Trump Is Exactly Where The Elites Want Him

[openfire]

Are you still posting talking points from the Kremlin?

"Talking points"? The irony. I was bashing your posts 24/7, long before it became fashionable to blame it on the Russians.

 

[CPUd]

"Talking points"? The irony. I was bashing your posts 24/7, long before it became fashionable to blame it on the Russians.

Didn't you get banned for doing stuff like that?

 

[openfire]

Didn't you get banned for doing stuff like that?

Repeatedly.

 

[jmdrake]

^ This.

Only when Trump is impeached or assassinated will these fools finally get it.

And what will it take for you to finally get it? Trump sicking the Navy SEALS on the next group of Bundy Ranchers? Trump following through on his belief that the Kelo decision allowing the government to force land owners to sell to private developers to increase the tax base? Trump following through on his promise to re-energize the military industrial complex by wasting money on things like "modernizing our nuclear forces?" Trump following through on Trump supporter Steve Bannon's assertion that Trump will take 1 trillion and "throw it against the wall and see what sticks?" Trump taking Condelezza Rice and Dick Cheney's recommendation for secretary of state obviously means nothing to you. (Yippe for Exxon-Mobile!) Oh....but supposedly the media that created him hates him. Okay. That must prove he's the liberty messiah.

 

[Origanalist]

So the Democrats, the media and the establishment Republicans all colluded to fight Trump tooth and nail, try to discredit him, lie about him, destroying the remnants of the legacy media (formerly known as the MSM) and themselves all so they could get Trump elected.. I dunno, man, that theory seems pretty far out and I've heard some pretty far out theories as to why they weren't able to overcome Trump with vote fraud and such.

I heard a theory from a video made from back in 2011 before Trump decided to run that the elites had some sort of future time seeing device that they were using in the later part of the 20th and very early part of the 21st century that they used, among other things, to see what precincts they would have to advertise more in or rig with voting machines or whatever in order to win, and that is why you had all these Presidential elections (i.e. 2000 and 2004) that came down to a percent or less because that was all they needed.

In fact allegedly Saddam Hussein had one of these future time seeing devices that was dug up from ancient Babylon or some shit, and the elites were trying to get it back from him and that was really what the war in Iraq was all about.

Supposedly they had to shut off all of these devices because they were using too much of some kinda energy that was going to destroy everything or something and so in 2006 they had them all shut off. So since then they haven't been able to rig elections like they used to. So Hillary had to fly blind in 2008, which is why she lost, and then in 2016 again.

Anyway, I think your theory is more far out than that one, but I suppose it's possible.

Well, to be accurate, it's not really my theory.

 

[openfire]

That must prove he's the liberty messiah.

I've never claimed that Trump is a liberty messiah, but he's clearly not a plant or a fake as the OP article posits. We've had this debate for a year, and it should be obvious by now that TPTB didn't want him to be prez.

Even CPUd is still parroting WaPo. That tells me they are still actively trying to bring him down.

 

[nobody's_hero]

^ This.

Only when Trump is impeached or assassinated will these fools finally get it.

No because if an event like that happens, then obviously it would be to get us to think TPTB didn't really want Trump, and since we know that they'll do that in order to make Trump a martyr, we're not gonna fall for it, and instead we won't like Trump. Well, we'll pretend not to like Trump so that TPTB will think their plan is working. But in actuality . . .

 

[H. E. Panqui]

...despite all the pro-trump cheerleading by assorted 'liberty' republican cheerleaders and apologists galore, trump's 'ideas' in the realm of 'monetary realism' are [apparently] non-existent...the [apparent] puppet, trump, has [to my knowledge] never [in his 70 years] uttered any honest, decent, intelligent, etc., ideas as to improving the HIDEOUS monetary order under which we [most of us] are en$laved...trump, and as near as i can tell, his bank$ter 'swamp cabinet' too, appears as absolutely no threat to thi$ miserable order...

...of course i could be wrong...trump fans, please merely copy and paste his best word$, idea$...same old same old republicrat monetary ignorance...

 

[helmuth_hubener]

I predicted before the Republican and Democratic primaries that the final election would be between Trump and Clinton in my article Will A Trump Presidency Really Change Anything For The Better?, published in March,

Oh, wow. What an amazing prediction.

Who -- who! -- could have possibly guessed in March, 2016 that the election might be between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump?

We should all take Brandon Smith Extremely Seriously because he makes Shockingly Prophetic Predictions!

 

[nikcers]

Mccain has been one of the biggest anti Russian politicians in Washington. The biggest thing he attacks Trump on is that he calls peoples names, and basically praises him for tapping into peoples anger. I don't think there is one thing Mccain and Trump disagree on in foreign policy, and I think some of you don't care.

 

[CPUd]

 

[osan]

Trump Is Exactly Where The Elites Want Him
1/1/2017 0 Comments

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By Brandon Smith​

Cognitive dissonance is a powerful drug. It makes otherwise-very-intelligent people goofy and incoherent in their thinking and blinds them to certain realities that they should normally see right in front of their noses. I witness it all the time in the field of economics — a key piece of logic, a key fact that certain people absolutely refuse to take into account simply because they have a singular idea of how the world works and they cannot allow that idea to ever come into question. They would rather leap into a mental gymnastics routine worthy of an Olympic gold medal than examine the truth. And if you confront them on it, they’ll accuse YOU of being the one in denial.

I have to admit, the opening volley is pretty good.

This is how we ended up with the credit crisis and market crash of 2008/2009. This is how very few people saw the writing on the wall with Syria and ISIS and the fact that the funding and training of Islamic extremists by Western governments for the purpose of proxy insurgency might not be such a great concept. It is the reason why it took years for the mainstream to acknowledge the advent of the East/West paradigm, the same paradigm that alternative analysts warned about years in advance. This is why most mainstream AND alternative analysts completely discounted a successful Brexit referendum. And, it is why the vast majority of pundits could not even conceive of a Trump victory in 2016. I could write a list 20 pages long on all the geopolitical and fiscal developments most people missed because they were clinging to assumptions rather than evidence.

Could this be my long lost brother?

Unfortunately, the liberty movement is also sometimes vulnerable to such assumptions. The most dangerous of which revolve around the rise of President-elect Donald Trump.

I have seen endless theories over the past several months on all the ways in which the global elites would sabotage the Trump campaign. I believe the phrase “they will never allow him to win” was repeated in nearly every discussion on the election. The assumption in this instance was that Trump is “anti-establishment” and, therefore, a threat to the globalists. These are the same globalists that people also claimed would “rig the election,” or initiate a “coup” in the electoral college to stop a Trump presidency.

First minor error: the implicit assumption that "the establishment" is of necessity a coherent monobloc. That in itself is pretty dangerous thinking, the author here illustrating that even he is not immune from the very problems he is addressing.

Of course, this never happened. So, a large percentage of the movement needs to question — why didn’t it happen? How did Trump win within a system we know has been rigged for decades?

And it is a flag I have raised endlessly. Since when do Theye allow outsiders to interlope upon their lands and piss on all the shrubbery? Do Theye have to power to fend off all comers? THAT is the salient question here. If so, then we know Trump is perhaps the grandest agent of controlled opposition in all human history. If not, then at best Donald remains an open question. The potential hazards of Trump remain vast. Only time will tell us to what extent our suspicions and cautions were warranted.

You’ll hear hundreds of theories and rationalizations on Trump’s miraculous victory, but a reason you will almost never hear is also the most likely one: Trump won the election because he serves the interests of the establishment. Trump won because he is a fake.

And given how things have transpired, this should be the most terrifying prospect since the Soviets got "the bomb". More so, of course, because the threat is internal, in our face, and so far as I can see likely to move with an audacious authority and dispatch that stand to leave the people of America in a stunned, gape-mouthed state. I may be completely mistaken on this point, but I suspect that Trump is going to be anything but a middle-road president. He will either be a true savior, or he will take us into the same hell as would have Clinton, only perhaps by another route. Therefore, don't put up your rifles just yet because we still have no idea what he is really about.

One difference between myself and most other "analysts" is that I steadfastly refuse to jump into any pool of assumptions where I have no basis for doing so. At the author points out, those waters can be deep, very cold, and endlessly hazardous. Some might accuse me of hedging my bets, to which I say "you're damned right I am". This is not about being right, but getting to truth in the interests of being prepared and hopefully being thereby able to make the right moves when time comes.

This is not an idea that many liberty activists want to entertain. They were so repulsed by the proposition of Hillary Clinton taking the helm at the White House that they would have invested themselves in almost ANYONE running against her, even if they thought that candidate might be controlled opposition. However, not just anyone was fielded as a candidate; Trump was fielded, and for good reason. I predicted before the Republican and Democratic primaries that the final election would be between Trump and Clinton in my article Will A Trump Presidency Really Change Anything For The Better?, published in March, and here is a quote on why:

"The other ingenious aspect of the Trump campaign is really who he is running against — Hillary Clinton, a rabidly liberal candidate even more hated than Barack Obama. A candidate with a potentially serious criminal record and a penchant for an outright communistic world view far beyond that of Bernie Sanders. Those of us who have been in the writing field for a long time and have dabbled in fiction know that in order to create a fantastic hero, you must first put even more work into creating a fantastic villain. The hero is nothing without the villain.


The unmitigated horror inherent in the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency is like adding jet fuel to the Trump campaign. (And yes, I am assuming according to the results of the primaries so far that the final election will be between Trump and Clinton)."

As much as I wish I could find flaw in the argument, alas I cannot. There is a really big part of me, a very fatigued part, that wants to believe Trump will come through by wrestling with the Eville and unwieldy Congress, restoring the environment to a day when certain aspects of our lives were far better than they are now. The temptation is really quite aggravatingly alluring - to be able to relax and just let life be, sans the endless impositions and other assaults upon ourownselves by scurrilous bounders who brazenly take it upon themselves to wag their fingers at us, as they wag the American dog.

My point back then as well as now is that without Clinton as the counter-party, Trump would not have garnered the political following he did. Any other Democratic candidate would not have galvanized conservatives so fervently.

And here we have what may eventually prove yet another clear example of the Hegelian Dialectic at work: identify a perceived threat, get people all worked up about it, present the solution, and let nature take its course. One has to admit that the pattern here fits perfectly. So have the American people been taken for yet another grand ride? I say likely yes, but will not jump on that bandwagon just yet with marital commitment. Perhaps it is my own weakness that is holding out some hope that, in the face of this trail of crumbs and turds, we are not being lead nose-first into the Eville witch's oven.

As I continued in my pre-primaries article:

“Donald Trump appears to be the perfect antithesis to Hillary Clinton. … the real question is, is Trump a reflection of the frustration and defiance of the conservative population, or, is he a clever ruse by the establishment to co-opt and placate the conservative population before we rebel?”

False dichotomy error. He could be both. It would, in fact, make the most sense of all the possibilities.

The staging of the 2016 election might have appeared to some people to be absolute chaos, but to me, it could not have been more perfectly scripted.

Sadly, this is what I also saw as a great possibility and it may yet prove to have been the case. Time.

In later articles covering the election I went on to give Trump a chance. I stated that I had little doubt that he would win the election and that this would be followed by an economic crisis, probably triggered early in his first term. Conservative movements would be set up as scapegoats for a crash the globalists had created. However, I believed it (marginally) possible that Trump was not aware of this strategy on the part of the elites. Today, I no longer hold this view.

It is as if he and I are each others' Eville Twins. I'm getting the creeps.

The first and worst sign that Trump is not anywhere near “anti-establishment” has been his complete reversal of his original “drain the swamp” rhetoric. Trump is not only NOT draining the swamp that is the Washington D.C. and corporate elitist revolving door, he is adding even more creatures of varying ghoulishness. As Newt Gingrich, who describes himself as an outside adviser to Trump, recently stated:

“I’m told he now just disclaims that…” [Draining the swamp] “He now says it was cute, but he doesn’t want to use it anymore…”

There is a good reason why Trump no longer wants to use that particular slogan — his cabinet is now filled with the exact same elitists he used to slam along with the Washington establishment.

While all true, the inferences he implies are not the only ones that are valid. Therefore, remain on the fence awhile longer. Donald will show his hand soon enough, mesupposes.

Trump first placed former Goldman Sachs partner Steven Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary. Goldman Sachs has a long history of insinuating its alumni into vital positions within government bodies dealing directly with the economy. Mnuchin is particularly troubling because of his ties to George Soros; Mnuchin used to work directly for George Soros at Soros Fund Management up until 2004.

This is a very valid alarm to raise, to be certain. However, once again I reiterate that the good or evil of this choice predicates on how Trump manages the position in terms of the policies adopted and how he handles excursions from presumably sound and worthy policy. It is very possible that Trump views these men not so much as human beings, but as instruments. He would be right in doing so, I will add. In a sense, such people can be viewed as any other tool such as a gun or hammer. In the latter case, I may take it up and help you build that garage, or I could use it to cave in your head and steal your daughter.

This is the place where I have advised endless caution and open-mindedness in terms of seeing the possibilities, as well as discipline in not jumping to premature conclusions. It is good to see the possibilities, but why jump immediately to the worst-case when there is, as yet, no firm basis for it? Patience can be a real bitch, especially when one is expecting the second shoe to fall. This is yet another form of courage, the recommendation to which I cannot over emphasize. Be patient and to not rush into the arms of negativity and despair. It is a habit most of us have because it is what we know, after a lifetime of nothing but things getting lousier almost by the day in so many aspects of our lives.

Then, for those people that thought maybe Mnuchin was just an anomaly, Trump added Gary Cohn, president of Goldman Sachs, as the director of the National Economic Council.

Trump’s chief strategist and Breitbart executive Steve Bannon is also a former Goldman Sachs investment banker.

It is interesting to note that over a quarter of the gains in the delusional Dow Jones spike after Trump’s election was tied to a rise in Goldman Sachs stock value. Imagine that…

Trump is also now “advised” on economic matters by the likes of JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon. Are we starting to get the picture here?

Possibly. Perhaps even likely. But I retain my reserve and loathe as I am to advise, will make a rare exception here and recommend others do the same while maintaining sharpened eyes.

If that is not enough, then how about the fact that Trump is being closely advised by long time globalist Henry Kissinger (just as Vladimir Putin is advised by Kissinger)?

I must admit that this does trouble me, assuming the truth of the "advised by" assertion. But one should also consider the possibility that Trump may be playing a very subtle game of appearances here. He may be many things, but stupid isn't one of them. All else equal, yet another dangerous assumption, he knows his life is in imminent danger at all hours of the day. If he is indeed a maverick, Theye will have all interest in coopting him or, barring that ability, killing him.

Ask yourself how YOU would proceed, knowing there is a very powerful cartel of sorts seeking to bring you into Theire fold; men willing to kill you as soon as tell you "howdy"? All of a sudden appearances become a very critical factor in physical survival, not only for yourself, but your children. I hold just this side of zero doubt that Theye would lose no sleep seeing Trump's children flayed alive, if for no other reason than as a message to all comers just who it is you would be fucking with.

Therefore, I can infer that either Trump is well on his way to joining Theire fold, or is doing a wild balancing act on the high wire, on the end of his penis while juggling 1963 Volkswagens with hands and feet. For all we know, it may have been Trump's lifelong wish to become one with Themme. OTOH, he may actually be largely that which he projects. Impossible to say at this time. So line up the possibilities in your minds and notebooks, and keep your eyes on how things unfold over the coming months.

One more point: this possible act could also be his strategy for staying alive long enough to take the oath. I could be wrong, but I am thinking that it may in some manner be easier to kill a president-elect than a sitting president. I am not sure why that thought tickles me, and acknowledge that it may be completely mistaken, but it is there for your mastication.

I'm not sure why so many people are surprised by this arrangement; Trump was meeting with Kissinger months before the election. No matter the administration, there is ALWAYS a high level globalist behind the curtain. Barack Obama had Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Trump and Putin have Kissinger.

Is this true about Putin? What could be the possible public reason behind it? Or do they simply remain silent on the question?

I won’t go into the numerous establishment Republicans that Trump has tapped for his administration, I will save that can of worms for another article, but anyone in the Liberty Movement that is not at least generally suspicious of Trump at this point is probably kidding themselves. The bottom line is, Trump has already LIED to his political base. He has surrounded himself with globalists and financial gatekeepers when he originally criticized Clinton for the same behavior. At this point, as long as he working in close proximity with such parasites there is no way for us to know if he is calling the shots, or if his handlers are making decisions for him.

Astute observation.

I have heard it argued that Trump “has no choices” outside of D.C. insiders, which is why his cabinet is loaded with bottom feeders from Goldman Sachs. I find this argument rather naive.

It is not if TRUMP believes it to be the case.

I would argue that there are thousands of brilliant professionals and people far more trustworthy outside of the beltway that could populate Trump’s cabinet and “make America great again.” I would even argue that ANY person with little experience inside the D.C. corruption chamber would be better suited to the job.

That may in fact be true, but I doubt Trump swims with those people because they are likely not in the same business circles. Trump does real estate as his mainline. Commercial development is well known as a den of vipers. Even if we assume Trump's effective purity, he still has to deal in an environment built upon the treachery that usually accompanies such huge fortunes. That places him in the acquaintance of such people as matters of the unavoidable. Let us not commit the sin of pronouncing guilt by virtue of association. At least not just yet. Keep the red flag flying, but stay your judgments for another day.

It seems to me that there are some activists that just can’t let go of the notion that Trump was the candidate the elites wanted all along. After all, didn’t the powers-that-be do everything in their power to try and stop him from winning the election?

Well, not really. The media firestorm surrounding Trump, though highly negative in tone, only boosted Trump’s exposure throughout the election. In fact, Trump received more coverage from outlets like CNN than all the other candidates combined.

Not convinced that this is perforce attributable to media intent. It is well possible that this was the result of a perfect storm of circumstances. It is well possible the media were grinding their teeth to dust as they watched, apparently helplessly, as their machinations produced the precise opposite results of those intended. Just keep that in mind as a possibility which is not nearly as remote as some may want to believe. Theye have strong knowledge of the psychology of such matters, but I am yet to be convinced that it is so perfect that they are beyond being surprised. Doubtlessly Theye have, and will continue to learn much from the events of the past year+, but I am not prepared to accept that they have control that is quite that precise and all consuming. That goes beyond even my own rather considerable capacity for conspiracy speculation.

One fact I know for sure: Theire control rests upon the flimsiest of threads. Theire game is almost 99.99% psywar. Theye have achieved their successes not because they are so irresistibly powerful in material terms, but because they have seized the minds of men. Consider the possibility that in this past election cycle Theye lost some of that control and things took an unexpected turn. Theire assumptions, in such a case, failed in full or in sufficient part to produce the given outcome. This is not terribly far-fetched.

This was the exact opposite tactic that the elitist controlled media used against true liberty candidate Ron Paul in 2012. With Paul, the media went out of their way to ignore him; they even refused to show a single Ron Paul campaign sign in a crowd if they could avoid it. This was a concerted systematic effort on the part of left AND right wing media outlets to ensure that no one outside of the internet heard about Ron Paul.

So what happened with Trump? Why did the mainstream media abandon a strategy that was very effective against Ron Paul, and why did they give Trump endless free coverage?

This is perhaps the most troubling question of all; one which had me wondering from very early on. However, it leads to no conclusions, but only more questions.

The elites also did not take very stringent measures to disrupt Trump’s candidacy early in the race. The Republican National Convention undertook a campaign of disinformation and rule changes in order to ensure that Ron Paul would have no chance of organizing an upset against establishment choice Mitt Romney. The same exact kind of treachery was used by the DNC in 2016 to sabotage Bernie Sanders — arguably a far more popular and effective candidate than Hillary Clinton. The party elites have numerous tools at their disposal to kill a candidate’s chances before he or she ever makes it on the national stage, yet, we are supposed to believe that Trump just slipped through the cracks, or beat them at their own game? I think not.

continued...http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/trump-is-exactly-where-the-elites-want-him

That is not the only possibility, though I admit I am at some loss to come up with another right off the top of my head. Nevertheless, this is yet another solidly valid point and one that should be kept in mind as we observe how things unfold over the coming months.

ETA: Another possibility in all these questions of how Trump could have gotten as far as he did, despite apparent opposition: Theye let him in even though he is in fact an outsider because, being astute, they too had the temperature of the nation at hand, and it is at fever levels in many ways. Given this, perhaps Theye saw the need to try something different - an experiment perhaps - and decided to let Trump have his rope, with the explicit aim of coopting him down the road as I mentioned earlier. This would make eminent sense. People are tired of the open corruption of Clinton - enough anyhow to perhaps warrant a change of tack. That horse ain't working no mo'; time to change horses. Dangle Trump out there just to see what happens. Well what do you know...

I would add that it's also possible that Theye fucked up in ballot screwing. If such fraud goes on, and I am pretty sure it does, at least on a small scale, if there is sufficient power at hand to arbitrarily alter counts, Theye would nonetheless have to exercise some care in terms of how many votes to flip. The more one flips, the larger the trail of crumbs. Also, if Hillary had won in a landslide, that would have raised a lot of suspicion. Therefore, a thin margin may have been seen as called for. It is not far-fetched, given the scenario, that Theye misjudged the turnout for Trump sufficiently to give him the win. This, too, is a very real possibility that should not be discounted too quickly. If that be the case, bolstering the possibility that Trump is a righteous guy in the terms here relevant, this election could conceivably represent a clear and present danger to Theire designs. Once again, just another possibility for the vest pocket.

As we can see, the possibilities are numerous enough and sufficiently equal in plausibility that we are not as yet able to reach any solid conclusions.

 

[osan]

Oh, wow. What an amazing prediction.

Who -- who! -- could have possibly guessed in March, 2016 that the election might be between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump?

We should all take Brandon Smith Extremely Seriously because he makes Shockingly Prophetic Predictions!

Not sure why the seemingly bitter sarcasm. So the guy is tooting his horn a bit. The rest of what he wrote it pretty reasonable.

 

[silverhandorder]

Didn't you get banned for doing stuff like that?

It's because your side are cowards and try to get people banned. I have never seen so much screeching about rep system or breaking rules as from closet liberals.

 

[CPUd]

It's because your side are cowards and try to get people banned. I have never seen so much screeching about rep system or breaking rules as from closet liberals.

The fact that you believe people here are on different "sides" is exactly how we end up nominating and electing shitty candidates to run broken systems.

 

[enhanced_deficit]

Perhaps , time will tell. But elites can be cold, why did they allow controversial Trump to crush DGP's legacy and safeguard SWC Hillary's glass ceiling? This kind of humiliation of historic leaders was uncalled for.

Wonder if eites are racist and sexist.

 

[nikcers]

It's because your side.

If Ron Paul says that Trumpism and Ron Paul Libertarianism are contradictory who's side are you on?

https://youtu.be/NNwUzStpoog?t=9m22s

 

[osan]

It seemed obvious that the MSM was supporting Trump through all the 24/7 "negative" news. while RP was He Who Must Not Be Named. If they had ignored Trump like Ron Paul, then I would have assumed he was a danger. As it was, Trump was made to seem like THE candidate to make voters think they were fighting the system, only to have the system win.

Only if you hold certain assumptions. Change those and things seem otherwise obvious.

MSM may have had no intention of supporting him. Trump's deal was pretty much out of left-field. It could all be orchestrated, but assuming things are not that utterly controlled, the Trump campaign was certainly looked upon as a joke by a great multitude. After six months the novelty had begun to wear and Donald's growing popularity may well have perplexed Themme for quite awhile. Being presumably human, Theye too are prone to normalcy bias. It is not at all inconceivable that they simply sat, watching in a fascinated stupor of sorts, waiting for a bubble bursting that, as it turned out, would never happen. Heaven knows Theye had plenty of basis for thinking he was a flash in the pan. By the time Theye came to see that this had become real, it was likely already too late. Just look at all the grave errors the Clinton campanign made, possible proof that these people are not supermen.

I admit my curiosity is piqued and I am anxious to see how it all pans out, though I am not looking forward to the likely disappointment.

 

[nikcers]

Only if you hold certain assumptions. Change those and things seem otherwise obvious..

https://youtu.be/NNwUzStpoog?t=9m22s Well yeah if we assume that Ron Paul is right, and Trumpism is the opposite of Ron Paul libertarianism then that's why he received the opposite amount of media coverage.

 

[osan]

The fact that you believe people here are on different "sides" is exactly how we end up nominating and electing shitty candidates to run broken systems.

Now there's a damned lie if ever I read one.

There ARE different sides here. There are posters here who, if their words are to be taken on face value, are no friends of liberty. If our words cannot be taken at face, then there is absolutely no reason to come here and we should all relegate our time to net.porn and good coke.

Seriously, how can you write that we are all on the same side, given the crap some people spew here? Am I missing a sense of humor just too subtle for a dullard such as myself?