Posts Tagged → america
Trump-Kennedy Center Vacancies Create Opportunity
Nature abhors a vacuum, goes the tried and true adage. This adage is true because wherever an opening occurs in the natural state of things, like a fallow farm field, or a wildfire’s burned out charred hole in the middle of a woods, some plant or animal will find a way to adapt to that unique opening and move into it, make it home. The newly open space creates a home for those who will move into it the fastest, while many cannot or will not leave the comforts of their present niches.
This dynamic fact of life on this planet is the quintessence of competition and adaptation, two primary forces of nature and, as the main tools of God, the main way that living things evolve and develop here.
And so must this same rule apply to the Trump-Kennedy Center in Washington DC, a place I have sat in many times before. Last time was some years ago, to see “War Horse.” Which was quite good as theater goes, which is a big critical compliment from me. See, my theory on theater is that if a play is any good, it will end up as a box office smash movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson, Charlton Heston, etc. et. al.
Every other kind of play will inevitably cause me to slump in my uncomfortable folding chair, and sleep contentedly among the anonymity of a large audience. And also often earning hard nudges from left and right, because apparently I snore when sleeping in public. Most plays are hardly worth the effort of keeping my eyes open.
Which is to say, I am a professional art and theater critic, because I am very experienced, tough to impress, and quite discerning. And I have the acid tongue to match. And thus, my opinion on the ever longer list of “artist” cancellations at the Trump-Kennedy Center is that we now have a gigantic and rare opportunity. In other words, all of the prissy leftist brats who have recently canceled their appearances at the Trump Kennedy Center have left a hole into which other talent can and should move. And it should be new talent, different talent.
Conservative talent.
Patriotic talent. Non-Woke talent. America First talent. Traditional values kind of talent. Stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and cry at the National Anthem kind of talent.
America has a new and ever larger opportunity at the Trump Kennedy Center to showcase pro-America/ pro democracy/ pro elections/ pro open minds/ pro thinking entertainers, artists, circuses, acrobats and tumblers, drunks, comics, poets, and writers. Hell, throw in some Capitol Hill staff skits, and the place should be rockin’.
Point being, the absence of the traditional self-anointed far Left entertainment industry (complex) people has created a vacuum into which a new tradition should step and grow. I am thinking Lynyrd Skynyrd or Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs a la 2026, whoever that may be. Kid Rock would be a good team leader here, maybe the new facility director or artistic creator or whatever silly high falutin’ name the industry typically uses. Except that whatever it is, we need to mock it into oblivion, like put Kid Rock in a top hat and tails and have him put on ramatically fake airs of superiority and faux seriousness.
America needs new curators of popular culture, which has traditionally been established by our artists, actors, and writers, who like a herd of lemmings in the past fifty years have unsustainably embraced economic and cultural anti-America Marxism. And now we have an opportunity to evolve and build an entire new pro-America genre, housed at the Trump Kennedy Center.
Some nameless, talent-less Washington DC based opera company was among those who ridiculously quit the place in a huff because of the partial name change. Turns out this lame group was only a group because they were based at the Trump Kennedy Center. As in housed there, subsidized there, lionized there, cradled there, simply for being there. May I suggest their replacement? A new group?
We, the new group I am promoting, are named The Kings of Toxic Masculinity, and we may not always sound in tune, or get our lines right all the time, but by God, we will be entertaining as hell for any red blooded American who wants to laugh, cry, celebrate America, and not fall asleep in the usual uncomfortable chair.
Hope to see you there, fellow American!
Is it January 2026 or December 1859?
I know the date today is January 13, 2026. But it sure feels like late 1859, after anti-slavery Republicans won America’s national elections and the pro slavery Democrat Party went into violent insurrection mode.
Right now, it appears that pretty much every single Democrat Party run jurisdiction is a haven for illegal invaders, Democrat Party-organized government fraud, and election fraud. It sure appears that every single one of these jurisdictions is against ICE removing illegal aliens, including the illegal alien rapists, murderers, child dealers, etc, so that the illegal aliens can be turned into illegal voters and also be illegally counted in the US Census.
Counting illegal aliens in the US Census (illegally) gives greater proportional representation to areas that harbor illegal aliens, and thus more political power than these areas would otherwise qualify for. This in turn takes away political power from American citizen taxpayers who play by the rules and who follow the law.
Chasing out federal investigators tracking down state government-enabled fraud in federal welfare programs also helps the state Democrat Party avoid accountability. This looks like illegal rebellion to me, but what do I know. I do know that this is not how “democracy” works.
Minnesota may be in the headlines for its well organized Somali-run fraud that is hooked up to the Democrat Party like a Dollar bill firehose, but now there are indications that every single place run by the Democrat Party is like this. Essentially the Democrat Party is a big RICO enterprise, using taxpayer-funded government welfare programs to enable its political efforts. Obviously this is totally illegal and completely at odds with the way America is arranged.
Until now, America has been a trust-based society, with legal accountability for criminal activity. Now, it seems that anyone on the political Left can say or do anything they want, without receiving corrective action. Or worse, they can try to run over a federal officer with their SUV, get shot in defense, and become an overnight martyr.
That the Republican Party is indifferent to this unfolding disaster does not help Americans recapture control of their own nation, politically or culturally. A lot of elected Republicans try to pose as “moderate” which enables them to escape from making any difficult decisions, one way or another. These “Republicans” hold elected office for the insider deals, the prestige, the power, not to zealously represent the interests of their citizens.
That the American Attorney General, Pam Bondi, does not aggressively pursue investigations and federal charges against everyone involved also does not help us Americans recapture our nation from the clutches of criminals and freeloaders. Her inactivity energizes and encourages the rebellion we are witnessing.
Why AG Pam Bondi is inactive is anyone’s guess. Some people muse that she was a RINO plant from the get-go, while others speculate that she immediately folded under the intense pressure of the job, and decided that she would rather go on TV talk shows and get paid tons of money to speak “as a Republican” than to actually do her job and make waves and make enemies.
All I see is an AG who does nothing in her important job. Or next to nothing. On January 6th the statute of limitations passed for holding federal police officers accountable for their civil rights violations against peaceful J6 protestors. We are quickly approaching the end of the statute of limitations for holding various prison officials, FBI agents, DHS agents, and US Marshals accountable for their torture and abuse of J6 prisoners. The list of prospective criminals is long, and the list of AG Bondi’s actions is very brief.
So it appears that the insurrectionist Democrat Party of 1859 is fully back in business. But that political party learned a few tricks in the intervening years after they lost the Civil War to the abolitionist Republicans. The Democrats learned to buy their most reliable dependants through welfare programs and defrauding said welfare programs, rather than trying to coercively enslave these people from the get-go. Yes, the Democrat Party has spoken loudly about disarming and collectivizing and oppressing and enslaving the rest of us Americans who do not embrace their form of Marxism. But in order to do that, the Democrat Party needs as much political power as it can get first and foremost. Hence the illegal voters…
And so we are watching street battles in Minnesota, California, New York, and other Democrat-run cities, where Democrat Party insurgents are pitted against federal agents who are enforcing basic federal law. A ton of naturalized citizens moved to America with zero interest or intention to assimilate into America, and some of them are involved in the most strenuous insurrectionist verbage. These people moved to America not to join it, but to destroy it from within. Why they are not being arrested, denaturalized, and deported is beyond my comprehension. But then see the paragraph above about paralyzed Republicans who are unable to lift a finger against lawlessness…
Right now it sure looks like America in late 1859, as the pro-slavery Democrat Party decided to take on the anti-slavery North, sparking a destructive civil war. I really really hope we avoid that this time around. A firm hand and non-stop one-way flights to distant destinations will stop this crap before it gets fully out of hand. But then see the paragraph above about paralyzed Republicans who are unable to lift a finger against lawlessness…
Good luck, America. I love you! It is still January, and I am really looking forward to a great and successful 2026, not a revisit of 1859 and 1860 and 1861…
Confused…Real Damned Confused
If you are a person who lives your life by simple logic, by a set of basic logical values and related actions that result in your life achieving its maximal happiness or success, then you are joining me in being real. damned. confused. right now.
America has been in nonstop turmoil since 2015, because one group of people who live here, dare we call them Americans, are so desperate for all-controlling power, that they will do anything, say anything, contradict themselves a hundred times, just to sow chaos and conflict, if only to prevent someone else from exercising their power and decision making.
Over the past year we have seen our president stop the outrageous illegal invasion of America by tens of millions of economic vagrants, by sealing our borders. Our president has justifiably and most legally confronted the nonstop flow of illegal killer drugs, like fentanyl, into our nation, by giving the killers a dose of their own medicine. Our president’s new administration has uncovered many, many billions of dollars of brazen government fraud, which is stealing from taxpayers like me and you.
And in response, a group of people, so-called Americans, have every single time taken the side of the illegal border crossers, taken the side of the the drug dealers, taken the side of the dealers in child prostitution, taken the side of the economic migrants committing massive taxpayer fraud within months of arriving here in America.
Back in the Fall, I read a letter-to-the-editor by a candidate for office, which was representative of this bizarre approach to being an American. The letter whines about the supposed lack of “due process” for violent criminals illegally here in America, as they are captured and deported. Grave concern was also expressed by the author for the alleged “due process rights” of the dangerous drug runner terrorists being sunk at sea in their “fishing boats” that are laughably not fishing boats.
Nowhere in this letter does the author, then a candidate for elected office in America, express one molecule of concern for the due process rights (i.e. the implementation of the existing laws to protect Americans from illegal invaders and sadistic drug runners) of her fellow American citizens. American citizens have laws we passed to keep illegal invaders and drug runners from illegally entering America and committing illegal crimes here. That due process should be foremost in the mind of every American, you would expect. But it isn’t, strangely.
And now, now that our president has captured a lawless, election-stealing international drug dealer posing as a head of state who has been on an international WANTED list for years and who has the deaths of hundreds of thousands of young Americans on his hands, now that same confusing group of people, including that former candidate mentioned above, living right here in America, are angry about that. Never mind that many of these same “outraged” people have many times called for the ouster and capture of this same Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela.
Call me confused, because I am. I am really confused about an entire political party that is devoted to identifying with and helping illegal alien fraudsters and child dealers and drug dealers and foreign nations who are America’s sworn enemies. It makes no sense to live here in America, benefit from all of the incredible blessings that we enjoy here in America, and also simultaneously try to destroy America, hurt America, damage America. Especially when one occupies an elected position in government, at any level.
“Domestic enemies” is the term used by America’s founding documents to describe people like this, because clearly they are enemies of America. And a political party that engages in this most confoundingly illogical approach to participating in American politics as official business is a political party that looks a super lot like the same political party (of the same name) that lead an insurrection and secession in 1860 that resulted in our Civil War.
Basic logic dictates that we humans learn from history, and avoid the mistakes and bad things that happened in the human past. No one who is sane and logical should want to live in chaos and confrontation and violence. And yet, America has this, a whole group of people and a whole political party devoted to exactly this kind of chaotic mess.
It was bad enough when they tried to defend the taxpayer fraud committed through USAID programs, uncovered by DOGE. It was bad enough when they tried to defend violent illegal aliens, and treat them as victims when in fact they were repeat rapists, murderers, robbers, burglars. It was bad enough when they provided illegal aliens, who can neither read nor speak English, with commercial driver’s licenses, with the kind of resulting death and mayhem a logical person will expect to see. It was bad enough and super confusing when they objected to illegal drug runner boats, piloted by some of the most cruel, heavily armed, and violent people on our planet, being blown up on their way to America.
And now, all but a very small handful of elected Democrats are strenuously objecting to the capture and trial of Venezuela dictator Nicolas Maduro and the return of huge oil company assets that his predecessor dictator, Hugo Chavez, illegally seized from Americans.
This all seems terribly confusing to me. Especially because many of the most vociferous have previously supported the capture and trial of Maduro, and the return of American assets to their rightful owners. It is as if just raising hell and creating chaos is their way of running America. Which any sane and logical American rejects, because the entire purpose of living in America is to enjoy the stability and benefits of our shared nation.
Once upon a time, I was a registered Democrat Party member. I did not leave them, they left me. Today, I cannot understand how any American can still affiliate or identify with this lawless group of destructive people. Please feel free to explain yourself; I am all ears, and just real. damned. confused.
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Happy New Year, America!
Happy New Year, America!
And yes, it sure is happy! The year 2026 marks America’s 250th anniversary, which is a big accomplishment.
Like many other people I know, I share in a general feeling of optimism about America’s future, both short term and long term. I am seeing prices of things that are important to me every day, like gasoline, come down significantly, while other things increase in value, not simply cost, like gold and silver, as a measure of anticipated American-based manufacturing.
The idea of having American manufacturing jobs again is thrilling. Manufacturing jobs once sustained whole American families, and communities. And then busy-body know-it-alls decided it was better for China to have unfettered pollution and also unfettered economic growth. I have never figured out how anyone who cares about America or a clean environment promoted that outcome as a solution to water and air quality challenges here.
All 1970s environmentalism did was shift the pollution from being scientifically managed here in America to being completely unmanaged and unmitigated and unmeasured in China. Sure looks like the environmentalists just wanted to undermine America, at any cost. Which means the environmemtal movement wasn’t about environmental quality; rather, it was about economic warfare against America.
And I got to see that personally as an EPA policy staffer in Washington, DC. Not good. This is being corrected as I write these words.
Anyhow, while there is a lot of political unhappiness and fraudulent crookery going on in the news, my spirits remain high. America is on a good trajectory, and hopefully I get to ride along on that successful arc, along with everyone else who wants to earn their money honestly.
Wishing everyone a Happy New Year, a successful New Year, a healthy New Year. See you in 2026!
Hanuka’s meaning for America
Tonight is the last night of Hanuka, and it is important to say that this holiday is still important for America, even if 99% of Americans don’t observe it, don’t know what the Menorah stands for. Those who do not want to be consigned to the dustbin of history can learn lessons from history, apply those lessons, and win. Hanuka presents modern freedom-loving Americans with a history lesson in never giving up, sticking to your principles, and always pursuing freedom, no matter what it takes to persevere.
Often called the “festival of the lights” in an effort to make it sound all cheery n’ stuff, Hanuka is in fact a commemmoration of a long, hard-fought, quite bloody civil war military campaign in Israel 2,400 years ago. That conflict restored Jewish control over Jerusalem and with it, the traditional (Biblical) service in the Great Temple there.
Christians take note of two things: Without the Jews winning the war, there would have been no Jesus/ Yeshua 400 years later, and note also that Christmas, which is America’s national holiday, is marked on the 25th of December. Hanuka begins on the 25th day of Kislev, the Hebrew calendar’s winter month. Jesus was a Jew, the Apostles were all Jews, most of the early Christians were Jews, and when it came time to create a new holiday for Christians, Christmas was set on the same date as Hanuka. There are no coincidences here.
Another important thing to take note of here: While the war ending in the “miraculous” discovery of a bottle of kosher olive oil hidden away in the Great Temple is often described as Jew vs Greek, it was also very much Traditional/ Orthodox Jew vs Liberal Jew, allied with the Greeks. In other words, a bloody tension has always existed between the liberal Jews and the Orthodox Jews, and it is only suspended when both groups are being chased down the same street together by mindless mobs who hate all Jews.
During the civil war that Hanuka marks, the blood of all combatants flowed abundantly, as this was no simple “spiritual battle” as the holiday is often described. Hanuka was not won by those who engaged solely in “spiritual” type behavior, like praying really really hard. Mean “X” tweets were not met with spicy retorts, and the loser then shut up and hid in shame.
Nope, a lot of blood flowed, as a result of years of close quarters combat with edged weapons. The Greeks and the liberal Jews lost more blood, and more lives, than the traditional/ orthodox “Maccabee” Jews, who ended up taking back what had been taken from them, by force: Jerusalem (another related history lesson: Judaism is Zionism, which is the 3,500-year-old religious movement to keep Jews living in Zion/ Israel/ Judea. The Maccabees were Zionists).
Key word here being “force.” The fighting was not mere words contained within the walls of the Oxford Union Debate Club, or other academic classrooms. It was borne out in hand-to-hand physical contest, which the most determined will usually win.
Hanuka’s lesson for freedom-loving Americans today, right now, is (and somehow I just know that you have heard this phrase somewhere before in recent times)… Fight! Fight! Fight!
Be determined, strong, and of brave spirit, because President Trump is not going to be in office forever.
Menorah = Freedom everywhere, including in America
Two Hollywood legends I will actually miss
Normally I am not a fan of Hollywood in any sense. In recent times, including just days ago, America lost two Hollywood legends, two actors who personified Hollywood at its best and maybe its worst, but also at its most colorful. I will miss them both, for very different reasons.
First up is Rob Reiner, apparently murdered two days ago by his own son. Both Rob and his wife Michelle were found deceased in their home by their daughter. Their throats had been slashed. Their son Nick has been arrested and charged with their murders. Apparently Nick has had a long history of drug abuse and all of the resulting relationship challenges that come with it. We now see the gruesome result, and can easily imagine the victims disbelievingly pleading with their own son not to harm them…
…their murders are a tragedy on its face, as well as a statement about the unworkable culture that is “inside Hollywood.” A mix of libertine excess and constant parental indulgence and allowance followed by inexorable failure. What a symbol of the whole place.
Rob Reiner really began his Hollywood career as “Meathead,” the abrasively sanctimonious know-it-all liberal son-in-law of appropriately named American workingman archetype, Archie Bunker, in All In The Family TV sitcom.
Relying on a well-scripted, well-played political and cultural tension between old guard Archie Bunker and Hippie “Meathead,” Rob Reiner gave effective voice to his generation’s anti-war, anti-tradition, anti-religion, anti-America liberalism.
The show captured the “generation gap” of my 1960s-1970s childhood, where older Americans held the traditional values that built a fully functioning nation, and the younger Americans were utopian meatheads with unrealistic, unsustainable expectations guaranteed to derail the nation.
Confusingly, Rob Reiner never grew up or let go of his Meathead persona, nor his destructive goofball political views. I suppose to his credit, in a way, neither have nearly all of his contemporary eldering-in-place fellow ever-child meathead Hippies. I will miss his entertaining online rants against Trump, MAGA, conservatives, Republicans, regular working Americans, essentially against everything outside of the tiny bizarro world Hollywood bubble that Rob Reiner inhabited.
Rob Reiner created the living liberal strawman that conservatives easily use to prove their points. In essence, Meathead grew up proving that Archie Bunker was right, decade after decade. And so, as much as he was strange, he also contributed well to the American political discourse. Rest in peace, Mr. Reiner. I am genuinely sorry you left us in this horrible way.
The other Hollywood person who recently left us is actor, producer, film maker Robert Redford. Easily the best looking man in American history, and also the one Hollywood actor least addicted to plastic surgery as he aged, Redford inhabited a very different cultural place than Reiner.
Famous for playing a variety of all-American hero and anti-hero roles, from gritty to suave, from cowboy to playboy, Robert Redford was a fixture in Hollywood for a really long time. He also fueled the Sundance Film Festival, an alternative to Hollywood, where low-budget art films and documentaries could gain audience and funding outside of Hollywood’s metrics and politics.
One of my favorite Redford movies is Spy Game, with Brad Pitt. Redford plays the role of a CIA spook and patriot, who in a former job as Cold War spy went so far as to unilaterally murder/ execute a known American traitor in Europe. This role alone sends a loud message about Redford’s politics: He was no leftist, no Hollywood commie, but rather he was a true American patriot in every conservative sense of the phrase.
But Redford also promoted environmental quality, and public lands, two things that are close to my own heart and not always present in the conservative movement. Not that Redford followed the leftist doctrine of heavy regulation and anti capitalism, but rather, he simply said that these things are important. And of course, they are important. And there are other ways of achieving environmental quality and public lands conservation without following leftist doctrine. Such a moderate stance is unheard of among Hollywooders.
Redford played very well a famous, iconic role that still speaks to men of my generation, that of historic mountain man Jeremiah Johnson. Filmed right before the 1976 American Bicentennial, Jeremiah Johnson captured the spirit of the American frontier, Westward expansion, Manifest Destiny, rugged individualism, self reliance, urban vs rural, and the European-American conflicts with the western Indian tribes (Crow, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Pawnee, Lakota and others) in the Rockies.
Many of these themes and character traits are still central to the American identity that us older Americans have. Including Archie Bunker.
Jeremiah Johnson promoted the now-underappreciated but still central role of undeveloped American open lands in forging the tough American frontier spirit and Yankee ingenuity that built our nation. That conservatives miss or ignore this link, or misunderstand it, is just as much a crime as leftist attempts to essentially shrinkwrap public lands and make them off-limits to humans.
Robert Redford represents an image and political philosophy almost at the other end of Rob Reiner’s place on the political bell curve. Both men played important parts in shaping American culture, and I appreciate them both. However, Robert Redford will forever be an aspirational icon, whereas Rob Reiner represents a dead end on the political evolutionary tree.
Robert Redford as Jeremiah Johnson, iconic American frontiersman
Much, much to be thankful for in America
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and there is so much to be thankful for here in America. Let’s start with the “small” things, which we take for granted:
-Surfeit of food, of all tastes, colors, varieties, amounts. At bear hunting camp this week (pictures below), people brought a wide variety and overwhelming amount of snack food, in addition to the high quality main course ingredients. Super rich, high-calorie, high fat, mostly sugar and corn syrup as the first or second ingredient, this “snack” stuff could feed an African village for a week. But it is practically poison here in America. We take it for granted, and often reach for it out of boredom, never out of need. It is killing our health, with way too many Americans obese and diabetic. The good stuff, like amazingly abundant and cheap fresh fruit and vegetables, does not blast our palates with artificial flavor, and is shunted aside.
-Paved roads, which are not common in much of the world. Americans like our paved highways and by-ways, everywhere. They are enjoyable to drive on, and are so smooth that we can eke every possible bit of gas mileage efficiency out of our personal vehicles as we shave minutes off of long distance trips. Importantly, our highways are made from quarried rock and oil pumped out of the ground.
-Personal vehicles are not a get-to-work or manage-the-farm necessity for half of America, but are rather the higher-end personal statement of appearance and perception, of how we want others to see us. Meanwhile, half the world still uses horses, donkeys, and cattle to transport food and goods. The next time our personal car gets a scratch, let’s remember that a vehicle is but a tool, and tools get used and scratched. Let’s not take these super expensive tools for granted.
-Shelter, like a home, has rapidly changed in concept in just a few decades. Our grandparents aspired to own a home of about 900 square feet in size. And while we mocked 1980s tyrant Imelda Marcos for her huge closets and psycho big shoe collections, a lot of car garages are now about 900 square feet, while the homes they are attached to are 3,500 square feet. Meanwhile, our own families have shrunk in size since the 1950s, compared to our grandparents’, but our homes are generally exploding in opulent size and personal service.
While I do not question or judge market forces like supply and demand, we must be thankful for what we have available to us, dammit. The tin shanty favelas surrounding Mexico City were filled with domesticated animals and pobrecitos human beings, all under one small leaky roof made of rusty corrugated metal; the things I saw then still haunt me even now.
I am not trying to be a scold or a downer, but man oh gees, do we as a nation need to be super duper thankful to each other and to the One Above for all the blessings this incredible America enjoys. If we take these myriad blessings for granted, then we will take anything and everything for granted, including each other. And when people take each other for granted, their relationships fail. American citizens need to have a close relationship with each other and with our self-representative government. It all goes together, hand in glove.
Tomorrow, we must all give deep thanks for what we have, and show appreciation for it all. Not the least of which is living in the wealthiest, freest nation ever created by humans.
Happy Thanksgiving, my fellow American citizens!
A 1970s Grohmann “skinner” knife gifted to me by a friend whose dad hunted with me. It was dull as dishwater until Irv worked his magic on it. It now shaves hair and has a heavy dose of home-made cutting board butter on the rosewood handle. It goes deer hunting this weekend.
The bear we caught up in our Monday drive, seen here back in July. Estimated at well over 7′ and 600-700 pounds, he escaped with but a scratch from an excited hunter who did not take his time and aim carefully. Photo by Bob G., thank you.
The Ruger Marlin 1895 45-70 in the mountaintop laurel jungle minutes before our drive made contact with the big bear.
When shot wild and excitedly, twelve gauge copper slugs will kill only trees, and not the bear-of-five-lifetimes
Light blood trail went for 1500 feet, and then disappeared. We determined his left front leg had been nicked, not hard. Lucky bear, sad hunter
Sad hunter makes the universal “I can’t believe I did that” gesture of frustration back at camp. Yeah, you will never see another 700 pound bear on a drive in PA, old friend
Who is MAGA? What is MAGA?
Quite a bit of debate going on about the Make America Great Again movement started by candidate Donald Trump in 2015. Now that the movement to get Donald Trump elected succeeded a third time, and his policy goals are being implemented, the next question becomes “Whither MAGA?”
The question of why any American opposes the mere concept of Make America Great Again is beyond me. Why an entire political party has defined itself as opposing everything that a president does, including pledging to demolish the privately funded ballroom addition he is overseeing on the White House, is a question more for psychiatrists than political scientists. Trump Derangement Syndrome is real, it is measureable, it is quantifiable, and it is probably operationally definable, if some enterprising PhD student wants to contribute something useful to an otherwise useless, politicized, and anti-ideas moribund academia.
Americans suffering from TDS have a real problem, and I hope they get it treated professionally. On the flip side, conservative patriots like moi viscerally despised impostor Barack Hussein Obama, but not to the point of irrationally opposing even the occasional good things he did. You know, throwing out the baby with the bath water. Not that I can recall good things that Obama did, but probably there were some, like adding new acreage to a national park somewhere.
More to the moment are the questions of who is MAGA and who runs MAGA and what will become of this political movement when Preisdent Trump terms out of office. Who in the world of politics will pick up Trump’s mantle, his movement, and reassemble the successful team for future campaigns?
Right now a bunch of professional pundits have claimed the MAGA gatekeeper role for themselves. Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Roger Stone, maybe Alex Jones, and a few other public opinion figures who make their living from speaking into a microphone and to a camera continue to make strident statements about MAGA, as if they own it, define it, speak for it. Other political pundits, like Dinesh D’Souza, Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, et al, certainly speak to and about MAGA principles, but they make no open claims to actually own or represent MAGA.
I reject all of these people, and anyone, frankly, from claiming this role. Even President Trump no longer really “owns” this movement that he created ten years ago.
This whole question, raging though it may be, reminds me of the whole predecessor Tea Party movement that began in 2008-2009 in Central Pennsylvania. No sooner had someone, and I won’t bother to research who it was who dubbed this grass roots voters backlash against the woeful Republican Party establishment and its hand-holding big brother Democrat Party, but immediately, anyone involved in conservative politics, conservative political activism, issue activism, or donating to conservative or GOP political campaigns, was awash in Tea Party related emails, appeals, mailers, brochures.
Quite a few so-named “Tea Party” 501(c)(4) groups were formed in 2008-2012. Even more related LLCs were formed. All were run by aggressive business people who sensed an opportunity to make money from politics yet again, and who appealed to voters and activists as being leaders who best captured and represented Tea Party ideals and principles. Many of these people claimed to be moral leaders, leaders of morality and ideological purity. Most of these people and their groups and organizations were shams, frauds, fakes, and did not stand the test of time. They are found few and far between today as part of the MAGA movement or cause, having been exposed as simple opportunists.
On the opposite end of this spectrum sits people like yours truly, my past political campaigns, and this blog, who have never made a net gain penny from politics, but who instead continue to hemorrhage personal money in the cause of political dialogue, policy debate, individual freedom, small government, accountable government, constitutional principles, our nation’s founding principles, etc.
I can also think of a few tireless, devoted political advocates here in Pennsylvania, who I will not name in full, who continue to donate their personal time and money to the cause of First Principles, without hope or expectation of remuneration. Dean, Ron, Jim, Jeff and others have all stood the test of time since our collective political arousal in 2008-2009. Yes, others have risen up to contribute their voice to the cause of freedom, and honest elections, but they also seek to make a living doing it. That is a business endeavor, not a selfless devotion.
Despite plenty of political activism in the 1980s, as a conservative Central PA Democrat, my own first personal try at elected office was in 2009-2010, when I ran as a Tea Party conservative Republican candidate for US Congress here in Central PA. I ran for state senate in 2012 and 2015, eventually removing myself from a great race for state senate in late 2015, due to a severely injured knee obtained while bear hunting. Back-to-back surgeries on what had been my “good” knee in January 2016 eliminated my ability to do what I enjoyed and did best, going door to door and meeting voters. It marked the end of my interest in elected office. But not the end of my interest in politics.
In 2015 I became full-blown MAGA, despite plenty of mockery from establishment Republicans serving on county GOP committees. Their 2016 “Dump Trump” slogan failed, as their shallow RINO candidates failed.
2016 marked the end of the Tea Party, as it morphed from a broad, ground-up, grass-roots-led freedom movement into the MAGA movement led by one Donald Trump. Trump used that movement of First Principle America lovers to get elected to office. Now that he succeeded, I do not think anyone can justifiably claim to lead it, or own it, or speak for it. Not even Trump.
I now look at people like Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson the same way that I looked (sideways) at the people who came out of the shadows in 2008-2010 to claim un-earned leadership roles and money-making opportunities in the Tea Party. That populist movement may have finally found its footing under a new name, MAGA, and it may have elevated some people who spoke or occasionally speak our language, but it is wholly owned by you and me, citizen voters.
The strength of the Tea Party and its MAGA incarnation is that we Americans spoke to each other in town halls and municipal meeting rooms and at rallies. This was the most authentic voice and debate possible.
Each of us has an equal voice in this. People who make money and a living from this movement are automatically suspect in my eyes. They can’t possibly be in this for the right reason.
And like the big family we American citizens are, you and I can argue and bicker and sometimes disagree with one another about policy and candidates. But not one of us is a gate keeper for our collective movement, and no one we might want as a spokesman, would have the ridiculous arrogance to claim such a role.
The Warrior Ethos
The warrior ethos, also known as “purity of one’s weaponry,” has defined humanity since humans began. Stronger humans dominate weaker humans, and weaker animals, whether people like it or not. This has been the established rule among humans until very recent times.
Western civilization’s unbelievable material success has bred complacency among us, and an assumption that America is too big to fail. A sense that we can experiment widely with hating ourselves, hating the civilization that feeds and clothes us, hating others who are smarter, stronger, more hard working, more successful. A resulting freak show array of faux self-martyrdom aka virtue signaling now delineates the political Left from Americans simply trying to do a job, feed their family etc.
Today’s virtue signaling public is especially repugnant, because its practitioners pretend that they are giving up things they need. Despite dramatic statements, tattoos, bumper stickers, aligning themselves with drug dealers and child traffickers and violent felonious illegal border crossers, they do not actually give up anything but their credibility. Their virtue signaling is empty, and costs nothing. It is done to make them feel good about themselves, at whatever cost to everyone else.
One of the things targeted by leftist virtue signalers is the warrior ethos. An enormous fabricated cultural Marxism house of cards social construct was created to try to eliminate/ cancel/ punish those Americans with the warrior ethos, aka “toxic masculinity”, so that the weaker, whinier, dumber, less productive and less useful people could do the dominating for once.
Yes, weak, whiny, annoying humans also want to dominate, bully, control, get their way over others. But until recent years, they could not do so. DEI, affirmative action, and political correctness were the government coercion-enforced means of unnaturally, artificially, unwholesomely overturning a million years of warrior ethos. Deliberately promoting fat, weak, stupid people over lean, fit, intelligent people was the very emblem of virtue signaling success.
And yet, despite the decades-long government bureaucrat utopian assault on men and boys and human nature, the warrior ethos slumbered in the bosom of millions of Americans. It roared back to life in defiance a year ago, electing an American president devoted to the tried and true old ways of being a wholesome human on this planet.
Yes, our military is seeing an enormous resurgence of popularity, and with it are higher recruitment numbers. National pride is back in style, instead of the anti American public flagellation commonly promoted in the establishment media and rejected by most Americans. But….
….last week the same Americans who elected a warrior ethos president in 2024 went back to sleep, and they did not ride the wave or take the fight to the enemy. Despite losing cultural standard bearer Charlie Kirk just a couple months ago, these American voters apparently forgot, also under the evil spell that America is too big to fail. They did not bother to vote.
These words are written on the backs of American military veterans, whose 250 years of sacrifice make possible every opportunity and happy moment Americans enjoy. Instead of being dominated by Russia, or Iran, Americans still self-rule, and, strangely, self-flagellate. I am unsure if America is able to educate and vote its way out of the cultural impasse we are in right now.
Obviously, I want peace and peaceful resolution to the stark political and cultural differences that divide us. But I also increasingly wonder if the old men, even the ancient men of American militaries past will one day have to fight our own spoiled brat children in American streets for control of this nation. These aging and old men are really the last vestige, the last memory we have of the old Warrior Ethos that won America its freedom from Britain 250 years ago, and held onto it until our own domestic enemies became strong enough to tear it all down from the inside.
These old Veterans may yet save America, just on her own shores next time. Happy Veterans Day, I suppose.
The old warriors can still save the day
US Army Corps of Engineers: America’s Black Hole in Need of Cosmic Level Fixing
Because it is a relatively small part of our big military and kept in a dusty back room far from the shiny B-2 bombers, the US Army Corps of Engineers has been off the radar of legislators and commanders-in-chief alike since George Washington ended his presidency.
But in the intervening 250 years since its founding, the USACE has gone from building bridges for troops and cannons, to aggressively stealing private property rights and forcing a Marxist environmentalist agenda on domestic citizens under the guise of “civil works.” Of all the federal agencies I have dealt with professionally and personally, including USEPA where I worked for seven years, the USACE has had the biggest mission creep in the worst directions of all. So, for USACE’s 250th birthday this year, can we please give Americans a gift of freedom, and see this most hidebound, insular, destructive, over-reaching, and unaccountable agency finally get the keelhaul overhaul that Americans deserve?
Not that I am rooting for Navy here, but our sacred Army has no business getting its good hands dirty with the USACE’s lawlessness. Big change must happen there, and with fresh new appointees from the Trump Administration, hope should be on the horizon. I hope these appointees are tough as nails, because they are facing a deeply entrenched bureaucracy as jealous of its ill-gotten power as any other federal agency has been, and they have the arrogant, dismissive staff culture to show for it.
USACE “manages” 12.5 million acres of formerly private land, much of it associated with water projects for hydropower, flood control, and public recreation. Sounds useful and wholesome enough: Waterskiing, fishing, hiking, families picnicking, with downstream communities protected from heavy rains up in the watersheds. Problem is, most of USACE’s flood control lakes are heavily silted in and barely functioning as advertised or designed. And probably 95% of this enormous land collection was obtained at gunpoint, through eminent domain against private American landowners, including the Seneca Nation, who still have a formal land treaty with the US government that was reached with George Washington himself, and which the USACE violated.
Absolutely nothing and no one is sacred to the USACE; not the US Constitution, not us citizens, not our property rights.
Anyone familiar with federal eminent domain knows it is rife with abuse and below-market values forced on private landowners for the most frivolous purposes. And while some federal agencies will attempt to reach willing-seller-willing-buyer agreements before going nuclear, the USACE just used legal sledgehammers against American landowners right from the get-go, because screwdrivers have never been in their toolbox.
But the situation is worse than just USACE’s rampant takings of privately owned lands that could have easily served the USACE’s goals while remaining in private ownership. Back in the 1950s-1970s good ol’ days of “Big Government Knows Best,” when the agency was most active, the USACE also stripped many of its condemned properties of their valuable subsurface oil, gas and or mineral rights, too, without paying for them. Not content with taking the surface rights for managing surface water, the agency simply took what it wanted and dared the beaten-down landowners to try to beat them in government courts. Today, millions of Americans are deprived of substantial and highly valuable subsurface private property rights at nearly every single USACE water resource project. These oil, gas, and mineral rights should be in their families’ private ownership, but are wasting away under USACE theft and neglect.
A group of military engineers and their civilian hangers-on have no business running public recreation facilities on American soil. The USACE’s job started as support of military combat troops in 1775, and it is incredible that we are having this discussion in 2025. The marrying of USACE hydroelectric dams and flood control facilities to public service recreation has not worked, because the agency’s staff developed a culture of untouchable bullies. The US military is not supposed to operate on American soil, for damned good reasons, but the USACE does so, with predictably bad results.
USACE is over-ripe for huge change. At the very least USACE needs the deep cleaning treatment of staff and structure that chief administrator Lee Zeldin is doing over at USEPA. USACE’s “civil works” must be spun off to actual civilian oversight and management in the agencies that have historically done this kind of public service and natural resource management. Nearly all of USACE’s physical assets should be moved to the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, and the US Forest Service, all of which have much better track records dealing with public service than the USACE. Which is saying a lot, because all of these federal agencies have had real rough patches in their public land management history and public service interface cultures, too.
Josh First wrote his 1991 master’s thesis on the USACE’s nationwide water resource projects, and, ironically, has randomly ended up owning substantial acreages adjoining two USACE water resource projects in Pennsylvania as an entrepreneur. He will write about his own related experiences with USACE in future essays.
This essay originally appeared at American Thinker.