The recent whirlwind of opinions by Jose “Chille” DeCastro has left many heads spinning as he’s gone from declaring that he had to tone down his attacks on police to be “more electable” and less than a week later he changed his mind, making screaming attacks in voice mails to police across the nation.
DeCastro apparently came out of jail with a sense that he was the force to unite America. In his first few live streams, he avoided calling police derogatory names and directly insulting them and, in a famous address nine days ago, told his fans that he needed to work with the police instead of against them in changing the system.
Almost immediately after he made those statements, he faced backlash from his fans who said he went too far. They didn’t like his pro police comments and seemed to reject any idea of helping police or working with police at all.
It was about the same time as all of his fellow “independent journalists” rejected his idea of his “union of journalists” and put on a mass gathering without him. Firmly rejecting any idea that he could lead them, as even at a structured event of the world’s greatest “independent journalists” resulted in chaos.
But one thing was clear: They had no respect for DeCastro and would be impossible to force into a “union” under his command, let alone one where they would pay him dues in order to take orders from him.
DeCastro took several days off in the face of both disasters and returned to form, attacking, baiting and lying about police to support his relentless sales pitch for his 5A Cop Card and “Indestructible” Trifold products.
In his latest four-hour diatribe against police, DeCastro, dropping an offensive “Southern accent” he experimented with earlier in the week. He called three different police forces, left vulgar and degrading messages and demanded change from one poor police lieutenant who seemed surprised that DeCastro didn’t know that change had to come from the legislature, not the force themselves.
He also openly stated that he sat up at night wondering when it was his time to be governor, what he could do to speed up the process, and who he would fire and subject to criminal charges once he wins the governorship and brings about change nationwide.
Once he picks a state. Makes a platform. Forms a campaign. Gets enough signatures to be on the ballot (where required), etc. Which all should be part of “step one” and not some sort of secret he needs to hide from his enemies.
Instead of progressing, Thursday night’s broadcast was more of the same. Empty promises meant to move sales for trifolds and 5A Cop cards dominated the night. Screaming at police officers or answering machines was sure entertaining, but did it really move the needle?
DeCastro has 614,000 subscribers. Less than 500 are attracted to his lives, and the current live is sitting at a little over 6,000 viewers, hours after his broadcast. His fellow “independent journalists,” many with much smaller fanbases, double or even triple his viewership organically each broadcast, and even protégé Michael Ehline often does 10 times his viewership to just a handful of live viewers.
So, is anything he’s doing working?
The low numbers for such a huge subscriber base say that the answer to the question is “no.” Add the fact that his viewers aren’t situated in one region, one state even, and the number of true believers who he’d count on to propel his campaign to victory.
Unless it’s just a ruse to sell trifolds and 5A Cop cards. He can get by forever saying what would be “if only,” but as he rapidly ages, his health declines and his ability to attract young voters fades, if he’s ever going to be governor he needs to start the campaign now.
Forget the trifolds, forget the cop cards, forget the nightly ego masturbation sessions, pick as state, put a platform together, get on the ballot and do something. While we think he has no chance in hell of winning, he’d at least stop staring at the ceiling (or crying into his pillow) wondering what would happen “if only” he took the first step to the governorship.
