Trying to keep up with 3-D chess moves has worn me out
I’ve gotten vertigo charting the good news and the disturbing news on the vaccine front.
Author’s note: I think Mark Oshinskie is the best “Covid Contrarian” writer on Substack. In his dispatches, Mark often shares personal anecdotes from his life to frame or make larger points about the “Scamdemic” or our New Abnormal.
Today, I want to borrow Mark’s technique to frame a point about - of all things - “3-D chess” and the ways President Donald Trump is playing this more-complex version of a game whose 2-D version is challenging enough.
But first the anecdote from my own life …
In 2005, I finally raised the white flag and closed my weekly newspaper, The Troy Citizen.
Fortunately, with one phone call and one job interview, I immediately landed a new job. I was now going to be selling radio advertising for Cumulus Broadcasting’s seven radio stations in Montgomery. (While I wrote most of the articles for The Troy Citizen, I also sold almost all of the ads so I had extensive experience in advertising sales).
Being a commission ad salesperson isn’t for sissies because you don’t get paid unless you make a sale. Furthermore, new advertising sales reps always get the sorriest list of prospective advertising accounts, which makes sense as the veteran sales reps already have the big and desirable accounts like car dealerships and furniture stores.
When I was hired, the biggest advertiser at Cumulus was a businessman who provided home mortgages to radio listeners in central Alabama. The Cumulus sales rep who serviced this account was Jane Ray, the sweetest veteran sales rep on my “sales team.”
One day, Jane, who perhaps felt sorry for me and knew my prospect list was only producing about $1,500 a month in advertising ($300 in commissions), told me that she was going to give me one of her regular accounts.
At the time, I greatly appreciated this random act of kindness. (My first sale at Cumulus - $225 in late-night commercials on Mix-103 and Y-102 - had been to a local fortune teller.)
Jane was too sweet to be duplicitous so she shared with me why she was giving me this account (a discount gift store that specialized in novelty items).
The business owner was a man named Richard (not his real name) and, per Jane:
“He wears me out.”
Jane told me Richard was a nice enough fellow, but he was extremely high maintenance - one day, he’d say one thing and the next, the other. She couldn’t figure out what he really wanted or why he said and did the things he did.
“No problem,” I said, thinking I had the people skills to work with difficult or hard-to-read clients. Plus, Richard sometimes spent $750/month in advertising, a figure that would add $150 to my monthly commissions.
“Thank you, Jane!”
It took me about one week to figure out why Jane had handed this account to a newbie sales rep.
Richard constantly changed his commercials, constantly called me and made audibles to our initial advertising strategy. I was driving to his business every day and every day I was utterly confused about what this man wanted.
Furthermore, Richard turned out to be one of those “slow-pay” customers. At Cumulus, the company went ahead and paid you a commission when you brought back your signed contract.
However, if the customer hadn’t paid his bill in 90 days, the company took away your commission in your next pay period.
So, a week before the 90-day deadline approached, I was constantly calling Richard, telling him Cumulus (and myself) needed him to pay his bill.
Richard, being Richard, concocted numerous reasons why he hadn’t paid yet and often blamed me for making some kind of mistake with his last commercial run. He even ratted me out to my sales manager (called the principal on me) and told Joy Melton I had provided poor, unprofessional service and that’s why he hadn’t paid yet.
In three months, Richard had also “worn me out.”
Fortunately, my sales manager knew the full back story of Richard (from Jane’s war stories) and didn’t fire me. At some level, though, I was fascinated to learn what made someone like Richard act like someone like Richard.
Was he intentionally screwing with me and enjoying some twisted thrill from making my life uncomfortable? Was this his way to motivate me and get what he wanted? What the heck did this man actually want?
Here is where I segue to the theme proper …
Recently, I’ve been thinking about my interactions with Richard as I try to follow all of the non-stop pontificating of various pundits who either praise President Trump’s “brilliant, Art-of-the- Deal” strategy of employing 3-D chess … or conclude he’s just winging it and, perhaps, enjoys screwing with people and keeping us all off balance.
Now a pundit myself, I myself have written several pieces exploring whether or not the world’s key leaders are playing some advance game of 3-D (or 9-D) chess.
However, I must say this exercise of following the machinations of alleged 3-D chess masters has flat-out worn my ass out.
***
I should note that I’ve (almost) always been a supporter of President Trump and have pulled as hard as I can for him so that he can really “drain the swamp,” which I call The Great Purge, an event I think must happen to save the world.
If politics is a game of chess, since before he was even sworn into office in January 2017, all the power pieces on the board have been lined up to capture this political king and give the game to the Deep State.
However, when it comes to my key issue - banning the Covid shots and holding those who produced a faux pandemic accountable - I get vertigo trying to figure out what President Trump really believes and, more importantly, what is his real “end game” in this game of 3-D chess.
*** (Thank you for sharing with other enthusiasts of 3-D geo-political chess.) ***
A Few Examples …
In early 2020, President Trump’s first instincts were that Covid was a greatly- exaggerated Nothing Burger of a Pandemic. (We all remember how President Trump was vilified by the Pundit and Expert Classes for downplaying the alleged risk.)
Then in one weekend - after he met secretly with Tucker Carlson (of all people) - he pivoted 180 degrees and went all-in on the lockdowns and then the Warp Speed “vaccines.”
Once the government’s response to Pandemic cost him his re-election (by mandating mail-in ballots), President Trump still bragged incessantly about the success of his Warp Speed vaccination campaign, which he apparently still believes “saved millions of lives.”
Trump, reportedly, was dumbfounded when supporters at campaign rallies in 2024 would boo him when he talked about this great vaccine “success story.”
But, per the pundits, President Trump played brilliant 3-D chess when he formed an alliance with the world’s most famous anti-vaxxer, Robert Kennedy, whose supporters might have guaranteed the 2024 election was “too big to steal.”
To thank or reward Kennedy for his support, President Trump nominated Kennedy to be his secretary of Health and Human Services, which, upon deeper reflection, might be the most significant cabinet position of them all.
Not only did Trump nominate Kennedy, he must have twisted some arms or leveraged his popularity to make sure that the Senate actually confirmed Kennedy to serve in this key position.
“You go, President Trump!” was my initial reaction to this fascinating scrimmage of geo-political chess.
But nothing is cut-and-dried with President Trump.
For example, in the first week he was in office, he invited the CEO of Pfizer to an event at the White House and went out of his way to sing the praises of a man who will go down in infamy.
I’ve also noted comments made by President Trump that mRNA technology was going to, one day, give the world a cure for cancer - a statement that made me spit my Dr. Pepper all over my computer screen.
For eight months, nobody in government did anything to ban the shots that cause the clots thousands of embalmers are finding in deceased vaccinated bodies every week. Still, I was patient as I knew 3-D chess matches might take a while to conclude.
The Post Heard Around the World …
And then President Trump fired off the Post Read Around the World - the one where he seemed to admit that the Warp Speed vaccines might not have been as safe and effective as President Trump had once believed.
Per this post, Big Pharma executives had concealed the real risks of the shots from the man who had to sign-off on their Warp Speed production. Furthermore, President Trump was going to release a series of “smoking gun” documents that proved this.
Not long after this, RFK, Jr. made one of his appearances before a Senate Committee and, this time, he took off the gloves and scored many powerful body blows to the Democratic Big Pharma sycophants who make up half of this committee.
Even Vice President Vance (a grand-slam upgrade to VP Pence) made a post in strong support of Kennedy’s feisty performance.
***
Alas, before I had time to high-five my wife and knock out a thank-you column, I read with disbelief that President Trump had just just hosted a White House Pow Wow with Bill Gates … and Trump seemed to be all-in on the over-riding goals of Gates (aka Mr. Vaccine or Dr. Evil).
Specifically, Trump said many vaccines are “fantastic” and he didn’t seem to be a big supporter of Florida’s recent effort to ban all mandatory vaccines.
As of today’s writing, the Substack Contrarians seem to be as confused as I am about Trump’s real views on “vaccines” and whether or not even the Hepatitis B vaccine — given at age 20 hours to sexually-active (?) and drug-abusing (?) infants - can even be banned.
Still, everyone seems to agree that what’s playing out here must be some Master-Level game of 3-D chess.
I have played a fair amount of chess in my own life …
I’ve never been comfortable lying. For my part, I can’t help but wonder if what’s really playing out is a game of beginner’s chess for dummies.
My late father taught me how to play chess when I was in first grade. I’ve been playing the game, off and on, for 53 years. It’s really not that hard.
All you want to do is capture your opponent’s king. To do this, you first have to capture your opponent’s most powerful pieces (like the Queen, the two Rooks and the two Bishops - the pieces that keep attacking you.)
Trump, of course, is the king. His most important piece, his Queen, is his secretary of the HHR, RFK, Jr.
For the life of me, I can’t figure out why King Trump doesn’t turn his Queen loose and let him/her attack the power pieces of our real opponents (The Deep State, Big Pharma and The Swamp).
The pawns in this game - “We the (sane) People” - will cheer and fight for our king, but we’re all bewildered that our king’s messaging and guidance is all over the chess board.
“We’ve just got to trust our king,” seems to be the current narrative. “He knows what he’s doing.”
Maybe he does. However, it’s occurred to me that our fearless leader might also be completely clueless on the safety and benefits/harms of “vaccines.” It seems to me, whatever advisor speaks to the president last is going to determine his next “move.”
One thing I know is that this constant 3-D chess-playing on vaccines is wearing me out.
FWIW, if I was a Knight advising the president, my strategy would be that our king should employ the KISS principle - Keep It Simple, Stupid. We’re making this game harder than it needs to be. There’s no need for 3-D chess when 2-D, traditional chess will suffice.
Epilogue …
About six months after I started as a sales rep at Cumulus, I’d signed up enough clients to make more than enough commissions to cover my living expenses.
Since 90 percent of newbie advertising sales reps can’t make a living from selling commercials to local palm readers, Cumulus was constantly firing and then adding sales reps.
Other new sales reps were joining our Sales Team all the time.
Nine months into my tenure at Cumulus, I took an interest in another sales rep who had just joined our team.
“Robert, you sure are working hard for us here at Cumulus,” I told this young go-getter one morning at the office. “I have this really good account I’d like to give you …”
… Yes, I’ve played a little diabolical 3-D chess in my own life.
*** (My version of 3-D Substack chess is losing me subscribers left and right, while my Substack colleagues who support the vaccines are adding record numbers of new subscribers. I can’t help but wonder: Is the game rigged?) ***
And all my readers know what I think the most brilliant (and simple) chess move would be - Show the world the photos of the embalmers' clots!
You and me, both, Bill!
I respect people who are willing to change their mind on issues, after thoughtful review and consideration.
But this political whiplash (thanks, Bridget), is exhausting . . . .
. . . and, TBH, I always thought this 3-D (sometimes 5-D) chess was probably just an excuse for either lack of transparency, or political shenanigans, or both.