The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Your ‘Private’ Messages Aren’t Private

Posted on | June 28, 2023 | Comments Off on Your ‘Private’ Messages Aren’t Private

Let’s start with the obvious: The reason that Pedro Gonzales’s “private” messages got leaked is because he supports Ron DeSantis for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, and we may presume the leaker supports Donald Trump. This is not to defend Gonzales or anything he said in the messages; it’s just acknowledging the reality that politics explains why this leak happened. How many people were participants in the “group chat” where Gonzales said various unpleasant things about Jews, etc.? We don’t know, but we must suppose that Gonzales believed that all of them were sympathetic to anti-Semitism and — here’s the real kicker — maybe they were, and still are. Which is to say, I do not rule out the possibility that Gonzales’s anti-Semitic messages were leaked by pro-Trump “friends” who are themselves anti-Semitic.

Jew-haters exposing a fellow Jew-hater because he supports one GOP candidate and they support another? This is just sad.

Why is this being published by Breitbart-dot-com? Oliver Darcy was too busy? The SPLC has lost interest in anti-Semitism? Or is DeSantis such an apostate to the True Faith that anything goes in terms of smearing him? Because I don’t think Matthew Boyle or his editors really care about Pedro Gonzales, per se. No, he is of interest to them because, as Boyle says, “Gonzalez has become perhaps most well-known as one of the most active and strident pro-Florida Gov. Ron Desantis influencers on Twitter.” And therefore he must be EXPOSED!

Well, it should go without saying, I don’t like this game, because this is probably not going to be the last inning of the game. If it’s going to be open season on DeSantis’s supporters, then Trump’s supporters can expect to get the same kind of treatment. And if the right wing is going to consume itself with a spree of reputational destruction, we can expect the sold-out GOP Establishment crowd to profit from this, to say nothing of the chortling glee we’ll hear from the Democrats. Andrew Breitbart never played the game this way, so far as I can remember.

Just incidentally, there are some amusing passages in Matthew Boyle’s article, like when he decides to “expose” Gonzales as an admirer of — gasp! — the late Sam Francis. Except, of course, Gonzales is an editor at Chronicles, where Francis was a beloved columnist for many years. If there’s anyone on the Chronicles payroll who doesn’t like Sam Francis, that would be shocking. Also, Boyle tries to make something out of Gonzales saying that Paul Gottfried, another regular Chronicles contributor, is a “good” Jew, i.e., the kind who hates Ben Shapiro.

It should go without saying that I know Professor Gottfried, having met him at the same kind of Thought Criminal conferences where I used to have beers with Sam Francis. While I can’t say I am personally acquainted with every Thought Criminal on the SPLC “hate map,” I’m familiar with most of them, one way or another. A few years ago, when former Breitbart editor Katie McHugh decided to dump all her email correspondence into the SPLC’s lap, I was saddened and amused because not only did I know Katie, but I also knew several of the DANGEROUS WHITE NATIONALISTS she decided to “expose.”

Kevin DeAnna? Check. Marcus Epstein? Check. Peter Brimelow? Check.

Speaking of which, the last time I talked to Peter, he extended me an invitation to visit the VDare “castle” in West Virginia, and I meant to take him up on that offer, but it slipped my mind. After I get back from Alaska, I’ll have to give him a call. But anyway . . .

Eventually, this election cycle will end and, one way or the other, it will also end the Trump-DeSantis war, a conflict that I lament as unnecessary and harmful. Vote for whoever you want to vote for, hate whoever you want to hate, I don’t care, but why should conservatives — all of us regarded as “deplorables” by the Powers That Be in the Biden Age — tear each other apart over this? People need to wake the hell up.

As for Gonzales and his “private” messages, young people need to learn a lesson I’ve repeatedly taught my kids: Never say anything in a text message, email or a DM that you wouldn’t want to see screencapped and printed on the front page of the New York Times. There are few beliefs more dangerous in the modern world than thinking that your “private” messages will stay private, if anyone ever has a motive to leak them. For all you know, the political associate you regard as your “friend” could be a federal informant, an agent provocateur, and you’ll DM yourself straight into federal prison. Learn the value of silence.



 

 

Category: Scandal

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