Struggling Back from the Abyss

Anyone over the age of fifty knows that things are devolving in the western world.  European societies (including places like the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) are degenerating from the competent, affluent and intelligent places they were even twenty years ago into mediocre (at best) struggling third world backwaters.  The reasons are manifold but essentially the powers that be have intentionally worked to undermine the institutions and practices (merit-based career advancement, standards based educational advancement and preferential employment of American workers) that made an advanced civilization possible.

It seems that the damage is pretty severe.  In many areas of the country young people educated under the lax standards are functionally illiterate and without skills that would make them useful employees.  But at the present there are attempts to bring manufacturing back to the United States and efforts to deport illegal aliens and curtail legal immigration.  But it leaves us with the question as to whether this degeneration of society will be reversed and how?

The way I see this is that improvements will be a local phenomenon and will be tied into state policies to arrest and reverse these problems.  And in order for improvement to grow it will require a two-pronged effort.  State government will have to enforce educational reform that verifies progress through standardized testing and state and federal agencies must work to ensure that qualified Americans can find good jobs in their state.  Places like Florida, Texas and Tennessee are taking the first steps to attract jobs to their states.  Low tax rates are encouraging businesses to leave places like the West Coast and the northeast and provide job opportunities for Americans.  Florida has made a start at reining in the woke madness that has descended on public schools and colleges and restore them to their proper mission of providing learning for Americans who want to work in a modern nation.  And right now, the Trump administration is deporting illegals from red states without the battles that occur in places like Minnesota and California.  Put these conditions together and what I expect to see is normalcy begin to return to red states first.

I read somewhere recently that Mississippi has shown marked improvement in the test scores of public-school children and I wonder if the conservative nature of that state’s population in comparison with other parts of the country might be part of the reason.  But in general, I expect that what will eventually happen is states that encourage merit-based rewards and have an America first policy to job creation and cooperate with immigration control will eventually become noticeably better places to live than the woke areas that have already become hellholes like New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland.

Of course, if the Democrats get back into power in Washington, they will do all they can to degrade these other locations by reopening the borders and preventing red states from targeting illegals.  But I still think we may already be witnessing a bifurcation in the kind of society that will be seen in America.

Guest Contributor – Bigus Macus – 25MAY2025 – America First

The Trump Doctrine

This President inherited 30 years of foreign policy built around what was good for the world. The decisions we made as a government in trade and foreign policy were basically, is it good for the world and the global community? And under President Trump, we are making foreign policy based on is it good for America. What that means is foreign policy is about three things: Does it make America stronger? Does it make America safer? Does it make America richer? If something doesn’t do those three things—and hopefully all three things—we are not doing it.
 
Read the rest…
https://wemeantwell.com/blog/2025/05/23/the-trump-doctrine/

My Definition of the Right

We talk a lot about the Right and the Left and who is on the Right and who is on the Left.  For instance, a large part of the 2016 fireworks was over people who said Donald Trump was not a Republican.  And a large contingent of these people were neoconservatives and libertarians.  To them Trump was just an opportunist who had seized on nativist talking points to appeal to the worst instincts of the working-class White Americans and would lead the Republicans to disaster in the general election because his policy priorities would be rejected by the wider American electorate.  As it turned out they were dead wrong.  “Making America Great Again,” and putting America first resonated with the majority of voters.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since 2016 and the neocons have become the NeverTrumpers and have self-ejected from the Republican party and the Right in general.  They are now indistinguishable from Woke Leftists except in their enhanced emphasis on all things anti-Trump.

And this is the crux of the point of this post.  The Neocons were never conservatives.  And it should have been obvious from the beginning that if you are not socially conservative then you are not of the Right.  And that goes for others “on the Right.”  Being in favor of market capitalism makes you a capitalist.  It doesn’t make you a conservative.  You can be an enthusiastic capitalist and compete ferociously in the free market and still be in favor of deconstructing the United States of America, the Family and Western Civilization all at the same time.  So, the former dichotomy of Right and Left being capitalists versus communists doesn’t really apply to today.  The Woke Left is spearheaded by Silicon Valley billionaires who print money by the metric ton but want to turn America into a digital gulag.  So, defining the Right isn’t what we thought it was back in Reagan’s day and never was.  Somehow Donald Trump knew that the Right wasn’t the Right and he was able to seize the high ground and overturn the establishment Republican’s narrative.  He became the Right.  But Donald Trump will not always be around and we need a definition of what the Right is or represents so that we can measure other leaders and other policies to see if they align with our interests.

So, what is the Right, what is conservatism?  As far as I can tell, conservatism is the Right and what it means is conserving the things in life that have value, things that give life meaning.  And so, it comes down to individual judgement.  But I think if the “normal” opinion on what gives life meaning is assumed then what we are talking about are the rock-bottom requirements to making life human.  And I don’t think you can get any more fundamental than the preservation of the family.  A man and a woman raising kids is just about as basic as it gets.  All that needs to be added is the framework for raising them which we call religion.  So, God and Family.  And because this is America, we add in the Constitution of the United States to allow all the families to interact without having to kill each other.  In fact it’s probably one of the finer blueprints for running a country.  God, Family and Country.  That’s it.

For the most part what we have to do is see where a particular policy or leader aligns with or hampers these things and we’ll know whether it’s of the Right or not.  For instance, the Supreme Court has declared gay marriage a Constitutional right.  This makes it very difficult for a politician to do anything about eliminating it.  But if a politician says he’s a conservative and he also espouses gay marriage or transgender rights then you know that he’s a Leftist.

There, that’s easy.  Look at what politicians say they agree with and you’ll know what side they are on.  If a politician says he’s anti-communist but his idea of capitalism means sending all the jobs overseas and importing low wage laborers into this country then guess what?  He’s a Leftist.  He may claim he just believes in free markets and capitalism but what he really believes in is globalism and therefore he doesn’t believe in the United States of America.  If a politician says he believes in God but says that you aren’t allowed to object to sexual deviancy being taught to your children then guess what?  He’s a Leftist.

Now how easy is that?  Try it on any politician who waxes poetic about conservatism but never seems to get any results.  Find out what he’s actually said about specific policy points like illegal immigration or bringing jobs back to this country or tariffs or “free trade” or transgender rights or freedom of religion.  It should be pretty easy to sort the wolves from the sheep dogs.

I’ll try to put together some further examples to try to refine my thoughts on the definition of the Right and the various groups like libertarians and social conservatives and socialists but I hope this makes clear what I think conservative means.  It means pro-family, pro-religion, pro-America.  In other words pro-normal.

The UN Speech

I just finished watching the entire speech.  I can’t remember the last time I heard an American president speak as honestly and effectively about the world we live in.  Trump blasted North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba and Venezuela.  He even threw a jab at the Ukrainian aggression and the South China Sea posturing.  He talked about sovereignty and the right of each country to differ from the cookie cutter requirements of our Globalist Oligarchs.  He talked about the United States’ history in the UN and the sacrifices it has made to aid its neighbors and he also said that he is not going to let the United States be the fall guy any longer.  Not in trade agreements, not in refugee resettlement, and not in UN finances.

It was a magnificent speech.  And of course, it was Donald Trump giving it so there was plenty of self-congratulation.  He started off by announcing that employment and the stock market were both at historic highs and that business was returning to the US in dramatic fashion.  He even took an indirect dig at Obama saying that the Iran deal was a disaster.  It was a lot of fun.

Of course, a UN address is a show piece with no actual effect.  But what it does is set the tone for an American administration’s relationship with the world.  So, when Obama went on his apology tour and bowed to every dictator in the Middle East it set the stage for the Arab Spring and the disaster that hatched.  It let the Iranians know that they could ask for and get whatever they wanted.  Alternatively, when Trump says that a nuclear North Korea that attacks the US or its allies will be totally destroyed this sends a powerful message to the North Koreans and the Chinese.  It also sends a different message to the Japanese and the other allies in the area.

And when President Trump forcefully stated that the welfare of the American people, and the middle-class especially, was his first priority that makes a big impression on the voters.  And on the Congress, that is always thinking toward the next election.  And on big business that gauges a president’s intentions before they commit on strategic business and financial plans.

So even though the speech is just a statement it was exactly the right statement for President Trump to make.  It had the right tone and it hit all the right points, globally and domestically.  Trump is no Reagan.  He is not a great orator.  His speaking style is workmanlike and methodical.  He reminds me of the executive in front of the board of directors.  Maybe that makes it even more effective.  It wasn’t just rhetoric.  There was a message and he even expressed that message explicitly.  He said “America first.”  For that I was truly proud of him.  He didn’t sell us out to make nice with the globalists.  Good for you Mr. President.

If you haven’t listened to it and you have the time and the inclination, listen to the whole thing.  It’s about 45 minutes long.  If you don’t have the time or interest, there are some excerpts.  Even that will give you a flavor of what was said.  Bottom line, Trump did himself and our country some good today.