The next time you hear someone complaining that DOGE is “slashing” federal spending or “dismantling” the government, pay close attention. There will almost certainly be an important fact left out: The gargantuan federal deficit.

Every day brings a new sob story about how someone is being hurt by Elon Musk’s chainsaw because some federal program is being shut down, or because a precious federal job has been axed.

Never in any of these is any context provided. And in this case, context is everything.

By the time President Donald Trump took office – four months into the new fiscal year (which started last October), the federal government was already $840 billion in the red. That’s a 58% increase from the prior year.

If all goes well, the deficit for this year will total $1.9 trillion, according to the Treasury Department, which would be the third annual increase.

The result is that the national debt is now $37 trillion – more than double what it was a decade ago. Interest on the debt took off like a rocket under Joe Biden.

None of this is sustainable.

And if anyone suggests to you that Trump’s 2017 tax cuts are to blame, they aren’t.

This year, revenues will equal 18.7% of the nation’s GDP. That’s well above the postwar average of 17.2% – and it is a level that has been topped only seven times in the past 80 years.

Too much spending, not too little taxation, is the problem.

This year, federal spending is on course to equal 25% of GDP, which is significantly higher than the 20% postwar average, and a level topped only twice since World War II – (both times because of massive COVID spending).

Not all of this is Joe Biden’s fault. The federal government has not run a balanced budget since 2001. Ten of the past 20 years have seen annual deficits above $1 trillion. Runaway entitlements are making it nearly impossible to balance the budget. And Republicans have often proved just as eager as Democrats to spend money we don’t have.

But Biden made everything much, much worse.

Why is this context always missing from all those “slashing” stories?

Because Democrats and the press don’t want the public to know just how dire the nation’s fiscal situation is. The public is already generally supportive of DOGE’s efforts to eliminate waste. But if it knew just how bad things were, support for deep spending cuts would only increase.

The same is true for Medicaid. Democrats are howling about proposals to cut Medicaid spending by $800 billion – over 10 years.

What’s never mentioned is the fact that Medicaid spending shot up 68% over the past decade. If the government simply returned to what Medicaid spent the year Biden took office, it would save almost $700 billion over the next decade.

Trump has promised to drain the swamp. He’s off to a fast start. But it will take much more than a few months of high-profile cancellations of grants and firings to get the budget under control. The Golden Age might be upon us, but it will be smothered in its crib if Democrats, weak-kneed Republicans, and a corrupt media keep playing the same games that got us into this mess in the first place.

Editorial Board, Issues and Insights

THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE
Keeper of the Flame of the Enlightenment

Welcome to The Artful Dilettante–a sanctuary of reason and virtue, where reality is your best friend and facts always trump wishful thinking. It is the Lamp of Hope in a dark and musty corner of a crumbling civilization. It is the seedbed of the Republic of Letters and Virtue coming soon to a world near you. It is a place of free minds, free wills, and free markets–without chains, yokes, or harnesses.

The Artful Dilettante is on the front lines of the Liberty Movement. It is intended for people who think rationally as a way of life. There is no place here for the false dichotomies of left and right, haves and have-nots, liberals and conservatives, weak-kneed republicans and self-righteous democrats.  History is, and has always been, about the struggle between liberty and power. The stale bromides and recycled political pablum advanced as solutions by our benighted leadership will find no support here. Great moral problems can not be solved by sleights-of-hand. The true sign of a good idea is the wailing and gnashing of teeth by the ruling class, the Deep State. 

We are ever on the lookout for bold and sweeping ideas, firmly grounded in liberty, which will send the political class into fits of rage.

We always have our finger on the pulse at The Artful Dilettante. We are passionate, keenly perceptive, and yes, somewhat cynical observers of human events and behavior. We are at once above the din and in the fray. We have a nuanced understanding of our political system and the criminals and reprobates who run it. We never accept anything at face value, especially the pronouncements of those in power and the echoes of their dutiful, fawning bottom-dwellers in the media and university faculty lounges. We know that people often aren’t who they say they are and that things aren’t always as they appear to be. We fully agree with the notion that there are no accidents in politics. We reflexively assume that nearly every politician is either lying or stupid and that the vast majority of the American people can be trusted with a deadly weapon but not the right to vote. We fully agree with the words of Jefferson: “The Tree of Liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots.” Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are yours by birthright, not permission. They can be taken away but never granted.

We promise never to be fair and balanced but to tell the unvarnished truth. Fair and balanced just means you’re telling the truth half the time. Remember, all you get when you straddle a fence is a sore ass. We promise to challenge the prevailing wisdom while honoring the universal, timeless truths of our forebears. Lastly, we promise to aggressively promote our vision of a just and peaceful society based on the application of reason to the challenges of life on earth.

The Artful Dilettante

Being a good man isn’t just about being nice or doing the right thing when people are watching. It goes deeper than that.

A truly good man has certain qualities that make him stand out—not because he’s perfect, but because he consistently tries to be better. And psychology gives us some clear signs of what those qualities are.

What makes a man genuinely good? It’s not about wealth, status, or looks. It’s about how he treats others, how he handles challenges, and the kind of values he lives by.

Here are seven qualities that define a truly good man, according to psychology.

1) He treats others with kindness

One of the clearest signs of a truly good man is how he treats people—not just those who can do something for him, but everyone.

Psychology tells us that kindness isn’t just about being polite. It’s a reflection of empathy, emotional intelligence, and a deep understanding of others.

A good man doesn’t just act kind when it’s convenient. He shows respect to waiters, cashiers, coworkers, and even strangers on the street. He listens, offers help when needed, and treats others with dignity.

And here’s the thing—kindness isn’t weakness. In fact, research suggests that compassionate people tend to be more confident and secure in themselves.

So if you want to know if a man is truly good, just watch how he treats the people around him.

2) He takes responsibility for his actions

One of the biggest signs of a truly good man is that he owns up to his mistakes. He doesn’t make excuses, shift blame, or try to cover things up—he acknowledges when he’s wrong and works to make it right.

I remember a time when I messed up at work. I had forgotten to send an important email, and it caused a delay for the whole team. My first instinct was to justify it—I was busy, I had other things on my plate—but deep down, I knew that wasn’t the point. So instead, I admitted my mistake, apologized, and immediately worked on fixing it.

The surprising thing? My coworkers respected me more for it. Taking responsibility didn’t make me look weak—it showed that I was reliable and accountable, which are qualities people appreciate in both personal and professional relationships.

A truly good man understands that nobody is perfect. What matters is how he handles his imperfections.

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3) He is emotionally intelligent

A truly good man doesn’t just understand his own emotions—he understands the emotions of those around him. He knows how to manage his feelings, communicate effectively, and respond to situations with empathy rather than impulse.

In fact, studies show that emotional intelligence is a stronger predictor of success than IQ. People who can regulate their emotions and navigate social situations well tend to have better relationships, stronger leadership skills, and higher overall well-being.

Instead of reacting out of anger or frustration, a good man takes a step back, processes his emotions, and responds in a way that fosters understanding. Whether it’s in friendships, romantic relationships, or the workplace, his ability to stay calm and connect with others makes all the difference.

4) He keeps his word

A truly good man does what he says he will do. He doesn’t make empty promises or say things just to please others—his words carry weight because he follows through on them.

Trending around the web:

• The 8 things that women value most in a relationship – Global English Editing
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Reliability is one of the key traits that build trust in any relationship. When a man consistently keeps his commitments, whether big or small, people know they can depend on him. And trust, once broken, is hard to rebuild.

It’s not about being perfect—life happens, and sometimes plans change. But a good man communicates honestly when he can’t follow through and does his best to make things right. His word isn’t just talk—it’s a reflection of his character.

5) He stays true to his values

A truly good man doesn’t change who he is just to fit in or gain approval. He knows what he stands for, and he lives by those principles, even when it’s inconvenient or unpopular.

There are moments in life when doing the right thing is the harder choice. Walking away from a toxic friendship, speaking up when something feels wrong, or standing by a decision even when others don’t agree—it’s not always easy. But a man with strong values doesn’t compromise just to make things easier for himself.

It’s not about being stubborn or refusing to listen to others. A good man is open-minded, willing to learn, and capable of growth. But at his core, he stays true to who he is, no matter the situation.

6) He supports and uplifts others

A truly good man doesn’t feel the need to put others down to lift himself up. Instead, he encourages, supports, and celebrates the success of those around him.

In relationships, friendships, and even at work, he wants others to thrive. He listens without judgment, offers help when needed, and genuinely feels happy when people succeed. His confidence comes from within, not from competition or comparison.

People who practice gratitude and support others tend to have stronger relationships and greater overall happiness. A good man understands this—he knows that life isn’t a competition but something we all navigate together. And when he helps others rise, he rises too.

7) He chooses to do the right thing, even when no one is watching

Character isn’t built in public—it’s revealed in the moments when no one else is around. A truly good man does the right thing, not for praise or recognition, but because it aligns with who he is.

Integrity is what defines him. He doesn’t cut corners, take advantage of others, or act differently when he thinks no one will find out. His actions are guided by his own sense of morality, not by the fear of consequences or the need for approval.

Doing the right thing isn’t always easy, and it’s not always rewarded. But a good man understands that his true character is measured by what he does when no one else is looking.

Bottom line: Character is a choice

What makes a man truly good isn’t just personality or upbringing—it’s the choices he makes every day.

Psychologists have long studied moral character, and one thing is clear: integrity, kindness, and emotional intelligence aren’t just traits people are born with. They are developed through actions, habits, and a commitment to doing the right thing.

A good man isn’t perfect. He makes mistakes, faces challenges, and struggles like everyone else. But what sets him apart is his willingness to grow, to take responsibility, and to stay true to his values even when it’s difficult.

At the end of the day, being a good man isn’t about grand gestures or seeking recognition. It’s about the quiet decisions—the ones no one sees but that define who he really is.

The call that would upend his life came 11 years ago.

His daughter had hanged herself; she was now on life support.

He rushed to her bedside, but eventually the time came when the machine would be turned off.

The father placed his hand on his daughter’s chest, found her heartbeat and willed her to push through.

Her heart slowed and slowed and slowed. Then it stopped.

She was gone.

The anguish crashed down on him like a tank, compounding the despair he carried after another suicide 14 years earlier. He and his brother had found his father, a Vietnam War veteran, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

In an interview, the 54-year-old suicide prevention case manager with the Department of Veterans Affairs painfully recalled his agonizing journey, which also included beating cancer, as he grappled with a new crisis of his own.

The world he turned to for salvation — returning to school at age 46, specifically to become a social worker so he could work in suicide prevention with veterans — was now in turmoil.

Like the roughly 2 million workers across the federal government, he is watching his colleagues and the veterans he’s trying to help lose their livelihoods or weather a barrage of messages that federal workers have no value — often coming directly from the president and the people he has empowered.

The White House did not return a request for comment.

“When you have a purpose in life and you found your thing, and then all of a sudden it’s being destroyed — you lose all hope,” the suicide prevention manager said, his voice fading. The federal worker, like others quoted in this story, asked that he remain anonymous for fear of reprisal. “I hurt for everybody who’s impacted by it, you know? I mean, I hate to say it, but I work in suicide prevention and I had thoughts. I’ve had thoughts of not wanting to be here anymore.”

NBC News spoke with 20 federal employees across agencies. Spanning the country, these workers lost their jobs, watched co-workers lose them or endured what amounted to a Goliath joyously stomping on David. In interviews, federal workers — many of whom are veterans — told of overwhelming stress, personal crises, suicidal ideation, rapid weight loss, prolonged lack of sleep, panic attacks and visiting the emergency room after a mental breakdown.

They’re facing bombardment from every angle, some showing screenshots to reporters of offensive messages delivered over text and social media, which in turn echo misinformation that billionaire Elon Musk has elevated on his X platform — for example that federal workers are lazy, that they themselves are a source of waste and fraud, and that they don’t bother to come to the office.

Some, particularly veterans or those who assist veterans, expressed fury they’re being denigrated by Musk and a president who never wore a military uniform. Trump, a president for whom some of them voted, even posted an insulting meme about federal workers on his Truth Social account that showed an image of the cartoon character SpongeBob holding a list.

It read, “Got done last week,” an apparent reference to Musk’s request of federal workers that they send an email pointing to five things they did at work. “Cried about Trump. Cried about Elon. Made it into the office for once. Read some emails. Cried about Trump and Elon some more.”

Sarah Boim, a 38-year-old who was fired from her job with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said she grew so distraught that her therapist told her to find a psychiatrist and immediately get on an antidepressant. Boim said she and her husband cannot pay their mortgage on one income and she is desperately searching for work.

“Your career is ripped away from you, with no money to move forward,” Boim said. “I have bipolar. It’ll mess up my life if I have an episode. So we’re just trying to be really careful. I’m hearing stuff like that across the agency.”

“I knew there would be reorganization. I wasn’t expecting this level of chaos,” Boim added. “Taking a sledgehammer approach and having an unelected billionaire in my email is just insane. What are his qualifications for doing this? The government is not a startup; we have been in business since 1776.”

Some who voted for Trump said they regret believing him as a candidate when he said he rejected Project 2025, whose co-author Russell Vought said he wanted to put federal civil servants “in trauma.” Once in office, Trump tapped Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget, a powerful post.

“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” Vought said in a speech in the lead-up to the Nov. 4 election. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.”

So far, they say, Vought is succeeding.

One Department of Defense employee who did two tours in Iraq said his post-traumatic stress disorder was triggered to the point that he called a suicide hotline, then visited an emergency room at a veterans hospital. The employee said he and colleagues felt unspeakable frustration and anger after relentless mocking by Musk that was supported by Trump, who he said appeared to be delighting in the distress of his own workforce.

The worker said his episode emerged the weekend Musk made a display of joyously lifting a chain saw while appearing at a conservative conference. In that same period, employees were deluged with messaging from Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, that ranged from termination notices to confusing emails that were often contradicted by supervisors.

“It’s not about the layoffs. It’s about a dehumanization of who we are and what we do,” he said, noting he voted for Trump because he liked what the president did in his first stint in office. Now, he said, he carries guilt over his Trump vote after he watched co-workers and other veterans at the emergency room. “We don’t do it for the applause. We do it to serve our country and serve our community. You get into public service not for the money but because you want to be part of something greater than yourself.”

Katherine Freeman had been working for 10 months as an administrative assistant for the CDC specializing in tuberculosis when she received a mass email saying she had been fired because of her performance. She had received only positive performance reviews and was in line for a promotion.

“This really knocked me off my feet to get a generic letter that is basically a template. It didn’t even have my name on it. It was just attached to an email,” said Freeman. “To tell people who are performing well that they’re being terminated for poor performance and you’re not getting a severance package, that’s just a cruel way to to handle your employees. I think that’s what people are upset about.”

“Everybody understands that the government needs to spend less money, and we get that. But if you’re going to do a layoff, do a layoff the right way.”

One VA worker who was just fired, a mother of three young kids, said colleagues all around her are sinking into hopelessness.

“You wonder what is going to happen in the world, in general. What will that look like for our children?” she said. “For other people’s kids, they say, ‘It’s not just my life, but my children’s lives. Where are we going?’”

A different VA worker who served in the Navy for more than a decade described having dropped 20 pounds in a month and losing her hair. She, like others, described behavior from Musk and Trump as taunting and triggering a sense of powerlessness and anger. Reaching a breaking point, she called a suicide hotline for help.

“Serving my vets is what I live for. They need me. They need an understanding person on the other end of the phone call,” said the woman. “I will be destroyed if they fire me.”

None of the workers opposed cutting excess. But many described what they saw playing out in their agencies as chaotic and haphazard — like rushing to push boxes off a sinking Titanic without looking at what was inside. Some said their abrupt dismissal would leave programs in the lurch, like those that help farmers or facilitate trade for small businesses.

“I’m like so many other government employees I talked to. It’s their f—–g mission in life to help veterans who are struggling. Please quote me on that,” the VA suicide prevention manager said. “I’ve yet to have a person that can, to my face, tell me that my job is not needed. I just tell people what I do and ask them to explain to me: What part of my job is waste or fraud?”

The defense employee, whose job entails refurbishing and updating technology on Navy ships, said the constant attack on federal workers has made him want to walk away, move to the private sector and draw a bigger salary. But he recalled during one of his Army tours in Iraq that his unit needed armor reinforcement on its Humvee. A federal worker came through for him in that perilous moment.

“I get to do that now, with sailors in the Navy. I’m working to help sailors in the Navy be prepared to engage the Chinese if they go after Taiwan,” the defense worker said. “I’m not going to quit, not going to give up. Because I’m not just giving up on my country, I’m giving up on the sailor and the war fighter that is going to be in immense danger if I do that.”

“That’s what a lot of us are remembering: what we do and why we do it, and it’s bigger than this stupid political stuff. This is people’s lives.”

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or chat live at 988lifeline.org. You can also visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional support.

EDITOR’S NOTE. Tough s**t ! Get a job in the private sector if you’re qualified for anything.

Cutting government waste should be a “bipartisan no-brainer,” but Democrats are overgeneralizing with their objections to President Donald Trump’s agenda and judges are siding with them, former federal prosecutor Doug Burns said on Newsmax Sunday. 

“In our toxic media world, Democrats jump on and say you’re cutting aid for a grandmother who has cancer,” Burns told Newsmax’s “Wake Up America Weekend.” “That’s not productive, and it’s an overgeneralization.”

But Republicans are saying, “with much more credibility,” that they are cutting waste and fraud, said Burns. 

Burns responded to a ruling from U.S. District Judge John McConnell Thursday that blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to freeze funding for programs that do not align with the president’s mandate, siding with Democrat attorneys general from 22 states and Washington, D.C. 

McConnell said in his ruling that the executive branch, with its orders to freeze funding, was trying to put itself “above Congress,” which “undermines the distinct constitutional roles of each branch of our government.”

“What really got lost as it got translated into the media is that it was an authorization to pay for work that had already been completed,” said Burns. “I think everybody didn’t focus on that. Certainly, the left didn’t want to focus on it.”

The issue, he added, involves the scope of executive power and whether a president can freeze funds without congressional approval. 

“I mean, Barack Obama told us all you need is a fountain pen,” said Burns. “Everybody forgot that, apparently.”

We’re always fascinated by people who make it their business to jump out of airplanes, drive in car races or risk thousands in the stock market. Why is risk a way of life for some, and for others, it’s all about avoiding risk at all cost?

The psychology of risk assumes that there are different kinds of risks. For some, risk-taking reduces boredom. For others, it’s a means to an end — a necessary evil in order to gain something better. Risk describes a wide array of motivations and incentives.

One type of risk taker is the sensation seeker. They need the rush they experience when doing something dangerous; from mountain climbing and skydiving to drugs and gambling to day trading in the stock market. Risks can be reckless (such as drugs), or reasonably undertaken (as with the relative safety of organized car racing). But sensation and excitement are the motivation for all.

Interestingly, risk-taking personalities are the exact opposite of those who suffer from depression. Clinically depressed people hold negative assumptions about virtually everything. They assume that it’s not possible to get what you want in life; that people are not to be trusted, and that no matter how careful they are, their endeavors won’t turn out well. Conversely, risk takers minimize the possibility that things might not go well, and focus on what might go well. Depressed people often focus on luck or fate. Risk takers are more concerned with exercising control over their environment.

Seeking that rush can be reckless. Some people drink too much and drive like maniacs. Cautious risk takers approach extreme hobbies such as surfing, skiing, skydiving and gun collecting with intelligence and responsibility. The difference? While some blindly go by the seat of their pants, rational risk takers plan for and try to guard against the attendant dangers.

Intelligent risk taking is mentally healthy. “No pain, no gain” actually means, “No risk taken, no possibility of gain.” I spend a lot of time trying to convince clinically depressed people to think more like this.

Marvin Zuckerman, Ph.D., a researcher commenting on risk in Psychology Today, agrees. “Although risk taking has negative aspects…, it is a positive force as well. Without risk, humanity would stagnate; there would be little impetus for discovery.” He’s right. Every forward step in history involves someone taking a risk. What’s true for mankind is equally true for individuals: In order to accomplish something we want, we have to take chances. If we don’t, we’ll never know if we could have achieved our goal.

You want a nicer house? Or a medical degree? Or a new romantic partner? Then you figure out how to go about it. If you discover you can’t, then you have to accept reality. But if you can, you proceed without letting fear hold you back. Risk takers trust their intelligence to figure out what does and what doesn’t make sense. And then they act. Depressed people become paralyzed with fear, never progressing into the realm of action. Foregoing all risks, they’re rewarded with nothing more than paralysis and depression.

The depressed person thinks, “I don’t want to make a mistake. So I’ll stay put.” The risk taker says, “I’m going to assume it can go well until there’s good evidence to the contrary.” To the non-risk taker, that attitude seems downright crazy. Yet the typical risk taker will tell you that when the process is carefully thought out, things generally go better than expected. Even in the midst of failure or disappointment, the risk taker feels like he or she is at least living life rather than hiding from it.

Risk gets a bad name because it gets lumped with sensation-seeking. But they aren’t the same. Diving out of airplanes and the like are fine for people who pursue these activities intelligently and rationally, but they are far from being life requirements. On the other hand, neurotically avoiding reasonable day-to-day challenges can be an even greater risk to your psychological health.

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

Longtime TV host and bestselling author Bill O’Reilly said the Democratic Party is “on the verge of collapse” after the taunting they took from President Donald Trump led to a “myriad of mistakes.”

O’Reilly made the comments in an interview on NewsNation on Thursday night.

“He taunted the Democratic Party into making a myriad of mistakes,” O’Reilly said on “Cuomo,” referring to Democrats’ lack of decorum during Trump’s joint address to Congress on Tuesday night.

Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, was ejected from the chamber and subsequently censured on Thursday, with 10 Democrats voting to reprimand their colleague. Roughly a dozen progressives held signs, walked out of the chamber and refused to clap for anything. Democrats even refused to acknowledge a 13-year-old cancer survivor who Trump honored during the speech.

“I think the Democratic Party is on the verge of collapse,” O’Reilly said.

Remember when the phrase ‘the Resistance’ would conjure up visions of sexy French youths in berets battling actual Nazis? Now all it brings to mind is ageing dullards in pink suits holding up signs saying ‘This is not normal’ while sporting the most turbo-smug look on their faces. As US president Donald Trump spoke to a joint session of Congress last night, ‘across the aisle the Resistance was stirring’, gushed the Guardian’s DC reporter. His piece was illustrated with a pic of some congresswoman in pearls and a balding Democrat looking aghast as Trump talked. Seriously, if this is ‘the Resistance’, the world’s tyrants can rest easy.

Yesterday’s ‘Democrat fightback’ and ‘resistance to Trump’s rhetoric’ – journalists are literally calling it that – was next-level cringe. It occurred during Trump’s 100-minute speech, the longest Congress talk in 60 years. As Trump bashed Joe Biden and bigged up Elon Musk, the Dems came over all soixante-huitard. Fury coursed through their ranks. Then the revolt started. The Squad’s Rashida Tlaib held up a scrawled sign saying ‘That’s a lie!’. Dem representative Al Green ‘shook his cane and pointed his finger’ and cried ‘You have no mandate’ to cut Medicaid. How the regime must have quaked at the sight of this revolution!

The way some hacks are talking about this tantrum masquerading as a protest you’d think it was a modern-day storming of the Bastille. The Dems’ ‘stirring’ acts of rebellion will have ‘given hope to the Resistance’ and sent a message to ‘the world’, said the Guardian. Nurse! Even leftists who’ve been disappointed with the Dem establishment seemed to get a moral kick from this political pantomime. So far, the ‘resistance’ to the Trumpist tyranny has been ‘splintered’, but now we know it’s ‘getting better’, fawned Vox. Perhaps, it said, we’ll soon see the ‘aggressive resistance’ we really need.

Can these people hear themselves? Overpaid politicians holding up mass-produced black placards with hackneyed complaints like ‘False’ and ‘Liar’ are not ‘the Resistance’ – they’re the establishment cosplaying as campus radicals for likes and headlines. In one especially squirming scene, some Dems ‘removed their outer business wear’ to reveal black t-shirts with the word ‘RESIST’ in ‘bold white letters’. Their delusions of radicalism are off the scale. Resistance is when young Iranian women rip off their hijabs or Kurdish revolutionaries fight the neo-fascists of ISIS, not when politicians on $174,000 a year put on a t-shirt their stressed intern ordered from some hip printer on 7th Street.

This wasn’t an uprising – it was an orgy of vanity. The Democrat benches were a sea of self-satisfaction. The face of every member of this ‘Resistance’ was etched with pride as they held up their dumb signs mocking Musk or branding Trump a liar (original!). The revolting Dems have ‘shown the world what they are against’ – now they need to show us ‘what they are for’, said the Guardian. I’ll tell you what they’re for: themselves. They co-opted the paraphernalia of protest to make a garish display of their own virtue.

There was rank hypocrisy, too. Some of the Democratic congresswomen sported pink suits to signal their fury with Trump’s ‘sexist’ policies that negatively impact women. Hold on – didn’t the Dems just torpedo a Republican bill that would have forbidden blokes (‘transwomen’) from taking part in women’s sport? Literally the day before the Democrats brought a ‘wave of pink’ to Congress, they shot down a bill that would have preserved the liberty and dignity of women and girls who just want to play sport without some hulking fella pushing them around. Honestly, Trump is Betty Friedan reincarnate in comparison with these woke wreckers of women’s rights.Rarely has the gulf between the elite’s virtue-signalling and its real-world destructive behaviour been so starkly illustrated. These congresswomen sign the death warrant of female sports one day and then swan around in pink the next to show what feminist bravehearts they are. These are incalculable levels of cant. If you think we’re going to take lectures on women’s rights from a political class that will happily sacrifice a girl’s right to sport in order to placate their own Oberlin-attending offspring, you’ve got another thing coming.

Brendan O’Neill
chief political writer5th March 2025

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Remember when the phrase ‘the Resistance’ would conjure up visions of sexy French youths in berets battling actual Nazis? Now all it brings to mind is ageing dullards in pink suits holding up signs saying ‘This is not normal’ while sporting the most turbo-smug look on their faces. As US president Donald Trump spoke to a joint session of Congress last night, ‘across the aisle the Resistance was stirring’, gushed the Guardian’s DC reporter. His piece was illustrated with a pic of some congresswoman in pearls and a balding Democrat looking aghast as Trump talked. Seriously, if this is ‘the Resistance’, the world’s tyrants can rest easy.

Yesterday’s ‘Democrat fightback’ and ‘resistance to Trump’s rhetoric’ – journalists are literally calling it that – was next-level cringe. It occurred during Trump’s 100-minute speech, the longest Congress talk in 60 years. As Trump bashed Joe Biden and bigged up Elon Musk, the Dems came over all soixante-huitard. Fury coursed through their ranks. Then the revolt started. The Squad’s Rashida Tlaib held up a scrawled sign saying ‘That’s a lie!’. Dem representative Al Green ‘shook his cane and pointed his finger’ and cried ‘You have no mandate’ to cut Medicaid. How the regime must have quaked at the sight of this revolution!

The way some hacks are talking about this tantrum masquerading as a protest you’d think it was a modern-day storming of the Bastille. The Dems’ ‘stirring’ acts of rebellion will have ‘given hope to the Resistance’ and sent a message to ‘the world’, said the Guardian. Nurse! Even leftists who’ve been disappointed with the Dem establishment seemed to get a moral kick from this political pantomime. So far, the ‘resistance’ to the Trumpist tyranny has been ‘splintered’, but now we know it’s ‘getting better’, fawned Vox. Perhaps, it said, we’ll soon see the ‘aggressive resistance’ we really need.

Can these people hear themselves? Overpaid politicians holding up mass-produced black placards with hackneyed complaints like ‘False’ and ‘Liar’ are not ‘the Resistance’ – they’re the establishment cosplaying as campus radicals for likes and headlines. In one especially squirming scene, some Dems ‘removed their outer business wear’ to reveal black t-shirts with the word ‘RESIST’ in ‘bold white letters’. Their delusions of radicalism are off the scale. Resistance is when young Iranian women rip off their hijabs or Kurdish revolutionaries fight the neo-fascists of ISIS, not when politicians on $174,000 a year put on a t-shirt their stressed intern ordered from some hip printer on 7th Street.

This wasn’t an uprising – it was an orgy of vanity. The Democrat benches were a sea of self-satisfaction. The face of every member of this ‘Resistance’ was etched with pride as they held up their dumb signs mocking Musk or branding Trump a liar (original!). The revolting Dems have ‘shown the world what they are against’ – now they need to show us ‘what they are for’, said the Guardian. I’ll tell you what they’re for: themselves. They co-opted the paraphernalia of protest to make a garish display of their own virtue.

There was rank hypocrisy, too. Some of the Democratic congresswomen sported pink suits to signal their fury with Trump’s ‘sexist’ policies that negatively impact women. Hold on – didn’t the Dems just torpedo a Republican bill that would have forbidden blokes (‘transwomen’) from taking part in women’s sport? Literally the day before the Democrats brought a ‘wave of pink’ to Congress, they shot down a bill that would have preserved the liberty and dignity of women and girls who just want to play sport without some hulking fella pushing them around. Honestly, Trump is Betty Friedan reincarnate in comparison with these woke wreckers of women’s rights.

Rarely has the gulf between the elite’s virtue-signalling and its real-world destructive behaviour been so starkly illustrated. These congresswomen sign the death warrant of female sports one day and then swan around in pink the next to show what feminist bravehearts they are. These are incalculable levels of cant. If you think we’re going to take lectures on women’s rights from a political class that will happily sacrifice a girl’s right to sport in order to placate their own Oberlin-attending offspring, you’ve got another thing coming.

This preening display exposed the truth about ‘the Resistance’. It was always the establishment larping as rebels, shamelessly plundering the history and the style of protest to add a gloss of legitimacy to their pursuit of their own class interests in the populist era. From those coastal movers and shakers who wore pink pussy hats to the Ivy League radicals who shouted ‘Nazi!’ every time they heard the name Trump, this was the elite mourning its waning cultural power, not a revolt against The Man. ‘The Resistance’ is The Man. I knew that eight years ago when Stylist magazine gushed that Hillary Clinton had joined the resistance. I mean, come on.

The smug wailing in Congress sounded to me like the death rattle of ‘the Resistance’. These were the last gasps, I hope, of the ancien regime. At some point they’re going to have to fess up to the fact that the real rebels in America are those tens of millions of working people who voted for the overthrow of the old politics, not the pampered muppets defending that old politics. Can we have the word ‘resistance’ back now, please? It’s too important to let it be stolen by a knackered old ruling class that has the gall to disguise its ruthless self-interest as glorious rebellion.

Brendan O’Neill is spiked’s chief political writer and host of the spiked podcast, The Brendan O’Neill Show. Subscribe to the podcast here. His new book – After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation – is available to order on Amazon UK and Amazon US now. And find Brendan on Instagram: @burntoakboy

John Podesta, Biden’s top climate czar, was in charge of doling out $375 billion in climate change spending, which had been sent to many charities founded only months ago.

The New York Post wrote:

The Biden administration funneled at least $20 billion dollars into environmental groups, most of which had only recently been founded, The Post has discovered.

In one case, former Vice President Kamala Harris handed over a check for nearly $7 billion to Bethesda, Maryland, based group Climate United Fund, which does not appear in the IRS’s charities database, and has no federal filings.

in 2024, EPA adviser Brent Efron was caught on video saying the environmental regulatory agency had rushed out its $20 billion in climate funding.

“Get the money out as fast as possible before they [Trump administration] come in … it’s like we’re on the Titanic and we’re throwing gold bars off the edge,” Efron said in a video posted by Project Veritas.

WATCH — Climate Protest Disrupts Sigourney Weaver’s London “Tempest” Play Performance:https://rumble.com/embed/v6ci9k1/?pub=he97b

EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said on the Alex Marlow Show that he is working with the FBI and DOJ on the eight groups tied to the “gold bars” scheme:

Zeldin said that “the director of the greenhouse reduction fund left an NGO to come to the Biden administration, becomes the director of the greenhouse reduction fund, and gave their former employer $5 billion.”

He noted that one CEO who applied for a $20 million grant sat on the Biden White House environmental justice council, which had only received $3 million over the prior three years.

The EPA had uncovered that $2 billion was set aside for a climate change group, Power Forward Communities, which is associated with Democrat Stacey Abrams, even though the organization had only reported $100 in revenue.

“We want to reestablish more oversight controls. We want to have accountability over every penny. I want to have the ability to sit before Congress and you can ask me 20 of your top questions, and I want to have answers for every single one of them on top of my head,” Zeldin continued, sharing his desire to have maximum transparency over agency spending.

The release of Conclave mere weeks before the U.S. presidential election is no accident. This is a movie about the high-stakes, contentious selection process of a new leader at a time of widening political division. The drama of Conclave includes candidates, campaigning, endorsements, ballot boxes, a “college” of electors, secret conversations in dimly lit halls of power, and even jarring attempts to undermine the democratic process. Sure, Conclave isn’t about selecting a new president; it’s about selecting a new pope. But the parallels are obvious and intentional.

Directed by Edward Berger and adapted from the 2016 novel by Robert Harris, Conclave seems to suggest the contemporary Roman Catholic Church is just as corrupt and broken as American democracy, and just as driven by the egos of overconfident men and their appetites for power. While it makes some fair points, in the end Conclave’s potency is compromised by its inability to conceal clear bias in a certain direction.

Electoral Parallels

I enjoyed Berger’s last film, 2022’s Oscar-winning All Quiet on the Western Front. But that film was heavy-handed in forcing its point in unsubtle ways. Unfortunately, the same tendency bogs down Conclave.

The fictional film follows a papal conclave that happens in the wake of a beloved pope’s death. Most of the drama takes place within the Vatican’s walls as the College of Cardinals gathers to elect a new bishop of Rome. The cardinals spend several days going through multiple secret ballot votes until a candidate wins at least a two-thirds majority of votes. All of it is totally hidden from the public and the press, save the black or white smoke that emanates from the Sistine Chapel’s chimney, indicating a failed vote or successful election of a new pope.

Sure, Conclave isn’t about selecting a new president; it’s about selecting a new pope. But the parallels are obvious and intentional.

Much of this is interesting to watch, even as a Protestant believer who finds the papacy and the Roman Catholic idea of apostolic succession unbiblical. The film’s inside look at such a secretive but long-held tradition is Conclave’s greatest strength.

A troupe of excellent actors enhances the drama’s prestige: The excellent Ralph Fiennes plays Cardinal Thomas Lawrence, who presides over the conclave and allies with liberal cardinals like Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci). Both are contenders to be the next pope, as are Cardinal Tremblay (John Lithgow) and Cardinal Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati). The film is at its best when it subtly observes these men’s characters and allows the audience to discern their integrity (or lack thereof), particularly whether they’re more defined by humility or ambition.

Many times, though, the film oversells its political parallels. One character says, “I feel like I’m at some American political convention.” Another makes a comment obviously directed straight at the American viewer in 2024: “Is this what we’re reduced to, voting for the least-worst option?”

The conclave’s primary factions fall roughly along a progressive/conservative split that mirrors American politics. To be sure, there is a divide in the Catholic Church between those who prioritize conserving tradition and those who seek an updated, more inclusive church. But in Conclave, this split doesn’t concern theology as much as it does the issues driving American politics.

One giveaway is the character Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), the Trump-esque conservative candidate campaigning on a platform of traditionalism and nationalism (essentially “Make the papacy Italian again!”). He has an ostentatious swagger about him and doesn’t mince words as he critiques the previous pope and decries encroaching liberalism. When incidents of Islamist terror happen outside the Vatican walls over the course of the conclave, Tedesco uses the opportunity to ratchet up the us-versus-them rhetoric his liberal opponents despise.

The liberal cardinals respond to Tedesco in the way American progressives respond to Trump. They say things like “We liberals have to unite against him!” and “It’s a war!” They argue a Tedesco victory would undo decades of progress and send Rome back to the dark ages.

Watching Conclave, it’s hard to imagine actual cardinals talking about one another in these ways, demonizing “the other side” with brazen partisan rhetoric. But this film doesn’t attempt to accurately reflect the Catholic Church’s reality as much as to land points about the type of Christianity it doesn’t like (traditional/conservative) and the type it hopes will prevail (progressive).