*Links to a Powerline post that summarizes and comments on the DataRepublican post.
Selectively quoting from Bill Glahn, I suggest:
This is how we got Trump and MAGA – because they operated (to some degree) outside the system, and managed to beat the Gatekeeping Gaslighters in 2016 and 2024.

The danger is that some Trump agents & officials, necessarily alas, are NOT outside the system, and could coopt others to come to the Dark Side with them.

See C. S. Lewis “The Inner Ring.”

Glahn:

@DataRepublican uses the language of systems theory to explain the phenomenon, which should serve as a cautionary tale for the rest of America.
…
The state is failing in the sense that the system is no longer producing positive outcomes for a majority of its citizens. But the system is still working extremely well for the people in charge.
[AF: Our Uniparty, or Elites, or Overlords, or whatever nomenclature you wish.]
…
From @DataRepublican,

Feedback loops close. Contradictions are absorbed. External signals stop producing corrective changes in internal behavior.

At that point, the system is no longer adaptive relative to its original purpose. It becomes self-referential. It is capable of internally justified expansion without reference to external success.

The purpose of a system is what it does. And that “internally justified expansion”?

The output is always the same:
More NGOs
More taxpayer dollars
More institutional capture
More managed disorder
This is equilibrium.

To be clear, “managed disorder” refers to both crime in the streets and the violent resistance to the federal government. Both are tools to maintain “equilibrium” to the ruling system.

In the end stage, @DataRepublican notes,

And it increasingly trades competence for survival. Truth itself becomes a liability if it threatens institutional coherence.

This is why a single individual with a phone was able to outperform an entire legacy media ecosystem.

Nick Shirley succeeded because he was outside the system. He could respond directly to reality. The system could only respond to itself.

…
Now the system believes that it has reacquired equilibrium and will cruise to victory in November, preserving the system.

Only internal system equilibrium was maintained. Without solving the fraud crisis itself, external equilibrium is still out of whack and threatens the entire enterprise.

But the system itself cannot recognize that reality.

https://www.lewissociety.org/innerring/
Full essay. Footnote:
“C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) was Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge. “The Inner Ring” was the Memorial Lecture at King’s College, University of London, in 1944.”

It is the best exposition of the current political and social system that I have seen anywhere.
That’s what happens when you let a brilliant systems analyst, rather than an armchair pundit, loose on a problem.

“DataRepublican (small r)” HERE https://x.com/DataRepublican/status/2009859719373205881

“Minnesota as a Systems Failure: How NGOs process dissent until reality no longer matters”

Talk about something being rotten in Denmark!

It’s looking so bad that I predict that very soon–despite his bluster about “over my dead body,” Walz will be forced to resign, and that he might well also eventually be brought up on criminal charges.

* See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HznVR8EXR_0

and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADt9DU0k-p8

I would add that it’s become a gruesome, toxic, heady brew of virtue, self-righteousness, infallibility and HATRED
—leading, essentially, to INSANITY—generated massively and ubiquitously by the Media 24/7 and generously funded by mega-wealthy agents of subversion and perversity.

What hath Covid wrought?
(For that matter, what hath social media…)

+ Bonus:
Amidst it all, a refreshing, hopeful, and impressively articulate expression of unabashed sanity…by a young’un (all things being relative)…
https://instapundit.com/769174/

https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2026/01/new-video-uncovering-biggest-fraud.html

https://shipwreckedcrew.substack.com/p/minneapolis-is-not-even-a-close-call

The link above gives a clear explanation of the laws and cases (SCOTUS) that apply to the death of Renee Good. It also analyzes what Renee was doing with her vehicle (weapon) before she was shot and killed. It is not bloody, she is not shown after her fatal decision.

It seems some young people don’t outgrow the youthful feeling of invincibility. Photos and videos of many young leftists show “crazy eyes,” not the thousand yard stare that is often shown in photos of young soldiers who have been too long in the line.

Finally, do everything you can to not be in a situation justifying deadly force. It will make a shambles of your life, whether or not you win the legal case.