Biden at Valley Forge: NATO's Invitation to Help Us Save Our Democracy
"We still believe in “We the People,” and that includes all of us, not some of us."
It’s in the asides that Joe Biden really speaks — when he “wanders” off script and tells us that “no one f—s with a Biden” — and when he stresses to nations around the world the stakes of our election.
I tell you from my experience working with leaders around the world — and I mean this sincerely, not a joke — that America is still viewed as the beacon of democracy for the world.
I can’t tell you how many — how many world leaders — and I know all of them, virtually all of them — grab my arm in private and say, “He can’t win. Tell me. No, my country will be at risk.”
Think of how many countries, Tommy, you know that are on the br- — on the edge. Imagine.
We still believe in “We the People,” and that includes all of us, not some of us.
There are so many things that have become clear in the three years since January 6th. This is altogether fitting because amid all the social media blather we’ve finally got some clarity on Epiphany. Christ made his presence known to the world then and the three kings feast was its manifestation.
The stakes of the American election matter for the whole world and you should expect other countries to act accordingly in much the same way that the British acted to target Nazi spies and sympathizers in America during World War II.
President Biden chose to launch his political campaign at Valley Forge — a place where he had been going since he was a Boy Scout he tells us. And President Joe Biden reminds us that Donald Trump was not a Boy Scout, to say the least. Trump went to military school and his fondness for all things martial is well known — maybe even including martial law.
In delivering a searing case against Donald Trump one might be a bit squeamish. Mitt Romney finds the January 6th too weak an attack but losers, however well intentioned, are not permitted a say and certainly not when they represent Utah — one of the hotbeds of anti-Union sentiment. Romney had no real constituency in the Republican Party and so it’s not surprising that he’s retiring at the end of his term.
“There are no liberal Republican votes,” avers Roger Stone. “There are no moderate Republican votes,” he tells the Danish film crew that made a study of him. It’s about all that base.
What does the base have in mind?
Well, Vivek promises to pull us out of NATO.
NATO has other ideas. NATO is shifting from a military alliance to an economic one as its first and second largest armies plan a different view of the Middle East and the Black Sea.
A trade agreement between Türkiye and the U.K. is in the offing.
I hope you noticed that Secretary Blinken and Prime Minister Erdogan met on January 6th after Türkiye outed 33 Mossad spies in their country.
For me January 7th had a profound effect on how I see myself, my involvement with the Republican Party and my relationship to the country.
In the days after September 11th there were a number of Americans who identified as a “September 12th conservatives.” Well, in days after January 6th I became a “January 7th Democrat.” I didn’t really set out to become one and I think it’s increasingly hard to pin down my own politics.
The Fedsurrection narrative was set up to harm America — and yet it’s not totally misplaced. It’s just the exact opposite of what really happened. Far from attacking or persecuting conservatives there was a concerted effort by the FBI not to get to the bottom of January 6th or to understand the role of foreign involvement in the lead up, duration and aftermath of that day. Indeed they canceled those us of talking about the foreign role of January 6th as confidential informants. Time has revealed that a lot of the FBI is foreign compromised and even meant some of them going to jail.
Nevertheless a group of citizens assembled and pushed back. They formed associations, Google groups, IRL meetups and they got to it. Normal people — housewives, students, school teachers, rehired person — got together and they fought back by exposing who, precisely, was engaged in the insurrection, where they came from. To be sure I suspect that many of these groups got penetrated by foreign intelligence to steer conversations away from the foreign actors who were involved in the scrum in much the same way that the Israeli and Russian agent provocateurs in Charlottesville eluded attention and capture.
What must come next are the sorts of technologies which detect, deter, and mitigate these kind of foreign-backed cults and gangs from forming in the first place. We need to make the world a more legible, more fair, and more realistic place.
It’s here that I am focusing a lot more of my attention and investments. We need a structure change where our methods of detection give way to sympathy and kindness.
I am tremendously proud of the work my companies played and continue to play in bringing the foreign spies and insurrectionists to Justice and accountability. Clearview.AI — the facial recognition company I started with Hoan Ton-That — was instrumental in uploading law and order and helping law enforcement get a sense of who was there and what they were up to during that day. When the nation was in chaos we got to work.
My family was there at the Lexington and Concord. My family was there during the Civil War, and the War in the Pacific and the Gulf of Tonkin and in the Middle East and Ukraine. So, of course, I am going to be there when it comes to protecting our country.