One of comedian George Carlin’s more notable quotes, pointing out a reality of American life is, “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.” His words are a simple commentary on the ruling class, the elites, the cabal, the establishment, or the deep state, whatever you prefer to call the Big Club.

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Donald Trump is the first president since Ronald Reagan to point this out. Neither men were members of the Big Club. Reagan was a former actor (the bit about serving as a two-term governor of California is conveniently omitted from his biography, instead characterizing him only as a simple thespian) who attended a little-known college in Illinois. He did not have the Ivy League degrees of Big Club members named Bush, Clinton, or Obama.

Trump has an Ivy League undergraduate degree that the elites ignore, preferring to believe he is a graduate of a community college or reform school. He never held political office, instead winning the most important election in the world assisted only by his family and a handful of campaign staff. He handily defeated Big Club members Clinton, Bush, Kasich, and Rubio.

He didn’t need the services of the Big Club political consultants, many of whom were part of the Lincoln Project, cofounded by a pedophile, but firm in their belief that Trump is an embarrassment, ill-mannered, amoral, and unsuited for the White House. He didn’t need help from Karl Rove, so-called Republican consulting guru, who knew of allegations against the Lincoln Project cofounder for 32 years but said nothing over the last 5 years, perhaps out of professional courtesy. So much for “see something, say something.”

The Big Club is bipartisan, although left leaning. Not every Democrat is a member of this club. Bernie Sanders and his supporters are certainly not. Bernie was robbed of the Democrat presidential nomination twice, likely due to the same electoral “irregularities” that gave the 2020 election to a senile grifter who hardly campaigned. Despite Bernie’s anti-capitalistic schtick, he appears to have happily sold out for money and a lake house, and is now relegated to meme status, sitting alone in a chair, bundled up with mask and mittens.

Bernie and his supporters are no more welcome in the Big Club than are Trump supporters, serving only as props, protesters, or Congressional baseball game shooters. Not being in the club, Bernie will never get near the White House. Neither will his mini-me AOC or her Squad. They too are useful on social media for outrage and trash talk, but any challenges to Big Club honcho Nancy Pelosi are quickly squashed.

Many Republicans are in the Big Club, particularly those with ties to the Bush Family. Other prominent members are Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and Mitch McConnell. The NeverTrump coalition is also part of the Big Club. How ironic that when someone comes along and implements everything NeverTrumpers have been preaching, writing, or campaigning for their entire careers, they loathe him simply because he isn’t part of their Big Club. These are their ideas after all, but only ideas. Trump brought the ideas to life.

The Big Club affords members perks and privileges unavailable to non-club members. Particularly the “get out of jail free” card.

If you are in the club, you can spy on a presidential campaign and subsequent president, fabricating evidence, lying to FISA courts and the American people, suffering light, if any, consequences. You will be rewarded with teaching appointments at prestigious universities and your spouse may receive a nice promotion to an SEC directorship as compensation for her husband’s affair, as in the case of the Strzok Family.

As a Club member, if indicted for presenting fabricated evidence to the FISA court, you will receive a year of probation and some community service, as in Kevin Clinesmith. If you are not a club member and misremember an inconsequential date, you will be hounded to the ends of the earth by the DOJ and partisan judges, as was General Flynn. Or you might be held in solitary confinement for months like Paul Manafort.

If you are in the Big Club you can extort money and political favors from foreign governments for yourself, as the “big guy”, and your family with no consequence, like the Bidens. If not in the club, jokingly asking Russia to look for Hillary Clinton’s thousands of conveniently missing emails is grounds for impeachment.

A doctor in the Big Club, like Dr Anthony Fauci, can reverse and contradict himself repeatedly on mask use and other COVID guidelines and find himself lauded on magazine covers. A doctor not in the Big Club, like Dr Simone Gold, can promote an evidenced-based COVID therapeutic, hydroxychloroquine, loathed by the medical establishment because Trump promoted it, and find herself not on a magazine cover, but instead fired from her job.

Two former NFL quarterbacks, Big Club member Colin Kaepernick and non-club member Tim Tebow are treated far differently over their views on social justice and Christianity, respectively. One is a hero and the other can’t avoid media castigation.

Those in the Big Club have little worry over being banned from social media or cancelled from academia or life in general. Attorney and former law school dean John Eastman, not a member of the Big Club, attended Trump’s January 6 rally. This is where Trump supposedly “shredded the Constitution” by calling on his supporters to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” As a result, Eastman was cancelled from teaching positions at Chapman University and University of Colorado for daring to stand on stage with Bad Orange Man.

Another prominent law professor, Lawrence Tribe, a member of the Big Club, tweeted that Trump is the “First American Dictator” with no Twitter suspension, ban, or loss of his teaching position.

For members of the Big Club, violent riots and wanton destruction are “peaceful protests”. For those not in the Big Club, peaceful protests are “insurrection and sedition.”

The Big Club is all about self-preservation, as Sundance at Conservative Treehouse observed. The entire Mueller investigation’s goal was to bury the illegal and actually seditious conspiracy to overthrow the Trump administration. The Big Club all knew and all seemed to be in on it, including all those we were told to “trust” – Barr, Durham, Horowitz, and Huber.

The Big Club needed to send those who “ain’t in it” a stern reminder of that fact, including Donald Trump and his 75 million plus supporters. Until the hoi polloi bows to the tyrants of the Big Club, expect these reminders to continue. Trump was our last hope at exposing and destroying the Big Club, but unless he has a few trump cards up his sleeve, the game is over, with the Big Club the winner. And we still ain’t in the Big Club.

Brian C Joondeph, MD, is a physician and freelance writer. He is on sabbatical from social media.