The Perfect Specimen

Sometimes critics hand you exactly the evidence you need.

This morning I received an email from someone calling themselves “El Bearsidente” in reply to my piece “The Price of Reform,” Five hundred words of fury attempting to refute my documentation of dangerous rhetoric patterns. Five hundred words that instead became a perfect specimen of exactly what I’d documented.

Occasionally, someone responds to your thesis with such precision that they prove it while trying to disprove it. And when that happens, you have an obligation to dissect it—not for revenge, but for clarity.

Let me show you what I mean.

What I Actually Argued

Before we examine his response, let’s reestablish exactly what I documented in “The Price of Reform” and the articles preceding it.

August 30, 2025 - I posted “The Banality of Evil”:

“My Ferment Genocide Bingo card is full now.

✅ They’re stealing our jobs

✅ They’re eating our pets

✅ They’re raping our daughters

Unfortunately, the prize is the same thing that happened to Jews, Tutsis, Armenians, Native Americans, Japanese Americans, Rohingya, Tamils, Chinese Indonesians, multiple ethnic groups in Darfur, and countless other ethnic and religious minorities.”

I wasn’t being hyperbolic. I was documenting a pattern. Three specific accusations against specific groups, each with historical precedent appearing before mass violence against minorities.

September 3, 2025 - I wrote “Secret Cabals, False Heroines, and the Death of Truth and Nuance”analyzing how algorithms amplify exactly this kind of rhetoric:

“When your entire political identity depends on civilizational crisis, boring police reports saying ‘we investigated and found nothing’ become the enemy. The fear is the point. The outrage is the product. And social media algorithms are the perfect delivery system.”

I documented how conspiracy theories get algorithmic rocket fuel while nuanced explanations get buried. How apocalyptic framing generates engagement while truth limps along behind carrying receipts nobody wants to read.

September 10, 2025 - Charlie Kirk was assassinated.

September 12, 2025 - I made a distinction about rhetoric types:

“Left-leaning rhetoric tends to use labels that, while often applied too broadly or unfairly, are still fundamentally about human moral categories: accusing someone of holding racist views, fascist politics, etc. These are harsh moral judgments about people’s beliefs or behaviors.

Right-leaning rhetoric increasingly uses language that literally dehumanizes: describing people as ‘vermin,’ talking about ‘poisoning blood,’ calling people ‘abominations.’ This language doesn’t just make moral judgments about humans, it portrays certain groups as non-human, existential threats, or inherently corrupting.

These aren’t two equally problematic rhetorical strategies. One is harsh political discourse, the other is the specific type of language that historically enables atrocities.”

September 13, 2025 - I published two comprehensive articles providing the full scholarly framework. This is critical, because my emailer claims I ignored the left’s rhetoric.

In “Sticks and Stones: When Words Kill”, I made careful distinctions about rhetoric types and explicitly addressed both sides:

“Yes, both sides engage in dehumanizing rhetoric. But there’s a fundamental difference in what they target that matters enormously for understanding threats to democratic governance.

Right-wing eliminationist rhetoric predominantly targets WHO people ARE—their race, sexuality, gender identity, ethnicity… Left-wing confrontational rhetoric more often targets WHAT people BELIEVE or DO—their political positions, their roles, their actions.”

I spent thousands of words making careful distinctions. I acknowledged left-wing violence—the 2017 Congressional baseball shooting, the 2016 Dallas police shooting, the 2020 George Floyd protests. I wrestled with complexity around professional identity versus immutable characteristics. I made explicit that I wasn’t claiming genocide was imminent or that conservatives were Nazis.

In “The Infrastructure of Atrocity”, I systematically documented America’s trajectory using genocide scholar Gregory Stanton’s Ten Stages framework:

“Right now, America is building the infrastructure for genocide. We’re not there yet—but we’re laying the groundwork with frightening precision.

This isn’t hyperbole. It’s pattern recognition based on decades of research into how mass atrocities actually develop.”

I provided extensive citations documenting dehumanizing rhetoric against immigrants, Muslims, and LGBTQ+ Americans. I analyzed current policies against Stanton’s stages, showing concerning progression through classification, symbolization, discrimination, and dehumanization. I documented the legal framework, military involvement, and detention infrastructure being constructed.

Both articles, published the same day, provided complementary analysis: one establishing the rhetorical framework, the other systematically documenting where America sits in the process that historically precedes atrocities.

September 16, 2025 - WarGate Books canceled my contract for Dark Dominion, citing audience misalignment: data and feedback showed readers were unlikely to purchase my books given my public positions.

This is the timeline. Pattern documented before crisis. Framework applied during crisis. Two comprehensive scholarly articles published three days after the assassination, both extensively cited, both addressing the “both sides” critique explicitly. Book deal canceled.”

Now let’s look at what my emailer heard.

The Email, Dissected

“You fight nothing. You stand for nothing. You’re posting on X.”

He opens by declaring me irrelevant—just another guy posting on social media, accomplishing nothing.

Then he writes 500 words about it.

If I truly fight nothing and stand for nothing, why bother? Why let a blog post from some irrelevant clown burrow under your skin enough to craft an essay-length response? The emotional investment here is the tell. People don’t write manifestos about things that don’t threaten them. They scroll past.

He didn’t scroll past.

“You cry about the right’s rhetoric yet ignore 12+ years of the same and even worse garbage from the left.”

I didn’t ignore it. I addressed it explicitly in both September 13th articles. He either didn’t read them or couldn’t comprehend them.

But notice the deflection pattern: I documented specific rhetoric (“they’re eating our pets,” “poisoning our blood,” “animals”) with specific historical parallels to blood libel and genocide precursors. His response isn’t “that rhetoric doesn’t exist” or “those parallels are inaccurate.” It’s “what about the left?”

This is textbook whataboutism—the glass house defense. “You can’t call out our stones because they throw stones too.”

But I’m not throwing stones. I’m trying to repair my house before it collapses. And I’m not responsible for fixing the left—I’m responsible for calling out dangerous patterns in my own house.

That’s what reformers do. They focus on their house. When your neighbor’s roof is leaking, you don’t ignore the fire in your kitchen and point at their problem. You put out your fire first.

I’m more conservative than not. I’m a veteran who took an oath to the Constitution in January 1994. I’ve been watching my own side drift toward rhetoric that historically enables atrocities. The left’s problems are real—and leftists can address them. I’m focused on mine.

Every reformer gets this deflection: “What about their problems?” It’s the last defense of people who know you’re right but can’t admit it without breaking tribal loyalty.

“Ever tried to pronounce ‘MAGAt’? Try ‘maggot’.”

He’s deeply wounded by a portmanteau. Years of thinking about it, clearly.

Meanwhile, I lost a publishing contract for documenting that “they’re eating our pets” is modern blood libel. We’re comparing “people call us mean names online” with “I documented genocide warning signs and got professionally destroyed for refusing to stay quiet during a crisis.”

The asymmetry is striking.

“Remember COVID? Lock them into camps… the useless vaccine…”

Vague grievances about COVID policies. No specific citations. No documented rhetoric equivalent to “poisoning our blood” or “they’re animals.” Just generalized anger about pandemic restrictions.

I documented specific language with specific historical parallels. He responds with “remember when things felt authoritarian?” That’s not evidence—it’s vibes.

“Remember 2020 and how the left cheered for the ‘Summer of Love’? Over 40 people were murdered while Democrat lawmakers were egging it on.”

I addressed this in my September 13th article “Sticks and Stones.” Thirty-six deaths during George Floyd protests. Seven hundred injured officers. One to two billion in damage. I didn’t ignore it—I analyzed it as reactive civil unrest versus eliminationist violence targeting immutable identity.

But notice what he’s doing: historical grievances deployed to avoid engaging with present documentation. I spent weeks documenting specific rhetoric patterns before Charlie Kirk’s assassination. I applied that framework during the crisis. He responds by changing the subject to 2020.

The gas leak is still in the kitchen. Pointing at past fires in other rooms doesn’t make it disappear.

“Antifa (which is an organization, open a history book)”

This one’s almost too perfect. He tells me to “open a history book” while claiming the famously decentralized, non-hierarchical anti-fascist movement is an organization.

It’s like saying “Anonymous is a corporation with a CEO, do your research.”

Brief. Sharp. Self-refuting. Moving on.

“You cry about Hitler but ignore the 100+ million people murdered by communism in the 20th century.”

The Black Book of Communism number. I was waiting for this.

Here’s the thing: I documented specific American right-wing rhetoric patterns in 2025—blood libel language, dehumanization, apocalyptic framing after a political assassination. His response is “but what about Stalin?”

What does communist death tolls in the 20th century have to do with whether “they’re eating our pets” is dangerous rhetoric in contemporary America? Nothing. It’s textbook deflection.

It’s like responding to “there’s a gas leak in the kitchen” with “OH SO YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT THE MILLIONS WHO DIED IN HOUSE FIRES??” The gas leak is still there. Pointing at historical atrocities in other countries doesn’t make contemporary American rhetoric patterns disappear.

The deflection reveals something important: he can’t defend the rhetoric I documented, so he’s changing the subject to different atrocities in different countries under different systems. That’s not historical analysis. That’s avoiding the point.

And let’s be clear about what this deflection does: If your defense of contemporary American rhetoric is “at least we’re not as bad as Stalin,” you’ve already conceded the rhetoric is bad. You’re just haggling over how bad is too bad.

I’m not interested in that debate. I documented specific patterns with specific historical precedents. That analysis stands or falls on evidence, not on whether other ideologies in other countries at other times also produced atrocities.

“Your ‘analysis’ here would probably allow you to join Mao’s Red Guards.”

I cited genocide scholars like Gregory Stanton. I referenced Hannah Arendt’s work on the banality of evil. I provided historical examples showing how language patterns repeat before mass violence.

Apparently, quoting scholars about how ordinary people participate in atrocity makes me exactly like zealots who beat people to death for owning books.

The irony is exquisite. Arendt’s point—which I quoted on August 30th—was about the banality of evil: how ordinary people become complicit by refusing to think critically about what they’re participating in.

I documented a pattern and refused to suspend that analysis when my tribe demanded it. The Red Guards participated in violence because they didn’t think critically about what they were doing. These are opposites, not equivalents.

“Remember Eichmann? That’s you, just with words from behind your screen.”

So I’m like the architect of the Holocaust because… I wrote blog posts citing genocide scholars?

Eichmann organized trains to death camps because he refused to think critically about what those trains were for. I spent weeks analyzing rhetoric patterns, applied scholarly frameworks, and maintained intellectual consistency during a crisis when tribal pressure demanded I look away.

The fact that he invokes Arendt—who I quoted!—while completely missing her actual argument is almost beautiful. Her work was about how people participate in evil through thoughtlessness. I’m being accused of being like Eichmann for doing exactly what Arendt said prevents people from becoming like Eichmann: thinking critically about dangerous patterns.

We’re not the same.

“Even now you’re, in essence, blaming Charlie Kirk for his own murder.”

This is the core misunderstanding—or deliberate misrepresentation.

I mourned Charlie Kirk. I condemned his assassination explicitly. I called out people celebrating his death.

What I refused to do was let his death become justification for apocalyptic rhetoric treating half the country as existential threats. I distinguished “grief is valid” from “using grief to justify dehumanizing millions.”

Apparently, maintaining that distinction equals “blaming the victim.”

By this logic, saying “9/11 was a tragedy but the Iraq War was still wrong” means you’re blaming the 9/11 victims for the war. It’s a comprehension problem, not a moral one.

“You are, plain and simple, an evil little clown.”

“Evil little clown” is objectively funny. It’s like calling someone a “wicked miniature jester” or “malevolent tiny buffoon.” This is the insult of someone who’s really mad but also kind of running out of steam.

But let’s note what’s happening: After 400 words accusing me of dangerous rhetoric, he deploys… dehumanizing language. “Evil little clown.” Not “wrong.” Not “misguided.” Not even “dangerous.” Clown—something to be mocked and dismissed, not engaged with seriously.

We’re building to something here.

“5 years from now nobody will remember you.”

Possibly true. Maybe nobody remembers this blog post or that tweet thread or the publisher who dropped me.

But I’m a working author. I have five published novels, numerous short stories, three complete manuscripts ready for publication. I’m over halfway done with another. More planned after that. I’m not posting hot takes—I’m building a body of work.

Books outlast Twitter fights and angry emails. Books outlast their own authors. And even if I’m forgotten: somebody will remember the pattern. Somebody will look back at this moment and see the language that preceded whatever comes next. When they do, there will be a record of people who documented it while it was happening, not after the bodies were counted.

“Please seek professional help before you decide to Charlie Kirk your family.”

And here we are.

After 500 words about how I’m the one with dangerous rhetoric, he:

1. Turns a murder victim’s name into a verb
2. Suggests I might murder my wife—daughter of Indonesian immigrants with Muslim roots—and my gay son
3. Both groups explicitly targeted by the rhetoric I documented and repeatedly condemned
4. Proves my entire thesis about dehumanizing language in a single sentence

This is like writing an essay about how fire isn’t dangerous and then lighting yourself on fire to prove the point.

Let me be absolutely clear about what just happened: I documented rhetoric patterns that treat certain groups as existential threats. I explained how this language historically precedes violence. I noted that my own family members—my wife, my son—belong to groups being targeted by this rhetoric.

His response to my documentation of dangerous rhetoric is to deploy dangerous rhetoric suggesting I might murder them.

The specimen is perfect.

What This Actually Proves

This email demonstrates:

✓ Apocalyptic framing - “You are what’s wrong with America”

✓ Dehumanization - “Evil little clown”

✓ Historical atrocity comparisons - Mao, Eichmann, fascists

✓ Implied violence - “Charlie Kirk your family”

✓ Complete inability to engage with actual argument - Never addresses the distinction I made about rhetoric types

✓ Deflection through whataboutism - “But what about the left’s 12 years…”

✓ Subject changes when cornered - Can’t defend documented rhetoric, so shifts to COVID, 2020, communism

He’s so furious about me documenting the pattern that he’s performing the pattern while denying it exists.

It’s like someone angrily insisting “I DON’T HAVE AN ANGER PROBLEM” while punching holes in drywall.

The Market Intelligence

He thinks I’m documenting my professional destruction. He thinks losing my publisher proves I’m wrong, irrelevant, on the wrong side of history.

He’s wrong.

Publishers follow market data. Mine made a rational business decision based on audience feedback. I respect that. But their audience’s reaction revealed I was writing for the wrong readers. Now I’m pressing forward with a revised strategy for finding the right audience.

Why I’d Do It Again

The emailer thinks I betrayed conservatism. I upheld it.

Constitutional conservatism requires limiting power, respecting institutions, and rejecting authoritarian rhetoric regardless of which side deploys it. When my own side started filling genocide bingo squares after Kirk’s death—“This is our October 7th,” “Your children aren’t safe going to school alongside theirs,” “There can never be peace with these people”—refusing to call that out would be the actual betrayal.

I’m not a leftist attacking conservatives. I’m a conservative veteran who took an oath to the Constitution. I’ve been watching my own side drift toward rhetoric that historically enables atrocities. And when a political assassination accelerated that drift into apocalyptic framing, I refused to suspend the analysis I’d been documenting for weeks.

That’s what reformers do. They maintain standards when their own side abandons them. They focus on their house, not everyone else’s. They take responsibility for their tribe’s trajectory instead of deflecting to other people’s problems.

Every reform movement gets attacked by loyalists first. Civil rights activists called race traitors. Anti-war conservatives called unpatriotic. The tribe demands loyalty. Reformers maintain principles. And the tribe ejects them for it.

I’m in good company.

My family members aren’t abstract political talking points. They’re my family. And when my own side starts using rhetoric that treats them as existential threats, I’m not staying quiet to maintain tribal belonging.

Because fuck that shit.

This isn’t left versus right. This is “my side is drifting somewhere dangerous and I need to say so.”

The unforgivable part wasn’t inflammatory rhetoric—I was measured and cited sources. It wasn’t capitalizing on tragedy—I mourned Kirk and condemned people celebrating his death. It wasn’t false equivalence—I made specific distinctions backed by scholarship.

The unforgivable part was refusing to treat normalized extremism as normal during a crisis when the tribe demanded I suspend analysis and fall in line.

If I could go back to September 12th before hitting “post,” knowing what it would cost, I’d do it again.

Because the alternative is watching the pattern succeed because I suspended analysis when it mattered most. Trading truth for tribal belonging. Staying silent while my family became targets of the exact rhetoric I’d identified as dangerous.

There’s no “strategic communication” or “better timing” that makes this easier. There’s no “right way” to tell your tribe they’re exhibiting dangerous patterns. So you document it anyway. You maintain consistency. You assess the damage. You replan. You keep executing the mission.

A Word to “El Bearsidente”

You’re not evil. You’re not stupid. You’re angry, and that anger makes sense. Charlie Kirk’s death was a tragedy. The political violence we’re seeing is genuinely terrifying. The sense that things are spiraling out of control—I feel it too.

But the rhetoric you’re defending—the apocalyptic framing, the dehumanization, the “they’re coming for your children” language—that’s exactly what I documented as dangerous. Not because it’s mean. Because it’s the kind of language that creates conditions where violence becomes statistically likely.

You don’t have to agree with me. But at least engage with what I actually said instead of what you wish I’d said so it would be easier to dismiss.

I didn’t ignore the left’s rhetoric. I addressed it explicitly in both September 13th articles—the ones you clearly didn’t read. I made specific distinctions about types of dehumanizing language, backed by genocide scholarship and historical examples. I acknowledged complexity. I wrestled with edge cases.

Your response wasn’t “that distinction is inaccurate” or “those historical parallels don’t hold.” It was “what about the left?” and “what about communism?” and finally “you might murder your family.”

That’s not engagement. That’s deflection followed by the exact rhetoric I warned about.

You think you’re defending conservatism. I think tribalism killed conservatism and you’re defending the corpse. Real conservatives don’t need their intellectuals silent during crises. Real conservatives welcome internal reform before external collapse forces it.

You’re not defending principles. You’re defending team loyalty. There’s a difference.

Read the September 13th articles. Look at the genocide scholarship. Consider whether the pattern I’m identifying might be real, even if acknowledging it feels like betrayal. Ask yourself why your response to careful documentation of dangerous rhetoric was to deploy dangerous rhetoric.

Or don’t. Block me. Stay angry. Write another email.

But if you do, maybe don’t prove my thesis quite so perfectly next time.

You made this all too easy.

The Pattern Continues

This email isn’t an outlier. It’s a data point.

When someone on your own side documents a dangerous pattern, the tribal response isn’t “let’s examine if that’s accurate.” It’s “what about them?” followed by attacks on the messenger. WarGate’s audience research showed exactly this. My emailer demonstrates exactly why.

I documented genocide rhetoric patterns on August 30th. I warned about algorithmic amplification on September 3rd. When Charlie Kirk was assassinated and people started exhibiting exactly the patterns I’d documented, I applied my framework consistently instead of giving them a grief exception. Four days later, I lost my publisher because their audience needed authors who’d stay quiet when grief was weaponized into apocalyptic rhetoric.

And now this email, performing the pattern while denying it exists.

He wrote 500 words trying to prove I’m irrelevant while I have a existing published body of work, three complete manuscripts ready for publication, and a fourth nearly done. He thinks he’s witnessing my destruction. He’s watching me reposition with better intelligence.

Readers who demand silence during constitutional crises aren’t my people. Readers who need tribal loyalty over intellectual consistency aren’t my audience. I’m writing for people who want someone who thinks harder during crises, not someone who thinks less. That audience exists. I’m finding them.

The genocide bingo card I posted on August 30th is still full. The algorithmic amplification I documented on September 3rd still rewards apocalyptic framing over nuanced analysis. The dehumanizing rhetoric I’ve been calling out is spreading faster, becoming more normalized.

He thinks this broke me. It gave me clarity. Now I know exactly what I’m looking for: readers who want analysis that doesn’t suspend when the tribe demands loyalty. I’m not screaming into the wind any more. I’m building a legacy.

The wind can scream back all it wants.

This email proves my thesis while attempting to refute it. The publisher cancellation revealed an audience incapable of handling internal reform. The pattern continues spreading while I continue documenting.

That’s the work. And the work continues.

If you found this analysis valuable, consider supporting independent writers who maintain intellectual consistency even when it costs. Subscribe, share, or just keep thinking critically about the rhetoric you encounter—especially from your own side.

That’s how reform happens. One person at a time. One choice at a time. One refusal to look away at a time.