How Did Trump Win?
This question seems to bounce within an echo chamber in the media and no one has been able to catch it, or really attempt to answer it, so I'm looking for clues.
I love to make vision boards — there, I’ve said it. But, they are not all devoted to my dream cottage in the country that I started creating when Pinterest rolled out. When something big happens, that upends my life and my way of thinking I have to dissect it and chew on it for a minute, taking some time to pinpoint where I went wrong with my understanding of a situation and how confident I was in that delusion.
I’m sure it is likely a healthy response to trauma, but I literally need to see where I went wrong. I’m also sure it has to do with retracing my steps and making sure not to make the same mistake again, and on and on, but I connect it to my propensity to be a control freak.
I have been ruminating on this latest Trump win that has stunned the world and left us unprepared, while Republicans put out the illusion that they had it all mapped out and planned all along. I don’t know what’s worse: feeling like my assessment of things was completely off or feeling unprepared against a team that boasts players like Roger Stone, and Steve Bannon, and Stephen Miller…wait - my breakfast is suddenly not sitting so well.
Until I have the answer — that is to say, the answer that satisfies all of the questions still lingering about this last election, and gives some insight into where my feeling and understanding of things went wrong, I intend to conduct a post mortem on the events of the last few years and find what might have been overlooked. I have to answer the riddle of this mistake in my head — that won’t stop replaying itself over and over — that has left me with a feeling that we are headed into the same mistake, again.
To this end, I have been perusing all of my past writing, all of the warnings, all of the things that caused the most concern about the Trump Campaign in 2024, in order to find some kind of explanation that can help me get a better perspective. The people in Trump’s world do not make a big effort to hide their undertakings, so why is this so hard to get the answers we need, when a lot of this evidence is right in front of our faces? My biggest concern is that this last election had nothing to do with Trump at all, and there are several players who will come to the surface as the rubble and damage shakes out, sort of like a Steele Dossier, that is actually a smoking gun and provides real answers.
My latest working theory is not particularly amazing, is pretty basic, and is justified by the things we already know: those behind the Trump win were collectively working on a training plan all along that could reach into the farthest regions of the underworld, that would help Trump secure this win. The following is an article published in SHERO this summer that confirms the effort and money behind Project 2025 and the plan to re-elect Trump.
It feels like there is some bigger, smarter network behind the surface of Trump’s plan, that is really in charge and making covert moves that will stun the world once we find out who is behind them. Until then, read this and tell me if you have any ideas about who the hell is actually behind all of Trump’s latest success, because I am simply unwilling to gift Mark Meadows with the ultimate political Svengali award at this point in my life. (Especially not right before Christmas.)
The MAGA Bootcamps Creating a Trump Army
originally published on June 4, 2024
Congressional disclosures by the US Senate and House — that detail the report of gifts received from outside organizations — show that the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI) has sponsored elaborate trips held between February 2021 and April 2024. The CPI, which describes itself as the the place “Where Conservatives Go to Win,” advertises that they “train, equip, and unite Conservative leaders in Washington and across the country.” Essentially, the lobbying group is a conservative bankroll that seeks to cement a political bond between the mainstream Republican Party and far right election-denial extremists.
Between February 2021 and April 2024, the CPI held 21 disclosed events for Conservative Members of Congress and US Senators, based on House Ethics Committee filings provided by Congressional staff. Thanks to the mandatory description required for each filing of the travel gift, its estimated value, the identity of the donor and the date received, we know that CPI held lavish training sessions for congressional staff at their lush Maryland ranch, as well as retreats at several luxurious Florida resorts.
While the submitted record of disclosure forms for these events are online in separate House and Senate repositories, and available for download, there is no way to directly search through the forms by using a specific term or donor organization. I have compiled a list of all of the disclosed CPI trips for Members and staff of the US House for the Year 2024 here, so that you can easily view who was in attendance at these locations during the specified times.
The CPI is currently led by former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who was recently indicted in Arizona for his alleged role in a fake electors scheme in 2020, and former Heritage Foundation president Jim DeMint. At their lavish events, the Conservative political powerhouse enlists approved organizations and far-right extremist organizations to help promote their agenda in a resort vacation setting.
At an October 2022 CPI workshop aimed at “communications professionals,” advertised speakers included AFL’s Stephen Miller, Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (R-CO), the Federalist Senior Editor Mollie Hemingway, and Ben Williamson, a former Trump White House Aide. At a 2023 member’s retreat and leadership conference, the featured guests were Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk and Benny Johnson, and the President of Blaze Media, Gaston Mooney. The 2024 schedule saw Trump diehard supporters Ben Carson and Steve Bannon as the keynote guests.
The organization also details its events by year on their website and proudly brags about CPI efforts to pursue a Conservative agenda. The group claims it “worked tirelessly” to ensure that Roe v. Wade was overturned and credits CPI’s Jim DeMint for helping to build then-candidate Donald Trump’s 2016 list of possible future judges, which included Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barret.
The following is an excerpt from the CPI website, which explains the strategy for finding and keeping MAGA staffers in Congress:
“In 2022, conservative lawmakers faced unparalleled pressure to move to the left on immigration, gun rights, protecting the unborn, religious freedom, and free speech. The pressure comes not just from the left, but also from the GOP establishment.
On all of these issues, it’s easy for a young staffer, eager to advance his career, to take the path of least resistance and compromise on even the most morally unambiguous issues.
It’s much harder to stand for something, but it can be done if you have the secret weapon that CPI provides to any member who needs it: tough, competent, right- minded staff.
A good staffer keeps members informed and prepared to fight for good policy. And they do much more—running an efficient office, improving communication with constituents, and even advising on strategy.
Recommending solid conservative candidates for staff positions has been one of CPI’s core programs since our founding. However, in 2022, CPI’s staffing was more in-demand than ever before.
CPI was the go-to organization for staffing congressional offices, both incoming and existing. As part of CPI’s “Operation Midterm Draft,” CPI’s Government Relations team worked for months to interview, categorize, and match the types of staffers who will advance a conservative agenda—not abandon it once the pressures of Washington set it.
CPI’s list contained hundreds of qualified candidates. These ranged from college graduates who wanted to jump into the conservative movement, to senior level staffers already employed on Capitol Hill and throughout Washington, DC.”
The main objective for CPI is to further develop MAGA partnerships and implement a stronger network that was not in place during the Trump administration. Meadows, was critical in implementing Trump’s agenda which included the "Schedule F" executive order. This ongoing plan was developed and refined in secret over most of the second half of Trump’s term, and launched 13 days before the 2020 election with the goal of radically reshaping the federal government and eradicating thousands of civil servants in order to fill career posts with Trump lackeys and his America Firstideology.
Ultimately, this elite group provides the resort clubhouse for a secret fraternity of Trump loyalists, who are currently developing the Human Resources department that will implement the MAGA infrastructure to incorporate the federal government. While the group has been busy working to amplifying stolen election conspiracies, and Republican election agendas that seek to bastardize commonly accepted social principles like “critical race theory,” they have been actively working to infuse the mainstream Republican Party with right wing extremists who will fall in line with the Trump agenda on Day 1 of another Trump presidency.
According to CPI, members like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Sen. Rand Paul, Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Andy Biggs, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, and Rep. Byron Donalds have made the CPI headquarters “their home away from home.” At least fifteen members of the House and Senate have disclosed paying membership dues to CPI or its "Conservative Partnership Center" using campaign or leadership PAC funds.
These disclosed training sessions for the last several years, prove that Mark Meadows has continued his work for the Trump administration by ensuring that a CPI bootcamp is up and running to train the next set of Trump soldiers for 2024. There have to be additional, less visible, less indicted players involved in the overall scheme to re-elect Trump, because the idea that Mark Meadows, et al., is masterminding a new political revolution in America is too unimaginable. The question now becomes, who developed this plan, and was running these summer branding camps, and who really funded them all — who is the real wizard behind the curtain in this new Republican Party.
Amee Vanderpool writes the SHERO Newsletter, is an attorney, published author, contributor to newspapers and magazines, and an analyst for BBC radio. She can be reached at avanderpool@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @girlsreallyrule.
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He cheated, that’s how. He was bragging he had the votes in July after he became best friends with Elon Musk.
Hi Amee, It seems to me that there is a strange cocktail coalition of working class people and the CPI marinated upper class members with their mainstream Senators and Representatives. It is with this strange brew of misinformation to also tempt some of the middle and upper middle class voters who belong to the ethnic minority Americans (black males, Hispanic males). Aside from black women voters, enough of these groups voted to tip the scales on the election.
So not only is the GOP greasing the wheels on the top tier socioeconomic groups, they are sowing propaganda to the masses (I.e. those insurrectionists who had never had a criminal record until January 6th, 2021). The communications wizards at CPI certainly vetted and introduced a marketing blitzkrieg that easily made the working class (I.e. those that benefited from Biden’s infrastructure investment) a tool for the “ruling class” government House and Senate leaders.
I have to squarely point a finger at the well paid Iowa Senators Grassley and junior Senator Joni Ernst as well as the four Iowa House of Representatives who were all reelected. This includes Senator Miller-Meeks who proposed a nationwide abortion ban in 2021. This marketing ploy seemed to have tricked enough people into thinking that “they” knew what was best for the country. Run the government like a business for profit. The sad reality is that government is not business and business is not government. They can interact and can positively influence each other but they can never be the same, because they have different purposes. I have to wonder what those masses will think about the consequences when they will inadvertently be wounded by the incoming administration.