Belfast Is Burning, and the Media Won't Say Why

Townhall 

Nearly three decades after the end of the Troubles, Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, is once again on fire.

On Monday, June 8, a Sudanese "asylum" seeker attacked a local man on the street with a kitchen knife, slashing him across the face and neck. Graphic video of the attack, which blinded the victim in one eye, rapidly spread online. The suspect, identified as Hadi Alodid, has been charged with attempted murder, possession of a knife in a public place, and making threats to kill.

In response, Belfast erupted.

Rioters took to the streets, hurling bricks and bottles at police, torching vehicles, and burning homes in some Belfast neighborhoods with large migrant populations. Police deployed water cannons. Families were forced to flee burning buildings. The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service responded to 62 incidents in a single night. At least 27 people have been left homeless.

Lest there be any doubt: Arson, mob violence and the burning of innocent people's homes are all indefensible acts. Mobocracy is here, there and everywhere, the enemy of civilization. The masked men who burned out their neighbors for no reason disgraced themselves and their cause.

But that hopefully obvious point aside, here is the question the Western press refuses to ask: Why does this keep happening?

Because it does keep happening. Almost exactly a year ago, Northern Ireland convulsed in riots after two Romanian teenagers were charged with the attempted rape of a schoolgirl in Ballymena. The year before that, riots swept across England itself — Southport, Rotherham, town after town — following a mass stabbing at a girls' dance class by a Muslim terrorist.

The pattern is not difficult to discern. A horrific crime, or series of crimes, is committed. The perpetrator is a migrant, often some variety of "asylum" seeker. The government responds by condemning the violence of an enraged public while studiously avoiding any reckoning with the underlying policies that generated the crime and the inevitable subsequent rage. The Pravda press dutifully follows the official, regime-approved script.

This week's coverage has been instructive. The framing in outlets after establishment outlets has been nothing if not predictable: "anti-immigrant violence," "far-right protesters," "racist riots." Northern Ireland's first minister called the rioters "thugs" but had very little to say about the fact that a Sudanese national blinded a constituent in Northern Ireland's largest city. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the stabbing as "sickening" - fine — but devoted considerably more rhetorical energy to warning that "violence against people based on their background would not be tolerated."

As the late Canadian comic Norm MacDonald so memorably quipped a decade ago: "What terrifies me is if ISIS were to detonate a nuclear device and kill 50 million Americans. Imagine the backlash against peaceful Muslims?"

No one in the current British or Irish political leadership has earnestly asked whether a government that imports the whole world, with inadequate vetting and nonexistent assimilation, bears some meaningful share of the culpability for the social fractures now detonating like dynamite all across the British Isles. Why bother with any introspection? Far easier to just blame the "fascist" street thug menace.

As for the regime media: It's not that the press fails to condemn mob violence. On the contrary, it condemns it loudly and with great self-satisfaction. The press's failure is more insidious: It's the deliberate suppression of honest inquiry into cause and effect. It's the refusal to consider why working-class people across Britain and Ireland are at a boiling point. The question goes unasked, the fateful underlying policies go unexamined, and the pressure cooker keeps building.

The relevant facts are not in dispute. The United Kingdom has presided over one of the largest and least-managed immigration expansions — and, specifically, Muslim population expansions — in modern Western history. Applications for asylum, legitimate or not, have surged. Vetting has been porous. Integration has been an afterthought. And communities that were never consulted have borne the consequences most acutely. They have been told, repeatedly, that their discomfort reflects moral failure on their part rather than policy failure on the government's part.

That is British snobbishness at its absolute worst. Call this, instead, what it is: social transformation without representation. And ruinous social transformation, at that.

At some point, the people who actually live with the consequences of the elite's destructive policies cease asking permission to be heard. The answer is not to excuse violence but to take the underlying grievances seriously before the violence erupts in the first place.

Starmer does not want to have that conversation. The BBC does not want to have that conversation. The New York Times most certainly does not want to have that conversation.

But Belfast is having it — and it's ugly.

Worse, it may not stop anytime soon. Because unless Western governments stop treating skepticism of mass migration as a thought crime and start treating it as a legitimate concern, the fires will keep burning.

Podcast thread for June 12

 

Zzzzzzzzzz.....

Western Governments Endanger Western Citizens

American Thinker 

The global managerial class of bureaucrats, bankers, politicians, corporate heads, and NGOs are committed to fomenting chaos and violence in Western nations.  In the name of fighting the imaginary “climate change” hobgoblin, they outlaw inexpensive forms of energy and push us toward a carbon-tracking system that justifies ever more intrusive forms of mass surveillance.  In the name of fighting exotic pandemics, they justify mass lockdowns, central bank digital currencies, and “vaccine” passports.  By claiming that man-made “climate change” causes new pandemics and by blaming Western industrialized societies for causing “climate change,” the global managerial class insists that Western nations must accept “climate refugees” as part of their rolling atonement for past industrial “sins.”  

It’s all excrement-laden propaganda disguised as “science” and “virtue.”  Even worse, all these risible lies represent a sustained attack on Western peoples.  Consider how malicious these globalists really are: They have spent at least the last half-century scaring children into believing that modern industry is imminently killing the planet.  We have been inundated with so much “global warming/cooling/climate change/extreme weather” mass hysteria for so long that we no longer recognize how absolutely evil these enviro-fascist, nut-job propagandists are.  

If a stranger came to our homes, absconded with our children, and spent the next fifteen years brainwashing them to believe that the world was coming to an end, we would be horrified.  We would call the kidnappers “child abusers” and “monsters.”  We would do everything we could to heal the minds of our troubled children.  Yet in elementary school classrooms in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and across the European Union, little kids are conditioned to believe in the lie that innovation, productivity, material wealth, and industry are poisons that will kill them all.  It’s insane.  And it’s even more insane that we let it happen.

The “climate change” con is big business.  Crony capitalism works best when authoritarian governments mandate that everybody purchase windmills, solar panels, energy-efficient this, net-zero-modulated that.  When politicians and bureaucrats make it prohibitively expensive for small companies to produce anything, Big Business obtains a government-regulated monopoly over entire industrial sectors.  Those corporate monopolies kick back a chunk of the loot to the politicians, regulators, and NGOs, and all the money-making conspirators stay rich and happy.

Who loses?  The free market loses.  When only big corporations can afford to make things, innovation in Europe resembles that of Africa.  Ordinary citizens lose because they are effectively blocked from using their brainpower and muscle-power to build and sell new things that generate income, capital, and social mobility.  Society loses because the marketplace of ideas turns into a centrally-managed cartel run by a couple of multinational investment houses.  

Who wins?  The global managerial class wins.  All these central managers who are committed to tracking and tracing our every movement and thought depend upon a global system that turns carbon-based human beings who exhale carbon-bonded molecules with each breath into accounting units that must be managed, programmed, and controlled as part of globalism’s unspoken social contract imposed upon citizens for the “privilege” of living.  Communists, fascists, and sundry sordid authoritarians of the world have united under the banners of “net-zero” initiatives and “saving the planet” exhortations because “saving the planet” gives them an excuse to monitor, punish, and even eliminate you.  

After all, how “selfish” must one person be to believe that his wants and needs are more important than “saving the planet” from destruction?  Totalitarianism thrives on fairytales that teach the value of working for “the greater good,” and every one of those fairytales is inherently murderous.  For the sake of the “collective,” the “green new deal” fanatics believe that some people must die!  They won’t be the ones volunteering to jump into the volcano or be sacrificed on the Mayan temple.  They will choose the “nonbelievers” for the coming “net-zero” bloodletting. 

And that bloodletting has already begun!  How in the world could a sane person justify moving millions of military-aged men from third-world hellholes into advanced Western nations?  There is nothing about mass migration that makes sense if the goal is to make host nations stronger.  The people being dropped off in the United States and Europe have no skills or education.  They do not speak English, French, Swedish, Danish, Polish, Italian, Spanish, or German.  They have no interest in learning those languages.  They have no interest in assimilation.  They prefer to take over historic villages, overwhelm the schools, turn Christian churches into mosques, transform downtown shops into foreign enclaves and black-market hubs, rape the locals, and drain the taxpayer-funded social safety net.  Just as parasites feed on weakened hosts until ultimately killing them, invading armies of foreign nationals are devouring enfeebled Western nations until delivering their final death blows.  

None of this is “politically correct” to say out loud, of course.  Our global managerial class has spent the last thirty years drumming into our brains the nonsensical refrain, “Diversity is our strength!”  “Multiculturalism” — the simultaneous existence of many different cultures — is supposed to be superior to any one single culture.  How does that make any sense?  Is it easier for a general to command troops if all the soldiers speak different languages?  Is there less chance of mutiny on a naval vessel if every sailor adheres to different customs?  Does a religious temple serve a purpose if all the congregants pray to different gods?  Of course not.  Without common cultural bonds, human beings rarely work well together.  

Why, then, should Western nations be transformed into meccas for multiculturalism?  Why in the world would a rational person celebrate the transformation of European and American cities into “no-go zones” where tribes of different peoples fight against each other for power and position?  Why are Western political parties demanding mass amnesty for millions of foreigners?  How does any of this make any sense unless the intent is to destroy individual Western nations?

And if Western nations are under attack, does it not seem reasonable for Western citizens to prepare to defend themselves?  Vice President Vance thinks Westerners should be doing exactly that.  After a man from a foreign culture brutally murdered British university student Henry Nowak, Vance condemned authorities’ calculated choice to sacrifice a native son on the altar of forced “diversity”: 

Henry Nowak died the same way a civilization dies: abandoned, handcuffed by authorities who neither trusted nor cared for him, and accused of hate crimes he did not commit.  His murder is as tragic as it is enraging.  He should still be alive today, and he would be if the last few generations of European elites had stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants, many of whom despise the West and the people who love it.  Henry was far from the first to so needlessly lose his life, and I fear he won’t be the last.  Each time a life like his is lost, the proper response — the only response — is righteous anger.

In the week since Nowak’s murderer was convicted, four Afghan migrants are facing prosecution in Bristol for raping a seventeen-year-old girl, there was a mass stabbing in Manchester, and a Sudanese national attempted to behead an Irishman in Belfast.  Does the British government still contend that “diversity is our strength”?  Of course it does.  Rather than blaming foreign nationals for murdering British citizens, the British Establishment is blaming British citizens for noticing that their nation is under attack.  

The West is at war with foreign invaders, and Western governments are at war with imaginary “climate change.”  New Western leaders must take over before there is no West left.

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Graham Platner’s Victory Proves The Left Never Had A Problem With Trump’s Moral Deficiencies

The Federalist 

Since he came down the escalator 11 years ago, Donald Trump’s personal conduct made him uniquely unfit for office and Americans had a moral obligation to oppose him, so said Democrats. Character mattered in politics, they told us.

But on Tuesday, nearly 150,000 Mainers sent a different message. Democrats handed Graham Platner a landslide primary victory, a decisive win for the man who had a Nazi tattoo. And to be clear, Platner wasn’t the only candidate on the ballot. Incumbent Gov. Janet Mills and former Democrat Senate nominee in 2024 David Costello were on the ballot as well. And yet it was a landslide victory for Platner.

Platner spent 18 years bearing a Nazi tattoo and only had it removed when it became ever so slightly (emphasis on slightly) politically inconvenient. He also said women worried about rape should not “get blacked out, f*cked up around people” they aren’t “comfortable” with. He also allegedly said that if someone ever broke into his home, he would “rape them … [but] not in a sexual way, not in a gay way.”

The Nazi tattoo alone would have been career suicide if it belonged to a Republican candidate, let alone all the additional scandals surrounding Platner. And yet the same people and party that spent years insisting that Trump’s personal behavior (which really isn’t comparable to a literal Nazi) made him uniquely disqualified from holding office just elected Platner to be their nominee.

If character were truly the defining issue as we’ve been told for a decade, why didn’t the standard apply here?

The answer is obvious if you just look at some of the very same Democrats who spent years lecturing Americans abut decency standards.

In 2017, Sen. Bernie Sanders suggested it was “absurd” that Trump had not offered his resignation over the Access Hollywood tape. The message was that certain conduct disqualifies someone from holding office. Yet Sanders has been one of Platner’s most outspoken supporters, saying, “There are no saints in the United States Senate.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren has called Trump a “bully” who “attack[s] women” and is indecent — something “decent people everywhere” should say “No more” to. Despite Platner’s excusing of rape and alleged sexual and physical abuse of women, Warren has thrown her support behind Platner.

For years, Democrats asked voters to consider moral fitness above political party, Warren herself implored Republicans to prioritize decency over politics. And yet when faced with a candidate on their own side with baggage that would — and should — disqualify any Republican, those same people who lectured us on “decency” are now defending the indecent and indefensible because the truth is, Democrats’ don’t prioritize character, they prioritize winning. Democrats never actually had a problem with Trump’s moral hiccups, they just had a problem that he was beating them. It’s the inverse reason why they have no problem with Platner: if he can give the party an extra vote, that’s all that matters.

Heck, at this point I’m convinced Democrats would elect Hitler himself if it meant gaining an extra Senate seat.

The Declaration of Dependence

The Declaration of Dependence

Christine Rosen for Commentary.org

When the New York Times published a story recently about couples who were delaying having children because “rising costs were stopping them,” the couples in question faced some mild public rebuke. One couple, worried that a 2,000-square-foot house would not provide enough space to raise more than one child, decided to forgo having children at all (although they do own several pets). This prompted many homeowners and city apartment-dwellers who raised children in much smaller abodes to post the square footage of their homes on social media. 

Other couples featured in the piece “said they wanted to reach key milestones before having children, such as buying a house, paying off student debt or making enough money to afford childcare.” Others said that they “prioritize travel or financial stability.” One man acknowledged that having a child meant he “would have to give up hobbies he enjoys, like golfing,” and for another couple, “the decision not to have children came down to the life they’ve built and what it would take to change it.” The Times wrote of them: “Married in 2023, they have shaped their relationship around exploring new places together, such as Japan, Bali and Morocco.”

It would be easy to criticize such people as selfish or materialistic, or simply naive, as many pro-natalist people have done. This would be a mistake, given that the couples have obviously considered the realistic trade-offs of becoming a parent; you can’t easily jet off to Bali on a whim when you have a baby. It would also be incorrect to assume that if you solve the financial piece of the puzzle, such as increasing government subsidies for housing and childcare, these couples’ views on parenthood would change. The current downward trend in childbearing is also happening in countries with long-standing and far more generous benefits for parents, such as Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, and France. 

In other words: We are amid a significant shift in the cultural messaging around parenthood, and we can’t throw shame or money at the problem if we hope to solve it. A growing number of people in younger generations have decided that having children simply isn’t worth it. Why?

Cultural scripts, the mix of unspoken assumptions, expectations, and norms of behavior that govern much of our social world, emerge from multiple influences. In this sense, the decision to have children is an individual choice but one that is shaped by the messages we pick up, often unwittingly, from the culture. Some of these messages are subtle; as my colleague Tim Carney has noted in his insightful book Family Unfriendly, even the built environment offers frequent reminders that the world favors smaller families and, often, couples over families altogether. Other messages are less subtle, such as the climate alarmism and political apocalypticism that younger generations, the ones now contemplating parenthood themselves, have been fed since birth. Every generation has struggled with people who believe there is no point bringing children into a flawed world; today’s young adults have heard little else. 

The biggest shift, however, is the acceptance of the idea that having children is merely one among many viable choices available if one is to live a flourishing adult life; indeed, it might lead to greater personal growth if one doesn’t have children at all. In very short order, the social pressure that used to insist that people who did not have children were selfish has shifted to its opposite—the idea that having children is selfish, given the world’s unsolvable problems and the need to pursue one’s own goals. From here, it is a short leap to viewing children as a burden, a cost to personal autonomy that is not worth paying. 

This is the sensibility lurking behind the positive attention given to the “child-free by choice.” Choosing childlessness, particularly for women, is celebrated as empowering and liberationist, given the lack of options for women in previous eras. Celebrities endorse this sensibility—Chappell Roan told the Call Her Daddy podcast, “I actually don’t know anyone who’s happy and has children, at this age,” and Seth Rogen said parenthood “doesn’t seem that fun.” Social media is filled with short-form videos and posts celebrating “DINK” (dual income no kids) and “child-free life” with images of exotic vacations and spotless homes. Contrast this with the endless stream of negative content about what pregnancy does to women’s bodies and the exhaustion and chaos of raising young children. It’s no wonder that well-intentioned parents fail to persuade the childless when they insist that surrendering freedom and lifestyle is “worth it” because “children are a blessing.” It doesn’t matter that these platitudes are true; you must experience them to understand that, and those experiences aren’t easily rendered on TikTok.

As well, even for those who are seriously contemplating having children, parenting now seems like an impossibly high-stakes undertaking in terms of expectations. Trickle-down elite parenting philosophies have reached the mainstream, and would-be parents now assume they will have to be indefatigable caregivers, therapists, coaches, and friends to their children, all while ensuring they are rigorously applying the tenets of the most au courant parenting mandates (and holding down a job).

When becoming a parent is a choice, the social pressure to do it “perfectly” increases; raising children well begins to feel like a luxury activity available only to the wealthy. Indeed, luxury brands now portray children as a kind of luxury good in their advertising: Bottega Veneta’s recent ad campaign with A$AP Rocky shows him lounging in cashmere with his two young children nearby. “The campaign marks a new chapter in A$AP Rocky’s expression, emphasizing his role as a loving parent and partner,” the brand’s website notes. “This is me embodying and embracing fatherhood, parenthood, companionship, and family, while still working on all aspects of my career,” A$AP Rocky says. Social media is full of content featuring very young children enjoying adult pastimes with their well-off parents, such as dining at five-star restaurants and taking parent-toddler Pilates classes. One of popular culture’s most enduring large families is the Kardashian clan. No wonder people of modest means think the only winning move is not to play. 

The economic challenges of modern parenting are real, of course, but younger generations also seem less risk-tolerant in general than their parents and grandparents (who lived through World Wars and a Great Depression). These young adults were raised in a world of extraordinary convenience, given technologies that encouraged solipsism and expectations for instant gratification unknown in previous eras. The screen has been the formative institution in the lives of Americans who are now of childbearing age, and for them, convenience is the preeminent virtue. When the only world you know is seamless, efficient, and tailored to your preferences, and you know that children place limits on one physically, emotionally, and financially, is it any surprise that having children seems like a risk not worth taking?  

The way forward isn’t to argue that having children will make you happy (even though it often does). It is to acknowledge that sacrifice, responsibility, and love are what make fully formed people, and that parenthood is one way (although not the only way) of becoming such a person. It is also a warning against becoming a culture that shifts from viewing children as a choice to embracing misopedia—an aversion to children. As with caring for the aging (another social challenge we are not meeting as well as we could), we must understand raising children as a welcome moral obligation that connects us to the future and that contributes to the health of society, as something more meaningful than the decision to live in the city or the suburbs, or which kind of car to buy. 

In her provocative book The Dignity of Dependence, Leah Libresco Sargeant argues that we must reacquaint ourselves with the value and purpose of dependence, both our dependence on each other and more broadly within our communities. Dependence is not weakness; it is interconnectedness, which fosters resilience and strength. It is not a coincidence that people of faith (Mormons, ultra-Orthodox Jews, the Amish) are the people still having lots of children. They recognize dependence not as a burden but as one of the shared responsibilities of community. 

As a society, if we are to survive, we must acknowledge the reality of the challenges of being a parent, including the loss of convenience, the imposition of limits on one’s lifestyle, and the temporary loss of some agency. And we must understand that going forward, it will likely be viewed as a choice rather than an obligation—a choice that runs counter to the highly optimized world we live in now.

Having children is a vote against convenience and ease and even, to some temporary extent, against autonomy. It’s a recognition that even in a culture that rewards extreme individualism, we still must depend on others, and others will depend on us. Having children demands sacrifices and a tolerance for risk. But it is also an expression of hope, a vote for the future. It is crucial that more people be willing to cast that vote, not only for the sake of our species but for the health of our souls.

Photo: Olga Ryazantseva/Getty Images

After Beheading Attempt In Ireland, New York Times Says The Real ‘Violence’ Is From Right-Wingers

The outlet called the protestors in Belfast ‘far-right radicals,’ but called BLM protestors ‘peaceful protestors with “room for rage.”‘

The Federalist 

After a Sudanese national apparently attempted to brutally behead a man in Belfast, Ireland, The New York Times on June 10 claimed the real concern was “anti-immigrant sentiment,” not how the U.K.’s open border policies enabled the attack.

Video from the attack, which went viral on social media, shows the migrant attacking a native U.K. citizen named Steven Ogilvy in an apparent attempted beheading. The New York Times (NYT) article does not describe the attack until four paragraphs in, and does not use the word “beheading” once. The article also buries information about the suspect, including the fact that he was a Sudanese who may have fraudulently claimed refugee status, in the eleventh paragraph.

The NYT decided this story was less about why the perpetrator of this brutal attack was in Northern Ireland, and more about the response of the “far-right,” a group in which the outlet places Elon Musk, who infamously has children with multiple women and supports transhumanism. To the New York Times, the story is that some people took notice of violent crime by criminal aliens. It’s the classic “Republicans pounce” trope that blames the people who notice the negative effects of leftist policies rather than blaming the policies.

According to the NYT, “far-right” figures “spread misinformation and speculation about the attacker online.” Unsurprisingly, the outlet does not elaborate what this misinformation entails.

A Sudanese migrant was able to enter the United Kingdom, claim asylum, and stay in the country long enough to allegedly attempt to behead a native-born citizen. “The right” doesn’t need to invent this story. The facts speak for themselves.

The NYT also used plenty of euphemistic language to describe the attack. Instead of describing it as an attempted beheading, the outlet stated: “the attacker moves his hands near the neck of the victim.”

A local resident who witnessed the attack described her experience quite differently, saying she had “never seen anything like it.” The woman told BBC News NI that she was “shaking in the street” while calling police, and that she is now afraid to walk to the store alone. Her reaction is understandable for someone who witnessed a gruesome murder attempt — which is not merely some sort of nondescript hand motion.

Rather than show concern for the victims and bystanders of such violent crimes, the Times focuses more on the worries of immigrants: “Immigrant communities in Northern Ireland said they were living in fear.” Never mind the fear of native citizens who don’t recognize their own country anymore and are banned from noticing that it’s not the native-born who are most likely to commit these kinds of barbaric crimes.

The Times alleged”rising xenophobic anger” in Britain due to a rash of similar recent attacks, including the murder of 18-year-old Henry Nowak by a Sikh man. Body camera footage of Nowak’s final moments shows him being handcuffed after police found him bleeding on the ground. His “crime”? His murderer had accused him of racism.

Rising anger in the United Kingdom doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The country has seen mass third-world migration in recent years, with serious negative consequences for native citizens. Most migrants to the United Kingdom are from countries such as Afghanistan, Sudan, and Somalia — all societies that hold values incompatible with Western civilization.

Gangs of Pakistani Muslims groomed and raped English girls for decades. In response, the Times went after Musk for “vitriolic” posts criticizing the British government’s role in enabling these grooming gangs. The British ruling class was reluctant to take action against these gangs that were terrorizing citizens under their noses for years. But Musk is the real problem.

Some protestors attacked police and started fires after the attack on Ogilvy. In 2020, however, the NYT strongly supported the Black Lives Matter (BLM) riots across the West in 2020, which damaged thousands of buildings and caused several deaths. The outlet called the protestors in Belfast “far-right radicals,” but called BLM protestors “peaceful protestors with ‘room for rage.'”

Other NYT articles also focused more on the right-wing response than the vicious attack: “The cycle of violence and right-wing agitation in Britain has become all too frightening and frequent,” is how Chief U.K. Correspondent Michael Shear begins an article. The majority of the outlet’s coverage highlights the angry citizen response to the violence their government has unleashed on their streets while downplaying the migration crisis.

The New York Times is far from the only outlet to make this story about the protests rather than the attack. The Washington Post said there was a “new wave of anti-immigrant violence” hitting the United Kingdom, and the CNN called the riots “fiery.” No “mostly peaceful” caveat to be found.

Democrats' Struggle With Men Reflects a Deeper Cultural Disconnect

 Democrats' Struggle With Men Reflects a Deeper Cultural Disconnect

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Ben Shapiro for PJ Media

AP Photo/Eric Gay

One of the more revealing political developments of recent years has been the Democratic Party's growing concern about its declining support among male voters. After years of watching men drift toward the political right, many Democrats have begun asking a simple question: Why are men leaving?

The answer may be simpler than party strategists would like to admit.

For many men, politics is not merely about policy preferences. It is also about whether they feel understood, respected and represented. Increasingly, many men feel that modern progressive politics views them less as constituents and more as problems to be solved.

Over the past decade, much of the political and cultural conversation on the left has framed masculinity in negative terms. Men are frequently described as "toxic" or privileged, or as obstacles to social progress. While these criticisms are often directed at specific behaviors, many ordinary men hear something broader: that their role in society is being diminished or dismissed.

As a result, Democrats now face a challenge that goes beyond messaging. They are struggling to connect with a demographic they increasingly seem not to understand.

This disconnect becomes apparent in the party's search for figures who can appeal to male voters. Progressives often ask where their version of podcast host Joe Rogan might be. Yet the question itself reveals a misunderstanding.

Rogan does not fit neatly into traditional ideological categories. He has supported progressive candidates, entertained a wide range of viewpoints, and frequently rejects partisan labels altogether. His appeal stems less from his political beliefs than from his ability to speak to audiences in a way that feels authentic and unscripted.

Rather than recognizing that authenticity, many Democrats appear to search for substitutes who mimic certain cultural aesthetics while maintaining strict ideological conformity. The result often feels forced.

The same dynamic can be seen in Texas politics, where state Rep. James Talarico has emerged as a prominent Democratic figure. Talarico presents himself as a person of faith and frequently speaks about Christianity in public life. Yet critics argue that his policy positions remain firmly aligned with progressive priorities, creating a disconnect between the image he projects and the policies he supports.

Whether on issues involving transgender policies, border security, gun rights or energy production, opponents contend that Talarico's recent rhetoric sounds more moderate than his legislative record. To those critics, the problem is not his ideology but the perception that he is attempting to package progressive policies in culturally conservative language.

The broader issue, they argue, is that Democrats often focus on appearances rather than underlying values.

Many progressives seem to operate with a narrow understanding of masculinity. In one stereotype, the traditional man is a deeply religious cultural conservative whose identity revolves around outward displays of faith. In another, masculinity is reduced to a rough-edged, hyperaggressive caricature defined by toughness and rebellion.

Neither image captures how most men see themselves.

For many conservatives, masculinity is not primarily about appearance, style or personality. It is about responsibility. A man may be a lawyer, teacher, mechanic, soldier or small-business owner. What matters is not the aesthetic but the fulfillment of duties — to family, community and country.

Under this understanding, manhood is defined less by how someone looks and more by what he does. Providing for a family, protecting loved ones, serving one's community, and accepting personal responsibility are viewed as central components of masculine identity.

Critics of modern progressivism argue that this framework creates a fundamental conflict. Contemporary left-wing politics often emphasizes individual rights and personal autonomy, while traditional concepts of masculinity emphasize obligations and responsibilities. If politics increasingly focuses on liberation from duties, it becomes more difficult to speak meaningfully to people who view duty itself as a virtue.

This may help explain why many Democratic attempts to reconnect with male voters have fallen flat. The problem is not necessarily a lack of outreach. It is that the outreach often appears to be built on assumptions that many men do not recognize.

Political parties succeed when they understand the people they hope to persuade. They fail when they substitute stereotypes for genuine understanding.

As Democrats continue searching for ways to rebuild support among men, they may discover that the challenge is not finding the right messenger or adopting the right aesthetic. It is understanding the values, responsibilities and aspirations that shape how many men see themselves in the first place.

The Secretary of War Has a Warning for Iran's Remaining Leadership

Townhall 

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth revealed Wednesday that the United States has used the ceasefire with Iran to significantly expand its intelligence-gathering efforts, identifying additional regime personnel and other critical targets. He said that if the U.S. is forced to resume full-scale combat operations, future strikes would be even more effective than those carried out at the outset of Operation Epic Fury.

"So, in the event that the Iranians don't come to the table and they keep playing games and they refuse to make a deal, how certain are you on our targeting ability to immediately find and finish off and execute every remaining senior leader within the Islamic Republic of Iran, in IRGC?" a reporter asked.

"Well, let's just say this command has used the ceasefire wisely and with great efficiency to ensure that we're refining our intelligence and target sets in a way that are far, far beyond even the beginning of Epic Fury," the Secretary of War said. "And that's a part of what I had a chance to see today. So, when you see the commencement of Epic Fury, if a conflict were to have to recommence, our ability to target, our ability to sense, our ability to see, our ability to get into networks has only been vastly improved over time. And that's certainly what the commanders relate to me."

"So, the historic success of Epic Fury would only be built upon, whether it's personnel, locations, capabilities, you name it," Hegseth added. "And again, remember, Iran doesn't have a defense industrial base. And what they have is extremely limited, meaning they don't have the ability right now to make more missiles or make more drones. What they have is what they have. And if they've dug it out, we'll strike it again if we need to. So, we know the terms and we've got always more capability to bring."

This comes as the initial retaliatory strikes appear poised to escalate. President Trump revealed Wednesday that the United States may target Kharg Island, through which more than 90 percent of Iran's crude oil exports flow. The facility has largely been spared thus far as the administration pursued negotiations, but that approach may be nearing its end. 

"The United States will be hitting Iran (Whose Navy, Air Force, Radar, Anti Aircraft, and all other forms of Defense, together with most of its offensive capability, are GONE!), VERY HARD TONIGHT," the president wrote on Truth Social. "At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets, much like we have with Venezuela, which is working out brilliantly for both Venezuela and the United States of America. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP."

Trump said Wednesday that Iranian officials appear to be stringing the administration along, while the reported downing of an American Apache helicopter by an Iranian drone over the Strait of Hormuz has further raised tensions. Although both pilots were safely rescued, the incident marked a significant escalation amid an existing ceasefire between the United States and Iran.

The return of America

The return of America

Step away from the news cycle for a second and remember how bizarre it is that making America great again is considered controversial.

Robert Turner for American Thinker 

There was a time when Donald J. Trump drew praise from both Democrats and Republicans, many of whom had benefited from his political donations.  He was known as a builder, a shrewd businessman, and a television personality famous for the line “You’re fired.”  He was among the most recognizable public figures in America — entertaining, admired, and often embraced by popular culture.

Then came the moment when he and his wife, Melania, descended the escalator in Trump Tower and he announced that, out of love for America, he was leaving behind his former life of privilege to run for president of the United States.  His goal was simple: “Make America Great Again!”

Many Americans born in the forties and fifties — and even many from the Vietnam-era sixties — grew up believing deeply in the greatness of America.  Through enormous sacrifice, the United States helped save Europe from Nazism.  After the attack on Pearl Harbor, we also joined our Pacific allies in defeating Japan.  In a short time, we built the most powerful fighting force of the modern era and lost 220,000 American service members in the European and Pacific theaters of war.

After the war, America went farther still.  We befriended former enemies Germany and Japan and helped rebuild them through financial support, technology, trade, and tourism, while also helping our allies recover from the war’s physical and economic devastation.  Through NATO, SEATO, the United Nations, and the careful use of military power, America helped sustain decades of peace in Europe and stood against socialism and communism.

Given America’s historical role in the world, many citizens were surprised that Making America Great Again (MAGA) became controversial.  Who would have expected that strengthening the economy and lifting millions out of poverty would be treated as anything but worthy goals?  Who would have imagined that deporting those who entered the country illegally, securing the border to protect American citizens, or discouraging unlawful entrants from relying on government benefits would be condemned?  Who would have expected that taking a leading role in defending a vulnerable world — and protecting Israel and other Middle Eastern nations from a nuclear-armed Iran — would be described as Hitleresque?  Who, indeed?

The answer to these questions is the Democrat party.  As one of America’s two major political parties, it is historically associated with slavery, the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan, and segregation.  Democrat-supported welfare policies have harmed the nuclear family by encouraging single-parent households, fostering dependency, weakening education and self-sufficiency, and reinforcing the racist idea that certain population groups cannot thrive without government assistance.

Since President Trump’s inauguration as the 47th president, this same party has seemingly pursued one main objective: resisting nearly every effort he makes to restore what his supporters consider reason and stability in America.  Aside from Senator John Fetterman, Democrat senators are near unanimous in their opposition to bills backed by the popularly elected president.  House Democrats seem even more unified, seldom breaking ranks on Republican-sponsored, Trump-supported legislation.  This Democrat virus even extends to Democrat-appointed members of the Judiciary, who repeatedly undermine the Constitution’s separation of powers by blocking executive orders.  Thankfully, the center-right Supreme Court has increasingly stepped in to restrain what it sees as judicial overreach.

Americans who grew up in a country where losing an election was considered a disappointment — not a threat to the nation — are appalled by what they have seen.  Where would our nation be if Donald Trump had lost the most recent presidential election, and Republicans had failed to win narrow majorities in both houses of Congress?

God protect President Trump.  God grant wisdom to our elected representatives, unelected government officials, the military members who maintain stability in our hemisphere, the law enforcement officers who keep us safe, and the informed voters who choose our leaders.  And God bless America as it prepares to celebrate 250 years of remarkable history.

Image: Pashi via Pixabay, Pixabay License.