Rod Walker, Castalia author

I have been inexcusably remiss in failing to put Rod Walker’s site on the list of Castalia Author’s on the right sidebar. He not only has a blog, but it’s an interesting one, complete with links to reviews of his first book with Castalia as well as his reviews of other books, such as Peter Grant’s Western, Brings the Lightning.

Rod Walker says he enjoyed working with Castalia House to bring out MUTINY IN SPACE, and found it an excellent experience in all respects. In previous careers, RW dealt with several traditional publishers and a few small presses, and never found it an enjoyable experience, a marked contrast to his adventure with Castalia House. For all his low opinion of traditional publishers, RW thinks it is better to classify Castalia House as a “nontraditional” publisher. The Internet has made traditional publishing obsolete as a mode of organization, just as the rise of mass industry made the craft guild system obsolete as a method of economic production….

So the way forward for publishers, in RW’s opinion, is to abandon the gatekeeper function and instead become “nontraditional” publishers – that is, curators who seek out specific kinds of excellence. RW thinks that John C. Wright’s books SOMEWHITHER and IRON CHAMBER OF MEMORY are superb fantasy novels, and in all probability these books would never have been published without Castalia, just as Jerry Pournelle’s THERE WILL BE WAR series would never have been revived.

I’m delighted to hear that Rod enjoyed working with us, as we’re very pleased to be working with him. He is one of the most professional authors in the industry, delivering what must be some of the cleanest manuscripts delivered anywhere. He’s not only professional, he’s prolific, as we’ll be publishing two more of his novels before the end of the year, Alien Game, which is a second Heinlein-style SF juvenile, and an as-yet-untitled fantasy novel set in Minaria, the world of Divine Right.

If you haven’t read his first SF juvenile, Mutiny in Space, you really should do so, as it is a fast-paced, old-school, true-Blue SF novel.

One of the things Castalia is building is a community of readers and writers, just as DevGame is the foundation for a community of gamers and game developers. As both the first DevGame game, Elveteka, and Rod’s third book with us shows, there is room for a considerable amount of overlap and cross-pollination; a DevGame team is already actively developing the computer wargame version of Divine Right and Castalia will be publishing the print edition of a Divine Right RPG book that is in the very early stages of development. This community-building is important, for as Dave Freer notes at the Mad Genius Club, the publishing world is rapidly changing.

The problem is our whole genre, all of publishing (both indy and traditional) and the business of writing are moving targets. Even the audience is moving and changing. And they’re not moving predictably, but like a cheetah full of amphetamine, LSD and blindfolded too.

Which is all rough on the painstaking ‘stalker’ – the author trying to set themselves up for the ‘kill’. It’s certainly resulted in some very wild shooting – some innocent bystanders hit, lots of prey (AKA sales) disappeared into the scrub never to be seen again. I mean, once upon a time you simply had to kiss up to the right editors, loudly espouse the correct SJW cause de jour and you were in every B&N from here to Timbuktu, and on NYT bestseller list… and life was sweet. Now you can do all that, impeccably, win a Nebula and a Hugo, and be in the surviving book-stores… and still be a sales failure. Readers are being considerably more difficult and relying on Amazon, are more price aware, and more inclined to sample on KU…. I think looking toward writer’s co-ops would be smart.

KU is the real game-changer now, because the traditional publishers can’t play there. But we can, and last month, one of our better-selling books sold more via KU than through all the other means and editions combined. It doesn’t make sense for us to sell all our books that way, as we’ve experimented and some books do great while others don’t, but KU editions are now every bit as important in their own right as paperback, hardcover, or audiobook editions.

As for coops and communities, we’re not the only ones who have noticed that building communities is vital for authors these days:

Most books today are selling only to the authors’ and publishers’ communities. Everyone in the potential audiences for a book already knows of hundreds of interesting and useful books to read but has little time to read any. Therefore people are reading only books that their communities make important or even mandatory to read. There is no general audience for most nonfiction books, and chasing after such a mirage is usually far less effective than connecting with one’s communities.

This is why it is important for VP and Castalia to continue to grow – blog traffic looks likely to pass 2.6 million this month – and why it is equally important that Castalia does not grow at the price of sacrificing its level of quality. We only got one book out last month, but this month we expect to publish books by THREE new members of our writer’s community – Fenris Wulf, Ivan Throne, and Nick Cole – in addition to a first novel in a new series by one of our leading members, which is to say Mr. John C. Wright. Not all of these books will be for everyone, but all of them will be recognizably Castalia House books in their own way. We’ve also signed three new authors about whom we are very excited, but who shall remain anonymous for the present.

It is because this community is growing that it is increasingly under assault from trolls, self-seekers, and ideological missionaries. And it is because this community is important, and because you, the reader, are important, that the moderators and I are so ruthless in purging those who are attempting to disrupt and destroy it.

How important is it? We can quantify that. On an annual basis, the average Castalia book sells more than 10 times the number of copies of the average book. I expect that within five years, that ratio will be 100 to 1.

UPDATE: I didn’t look at the comments the first time around. Dave also had some nice things to say about Castalia there.

I seriously believe Castalia is merely one of the first of the new generation publishers. Say what you like about Vox Day – he pays 50%, does the legwork AND does the marketing. And he really does market. 50% of $20K (and no hassles and costs) is worth a lot more than 70% of $3K and hassles, costs. But at 17.5% of most of the Trad houses (apples to apples comparison) where they do the legwork, but scanty marketing but bump the price right up (so you might get $5K sales) well – it’s a no-brainer, really. Which is why I worry so much that so many people still choose that option.

We admittedly could do a lot better on the marketing. (And yes, marketing volunteers, I’m going to try to contact you this weekend. I’ve genuinely been so busy that I haven’t had time to even respond to the volunteers who are actively trying to help out.) But the quadpartite community of VP, AG, DG, and CH, in combination with our author’s networks, does have a marketing multiplier effect. And once a few of the bigger names start working with us – and they will – that’s when things are going to seriously take off.

UPDATE: One more note for established writers at other publishers who might be interested in talking to us about working together in the future. We not only pay much higher royalties much earlier than the traditional publishers do, this year, we are already paying all of our authors out for Q1 and Q2 2016, even though we haven’t been paid for June yet. I’m finishing the various reports this weekend. When we say our authors come first, we really mean it.

Why no one watches the Olympics anymore

Reason covers the many reasons, most of which are nonsense:

  1. The end of the mostly-fake-but-still-compelling fiction that participants were “amateurs” who competed out of mere love of the game.
  2. A fuller understanding of just how much cheating went on among the athletes. First, it was the massive revelations about juicing by Iron Curtain teams but post-Cold War, it became clear that many Western athletes (Ben Johnson! FloJo! Marion Jones!) who won our hearts were faking it too (except for Carl Lewis, the greatest track and field Olympian yet one who was never fully embraced by the crowds, either).
  3. The mainstreaming of sports TV and the ability of less-popular sports to gain an audience independent of the Olympics.
  4. The disturbing spectacle of the Games being hosted by tyrannical and/or bankrupt countries and cities that wasted huge amounts of money on conspicuous consumption (Beijing, Moscow and Sochi, and Athens obviously, but let’s never forget Montreal too!).
  5. An endless stream of scandals implicating national-level Olympic Committees but also the IOC itself in just terrible, terrible behavior.
  6. The growth in cosmopolitanism around the globe, meaning that we are no longer as mesmerized by “exotic” athletes from foreign countries.
  7. Oscar Pistorius.
  8. Bob Costas.
  9. Rick Wakeman’s 1976 soundtrack to the Innsbruck Winter Games, White Rock.
  10. Brazil’s political instability, Zika problems, and inability to control sewage.
  11. The long, acrid hangover from the 1972 Summer Games in Munich, during which the Palestinian terrorist group Black September killed 11 Israeli athletes and coaches. In the wake of the murders, the head of the IOC, American Avery Brundage, famously declared that “the Games must go on,” despite “two savage attacks.” For Brundage, a lifelong racist and personal friend of Adolf Hitler (as head of the USOC during the ’36 Games in Berlin, Brundage watch track and field competitions from der Fuhrer’s box and pressured the American track coach to sideline Jewish runners), the second “attack” during the ’72 Games was a threatened boycott of the Olympics by African nations if apartheid Rhodesia was allowed to compete. Beyond all that, endless boycotts for this or that reason, usually tied to politics, not athletics.
  12. The Olympics, designed as a means by which France might avenge its loss in the Franco-Prussian War, is explicitly nationalistic in a world that is moving toward greater individualism.
  13. “The Olympics matter less because we live in a better world, one filled with innumerable options for leisure and one mostly—though by no means completely—free from the most onerous aspects of geopolitical strife. We live in a world where nations matter less than individuals, a reality that is mirrored by the increasing number of ‘nation-hopping’ Olympians.” And the rise of an actual “refugee team.”
  14. The IOC’s insane attempt to control and regiment all aspects of the Games on the Internet, including a prohibition on GIFS, Vines, and other home-brewed content. Apart from all the scandals, the IOC is the athletic equivalent of Metallica, busting the balls of its most-fervent fans in the hope of squeezing a few more nickels out of a dying franchise.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I don’t watch it for one simple reason. It’s no longer the Olympics of “a miracle on ice”, it is a politically correct SJW fest with coverage that devotes more time to sob stories than it does to sports. I mostly thought it was funny to see that Reason is still stuck on the outdated idea that the world is “moving toward greater invididualism” and away from nationalism.

On the plus side, the Olympic torch carrier sprinting to get away from gunshots in a nearby favela has already provided more entertainment than any three recent Olympics.

1x, 11x, 1250x

The President of the Philippines demonstrates how small-scale, but intense action can lead to significant results.

Duterte’s centerpiece anticrime drive, focused on an ambitious campaign promise to end the widespread drugs problem in six months, has left more than 400 drug suspects dead, many of them either in firefights with police or under suspect circumstances. More than 4,400 have been arrested, police said.

The unprecedented killings have scared more than half a million drug users and dealers who gave themselves up to police, officials said. An overwhelmed Duterte has said he was considering to set aside some areas in military camps nationwide to build rehabilitation centers for those who surrender.

We’ve already seen significant self-deportations take place in the USA response to fairly modest crackdowns on illegal employment. While people have questioned how 60 million immigrants could ever be deported, it should be obvious that tens of millions would self-deport with alacrity were the federal government to announce it was targeting them for arrest and would no longer respect their human rights.

If we assume that arrests are equivalent to deportations, that means 500,000 deportations would probably suffice, although it is unclear if the deportations alone would provide the sufficient motivation. One tends to suspect the drug users and dealers were more impressed by the anti-drug death squads.

Don’t forget, this math works two ways. I tend to suspect that the anti-gun forces in the USA are counting on a similar equation.

Perspective switches

A little note about something I come across from time to time while editing. Do not switch the point-of-view just to get something across to the reader about your protagonist, particularly a physical description of him or his actions. It’s a cheap writer’s trick, it’s lazy, it’s unnecessary, and it breaks up the flow of the story. Moreover, you’re not fooling anyone about what you’re doing or why you’re doing it.

There are many good reasons to switch perspective. Doing so in order to make a Mary Sue point about how handsome or determined or pretty the protagonist looks is not one of them.

On the other hand, never force heavily self-descriptive adjectives into the protagonist’s internal monologue either. It makes the character sound self-absorbed and sociopathic, rather like a highly intelligent and impressively well-read man with muscles like a well-honed panther referring to himself in the third person, wrote Vox Day.

“The gravest risk since communism”

The Economist sees nationalism as a great evil that is to be defeated rather than the only way to save Western Civilization:

AS POLITICAL theatre, America’s party conventions have no parallel. Activists from right and left converge to choose their nominees and celebrate conservatism (Republicans) and progressivism (Democrats). But this year was different, and not just because Hillary Clinton became the first woman to be nominated for president by a major party. The conventions highlighted a new political faultline: not between left and right, but between open and closed (see article). Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, summed up one side of this divide with his usual pithiness. “Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo,” he declared. His anti-trade tirades were echoed by the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party.

America is not alone. Across Europe, the politicians with momentum are those who argue that the world is a nasty, threatening place, and that wise nations should build walls to keep it out. Such arguments have helped elect an ultranationalist government in Hungary and a Polish one that offers a Trumpian mix of xenophobia and disregard for constitutional norms. Populist, authoritarian European parties of the right or left now enjoy nearly twice as much support as they did in 2000, and are in government or in a ruling coalition in nine countries. So far, Britain’s decision to leave the European Union has been the anti-globalists’ biggest prize: the vote in June to abandon the world’s most successful free-trade club was won by cynically pandering to voters’ insular instincts, splitting mainstream parties down the middle.

News that strengthens the anti-globalisers’ appeal comes almost daily. On July 26th two men claiming allegiance to Islamic State slit the throat of an 85-year-old Catholic priest in a church near Rouen. It was the latest in a string of terrorist atrocities in France and Germany. The danger is that a rising sense of insecurity will lead to more electoral victories for closed-world types. This is the gravest risk to the free world since communism. Nothing matters more than countering it.

Considering that their counter will consist of “stronger rhetoric, bolder policies and smarter tactics”, they’re not off to a good start. They are at a disadvantage, of course, because the most effective rhetoric is utilized in the service of the truth, and they are attempting to sell blatant and obvious lies.

But if “nothing matters more than countering” nationalism, that means that nationalism is the only political objective that matters for the opponents of globalism. We need to continue to expose their lies about NATO benefitting America, about the EU benefitting Europe, about free trade and immigration enriching societies, and how cooperation is necessary for fighting terrorism.

If you’re still foolish enough to swallow the false assertion that free trade is beneficial to America, perhaps you should consider if you believe any of the other lies you are being told by the same people.

The prophecy of HP Lovecraft

The Chateau offers up an insightful and prophetic essay by HP Lovecraft on “Americanism” and how it would be used to justify the immigration that has destroyed the American nation:

It is easy to sentimentalise on the subject of “the American spirit”—what it is, may be, or should be. Exponents of various novel political and social theories are particularly given to this practice, nearly always concluding that “true Americanism” is nothing more or less than a national application of their respective individual doctrines.

Slightly less superficial observers hit upon the abstract principle of “Liberty” as the keynote of Americanism, interpreting this justly esteemed principle as anything from Bolshevism to the right to drink 2.75 per cent. beer. “Opportunity” is another favourite byword, and one which is certainly not without real significance. The synonymousness of “America” and “opportunity” has been inculcated into many a young head of the present generation by Emerson via Montgomery’s “Leading Facts of American History.” But it is worthy of note that nearly all would-be definers of “Americanism” fail through their prejudiced unwillingness to trace the quality to its European source. They cannot bring themselves to see that abiogenesis is as rare in the realm of ideas as it is in the kingdom of organic life; and consequently waste their efforts in trying to treat America as if it were an isolated phenomenon without ancestry.

“Americanism” is expanded Anglo-Saxonism. It is the spirit of England, transplanted to a soil of vast extent and diversity, and nourished for a time under pioneer conditions calculated to increase its democratic aspects without impairing its fundamental virtues. It is the spirit of truth, honour, justice, morality, moderation, individualism, conservative liberty, magnanimity, toleration, enterprise, industriousness, and progress—which is England—plus the element of equality and opportunity caused by pioneer settlement. It is the expression of the world’s highest race under the most favourable social, political, and geographical conditions. Those who endeavour to belittle the importance of our British ancestry, are invited to consider the other nations of this continent. All these are equally “American” in every particular, differing only in race-stock and heritage; yet of them all, none save British Canada will even bear comparison with us. We are great because we are a part of the great Anglo-Saxon cultural sphere; a section detached only after a century and a half of heavy colonisation and English rule, which gave to our land the ineradicable stamp of British civilisation.

Most dangerous and fallacious of the several misconceptions of Americanism is that of the so-called “melting-pot” of races and traditions. It is true that this country has received a vast influx of non-English immigrants who come hither to enjoy without hardship the liberties which our British ancestors carved out in toil and bloodshed. It is also true that such of them as belong to the Teutonic and Celtic races are capable of assimilation to our English type and of becoming valuable acquisitions to the population. But, from this it does not follow that a mixture of really alien blood or ideas has accomplished or can accomplish anything but harm….

The main struggle which awaits Americanism is not with reaction, but with radicalism. Our age is one of restless and unintelligent iconoclasm, and abounds with shrewd sophists who use the name “Americanism” to cover attacks on that institution itself. Such familiar terms and phrases as “democracy,” “liberty,” or “freedom of speech” are being distorted to cover the wildest forms of anarchy, whilst our old representative institutions are being attacked as “un-American” by foreign immigrants who are incapable both of understanding them or of devising anything better.

One of the ways we can be certain that our perspective is not only historically sound, but more reflective of reality and predictive of the future is to read the voices of the past whose outlook has subsequently proved correct. HP Lovecraft was absolutely right, the foreign immigrants who came to the United States after 1919 were incapable of understanding the Rights of Englishmen and have proven utterly incapable of devising anything better.

Indeed, through their ahistorical inventions of “the melting pot” and “the proposition nation” and “equality” and “diversity is our strength”, they have completely and utterly destroyed that expanded Anglo-Saxonism that briefly made America the greatest, most powerful, and wealthiest nation on Earth.

“America” is not only white, it is, as Lovecraft said, an “expanded Anglo-Saxonism”. While other peoples may respect it, admire it, envy it, and seek to emulate it, they have observably been collectively incapable of understanding, adopting, or even preserving it. Through their various redefinitions of “Americanism”, America was destroyed.

The United States today is entirely post-American, in much the same way that Europe is post-Christian. The forms remain, but the substance is no longer there. America’s hallowed terms and phrases are even emptier than Europe’s abandoned churches.

The cost of SJW convergence

ESPN is paying it, having lost 4 million subscribers and $350 million in the last year:

In the past five years ESPN has lost 11,346,000 subscribers according to Nielsen data.

If you combine that with ESPN2 and ESPNU subscriber losses this means that ESPN has lost over a billion dollars in cable and satellite revenue just in the past five years, an average of $200 million each year. That total of a billion dollars hits ESPN in the pocketbook not just on a yearly basis, but for every year going forward.

It’s gone forever.

That’s not just bad, this is downright cataclysmic.

And it’s getting worse.

In the past year ESPN lost 4.159 million subscribers, that’s another $350 million in lost revenue across the ESPN family of networks.

Now, tell me again how all the cultural programming and SJWfication and ideological propaganda in the entertainment media and the advertising industry is just business. Tell me again how it’s not driven by ideological fanatics, but hard-nosed businessmen just ruthlessly chasing a buck the best way they know how.

And then I’ll explain to you, very slowly and in words of not more than five syllables, that those hard-nosed, buck-chasing “businessmen” are observably losing literal billions as they continue to tear away at the foundations of Western Civilization: Christianity, the family, the rule of law, and the white race in the name of Tolerance, Equality, Progress, Inclusiveness, and Diversity.

Mike Cernovich’s best advice

Mike Cernovich explains how to build up your brand.

As I’ve become one of the 10 most influential voices this election season, media figures look on with jealousy. That’s a scarcity mindset. My own success does not preclude anyone else from being successful. (Vox Day gets far more blog traffic than I do. Stefan Molyneux has a far larger podcast. Their success does not detract from mine.)

Here is how you can become your own Mike Cernovich, Inc.


Focus on your fans/readers. End the pundit circle jerk.

How often do you see me butt kissing anyone on Twitter? I don’t kiss up to pundits with hopes they will write about me. There are many reasons for this, some personal and some practical.

I dislike dishonest people, and pundits are frauds. Pretending to like vile people for a reach-around is how you destroy your soul. I also ignore them because it’s bad for business.

Imagine a pundit writes about me in an article. (That’s not hard to imagine. There are hundreds of articles about me. Everyone from Gawker to Politifact has tried to take me down, with the end result being us laughing in their faces.)

No one reads an article about me and buys my book. Throw-away quotes are of no value to me. Even a byline on a big site like the Hoaxington Post is garbage. How do I know this? Book sales data tells the truth….

If you want to build your own brand, here’s some advice:

Talk to “nobodies” who @ tweet you.

I don’t view anyone as a nobody, because we are all human and there’s no reason to think highly of yourself, and also because there are a lot of nobodies who are stealth somebodies. (You never know who you’re talking to.)

Write for readers, not editors and pundits.


Who cares if your work is cited by some dork? Being cited by Vox* or Gawker or BuzzFeed won’t build your brand up. Writing for readers will.

I can attest that since I met Cernovich last August, and since I began putting his advice about looking to help others into action, both the blog readerships and the Twitter following have increased dramatically. More importantly, I learned how important it was to allow others to get involved, to volunteer, and to help themselves by helping me, which has had a profound effect on Castalia, DevGame, Big Fork, and [REDACTED], among other things.

It was perfect synchronicity that I was interrupted by a phone call from one of my more important allies as I was posting this, as he was calling to discuss how Castalia can be of assistance to one of his projects, which assistance we are quite happy to provide. As per Cernovich, what we decided may turn out to be to Castalia’s advantage down the road, but if so, that’s just a bonus. Our only serious goal is to help an ally meet his objective.

What goes around comes around, and in ways one cannot reasonably anticipate. So, always actively look for ways to help your friends, your allies, and your supporters. Don’t be threatened by their success, celebrate it and cheer them on! We can’t all be number one in everything, but we can all be winners.

*In case it isn’t obvious, he means Vox the lame SJW site, not me.

Mailvox: it’s just the media narrative

MJ is suspicious about the so-called “Trump Implosion” and rightfully so:

With all of the talk I’ve been seeing over the past week in regards to the mainstream news of Trump “imploding”, is it just me, or are the various factions of the diminishing hordes of establishment supporters getting more and more outlandish in their barbs against the campaign? How much longer will these types continue to deny the inevitable truth before they have to pivot to attempt to save their ignorant asses?

To wit:

– Yes, Trump has a concern about taking things personally. I see that more as a positive than a negative. The current occupant of the Office has too much of an “I don’t give a damn” attitude, and I think that’s part of the issue we’re running into in terms of leadership.

– The whole Khan issue. The reason it hasn’t gone away isn’t because Trump is keeping on it, it’s that the establishment handlers keep thrusting Khan back out into the spotlight to force Trump to respond. I heard a piece of an interview between Khan and Anderson Cooper from the other day, and it was clear to me that the man had no clue what he was talking about in terms of his constitutional claims. I literally felt dumber after hearing the man speak, it was that bad. The only reason Khan is even remotely relevant is that his son died in action during OIF, and that was an action supported by the D nominee, not Trump. I personally find it repulsive that they would use that status for such actions (it’s not surprising to me, however).

– The enthusiasm gap. Last weekend, there was supposedly a big bus trip through Pennsylvania and Ohio for the D ticket. It was so huge that they had to pay people to show up in western PA, and they ended up canceling the appearance in Cleveland, both cases due to lack of interest. Meanwhile, Trump and his campaign were upset that fire marshals were capping entry to venues far below the posted capacity limits. And where he’s not being capped, they’re turning people away. It’s night and day in terms of what is being reported by the establishment versus what the ground truth is.

I’m registered as unaffiliated where I live. I chose to be unaffiliated because the two-party system here is horribly, irrevocably broken. I understand that a lot of this traffic is meant for me to influence me into supporting the D nominee. I hate to say it, but I’m rather insulted by this attitude and approach. It’s not working. There’s nothing there for the D nominee to offer, and the choice of running mate is also a personal affront to me as an active, practicing Roman Catholic.

I will be honest, I’m not 100% behind Trump, but it’s not for any reason from the establishment. There is a legitimate unknown with him, and that’s probably due more to my healthy skepticism of someone who is naturally outside the overall process. This is another of those once in a generation occurrences where the truth is so obvious that one would have to be a complete idiot to ignore it.

The conclusion I’m running into is this: Trump is the catalyst for a completely new paradigm in both American and international politics, something that we sort of started to see with the Brexit vote, even though that was focused on the UK. The opportunity his election presents is huge in terms of how things can at least attempt to rectify themselves, and that’s what gives me hope.

I agree with the consensus that the Trumpslide is coming, especially since there’s still 95 days of campaigning to go, including 3 debates.

My take: everyone needs to relax about the “Trump implosion” and the purported Republican revolt. The media is full of SJWs. And what do SJWs do? Exactly!

This is what a full-fledged feeding frenzy looks like.

With Donald Trump facing the roughest stretch of his candidacy, the media have moved from questioning his sanity to depicting a campaign in disarray and top Republicans still wondering whether they can dump the nominee.

That won’t happen, of course, but it’s an indication of the toxic nature of the coverage and the flood of anti-Trump leaks now washing across the media landscape.

There’s a natural piling-on effect when campaigns go off the rails: The polls dip, the critics step up their rhetoric, staffers start pointing fingers, and the press keeps the vicious cycle going.

But I’ve never seen anything like this.

Things reached the point yesterday morning that CNBC’s John Harwood tweeted: “Longtime ally of Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager: ‘Manafort not challenging Trump anymore. Mailing it in. Staff suicidal.'”

And there was this from CNN: “A source tells @DanaBashCNN that some Trump campaign staff are frustrated w/ candidate lately, ‘feel like they are wasting their time.’”

I am told by knowledgeable campaign sources that Manafort is not going anywhere and believes that Trump will be getting back on message.

I am further told that reports of a planned “intervention” with the candidate, led by Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani, are false.

And the sources also say that, contrary to media reports, party chairman Reince Priebus is not furious with Trump, though he is disappointed with the nominee’s refusal to endorse Paul Ryan.

The Khan/Implosion narrative nothing more than the Democratic hasbara that we’ve been seeing on this blog and others, writ large. As for the polls, I remind you of my previous assessment: they don’t mean ANYTHING until 30 days after the end of the second convention.

If there is no discernible Trump trend by then, it MIGHT be time to start considering the possibility of a Hillary win. In the meantime, pay no attention to the media’s attempt to establish a false narrative. Remember, they are trying to shape reality, they are not honestly reporting it.

Let’s look at this rationally. If the media was genuinely convinced that Hillary Clinton was going to win, do you really think they would engage in this sort of mass narrative-shaping instead of triumphantly slinging insults at Republicans while victory-dancing?

As to how long it will be before they pivot, I would say one week after the polls start showing Trump within striking distance of Hillary again. Which should be in about one month.

UPDATE: from the comments: “Ricky Vaughn 99 has suggested for months that it all starts with one push from Labor Day. He has said Trump does pushes and retreats in waves.”

I have noticed this too. Remember there were similar lulls around the time Michelle Fields was raped, murdered, and dismembered at a Trump rally and again after the Ohio loss cost Trump the Republican nomination.

As an experienced developer, Trump understands that you can’t mindlessly push all the time. You need to take the time to reload, gather your strength, and recover before launching another offensive. I assumed that’s what he’s been doing since the end of the Republican nomination.