By Peter Pavarini
“In a society passively governed by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy.” – Matt Taibbi
After 48 Venezuelans were booted from Martha’s Vineyard this past weekend, we now know with certainty that despite all of their virtue-signaling the Left doesn’t care a bit about:
- the fate of the countless illegal immigrants they’ve let into the country
- the economic chaos unleashed on the working class and middle-class Americans by the Green New Deal agenda
- the victims of the nationwide crime wave spurred on by their anti-cop, cashless bail policies
- the thousands of American citizens and allies abandoned by our military when it withdrew from Afghanistan
- the minority students who suffered a 20-year setback in academic achievement because COVID policies
. . . among the many other catastrophes witnessed these past 20 months.
How can any of this happen in 21st Century America?
Is the Trump Derangement Syndrome delusion so powerful that it completely explains how one-party rule can destroy a country in less than two years?
Or perhaps, the Chinese Communist Party has in fact taken over both our political and economic systems. To be sure, ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, globalist elites have done everything possible to diminish American supremacy, but even an evil genius like Klaus Schwab couldn’t succeed without considerable help from within.
Maybe all of those reports of UFOs are not a joke! Have we been invaded by extraterrestrials without knowing? Have aliens been using COVID, fentanyl and other nefarious schemes to depopulate our planet for resettlement?
Hiding in Plain Sight
Fortunately, you don’t have to accept fringe conspiracy theories to understand what’s been hiding in plain sight. Ever since Trump came down the escalator in 2015, the mainstream media has been remarkably transparent about why our leadership – both on the Left and the Right – routinely do terrible things to their fellow citizens. Every day, people in positions of power deliberately make decisions that adversely impact the lives of others. They do so for the same reason they’ve been doing this throughout history – greed.
Admittedly, I should have seen this coming when Nordstrom’s stopped selling Ivanka’s fashion line or ties bearing her father’s name. You might say that was just a harmless political stunt, but it was really something more insidious. It opened the door to various forms of cancel culture directed by those who had the most to lose having a disruptive force like Donald Trump become President of the United States.
It’s easy to conclude that, although misguided, most Leftists sincerely believe their wrongheaded Marxist ideology. But everyday there’s growing proof they neither understand what they’re saying about climate change and transgenderism, for example, nor do they really care about being correct. All they care about is provoking an emotional response that opens hearts and wallets to their cause. To some degree, the same can be said about the Right – although they are not nearly as good at using the same techniques.
Grifting As a Career
Grifters have always occupied a protected spot in the criminal world. They normally can achieve their selfish goals without resorting to violence or other antisocial conduct. Yet, they are capable of enriching themselves with money, power and sex and never suffer any legal consequences. Grifters are best described as “high-functioning sociopaths” who scoff at norms the rest of us take seriously. They are over-educated storytellers who have no regard for the truth. Best of all, they boldly practice their craft in public while they insist that the “little people” get punished for exercising their constitutional rights.
Apart from obvious grifters like the Clintons and the Obamas, who are these people? Remarkably, most grifters never run for office themselves. Rather, they brag about being best friends with those who have. Among such sycophants are lobbyists, PR consultants, diversity coordinators, teacher union presidents, faceless bureaucrats[i] and the founders of not-for-profit foundations.[ii] They specialize in siphoning millions of dollars from gullible people eager to believe the lies they spread. They took advantage of the widespread hatred (or fear) of Donald Trump to accumulate money and power over the past seven years.
Contributing Nothing but Division
Like Joe Biden who has spent a half-century in the public sector, grifters claim to represent the interests of average Americans in blue collar towns like Scranton, Pennsylvania but few have actually lived in such places. They have little or no work experience in the productive economy and rarely create anything of substance in their lives. All they are good at is stirring up controversy and redistributing the wealth of others.
One notorious example is the Black Lives Matter movement. The nonprofit organization which bears that name reportedly raked in over $90 million in 2020, the year of the George Floyd riots. A very large portion of that haul was used to personally enrich the organization’s three founders. But that amount was chump change compared with the $10.6 billion given by large corporations to BLM “causes” after being shamed into donating by their woke employees.
Consider too the climate change movement and its 15-year-old poster child Greta Thunberg. The anti-fossil fuel crowd took a mentally challenged kid from a theatrical family and propelled her to international stardom so she could scold adults who were too polite or too afraid to correct her childish antics. But look how successful the Greenies were! They managed to subvert energy policy on a global scale, empower a failing dictator to wage a futile war in Ukraine, prop up numerous zombie-like alt-energy companies with no chance of surviving on their own, and set the stage for a huge die-off in countries unable to provide energy for their citizens this winter.
Never-Trump Grifters
Occasionally, grifting is used by disaffected Republicans against Democrats, as was done by the Lincoln Project. Never-Trumpers aware that they had no chance of converting Trump’s base raised $87.4 million during the 2019-2020 election cycle by targeting wealthy, suburban Democrats. It’s debatable whether that strategy worked, but the scandal-ridden Lincoln Project has its own docuseries on Showtime beginning October 7, 2022.
Despite mainstream claims that “Trumpism is all about the grift”[iii], the only reported cases of grift on the Right are actually Leftist smears of successful conservative commentators who are good at selling books and giving paid speeches, like Jordan Peterson.[iv]
Which brings us to the most blatant example of grifting relevant to the 2022 midterms and the 2024 Presidential election. The Biden family’s phenomenal history of using Papa Joe’s uninspiring political career to fund its criminal enterprise surely rivals that of the Corleone family. How else can anyone explain how the current president’s son Hunter managed to get a $3.5 million wire transfer from the ex-wife of Moscow’s mayor, $1.5 billion in private equity from a Chinese Communist Party syndicate, and a $83,000 a month board seat from a crooked, quasi-governmental Ukrainian natural gas company? Of course, it helps having the FBI and the entire intelligence community cover for you, but the truth is now out.[v]
The Absence of Outrage
So, where’s the outrage? At least Ivanka Trump closed her fashion line but Hunter Biden, as far as we know, is still selling his over-priced artwork to anonymous buyers hoping to win favor from his father.
No, there is no outrage because grifting has become just as commonplace in American politics as it has been in most foreign countries for centuries.
It must suck having to find a real job when you have no marketable skills other than brown-nosing those in power. For America to pull itself out of the tailspin it’s currently in, the results of the next two elections must permanently shutter the doors of corrupt organizations like the Clinton Foundation and Black Lives Matter, make grifters like Hunter Biden forever unemployable, and accelerate the exodus of propagandists like Rachel Maddow, Brian Stelter and Jeffrey Toobin from mainstream media outlets. Only then, is there any hope of preserving the Republic envisioned by our Founders.
[i] NIAID Director Anthony Fauci, M.D. fit this description until the COVID pandemic made him a household name and a tool of politicians empowered by the disease. Fauci was corrupt for other reasons, particularly his conflicts of interest with Big Pharma.
[ii] To be honest, there are also many lawyers among this group. However, it’s not the profession per se that makes them grifters but their compulsion to sell influence instead of legal services. Michael Avenatti comes to mind.
[iii] Greg Sargent, “The right-wing grift machine blows up in Steve Bannon’s face”, Washington Post, September 7, 2022.
[iv] Anthony L. Fisher, “Grifter Really is the Only Word to Use for Jordan Peterson”, The Daily Beast, July 15, 2022.
[v] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/analysis-hunter-bidens-hard-drive-shows-firm-took-11-million-2013-2018-rcna29462; https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/hunter-biden-laptop-investigation.html
Be First to Comment