Reading David Mamet’s new book of essays, The Disenlightenment: Politics, Horror, and Entertainment, I was reminded of how loosely jointed and shape-shifting an essay can be. In this collection, a single essay can pivot from palindromes to springboks to why theatrical events always begin a few minutes after the hour. (Without fail, Mamet says, it takes six or seven minutes for the audience to become quiet with anticipation.) This same eight-page piece of writing then launches into an elaborate comparison of our current anxieties about race, sex, and the environment to the feelings that gave rise to the Salem witch trials.

The book’s weird and wide-ranging variety helps make it an unsettling read. There is a conspiracy afoot, you begin to think, of human nature against itself.

Mamet cites the influence of Rebecca West, George Orwell, and Samuel Johnson. Yet his forays more often made me think of Mencken and Nietzsche (whom Mencken admired and popularized) first in their overall mood and darkness of vision, and second in their tightly packed but sometimes puzzling one-liners.

Take the essay that starts, “Some hold that Shakespeare’s plays were not written by him, but by another fellow of the same name.” Yeah, think about that for a moment or two. It seems to be an involuted joke. And nothing else in the paragraphs that follow makes its meaning any clearer. The line just hangs there, uncomfortably in your memory, asking to be filed away as a bit of misdirection or incongruous theme-setting.

Elsewhere this same tendency brings out Mamet’s charming storehouse of weird folk wisdom. In the middle of a denunciation of lawyers and doctors, he pulls over to the side of the road and announces, “The old Vermont folk song had it that there are only two things that money can’t buy: true love and homegrown tomatoes.”

Of course, Mamet’s plays are memorable for their standalone observations which, though framed as dialogue, can be plucked and quoted in other situations. It takes very little prompting to get men of a certain age to repeat Glengarry Glen Ross’s famous salesman shtick. I myself have a weakness for a line in the movie Heist, wherein Joe Moore, played by Gene Hackman, is asked how he came up with an idea. Moore answers, “I tried to imagine a fellow smarter than myself. Then I tried to think, What would he do?”

There is a purpose, Mamet says, that unites his essays as a group. It is an overtly political purpose, a response to the unsettling political and social dramas of the last 10 to 20 years. But not only does he want to survey the damage. He wants to sketch a kind of unified theory to explain what has happened.

“This book is an attempt to identify,” Mamet writes, “a seemingly unconnected set of symptoms as a single disease.”

The symptoms include presidents with unpatriotic agendas: “Obama was a Marxist and Islamist opportunist,” writes Mamet. Elections that can’t be trusted: On the subject of coups he notes that “since the Civil War, we’d had none here until the election of 2020.” Changes in how we think of gender, allowing the “sexual mutilation of minors.” The party of the left: “The totalitarian suppression and brutality of the fascists and communists … describes today’s Democratic Party.” And DEI programs: “Diversity, equity, and inclusion is just thuggery.”

Mamet, whose political conversion to conservatism was announced in 2008, has turned full-on MAGA. He believes the United States is in decline but remains hopeful, saying, “Trump is a hero, and his heirs will, God willing, increase the longevity of the American Experiment.”

What’s behind our political sickness, according to Mamet, if I read him correctly, is a compound of human failings. First, there is the mendacity of politicians whom he compares to the shill in a game of three-card monte—the shill being a person who pretends to be a player, encourages others to risk their money, but is working in cahoots with the dealer. Next is the gullibility of voters about whom it can be said that they basically want to be lied to. Here the similarities between politics and entertainment begin to stand out.

“The lights go down on stage or screen and we are involved in a complicity. We will suspend our disbelief in return for being told a story,” Mamet writes.

Finally, there is the all-too-human desire to be accepted into the tribe. Mamet psychologizes this as a misguided attempt to fit in and survive. “Membership in our various correct-thinking groups is actually an unconscious attempt to reconstitute the family—the group which might offer protection.” This natural urge has been cranked into overdrive by the rise of the internet and those devices that keep us connected to it. “The addictive ‘connectedness’ offered by the computer awakens our human instinct for constant connection to the group.” Mass psychology takes over and people begin denying their own individual or subgroup identities.

Mamet, who has been an outspoken defender of Judaism longer than he has been a conservative, is especially hard on Jewish Democrats. “Today the Democrats have become the party of anti-Semitism,” he writes, complaining especially about Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) “a Jew, representing a significantly Jewish constituency. … Who does he think he is, and what does he think might defend him and his constituents, should the Caliphate come knocking?”

Mamet’s book, even if you disagree with much of it (and I do), offers the frank example of a brilliant writer whose anger and frustration has placed him fully on one side of the great political divide in our polarized era. It is not, however, a work of persuasion. It speaks in its political essays almost only to the converted. But on the margins, especially where politics meets culture and history, it can still be compelling even to those who march to a different drummer.

When the subject turns to theater and show business, however, Mamet speaks with a level of authority that makes him formidable. On method acting, on the power dynamics between actors and directors, on Top Gun: Maverick (“no drama at all,” Mamet says, “Maverick is a computer game”), and a hundred other matters of show business, he is simply more penetrating. More stressed out and battle-scarred, and wise too, reminding you that a man’s politics is not always the most important or interesting thing about him.

The Disenlightenment: Politics, Horror, and Entertainment
by David Mamet
Broadside Books, 238 pp., $32.99

David Skinner is an editor and writer who writes about language, culture, and history. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

This despicably misleading headline is exactly why the American people have completely lost faith in the mainstream media. This journalist knows the facts, was given the truth, and adamantly refuses to report it. Here are the facts: At 6:50 PM CT, federal law enforcement officers were conducting a targeted traffic stop in Minneapolis of an illegal alien from Venezuela who was released into the country by Joe Biden in 2022. In an attempt to evade arrest, the subject fled the scene in his vehicle and crashed into a parked car. The subject then fled on foot. The law enforcement officer caught up to the subject on foot and attempted to apprehend him when the subject began to resist and violently assault the officer. While the subject and law enforcement were in a struggle on the ground, two subjects came out of a nearby apartment and also attacked the law enforcement officer with a snow shovel and broom handle. As the officer was being ambushed and attacked by the two individuals, the original subject got loose and began striking the officer with a shovel or broom stick. Fearing for his life and safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired a defensive shot to defend his life. The initial subject was hit in the leg. All three subjects ran back into the apartment and barricaded themselves inside. The attacked officer and subject are both in the hospital. Both attackers are in custody.

X/Twitter

Greenland’s economy may be small, but its real value is tied to Arctic security and vast mineral reserves. Trump’s interest in it reflects US efforts to counter China’s dominance in sourcing critical raw materials. When Donald Trump once again raised the idea of acquiring Greenland in early 2025, it sounded, at first, like a familiar holdover from his first presidency.

Yet the renewed interest, this time accompanied by reports that Trump’s team had discussed issuing direct payments to Greenlanders, seems to point to a deeper commitment than mere political theatre.

On Wednesday, US vice president JD Vance met with Denmark’s foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and Greenland’s foreign minister Vivian Motzfeldt in Washington.

Speaking to reporters, Rasmussen said the two ministers told their US counterparts that “it is not easy to think innovative[ly] about solutions when you wake up every morning to different threats”.

He explained that the talks were constructive, but added that Trump was insisting on an “unacceptable” proposal to conquer Greenland.

France, Germany, Sweden, and Norway, all NATO members like Denmark, have decided to send troops to Greenland to participate in joint exercises with Denmark.

What had long been treated as provocation is now looking like a serious bid for Arctic dominance. At the expense of NATO ally Denmark, it is possible the US is eyeing up Greenland for its mineral reserves — as well as for national security reasons.

Such a move ushers an Arctic chill into the EU’s relationship with the US, particularly at a time when the bloc is struggling to secure raw materials needed to maintain climate goals and digital infrastructure.

Why Trump wants Greenland Greenland is not rich in the conventional sense. Its economy is small, heavily dependent on fisheries, and it survives largely on an annual block grant from Denmark of about DKK 3.9bn (€520mn), equivalent to roughly €9,000 per resident per year.

According to the World Bank, Greenland’s gross domestic product is estimated at around $3.5–4bn (€3.2–3.7bn), serving a population of roughly 56,000 people. Around 90% of exports derive from fishery-related products.

While these attributes remain uninteresting for the Trump administration, the US is seemingly attracted by two factors that have little to do with GDP. One is where it sits on the globe, and the other is what lies hidden beneath its ice.

The island occupies a critical position between North America and Europe, and it is already home to Pituffik Space Base, a cornerstone of US missile-warning and space-surveillance systems in the Arctic.

“If we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland,” said Trump. “And we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbour.”

Resources may add another layer to US motivations — although the president has publicly argued that this isn’t the case. Washington is painfully aware that China dominates rare earth mining and the downstream processing that turns ore into usable inputs.

‘It may be a choice’ between NATO and Greenland, Trump says

Greenland currently produces no rare earths, but the US Geological Survey estimates that it holds about 1.5 million tonnes of mineable rare earth reserves. The Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), on the other hand, estimates that the nation’s rare earth resources amount to around 36.1 million tonnes — a reminder of the gap between what is geologically there and what is commercially mineable.

Research by the GEUS shows that Greenland contains occurrences of 25 of the 34 materials the European Commission classifies as “critical” rare and raw minerals. These materials are used in products ranging from electric vehicle motors to fighter jets. In total, 55 critical-raw-material deposits have been identified in Greenland, yet only one is currently being mined.

The European Union is currently 100% dependent on Chinese imports for heavy rare earths, while the US also relies heavily on foreign supply chains.

China is responsible for around 70% of the rare earth volumes extracted from mines globally, equivalent to 270,000 tonnes in 2024.

Can Greenland replace China in rare earth security? Aside from its rare earth resources, Greenland is also potentially rich in oil and natural gas.

Though exploration was largely frozen following a 2021 moratorium on new oil drilling, legacy estimates by the US Geological Survey suggest Greenland’s offshore basins may contain up to 17.5 billion barrels of oil and 148 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

The raw geological value of Greenland’s known mineral resources could, in theory, exceed $4tr (€3.66tr), according to estimates by a study published by the American Action Forum (AAF).

However, only a fraction of that — around $186bn — is considered realistically extractable under current market, regulatory, and technological conditions.

EU troops might be needed to stop a US showdown in Greenland

While the AAF puts Greenland’s “price tag” at $186bn, hypothetical estimates from commentators differ widely.

Looking at private sector GDP and potential tax revenue from the island, the Economist puts forward a valuation of $50bn.

Other estimates look at historical US transactions, notably the purchases of Alaska, Louisiana, and the Virgin Islands, and adjust these costs to today’s purchasing prices.

The Financial Times has suggested that a valuation of $1.1tr would be appropriate based on the island’s resources, while the New York Times produced an estimate between $12.5bn and $77bn.

The vast disparities between these sums point to the intangible nature of Greenland’s value.

Would cash change Greenlanders’ minds?

The Trump administration is considering direct payments — between $10,000 and $100,000 per Greenland resident — as a way to nudge public sentiment in Greenland toward a US realignment.

Yet polling data strongly suggests such overtures are politically tone-deaf. A January 2025 Verian Group’s poll found 85% of Greenlanders oppose leaving Denmark to join the United States, while just 6% support the idea.

In the US, the idea is equally unpopular. A YouGov poll in January 2026 showed only 8% support for using military force to take Greenland, with 73% opposed.

According to 22V Research economist Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, Copenhagen has shifted from quietly absorbing Donald Trump’s remarks to actively constraining them through law, institutions, and alliances.

The aim is not to win an argument with the White House, but to narrow the space in which it can act.

Congress to the rescue?

Kirkegaard argues that the US Congress is currently more sensitive to presidential overreach after recent events in Venezuela. Last week, the US Senate advanced a war powers measure to curb further military action against the South American country without explicit congressional authorisation.

Any attempt to change Greenland’s status would require congressional consent. Even rhetorical threats against the territory of a NATO ally also risk undermining the alliance itself, a red line for many US lawmakers.

At the same time, Kirkegaard notes, Denmark has room to offer Trump something tangible without touching sovereignty.

Expanded defence cooperation and greater scope for US investment in Greenland’s mineral sector would allow Washington to strengthen its strategic position while staying within existing agreements.

“Trump can therefore put thousands of US troops in Greenland to protect American national security with the full political blessing of Denmark and Greenland, and go on to declare that he has addressed this issue,” Kirkegaard told Euronews.

The expert indicated that under the 1951 US–Denmark defence agreement, Washington has broad latitude to expand its military presence in Greenland without altering its sovereignty.

On the other hand, Kirkegaard is sceptical that an offer “to buy” Greenland would advance.

Any serious financial offer to Greenlanders, Kirkegaard notes, would almost certainly require congressional funding, a hard sell in an election year, given US public opposition and domestic cost-of-living pressures.

Denmark’s current approach, he suggests, intends to allow institutional limits, congressional oversight, and electoral timelines do the work, steadily draining the issue of urgency and turning it into background noise rather than a diplomatic crisis.

Viewed through that lens, Greenland’s value is not about a purchase price. It is about symbolism, strategy and the balance between cooperation and control in an increasingly contested world.

Piero Cingari/Euronews

The number of employees on the federal government’s payroll has dropped by 277,000 since President Donald Trump took office for his second term, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. 

The agency said in its monthly jobs report that federal employment was 2.738 million in November, adjusted for seasonal variations, down from 3.015 million in January. 

Story by Gregory Korte and Adrienne Tong

(Bloomberg) — President Donald Trump’s cuts to the federal workforce in 2025 hit every major agency last year — with cabinet departments including Education, Housing and Treasury taking the brunt of the downsizing, according to government data released Thursday.

More than 322,000 employees have left agencies since Trump took office, with departures outpacing new hires by more than three-to-one. The figures from the Office of Personnel Management — the most up-to-date snapshot of federal employment data — show the workforce undergoing its most dramatic transformation in decades. That followed Trump’s move to enact a hiring freeze on his first day in office and put Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk in charge of a wide-ranging effort to cut government spending. 

The Education Department, which Trump has vowed to dismantle, shed some 39% of its headcount between January and November 2025. The workforce shrank 23% at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and was slashed by 21% at Treasury over the same period.

This is more advanced than you think Tesla’s Texas lithium refinery is the first in North America to convert raw spodumene ore directly into battery-grade lithium hydroxide, skipping the intermediate steps the rest of the industry relies on It went from groundbreaking to first production in just 19 months, an unheard-of timeline at this scale The process is cleaner too: no hazardous sodium sulfate waste, and a useful byproduct that can be turned into concrete This single refinery can supply lithium for over 500,000 EVs per year and directly challenges China’s ~60% grip on global lithium refining One of the biggest bottlenecks in the EV supply chain just got an upgrade.

XFreeze/X

Amid all the talk about the ethnicity of Jesus – whether black, white or somewhere in between – some appear to be ignoring the fact he was Jewish.

The debate around Christ’s skin colour, which has arisen out of the Black Lives Matter protests, has now been taken up by clergymen desperate to project the church as relevant in an increasingly volatile environment. The incoming Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, recently told The Times, “Jesus was a black man”.

Jesus came for everyone, and it’s understandable that different cultures should want to present him in their own image. Here in the UK, for example, Jesus has typically been depicted as a white Westerner. But such unhelpful representations often ignore the fact that Jesus is Jewish. He came “to his own” (John 1:11) as the long-promised Jewish Messiah, and will return to Jerusalem as a Jew, specifically, “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David”. (Revelation 5:5)

As the Brighton-based author and speaker David Hoffbrand puts it in his book The Jewish Jesus, we need to strip away the layers that have increasingly masked Jesus over the centuries so we can see him as he really is. In one ancient Byzantine church, a fresco depicted Jesus as blond-haired and blue-eyed. Hoffbrand reports how several layers of paintings were found underneath, which dated back to as early as 600 AD. “The interesting thing was,” Hoffbrand writes, the further the archeologists went, “the more like a typical Jewish man Jesus looked [in the painting], with dark brown hair, brown eyes and olive skin.”

Jesus came for both Jews and Gentiles (Luke 2:32). It was his Jewish disciples who brought the light of the gospel to the world at large – all but one of the Bible’s 40 authors were Jewish. Our Lord was steeped in all the ways and customs of the Jews and, apart from a brief exile in Egypt as an infant, never set foot outside Israel. And when, aged 30, he began his ministry as a rabbi, he said he had not come to abolish the Law of Moses, but to fulfil it (Matthew 5:17). In fact, he went on to emphasise the importance of every jot of the law’s requirements (v18). His family attended the major feasts in Jerusalem, requiring a considerable 70-mile journey (probably on foot) through rugged hill country. He himself fulfilled the feasts, in being sacrificed as our Passover Lamb and in rising from the dead on the feast of first-fruits. These facts are often ignored and overlooked in the current discussions.

Jesus focused on the Old Testament command to love our neighbour as ourselves (Leviticus 19:18). But he went further by urging us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44). This surely applies to the victims of prejudice today, not least our fellow Christians who are being butchered to death by the thousands in oppressive regimes around the world. Sadly, the age-old problem of Jewish persecution is also a reality in our world today. Although they should now be safe in their own land once more, they instead face repeated threats of extermination from their enemies – most notably Iran. Yet wonderfully and miraculously, in a country where following Jesus is extremely dangerous, a huge army of Iranian believers has emerged from the darkness of this rogue regime. Most significantly, it is reported that when these new Christians in Iran realise that Jesus is Jewish, it changes their whole perspective on the people they have been brainwashed to see as their enemies. With melted hearts, they are falling in love with the Jewish people whose Messiah has freed them from fanatical Islam’s chains of imprisonment.

Like these Christians in Iran who are engaged in persistent prayer for Israel, I have found it to be true that, if you love Jesus, you will love the Jews – his brothers in the flesh.

Jesus is Jewish. Focusing on this truth will not only increase our knowledge but also greatly enrich our faith.

Charles Gardner is South African-born journalist based in Yorkshire, England. He became a Christian at the outset of his career 40 years ago and has developed a particular love for Israel and the Jewish people. He is author of Israel the Chosen and King of the Jews

Iran issued a sickening threat against President Trump Wednesday, broadcasting a picture of the commander in chief during the 2024 Butler rally assassination attempt — with the words “This time it will not miss the target.”

This ominous warning was aired on Iranian state-run TV, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported.

It marks Tehran’s most direct threat yet against Trump, following his repeated threats that the US will strike the country if it continues its brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters.

The image of a bloodied-Trump appeared to be taken from a pro-government rally in Iran, which has been allowed to air despite nationwide blackouts over the protests against the regime. 

Trump was infamously the target of an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when he was shot in the ear by gunman Thomas Crooks. 

Iran has made threats to kill Trump in the past, including a 2022 video posted by the regime depicting an assassination attempt on the president at his Mar-a-Lago golf course prior to the 2024 election. 

The video resurfaced following the arrest of would-be assassin Ryan Routh, who was arrested while trying to take aim at Trump on the same golf course. 

The Justice Department also said that in 2024, the US thwarted an Iranian-led plot to kill Trump after arresting Farhad Shakeri, who was allegedly tasked by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps to murder the president for the regime, according to court documents.  

Along with the anti-Trump signs, those attending the latest pro-government rallies in Iran were heard shouting, “Death to America!” as they vowed their support for Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 

The pro-regime rallies are meant to try and undermine the widespread protests against Tehran that have carried on since Dec. 28 over the nation’s failing economy. 

The protests have triggered a brutal crackdown on dissent, with more than 2,500 people killed since the demonstrations began, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, with thousands more arrested. 

Tensions between Tehran and Washington have ramped up over the protests, with Trump warning that a military operation was on the table over the attack on the protesters. 

Officials in Tehran, meanwhile, have said that it would attack American troops in the region and even Israel if the US strikes Iran. 

Ronny Reyes, New York Post

While the American revolution was ostensibly a revolution, in reality it was more of a divorce where the kids kept the same parents, they just lived with their Mom.  Their Dad was still their Dad, but they didn’t have much to do with him. In contrast, the French and Russian revolutions were basically the children taking their parents out back and shooting them…

The American revolution was a revolution, but it wasn’t revolutionary. But what was revolutionary was the United States Constitution.

For the first time in history, a government was formed by a written constitution that described rights that were inherent from God (as articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the constitution of most of the original 13 states) upon which the government could not impede.  What’s more, the entire thing was created for the specific purpose of limiting the power of government. This was made clear by the Bill of Rights, which—beginning with Massachusetts—became the quid pro quo for getting the Constitution ratified. And in case anyone missed the point, the last of the ten amendments that make up the Bill of Rights states “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

That was every bit as revolutionary as the French sending King Louis XVI to the guillotine or the Bolsheviks shooting Tsar Nicholas II and his entire family in a basement.  But what’s more, unlike those other two revolutions, the American Constitution didn’t result in rivers of blood and a collapse of society.  On the contrary, it set the American experiment on its slow but methodical march to revolutionize the world and unleash the potential of man.

The American experiment worked… for almost 200 years.  Of course it didn’t work perfectly for everyone all the time, nor for some people any of the time, but for the overwhelming majority of people who have lived in the United States over the course of its existence, life has been better here than almost any other place on Earth.

But that experiment is in the process of collapsing. Why?  Simple.  Because the nation that was birthed with a constitution specifically geared towards limiting government power has metastasized into a nation where the government controls virtually everything.

Today it’s almost impossible for a person to get out of bed and go through a normal day without out violating one or more laws.  Just the federal government alone, which was the government the Constitution sought to control the most, today has so many laws that it itself can’t tell you how many there are. Justice Gorsuch estimates as many as 300,000.  To his credit, President Trump sees the problem.

But that is just one part of the problem.  Another, even more dire, is playing itself out on our X accounts and on TV right in front of us – except obviously, the MSM…  I’m of course talking about the criminal enterprise that is known as what seems like the entire Somali population in America. It appears that Somalians in America have stolen almost as much money from American taxpayers as the entire GDP of Somalia itself.

This of course comes mere months after we saw DOGE discover the USAID / NGO grift machine documenting tens of billions of taxpayer dollars going to fund countless leftist programs.  Not surprisingly, both involve Democrats… but that’s an issue for another day.

As enraging as all of this is, these treacheries are just a drop in the bucket of where America has gone off her Constitutional rails. One need to look no farther than the federal budget to understand it. Today, 70% of federal spending goes to things that did not exist when the Constitution was written.

And we’re not talking about air traffic control towers or NASA.  No, these are programs where government basically takes taxpayer’s money and gives it to someone else. And what would those things be? Social Security, Health, Medicare, Education & Income security. (While SS is not redistribution, it is money the government demands and then controls the distribution of.) That’s fully 70% of federal funding, clocking in at a cool $4.4 trillion. A century before, domestic spending – at that time usually on roads and farm subsidies – made up less than 13% of the federal budget.  Another way of looking at this is that in 1821 federal spending made up 2.5% of America’s total GDP while today it’s in excess of 23%.

The fraud in Minnesota and via USAID are merely the most blatant examples of a system that has gone rouge.  Half of American households pay essentially no income taxes while 100 million Americans receive some sort of government assistance.  And the icing on the cake is that we’re not even spending our own money, we’re borrowing to do so, and today the national debt stands  at 100% of GDP and unfunded mandates at twice that.

Between the stultifying regulations, the income redistribution and the rampant, government sanctioned fraud dressed up like social programs, Americans have betrayed their birthright.

America became the most powerful and consequential nation in human history specifically because of her explicitly limited government. For a period of almost 200 years she stood as a beacon of freedom and hope and opportunity.

To the outside world that illusion of greatness may remain, but the reality is, much like the French Ancien régime before the revolution, there is a cancer at its core. And that cancer is government.  Not government per se, but rather an out-of-control government that regulates too much, spends too much and controls too much.  Our government has become a leviathan in every manner possible and its tentacles and largesse have undercut the foundation upon which the nation was founded.

With the Democrat party’s Stalinist leanings and Stasi like practices getting too difficult for free men to tolerate, the election of Donald Trump was a requisite for averting a real revolution. But it’s not sufficient.  The America that changed the world for the better, that unleashed a level of human achievement unlike any other cannot survive as a borg, which is exactly what it has become.

If Donald Trump and the mostly useless GOP Congress really want to actually make America great again, starting in 2026 they will turn their metaphorical guns and scalpels on the government itself and begin to bring back the primary idea that made America great in the first place:  Limited government. Without that, everything else is little more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, and the outcome will be the same.

It is not my usual fare. I typically summarize books that expose institutional capture, medical corruption, or the mechanisms by which official narratives diverge from observable reality. Atlas Shrugged is not that kind of book. It is a novel—a thousand-page philosophical novel published in 1957 about railroads and steel mills and a mysterious man who stops the motor of the world. It came up recently in conversation with a close friend, and I realized that despite its enormous cultural footprint, almost no one I know has actually read it. They know the name Ayn Rand. They have opinions about her. But they have not sat with the book itself.

This matters because Atlas Shrugged is one of the most influential novels of the twentieth century, particularly in American political and economic thought. Alan Greenspan was a member of Rand’s inner circle. Silicon Valley founders cite her as formative. The book has sold more than ten million copies and consistently ranks in surveys as one of the most impactful books Americans have ever read. Yet the ratio of people who have opinions about Rand to people who have actually finished her major work is probably a hundred to one. The ratio of people who could accurately explain Objectivism—the philosophy the novel dramatizes—is smaller still. Most criticism of Rand attacks positions she did not hold, and most praise defends positions she would not recognize.

So I thought I would make a contribution to that deficit. What follows is not literary criticism or political endorsement. It is an attempt to lay out clearly what the book actually says—its characters, its plot, its philosophical arguments—so that anyone who wants to engage with these ideas can do so from a position of knowledge rather than secondhand caricature. Rand’s conclusions may be right or wrong, but they deserve to be understood before they are judged. This is my attempt at that understanding.

With thanks to Ayn Rand.

U.S. — With the fall of the Ayatollah regime appearing to be imminent, prominent Democrats expressed fear that the dangerous Iranian desire for freedom could potentially spread to the United States.

Leaders of the Democratic Party stressed that the desire to be free from oppression could pose a serious threat to the American way of life and urged everyone to ignore what has been happening in Iran to prevent it from happening here.

“This type of thinking is contagious,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. “I wept when I turned on the news and saw what was happening in Tehran. It’s frightening. I’m afraid of something similar happening here in our country. This desire for freedom and liberty could really destroy everything the Democratic Party has worked so hard for so long to build in America.”

If the movement continues to spread unchecked, Democrats said, it could make it more difficult to maintain the oppressive hold the federal government has on the American people. “If the Ayatollah can be overthrown, there’s no telling what could happen to us,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. “Watching the Iranian people protesting to be free is a sobering lesson that we all must learn to keep it from spreading like a virus. Today, it’s Tehran. Tomorrow, it could be New York, Philadelphia, or Chicago. We have to avoid this desire for freedom and keep it from taking hold in the U.S.”

At publishing time, Democrats had reportedly called a closed-door meeting to address the danger of Americans rising up to stage a revolution to win their freedom

The Babylon Bee