The Commoner

Friday, November 6, 2026

Sup, freaks.

Gene Wu is asking racial communities to unite against their common oppressor. A Subway Takes conversation moves from white people having weddings to white people having children. This is the racial division I was warning about in 2020, and it needs to be confronted.

WHAT TO EXPECT IN THIS NEWSLETTER

• Marty's Bent: The oppressor-oppressed framework and the danger of demonizing white people.
• Jeff Park revisits bitcoin's appeal when trust in institutions breaks down.
• Pennsylvania's minimum-wage pledge and working-class political disillusionment.
• PSI's proposed mathematical proof and IREN's shift from mining revenue toward AI.
• Freedom Tech Corner: Payjoin by default for exchange trades in BULL Wallet.

Marty's Bent

The Politics of the ‘Same Oppressor’

The communist oppressor-oppressed framework is being used to make white people the enemy. To make them the other, the oppressor, and convince people that demonizing them is how society becomes fair. We are watching this work its way through American politics and culture, all the way to conversations about whether white people should be having children.

Texas House Democratic Caucus chair Gene Wu explained his view to Jose Antonio Vargas in an interview that premiered in December 2024. Latino, Black, Asian and other communities need to recognize that they share the “same oppressor.” Once they do, “We have the ability to take over this country and to do what is needed for everyone and to make things fair.” Democrats are now preparing to take control of the Texas House.

Wu reportedly said he was referring to Republicans. He is still asking these communities to organize around a common oppressor so they can take over and decide what is fair. This is exactly the type of racial division and emotional manipulation I was writing about in June 2020. The communist framework gives people someone to blame and a justification for taking power over them.

A few days ago I came across a Subway Takes clip where a conversation about white people needing to stop having weddings moved on to suggesting they stop having babies too. Here is what I wrote when I shared the clip:

This interview may come off as simply uncouth and distasteful to some people, but make no mistake; these views are seeped in a murderous envy that will be unleashed if this type of rhetoric isn’t combatted.

I am a white man married to a white woman with three blond-haired, blue-eyed white sons. Watching people casually suggest that white people should stop having children is... unsettling.

History has proven that this type of demonization can escalate if it isn't combated. This is the playbook of the Bolsheviks and Mao. I hope it doesn't progress any further, but if we're being honest with ourselves it seems that the Left is very much emboldened after Tuesday's mid-term results. People need to speak out against this rhetoric now, before it gets any further. More importantly, the Right needs to put forth a more compelling platform that attracts people on merit and not simply because President Trump tells people to go "Vote Red!" A platform of law and order, opportunity, and an inspiring thrust to advance society via technological advancement, affordability brought about by productivity gains and the natural forces of sound money, and - most importantly - a focus on strong nuclear families and a culture of natalism seeped in divine optimism.

SIGNAL

Jeff Park on Bitcoin and a Hostile Government

Jeff Park has brought his February essay back into the conversation, arguing that Democratic wealth taxes and restrictions on capital mobility could accelerate the loss of trust that brings people to bitcoin. There is a tendency to get very excited when a politician says something nice about bitcoin and forget why having money outside their control matters in the first place. If the people running the country decide they would rather you couldn't move your wealth, their opinion becomes much less important when you hold your own keys.

Park also spends time on quantum computing, the long-term security budget and the custodial infrastructure growing around the network. Holding your own keys matters here too. A hostile government can lean on a custodian even as its policies give more people a reason to own bitcoin. Park's essay is worth reading alongside the political promises people are celebrating.

Shapiro Wants to Raise Pennsylvania's Minimum Wage

Josh Shapiro says the first bill he signs with a new Democratic majority in January will raise Pennsylvania's minimum wage. This is what I was getting at in my response.

An employer has to bring in enough money to cover the cost of employing someone. Raising the legal minimum doesn't change that calculation in the worker's favor if the result is fewer hours or no job offer. Workers who keep their jobs can benefit from a higher wage floor. A worker who loses hours or never gets hired because the employer cannot cover the higher cost has a very different experience. That has to be part of the conversation too. I would much rather see Pennsylvania make it easier to start businesses and invest in the equipment that lets workers produce more. Give employers a reason to compete for them.

Republicans Should Read This Before Blaming Voters

The Refined Populist asks readers to imagine being an Ohio father who keeps voting Republican, works to put his son through college and then watches that son move back into his childhood bedroom because he can't find a job. Meanwhile, the politicians he voted for keep telling him how well everything is going. What exactly is this father supposed to be grateful for?

If you campaign on rebuilding American industry and putting American families first, you should expect people to compare those promises with their own lives. A father who cannot afford the life he thought he was building and a son who cannot find work aren't going to be talked out of their disappointment by another speech. Getting angry with them for noticing is a pretty good way to convince them you never took their problems seriously.

PSI Releases an AI-Assisted Proof of a Quantum Computing Conjecture

Physical Superintelligence says its research system found a proof of the Aaronson–Ambainis conjecture, a longstanding problem about the limits of quantum speedups. David Turturean built the system, chose the problem and reviewed the manuscript. It ran instances of a non-public Anthropic model. The paper and formal proof artifacts are now public, so other people can work through what it produced.

The result concerns how many input bits a classical procedure needs to examine to approximate a quantum algorithm's acceptance probability on most uniformly distributed inputs. Finding influential bits gives that procedure a way to make progress. The scope is average-case query complexity, leaving structured problems such as breaking Bitcoin's signatures a separate question. Researchers now have the argument and proof artifacts to inspect. They can work through the steps, look for mistakes and see whether the result gives them a way to tackle other problems.

IREN's Revenue Is Moving From Mining to AI

IREN brought in $200 million in AI Cloud revenue during the September quarter, up from $71 million in June. Bitcoin mining revenue went the other direction, falling from $67 million to $28 million. Those figures come from the results released November 5. AI Cloud includes lease revenue.

This is the competition for power and infrastructure showing up in a miner's accounts. When AI customers are bidding for the same capacity, miners have to work out whether running bitcoin machines is still their best use of it. IREN is making its choice pretty clear. Getting the new business running on schedule is proving harder. The company pushed its target of more than $4 billion in annualized revenue from year-end into January, potentially February.

⚡ FREEDOM TECH CORNER

DATA SNAPSHOT

Spot price, block height and hashrate estimate: November 6, 2026, 9:54 a.m. ET. Bitcoin Lab daily series and U.S. spot ETF flows: November 5, 2026.

Sources: Kraken spot quote, mempool.space block height and hashrate, Bitcoin Lab daily metrics, and TFTC ETF flows. Daily metrics use the provider’s November 5 observation, not live intraday estimates.

Have a great day, freaks.

Marty Bent · TFTC · Nostr

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