Kevin Duffy on narratives that drive the state

The state thrives on 2 false narratives:

1. It must protect group A from being exploited by group B.

2. It must solve some crisis (or future crisis) that the free market is incapable of solving due to apathy, greed, lack of resources or lack of vision.

~ Kevin Duffy, Twitter/X post, November 10, 2025 

 

Shaun Rein on the real China vs. Western media lies

When I first arrived in China in 1997 to study Mandarin when I was 19 years old, I didn't know what to expect. The Chinese side of my family always taught me to pay respect to Chinese culture and history but they were apolitical - they didn't say anything good or bad about the Chinese government. They had originally moved to the US in the 19th century to work in the California gold mines 

I had watched videos of Tiananmen. I had taken a few intro to China courses in freshman year in college, taught by some old white men. I had read books by Mike Chinoy (who has since blocked me on Twitter)

And I had read a lot of WSJ & NYT articles that showed a lot of negative things about the "CCP". Corruption. Oppressive. The articles made it seem the Chinese people hated the government and wanted American style liberal democracy

So when I arrived in Tianjin, I was shocked to find that most Chinese supported the CPC. Deng Xiaoping had just died and shopkeepers put little glass bottles in the front of their shops to pay homage 

Taxi drivers had little paintings of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai dangling from their backview mirrors 

People felt their lives were getting better and, more importantly, they felt the lives of their kids would be better. And literally, every interaction with a policeman or a government official was positive 

They were happy to see me as an American coming to China. They welcomed me as if I were important or a celebrity. They brought me into their homes for tea, took my out to restaurants, walked with me in parks

In other words, the China I read in the NYT, WSJ and in books written by so-called journalists like Mike Chinoy didn't exist in real life

Perhaps I was naive. I applied for jobs at NYT and in the State Department. I thought they would want someone like me, who had spent time on the ground and spoke reasonable Chinese, to bring a balanced and objective view to China coverage

Over the last 30 years, I realized I was naive. I've met a good portion of the NYT, WSJ, Economist journalists covering China Many don't speak Chinese. Many were more like activists, trying to denigrate and demean China because it didn't adopt an American style political system

Others were bigots and racists. Many frankly were just horrible horrible people 

I started writing books on China to be balanced and basically to counteract the lies by people like ex WSJ reporter Bob Davis 

I'm a businessman. It would've been better for me to shut up and be like McKinsey - be reticent and stay out of controversy

But I had to speak. We Americans are being lied to, to this day, by mainstream media about China. That's why Trump wins - we all know these journalists just lie

~ Shaun Rein, LinkedIn post, June 9, 2025

Brendan Ahern on the false China narrative

In general, Western media is a source of disinformation.  It’s not a good source for what’s going on [in China]…  Business people and investors have been getting along just fine and the diplomats from both sides have not.  I think the media plays with what DC wants.

~ Brendan Ahern, "Don't Believe the China Boogeyman Narrative," Stansberry Investor Hour, October 7, 2024

George Kennan on the false "good vs. evil" narrative

In this day of another great political-emotional preoccupation, when the image of the Soviet Union leaders has replaced that of Hitler in so many Western minds as the center and source of all possible evil, it is perhaps particularly desirable that we should remember these things.  Let us not repeat the mistake of believing that either good or evil is total.  Let us beware, in future, of wholly condemning an entire people and wholly exculpating others.  Let us remember that the great moral issues, on which civilization is going to stand or fall, cut across all military and indeological borders, across peoples, classes, and regimes - across, in fact, the make-up of the human individual himself.  No other people, as a whole, is entirely our enemy.  No people at all - not even ourselves - is entirely our friend.

~ George Kennan, Russia and the West Under Lenin and Stalin, Chapter 23: "Russia and the West as Allies," p. 369

1961

Bretigne Shaffer on official narratives

Some very powerful and very deep narratives have been crafted and fed to us over generations.  What are those narratives?  Primarily, that freedom is dangerous and that the state is a benign entity that acts for the good of “the people”, and that we, “the people,” control it. 

This narrative is deadly.

~ Bretigne Shaffer, "Letter to My Grandchildren from Inside a Cult," LewRockwell.com, November 18, 2020

Jason Riley on the penalty for disagreeing with the racism narrative

Many whites fear being called racists. And many black leaders have a vested interest in blaming black problems primarily on white racism, so that is the narrative they push regardless of the reality. Racism has become an all-purpose explanation for bad black outcomes, be they social or economic. If you disagree and are white, you're a bigot. If you disagree and are black, you're a sell-out. 

~ Jason L. Riley, from a speech given at Hillsdale College's Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, DC as part of the AWC Family Foundation Lecture Series, January 31, 2015

Jason Riley on the race industry in America

We're not post-racial, but I'd argue that the Left has no interest in being post-racial. They claim they want to be post-racial, but they really don't. They want to keep race front and center in our national conversations, because it serves their agenda that racism is the all-purpose explanation for what ails black America. There are a lot of people making a lot of money on that narrative, and they want to keep it out there. There are political parties who gain and keep political power with that narrative out there, and they want to keep talking about it.

~ Jason Riley, "Black Americans Failed by Good Intentions: An Interview with Jason Riley," 17:22 mark, Reason TV, September 3, 2014