The Establishment’s Scandal Scam Tactics Won’t Work Anymore

The regime media is circling around Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump’s other outsider appointees to do the bidding of the establishment to make sure the status quo stays safely undisrupted. But this is a new game, and they are running the old playbook. With Hegseth, it’s alleging a sex scandal that’s no scandal at all. They do it by selectively quoting from a police report that led to zero charges and by ignoring the myriad facts within that would cause most fair-minded individuals to conclude this was a hookup instantly regretted by a horny wife whose husband and kids were just a few hotel rooms away. The regime media reports, of course, exclude the many exonerating details that recovering lawyer Megyn Kelly in particular has gone over in-depth and which totally exonerate the nominee. They don’t care about the truth; they want to frame him to stop him. But you know what? This kind of smear does not matter anymore to anyone who matters.

If you remember the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, you saw a bunch of wavering Republican senators who failed to dismiss the ridiculous claims against him out of hand. It’s easy to waver when you lack a spine; they almost did what Republicans usually do and defaulted to assuming the credibility of what appeared on the tube or the front page of the regime media. The wacky charges were all over the three networks, all over the New York Times and Washington Post, and all over cable, too. And the squishes were on the verge of panic and rout. Only Kavanaugh’s refusal to quit and Trump’s refusal to back down saved the nomination. 

But this time it’s is different. It’s six years later, and everything has changed. The first change is that all but the weakest Republicans seem to have figured out that the Democrats’ go-to plan is to smear our nominees because they cannot win on the merits. We saw that from Russiagate all the way to the ridiculous criminal cases against Trump that are now in the process of finally falling apart completely. It was all lies, all the time, and the Democrats – with their regime media catspaws – had no compunction about destroying their political enemies. Even the dumbest GOP senator is eventually going to wonder why the wolf the Democrats are always crying about never seems to show up.

But the key change is that the regime media ain’t what it used to be. It used to be all-powerful, but it is on the way to being all over. Quick, name one of the three networks’ nightly news anchors. Just one. Most folks have no idea who any of them are, but back in the day, any non-comatose adult could identify Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, Peter Jennings, or even a pre-being caught lying Dan Rather. When that scuzzy weasel got beat up by some babbling weirdo in 1986, he was culturally important enough for REM to write what turned out to be its last good song, “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?” Now, you wouldn’t know a news anchor if he came up to you with a sign reading “Will Work for Nielsen Rating” – well, maybe you remember David Muir because he intervened in the debate for Kamala Harris. I think he might be a news anchor. I don’t know. Maybe he’s a different type of jerk.

Recommended

And how about The View? Who watches that? Only SSRI-ridden suburban wine women who are always going to support the commies anyway. And the cable networks? CNN and MSNBC’s ratings are totally in the toilet. They would be thrilled to get a million viewers out of 330 million Americans. Johnny Carson averaged 17 million a night when America had half the people. He mattered; these nobodies don’t.

This Hegseth faux-scandal may be a huge deal in the regime media, but who’s watching the regime media anymore? This last election wasn’t the regime media election. Since the mid-50s, television and newspapers have dominated the discourse and set the narrative during our election cycles. Now? Now, it’s Joe Rogan. Now, it’s any number of podcasters. Now it’s Elon Musk by creating a truly free public square in the form of Twitter—I just can’t call it “X.”

Those crazy kids today – the Millennials and Gen Zers – don’t even watch TV. Have you seen young people today? They’re not sitting in front of the boob tube. They watch short clips on social media or YouTube and get their long-form info from podcasts. And the podcasters aren’t from the regime media. They’re the guys the regime media guys tried to exile. It’s like high school – the nerds may run student government, but they’re not getting invited to the party. Joe Rogan is at the party, and he’s slamming beerbongs over by the keg.

So, we have an interesting phenomenon. We have the regime media trying to gin up a bunch of salacious nonsense about Pete Hegseth and stuff about Tulsi Gabbard and RFK, Jr., as well. But you know who is seeing it? People who are never going to vote for us anyway. We will never get votes from people who subscribe to the Washington Post or the New York Times. We will never get votes from people who watch The View, Good Morning, America, or any of those nightly news programs if anyone does watch them. We’re never going to get any MSNBC viewers, and the only CNN viewers we are going to get are people who watch clips of Scott Jennings owning his communist tablemates every night on that godforsaken channel.

Now, the problem is that some GOP senators probably still watch that stuff. They still care what the WaPo says, although to a much lesser extent than even six years ago. They might get the false impression that there’s some sort of outrage tsunami sweeping the nation about Hegseth’s seven-year-old one-night stand. But there’s not. It’s nothing. It’s a non-happening. If you go out on the street and talk to normal people, about one in one hundred will be aware of Pete Hegseth and his unrepentant heterosexuality. That’s what Republicans need to understand. What they’re seeing is an illusion. What they’re seeing is a scam, a Jedi mind trick designed a convince them that people who aren’t weirdos, losers, or mutations care about this pseudo-scandal.

The problem for us is that all the Republicans have to do to prevail is be smart and strong. Sadly, for a few Republicans, these are still a couple of adjectives too far. We’re not where we were 20 years ago, ten years ago, or even six years ago, when you had a huge craven caucus within the Republican Party. Now, only a few are really weak. Lisa Murkowski is always terrible. Susan Collins is the best we will ever get for Maine, so I don’t hold that against her. But there are folks like Tom Tillis, James Lankford, and John Cornyn, who never miss a chance to try to get some fleeting praise for sticking Republicans. They will tug on their shirt collars and harrumph about Pete Hegseth’s sex life, but we know the real reason they don’t want him is because he will be a disruptor. He will go in and change things at the Pentagon, and many folks don’t want the gravy train derailed. 

But these establishment types need to understand something. While the vast majority of people either don’t know or don’t care about this non-scandal, we conservatives care about collaboration with the Democrat liars and complicity with the regime media smear machine. We’re not going to tolerate it. We’re not going to take it anymore. Tillis and Cornyn are both up for reelection in 2026. Mark our words – if they or anybody else sides against us and with the damn communists, we’re going to remember, and it will be primary time. Plus, you know, Donald Trump isn’t going to forget another betrayal. 

We are watching, Republicans. Get on board.

Donald Trump will be the 47th President of the United States, but our fight to make America great again is only just beginning, and we need your help to keep telling the truth! Join Townhall VIP right now to get access to my extra Wednesday column, the weekly Stream of Kurtiousness videos every Friday, my Unredacted podcast every Monday, my VIP members-only direct email address, and more! Use promo code POTUS47 for 74% off a membership during our biggest Black Friday sale ever!

Follow Kurt on Twitter @KurtSchlichter. Get the newest volume in the Kelly Turnbull People’s Republic series of conservative action novels set in America after a notional national divorce, the bestselling Amazon #1 Military Thriller, Overlord! And get his new novel about terrorism in America, The Attack!