President Donald Trump left the glamorous world of celebrity, fame, and fortune in June 2015 on a mission, not for himself, but for the American people.

Our movement is about replacing a failed and corrupt political establishment with a new government controlled by you, the American People. There is nothing the political establishment will not do, and no lie they will not tell, to hold on to their prestige and power at your expense.

He knew the path ahead would be lonely. Before his famous escalator ride at Trump Tower in 2015 to announce his candidacy, he prophetically warned his son Don Jr.

The day of the announcement my father told me something that I would remember, again and again in the coming weeks and months. It would be one of the most accurate observations I would hear since my own immersion into politics. We got on the elevator and he turned to look at me and he said, “Now we find out who our real friends are.”

Trump has few real friends these days within the Washington D.C. ruling class, aside from his inner circle. After as corrupt an election as one can imagine, many of his so-called friends are eager to stick a shiv in his ribs rather than defend him against a coup that makes Spygate looks like child’s play.

Trump led in the crucial swing states on election night to a degree that if it were any other candidate or election, the media would have called it before midnight. Instead, the voting stopped at midnight and votes were either fabricated for Joe Biden or magically switched from the Trump to Biden column, in only the states and in only the amounts to put Biden over the top so the DNC media could declare Biden the winner.

How convenient that just before Trump hit the magic number of 270, Fox News called Arizona for Biden, with other states on cue, stopping their vote counts, allowing the vote rigging to begin, avoiding having to declare Trump the winner. It almost seems like a coordinated plan. Was it?

We are learning more by the day about corrupt voting machines and software, and a scheme, as Trump attorney Sidney Powell describes, “organized and conducted with the help of Silicon Valley people, the big tech companies, the social media and even the media companies.”

It was less than a year ago that Senators Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Ron Wyden were concerned about these voting machines, yet today this is all “conspiracy theory.” Was there foreign interference in the election via corrupted voting machines? Were U.S. votes routed through servers in Spain and Germany? Election interference was of great interest to congressional Democrats during Trump’s first term, yet they seem to have no interest in such interference today.

Where are the Republicans? Where are so-called conservatives? Where is the outrage? Where are Trump’s friends? Does he have any these days?

How ironic that George W. Bush was quick to congratulate “president-elect” Joe Biden. Bush barely ‘won” his election in 2000, while his opponent Al Gore fought for 37 days before the U.S. Supreme Court forced his concession. But Bush felt it reasonable to fight dimpled and hanging chads in one single state, yet scoffs at Trump fighting multi-state fraud?

Failed former Republican primary candidate Chris Christie suggests it may soon be time for Trump to “move on.” What a show of support. No wonder his candidacy failed.

Another loser, Mitt Romney, joined the chorus. I would not be a bit surprised if Romney had the 2012 election stolen from him in the same way as is happening to Trump today. Yet like most establishment Republicans, Romney prefers to give a “statesman-like” concession speech rather than soil his wingtips in a street fight to claim what is legitimately his. Interestingly, the Romney family has financial ties to voting machines.

World leaders have been quick to call and congratulate the assumed president-elect, the café-au-lait crowd happy to see the America-first president sent packing in exchange for another sap in the White House willing to pay the credit card bills of their freeloading nations. Trump is learning who is friends are.

There are a few exceptions. Leaders from Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Slovenia, and North Korea have not offered Biden their congratulations, prudently waiting to see how this plays out. Perhaps they know more about a recent U.S. raid on a voting machine server facility in Frankfurt, Germany that might reveal an international conspiracy to switch votes in our recent election. Perhaps, as in the case of Mexico’s leader, they know the smell of a stolen election when they see it.

Most congressional Republicans lost their voices after the election, even those fair-weather friends who happily rode Trump’s coattails to election or re-election. They see nothing suspicious or sinister in Republicans maintaining control of the Senate and gaining ten-plus seats in the House while the leader of their party supposedly lost reelection.

Members of Congress eager to investigate bogus claims of Trump colluding with Russia have no interest in probing electoral irregularity that defies statistics and common sense. How did states where Trump drew 50,000 to his rallies and Biden could not draw 50 to his events, chose the unpopular dullard to lead the country?

Trump has 89 million Twitter followers compared to 19 million for Biden. But more people voted for Biden?

Then there is voter turnout higher than the number of registered voters, and in some areas, a slew of 120 year old voters in some cities.

Where have Trump’s friends been on spygate? This was a fraudulent and illegal attempt to disrupt an election, transition, and presidency and to date there has only been a single plea deal for some mid-level no-name while the ringleaders are writing books and securing lucrative cable news gigs. The GOP establishment wants to “move on” from this scandal as well.

NeverTrumpers, once apparently conservative Republicans, have made themselves irrelevant by becoming liberal Democrats. Fox News, once a “fair and balanced” alternative to the left-wing drumbeat of the remaining big media, is following the NeverTrump path into irrelevancy.

Trump thought he had friends at Fox News, giving frequent interviews and shout-outs, only to have them stick the first election night shiv between his ribs. Who will watch Fox now as they are no different than any of the other far left news outlets?

Trump may appear alone, but 70-plus million Americans supported and voted for him. This group isn’t going away. They watch television, shop, travel, vote, and otherwise control much commerce in America. They will observe who Trump’s friends are and who are not. He may appear lonely, but he has 70 million close friends out there.

No one knows how this show will play out. Will it be a biblical takedown of the deep state or has Trump finally met his match? Although he appears alone, he has the thoughts and prayers of millions of Americans as the wind beneath his wings. As Margaret Thatcher told former President George H.W. Bush, now is not the time for Trump’s friends to go wobbly.

Brian C. Joondeph, M.D., is a Denver-based physician and freelance writer for American Thinker, Rasmussen Reports, and other publications. Follow him on Facebook,  LinkedIn, Twitter, Parler, and QuodVerum.

“Learn to distinguish the difference between errors of knowledge and breaches of morality. An error of knowledge is not a moral flaw, provided you are willing to correct it; only a mystic would judge human beings by the standard of an impossible, automatic omniscience. But a breach of morality is the conscious choice of an action you know to be evil, or a willful evasion of knowledge, a suspension of sight and of thought. That which you do not know, is not a moral charge against you; but that which you refuse to know, is an account of infamy growing in your soul. Make every allowance for errors of knowledge; do not forgive or accept any break of morality.”

― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“I have never understood why it is “greed” to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else’s money.”

― Thomas Sowell, Barbarians inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays

While it might not be popular to say in the wake of the recent social disorder, the true plight of black people has little or nothing to do with the police or what has been called “systemic racism.” Instead, we need to look at the responsibilities of those running our big cities.

Some of the most dangerous big cities are: St. Louis, Detroit, Baltimore, Oakland, Chicago, Memphis, Atlanta, Birmingham, Newark, Buffalo and Philadelphia. The most common characteristic of these cities is that for decades, all of them have been run by liberal Democrats. Some cities — such as Detroit, Buffalo, Newark and Philadelphia — haven’t elected a Republican mayor for more than a half-century. On top of this, in many of these cities, blacks are mayors, often they dominate city councils, and they are chiefs of police and superintendents of schools.

In 1965, there were no blacks in the U.S. Senate, nor were there any black governors. And only six members of the House of Representatives were black. As of 2019, there is far greater representation in some areas — 52 House members are black. Nine black Americans have served in the Senate, including Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts, Carol Moseley Braun and Barack Obama of Illinois, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Kamala Harris of California. In recent times, there have been three black state governors. The bottom line is that today’s black Americans have significant political power at all levels of government. Yet, what has that meant for a large segment of the black population?

Democratic-controlled cities have the poorest-quality public education despite their large, and growing, school budgets. Consider Baltimore. In 2016, in 13 of Baltimore’s 39 high schools, not a single student scored proficient on the state’s math exam. In six other high schools, only 1% tested proficient in math. Only 15% of Baltimore students passed the state’s English test. That same year in Philadelphia only 19% of eighth-graders scored proficient in math, and 16% were proficient in reading. In Detroit, only 4% of its eighth-graders scored proficient in math, and 7% were proficient in reading. It’s the same story of academic disaster in other cities run by Democrats.

Violent crime and poor education is not the only problem for Democratic-controlled cities. Because of high crime, poor schools and a less pleasant environment, cities are losing their economic base and their most productive people in droves. When World War II ended, the population of Washington, D.C., was about 800,000; today, it’s about 700,000. In 1950, Baltimore’s population was almost 950,000; today, it’s around 590,000. Detroit’s 1950 population was close to 1.85 million; today, it’s down to 673,000. The population of Camden, N.J., in 1950 was nearly 125,000; today it has fallen to 74,000. St. Louis’ 1950 population was more than 856,000; today, it’s less than 294,000. A similar story of population decline can be found in most of our formerly large and prosperous cities. In some cities, the population decline since 1950 is well over 50%, and that includes Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland and Pittsburgh.

Academic liberals, civil rights advocates and others blamed the exodus on racism — “white flight” to the suburbs to avoid blacks. But blacks have been fleeing some cities at higher rates than whites. The five cities whose suburbs have the fastest-growing black populations are Miami, Dallas, Washington, Houston and Atlanta. It turns out that blacks, like whites, want better and safer schools for their kids and don’t like to be mugged or have their property vandalized. And like white people, if they have the means, black people cannot wait to leave troubled cities.

White liberals and black politicians focus most of their attention on what the police do, but how relevant is that to the overall tragedy? According to Statista, this year, 172 whites and 88 blacks have died at the hands of police. To put police shootings in a bit of perspective, in Chicago alone in 2020 there have been 1,260 shootings and 256 homicides with blacks being the primary victims. That comes to one shooting victim every three hours and one homicide victim every 15 hours. Three people in Chicago have been killed by police. If one is truly concerned about black deaths, shootings by police should figure way down on one’s list — which is not to excuse bad behavior by some police officers.

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University and a columnist for Creators Content Agency.

Dear Facebook: We know your political positions. We know you claim to be a neutral platform, while in fact you are a thoroughly partisan corporation with a vested interest in only one of our two major parties being in power. We know that YOU know that voting by mail made this the most subjective, questionable and inherently unfair election in American history. Facebook, COME ON! Drop the pretense. You will never change the minds of patriots.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Capitalism, and the American pharmaceutical industry that thrives under it, saves lives.

With the possible exception of “Big Oil,” there is no industry more demonized in America than the pharmaceutical industry. In some cases, the disdain for “Big Pharma” is both understandable and justified—as with the “commercial triumph” but “public health tragedy” surrounding the sale and regulation of OxyContin. But we are now on the precipice of one of those very pharmaceutical companies, Pfizer Inc., being granted permission by the FDA to distribute a COVID-19 vaccine, in the hopes of eradicating a disease that has killed almost 1.3 million worldwide thus far.

The practice of calling various groups of industries as “Big”-fill-in-the-blank began not too long ago as a propaganda method to demonize specific industries. After the oil spill involving the Exxon Valdez in 1989, the term “Big Oil” came into vogue, as activists worked hard to portray the entire industry as anti-environment. We later saw similar efforts against “Big Finance” as activists went after Wall Street, and finally, “Big Pharma” as they set their sights on capitalist drug-makers.

“Bigness” has a lot of rhetorical power—even the right uses it, in reference to “Big Tech” which describes the growing technology industry. The problem is that the right and left are not unified in their motives for using the term. When the left uses “Bigness” as a descriptor, it is meant to lump together industries that they find problematic, and to dismiss these companies outright. When the right uses the prefix “Big,” it’s to designate industries, sectors, or institutions that have gone awry. Instead of acting in good faith and integrating civic responsibility with individual entrepreneurship, industries like “Big Tech” have engaged in lawlessness.

One of the worst examples of civic irresponsibility among American pharmaceutical companies—and indeed, among companies in any industry—has to be that of Purdue Pharmaceutical. Based in Stamford, CT., Purdue’s outrageously unethical marketing of the then-new painkilling drug OxyContin in the late-1990s began a domino effect leading to the opioid epidemic that still plagues the country, resulting in the deaths of approximately a half-million people. Purdue executives ended up paying out $634.5 million in fines for marketing OxyContin as “less addictive and less subject to abuse than other pain medications.”

And let’s not forget Martin Shkreli, the former hedge fund manager and CEO of the relatively unknown start-up Turing (now Vyera) Pharmaceuticals. Shkreli gained international notoriety when he acquired Daraprim, a 62-year-old drug that is the standard of care for treating a life-threatening parasitic infection and increased the sale price of the drug from $13.50 per pill to $750 per pill—a 5,556% increase bringing the annual cost of treatment for some patients to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Intended to treat the disease toxoplasmosis, an infection caused by the consumption of undercooked meat and shellfish, the impact of the Daraprim price increase was predictable. After Turing inflated the medication’s price, hospitals struggled to keep Daraprim in stock, delaying treatment in some cases. Considering that the FDA considers toxoplasmosis as the most lethal food-borne illness, such delays proved highly problematic. “It’s not funny, Mr. Shkreli. People are dying, and they’re getting sicker and sicker,” the Late Representative Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) told Shkreli, as he grinned during the congressman’s opening statement during a hearing on Capitol Hill.

The fact that Shkreli was later sent to prison for securities fraud didn’t soften the hatred toward him. Styling him “Pharma Bro” to mark their disdain, the left relished in his incarceration. Some media outlets regarded him as “The Most Hated Man in America,” and they were probably right. “He’s been called a ‘morally bankrupt sociopath,’ a ‘scumbag,’ a ‘garbage monster’ and ‘everything that is wrong with capitalism.’ And those are some of the tamer comments,” writes the BBC. 

But as often is the case, our friends on the left have done their utmost to hold up Shkreli as the face of capitalism—not a corrupt exception to it. As ever, the self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is leading the way: “Our political system is corrupt. Big Money controls much of what happens,” said Sanders when referencing the Turing affair. His then-campaign spokesman Michael Brigg took a more direct shot at capitalism calling Shkreli the, “Poster boy for drug company greed.”

The thing is, Martin Shkreli is no more representative of the typical capitalist than Ted “The Unabomber” Kaczynski is representative of the typical environmentalist.  They are both sociopathic criminals on the most extreme fringes of their particular ideology. But the strategy of using Shkreli as their exemplar for the entire U.S. pharmaceutical industry was not accidental; in fact, it is standard operating procedure for the left, which has a habit of seeking out the single-most extreme example of a situation, point to it as being indicative of the much larger group, and then exploit for the emotional response it generates.

This was the approach of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) when she claimed, “It was unethical when Turing did it, and it was just as unethical when the rest of the pharmaceutical industry jacks up drug prices.” The leftwing media frequently echoes Warren’s sentiment. In an opinion piece last year by The American Prospect, detailing the contention of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) that innovations from Big Pharma are a myth, and that most high profile drugs would not exist if it weren’t for public investment, the liberal magazine asserted: “Pharmaceutical companies routinely engage in price gouging (not to mention research misconduct and public manipulation)—unsavory practices for which there is virtually no oversight… Martin Shkreli, the former pharma CEO and current federal inmate, epitomized this mindset…”

Of the top six pharmaceutical companies in the world, four of them are U.S.-based: Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Pfizer, and AbbVie. Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News magazine reports that the combined revenues of those four companies exceeded $1 trillion in 2019.  No other country’s collective pharmaceutical industry is even remotely close to the impact that U.S. pharmaceutical companies have on the world’s population.

Meanwhile, leftists like Sen. Sanders, and his socialist cronies, regard these numbers as demerits—examples of American capitalism taking advantage of some group of victims. “If the pharmaceutical industry will not end its greed, which is literally killing Americans, then we will end it for them,” Sanders promised in 2019 after Democrats gained control of the house and made lowering prescription drug costs one of their top priorities. In the mind of Sanders and other socialists, making a profit is greed and cannot be tolerated.

LEADING THE WORLD IN PHARMACEUTICAL INNOVATION

In reality, the numbers above reflect the greatness of capitalism and free-markets. That revenue was earned by providing medications and products to satisfy a demand—a demand that, in many cases, was for critical, life-saving drugs. True, U.S. pharmaceutical companies do generate earnings from the sale of non-critical drugs, for maladies such as hair loss and skin imperfections, but such drugs actually make up only a fraction of Big Pharma’s revenue. Of the top ten most prescribed medications in the U.S., four are medications that fight heart disease by addressing high blood pressure or high cholesterol; the remaining six drugs relieve afflictions such as bacterial infections and thyroid deficiencies.

In 2018, almost $80 billion of U.S. pharmaceutical companies’ revenues were used for research and development, a trend that’s been steadily growing since 1995, at least. That was money well-spent, yielding some extremely effective treatments and medical innovation over the years. According to the American Cancer Society, there were over 15 million cancer survivors in the U.S. in 2016, and they expect those numbers to increase to over 20 million by 2026. These improvements for cancer patients are largely due to a multitude of advancements that can be traced back to Big Pharma: advancements in surgical solutions, radiation treatment discoveries, and, of course, drugs and chemotherapy developments that can be attributed to the R&D investments made by pharmaceutical companies. One such recent advancement is Keytruda, a lung cancer drug developed by the U.S.-based Merck & Co and was approved for use in 2014. 

A study completed last year shows that almost one-quarter of patients treated with Keytruda were still alive after five years—a remarkable improvement from the historic survival rate of 5%.  According to Dr. Edward Garon, a lung cancer specialist from UCLA who led the study, “The uniformly negative outlook that has been associated with a diagnosis of advanced, non-small cell lung cancer is certainly no longer appropriate,” as a result of these improvements made by Keytruda. Lung cancer is easily the most deadly of all cancers and has historically been responsible for more deaths than cancers of the breast, colon, and prostate combined. It’s doubtful many of the patients who have had their lives saved from Keytruda oppose the pharmaceutical industry.

Modern medicine is truly miraculous, and we see evidence of that miracle constantly, and much of those wonders are due specifically to capitalism. The companies that design and manufacture the ultrasound equipment, for instance, that pinpoints tumors make a profit from selling that equipment—and that profit is key to incentivizing new medical innovation and the growth of treatment options for the world’s sick. For instance, GE Healthcare announced last year that a new ultrasound technique they developed can differentiate between malignant and benign breast tumors. Abbott Laboratories, working to develop better methods of testing our blood to identify coronavirus antibodies, and the industry giants working on cancer testing, make a profit from those methods. And the companies who make up Big Pharma—those who develop and sell drugs that save millions of lives every year from the ravages of disease—they make a profit as well.

The next time Sen. Sanders calls Big Pharma a “bunch of crooks,” salivating at the opportunity to ‘profit’ from COVID-19 (as though profit-seeking were somehow corrupt), consider how many jobs the Senator has created and how many lives he’s saved—and of how little use his socialist utopia or free healthcare would be if there were no Americans left alive to enjoy it. For those of us with loved ones who have survived cancer, imagine what their fate would have been without capitalism or Big Pharma.

Pharmaceutical companies are far from perfect—Purdue Pharmaceutical is just one hideous example, and they deserve our scorn. Those companies that engage in criminal behavior like price gouging or false advertising should be held accountable, exposed, and embarrassed when appropriate, and held criminally liable when justified. Purdue marketed OxyContin with the primary purpose of maximizing their profits, kick-starting the opioid epidemic in the process. A drug that may have been developed with the noble goal of helping patients manage their pain ended up causing tremendous harm as a result of the actions of the company’s leadership. Likewise, Martin Shkreli at Turing Pharmaceuticals clearly had profits as his primary objective. 

But while capitalism and the desire for profit may have been the main driver for the misdeeds of Purdue and Turing, it has also been a key aspect in motivating companies such as Merck and others whose innovations save lives. We need Big Pharma—all of us.

With their frequent attacks on the pharmaceutical industry, the left has demonstrated once again their fundamental denial or ignorance of basic human nature. They would have us believe that if we removed the incentive of profit from the calculus of developing medicine, nothing would change except for a decrease in consumer costs. ‘Tax’ Big Pharma.’ ‘Restrict pricing’ for Big Pharma. Stick it to those capitalists in Big Pharma.

But that’s not how it works, and anyone paying attention understands that fact. It’s human nature to want to benefit financially from hard work, risk, and innovation. And there is nothing inherently corrupting in combining your desire to do good in the world and save lives with a drive for profit; we wouldn’t have the R&D capacity we do today without it. There are thousands of scientists and corporate executives who are millionaires today because they were responsible for developing life-saving medicines. Not only should we congratulate them on their financial success, we should collectively shake their hands, and say, “Thank you, and may God bless you.”  

And while we’re at it, may God bless America and our capitalist way of life.

P. F. Whalen, Human Events

First, let me predict that this election is far from over. President Donald Trump will neither give up nor give in. He’ll take the fight to a level no one in American politics has ever seen. I see a clear and reasonable pathway for Trump to overturn the results for a stunning reelection victory that will shock the world. More on that later.

I know Donald J. Trump better than anyone. I’ve been studying him for 40 years. It started when I was a freshman at Columbia University in Manhattan. Trump was 33 years old and well on his way to becoming the king of New York real estate.

By the time I graduated Columbia in 1983, Trump was opening Trump Tower, the most amazing skyscraper in New York. I was hooked. Trump became my mentor, hero and role model. Like every young businessman in New York, I wanted to be like Trump.

I reviewed his every move. Trump was my MBA course. After a while, I knew Trump so well that I could predict his every move. I kept notes. Soon these notes turned into a book — over 300 pages long. And I practiced what I preached. I took these “Trump Rules” and lived them.

Before long, this SOB (son of a butcher) from the wrong side of the tracks, without a dime and without any connections, was living a fairy tale. In short order, I became one of the youngest political candidates in New York state history, one of the youngest TV hosts and anchormen on American TV, a bestselling author, and, soon after that, the media dubbed me “the king of Vegas sports gambling.

I became a self-made millionaire at 29 and bought a home on the beach in Malibu, California.

I enjoyed remarkable success in multiple careers: politics, business, television, publishing and gambling. Sound familiar? Those are the exact careers of Donald J. Trump.

The “Trump Rules” changed my life.

Why do I tell you all this? First, because my latest book, “Trump Rules,” is being released this week. It could change your life, too, no matter if you hate Trump or love Trump. And whether Trump eventually loses his bid for president or makes the greatest comeback in history and overturns the results of this election, I’ll report the same thing. Donald J. Trump is amazing. He’s more than a person; he’s a living legend. He is one of the most remarkable men to ever walk this planet. And the best is yet to come.

Learning, modeling and living the rules of Trump’s life can be life-changing for anyone, in any career. Love him or hate him, we all have something to learn and gain from these “Trump Rules.”

Now to the main event: the election. Timing isn’t everything in life; it’s the only thing. My timing is perfect. After studying Trump my entire adult life and predicting correctly what comes next, here is my opinion on the presidential election results: We’re all about to get a lesson in the “Trump Rules.”null

If you believe Joe Biden has already won, you don’t know Trump like I know Trump. Democrats and the media picked a fight with the wrong guy. They underestimated the wrong guy. Trump isn’t John McCain or Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush.

Sure, the media claims the election is over. Trust me, it’s not. It’s just getting started. Trump is the underdog. But I believe there is a reasonable chance Trump comes out ahead. Trump never gives up or gives in. You’re about to witness a fight that will make Ali vs. Foreman look like an amateur exhibition.

Trump loves coming back from the dead. He considers it the ultimate challenge. Trump is the Road Runner vs. Wile E. Coyote. Beep, beep. No matter how bad it looks, never bet against Trump.

I see a clear path to victory. I know Trump sees it, too. With Alaska in the bag, Trump has 217 electoral votes. With North Carolina in his column within days, Trump has 232. There are many paths to flipping Arizona, Georgia, Nevada or Wisconsin. Any combination of two of those puts Trump at 259. I believe the Supreme Court has tipped its hand. They would rule that any mail-in ballots received after 8 p.m. on Election Day are invalid and must be thrown out. That would give Pennsylvania to Trump and put him at 279. Voila. Trump is president again.

Trust me. I know Trump like no one knows Trump. This election battle for the ages isn’t over. Trump lives his life to make the impossible, possible. Never bet against Trump.

We’re all about to get a priceless lesson in the “Trump Rules.”

P.S. If Trump does eventually lose, then he’ll turn that into a win, too. He’ll start a conservative television network, destroy Fox News and build yet another multibillion-dollar brand. Then he’ll run for president in 2024 and defeat Kamala Harris.

Wayne Allyn Root is a CEO, entrepreneur, bestselling author, nationally syndicated talk-show host on USA Radio Network at 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. EST/3 p.m. to 6 p.m. PST. His new book, “Trump Rules,” is out Nov. 10. 

Although Albert Speer, the Third Reich’s architect and perhaps the only real friend the Fuhrer ever had, has been widely characterized as efficient technocrat, he must also be considered one of the original green builders full of idealistic environmental sustainability plans that was to be implemented across Germany and the Greater Reich after victory. Nazi Germany had massive sustainability plans for much of Europe after the war. Speer was very sympathetic to green interests, practices, policies, and ideas. His environmental sustainability views were similar to Dr. Fritz Todt’s, the original green Nazi builder of the Todt Organization. Speer replaced Todt as Hitler’s armaments minister after he died in a freak plane crash in 1942.

In his famous book, Inside the Third Reich, Speer noted that his particular generation, including himself, had a strong and distinctive attraction to get to close to nature. That this would be the same generation which also foolishly accepted Adolf Hitler as its political leader is highly instructive.

These wandering free spirits, i.e. wandervogels, as they considered themselves to be – which some even have characterized as ‘right-wing’ hippies – were essentially trying to escape the responsibilities of the modern world, and thus found themselves captivated by the Fuhrer.

Indeed, modernity built on the bustle of the city was a world which Speer’s naturist generation really did not understand, nor desired either politically or economically.

The Jews, of course, became an easy target for foisting upon them such banal demands in the Weimar Republic that appeared to be so empty philosophically and spiritually. Speer thus noted that his particular generation’s love affair with nature “was not merely a romantic protest against the narrowness of middle-class life. We were also escaping from the demands of a world growing increasingly complicated.”

was, in fact, a world which they disdained, full of varied responsibilities and demands which selfishly refused to accept. It was also a world which they believed could be overcome by escaping to the great outdoors, if not even through mountain climbing. “Often, from the mountain tops, we looked down upon a gray layer of cloud over the distant plain. Down there lived what to our minds were wretched people; we thought we stood high above them in every sense.”

After spending many years in prison, Speer later acknowledged he and his climbing comrades were “young and arrogant.” Speer added, “We were convinced that only the finest people went into the mountains. When we returned to the normal life of the lowlands, I was quite confused for a while by the bustle of the cities.” 

Speer and his generation of so-called wandervogels measured and compared themselves with others based on how close they were to nature. Nature was used as the Judge to determine who was good and what was valuable. They were looking for purity, simplicity and peace without the modern stress of working and making a living.

This was especially difficult in the trying times of the Weimar Republic, “We felt that the world around us was out of balance. In nature, in the mountains and river valleys, the harmony of Creation could still be felt. The more virginal the mountains, the lonelier the river valleys, the more they drew us.” The embarrassment, depression and defeat Speer and his comrades experienced in the Weimar Republic could all be forgotten in the lofty alpine hills. Abandoned and forsaken by the Weimar Republic, they found solace in the isolationist ideology of National Socialism. In the end, their strong interest in nature’s lonely places would find a solitary niche in the singleness of Adolf Hitler.

Speer later recalled how superficial and uncritical he was of Hitler’s political views. He admitted he could have easily taken a better look at the Fuhrer’s abysmal record, but he did not want to. In fact, at the most critical juncture of Speer’s life when he found himself spellbound by the mood of Hitler’s peasant-like simplicity and modesty, instead of taking a good hard look at the Fuhrer’s views by availing himself of all the political news that was accessible to him, his inclination was to withdraw into the woods to think it all over. “I felt I had to straighten things out in my own mind, to master my confusion. I needed to be alone. Shaken, I drove off into the night in my small car, stopped in a pine forest near the Havel, and went for a long walk.” 

Needless to say, the silence of the woods did not help Speer make the right choice. He would have been far better off reading the newspapers, or talking to his dad, whose traditional liberal bourgeois views on self-determination and responsibility were in direct contrast to both the Communist and Nazi parties.

Even though Speer was an outstanding intellectual and highly educated, he was politically naïve. Speer commented that his particular “failure was rooted in my inadequate political schooling. As a result, I remained uncritical, unable to deal with the arguments of my student friends, who were predominantly indoctrinated with National Socialist ideology.”

As such, Speer fell prey to the counterculture ideology of National Socialism based on eugenics, health and environmentalism, and, in so doing, rebelled against the normal upper-middle-class upbringing his father had given him. Albert Speer became a mindless rebel without a cause. “My inclination to be relieved of having to think particularly about unpleasant facts, helped to sway the balance. In this, I did not differ from millions of others. Such mental slackness above all facilitated, established, and finally assured the success of the National Socialist system.” Albert Speer joined the Nazi Party in 1931.

A little less socialist rebellion and more serious-minded thinking about politics and people would have spared Germany her darkest hour.  Late in life, in another book entitled, Infiltration, Speer wrote that he felt uneasy about his own romantic green ideas because he recognized how closely it resembled the very political ideology of National Socialism. Yet Speer’s admission is disturbing. Has he really learned the lesson of National Socialism if he still holds to similar views years later? Further, how is it even possible Speer rediscovered that his own green romantic views in the 1970s were very similar to the National Socialists of the 1940s? What kind of Nazi spell was cast upon the likes of so many like Albert Speer that they have been able to separate themselves from Nazism, all the while holding to similar views throughout their lives?

As part of his defense after the war during the Nuremberg trial, Speer railed against the dangers of technology since the Nazis technocratically used it to control the populace. However, Speer later recognized how hollow this defense was since the Nazis were the very ones who said as much. Speer thus became a political hypocrite at the very least, an agent of destruction at worst. Even 20 years in Spandau prison could not shake him of this fatal attraction. The same feelings that initially drew him to Adolf Hitler were still with him years later. That this basic truth eluded Speer is a mystery as mystical as German Romanticism itself and as deep as the eugenic Nazi hell that was the Holocaust.

Mark Musser is a part-time missionary, author, and a farmer, depending on what time of day and year it is. His home is in Olympia, Washington, but he spends most of his time on the mission field in the former Soviet Union. He is currently a doctoral candidate at Corban University in Salem, Oregon, and is a contributing writer for the Cornwall Alliance.  His book Nazi Ecology provides a sobering history lesson on the philosophical foundations of the early German green movement, which was absorbed by National Socialism in the 1930s and proved to be a powerful undercurrent during the Holocaust.

[There is a] dangerous little catch phrase which advises you to keep an “open mind.” This is a very ambiguous term—as demonstrated by a man who once accused a famous politician of having “a wide open mind.” That term is an anti-concept: it is usually taken to mean an objective, unbiased approach to ideas, but it is used as a call for perpetual skepticism, for holding no firm convictions and granting plausibility to anything. A “closed mind” is usually taken to mean the attitude of a man impervious to ideas, arguments, facts and logic, who clings stubbornly to some mixture of unwarranted assumptions, fashionable catch phrases, tribal prejudices—and emotions. But this is not a “closed” mind, it is a passive one. It is a mind that has dispensed with (or never acquired) the practice of thinking or judging, and feels threatened by any request to consider anything.

What objectivity and the study of philosophy require is not an “open mind,” but an active mind—a mind able and eagerly willing to examine ideas, but to examine them critically. An active mind does not grant equal status to truth and falsehood; it does not remain floating forever in a stagnant vacuum of neutrality and uncertainty; by assuming the responsibility of judgment, it reaches firm convictions and holds to them. Since it is able to prove its convictions, an active mind achieves an unassailable certainty in confrontations with assailants—a certainty untainted by spots of blind faith, approximation, evasion and fear.

Ayn Rand

The next time someone tells you you’re “closed-minded,” tell them, “You’re damned right.” A person who is “open minded” is an individual without principles. To be open-minded is the standard one applies to the choice between a basset hound and golden retriever. To be closed-minded is the standard one applies to the choice between good and evil.—Artful Dilettante

“A man’s sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions…. He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer–because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement.”

― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged