As the Winter Olympics reach their climax, a fascinating competition is unfolding in U.S. Democratic politics. From Eric Swalwell to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, candidates are testing the proposition that they can win gold solely on style alone.
Unlike free-style skating, where competitors must accomplish technical elements like jumps and spins, American politics has become only a competition of style as politicians vie to outdo each other in rage rhetoric or superficial gestures.
That was most evident in Rep. Eric Swalwell’s campaign for governor of California. One of the least accomplished members of Congress, Swalwell is running for the state’s highest office despite missing 95 votes in 2025. He was outvoted by Rep. Raul Grijalva, who died in March 2025.
It does not matter that Swalwell expects California voters to give him a new job after blowing off his old one. Why? Because he feeds a rage addiction on the left.
Rep. Eric Swalwell has promised, if elected governor, he will take away the driver’s licenses of ICE officers, bar them from employment, and hound them incessantly to thrill irate lawyers.
It does not matter that he could not deliver on these pledges. He is not trying to make the jump; he is just trying to get the style points.
Then there is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), who reportedly has aspirations for either the White House or the Senate. Ocasio-Cortez went to Munich to discuss foreign relations. Used to a fawning American press that repeats soundbites, Ocasio-Cortez had a meltdown when asked a predictable question on Taiwan. She immediately disassembled into a stream of incomprehensible babble: “Um, you know, I think that this is such a, you know, I think that this is a um — this is, of course, a, um, very long-standing, um, policy of the United States. And I think what we are hoping for is that we want to make sure that we never get to that point, and we want to make sure that we are moving in all of our economic research and our global positions to avoid any such confrontation — and for that question to even arise.”
It did not matter. Many on the left immediately defended her. Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright praised her and declared “she sticks her head up. They cannot find an answer or solution to her.” Actually, few could find any answer from her.
Basil Smikle, a strategist who served as the executive director of the New York State Democratic Party, suggested that it does not matter if no one could understand her: “AOC is playing for a different generation, for a younger generation of Democrat, the younger generation of politicians.”
In other words, turn the sound off and count the style points.
Then there is California Gavin Newsom, who also appeared in Munich to advance his campaign for president. Newsom wants to be president after running his state into the ground, with towering debt and an exodus of taxpayers. Newsom has perfected style over substance.
Recently, Newsom posted a bizarre video boasting of the great success of his infamous high-speed “train to nowhere.” Despite not laying a single yard of track after burning $12 billion, Newsom showed a diesel freight train on a conventional track to create the appearance of a working railroad.
Voters approved a $9.95 billion bond issue in 2008. Even at a fraction of the original length, it is now projected to exceed $128 billion and could ultimately cost a billion dollars per mile.
It does not matter. Newsom looked marvelous in front of a diesel on a different track. Not jumps, just style.
It is all part of our post-truth environment, and this is obviously not simply a phenomenon on the left.
Notably, one of the things that many on the left detest most about Trump is his style. Trump insults, threatens, and saber-rattles to get concessions. Many object to his rhetoric and attacks, including those directed at our closest allies or, most recently, Supreme Court justices. “Being presidential” is often a matter of style with citizens expecting our leaders to set a model for civility and respect.
Such objections to style can be a barrier to scoring “technical point” successes in foreign relations and the economy.
Our politics have become so stylized that many voters and viewers have no expectation of substance. Take the most recent hoax perpetrated by Stephen Colbert and Democratic Texas Senatorial candidate James Talarico. Colbert had another self-aggrandizing moment on his CBS Late Show, claiming he was prevented from airing an interview with Talarico because CBS caved to pressure from the Trump Administration and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chair, Brendan Carr. In another faux Spartacus moment on the left, Colbert thrilled the audience by saying he aired it on YouTube anyway and treated CBS’s legal guidance as dog poop on air.
As usual, the media took it from there and breathlessly repeated the false story. It was so outrageously false that CBS took the rare move of issuing a public statement saying that it was completely untrue. It explained that CBS lawyers did not bar the interview but noted that, under equal-time policies, Colbert might be required to give the other two candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett, the same opportunity.
For his part, Carr held a press conference that debunked Colbert’s claim and said that neither he nor the FCC had even heard of the interview until they were accused on the program.
Again, it did not matter. Talarico raised millions after he claimed that he was being silenced by the Trump Administration and shot up in the polls the day before the start of early voting in the Democratic primary. He continued to claim that he is the target of “the most powerful politicians in the Trump administration and the most powerful corporate media executives.”
What was so impressive was Colbert’s open effort to manufacture a false claim. Colbert has turned his show into an exclusive space for the Democratic establishment. Despite losing revenue and ratings, he has portrayed himself as a victim of the corporation that is continuing to subsidize his overtly political programming. In this case, the Democratic establishment has decided to block Crockett and push Talarico. That task was given to Colbert, who would now create the buzz needed to put him over the top. Colbert had previously had Crockett on to throw profanities and insults at Trump, but now she had to go.
The problem is that such interviews just before voting can trigger equal time requirements. All Colbert had to do was give Crockett equal time. That was not what the Democratic establishment wanted. They want Crockett out, and Talarico inflated to super-hero size through another manufactured hoax.
So, Colbert and Talarico skated onto the ice and looked marvelous with only one spin: a false claim of censorship. They then grabbed another gold for style in American politics.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and author of the New York Times bestseller “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
For the record, Professor, Grok tells me that the year that Gavin Newsom took the SAT, the average score for black test-takers was 722. (That was actually up a few points from the year before, according to Grok.)
As a state official, the person elected to be Governor of California takes an oath to uphold the Constitution. One would have thought it disqualifying for a candidate to announce that he is going to betray that oath by enacting blatantly unconstitutional legislation.
Steve Hilton and Chad Blanco are both ahead of Katie Porter and Eric Swalwell in the latest poll for the California gubernatorial primary. If this pattern holds, CA’s next governor will be a Republican. Those who abandoned the state will be viewed as premature scorekeepers and defeatist quitters. Losing faith in your fellow citizens based on what the sensationalist-alarmist media is telling you is not a good look. It’s neurotic.
Democrats currently hold about 60 out of 80 House seats in the state legislature and 30 out of 40 Senate seats. That’s a supermajority. If it holds, Democrats will have the power to veto/override any governor. If they do not maintain their supermajority, odds are they will have at least a majority in both houses, making it difficult for a non-RINO Republican to effect meaningful change.
The primary election is a “jungle primary”. Meaning the top two vote getting candidates advance to the general election regardless of party affiliation. If a Republican makes it to the general election, odds are Democrat voters who were split in the primary will coalesce around whichever Democrat is on the ballot. The Republican will lose.
Those choosing to move are behaving rationally, not neurotically. That’s because odds favor Democrats to maintain much of their power after the election. And Democrats have made it clear they plan to confiscate more of the income and wealth of those choosing to move out of the state.
If you can’t defeat bad policy at the ballot box, another alternative is to vote with your feet. That’s what the movers are doing. It’s perfectly rational.
Lacking confidence in voters, with or without voter ID, based on their gross ignorance of economics and politics, and on their obsessions with personal style and “vibes”, is not neurosis; it’s rationality.
It’s a double-edged sword. Exit is pressure. Voice is correction. When citizens and businesses leave, the tax base shrinks. The state either raises taxes on those who remain or cuts services. Eventually voters feel the consequences directly. That is when reality breaks through narratives.
People tolerate bad policy when the cost is hidden. They reconsider when the cost becomes personal. But exit alone does not fix it. Exit creates pressure. Only voters who remain and change direction create correction.
Government does not change until citizens do.
I “abandoned” the state of California 46+ years ago for the great state of New Mexico, PhD in my hot little hands. That was when California’s educational system was the envy of the nation. Sadly, no more! No, perhaps New Mexico is not all truly wonderful, but it has a been a great refuge from the likes of Swalwell and Newsom!
A truly GREAT column, Professor Turley
Turley Writes:
“Ocasio-Cortez had a meltdown when asked a predictable question on Taiwan”.
***
Yesterday, Congresswoman Cortez shared a photo ‘from the Epstein files’. It pictured young Melania Trump performing a pole dance in a one piece body suit. The venue seemed to be an upscale party (as opposed to a strip club). But standing only a few feet from Melania is Jeffrey Epstein in a business suit.
However genuine that photo might be, it raises serious questions. Like: ‘Did Melania know Jeffrey Epstein before Donald Trump?’ And, ‘Did Melania enter the U.S. through Epstein channels?’
The answer to these questions could be an all-time bombshell.
Why would it be a bombshell? Melania was trying to make a living as a model. Is your assertion all based on guilt by association? It’s entirely likely Epstein’s social circle is how Trump met Melania. Don’t be shocked if it’s true.
The inability to sort out right from wrong without a political overlay is a sign of moral decline.
In Portland today AntiICE rioters disrupted the Portand City council and every portland cop had to come to City council to break it up.
Why ? Because both the rioters and the city council want ICE gone.
They are trying to use zoning and property USE laws to force ICE out. The City Council likely was read a psky thing called the Constitution which gives the federal government sovereignity over the entire country. States can not force Federal fascilities out.
Regardless the protestors want City Council to send in the police to remove ICE,
and City Councel is wisely saying NO we do not have that authority,
So protestors are rioting against City councel.
Separately a Quaker was arrested, indicted and convicted of assaulting an ICE officer for throwing a rock at him and hitting him in the head.
And later using a steel pole to destroy federal property in Portland.
He is headed to jail for a very long time.
Do not throw things at Law Enforcement – very bad idea.
Do not spit on them either – that is also a felony.
I can not beleive I have to say this – but when you are out stupidly protesting ICE,
do not do anything stupid. It could ruin the rest of your life.
John Say
Please scroll down to my little thread posted in response to your claim that “circumstantiality’ is not a word.
You may find it enlightening and perhaps worth some introspection.
HEY ANON circumstantiality /sûr″kəm-stăn″shē-ăl′ĭ-tē/
noun
“The quality of being fully or minutely detailed.
A particular detail or circumstance.”
The state, characteristic, or quality of being circumstantial; particularity or minuteness of detail.”
EAT IT ANON!!!
Or eat it John??
I would refer you to ATS’s post using “circumstantiality’
While he is correct that it is a word, try to fit ANY definition into the sentence he wrote and you will end up with a mess.
ATS clearly made it up when he used it, and got lucky because it is both an old english word that is rarely used, and a medical term – neither of which come remotely close to fitting in the sentence he wrote.
I correct my errors – “circumstantiality’ is a word.
A rare one that ATS has no idea how to use.
Consider the absurd self-contradictory assertions being made here by John Say.
1. Circumstantiality is a word that ATS “made up”.
2. Although it is a “made up” word ATS “got lucky” because it is in fact a REAL word.
3. But that word is rarely used.
4. ATS has no idea how to use it.
This is not the thought process of a healthy mind.
Circumstantiality may not be a word used by laypeople in common usage, but it is by far one of the most common words used by mental health professionals.
That is why I know exactly what it means, and how to apply its usage in the proper situations.
There are more than a dozen psychiatric disorders where circumstantiality is a prominent symptom, so it is one of the most common terms used in the mental health world.
This is not the thought process of a healthy mind.
Ad Hominem, non sequitur
“Circumstantiality may not be a word used by laypeople in common usage, but it is by far one of the most common words used by mental health professionals.”
Nope. Provide a source for that.
“That is why I know exactly what it means, and how to apply its usage in the proper situations.”
Except that you OBVIOUSLY did not use it correctly.
Again substitute your prefered defintion bck into the sentence you wrote – what you end up with is nonsense.
“There are more than a dozen psychiatric disorders where circumstantiality is a prominent symptom, so it is one of the most common terms used in the mental health world.”
The DSM is the Bible of psychiatric diagnosis. The DSM-V is 1924 pages long just under 1Million words.
The word circumstances appears about 100 times. The word circumstantial perhaps another 20.
The “word” circumstantiality – not at all.
the word circumstantiality is NOT a diagnostic criteria for ANY mental health disorder.
I would strongly suggest that you stop just making schiff up.
I or others may be inspired to check your absurd claims
Again the “word” circumstantiality does not appear ONCE in the DSM-V
John Say
Firstly, it is fascinating that you know what the DSM-5 actually is. And not only that, you apparently have the wherewithal to search it. Most laypeople would not have this technical awareness.
This is quite informative and tells me that you are quite familiar with mental illness in more ways than one.
Secondly, you are quite correct that circumstantiality is not a diagnostic criterion, and does not appear in DSM-5 as such. And I never made the claim that circumstantiality is a diagnostic criterion.
The term circumstantiality is used by mental health professionals in the context of identifying and describing signs and symptoms during the formal psychiatric interview. It is a descriptive term used to identify certain signs and symptoms of illness. I have absolutely no doubt that you are already aware of the way that this widely used term is utilized in mental healthcare, because you have undoubtedly spent considerable time researching this online. Despite your obvious awareness that this is a widely recognized and used term, you seize on the observation that the specific word “circumstantiality” does not appear in DSM-5 as some sort of evidence that this is not a valid term, or that it does not even exist. This is classic denial, the most common defense mechanism used by those with mental illness.
A sign is an objective observation made by a physician as opposed to a symptom, which is a subjective description by the patient of what he is experiencing. The physician then uses the signs and symptoms to formulate a diagnosis
A very simple illustration of this process is as follows.
A patient is brought to the ER and expresses that he is in great pain. That is a symptom, subjectively expressed by the patient. The physician observes that the patient has a bone protruding from his leg and is bleeding profusely. That is sign, an objective observation by the physician. The physician puts the signs and the symptoms together to formulate a diagnosis of a fractured leg.
In the case of a psychiatric examination, the distinction between signs and symptoms in the formulation of a diagnosis is not as clear cut as it is in the diagnosis of physical ailments.
An observation used to formulate a diagnosis in psychiatry can have elements of both a sign and a symptom. Unlike physical ailments, psychiatric disorders rarely have a truly objective sign in the sense that it is used in physical medicine. The psychiatrist relies more on signs and symptoms that can be teased out in the interview, because the patient almost never is able to articulate a symptom. Because of this psychiatrists tend to use the terms of signs and symptoms rather loosely and interchangeably.
In your particular case you exhibit the typical symptoms of disordered thinking that can be described as circumstantiality.
How can this be determined without a formal in-person interview you may ask? Very simply.
The defect that causes your disordered thinking is located in the thought centers of your mind. Disordered thinking is manifested in both oral and written form. The speech centers engaged in oral communication and the motor centers involved in written communication both receive inputs from the thought centers. Your written thoughts provide the necessary insight into the nature of your defective thought centers.
The observation of your disordered thoughts in written form is a symptom that can be described as circumstantiality. The term circumstantiality is not a symptom or a sign. It is merely a descriptive term to further describe the nature of the observed symptom of disordered thinking.
I hope this little treatise helps you to understand your condition and come to terms with it.
Separately the non-medical form of the word is bad form. it is a bad idea to convert a noun, to an adjective and back to an noun by compounding endings. That does not change the meaning.
It is like a double negative in logic. The endings cancel.
More profoundly abnormal thinking.
John Say believes that “circumstantiality” does not mean what it quite clearly means, because it has compounding endings that cancel its clear meaning.
So now “circumstantiality is a word that I made up, but I got lucky because it is in fact a real word, but nobody uses it, and anyway it does not mean what it clearly means because it has compound endings that cancel out.
Judge for yourself what is going on here.
You do not need a psychiatrist to explain it.
“More profoundly abnormal thinking.”
ad hominem non sequitur and your fixation on this is obsessive
Should I diagnose you as OCD ?
“John Say believes”
Not a belief. it is a compound of two endings that cancel each other.
Arguably the word is what it is supposed to mean in psychology – excessive, disordered.
” that “circumstantiality” does not mean what it quite clearly means,”
It clearly means circumstance, that is the correct etymological unraveling of the word.
because it has compounding endings that cancel its clear meaning.
“So now “circumstantiality is a word that I made up”
Correct, with specific respect to YOUR use
“but I got lucky because it is in fact a real word”
That has no meaning that does not turr your statement into gobbledygook.
“but nobody uses it”
Correct OED say 0.03 uses per million words. Does not even appear in the DSM-V
So it is not even commonly used in psychology where it does have a meaning different from its logical collapse to circumstance
“and anyway it does not mean what it clearly means because it has compound endings that cancel out.”
NO it has no CLEAR independent meaning.
The suffix “ial” converts a noun to an adjective and is the equivalent of “having to do with ‘noun'”
the suffic “ity” converts an adjective to a noun and is roughly equivalent to “the state of being ‘adjective'”
So the proper ordinary english meaning of circumstantiality would be “the state of being having to do with circumstance”
or more simply circumstance
It has a specific meaning in psychology that has very little connection to the root word.
That is perfectly legitimate – but it also destroys your claim that it has a clear meaning.
The compound endings cancel out in NORMAL ENGLISH – as previously noted – english has many many many times more technical terms than ordinary words. Often ordinary words are used with very specific meanings having little or nothing to do with their ordinary meaning in technical domains. Those uses have NO CLEAR MEANING in ordinary english.
Often you can not dissect a domain specific technical term using the rules of english – because even though the word appears to be a compound with various suffixes, it is really an entirely new word and the suffixes are no longer modifiers of the base
With very few exceptions those words are not used in ordinary english – specifically because the disconnect between their domain specific meaning and their ordinary meaning would confuse people – though there are a few exceptions – domain specific technical terms that have found their way into normal use sufficiently that most people know both meanings and con distinguish by context.
Circumstantial is not one of those few words – it is NOT as you claim even commonly used in psychology
“Judge for yourself what is going on here.”
Please do
“You do not need a psychiatrist to explain it.”
Correct – because your first use of the word circumstantiality has absolutely nothing to do with psychiatry.
I would further note that my responses to you and other OFTEN include significant detail.
In a normal context arguably “excessive detail”
But arguing with left wing nuts is NOT normal.
As we see here – YOU pounce on the tiniest bits of unclarity and go off chasing nonsense.
i.e. Your own posts demonstrate the disordered and tangential communication patterns that are associated with “circumstantiality”
I provide detail to hopefully keep you from nitpicking general statement – virtually all general statements are logically false and it is usually trivial to pick them apart. But the existence of exceptions does not make them probabilistic true.
Then you return with completely off topic non sequiturs, and ad hominem.
And here we are debating your misuse of words and bogus claims that the word you misused by ANY defininition is somon in psychiatry – which is completely false and does not alter the fact that it does not work in your sentence.
I do not know if it is chance or projection that you picked a word that much more aptly describes YOU.
Again YOU are demonstrating an inability to stay on topic, disordered communications,
Lest you have forgotten the actual topic with YOU or some other anonymous started was
Current polls
voter anger
the constitutionality of the SAVE Act.
ALL your responses have been fallacies that failed to address the topic.
All have been ad hominem.
All reflect either an inability to focus or a deliberate choice to avoid addressing the topic.
You waste everyone’s time trying to debate irrelevant nonsense,
You seem to fancy yourself a psychiatrist
But or blind to the advice of Matthew 7:3-5
why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Or as Jordan Peterson would say – if you can not clean your own room, why do you think you can fix the problems of the world ?
You are way out of your depth, you are what Naseem Talib labeled IYI – intellectual Yet Idiot – though calling you intellectual is giving you too much credit.
ATS – I would suggest a great deal of introspection on your part.
Not only did you have to respond something like 8 times to my assertion that “circumstantiality’ is not a word.
Which I have corrected
But you drew from that a long list of bizarre personal claims having absolutely nothing to do with the actual points being debated
that are both false and would be irrelevant if true.
And then you are so obsessed that you jump to the top of the comment sections to post a reply in attempt to assure that I will take notice of your responses.
You appear to have an unhealthy obsession.
You are incredibly insecure.
And you keep making these delusional claims.
If you are so desperate to know who I am there is more than enough information that you can figure it out,
You can find one of my emails I posted it here several times
you can figure out my name – someone doxed me some time ago.
You can find my linked in profile.
You can learn all about me and much of my professional life
If that floats your boat.
All of that is of course completely irrelevant.
It is irrelevant what my mental health is – though it is fine.
It is irrelevant what my IQ is
It is irrelevant whether I am paid to post – but I will be happy if someone wants to pay me.
It is irrelevant whether I am a Russian AI bot – Nobody’s bots are anywhere near this good.
What is relevant is that instead of addressing the argument you went off first into character assassination,
and then into completely absurd nonsense that you have zero foundation for – that is totally irrelevant.
They call that delusional.
You have self owned yourself more times than I can count.
Ordinarily I would at this point leave you alone – because you are pathetic and beating on disabled people is not moral.
But you are posting as anonymous making it impossible for me to Know whether the next idiot left wing nut poster I think about responding to is you.
Yet another perfect textbook example of obsessive, manic behavior and circumstantiality.
This tirade by John Say exhibits all the typical signs of profound mental illness.
He wanders off into meandering, digressive, disconnected thoughts and is completely unable to sustain a rational train of thought.
ATS if you wish to continue to fixate on ad hominem – we can spend forever trashing each other,
Your pi$$ poor at it and I will be happy to continue to dismember your idiotic claims.
If you want to keep insulting me – your not very good at it, and you are obviously the person whose impression of their own intelligence is severely inflated. We can continue until I get bored with you.
Or you can choose to argue morally, and stick to the topic, and facts, logic and reason rather than fallacy and ad hominem.