freedom and reason

“Madness is something rare in individuals—but in groups, parties, peoples, and ages, it is the rule.” ―Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

The rise in mental illness in the West is driven by postmodernist notions that have colonized our sense-making institutions over the last several decades. Postmodernism denies the reality of truth. Once there’s no truth, there’s only fantasy and personal impulse. Every person who has a tendency towards disordered thinking becomes unfettered by any requirement that they live in a truth-based reality. Disordered thinking is contagious without the anchor of truth, without the parameters of reason. Cluster B becomes a social movement. And it has—latching onto whatever flag and slogan put into its hands and mouths.

Freedom without obligation, structure, and virtue leads to madness—in a word: nihilism. That’s what the postmodernists seek: the madness of conceit. At the core of this ideology is egoism. Under egoistic anarchism, all alleged abstract ideals—morality, the state, even humanity—are illusions that limit personal freedom. Today, egoism has merged with the transhumanist desire of exploiting technology to “liberate” humanity, to transcend the body. This is what lies in back of the madness of transgenderism: the belief that individuals are not bound by the truth of reality. It perverts the ideal of making of yourself what you will.

If one recognizes postmodern relativism—egoistic self-sovereignty—as the path to disorder and nihilism, then actual or true freedom must be grounded in something deeper than fantasy and personal impulse. It is this: actual freedom is not the absence of limits but the presence of order rooted in truth. Freedom, properly understood, is the ability to live in alignment with reality—not escape it. The attempt to escape reality is the desire to escape freedom, to seek instead the ecstasy of simulacra. True freedom requires acknowledgment of objective truths: about human beings, morality, nature, and the structure of the world—the terrain of the real.

When truth is dismissed as a social construct or a matter of personal feeling, freedom becomes unmoored, untethered to reality and shared humanity, to our species-being, and thus transformed into its opposite. In its place exists a counterfeit version, a simulation of liberty—one that is ultimately self-destructive, disconnecting individuals from what is real and from what is good and right. In a word: a state of psychopathy. To not live in the real world is by definition madness.

True freedom requires moral structure and obligation. Freedom is not the ability to do whatever one wants, freedom is not sociopathic, but the capacity to choose good and right in the context of family and community. This is why the postmodernist notion of social justice is deceitful: it denies the social. True freedom is cultivated through virtue: the habits of courage, knowledge (valorized belief), self-restraint, and wisdom. Without these, freedom collapses into chaos. We see the chaos across the West. Our youth are lost in it.

The postmodern exaltation of personal autonomy without responsibility creates not liberation but fragmentation of self and society. Freedom divorced from virtue leads to license, and license leads to cultural breakdown and moral corruption. Estranged from truth and our common humanity is what generates the emotional and psychological troubles we see so many people in. Long ago, the great sociologist Max Weber warned us about this. He warned us about the iron cage.

Freedom requires a shared vision of the common good and human nature. A true social justice is found there. When society loses its sense of what it means to be human—of what is dignified, essential, and true about our nature—then each individual becomes a sovereign island, an atom left to invent meaning in a vacuum. As another great sociologist, George Herbert Mead, observed, the self is a product of co-present and emotionally available relations; under postmodernist conditions, the individual is alienated from his comrades, alone (even in crowds) and depersonalized. Alone in crowds, the individual becomes a mob.

Such atomization is not freeing; it’s disorganizing and destabilizing. The denial of a human nature in radically subjectivist and transhumanist ideologies fosters confusion and mental disintegration. These are the conditions that disorder individuals. A society that encourages individuals to deny biological reality or moral responsibility in favor of self-constructed identities is not promoting freedom—it’s encouraging and affirming delusion. More than this, it’s establishing the conditions of authoritarianism; in the end, only naked power will determine right. As this ideology spreads, ever more people—especially the young and still developing—are pulled into its gravity well.

Actual freedom is ordered freedom—anchored in truth, governed by virtue, and oriented toward the good and right. It is not enough to be free from constraints; we must be free for something: for love (not self-love), for community (not imagined or manufactured communities), for truth (not “lived experience,” “my truth,” relativism). Without these foundations, freedom becomes not a blessing but a curse. Indeed, it’s not freedom at all. It’s chaos and disorder.

If postmodernists attempt to deconstruct all norms and dissolve all structures in the name of a perverse conception of liberation, then the antidote is the recovery of character, purpose, and truth as the essential conditions for any meaningful and sustainable freedom. Opposition to woke progressivism is thus not merely disagreement over policy and politics—it’s a struggle against the forces of chaos that would plunge the West into the New Dark Ages.

If Democrats pursued a working class agenda, then they would pursue a policy of external revenue generation that compelled corporations to re-shore manufacturing to the United States to avoid paying tariff duties—not taxing affluent white-majority communities to pay for state-run grocery stores, a policy proposed by New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani that will see those who can relocate move their businesses and families to Florida, Tennessee, and Texas.

If Democrats pursued a working class agenda, then they would eschew internal revenue generation, leaving more money in the hands of working class men and women who know far better than the government how to spend their money. I hear talk about how Republicans are going to take away money from those who need it for health care and food. My wife and I need money for health care and food. Cut our taxes and we will be able to do that more effectively—and maybe have some left over for recreation and retirement. That’s not a selfish concern. We earned it. And we’re not exceptional. We are among the millions of Americans who made something of themselves.

If Democrats pursued a working class agenda, they would close the borders and deport the millions of illegal aliens who take jobs from American workers and drive down their wages. They would invest in law enforcement to secure for American residents the public safety measures that provide residents with the security they require to go about their lives. They wouldn’t invite the Third World to come to America. They would keep barbarians outside the city walls. They wouldn’t defund and stand down ICE and local law enforcement.

If Democrats pursued a working class agenda, they would make sure that girls and women enjoy safe spaces to go to the bathroom and undress in locker rooms without having to worry about males being present. They would ensure that females sports were for females. They wouldn’t allow administrators, counselors, librarians, and teachers to sexualize children in our public libraries and schools. If Democrats pursued a working class agenda, then they would stand with families to protect childhood innocence.

If Democrats pursued a working class agenda, they wouldn’t make race a qualification for education and employment opportunities. They wouldn’t subject working class Americans and their children to discrimination on the basis of skin color and other suspect classifications rationalized with academic theories and abstract bases lacking discriminatory intent.

The reason Democrats find themselves in the position they do, with only around 20 percent of voters across various polls approving of the party’s performance—as high as 70 percent disapproval—is because Democrats on the opposite side of every one of the items noted above. Meanwhile, Trump has maintained an approval rating of over 50 percent for weeks now, and Republicans as a party enjoy approval ratings approaching that. Republicans are now the largest party in the United States, drawing support from across demographic categories. The party pursuing the working class agenda today is the Republican Party. I never thought I would see the day when I would say such a thing. But here we are.

Democrats desperately want to contrast themselves with Republicans. That would be a massive mistake. Leaning into the contrast will only keep the Democrats mired in the rut they’ve put themselves in. The American people are suffering from progressive fatigue. Progressivism has only made their lives worse. They don’t want what Democrats are peddling. They want good paying jobs, low taxes, safe neighborhoods, and an educational system that puts families first. They don’t want government to run their lives. They want government to say out of their lives.

Zohran Mamdani does not represent the working class agenda. He represents a boutique, academic progressivism that plays well in Ivy League faculty lounges and on social media, but falls flat in the break rooms and kitchen tables of working American families. His policies are crafted not for those who build, fix, haul, or protect, but for activists who treat politics like a lifestyle brand. The working class doesn’t need state-run grocery stores (the face of socialism’s failure)—they need the freedom and means to choose where they shop, where they live, and how they raise their children.

Mamdani’s vision, like much of the modern Democratic Party’s, is top-down, ideologically rigid, and fundamentally disconnected from the practical realities of everyday Americans. Until Democrats abandon that vision, they will continue to lose the very people they once claimed to champion.

British rap-punk duo Bob Vylan have reportedly been dropped by their agents following a controversial performance at Glastonbury Festival on June 28. During their set on the West Holts Stage, frontman Bobby Vylan led the crowd in chanting “Free, free Palestine” and “Death, death to the IDF.” The moment drew criticism and sparked widespread debate, with some defending the group’s political expression and others condemning the language as inflammatory.

“Free, free Palestine” is often chanted alongside the slogan “From the river to the sea,” both calls for the “liberation” of all “historic Palestine,” the name given the territory by the Roman Empire in an attempt to erase the Jewish homeland—punishment for Jewish resistance to Roman imperialism.

“Liberating Palestine” requires the dismantling of the State of Israel. This is what “Free, free Palestine” means. Since Israel is the homeland of the Jews, and has been for millennia, and since Arab nationalism is a colonizing ideology, there is no other way to interpret these slogans as genocidal.

The colonization of the Jewish homeland by Arab Muslims is a project to expand the Ummah, the global Muslim community, and establish Sharia (Islamic law) over the whole of the world. Islam is a totalitarian ideology.

We see this pattern of colonization not only in Israel, but across the Middle East and North Africa. Egypt used to be majority Christian. After the Arab-Muslim conquest of Egypt, Islam gradually became the dominant religion there through a combination of economic, political, and social pressures. Today, only 10–15 percent of Egypt’s population is Christian, marginalized and persecuted.

What has happened to the Middle East and North Africa is happing across the West. Muslims are colonizing Europe in massive numbers, establishing mosques everywhere, creating Muslim-exclusive enclaves, praying in the streets and on church grounds, even electing Muslims to positions of political power.

Muslim immigrants are Islamizing the cultures of the UK, France, Sweden, etc. And it’s happening in the United States, as well. New York City is home to the largest Muslim population in the US. Democrats there just nominated a Muslim to be mayor of the largest city in America.

It’s not just New York. Dearborn, Michigan, has one of the highest concentrations of Muslims in the country. Dearborn is home to the Islamic Center of America, one of the largest mosques in North America. The emotionally unstable Rashida Tlaib represents Dearborn Muslim community in the US House.

Minneapolis–St. Paul, Minnesota has also become a center for Muslims. Ilhan Omar—who recently said that the US is worse than Somalia—represents the Muslim community there in the US House.

The origins of the phrases noted above represent Arab nationalism, Muslim imperialism, and Palestinian “resistance,” gaining prominence in the mid-twentieth century as Palestinian political groups articulated aspirations for hegemony over the entirety of the Jewish homeland. By the 1960s and 1970s, the slogan was used by organizations such as the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and later taken up by the genocidal death cult Hamas.

We see a lot of young Americans out in the streets chanting these slogans. This is the rot of postmodernism, a nihilistic doctrine they learned in college or from their college-aged friends or learned in Internet chat rooms. Like radical gender ideology, it’s a social contagion that preys on America’s mental health crisis and personality disorders freed from normative structuring.

I have critiqued postmodernism many times on here and on my platform. Let me just talk briefly here about one figure: French paraphilic philosopher Michel Foucault. You may know Foucault as a the “godfather of queer theory,” but he was also an Islamophile. He not only expressed sympathy for Muslims, particularly during the Iranian Revolution of 1979, but he embraced the rise of Islamism in Asia. He saw in their revolutionary fervor a powerful challenge to Western norms and secular modernity.

Foucault was intrigued by how the revolution mobilized what he regarded as deep cultural and spiritual forces to resist “Western authoritarianism” (i.e., democracy and liberty). Islam offered the world what Foucault called “political spirituality.” He saw the Islamic “uprising” as a disruption of dominant Western narratives about progress, order, and rationality.

As I have noted before, while Foucault did not explicitly identify as an anarchist, his core ideas resonate strongly with anarchist thought. This captured the imagination of Western youth. One of the reasons we see this bizarre affinity between the queer movement and Islamism is because of Foucault’s ideas regarding order and truth. The Red-Green alliance owes a lot to Foucault.

That’s right—our own academic institutions prepared younger generations to embrace the nihilism of postmodernist thought, which turned their corrupted minds against their families and their communities, and pointed them towards Islam and paraphilias. These are the young people you see cheering the election of Zohran Mamdani for candidate for New York City major (see The Problem with Zohran Mamdani). These are the misfits who comprise Antifa and BLM. And it’s all backed by transnational corporate power.

This is not a prediction. The struggle against Jihad is now. London has a Muslim mayor. New York is facing the very real possibility of a Muslim mayor. The barbarians are well inside the city walls. If the West continues allowing the Islamization of its cities and towns, the West will fall and our families will live under conditions of clerical fascism. Christopher Hitchens warned us about this more than 15 years ago. Resist while you can, he instructed us.

As for Israel, the Jewish state is the last outpost of reason in the Middle East. It’s imperative that the United States defend Israel’s existence. The struggle with Jihad is global.

Progressives claim that systemic racism lies behind the higher poverty rate among black children compared to white children. The prevailing narrative is that conservatives and Republicans represent the problem of racism in America. Let’s think through the problem.

First, let’s establish the fact: for every white child living in poverty, there are approximately two black children living in poverty. That fact itself is not evidence of systemic racism (a common confusion). There could be many factors causing this disparity. But one stands out: fatherlessness.

There is a strong and well-documented correlation between fatherless households and poverty, especially among children. Research consistently shows that children living in single-mother households are far more likely to experience poverty than those living in households with both parents present. Census-based estimates show that roughly two-thirds of black children are raised without a resident father, compared to less than one-quarter of white minors. The numbers are much worse for black families living in America’s inner cities, commonly referred to as “ghettos.”

It was not always this way. In fact, from the early to mid-twentieth century—especially before the 1960s—black families were more likely than white families to be two-parent households. Even as late as the 1950s, most black children were raised in homes with both biological parents present. And few black children lived in poverty as a result.

What explains the change? One of the most significant factors was the economic decline affecting black communities in the mid-twentieth century—the deindustrialization of the American economy. Industrial jobs that once provided stable employment to working-class men began disappearing in the 1960s and 1970s. Black men were hit especially hard by this shift. Their jobs were automated or moved overseas (offshoring). Urban centers where many black families lived saw economic disinvestment, resulting in fewer stable, good-paying jobs. The resulting economic instability made it increasingly difficult for black men to support families or be seen as viable partners, which led to higher rates of single parenthood. This situation was further complicated by mass immigration.

Another leading factor was public assistance programs (food assistance, housing, income transfers) that discouraged marriage or cohabitation by reducing or eliminating welfare benefits when a male partner was present in the household. These policies created financial incentives for keeping fathers out of the home, especially in already economically vulnerable households.

Who was behind globalization (offshoring, open borders) and the expansion of the welfare state with these perverse incentives? From the 1930s through the 1960s, the Democratic Party was the dominant political force in American politics. Under Franklin D. Roosevelt, the party spearheaded the New Deal, which marked the most significant expansion of the federal government’s role in social welfare—the institutionalization of progressivism. These programs laid the foundation for the modern welfare state. Later, under Lyndon B. Johnson, Democrats led the charge on the Great Society programs of the 1960s, which vastly expanded the welfare state. This institutionalized the perverse incentives noted above.

The situation grew worse over time. While both parties embraced elements of globalization, the Democratic Party—especially from the 1990s onward—supported trade agreements and policies that accelerated workforce displacement and suppressed real wages. With strong support from Wall Street and corporate interests, Bill Clinton pushed hard for the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993. Though originally negotiated by George H.W. Bush (not a traditional conservative—and a globalist), it was Clinton and a coalition of pro-business Democrats and Republicans who pushed NAFTA over the finish line. But they didn’t stop there. Clinton also championed China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, which had profound effects on U.S. manufacturing jobs.

Democrats combined welfare expansion with a growing openness to international trade from the 1990s forward. Through this period—from Roosevelt through Biden—bipartisan policies contributed to deindustrialization, the decline of union power, and economic shifts that disproportionately impacted working-class communities—especially in the Rust Belt and urban centers, where many black families lived. One consequence was an explosion of crime and violence, which was addressed by vastly expanding the criminal justice system, leading to millions of incarcerated Americans, disproportionately black. What lay behind the explosion of crime and violence that justified this expansion? Fatherlessness. Caused by who? Democrats.

Today, Democrats are apoplectic over the Republican bill, which they decry as weakening the welfare state—the same welfare state that robbed black children of their fathers, plunged children into poverty, made their mothers dependents on the government, and created the conditions of social disorder that led to historic rates of crime and violence. Democrats decry Republican immigration policy that restricts immigration and deports the illegal aliens who take American jobs and suppress wages—which especially impacts black Americans. Democrats decry Trump’s populism and economic nationalism that reshores industry and reclaims work for Americans—policies that promise to provide jobs for black men and make it possible for them to enjoy a higher standard of living and the opportunity to rebuild the black family.

So, if we agree that globalization and the expansion of the welfare state undermined the black family—as fact and reason demand—and we’re looking for the systemic racism that caused the rampant fatherlessness in the black family, which has caused so many problems for the black community, which party is the party of systemic racism?

Not conservatives. Not populist Republicans. Conservatives don’t run the urban areas we know as the “blue cities.” Populists aren’t responsible for globalization. Conservatives aren’t responsible for the welfare state. It’s the Democratic Party that runs the blue cities. Democrats put black families in the situation they’re in. Progressivism lies at the heart of ghettoization. And that means, comrades, that Democrats are the party of systemic racism.

I am not starting the historical timeline at a convenient point. Historical comparison only strengthens my argument. Before the sharp rise in fatherlessness among black families in the latter half of the twentieth century—while child poverty along racial lines was still significant—the gap between black and white children was narrower. Moreover, the causes of poverty were rooted more directly in institutional racism than in family structure. Think about it: where were most black people living then? In the South. Who controlled the South? Democrats. Blacks migrated from the South to escape Jim Crow segregation. When Democrats established nationwide hegemony in the second half of the twentieth century, systemic racism took on a new form: globalization and the welfare state. And who was behind this? I already told you: Democrats.

As I have argued on my platform, racism is in the DNA of the Democratic Party. Democrats were the party of the slavocracy—and it took a war to overthrow their tyranny. Democrats were the party of Jim Crow—and it took a massive civil rights movement to end de jure segregation. Democrats were forced to end institutional racism, kicking and screaming all the way to the end. And now Democrats are the party of globalization and welfarism—that is, de facto racism. All three periods are manifestations of systemic racism. And today’s Democrats—with critical race theory and DEI—are desperate to keep systemic racism going. The party associated with free trade from the beginning (over against the American System) has always depended on racism to divide the working class.

Those are the facts. But that’s not the perception. So how did Democrats flip public perception? Why do so many people today believe it is the Republicans who are the party of racism while the Democrats are the party that looks out for black families? This isn’t a hard question to answer. During the twentieth century, progressives captured America’s sense-making and policy-making institutions—the academy, the administrative-bureaucratic apparatus, the culture industry, and mass media. They used this control to manufacture an Orwellian inversion that made the party responsible for black misery appear as the party devoted to helping black families.

Paternalism has always been a part of the Democrats’ racial strategy—they infantilize black people. By keeping black people poor and uneducated and through the paternalism of welfare dependency and DEI—an ancient strategy of elite capture where token leaders of subjected populations are relatively privileged through symbolic status elevation (also known as “colonial collaboration”)—Democrats have kept a large portion of blacks ignorant of their circumstances while holding a select minority of them near institutional power. Most blacks are no longer useful to the corporations Democrats serve, so they are managed in ghettos, redundant, the emergent culture of violence perpetuated by popular culture, populations managed via racially selective underprotection.

So, if we’re going to talk about cause and effect, and if we want to explain why we see the racial disparities we see today, and if we’re going to attribute these disparities to systemic racism, then we know who the culprit is: the Democratic Party.

This is why Democrats are so upset about the Supreme Court ruling that potentially prepares a precedent with respect to birthright citizen. Progressives effectively deny the historical fact that the Fourteenth Amendment was written specifically to negate the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, which infamously held that black people—enslaved or free—could not be US citizens. They attempt to erase this fact by claiming that the Fourteenth Amendment gives birthright citizenship to whomever is born in the US. They seek to valorize this interpretation to advance the electoral strategy of increasing the number of voters dependent on the Democratic party.

In yesterday’s post (Iran, Nukes, and the Realities of Military Power: A Constitutional Perspective) I said I would follow up with a post on Israel’s grievances with Iran. After reviewing my writings on the subject, I saw that I covered a lot of this in previous posts and considered writing instead about the Supreme Court decision to allow the Trump Administration to deport illegal aliens to third countries was a leading contender. However, developments overnight bring me back to this subject.

Yesterday, Trump announced he had successfully brokered a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Iran. However, shortly after the announcement, Israeli forces reportedly carried out additional military actions against Iranian targets, defying the terms of the agreement. The move prompted a sharp rebuke from Trump, who expressed frustration over Israel’s actions, stating that their defiance undermined his diplomatic efforts and risked reigniting broader conflict. As of now, it looks like hostilities between the countries have ceased.

I understand Israel’s difficulty in adhering to the terms of a ceasefire in the face of a regime determined to obtain nuclear weapons and wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Iran has long been identified as a leading state sponsor of terrorism, using proxy groups and financial networks to project influence and destabilize regions that serve its strategic interests—Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and various Shia militias in Iraq and Syria. These proxies allow Iran to engage in confrontational policies without direct engagement, targeting Israel, American assets, Sunni regimes, or Western allies while preserving plausible deniability. Iran’s deniability fails to withstand scrutiny. The world knows what Iran is doing. 

Israel rightly views Iran as an existential threat—its sponsorship of anti-Israel terrorist groups, its ongoing ballistic missile development and nuclear program justify this view. Now there is evidence that Iran moved large quantities of enriched uranium before the bombing. A nuclear-armed Iran would fundamentally alter the strategic balance in the region and embolden Iranian aggression under a nuclear umbrella. Iran’s ideological hostility combined with growing military capabilities necessitated preemptive actions. The US degraded Iran’s nuclear capacity on Saturday. But Israel is concerned that the job isn’t finished. Unfortunately, given Iran’s size, the material could be anywhere. It would take a ground invasion to know for sure—and that is the last thing the world wants to see (excepting neoconservatives like Linsday Graham).

As I wrote in my June 22 essay US Strikes Iran’s Nuclear Facilities, Trump should listen to George Washington’s warning about foreign entanglements. While I support Trump’s efforts to broker peace in the Middle East, I also expressed in a June 14 essay (America First is Not Israel First) my understanding that Israel has to do what it believes it must to protect its population from a nuclear holocaust. But at what cost?

I will post tomorrow about the threat Iran poses to Israel and why Israel is right to act against Iran. What I want to explain now is why Trump’s actions taken on Saturday are not analogous to Bush’s actions in Iraq and why Trump’s actions are not unconstitutional (neither were Bush’s, for the record). I have been accused of being a neocon. Nothing could be further from the truth. While I would like to see regime change in Iran, I do not want to see the United States invade Iran. Given Trump’s biography, I don’t think he wants that, either. His bellicosity is strategic. At least I hope so. As Dave Brat said the other day, if we become embroiled in a war with Iran, the war becomes Trump’s agenda and that derails the things we elected him to do. 

Democrat reaction to Trump’s actions is not principled but rather entirely partisan—so partisan that they will take the side of a Islamofascist state rather than side with the President (John Fetterman excepted). What a turn Democrats have taken. Trump dispossesses them of the capacity to reason. Democratic presidents since the 1979 Islamic Revolution have maintained a firm stance that Iran must never acquire nuclear weapons. The consistent message has been that a regime so openly hostile to the West, so deeply entangled in regional conflicts, cannot be trusted with nuclear capability. One would have to be a fool to believe otherwise.

As I noted in recent essays on my platform, the threat Iran poses to the region and the world greatly accelerated during the Obama and Biden presidencies. Despite Obama and Biden’s public pronouncements, they enabled Iran to advance its nuclear capability. Trump entered the White House on January 20 knowing this fact: Iran’s uranium enrichment program had reached levels as high as 60 percent purity, placing it just a step away from the 90 percent threshold required for weapons-grade material. While Tehran claims its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, enrichment at this level serves no civilian purpose. This signals technical readiness to quickly break out to a bomb if the decision is made.

Marco Rubio destroyed the DNC spokesperson Margaret Brennen on Face The Nation this morning!

Marco is so impressive!
pic.twitter.com/VclsJwrLPA

— Vince Langman (@LangmanVince) June 22, 2025

This assessment is not “manufactured” CIA or Israeli intelligence. The assessment comes from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog. The IAEA has conducted regular inspections and confirms that Iran began enriching uranium to 60 percent purity in 2021, significantly higher than the 3.67 percent limit set under the now-defunct Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—defunct because Trump recognized that the US needed to return to its long-standing policy of crippling sanctions against the terrorist state. This is a key difference between the current situation and Bush’s actions in Iraq. I knew before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq that Iraq did not have a WMD program—and I knew this because I read the IAEA reports. All those who are saying Trump is controlled by Netanyahu are either ignorant of the IAEA reporting or sidestepping it. 

This development dramatically shortens the timeline needed for Iran to assemble a nuclear weapon and increases the difficulty for Western intelligence to detect and respond to such a move in time. Operation Midnight Hammer was a long time in planning. If there was any coordination between Israel and the US, Israel achieving air supremacy over Iran was to make it impossible for the Iranians to prevent the US operation, which could not have been accomplished by Israel. As advanced as their military is, it can’t compare to American military might. Nothing compares to US military capability. 

The fact is that Iran’s uranium enrichment program undermines nonproliferation efforts and rightly raises fears among regional powers, most immediately among Israel and Sunni Arab states, of a cascading arms race in the Middle East. The higher enrichment level underscored the urgency to halt Iran’s progress. If Iran is not suicidal—and that’s a big if—it will come back to the negotiating table and establish meaningful limits backed by credible enforcement mechanisms.

As for the calls to impeach the President, which Democrats will if they regain control of Congress (if you haven’t realized it by now, Democrats don’t believe in the Constitution or democratic republicanism), the President of the United States has clear authority to meet the urgency of situations such as these with military force—without a congressional declaration of war. Trump’s authority is rooted in Article II of the US Constitution, which designates the President as Commander in Chief of the armed forces. While Congress holds the power to declare war, modern interpretations and historical precedent allow Presidents to engage in limited military actions to protect national interests, conduct counterterrorism operations, and respond to imminent threats. 

The historical precedent extends to the beginning of the Republic. Under John Adams, during the Quasi-War with France (1798–1800), an undeclared naval conflict sparked by French seizures of American merchant ships. In response, Adams authorized US naval forces to defend American commerce and engage French vessels in the Atlantic. Congress did not declare war. Instead, it passed laws authorizing naval engagements and the expansion of the Navy, effectively endorsing Adams’ use of force. This is the earliest instance I have found of US military action initiated without a formal war declaration. Correct me if I am wrong. 

Thomas Jefferson similarly acted without a formal declaration of war during the First Barbary War (1801–1805). Christopher Hitchens turned me on to this case years ago in an argument with Bill Mahr. Upon taking office, Jefferson refused to continue paying tribute to the Barbary States and sent US naval forces to the Mediterranean to protect American ships and pressure the rulers of Tripoli. After the Pasha of Tripoli declared war on the United States, Jefferson responded militarily without waiting for Congress to formally declare war. Instead, he informed Congress, which dutifully granted him retroactive approval and funding for sustained operations.

It continued this way until Congress attempted to reign in Article II powers with the War Powers Act (WPA), which it passed in 1973 in the aftermath of the Vietnam War (enacted over President Nixon’s veto). Nixon has escalated the war in Vietnam without a formal declaration of war by Congress. But even then, Congress did not forbid the President from exercising military power without a congressional act of war. In other words, the WPA affirmed the President’s authority to conduct military operations without a formal declaration of war. 

The WPA requires the President to notify Congress within 48 hours of introducing US armed forces into hostilities or situations where hostilities are imminent. It mandates that military engagement must end within 60 days unless Congress grants an authorization for use of military force (AUMF) or formally declares war (with an additional 30-day withdrawal period is allowed if necessary). However, presidents since have contested or sidestepped the WPA, asserting that the Act infringes on their Article II powers.

Here’s where Democrats are especially hypocritical. I see almost every other day on social media love letters to Obama. But Obama gives us one of the most dramatic uses of military power since the WPA with US military intervention in Libya in 2011. As part of a NATO-led coalition, US forces launched airstrikes and conducted operations that ultimately resulted in the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi’s government, transforming Libya from the most affluent African nation to an open slave market.

Although Obama reported the military action to Congress, he argued that the intervention did not rise to the level of “hostilities” as defined by the WPR and therefore did not trigger the requirement for congressional approval within 60 days. If Libya did not rise to the level of hostilities as defined by the Act, I must not know what the word “hostilities” means.

Another example came in 2014 when Obama authorized sustained airstrikes and military operations in Iraq and Syria against the ISIS. Obama did not seek new congressional authorization, instead relying on the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF)—originally passed to target al-Qaeda after 9/11—as legal justification. As a point of fact, ISIS did not exist when the AUMF was passed. Nevertheless, US military operations in Syria expanded significantly, including drone strikes, logistical support for allied militias, and even special forces missions.

(Obama loved to exercise military force. And, for the record, while I condemn Obama for the Libya action, I am less inclined to get worked up by actions degrading the capacity of terrorists to terrorize populations. Indeed, I don’t get worked up at all about it.)

Many Americans are unaware of the tremendous power the framers vested in the Office of the President. Many Democrats are aware of it but only valorize it when a man from their party is in power. They feel the same away about the federal judiciary (which, granted, was never intended to have the power of the executive and legislative branches). 

Finally, I think that what confuses people is the difference between military action and war. Military action can certainly be seen as act of war, but it is not war. An act of war refers to aggression or specific hostile—e.g., an attack, bombing, or invasion—that one state commits against another, typically a discrete act or series of actions that may or may not lead to a broader, sustained conflict. Being at war refers to a formal or ongoing state of armed conflict between entities or nations, often recognized legally through declarations of war (e.g., World War II) or continuous military engagement (e.g., the Vietnam War). While an act of war can provoke a state of war, the two concepts are distinct. We are not at war with Iran. 

In his Farewell Address of 1796, George Washington warned against foreign entanglements. The United States should avoid becoming involved in the permanent alliances and political affairs of other nations—particularly in Europe. “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” Washington’s guidance shaped American foreign policy for over a century. This is the principle of non-interventionism. 

Those who know me know that I have always opposed regime change wars and wars of choice. The disasters in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya shows us what happens when the United States prosecutes open-ended conflicts with no clear exit strategy and no sober understanding of the long-term consequences. In general, removing governments—assuming there are circumstances that necessitate this—without a plan for what comes next creates power vacuums, empowers extremists, and results in unnecessary loss of life. There are of course circumstances that involve regime change that do not permit planning, such as World War II. But total war is an exceptional circumstance. Maybe there is no circumstance in which a plan works out.

President Trump’s stated foreign policy approach rejects endless wars and focuses instead on protecting American interests without getting entangled in foreign nation-building. This is one of the main reasons I supported Trump in 2024. His administration insists that the decision to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities was not about regime change—it was about preventing a dangerous regime from acquiring nuclear weapons. There’s a crucial difference between starting a war and taking decisive, limited action to defend our national security. 

Before getting into yesterday’s actions, it’s worth looking at Trump’s first term as President and notable military actions his administration took then. Crucially, a key feature of Trump’s approach to military power during his first term was a willingness to use force selectively, often with an emphasis on deterrence and reasserting American strength, while also expressing a desire to reduce prolonged US involvement in overseas conflicts. I knew this when I threw my support behind him.

One of the earliest military actions came in April 2017, when Trump ordered a missile strike on a Syrian airbase in response to a chemical weapons attack by Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Later, in April 2018, Trump authorized a second, more extensive missile strike on Syrian targets, again in response to chemical attacks. These actions were part of a broader policy of signaling US resolve while not leading to deeper military involvement in Syria. I opposed these attacks at the time because I did not trust the intelligence and I did not support US intervention in Syria. To his credit, Trump ended significant US involvement in Syria.

Another significant military action was the 2017 deployment of a MOAB (the largest non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal) against ISIS targets in Afghanistan. While the strike had a tactical impact, the main purpose was demonstration of American firepower. Trump also escalated US military operations in Afghanistan early in his term, but by 2020, he had begun drawing down troops, again, consistent with his stance of ending endless wars.

In January 2020, Trump ordered a drone strike that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani near Baghdad International Airport. Soleimani led the Quds Force, the elite unit of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) responsible for foreign operations, espionage, and support of allied militant groups across the Middle East. Soleimani was the mastermind behind Tehran’s proxy networks in countries like Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. The strike raised tensions with Iran, with Iran responding by launching missiles at US bases in Iraq, however the crisis did not escalate into full-scale war.

In a previous essay on Freedom and Reason (America First is Not Israel First), I emphasized that, as one of the most directly threatened nations, Israel has both the motive and the right to act in its own self-defense. However, I stated that their war was not our war. I still don’t support Israel’s goal of regime change—although it would please me very much to see the Persian people overthrow clerical fascism in Iran. However, it appears that new intelligence has come to light that shows Iran’s nuclear program was far more advanced than previously understood. That this intelligence was likely supplied by Israel is spun as Israel manipulating Trump. But the fact is that Israeli spies are all over Iran and have better intelligence than the US.

The new intelligence assessment changes things. We were now confronted by a hostile regime, with a long record of sponsoring terrorism, getting dangerously close to building a nuclear weapon. Yes, I am well aware of the WMD ruse perpetrated by the neocons under the Bush-Cheney regime. But I knew it was a ruse before the US bombed Baghdad. Perhaps it will come out that the Trump Administration lied about Iran’s weapons program. But presuming the intelligence is reasonable, at that point degrading Iran’s offensive nuclear capacity ceases being just Israel’s problem; it became an immediate threat to the United States, to our forces abroad, to our allies across the region, and to global stability. The stakes had changed, and thus so did the necessity of American involvement.

Trump’s decision to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities was not an impulsive act—it was a measured and, again if the intelligence is correct, necessary step to prevent a dangerous regime from obtaining the most destructive weapons known to man. The suggestion has been made that, if we have nuclear weapons, then why can’t Iran have nuclear weapons. Because Iran’s leadership has repeatedly demonstrated that it is not a rational state actor on the world stage. It has violated international norms and flouted the nuclear agreement it signed, working in secret to enrich uranium and expand its offensive nuclear infrastructure. 

The Iranian regime has made its intentions clear: it seeks to dominate the Middle East, destroy Israel, and export its Islamofascist ideology. Under these conditions, allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons would be catastrophic—not only for our allies in the region, but for the entire world.

Iran’s long-standing sponsorship of terrorism underscores exactly why it should never be allowed anywhere near a nuclear weapon. For decades, Iran has funded and armed Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, which has carried out attacks against civilians, including Americans, and threatened Israel daily. Iran has also supported Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, responsible for countless rocket attacks on Israeli cities. Israeli actions on both fronts have sharply degraded the capacity of these proxies to hurt Israeli civilians. 

Beyond the Levant, Iran has supported violent Shia militias in Iraq and Syria, which have contributed to the deaths of American servicemembers and undermined efforts at post-conflict stabilization. These Iranian-backed forces have attacked US personnel, harassed civilian populations, and helped keep brutal dictators like Bashar al-Assad in power. 

In Yemen, Iran has supplied the Houthis with drones, missiles, and the training to carry out precision strikes far beyond Yemen’s borders. The Houthis have attacked oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, threatened the UAE, and targeted international shipping lanes in the Red Sea. Iran’s ambitions are not confined to one border or one battlefield but stretch from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean. 

In short, these aren’t isolated incidents. They are part of a calculated Iranian strategy to destabilize the region using militant proxies that act in its interest while giving Tehran plausible deniability. These groups do not just fight conventional wars; they deliberately target civilians, spread chaos, and are ideologically committed to the destruction of peaceful societies. The notion that a regime which empowers these groups should be entrusted with nuclear capabilities is beyond dangerous—it’s suicidal.

Iran’s IRGC, especially its elite Quds Force, has acted as the command-and-control center for this terrorist export machine. With access to nuclear weapons, the Iranian regime would not only become more aggressive—it would be emboldened to escalate its proxy warfare, knowing the threat of nuclear retaliation could deter international pushback. Giving this regime nuclear weapons would drastically raise the stakes of every regional conflict and could embolden Tehran to pursue its goals even more aggressively, under the umbrella of nuclear deterrence. The world cannot let that happen. Trump has been telling the world for decades that he would not allow this to happen.

Diplomacy and international oversight have failed to rein in Iran’s ambitions. Indeed, actions by the Obama and Biden administrations enabled Iran’s nuclear ambitions, as I discussed in that previous essay. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), an international agreement reached in 2015 between Iran and a group of world powers (including China) was designed to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions. But the JCPOA did nothing to address Iran’s ballistic missile development or its support for terrorism. Worse, Iran violated its commitments by enriching uranium beyond permissible limits and obstructing inspections. 

And let’s be clear—President Trump’s actions are not unconstitutional. As Commander-in-Chief, the President has the authority under Article II of the Constitution to conduct limited military operations to protect US national security interests. The strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities falls squarely within this framework. It was a targeted action aimed at a specific threat, not a declaration of war or a long-term military campaign. 

Congress retains the power to declare war, but the President has broad latitude to act swiftly in the face of imminent threats—especially when intelligence and the global security environment demand immediate response. Past presidents of both parties have exercised this authority. Trump’s decision to strike was not only legal, but also within the tradition of American executive action to prevent greater harm and preserve peace through strength.

Indeed, it is rather hypocritical for Democrats to call for Trump’s impeachment over yesterday’s action given that, during his presidency, Obama oversaw a wide range of military actions that reflected his power to use force when deemed necessary. A hallmark of Obama’s military strategy was an expanded drone warfare program, particularly in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen, targeting terrorist leaders with precision strikes. 

My opposition to those actions was not over the question of the President’s Article II powers, but over justification and outcomes. For example, in 2011, Obama led a NATO coalition intervention in Libya that overthrew Muammar Gaddafi. This action left the country in chaos. I criticized Obama not only for the result but for acting in the first place, since there was no legitimate reason for toppling Gaddafi. On the other hand, Obama ordered the 2011 Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. The point is that, overall, Obama’s military policy used targeted force against high-priority threats, and I don’t recall progressive Democrats calling for Obama’s impeachment for any of these actions. 

The question is this: do we allow a regime that funds terrorists and openly threatens our allies acquire the deadliest weapons on Earth? I am not categorically opposed to military action. But I need a reason. At this point, based on what I know, I have a reason. Hopefully the regime in power in Tehran understands that retaliating against the United States will result in the destruction of its clerical dictatorship.

But I also want to be clear that I do not want the US to go to war against Iran—not because I don’t want to see regime change there, but because it will be too costly in blood and treasure. And, on principle, it’s not our place to engineer governments in foreign countries. What is more, if the situation escalates into war, it will become Trump’s agenda, and everything we wanted from his presidency will be derailed.  

Have you read the book How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them by Jason Stanley? I haven’t. I don’t need to. I know what’s in this book because it’s standard progressive rhetoric. Stanley is a dyed-in-the-wool progressive, so the argument is predictable. I’ve read many reviews of the book (in deciding whether to buy it). But even better, I reviewed a piece the author himself published on Big Think that summarizes his thesis (https://bigthink.com/videos/what-is-fascism/). You can read that summary for yourself. I will latch onto the detailed overview posted on various book sellers. Here’s a section of the overview. Pay close attention to the language:

“As a scholar of philosophy and propaganda and the child of refugees of WWII Europe, Jason Stanley has long understood that democratic societies, including the United States, can be vulnerable to fascism. In How Fascism Works, he identifies ten pillars of fascist politics—an appeal to the mythic past, propaganda, anti-intellectualism, unreality, hierarchy, victimhood, law and order, sexual anxiety, favoring the ‘heartland,’ and a dismantling of public goods and unions—that amount to an urgent diagnosis of the tactics right-wing politicians use to break down democracies and a critical lens on the current moment.”

If one charitably reads the overview with a critical eye—particularly with attention to framing and language—an obvious question emerges: are these ten pillars uniquely fascist, or are they simply features of political rhetoric common across ideologies?

Stanley claims fascists appeal to a golden age that must be restored. Atavistic desire is hardly exclusive to fascism. Despite betraying these in action, progressives idealize the civil rights era, labor movements, or postwar social democracy. National myths are not inherently fascist—they’re a normal part of identity formation in any polity. What matters is how the myth is used, not whether one exists. When we celebrate the Founders and Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and its Bill of Rights, the American System, and all the other great things about America, are we manufacturing fascist myths? Of course not.

The American Republic endures because some of us care about its legacy. What purpose does it serve to characterize pride in one’s nation as fascist? Wouldn’t a person who wants to abandon a nation’s history say exactly this? Progressives want what the America patriots founded and fought for to be replaced by something else. That’s why they were out on the streets last Saturday. What do they say about people like me and you who defend the American Creed? Stanley wrote a book about it.

Most political communication contains some degree of simplification or emotional appeal. Does the make all such communication propaganda? Doesn’t a movement want to get people moving? As if progressivism isn’t drenched in emotionalism and histrionics! When Stanley uses “propaganda” to describe tactics on the right, he implicitly sets up his own narrative as truth, thus enacting the very dynamic he condemns. In democratic societies, essential concepts are contested, and claiming sole access to the truth—except for some obvious ones—can be anti-democratic and illiberal in its own right.

While fascist regimes have historically undermined intellectuals, skepticism toward academic and other elites is not inherently authoritarian. Indeed, it is required if we are to avoid technocratic governance. Populist movements—i.e., popular democratic sentiment and action—across the spectrum have criticized technocrats for being out of touch. And that’s because they often are! Framing all suspicion of intellectual authority as “fascist” fails to distinguish between anti-expert nihilism and legitimate critiques of epistemic overreach—and the masking of ideological ambition with pseudo-intellectual jargon.

Stanley warns that fascists flood the public with lies to dissolve trust in truth. But who defines truth? How about not those who tell us that men can be women or that America is systemically racist, two of many demonstrably false claims progressives insist on. With politically charged issues—class, gender, race—the line between truth and ideology is not always clear (that’s one reason to be skeptical of intellectuals). By insisting that only one side traffics in unreality—and elevate the one that consistently does—Stanley adopts a moralizing tone that preemptively delegitimizes disagreement and short-circuits democratic discourse—which is the goal of anti-fascist hysteria.

It is true that fascist ideologies embrace inegalitarian views. However, not all social hierarchies are authoritarian or oppressive. Merit-based and open systems inevitably function within hierarchical frameworks. Why? Because allowing people to operate freely produces inequality because not everybody has the same commitments and talents. Newsflash: individuals are different. A free and open competitive market will make them more unequal. How is that fascism? Flattening the concept of hierarchy into a fascist marker conflates emergent order and structure with tyranny.

Stanley argues that fascists manipulate feelings of victimhood, especially among dominant groups. But—does this even need to be said?—victimhood is the core of work progressive propaganda! Progressives are nonstop dwelling on (often imagined) historical injustices and systemic oppression. If victim narratives are dangerous when used by the right (rare), why not when used by the left (common)? The selective critique reflects a double standard rather than a neutral analysis. Easy bullshit call here.

Invoking “law and order” is seen by Stanley as a way to justify state violence. You are hearing this rhetoric big time in the current moment. Yet the desire for safety and stability is not inherently fascist—indeed, it’s foundational to the social contract. Do we really want a society without law and order? You know what that’s called, right? Anarchism. Citizens in high-crime areas support law enforcement without endorsing authoritarianism. They need the police. Big league. To equate law and order rhetoric with fascism is to misread a core democratic concern as a sign of tyranny. The hypocrisy here is so massive I need not dwell on it any further.

Stanley identifies anxiety over changing gender and sexual norms as a fascist tactic. While it’s true that authoritarian regimes often enforce traditional gender roles, it does not follow that all cultural conservatism or traditional beliefs and practices are fascist. But here’s the real problem: teaching sexual perversion to children. The desire to not sexualize children is fascist? Many cultural and religion traditions worldwide don’t share progressive views on sexuality. Stanley is painting deviation from progressive norms as dangerous. On the contrary, deviation from progressive norms is how we protect children and women. Progressives are transgressing boundaries that are essential for safety and innocence.

The romanticization of “the heartland” is presented as a fascist device. You know, “the Volk.” But valorizing rural communities over urban elites is a common populist trope—used by figures on both the left and right. What’ s wrong with rural people anyway, those folks Hillary Clinton called the “deplorables”? The salt of the earth? This framing reflects an elite cultural bias more than a diagnosis of fascism. Should every appeal to “ordinary people” be read as a step toward authoritarianism? Who is the republic for? Corporate elites and the bureaucrats and managerial strata? Or for the people? I say the people. What say you? (See No Gods. No kings. No elites. The People.)

Stanley includes efforts to privatize public services or weaken unions as fascist tactics. That’s neoliberalism, no? The weakening unions charge is ironic, since it was progressives who crushed private sector unions through globalization and mass immigration—and then established and built public sector unions to entrench the undemocratic administrative state (see Federal Employee Unions and the Entrenchment of Technocracy). To be sure, privatization has its problems, but the real question is whether privatizing does it better, more effectively and efficiently. Pragmatism demands an open mind on privatization. Many fiscal conservatives and libertarians advocate these positions from a principled, anti-authoritarian stance. Equating such policies with fascism collapses ideological diversity into a moral binary: right equals danger, left equals virtue.

I said at the start that I haven’t read the book. I have relied on reviews, the overview, and Stanley’s own summary of his book. I have read books like this, though. What these books have in common is that they exploit the anxieties of a moment when many are told to fear democratic backsliding. Why? Because Trump and the populist movement—a trans-Atlantic movement that threatens the rule of transnational corporations and governance bodies, i.e., inverted totalitarianism, the New Fascism.

Work like Stanley’s fulfills Orwell’s warning about language: the inflation of “fascism” into a catch-all term for political smearing. By casting a wide net and using emotionally charged language, Stanley (perhaps unwittingly—even smart people can be dumb) contributes to the polarization he seeks to diagnose. That’s why I choose to buy a collection of writings by George Orwell rather than squander my money on Stanley’s book (to add to my voluminous collection of books on fascism).

Here’s some advice to progressives: a better defense of democracy requires resisting the temptation to pathologize dissent. Political disagreement and ideological contestation are not threats to democracy—they are its lifeblood. To preserve liberal society, one must be willing to challenge all forms of ideology and propaganda—including the kind that comes cloaked in warnings about fascism, which, as best I can tell, Stanley’s contribution is a paradigm. Correct me if I’m wrong. Hey, gift me his book and I will read it cover to cover. Of course, progressives have no interest in preserving liberal democratic society. They desire something very different.

Since we’re reflecting on the problem of kings (and on July 4 we will celebrate America’s declaration of independence from the British Crown), it seems an apt time for a brief civics lesson on the distinctions between democracy, liberalism, monarchism, and republicanism.

A liberal democracy features the following: constitutional limits on government power, free and fair elections, pluralism, tolerance of dissent, protection of civil liberties and political rights, the rule of law, and separation of powers.

The United States is certainly these things in design. While we have faced challenges—fraying separation of powers (the rise of the judicocracy), strained tolerance for dissent (the Biden regime directing social media to censor and deplatform those who views challenge the official narrative), threats to electoral integrity (the 2020 election)—the institutional framework remains intact. What is required now is the political will to make these institutions function as they were intended.

The United States was founded on classical liberal principles: consent of the governed, free markets, individual liberty, limited government, natural rights (life, liberty, property), rule of law, and secularism. When I say I am a liberal, I mean that I subscribe to these things. My only qualification concerns the notion of free markets, particularly the tension between nationalism and globalism, as I have discussed many times before on this platform.

When one says that the United States is a liberal democracy, he is often confronted with this rebuttal: “We are not a democracy. We are a republic!” Yes, we are also a republic. However, putting it this way obscures the fact that we are also a liberal democracy. These two terms are not mutually exclusive.

A democracy is a system of government in which ultimate power resides with the people. In its purest form—direct democracy—citizens vote directly on laws and policies. James Madison was wary of direct democracy, fearing the “tyranny of the majority,” in which the rights of individuals and minorities are endangered by the will of the majority. In Federalist No. 10, Madison argued that the best safeguard against this danger was his blueprint for a constitutional republic. Thus, we are a representative democracy—like most modern democracies—where the people elect officials to make decisions on their behalf.

The core idea of the republic is a system of government in which there is no monarch. When I say that I am a republican, this is what I mean: no kings. However, while all true republics are a form of representative democracy, not all democracies are republics (nor are all states without a monarchy republics). Many modern constitutional monarchies—such as the United Kingdom, Sweden, Japan—are liberal democracies, with robust institutions and free elections, yet they still retain ceremonial monarchs. They are not republics.

Conversely, some countries that call themselves republics, like China, are anything but democratic. The Chinese Communist Party controls all branches of government, the military, and the media, with no checks and balances, free elections, or genuine political pluralism. Crucially, then, “republic” is a structural description—it is a design for government—not a guarantee of democracy or liberalism.

The United States is both a democracy and a republic: democratic because power derives from the people; republican because it is governed by elected representatives under a constitution that limits government power.

Last Saturday, progressives have made it clear that they don’t want a king. Great. Neither do I. So what do progressives want? They reject the American system, so we know they don’t want that. Instead, they advocate for an administrative and technocratic model—a system in which policy is shaped not by elected representatives responsive to voters, but by a class of bureaucrats and experts managing complex systems with minimal democratic input. This is what we call corporatism.

Corporatism is prevalent in much of Europe, particularly in parliamentary systems based on proportional representation. Corporatist systems integrate organized interest groups—businesses, labor unions, professional associations—into formal policymaking processes. In this system, politics is less about competition among ideas and more about cooperation among elites, with the government acting as a coordinator among powerful groups.

One feature of this system is agency independence, in which unelected bureaucrats manage the lives of the populace according to administrative plans. Agency independence reflects a technocratic approach to governance, where unelected bureaucrats wield significant authority over public policy and everyday life. This independence is intended to insulate decision-making from partisan pressures, allowing experts to manage complex social and economic issues through long-term planning and coordination.

Here’s the problem: this arrangement distances governance from democratic accountability, as policies emerge from negotiated compromises among elite interest groups rather than electoral mandates or public debate. The result is a political environment where citizens are alienated from policymaking, as crucial decisions are made by insulated agencies whose legitimacy derives more from expertise than from popular consent.

Thus, while corporatism offers efficiency (at least ideally) and stability, it does so by reducing the influence of ordinary citizens. A corporatist society behaves more like a corporate bureaucracy where decisions are made through closed-door negotiations among shareholders (excluding stakeholders), and where the machinery determining policy is opaque. The priorities of organized interests take precedence over grassroots demands, and the public becomes more of a managed audience than an active participant. Legitimacy in such a system stems not from popular will but from the perceived competence of institutions—leaving little room for dissenting voices outside the sanctioned channels of influence.

By formalizing elite control over policymaking, the state system marginalizes the broader electorate. It does this on purpose. Elite cooptation undermines democratic accountability and dilutes the principle of popular sovereignty. When interest groups act as gatekeepers to power, they prioritize narrow agendas over the common good, excluding diverse perspectives and suppressing dissent. This is why populism is universally reviled by elites and technocrats. In an act of projection, elites have taken to equating populism—another word for popular democracy—to fascism. You see this inversion across the West.

Why do I say projection? Because corporatism has an ambiguous character in the sense that it can operate within democratic institutions, but also slide into authoritarianism. Twentieth-century fascist regimes came to power through parliamentary systems and adopted corporatist structures to control civil society and eliminate democratic opposition. This dual nature highlights corporatism’s vulnerability to authoritarianism: it weakens the checks that liberal republicanism provides—civic participation, individual rights, separated powers—thus creating fertile ground for elite domination.

When progressives accuse populists of fascism they are projecting, accusing those who seek open democratic processes governed by republican principles and liberal values of the very thing progressives seek: an authoritarian corporate state.

The genius of the United States is that its governmental structure makes the installation of an authoritarian regime difficult. However, the rise of the unaccountable, unconstitutional, and unelected fourth branch of government—the administrative state—can, and to a significant degree has established what Sheldon Wolin called “inverted totalitarianism.”

In Democracy, Inc., Wolin argues that the United States has evolved into a system of managed democracy where corporate power dominates political life without the overt repression typical of classical totalitarian regimes. Unlike traditional authoritarianism, inverted totalitarianism maintains the façade of democratic institutions—constitutional rights, elections, a free press—while hollowing them out through consumerism and technocratic control. Wolin contends that this system suppresses genuine democratic engagement by depoliticizing the public, prioritizing market efficiency and stability over accountability and civic participation, effectively rendering democracy a symbolic ritual rather than a substantive practice.

The rise of the administrative state has fueled the growth of populism, as many American patriots seek to reclaim the republic in the spirit envisioned by the Founders. In the absence of a single authoritarian figure, the public has struggled to recognize the nature of their predicament—particularly given the legacy media’s dominance over public perception.

By casting a strong presidential figure leading a populist movement as an authoritarian, the cultural and institutional establishment has convinced many Americans that Trump poses a threat to democracy. When branding him a fascist failed to resonate, elites pivoted to portraying him as a king. Yet, just a week after the “No Kings” protest, that narrative appears to have fallen flat. Trump remains a highly popular figure, consistently polling above 50 percent in the most reliable surveys. But the corporate elite and their functionaries and street-level troops do not intend to give up.

Understanding the distinctions between corporatism, democracy, liberalism, monarchism, and republicanism is not an abstract exercise—it is essential for defending the American System. The United States was founded not on bloodlines or bureaucracies, but on the belief that individuals possess inalienable rights and that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. In contrast to corporatist models that favor elite cooptation and technocratic control, the American system rests on the conviction that ordinary citizens—through debate, democratic participation, and dissent—shape their political destiny.

To preserve this republic, we must not only understand the meaning of terms but recommit ourselves to republican principles of liberalism, secularism, and the rule of law. No gods. No kings. No elites. The People.

In a huge loss for the medical-industrial complex and queer activism, the Supreme Court, in United States v. Skrmetti, in a 6–3 decision, upheld Tennessee’s law banning so called “gender-affirming” medical care for minors. In other words, medically-unnecessary and extreme body modification of minors will not resume in my home state. With this decision, the Court upheld the power of states to stop unwarranted medical practices on a vulnerable segment of the population. This is a major blow to the twisted project to manufacture simulated sexual identities—and a major victory for those fighting to set medicine on an objective scientific foundation.

Predictably, major US medical groups—including the American Psychiatric Association and the Endocrine Society—released a joint statement expressing disappointment with the ruling: “Every patient should have access to the medical care they need.” Like lobotomies for impulse dysregulation? That’s the analogy. GAC involves the altering of physiology through drugs and hormones, amputation of healthy breasts, the mutilation of genitalia—none of which treat a disease but instead manufacture (rarely in a convincing fashion) the appearance of a gender the subject can never truly be. These harmful practices affirm a delusion rather than dealing with the delusion itself. In doing so, they create life-long medical patients worth billions of dollars to the medical industry.

This ban will save countless children a lot of misery and pain. But it will also put medical science back on the path to actually doing health care and not extreme body modifications for an ideological agenda. Twenty-five states have now enacted laws that restrict doctors from providing puberty blockers, hormone therapies or surgery to transgender minors. Two more, Arizona and New Hampshire, ban surgeries. With this decision, it is hoped more states will pass laws banning these practices. Even better would be federal law. And not just for minors. No doctor should be allowed to take advantage of the vulnerable.

The majority, led by Chief Justice Roberts, framed the issue not as one of discrimination, but of permissible state regulation of medical practices. The opinion emphasized that the law did not target transgender individuals based on their status or sex, but rather restricted certain medical procedures based on age and the nature of their use. Because of this framing, the Court applied the lowest level of constitutional review—rational basis—and found that Tennessee had legitimate state interests, such as protecting children from what it described as irreversible medical interventions.

Roberts further wrote that the Court’s role is not to judge the morality or wisdom of such legislative decisions, but only their constitutionality. In declining to treat the law as a form of sex discrimination, the majority rejected the application of heightened scrutiny, which would have required the state to show a more compelling justification for the ban. Concurring opinions from Justices Barrett and Thomas underscored skepticism about emerging medical consensus around “transgender care” and reiterated their views that courts should defer to legislatures, particularly in fast-evolving medical fields.

In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Jackson and Kagan, argued that the Tennessee law was plainly discriminatory and violated the Equal Protection Clause. Sotomayor pointed out that the law allows certain medical treatments for minors while denying them to minors who wrongly believe they are the other gender, making the discrimination both clear and sex-based. “Male (but not female) adolescents can receive medicines that help them look like boys, and female (but not male) adolescents can receive medicines that help them look like girls,” she wrote. Of course. Why would it be any other way?

Micropenis is a medical condition characterized by an abnormally small penis—typically defined as a stretched penile length more than 2.5 standard deviations below the average for age and sex. It is typically caused by insufficient testosterone exposure during fetal development or early childhood. Early medical intervention, especially during infancy or early childhood, can stimulate penile growth. This involves short courses of testosterone therapy, either through injections or topical application, which can significantly increase penile length if administered at the appropriate developmental stage. In some cases, additional treatments during puberty or adulthood may be considered, but the response is generally best when treatment is initiated early. Thus proper diagnosis and timely hormone therapy are crucial for both physical development and the psychological well-being of affected individuals.

A mother who chooses not to intervene in treating her son’s micropenis during childhood, perhaps believing the decision should be left to the child when he’s older, is ultimately doing him a disservice. While the intention to respect bodily autonomy may seem thoughtful to her (or perhaps virtuous if driven by gender ideology), it ignores the medical reality that effective treatment can only stimulate meaningful penile growth if begun in early childhood. Delaying care until the child is old enough to decide means missing the narrow window when intervention can make a real difference. In this case, the well-meaning but misguided idea of letting the child choose later removes that choice altogether. Proper parental care sometimes requires making difficult, time-sensitive decisions in the child’s best interest—especially when inaction leads to permanent consequences.

But administering testosterone to a girl? For what purpose? If giving testosterone to a boy with a micropenis is justified because it aligns with his biological development, then administering the same hormone to a girl—whose body is not deficient in testosterone and for whom such an intervention will fundamentally alter her natural development—stands on entirely different ground. That terrain is ideological, and preys on the false belief that girls can become boys. In this case, it’s not a corrective treatment but a deliberate disruption of healthy female development in pursuit of a gender identity that, like the choice deferred in the micropenis example, evolves over time.

Putting aside the impossibility of children changing genders, the logic that children should be left to decide later seems conveniently abandoned here—replaced by irreversible interventions made on the basis of subjective feelings rather than objective medical need. If bodily autonomy matters, it should matter in both directions. But unlike the boy with micropenis, the girl given testosterone loses not just a developmental window, but her unaltered path into adulthood—without ever having the chance to truly choose it. The same thing holds with puberty blockers—unless these are used to stop precocious puberty (an actual medical condition).

Sotomayor criticized the majority for failing to apply even intermediate scrutiny—typically used in cases involving sex discrimination—and for minimizing the harm done to transgender youth and their families. Her opinion warned that the ruling would open the door for further erosion of protections for LGBTQ+ individuals and that it sends a dangerous message that states can target vulnerable populations under the guise of neutral regulation. It’s rather embarrassing for a Supreme Court justice to make an argument this absurd.

Eithan Haim of Dallas, the whistleblower who exposed atrocities performed on underage patients at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, makes this analogy: “It would be like saying a patient without cancer but ‘identifies as having cancer’ is being discriminated against because a doctor is refusing to give them chemotherapy.” In effect, Sotomayor is arguing that upholding the Tennessee ban on administering chemotherapy to a person without cancer is denying that person “lifesaving medical treatment.”

It would be like saying a patient without cancer but "identifies as having cancer" is being discriminated against because a doctor is refusing to give them chemotherapy.

They have the audacity to claim the majority opinion "contorts logic" while they rely on anti-logic. pic.twitter.com/beAmZmAsoP

— Eithan Haim MD (@EithanHaim) June 18, 2025

What the Court upheld was not discrimination, but discernment—the ability of a society to distinguish between treating a medical condition and indulging a psychological fiction with irreversible drugs and surgeries. The Tennessee law does not deny health care; it affirms that medical care must be grounded in biological reality and genuine pathology, not ideological fantasies. Children deserve protection from experimental interventions that yield lifelong consequences based on feelings that may change with time. Just as a parent is expected to act swiftly and wisely to correct a physical disorder like micropenis during a narrow developmental window, the same obligation should apply in preventing healthy children from being irreversibly harmed by ideologically driven procedures masquerading as medicine.

The Court’s decision validates a simple truth: that medicine must serve the body, not remake it in the image of delusional thinking and political belief.