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Cynical Publius @CynicalPublius - RE: Data Republican
I am a huge Data Republican (small r) (“DR”) fan. I know many of you are as well.
But I’m not sure everyone fully understands the sheer bravery, brilliance and audacity of this deaf every-woman.
You see, the government you elect is not what actually governs you.
For every area of government (no matter how specialized or arcane), there are powerful lobbying groups, think-tanks, non-governmental organizations ("NGOs"), specialized media outlets, university-sponsored centers and other ostensibly "independent" organizations that act and behave as an unaccountable form of government outside the reaches of the electoral process. While these organizations claim to act in the public interest, each and everyone of them is a self-serving oligarchy that is designed solely to promote the interests of those on the inside--genuine public interest be damned.
This is America of course, and freedom of speech and freedom of association are fundamental to our freedoms. However, over many decades, these organizations have found “legal” ways to obtain trillions of your taxpayer dollars in the form of “grants” for “studies,” “policy symposiums” and all manner of other taxpayer-funded activities designed specifically to circumvent the policies the American people VOTED FOR and to perpetuate policies and activities that the average American has explicitly rejected.
These activities occur on both the Left and the Right, of course, but over time they have become the near exclusive domain of the Left. These organizations serve as taxpayer/Soros-funded, income-generating activities for Leftists whenever they are out of power, and if/when Leftists seize control of the Presidency or Congress, these organizations are the proverbial bullpens from which powerful Leftists full of the ideas you thought you once eliminated can storm right back into the actual process of governance, implementing all of those dark and mysterious policies that your tax dollars were secretly funding while the Leftists were otherwise off howling in the wilderness.
Call it the Deep State. Call it unconstitutional. Call it theft of your hard-earned taxpayer dollars. Call it the evil of the Soros family. Call it what ever you will, but know this—it is a monstrous Leviathan sitting right outside the scope of your votes, dedicated to negating your votes at your own expense, in the most diabolical manner possible.
It is the state outside the state. It is self-serving. It does not care about you. It only cares about itself. And its power is VAST.
You see it right here on X—you see the swarms of fire ants that come spilling out with destruction in mind whenever anyone uncovers the anthill they are lurking under.
And right at the heart of that is our hero, DR.
I have been actively following politics virtually my entire life, and never before has there been anyone quite like DR. Through dispassionate data analysis, the smart use of AI and a relentless drive for fairness and justice, DR has done more to shine a light on the nature of this extra-governmental Leviathan than any other person I can ever recall.
For her efforts, she has been doxxed by a mendacious Rolling Stone article. She has endured a concerted effort to destroy her husband’s totally unrelated business. She and her husband have received LITERALLY THOUSANDS of death threats. She and her family had to go into hiding.
An ordinary woman would have backed down in fear.
But not DR. They just made her mad. And an angry genius is an enemy no one wants to face. She still stares them down, day in and day out.
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