Trump: The Honey Badger Conservative

Hero President Slays Woke Dragons. Is The Era Of Living By Lies Over?

Neither gives a damn

Good morning. We have so much news that I’m tired of the news. On the other hand, there’s so much winning! Look:

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order aimed at cutting federal support for gender transitions for people under age 19, his latest move to roll back protections for transgender people across the country.

“It is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures,” the order says.

The order directs that federally-run insurance programs, including TRICARE for military families and Medicaid, exclude coverage for such care and calls on the Department of Justice to vigorously pursue litigation and legislation to oppose the practice.

Medicaid programs in some states cover gender-affirming care. The new order suggests that the practice could end, and targets hospitals and universities that receive federal money and provide the care.

Just like that, the sexual mutilation of children is effectively over. This tweet is from the divorced Texas man who fought a losing battle in court to save his little boy from being chemically castrated by his mother, who had custody:

I hope it’s true, and that poor child will have been saved from these wicked bastards.

Trump slayed this evil beast with a stroke. But wait, there’s more! Trump also killed federal affirmative action. Christopher Caldwell says this is way bigger than people may think. Excerpt:

Trump’s decision to repeal it is the most significant policy change of this century—more significant than the Affordable Care Act of 2010 or anything done about Covid. How can people be talking about anything else? Yet major news outlets treat Trump’s bold move as a detail of personnel management: “Distress and Fury as Trump Upends Federal Jobs,” headlined The New York Times.

Somewhere along the line, the Trump administration came to understand in a sophisticated way how the enforcement of civil rights actually works. Not many Americans do—and it’s worth reviewing.

It really is worth reading Caldwell’s analysis. Conclusion:

It was possible to believe at the time of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that a good-faith moral commitment would suffice to remedy the devilish racial antagonism that had beset the country since its founding. That that wouldn’t work became obvious very quickly. Barely a year later, at the start of the summer of 1965, President Johnson argued before a Howard University graduating class that it’s not fair to make a runner “who, for years, has been hobbled by chains” compete with others.

It sounded generous. But it was dark. Three months later, Johnson would issue Executive Order 11246, realizing that it was possible to remedy a racist system only by favoring the victim race, in doses of remedial racism, or what the British—apparently a more straightforward people than we are—call “reverse racism.”

This was a course that the public could not tolerate and neither government nor business could avow. A climate of dishonesty was the result. Affirmative action was a big factor—perhaps the biggest—in convincing about half of Americans never to trust anything any person of authority said.

Ten presidents managed to insulate affirmative action from public accountability. Then it became obvious to the public that changing anything would require dismantling everything.

Trump is doing it. God bless him, he’s doing it. No more of these squish Republicans saying they’re against what the left-liberal state is doing, but barely lifting a finger to stop it, because they were afraid of being called racist. The Big Orange Honey Badger don’t care. And lo, the people like it!

In the past couple of days, I’ve heard from military friends telling me that DEI in the armed forces is a lot worse than most people think. No doubt this is because the media think it’s a great thing, and never report on its down sides. Madeleine Rowley in The Free Press has a stunning report on what DEI has done to the armed forces. She starts with the testimony of a retired Air Force Brigadier General, Christopher Walker, who says he was roped into DEI programs because it was assumed that being black, he supported them. He didn’t. But he took notes on what he likens to “Soviet indoctrination.” In the story, he chooses to be referred to as “Mookie,” his pilot call sign:

In 2022, Mookie recalls attending a training course at Georgetown University for Air Force generals and senior officers called “Managing for Inclusion.” The professor, he said, informed the group that white people were oppressors and black and Hispanic people were the oppressed, so they couldn’t be racist. The professor also taught the class how to ask someone for their pronouns at the beginning of a conversation.

“The whole thing was old-fashioned propaganda,” Mookie said. “But there were generals, including Lt. General Mary O’Brien [now retired] and Lt. General Leah Lauderback, and higher-ranked people within this course who were going along with it, clapping like trained seals.”

With the arrival of Donald Trump as president and Pete Hegseth as the new secretary of defense, the days of asking soldiers for their preferred pronouns appear to be over. Immediately after taking office, Trump signed an executive order putting an end to all DEI programs in the federal government. On Monday evening, he announced that he would issue another series of executive orders that would include the elimination of critical race theory and “transgender ideology” from the military.

I urge you strongly to read the whole thing, to take in some of the concrete examples of what DEI did to the military, an organization whose purpose is to fight and win wars, and which depends on unit cohesion to do so. One of a number of examples:

In 2022, General C.Q. Brown, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs who was then chief of staff of the Air Force, co-authored a memo that set “aspirational” race and gender quotas for Air Force officer applicants: He sought an Air Force that was 36 percent female, 67.5 percent white, 13 percent black, and 10 percent Asian. A subsequent lawsuit filed by the Center to Advance Security in America uncovered slides showing that the Air Force planned to achieve these quotas in part by making changes to its qualifying test to achieve the “desired end-state” of increasing the number of Hispanics in the Air Force. One would be hard-pressed to think of anything more corrosive to an organization that views itself as merit-based.

It’s gone now, at least on paper. Now the Trump Administration has to dismantle and destroy the entire infrastructure. God help them. This is a Herculean task. Pete Hegseth isn’t my ideal Defense Secretary, but it is likely the case that it takes an outsider like him to have the gumption to implement these radical reforms. A more conventional establishment figure would probably behave like most pre-Trump Republicans: as a figure of the controlled opposition, more concerned with what the media and Respectable People think than doing the hard but necessary things.

Could it be that our long national DEI nightmare is over? Maybe. We have to keep fighting, and fighting, and fighting. These ideologues didn’t come to power within institutions in a single day, and though President Trump’s moves are devastating to their various causes, the battle goes on to de-wokify every space they control. The key thing to remember is that wokeness is like a religion to these people. They don’t think those who oppose them are simply wrong; they think we are evil, and they will resist with the ferocity of WW2 Japanese soldiers burrowed in on the hills of Okinawa.

Even if right prevails in the end, the effects of this social experiment won’t soon disappear. A friend of mine is an accomplished white male scientist, an emigre from a Communist country, who lost his academic job when he refused to take the Covid jab. Despite his immense qualifications, he has not been able to find another one because hey, white male. He e-mailed yesterday:

It’s amazing that as soon as people stopped being afraid of DEI leftist totalitarians, basically since 1/20/25, I am being hit with job positions. I should be happy but, actually, I am very angry. It just confirms beyond any doubt what was the true criterion for employment (blank, blank, blank … not suitable for publication) for the past ten years. However, all those people who just turned their coats are spineless filth.

If I learned anything from the fall of communism it is that we cannot move forward with them and make it. They must go. Havel’s idiotic “We are not like them” does not apply. Unfortunately, not even Trump has the guts for this kind of a solution, but this is our last chance.

I was just asked if I’d join a government agency because of, you know … skills. My answer was ‘f—k them'.

The political scientist and Democratic adviser Ruy Teixeira laments that the Left is not prepared to give ground at all in recognition of the new environment. He says that on immigration and identity politics, the Left is still all-in, even though their policies are very unpopular. Excerpt:

Identity politics/equity/”trans rights.” The contemporary left is deeply invested in these issues and shows little sign of backing down or compromising on any of them. Take the statement of Ben Wikler, the left’s favorite candidate for chair of the Democratic National Committee:

We unite our coalition by making sure everyone’s at the table.

As DNC Chair our leadership team will lift up our full coalition—Blacks, Latino, Native, AANHPI, LGBTQ. Youth, Interfaith, Ethnic, Rural, Veteran and Disability representation.

This does not seem like the statement of someone even willing to entertain the idea that identity politics is past its sell-by date. Or consider that it is Trump, not anyone on the left, who ringingly called for unrestricted free speech and for a society that is “colorblind and merit-based.” That’s because all these principles have become right-coded in the last period of time and are therefore verboten for anyone on the left to endorse. That’s crazy! As Jeff Maurer memorably puts it, these statements by Trump

hurt not because I disagree, but because I can’t believe that the left has fucked things up so badly that free speech, color blindness, and meritocracy are now issues that the right feels they own. In fact, those issues are so right-coded that they made the list of Things To Throw In Democrats’ Faces At The Inauguration Speech. A little more than a decade ago, those were bedrock liberal ideals. How did we screw this up?

That wasn’t the only challenge in Trump’s inauguration speech to left shibboleths and there are even more in his spate of executive orders. The left is inclined to fight each and every one of them because they believe history is on their side. But is it? I am doubtful the median working-class voter is going to greet the demise of DEI programs in their workplace, public institutions, or community with anything but delight.

Nor will they miss the pronoun police, the insistence that trans-identified biological boys should be able to play girls sports or the easy availability of “gender-affirming care” (e.g., puberty blockers, hormones, surgery) for minors. The Times poll mentioned earlier found that 80 percent of working-class (non-college) respondents opposed transgender birth males playing in women’s sports and 75 percent opposed allowing puberty blockers and hormone therapy to be prescribed for anyone under 18.

Teixeira — whose Substack is called “Liberal Patriot” — goes on:

Such is the nature of today’s left—divorced from the working class but intimately connected to the leftist strongholds of the professional class. The latter connection has kept them blissfully unaware of how far outside of the public opinion mainstream their current commitments are and therefore how quickly the hills they are defending could be overrun. That’s happening right now but the left seems determined to fight on to the bitter end.

It is impossible to imagine any other Republican politician save Trump having the guts to slay these dragons. Forgive the profanity, but this strikes me as correct:

How America Screwed Itself With China

The perspicacious “Spengler” columnist tweets, with reference to the US and China:

Greeks, he meant. Along those lines, that ornery Slavic scientist friend I quoted above e-mails about Chinese products:

Here is the mindbogglingly stupid trajectory the American capitalists took:

1. Design, develop, build parts and assemble stuff here. Pay decent bucks to Americans to do that.

- self-sustaining continuation of skills, pride, motivation and all that stuff

- American stuff good, Chinese nonexistent

2. Design, develop and build parts here and assemble the stuff in China. Pay fewer Americans decent bucks and virtually nothing to the Chinese

- self-sustaining continuation of somewhat diminished skills and pride while feeling very smug

- American stuff good, Chinese crappy

3. Design and develop here but build parts and assemble them in China

- skills are no longer self sustaining. There is no need to have or seek them but for very few, because there is virtually nowhere to apply them. In China, the exact opposite is happening.

- American stuff mediocre, Chinese stuff catching up

4. Design, develop, build parts and assemble everything in China by the Chinese.

- no skills left. No incentive to acquire them because there is nowhere for them to be applied

- American stuff nonexistent or crappy and very expensive, Chinese stuff f—king excellent

The above process took 30 years in the high-tech sector. In manufacturing this happened 20 years earlier. We have lost two generations at least where no skills were transmitted. By any definition, this is the death knell for any culture.

My lab stuff is entirely Chinese and it is fascinatingly well-designed. If I opted for its American equivalents (read the stuff designed here but still built in China) the price would be exorbitant if available at all and most-likely it would be crap. E.g. a $40k Tektronix oscilloscope or $300 Chinese Siglent one? For what I need them, they are identical.

Christian Men From Mars, Christian Women From Venus?

A reader sends me this from a self-described radical feminist site. There is, alas, a lot of truth to it:

This is something that I like to watch on X. (Twitter. I still want to call it Twitter).

I like watching Christians on Twitter.

Now, it's not that Christian women never have their problems, but here's what they largely do when interacting. I'm talking about Catholics, various Protestants, Orthodox, and even Mormons.

1. Pray for each other to find good husbands.

2. Gently plead that Christian men will stop with the porn.

3. Pray for babies or for you to have babies.

4. Compliment each other's babies.

5. Share homeschooling tips and modesty tips.

6. Post pictures of their Christian cottagecore homes.

7. Compliment each other over that.

8. Share affirming passages from the Bible.

9. Post pictures of clean eating meals.

10. Please, Christian brothers, the porn, please stop.

There might be some really bad negativity here and there, but not all that much. A lot of it is lovely, actually.

The men, however.

Here's what I see- and mostly ONLY see- from the dudes.

1. Your denomination is feminine, mine is masculine.

2. You're going to hell, and I can't wait.

3. I'm a Chad because my denomination is better.

4. You're denomination is gay and stuff.

5. Actually, your denomination is Satanic. Satanism is gay.

6. Here's a bunch of boring citations from obscure theologians about how your denomination is totally gay and feminine and has a small penis and you're going to hell.

7. You stay out of this, pagan white nationalist.

8. Anyway, like I was saying, your denomination is an abomination, it's heresy, that's why it's so swishy and feminine.

9. F-slur.

10. R-slur.

I've repeatedly asked these men how they're defining masculine and feminine, and what makes the Catholic Church or the Orthodox Church or whatever Protestants girly. They all accuse the others of having been ruined by feminism. The Orthodox insist that since they have a "Patriarch" which is their version of a pope, it's more patriarchal because it's right in the name. This is a very 12 year old's understanding of it but okay. The Catholics think too much about Mary, and the Protestants may or may not have women pastors. The Orthodox also went dead and didn't fight hard enough against the communists — Protestant strains fought harder and are more willing to go to dangerous areas to spread the gospel. (Even though the ones arguing online wouldn't). The Catholic church is the oldest church with the best stuff. That makes it dudely.

No attempts at common ground, no seeking comradery. Just impulsive, instinctual warring against a perceived outgroup.

They're all reading the same fu—ing book and collectively failing to receive the same fu—ing message.

Christianity isn't about masculinity or femininity, Chad, Alpha, or Beta. It's quite literally about the creator of the universe and the afterlife. It's not about Bro-living. The bible is not a very old copy of Maxim.

It's fascinating to see how Christian women, when with each other, try to bond and form friendship, spreading peace and love. But Christian men immediately get out tape measures and play Ro-Sham-Bo.

Like honestly, maybe you do want your churches to be more feminized, but "masculine" looks awfully immature and frankly, boring.

I'd be way more interested in hearing about the authenticity of the Turin Shroud than what Biggus Dickus of Chadamethea wrote to the heretic, Pseudo-Homosexualus of Femmeland. Or at least get a good baked chicken recipe from a new friend.

It's another example of women actually doing the work that they're supposed to, with men bragging about what they would do, if you weren't such an r-slur f-slur.

Christian women just seem to want to roll up their sleeves and be good examples, do what they think it right, but also build community and love.

But the men immediately want to dive into a mosh pit and thunder dome their way to salvation.

It's sad to see Christian women's efforts be eroded this way by the very men they thought would be their "leaders." (Christian women, put your faith in Jesus but.....not anything else.....).

The Bible is not a very old copy of Maxim. Great line. I can’t say anything about how female Christians on social media interact in female-dominated spaces, because I never see them. But this describes why I advise any young men interested in Orthodoxy to stay away from most of the Orthodox internet. I have also seen the same kind of thing on Catholic and Reformed sites dominated by men. It’s repugnant.

Mind you, I write from time to time about how feminized so much Christianity has become, and how off-putting it can be. And I’ve observed how masculine — as distinct from macho — the Orthodox ethos is, and how upbuilding that is, especially for young men. But this “bro-living” aspect of Very Online Conservative Christianity is toxic. A good example of it is that book The Boniface Option, by Andrew Isker, a young Reformed hothead pastor; I reviewed it here. These guys confuse holiness with assholiness. I wrote in that review:

[E]very page of The Boniface Option bristles with intense anger. Over and over, Isker says that we must train ourselves to "hate" -- but he offers no advice on how to keep that hatred of evil from turning into hatred of human beings, or the hatred from poisoning one’s heart. One gets the clear impression that he thinks hatred in defense of holiness is no vice.

Isker writes as if the enemy is Out There, is Those People. Solzhenitsyn’s warning that the line between Good and Evil passes through the middle of every human heart is lost on Pastor Isker. He has no apparent awareness about how we virtue-seeking, ass-kicking, manly-man Christians could become monsters.

More:

My Catholicism when I was his age had a lot in common with his fierce Calvinism. I wanted to fight. And fighting was important, and necessary! Far too many otherwise good Catholic men (and women, but especially men) did not want to do it. They wanted to preserve their comfort, their peace of mind. Catholic laymen had a lot more freedom to fight openly against the corruption in the Church than priests did, but most did not. Most stayed silent, and conformed, though speaking out would have cost them little. I opposed their servility, and after two years of fighting in the trenches of the abuse scandal, came to despise them as cowards.

But I did not know how to lose. I did not, in the end, have the capacity to suffer loss and defeat without losing my faith. Because I wielded the axe so wildly, I ended up inadvertently chopping off my own legs. In His severe mercy, God allowed me to be crushed in my pride, so that I would learn to seek Him on my knees. It was the subsequent training in prayer, fasting, and all the rest that has given me the strength, and the means to access the grace, to hold on despite losing almost everything that mattered to me.

When the early Benedictines would establish a monastery in the wild, and pagan tribesmen would slaughter them and plunder the monastery, the mother house would often simply send more monks out to refound the monastic settlement. In time, this is how peasants learned that the monks could be trusted. Were those monks cucks (a word Isker doesn’t use, but I can’t imagine why not)?

Guys like that know how to destroy. But do they know how to build? And what kind of structures would they be building? A Christianity that is nothing but Chads At Prayer is not Christianity at all.

Some Orthodox priests — not a liberal among them — have told me that no small number of young men who show up in their churches ready to become Orthodox, because they have been red-pilled by online hypermasculine Orthodoxy, more or less need to be deprogrammed. I was texting yesterday with a conservative Catholic friend, a courageous man who has taken a lot of blows in public in defense of the faith, and who expressed frustration that so many brilliant young Catholic men he knows have adopted this kind of stance within the context of the faith. He said that they seem to have more interest in establishing the Schmittian friend-enemy distinction within the Christian community than in working together to get things done. It’s the same kind of purity spiral that legendarily consumed leftist circles in the 20th century (you know, Trotskyists versus Stalinists, etc.).

Now, with reference to the radical feminist’s take on female Christian online discourse, I suspect that she is seeing it through rose-colored glasses. And if not online — again, how would I know? — then certainly the way the feminine ethos plays out in real life, in church circles, can be extremely manipulative and destructive. For example, the way feminized church spaces make an absolute telos of “compassion,” such that any doctrines, rules, or practices that they deem “uncompassionate” become forbidden. This is everywhere in Protestantism and Catholicism; it’s not (yet?) in Orthodoxy, which is one big reason Orthodoxy is so attractive to young men right now. It results in things like this Catholic Charities lawyer advising illegal migrants how to resist cooperation with ICE:

As the Catholic philosopher Edward Feser (and others) keeps pointing out — see here and here — Catholic social teaching does mandate treating migrants with dignity, but it also recognizes that host countries have a right to govern migration for the common good of those countries. I’m very glad that lay Catholics like Prof. Feser and J.D. Vance are standing up to their bishops on this issue.

What do y’all see online, and in your church life, with regard to the Mars vs. Venus attitudes of male and female Christians?