Donald Trump wants success to be his revenge. He says his policies of deregulation, tax cuts, restoring America’s border and military might, and rolling back government bureaucracy will foster happiness and growth. I understand where he’s coming from. But of all people, Trump must understand that some people don’t want happiness and growth. They want destruction. They hate their fellow man, and many hate themselves. They won’t welcome success and prosperity.

Their response to success and prosperity last time around, in Trump’s first term? COVID fascism: The most widespread instance of temporary mass insanity in all of human history. They did it to get rid of Trump. They literally shut down the world for nearly two years. Nothing so bizarre has ever happened on planet Earth. It wasn’t just the media and Deep State. Millions of Democrat voters, leftist types — gullible, self-righteous sheep — followed and applauded it all. Do you think any of them have learned, grown or changed?

The next few years will be mighty revealing.

Follow Dr. Hurd on Facebook. Search under “Michael Hurd” (Charleston SC). Get up-to-the-minute postings, recommended articles and links, and engage in back-and-forth discussion with Dr. Hurd on topics of interest. Also follow Dr. Hurd on X at @MichaelJHurd1, drmichaelhurd on Instagram, @DrHurd on TruthSocial. Dr. Hurd is also now a Newsmax Insider!

Imagine an entire civilization that is taken over by an emotional parasite called suicidal empathy that trumps every other instinct that is within your adaptive repertoire. You are willing to sacrifice everything at the Altar of Suicidal Empathy. Nothing is more important than appearing kind, compassionate, and empathetic especially to those hellbent on eradicating you.

— @GadSaad, X

Leftism is the fusion of mental illness and moral depravity.

“Investigators Seek Clues to New Orleans Attacker’s Path to Radicalization,” says a headline.

Radical Muslim terrorist who hates America, himself, his fellow man and human liberty — or a radical Democrat who hates America, himself, his fellow man and human liberty. Is there any real difference?

“With the Biden ‘Open Border’s Policy’ I said, many times during Rallies, and elsewhere, that Radical Islamic Terrorism, and other forms of violent crime, will become so bad in America that it will become hard to even imagine or believe. That time has come, only worse than ever imagined. Joe Biden is the WORST PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICA, A COMPLETE AND TOTAL DISASTER. What he and his group of Election Interfering ‘thugs’ have done to our Country will not soon be forgotten!”

— President-elect Donald Trump, on Truth Social

Follow Dr. Hurd on Facebook. Search under “Michael Hurd” (Charleston SC). Get up-to-the-minute postings, recommended articles and links, and engage in back-and-forth discussion with Dr. Hurd on topics of interest. Also follow Dr. Hurd on X at @MichaelJHurd1, drmichaelhurd on Instagram, @DrHurd on TruthSocial. Dr. Hurd is also now a Newsmax Insider!

Editor’s Note: Some of the ideas expressed in this essay are not shared by the website owner.

In the comic strip “Peanuts,” Lucy van Pelt referred to the beginning of the new year as “post-Christmas letdown,” when you mourn for the gifts you wanted but didn’t get. Interestingly, it’s also around this time when I get questions from parents asking me if they’re spoiling their kids. Though post-Christmas letdown can be real for some, it also makes perfect sense to shower your child with attention and affection.

The problem doesn’t stem from too much love or too many presents. It lies in not allowing the child to experience the consequences of his actions and choices. Let’s say your daughter carelessly breaks an expensive gift. Do you immediately replace it, or do you let her experience the disappointment and frustration that goes along with doing a dumb thing? This is where a lot of parents go wrong; they shield the kids from the consequences of not-so-smart decisions.

A great way to understand human nature is to read biographies. It’s remarkable how many successful people had rotten childhoods. Do children who are emotionally neglected therefore accomplish more in life? Of course not. Plenty of kids raised in loving homes turn out just fine. It boils down to whether kids are permitted to experience the consequences of their choices.

The unpleasant side effects of not giving children consequences often manifest themselves in the teenage years. Child psychologist Gregory Ramey, Ph.D. identifies nine classic characteristics of a spoiled teenager:

1. Rarely shows appreciation or says, “Thank you.”
2. Doesn’t seem satisfied with whatever she gets.
3. Asks for things and gets upset if he doesn’t immediately get them.
4. Doesn’t have any family responsibilities.
5. Frequently complains about being treated unfairly.
6. Rarely offers to help someone else.
7. Expects others to accommodate her wants.
8. Rarely compromises or shares with others.
9. Has a “what’s-in-it-for-me” attitude.

In one case study, Ramey details how he sent a spoiled teenager away from his office and proceeded to work with the parents. They had given the teen pretty much everything he wanted, and he developed a sense of entitlement. They were puzzled when he would act up when he didn’t get the latest computer game, phone or whatever. The answer was simple: They taught him that he could cajole, whine, beg and threaten his way to get whatever he wanted.

When this comes up in my office, my first reaction is, “What are you doing to encourage this behavior?” If a child is acting entitled, then we must have done something to encourage that attitude. It might feel like we’re victims because we’re getting the opposite of what we intended (“I work hard to give him everything he wants, and all I get in return is ingratitude!”), but good intentions don’t always lead to good results. The parents helped create this situation, and only they can reverse it.

People (not just teenagers) who feel entitled are not just obnoxious or selfish. In fact, they’re quite sad. They aren’t prepared for a world where nobody’s going to provide for them simply because they demand it. In today’s entitled society, more and more young people are returning home in their late 20s or 30s. They weren’t prepared for reality, so they limp back to mom and dad with a sense of failure masquerading as arrogance and anger.

It’s a loving thing to shower your child with affection. But it’s also a loving thing to allow him to feel the consequences of his choices. It’s OK for her to fall on her face, but give her the chance to get up on her own, and applaud her when she does. Life and love are about helping, but just as often they’re about self-reliance and leaving people alone to fend for themselves. Let someone you love stand on his or her own, and you’ll transform their sad sense of entitlement into real-world independence.

Michael J. Hurd

At a rally in Michigan, “before you cast your votes ask yourselves what side of history do you want to be on.” She said male “rage” is what could cost Democrats the election. “If we don’t get this election right,” she nagged, “your wife, your daughter, your mother — we as women will become collateral damage to your rage. So are you men prepared to look into the eyes of the women and children you love and tell them that you supported this assault on our safety?” (Can we get one of those overpaid consultants to advise women in politics that there’s nothing frank or authentic about referring to men as “fellas?”)

Consider that Obama’s supreme legislative achievement was a health insurance industry overhaul. The ultimate result has been higher prices and fewer insurance options. Obama supported Hillary Clinton as his successor, discouraging Biden. She was ended by Trump. In 2020, Biden became the Democrat nominee with the eventual support of Obama, only to preside over breakouts of foreign conflict, hyperinflation, rampant crime, and unmitigated chaos at the southern border, none of which was inevitable but in fact instigated by Biden’s agenda. Now voters are once again turning to Trump, the man who made his entry into the Obama-era of politics by demanding proof of Obama’s birth certificate, which Obama, the sitting president of the United States, responded to by publishing it. Sad!

Generally speaking, Democrat men have never been accused of being too manly, but it remains a mystery as to who came up with the idea to browbeat them into voting for Kamala. If it was Obama’s idea, man has he lost his magic. And if it wasn’t his idea, man has he lost his magic.https://cdd84e69c15689bed0169c67cd64e921.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

“Hope and change” became, “Do what mommy and daddy said.”

Then Trump won decisively, the first Republican in 20 years to win the popular vote. It’s the second time Trump defeated the Obama-backed candidate and the second chance Trump has to reverse the havoc Obama and his legacy have wrought.

America is done with him. Obama was 2024’s biggest loser.

Leftism is psychologically sick — beyond redemption, correction or repair. It’s a self-devouring intellectual, cultural and political malignancy.

To be a committed leftist, you must loathe yourself. When you find others who will not loathe themselves, you become frightened–because the existence of happiness provides an indication of where you have gone horribly wrong. Soon, fear becomes anger, rage and hatred. Think frightened three-year-olds having a tantrum — with none of the innocence. That’s all we’re up against.

Leftism is programmed with a self-destruct mechanism: The fear of seeing others who are sincere, virtuous and happy ignites a never-ending rage and impulse toward annihilation of all things valuable. Hence the desire to turn Mickey Mouse into a “transgender” and make Batman into an emasculated feminist: To wokesters, it’s the destruction that matters. It started with straws and Aunt Jemima. It won’t stop until it gets to the 21st century version of concentration camps.

Scratch the surface of Communism, socialism, woke corporate fascism, environmentalism and all the other ridiculous trends of our era, and you will find nothing but metaphysical terror manifesting as snarls and hatred. I can’t hang out with leftists. Not because I can’t tolerate dissension; but because I can’t tolerate misery disguised as hatred.

Brace yourselves for 2025. Donald Trump cannot fix everything. No one election can fix everything. It’s deeper than politics. We’re talking fundamental differences. A lot of people are confused, uncertain and in the middle. But the people running things — the politically connected corporations (the big ones), the universities and schools, the government agencies (especially at the federal level) — are not going to back down. They’re going to make the Biden years seem sane. Listen to Biden when he sneered that the 2024 election was losing a battle, but not the war. It’s the war on America that Obama started and continues to this day, although it predates Obama. So fasten your seatbelts and decide what’s really important to you. It’s going to get truly interesting.

Happy 2025!

Outgoing Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) wrote a scathing tweet about President Joe Biden after he granted clemency to 37 prisoners on federal death row who received life sentences without the potential for parole. He called it “horribly misguided and insulting,” especially regarding the two men convicted of murdering a student at Marshall University.

The Democrat-turned-Independent said he felt a moral obligation to speak out against the outgoing president on behalf of the parents of Samantha Burns, a 19-year-old girl who was killed in November 2002. However, her remains were never found. Manchin said her family wrote letters to Biden pleading with him not to pardon the murders, but their concerns were disregarded.

“After speaking to Samantha Burns’ parents, I believe it is my duty to speak on their behalf and say President Biden’s decision to commute the death sentences for the two men convicted in her brutal murder is horribly misguided and insulting,” Manchin wrote on X. “Particularly since Samantha’s family wrote letters to President Biden & the Department of Justice, pleading for them not to do this, but their concerns were unheard. I can’t imagine the grief that Kandi and John Burns are reliving and dealing with during the holiday season. As their U.S. Senator and a father, I want to express my deepest sympathy for their continued suffering. Please know that Samantha will forever be in our prayers.”

After speaking to Samantha Burns’ parents, I believe it is my duty to speak on their behalf and say President Biden’s decision to commute the death sentences for the two men convicted in her brutal murder is horribly misguided and insulting. (1/3) — Senator Joe Manchin (@Sen_JoeManchin) December 26, 2024

Particularly since Samantha’s family wrote letters to President Biden & the Department of Justice, pleading for them not to do this, but their concerns were unheard. I can’t imagine the grief that Kandi and John Burns are reliving and dealing with during the holiday season. (2/3) — Senator Joe Manchin (@Sen_JoeManchin) December 26, 2024

As their U.S. Senator and a father, I want to express my deepest sympathy for their continued suffering. Please know that Samantha will forever be in our prayers. (3/3) — Senator Joe Manchin (@Sen_JoeManchin) December 26, 2024

In defense of his commutations, Biden doubled down on his opposition to the death penalty, saying he is “more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level.”

Social media users appeared to agree with Manchin, suggesting it is just a matter of time before the killers Biden granted clemency to kill again.

Joe Biden did this for 37 murderers.

Joe Biden has shown he does not care about the real victims of crime.

He is disgusting and lawless to do this. — Think for Yourself (@PhilipBLee) December 27, 2024

Just wait until one of the monsters biden commuted kills again.

It will happen, make my words. — Billy Bob (@The_Real_Solyad) December 26, 2024

Democrats are evil people. — Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) December 26, 2024

Biden should be censored and not allowed to make anymore judgement calls. He is unable to stand trial why is he being allowed to make decisions for pardons? I blame congress for no action to stop what has gone on for 4 years. — Psmyth ExtremeMAGA (@Ps5725) December 27, 2024

Joe, these things happen when the entirety of government pretends it is perfectly normal to install a demented potato in the WH for 4 years. — Bytemeharder (@bytemeharder) December 26, 2024

Biden isn’t making these decisions. We all know it. — Deborah Anderson (@And434Deborah) December 26, 2024

For Palestinians, Syria is a closing door and an opening window

The Assads, father and son, always claimed to be the defenders of the Palestinians against the Zionist entity. The truth is quite otherwise. More on how the Assads used and abused the Palestinians can be found here: “For Palestinians, Syria is a closing door and an opening window – analysis,” by Elias Zananiri, The Media Line, December 16, 2024:

The Syrian regime under Hafez Assad and his son, Bashar, had always been a puzzle for the Palestinians. They couldn’t figure out if it was a regime they loved to hate or they hated to love.

Although Syria had the chance to play a pivotal role in the region, it focused on fighting the Palestinians a lot more than the effort it made to fight Israel, the perceived occupier of the Palestinian people. Ask any Palestinian about the Syrian regime under the father and later his son, and he will immediately tell you it never shot a bullet at Israel after the 1973 October War. For the Palestinian majority, this is not only an indication but damning evidence that Syria was not on the side of the Palestinian national rights.

The Syrian regime offered lots of lip service to the Palestinians. Still, it spared no effort to take over the PLO and turn it into a Syrian proxy, like Ahmed Jibril’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) and Zuheir Mohsen’s As-Sa’iqa, Arabic for thunderbolt. Most Palestinians in Syria knew these two as senior officers in the country’s secret service….

The story of Bashar Sharif Ali Saleh, a Palestinian from the West Bank city of Jenin, illustrates how ruthless Jibril’s personality was.

Bashar was released upon the collapse of the Assad regime after spending 40 years in Syrian jails because Ahmad Jibril considered him a person of interest. In an interview with him at the Palestinian embassy in Damascus after his release, Bashar said he joined the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian territories -General Command, PFLP-GC, whose leader then was Ahmad Jibril.

One day, Bashar and a few volunteers were sitting in a room when Jibril suddenly entered. Everybody rose except for Bashar. “I know it was a mistake that I didn’t stand up, and instead, I shook Jibril’s hand while seated,” Bashar said.

He added: “I should have behaved like the others. Jibril ordered his men to shave my head, strip me of my military uniform, and take me to jail. Since then, I was moved to three different jails, the last of which was Adra prison.” Before Adra, Bashar served 12 years in Sednaya Prison, the notorious torture center near Damascus. Videos and interviews with prisoners held in Sednaya and released by combatants belonging to Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham (Organization for the Liberation of the Levant) or HTS told unbelievable stories of how their wardens treated them….

Bashar Sharif Ali Saleh spent more than 12 years in Sednaya Prison because he had failed to stand up when Ahmed Jibril, the head of Syrian-allied PFLP, entered the room. It is that kind of detail that conveys the full horror of the Assad regime and its Palestinian allies.

Walid Barakat is a Palestinian who flew to Damascus in 1982 to enroll in one of its universities. He was arrested upon arrival and sent to three different prisons until he was taken to Sednaya Prison in 2001, where he stayed until his release after HTS combatants stormed Damascus. He couldn’t even tell why he was arrested….

The Assad regime would arrest and imprison Palestinians at will; no reason was ever given for most of these sentences. Anyone perceived as a threat to the regime would be immediately picked up. Did Walid Barakat let slip some anti-regime sentiment before he went to Damascus, that an Assad agent overheard and reported, and Barakat spent 42 years of his life in prison as a result?

Assad was not interested in the Palestinians except insofar as he could use some of them, under his threat, to help maintain Syrian control of Lebanon. He “never fired a shot” against Israel.

Ahmed al-Sharaa, the HTS leader, expressed his belief that Syria needs to democratize all its institutions. Known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, al-Sharaa told a Syrian television channel that many domestic issues in Syria need urgent treatment and solutions. Therefore, he added, the leaders of the new regime are not out there to fight Israel.

“We want the Iranian presence in Syria to end so Israel would have no more excuses to attack Syria,” he said. He sounded more like a leftist rather than an Islamist as he reasonably discussed the future he expects for Syria. He said, “Syria needs a transformation from the mentality of revolting against the tyranny of Assad’s regime into a state mentality where issues must be dealt with collectively and in cooperation with all segments of the society.”

Since he quit al-Qaida, al-Sharaa has done his homework correctly. He dropped his nom de guerre and preferred to be called by his real name. He also removed his al-Qaida camouflage, as he understood that it would not encourage the Syrian public to support him and his group. Modernizing Syrian governance is genuinely needed, and al-Sharaa is convinced that he and his colleagues in the new country’s command must follow this line.

It’s hard to know if al-Sharaa’s claim to have abandoned the jihadist beliefs he held for so long is sincere. Right now he is so focused on three things: first, persuading the West to lift its sanctions on Syria; second, having the West remove the designation of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham as a terrorist organization; third, having the West supply aid so that Syria can start to rebuild. He is willing to say anything that will further those goals. No one seems to know if he can be trusted; the Israelis, quite rightly, are acting on the assumption that he cannot, and the IDF is determined to deprive Syria of its military assets through a campaign of sustained bombing that has already reduced those assets to 20% of what they were just a few weeks ago. Now Syria has been stripped of the wherewithal to harm the Jewish state.

It is uncertain if Syria will become a Western-style democracy. Only time can tell if Syria is moving in that direction. From a Palestinian perspective, it is better to have a neutral Syria than a country that proclaims to support the Palestinian national struggle while it does nothing. A senior Fatah member who graduated in Syria and spent most of his years in the country said he would prefer to see Syria sitting on the fence watching what happens in the region to a Syria that stabs the Palestinian people in their back. He added that Syria “is a closing door and an opening window.”

“We hope it will be a window of positive and fruitful change in a country that deserves to live in a democratic regime honoring human rights and individual liberties.”

As De Gaulle skeptically said on another occasion, “Vaste programme, monsieur.”