by Travis Mateer

I have a simple, one-word explanation for why Project Veritas imploded: growth. If that doesn’t jive with what you’re hearing or thinking, let me explain.

After watching this develop online, and viewing O’Keefe’s farewell speech, I agree that the curious timing of the board coup–which came just a few days after his organization’s biggest exposure to date about Pfizer–points to something fishy going on behind the scenes. The details shared by O’Keefe further indicate his ouster was a messy professional assassination carried out in BAD faith by gaslighting board members. So why am I blaming GROWTH for what happened to O’Keefe?

The meteoric financial growth of Project Veritas’ “non-profit” organization is what allowed the variables of individual board members to infiltrate the organization. On paper the financial growth looks like an objectively good thing, but is it?

Another way to think about this is portion control, especially as it relates to a child’s desire for delicious food items. Ever hear someone say your EYES are bigger than your STOMACH? Well, take that idea and apply it to a $22,034,786 operating budget for this “non-profit” and ask yourself if this growth was either necessary or, in hindsight of O’Keefe’s ouster, worth it. Maybe it WAS worth it in order to pry some priceless insights from a despicable Big Pharma corporation.

I’ll also acknowledge that my own perception of this drama is colored by my less than impressive efforts to monetize my own content creation, and part of this difficulty I attribute to keeping my focus (and thus, my potential audience) on local, or regional, issues.

This conscious decision can be seen in the re-boot of my podcast, which is now a weekly review of LOCAL headlines, touching on bigger things when appropriate. I’m still going to do interviews with people that interest me OUTSIDE the borders of Zoom Town, but that will be like bonus content. Or should I say PREMIUM content, perhaps on a platform like Patreon?

It’s difficult for me to see the numbers O’Keefe generated and to feel much sympathy for his coerced departure. Flashy hidden camera videos aren’t pushing a resistance to totalitarianism where it needs to be, which is EVERY local municipality where the ostensibly “good” intentions of technocratic city planners are boringly weaving the noose that will ultimately choke out those last semblances of choice and freedom we took for granted during the brief span of this country.

It’s been an immense sacrifice, both personally and professionally, to independently sustain my local resistance to what’s coming. Where other podcasters and content creators merely TALK about the need to attend local City Councils, I actually DO it, like yesterday’s Transportation Coordination Committee where I made public comment about 15 minute cities and Tax Increment Financing (more on this in a later post).

I don’t plan on putting blog posts, or the Week in Review, behind a paywall, but I am scheming on how to entice potential “patrons” to subscribe to different tiers for premium content. One idea I’m considering adapting from the Grimerica guys is reading long excerpts from books and offering the audio as premium content. I wouldn’t go the full audio book route, like they do, but would select sections or chapters to highlight, then offer the ability (locals only) to check out the hard copy for further reading.

Another direction I’m considering is more video-oriented content, but that can be time intensive. Luckily I’m meeting with some creatives this week to explore areas of collaboration because the brick world I’m building is begging to come to life with some imagination and low-budget humor. Yes, we definitely need to LAUGH more as it becomes more and more apparent we are under direct attack.

If you’d like to assist my efforts, like the $25 dollar donation I just received recently (thank you!), then go to my about page and make the clicks. Is it a lot to ask? Sure, but I’m working for it on the faith that the truth of what’s happening still matters.

Thank you for reading.