Power & Confrontation: My Strange Day

Whatever power you have, learn to use it.

My Strange Day

Today, I sat for a deposition in a defamation lawsuit against me. I‘ve never sat for a deposition, or been sued—that is, before Mike Flynn and Kash Patel both simultaneously decided that I had to be legally silenced a few years ago. While I can’t get into the specifics of the proceeding, I can say I have never been more confident that not only does Mike Flynn have no case, but his lawyers know it.

In the current trial schedule, subject to change, I may be traveling to Florida as early as next week. I look forward to it. I have nothing to hide, my record speaks for itself, and I stand by everything I said. If a jury in Florida finds me guilty, so be it—but I remain extremely confident that, according to the law, they cannot. It’s not a close call.

If you’d like to help, my legal defense fund is stopmikeflynn.com; or just become a paid subscriber. Grateful for everyone’s support.

Flynn doesn’t want a trial. He cannot stand to be questioned about his behavior. He is, like so many of the people currently in power, a coward using the oldest abuser’s trick in the book, DARVO—Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim & Offender—to project his own crimes onto others.

But in a court of law, under oath, his stories and conspiracy theories always fall apart. That’s why he pled the Fifth to the January 6th Committee over a hundred times—because he knew anything he said would be either perjury or a confession to treason.

When I started this journey five years ago, I hardly knew who Mike Flynn was, but the more I learned about him, the more certain I was that he was a serious danger to the United States. However, at the time, I had no power to do anything about it. The only tools I had were a Twitter account with 300 followers and the experience to understand what I was looking at.

Five Years

However, now I have the power to force him to leave DC—where he is trying to destroy the military—and travel to Florida to sit in a courtroom and explain why he is not a “Nazi”—and how he didn’t try to have Mike Pence hanged on J6. And I am going to use that power—even if it means taking the tiny chance that some rogue jury finds me guilty.

This is not about being a hero. It’s just about being unafraid to take the tiny amount of power I personally have to confront a threat—and not backing down when that threat pushes back. The problem in America is not just a rogue, fascist government. The problem is appeasement, capitulation, and normalization. The problem is cowardice and a reluctance to confront threats.

We all have power.

I want to give two other simple examples of what America needs to do more of to survive the onslaught we’re currently experiencing. First, Gavin Newsom, who has become, in my view, the de facto political leader of those who remain in favor of democracy in America, reacted to a plan by the remnants of the Department of Education to extort concessions from certain California colleges in order to receive federal funding.

“IF ANY CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY SIGNS THIS RADICAL AGREEMENT, THEY’LL LOSE BILLIONS… INSTANTLY.”

Newsom has power here and he used it—forcefully and with no shame. This is how you hold our institutions to account for appeasement. This is how you use political power in the age of Donald Trump.

The second example, 1.7 million people simultaneously unsubscribing from Disney properties when ABC rolled over about Jimmy Kimmel, has been under-appreciated as a serious show of power. By us—We the People.

Let’s be real.

None of these things are going to fix the broken American republic: Mike Flynn being inconvenienced by a blogger. Gavin Newsom throwing his weight around. Disney losing a few billion dollars.

However, if we can collectively learn this attitude, I believe we have a far better shot of preserving something from this utter disaster.

In a very general sense, the problem with liberals and democracy-enjoyers is that they are too goddamned nice. It is baked into us that the other side must always be given the benefit of the doubt, that confrontation is always bad, and that using power is something to be afraid of.

I cannot emphasize enough these are all terrible habits. We must learn to play by the rules that exist, not the ones we yearn for.

“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”

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