Bouvard on MAGA's Candace Owens Problem

We'll see how much of a killer instinct MAGA has--will they take out Candace Owens and her orbiters once and for all? How many circles of orbiters? Considered rigorously, those circles might expand rather widely.

@SiobhanShamwow They also can't be appeased or assimilated so if they go that route it will just be necessary to wait it out and keep MAGA-izing the party.

@SiobhanShamwow There have been connections between Vance and the tech sector which might have made him a bridge to the groypers but I don't think anyone in the tech sector wants anything to do with that stuff at this point. Vance will have to choose, if it's not tool late.

@SiobhanShamwow He's certainly not an Owens orbiter or Carlson ally but his effects on the GOP, if allowed, would be equally corrosive. But we might have different views on who would count as a Thiel surrogate and what that means.

@SiobhanShamwow Fuentes has not been consistently opposed to Islam either, from what I know.

@SiobhanShamwow I don't think they are best friends.

@SiobhanShamwow I can believe that Tucker knows very little about Palantir, and I agree with you about Wkipedia, but I don't have any objections to Palantir. Quite to the contrary.

@SiobhanShamwow OK, but even if Fuentes is marginally better (he's certainly much less crazy and dishonest) from the standpoint of the GOP I don't think the difference is important.

@SiobhanShamwow Where would or should they go? They will be increasingly integrated into national security structures. Making technology work for generating wealth and opportunity across the board is certainly as important a problem as any. The GOP should put that problem front and center.

@SiobhanShamwow This means that the dissident right and the groypers are sabotaging (and, maximally, hoping to replace) the GOP in different ways. You may think they will do so more effectively than I do, but there's no real way of knowing. Staying firm on immigration should ward them off.

@SiobhanShamwow The attacking is primarily coming from this particular camp (Owens, etc.) so if they are excluded decisively the GOP can organize more coherently around advancing major Trump policies like immigration. reindustrialization shutting down antifa, etc. and DEI.

@SiobhanShamwow The purpose of the phenomena we've been discussing has largely been to derail Trump. He has remained, for the most part, on track, and will hopefully continue to be "railed" for the rest of his term and popular enough that the next GOP candidate can continue.

@SiobhanShamwow I dislike Vance but have doubts about Rubio so I would very much like to see a crowded field. There are some things that need to be hashed out.

@SiobhanShamwow People who are hostile to Vance gravitate toward Rubio as the next option. I'm hostile to Vance but Rubio was too much part of the GOP establishment and his performance as SoS has depended on Trump in a way radicalizing some pre-existing foreign policy formulas.

@SiobhanShamwow Maintaining a space for rational discussions of foreign policy will have to be a priority for the GOP--the Democrats have lost it but the Republicans haven't yet. The anti-Israel stuff will make it impossible to speak of matters of war, peace, alliances, etc., reasonably.

@SiobhanShamwow For a while I thought Trump's strategy might be, rather than trying to cut spending, to redirect money in ways hostile to the the Dems agenda so they wouldn't be so anxious to spend. I'm not sure that was the case, but it's a good approach.

@SiobhanShamwow Until the end of the term, those things that are specifically within the purview of the executive--the border, deportations, breaking up left-wing organizations through various means and, hopefully, prosecuting some crimes from the Russia collusion hoax on.