Democrats are on a dead end: Socialism is 200 years old and is leading these leftists to doom.

The left sealed its fate in tying itself to collectivist ideologies, but now they’re joining with some very ominous allies.

Everything old is ‘new’ again – with a very ominous novel twist.  The rising stars of socialism are bursting forth with brand-new’ ideas of buying votes with other people’s money. But these days the left is in dire straits and taking a page from the Iranian revolution in teaming up with Islamists in a desperate bid to win and then sort out the details of who will wield power.  For now, they say ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ – even if the Islamists would just as soon throw them off a tall building.

Socialists Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have joined with Zohran Mamdani in the perennial quest for power in offering something for nothing, for the low price of your liberty.  

And for the ancient ideas of collectivism that have been tried for the past 400 years and have never worked, we easily found fresh videos that decimate these ‘democratic’ ideas from the past few days.

With one from Mark Levin: The REAL Reason why Communism Will NEVER Work and from Dad Saves America: Socialism Fails in Theory and Destroys in Practice – Daniel Di Martino happen to be available at the moment.  

These collectivist ideologies – whatever the ‘ism‘ of the moment (Excluding that made-up term from the left for economic freedom) – are always doomed to disaster.  But they are very analogous to the similar assessments of the very same ‘new‘ ideas from a century ago.

Because if you ask anyone, how many times socialism (or its other collectivist variants) has been tried, the answers will range from a patently absurd never from leftists to the far more realistic answer that it’s been tried in so many different ways and so many different places to the point that it’s almost impossible to count them all.

If you then ask when and where it was first tried, the answers get even more interesting, because even getting leftists to define the term is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall.  Some may actually admit that it was tried in Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, as well as in many other socialist nations during the last century, but even that answer is way off.

Because leftists are, shall we say – quite creative in coming up with why their ‘wonderous’ ideology has yet to take hold in the world’s imagination as an ever-popular form of a perfect people’s Utopia.  

Most of these excuses center around the U.S. government attacking these wondrous ‘people’s republics,’ directly or through nefarious means, e.g., the CIA, and ruining them.  With all kinds of other excuses for the position, they claim that socialism can actually work on a small scale.

Some leftists will even admit that the book Utopia, published more than 500 years ago in 1516, was the ‘first socialist position,’ describing a communist Utopia on an island somewhere near the Americas.  

We should note that some of the first experiments in collectivism were tried in the first colonies of the American continent 400 years ago in 1607 and 1623; thus, we can say that these ‘isms‘ (we’re specifically excluding the leftist-coined term capitalism – that is actually economic freedom or free enterprise) have a long storied 400-year-old record of abject failure.

However, given that the left is wont to play games with words, the focus here is on the word ‘socialist,’ its first usage in print, and its references to the experiments in collectivism of two centuries ago.  Because we’ve noted something rather interesting about how this is not being covered by the national socialist media.

The first usage of the word ‘socialist’ was in reference to what were called at the time the ‘villages of cooperation’ – small communist communes – the first experiments in socialism 200 years ago.  There was a frontier mindset of exploration and experimentation in the early decades of the country, and thus, there were a number of pioneers developing ‘new’ societal norms.

One of these in particular was created by Robert Owen, a Welsh textile manufacturer-turned-philanthropist who, in 1825, purchased a small town on the banks of the Wabash River in Indiana.  He renamed the town ‘New Harmony.’  According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first documented use of ‘socialist’ was in a letter published in the November 1827 edition of The Co-operative Magazine in reference to these ‘villages of cooperation’, including New Harmony.   As you might have guessed, these experiments only lasted a few years and then fell apart, but that didn’t stop the socialists from going on and trying to give it a go in multiple other locations.   These also failed, as expected.

A century later, many looked back at this abject failure, including former President William Howard Taft in an address in 1914: Taft Shows Why Socialism Fails; It Offers No Substitute for the Reward of Human Effort.

NEW HARMONY, Ind., June 8.-Reasons for the failure of experiments in socialism were discussed by William H. Taft today in an address delivered at the centennial celebration of the founding of New Harmony. …

“The most notable socialistic experiment, that of Robert Owen, at New Harmony, failed as all socialism must fail,” said Mr. Taft, “because it found no substitute for the motive essential to arouse and make constant human effort that is furnished by the institution of private property and the shaping of reward by competition and natural economic adjustment.

A New York Times article from June 9, 1914, on the centennial celebration of the town and former President Taft’s exposition on this failure, entitled: Failure of New Harmony.  It described how a real socialist community was founded, along with

…similar communities at Yellow Springs, Ohio; at Nashoba, near Memphis; at Haverstraw and Coxsackie, N. Y., and in the Kendal Community at Canton, Ohio, did not suffice to prevent successive failures.

Continuing on to note that:

The value of Mr. TAFT’s exposition of the long series of futile experiments consists in its warning to future enthusiasts. Usually, new socialistic communities are founded by leaders who are reckless or know little of previous attempts.

All of this history demonstrates that excuses for leftist failures lack merit, since these socialist projects operated on a small scale, without U.S. government interference and long before agencies like the CIA were created.

As we reach the 200th anniversary of socialism, the left recycles these discredited ideas, passing figures like Mamdani off as pioneers when, in fact, their proposals are outdated.

The latest evolution of this ongoing failure is a new and risky partnership: leftist socialists are once again collaborating with Islamist factions, echoing a strategy seen during the Iranian revolution. There, such an alliance ousted the shah before Islamists seized total control.

This highlights the central lesson—socialism, after 200 years of defeat, now carries a heightened threat by joining with another dangerous ideology, making vigilance and awareness more important than ever.  

D. Parker is an engineer, inventor, wordsmith, and student of history, former director of communications for a civil rights organization, and a long-time contributor to conservative websites.  Find him on Substack.

A new poll conducted by Leger360 between August 29 and 31, 2025, is causing controversy in the world of U.S. politics, as it projects that California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, is the frontrunner for the 2028 presidential election.

The results of the survey, which were shared on social media, pitted Newsom against potential GOP candidates, including Vice President JD Vance, former President Donald Trump, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The California governor narrowly leads the president by a score of 48 percent to 44 percent, 47 percent to Vance’s 46 percent, and 49 percent to Rubio’s 44 percent.

The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent, which makes these potential races extremely close. Many conservatives are already greeting the survey’s results with a healthy dose of skepticism, primarily due to the methodology employed, as well as the context of Newsom’s political record and recent actions.

Some have pointed out red flags that raise questions about the credibility of the poll. They note that Leger360’s track record, which was the subject of a study completed by the “Journal of Election Studies,” found that Leger overestimated Democratic support by a total of 5 percent. According to the study, this was the result of oversampling urban voters in online panels.

Experts point out that if the current numbers are adjusted to factor this in, Trump’s support could rise to 49 percent, Vance’s to 51 percent, and Rubio’s to 49 percent, which changes the entire narrative and some of the conclusions drawn from the poll.

As MAGA supporters have all but crowned Vance as the man to take over the mantel of leadership for the movement, it’s likely that, with all of the information taken into context, the biggest threat to Newsom’s potential campaign is the vice president.

Newsom recently attempted to reach out to popular conservative podcast host and founder of Talking Point USA, Charlie Kirk, which signals a shift to broaden support. However, many on the political right believe the move is opportunistic, especially given his extreme left-wing policies, like climate regulations, which have strained his state’s economy.

Conservative commentator Arthur Morgan has waved off the results of the Leger survey as nothing more than Democratic propaganda. Others are also viewing them with caution, specifically citing the above-mentioned bias of the company that produced the poll.

Trending Politics

Ukraine has intensified its campaign of drone strikes on Russian oil infrastructure, hitting refineries in recent weeks and deepening fuel shortages across the country.

For two years, Ukraine has targeted Russian refineries and depots, but since early August the pace has quickened, with the country’s officials reporting more than a dozen strikes on refining and distribution sites over the past month, including Aug. 30 attacks on facilities in Krasnodar and Syzran in the Samara region, reports The Economist.

Both have been struck multiple times and supply fuel to Russian military units, according to Robert “Madyar” Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces.

About 40% of Ukraine’s long-range strike missions this year have focused on refineries, while others have hit storage and pumping facilities.

Independent estimates suggest up to 20% of Russia’s refining capacity has been disabled, cutting more than 1 million barrels a day of output, mostly gasoline. Refineries that have been hit repeatedly have sustained lasting damage, especially to cracking units that are difficult to replace under Western sanctions.

The impact has been felt nationwide. Motorists face fuel shortages, long lines, and record prices. Wholesale gasoline prices have jumped 54% since January, prompting authorities to suspend exports and impose rationing in some regions.

Russia’s budget deficit reached $61.4 billion in the first seven months of the year, nearly 3% of annual GDP.

Analysts say the August strikes were larger and more sophisticated than earlier attacks. Sergey Vakulenko of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre, a former Gazprom Neft executive, said Ukrainian drones now fly in greater numbers, navigate more effectively, and often overwhelm Russian air defenses.

Strikes have spanned an 800-kilometer arc from Ryazan, near Moscow, to Volgograd in the south.

The timing has added pressure, coinciding with peak summer demand and the harvest season. Vakulenko noted that “tens of millions of Russians live to the west of this arc,” where shortages have been acute. Reports of scarcity have also come from Russian-occupied Crimea and Vladivostok in the far east.

Ukraine’s expanded drone production has made the campaign possible. The FP-1 long-range “kamikaze” drone, introduced in May, now accounts for about 60% of strikes inside Russia. Produced at an estimated 100 units a day, it carries a 60- to 120-kilogram warhead with a range of up to 1,600 kilometers.

Despite a price of about $55,000, it is said to feature advanced guidance software that maintains accuracy under electronic jamming. Ukraine has also deployed heavier Lyutyi drones.

Vakulenko described the situation as “challenging but manageable” for Russia. But British strategist Sir Lawrence Freedman warned that continued refinery strikes could intensify economic and military pressure.

“By itself it will not be decisive, but in combination with a weakening economy and Ukrainian forces holding back Russian advances, it will add to the pressure on Putin,” he said.

Sandy Fitzgerald ✉

Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics. 

Five hundred years have passed since the Reformation began, and yet the influence of the Roman Catholic Church remains strong. I’m not referring to the mammoth oligarchy that seeks to dictate the lives of an estimated one billion people, but rather its continuing influence upon churches outside its realm, including many that adhere to the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture.

While attending Talbot Seminary, I wrote my master’s thesis on Roman Catholic Justification in the Light of Scripture. In my study, I discovered that Catholicism’s key departure from Scripture was its firm insistence that God’s justification of sinners happens at the end of their life. This teaching contradicts what Paul wrote in Romans 5:1: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

In other words, God justifies us at the moment of our regeneration (see also Titus 3:4-7). Why is it so important to affirm this clear biblical truth?

It’s because the error of placing our justification at the end of one’s life has crept into evangelical churches in various forms that continue to grow in popularity, as well as negate the glorious hope embedded in the Gospel. It does so by. . .

Undoing the Finality of Our Salvation

I’m not aware of when Catholic theologians first decided that God’s justification of the sinner happens at the end of one’s life, but by the time of Reformation, it had become deeply entrenched in the church’s dogma. This teaching provided the church with the means to control the lives of its members from birth to the grave.

As a result, Catholics can never be sure of their salvation since their final destination depends upon their obedience as well as adherence to the church’s sacraments up to the time of last rites. Under such a scenario, how could anyone be certain of the final outcome of their faith?

Scripture tells us a much different story. Not only does it reveal that God justifies us at the moment of our regeneration, but it also provides us with the security of our hope that Catholicism kills. When God justifies the sinner, He declares that person not guilty of all his or her sins, past present, and future.

The word for “justify” in the Greek comes from the law courts of Paul’s day; it depicted a judge declaring the accused “not guilty” of their crimes. For us, it’s the legal declaration of our righteousness that comes solely through faith by grace. God declares us innocent solely because Jesus bore the punishment for our sins on the cross; His blood covers all of our iniquity. Romans 8:1 states the finality of God’s proclamation of our righteousness, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Later in Romans 8, the apostle elaborates on the permanence of God’s verdict: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.” (Romans 8:32-34).

For all of us in Christ Jesus, our justification is a done deal. God, who is not bound by time, looked at our entire life and declared us not guilty of all our sins. Who can possibly overturn His verdict? No one can provide Him with evidence that He didn’t already know about.

The belief that one can lose their salvation, or walk away from their faith, reflects the Roman Catholic understanding of justification, which regards it as a process that’s not fully settled until death. The only way to deny the finality of our salvation is to either say that someone can reverse God’s verdict, which is impossible, or somehow repackage the Catholic teaching of when God credits our account with His righteousness. If it happens at the time of our rebirth, it’s an absolute done deal.

Subjecting the Believer to a Works Mentality

The Roman Catholic error regarding justification empowers the church to enforce obedience whether it be to its traditions, its sacraments, or Scripture. Do we see this same works mentality today outside of the Catholic faith? We do.

I have experienced various forms of legalism in my life. Such teachings deceive believers into thinking they must earn favor with God, which is something they already fully possess via their secure righteous standing before Him, i.e., their justification.

Legalism reverses the order of chapters in the book of Ephesians. Instead of encouraging adherence to Paul’s instructions based upon one’s secure righteous standing before God, the works mentality begins with the commands as the way to assure the believer of his or her favor in the Lord’s sight. Paul never intended for chapters 4-6 of Ephesians to be the means of obtaining God’s approval, but rather the result of our permanent “holy and blameless” standing before God (Ephesians 1:3-14).

Once our focus shifts away from Christ and what He has done for us to how we should live, we lose the joy that comes from our security and the peace from knowing we will surely meet Jesus in the air in the future. The works mentality, popular in many Evangelical churches, is a remnant of Catholicism that spotlights our behavior rather than our glorious hope in Jesus’ appearing.

Adhering to the False Teaching of Replacement Theology

The refusal of a great many churches today to recognize the prophetic significance of Israel also mirrors Catholicism’s teaching on Bible prophecy.

Replacement Theology, or amillennialism, is the longstanding belief of the Roman Catholic Church. Augustine, a fifth century theologian, popularized the teaching that the church is the new Israel, which replaced the church in God’s prophetic program. He denied the future restoration of Israel and applied the Lord’s many promises to do so to the church, albeit spiritually.

Because Israel’s miraculous reappearance as a nation on May 14, 1948, contradicted its long held beliefs, the Vatican refused to recognize Israel as a nation until the end of 1993, a full forty-five years later. Why the delay apart from their realization that Israel’s astounding rebirth refuted their longstanding amillennial beliefs?

What does today’s popularity of Replacement Theology in Bible-believing churches have to do with a biblical understanding of justification? I provide a full answer to this question in my previous article: Can God Change His Mind about Israel? Or About Us?

Based upon Romans 11:28-32, I explain how God’s unfailing mercy lies at the heart of His continuing faithfulness to us as well as to Jacob’s descendants. He will not renege on any of His promises to His people, whether it be to the nation of Israel or to us as New Testament saints. Chapters 9-11 in the book of Romans were not a rabbit trail in Paul’s line of thought, but rather a critical part of it as he showed how the promised future restoration of Israel demonstrates the Lord’s unfailing mercy not only to the Jewish nation, but also to all justified saints, which He proclaimed in Romans 8:31-38.

Identifying the Church as God’s Kingdom

From its inception, the Roman Catholic Church believed it was God’s physical kingdom on earth and hence a political entity, which directly results from its adherence to Replacement Theology, which teaches that the church is just such a realm. Its role as a governing power during the Dark Ages has long since faded, but not this exalted view of itself.

The Vatican is officially the “Vatican City State.” This came about via the 1929 Lateran Treaty between the Holy See and the Kingdom of Italy through which it became an officially recognized independent governing state. The US sends an ambassador to the Vatican, just like it does for other governing entities.

Unfortunately, the Reformation didn’t change the perception of the church as God’s corporal kingdom on earth. Many churches, deeply steeped in amillennialism or its offshoots, continue to teach that Jesus is now reigning over the nations in fulfillment of such passages such as Psalms 2 and 46 as well as Revelation 20:1-10.

During the past few decades, Dominion Theology has grown exponentially in popularity. It asserts that the church will bring about millennial conditions on the earth and rule over it before Jesus’ returns. Is this not a variation the long ago kingdom aspirations of the Vatican?

The Bible teaches that as New Testament saints; we are heirs to a kingdom rather than current possessors of it (Ephesians 1:12-14; James 2:5). Paul couldn’t have been more clear when he said: “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable” (1 Corinthians 15:50). When Jesus appears, He will transform our lowly bodies into ones like His, immortal and incorruptible (Philippians 3:20-21; 1 Corinthians 15:51-55). He will make us fit to inherit His kingdom that’s coming to the earth.

The Bible never identifies the church as a kingdom, but rather describes it as the “body of Christ” with Jesus as its Head. The picture of body life in Romans 12:3-8 is most certainly not that of a kingdom, but rather of functioning entity were all its members enjoy an equal standing. Furthermore, the role of the leaders of a kingdom differs radically from the humble servant leadership Jesus prescribed for His Church (Mark 10:42-45; see also 1 Peter 5:1-5).

Why does this matter? It signifies that we are not now enjoying the glories of God’s promised kingdom on the earth as those who adhere to Replacement Theology claim. The good news is that in the future, we will participate in God’s spectacular kingdom on earth with immortal bodies in a realm devoid of wars, government corruption, overt wickedness, and injustice.

Making One’s Obedience and Feelings the Validation of Salvation

I heard a pastor say this in his Sunday sermon, “You are okay if you love the Lord.” No, no, no, no!! The Bible says that all those in Christ are “okay” because the Lord loves us!

Looking to one’s feelings, or even obedience, as the validation of one’s salvation yields the same fruit as the rigors of Catholicism: it traps believers in the same web of insecurity that obstructs their walk with the Lord and turns their focus away from their joyous blessed hope in Jesus’ appearing.

If it’s true that God’s justification of the sinner happens at the moment of our redemption (Titus 3:4-7) and is by its nature wholly irreversible (Romans 8:1 and 26-39), and Scripture teaches that both are true, the Bible must be the sole rock upon which we must base our assurance of eternal life, not our feelings, our love for the Lord, nor our obedience to some standard.

Our assurance of eternal life comes from what Scripture says about us as New Testament saints, i.e., our justification though faith alone by grace.

A biblical understanding of what happens when God justifies us counters the hope-killing remains of Roman Catholicism in today’s churches that rob believers of the joy that comes from knowing the certainty of their salvation. Scripture frees us from the works mentality that results from thinking we can lose our salvation, walk away from our faith, or must work to keep ourselves within God’s favor and love for us.

Sadly, these vestiges of Roman Catholicism persist in many churches outside its realm. Not only do they breed insecurity and a works-based validation of our hope of eternal life, but in many cases these places of worship also dismiss the biblical hope that we will reign with Jesus in His glorious kingdom, one that will include a restored Israel. Our hope in Jesus’ appearing and what happens afterward is not just dry theology, but something that breathes life into our souls each and every day.

If you have not yet placed your faith in Jesus or are unsure of your salvation, please see my article, Jesus is the Only Path to Eternal Life. In it, I explain the saving message of the cross and how you can know that you belong to the Savior.

Jonathan Brentner

Last May a study came out suggesting that merely giving people money doesn’t do much to lift them out of poverty. Families with at least one child received $333 a month. They had more money to spend, which is a good thing, but the children fared no better than similar children who didn’t get the cash. They were no more likely to develop language skills or demonstrate cognitive development. They were no more likely to avoid behavioral problems or developmental delays.

These results shouldn’t have been a big surprise. As Kelsey Piper noted in an essay for The Argument, a different study published last year gave families $500 a month for two years and found no big effects on the adult recipients’ psychological well-being and financial security. A study that gave $1,000 a month did not produce better health, career, education or sleep outcomes or even more time with their children.

Way back in 1997, Susan E. Mayer, a University of Chicago sociologist and behavioral economist, published “What Money Can’t Buy.” She began her research believing that cash transfers would make a big difference in people’s lives but was persuaded by the evidence that even if you doubled a family’s income, it would have a limited effect on their children’s dropout and teenage pregnancy rates or other outcomes. She stated her findings clearly: “The results in this book imply that once children’s basic material needs are met, characteristics of their parents become more important to how they turn out than anything additional money can buy.”

She added, “Parental income is not as important to children’s outcomes as many social scientists have thought.” Rising out of poverty also requires the nonmaterial qualities we now call human capital, such as skills, diligence, honesty, good health and reliability. Mayer concludes, “Children of parents with these attributes do well even when their parents do not have much income.”

As a society, we are pretty good at transferring money to the poor, but we’re not very good at nurturing the human capital they would need to get out of poverty. As a result, we do an OK job supporting people who are in long-term poverty but a poor job of helping them lift themselves out of poverty. As Piper noted in a subsequent post, we spend more money combating poverty today than the entire U.S. G.D.P. from 1969, yet “the share of Americans whose pretransfer income places them in absolute poverty has barely fallen.”

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Piper’s essay kicked up a bit of an internet storm. You might have thought the progressive reaction would have been: We need to keep giving poor people money, but we also need to focus on the human and behavioral factors that will enable them to build comfortable, independent lives. But that wasn’t the reaction. The progressives I saw doubled down on the thesis: Poor people just need money.

Matt Bruenig’s contention, also in The Argument, was typical. He scorned the very idea that focusing on human capital is a good way to improve social mobility. He wrote, “Cash is the key part of every welfare state in the developed world and absolutely critical for keeping poverty down.” We shouldn’t make fighting poverty overly complicated, he argued. “As a policy matter, these are mostly solved problems.” Just write people checks.

This is consistent with something I’ve noticed all my life — the materialist bent of progressive thought: the assumption that material conditions drive history, not cultural or moral ones. A couple of decades ago, Thomas Frank published “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” based on befuddlement that Kansans were apparently voting against their economic self-interest. Doesn’t economics drive voting behavior? Progressives have often argued that improving schools is mostly about spending more money, that crime is mostly the product of material deprivation.

Conservatism, as you know, is a complete mess in America right now. But reading conservative authors like Edmund Burke, Samuel Johnson, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Gertrude Himmelfarb and James Q. Wilson does give you an adequate appreciation for the power of nonmaterial forces — culture, moral norms, traditions, religious ideals, personal responsibility and community cohesion. That body of work teaches you, as Burke wrote, that manners and morals are more important than laws. You should have limited expectations about politics because not everything can be solved with a policy.

Many years ago, I came across a study that neatly illustrated the power of culture. The researcher Nima Sanandaji calculated the poverty rate of Americans with Swedish ancestry. It was 6.7 percent. They also looked at the poverty rate in Sweden, using the American standard of poverty, and it was also 6.7 percent. Different political systems, same outcome.

Neoconservatism came along and took conservative insights and applied them to policymaking. During the Iraq war the word “neocon” came to mean the opposite of its real meaning, but originally it was a movement within the Democratic Party to correct the policy failures of the Great Society. Thinkers like Irving Kristol and Nathan Glazer had been poor immigrant kids. They were willing to spend money to fight poverty, but they wanted the programs to nurture the values that they had seen firsthand help people rise: hard work, family and community cohesion, reliability, a passionate commitment to education. These values tend to inhere in communities before they are transmitted to individuals.

Progressives, by contrast, are quick to talk about money but slow to talk about the values side of the equation. That’s in part for the best of reasons. They don’t want to blame the victims or contribute to the canard that people are poor because they are lazy.

But there’s something deeper. Progressivism emerges from a different lineage. Karl Marx influenced many people who are not Marxist, and he saw the world through a material-determinism lens — people’s consciousnesses are shaped by their material conditions.

Since the dawn of the Progressive movement over a century ago, the left has been more technocratic. Those early Progressives tried to make a science of society and govern according to scientific principles.

Today the social sciences are the narrow doorway all of human knowledge has to pass through if it’s going to influence policymaking. We want studies! The social sciences are great. I use them all the time. But when overly quantitative, they can misrepresent reality. They see only what can be quantified. They see only masses of people whose data can be tabulated, not unique individuals. As Christian Smith, a Notre Dame sociologist, has been arguing for decades, the social scientists obliterate the subjective experiences of the people they study. Human agency disappears if research subjects are reduced to a bunch of variables that can be correlated. People who overly rely on social science knowledge are going to tend to focus on money because it can be counted more easily than culture. People who rely on government to solve problems will tend to overemphasize the power of money because that’s the thing government most easily controls.

This materialistic bent leads to all sorts of bad judgments. For example, Joe Biden and his team had one job: to make sure Donald Trump never set foot in the White House again. They tried to accomplish that the only way they knew how: throw money at the problem. The vast bulk of the new Biden spending went to red states to employ workers without college degrees. Politically, the project was a complete failure. Populism is not primarily economic; it’s about respect, values, national identity and many other things. All that spending did not win anybody over.

Today most of our problems are moral, relational and spiritual more than they are economic. There is the crisis of disconnection, the collapse of social trust, the loss of faith in institutions, the destruction of moral norms in the White House, the rise of amoral gangsterism around the world.

I’ve been driven away from the right over the past decade, but I can’t join the left because I just don’t think that tradition of thought grasps reality in all its fullness. I wish both right and left could embrace the more complex truth that the neocon Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan expressed in his famous maxim: “The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change culture and save it from itself.”

If you can find some lefties who are willing to spend money fighting poverty but also willing to promote the traditional values and practices that enable people to rise, you can sign me up for the revolution.

David Brooks

We’re told that democracy dies in darkness. My own take on the subject? Liberty perishes in an orgy of unearned guilt and other psychological conflicts. Psychological problems develop when people hold contradictory, irrational or unsustainable ideas, ideas such as, “Someone is coming to rescue me,” or, “I shouldn’t have to be totally responsible for myself.” —Michael J. Hurd

The United States has “lost” India and Russia to China, President Donald Trump said early Friday.

The president, posting a photograph of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping, quipped on Truth Social that it “Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China. May they have a long and prosperous future together!”

Trump’s comments were in response to a photo taken during last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin, where Xi hosted leaders of Russia and India along with dignitaries from about 20 Eurasian nations.

The gathering, which ran through Monday, preceded a massive military parade in Beijing, marking 80 years since the end of World War II.

Founded in 2001, the SCO brings together China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, and several Central Asian states, with 16 additional countries participating as observers or dialogue partners.

Beijing and Moscow claim that the organization counters Western-led alliances, such as NATO.

Modi, on his first trip to China since 2018, pledged to advance ties “on the basis of mutual trust, dignity and sensitivity,” while Xi, according to state media, urged that the two nations see each other as “partners rather than rivals” and as “opportunities for development rather than threats.”

China and India remain tense rivals, having fought a deadly border clash in 2020. Still, Modi stressed that the well-being of 2.8 billion people depended on closer ties. Analysts say India’s disputes with Washington over trade and its purchases of Russian oil could push New Delhi into closer alignment with Beijing and Moscow.

Other leaders at the summit included Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and side meetings touched on the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, highlighting how both China and Russia are seeking to expand their influence as tensions with the United States and Europe deepen.

Sandy Fitzgerald ✉

Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics. 

He told the Senate Finance Committee that Susan Monarez told him she was not ‘trustworthy.’

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he fired Susan Monarez from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because she told him she was not “trustworthy.”

Kennedy’s comments came in response to questions from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) during a Thursday hearing before the Senate Finance Committee about the agency’s plans. Warren had asked the secretary why he decided earlier this month to abruptly fire Monarez, then the CDC’s director, who was confirmed by the Senate in lateJuly.

“I told her she had to resign because I asked her, ‘Are you a trustworthy person?’ and she said ‘No,’” Kennedy said.

Monarez wrote an opinion piece Thursday that, before she was fired, Kennedy asked her to “pre-approve” recommendations from a key panel of CDC advisers, which were chosen by Kennedy after he fired the committee’s entire membership.

“It is imperative that the panel’s recommendations aren’t rubber-stamped but instead are rigorously and scientifically reviewed before being accepted or rejected,” Monarez wrote.

In a statement, Monarez’s lawyers said that Kennedy’s claims are false and “patently ridiculous.”

“Dr. Monarez stands by what she said in her op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, would repeat it all under oath and continues to support the vision she outlined at her confirmation hearing that science will control her decisions,” wrote Mark S. Zaid and Abbe David Lowell.

It’s unclear whether Monarez will get to testify before Congress about her ouster. During the hearing, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said he looks forward to Monarez coming before the HELP committee.

HELP Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.) has not announced an investigation into her being fired.

Kennedy repeatedly denied he fired Monarez because she wouldn’t agree to pre-approve the advisory panel’s recommendations and accused her of lying. The panel is scheduled to meet in Atlanta on Sept. 18-19.

“If she wrote that I fired her because she refused to sign on in advance for the ACIP committee, no that’s not accurate,” Kennedy said. He said he asked her for “clarification” about a statement he says she made related to plans not to sign on to the panel’s recommendations.

“I told her I didn’t want her to have a rule that she’s not going to sign on to it,” Kennedy said.

Several news outlets, including POLITICO, have reported that Monarez was asked to rubber-stamp the panel’s recommendations. Kennedy also admitted to demanding that Monarez fire career CDC scientists.

Sophie Gardner, Politico

Students outsourcing their assignments to AI and cheating their way through college has become so rampant, so quickly, that it has created a market for a product that helps professors ChatGPT-proof school. As it turns out, that product already exists. In fact, you’ve probably used it. You might even dread it.

It’s called a blue book.

…

All of which explains how a paper company in Pennsylvania has unexpectedly found itself on the front lines of the classroom AI wars.

Most blue books for sale in campus bookstores and on Amazon for 23 cents apiece are made by Roaring Spring Paper Products. The family-owned business was founded more than a century ago in Roaring Spring, a small borough outside Altoona that has become the blue-book capital of America. The company now sells a few million of these classic exam books every year and all of them are manufactured in the U.S., said Kristen Allen, its vice president of sales and marketing.

…

Sales of blue books this school year were up more than 30% at Texas A&M University and nearly 50% at the University of Florida. The improbable growth was even more impressive at the University of California, Berkeley. Over the past two academic years, blue-book sales at the Cal Student Store were up 80%.

…

But even professors who have gone analog to defeat the latest technology are deeply conflicted about it. Many of them believe students should be using AI to get smarter. It would be stupid not to. These tools will be a part of their lives and knowing how to use them effectively will be an important advantage in their future workplaces.

Ben Cohen, Wall Street Journal

Democratic Senator Tim Kaine from Virginia, in a hearing on Wednesday, told the room:

The notion that rights don’t come from laws, and don’t come from the government, but come from the Creator… That’s what the Iranian government believes… So the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling.

Tipsheet

Senator Tim Kaine Tells Americans Their Rights Come From Government

Dmitri Bolt | September 03, 2025 5:30 PM

AP Photo/Ben Curtis

Democratic Senator Tim Kaine from Virginia, in a hearing on Wednesday, told the room:

The notion that rights don’t come from laws, and don’t come from the government, but come from the Creator… That’s what the Iranian government believes… So the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling.

Senator Ted Cruz blasted Senator Kaine’s comments.

So, Senator Kaine said in this hearing, that he found it a radical and dangerous notion that you would say our rights came from God and not from government. I just walked into the hearing as he was saying that and I almost fell out of my chair. Because that radical and dangerous notion in his words, is literally the founding principle upon which the United States of America was created. And if you do not believe me, and you made reference to this Mr. Barnes, then you can believe, perhaps the most prominent Virginian to ever serve, Thomas Jefferson who wrote in the Declaration of Independence: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator’ not by the government, not by the Democratic National Committee, but by God…

…with certain unalienable Rights.

Senator Kaine didn’t misspeak; he simply revealed the chasm between today’s Democratic Party and the very principles that founded this great nation. If believing rights come from a higher power is “troubling,” then Kaine’s quarrel isn’t with Ted Cruz. It’s with Jefferson, Madison, the Declaration, and America herself.

Editor’s Note: President Trump is leading America into the “Golden Age” as Democrats try desperately to stop it.  

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