Swiftboat Magic Won't Strike Twice For Chris LaCivita
Swiftboat Magic Won't Strike Twice For Chris LaCivita
in which I agree with Adam Kinzinger & Nick Fuentes
‘‘THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”
Ever since Kamala Harris selected Tim Walz as her running mate last week, conservatives have aggressively been pushing the talking point that Walz is a coward who dodged the Iraq War.
This scandal became the #1 trending topic on X for a few news cycles, forcing the mainstream media to cover it, e.g.:
Vance Attacks Walz’s Military Record, Accusing Him of Avoiding a Tour in Iraq (New York Times)
Walz Under Fire for Embellishing Service Record (The American Conservative)
To Combat Veterans Like Me, Tim Walz's Abandonment of His Unit Is Unforgivable (NewsWeek)
Man who served under Walz says governor retired before unit had deployment news (The Hill)
Grieving mom whose late son served in same National Guard unit as Tim Walz slams ‘coward’ veep wannabe (New York Post)
J.D. Vance’s ‘Stolen Valor’ Claim Against Tim Walz Is Total B.S. (Rolling Stone)
Tim Walz Knew His Battalion Was Being Eyed For Iraq When He Retired From National Guard (Washington Free Beacon)
The ‘Swift Boating’ of Tim Walz has begun. What is the truth? (Task & Purpose)
Walz’s Battalion Commander publicly lashed out at him:
Even Walz’s battalion chaplain couldn’t hold back, publicly calling him a coward… You’ve got to mess up pretty badly for YOUR PRIEST to go on record to the New Yor Post trashing you, lol:
Other soldiers from the battalion defended him. One went on CNN and said that the deployment-dodging accusations were not ‘‘credible’’:
While another appeared on NewsNation to defend Walz, saying:
“He told us that he wanted to run for Congress, and he was in a tough spot, because he was pretty sure we were going to Iraq … Where can I be a better person for the soldier? Where can I be a better person for Minnesota? Where can I be a better person for the United States? … He was our person to go to. He had the answers. He was also a father figure to us. If we had a problem we needed to talk to somebody, he was there.’’
Most soldiers are pissed off, though.
On Substack, several independent writers are tracking this story, you should subscribe to each to support alternative media:
The substack I agree with most, however, comes from former congressman
, whom I loathe on a personal level:
He has me blocked on X, lol:
As luck would have it as I was writing this article, Kinzinger ALLEGEDLY had his Grindr account hacked and leaked to millions of people via rapper lil’ Pump:
Kinzinger may or may not be secretly gay, but he is right. These swiftboat attacks are Republicans grasping at straws with lazy and ineffective rhetoric; throwing mud at the wall to see what sticks.
For starters, Republicans lack the moral high ground.
Trump dodged serving in the Vietnam War with fake bone spurs.
…and then bragged that having too much casual sex with whores was ‘‘my personal Vietnam.’’
“It is a dangerous world out there. [STD’s] are scary, like Vietnam.
Sort of like the Vietnam era.
It is my personal Vietnam.
I feel like a great and very brave soldier.’’
— Donald Trump, 1997
Due to Trump’s lack of credibility, Vance is running point on this issue.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
It is righteous to oppose unjust wars
Walz didn’t merely dodge the Iraq War to run for office.
Walz dodged the Iraq war to campaign *against* the Iraq war.
He correctly saw it as an interventionist misadventure, a distant conflict driven by arrogance and poor judgment, and a waste of American blood and treasure. He believed that the most patriotic course of action was to oppose the war. To me, that’s patriotism & good judgement. It is a solemn responsibility for the older generation, like Walz’s, to take every measure to prevent sending younger generations, such as Vance’s, into senseless conflicts. Walz upheld this duty.
Walz didn’t single-handedly end the Iraq war, but he did single-handedly flip a pro-war seat into an anti-war seat. Upon flipping this seat, he immediately voted for a measure demanding the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq within 90 days.
We charge that a cabal of polemicists and public officials seek to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America’s interests. We charge them with colluding with Israel to ignite those wars and destroy the Oslo Accords. We charge them with deliberately damaging U.S. relations with every state in the Arab world that defies Israel or supports the Palestinian people’s right to a homeland of their own. We charge that they have alienated friends and allies all over the Islamic and Western world through their arrogance, hubris, and bellicosity.
Not in our lifetimes has America been so isolated from old friends. Far worse, President Bush is being lured into a trap baited for him by these neocons that could cost him his office and cause America to forfeit years of peace won for us by the sacrifices of two generations in the Cold War.
Walz enlisted in the National Guard at the age of 17.
Hypothetical situation:
You serve for 24 years — your entire adult life — 4 years past the age of retirement — at which point a cabal of retarded/evil neocons start a war in the Middle East for… what reason, again? For 9/11? For WMDs? For Israel? For the Wolfowitz Doctrine? For oil? Because Bush Jr. saw Bush Sr. attempt to overthrow Saddam twenty years earlier and it gave him daddy issues?
As Jess Ventura correctly notes in this CNN hit from yesterday, what is the National Guard even doing deploying to a foreign country?
When I tweeted this poll, my followers were split 50/50.
What would you think? VOTE:
9 reasons Chris LaCivita’s swiftboating strategy will fail
Bone spurs.
Walz served for 24 years, and people are mad he didn’t serve for 25 or 26 years? Really? That is the best dirt you have on him?
Patriotic fervour is at an all-time low.
We’re in a different era of American experiences with war. 2.9 million young men were drafted into the U.S. military during the Vietnam War; John Kerry’s service there resonated with a lot of voters. In the post-conscription era, people like Walz and Vance (a public-affairs officer deployed to Iraq) who chose to put on the uniform are the exception rather than the rule. More typical is Donald Trump, who was ahead of his time in finding a way to avoid military service (via his father’s influence, some claim).
— Why the Swiftboating of Tim Walz Won’t Work, New York Magazine
Walz’s stolen valor claims have been lingering for decades… this is old news. Democrats were aware of this before picking him, and they baked blowback into their expectations. This will all blow over, just like in the last 6 straight elections Walz won.
Historically, according to the political science literature, VP picks don’t matter much for 2 main reasons:
Voters don’t try to elect their favorite VP candidate
Running mates don’t typically “deliver” key voting blocs
‘‘Brother, nobody gives a fuck about the vice president.’’
VP mania is winding down. There was initial outrage over Vance, then outrage over Walz. It’s over. Voters have short attention spans.
Republicans are overplaying their hand by focusing on the wrong target. While Walz's questionable retirement is being scrutinized, his pattern of inflating his military credentials is far more concerning. He has consistently misrepresented his service, claiming to be a “veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom” despite being stationed safely in Italy, far from any combat zone. Furthermore, he has exaggerated his rank, falsely elevating his status from E-8 to E-9, despite the latter being only a temporary position before reverting upon retirement. On occasion, he has even implied active combat involvement when none occurred. These fabrications—which I can’t fully detail in this article due to space constraints (it is already way too long)—are lengthy and far more troubling than his dodged deployment. Yet, Republicans are fixated on this dodged deployment.
Republicans are losing the meme war. I wasn't on Twitter for the 2016 election but I get the sense that the meme magic was much more potent back then. This cycle’s memes simply suck. From the dogshit ‘'Kamabla'' nickname….
To the ‘‘Tim Walz has sex with horses’’ memes... terrible MAGA brainrot slop…
Is it any wonder that Walz is crushing Vance in the polls?
Voters like Walz. Voters dislike Vance.
Voters don’t care if Walz did 24 years in the National Guard instead of 25 years.
Due in part to the stark contrast between Vance and Walz, Democrats are experiencing a surge in prediction markets. Kamala Harris has emerged as the clear frontrunner, with Polymarket and PredictIt showing her trading at an impressive 59%.
https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/7456/Who-will-win-the-2024-US-presidential-election
https://insightprediction.com/m/243614/who-will-win-the-2024-us-presidential-election
She is winning the swing states.
The MAGA response to this momentum is to bury their head in the sand and dismiss all prediction markets as fake news, with claims that dark money groups are manipulating the outcomes.
This conspiracy is histrionic. As crypto bro Nick Tomain explains, dark money groups are probably not manipulating markets to make Trump look bad:
A narrative from some on the right is now dark money groups are buying Kamala YES shares on Polymarket to make it look like she’s the favorite, which generates headlines and further shifts popular sentiment. It’s true that dark money groups like Arabella Advisors spend billions to get their candidate elected (outspending peers on the right by 10x +). But that is not what’s happening on Polymarket right now. If Arabella wanted to put the entire $1.2B they spent in 2020 to make it look like it was 95% Kamala, market makers would quickly absorb that liquidity to reflect the true market price. This is a liquid market and there are many sophisticated players with the goal of making money. Legacy and social media is much easier to manipulate with money and that is what has caused the shift.
To clarify, I consulted Douglas Campbell, CEO of Insight Prediction.
Campbell owns his own prediction market, so he has a unique perspective!
I think it's certainly possible theoretically that someone could bet money just to skew markets, and maybe this happened before, but the claim that this is what is happening now seems ludicrous. First, there is no evidence this is the case. Second, Kamala's improving poll numbers -- a Nytimes/Sienna poll (the highest quality pollster) put Kamala up 4 points in three key swing-states just yesterday -- mean that, if anything, markets may be underestimating Kamala's chances slightly at present. As others have said, the overall betting market is fairly large and liquid, and if a whale moves the price a few cents on one website, over time it will likely correct. What's likely happening is that Cernovich does not like the results. A similar thing happens when one side starts talking about "unskewing" the polls. People start talking about that when they are losing.
— Doug Campbell, CEO of Insight Prediction
Next, I reached out to Professor Robin Hanson, arguably the most respected name in the prediction market industry. He mostly agrees with Campbell, and disagrees with Cernovich:
When market speculators suspect that some traders are willing to lose money on their trades to manipulate the price, they eagerly make opposite trades, and on average cancel the bias. In fact, markets are MORE accurate when they suspect such manipulators. We've seen this in the field, in the lab, and in formal theory.
— Professor Robin Hanson
Hanson’s Substack is a must-subscribe:
Kamala is also gaining momentum in traditional polls. The pollster/aggregator I personally trust most is
, my favorite lib pundit.
He is on Substack:
At this stage, if you’re ignoring all the polling and prediction markets and still believe Trump is winning, you’re either willfully blind or simply acting as a paid shill. Trump is losing! Dismissing prediction markets and polls as fake news only creates a false sense of security. I agree with Nick Fuentes that the Trump campaign is in a death spiral and desperately needs a new strategy.
Fuentes’ ultimate conclusion is that Chris LaCivita, Trump’s campaign manager, needs to fall on his sword.
Fuentes has now declared a ‘‘Groyper war’’ against LaCivita:
For the opening salvo in this ‘‘war’’, Groypers made #FireLaCivita trend.
On this issue, I agree with the Groyper wing of the Republican party.
LaCivita is proving to be a liability, driving the campaign into the ground.
LaCivita is the snake who shanked Project 2025, Trump’s most loyal supporters and employees:
LaCivita's push for Trump's indictment over January 6 and his attempt to position himself to the left of Harris on crime reflect a broader disconnection from the current political climate. As a veteran of the Bush era, his outdated approach has struggled to resonate with 2024 voters. His inability to connect with the electorate is becoming increasingly apparent, and his performance is clearly faltering. Trump lost in 2018, 2020, 2022, and with LaCivita he is on track to lose in 2024.
Trump needs to shake things up. I’m not alone in this assessment.
It is not a good thing to be included on this list, lol, these people suck:
However, I share their views on a few critical issues:
The Trump campaign has been hijacked by shitty boomer consultants
The Trump campaign is headed for a catastrophic loss
The Trump campaign needs better memes
Chris LaCivita should be fired
To clarify, I am not joining the Groyper movement — I disavow many of their positions. In fact I don’t really know what their positions are on most things, that’s how little I care about Groypers usually. Alas, as the adage goes, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had. I am finally starting to understand NETTR:
So, as Groypers launch their #FireLacivita Groyper war, I will not countersignal them. Instead, I’ll be cheering them on. Their movement is gaining traction and trending for a reason. They make some good points.
A cynic might argue that Trump’s woes are far more profound than any one campaign manager could fix. One such cynic is
. He pointed me toward a story published today arguing that firing LaCivita won’t happen, and even if it did, it wouldn’t address the deeper rot in Trump’s campaign.
Despite Pedro's blackpill, I remain optimistic that there's still a path to turning Trump’s campaign around… but LaCivita’s current strategy of ‘‘wait for the debate and pray for the best’’ is not cutting it.
Did you watch JD Vance? He made it clear, it’s the lying, not the failure to serve after spending 24 years promising to do so.
Cutting through all the political gamesmanship, back-stabbing, bone spurs, dark money, and all the rest. For me, this is your key sentence in this mishmash, which you then ignore: “Most soldiers are pissed off, though.”
Do you wonder why? Have we been fooled so easily?
I’ll tell you why. Most soldiers understand this fundamental ethos that is central to the performance of a combat unit: “You don’t abandon your mates.”
There it is: “You don’t abandon your mates.”
Others can debate the effect on the election and all the other points. But most veterans know that Walz broke this law.