Five days before the midterms, Hillary Clinton told Democrats what a new majority would do first. Not lower grocery bills. Not cheaper gas. Investigations.

On the Oct. 28 episode of High Stakes, the Vox Media podcast she co-hosts with Kara Swisher, Clinton predicted President Trump would soon face “a Democratic Congress trying to rein him in, hold him accountable, and investigate him, his administration, his family, his supporters and allies.” Then she added: “So buckle up. The election is just the beginning.” The remarks come at about the 1:12 mark of the episode, according to a published transcript and the Rothman Report’s account of the episode.

“His supporters”

Investigating an administration is Congress’s job, and Republicans did plenty of it under President Biden. But Clinton did not stop at the administration. She named Trump’s family, his “allies” and his “supporters.” More than 77 million Americans voted for Trump in 2024: 77,302,580, according to the Federal Election Commission’s official results. Clinton did not say which supporters she had in mind, or what they would be investigated for.

That vagueness is the problem. This is the same politician who said in September 2016 that “you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” according to Time. Now she is talking about a congressional majority that would go after the people around the president, five days before voters decide who controls the House. It is fair to ask whether “hold him accountable” means oversight or payback.

She also cited the idea from behavioral psychology that people “in what’s called the domain of loss” will “double down on risk,” and predicted Trump would “most likely launch more attacks on Iran.” She said Trump “has held Republicans hostage for a decade” and that the hostages would eventually decide to “take him on.”

Affordability as an afterthought

To be fair, Clinton did mention prices. She said Democratic leaders want to “start introducing legislation to deal with affordability” on day one, and she closed by calling affordability and corruption “the two big issues.” But in the same episode she named no specific bill on grocery prices, housing or energy. The investigations got the big line. The kitchen-table plan got a sentence.

Voters have seen this movie. After Democrats took the House in 2018, the next two years were dominated by the Russia probe, impeachment and subpoena fights. Clinton is telling voters, in her own words, to expect the sequel.

If Democrats want to win on the cost of living, they should lead with the cost of living. Promising to investigate a president’s “supporters” is not an economic plan. It is a warning, and Clinton was honest enough to say so. Voters should take her at her word: buckle up.

The National Telegraph Staff

It seems morbidly appropriate that America’s midterm elections come right after Halloween.  What the Democrat Party offers voters this year is the culmination of many decades of cultural rot, psychopathy, and anti-Americanism.  

It feels as if we’re in the middle of a scary movie, doesn’t it?  Are we hanging from the edge of a cliff?  Yes.  Are there evil monsters chasing us down?  Yes.  Does it seem as if every choice we make could be our last?  Yes.

What the Democrat Party has become is truly horrific.  Like Frankenstein’s monster, its political body is comprised of dead parts: Islamic supremacy, racial grievance, class warfare, cultural Marxism, cultish communism, child sacrifice, child mutilation, sexual deviance, and pagan gods.  Everything the Democrats celebrate today is disgusting, gruesome, and deserving of an R-rating.

A lot of Americans have drifted from the Democrat to the Republican Party over the last few decades.  

It is apt that the two Republican presidents of the last century that Republican voters rate most highly — President Reagan and President Trump — both spent parts of their lives as members of the Democrat Party.  

There was a time when Republicans and Democrats were not so different.  President Kennedy’s low-tax, pro-manufacturing policies were very similar to Trump’s economic growth agenda today.  Kennedy Democrats included anti-communist military veterans who would feel right at home in this century’s Republican Party.  

Blue-collar workers who once identified as Democrats have realized that President Trump’s MAGA-fied Republican Party is the only party interested in supercharging the number of industrial and manufacturing jobs in the United States.  

Democrats used to champion equality of opportunity for women.  Now they punish high school girls who object to being forced to change in the same locker rooms as confused boys and ridicule girls who refuse to compete against boys in girls’ sports.  

The Democrat Party used to include a huge number of hunters, military veterans, and other Americans who accepted the responsibility of self-defense.  Now Democrats vilify gun owners as if they were domestic terrorists while protecting violent criminals who use weapons against innocent Americans.  

The Democrat Party used to include a huge number of practicing Catholics, devout Protestants, and observant Jews.  It included thoughtful scholars such as Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whose report on black poverty recognized marriage as the lynchpin to social mobility.  It included cultural groups, civic organizations, and clubs that promoted strong, healthy families.  

Now Democrats dismiss marriage and the nuclear family as vestiges of “patriarchy” and “white supremacy.”  They use their power over legal associations and medical boards to promote the castration and mutilation of children.  Many Democrats promote promiscuity and sexual fetishization as “healthy” lifestyles and not-so-subtly endorse incest, bestiality, and pedophilia.  

At what point does it not become obvious that the Democrat Party has become the “safe space” for grotesque evils?

When an illegal alien rapes and/or murders an American girl, Democrats in public office and Democrats working as “journalists” show more compassion for the rapist/murderer than they do for the broken victim.  

This is monstrous, abhorrent, anti-American behavior that I would not have thought possible thirty years ago.  Most of us remember a time when Americans took care of and protected other Americans.  We beat back those who threatened our peace, and we hunted monsters that hurt American children.  Now Democrats describe the monsters among us as victims and ignore the dead American girls and their suffering American families altogether.  What a ghoulish, soulless party the Democrats have become.

Last week, an illegal alien from Mexico used a sledgehammer to damage an Iwo Jima monument in Quantico, Virginia, and during his act of desecration, the foreigner beheaded one of the statues depicting American marines’ utmost sacrifice in the Pacific Theater during the Second World War.  

The Battle of Iwo Jima was one of the bloodiest conflicts in American history, and three of the men depicted in that monument never came home.  Decapitating a hero’s likeness is an act of hatred against America and disrespect for all American veterans.  

Nevertheless, Democrat politicians and Democrat “journalists” ignored the story as much as possible, and when forced to acknowledge it, Democrats blamed the incident on a generic “Virginia man,” as if the crime were a minor act of vandalism of no significance.  

This is how little respect Democrats have for American heroes, American history, and American sacrifice.  Democrats in office and Democrats in newsrooms write glowing propaganda in defense of foreign nationals who have no business being in the United States, but they completely disregard the vile acts of destruction that monsters perpetrate against American citizens and their cherished symbols.  

We also know that if Democrats regain Congress and the presidency, the worst is yet to come.  

President Obama and President Biden are responsible for over two-thirds of the district court judges currently on the bench.  This is why some federal judge is always inventing laws or parts of the Constitution that do not exist or usurping Article II powers that belong to President Trump.  The only impediment to the Democrats’ complete takeover of the Judiciary is the Supreme Court — or, more accurately, the stalwart defense of the Constitution coming from the jurisprudence of Justice Thomas and Justice Alito.

Democrats have made no secret of their plans to get rid of the Senate filibuster should they achieve a simple governing majority.  With fifty Democrat senators and a Democrat in the White House in January 2029, they will unleash a barrage of legislation and finish the “fundamental transformation” of the United States government that began in earnest during Obama’s presidency.  

Democrats will recognize the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico as new states, adding four more Democrat senators to the upper chamber.  

Democrats will once again open America’s borders to foreign invasion and grant mass amnesty and citizenship to any foreigner in the world.  By doing so, Democrats will greatly expand the number of Democrat voters and obtain an insurmountable supermajority in the House of Representatives.  

As they have repeatedly promised, Democrats will add at least six new justices to the Supreme Court, ensuring complete ideological control over the federal judiciary.  

In three quick moves, the Democrat Party will successfully erect a one-party political system with permanent power over the federal government — indistinguishable from the monopoly power that the Chinese Communist Party has enjoyed since 1949.

That’s how fast Islamo-communism and the European Union’s brand of totalitarian globalism will take over the United States if Americans don’t fight back.  

We know what happens then.  Democrat Senator Elissa Slotkin and her collaborators have promised to lock up Trump supporters.  Democrat Senator Adam Schiff and Democrat Senator Chris Murphy promise to censor political dissent on social media — effectively killing the First Amendment.  The Democrat-controlled IRS, FBI, and DOJ will once again persecute us as “potential domestic terrorists.”  Democrats will kill the Second Amendment and come for our firearms.  Democrats will use taxpayer dollars to fund their Antifa paramilitary and NGO armies and direct them to burn down cities and attack Americans.  Democrats will celebrate the assassination of Charlie Kirk and incite their followers to murder more of us.

Avoid this horror movie.  Vote Republican on Tuesday.

J.B. Shurk, American Thinker

I’ll let ya believe it was the first two billion years if you want. Go ahead. You have a brain capable of comprehending the infinite because God created you in His image, just like He finely tuned everything in the universe to be a beautiful work of engineering and artisanship.

But before everyone argues about the theology, take a moment to appreciate how modern science continues to prove Psalm 19 right.

From a Smithsonian report:

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and Nancy Roman Space Telescope are revealing the universe’s earliest chapters in extraordinary detail. To help astronomers understand what they are seeing, researchers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian have developed ‘Lumina,’ one of the largest and most detailed simulations ever created of the early universe.

Published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the new model recreates how ordinary matter, dark matter, and radiation interacted during the universe’s first [few days of creation 😉], giving scientists a powerful new tool to test theories about how the cosmos evolved after the Big Bang.

Can’t wait to see the case for a Creator continue to be proven!

Just look at His handiwork, spread out across billions of stars and galaxies 👇

VIDEOS AT LINK………..

Psalm 147 says “He counts the number of the stars; he gives names to all of them.”

The God who made the incomprehensibly large expanse of the cosmos made you, knows you, and wants you to know Him.

The Smithsonian reports (in slightly more accessible language) that the Lumina program “models how the universe’s fundamental ingredients, including gas, dark matter, and light, interact to form stars and galaxies.”

The simulation covers more than 100 times the volume of space modeled by previous comparable simulations. … Creating Lumina required more than 15,000 graphics processing units running on Frontier, one of the world’s fastest supercomputers, located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Its immense computing power allowed researchers to model an unprecedented volume of the early universe while maintaining the level of detail needed to study the formation of galaxies, stars, and black holes.

The scientists plan to use Lumina in future simulations “to investigate how gases move between galaxies, how radiation from the Big Bang shaped cosmic evolution, and how regions of intense star formation developed over time.”

While they do, I’ll be over here re-reading Genesis 1.

Not the Bee

Secretary of State Marco Rubio was right to grant a visa to Brazilian presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro and his family. As President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, grows increasingly vindictive and authoritarian, the United States should make clear that political persecution has adverse consequences. Supporting freedom and democracy in Latin America means standing behind those whose right to challenge the government is under threat. Offering protection to an opposition leader in the region’s biggest and most populous nation upholds America’s principles and serves its strategic interests.

Bolsonaro and his family arrived in the U.S. this week after his defeat in the Oct. 25 election. His relocation was well timed, for following that close result, Brazilian prosecutors moved quickly to seize Bolsonaro’s passport. They say the conservative politician is under investigation for money laundering and is a flight risk.

The allegations against Bolsonaro are serious and, if Brazilian media reporting is accurate, also credible. Brazilian police are said to have financial records linking Bolsonaro to money-laundering schemes. Considering the grotesque scale of political corruption in Latin America, effective anti-corruption efforts are a priority.

Regardless of the evidence, however, Lula’s presidency makes it impossible for Bolsonaro to get a fair trial. Lula, who was previously imprisoned for his involvement in a vast kickback scheme involving Brazil’s nationalized energy company, seeks vengeance against anyone who dares to challenge him.

His animus is not limited to Bolsonaro. Journalists, opposition figures, and activists have all faced repression since Lula returned to power in 2023. Most visible has been the president’s fanatical focus on shutting down critical social media accounts. This crackdown has involved Lula’s politicization of the judiciary, including his stacking of the Supreme Court with partisan allies.

Lula appointed his interior minister and his personal lawyer to the nation’s highest court. The results have been alarming.

In 2024, X, formerly Twitter, was taken offline for all Brazilian users after its owner, Elon Musk, refused to block accounts critical of Lula. X was allowed to resume operations only after it paid millions of dollars in fines and restricted the accounts in question. Lula says this is about countering “disinformation.” In reality, it’s about controlling the narrative.

Lula’s former lawyer, now a Supreme Court justice, was responsible for extending voting hours at the last minute on Sunday. While both campaigns applied for extended voting hours, the announcement came when many voting stations had already closed and could not reopen. Coming from Lula’s crony, the decision suggests judicial impropriety.

It appears that Lula would have won regardless of his Election Day antics. But Rubio and the Trump administration must consider the day after tomorrow. Had they rejected Bolsonaro’s request for sanctuary, they wouldn’t simply have given Lula new space for his anti-democratic ambitions — they would also have betrayed nearly 60 million people who voted for Bolsonaro. By acting as it did, the Trump administration has shown those Brazilians that America supports the democratic rule of law.

Lula is no friend of the U.S. Ensconced in the Latin American Left’s anti-Washington tradition, he has prioritized closer relations with the U.S.’s preeminent adversaries. China, for example, has been allowed to build satellite control stations that help its espionage in the Western Hemisphere. China has secured rights over Brazil’s vast rare earth mineral reserves and at its trade ports.

Lula has also been loath to challenge Russia over its aggression against Ukraine and the West (though President Donald Trump’s kowtowing to Vladimir Putin dilutes this otherwise legitimate American complaint). Lula has also made Brazil an important political and trade partner for Iran.

The central concern is a simple one. Until Lula leaves power and judicial independence is restored in Brazil, it will be impossible for Bolsonaro to receive a fair trial. Were the U.S. to abandon that democratic principle, it would betray the people of Brazil and assist an authoritarian leader who wishes to harm American interests and values.

Washington Examiner

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal.

I’m speaking about 10 days before our Nov. 3 midterms, the second midterm in the second term of the two Trump administrations. We thought, given historical precedents, that it should be a shoo-in for the Democrats. One hundred and twenty-six years since 1900, to take the modern era, 90% of the parties that were holding the White House at the time of the second-term midterms lost.

And of all midterms, the in-party only won on three occasions: FDR in the ’34 election, Bill Clinton in the ’98 election, and George W. Bush in 2002. And they all had extenuating circumstances. Especially, a force multiplier is the president of the United States has about a 39% rating. He’s about where George W. Bush was in 2006. He’s a point less than Barack Obama was in 2014, when both of them suffered severe midterm corrections.

So, it should be a no-brainer that the Democrats should pick up 20 to 30 seats in the House and take over the Senate with a one- or two-seat margin. But they are more worried about the midterms than the Republicans are.

Why is that? And the answer is, to use that phrase of Donald Rumsfeld, there’s too many known unknowns in this particular year. The first is redistricting. Nobody’s talking about redistricting. But if you look at the districts that have been changed by the red state legislatures, which outnumber the blue state legislatures, and those that are affected by the Supreme Court ruling, the Republicans might pick up five to six seats they otherwise would not have.

If they were running against a John Fetterman Democratic Party or an old Schumer-Pelosi party before they went far radical, or a Bill Clinton Democratic Party, then there’s no way the Republicans are going to win.

But the second unknown is, for some reason, and we’ve talked about that before, the Democratic Party doesn’t exist anymore. It’s been absorbed by, or it itself absorbed, the socialist-Islamist movement. And whether it’s Mr. Abdul El-Sayed or whether it’s Ilhan Omar in the news or whether it’s Hasan Piker in the news or whether it’s Mr. James Talarico, these are people way out of the mainstream, and they scare people.

And the Republicans are making the argument that you may not like the temporary spike in gasoline. You may not like that we did not correct the 21% inflation under Joe Biden, aggregate over four years. They may not buy the argument that the first year of the second term we only had about 2.3% inflation. Now we’re going to be about 3.5%. That’s much less, less than 5.1%. They don’t want to hear that.

But on the other hand, they’re starting to think, maybe I don’t want to vote in anger at all of that for socialism or Islamism, and that seems to be on the ballot.

The other thing is, we were told that the Democrats in each particular race, that is, direct contributions to a particular candidate far, far outpaced the Republicans, and that’s absolutely true. But when you look at the PAC money, the PAC, the political action committees’ monies, the Republicans have such a huge lead in that factor, and sometimes the PAC commercials are far more effective than the actual candidates’ efforts.

And if you add PAC money and direct money that each candidate has at his own expense, his own volition to expend, the Republicans actually have a $200 million to $300 million advantage, and that will come into play in the last eight to nine days.

The price of gas is very high, but as I speak, for the last three days, 24 million barrels of oil have passed out of the Persian Gulf, either through a now-liberated Strait of Hormuz or through the Red Sea pipelines or through the Gulf of Oman.

Why is the price of gas still high, then? It won’t remain high, but right now there is a refinery crisis in Saudi Arabia and in Russia, where refineries have been hit during these respective wars. And in addition to that, insurance costs have climbed. The United States has not built enough refinery capacity.

But the point I’m making is that we’re pretty much, as far as crude oil production and availability, where we were before the war, and the refineries will respond to that. So the voters should know that already things are not set in stone, that the oil situation will get better. It already has got better. It just hasn’t got better on the refining end.

There’s another known unknown, and that is no one really has confidence in the polls because they were wrong in the 2024 election. They had been wrong in the 2016 election, and they had been very wrong in the Democratic primary election.

And it’s becoming increasingly clear to the Democrats themselves that the public polls are more or less dominated by left-wing entities who feel that a poll is not just a reflection of popular opinion, but it’s a political tool. It’s a method to create false momentum and increase voter participation, the idea you want to be on a winning team, and greater donations.

And so, to counteract that, candidates have private polls where they hire private pollsters who cannot be paid to lie to them. Why would you pay somebody in secret, and then he would lie to you? You want him to tell you the truth. You don’t want to disclose the truth, but you want to know actually where you are, and we’re not getting any of that information.

Let me conclude. History says the Left, the Democrats, whatever we want to call this new group of Islamists, socialists, etc., etc., should win big. But there’s enough known unknowns that it’s still uncertain. They mock Donald Trump because he’s barnstorming the country, and he’s saying something that they feel makes no sense. He’s saying, “Consider that I’m on the ballot.” And they’re saying, “I hope you do, Don, because you’re 38%, 39%, and our people are voting against you.”

Yes, they are, and that could be almost all the Democratic Party, and that could gain people traction to go to the polls. Vote against Trump, no problem. But what he’s saying is that if the MAGA movement turns out about 75% or 80%, as it did in 2024, the Republicans can stop this blue wave.

So, all of these rallies are not intended for the Democratic Party. They’re not intended even as much for the independents. They’re intended for the Republican MAGA base, which traditionally has not come out in midterm elections and sometimes did not come out in force in 2020.

If they come out in force and they’re whipped up by 20 or 30 of these rallies, then that is an unknown unknown that might make a difference.

Final warning: The Republicans were very haughty in 2022. Joe Biden had suffered a humiliating August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan. We were hitting 9.1% inflation. The war in Ukraine had happened in February 2022, partly because Joe Biden said his reaction would depend on whether it was a major invasion or not.

People didn’t like him. His approval rating was very low. It was down in the 40s, would get to 38. And yet the Republicans were very confident that it didn’t really matter. The party in the White House would lose seats. They thought they were going to just sweep the Congress, and they didn’t do it. They didn’t do it.

Why? Because Joe Biden emptied half of the petroleum reserve and got the price of gas stabilized. Why? Because he promised student loan relief, which was illegal. The Supreme Court overruled it. Why? Because he said he was going to stop all prosecutions of marijuana. I could go on and on, but in the last minutes, he offered all of these things to the Republicans, and they did not have candidates that they had nominated who were as competitive as they could have been because they thought it would be a sure thing.

Somewhat similar, isn’t it, to the Democrats? So, yes, they should win. History says they should win, but there’s enough known unknowns that they might not.

Victor Davis Hanson, Daily Signal

What a suicide in Wyoming reveals about all of us.

By Spyridon Andrews

October 31, 2026

I am sitting in a bar in Sheridan, Wyoming. I can’t help but overhear a conversation about a local suicide that the bartender said was precipitated by a man’s wife leaving him. I am acutely attuned to this because an acquaintance, and now friend, whom I met in a bar in Red Lodge, Montana, told me about the suicide epidemic among men in Montana. It’s not the first time I have heard these kinds of stories. They often involve men going through divorce or separation and sometimes losing not only a marriage but also their daily connection to their children, their friends, and the life they thought they had built.

It’s no secret that mothers are far more likely than fathers to be the primary custodial parent. It’s also no secret that women these days also initiate the majority of divorces, especially among college-educated couples. Taken together, these facts raise a question that no one seems to be asking, or even cares about asking: what happens to a man when he loses his marriage, his home, and the ordinary privilege of seeing his children grow up? What happens to a man when the courts tell him that he can no longer play a role in the upbringing of his children—something that every good man dreams about—because his wife no longer wants to be with him and a family court judge wants to move quickly to get this case off of her docket?

To the average man, the loss of a job is more than losing a job; it is the loss of their sense of striving and honor. We’ve all heard the beautiful ballad from Peter Gabriel, sung by Kate Bush, Don’t Give Up, an inspirational and heart-wrenching song of an unemployed man trying to hang on. But that’s not what I’ve seen in my life. Maybe there are some inspirational stories out there, and I welcome readers to share them with me. But what I have encountered in situations involving friends and family is that a lot of women don’t stick around.

Studies support this. Some of the men’s groups in evangelical churches can and do provide some support, but as far as mainstream Protestant churches are concerned, all they are going to do is hear a lecture on using proper pronouns.

When we look at the extent of the despair in some of these communities, it is not just middle-aged men who lose their jobs. Younger men in these communities often struggle to see a future for themselves. Local officials where I am today, in Sheridan, Wyoming, have expressed concern about suicide, and the community has experimented with gatherings that encourage people to talk openly. Bars like the place I was last night, The Pony, have done what they can to host these meetings and encourage solutions.

Meanwhile, nationally, men die by suicide at roughly four times the rate of women; divorce and separation are associated with still higher risk for men; and rural suicide mortality exceeds urban mortality. I can’t yet confirm—without more examination—that all of this is linked together. But the statistics are disturbing enough without any exaggeration on my part.

There is nary a mention of much of this in the national political conversation, although it is not far from the minds of the people in these small towns. The Sheridan County coroner has raised concerns about this and spoken out publicly, as suicide deaths this year were reportedly approaching or surpassing the previous year’s total. And Sheridan is not alone in grappling with this problem.

Small-town Americans are the people who have built this country. They built the highways and the railroads, dug for coal, copper, and silver, and even in Montana, they dug for the shiny little objects that women like to wear around their necks. They drilled for oil and grew the crops that put food not only on American dinner tables but also fed the world, especially as it tried to recover from the World Wars. There would be no Chicago, no Detroit, no St. Louis, no Kansas City, no Los Angeles, and no San Francisco if it were not for the courage and bravery of these men.

Meanwhile, in the big city, it boggles the mind that commentators like Maureen Dowd and Ana Navarro actually have jobs—famous for their utterances that men are useless. They can make these numbskull utterances to equally dim audiences, because the men they never see will never know and are too stupid to thank them for building the entire world that they exist in. In the 21st century, these are the kind of people that are considered useful and talented, while the steel workers, former coal miners, and railroad workers have no place.

Blue-state beta males nod in agreement not only because of a nauseating desire for approval in the eyes of their ferociously stupid overlords but because—and this is the real reason—they know that they could never measure up to the courage that the forgotten men who built our country have displayed. These two types of parasites continue to draft off the men who helped build our way of life, while the host dies and fades from memory.

My time in the American West has revealed a great many positives, but it has also exposed problems at the core of our culture. Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist and writer, understood how slavery attacked the family and denied people the security of belonging. Tocqueville identified a different danger in democracy: individualism, the temptation to withdraw into a small private circle and abandon the larger community. He saw the antidote in churches, families, voluntary associations, and habits of mutual obligation. Without these, liberty might leave us not connected and flourishing, but isolated and alone.

Well, look around. The family is now fragile at best, as we congratulate ourselves on our liberation from old obligations. Forget the fact that many marriages end. What about the families that were never formed? Just the scale of abortion since 1973 reflects how contested the place of children and family has become in American life. In states like Massachusetts, the legal profession can seem more concerned with abstract claims of autonomy than with the children whose lives are at stake. The millions of children never born, the millions of families never formed, and children who never grew up and, in turn, never had their own children only point our country toward demise. So, I do not think it at all surprising that we have become remarkably casual about what happens to the people left behind when the household dissolves. We just don’t seem to care about anything other than what we want as individuals right now.

Once you leave the comfort of the suburbs or the fashionable neighborhoods of the city, you see that communities across America are filled with men seeking purpose and finding too little of it. The industries that once gave entire towns a reason to exist—mining, railroads, farming, manufacturing—have contracted or changed into caricatures. The means to support a family is disappearing at the very moment the family itself is coming apart. For a man who has organized his life around being useful to other people, this is a devastating combination.

Everywhere else, the places where men once congregated, spent time, and supported one another are disappearing before our eyes. The town squares, bars, bowling leagues, churches, and social clubs have lost ground to a world of digital acquaintances and social media tribes that bear little relationship to the democratic communities necessary for a functioning republic. Our politicians, unsurprisingly, are unconcerned. After all, they see their constituents not as neighbors in living communities but as demographic slices, donor lists, lobbyists, and interest groups. Yesterday’s rural and union voters are remembered only when somebody needs a photograph in a hard hat.

But it doesn’t make sense to end on a note about the pathetic nature of Washington. Jefferson thought it should never have been built, and he was probably correct. Washington is not going to walk into a bar in Sheridan, sit down beside a man who has lost his job and his family, and ask how he is doing. But a neighbor can. A pastor should; that’s what they are there for. An old friend from the bowling league or the softball team could. A bartender might—they were always better at diagnosing problems than some fool with a master’s degree. That is precisely why the disappearance of these ordinary human connections matters so much and why we cannot let them disappear.

Tocqueville understood something about Americans that we seem determined to forget. Our democracy did not work simply because we had a Constitution, elections, and a long list of rights. It worked because Americans formed churches, clubs, associations, and local institutions, and because they took responsibility for things that did not directly concern them. They did not wait for somebody in Washington to send a program, a grant, or a social worker. They organized themselves. And in doing so, they learned how to be free together rather than merely alone.

So what should we do? For starters, we might stop treating the collapse of a marriage or the disappearance of a job as somebody else’s private problem. It’s our problem. We can demand that family courts take a father’s continuing place in his children’s lives seriously while also protecting children and parents from genuine abuse.

We can rebuild apprenticeships and local opportunities for men whose talents do not require a college degree. The college degree requirement, an artifact of the Vietnam draft deferment years, has outlived its usefulness, is no longer worth its expense, and has become a finishing school for rich young kids, mostly girls, to learn Marxist nonsense.

Churches might consider spending less time chasing the latest cultural fashion and more time finding out which of their neighbors is sitting at home with nobody to talk to. And the rest of us could revive the bowling leagues, volunteer fire departments, veterans’ groups, fraternal organizations, and civic clubs that once gave men a place to belong. None of this is glamorous. That is rather the point.

We should also be willing to ask a man how he is doing and then stick around long enough to hear the answer. When somebody loses his job, invite him over. When a father stops showing up at church or the local bar, find out why. When a friend is going through a divorce, do not simply choose sides and disappear him from your life. And when a man tells you he sees no way forward, take him seriously and help him. These are small acts, but communities are built out of small acts repeated over generations. A government program cannot substitute for them, and early Americans knew that.

Tocqueville feared that isolated citizens, absorbed in their own private lives and no longer accustomed to helping one another, would eventually surrender their responsibilities to a vast, protective government. He described a form of democratic despotism that would not necessarily arrive with soldiers and chains. It would arrive with citizens who had forgotten how to act together, leaving the state to manage their lives while they quietly withdrew from one another. We would retain the outward forms of freedom but lose the habits that made freedom possible. The reason we still read him today is that he got an awful lot of things right.

I keep thinking about the conversation I overheard in that Sheridan bar. I do not know the full story of the man who died, and why he took his life. But as I spent more time researching what was happening here in Sheridan, in Montana and in isolated communities all over America, I know enough to ask other questions. I know enough to wonder how many people saw him coming apart, how many places he had left to turn, and whether anybody understood how much he had lost. I wonder if we still know how to be Americans. The real measure of a community is not how friendly it is to a stranger passing through. It is whether it knows what to do when one of its own begins to disappear.

We are not going to save these men with another election slogan, or solve this problem with another lecture about masculinity. We might begin by remembering that these faceless working men are important, that their work is important, that their children need them, and that the rest of us owe them something more than an occasional thank-you on Labor Day.

Tocqueville warned us what happens when a people cease to associate, cease to care, and finally cease to govern themselves. The lonely man at the end of the bar is not merely a tragedy in Sheridan, Wyoming. He is a warning about the country we are becoming. And if we are unwilling to do something for him, we will soon discover that there is nobody left to do something for us.

SPYRIDON ANDREWS  American Greatness

I’ve written before about how aging parents can sometimes become manipulative; appearing to be more “helpless” than they actually are. Interestingly, reader responses were 100% in agreement, but many questioned how to tactfully approach the issue.

Well, sometimes it’s all in how you say it. For example, “Why are you sitting there all day? You can get around! Take a walk and do something for yourself!” As opposed to, “You say you want to be more social. Why not spend a little time at the Cheer Center and meet some new people? It might be fun.” The first one sounds kind of insulting. The second one? Not quite so bad.

When you bluntly tell somebody what to do, you’re implying that they don’t have a mind of their own. This not only applies to adults, but also to kids — especially teenagers. Lecturing or ordering a teenager around isn’t going to work. You have to invoke facts and explain the consequences if he doesn’t do what you ask. If those consequences are important enough to him, you’ll usually get his cooperation.

Interestingly, research from the Department of Psychology at the University of Memphis suggests that lecturing to students in large classroom settings is not the most effective method of instruction. Findings indicate that whenever students are actively engaged in their learning, i.e., experiencing the consequences first-hand, they learn better and faster. This makes sense, because people don’t learn unless they are applying their minds to the facts.

Lecturing has its place for a motivated audience, but it’s not the way to approach personal or business relationships. Of course there are exceptions: When you hire an expert to fix your car, build your house, or perform surgery, you want someone who’s in charge and knows what he/she is doing. But even then, it’s valuable to have things explained to you. In fact, one of the biggest complaints that I hear about some doctors is that they don’t take the time to explain what they’re doing. Even an expert should have a method of reasoning that a non-expert can understand. No matter how accomplished they may be, no one is above showing respect and consideration.

There will always be those who have a need to tell others what to do. These authoritarian personalities have an inflated sense of their own importance and the role they play in the lives of others. Sadly, more than a few of these types end up in positions of power, but many more show up in the personal lives of everyday individuals. The authoritarian is more than just a “control freak.” Control freaks are driven by an anxiety to get things done “right” – for better or worse. The authoritarian, however, believes that people are incompetent, and that he or she must take over for them. When a compulsive authoritarian and a depressed, dependent person find one other, the resulting combination can be sicker than either of the two alone.

None of us knows everything, but we’re all able to think. Needing to be told what to do stems from a mistrust in your ability to think things out. When you’re confident in that ability, you recognize your capacity to investigate and form responsible conclusions on your own. You can then make your own decisions based on your best judgment. All the talk of self-esteem really boils down to this: A belief in your ability to figure out what’s going on around you and to take responsibility for making judgments about it.

Healthy people look around the world and form conclusions carefully and objectively. As a result, they have no desire to tell others what to do. They know that it just doesn’t work.

Michael J. Hurd, Life’s a Beach

Whenever I hear the old proverb, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there”, I always follow up with something like, “So you’d better be ready to deal with whatever’s down that road.”

People often tell me how difficult it is for them to make up their minds. Of course, major decisions such as moving, a job change or getting married require (and deserve) extensive thought. The long-term consequences will have to be enjoyed – or endured – for the rest of your life. So if you DO know where you’re going, your choice of road(s) will be a lot easier.

Many people experience indecision (or careless decision-making) over less important things. Should I buy a new car or used? Where should I go on vacation? When people tell me that they have trouble deciding, I suggest that they pretend that they’ve already made the decision, and then try to visualize the events that might come to pass as a result. I’ve written many times about introspection, and this is a good illustration of that. For example, “If I buy a used car, I could end up with big repair bills down the line. But if I buy a new one, the payments might be too high.” Or, “I’d love to go to San Diego on vacation, but I hate flying. If I vacation locally, I can drive, but I might not have as much fun.” What to do?

Some indecision can result from irrational perfectionism. The irrational perfectionist feels that it’s a disaster to make a mistake. But mistakes are not disasters. Only disasters are disasters — and mistakes are much more frequent. The irony of perfectionism is in its good intentions. A person wants to do things right, even perfectly, and that is certainly a good motive. But if the motive is so overpowering that one becomes paralyzed, then whatever is achieved will not be perfection.

Another reason for indecision is multiple choices. For example, I was fortunate to have a number of excellent schools and cities from which to choose for my postgraduate degree. I had trouble deciding until it dawned on me, “I have five equally good choices. No matter which one I choose, I know I’m going to be happy.” That realization liberated me from the pressure to make the “perfect” choice. I was able to make my decision based on objective facts rather than emotion.

When people are indecisive they often assume that there is only one right choice. But many life decisions are not that way. Having several good things to choose from is a fine thing! Some people know what they want, but they fear their choice might be met with disapproval. This isn’t indecision, though it might feel like it. It’s just a reluctance to take personal responsibility.

The author of the website charminghealth.com puts it nicely: “When there are really tough choices … many people can never make up their minds, and tend to keep that issue lingering. Prolonged indecision or indecisiveness may be due to an extreme fear of risk and responsibility. When we accept the challenge, whatever we do is bound to involve risk, rigor and responsibility. If we run away … we may lose the opportunity for growth.”

Growing up physically is pretty much complete after about 18 years or so. Growing up emotionally is less predictable and takes ongoing mental initiative. It’s more than just skill: It’s surrender to the fact that decisions are inescapable. No matter what, choices will present themselves, and you’ll have no choice but to decide — ready or not. The bleak alternative is that you can decide to let others do your choosing for you. But even then, deciding to not make decisions is, in fact, a decision.

Make your choices work for you. Liberate yourself from the opinions and whims of others. Challenge the mistakes in thinking that can make decisions more difficult.

MichaelJ. Hurd, Life’s a Beach

The summer season often means up close & personal time with family. This can be good – or not so good – especially when it involves restless teenagers. My experience has revealed six basic techniques for dealing with teens – especially those who are cooped up with the rest of the family.

1. Speak reasonably. For example, instead of, “Just say no to drugs,” say, “If you use drugs, you can harm your body and mind. You might get addicted, make less money and have to depend on others to live. Is that what you really want?”
2. Acknowledge the teenager’s need for autonomy. For example, instead of saying, “Stop being so selfish! Think of my needs for a change,” try “I know you need to find your own way without me telling you what to do all the time. However, it’s my job to tell you when I think you’re wrong. You’re also free to say what you think.”
3. Don’t let your anxieties overwhelm your teenager. Instead of reacting to every little thing, help him make good decisions by reasoning things out on his own. Anxiety blocks thought. If you show confidence in your teenager’s ability to think, then he’ll feel less dependent on “what everybody else is doing.”
4. Pull rank only as a last resort. Let her learn by making her own decisions and facing the consequences as much as practical. Predict negative consequences, but recognize that you could be wrong. Don’t teach her to second-guess herself with “What will my parents allow me to do?” Train her to figure out what makes the most sense.
5. Don’t take your teenagers’ errors personally. Her errors are her own. It’s not about you; it’s about her need to find her own way.
6. Create a climate of open communication. No subject should be off-limits. Don’t say things like, “That’s stupid,” or, “When you’re my age, you’ll see it differently.” Instead, listen to his arguments and point out what you think is right or wrong. Seek the same from him. He’s now a young adult, and needs to reason and argue. It’s a good mental exercise for you both.

Robert Epstein, author of “The Case Against Adolescence,” told Psychology Today, “We have completely isolated young people from adults and created a peer culture. We stick them in school and keep them from working in any meaningful way, and if they do something wrong we put them in a pen with other ‘children.’ In most non-industrialized societies, young people are integrated into adult society as soon as they are capable, and there is no sign of teen turmoil. Many cultures don’t even have a term for adolescence. … we not only created this stage of life: We declared it inevitable.”

So true! Adolescence is a state of mind. There’s no inherent reason why a thirteen- or sixteen-year-old should be irrational. Long before their kids reach the teenage years, parents assume that they will be obnoxious; it’s no wonder that often becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. I’ll never forget what one parent told me. Her teenager had never “rebelled,” and went into adulthood without the “usual” problems. I asked her why this was, and she responded, “We never gave her anything to rebel against.” Now THAT makes sense.

Adulthood means freedom of choice coupled with responsibility for those choices. You can tell him what to do all you want, but it’s not going to work. Teenagers are different from six-year-olds. They don’t hero-worship you, and they’re not desperate to win your approval like they once were. And they’re not going to admire you unless they have reason to do so. And the most important reason to admire you is your integrity.

If parents truly mean what they say and say what they mean, then teens won’t have any real reason to rebel. Oh sure, they’ll disagree and try to make a point (loudly, perhaps), but that’s not rebelling; that’s just independent thinking. Independence is important to everyone, including young people. You don’t have to endorse everything he or she does, but you do have to support independence, because it’s coming whether you like it or not.

Michael J. Hurd, Life’s a Beach

We’re supposed to believe that people have a right to health insurance and medical care. Yet if there’s a right to health insurance and medical care — why is there no right to purchase medical insurance and medical care on a free, open and unregulated market? Government is not saying: “Everyone should have health insurance. Since the market delivers the best quality at the cheapest possible price, then we should completely deregulate the market.” Instead, government is saying, “Everyone must have health care and insurance. Therefore, government must eliminate private insurance and totally control all of medical care.” The House of Representatives is open about this, while the Senate is taking a back-door approach of so regulating what’s left of the private sector that it will certainly collapse in several years — at which point government will have a monopoly on all medical care and payment. The motive and end result, either way, is the same. But the evasion is still never explicitly addressed. I don’t understand why I have a right to health insurance — to have someone else pay for it, whether I am able to pay for it, or even want to pay for it, or not — while I have NO right to purchase this valuable product in a free market, the way I can more or less purchase food, groceries, telephones, books and computers. The government is essentially saying, to all of us: “You have the right to health care. You just don’t have the right to be responsible for it.” This is why we lose choice, and get rationing, in the end. The government that’s “kind” enough to provide what you need is likewise big and strong enough to decide what you need.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason