Show notes
I wasn’t sure I’d be able to finish the Jake Tapper/Alex Thompson book, Original Sin. I downloaded the audiobook, narrated by Tapper, to listen to as I drive across the country from California to Ohio to see my daughter for her birthday. Out my window, I see the same running commentary of the real America I witnessed years ago, which changed my mind about Trump and MAGA. When you see Trump’s name arising in unexpected places in nearly every state, from Arizona (“Viva Trump”) to Nebraska to Iowa to New York, you know something significant has shifted in this country.It felt like a secret cry for help among forgotten and abandoned Americans. I see it even now:I was not encouraged by the book’s first chapter, which describes a world where the Democratic Party isn’t corrupt, where they don’t hand-pick candidates and then force everyone to “Vote Blue No Matter Who,” where identity politics don’t rule the day, and where the democratic process is allowed to play out. What a load of garbage. To quote Deep Throat in All the President’s Men, “Oh, but it’s touching.” Just imagine Gavin Newsom attempting to challenge Kamala Harris. She might be the world’s worst candidate, but all points lead back to her; you have to start there, whether they had a primary or not. They knew that, which is why they skipped the foreplay and went straight to a first-ever installed candidate for president. So I didn’t think listening to an entire audiobook shaped by a false premise and awash in false media narratives would be a good use of my time. Maybe I’d listen to, I don’t know, the new Mark Twain biography.As Victor Davis Hanson points out, Jake Tapper is an unreliable narrator because there would be no Biden cover-up if the media had done its job:Had Original Sin been written by Tom Wolfe, Gore Vidal, or even Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi, it would have been the searing indictment of a deep state plot foiled by Mr. McGoo, told with bemused irony. But it is dead serious, for better or worse.But I must say, in the end, I’m glad I stuck with it. It might not be the definitive account of the rise and fall of a once-mighty empire I would have wanted, but it is a surprisingly revealing look behind the curtain all the same.Could it really be that Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg were brought in to “direct” Joe Biden with better light, sound, and acting coaching? Yes. Could it be that Rob Reiner and Jane Fonda broke down in hysterics at some mansion in the Hollywood Hills after the debate? Yes. If the aim was to scapegoat Joe Biden, they failed. He comes off as the most sympathetic, a victim of a massive machine of creeps that chewed him up and spit him out. Do they legitimately believe we would sympathize with some fat cat in Hollywood who threatens never to write another check unless they push Biden out? We’re supposed to care about what the donors think? Tapper seems to have emerged from the grim experience with a bit of a perspective shift. At least now, he’s able to talk about the problems the Democrats have in a way he hasn’t in the past ten years. The value of Original Sin, at least for someone like me who fled the party in disgust in 2020 after watching them use their power to take our elections away from the people and decide their outcome, isn’t so much that there are any new revelations. But it’s a book written from the inside, with access to over 200 voices anxious to be heard. That meant following the events as they unfolded in real time, and let me tell you, there is pleasure in that. I found it cathartic, not just because the Democrats had it coming, and got everything they deserved, but for the sheer joy of witnessing the most most powerful people in the world have their asses handed to them by the very democracy they claimed they wanted to protect. That George Clooney, Steven Spielberg, and Jeffrey Katzenberg were so heavily involved in the politics of the Democrats makes it all look like the Wizard of Oz, pulling back the curtain and exposing the ugly truth. Hollywood might make this into a series for HBO or Netflix, but since the co-founder and chairman of Netflix, Reed Hastings, was one of the fat cats who threatened to withhold funds unless the Democrats got rid of Biden, I’m guessing we won’t get the whole story. But if they wanted to tell it like it really happened, it would make one hell of a tale.The Story That Writes ItselfHollywood doesn’t have the guts to tell the whole story. They can’t because they’re part of it. They’re way too cozy with the Democrats, and if they really wanted to tell the truth, they’d have to admit, as with Michael Corleone, they are part of the same hypocrisy. At best, they could cobble together something that paints Trump as the ultimate evil that vain and selfish Joe and Jill Biden allowed to take back power. The real story is how they built a powerful coalition and had no choice but to turn to corruption to preserve that power. This would make a great long-form series.Episode One—The “hope and change” candidate lights up the world and chooses an “old white guy” to be his Veep, just as JFK did with LBJ, a cynical ploy to make his youth and inexperience (and, in this case, skin color) more palatable for a nervous electorate. Episode Two - The “hope and change” guy doesn’t like the “old white guy” as the successor of his powerful coalition, which now includes all of culture, all corporations, all institutions, all media, and all social media. Why go backwards? The “old white guy” with a stutter who just lost his beloved son to brain cancer was no longer useful to the “hope and change” guy. No one thinks much of it as he’s kicked to the curb and embarrassed as not electable enough, not desirable enough, and past his sell-by date. So, the “hope and change” guy picks the “Wall Street Sweetheart,” the former First Lady and Secretary of State, to become the “first woman POTUS.” With the help of a grassroots populist movement and an “Old Socialist” challenging the “Wall Street Sweetheart,” the party is fractured, and Trump wins. Episode Three - The establishment and the Obama coalition decide that Trump should not be allowed to rule, forget democracy! Who needs it? No “old white guy” was supposed to win, least of all that guy. Millions pour into the streets in an orgy of self pity, imagined oppression, fragility, privilege and narcissism — mass hysteria takes hold, cancel culture grips the left. Hundreds lose their jobs as they desperately try to undo the election results and get rid of Trump. They impeach him, they frame him, they smear him, they attack him. The OG “old white guy” waiting in the wings isn’t looking so bad. An easy, lateral move. An establishment pick. One “old white guy” for another.Episode Four - 2020 is its own whole episode. It has to be. It was the year the Democrats sold their souls to the Devil to cling to power. They spent $1 billion with a “well-funded cabal” of elites to fund and amplify the racial protests, change election laws, $400 million to collect ballots, and trot in experts to lie about everything from the laptop to COVID to the protests. They censored Americans on social media, and the FBI forced censorship of the laptop. The country sinks. Media credibility is destroyed. Large swaths of the electorate abandon the Democrats. But the “old white guy” wins. So finally, he gets his dream at long last, to be president of the United States. Episode Five - The “old white guy” is finally the savior he always dreamed he’d be. He became a blank check for Black Americans, trans Americans, and especially women of color. He would finish what the “hope and change” guy started. Are we topless at the White House?But the “old white guy” bungles the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and his approval ratings tank. Americans don’t see a nice old grandpa anymore. They see George Spahn, who just moved the Manson Family into the White House, and now they’re running the country.Now what? He goes after Trump and MAGA, calling them fascists, extremists, and a danger to society. If the “old white guy” can’t have the presidency, then no one will.The “old white guy” isn’t so nice anymore. Trump is indicted four times, convicted, and takes a mug shot that goes viral. They’ve sold their soul to the Devil, after all, they’re not going to give up power so easily. Episode Six - The final battle. Trump teases and torments the “old white guy” and forces him to debate. Trump mocks him mercilessly at his rallies for not knowing where he is. For Trump, beating him will be a cake walk for anyone not sucked into the false reality pushed by the legacy media.Trump and Biden debate rematch. The “old white guy” crashes and burns so hard it nearly sets Rob Reiner’s hair on fire. “He just lost the election,” Dana Bash scribbles on a note to Jake Tapper. What now for the empire that was never the resistance?Trump survives an assassination attempt at Butler the following month. His entire campaign is transformed. Elon Musk joins his dream team. This was our last best hope for America. We wanted out. We wanted something new. We wanted to be set free:But inside the Bubble, it’s Original Sin. It’s denial. It’s a legacy press that lies to the monarchs, lies to their voters, sending them cascading into yet more hysteria. Please make the bad orange man go away! For the sake of democracy! Please give us our utopia back! Jane Fonda, Steven Spielberg, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, David Simon, Jon Stewart, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, and Rob Reiner are losing their minds. It’s a dystopia full of aging, frustrated aristocrats who can’t keep democracy down. We’re about to lose our democracy, they cry. Biden will lose us our democracy, they insist. How can this be happening? Get rid of the “old white guy.” GET RID OF HIM! For the sake of democracy! “We need a new nominee,” says George Clooney. Who’s we? What happened to democracy? Now, the duly elected nominee, aka “the old white guy,” must step aside to save democracy? Yes, that is where the Democrats arrived in their pitiful last gasp to salvage and preserve their power. They cynically install the “woman of color” because they know all points lead to Kamala Harris. Their flock will fall in line as they always have. Push him out, push the “old white guy” out in a palace coup worthy of a fading, useless, self-serving monarchy on the brink of collapse. Trump wins again. We see the “old white guy” grinning in the oval office and having the last laugh. They used him. They lied to him. They flattered him. Then, they kicked him out, all because they were exposed and couldn’t hide the truth anymore.As the scene fades to black, we see a close-up on Jake Tapper lying in bed, working it all out. Holy s**t, he thinks. Someone has to tell this story. He picks up the phone, “Alex? Hi, it’s Jake. I was wondering if we might talk.” I mean, come on. It’s Ishtar Part Two. It writes itself.Do I think you should read Original Sin? Absolutely. It might not be the whole truth. It might be spin for the Democrats to regroup and recover. It might be reputation laundering for the media. But for me, it was an early Christmas present, if only for the delicious pleasure of watching them squirm as their corrupt plot to cling to power unravels. I can’t think of anything more satisfying than that. Original Sin proves two things: the Democrats are creeps and they got exactly what they deserved.Somewhere in Iowa, 8pm.// This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe