritan yankees would cluster them (1). Quaker midlanders would space out their homes along the road (2) and appalachian borderers would hide theirs deep in their property (3)
“Conservatives could be here,” he thought, “I’ve never been in MAGA country before. There could be rednecks anywhere.” The fresh air felt good on his bare face.
This book is more dangerous than the one about the gay penguins
Ned is a good boy who always says yes to his parents.
A dragon terrorizes his town every night and every night his parents ask him to come in so he is safe from the dragon
One day Ned watched the dragon fly
@Empty_America
I want to see national forests and BLM privatized (as appropriate) with a perpetual right to roam in the deed.
Ditch the “never touch it” conservation easements. Just farm it and timber it, and give the public access along the edges.
Pick a "party tree" and establish a pattern of hosting regular events that can become actual traditions. Coordinate with individual land owners to take on projects. For example, one might build a shooting range, another an airsoft course, and another plant an orchard.
We know that circumstances over the last several years have started a sea change in where people live and the kinds of master-planned communities that are now possible with the broader adoption of remote work and flex arrangements.
We see significant demand for planned