The primarily don’t like Trump because he’s calling them idiots. Sometimes, because he’s Trump, directly, but even when he’s on his best behavior, his every action exposes them for the idiots they are. And it is infuriating to them.

You have to think about their world for a minute: they grew up in the system and the system taught them certain things as unquestionable dogma. This is how the world works and thus it ever shall be. Things like NATO, the UN, foreign aid, mass immigration, free trade…all dogmas defended as stoutly as any Christian will defend the Trinity…but with the difference that the Christian is defending a Mystery while the secular Establishmentarian is defending…merest opinion.

That is the thing, of course: what these people hold to be established fact which no educated person may question are just opinions. Often opinions which weren’t supported by the facts at their creation. But all rigidly enforced. William Manchester, liberal to the core, recognized what was happening in the 1970’s – that the age was becoming one of Liberal Bigotry…no thought, no questioning…just endless repetitions of received dogmas with the only change allowed being carrying it to the conclusion: that is, the bad idea morphs into the insane idea so lets have a 200 pound man compete against a 120 pound woman.

And the reason Liberal Bigotry has been sustained for so long is that for a very long time, it seemed to work. Heck, almost all of us on the Right were taken in by it. I used to defend NATO! I thought the FBI was a first-rate crime fighting outfit. I thought the schools were trying to educate. I figured our senior military officers were apolitical patriots only concerned with the defense of the nation. On and on like that…and it was all based, ultimately, on the fact that the Liberal order had won World War Two. Can’t emphasize enough how much that built up credibility for Liberalism. That plus the apparent cure of the Great Depression. Essentially, the Liberal order has been cruising on that since 1945.

But it never was what it seemed. As I’ve explained before, the Great Depression was the inevitable result of things that happened ten years previously: the massive destruction of global markets represented by the twin events of the First World War and the Spanish flu. Every economy was living on borrowed time starting in 1919…and the British economy slumped into de-facto depression by 1926: it was so bad by then that the British working class – especially the coal miners (then Britain’s basic industry) – called a general strike. The global economic contraction was ongoing…it hit America’s agricultural sector as early as 1921. The crash of the Stock Market in 1929 was merely a belated exposure of the underlying weakness…but even that wasn’t all of it. For instance, France didn’t tumble into Depression until 1931. But it was going to hit everywhere eventually. Nothing anyone did would either stop it or lessen its effects. The only thing anyone could do is make it worse – which is precisely what the governments of the world, including ours, started to do.

And it wasn’t the tariffs! In fact, what Britain should have done when their economy slumped in the mid-20’s was impose tariffs. As noted, their basic industry back then was coal…but the British Empire was being overrun by cheap coal from Germany, Poland and the United States. Think about it: the British controlled 1/4th of the world’s land mass and population. Coal was the basic motivator of industry at the time. If you wanted something to be done mechanically, coal had to be used – even if merely to generate the electricity you need for electrical machines. How could Britain’s coal industry slump when 1/4 of the world was their market? Because they were free traders! They allowed their basic industry – their working class – to be squeezed into poverty on the theory that India and Canada should be able to buy their coal from Germany. Insane! And Britain, like the rest of the world, opted to use government spending to cure the economic malaise.

Think about this for a moment: you’ve got an economy that has crashed. Poverty is spreading. The money is all gone. So, your solution is to take money from this crashed, impoverished economy and give it to the government. And call the resultant government spending “growth”. This is what deepened and extended the Depression. Not tariffs. The money which was supposed to be used by the people to rebuild their economic lives was spent by government…sure, some of it useful spending (like the Brits subsidizing their shipbuilding industry which was to prove crucial for British victory in WWII) but the main thing is that it couldn’t be “growth” … it was just moving money around. Some bright guy out there might have had some new product or innovation ready to go but he couldn’t get financing because the money had been taxed or borrowed away to build a CCC camp in Nevada.

And then World War Two happened. Kinda interesting aspect of this has not been explored. Probably because exploring it would expose some weaknesses in the Liberal Narrative. German rearmament started before the ink was dry on the Treaty of Versailles. First covertly and ad-hoc, it was eventually taken over by the government and as early as 1927 the Germans had a plan to create a large, modern army. But they also knew it would take time. Years and years. The program was put into overdrive when Hitler came to power in 1933 and all sorts of financial trickery were used to provide the money for the buildup. But it was still going to take time. The German Navy – the Kriegsmarine – put their program under the title of Plan Z which envisioned a Germany Navy strong enough to fight the UK by 1948. In a pinch, they felt they could at least fight it out by 1942. The Army also felt that they could present Hitler with a reliable military instrument in a pinch by 1942, though they more envisioned 1945 as the time when the German army would be ready. But as we all know, the war started in 1939. What gives?

The German staffs – Army and Navy – were among the best in the world. Arguably for the Army the very best in the world and maybe in all time. They knew what Germany needed to have a fair shot at winning. These were deeply educated, highly intelligent men. The official Narrative is that Hitler was just too impatient and so flew off the handle, as it were, and invaded Poland in 1939 before Germany was ready but then the slight quality edge the Germans had in 1939 and 1940 allowed to stupendous success. There is some truth in that but the firing of Hjalmar Schacht as President of the Reichsbank was more imporant – Schacht had been sacked because he kept on telling Hitler that he had to stop the arms buildup as it was bankrupting Germany. To outsiders, Germany in the 1930’s looked like an economic miracle…pretty much full employment, everyone prosperous and great public works being done at the same time Germany’s military grew more imposing by the year. It looked as though State planning and spending were the magic talisman. But it was all a false front: the money was fake (MEFO bills – enormously funny thing which I’m sure our current Rulers would love to have – forcing businesses to take promissory notes which will be redeemed when the government says so and don’t appear on the government books as debts), the truth concealed by economic sleight of hand…and it was all about to come crashing down into renewed Depression once the world figured out just how much debt the German government was carrying. There were two ways out for Hitler’s regime: allow a Depression or start a war. Guess which option was taken?

The main thing here is that the Nazi regime, aside from its other sins, shows that State planning and spending don’t actually do anything. They don’t create growth. They might give you a hot house and very temporary prosperity, but they are all on borrowed time and something has to give. This is why, I believe, this aspect hasn’t been looked into. Nor has the real effect of the New Deal been looked into. There’s been some criticism around the edges of it, but nobody points out that it didn’t do anything positive – and very likely made things worse in the long term. The industrial power which armed the world against Nazism wasn’t made by the New Deal. And while the Hoover Dam is quite impressive and useful, it wasn’t as useful as the ability to make aluminum and steel. In fact, we rather lucked out on aluminum which was to be crucial for aircraft production…totally outside government, a new facility was built in the late 1930’s for aluminum production for the Japanese market. Outside that stroke of luck, building those 50,000 planes FDR ordered would have been tricky. You’d think if our Ruling Class was super smart and figuring things out that the things we needed the most would have got priority in government spending. But, it wasn’t like that at all. In fact, some particularly needful things – like food production – were hobbled in the 1930’s in an attempt to keep food prices artificially high.

But it all seemed to work on that glad day in September of 1945 when the Japanese affixed their signature to the surrender document. The war was won. The Depression was over (though it is forgotten that right after the war there was a recession and a spike in inflation as the economy readjusted itself). The Smarty Pants Experts had fixed everything! And since then, their successors have continued to run things all based on the assumption that Smarty Pants Experts know what they’re doing. Don’t you know that General Massive Decorations is the successor of such geniuses as George Marshall!??!? How dare you question! And Professor Gimme A. Sinecure is the successor of Rexford Tugwell of FDR’s Brain Trust! How can you know more than him?!?!?!

Guys, they have no clue what they’re doing. Heck, even old Rexford didn’t know. He was a Columbia University economics graduate who figured he knew better than the farmers how agriculture should work. Because who better than an upper class academic to tell you how to plow a field? They’re just people who happen to be in positions of power when things happen…and if good things coincide with their tenure, they get awards and reputations for being geniuses. For the Liberal order, being in charge while American industry (they did nothing to create) arms a military (they also did nothing to create) which then goes on to win a global war was the grandest stroke of luck in history. And, my friends, the people in charge actually made even winning worse than it should have been. You think about the bone headed strategic decisions taken which prolonged the war unnecessarily, the diplomacy which awarded half of Europe to Stalin and China to Mao…the post war Cold War and fruitless wars in Vietnam and Korea…the slow destruction of the American industrial and agricultural sectors which had awarded them victory in the first place…the importation of millions of foreigners, the destruction of all public decency…on and on and on they went just totally lousing everything up but keeping in power on the after glow of a document signing on the USS Missouri.

And here we are. It is 2025. Eighty years later and its all come apart at the seams and Trump is trying to sew it back together again. It is simple logic that the illegals have to go home. That we use tariff pressure to force acceptable trade deals. That we revive American manufacturing as much as we can. That we prosecute violent criminals. That we let girls compete with girls. And they hate Trump for doing it – because it shows them up as the totally clueless buffoons they’ve always been. The mask it off. The Emperor not only has no clothes but he’s fat, bald, covered in pimples and he’s swinging something a chipmunk would be ashamed to carry.

And I do believe it is going to work – mostly because sensible things do work. It won’t be the appearance of success, but actual success. Not a higher mythical GDP number, but an increase in actual wealth. Not a higher defense budget, but an actually effective military force. On and on like that…and that will put an end to the Liberal Order.

I do believe our Democrats have learned absolutely nothing from 2024.

Until about ten days ago there was story after story and claim after claim that Democrats and Never Trumpers were hearing from MAGA – and we were soooo disappointed in Trump! I mean, we didn’t want Harris but we didn’t vote for this! All these deportations of poor illegals without due process, all this cutting government with a butcher knife…it was all too much! Trump is out of control! What have we done?!?!?!?

And then after a period of that, a whole raft of polls comes out – Trump’s approval is cratering to lows no President has ever seen at this point in his term! It was a cascading political collapse. And, hey, (went other stories and claims) the Dems are on to something here…standing up for Maryland Man and fighting against DOGE is their way back to power! You see, the Democrats were showing themselves to be the reasonable, responsible people who are capable of governing.

And then…

All the polls showing Trump’s support in free fall were the same polls that showed Harris’ Bratty Joy was dominating the election. Do keep in mind that Harris’ pollster has stated that at no time during the campaign did her internal polls show her with a lead. The polls that showed Harris ahead – or even in position to win – were utter nonsense. And so, too, are the polls showing Trump’s support dropping. Sure, there is statistical noise…the good polls show Trump bouncing around from 48% to 51% approval…basically where we was on Election Day. This is actually pretty astonishing…I really expected a genuine drop as Trump put MAGA on steroids. But, no: ain’t happening. It seems everyone is pleased as punch about what he’s doing and if there’s a complaint its that he’s not doing more and faster.

But do keep in mind that the Democrats tried here – to create out of whole cloth a Narrative of Trump collapse, MAGA disenchantment and Democrat resurgence. None of it was true – there wasn’t a single fact to back up the claim. It was a lie from start to finish and they couldn’t sell it.

This is a watershed moment, my friends. The social power of the Democrats has been broken. They can no longer win just by lies pushed in the MSM. People are on to the con and Team Trump has become masterful at dominating the message. For instance, this past Sunday was May the 4th and that is a big day for Star Wars nerds – “May the fourth” = “May the Fourth be With You” (get it?). So, what did Trump do? The White House account put out an AI picture of Trump as a Jedi…with a red lightsaber because that ensured it would go exceptionally viral (red lightsabers are for Siths, not Jedis). As of this moment, it has 56 million views and 31,000 comments. Meanwhile, on that same Sunday, how many people do you suppose watched the DNC propaganda on the Sunday talk shows? I bet it wasn’t even a tenth of that number combined. The Democrats look at this and can only shriek in impotent rage. They don’t understand how Trump is doing this and why they can’t just tell people what to think.

Lied a little too often there, guys. Lies do work, I’ve pointed that out endlessly. But you have to keep your lies reasonable. When you told us we couldn’t have a funeral for grandma but George Floyd could have three, that was a bit unreasonable. Everyone could see not only that it was a lie, but that it was a ridiculous and insulting lie. It got people to hate you, Democrats. They didn’t used to. Now they do. And while people will often listen to liars, they never listen to people they hate…and this is even when the people hated speak the truth. Democrats are in some deep doo doo here.

We’ll see how this turns out – the economy will be key in 2026. I happen to believe that Trump’s policies will get things booming within the first 12 months of his term…but be that as it may, we might find that the Democrats are so toxic that they can’t win even in a poor situation for the GOP. Trump is rolling – and the Democrats are in panic.

There’s a video out there of Governor Pritzker (D-IL) where he says Republicans “cannot know a moment of peace” and asserting that all our pictures will eventually be in a museum of tyranny. What Pritzker is doing, between gasps for breath as he tries to keep his morbidly obese body alive, is trying to work up another Butler. He knows we’re not evil – in fact, Democrats know better than we how good we are and how bad Democrats are – but he’s going with this because he needs someone to try to stop us, mostly by stopping Trump. Democrats know full well that Trump is the key man – not just because he’s President, but because he’s got the will to win. We think Vance might have it but we don’t know unless and until he’s in office…for the moment, only Trump has a proven track record of getting it done. And it is terrifying Democrats.

It got a bit of notice but with so much going on, not a lot of notice: Team Trump is looking into ActBlue. This is the primary fundraising arm of the Democrat party. And as I’ve been saying about it for many years: it is dirty. It was so easy to figure it out: donation after donation in odd amounts. You know, like $27.35…Americans don’t donate like that. We give a twenty or a hundred but not odd amounts. That sort of donation is clearly a foreign currency donation laundered through some American cut-out and converted into dollars (and my bet is that a lot of the money originates as USAID grants to foreign NGOs). I am quite confident that any investigation of ActBlue will reveal not just a few bad actors, but that the whole thing was set up from the get-go to get around campaign finance laws…and because actual Democrat donors were getting rarer and rarer. Reminder: Dems love to say that X number of their donors are small amounts via ActBlue…giving the idea that there’s just millions of Little People out there supporting Democrats. There ain’t. Its all a fraud. And Trump might uncover it. And just consider for a moment the fate of the Democrats if ActBlue money dries up?

And that is just one of many fronts Team Trump is working on…some GOPers are already worried about 2026. Naturally, the MSM has worked up a series of recent polls showing Trump’s support cratering. I’ll only note here that GOP registration gains are continuing…if there is a drop in support for Trump it isn’t showing up in the real world. Only in MSM polls…which we know are bogus (these days I’m seriously starting to think they just make up the numbers – that they don’t even do an actual poll). I’m not worried – sure, the nature of things still says we have to be prepared for an uphill climb in 2026 but with Democrats picking the 20 in the 80/20 issues of immigration, girls sports and government spending…I think we’ve got a good shot at doing well. And then you add in things like arresting activist judges and cutting at the heart of Democrat finances via terminating USAID and investigating ActBlue…Democrats might go into 2026 with…feeble ability to campaign.

And that is why Pritzker said what he said – and Democrat after Democrat is out there saying Trump is a dictator-in-making and must be stopped by any means necessary. They want some lunatic to kill him. They failed in Butler by what can only be the grace of God…they failed at Mar a Lago by sheer happenstance. They know that in both instances they came very close to ending their problem. So, keep saying the words and see what happens. After all, in their minds they will have done nothing wrong…and if it gets them the result they want, all is well. They know it is now a little more tricky because they don’t have Team Biden making sure Trump’s security detail is less than 100% effective…but get enough shots headed downrange and one of them is bound to work, right?

There is a passage in The Lord of the Rings where Aragorn says words to the effect of: there’s a fat man in Bree who would be killed if it wasn’t for me and the Rangers, but I’m happy to do it because if I can protect the simple people, and leave them free to be simple, then I’ve done my duty. What Tolkien was doing there was showing what true nobility is. Aragorn is descended from the noblest of humanity…the blood of scores of kings runs in his veins. Yet he is scorned by those he protects because he looks rough on the outside…but he’s entirely ok with that, because the noble man does what is right no matter what anyone thinks. The huge problem of the modern world is that there is nobody around trying to protect the simple – allowing them to be freely simple. And I don’t mean simple as in stupid…but simple as in taking care of the day to day in peace (raising families, working their businesses…keeping up civilization). And, in fact, not only are the simple not protected, they are being maliciously twisted by the clever into doing evil…like when Pritzker (who knows precisely what he’s doing) tries to sucker some fool into taking a shot at Trump.

To be sure, most people are immune…that is, most people no matter how hard you try simply won’t turn to insane violence. But in any population there will be a percentage who will fall for it. And this could be from a host of reasons – mental defect, anger over some perceived slight, etc. The main thing is with 340 million people in America, if even one hundredth of one percent can be swayed to violence by Leftist rhetoric about Trump then there are 34,000 people out there just waiting for their chance to strike. And, guys, it is more than one hundredth of one percent. Reminder: we’ve already had two for certain and probably more (serious threats are dealt with by the Secret Service and they don’t always tell us about all of them in any serious way). Every society has it’s weakest links….people who for whatever reason are most apt to go very wrong. Democrats are hoping that the weakest link breaks the whole Trump chain.

We’re on a tightrope, my friends! The Democrats will not go quietly. They just failed to turn the USA into another Canada or UK…where immigrant votes plus voter fraud ensure Ruling Class dominance forever. Another four years of Team Biden and they likely would have done it. Democrats know that if Trump is able to succeed – and even worse, if Vance follows Trump – then they’re cooked. I’m not saying there won’t be a Left or a Democrat Party…what I’m saying is that those in charge will lose their money and power. That is what scares them…and all of their hangers-on (which includes journalists, college administrators, entertainment industry leaders…its the whole class which has been sustained by government money doled out by Democrat politicians)…they are terrified of losing mastery. There isn’t a stone they won’t leave unturned to get at Trump.

Buckle up for a wild ride!

I mean, he might as well have been leading the Democrats in chains behind his chariot.

I didn’t write about it last night because I wanted some time to ponder it all. As a man old enough to remember Reagan’s greatest speeches, I have to say that Trump’s speech before Congress last night was the best I’ve ever heard. Sure, it was Trump all over the place – that is the Trump style. Sure it slowed in the middle but all Trump speeches slow in the middle. Sure, it could have been fifteen minutes shorter, but if you do that then the peroration wouldn’t work as well as it did.

It was inspiring, hilarious, moving and patriotic. The Democrats played the role assigned to them by Trump – pointing out early that nothing he would say would get them to cheer just set the stage and even when DJ was introduced, Democrats did exactly what Trump needed them to do…sit on their hands. The Democrats, in political parlance, are the “out” party but last night they became the exiled party. They have no connection to the United States…just rude, old, ugly representatives of a ignorant, corrupt and stupid Ruling Class that had its day. Trump placed a vision before us of a united, free, prosperous America reaching for the stars…and Democrats shouted out they didn’t like this…and held up their pathetic, little signs.

We’re moving on, Democrats. The past is past. The future beckons. You can still join us. But you won’t.

Meanwhile, for the sane part of the country – well, as was pointed out in the previous thread: 76% of the American people gave the speech a thumbs up. That is remarkable. We’re supposed to be far more polarized than that. But, perhaps we’re not any longer? Perhaps outside of the Leftwing fever swamps, people are wanting a united America? Sure, not everyone is going to agree with everything Trump does. You can’t even get 10 people to agree on where to get something to eat so getting 340 million people to agree on things is a tough task. But this isn’t about Trump. It is about America. We Americans want our country to work again…not be tied up in boutique Leftist issues that require all of us to bend a knee. Sure, go be a blue haired vegan who rides a bike to Save The Planet. Knock yourself out. But that is you. Your life. Not everyone…and we’re not about to go back to a place where the Left puts one chain after another on us to Save The Planet.

Lefties, we don’t need a Savior. We have one and He’s coming back one day…long before my barbecue kills all the polar bears. Chill.

Most of all it was fun watching Trump last night. Democrats tried to manufacture joy for Harris last year but Trump brings the real thing. And fun will always beat Debbie Downer. We have a lot of hard work ahead. There will be pain as we MAGA, but we’re going to have fun and we’re going to Make America Great Again.

Elon Musk, the other day, opined that our Navy is living in the past and wasting money on weapons systems which will not be effective in the next war. He’s right.

I’m not of the school that holds the aircraft carrier to be obsolete in the face of modern anti-ship missiles but I am of the opinion that the Carrier Battle Group as the primary expression of naval power is not what it needs to be. Today it is, of course, the carrier and escorts – the carrier to be the strike force, the escorts there just to protect the carrier. I favor a more balanced approach – and I said some years ago that we need to revive the battleship concept (or at least the battle cruiser). In my view, the carrier might remain the primary strike force but we’d be foolish to rely only on piloted planes when we can fill the sky with missiles and drones. My revived battleship would fulfill that role.

The Burke class destroyer is 9,700 tons and it carries 96 Vertical Launch System cells. Imagine what a 50,000 ton ship could carry. Plus, that new battleship could be heavily armored (no modern ship carries anything like the Iowa’s 307mm thick armor – do keep in mind that the Nevada was missed by an atomic bomb by 1,600 yards and survived the blast – and she was built in 1916). It could initially carry a pair of 8 inch guns for shore bombardment and thus have space for the Rail Gun if that is ever worked out. With nuclear power it can cruise along at the carrier’s speed. With automation its crew would probably be about 300. It would incorporate all the modern stealth tech we can think of. And between missiles and drones it could put an overwhelming amount of ordnance in the air – and be a big enough ship that we might fit two or three reloads inside her.

It is important to always be thinking about things. We’re seeing on the battlefields of Ukraine that the tank is no longer Queen of the Battlefield. She can still do a lot of things, but she must be careful and stay hidden most of the time. Modern aerial tech means at least for now we won’t see anything the Operation Barbarossa with this 6,000 armored vehicles flooding across the open country. Not until tank tech takes a step forward as well (which we should also be looking into). If we sit tight with our Cold War-era military ideas, we’re going to get beaten.

But it isn’t enough to just change the material – the people must change, as well. I’ve often brought up Jacky Fisher as the exemplar of the Change Agent. Came into command of the Royal Navy and pretty much presented the United Kingdom with an entirely new Navy in about 5 years. And it was the Navy the Brits needed – fast battleships with big guns, no messing about with ships that, in Fisher’s words, “could neither run nor fight”. But even he had a little fail in this: he didn’t really change the people. Oh, he had people he favored and advanced – but they were favored because they agreed with his ideas on material changes. He neglected to look into whether or not they were changing their minds while changing their clothes.

Fisher presented his admirals with a fleet of battleships which were faster and better armed than the German ships they’d face. The whole concept was to move faster than the enemy, keeping just out of range of his smaller guns and then proceed to blow him to pieces. Unfortunately, his admirals just charged ahead into range of the Germans and got the bad end of the German concept of ships…slower, lesser-armed ships which could take immense punishment. At Jutland this resulted in the Brits losing 3 battle cruisers to the German’s 1…and the Brits, must less armored, were literally blown to pieces. So, a bit of attention to the detail: ask your people just what they plan to do with the fancy, new stuff you’re providing to them.

But change is the constant – and as Conservatives, it is our job to embrace change after we’ve done our “parable of the fence” review of the problem. That is, once we have actually identified the problem which will prevent our Conservation of something we love, have at it – even if it means revolutionary change. We hope that Trump and Team will continue to get the ball rolling. First in gutting the Deep State, then starting the process of reform. But our job is to not only sustain this, but to demand it go the right way. We can’t just latch on to anyone who puts “MAGA” in his bio…we need people who will actually do what needs to be done…and that is going to take us putting on pressure, getting involved in local politics and that sort of thing. And then, of course, defending the innovators. The whole Global Elite is going after Musk now – and I’ve always said that Musk is not my cup of tea. But I have to defend him…he’s on the side of the angels right now and if I let them get Musk’s scalp, it just moves me up the line.