What Are The Pitfalls of Being A Conservative Blogger?

I hope what I am going to say doesn't disappoint. It's not about the lack of money. It's there. It's not about the lack of an audience. It's definitely there. It's not even about getting hate mail or being lambasted and ridiculed in other places by people who disagree with me all over the Internet.

It is that politics is a constantly moving thing, and the news cycle is fast and furious. 

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Just as soon as you digest the news of the day, analyze it, and then spit out your commentary and observations about it, it's pretty much old news already and very quickly people have moved on to the next thing.

At best, your posts will have a life cycle of about a week. But most begin to die off rather swiftly after a day or two.

It just means you really have to love what you do and be okay with having to do it constantly. It's a lot of material. It's a lot of time spent. And it's of course a lot of writing that has to happen. How much of the stuff that gets written is evergreen?

Hardly any of it.

It does surprise me how often older posts do still get reads though on subject matter that when you look at it, should no longer be of interest to anyone. Yet, someone searched for it and ultimately someone found their way to it.

Maybe it's to research something? Or perhaps some people just enjoy the history of it?

Take Herman Cain as an example. Not only is he long out of politics, but he is also dead. Yet time and time again I see reads on posts about Herman Cain and his presidential campaign efforts from years ago.

Remember his 9-9-9 plan?

The point is that it's just an ongoing effort that sometimes you do find exhausting, and some days you do scratch your head a bit and wonder, "Is it all worth it? Wouldn't it just be better to write something that has no time stamp on it and let that just earn for you forever?"

Even going back and rereading certain older material to see if you can rehash some of it and make it new again can be a fruitless effort, because it's all directly tied to the news of that day when it was written. There's not a lot that can be recycled. Even funny lines or phrases often don't have any lasting value.

At the same time, I do feel like it is still an important thing to do. That is, to write about these things anyway and be able to share my thoughts and perspectives. People do read them, and hopefully they also walk away from some of it with a different take on things that maybe they wouldn't have otherwise considered.

Being a conservative blogger certainly presents its challenges. All of it is worth it in the end though. Besides, when one is a writer, I guess it doesn't matter what you write about or the work that goes into it, or even who it reaches or for how long. You're going to do it anyway.

There may be some days when conservative blogging can seem aimless. But it does still have a purpose. And even if I am only fulfilling that purpose for a day or two after I run my mouse over that publish button, I know that each post may be but a small ripple in a vast ocean of discourse, sparking thought, debate, and perhaps even change.

However short lived that happens to be. I'll take it.

THE WRITER'S LIFE

"Like that elderly man in that tiny studio apartment, one never stops doing it. Because writing is more of a thing a writer must do to exist than to eat. The words within them are as much a part of their being and as vital to their survival as the next beat of their heart. When the words come, they must find their way onto an empty page."

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© 2024 Jim Bauer

What Are Your Thoughts on Trump Media?

I am a Trump supporter, but as an investor, I simply find the Trump Media stock to be weird. Not in a strange way like, "This is a really weird thing." But more in the way that it moves.

I have been investing for several decades and the stock makes little sense to me, at least as an investment.

To me it's acting more like a gauge of voter sentiment than a stock—or moreover a gauge of voter sentiment when it comes to Trump supporters. How many democrats do you think own the stock? I'd guess very few, if any.

Take the most recent dip following the debate. It's not like anything has changed with regard to the company itself. Profitability hasn't changed, there's nothing moving the stock up or down except what shareholders, who are no doubt tied to Trump politically, feel are Trump's chances of winning.

I think it is also a way for shareholders to indicate in a very direct way whether they like what Trump is doing or not.

"We sold our shares," they say. "Because we thought you did not perform well enough during the debate and we want you to step up your game, sir."

I won't begrudge the company or its shareholders. They can do what they want with their shares and their investment. But it is not supposed to have anything to do with the valuation of the underlying business, and by all measures, the company is grossly overvalued, with the stock moving for reasons that are not tied at all to the business.

Whether or not Truth Social or Trump Media has a future, even, is debatable. I guess it would depend on what happens in November and how much interest anyone would have in Trump's social media page after the fact, especially if he loses to Kamala Harris. So, for that reason, to even call it an investment seems like a bit of a stretch.

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© 2024 Jim Bauer

Should There Be Another Presidential Debate?

Well, I think so even if Trump is on the fence about it for the moment. An offer has been put out there by Fox News, and certainly Fox News could be fairer to the former president and harder on the vice president than ABC's moderators were.

Trump is adamant that he won the debate. I think on a technical level he's right. But I think in the eyes of most, only accounting for the debate performances themselves, Harris won.

A technical win, you say?

Here's the thing. We already know who Trump is. And that's true no matter which side of the aisle you are on. Even the independents and the undecided voters know who Trump is. Who they were at the debate to see was Kamala Harris.

Well, because she's the supposed "new and improved" Kamala Harris, complete with a whole new package of goods she's selling.

I think what the independents and undecideds wanted to know more than anything is how she would explain her sudden changes of policy. Of course, that never happened because David Muir and Linsey Davis, who moderated the debate, pretty much spent the whole night grilling Trump and giving Harris a pass.

Unfortunately, the technicalities aren't what matters in debates like this. It's about how you look. It's about how you perform. It's about how you answer the questions, or don't.

Trump had some good responses. But he did lose focus more than once, and I think one of the greatest opportunities he missed was to lash back at Harris after she brought up that confounded border bill Trump was against, that the media adamantly refuses to not tell the truth about.

The fact is that the Biden administration never needed the bill to secure the border. Just as easily as, on day one, Biden sat behind his desk in the Oval Office and reversed all of Trump's border policies, he could have sat behind that same desk and restored them.

Trump could have said that. Trump should have made that abundantly clear. But he didn't, and that was a serious missed opportunity, I think, that (at least in the eyes of some voters) mooted his other points about the seriousness of the border issue even though I still think most people get it.

Trump's take is essentially that he won. For him, that's all he needs to know. As he told Sean Hannity after the debate, the only time you ask for a rematch is if you think you've lost. But again, he only won on technical basis.

Granted, it may still be way too early to say whether or not the debate had any impact on either candidate. Polls will have to be done, and we probably won't know any real answers on that until days later.

Harris had a good day. At least for all intents and purposes—again, regardless of whether or not anything she said was true or could be taken at face value. That's not the point. So close to the election and with this crazy roller coaster ride getting wilder and wilder, I don't think Trump should pass up any opportunity to do a debate and get his message out, and potentially expose Harris for what she really is.

A complete fraud.

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© 2024 Jim Bauer