Well...he is an Air Force officer. Trump is the top official in the military chain of command. Of course he would salute/render honors. But yes, that was heartfelt. And I would, too. I consider it the Lord's timing that my service reentry is during the Trump/Vance era.
The wrestling match was like the against-all-odds take-down of the Left by Trump, which is a "work in process" and requires all of our participation.
If the vote is trued-up, the Left is finished. They're not coming back into power until they stop the craziness. Putting men in women's locker rooms where everyone is naked is crazy. Telling toddlers they may have been born in the wrong body is crazy. Sterilizing our youth during puberty or just before is immoral. Aborting full-term infants as they're being born is wicked. Keeping poor kids in bad schools is life-destroying.
I'm all for immigration--legal and based on some sane criteria. Birthright citizenship has got to be modified--birthright citizenship if the mother has a right to be here.
Here's a song called "Simple Gifts" I've been listening to lately about "turning round right." (It's from the Shakers, who are expiring due to their anti-natalism--but otherwise, they were pretty amazing Christians. They're all in heaven now, without progeny.
Rod: Last night, I was talking with a retired military officer. He was telling me how happy he is that Trump is righting so many woke wrongs. Yet, he said, “This is all happening so fast and so powerfully that I can’t help wondering what’s going to happen when the other side gets back into power. Are they going to come at us like this?”
My beloved friend, I've written here a few times about the cyclic nature of human history, how the formerly downtrodden and oppressed come to power, and immediately start taking revenge on those they replaced in the seats of power. Please tell the honored military officer that should he live long enough, he will see it.
I'm grieving. I read your description of your "dei" obstruction from a job. I read your "I wish in retrospect I weren’t so damn Southern, so that I could have mustered a hearty f-you." I am hoping I'm wrong that you were (and are) gloating in a vengeful manner. If you were/are, I can only muster a "Bless your heart."
Our American downtrodden and oppressed are vastly more than LGBT+, women, people of color. They are nearly every citizen and child who looks upon Trump and Vance as they proceed with explicitly scorched-earth tactics against the people and things that they hate. Yes, they hate them. No, I don't believe that's entirely accurate, but those downtrodden and oppressed WILL SEE IT EXACTLY THAT WAY. THEY ARE HATED.
When I met J.D., he deeply impressed me with his quiet self-confidence and intellect. He was erudite when he spoke. I desperately want you to explain to me how he has not sold his soul to the Trumpian Devil to fulfill his political ambitions.
Trumpian devil? And how do you characterize Biden, who was hell-bent on destroying the country and maybe starting WW3, if there was enough money in it for him and his crime family.
Evidence of Trump's corruption and fraud goes back for decades. I don't need to compare to Biden -- I have my list of criticisms of him and Obama -- to use that epithet for Trump. If you have a direct rebuttal about that, I would like to see it.
Did Trump have to grant 11-year "get-out-of-jail-free" cards to family members and Cabinet members and Congressional members before leaving office using a robo-pen operated by an assistant, with no cognition? How many billions did Trump steal from the Walmart employees in a money-laundering operation through Ukraine? Did Don Jr. negotiate 10% for "the big guy"? Yeah, they're all corrupt. It's just that Biden and Obama and the Clintons are MORE corrupt. Did Trump steal an election? Did Trump redirect Haitian emergency relief billions to themselves and their friends? Get 1,000,000 people killed in a phony proxy war that was designed from the outset to be a money-laundering operation for Left-directed "Dark Money Pools", 10% for the "big guy" and his son?
Franklin already explained that his criticisms of Biden and Obama are not necessary to offer criticisms of Trump. I will say, for myself, that Trump, Biden, Clinton, and Harris all have their grievous faults -- just different ones. The laundry list for one does not restore the reputation of the others.
Not paying one's bills when one presumably can is a despicable behavior that one finds occasionally among the entitled rich. There should be a special circle in hell for that.
The left is merely reaping the whirlwind they've sown. One day the Trumpists may reap the whirlwind they are now sowing. We can say it SHOULDN'T be that way, but hasn't it in fact been this way since time immemorial? Actions have consequences; for every action there is a reaction. And so the pendulum swings
My point, and I risk being pompous about it, is that we also have iconic examples of attempts to stop that pendulum and take a compassionate and moral path. I am the product of that pendulum. My mother was a Holocaust survivor. My father was an officer in the Yugoslav army fighting a hopeless battle against communist partisans and Nazi and Italian imperialists. No one person can stand against the pendulum with any effect. Maybe I'm just shouting into the wind, but I can't remain silent.
Of course, I think you are fine and I'm happy for compassionate people who are not on the right (? - I don't know all your politics) to comment. Could you say more about "we also have iconic examples of attempts to stop that pendulum and take a compassionate and moral path.", i.e., which examples inspire you?
What concerns me is who rides in on the next whirlwind. That's important. I'm not interested in "resistance to Trump." He's in office for a while. The courts will, and should restrain him some, but he'll do a lot of what he wants. We need to build what comes next and shove the Dems off to the sidelines.
"They are nearly every citizen and child who looks upon Trump and Vance as they proceed with explicitly scorched-earth tactics against the people and things that they hate."
Things that they hate. Well, A lot of us don't much like those 'things' either.
"Trumpian Devil". Wow, ok. Funny thing is that you probably see yourself as the voice of reason.
Yeah, things they hate . . . the sexual mutilation of children, the prolonging of wars that can't be won by they side we're supporting and the consequent piling up of dead bodies, the destruction of women's sports, violence and chaos on college campuses, the teaching of divisive social theories that aren't rooted in fact . . . just a start.
"the prolonging of wars that can't be won by they side we're supporting and the consequent piling up of dead bodies"
The person ultimately responsible for this, you Putinist hack, is that great 'defender of Western Civilization' Mad Vlad. That you equate the pushback against the murder (and mass-kidnapping) of Ukrainians with a bunch of domestic woke garbage is delusional.
“Putinist hack?” You do know that the United States and the European Union has violated every agreement made with both the Soviet Union and with Russia since the end of the Cold War? Then there was the American orchestrated coup in Ukraine and its support of the Ukrainian neonazis’ takeover of the Ukrainian government?
Hi Tucker! You must desperate if you're immediately going to the 'neonazis' card as your rebuttal. I'm eager for your follow up on how Churchill actually cause WW2.
But seriously, Ukraine is dominated by neo-Nazis who murdered their way into power. That the government controlled press has refused to cover this since the American overthrow of the previous Ukrainian government does not change anything. This can be true and the invasion of Ukraine can be illegal at the same time.
Blame America First was no prettier when it was the Left mainly doing it. News flash: Foreigners have agency too, and they can get up to their own dirty deeds with the US orchestrating them.
Plenty of dictators and oligarchs have become willing tools of the American Empire. This is how the United States runs its empire with its offers of silver or lead(bullet). Evil working with evil.
"Scorched-earth tactics"..... Seriously? I don't disagree with the potential for the pendulum to swing back against conservatives but it's hyperbolic to say Trump is using scorched-earth tactics. He is only returning our Government and country back to what was considered normal around 10 years ago.
It's hardly scorched-earth tactics to:
* Secure our borders
* Stop life-changing gender transitions of minor children without parental involvement
* Stop wasteful and corrupt Government spending, particularly that funneled to NGO's enriching former politicians and elites
* Stop violence against Jewish students and violent protests on campuses
* Deport violent criminal illegal aliens, including those on student visas or green cards
* Prevent "forever wars" and US spending money we don't have being world's policeman, which makes us a key target of terrorists.
It's true the last item was not normal previously, since both parties have been enabling wars in past years. Yet, it's good for Trump to change that practice. I'm sure I'm missing items on this list, which others can add if they want.
None of these things reflect hatred. They only reflect a return to common sense.
No, Trump is not returning the country to what was considered normal ten years ago. He is capriciously and almost randomly destroying a good chunk of what this country has been for the past sixty years or so. In the process, he is throwing out some things that deserve to be thrown out, but its a big like breaking all the windows in the house to throw the garbage into the rose garden.
You're entitled to your opinion but what do you have to offer that actually refutes what I listed above as normal 10 years ago?
Trump clearly and openly campaigned on what he would do. You might not agree he received a mandate but he clearly won a decisive election victory. He's doing what he was elected to do. Which was to make major changes quickly.
Our borders have been insecure for most of our history, and this has been a political point of discussion under almost every president in that time. Nor is the list you offered a comprehensive overview of constitutional government. Its a few hot button issues that play well. Most of us could have solved them without the self-serving chaos Trump is creating.
Trump is like the old mercury treatment for syphilis. It could heal the disease, but it also left the patient with a lifetime legacy of mercury poisoning.
That has been the fundamental problem for the past 8-10 years or more. We are stuck with the decrepit duopoly who insist "you have to pick one of us -- nobody else gets to be taken seriously." Trump was a challenge to traditional GOP leadership, but once he won (barely) they embraced him as their new champion.
Re: Stop life-changing gender transitions of minor children without parental involvement
What has Trump done in that matter (and again, what you are talking about is rarer than hen's teeth)? This sort of things strikes me as something that should be left to the states.
Enough with the hysteria. Explain to me one (1) single thing that Trump is doing that oppresses American citizens.
You can't, because there is nothing there. It's all smoke and mirrors claiming Trump is a raging dictator, all emotional screeching without evidence. This is exactly why liberals have no respect among the below 30 crowd. It's a constant stream of delusional whining while they sweep real evils under the rug. Everyone with half a brain knows Trump and Vance are not monsters, as evidenced by the 2024 election. Normal people have had it with this constant BS
Its true that "Trump is a raging dictator" is infantile politics. Most of the "resistance" is powerless posturing. The courts can and should restrain him when he exceeds the powers granted to his office by the constitution -- that is part of their job. But he is the president, he won the election, he has the powers of the office, and he will do a lot of things his way. Anyone who thinks he's leading us off on the wrong course needs to keep their powder dry, avoid wasting energy on losing battles, stay away from digging trenches on hills not worth defending, and find productive times and places to apply pressure or offer better alternatives. The below 30 crowd doesn't understand what a constitutional republic is, and that is the fault of liberals who didn't provide proper education on the subject. Its going to be a rough ride. I've always rejected comparisons of Trump to Hitler. Trump isn't smart enough to be Hitler, he makes Mussolini look like a genius. Hitler had a Nitzschean vision, however demented, while Trump just admires the image of himself every time he looks in a mirror. Trump is more like Papa Doc Duvalier or Daniel Ortega.
I haven't met J.D. but I read an interview with him (I can't remember where) and I came away from it thinking that becoming a dad probably is what changed his beliefs the most. That he has three kids and will do whatever it takes to make a world he thinks is right for them. I could be wrong about that though.
Yeah, your military friend has a point. The problem is that in pushing the boundaries of executive power so far, Trump is seriously raising the stakes, just as Biden did during his term by using the justice system to persecute enemies of the liberal regime (and his attempts to create a tacit system of state censorship, etc.). Both sides are so busy tearing down guard rails and trampling over norms that already by 2024 the election outcome felt existential if you were an opponent of the regime. How do you think the left will feel in 2028? And just how powerful will the presidency be by then? And what might a resurgent left do with that power if the Trump administration ends up as unpopular as its predecessor? This question kind of keeps me up at night and tempers my enthusiasm for what Trump is doing, though based on how Biden ruled I’m not sure I’d feel good about the left regaining power in 2028 even if Trump wasn’t busy making sure that they’ll inherit an even more powerful executive whenever they do next take power (and there will be a next time at some point).
At this point, what does Congress even do? Many of the EOs issued by Presidents Bush, Obama, Biden & Trump are according to the Constitution, the bailiwick of Congress. They’ve just sit there & let their agency be drained away. Reminds me of John Adams saying “in my long life, I have found one useless man is a disgrace, two are a law firm, and three or more are a Congress.”
The problem with Congress is that it’s become a set of sinecures for the rich and connected. These people are relatively uninterested in legislating because that’s hard, and besides it often upsets people and makes it harder to hang on to your seat. If they let the executive just do things, then they can’t be blamed for the results, and that’s just how they like it.
Executive orders are orders to agencies and employees of the executive branch about how to do their job. The president has no authority to issue orders to governors, state legislatures, or private organizations. However, the ability to set conditions for receipt of federal funds is quite powerful, because states, local governments, and private organizations are so dependent upon federal funding.
Moreover, one of the HUGE conservative planks of the 80s and 90s was that federal mandates tied to federal largesse had become abusive towards states. Somewhere in the last 20 years that position has been abandoned, and we're all supposed to be OK with Trump explicitly tying federal largesse (the redistribution of taxes we all paid) to explicitly political ends. In other words, we rightly pointed out that tying DEI crap (and its predecessors) to all manner of things like even individual Pell grants to students was abhorrent. But somehow that same strong-arming is OK because Trump does it for things we like?
The Left will not ascend again soon if the we "true the vote" and don't let illegals vote. I'm all for immigration, but it has to benefit the country. Trump is overstepping you say. And did Obama and Biden overstep, by a country mile, including trying to kill the opponent (Biden on that one, with an assist from Wray)?
As much as I’d like to believe that is true, I’m pretty sure that the Democrats were telling themselves a similar story about Trump four years ago. Four years is a long time. None of us should be sanguine about the possibility of either a Democratic resurgence or Trump fumbling the ball such that Republicans are punished by the electorate in 2028.
I dunno—even the smart Dems (the few that are left) are saying that their own party is finished, in the absence of some serious soul-searching, of which they presently appear to be incapable. But we'll see.
I suppose that would be the real miracle, that those among the Dems would do some honest soul-searching and actually come out with halfway sensible policies.
Of course, if they want to take the short cut, I can offer my advice on what they can start with (and at a very reasonable rate too!).
Hey Rod! I’m a white guy born in 1984. My big shot agent loved my book, said it was one of the best he’d read all year… then when he realized its political implications (it’s 100% non political but attacks the medical establishment for drugging kids, so can now count as MAHA) he said it was too “inflammatory” and dropped me like a hot potato. So if you know a good agent let me know, and we can make post 1984 writers great again!
Your Substack is great. I understand that in your case, it was about facing a type of political prejudice - specifically how the left sometimes adopts questionable medical beliefs as part of their political agenda. Your work could help so many people, especially children, if it were more widely known, in my humble opinion.
Adrian, those unpublished manuscripts still exist, most of them, anyway. Writers being writers, some may have burned what could have been classics and proceeded to drink themselves to death, but most still exist. If some publisher with balls and insight takes the lead, it's unimaginable how many novels which have been ready to be published for decades could appear.
Hadn't we all sort of noticed subliminally that there was something off in what was getting published and what was not?
Imagine a decade full of revelations like the one that landed on Walker Percy’s desk in the late 70s, which brought Ignatius J. Reilly to our attention.
Eh, I read A Confederacy of Dunces recently because Rod seems to love it, and I wasn't really impressed. I feel like I would have liked it better if the characters were more likable and if Toole had cut the book down at least a little. But that's just me.
I'm grateful for Angelico Press. They're an indie house, though, with the limited resources implied by that. (It's like a band signing with an indie label: they can get your work out there with maximal creative integrity, but if you want a campaign and tour and all that, then you've sort of gotta figure it out yourself.) Anyway, I'm sure there's some indie house out there that would want your book, although it wouldn't come with any of the perks of having a big-shot agent.
Frankly, screw Columbia and the other colleges/universities - read Matt Taibbi's piece last week about how they're sitting on billions and billions in endowoments, b*tching about Trump threatening to cut off mere millions. Columbia, Harvard and the rest could tap their endowments and not require current government funding for **years and years**.
But apparently they must continue suckling at the government/taxpayer teat.
The left fully believes that past discrimination justifies current discrimination. The question is - at what point are we "even?" Should discrimination against white males continue? For how much longer? And what if those white men - and the political movements they inhabit - say, "No, we're not accepting this anymore."
They may not have to so long as sympathetic politicians are in power. But as noted, once the other side regains its foothold, the left will double down on the woke discrimination.
We are indeed approaching a reckoning. And on one hand I say: Good. About time.
On the other hand: It's going to be brutal on all sides.
If that is true, I would think some of those universities would thumb their nose at Trump's demands and wave their endowments in his face. Apparently they think the federal funding is worth grovelling at his feet to retain. One likely problem is that endowments are designed to keep the principal intact, and do good work with the interest and dividends. I'm inclined to think that it would be good to have a law prescribing that all endowments will have sunsets -- e.g., when someone contributes money to and endowment for some worthy cause, all principal AND interest must be spent down for that cause within 100 years. That way, the latest LGBTQWERTY fad wouldn't be running off money donated by a worthy Puritan divine in 1810. Let each generation refund what it considers worth refunding, with the wealth available at the time.
"Columbia is in even better shape, holding a $14.8 billion endowment as of last June. But that’s not all. As student loan activist, presidential candidate and beloved subscriber Alan Collinge points out, the school is also sitting atop $3.7 billion in undesignated cash reserves, above its endowment. Remember, papers like the Times have been pumping out story after story about Columbia with the same angle: “Pediatricians tracking the long-term health of children born to mothers infected with the coronavirus during pregnancy. Scientists searching for links between diabetes and dementia… [All] abruptly terminated…” No one ever mentions that Columbia itself could probably fund treatment for those children, diabetics, and dementia patients without taking the unthinkable step of touching its endowment."
So: Screw Columbia, and the rest of them. This wailing is nothing more than sheer dishonesty.
Which raises the question, even on its own terms, why Columbia doesn't have the spine to say, screw you and your $400 million in grants, that's less than one ninth of our undesignated cash reserves. Don't they want to lead the resistance? Of course "undesignated cash reserves" may have a purpose Tabibi isn't looking into. Maybe they have five capital construction projects but haven't decided which ones to designate the cash for.
Endowments are sometimes restricted - the interest/dividends can only be spent on certain things (the principal can't be used). Most donors - especially big donors - want to be sure the money is spent the way they intend, and have the lawyers to help draft endowment agreements to ensure this. So, these colleges may still need the largesse of the federal government to give them money with fewer strings attached.
"These commissars never thought that they would have to be held accountable for what they have done to so many white men, and to the institutions they ran. Well, now they do."
An overly dramatized example, but I suspect that a lot of liberals and democrats view this as analogous to Trump's win in 2024.
Like Rod and that military officer, I suspect that America may be heading for it's own "Troubles" if political tensions continue to fester and rot out those "guardrails of democracy." What happens if two fundamentally incompatible worldviews have to vie for political office?
I don't think there's any meaningful sense in which the wokists are really part of the same one nation as the rest of us; disagreements at that foundational level cut to the heart of what it even means to be a nation at all.
Maybe because you are an immigrant from another culture, you don't understand. We really are part of the same nation going a long way back. Just sayin'...
Terms like "the sociology of nationhood" are weasel words which roughly translate "the science of thinking like me." I have yet to read a dictionary that defines "obtuse" as "holding a perspective I do not choose to share." If you hit your head against a brick wall, and it hurts, then do it again, and expect it not to hurt, that is obtuse.
Obtuse as well as tedious: by all means, keep it up. (For my part, I no longer expect you to talk like a person, since that would indeed be obtuse of me, very much like repeatedly hitting my head against a brick wall.)
Sethu is correct. We have two mentally and emotionally different countries. I am not of the same nation as the bureaucrats of Washington DC, the intellectuals of Manhattan, the IT typists of Silicon Valley and Seattle, Hollywood or the professors of hundreds of important universities. I would not lift a finger to help any of the above in a joint project and wouldn't want their help for any of the projects I desired. They can all be damned.
You are being sloppy with your language, humpty-dumpty style. Whether they liked it or not, members of the German Communist Party, the German Workers National Socialist Party, the Catholic Center, and the German Social Democratic Party, were all citizens of the same nation. They fought ruthlessly over what kind of nation it should be. Likewise, although some of those you mention are probably non-citizen immigrants with special visas, otherwise, yup, like each other or not, we are all part of the same nation. We can damn each other if it seems desirable.
Yes, it's imperative that we win midterms and 2028, at least. This means that what happens now must not only BE successful but must be SEEN as being successful. I'm concerned about the media here.
Scuds, what bothers me is the nervousness. Move too fast? Now is the time. Show no mercy, take no prisoners.
Haven't you been startled and delighted that GenZ young men are overwhelmingly conservative, especially given the constant beatdown they have had to live their lives under? It's as wonderful as the reaction to trans which is occurring. It's easy to see what the two have in common: the truth breaking through.
It is war, but we didn't start it. In my view, probably yours, and that of many people who read this, the cultural Left is evil. Let them shriek. Let 100,000 obese women with multicolored hair and men whose beards have been plucked march! Please!
Nothing technical about it. Its cold hard numbers. Trump has never won a majority. Neither did Clinton in 2016 -- despite Democrats claims that she had. She won a plurality of the popular vote, that is, a smaller less-than-half than Trump's, but he won the electoral vote. Still, she did not win a majority. Your "imperative" to win the mid-terms, is built on a foundation of sand. It might happen, it might not. Our last several elections have shown that no party or candidate has the kind of substantial enduring majority than can sustain a political program reliably. That's because all our options stink. If no candidate wins a majority of the popular vote, we should toss them all out, and re-run the election with new candidates.
I think your concern about the media is warranted, as still too many are swayed by it. The MSM is primarily responsible for cementing the opinion that Trump is beyond the pale, e.g., guilty of 34 felonies and all the rest of the smears too numerous to mention.
One of your best. Thank you for introducing me to the concept of ressentiment. I, too, have stories. The "diversity" (i.e., anti-white male) movement began, for me, 49 years ago when, as one of the nation's top-ranked Civil Air Patrol cadets (an auxiliary of the US Air Force) with decent grades, I was rejected for a modest college scholarship. Someone was honest with me about why: they wanted to award, promote, and attract more females to the program. That's fine, but discriminating against people based on gender or race is an illegal, even unconstitutional, strategy, especially when involving government or quasi-government entities, even in the corporate world. About 15 years ago, my efforts to recruit one of the food industry's top-ranked operational executives for my Fortune 250 employers were rebuffed for a year while corporate HR tried to find an equally qualified female or minority. After a fruitless year of searching, my recruit found greener pastures. Corporate HR departments may be worse than government DEI programs.
With the concept of ressentiment, Nietzsche thought he was describing Christianity. He wasn't—but he was in fact making an absolutely perfect diagnosis of wokism, in which that more general temptation in human psychology comes to full fruition. it's about creating a whole scale of perverse values based on pure envy.
So, I'm not sure that Rod is using the term correctly in the context of the post. What's going on could perhaps be characterized, instead, as revenge against the masters of ressentiment. And the revenge might be righteous, given that wokism does need to be smashed. It doesn't seem gratuitous to me, given what we're up against.
Corporate HR departments are a bad idea, period. If a department in a large, far-flung enterprise needs to hire someone, the interview should be with the manager of that department, perhaps even with some of the prospective co-workers. Applicants should be talking to the people they will be working with and for.
I was aware enough as a high school kid that elite colleges would never accept me. The one friend who I knew that got into Harvard was smart enough, but admitted he was filling a diversity slot, even in the '80s.
I was once told, after a job interview for a local government job in the '90s, that I was the best candidate by far, but I wouldn't get the job due to DEI type reasons. I do fine, but it sure would be nice to have had Cadillac benefits and an easy job and to be able to retire next year in my 50s with a huge pension, instead of working another decade.
Having concern about what happens if/when the Progressives / Democrats regain power is a legitimate concern.
BUT, given what we've seen since Obama was serenaded into the "HOPE & CHANGE"tm White House, it is also clear that those forces fully intend the destruction via deconstruction of our Constitutional Republic - indeed, all of Western Civilization - "by any means necessary."
Them experiencing "some of their own medicine" is, alas, a necessity right now. Forced upon us by them.
Hopefully, as DOGE flips over more rocks, and more disclosures come (Epstein, etc.), this will all morph into a cathartic awakening in our country - dare I say, the catalyst for a new Great Awakening?
In any case, the revelations (+ election reform to promote election integrity) may remove the Progressives / Democrats as an electoral force for years, if not decades.
Regarding the publishing industry's reverse discrimination against White males - that has been the norm across America for over 50 years now (it used to be called "affirmative action"). Since Obama, it was put on steroids by focusing / "privileging" not just Blacks, but ANY group that wasn't White and male, i.e., "affirmative action" morphed into "DEI."
Trump is intent in deconstruction of our constitutional republic simply because constitutional restraints get in the way of doing WTF he wants as he always did in his own business. The next wave needs to be reasserting our Constitutional Republic, in the teeth of both of our Two Major Parties, including MAGA.
"Trump is intent in deconstruction of our constitutional republic simply because constitutional restraints get in the way of doing WTF he wants as he always did in his own business" WTF, are you just blind or a Never Trumper? What the hell do you think the left has been doing for the last 20+ years?
You seem to be unaware that two things can be true at the same time. For instance, Trump can be everything I said, and the Democrats can be everything you said. But liberals are not "left." If its not about the prosperity of people who work for a living, its not "left." Don't feed their delusions.
"By 2021, there was not one white male millennial on the “Notable Fiction” list. There were none again in 2022, and just one apiece in 2023 and 2024 (since 2021, just 2 of 72 millennials featured were white American men). There were no white male millennials featured in Vulture’s 2024 year-end fiction list, none in Vanity Fair’s, none in The Atlantic’s. Esquire, a magazine ostensibly geared towards male millennials, has featured 53 millennial fiction writers on its year-end book lists since 2020. Only one was a white American man."
What more proof do you need that white men can't write?
It's just a matter of going *big*, with a major publishing house. You know, like Penguin, which is an institution—you can't just make a new one at will. I'm sure there are plenty of indie houses that publish men in general and white men in particular, but that's not really the level of the complaint.
My daughter was a Rotary Club exchange student, and did her senior year of high school in the town of Bethlehem, Republic of South Africa. It was the first year after the downfall of apartheid. For the first time, black students were allowed into the high school she attended. She grew up in our family without prejudice so found the attitudes of folks of both races puzzling and disconcerting. She found the culture fascinating and made some lifelong friends. My husband and I lived in Zambia and I worked in Malawi for 7 years…. All those three countries of Africa are so very different in history and personality, just as all the other African countries are… So when people hear about RSA they often think that is what happens in all of Africa. RSA is a beautiful country but it is definitely in trouble. I fear for this mentality in RSA that is emerging… I have seen mob mentality in action and it is a scary thing. Yes things need to change but look at the history of Zimbabwe and you will see what might happen…. My mind shudders at the thought.
It's possible it's been mentioned here and I haven't seen it, but the UK parliamentary report about October 7, chaired by Lord Roberts, was issued several days ago, and the usual suspects have to my knowledge been quiet. It's available for free download, over three hundred pages which may, at least for awhile, shame the usual idiots who babble about Israeli genocide against Gaza.
The media will never touch it and it will be buried, it contradicts the Narrative and forces people to face squarely who and what Hamas is. Western liberals can never do this and will resort to all kinds of denial and psychological projection to avoid doing so, as 1) it might make them have sympathy and support for Israel, which is socially verboten; and 2) it might force them to realize there will be no such thing as the "2-state solution" anytime soon and that no civilized people should be forced to live next door to such monsters.
Hamas and the Palestinians overall, a truly twisted people with a culture built on Jew hate, are an ugly intractable problem that most people will do anything to avoid being honest about. It's easier to attack and denounce Israel.
I favor ethnic cleansing without genocide: pick up all the Gazans, and put them back down in Indonesia. And maybe this whole imbecilic blood feud will blow over in a few generations.
You do realize that would result in the total annihilation of all Gazans and possibly the land of Gaza itself, if Israel is forced into such a corner? We can cut the funding after we help all the Gazans over to Indonesia, given how long we've had our fingers in this pie.
Also, my understanding is that most of the Gazans might actually be happy to go, since most people in general would prefer a chance of life anywhere instead of misery and death in such a shithole.
Probably because history shows that even the most welcoming country in the world may eventually turn against the Jews. That's why Jews wanted their own country, so that they were not always a small minority fleeing from country to country.
Movies are like that now also.
Well...he is an Air Force officer. Trump is the top official in the military chain of command. Of course he would salute/render honors. But yes, that was heartfelt. And I would, too. I consider it the Lord's timing that my service reentry is during the Trump/Vance era.
Thank you for your service to our country.
The wrestling match was like the against-all-odds take-down of the Left by Trump, which is a "work in process" and requires all of our participation.
If the vote is trued-up, the Left is finished. They're not coming back into power until they stop the craziness. Putting men in women's locker rooms where everyone is naked is crazy. Telling toddlers they may have been born in the wrong body is crazy. Sterilizing our youth during puberty or just before is immoral. Aborting full-term infants as they're being born is wicked. Keeping poor kids in bad schools is life-destroying.
I'm all for immigration--legal and based on some sane criteria. Birthright citizenship has got to be modified--birthright citizenship if the mother has a right to be here.
Here's a song called "Simple Gifts" I've been listening to lately about "turning round right." (It's from the Shakers, who are expiring due to their anti-natalism--but otherwise, they were pretty amazing Christians. They're all in heaven now, without progeny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a08rrXx06n4
Personally, I would only support birthright citizenship if at least one parent was already a citizen.
Rod: Last night, I was talking with a retired military officer. He was telling me how happy he is that Trump is righting so many woke wrongs. Yet, he said, “This is all happening so fast and so powerfully that I can’t help wondering what’s going to happen when the other side gets back into power. Are they going to come at us like this?”
My beloved friend, I've written here a few times about the cyclic nature of human history, how the formerly downtrodden and oppressed come to power, and immediately start taking revenge on those they replaced in the seats of power. Please tell the honored military officer that should he live long enough, he will see it.
I'm grieving. I read your description of your "dei" obstruction from a job. I read your "I wish in retrospect I weren’t so damn Southern, so that I could have mustered a hearty f-you." I am hoping I'm wrong that you were (and are) gloating in a vengeful manner. If you were/are, I can only muster a "Bless your heart."
Our American downtrodden and oppressed are vastly more than LGBT+, women, people of color. They are nearly every citizen and child who looks upon Trump and Vance as they proceed with explicitly scorched-earth tactics against the people and things that they hate. Yes, they hate them. No, I don't believe that's entirely accurate, but those downtrodden and oppressed WILL SEE IT EXACTLY THAT WAY. THEY ARE HATED.
When I met J.D., he deeply impressed me with his quiet self-confidence and intellect. He was erudite when he spoke. I desperately want you to explain to me how he has not sold his soul to the Trumpian Devil to fulfill his political ambitions.
Trumpian devil? And how do you characterize Biden, who was hell-bent on destroying the country and maybe starting WW3, if there was enough money in it for him and his crime family.
Evidence of Trump's corruption and fraud goes back for decades. I don't need to compare to Biden -- I have my list of criticisms of him and Obama -- to use that epithet for Trump. If you have a direct rebuttal about that, I would like to see it.
Did Trump have to grant 11-year "get-out-of-jail-free" cards to family members and Cabinet members and Congressional members before leaving office using a robo-pen operated by an assistant, with no cognition? How many billions did Trump steal from the Walmart employees in a money-laundering operation through Ukraine? Did Don Jr. negotiate 10% for "the big guy"? Yeah, they're all corrupt. It's just that Biden and Obama and the Clintons are MORE corrupt. Did Trump steal an election? Did Trump redirect Haitian emergency relief billions to themselves and their friends? Get 1,000,000 people killed in a phony proxy war that was designed from the outset to be a money-laundering operation for Left-directed "Dark Money Pools", 10% for the "big guy" and his son?
Way to go, Anne. Good stuff. We are just soooo done with this.
Scuds, the refrain you and Anne are looking for is "what about, what about, what about, what about..." Good stuff, indeed.
Yeah, I'm sure you're right.
Franklin already explained that his criticisms of Biden and Obama are not necessary to offer criticisms of Trump. I will say, for myself, that Trump, Biden, Clinton, and Harris all have their grievous faults -- just different ones. The laundry list for one does not restore the reputation of the others.
"Evidence of Trump's corruption and fraud goes back for decades"
care to share valid objective sources to support this opinion?
In the public record: a multitude of civil lawsuits brought by contractors at Trump properties for Trump
refusal to pay the contract amount and breach of contract.
Not paying one's bills when one presumably can is a despicable behavior that one finds occasionally among the entitled rich. There should be a special circle in hell for that.
i've heard that he plays hard-ball with contractors but that is neither evidence of fraud or corruption. try again
If they did the work and you don't pay them, its both.
The left is merely reaping the whirlwind they've sown. One day the Trumpists may reap the whirlwind they are now sowing. We can say it SHOULDN'T be that way, but hasn't it in fact been this way since time immemorial? Actions have consequences; for every action there is a reaction. And so the pendulum swings
My point, and I risk being pompous about it, is that we also have iconic examples of attempts to stop that pendulum and take a compassionate and moral path. I am the product of that pendulum. My mother was a Holocaust survivor. My father was an officer in the Yugoslav army fighting a hopeless battle against communist partisans and Nazi and Italian imperialists. No one person can stand against the pendulum with any effect. Maybe I'm just shouting into the wind, but I can't remain silent.
Of course, I think you are fine and I'm happy for compassionate people who are not on the right (? - I don't know all your politics) to comment. Could you say more about "we also have iconic examples of attempts to stop that pendulum and take a compassionate and moral path.", i.e., which examples inspire you?
What concerns me is who rides in on the next whirlwind. That's important. I'm not interested in "resistance to Trump." He's in office for a while. The courts will, and should restrain him some, but he'll do a lot of what he wants. We need to build what comes next and shove the Dems off to the sidelines.
"They are nearly every citizen and child who looks upon Trump and Vance as they proceed with explicitly scorched-earth tactics against the people and things that they hate."
Things that they hate. Well, A lot of us don't much like those 'things' either.
"Trumpian Devil". Wow, ok. Funny thing is that you probably see yourself as the voice of reason.
Yeah, things they hate . . . the sexual mutilation of children, the prolonging of wars that can't be won by they side we're supporting and the consequent piling up of dead bodies, the destruction of women's sports, violence and chaos on college campuses, the teaching of divisive social theories that aren't rooted in fact . . . just a start.
"the prolonging of wars that can't be won by they side we're supporting and the consequent piling up of dead bodies"
The person ultimately responsible for this, you Putinist hack, is that great 'defender of Western Civilization' Mad Vlad. That you equate the pushback against the murder (and mass-kidnapping) of Ukrainians with a bunch of domestic woke garbage is delusional.
“Putinist hack?” You do know that the United States and the European Union has violated every agreement made with both the Soviet Union and with Russia since the end of the Cold War? Then there was the American orchestrated coup in Ukraine and its support of the Ukrainian neonazis’ takeover of the Ukrainian government?
Hi Tucker! You must desperate if you're immediately going to the 'neonazis' card as your rebuttal. I'm eager for your follow up on how Churchill actually cause WW2.
“Tucker!” Man, that’s a low blow.
But seriously, Ukraine is dominated by neo-Nazis who murdered their way into power. That the government controlled press has refused to cover this since the American overthrow of the previous Ukrainian government does not change anything. This can be true and the invasion of Ukraine can be illegal at the same time.
Blame America First was no prettier when it was the Left mainly doing it. News flash: Foreigners have agency too, and they can get up to their own dirty deeds with the US orchestrating them.
Plenty of dictators and oligarchs have become willing tools of the American Empire. This is how the United States runs its empire with its offers of silver or lead(bullet). Evil working with evil.
Trumpian devil, huh? Sold his soul? My, aren't you the voice of reason and moderation.
"Scorched-earth tactics"..... Seriously? I don't disagree with the potential for the pendulum to swing back against conservatives but it's hyperbolic to say Trump is using scorched-earth tactics. He is only returning our Government and country back to what was considered normal around 10 years ago.
It's hardly scorched-earth tactics to:
* Secure our borders
* Stop life-changing gender transitions of minor children without parental involvement
* Stop wasteful and corrupt Government spending, particularly that funneled to NGO's enriching former politicians and elites
* Stop violence against Jewish students and violent protests on campuses
* Deport violent criminal illegal aliens, including those on student visas or green cards
* Remove transgenders from military, since as a group they have over 4x higher mental health issues https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6830528
* Prevent "forever wars" and US spending money we don't have being world's policeman, which makes us a key target of terrorists.
It's true the last item was not normal previously, since both parties have been enabling wars in past years. Yet, it's good for Trump to change that practice. I'm sure I'm missing items on this list, which others can add if they want.
None of these things reflect hatred. They only reflect a return to common sense.
No, Trump is not returning the country to what was considered normal ten years ago. He is capriciously and almost randomly destroying a good chunk of what this country has been for the past sixty years or so. In the process, he is throwing out some things that deserve to be thrown out, but its a big like breaking all the windows in the house to throw the garbage into the rose garden.
You're entitled to your opinion but what do you have to offer that actually refutes what I listed above as normal 10 years ago?
Trump clearly and openly campaigned on what he would do. You might not agree he received a mandate but he clearly won a decisive election victory. He's doing what he was elected to do. Which was to make major changes quickly.
Our borders have been insecure for most of our history, and this has been a political point of discussion under almost every president in that time. Nor is the list you offered a comprehensive overview of constitutional government. Its a few hot button issues that play well. Most of us could have solved them without the self-serving chaos Trump is creating.
RE: "Most of us could have solved them without the self-serving chaos Trump is creating."
....and yet, no one did until Trump 2.0.
Trump is like the old mercury treatment for syphilis. It could heal the disease, but it also left the patient with a lifetime legacy of mercury poisoning.
That has been the fundamental problem for the past 8-10 years or more. We are stuck with the decrepit duopoly who insist "you have to pick one of us -- nobody else gets to be taken seriously." Trump was a challenge to traditional GOP leadership, but once he won (barely) they embraced him as their new champion.
Re: Stop life-changing gender transitions of minor children without parental involvement
What has Trump done in that matter (and again, what you are talking about is rarer than hen's teeth)? This sort of things strikes me as something that should be left to the states.
Enough with the hysteria. Explain to me one (1) single thing that Trump is doing that oppresses American citizens.
You can't, because there is nothing there. It's all smoke and mirrors claiming Trump is a raging dictator, all emotional screeching without evidence. This is exactly why liberals have no respect among the below 30 crowd. It's a constant stream of delusional whining while they sweep real evils under the rug. Everyone with half a brain knows Trump and Vance are not monsters, as evidenced by the 2024 election. Normal people have had it with this constant BS
Its true that "Trump is a raging dictator" is infantile politics. Most of the "resistance" is powerless posturing. The courts can and should restrain him when he exceeds the powers granted to his office by the constitution -- that is part of their job. But he is the president, he won the election, he has the powers of the office, and he will do a lot of things his way. Anyone who thinks he's leading us off on the wrong course needs to keep their powder dry, avoid wasting energy on losing battles, stay away from digging trenches on hills not worth defending, and find productive times and places to apply pressure or offer better alternatives. The below 30 crowd doesn't understand what a constitutional republic is, and that is the fault of liberals who didn't provide proper education on the subject. Its going to be a rough ride. I've always rejected comparisons of Trump to Hitler. Trump isn't smart enough to be Hitler, he makes Mussolini look like a genius. Hitler had a Nitzschean vision, however demented, while Trump just admires the image of himself every time he looks in a mirror. Trump is more like Papa Doc Duvalier or Daniel Ortega.
I haven't met J.D. but I read an interview with him (I can't remember where) and I came away from it thinking that becoming a dad probably is what changed his beliefs the most. That he has three kids and will do whatever it takes to make a world he thinks is right for them. I could be wrong about that though.
Yeah, your military friend has a point. The problem is that in pushing the boundaries of executive power so far, Trump is seriously raising the stakes, just as Biden did during his term by using the justice system to persecute enemies of the liberal regime (and his attempts to create a tacit system of state censorship, etc.). Both sides are so busy tearing down guard rails and trampling over norms that already by 2024 the election outcome felt existential if you were an opponent of the regime. How do you think the left will feel in 2028? And just how powerful will the presidency be by then? And what might a resurgent left do with that power if the Trump administration ends up as unpopular as its predecessor? This question kind of keeps me up at night and tempers my enthusiasm for what Trump is doing, though based on how Biden ruled I’m not sure I’d feel good about the left regaining power in 2028 even if Trump wasn’t busy making sure that they’ll inherit an even more powerful executive whenever they do next take power (and there will be a next time at some point).
At this point, what does Congress even do? Many of the EOs issued by Presidents Bush, Obama, Biden & Trump are according to the Constitution, the bailiwick of Congress. They’ve just sit there & let their agency be drained away. Reminds me of John Adams saying “in my long life, I have found one useless man is a disgrace, two are a law firm, and three or more are a Congress.”
The problem with Congress is that it’s become a set of sinecures for the rich and connected. These people are relatively uninterested in legislating because that’s hard, and besides it often upsets people and makes it harder to hang on to your seat. If they let the executive just do things, then they can’t be blamed for the results, and that’s just how they like it.
Here, here!
Executive orders are orders to agencies and employees of the executive branch about how to do their job. The president has no authority to issue orders to governors, state legislatures, or private organizations. However, the ability to set conditions for receipt of federal funds is quite powerful, because states, local governments, and private organizations are so dependent upon federal funding.
Moreover, one of the HUGE conservative planks of the 80s and 90s was that federal mandates tied to federal largesse had become abusive towards states. Somewhere in the last 20 years that position has been abandoned, and we're all supposed to be OK with Trump explicitly tying federal largesse (the redistribution of taxes we all paid) to explicitly political ends. In other words, we rightly pointed out that tying DEI crap (and its predecessors) to all manner of things like even individual Pell grants to students was abhorrent. But somehow that same strong-arming is OK because Trump does it for things we like?
The Left will not ascend again soon if the we "true the vote" and don't let illegals vote. I'm all for immigration, but it has to benefit the country. Trump is overstepping you say. And did Obama and Biden overstep, by a country mile, including trying to kill the opponent (Biden on that one, with an assist from Wray)?
The Dems still can't even figure out why they lost. At this rate, they'll go the way of the dodo.
As much as I’d like to believe that is true, I’m pretty sure that the Democrats were telling themselves a similar story about Trump four years ago. Four years is a long time. None of us should be sanguine about the possibility of either a Democratic resurgence or Trump fumbling the ball such that Republicans are punished by the electorate in 2028.
I dunno—even the smart Dems (the few that are left) are saying that their own party is finished, in the absence of some serious soul-searching, of which they presently appear to be incapable. But we'll see.
I suppose that would be the real miracle, that those among the Dems would do some honest soul-searching and actually come out with halfway sensible policies.
Of course, if they want to take the short cut, I can offer my advice on what they can start with (and at a very reasonable rate too!).
Well they should. (So should the GOP, which has no relationship at all to the original reasons it was founded). We need new parties and new platforms.
Go Pelicans!
Young Sethu, you forget that evil always has a political party in a democracy.
Well, sure—but an evil that isn't clever enough to win or self-aware enough to adapt would probably have to make way for an evil that is.
Yes. both major parties.
Your infatuation with election fraud would be amusing if you were five years old.
Hey Rod! I’m a white guy born in 1984. My big shot agent loved my book, said it was one of the best he’d read all year… then when he realized its political implications (it’s 100% non political but attacks the medical establishment for drugging kids, so can now count as MAHA) he said it was too “inflammatory” and dropped me like a hot potato. So if you know a good agent let me know, and we can make post 1984 writers great again!
We need a new publishing company that considers submissions from men on an equal basis.
I wish it was so.
Maybe Encounter books?
Self publishing, as I noted elsewhere on this piece.
Your Substack is great. I understand that in your case, it was about facing a type of political prejudice - specifically how the left sometimes adopts questionable medical beliefs as part of their political agenda. Your work could help so many people, especially children, if it were more widely known, in my humble opinion.
Truly appreciate it!
Adrian, those unpublished manuscripts still exist, most of them, anyway. Writers being writers, some may have burned what could have been classics and proceeded to drink themselves to death, but most still exist. If some publisher with balls and insight takes the lead, it's unimaginable how many novels which have been ready to be published for decades could appear.
Hadn't we all sort of noticed subliminally that there was something off in what was getting published and what was not?
Imagine a decade full of revelations like the one that landed on Walker Percy’s desk in the late 70s, which brought Ignatius J. Reilly to our attention.
Eh, I read A Confederacy of Dunces recently because Rod seems to love it, and I wasn't really impressed. I feel like I would have liked it better if the characters were more likable and if Toole had cut the book down at least a little. But that's just me.
Oh man! Give it another go! I’ve read it twice and it was twice as funny the second time around. Toole had me in stitches every other page.
I'm grateful for Angelico Press. They're an indie house, though, with the limited resources implied by that. (It's like a band signing with an indie label: they can get your work out there with maximal creative integrity, but if you want a campaign and tour and all that, then you've sort of gotta figure it out yourself.) Anyway, I'm sure there's some indie house out there that would want your book, although it wouldn't come with any of the perks of having a big-shot agent.
"It's like a band signing with an indie label"
It's like the Beatles signing with Parlophone.
Frankly, screw Columbia and the other colleges/universities - read Matt Taibbi's piece last week about how they're sitting on billions and billions in endowoments, b*tching about Trump threatening to cut off mere millions. Columbia, Harvard and the rest could tap their endowments and not require current government funding for **years and years**.
But apparently they must continue suckling at the government/taxpayer teat.
The left fully believes that past discrimination justifies current discrimination. The question is - at what point are we "even?" Should discrimination against white males continue? For how much longer? And what if those white men - and the political movements they inhabit - say, "No, we're not accepting this anymore."
They may not have to so long as sympathetic politicians are in power. But as noted, once the other side regains its foothold, the left will double down on the woke discrimination.
We are indeed approaching a reckoning. And on one hand I say: Good. About time.
On the other hand: It's going to be brutal on all sides.
If that is true, I would think some of those universities would thumb their nose at Trump's demands and wave their endowments in his face. Apparently they think the federal funding is worth grovelling at his feet to retain. One likely problem is that endowments are designed to keep the principal intact, and do good work with the interest and dividends. I'm inclined to think that it would be good to have a law prescribing that all endowments will have sunsets -- e.g., when someone contributes money to and endowment for some worthy cause, all principal AND interest must be spent down for that cause within 100 years. That way, the latest LGBTQWERTY fad wouldn't be running off money donated by a worthy Puritan divine in 1810. Let each generation refund what it considers worth refunding, with the wealth available at the time.
Taibbi's piece: https://substack.com/home/post/p-159332063
Quote:
"Columbia is in even better shape, holding a $14.8 billion endowment as of last June. But that’s not all. As student loan activist, presidential candidate and beloved subscriber Alan Collinge points out, the school is also sitting atop $3.7 billion in undesignated cash reserves, above its endowment. Remember, papers like the Times have been pumping out story after story about Columbia with the same angle: “Pediatricians tracking the long-term health of children born to mothers infected with the coronavirus during pregnancy. Scientists searching for links between diabetes and dementia… [All] abruptly terminated…” No one ever mentions that Columbia itself could probably fund treatment for those children, diabetics, and dementia patients without taking the unthinkable step of touching its endowment."
So: Screw Columbia, and the rest of them. This wailing is nothing more than sheer dishonesty.
Which raises the question, even on its own terms, why Columbia doesn't have the spine to say, screw you and your $400 million in grants, that's less than one ninth of our undesignated cash reserves. Don't they want to lead the resistance? Of course "undesignated cash reserves" may have a purpose Tabibi isn't looking into. Maybe they have five capital construction projects but haven't decided which ones to designate the cash for.
The funds in endowments are often earmarked for specific things by the donors. It’s not just a piggy bank they can raid.
Oh, I commented before I saw your comment, Katze - yours is much more succinct!
Endowments are sometimes restricted - the interest/dividends can only be spent on certain things (the principal can't be used). Most donors - especially big donors - want to be sure the money is spent the way they intend, and have the lawyers to help draft endowment agreements to ensure this. So, these colleges may still need the largesse of the federal government to give them money with fewer strings attached.
"These commissars never thought that they would have to be held accountable for what they have done to so many white men, and to the institutions they ran. Well, now they do."
Not gonna lie, this reminded me of this:
https://youtu.be/YdgmH9Vv2-I?feature=shared
"You assumed no force could challenge you..."
An overly dramatized example, but I suspect that a lot of liberals and democrats view this as analogous to Trump's win in 2024.
Like Rod and that military officer, I suspect that America may be heading for it's own "Troubles" if political tensions continue to fester and rot out those "guardrails of democracy." What happens if two fundamentally incompatible worldviews have to vie for political office?
I don't think there's any meaningful sense in which the wokists are really part of the same one nation as the rest of us; disagreements at that foundational level cut to the heart of what it even means to be a nation at all.
Maybe because you are an immigrant from another culture, you don't understand. We really are part of the same nation going a long way back. Just sayin'...
I'm not an immigrant; my parents were. Please look into the sociology of nationhood, if you would like to refrain from being obtuse.
Terms like "the sociology of nationhood" are weasel words which roughly translate "the science of thinking like me." I have yet to read a dictionary that defines "obtuse" as "holding a perspective I do not choose to share." If you hit your head against a brick wall, and it hurts, then do it again, and expect it not to hurt, that is obtuse.
Obtuse as well as tedious: by all means, keep it up. (For my part, I no longer expect you to talk like a person, since that would indeed be obtuse of me, very much like repeatedly hitting my head against a brick wall.)
Once again you have nothing of substance to say, so you call up whatever adjectives you can do make yourself feel good.
Sethu is correct. We have two mentally and emotionally different countries. I am not of the same nation as the bureaucrats of Washington DC, the intellectuals of Manhattan, the IT typists of Silicon Valley and Seattle, Hollywood or the professors of hundreds of important universities. I would not lift a finger to help any of the above in a joint project and wouldn't want their help for any of the projects I desired. They can all be damned.
Agreed.
You are being sloppy with your language, humpty-dumpty style. Whether they liked it or not, members of the German Communist Party, the German Workers National Socialist Party, the Catholic Center, and the German Social Democratic Party, were all citizens of the same nation. They fought ruthlessly over what kind of nation it should be. Likewise, although some of those you mention are probably non-citizen immigrants with special visas, otherwise, yup, like each other or not, we are all part of the same nation. We can damn each other if it seems desirable.
"Are they going to come at us like this?”
Yes, it's imperative that we win midterms and 2028, at least. This means that what happens now must not only BE successful but must be SEEN as being successful. I'm concerned about the media here.
Scuds, what bothers me is the nervousness. Move too fast? Now is the time. Show no mercy, take no prisoners.
Haven't you been startled and delighted that GenZ young men are overwhelmingly conservative, especially given the constant beatdown they have had to live their lives under? It's as wonderful as the reaction to trans which is occurring. It's easy to see what the two have in common: the truth breaking through.
It is war, but we didn't start it. In my view, probably yours, and that of many people who read this, the cultural Left is evil. Let them shriek. Let 100,000 obese women with multicolored hair and men whose beards have been plucked march! Please!
Agree with all of this. Plus,
"Let 100,000 obese women with multicolored hair..."
Yeah, and can we get them off television commercials while we're at it?
When young men decided that sex was too risky, liberal young women lost all their power.
They would have come at this way in any case.
Good luck with that. Trump has never won a majority, and once people see him perform his ratings go down.
"Trump has never won a majority"
Well, that's only very technically true (3rd party candidates). I guess he doesn't need one.
"Trump has never won a majority", again.
Good luck with that. Sine he ain't runnin' no more.
Nothing technical about it. Its cold hard numbers. Trump has never won a majority. Neither did Clinton in 2016 -- despite Democrats claims that she had. She won a plurality of the popular vote, that is, a smaller less-than-half than Trump's, but he won the electoral vote. Still, she did not win a majority. Your "imperative" to win the mid-terms, is built on a foundation of sand. It might happen, it might not. Our last several elections have shown that no party or candidate has the kind of substantial enduring majority than can sustain a political program reliably. That's because all our options stink. If no candidate wins a majority of the popular vote, we should toss them all out, and re-run the election with new candidates.
I think your concern about the media is warranted, as still too many are swayed by it. The MSM is primarily responsible for cementing the opinion that Trump is beyond the pale, e.g., guilty of 34 felonies and all the rest of the smears too numerous to mention.
One of your best. Thank you for introducing me to the concept of ressentiment. I, too, have stories. The "diversity" (i.e., anti-white male) movement began, for me, 49 years ago when, as one of the nation's top-ranked Civil Air Patrol cadets (an auxiliary of the US Air Force) with decent grades, I was rejected for a modest college scholarship. Someone was honest with me about why: they wanted to award, promote, and attract more females to the program. That's fine, but discriminating against people based on gender or race is an illegal, even unconstitutional, strategy, especially when involving government or quasi-government entities, even in the corporate world. About 15 years ago, my efforts to recruit one of the food industry's top-ranked operational executives for my Fortune 250 employers were rebuffed for a year while corporate HR tried to find an equally qualified female or minority. After a fruitless year of searching, my recruit found greener pastures. Corporate HR departments may be worse than government DEI programs.
With the concept of ressentiment, Nietzsche thought he was describing Christianity. He wasn't—but he was in fact making an absolutely perfect diagnosis of wokism, in which that more general temptation in human psychology comes to full fruition. it's about creating a whole scale of perverse values based on pure envy.
So, I'm not sure that Rod is using the term correctly in the context of the post. What's going on could perhaps be characterized, instead, as revenge against the masters of ressentiment. And the revenge might be righteous, given that wokism does need to be smashed. It doesn't seem gratuitous to me, given what we're up against.
Corporate HR departments are a bad idea, period. If a department in a large, far-flung enterprise needs to hire someone, the interview should be with the manager of that department, perhaps even with some of the prospective co-workers. Applicants should be talking to the people they will be working with and for.
Agreed.
And of course, said department should make the time and effort to interview and hire people, and not lazily delegate it to a third party.
We all have those stories. Young men know the game is fixed. (Boomer here).
I was aware enough as a high school kid that elite colleges would never accept me. The one friend who I knew that got into Harvard was smart enough, but admitted he was filling a diversity slot, even in the '80s.
I was once told, after a job interview for a local government job in the '90s, that I was the best candidate by far, but I wouldn't get the job due to DEI type reasons. I do fine, but it sure would be nice to have had Cadillac benefits and an easy job and to be able to retire next year in my 50s with a huge pension, instead of working another decade.
Except that now you have the gift of self respect. No price on that.
Having concern about what happens if/when the Progressives / Democrats regain power is a legitimate concern.
BUT, given what we've seen since Obama was serenaded into the "HOPE & CHANGE"tm White House, it is also clear that those forces fully intend the destruction via deconstruction of our Constitutional Republic - indeed, all of Western Civilization - "by any means necessary."
Them experiencing "some of their own medicine" is, alas, a necessity right now. Forced upon us by them.
Hopefully, as DOGE flips over more rocks, and more disclosures come (Epstein, etc.), this will all morph into a cathartic awakening in our country - dare I say, the catalyst for a new Great Awakening?
In any case, the revelations (+ election reform to promote election integrity) may remove the Progressives / Democrats as an electoral force for years, if not decades.
Regarding the publishing industry's reverse discrimination against White males - that has been the norm across America for over 50 years now (it used to be called "affirmative action"). Since Obama, it was put on steroids by focusing / "privileging" not just Blacks, but ANY group that wasn't White and male, i.e., "affirmative action" morphed into "DEI."
Trump is intent in deconstruction of our constitutional republic simply because constitutional restraints get in the way of doing WTF he wants as he always did in his own business. The next wave needs to be reasserting our Constitutional Republic, in the teeth of both of our Two Major Parties, including MAGA.
"Trump is intent in deconstruction of our constitutional republic simply because constitutional restraints get in the way of doing WTF he wants as he always did in his own business" WTF, are you just blind or a Never Trumper? What the hell do you think the left has been doing for the last 20+ years?
You seem to be unaware that two things can be true at the same time. For instance, Trump can be everything I said, and the Democrats can be everything you said. But liberals are not "left." If its not about the prosperity of people who work for a living, its not "left." Don't feed their delusions.
"By 2021, there was not one white male millennial on the “Notable Fiction” list. There were none again in 2022, and just one apiece in 2023 and 2024 (since 2021, just 2 of 72 millennials featured were white American men). There were no white male millennials featured in Vulture’s 2024 year-end fiction list, none in Vanity Fair’s, none in The Atlantic’s. Esquire, a magazine ostensibly geared towards male millennials, has featured 53 millennial fiction writers on its year-end book lists since 2020. Only one was a white American man."
What more proof do you need that white men can't write?
What's got me scratching my head is this - why can't white men start their own publishing companies?
It's just a matter of going *big*, with a major publishing house. You know, like Penguin, which is an institution—you can't just make a new one at will. I'm sure there are plenty of indie houses that publish men in general and white men in particular, but that's not really the level of the complaint.
We did. And then we excluded ourselves.
My daughter was a Rotary Club exchange student, and did her senior year of high school in the town of Bethlehem, Republic of South Africa. It was the first year after the downfall of apartheid. For the first time, black students were allowed into the high school she attended. She grew up in our family without prejudice so found the attitudes of folks of both races puzzling and disconcerting. She found the culture fascinating and made some lifelong friends. My husband and I lived in Zambia and I worked in Malawi for 7 years…. All those three countries of Africa are so very different in history and personality, just as all the other African countries are… So when people hear about RSA they often think that is what happens in all of Africa. RSA is a beautiful country but it is definitely in trouble. I fear for this mentality in RSA that is emerging… I have seen mob mentality in action and it is a scary thing. Yes things need to change but look at the history of Zimbabwe and you will see what might happen…. My mind shudders at the thought.
Call me an impossible traditionalist, but a wrestling match isn't a wrestling match if someone isn't flinging snot.
NCAA wrestling is a sport, not a joke.
I'm aware of that.
It's possible it's been mentioned here and I haven't seen it, but the UK parliamentary report about October 7, chaired by Lord Roberts, was issued several days ago, and the usual suspects have to my knowledge been quiet. It's available for free download, over three hundred pages which may, at least for awhile, shame the usual idiots who babble about Israeli genocide against Gaza.
The media will never touch it and it will be buried, it contradicts the Narrative and forces people to face squarely who and what Hamas is. Western liberals can never do this and will resort to all kinds of denial and psychological projection to avoid doing so, as 1) it might make them have sympathy and support for Israel, which is socially verboten; and 2) it might force them to realize there will be no such thing as the "2-state solution" anytime soon and that no civilized people should be forced to live next door to such monsters.
Hamas and the Palestinians overall, a truly twisted people with a culture built on Jew hate, are an ugly intractable problem that most people will do anything to avoid being honest about. It's easier to attack and denounce Israel.
I favor ethnic cleansing without genocide: pick up all the Gazans, and put them back down in Indonesia. And maybe this whole imbecilic blood feud will blow over in a few generations.
Why not put all the Israeli Jews in the USA?
Because they have nuclear weapons and will do as they please. "Not fair?"—no one cares; that's not how international politics works.
Well, the USA could stop funding them, and let their economy collapse.
You do realize that would result in the total annihilation of all Gazans and possibly the land of Gaza itself, if Israel is forced into such a corner? We can cut the funding after we help all the Gazans over to Indonesia, given how long we've had our fingers in this pie.
Also, my understanding is that most of the Gazans might actually be happy to go, since most people in general would prefer a chance of life anywhere instead of misery and death in such a shithole.
Probably because history shows that even the most welcoming country in the world may eventually turn against the Jews. That's why Jews wanted their own country, so that they were not always a small minority fleeing from country to country.
Well, in that case, the USA could give them a state.