Drain the swamp and chainsaw the taxes (Or worship the swamp and raise taxes?)

A crowd of one-minded people can easily walk together towards the abyss. There are a crowd of one-minded Portuguese people who make us feel sorry for them. They remind us of documentaries about zebras, where we see the great crossing they make together, jumping into swampy waters full of crocodiles. They are devoured by imitating everything the others do and think, without questioning anything. They all think they are right.

In Portugal, there is a constant leap into a swamp, in unison and almost without contradiction. In the midst of this crowd convinced that everything is right, the Portuguese do not realize that if they were demanding in the immediate and high-speed fulfillment of electoral promises and judicious about the destination of taxes (as the Americans are), they could keep much more money for themselves and their families (as the Americans are). This instead of handing it over, without asking anything, to a swamp full of reptilian interests that waste and abuse the efforts of taxpayers.

The Portuguese passively accept that their electoral promises are never fulfilled and that their enormous taxes on their low salaries are devoured by crocodiles, hidden in the swamp, for unknown causes over which they have no control or visibility. They are led to believe that our indolence in the face of corruption is what is venerable, while the Americans are crazy people with metaphorical chainsaws in hand cutting through waste, because the Portuguese taxes are all extremely well spent by very honest politicians.

In Portugal, the swamp of corruption and waste will not be drained, sorry, the fascists will not pass. Portuguese politicians and their friends and propagandists in the media will continue to squander taxes on business mixed with politics that are of no use to the people, sorry, the people are the ones who give the orders the most. Portuguese politicians will not fulfill their election promises in 10 years, let alone in 4 weeks, as the new American administration is already fulfilling. Sorry, Portuguese politicians are much more exemplary and sensible Democrats than American Republicans.

We use this revealing irony to lament that too many Portuguese people easily follow the single line of thought that is sold to them by the media. This is without realizing the interests and motives behind making them think that politicians are imposing their will in a brutal and evil way abroad. They do not know that there are those here who invest to maintain and profit from the swamp, where the will of the population counts for little or nothing. In Portugal there are too many automatons, always somewhere between the center of corruption and waste, between socialism and social democracy. For a long time there has been neither an original thought nor a breath of intellectual fresh air. This is all we have done. We have remained stuck in the time of the comrades and the socialist international, and this is quite useful for a swamp full of tax-eating crocodiles.

The crocodiles are grateful that so many people think it is normal not to keep their election promises and that no one asks how taxes are wasted or demands significant cuts in government spending, as is being done transparently in America, about which so many Portuguese are programmed to be indignant, mocking without realizing who has the last laugh. What the crocodiles of the Portuguese swamp will not laugh at when they order the TVs and newspapers to dictate the group thinking that many Portuguese repeat (without stopping to think about the harmful consequences): Over there, in the USA, they are crazy and not democrats (for doing what they promised the population?!); here everything is fine with a lot of democracy and common sense! There is nothing to cut and if it were cut, everything would be bad, just like those Americans are. Let it go. There are crocodiles to feed. Election promises are to be ignored, because this is not the USA and Musk's DOGE is hellish!

As a result of this swampy propaganda, there is a crowd against or ridiculing the measures of the new American administration, which we are assured on Portuguese TV and newspapers are “fascist” or “crazy”, despite the fact that it is doing and quickly fulfilling everything it promised during the campaign to the people who gave it victory. This includes combating waste and corruption in the state in order to lower taxes as the American people requested (there is even talk of returning money to taxpayers if there are savings in the state), to controlling illegal immigration and security as the people demanded, and to tariffs used as diplomatic leverage. However, many Portuguese people, lulled by the songs of the swampy media, criticize all of this. Why don’t the Portuguese demand that their leaders be quick and efficient in fulfilling campaign promises and lowering their taxes? Why do they make fun of the Americans for demanding this, despite the Portuguese paying three times or more in taxes? Why do they think it is normal for election promises not to be fulfilled?

This nefarious single-minded thinking occurs because there is a significant portion of Portuguese people who are very easy to manipulate via TV to sustain the swamp. Too many Portuguese people think that their indolent politicians are the ones who have good sense and are models of virtue (as insisted on on swampy TV), despite the fact that they have not done in a decade what the new American administration is doing in its first weeks in fulfilling its election promises. They also think that these Portuguese politicians who disregard the will of the population, doing exactly the opposite of what they promised during the campaign, are the great democrats, who make sensible and considered judgments, noble and enlightened.

Meanwhile, American leaders who do everything they promised the people, starting at a dizzying pace by implementing the measures promised in the first few weeks of their government, are, for the Portuguese influenced by the Portuguese media swamp, ignorant, crude and anti-democratic Camones. For example, when the vice-president of America, JD Vance, inspired by contemporary American philosophers such as Curtis Yarvin, who leave the intellectual poverty of today's Europe miles behind, comes to teach Europeans how to recover the technical innovation and true democracy that respects the will of the people that they once had, and to be governed by more capable people, the Portuguese insult him. They do so in chorus aligned with the swampy status quo that has made them poor and rarely fulfills electoral promises. They have no idea of ​​the excellence of Vance's life and professional career, as recounted in the Netflix documentary Hillbilly Elegy. Vance, who served in the army, attended one of the best universities in the world and has promoted technology companies, is worth more than dozens of Portuguese politicians on his own. Musk, a special volunteer employee and senior advisor to the US government who manages the state's efficiency department, appointed by the president, is worth more than hundreds of Portuguese politicians dependent on the state who have no professional life outside of politics and only know how to raise taxes. Mediocre people who have never founded serious companies.

The Portuguese are persuaded to believe that they are much smarter and more correct than the Americans. What nonsense for Americans to want to lower taxes by eliminating the waste of billions of public money! What horror for gringos to want to put an end to foundations or institutes that live off the state to make deals and advance elitist causes! What a Yankee attack on freedom of the press that taxpayers are not forced to give money to media outlets full of far-left commentators who do not represent them! What American madness to fire those public servants who cost taxpayers billions and do nothing useful for the country. What good is to pay a lot of taxes for nothing useful and live in ever greater insecurity! What cowboy nonsense to put in prison and deport illegal immigrants who are repeat offenders of serious crimes that pose a threat to the safety of the population on the streets. That is not done! Our Portuguese culture, as the (disguised) far-left, paid for by the state and the swamp, directly or indirectly, tells us, does not exist or should be nullified. Insecurity also does not exist and is just a malicious perception of ours.

The Portuguese are thus deceived into allowing most of their hard work to be devoured by taxes that are much higher and more punitive than those of the Americans. For example, 23% VAT instead of 0% as in several US states; and around three times the IRS percentage, depending on the salary. Many cars here cost, due to taxes alone, twice as much as those in the neighboring country and three or four times as much as those in the United States. The Portuguese are servants of the state's soil, allowing themselves to be manipulated. They parrot what they hear from the creatures of this swamp who appear on TV and in the newspapers, without contradiction. They do not question the false foundations for the increase and waste of the local government budget on friends in politics, including legal advice and tens of thousands of additional public employees, with no return on the quality of public service.

By acting like this, the Portuguese remain poor, increasingly taxed and with increasingly worse public services, without ever asking politicians where their money goes if it is not for public services and security. They do not even ask why their children and grandchildren have to emigrate in their hundreds of thousands from the perfect and supposedly right Portugal. This one-track-minded crowd supports many crocodiles: politicians, journalistic bosses and commentators who are very well paid despite the bankrupt press, useless bureaucrats in the heads of the civil service (those who, instead of solving problems, deny the population's problems), presidents of foundations, associations that live off the state, businesses mixed up with politics, far-left activists, fake businessmen, etc. All of them thirsty to use and squander the increasing taxes on the income of the Portuguese for their own benefit. A huge swamp that does not want to be drained!

Most Portuguese people have become accustomed to indolence, incompetence, corruption and waste of their taxes. They have become accustomed to the never-fulfilled electoral promises of politicians who are praised in unison on our TV channels and in newspapers. They have become accustomed to accepting that democracy, supposedly and according to our press, means that politicians can do the opposite of what they told the population during the campaign.

António Costa, for example, when he first ran for prime minister, presented us with an agenda for a wonderful decade during his campaign. In almost 10 years of lazy and careless power, he did little or nothing significant on that agenda. He certainly did much less in 9 years at the top of power in Portugal than the new American administration did in its first week. He did not implement any productive reforms that would change the course of the country for the better and bring back the millions of immigrants born in Portugal who had to escape the poverty and corruption of the swamp he created with Sócrates. He only did what was not on that agenda and had never promised: he further increased the tax burden, the number of public employees, wasted money on many foundations and businesses mixed with politics, in addition to completely opening the borders to millions of immigrants without any criminal control as the global elites abroad asked him to do. Good students of international elites without warning any Portuguese in elections, nor letting us vote in any referendum on immigration. He was rewarded, of course.

Costa had every right, according to our press, to completely and permanently change Portugal without warning. Now it is even being said that Portuguese culture should be annulled, without any Portuguese having voted on whether they agreed with this drastic permanent change and growing insecurity. However, Trump, who was elected by almost 80 million Americans, winning the electoral college and the popular vote, saying exactly what he was going to do, has no right to do anything he promised the people, according to our media. Musk, who was always on the campaign trail, always in full view of everyone and announcing what he was going to do in the department of state efficiency if Trump won and who was appointed by the president to be in charge of state efficiency, apparently has no democratic legitimacy according to the Portuguese press. However, the heads of far-left civil servants that no one knows or elected must continue to spend billions in taxes at will and without scrutiny on the most varied and absurd causes and businesses. Now that is an excellent and efficient Portuguese democracy! We Portuguese know! All right and well united in the will of the swamp, with the people's forgiveness.

Whether you like it or not, what the new American Republican administration is doing at high speed and at a dizzying pace in these first weeks of government is exactly what it said it would do during the campaign and which gave it 77 million American votes. The Portuguese should think about what useful things they could learn from Musk and his young intellectual geniuses at DOGE to drain the Portuguese swamp, instead of jumping on them so quickly. They don't realize that otherwise they will maintain the Portuguese swamp for decades more of semi-Marxist misery, full of business mixed with politics and very little democracy. They will continue to run towards the abyss of seeing all their grandchildren and children emigrate far away, to cooler, capitalist and democratic waters. Clear waters where the media does not lie so blatantly, without allowing anyone to question lies, nor does it persistently propagate the swamp against the population.