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Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Sasha Stone
Essays on politics and culture from Sasha Stone's Substack. A former Democrat and Leftist who escaped the bubble to get to know the other side of the country and to take a more critical look at the left.
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- 3 weeks ago29 min
Obama’s War on Trump Reaches Its Penultimate Battle
This November might mark the end of the Virtual Civil War we’ve been fighting for ten years. Or rather, Barack Obama and the establishment government’s war on half the country. The Democrats could take both the House and the Senate, effectively ending the Trump presidency and the MAGA movement.On the Right, they’re calling me a “Debbie Downer” or a catastrophist, just as they did on the Left when I tried to tell them Trump would win in 2016. But I worried a year ago, when the Trump administration cut Medicaid, millions lost their health insurance, and many saw their monthly premiums rise.When I spoke up about this, no one wanted to hear it. It wasn’t my job to tell the Right what to do with their power, but from where I sat, as a former Democrat, it felt like the beginning of the end. We don’t talk much about how that COVID era gave Americans financial relief and, for a time, free healthcare; some didn’t even have to pay rent. We got fat unemployment checks through the CARES Act, and under Biden, the spending went through the roof.No matter the Trump administration's intentions to cut spending, clean up fraud, and attempt to fix our broken system, once everyone felt the pinch of inflation, gas prices, the war in Iran, and healthcare costs, they'd finally be ready, I believed, to vote blue. I know I’m not the only person who feels like I’m living in the Twilight Zone. None of us understands what has happened to us in the age of the internet and social media, Obama and Trump. How can I have thought Trump was the ultimate evil in 2016, only to turn around and vote for him in 2024? And now spend my time warning about my former side?I was hoping that after the indictments, the impeachments, the assassination attempts, and the felony conviction, Trump’s second win would be the moment the delusional bubble burst on the Left and we could all go back to the way things were before the war.But that didn’t happen. They just got meaner and more radicalized, all the while learning how to hide that side of themselves, to lie to voters that they really aren’t as extreme as they were in the past. Even as some candidates have learned to lie better about “gender affirming care” or radical Islam to tamp down the widespread, mainstream radicalization that has overtaken the party, all one has to do is look at what’s happening in France to see that, in the midst of a Communist-like takeover, moderate liberalism won’t cut it.They don’t just want some of it. They want it all. And if France was the model the DSA in America pointed to as a socialist utopia, how do you explain a violent revolution unfolding on the streets? That won’t just happen here. It already has happened here. It wasn’t Islam; it was Black Lives Matter, but the forces of social-justice revolutionaries and the oppressed/oppressor doctrine rage on. I wake up every day confronting the cruelty of the Totalitarian Left as, even now, they try not just to destroy me and my business, but to wipe me out, erase me, unperson me. I feel it everywhere, not just online. I live in a town that would turn on me in an instant if they saw me in a MAGA hat. I know them. I live among them. They smile and chat with me on the street, and I hope they don’t get close enough to figure out who I am, that I’m scorched earth among their kind online. As of now, in the real world of my very small, very liberal town, I am a complete unknown. But if real life mirrored the internet, there would be wild-eyed fanatics putting up posters of me all over town that say TRUMP SUPPORTER. Because they were never held to account, nothing has really changed. They’re better liars, but no one has any plans to change how they treat the other half of the country they’ve thrown away like human garbage. They still see the evil in this country as racism, Islamophobia, sexism, misogyny, bigotry, transphobia. And now, they’ve married it to socialism, but even in France, that’s not enough, so Communism it will have to be.Barack Obama still leads the army on the Left. In many ways, his presidency of the ruling class half of the country never ended. He couldn’t walk away, not from the party, not from the country, because he could not stand to leave it in the hands of Donald Trump and to allow him and his movement to redirect the future of America, out of the hands of the totalitarian cult the Left has become.Today, he tweeted the most astonishing thing about Ilhan Omar:This, after they used the FBI and the CIA to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop while Trump was the sitting president, weaponized the government to frame Trump as a Russian asset, raided the home of a former president, indicted him four times, and convicted him of a felony on a ticky-tack charge. Tried to throw him off the ballot in several states - tied him up in court to keep him off the campaign trail.And all of that b
- Oct 7, 202635 min
The Word “Genocide” Has Lost All Meaning
I always knew growing up half-Jewish meant hiding. I figured out early on that it wasn’t something you were supposed to be. My mother isn’t Jewish and, if anything, has never been a fan of Jews — especially now. It’s just the kind of thing you know growing up, even if you don’t talk much about it.Hollywood rarely presented Jewish people to American audiences, even if Hollywood was run by Jews. That left me wondering why not. Did I look Jewish? Was that bad? As a young woman, I knew it meant I didn’t fit either place. I didn’t fit in the Jewish community, and I didn’t fit outside of it.But somehow I just knew the shame that came with being born half-Jewish, or Jewish enough for the camps. A boyfriend once said, “They have to have done something…” Meaning: why were they so hated and persecuted? I can’t say I ever knew the answer, because I never knew the history.I didn’t think about it much because my heroes, many of whom were Jewish, also didn’t talk much about it — Bob Dylan, Woody Allen, Leonard Cohen, or the Coen brothers. Steven Spielberg would finally address it in Schindler’s List, and that movie would help keep the memory of the Holocaust alive. But that was 1993. A lifetime ago.How is it that it could be 2026 and we’d be living through a moment in history where they have turned “Zionist” into a slur? Was it always? And how easy it is now to see the word “Jew” hurled on social media as an insult so casually.How could it be that Tucker Carlson, like so many others, could be so soft on Hitler now? He assumed, wrongly, that it was not Hitler’s fault we went to war.With Jacob Reese-Mogg:Here is Victor Davis Hanson:Whole thing here.It was so ignorant and dangerous of Tucker to spread these lies about Hitler that even Poland’s embassy in Washington had to issue a statement. And every time I post about this, I know I will lose subscribers, especially paid ones, because Tucker Carlson has about 5.8 million subscribers on YouTube, not quite 6 million but getting there. And me, well, let’s just say I don’t have that many.Undeniable tension is building within the MAGA movement as we head into the midterms. There are so many angry people on the Right, resentful that we bombed Iran “for Israel.” Foreign wars quickly became Israel’s war. Then it became about the money sent to Israel. But now, it’s anger at Trump for siding with the Jews.I tried to stay neutral on the war in Gaza and have not talked much about what is happening on the Left and the Right. But it is getting too big to ignore. We are at a dramatic inflection point where the word “genocide” is hurled as both a weapon and a struggle session. SAY THE WORD, say it! Say it’s genocide!It’s the last worst word. The rest of the words have been tossed on the scrap heap: fascism, Nazi, dictator, racist, rapist, bigot, sexist, homophobe, transphobe. What do words even mean anymore? They’ve been twisted, co-opted, and reshaped to control how we think about ourselves in the world and how we define what we believe.If you say “it’s a genocide,” then you are in. If you deny it, you’re one of the bad people. They say it on the Left as emotional blackmail. They say it on the Right to imply intent. Those evil Jews just want to kill Palestinians when everyone knows the opposite is true. GenocideEvery day, images flood social media of what Gaza looks like now after it was bombed by Israel. That’s proof of genocide, they said. How can it not be genocide? But the word they are looking for is war. That is what losing a war looks like. It is also what winning a war looks like.World War II was beyond anything most people alive today could ever imagine. They can’t remember, and no one will tell them what war looks like. But here is what it looks like.The Allies bombing Berlin into rubble. Hiroshima and Nagasaki after getting nuked:Is that “genocide”? No, that’s war. Genocide is the attempt to kill a whole people based on their ethnicity or their religion. That’s not what the Allies did in World War II, and it’s not what Israel has done now. If anything, the opposite is true. Hamas, like much of the Islamic world, wants not just to kill Jews but to wipe them off the map. That’s genocide. They just don’t have the wealth or the weaponry to carry it out.Here is Bill Maher:Trump hit Iran to castrate a genocidal regime before it could nuke Israel, yes, but also other countries too. Death is nothing to jihadists. They have no problem using children as tools of propaganda and weapons of war as long as it serves a higher purpose.October 7th was meant to be so bad that Israel had to respond, and then they would have their holy war to turn hearts and minds against Israel all over the world.The footage from the war is their proof to the world
- Oct 2, 202633 min
The Cornell 7 and The “Consent” Trap
I’m probably the last person who should write about morality. I grew up on the Left, after all: a hippie childhood in Topanga Canyon, then coming of age as the first generation after Roe v. Wade as a liberated woman who did whatever I wanted, dressed however I wanted, and always felt free in my mind and heart. I was never someone who would have demanded morality. I didn’t even know what that was.I watched the counterculture revolution of the 1960s and 1970s break free of norms and traditions. Where we’ve ended up is at the Empire’s end: a Caligula-like culture that strictly polices thought, speech, racism, sexism, homophobia, bigotry of any kind, but one that also treats morality and decency as oppressive relics from a patriarchal past.So when a 20-year-old Jane Doe walked into the Chi Phi fraternity at Cornell on October 24, 2024, her only armor was the rule of “consent.” As long as it was okay with her and she said so, anything goes. She agreed to a threesome with two 20-year-olds, but then, when more men flocked to her body like seagulls chasing a bag of chips left on the beach, she was too high or drunk to even know how to get herself out of it.No one knew how to just say this is wrong, this is bad behavior because they don’t live in a culture that believes that — not unless it’s rape. But this wasn’t rape by any legal definition. She consented, then she consented again. Then, she was drowning in a sea of consent, and so were they. In the days, weeks, and months that followed, Jane Doe would absorb the truth about what really happened that night. Shame would follow when she saw her classmates pointing and laughing at her, calling her a slut, saying it was a “gang bang.” If the boys said nothing, she said nothing; no one would know what they did that night, but the boys bragged about it. They betrayed her trust, and she ended up looking bad.The real kicker was being disinvited to that same frat with those same guys. In her mind, she was the one being punished and not the boys.From the New York Times:At Chi Phi, the fraternity was preparing for a Halloween party, and Jane Doe was eager to attend. Text messages included in the investigation show Mr. Ingalls assuring Jane Doe that he and other fraternity members wanted her to be there.“chi phi is your house and you are welcome here,” he wrote, relaying the views of the fraternity’s president, who was not among those accused of sexual assault.“thank u i really appreciate that,” Jane Doe responded. “But then Jane Doe received a phone call from the fraternity’s president, according to the text messages.She was disinvited from the party. It was for her own good, he said.Jane Doe sent a biting text to Mr. Ingalls.“I knew this was going to happen,” she wrote. “The woman will always get the short end of the stick. Yall aren’t my friends. Yall are covering your asses.”That’s when the anger and resentment set in, and eventually, it would fester until she decided she needed to get something back, something she lost in her efforts to protect the boys and not herself. Whether she knew it or not, she was walking around with a loaded gun and a trigger she could pull at any time. Two years later, she did just that, and the righteous, delusional, fanatical mob ignited into a frenzy. Even AOC got into the mix, condemning and convicting the boys, putting an image in everyone’s head about what happened that night.Everything that came next has been a horror show. The Cornell newspaper released the boys' names, knowing that in modern-day America there can be no such thing as due process. If she was accusing them of rape, gang rape, then they were guilty. The University newspaper, the Cornell Sun, wrote an op-ed naming the boys:We refuse for this victim to be reduced to just another story. Cornell has failed to protect its students. Cornell has failed to address the growing issue of sexual assault on campus with its pathetic task force. Cornell has failed the student allegedly raped by those seven men at Chi Phi in October 2024. Cornell has failed her. Cornell has failed us.To Matthew Ingalls, Jonathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar: We know who you are and we refuse to let you benefit from this University’s concealment.Two websites cropped up to name and shame the boys. One is Cornellseven.com, run and operated by activist Aaron B:And the oth
- Sep 30, 20262 min
A Happy Ending for Jasper
I just made this little video as a Thank You to all of you who shared your kind words and sent in donations to help with vet bills. I am always overwhelmed by your kindness. I am hoping Jasper is on the mend. He has packed on some weight from the steroids, but so far he seems to be healing. His hair is growing back, and he is getting his energy back, even chasing squirrels and growling at strangers. I got a little worried last night because yesterday was his first full day without Prednisone. He was a little agitated at night, and I kept checking for fever. So far, so good, thank you, God. And thank you, dear readers, for caring about my pup! More photos in the video above. 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
- Sep 26, 202633 min
Only MAGA Can Stop the Islamo-Commie Takeover of America
MAGA, it would seem, is on the ropes. Things are looking dire. Tucker Carlson is appearing on NPR talking about removing Trump for threatening nuclear war, even though, you know, not long ago he was telling Ted Cruz that we should definitely nuke a country if they tried to assassinate our president. Here is Ben Shapiro:Marjorie Taylor Greene has learned the trick of the elite Left that you can be as rich as you want, live wherever you want, party all you want, marry and spend lavishly as long as you also hate on Trump and name-drop the “resistance.” Hey, it’s nice work if you can get it.The idea is that Trump was supposed to rebuff Israel, ignore Iran’s threats of building a nuke because of Israel, find pedophiles that do not exist in the Epstein Files buried because of Israel, and listen to Tucker Carlson for advice OR ELSE. But really, it’s the Jews. It’s always been the Jews. After ten years of Trump giving himself over to fight for representation of people who have been thrown away like human garbage by a country ruled by an aristocratic ideological utopian cult, after being the target of the worst attacks I’ve ever seen - his hair, his weight, his hands, his skin, his daughter, his sons, his wife, his walk, his clothes, what he says, what he does, where he goes, what he eats- here we are again: the walls are closing in, only this time the calls are coming from inside the house.How hard would it be, you know, just for old times’ sake, to use your vote to prevent what is likely to be the Series Finale of the Trump Show? Him getting impeached a third time, maybe booted out of office this time. Sure, it would take a large majority of Senate Republicans, but by now, why wouldn’t they go along with it? Then, he’d be prosecuted and frog-marched off in an orange jumpsuit as Jen Psaki and Kara Swisher throw a party at Rosie O’Donnell’s house, livestreamed on The View.I mean, this is your future MAGA, should you choose to accept it:And for these folks, their dream is finally coming true. Their ten-year war is about to come to an end because Trump supporters are jumping ships like rats. But someone should tell them their future will look grim with Trump out of the way.Maybe they don’t realize what’s coming, how much worse it will be than either the country under Joe Biden or Donald Trump. Maybe they have no idea what’s in store for them after the revolution. Maybe the revolutionaries somehow take X from Elon. Maybe they take control of AI and gain mind-control capabilities for generations to come. I know these people. They do it with a smile and the best intentions, but they want absolute power. They want their utopia back, and you are in the way. The biggest threat is what will happen to our freedom, something most are not even factoring into the equation, but I know because I come from the Left. In China, in Iran, in other countries run by dictators, everything seems to be going very well. People are smiling, going to work, living their lives and saying nothing. They stay silent because they know what will happen if they ever say what they really think. My daughter has grown up inside of a culture now that is ruled by the same kind of fear. She already knows that she can’t say what she really thinks because everyone on the Left knows. They can’t write books they want to write—they can’t tell the truth—but they still have to smile and pretend everything is going great in utopia!They have scared an entire generation into compliance. And it’s oh so much worse now that Sharia Law has entered the chat. Oh, I know we’re not supposed to think of guys like Abdul El-Sayed and Zohran Mamdani as anti-American terrorists - that’s racist! But the more I think about it, the more I think this alliance was inevitable: two strident fundamentalist ideologies that hate America’s history and want to remake it from the ground up as something completely different, and they’re prepared to use their army of fanatics and scolds to make everyone go along with it.The Left and their legacy media have spent ten years lying about Trump, saying fascism or authoritarianism was the threat. But it was never the Trump side that represented oppression and societal control. It’s always been the Left. And now, it’s gone to the next level. And the only one standing in their way, the Gray Champion of the Fourth Turning, the guy so many in MAGA have turned against, is The Donald. Perfect? No. Flawed, beyond. Messy — he makes it up as he goes along. Offends people casually. Can’t be controlled, but this man is the one, the only one who was tough enough, rich enough, and determined enough to stand up to the most powerful political party in American history and beat them twice. He’s not done smart things this time around. He’s been too careless with his second win. He enriched himself and his family. He might have made
- Sep 19, 202658 min
Why We Can’t Feel 9/11 25 Years Later
What kind of people would dance in the streets after the 9/11 terrorist attack that killed upwards of 3,000 people? The same ones who have now become elevated martyrs by large swaths of the Global Left: the Palestinians.Katie Couric, like most mainstream journalists back then, had no problem exposing such monstrous behavior by those fed a steady diet of dehumanization of the American people. Would she do it today? No. Would any of them do it today? No.Who would celebrate the live execution of a prominent activist on the Right, so much so that they’d lose their jobs for exposing what sociopaths they really are? Hundreds, if not thousands, on the Left did just that. Radicalized or mainstream, it didn’t matter. They have become what the Palestinians were back then: so propagandized and radicalized, they’ve lost their humanity.You can see it now in those TikTok videos that have turned “When it Happens” into a viral trend. That’s what ten years of dehumanizing can do to otherwise decent people. They say they’re decent, but TikTok proves otherwise.They have cast themselves as morally superior to the other half of the country and would point to how some on the Right mocked George Floyd after his death in 2020. But the difference is that many prominent Republicans like Ted Cruz instantly condemned it. No Democrat has condemned the mockery and the celebration of Charlie’s death. Oh sure, they all said what they had to say: the standard “violence has no place in our politics.” They said it, but did they mean it? How could they if they’ve never condemned the rising cult-like fantasies of Trump’s death and the celebration of Charlie's execution?If anything, the Democrats were more worried Charlie’s influence would grow, so they sent out their One True King, Barack Obama, to put Charlie’s legacy in context.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did the same thing, acting as though what Charlie said - the cherry-picked, out-of-context quotes fed to them- was worse than their own side mocking and celebrating his murder. His words were worse than his death.But that is who they are now. Speech is violence. Speech is hate. Speech must be tightly monitored and controlled. Is assassinating Charlie Kirk or trying to assassinate Donald Trump any different from the Jihadists who mass-murdered journalists at Charlie Hebdo in Paris for blasphemy against Mohammad? Hasan Piker, aka the “Twitch streamer in California,” like Dean Withers, condemned those who made jokes of Charlie’s death. At least at first. Once Piker sensed the vacuum left in Charlie’s absence, he turned his death into a viral meme just a month or so later. Credit to Axios’ Alex Thompson for pressing him to explain it.Piker’s song became a TikTok dance meme and a permission structure for many to showcase themselves as dead-eyed zombies dancing to the sound of the bullet hitting his neck a year later for the “Kirkaversary.”Utopias only have two paths forward. They either collapse or they become more authoritarian. The Left still hasn’t confronted the radical elements on their side, not just Hasan Piker, but the many shooters who have risen up to become martyrs and heroes.They mock, they meme, but underneath it all, as with Al-Qaeda or other radical Islamic groups, what motivates them is pure hatred. Words are violence. Words are hatred, and “some hate can’t be negotiated out.” They can laugh it off all they want, but they’ve left a paper trail.Turning Point put up a Charlie Kirk statue, and it was immediately vandalized.If they can meme a live execution and feel nothing, then why wouldn’t they see America as bad or worse than Al-Qaeda? The oppressor/oppressed indoctrination factory that is public schools and universities has raised them in the good/evil binary. Video games, IP, and superhero movies all adopted that binary, and after Columbine and 9/11, parents like me shut our kids indoors to keep them safe, and this good/evil binary would one day become white people evil, brown people good, and Al-Qaeda, like the Palestinians, can’t be seen as the villains. Abdul El-Sayed and Zohran Mamdani have arisen as cult leaders almost because there is nothing the Left will hold them accountable for, lest they be called racists. No one will look at El-Sayed’s erased history, the videos or the tweets. What did he think? What does he still think? No one will know because no one would dare ask.The Democrats have never been held accountable for the sharp rise of radicalized violence and death fantasies that have gone mainstream. They’re rewarded for it with likes and reposts. They’ve never confronted it. They’ve never solved it, and the legacy media has supported them every step of the way, all the while demonizing MAGA as the more extreme side. Piker was their masculine, patriarchal, non-white Joe Rogan. No more Mr. Nice Guy! Let’s get those Gen-Z and male voters. Th
- Sep 10, 202652 min
Why They Had to Kill Charlie Kirk Twice
America lived through a political assassination one year ago today, and millions of people either barely noticed, shrugged it off, or openly celebrated. That was one of the darkest days in American history, a day I never thought I’d live through, watching people I used to know lose their humanity.One famous example was the actress Amanda Seyfried, who posted this:Charlie Kirk did not incite violence, and he was not “hateful.” Tyler Robinson shot Charlie Kirk to please people like Amanda Seyfried.She doesn’t regret her words. She stands by them, like the good little cult member she is. She complained about having to hire a bodyguard. She should feel lucky she wasn’t shot in the neck, lucky her kids don’t have to grow up without her. The Left felt emboldened by his death, even going so far as to celebrate it then and even now. When people lost their jobs for it - because who wants to employ a sociopathic monster - they whined about free speech. Jimmy Kimmel's cold heart could only make a bad situation worse. And then the videos.They tweeted and were rewarded for their ugliness. There was no bottom.I watched in horror as they went at Charlie’s memory; so scared were they that his legacy would expand and grow like a mushroom cloud. They thought their true hatred could extinguish everything Charlie left behind, but they were wrong. They were attacking a cartoon they invented, not the real Charlie Kirk.Charlie was right in the text he wrote the day before he died that Andrew Wilson read: the Left was trying to kill him. Tyler Robinson said the reason he killed Charlie Kirk was that “Some hate can’t be negotiated out.” Amanda Seyfried said “hate,” so did Tyler Robinson, and so did his defense attorney at the hearing where Robinson pled Not Guilty.The Left killed Charlie Kirk. Tyler Robinson just pulled the trigger. Their conviction in the Court of Public Opinion was that dissent was hate and Charlie Kirk would not stop spreading it; therefore, he should be silenced one way or another. Assassinations don’t happen every day, not in my lifetime anyway, especially not from a rooftop at a public event. A year prior to Charlie’s murder, on July 13, 2024, another killer climbed onto a rooftop and almost shot Trump to death. He missed. Just barely.There would be two more assassination attempts on Trump’s life, and plenty more that might have been. Why is it so important to the Left that their enemies die? Because that’s where all of this totalitarianism has to go. Charlie stood for exactly the opposite. He didn’t incite violence. He stood up for robust debate. But to the Left, they don’t believe that, which is why they’ve begun to resort to violence, excusing violence, celebrating violence. To them, that’s their solution to their biggest problem - what to do with all of these people who don’t agree with them?Hate to the Left is described as being anti-abortion, against “transing the kids,” and holding traditional beliefs about family and faith. That’s the first layer. It goes deeper. If you are against illegal immigration, you’re a fascist; if you support lower taxes, you’re killing Americans. “You’re a racist, a bigot, a homophobe, a transphobe.”They don’t even know what defines their hate anymore. They just know they’re consumed by it, which is all the more ironic given that they tagged Charlie with that word: hate.There was nothing hateful about Charlie Kirk, and he leaves behind a deep, dark hole that won’t be filled any time soon. The Left has become not unlike the jihadists who kill those who mock Allah. Even if they aren’t condoning violence, they’re condoning punishing people just for the crime of criticizing them. That no one shamed those who celebrated tells you everything about their values, and we’re supposed to put these people back in power? No, Charlie wanted to talk to them, to change their minds, to put himself in danger every time he faced them. They hit him with everything they had to shut him up, and nothing worked. And Charlie Kirk got through to them just by stating his opinion and making his case. Imagine that. He was about the best the Right had to offer. He was a lighthouse. The Left had to kill Charlie again because they had to kill his ideas, his thoughts, his speech, lest they somehow find a way out and reach the minds of the indoctrinated and maybe introduce critical thinking. We can’t have that.Are there enough voices to counter the lies by the Left as they attempt to write Charlie’s history? I don’t know. But just for the record, here is how Charlie Kirk spoke about gay people or the LGBT community.Here is how he spoke when confronted about his opinion on affirmative action. He never backed off of what he believed, but he made indoctrinated college kids defend what they’d been taught, and many of them mig
- Sep 8, 202637 min
Mass Hysteria in Massachusetts. Again.
In the good old days, before the Great Feminization, social media tribalism, and the instant fame of TikTok, most people felt disgust and horror at the thought of a mother killing her kids, let alone methodically leading each one down in the basement, then strangling them with an exercise band. This is the stuff of nightmares. Imagine your mother, the person you trust most in the world, telling you to “go to God, baby” as you felt your throat close and your life wither away. We’ve seen their faces, and we know their names. Everyone should be horrified, and yet, three years after the murders, Lindsay Clancy is not seen as a monster by hundreds of thousands of women all over the world but rather as their hero and a martyr for the agony and pain of motherhood.We are Lindsay! We stand with you, Lindsay!A triple homicide suspect whose fate was upended by one juror who withstood the pressure of 11 others to insist she was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt has become, for women, another Me Too moment. Me too, Lindsay. Me Too.Why are so many women losing their minds over this case, insisting Lindsay isn’t guilty because either she was afflicted with postpartum psychosis and had no control over these acts or Patrick did it because Patrick “said it” and he wanted out of the marriage to go have an affair with the woman he’s now married to.I wish it wasn’t mostly women who are vulnerable to this level of group psychosis. But it is. Women are communal. They tend to form groups or tribes, out of necessity and human evolution. Every time I scroll TikTok, I see them. There they are, staring back at me, those crazy, crazy women, performing for total strangers, united only by one singular idea: Lindsay Clancy is not guilty.Welcome to Rock BottomLindsay Clancy has been cast as a typical heroine in a Lifetime movie, or the protagonist in one of the psychological thrillers so popular on Audible. I know this world all too well. I watch these movies as a guilty pleasure, and I consume so many of these books that I forget which ones I’ve already read.It looks something like this:This might explain why the less camera-ready child killers like Andrea Yates or Susan Smith never became a worldwide sensation. The plots play out almost the exact same way. The ambitious, successful, beautiful woman has a seemingly ordinary life until it is disrupted by a dark force. Almost always, this is an abusive, manipulative, lying, cheating man. But not always. Sometimes it’s a woman. Whatever it is, the protag is never to be rescued. She must always rescue herself. Men who are “good” are allowed to admire them from afar and serve them but never save them.Lindsay Clancy has fit neatly into this role, especially if you are one of the truly insane women who believe she didn’t do it, and there are a lot of those. How perfect for a Lifetime movie or a psychological thriller if we found out in the last act that Patrick really did do it and Lindsay emerges as the true victim.Their theory is that Lindsay only thinks she killed the kids when, in reality, Patrick did it. It’s just that Lindsay did do it. She admitted it. She told the Chaplain first. Then, she told her husband and a psychologist that a voice told her to do it. The voice never appeared before or since because the voice was actually the mother who wanted to kill her kids.If Patrick Clancy is guilty of anything, it’s being too kind and trusting of his wife. Their text message exchange the day of the murders:And a recent appearance at his church. Patrick Clancy and their entire family have forgiven Lindsay and believe this was the result of postpartum psychosis, which is why Patrick and Lindsay are both suing the healthcare providers who treated her. And it also explains why they stonewalled, testified for the defense, and refused to give any insight into what else might have driven Lindsay to murder that day.These are not the cries of someone who lost her children but the cries of a woman who remembers that moment she caused them so much fear, so much pain, and their deaths. If a voice ordered her to do it, why didn’t she just say no? Why didn’t she scream for her babies when she snapped out of it? Believe WomenI always thought it would be funny to put out a bumper sticker amid the Me Too movement that said: “Believe Children, Salem, 1692.” I’m not sure anyone would have gotten the joke. There aren’t many people out there like me who have read every book, listened to every podcast, and know everything there is to know about the Salem Witch Trials.One thing I know for sure, however, is that it wasn’t about “burning witches” nor was it about the patriarchy punishing women. These are lies that have never been corrected. The truth is that it was adolescent girls, not men, who had the power to decide who could live and who would die. <p
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About Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone
Essays on politics and culture from Sasha Stone's Substack. A former Democrat and Leftist who escaped the bubble to get to know the other side of the country and to take a more critical look at the left.
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