The Artful Dilettante is a native of Pittsburgh, PA, and a graduate of Penn State University. He is a lover of liberty and a lifelong and passionate student of the same. He is voracious reader of books on the Enlightenment and the American colonial and revolutionary periods. He is a student of libertarian and Objectivist philosophies. He collects revolutionary war and period currency, books, and newspapers. He is married and the father of one teenage son. He is kind, witty, generous to a fault, and unjustifiably proud of himself. He is the life of the party and an unparalleled raconteur.
The decoy effort to get President Donald Trump out of Turkey last month occurred after the threat of a surface-to-air missile against Air Force One was deemed sufficiently credible.
Iran also knew remarkably specific details about Trump’s stay in Ankara during the NATO summit, including where he was staying and even which floor of the building he was on, according to two U.S. officials cited by The New York Times.
U.S. intelligence picked up multiple streams of information as Trump headed into the summit’s final day on July 8, including a specific threat against whichever aircraft was carrying the president and a report that someone near the summit had been spotted with a shoulder-fired missile.
The intelligence triggered an extraordinary security operation designed to conceal Trump’s movements.
Trump publicly boarded the older Air Force One before he was secretly taken off the aircraft, concealed in an airport catering truck, and transported to a smaller military jet that flew him out of Turkey. [Source: Newsmax 8-12-26]
I keep thinking how America is on the precipice after Trump leaves office in 2 years. This latest threat to the President’s life reminds us of how on the precipice we are RIGHT NOW. Communists and terrorists taking office across the nation; RINOs on the take, longing for approval by the New York Times as if it were 1998 again; decent chaps like Marco Rubio who must be prepared to put their loved ones (including any young children) at physical risk because the people we are granting power to in 2026 will (mark my words) make Hitler and Stalin blush.
I am not trying to be negative. I am simply stating the objective truth based on facts everywhere you turn. We have to stop being complacent and gullible. All our rights, our property and our very lives are in as much danger as President Trump’s life on Air Force One.
Longtime Clinton ally Julian Epstein urged Republicans to take action within the university system to ‘save’ the country.
Partial transcript- I’m Julian Epstein. Uh, I’m a longtime Democrat. Uh, I was formerly the chief counsel of the House Judiciary Committee and the staff director of the House Oversight Committee for the Democrats.
In terms of the question as to what the Democrats can do right now to reverse course and, um, and shift back towards the center, the first thing is to recognize why the party is going off the deep end here. It’s first a question of incompetence. The party infrastructure is crumbling. That’s why it can’t keep out or fence out the lunatic candidates. The second is cowardice. People like Senator Schumer, who would have never embraced somebody like Syed. I worked with Schumer for years when he was in the House. He always used to tell me you have to say no to the far left. Um, he was very much in the political center. He was for mandatory minimums. He was for, you know, very strict policies on crime and immigration…
They have become cowards. They have become scared to stand up for what’s right. They have lost their moral core. And I think until the Democrats stop putting their finger to the wing to the wind with respect to this fervor that’s going on with the professional lunatic…extremists. Um, they’re not gonna be able to to do anything. But most importantly, I think this is an expression of the failure of postmodern liberalism. Postmodern liberalism has two tenets. One is grow the welfare state, and the other is identity politics. There’s plenty of evidence that…these ideas are not ideas that are building the country or building agency. And these morons on the left, who are completely illiterate on economics and history, um, say, well, let’s just do more of that. Um, so that’s the first thing. The first thing is to reject the idea that we need a growing welfare state. Um, uh, what we need to do is go back to building. This country has always…done what miraculous things and has been a force of liberation in the world.
Did you know that the Bible has more to say on laziness than drunkenness? Yet, how often are we quick to judge someone when they’ve had a bit too much to drink, but neglect to chastise another person who sits around all day and does nothing? Laziness is a pervasive, insidious disease in our society, one that seems to be growing in leaps and bounds. No one seems to want to work hard anymore. They want the easy life, the easy job that doesn’t require much of them, the cushy couch and big screen TV and fancy vacations, but work?? Don’t make me work too hard!! It’s not fair! We need to remember the wisdom given to us by Solomon.The soul of a lazy man desires, and has nothing; But the soul of the diligent shall be made rich. Proverb 13:4 (NKJV)I’m reminded of the story out of Florida some years back, where those excursions would take tourists out to the ocean to see the dolphins. It was great to see God’s animals frolicking in the water, the tourists would even feed the dolphins tuna and sardines when the friendly mammals came to the boats. However, the government forced the excursions to stop allowing the tourists to feed the dolphins, because the dolphins got lazy and stopped hunting for food. They even began teaching their offspring how to wait for boatloads of tourists bearing buckets of chum instead of how to hunt for wild fish in the ocean. The dolphins were getting lazier and lazier with every generation and forgot how to work for their food. Sound familiar? Interesting how the government noticed that free handouts without any requirements of work can devastate generations of dolphins, but not notice the destruction it does to human societies.
This is what happened in 1623 when William Bradford, the Governor of the Plymouth Colony, wrote in his memoirs, “Of Plymouth Plantation.” Bradford was a wise man who noticed that the results of forcing settlers into a communal system was destructive to the colony. He noted that when land and crops were shared equally, it caused widespread discontent. The colony was suffering from food as many, especially the younger men, had become they expected others to work, while they became lazy, which led to food shortages that wrecked havoc on the early settlement. This is why Bradford wrote in 1623, that he decided to abandon the collective arrangement which today we recognize as Socialism/Communism. So he assigned private land plots to each family, which greatly increased productivity and food supplies. By installing Capitalism, an economic resurgence began that saved the colony.
Men never learn from the past, and today after 60 years, we are seeing the results of our government moving into an economic system that rewards laziness. In order to keep in power, politicians continually use the concept of redistribution to supply everything a citizen needs to survive from cradle to grave. As time went on the whole segments of our society has gotten lazier and lazier from generation to generation. Like the men of Plymouth Colony decided, so too are men doing today. Why should you work if you can just walk up to the trough and eat as you will without ever breaking a sweat?
The number of citizens in the United States receiving some sort of assistance from the government today is over 170 million, or 50% of the population. Do some of these people need help to survive at times? Absolutely. I’m not against food stamps. I know their are those who truly need help, but we need to remember the wisdom offered by the Scriptures, and top allowing the lazy to be grouped with those truly in need. Like it was in 1623, those feeding off others’ sweat is killing the society we live in as a whole. Laziness is the biggest problem in America, not poverty.
The Bible tells us that if you wont work you should not eat. Was Paul referring to those truly in need? NO! He was writing about those able to work, who refused to work and instead they leaned on others for their sustenance. I guess what I’m trying to say is that humans are inherently lazy and when you offer them free stuff to survive, they become just as lazy as the dolphins off Florida became, and the Bears in Yellowstone Park who also became lazy from being fed by tourists. Humans and animals alike will become lazy and count on others to care for them if they are not forced to learn to work for their survival.
God warns us of the consequences of being lazy, it’s right there in the Scriptures. God bless you all, and have a great day.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is trying to draw a line between today’s left and its pandemic-era “woke” politics. In an appearance on ABC’s This Week over the weekend, the New York City congresswoman said controversial positions embraced around 2020—defunding the police, for example— were “a product of the time.” She quoted a political acquaintance as saying, “Woke 1 was crazy,” before laughing. Voters, she argued, should judge candidates on what they’re running on now. The comments continue to resonate:
big attempt: AOC “is trying to pull off a political feat for the ages: bury a chapter of left-wing politics that seemed like a good idea to many liberals at the time—but not so much anymore,” writes Mike Zapler at Axios. The “ultimate test” of whether she can do so might come in 2028 if she runs for Senate or president.
A critique: In the Atlantic, Idrees Kahool provides a critical take headlined, “The Democrats Can’t Just Laugh Off ‘Woke 1.'” One big problem is that Republicans will not let voters forget, writes Kahool, as Kamala Harris learned in the 2024 race when her 2020-era positions such as decriminalizing border crossings came back to haunt her.
Critique, II: At CNN, Aaron Blake also dislikes AOC’s new stance. “This might be a politically deft explanation for Ocasio-Cortez and her ilk,” he writes. “But it’s a bad one for the body politic. It continues a troubling trend of major politicians asking Americans not to take the things they say—or more specifically, that they once said—at face value.”
New progressives: Matt Bennett of the centrist Democratic group Third Way calls AOC savvy for recognizing “that positions she and others took on police in 2020 were bad substantively, and really bad politically.” But, he adds to Axios, “The problem is that some people running now are running on ideas that are even worse.” The reference is to the rise of the party’s left flank and self-described democratic socialist candidates. (A prominent one lost a gubernatorial primary in Wisconsin on Tuesday.)
A defense of woke: But at the New Republic, Perry Bacon writes that the first woke movement did a lot of good in the country and objects to AOC trying to dismiss it as a “fever dream,” adding: “Woke 1.0 had its successes and failures, just as the congresswoman did in her earlier days on Capitol Hill. She wasn’t crazy then, and neither were the activists who were trying to change America, then and now.”
During his address at Mount Rushmore, on the eve of our nation’s 250th anniversary, President Donald Trump warned Americans of a “resurgence of the Communist threat is now present in our country—including among newcomers who adopt ideologies that are fundamentally contrary to our way of life.”
In this, the President rehashed the talk he gave at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference this past June, referring to the self-identified Socialist Democrats who won primary elections as “godless communists.”
“These are not social democrats. These are hardcore, godless communists. They’re godless communists. All communists are godless. They don’t believe in God. This is the most serious threat our country since its existence. In my opinion, 250 years ago. This is a major threat to our country,”
Even more alarming is the fact that, in addition to their ties with the radical LGBTQ+ movement, American socialists have become more dangerous by aligning themselves with pro-Sharia Islamists who aim for nothing short of the dismantling of our American society.
Last Tuesday, Francesca Hong, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and the Assembly’s Socialist Caucus, almost won the Democratic primary for Wisconsin governor. Hong took to social media to address criticism regarding her previous statements in support of policies aimed at “defunding the police.”
In June, she traveled to California to engage with Hasan Piker, a left-wing Twitch streamer known for making contentious remarks, including a statement that the U.S. “deserved 9/11.” During the same week, she appeared on a program with streamer Michael Beyer, also referred to as Mike from PA, who has faced backlash for claiming that Jews are “demonic.”
Last week, the establishment sector of the Democratic Party was taken aback when Islamic socialist Abdul El-Sayed triumphed over Congresswoman Haley Stevens in a U.S. Senate primary election in Michigan. Should he win in November, he would become the first Muslim ever elected to the United States Senate.
El-Sayed, the son of Egyptian immigrants, ran a campaign based on a leftist agenda, garnering support from notable liberals including senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, along with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. His progressive campaign was further strengthened by socialists, radical Muslims, and advocates of former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. Much like Zohran Mamdani, who was elected as Mayor of New York City last year, El-Sayed’s achievement does, in fact, highlight that there is a Communist threat in the United States.
Indeed, El-Sayed compared Oklahoma’s ban of sharia law to the Trail of Tears—the forced displacement and ethnic cleansing of about 60,000 Indians between 1830 and 1850.
“You can’t understand a Sharia ban without understanding the Trail of Tears,” El-Sayed said. “You cannot understand the challenges we face today without understanding white supremacy.”
While the U.S. remains significantly distant from a genuine Marxist society, as the President forewarned, communists have been at work in their anti-American crusade since the Socialist Party of the United States was formed in 1901.
The contemporary Marxist manifesto resembles the utopian socialists of nineteenth-century Europe, emphasizing the themes of exploitation and the liberation from what is termed sexual oppression, particularly as advocated by the LGBTQ+ movement.
The Marxist manifesto of today is like the utopian socialists of nineteenth-century Europe, which focused on exploitation and the liberation of the so-called sexually oppressed, especially as propagated by the LGBTQ+ movement. Key figures such as Charles Fourier and Henri de Saint-Simon in France, along with Robert Owen in Britain and many of their followers, including numerous women, believed that true freedom could only be realized in the absence of masters, the ethos of labor, and the expression of human passions. Fourier, for instance, contended that the suppression of passions harms not only the individual but also society as a whole. The proposed solution was a secular and hedonistic community leading the body politic.
Long before the term ‘homosexuality’ was coined for political reasons, Fourier recognized that both men and women have a wide range of sexual needs and preferences that can change throughout their lives, including same-sex attraction and androgyny. He argued that all types of sexual expression should be accepted, as long as no one is harmed, and that “affirming one’s difference” can actually enhance social unity.
It is interesting to note that during the period of McCarthyism in the U.S. in the early 1950s, there existed a perception that a “Homosexual underground” was aiding the “communist conspiracy,” which was sometimes referred to as the Homintern. This time frame witnessed the rise of various homosexual rights organizations. These groups, now acknowledged as part of the “homophile movement,” often aligned themselves with leftist or socialist principles, including the communist-associated Mattachine Society—established in 1950, it was one of the first national gay rights organizations in the U.S. In the context of the highly charged political climate of the Cold War, homosexuality was depicted as a dangerous, contagious social disease that posed a threat to national security.
Harry Hay, regarded by many as the pioneer of the contemporary gay rights movement in the U.S., initially engaged in trade union activism. In 1934, he, along with his partner, actor Will Geer, orchestrated an 83-day workers’ strike at the San Francisco port. He was also a dedicated member of the Communist Party. Hay and the Mattachine Society were among the first to assert that gay individuals constituted not merely a group of people but rather a “cultural minority.” They advocated for public demonstrations by homosexuals, foreshadowing the later emergence of gay pride parades. Hay’s notion of the “cultural minority” was directly influenced by his studies in Marxism.
This “cultural minority” is seeking to dictate terms to the greater populace of our country, especially with organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the largest socialist organization in the country with over 100,000 members and chapters in every state, has consistently advocated for extensive nondiscrimination protections, marriage equality, transgender rights, and more robust legal safeguards, as outlined in a platform initially adopted in 2017. And now they have linked up with the pro-Sharia movement, thus becoming even more callous in their view of American democracy.
President Trump was right to highlight the Communist threat to our American way of life. As Thomas Paine famously stated: “These are the times that try men’s souls.” We, as Americans, cannot remain passive and witness the erosion of the legacy bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers. We owe it to them, to ourselves, and to our posterity.
Tyler Robinson wants to dodge the death penalty because his bullet only “hit the intended target” when it killed conservative activist Charlie Kirk, his lawyers wildly argued in new court documents.
Robinson’s attorneys claimed that no other person was in danger during Kirk’s Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University last year — an aggravating factor that would make it a capital crime.
“The only evidence presented supports that the bullet traveled above, not through, the crowd,” defense attorneys wrote in documents late Tuesday to stop the case from proceeding to trial.
Prosecutors maintained that Robinson loaded his rifle with four bullets, suggesting that he knew he could miss Kirk and “thereby putting others in danger,” according to documents filed last month.
The defense, however, argued that “it is just as likely that the shooter did not believe he would miss.”
Whether Robinson put the crowd of spectators at the Turning Point USA event remains a key element needed to charge him with aggravated murder.
Prosecutors have to provide evidence of the so-called “aggravating factor” for Kirk’s death to be considered a capital crime in Utah, where the death penalty exists.
Robinson’s lawyers claim prosecutors have yet to provide any evidence that Robinson knew that his actions would create a “great risk of death” to anyone other than Kirk.
Robinson also faces possible sentence enhancements if prosecutors can prove he targeted Kirk over his political views.
The prosecution alleges that Robinson told his trans roommate, Lance Twiggs, that he killed Kirk because he “had enough of his hatred.”
The prosecutors contend that Kirk’s strong opposition to same-sex marriage and gender transitioning stood in contrast to Robinson, who was in a relationship with Twiggs.
A Texas high school teacher was reduced to tears and broke down in front of his class when he realized the seniors he was teaching couldn’t complete a writing exercise.
Darius Williams, a teacher for Houston Independent School District’s Wheatley High School, said he couldn’t get through the first class of the second day of school before his students’ poor literacy skills were too much for him.
“I just finished a three-hour class, and I literally broke down in the middle of class,” Williams said in an Instagram video during his lunch break on Tuesday.
Williams, a New Education System (NES) Career and Technical Education (CTE) staffer, said he gave his class full of seniors two paragraphs to read and asked them to complete another sentence he had practically filled out for them, but was left stunned when they couldn’t finish the task.
“I basically completed the sentence for them, he said. “These are 17- and 18-year-old kids, and they couldn’t fill in four words. Four words!” exclaimed Williams.
“I gave them the scenario, we annotated together. I gave them the answers before we even had the problem and they couldn’t do it. I don’t know I simply don’t know where the problem is,” he said frustratingly.
“This is only day two, and I have seniors who simply cannot read and seniors who cannot write. They cannot write,” Williams cried out.
Colorado has been using taxpayer dollars to groom children into believing they are “transgender” and point them to mutilation surgeries, emphasizing that many do not need parental consent.
According to a new report from Do No Harm, Colorado spends millions of dollars on government programs, social media influencer campaigns, and medical school curriculums all aimed at convincing children they are a different gender, pointing them toward medicalization, and bullying the parents who do not want to destroy their children. Colorado even paid “queer” children ages 12-18 to participate in virtual meetings about “transition” resources, the report stated.
“Something unsettling is happening in Colorado. A publicly funded network of Colorado organizations is pushing resources that promote youth gender ideology on vulnerable children,” Dr. Kurt Miceli, chief medical officer at Do No Harm, said. “Our report is a case study examining how the transgender industrial complex has pushed further and further into the lives of children, reaching even as far as school-based health centers in the state.”
‘I Matter‘
Colorado’s “I Matter” program was set up to provide free mental health counseling to children, costing taxpayers about $11 million per year. The program includes a “confidentiality waiver” that strips parental consent around age 12, though the report states it is unclear how the program verifies parental consent under that age. Participation in “I Matter” also does not require insurance or citizenship.
“The program also notes that it will refer patients to healthcare providers for further treatment, allowing a child to confidentially begin the medical journey of sex-rejecting ‘transition’ without parental knowledge or consent,” the report states.
The program is not solely focused on “transitioning” children, but of the 12,896 total encounters with children from 2021-2024, 469 were considered “gender-affirming care,” three of which involved children ages five and younger. Forty-six of those sessions were for children between 6 and 9 years old, and 40 sessions included children with special needs.
“I Matter” also advertised its services to children using social media influencers specifically chosen because their audience was mostly children. The $5 million influencer campaign “stressed the confidential nature and lack of parental consent at I Matter,” the report states.
The primary target audience was children ages 12-18 (the cohort that does not require parental consent at all) and the secondary audience was parents with children ages 7-18. While influencer talking points for the children emphasized the lack of parental consent, the ones targeted at the parents are asking them to give their children over to government transition therapists.
“‘Having a child in therapy is not a sign of failure’ and ‘Sometimes youth need to talk to someone else (a professional, not a parent),’” the talking points state.
“I Matter” does not provide things like puberty blockers, hormones, or mutilation surgeries itself, but its free counseling sessions appear to be a gateway into convincing children to believe they are a different gender, and then pointing them to organizations that will medicalize their dysphoria.
Public School Clinics
According to the report, Colorado’s School-Based Health Center (SBHC) are clinics housed inside public schools that provide health care outside the capabilities of a standard school nurse’s office. From 2021-2022, there were 53 operating in the state, which offered “well-child exams, sick visits, health screenings, immunizations, mental-health counseling, reproductive health, and health education.”
Costing $21.5 million in operating costs, the clinics saw 34,427 patients over the course of 96,452 visits.
Services provided do not specifically mention “gender-affirming care,” but trainings and resources given to practitioners are heavily focused on “transitioning” children, according to the report.
The trainings included: “Introduction to Providing Gender-Affirming Care to Transgender & Gender Diverse Youth,” “Introduction to Providing LGBTQ+ Competent Care,” “Supporting Gender-Expansive Youth,” and “Working With Gender Diverse Youth For Advanced Practitioners.”
The report said that “The explicit note that [Supporting Gender-Expansive Youth] was ‘not an introductory course’ suggests an institutional trajectory of building GAC competency among school-based health providers.”
As The Federalist reported, schools are a a major part of the “transgender” medicalization pipeline.
University Of Colorado
Multiple initiatives from CU’s medical school train future doctors in how to transition children and strongarm parents into castrating and mutilating their children.
Children’s Hospital Colorado is an affiliate of CU’s school of medicine, which offers puberty blockers, hormones, and “mental health services” through its gender clinic called the “TRUE Center for Gender Diversity.”
In 2025, the TRUE Center gave puberty blockers to 257 children and cross-sex hormones to 549 adolescents.
The TRUE Center is also staffed by CU school of medicine faculty as opposed to Children’s Hospital Colorado, including for all billing and collection for clinical services.
CU’s “LGBTQ+ Health” curriculum appears to shed light as to why that might be: It “uncritically supports” the “transition” of children at essentially all stages of life, and it suggests billing workarounds to avoid calling attention to it.
“Colorado’s future physicians are taught to follow the child’s lead if he or she expresses any sign of gender incongruence, convince parents that irreversible gender ‘transition’ is the right choice for their child, and even assist in hiding aspects of a child’s gender ‘transition’ from his or her parents,” the report states.
Students are taught that children as young as 18 months old can “distinguish between gender identities,” and by six years old, “develop his or her own gender identity.”
The courses uses an example of a five-year-old boy and tracks him throughout the “transition” process.
Even slight evidence of gender incongruence from the boy allows the physician to start angling toward a “transition,” and they will start pressuring the parents to seek “therapy” and the possibility of “transition.”
“If parents are not supportive of ‘transitioning’ their child, students are instructed to confront them with the fallacious claim that their rejection will risk adverse mental-health outcomes, including suicide,” the report states. “Contrarily, affirming the child’s gender will allegedly increase self-esteem, social support, and general health and protect against depression, drug use, and suicidal ideation.”
Any attempt from the parent to talk about therapy to discourage the child from going down the path of “transition” is met with accusations of “conversation therapy.”
By 11 years old, the therapists and others have successfully convinced him he is the opposite gender, and he is considered “socially transitioned” and ready to start puberty blockers. By 15 years old, the child has been on puberty blockers for years, and wants to start cross-sex hormones, but wants to conceal that from his parents.
Students are taught how to conceal certain parts of a child’s health records from parents, including improperly billing insurance or not billing them at all. The Children’s Hospital of Colorado has “work arounds” and will “bill it differently,” according to the report.
“If the parents are unwilling to approve cross-sex hormones, students are essentially instructed to convince the parents to approve them by finding ‘commonalities (e.g., everyone wants to do what is best for Katerina),” the report states. “Students are also told that the child can decide ‘what and how much she wants the provider to share with her parents.’ The practical effect of this could be that parents end up approving an intervention without truly understanding what the ‘treatment’ entails.”
Students are told that by the age of 16, a child has a full enough understanding of the irreversible procedures to decide for themselves whether to be sterilized or mutilated. They are also told that there are “no age minimums for ‘chest surgeries,’” and that “‘bottom surgeries’ for minors are permissible if there is parental consent along with a letter from a physician and two therapists.”
As The Federalist reported, Colorado has numerous legal mechanisms for forcing gender transition on children, including through custody battles. Later this year, Coloradans will have the opportunity to vote on ballot initiatives to stop mutilation surgeries for children.
So, at time of writing, it looks as if voters don’t want to cancel Thanksgiving – on balance, at least.
Come November, however, few Democrats will be expressing gratitude for their party’s vote-tabulation systems.
Francesca Hong, it seems, will not be America’s first avowedly socialist state governor. She appears to have just lost an extremely tight primary to David Crowley, a Milwaukee County executive, in the gubernatorial primary in Wisconsin.
The long-view – and already ubiquitous – reaction to this news is to mark it down as a major blow for the Democratic Socialists of America and their bid to take over the Democratic establishment. But the more immediate takeaway is two-fold: pollsters are very bad at divining Democratic primaries – and Democratic primary officials are hopeless at tallying votes.
The primary ended in farce early this morning as Milwaukee County workers reportedly had to recover five USB sticks with vote counts on them, only for those sticks to apparently be blank – or something, nobody seems entirely sure. But what is certain is that the Wisconsin polls predicting a comfortable victory for Hong were wildly wrong – and did not take into account the peculiar dynamics of the race. Crowley only became the clear moderate choice late in the process – and mainstream voters duly flocked to him over Hong, a proud DSA member with a long record of expressing barmy radical opinions. Polling companies failed to anticipate or identify those shifts. They made a similar mistake in not identifying late trends in last week’s Senate primary in Michigan, which ended up being a far narrower victory for the DSA-aligned – but not affiliated – candidate Abdul El-Sayed.
But the real story should not be how Hong lost. It should be how on earth she came so close to being the Democratic choice for Wisconsin in a very high turnout primary in such an important swing state. Like many DSA members, Hong has said she wants to abolish the police because law enforcement agencies “uphold white supremacy.” She’s also expressed discomfort at the fact her bi-racial son gives her a “proximity to whiteness.” She has supported the abolition of the Senate, supported public-owned grocery stores and banks, and opposed Valentine’s Day. In 2019 she tweeted the following:
No, it suggests that successful Democratic candidates are now the ones who bridge the gap between the hard and soft left of their party – as El-Sayed just about did in Michigan, and as the Ojibwe Native American activist Peggy Flanagan did in her Minnesota senate primary last night. Flanagan is not a DSA member, but she was the progressive choice – backed by Senator Bernie Sanders, the party’s elder socialist statesman.
“I’m doin a 6-course dinner inspired by menstruation alongside my friends Autumn and Kel. There will be booze too. Come hang.”
And, on CNN a few weeks ago, she declined to disavow her stated view that Thanksgiving should be annulled – insisting instead that she was a trained chef who knew all about bringing people together (to celebrate catamenia, for instance.)
In comparison to Hong, El-Sayed comes across as Obamaesque in his political professionalism. And yet she came within a whisker of being the Democratic nominee for governor in a state Donald Trump won twice. None of this means the party’s voters are returning to the establishment’s preferred path.
She won by 20 percent in a primary cycle dominated by debates about immigration enforcement. She is now the strong favorite to win against Michele Tafoya, the Republican former National Football League sideline reporter.
Just a couple of years ago, Republican strategists would have found it easy to cast Flanagan as a far-left lunatic. Their problem in 2026 is that, compared to Hong and the popular DSA fringe, she seems to many to be the reassuringly sensible choice.
Among all the viral memes and online trends one sees while scrolling through social media, one term has been coming up more regularly: “black fatigue.” The term has been around since 2015, and appears to have originated from a board on a site that has become the Twilight Zone of the internet (a site that is “both shadow and substance, of things and ideas”), 4Chan. As with many post-modern neologisms, its meaning depends entirely on who is using it. Initially, it indicated a feeling of frustration by black people for either being tokenized, or for being held up as being remarkable simply because they were black. This definition was later re-formalized (or perhaps inverted) in the 2020 book by Mary-Frances Winters Black Fatigue: How Racism Erodes the Mind, Body and Spirit, which stated that the term referred to “the fatigue that some Black people feel from being the consistent subjects of racism and microaggression.”
However, since 2022 when the term was added to the Urban Dictionary, its definition has again been transformed, and is currently being used by people of all races to express an exasperation of “black people acting out in public, being loud and obnoxious” as well a “deep mental exhaustion from being forced to care about black people and their actions 24/7.” This is the definition that is currently trending online, as video after video appears to show some segments of the black community being rude, entitled, and belligerent in public, and then crying “racism” when they are called out for acting in an unacceptable manner.
This behavior, combined with the victim mentality of woke critical race theories that have been filtered down to their lowest common denominator, has created a subculture among black people. A subculture that includes individuals such as Nikole Hannah-Jones (of 1619 Project fame) and the “super”-hero known as the “Ethnic Enhancer” from the documentary No Safe Spaces, who see racism and oppression everywhere, in everyone, and in every event.
While it is a reasonable assumption to recognize that the reality one sees online through the lens of social media is very different from real life. Unfortunately, however, this is increasingly not always the case. The same algorithms which push online rage bait are now affecting people’s behavior in real life. And when it comes to black fatigue, I can speak from experience.
Black Fatigue IRL
As I have mentioned before, my day job is that of a mid-level manager at a chain retail store, one where I have experience working in loss prevention. Anyone who has entered a store and seen all manner of items locked up or attached to security devices knows that retail theft is a serious problem. While our company has a hands-off policy, we are still vigilant about spotting potential shoplifters. And contrary to what most people think, the policy is not based on skin color, age, sex or how someone dresses, but rather on their behavior and actions. So many of the shoplifters think they are being clever and discrete in their thievery, but probably about ninety percent are utterly predictable in their behavior. And while our store has experienced thieves of all races and ages, it is no exaggeration to observe that, for whatever reason, it has seen a rise in unruly and blatant larcenous behavior among black youth.
Recently, two black youths (maybe ages of around 12 or 13) entered the store with one carrying an igloo cooler, so I knew, based on experience, that the chance of a theft taking place was heightened. Presumably to create a distraction, the other young person got into a wheelchair that we keep for disabled customers and started running around. I questioned him and asked if he really needed it, to which he replied, “No.” So I asked him to get up out of the chair, so that I could take it back up front to be ready for a person in need. He wanted to ride it back, but I said no, and that I would take it. After arguing back and forth, another member of management came and said the young man could ride it up, while we followed him from behind.
On the way up to the front of the store, he proceeded to let loose an entire litany of profanity and threats about how I “better not meet him outside of work” or “better not end up in his neighborhood.” When he got to the front and got out of the electric wheelchair he walked twenty feet over to me and got right up in my face (I could feel his spittle) and proceed to continue his “bad boy” braggadocio before I walked away. He followed me further until the manager yelled at him to get out, and he finally left.
While what happened to me was somewhat unusual in its brazenness, it is not uncommon. Our store has seen an increase in shoplifting from younger and younger kids, such as those between the ages of 8-13. The police are helpful and sympathetic the problem, but they openly admit that there is nothing they can really do since the lawbreakers are minors. The most help they can offer is to call the parents, but more often than not the parents will blow off their kids’ shoplifting as being “no big deal.” This, regrettably, is the same attitude the police tell us any prosecutor or judge will take when it comes to minors stealing candy or small jewelry items. All of these miscreants who continuously pilfer stuff from retail establishments know this, and use it to their advantage as they lie to your face, swear at you in the most undecipherable yet profane manner, and (as in the case with the joyrider in the wheelchair) threaten you without one ounce of concern of suffering any consequences.
Moreover, there is no shortage of people, even other customers who obviously don’t preach what they themselves practice, who will offer up excuses for the offenders and admonish us not to ruin their future by calling the police, or to try and think about what kind of hard life they must have that makes them turn to theft. The excuses are nearly endless and there is almost never any sense that stealing is wrong, or that the young persons need to be held accountable for their actions. This to me encapsulates what the term black fatigue means, and there are days when my coworkers and I just about reach the limits of what we are willing to put up with.
Uncomfortable Truths Behind Black Crime and Fatigue
Since it is considered ideologically gauche to comment on cultures or races other than one’s own—in this case black culture—I will defer to cultural critic Chi Brown. Chi runs a YouTube channel called Consider Culture, where he has been commenting on the more deleterious aspects of black culture from a conservative and libertarian-leaning point of view for over a decade.
According to Brown, there are two major factors currently driving the majority of the dysfunction and criminality in the black community.
The first is the continued glorification of ghetto culture. He explains how the legitimate struggle for civil rights led to always highlighting what the black community lacked at the expense of what they could and already had accomplished. This engendered the rise of a social identity, which equated being authentically black with being poor, oppressed, and rising up “from the streets.” This, according to Brown, is why you will see black people from middle-class upbringings, like the rapper Drake or Jasmine Crockett, adopt ghetto mannerisms so as to appear “more black.” This singular fixation on ghetto culture went mainstream through hip-hop and rap culture in the late 80’s and throughout the 90’s, and has been pushed and amplified by the Left and social media ever since.
The second major factor responsible for all the crime and dysfunction in the black community is the removal of social barriers or cultural corrections which traditionally kept such anti-social behavior in check. Brown comments, “in a lot of black America, those corrections got switched off, one at a time some got switched off by other people and some got switched off by ourselves.”
Those barriers are:
1. The Removal of the Father from Black Families. Without a devoted father to guide and raise a son, “boys turn to somewhere else to learn what it means to be a man, like the street. But all the street offers is the very thing a father would keep in check.”
2. The Removal of the Corrective Force of Schools. Since kid traditionally spent much of their days in school, they were expected to play a part in addressing poor behavior. However, at some point public schools decided the best way to deal with too many black youths having to be disciplined or suspended for bad behavior was simply to stop suspending them. This is an issue the Everyman’s Auguste Meyrat has written about and has first-hand experience with. When black students are not given correction for disruptive behavior, those kids realize they can scam the system to keep on acting out without consequences.
3. The Removal of the Corrective Power of Police. While being careful not to ignore problems with bad policing, Brown also states that after the death of a petty criminal named Freddy Gray in the city of Baltimore in 2015 and riots broke out, there was a marked change in the way police operated. You may remember this event, if only for the city’s mayor famously saying in a press conference that she wanted make sure to give “those who wished to destroy, space to do that as well.” The police ended up pulling back from enforcing any sense of order, and this was later dubbed the Ferguson Effect in the wake of the shooting of violent shoplifter named Michael Brown. After this event, like the teachers in schools, some police forces solved the overabundance of crime (and avoided being called racist) by making even less effort to enforce the law.
4. The Failure of the Black Community to Correct Itself. Brown explains how blacks themselves made, “snitching the worst thing a black person can do…and to make loyalty to the race more important than loyalty to the truth.” He then recounts a story of how when he was young, he had attended a predominantly white private school. He was visiting with a friend from “the hood” who was mocking him about having too many white friends which grew heated enough that his friend wanted to fight about it. Brown told his friend he didn’t want to fight over it, to which his friend replied, “You’ve been hanging around those white boys too long, that’s why you won’t fight me.”
That statement stuck with Brown his entire life because to him it meant that his friend,
“believed that being quick to throw hands was what it meant to be black, that backing down made me less black. And here’s the kicker, his parents were deep into civil rights. That’s correction switching itself off! Inside his head he was taught that violence was an authentic part of being black, that the calm was the sell-out part. When a community starts teaching that, that’s when the community stops correcting itself and starts protecting the stuff that is killing us.”
5. The Failure the Media to Report the Truth About Crime in the Black Community. Brown comments that the failure of the media to use accurate language in reporting things like “teen takeovers” or by using euphemistic language like “mostly peaceful protesting” not only hides the severity of the troubles in the community, but gives the black community an out for having to accept responsibility for dysfunctional behavior. As Brown points out,
“Just like the teachers and the police, they take a behavior problem and turn the perpetrators into victims…(however) the people doing this framing get to feel like the good guys, and the kids get told over and over that nothing they do is ever their fault. And who pays that bill? Us! The same people who live in those neighborhoods.”
The Two Words we Won’t Use but Should!
In looking at my own experiences working in retail, in conjunction with Chi Brown’s assessment on the problems in some segments of the black community, it is clear that the issue is one of holding everyone else to certain level of accountability, but holding the black community to a different (and lesser) standard. This is what some have called the “bigotry of low expectations,” or what black cultural commentator and radio host Tommy Sotomayor has pointed out as the irritating tendency of white people to see black people as naughty little kids, or worse, pets, that money and motivational speeches can somehow “fix.”
Based on my own experience I mostly agree with these sentiments. To me the widespread willingness to ignore or exempt black people from the ordinary social, legal, and moral expectations that we expect from everyone else should not be seen as a sign of respect for their culture and history. Instead, it should be seen as a patronizing and offhand (and incorrect) assumption that blacks are a permanently or perennially damaged group of people who will always potentially be seen as immature citizens.
However, as my own experience with and Browns comments about black crime show, those who do engage in criminal behavior are nevertheless aware of the that patronizing attitude and are willing to use it to their advantage as a “get out of jail free” (i.e., avoid responsibility) card.
Again let me reiterate, I and other retail businesses have historically dealt with shoplifters of all races, ages and sexes, but only when it comes to black criminals are certain customers and large swaths of society willing to make excuses for those youths who come into the store, make a lot of noise, make a mess, swear at the workers, and walk off with any number of items. And in my case, being threatened by a 12-year-old boy for telling him not to use our wheelchair if he didn’t need to (which I also appreciate was probably part of the “distraction” element of the originally intended property crime).
To me this sort of entitled thievery amounts to what should rightly be called, but which you are not allowed to say in polite company- Black Privilege! And while I will not argue the existence or extent here of “white privilege,” as someone who is regularly at receiving end of some of the most egregious and entitled behavior from black youth, I would contend that the notion of black privilege is far less an academic-ideological construct and is far more grounded (albeit subjectively so) in reality than white privilege.
Perhaps it is time to stop having our feelings and intelligences gaslit by the threat of being called racist, and to call (but only when warranted) such criminal behavior as it is— black privilege—a term we should be using much more frequently.
