Can you imagine what it was like to be one of the hostages held by Hamas for more than two years? Can you imagine the fear, the sense of having no control, the humiliation, the deprivation? Can you imagine living underground day after day, month after month, cut off from family and friends, knowing that this living hell could go on for years?

Very few of us have experienced anything remotely close to what these hostages experienced, which makes their resilience and courage all the more amazing. What can they teach us about life? What lessons can we learn from them?

Without question, most of them face a long road to recovery before life can be fully normal again. And sometimes internal wounds heal much more slowly than external wounds. Yet even now, their stories are inspiring courage and strength among others, as their very release has invigorated a nation that has lived in collective trauma since October 7, 2023.

Eli Sharabi endured 491 days in captivity before his release, determined to survive his ordeal for his wife and two teenage daughters, from whom he was separated on October 7 when Hamas took over Kibbutz Be’eri.

He assured them he would be back as the terrorists dragged him away, feeling confident that not even Hamas would take women and children hostage, also hoping that their British passports would save their lives. He also wanted to be strong for his older brother Yossi, who lived in the same Kibbutz and worked for years side by side with Eli.

Eli has now shared his story in the gripping book titled Hostage. (If you enjoy audiobooks, the reading of Sharabi’s story by Geoffrey Cantor is incredibly moving.)

What was one of the keys to Sharabi’s survival? He said to himself, as well as to the other hostages with whom he was imprisoned at times, “There is always a choice. You always have a choice.”

It was true that they had no choice in terms of being prisoners of Hamas. They were captured against their wills, kept shackled against their wills, dragged into dungeons against their wills, stripped and humiliated against their wills, separated from their loved ones against their wills, and deprived of adequate food against their wills.

Yet even as lowly hostages, they had a choice: Will I cave in emotionally and let fear win? Will I give way to despair and lose all hope? Will I throw a pity party for myself? Will I believe the negative reports being shared by the captors, reports that Israel had forgotten about the hostages, that the nation had lost its will to fight, that it was suffering terrible losses to Hezbollah and to Iran?

Some of the hostages were given the choice of getting adequate food if they would convert to Islam. Would they let hunger override their moral and religious convictions?

Some of the hostages were people of faith, others much more secular. Yet each of them made choices every day, choices to survive, choices that said to Hamas, “Even though you have power over our bodies, you do not have power over our minds and souls. That is why, we will make it to the end.”

Eli Sharabi’s story was especially cruel, as, just days before his release, he learned from a Hamas captor that his brother Yossi had been murdered on October 7. Yossi was gone!

Then, on his way to meet his family with his IDF escorts, he was told, “Your mother and sister are waiting for you.”

His mother and sister? What about his wife and daughters? What about them? He was told that his mother and sister would explain.

It was only then that he learned that the light of his eyes and the joy of his life, his precious wife and daughters, had been slaughtered by the terrorists right there in the kibbutz. He would never see them again.

Remarkably, as unspeakably agonizing as this news was, he had already gone through every possibility in his mind during his long months in captivity, considering the possibility of this horrific news too. In that sense, as devastating as the loss was, he had already braced himself. Such was his resolve. (I must confess that I broke down weeping during this part of the story as I listened to the audio book, even though I already knew it was coming.)

What then, can we learn from these heroes?

First, like them, we always have a choice – in the midst of sickness, in the midst of loss, in the midst of pain, in the midst of betrayal, in the midst of deprivation, in the midst of whatever cruelties life brings. (A psychologist might object here, saying that in cases like clinical depression, people sometimes cannot choose to get out of the depression. For the record then, rather than play psychologist, I’m speaking to all of us who do have the ability to control our thoughts.)

We can choose to capitulate, to cease living, to throw in the towel for good. Or we can choose to get out of bed, to function (even if we feel like robots), to say, “I will survive!” And with God’s help, we can and we will.

Eli and his fellow-hostages determined to find something for which they could be thankful every day. That is a choice we too can make.

Second, we must remember that in many ways, these Israelis were already battle-tested, having faced rocket bombardments for years, having taken refuge in bomb shelters and safe rooms countless times, having served in the IDF, and having understood what it is to be hated by one’s surrounding neighbors.

And so, as no strangers to adversity, they understood that what did not kill them only made them stronger.

This reminds me of the words of Paul, who wrote that, we not only boast in our hope of the glory of God, “but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” (Romans 5:3-4)

And it was Paul, whose sufferings for righteousness were almost beyond description (see 2 Corinthians 11:23-33), who wrote to his young disciple Timothy, saying, “Take your share of suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.” (2 Timothy 2:3)

There are lessons here for us!

Dr. Michael Brown

On Thursday, Senate Democrats voted for the 10th time to prolong the federal government shutdown. They also voted against funding the military, thereby necessitating that the Pentagon initiate some innovative accounting in order to ensure service members are paid on time.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) defended his caucus’s latest vote, opining, “It’s always been unacceptable to Democrats to do the defense bill without other bills that have so many things that are important to the American people in terms of health care, in terms of housing, in terms of safety.” But to most Americans, such tendentious bloviating falls on deaf ears. Most commonsense Americans understand that there is no reason paying America’s warriors should be held hostage to arcane debates over housing policy.

As Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), one of three Senate Democrats who joined Republicans on Thursday in support of the defense appropriations bill, put it earlier this week: “You know, if you’re thinking about winning the election, now, that’s all going to come down to seven or eight states. … And a lot of the things, the extremism that people turned their back in ’24, and that’s how we kind of came up short.”

It’s wise advice. But Fetterman is likely to pay for being such a rare voice of (relative) reason within the party with an impending bruising Senate primary contest.

Why exactly are Democrats, who control neither chamber of Congress nor the presidency, continuing to insist on a protracted shutdown battle? It’s a more complex question than it ought to be. But the basic disagreement amounts to one over expiring Obamacare subsidies and the scope of Medicaid coverage — pertaining, to no small extent, to illegal aliens.

In short, then, air traffic control operations are suffering from a potentially dangerous shortage, America’s beautiful national parks are understaffed, and service members could go without pay — all, seemingly, because Democrats think more taxpayer dollars should go toward subsidizing the health care of illegal aliens.

This is an astonishingly weak negotiating position. Minority parties completely out of power typically do not get what they want during high-profile Beltway budgetary standoffs or shutdown fights, and there is very little reason to expect Republicans to cave. As the shutdown goes on, moreover, the polling on which side is more to blame seems to be gradually shifting toward Democrats as the more blameworthy side.

It is far from obvious what exactly Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) expect to accomplish as the shutdown barrels ahead toward its third week. They are not going to prevail — and the longer it goes on, the worse political shape they will find themselves in.

Democrats seem to be unable to avoid tripping all over themselves.

On the issue of illegal immigration, the American people are overwhelmingly opposed to their agenda. A Harvard/Harris poll earlier this month revealed that 56% of registered voters support deporting all illegal aliens, and 78% support deporting criminal illegal aliens. On the question of taxpayer subsidization of the genital mutilation and chemical castration procedures often euphemistically referred to as “gender-affirming care,” another culture war sticking point, another recent poll showed that 66% of Americans are in opposition. The polling on biological male participation in women’s sports is even starker.

Illegal immigration and gender radicalism are perhaps the two least popular issues right now for Democrats. Yet they are arguably the two issues most at the forefront of the current Beltway standoff — or at least the debate over the scope of taxpayer funding is.

Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese military strategist, famously taught that a battle is won before it is fought by choosing the terrain on which it is fought. President Donald Trump, the decadeslong branding and marketing genius, already has a keen knack for framing issues in such a way — the art of the 80-20 issue, as this column has called it. And Democrats seem all too eager to make his job easier by choosing the side whose loss is a foregone conclusion.

What gives?

A rational political party interested in self-preservation and electoral success would certainly take a different approach. Such a party would ditch the post-2008 obsession with identity politics and wokeism and revert to the Clinton-era message of economic growth and cultural centrism.

That Democratic leadership is so woefully incapable of doing this, even following Trump’s resounding triumph last November across all the major swing states, indicates that the party is not currently guided by rational calculations. Democrats today are guided not by sober empiricism but by fanciful ideology.

The biggest reason that Trump prevailed in the contentious 2016 Republican presidential primary and has won so much popular support since is that he had little use for abstract ideology. He saw the American people as they are, and he sought to serve them.

Democrats would be wise to follow suit.

Josh Hammer, Real Clear Politics

By Ariel Zeldin

NBC News veteran Andrea Mitchell was scorched online after she appeared to credit the Biden administration for the Gaza peace deal brokered by President Trump.

The 78-year-old host thanked former Secretary of State Antony Blinken for his work “creating the basis for the agreement once the two sides were finally prepared to compromise — we hope!” — a message that many read as giving the Biden team credit for Trump’s breakthrough.

“Thank you for spending two years working toward this moment,” Mitchell wrote Monday on X in a reply to a post by Blinken.

Trump announced the cease-fire last week, calling it the start of a broader push to end the years-long conflict between Israel and Hamas.

The truce led to the release of the last 20 living Israeli hostages and marked the first phase of his 20-point peace plan.

Critics across social media accused Mitchell of twisting credit away from Trump and rewriting the origins of the agreement.

“That time Andrea Mitchell thanks Blinken and Biden over [current Secretary of State Marco] Rubio and Trump for the peace deal in Gaza. Just incredible,” journalist Joe Concha wrote on X.

Another X user wrote: “Sad, sad state of journalism. You’re embarrassing yourself, Andrea. Go home.”

Mitchell had yet to respond publicly to the backlash as of Tuesday afternoon. The Post has sought comment from NBC News.

Trump, visiting Egypt and Israel in recent days for a “Summit for Peace,” signed the formal cease-fire accord Monday alongside leaders from Egypt, Qatar and Turkey.

The president hailed the deal as “an end of an age of terror and death,” promising the agreement would deliver relief to civilians on both sides.

Libloather

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., stood by Virginia’s embattled Democratic attorney general candidate Jay Jones who sent text messages fantasizing about putting “two bullets” in his Republican rival’s head and also suggested his ‘fascist’ children should die as well.

As Jones faces mounting calls to drop out of his race because of the text scandal, with his GOP opponent going so far as saying he should disqualify himself at a Thursday night debate, Jeffries suggested that Jones already did the right thing by apologizing.

“The attorney general candidate has appropriately apologized for his remarks, and I know his remarks have been condemned across the board by Democrats in the commonwealth [of] Virginia and beyond,” said Jeffries, adding, “And that’s the right thing to do.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the office of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to ask whether he also stood by Jones but did not receive a response.

The Virginia attorney general’s race was rocked by resurfaced text messages sent by Jones to a colleague when he was serving as a state delegate. Jones texted Del. Carrie Coyner, R-Hopewell, in 2022, imagining a scenario where he would choose to kill then-House Speaker Todd Gilbert’s over Pol Pot or Adolf Hitler.

Jones wrote, “Three people, two bullets. Gilbert, Hitler and Pol Pot. Gilbert gets two bullets to the head.” He then added in a subsequent text, “Spoiler: put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time.”

New York City braces for wealth flight with Mamdani’s political rise

Zohran Mamdani’s primary win in New York City’s mayoral race and proposal to raise taxes on millionaires have touched off fears of a new wave of wealth flight from the city. Yet so far, there is little evidence of a slowdown in high-end real estate or real wealth losses in New York.

Florida real estate brokers say they’ve seen a surge in inquiries from the New York wealthy looking to move to Miami or Palm Beach. Business owners are threatening to leave the city or close. And New York developers, caught in the crosshairs of Mamdani’s rent control platform, have banded together to fund Mamdani’s opponents in the November general election.

At the center of the economic concern is Mamdani’s so-called “millionaire tax.” He’s proposed an additional 2% tax on New Yorkers earning more than $1 million a year. Added to the city’s current top rate of 3.876%, the tax would bring the combined New York City and state tax to 16.776%, by far the highest in the country. The combined federal, state and city rate would be 53.776%.

And New York’s high earners won’t have to go to Florida to avoid the tax. They can simply move to neighboring Long Island or Westchester County or even New Jersey. Unlike New York state, New York City can’t tax people who work in the city but have their primary residence elsewhere.

“New York City can only tax its own residents,” said Jared Walczak, vice president of state projects at the Tax Foundation. “A high earner doesn’t need to give up the convenience of the city, they just need to move outside the five boroughs. Migration across city lines is the easiest.”

At the center of the economic concern is Mamdani’s so-called “millionaire tax.” He’s proposed an additional 2% tax on New Yorkers earning more than $1 million a year. Added to the city’s current top rate of 3.876%, the tax would bring the combined New York City and state tax to 16.776%, by far the highest in the country. The combined federal, state and city rate would be 53.776%.

And New York’s high earners won’t have to go to Florida to avoid the tax. They can simply move to neighboring Long Island or Westchester County or even New Jersey. Unlike New York state, New York City can’t tax people who work in the city but have their primary residence elsewhere.

“New York City can only tax its own residents,” said Jared Walczak, vice president of state projects at the Tax Foundation. “A high earner doesn’t need to give up the convenience of the city, they just need to move outside the five boroughs. Migration across city lines is the easiest.”

Importantly, Mamdani wouldn’t be able to raise income taxes. The city’s income tax rates are set by Albany, where Gov. Kathy Hochul has said she will block any tax hike. “I don’t want to lose any more people to Palm Beach,” Hochul told the New York Post.

Critics also fear Mamdani’s policies toward the police and public safety could make the city even more dangerous, becoming the final straw for many business owners and top earners who were already considering leaving. The top 1% of New Yorkers pay over 40% of the income taxes, so losing even a small number of high earners would set off a downward spiral of lower revenue and lower services and more out-migration.

New York state had a net loss of $14 billion in net adjusted income due to taxpayers leaving between 2021 and 2022, according to the Tax Foundation and IRS data. The city’s revenue from personal income taxes declined between 2022 and 2024, from $16.7 billion in 2022 to $14 billion last year — although they’re still above the pre-Covid levels of $13.4 billion in 2019, according to data from the New York City comptroller.

At the same time, however, there are signs that New York’s powerful wealth machine is constantly replenishing the ranks of millionaires and billionaires, more than making up for the rich who move out. The number of millionaires in New York City has more than doubled over the past decade — despite the Covid losses — to over 2.4 million, according to Altrata. There are now over 33,000 New Yorkers worth $30 million or more, nearly double that of Miami, according to Altrata. Whether it’s measuring millionaires, multi-millionaires or billionaires, New York City has maintained its dominance as the richest wealth hub in the world.

New York remains a powerful magnet for the wealthy, offering a blend of luxury consumption, vibrant culture, high-quality education and lifestyle cachet, with the borough of Manhattan the epicenter of ultra-prime real estate,” said a report from Altrata and REALM.

Demand for pricey luxury apartments in New York also shows no signs of slowing, even after Mamdani’s win in the June 24 primary. There were 64 contracts signed between June 23 and July 13 for apartments priced over $4 million, up 13% over last year, with a sales total of more more than $555 million in sales, according to Olshan Realty. Among the signed contracts was a $35 million, three-bedroom spread on Fifth Avenue that was first listed in December.

“The luxury market is on pace for one of its best years,” said Donna Olshan, of Olshan Realty, who also cautioned that any potential Mamdani-related weakness could show up in the Fall.

Not only did New York’s millionaire and billionaire population rebound quickly after Covid, but high earners also bounced back. While the city lost a net 5,000 households earning $1 million or more during the pandemic, their ranks have grown from 30,400 in 2019 to 34,127 in 2022, the latest period available, according to the Fiscal Policy Institute.

Nathan Gusdorf, executive director of the Fiscal Policy Institute, said the narrative of wealth flight from New York is fed in part by the media, which highlights a small number of high-profile billionaires who move from New York to Florida. Stories about billionaires like Josh Harris, Carl Icahn and Daniel Och decamping to Florida ignores the broader ebb and flow of wealth in New York. New York’s powerful economy, fueled by the financial services industry, continues to produce more new millionaires than it loses.

“We do not have a fixed population of millionaires that just declines whenever one of them leaves,” Gusdorf said. “The city regenerates that lost millionaire population.”

Even if Mamdani were to win the mayorship in November and raise taxes, the direct impact on wealth flight may be more limited than many expect. According to the Fiscal Policy Center’s latest research, the top 1% of New Yorkers by income (those making more than $800,000 a year) leave the city at one quarter the rate of all other income groups. When the New York wealthy do move, they have most often oved to other high-tax states like New Jersey, Connecticut or California – suggesting lifestyle rather than taxes are the driver.  

“There is a strong indication that higher tax rates at the state level imposed on the top earners are not having real behavioral effects,” Gusdorf said.

Others, however, say taxes have outsized importance for the wealthy, proven by the sweeping population moves in recent years from high-tax to low- or no-tax states like Florida and Texas.

A study by the California Center for Jobs and the Economy described a “taxodus,” or net loss of $5.3 billion in personal income tax, from high earners who left after a 2016 extension of higher taxes on the wealthy.

“High tax rates do lead to outmigration and lower income growth,” Walczak said.

Robert Frank, CNBC Inside Wealth

“I’m the only Democrat in my family. I grew up in a conservative part of Pennsylvania,” he noted during a NewsNation Town Hall while wearing a hoodie.

“I would never compare anybody, anybody to Hitler, and those things,” Fetterman declared.

Such “extreme rhetoric” will make it “more likely” that there will be “extreme … outcomes and political violence,” he suggested.

Pointing to the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Fetterman said, “let people grieve, give people the space. I’m not gonna use that terrible thing … to make my argument and try to put out my views. It’s like, my God, you know, he’s a father that had his neck blown out by a bullet.”

The senator also pointed to the near-assassination of Trump in Pennsylvania last year.

“We really gotta turn the temperature down,” he said.

Trump has floated the prospect of potentially supplying Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, and Fetterman indicated he would strongly support such a move.

“I enthusiastically support this. President Trump could help end this war and bring peace to Ukraine. Ending two awful wars is what the Nobel Peace Prize was designed for,” the senator noted in a post on X, which also included the Ukrainian and Israeli flag emojis.

Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania said that he knows and loves individuals who voted for President Donald Trump, noting that “they are not fascists” or “Nazis.”

“I’m the only Democrat in my family. I grew up in a conservative part of Pennsylvania,” he noted during a NewsNation Town Hall while wearing a hoodie.

“I would never compare anybody, anybody to Hitler, and those things,” Fetterman declared.

Such “extreme rhetoric” will make it “more likely” that there will be “extreme … outcomes and political violence,” he suggested.

Pointing to the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Fetterman said, “let people grieve, give people the space. I’m not gonna use that terrible thing … to make my argument and try to put out my views. It’s like, my God, you know, he’s a father that had his neck blown out by a bullet.”

The senator also pointed to the near-assassination of Trump in Pennsylvania last year.

“We really gotta turn the temperature down,” he said.

Trump has floated the prospect of potentially supplying Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, and Fetterman indicated he would strongly support such a move.

“I enthusiastically support this. President Trump could help end this war and bring peace to Ukraine. Ending two awful wars is what the Nobel Peace Prize was designed for,” the senator noted in a post on X, which also included the Ukrainian and Israeli flag emojis.

Alex Nitzberg, Fox News

Since the launch of the War on Poverty in the 1960s, the rate of those living in poverty, as defined by the US government, has stubbornly persisted. Yet before that, the American poverty rate was dropping fast. It was around 32% in 1950, but postwar prosperity and a booming job market lifted thousands out of destitution, bringing it to 12.8% by the time the War’s programs took effect in 1968. Yet in the intervening half-century, it has never dropped below 10%. This is not for lack of effort. Per capita government spending on the poor has gone from $2,701 at the outset to $29,214 today (adjusted for inflation).

Some point out that standards of living among the poor have risen, if you consider welfare benefits, which the official poverty measure excludes. While they are correct—material well-being has improved—there is ample reason to understand that poverty persists as a real problem, rather than a data artifact.

Case in point: About 34% of children born in poverty will remain there throughout their lives. For no substantial portion of their lives will they produce enough economic value to provide for themselves without subsidy. Furthermore, many of the maladies associated with chronic poverty are worsening:

• Social connectedness is much lower for people with lower incomes.
• Poor children are significantly less likely to benefit from the “two-parent privilege.”
• 65% of working-age people in poverty did not work for a single week in 2023; only 10% worked full-time, all year long.
• So called “deaths of despair” from suicide and substance abuse are at record highs.

These facts suggest an alienated socio-economic class mired in hardship despite the upward mobility of the middle class. This is bad for our republic, as well as for the individuals entrapped. And yet, massive spending on everything from direct cash transfers to college grants has failed to budge the numbers.

To charity practitioners who know many of these people, there is no mystery. They know if you’re currently taking full advantage of economic opportunities in America, chances are someone invested in you—not necessarily with money, but by forming your character, influencing your sense of purpose, and bridging connections that served you well.

These intangible assets like grit, integrity, faith, and reliable friends are critical not only to escape poverty, but also to live a flourishing life in ways that can’t be measured in dollars.

Federal programs ignore most of these deficits. Their theory of change is that if enough financial benefits are transferred to the poor, recipients will figure everything else out on their own. Not only has that approach proven ineffective; it often provides perverse incentives like marriage penalties and benefits cliffs.

Enter civil society. With its personal relationships and motivating purpose of care, civil society is best adapted to help people grow, thrive, and get back up when they fall.

To understand the forgotten magic of civil society (voluntary associations like churches, charities, and families), we must understand its role alongside the parallel spheres of the government and the market.

The government, with its monopoly on violence, is good at providing for the common defense and protecting people from fraud and abuse. No country has made a dent in poverty without law and order to secure private property and enforce contracts.

When the rule of law is established, the market uses the profit motive to generate wealth. Individuals leverage economic multipliers like voluntary exchange, division of labor, the price mechanism, and technological innovation to grow the pie for everyone.

And yet, even where opportunity abounds, people can remain mired in addiction, hopelessness, or idleness. Dysfunction often passes intergenerationally in a toxic brew of low aspirations, minimal connections, and underdeveloped talent.

put it another way: government constrains humans at their worst, markets transform self-interest into common good, and civil society calls forth the best elements of humanity.

In the context of poverty alleviation, this takes the form of charity: the voluntary rendering of aid to people in need. For systemic reasons, families, friends, clubs, churches, and charities can render better service to people in poverty than government agents could.

People closer to home have inside knowledge about the individual—and the autonomy to act on it. That allows them to discern whether someone needs a pat on the back, a gift of cash, or some tough love. Conversely, federal programs are uniform by statute, so eligibility tests and asset limits often result in “one-size-fits-none.”

In addition, stories of effective service to the most vulnerable and sympathetic generate the greatest donor contributions. This provides a helpful incentive to charities to allocate the resources to those least able to control their circumstances and most invested in their own solutions. Contrast that with the government’s incentives to fund programs with electoral results in mind (which often includes third parties, like the soda industry).

Charities’ competition for donor funds also drives innovation, something sorely lacking in federal programs whose particulars were originally hammered out on manual typewriters.

Civil society wields a scalpel sharp enough to cut to the heart of the matter. A friend, pastor, or case manager can speak to issues of meaning and purpose, model virtue, make useful introductions, and coach people as they blaze their own path out of poverty. They can leverage reciprocity and engage people’s capacity and talents. Effective charity isn’t business; it’s personal.

Can voluntary charity really replace the federal welfare state? Not if you simply tally up all the federal expenditures and assume donors must replace them dollar for dollar. But similar to how SpaceX can launch a rocket at less than 4% of NASA’s cost, civil society is primed to perform poverty alleviation functions at a dramatically lower cost.

The biggest impact would come when many of the 13 million non-working beneficiaries (only considering people between 18–64 years old) lose perverse incentives and decide to enter the labor force.

As well, other low impact programs captured by special interests would never be funded by private donors. Government cheese would end up on the chopping block.

That’s not all. Others would be helped without dollars changing hands. Family ties would strengthen as a safety net. Where that’s not an option, we’d no doubt see a renewed interest in informal social insurance through mutual aid societies, civic clubs, and faith communities—all of which were more common in the period of our history when poverty fell rapidly.

The good news is that we don’t have to wait for a major shift in public policy to start making an impact. As an ordinary American, I can’t point to a single government policy that I have changed, but I know many individuals I have impacted with my voluntary assistance.

That’s why we shouldn’t believe that our efforts to help people in need pale in comparison to the impact of the state. The lion’s share of solutions for the poor has always come from individuals who care enough to get to know them—and then provide real help of lasting value. The facts speak for themselves.

And it’s time to listen.

Nathan Mayo, Foundation for Education (FEE)

The Libertarian Party has announced The Parity Project, a ten-year plan to grow its membership and visibility to rival the Democrats and Republicans. The effort draws inspiration from past membership drives, including the 1990s-era Project Archimedes.

In an October 15 letter to members, Libertarian National Committee Chair Steven Nekhaila outlined a plan to “equalize” the party by targeting Americans who already identify with libertarian principles. Citing research from “eleven different studies,” he estimated that 30 to 60 million Americans either identify as libertarian or hold mostly libertarian views. Nekhaila noted that many of these voters currently cast ballots “defensively” for Democrats or Republicans and that activating this base could significantly expand the party’s reach.

“The two old parties each have about 68 million Americans who identify with them. Both of those parties also have universal visibility,” Nekhaila wrote. “The LP has almost no visibility. Finding and activating dormant libertarians will change that. If we developed 30–60 million libertarians with little visibility, imagine what universal awareness could achieve.”

Nekhaila pointed to the United Kingdom’s multiparty system, which operates under a similar winner-take-all structure, as evidence that a three-party America is possible. “If you gain attention in London, the rest of Britain follows, but America requires heavy investment in hundreds of large population centers,” he wrote. “The only way to fund that is to locate and recruit the people who already see themselves as libertarians.”

Unlike past initiatives that focused on converting non-libertarians, Nekhaila said the project will follow a “discovery before persuasion” strategy prioritizing those who already agree with the party’s principles. He described this as “taking yes for an answer,” with the goal of building resources and momentum before expanding persuasion efforts. Nekhaila also introduced a subsidiary effort called “Operation Everywhere,” aimed at making libertarian candidates and ideas visible “to everyone, everywhere, every day.”

The project will begin by expanding an existing internal database of one million contacts, updating it with new information acquired from public resources, email appeals, and social media advertising. Respondents will be asked to affirm whether they identify as libertarian or libertarian-leaning, if they’d like to see the Libertarian Party on equal footing with the two major parties, and whether they’d be willing to help. The party plans to measure its success on a monthly basis, with donations funding further outreach and visibility.

According to the plan, each new supporter, donor, or increase in visibility will be treated as an “increment of success.” Nekhaila argues that even modest gains could eventually translate into electoral successes, with the long-term goal of giving the party enough prominence to influence governance “long before it achieves a majority.”

The project is being led by strategist Perry Willis, who previously designed Project Archimedes in the 1990s under then-chair Steve Dasbach. That effort produced record membership and revenue for the party at the time, with Nekhaila first alluding to its potential revival in remarks during an LNC meeting earlier this year. “Project Archimedes used only direct mail,” Nekhaila added. “What was done before on a small scale can now be done in a large way.”

Willis will work with advisor Jim Babka and the firm Iron Light, which will oversee data enhancement and advertising placements.

The party is seeking $48,000 in initial funding to launch the project, with half allocated to Iron Light for data enhancements and the remainder to cover email and advertising costs. Nekhaila said sustained growth in supporters, donors, and visibility will be critical to maintaining momentum.

“We aim to make our numbers constantly grow in the following areas, month after month […],” Nekhaila added. “Do that for a few years and we’ll achieve the ultimate goal, full parity with the Democrats and Republicans.”

Jordan Willow Evans

By Jeremy Egerer

Because of slavery and Jim Crow and too many movies like The Help, there was a point where I genuinely cared about the plight of black Americans in general.

But these days I’m a little picky.  When people say “Black Lives Matter,” I like to ask, which ones?  Because Black Lives Matter already pretended “all of them,” and if we’re being honest, it felt a lot like No Lives Matter.

How can you say lives matter, for instance, when you don’t care how they live?  And how can you say “people are important” without asking them to take themselves seriously?  What we found was that BLM wanted something more than just life: They demanded a total suspension of basic justice.  They wanted to suspend the very laws of cause and effect and physics.  If there was a crazy demand, they wanted you to just give in.  If a criminal was attacking women, they wanted you to just back off.  Evidence?  No time for that, I’m afraid.  If you had a counter-argument, they wanted you to shut up.  If you worked harder and did a better job at your job, they just wanted you to lose the promotion.  And if you won, they wanted you to hand over the extra money.

No voice — no rights — no self-esteem?  Call me crazy, but it sounds as though what Black Lives Matter really needed was slaves.

There were shirts printed all over the country that said “QUIET, A BLACK WOMAN IS SPEAKING,” and they meant it.  They said white history is too white, so they wanted a history that’s all black.  They said they didn’t want to see your models on TV or billboards or magazines — they wanted their own models on everything instead.  Your movies?  Last place at the Emmys.  Your music?  Last place at the Grammys.  Was their stuff any good?  Didn’t matter, so long as they won anyway.

And let’s not mistake the obvious.  They weren’t even fighting to be rid of “white supremacy.”  They didn’t give a damn about any other races’ movies or music or safety.  This was an unabashed fight for black supremacy.  And the people who paid most, in the end, were black people.

This was because, ironically, the movement didn’t really care about all black people.  If you were a robber, or a rapist, or any black scoundrel, really — they were there to defend your life.  Not so much if you were a black baby.  Not so much if you were a black policeman.  Not so much if you were a black business-owner, or a soldier, or a good man just minding his business.

If you were killed by a black cop, they’d call it “white supremacy.”  If you were killed by a black thug, they’d ignore you.  If you burned down a black business, they’d pay for your bail.  If your once-successful business burned down, nobody would be coming to save you.  There was no such thing, during this period, as an innocent or upstanding black life that mattered.  During this period of anarchy and bedlam, the only person who mattered was the person who shouldn’t.

What Black Lives Matter missed is that the only kind of racial supremacy that works — and I don’t mean “is morally right,” but “the kind that actually turns into a livable society,” like modern-day Japan, or Apartheid South Africa, or even the Nation of Islam — is one where, even if you loathe everyone else, you at least have respect for yourselves.  And that was the one thing Black Lives Matter lacked.  That and an average I.Q. above 75.

Thus, they didn’t want skill.  They wanted degrees and diplomas.  They didn’t want to build successful businesses.  They wanted prestigious seats at the board, and money.  They didn’t want good neighborhoods.  They wanted “affordable housing.”  Worst of all, they didn’t want liberty.  They wanted license.  That’s because you don’t have to earn or build the latter of any of these.  You just have to fight for them.  You just have to steal them.

Every single thing they aimed for was the dumber, cheaper, impossible version of some tangible good.  Thus, they paid in blood and tears and totally forgot about sweat.  They thought you could win without being a winner, and that the big struggle in life is against “the enemy” — that’s people with standards, in case you missed it! — instead of against the worse parts of yourself.  In other words, that the hard won, time-consuming, sleepless-night climb from infancy into mastery could be taken from people who earned it and handed to people who didn’t.  And even dumber than this, the idea that robbers can keep it.

They were wrong.  Boy, were they wrong.

They were so wrong that the first thing that happened when Black Lives Matter “succeeded” was black lives ending.  A lot of them.  Everywhere black people were in charge most, in fact.

Chicago blew up.  Memphis blew up.  New York City blew up, and Tulsa, and the Bay Area.  Everywhere Black Lives Matter succeeded, everything else failed.  The violent crime rate for a short while was a nightmare.  Their own businesses, the engine to climb out of the ghetto, were burned down.  They defended so many shoplifters that Walmart moved out of some cities and now Democrats are complaining about “food deserts.”  The Republicans won the next election in a landslide, and the police are back in popular demand.

The end result is that black lives aren’t safe — overwhelmingly due to other black people.  They also aren’t freer.  They’re also poorer.  And I think the people in Black Lives Matter deserve it.

I only wish they hadn’t dragged so many innocent people — of all colors — down with them.

Jeremy Egerer is the author of Prejudices — a collection of questionable essays on Substack.

Oct 14, 2025

The Democratic Party is collapsing before our eyes. You can see it in the polls. You can see it in their internal panic. You can see it in the way their message shifts from week to week as they desperately grope for something—anything—that resonates with the American people.

Now they’re shutting down the government because they want to fund healthcare for illegal aliens.

Why you ask?

For two reasons: one, because they need to continue to create a new demographic for political power by keeping the illegals here on our social welfare programs to shore up Democrat Party power. Second, they’re doing it because their far left base demands it and if party leadership were to have even hesitated on it, they knew primaries in 2026 were coming (and still might be).

But let’s be clear on the overall dynamics: this isn’t just about a political party losing ground. It’s about the machinery that has sustained that party for decades—the bureaucratic class, the media cartels, the NGO ecosystem, the “deep state” that pretends to be apolitical while carrying water for one side. They’re collapsing, too.

And they all know it.

For years, Democrats told themselves they were the “natural majority party.” They believed demographics, academia, the press, and Silicon Valley would guarantee their dominance for a generation. But they forgot something critical: once you stop delivering results for ordinary Americans—once your only purpose is power to manage decline—the people turn on you. And that’s what’s happening now.

Look at the numbers: Democratic voter registration is shrinking: there’s now a 4.5 million shift in registrations to Republicans advantage since 2020, with seismic shifts taking place in battleground states; in 2016, Democrats held over a 600,000 voter registration advantage in North Carolina. Today, just over 7,000.

Democrats’ approval ratings have cratered. Their leaders—Schumer, Jeffries, Newsom, Whitmer—look tired, brittle, and completely out of touch. Even their own activists are restless, with younger Marxist progressives openly mocking the geriatric leadership class. The base senses weakness, and the ruling class knows it.

So what’s left? Fear and force.

When Democrats can’t win arguments, they turn to their deep state allies: never forget that the Democrat Party and the Administrative State are allies. And the State acts as a backstop for Democrats when they lose elections: bureaucrats slow-walk Republican reforms. Intelligence agencies leak and smear. Federal prosecutors chase enemies while ignoring allies. It’s the same playbook they’ve used for decades, only now it’s obvious to everyone. The weaponization of government is not a conspiracy theory—it’s the last gasp of a massive political machine that can no longer survive on persuasion.

This is the moment of opportunity—and danger. Because Leviathan doesn’t die quietly. It thrashes. It lashes out. It uses every tool left to preserve itself. Expect more lawfare, more indictments, more manufactured crises. Expect bureaucrats to sabotage legislation, courts to invent obstacles, the media to howl about “democracy dying.” This is what collapse looks like: confusion, not graceful surrender, but chaos and desperation.

The lesson for Republicans and for the New Right is simple: do not mistake Leviathan’s weakness for harmlessness. A cornered beast is dangerous. Victory requires not just winning elections, but dismantling the networks of power that prop up the Democratic Party long after its political mandate has expired.

The Democrats are crumbling. Their deep state enablers are exposed. The question is whether Republicans will do what must be done: hold power long enough, and wield it effectively, to finish the job. This isn’t about firing 4,000 bureaucrats. This is about firing 400,000 of them and razing buildings to the ground.

Leviathan will not give up power willingly. It never has. It never will. This will only happen by force of will and the ruthless use of political power by Republicans.

American Leviathan