The reported DSA-linked planning treats the Insurrection Act as a trap that works only if Trump walks into it on their timetable and terms.

Over on X, DataRepublican’s reporting on documents and recordings from the Democratic Socialists of America and allied networks lays out a calculated strategy for the run-up to the 2028 elections. The goal is sustained mass violence and street clashes designed to push President Donald Trump into invoking the Insurrection Act. Once invoked, Democratic governors and progressive organizations would treat the order itself as evidence of “fascism” and a reason to undermine federal authority.

Groups including the United Democracy Alliance, invoking Erica Chenoweth’s 3.5 percent rule, appear ready to coordinate the street actions, legal support, and media framing. Neville Roy Singham, operating from Shanghai and connected to the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, is positioned to amplify the disruption from abroad.

The plan assumes Trump will choose immediate order over patience, and hand his opponents the optics they have prepared. Whether that assumption holds depends on the costs of each path.

Policing power in America is overwhelmingly local. The FBI fields about 13,700 special agents nationwide. The New York Police Department alone has more than 34,700 sworn officers. A president can protect federal property, personnel, and functions without becoming the default response for every city whose leaders have weakened policing and tolerated disorder. Broader federal action is also available. Both options carry consequences, and progressive networks are organized to contest either one.

One set of costs is political. Invoking the Insurrection Act and placing federalized National Guard or active-duty forces in law-enforcement roles inside Democratic cities would supply the “fascism” narrative. Local Democratic officials who have criticized aggressive policing and treated destructive unrest as legitimate expression would likely resist or litigate the deployment. That resistance would become part of the story.

The 1992 Los Angeles riots illustrate a different situation. After the Rodney King verdict, the LAPD initially pulled back. Democratic Mayor Tom Bradley requested help. Republican Gov. Pete Wilson activated the California National Guard. President George H.W. Bush then invoked the Insurrection Act. I was a National Guard captain then, leading patrols with live ammunition in the Crenshaw district. Residents thanked us. Visible force restored order with relatively few rounds fired. The local, state, and federal-level agreement mattered. But today’s Democratic mayors and governors are more likely to oppose federal assistance in restoring order, turning the deployment itself, not the violence, into the central political fact.

The alternative — limiting federal action to clear federal interests and leaving local order to the officials voters elected — also has costs. Residents of Democratic cities and states would live with the results of reduced policing capacity, progressive prosecutors, and a political culture that has treated sustained disorder as expression. Burning businesses, looting, and overstretched local police would be visible realities. That visibility could accelerate the ongoing migration of residents and businesses toward states that prioritize public safety.

Those effects are not cost-free. Destroyed property, disrupted commerce, injured officers and civilians, and longer-term damage to major cities affect people who did not vote for the governing approach, workers who commute in, and markets that still depend on those cities. Progressive media and political groups would work to reframe the disorder as the product of federal non-intervention or systemic factors rather than local choices.

Recent unrest in France offers a different kind of parallel. Cost-of-living protests were joined by organized groups that torched buildings, looted shops, and injured officers. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez later said police “lost control” in major cities despite large deployments. European governments have often hesitated to apply sustained force when violence can be framed as protest. The result has been prolonged disorder followed by recrimination. American leaders watching that record face a version of the same tension — how much disorder to accept before the practical price of inaction exceeds the political price of action.

The reported DSA-linked planning treats the Insurrection Act as a trap that works only if Trump walks into it on their timetable and terms. Refusing the invitation does not require ignoring anarchy. Accepting it does not guarantee a clean narrative win. Protecting federal interests while the consequences of progressive local governance stay localized is one coherent approach. Direct intervention to restore order, even against the wishes of the elected officials of the affected jurisdictions, is another. Both carry political, economic, and human costs.

The left’s apparent intent is to force the decision and then contest whichever path is chosen. How much disorder materializes, how local authorities respond or decline to respond, and how voters process the resulting images will shape the outcome. The planning is the warning.

Chuck DeVore, The Federalist

Dracula is a Democrat. He wants. The Democrats want. He is not willing to work to satisfy his wants. The Democrats are not willing to work to satisfy their wants. Dracula feeds off of others to satisfy his wants and to exist. The Democrats feed off of others to satisfy their wants and to exist. Dracula is stealthy so he can be in society and yet take from you without getting a stake through the heart. The Democrats are stealthy so they can be in society and take from you without getting a stake through their hearts. Dracula turns those he feeds off of into his servants. The Democrats turn those they feed off of into their servants. If you hold a mirror up to Dracula, he will screech and run away. If you hold up a mirror to the Democrats, they will screech and run away. Dracula leaves people in a zombie like state or dead. The Democrats leave people in a zombie like state or dead. Dracula will temporarily change into something else to escape tough predicaments. The Democrats will temporarily change into something else to escape tough predicaments. Dracula cannot stand the light of the sun (the truth of who he is).The Democrats cannot stand the light of the sun (the truth of who they are). Dracula uses his victims emotions to entrap them. The Democrats use their victims emotions to entrap them. Dracula shrinks from the sight of The Cross. The Democrats shrink from the sight of The Cross. There is nothing good about Dracula. There is nothing good about the Democrats. You have to drive a wooden stake through Dracula’s heart to be rid of him. Not a man made metal stake, but a God made wooden stake. You must drive a God made stake (you) through the hearts of the Democrats to be rid of them. Vote against them. Refuse to be their slave. Oppose them. Ignore them and they will suck the life out of you and your children and your friends and neighbors. Be strong. The Democrats want to climb out of their coffins.

Blueunicorn6, Muse

French economist Gabriel Zucman has come to California bearing a familiar French solution to a fiscal problem: another tax.

Once based at the University of California, Berkeley, Zucman is back and campaigning for Proposition 40, which would impose an allegedly one-time 5 percent tax on the net worth of Californians worth more than $1 billion. Zucman, who coauthored the proposition, estimates that the tax could raise about $100 billion and claims that 90 percent of the proceeds would go to health care.

The California Legislative Analyst’s office is far more cautious, saying it would raise only “tens of billions” and could cause a long-term loss of income-tax revenue as wealthy people leave the state with the companies they created.

I’ve written plenty about why wealth taxes are economically destructive, administratively nightmarish, and unlikely to achieve anything close to what their advocates promise. But Zucman’s prescription is wrong for a more fundamental reason, as his (and my) native country shows: Raising taxes to fuel ever-larger demands for government spending is a recipe for disaster.

Unless you’ve been living in a remote cave recently, you’ve likely seen all the protests and destruction in France. But do you know why it’s happening?

As another economist, Paul Krugman, rightly noted back in 2017, “France offers a social safety net beyond the wildest dreams of U.S. progressives: guaranteed high-quality health care for all, generous paid leave for new parents, universal pre-K, and much more.”

For decades, France has answered any perceived desire with government spending, then responded to the resulting fiscal problem by seeking new revenue sources. Today, French government spending consumes roughly 58 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Krugman gloated that France wasn’t suffering social collapse and speculated that it was due to all the spending. He certainly can’t say that anymore. In fact, he is now worried that France may be on the precipice of a debt crisis. The truth is that France hasn’t done well for some time, even when Krugman cheered its spending.

One of the groups in the street today, young people, has faced widespread unemployment for a long time. The youth unemployment rate in France (ages 15-24) has hovered between 17 percent and 27 percent since 2000. In the second quarter of 2026, it was 21.6 percent, against 14.8 percent in the Eurozone and 9.9 percent in the U.S.

French people also pay some of the highest taxes in the developed world, and they’re not happy with the return. The government already takes more than 52 percent of the country’s output in revenue, runs deficits exceeding 5 percent of GDP, and has accumulated debt approaching 120 percent of GDP. Nonetheless, French students complain that the government is shortchanging schools, while everyone sees that it is shortchanging its army and police.

The students aren’t wrong to feel left out. At The Two Cents Substack, Hoover Institution scholar Hanno Lustig calculates that, between 1995 and 2024, spending on social protection and health (most of which benefits older people) rose from 53.1 percent to 58.7 percent of all French government spending. The share devoted to education, defense, and public order fell from 15.2 percent to 13.7 percent. Transportation fell from 5.3 percent to 3.8 percent.

In other words, France has built an enormous welfare state, much of it devoted to older citizens, while letting other state capacities and basic services fall apart. As transfers of wealth swallow a larger share of the budget, everything else gets squeezed.

That is the fiscal ratchet Californians should worry about when Zucman tells them Proposition 40 is necessary to “save” health care. Proponents claim Washington “cut” Medicaid, but that language is misleading. California’s deficit started long before any Washington spending reductions. Besides, federal Medicaid spending isn’t falling—not even close. The Congressional Budget Office estimates it will reach $708 billion in 2026, 8 percent more than in 2025. What Washington did in the 2025 budget reconciliation law was reduce Medicaid’s future growth relative to previous projections, partly by changing eligibility and enrollment rules and financing arrangements.

This is how the ratchet works. Once the government projects a spending increase, anything less becomes a cut. And once Washington fails to finance the entire projected increase, Californians are told that Sacramento must backfill the missing money. And how should it do that? Conveniently, by creating an entirely new tax.

France has run this experiment for decades. It has an incredibly generous welfare state paid for with very high taxes; it’s even tried a wealth tax and has a value-added tax, yet somehow it’s never enough. Its welfare state has not eliminated scarcity. It has merely transferred the job of rationing scarce resources to politicians.

Zucman looks at California and sees hundreds of billions of dollars of private wealth waiting to solve a public finance problem. Californians should look across the Atlantic and ask a different question: What happens after politicians decide that every spending adjustment can be delayed until tomorrow by finding another pot of private wealth?

France should not be sending California tax advice. It should be sending a warning.

COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS.COM

Reason Magazine

Oil flows out of the Persian Gulf in October nearly returned to levels seen before the start of the Iran war, but traders remain wary about a fragile recovery.

Total crude exports in the region, or flows coming out of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, recently recovered to within 10% of their previous levels in January and February, according to data compiled by TankerTrackers.com, a maritime intelligence firm tracking crude oil shipments (see chart below).

Iran exported around 1.5 million barrels of crude oil a day before the war, but that has fallen to zero since the U.S. reimposed its blockade in mid-July. Yet exports from Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, have jumped 10% above their prewar average.

So it’s fair to say that tanker traffic has almost completely normalized, which raises the question: Why this isn’t reflected in lower oil prices?” said Robin Brooks, senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution.

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Oil prices have surged again in October, with both West Texas Intermediate CL00+2.01% CLZ26+2.01% and Brent crude BRN00-0.17% BRNZ26-0.17% up nearly 10% in the month to date. The Brent contract for December delivery ended nearly flat on Wednesday, at $108.82 a barrel, after hitting its highest level since May just last week, while WTI’s December contract was off 0.7%, to settle at $97.15, according to FactSet data.

Thursday morning, both WTI and Brent futures were rising more than 2%.

“Yes, we are starting to see recovery, but the issue is a large portion of those barrels have to take a more convoluted route,” said Ben McMillan, chief investment officer at IDX Advisors. “You have a lot of oil still going through over-the-ground pipelines, shuttle tankers and even dark-fleet tankers, so there’s still a premium in getting oil out of the Gulf, and there’s an elevated cost to do so because the shipping is not fully resumed,” he told MarketWatch Wednesday.

Indeed, the resumption of more robust oil flows hasn’t been enough to bring oil prices down significantly, as continued attacks on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and on Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline have kept the cost of shipping crude elevated. President Donald Trump’s promise not to attack Iran before the midterm elections slightly tempered the rise in crude prices earlier this month, but fears that U.S. military operations could resume after Nov. 3 are still keeping geopolitical risks elevated.

If markets were saturated, that would not be a big problem, but with inventories so thin, even the loss of 5-10 million barrels a week will keep prices elevated,” he told MarketWatch.

U.S. commercial crude-oil inventories fell by 3.1 million barrels for the week ending Oct. 16, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. This marked the third consecutive weekly decline, pushing total crude stocks to roughly 412.5 million barrels.

The Middle East can’t seem to go a day without another escalation. On Wednesday afternoon, Reuters reported that the State Department was planning to order the departure of some personnel from U.S. embassies in the Persian Gulf, including the evacuation of all embassy staff and their families from Saudi Arabia, citing U.S. government officials. AFP then reported that a diplomatic source said U.S. embassy staff and their families in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain have been ordered to leave.

Separately, a source at Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Energy said air defenses intercepted a drone that attempted to attack a facility at Saudi Aramco’s 2222-0.70% Shaybah field, according to the Saudi Press Agency.

Still, the recent uptick in oil flows could be just the beginning of the normalization. Michael Hsueh, commodities analyst at Deutsche Bank Research, said further normalization of oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz would see the oil market swing into a large surplus, which could eventually bring oil prices down to $74 a barrel next year.

“A negotiated ceasefire leading to broader talks remains the path in our base case of Brent at $74 a barrel in 2027, while an extended war throughout 2027 would suggest Brent moving higher toward $130,” he said in a Wednesday client note. “In the meantime, restored crude-oil flows remain precarious and refinery crack spreads are likely to stay high.”

A crack spread is the difference between the price of one barrel of crude oil and the price of the refined products made from it, such as gasoline or diesel.

Isabel Wang

Isabel Wang is a Markets Reporter for MarketWatch.

Myra P. Saefong

Myra P. Saefong, assistant global markets editor, has covered the commodities sector for MarketWatch since 1998. She has been writing the Commodities Corner column since 2005.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday he would accept a peace deal freezing the war along current front lines, calling it the “real way” to end the conflict.

Zelensky made the remarks in an interview on Fox News’s Fox & Friends when host Brian Kilmeade pressed him on whether he would agree to an arrangement that halted the fighting where the battlefield now stands.

The Ukrainian leader did not hesitate when asked to commit: “Yes, right now we have to freeze, and I think this is real way to end this war,” he replied. “We call it a ceasefire or ‘stop killing,’ like President Trump called it. Freeze and stop. And of course, this is the minimum what we need from Russia today.”

Kilmeade framed the question around a settlement under which Ukraine would retain 75 percent or more of its territory. Zelensky replied in the affirmative and said any freeze would need to be paired with Western backing.

Then, of course, we will go to [the U.S.] president and to Europeans, and we will ask for security guarantees,” he said.

The Ukrainian president cast the proposal as an opening into negotiations rather than a final territorial settlement, stressing that the priority is stopping the killing before talks on a durable peace.

The interview aired a day after Zelensky met U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff in Oslo, Norway, alongside Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, and representatives from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Poland, the European Union, and NATO. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner joined that meeting by video link.

Witkoff traveled directly from Oslo to St. Petersburg on Wednesday to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, carrying an updated framework proposal developed with Ukrainian and European input. Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev met Witkoff at the airport, two sources told Reuters.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said his understanding was that the Oslo talks had been “positive,” with “nothing unexpected” or “surprising.”

Zelensky also said he was prepared to halt strikes on Russian oil refineries if Moscow took reciprocal steps, and renewed his call for a trilateral summit with Putin and Trump, a format the Kremlin has so far rejected.

Trump pressed both sides toward a settlement after months of stalled diplomacy, with his envoys shuttling between Kyiv’s European backers and Moscow to assemble a workable framework. Zelensky complained last week that the administration’s move to pause Russian sanctions would only embolden Putin.

Mariane Anderson, Breitbart

Only authorised union protests will be allowed in French towns and cities on Saturday, President Emmanuel Macron has said, after demonstrations across the country turned violent last weekend.

Speaking as some cities including Lyon and Nice imposed complete bans, Macron said “illegitimate” protests would not be allowed but unions would be offered alternative routes so that businesses could be protected.

Big demonstrations against the high cost of living and school conditions were overshadowed last Saturday by riots and looting that saw business and historic buildings destroyed.

Interior Minister Jean-Didier Berger said police deployments would be increased by 20% compared to last weekend, after the government was accused of being blindsided by the scale of the unrest.

France’s justice minister said on Thursday that 217 people had been jailed over last weekend’s disorder after being convicted in fast-track trials, with that number expected to rise.

Gérald Darmanin said 2,700 people had been arrested across France and more than 1,000 have appeared in court.

Half of those detained had no prior criminal record, he said, according to Le Figaro newspaper.

Macron met intelligence services and ministers on Thursday, to prepare for the next national day of protests on Saturday.

Jamie Whitehead, BBC

Four families are demanding answers from Jeffco Public Schools after their daughters lost spots on the JV squad.

Four parents of Dakota Ridge High School athletes are demanding answers from Jeffco Public Schools in Colorado after they said a transgender player was allowed to participate on the girls’ junior varsity volleyball team while eight girls were cut from the roster.

The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights said Jeffco Public Schools had 10 days to voluntarily resolve alleged Title IX violations or face enforcement action.

Oct. 2, Department of Education Press Secretary Savannah Newhouse said, “Just this week, the Trump Administration restored the Title IX regulations that the Biden Administration unlawfully attempted to weaponize, making it undeniably clear that we will continue to enforce the law exactly as it was intended.”

Newhouse added, “Allowing male athletes to strip roster spots from women who have dedicated years of intense training to their sport is both an egregious moral failure and a definitive violation of the law. Unfortunately, because Jefferson County Public Schools remains intent on defying Title IX and has refused every opportunity to come into compliance, they face enforcement action from the Department of Justice. To the parents who have watched their daughters be relegated to second-class citizens on the court and stripped of their privacy in locker rooms, know this: the Trump Administration will not waver in pursuit of accountability.”

On Nov. 3, Colorado voters will vote on the ballot initiative, “Protect Women and Girls Sports Act,” which would require school athletic teams to be designated based on biological sex and prohibit male students from participating on teams designated for females, women or girls.

Rachel del Giudice, Fox News

The Muslim Brotherhood is an Islamist movement that has influence9d political Islam across the Middle East and beyond. Its ideology and historical connections to various Islamist organizations have drawn scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers and national security officials. Critics of Abdul El-Sayed, a Michigan politician, have pointed to his past statements about the movement, his family’s reported connections to it, and his father-in-law’s affiliations with prominent Muslim American organizations. 

Genocidal Hamas = the Arab “Palestine” = Muslim Brotherhood

Hamas is inherently linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, sharing a foundational ideology aimed at the destruction of Western values and the establishment of an Islamic state.

• Foundational Roots: Hamas was explicitly established in 1987 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin as the violent, militant arm of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood. Conservative policy institutes emphasize that Hamas’s original 1988 charter openly declared the group to be a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine.
• Shared Islamist Ideology: Both entities operate under a radical Islamist framework that rejects Western democratic principles, capitalism, and modern secular governance, viewing global jihad as a necessity to implement strict Islamic law.
• The 2017 Document: While Hamas issued a revised policy document in 2017 attempting to downplay its formal organizational ties to the broader Muslim Brotherhood, conservative security analysts widely dismiss this move as a deceptive public relations tactic. They argue that the strategic alignment, ideological goals, and financial networks between the two groups remain functionally unchanged

El-Sayed’s Past Statements on the Muslim Brotherhood

In an essay published by HuffPost in January 2011, El-Sayed argued that the Muslim Brotherhood’s potential rise to power following the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak might not be as troubling as some critics feared.

He contended that Egypt’s military would not support the group’s bid for power unless “strong liberal democratic structures were in place.” He also rejected comparisons suggesting that a Muslim Brotherhood-led government in Egypt would resemble Hamas’s rule in Gaza.

Following the rise to power of Mohamed Morsi, an Islamist associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, El-Sayed signed a statement in 2012 urging Morsi “to purge the media and police as quickly as possible.”

“We affirm, as Egyptian Americans, that we strongly reject those voices that are courting America and Europe to take a position against the Egyptian regime,” the statement’s signatories declared.

These statements prove El-Sayed underestimated the risks posed by the Muslim Brotherhood’s political agenda and its approach to democratic institutions.

Family Connections to the Muslim Brotherhood

Questions have also been raised about El-Sayed’s family history. His half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, discussed the family’s historical ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, commonly abbreviated as “MB.” She also indicated that some relatives had been imprisoned in Egypt because of their activism in the organization.

In a 2012 social media post, Abdelhadi described having an “amazing talk with my mom about her activism in the Muslim Brotherhood during the early 70s while she was in college.”

These accounts have added another dimension to scrutiny of El-Sayed’s background. 

His Father-in-Law and Connections to Muslim American Organizations

Further questions have centered on El-Sayed’s father-in-law, Tayeb Jukaku, and his reported leadership roles in prominent Muslim American organizations.

According to reporting by the Washington Free Beacon and the Washington Examiner, Jukaku served as president of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) from 2005 to 2010 and served on the founding committee of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).

Both CAIR and ISNA were named as unindicted co-conspirators in the federal Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing case. In 2008, five Holy Land Foundation leaders were convicted of providing material support to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization. Prosecutors presented evidence concerning what they described as a Muslim Brotherhood-linked network in the United States.

The Washington Free Beacon also reported that Jukaku contributed $200,000 to a super PAC supporting El-Sayed’s Senate campaign. That reported contribution has raised questions among critics about the political networks and financial support surrounding El-Sayed’s campaign.

Why These Connections Matter

Taken together, El-Sayed’s past statements about the Muslim Brotherhood, his family’s reported history with the movement, and his father-in-law’s organizational and political connections provide context for examining his views on political Islam, his loyalties and the networks surrounding his political career.

Comma.point

Matt Margolis

Kamala Harris insists she hasn’t decided whether she’s running for president in 2028, but she accidentally gave the game away.

Obviously, nobody in the Democrat Party is exactly begging her to jump in. The establishment has been pushing back hard on the idea of a third Kamala campaign. Former allies and donors grumble that she squandered her first year out of office, and they can’t come up with a single reason voters should take another look at her. Even her husband, Doug Emhoff, reportedly isn’t thrilled about her running again.

You’d think all that would give her pause. Instead, Kamala keeps dropping hints, and her latest one came at an event in Las Vegas, where she debuted a slower, lower-pitched speaking style. It’s the newest entry in her long record of changing her voice and speech cadence depending on who’s sitting in the audience.

“That era of feeling powerless — like what can we do, this just keeps happening — that era is over because we are now 13 days away from doing something about it to stop the pain,” Kamala said, speaking slowly and in a lower register, as if to a room of sleepy kindergarteners.

She kept up the same condescending tone while urging Nevada voters to back Democrats in the state’s governor’s race and for Congress.

“So that’s where we are right now, and that’s kind of exciting,” she continued. “Right? This is some good stuff. Like, we’re taking our power, we’re using it, to determine who will hold offices like being the governor of Nevada. Which is so important for the people everyday on the most basic issues that affect our lives. Who will continue to walk those halls of Congress, being an extraordinary fighter.”

This new tone she’s adopting fits how Democrats see voters: as children they need to control. You don’t talk to grown adults that way unless you think they need a nap and a juice box before they can handle a ballot.

Let’s be fair: Kamala didn’t invent the fake accent. Hillary Clinton infamously slipped into a Southern drawl while campaigning in the South during the 2008 presidential primaries. Barack Obama was known for adjusting his dialect for different crowds during that same campaign. And Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has been pulling the same trick for years.

It’s phony and desperate, every single time.

ICYMI: Ilhan Omar’s Answer on Marrying Her Brother Was Just Painfully Bad

The motive here isn’t complicated. Politicians who put on fake accents want voters to feel they share something with them. When a Democrat suddenly picks up a Southern drawl, leans into black vernacular, or shifts her cadence to match the crowd, it’s not random or subconscious; it’s a calculated move. The candidate is trying to manufacture cultural familiarity, hoping voters will see her as one of their own. It’s just shameless pandering from a candidate who wants to convey “I’m just like you” without saying the words.

And Kamala wouldn’t bother with any of this if she weren’t planning to run for president.

Nobody road-tests a new voice for a midterm rally out of civic duty. You do it because you’re auditioning for something bigger. So she can keep saying she hasn’t made up her mind. Kamala just told us she’s running for president.

Matt Margolis, PJ Media

It has happened before in history. Those who think it can’t happen again are out of their minds.

Robert Arvay | October 21, 2026

In 1200 B.C., worldwide civilization fell into ruin.  That is only partially an overstatement.  The Americas and Asia were on a separate path, but the Mediterranean complex of civilizations, the “known world,” was all but destroyed.  It was laying the foundation of Western Civilization, which is the modern worldwide standard for science, technology, human rights, and self-government — and critically, an enduring monotheistic society.

The Bronze Age collapse took about a century, but that is sudden in terms of history.  Before 1300 B.C. there was a network of prosperous, stable kingdoms.  Then, shortly thereafter, everything went wrong at once.  Volcanoes and invasions were the headline causes, but numerous other factors came into play.  The result was the destruction of mighty empires.  Thriving cities fell into ruin.  Trade routes were cut.  Barbarians massacred entire populations.

Recovery took centuries, but here we are, enjoying yet another golden age of worldwide prosperity.  Yes, there are dark spots and open sores in the picture, but day to day, most people awaken to indoor plumbing and controlled temperatures.  They enjoy breakfast, and they thrive within family, career, and comfort. 

It could all come crashing down in a lifetime or less. 

In the 1980s, cultural revolutionaries chanted, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western civ has got to go.”  If no one took them seriously at the time, we do now, because they are getting their wish.

Witness Europe.  The aforementioned modern worldwide standard for science, etc. is being eroded.  Invaders who once were repelled at the walls have now been invited in through the gates, and given food, shelter, medical care, and freedom.  In return, they plunder, rape, and murder their benefactors.  The revolution continues.

All of this was not only eminently predictable, but actually predicted.  Hungary and Poland sounded the warning loud and clear, as did classic liberals throughout Europe and the anglosphere.  Today, those two nations are the safest and most stable countries in Europe, yet they are excoriated by the others for practicing the very policies that make them the shining examples of what the continent could be.  The lepers are screaming at the healthy, “Be like us.”

Is a reversal of the currently unfolding self-destruction possible?  Yes, but the bandage must be painfully ripped off.  Mass deportation, previously unthinkable to the leftist mind, is now being seriously discussed as a necessity.  Painful solutions, however, are not something ignorant populations accept, or even understand.

As our Founders understood, evils will be suffered while they are sufferable, but eventually, they become neither tolerable nor tolerated.  What happens when the evils are so deeply embedded that removing them is not merely painful, but destructive of the institutions of power?

In the 1940s, European civilization was on the brink of final collapse.  The economies of Italy and Germany had become so distressed that brutal dictatorships were installed as a solution, bringing ever more ruin.  Will history repeat itself?

There is hope.  Bronze was never the best metal; iron is better, but iron is more difficult to forge than the copper-tin alloy of bronze.  Only when the supplies of tin were cut off were the metalsmiths forced to resort to the more abundant, and stronger, elemental iron.  It had been there all along, available the whole time.  (Does this give greater meaning to the word irony?)

By analogy, multiculturalism is the weak alloy of various, incompatible cultures.  The values of Western civilization are the iron — difficult to practice but superior values to which we must return.  Europe can survive, but it will have to be dragged, kicking and screaming (and worse) the whole way.

Viva Hungary.  Viva Poland.

American Thinker