Trump and Vivek, Bitcoin ETF Launch, US Bombs Houthis, Overton Window

CryptoDogDivine

Jan 17, 2024

Hey everyone,

This news digest covers the following stories from the past week:

1. Trump’s dominating primary performance in Iowa

2. Bitcoin ETF launches—Vanguard snubs

3. US launches airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen

4. The expanding Overton Window

Don’t miss videos, memes, and news bites at the end!

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Trump Romps in Iowa

Monday night, Donald Trump won the Iowa caucus in a landslide.

Trump won 98 of 99 Iowa counties and outperformed his next closest competitor, Ron DeSantis, by 30%.

Prior to Monday evening, no Republican had ever won the Iowa caucus by more than 12%.

Trump succeeded in Iowa despite spending about half as much as either of his next two closest rivals, and facing four simultaneous felony cases that threaten to put him in jail for hundreds of years.

Trump’s total dominance is more evidence that, among his supporters, he commands a level of loyalty not found anywhere else in American politics.

After Trump’s victory, Vivek Ramaswamy suspended his campaign and threw his support behind Trump.

Trump congratulated Vivek in his victory speech for running a strong campaign.

Vivek grew to become a favorite on 𝕏 and the podcast circuit for his willingness to engage in dialogue about his America First policy platform.

While Trump’s other challengers ran tightly scripted corporate-style campaigns, Vivek spoke his mind, revised his views in response to new facts, and gave independent media unlimited access.

With Trump absent from both 𝕏 and the GOP debates, Vivek carved out a niche as a communicator of America First ideas for younger generations.

In doing so, he provided a much-needed counterweight to the rancor of American politics. Whether Hillary’s sneering dismissal of half the electorate as “deplorables,” Trump’s combativeness and nicknames, or Biden’s demonization of his opponents’ voters as racist extremists, in recent years America’s political leaders have adopted a tone calculated to alienate most young voters.

Vivek distinguished himself by his politeness, showing that it’s possible to hold Trump’s policy positions without replicating his demeanor.

He routinely went viral for his unflappability when confronted with protestors on flammable topics like LGBTQ and climate.

Trump shrewdly avoided attacking Vivek—at one point calling him a “good man”—until a relatively mild dustup during the weekend before the Iowa caucus.

The conflict started when Vivek posted a photo of college-aged Iowans wearing shirts that said “Save Trump, Vote Vivek.”

The shirts were part of a late campaign push built around the message that the deep state planned to narrow the primary down to a “two-horse race between Donald Trump, and a puppet who they control…Nikki Haley,” eliminate Trump through lawfare, and install Haley as the nominee.

For Trump, the use of his mugshot was a step too far. On Saturday night, he called Vivek “deceitful” and “very sly.” In another post, he said Vivek was ‘PLAY[ING] IT TOO “CUTE”’.

The comments were tame for Trump, but caused the battle to trend on 𝕏 in the 48 hours leading into the primary, with Trump and Vivek supporters debating the probable relationship between the two candidates.

Vivek responded by downplaying Trump’s attack as an ”unfortunate move”, but chose not to hit back.

If the episode proved anything, it was that Trump still has a masterful touch when it comes to social media, effortlessly inserting himself into the online zeitgeist with a few well-timed posts.

After the Iowa results came in Monday night, Vivek immediately dropped out of the race.

Tuesday night, he traveled to New Hampshire to campaign with Trump, who said “It's an honor to have [Vivek’s] endorsement. He's gonna be working with us and he'll be working with us for a long time.”

Following the speech, Vivek urged Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley to follow him by dropping out and throwing their support behind Trump.

Despite Trump’s overwhelming showing, it appears neither Haley nor DeSantis have plans to exit the race.

Strangely, after the results came in Haley told her supporters, "I can safely say, tonight Iowa made this Republican primary a two-person race", despite her placing third.

On Tuesday, the Trump campaign trolled DeSantis with a Jay-Z lyric, saying the Florida governor "has been to 99 counties and doesn't have a lead in 1."

Trump personally spent Tuesday in court in Manhattan, fighting a rape allegation from E. Jean Carroll.

In several Truth Social posts Tuesday morning, Trump’s portrayed Carroll’s accusation that Trump raped her as frivolous.

In 2019, Carroll accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in a department store in the mid 90s and is seeking $10 million in damages from Trump for alleged defamation.

What do you think: is Trump poised to dominate the GOP primary, or will the anti-Trump lawfare campaign catch up to him?

Vanguard Snubs Bitcoin ETF

Last Thursday marked a historic moment for crypto: Bitcoin Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) began trading in public markets.

The approval of a Bitcoin ETF has been a long time coming. The first application was filed in 2013, meaning it took over a decade to get the product approved.

In the end, there were two reasons an ETF finally happened: a federal judge ruled the SEC lacked justification for denying approval, and several influential asset managers including BlackRock finally decided to apply to launch Bitcoin funds.

The first day of trading saw over $4B worth of ETF shares exchange hands. Hilariously, Bitcoin’s price ended up exactly where it started.

Presumably, BlackRock will pump its own bags some day. But even without the rapid price appreciation that some people anticipated from an ETF, the launch was still fruitful. The best thing to come out of launch day was a funny new Bitcoin meme.

It started when asset manager Vanguard announced its refusal to list any Bitcoin ETFs.

Vanguard is right up there with BlackRock as one of the top asset mangers in the world. It is known for operating Baby Boomers’ retirement funds—regarded by many as the holy grail of Bitcoin adoption.

Vanguard’s Bitcoin snub opened it up to being meme’d by salty Bitcoiners.

If there’s one thing Bitcoiners know how to do, it’s roast no-coiners. Vanguard’s stubborn resistance to Bitcoin put a target on its back.

Robinhood trading app picked up on the fun, running a memetic advertisement that included a friendly jab at Vanguard.

The next day, Vanguard doubled down on its stance by issuing a statement that it would remove support for its existing crypto products: “In addition to spot Bitcoin ETFs not being available for purchase on the Vanguard platform, effective immediately, Vanguard will no longer accept the purchase of cryptocurrency products, including Bitcoin futures ETFs.”

A few days later, a rumor circulated that Vanguard was reconsidering its decision after withering criticism online.

If history holds true, the big institutions will wait until Bitcoin has made most of its gains before aggressively advertising it to its customers.

No matter what happens next, ETF approval is a historic step for Bitcoin. Congratulations to all who had a hand in making it a reality.

US Bombs Houthis in Yemen

Last Friday, the United States launched a series of airstrikes on the Houthi movement in Yemen.

The US motivation for striking the Houthis traces back to events stemming from Hamas’s 10/7 attack on Israel, and Israel’s military response in Gaza.

The Houthis are a rebel movement of Shiite Muslims funded by Iran. In October, Houthis started attacking maritime trade linked to Israel as an act of solidarity with Palestine, using missiles and drones to target Israel-linked ships passing through the Red Sea.

In December, news outlets reported that the Houthis’ attacks were disrupting global commerce between Europe and Asia, forcing ships to go around South Africa rather than directly through the Suez Canal.

The reroute added 1-2 weeks to the voyages, increased shipping costs, and disrupted supply chains. Approximately 40% of maritime trade between Europe and Asia passes through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea, and 12% of global maritime trade overall.

In response to the Houthis’ continued attacks, the US fired roughly 100 missiles, striking 30 Houthi positions in Yemen.

The US framed the attacks as an act of deterrence, and insisted the “international community” has been “united and resolute” in supporting the military response.

After US bombing, China issued a statement calling for restraint: "We urge the relevant parties to keep calm and exercise restraint, to prevent the conflict from expanding. The Red Sea region is an important passage for international logistics and the energy trade.”

Chinese trade is also being disrupted by the Houthi attacks, but it has not made the same promises to fund the Israeli war effort as the US, which put it in a better position to advocate for peace.

The day after the US strikes, protestors filled the streets in Yemen in support of Palestine.

In the US political sphere, the strikes spurred a debate about the US’s potential entry into yet another Middle East military conflict.

Critics of the Biden regime were quick to point out that Biden himself faulted Donald Trump for ordering military strikes without Congressional approval. The Biden Administration did not seek Congressional approval before the Houthi strikes, nor even warn Congress ahead of time.

As with past Middle East wars, the Houthi conflict risks escalating a fight against an ideologically galvanized opponent on its home turf.

Opposition to the strikes was especially strong among America-First conservatives, who pointed out that the risk-reward ratio of another Middle Eastern conflict is not favorable to the US, which has enough trouble solving its own domestic problems.

Trump took the opportunity to roast the Biden Administration, faulting it for starting a new war, losing track of US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and failing to protect the US’s southern border.

Tucker echoed Trump’s sentiment, warning that the Houthi bombings were the next step toward the goal of “full scale war with Iran, which the foreign policy ghouls in Washington have been fantasizing about for decades.”

Colonel Douglas MacGregor argued the Biden strike was calculated to pacify Benjamin Netanyahu’s demands for war with Iran, and warned that the strikes put the US on a slippery slope to regional war with the Muslim world on Israel’s behalf.

Not everyone was opposed to the strikes. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham praised the attack and said the US “must continue using military force in the face of aggression from Iran and their proxies.”

Earlier this week, after the Houthis retaliated by striking an American cargo ship with a missile, Graham urged the Biden administration to escalate by confronting Iran directly.

In a similar vein, Nikki Haley praised the Biden Administration’s strike by saying, “I welcome it, it’s about time.” She also faulted Biden’s delay in attacking the Houthis as “too little too late.”

The 𝕏 memesphere responded skeptically to the news of another potential war.

Viral memes took aim at war hawks and neoconservatives for cooking up another justification to spend American tax dollars bombing other countries instead of fixing our own.

Early signs point to the reality that the US strikes did not, in fact, deter the Houthi rebels.

On Friday, the Houthis’ Supreme Political Council released a statement that the US and UK were now official targets for further retaliation: “The aggression is an extension of the treacherous American targeting of the Yemeni naval forces and the Zionist aggression against Gaza. All American-British interests have become legitimate targets for our forces in response to their aggression against Yemen."

On Tuesday, the Houthis struck a Greek cargo ship which had previously visited Israel.

Later in the day, the US put out a statement that it is seeking peace with the Houthis, but is also willing respond with further aggression: “We want the Houthi attacks to stop in the Red Sea, and we do not seek conflict with them, and we will confront their attacks appropriately.”

What do you think: Is the US on a slippery slope to another war in the Middle East?

Overton Window

One of the hottest meta-topics on 𝕏 is the rapidly expanding Overton Window.

The main reason for the shift has been the liberation of Twitter from the censorship cartel—a network of government agencies, non-profits, academics, and political operatives that engineer publics conversations behind the scenes by deciding what’s in bounds and out of bounds on social media.

As the Twitter Files revealed, the censorship cartel is very active on social networks, using shady tools like visibility filtering and algorithmic boosting/deboosting to distort what it looks like the public believes.

The manipulation of social media is an extension of tightly controlled legacy media, in which a few gatekeepers and media tycoons decide for the rest of the country what counts as a newsworthy.

All this changed when Elon bought Twitter, exposed the censorship schemes active on the platform, and made the site’s algorithm public.

The existence of even a single free speech platform on the Internet has given the people a place to congregate and discuss topics that would otherwise be forbidden.

It’s difficult to appreciate how profoundly these censorship schemes impact present-day American life.

Everyone is walking around with ideas about “what the rest of the country thinks” in their head. These ideas come from a variety of places—everything from conversations with friends to workplace mores. But the genesis point of the collective mind in 2024 is social media.

The Twitter Files was such a big deal because it revealed the entire fabric of the social media reality to be a carefully engineered construction.

Until the end of 2022, this construction operated below most peoples’ awareness. But as censorship on Twitter was dismantled, it’s become increasingly clear that the public has radically different ideas of what counts as important news than its media overseers.

One way to measure the expansion of the Overton Window is what topics are you allowed to openly debate without risking employment.

In many cases, there is a media-assigned “correct view” to have on controversial topics. Anything deviating too far from the officially sanctioned opinion is not just dismissed, but relentlessly attacked as bigoted/paranoid/extremist/etc.

The list of topics following this right-think/wrongthink pattern grew precipitously throughout 2020 and 2021.

Attempts to debate things like Covid, BLM/George Floyd/diversity, election fraud/J6, vaccines/vax passports, and the Ukraine War were shut down with the threat of ostracization, unemployment, or worse,

The recent expansion of the Overton Window is an equal-and-opposite reaction to the alarming attempt to control democratic debate from the top down.

Today, the range of topics where free debate is tolerated is still far narrower than it should be, but expanding rapidly.

Elon’s role in expanding the Overton Window cannot be overstated. Not only did he roll back censorship at Twitter/𝕏, but he has led several conversations into previously forbidden topics. Simply by virtue of his eminence, once he talks about something it becomes more acceptable for others to talk about it as well.

Here are a few contested territories where free dialogue is being rekindled:

-The effects of illegal immigration

-Racial propaganda in the media

-Human trafficking

-Discrimination on the basis of skin color

-Public trust in the media itself

-The role of intelligence agencies in subverting popular social movements

-UFOs/UAPs/interdimensional aliens

Ultimately, the expansion of Overton Window is linked to trust in official media sources.

Social media should have killed legacy media long ago—it is faster and cheaper, and gives people more of a say in deciding what counts as newsworthy.

The old system persisted not because it offered a superior product, but through a combination of first-mover advantage, inertia, and a dirty tricks to keep its competition down.

Truth is a force of nature, though, and has a way of winning out in the end.

The platform that elevates truth, as decided by the masses, has an unmatched advantage over its competition.

Right now, that platform is 𝕏, which is driving the expansion of the Overton Window like nothing else in recent memory.

What do you think: is the Overton Window expanding? What does it mean for the future of media, culture, and society?

Dogey Treats: News Bites

Elon’s businesses

Bloomberg refused to correct a story blaming the SEC’s false Bitcoin ETF announcement on a hack of 𝕏.

Average user time spent on 𝕏 increased 34% in December 2023, while the number of unique visitors approached Instagram’s 1.9B. Elon said so far January was eclipsing December.

𝕏 successfully defended an Illinois student from punishment for posts made on 𝕏.

US Politics

NBC published an article about plans within the military to defy Trump, interpreted by many as an admission that the deep state exists and was again planning to subvert a Trump presidency.

Vladimir Putin said, “previous US elections are rigged by mail-in voting.” He also urged Ukraine to negotiate an end to the war, saying, “Ukraine has refused negotiations with Russia - fools, it should have ended long ago." American journalist Gonzalo Lira died in a Ukrainian prison, with no apparent attempt to negotiate his release by the State Department.

Michael Shellenberger looked at the possibility that Jeffrey Epstein ran a blackmail operation.

RFK Jr was pictured with Rand Paul, leading to speculation that Paul might be his VP pick. RFK said he would seek to increase access to psychedelics for medical purposes.

The Biden Administration continued to fight against the state of Texas to stop the state from enforcing the US border. Texas attempt to kick US border patrol out of Shelby Park in Eagle Pass so the Texas National Guard could enforce the border.

Elon criticized the United States for not requiring proof of citizenship to vote, writing, "In the USA, you don’t need a government-issued ID to vote, and you can mail in your ballot. This is insane." He was attacked for spreading misinformation, defended himself, and called for an open debate about election integrity. Later, he questioned if it was true that California will not allow an election audit.

New evidence of electoral fraud from the 2020 election emerged in Michigan.

Elon pointed out that media has begun using the word “migrants” instead of illegal aliens, calling it a “carefully chosen propaganda word.” He posted a video of a black protest in Chicago against illegal immigration and another video about NYC going to distance learning in order to house illegal immigrants.

Elon said he would support Vivek as VP

Hunter Biden unexpectedly appeared before Congress on a day he was bing held in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify to a corruption probe. He and his lawyers stormed out of the hearing before being questioned by Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The FBI is refusing to comply with a court order to turn over the Seth Rich laptop.

27% of Americans self-identify as Democrats, 27% as Republicans, and 43% as Independents, according to a new Gallup poll.

Global Financial System

The US Federal Reserve reported losses of $114 billion last year.

One report said a BlackRock Ethereum ETF was unlikely to be approved in 2024.

The Biden Administration is backing legislation to seize $300B of frozen Russian funds to pay for reconstruction of Ukraine.

US Congress is beginning to invetigate the SEC for lack of account security that led to an early Bitcoin ETF approval announcement.

Credit card and car loan defaults reached 2008 levels.

Health

Some scientists are warning of a “heart failure pandemic” related to a new Covid variant. Pfizer recently paid $6.7B to acquire a company specilizing in the treatment of myocarditis.

Several accounts took note of the World Economic Forum’s plans to discuss Disease X, a hypothetical next pandemic.

A new paper showed autism-like behavior in rats whose mothers were exposed to the Pfizer mRNA vaccine while pregnant with them.

A federal judge ordered the CDC to release nearly eight million text entries in a public vaccine safety database.

DEI

Elon reposted an article about the FAA’s diversity push, which reportedly includes hiring airline pilots with intellectual disabilities.

Australian officials admitted gender pay gap narrative not backed by evidence

Evidence emerged that Cigna health insurance trains employees that race was created to marginalize black people and perpetuate racism in America, and there are many genders.

James O’Keefe recorded a video confronting Mark Cuban about his support for DEI. Elon wrote, “Mark Cuban is such a tool.”

Johns Hopkins’ DEI office sent out a list of characteristics that automatically signify “privilege,” but retracted the document when it went viral online. Elon encouraged people to look for the “fountainhead of lies” that led to a sharp increase in media reporting on race in recent years. He called out United Airlines and Boeing for being “openly racist organizations”, warned against DEI hiring among airlines, and posted a detailed article arguing for merit-based hiring over race- and gender-based hiring.

Elon reiterated his stance that “cis” s a slur

Israel-Palestne

South Africa plans to take the US and UK to court for complicity with Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

What do you think of this peace plan proposal for Israel-Palestine?

Misc

Comedian Mark Curry said there’s a Hollywood agenda to emasculate black men by making them wear dresses. Footage of Katt Williams claiming Michael Jackson was murdered went viral.

A former CIA agent said the agency has legal power to sell cocaine and other drugs, and justified doing so on pragmatic grounds.

A group of four undercover FBI agents in Denver spent over a year talking to a 16-year-old online about joining ISIS and arrested him shortly after his 18th birthday when he went to the airport.

Forbes predicted more than half of entry-level knowledge worker roles would be eliminated by AI in the next five years.

The Pentagon responded to the claim that Taylor Swift may be a ‘front for a covert political agenda’ on behalf of the Biden administration.

Elon asked about the federal government’s role in J6: “A precise assessment would be to accept that there are probabilities, not certainties, associated with any given event. Jan 6 certainly had a large organic component, but there were some undercover government agents in the mix, which the government has admitted is true. The key question is whether those agents of the government took a passive or an active role on Jan 6. Did they simply observe or did they fan the flames?”

OpenAI reportedly deleted language from its usage policy prohibiting the use of its technology for military purposes.

A video encouraging people to fight a restrictive Irish speech law went viral.

Homebuilder Bill Pulte announced the purchase of Bed, Bath, and Beyond bonds as a tactic to investigate malfeasance that led to the company’s bankruptcy.

Mr Beast posted his first video exclusive to X.

Memes of the Week

Elon’s Memes

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