Writers for Conservatives: 15 — Teddy Roosevelt (1858-1919)

Jigs Gardner

The late Jigs Gardner was an associate editor of The St. Croix Review. Jigs Gardner wrote from the Adirondacks. These early essays, some of which were written decades ago, are of timeless quality.

Recently I chanced to read a favorable review of a history book in which the author describes frontier realities as “myth-making,” and remarks that the standard “narrative” nowadays is that Indians were peace-loving folks persecuted by evil white settlers. This is only one small sample, of course, and I’m sure my readers know that denigration of the American past is conventional behavior among academics, not to speak of Hollywood and the media. These are the thoughts provoked by that notice.

Before I began this series, I wrote a short essay, “The Culture of Conservatives,” for the St. Croix Review, criticizing the way conservative magazines focused exclusively on politics, arguing that what was needed was a deeper appreciation of culture — the politics would follow. The obvious meaning is that, as the subsequent series tries to show, reading good literature deepens our consciousness by exposing us to other points of view. There is a broader meaning of culture which I want to invoke: The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns and beliefs (that’s why my essays have not been about contemporary writers; their culture is mean and negative). Writers do not announce their cultural attitudes; they are just there, largely unconscious, communicated by language, gestures, assumptions.

The cultural climate is far more important than we think, affecting all our thoughts and acts. The cultural elite has been contemptuous of America since the 1920s and in the last 40 years that attitude has spread to all levels of society, witness the book I noted at the beginning. We are living in a poisonous cultural atmosphere, and what is the answer of politics? The stupid extension of presidential campaigning has rendered politics even more incredibly shallow than usual. I would like to think that if we resolutely mocked and denounced every manifestation of anti-Americanism, we would soon improve our politics and politicians. Politics follows culture.

Reading the review of that contemptible history book made me remember a fine writer and patriot who wrote an excellent history of the frontier: Teddy Roosevelt. We do not think of him as a writer because his political career obscures everything else. He is one of our best prose stylists, second only to Thoreau, with a style that is muscular, sinewy, and direct. His sentences are always absolutely clear. He has none of Thoreau’s sly humor or subtle grace, but you are never in any doubt about his meaning.

The Winning of the West (1889-96) was originally planned to cover not only the trans-Appalachian West (Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the old Northwest) but the entire southwest up to 1850, a project curtailed by the pressures of his political life. What we have are two volumes beginning in the 1760s, extending to the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark expedition. We have become so used to finely drawn, complex histories that we may lose sight of the basic outlines of the past. In fact, sophisticated moderns deny such outlines entirely, rejecting them as simpleminded. To maintain that pose, however, they have to ignore facts or explain them away. Roosevelt’s history doesn’t stint on detail, but his account of the conquering of the old West makes the basic outlines unmistakably clear.

Although there were many points of contention between Britain and the Colonies, the one thing that rendered conflict inevitable was the British intention to maintain the territory beyond the Alleghenies in a wild state where Indians could hunt and trap for the benefit of British traders and the Crown. The Proclamation Line of 1763 specifically barred settlement there — but men like Daniel Boone were already exploring the Kentucky wilderness. The tide of settlement was inexorable. Roosevelt manages his narrative by treating specific areas (the French of the Ohio Valley, 1763-1775) or events (Lord Dunmore’s War) in short chapters, painting a picture, stroke by stroke, detail by detail, of the vast wilderness gradually being transformed into a settled land by the efforts of hunters, explorers, surveyors, and frontier settlers, all of whom played their essential parts in the struggle before, during, and after the Revolution. He emphasizes two aspects (aside from their hardihood) of the frontiersmen: Their rugged individualism and their instinct for coming together to form self-governing communities.

Roosevelt was a man of the 19th century. He owned a cattle ranch in the wild country of North Dakota, and he knew, better than any of us can know, something of what frontier life could be like. He had no illusions about frontiersmen; he knew that they committed outrages against the Indians just as the Indians did against the whites, but:

“Unless we are willing that the whole continent west of the Alleghenies should remain an unpeopled waste, a hunting-ground of savages, war was inevitable.”

Only the frontiersmen were tough enough to do it, and in doing so, they laid the foundations of our national greatness. Let me quote some more from the book for the pleasure of my patriotic readers:

“It has often been said that we owe all our success to our surroundings; that any race with our opportunities could have done as well. . . . Undoubtedly our opportunities have been great; undoubtedly, we have often and lamentably failed in taking advantage of them. But what nation ever has done all that was possible with the chances offered it? . . . The truth is, that in starting a new nation in a new country, as we have done, while there are exceptional chances to be taken advantage of, there are also exceptional dangers and difficulties to be overcome. . . . Looked at absolutely, we must frankly acknowledge that we have fallen very far short indeed of the high ideal we should have reached. Looked at relatively, it must also be said that we have done better than any other nation or race working under our conditions.

“No other conquering and colonizing nation has ever treated the original savage owners of the soil with such generosity as the United States.

“Americans need to keep in mind the fact that as a nation they have erred far more often in not being willing enough to fight than in being too willing. . . . The educated classes, in particular, need to be perpetually reminded that, although it is an evil thing to brave a conflict needlessly, or to bully and bluster, it is an even worse thing to flinch from a fight for which there is legitimate provocation, or to live in supine, slothful, unprepared ease, helpless to avenge an injury.”

Roosevelt wrote four hunting books: Hunting Trips of a Ranchman (1885), Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail (1888), The Wilderness Hunter (1895), and Hunting the Grizzly (1905). I like them all, but I think my favorite is Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail because it is a varied mixture of subjects. It was written as a series of articles, profusely illustrated by the great Western artist, Frederic Remington, for the Century magazine. The first chapters are about life on his ranch, which he relished. You can sense the attraction in this passage:

“The whole existence is patriarchal in character: It is the life of men who live in the open, who tend their herds on horseback, who go armed and ready to guard their lives by their own prowess, whose wants are very simple, and who call no man master.”

Note, however, that feeling does not cloud his judgment:

“In its present form stock-raising on the plains is doomed, and can hardly outlast the century. The great free ranches, with their barbarous, picturesque, and curiously fascinating surroundings, mark a primitive stage of existence as surely as do the great tracts of primeval forests, and like the latter must pass away before the onward march of our people; and we who have felt the charm of the life, and have exulted in its abounding vigor and its bold, restless freedom, will not only regret its passing for our own sakes, but must also feel real sorrow that those who come after us are not to see, as we have seen, what is perhaps the pleasantest, healthiest, and most exciting phase of American existence.”

There is a realism and a sensitivity about that paragraph that is characteristic. The first sentence is stark, flat, uncompromising, all that needs to be said from a factual point of view. The rest of the paragraph, the long second sentence with its accumulative force, makes us understand the intellectual and emotional significance of the first sentence, coloring the picture with richly evocative adjectives.

The hunting chapters (and the hunting books in general) are based on Roosevelt’s experience, vividly described, but they also contain lively descriptions of flora and fauna; he was a many-sided man with an eye for beauty and much else besides:

“Even in the waste places the cactuses are blooming; and one kind in particular, a dwarfish, globular plant, with its mass of splendid crimson flowers glows against the sides of the gray buttes like a splash of flame.”

Reading him is like being in the company of a fascinating man of great character and intellect who speaks clearly and gracefully of his experiences. He wrote more than I have mentioned, but those are the titles I recommend. Try libraries and second-hand stores, although occasionally a small press will do a reprint. My 1995 copy of Ranch Life and The Hunting Trail was done by Gramercy Books (a Random House imprint) and contains this note:

“[This book] reflects the culture and attitudes of late 19th century America, which are not necessarily those of the publisher of this Gramercy edition.”

Such are the lengths to which the craven will go to satisfy political correctness.

“Vote for the man who promises least; he’ll be the least disappointing.” —Bernard Baruch.     *

The mission of The St. Croix Review is to end the destruction of America by reestablishing the family as the center of American life, restoring economic prosperity to an independent middle class, and reviving a culture of tradition.

Elon Musk Is a Liberator

Editorial — Barry MacDonald

Who could have predicted two years ago that Elon Musk would buy Twitter? Musk is a hero who restored free speech to a decisive and global forum. Musk bought Twitter and freed America and the world.

To have the preeminent tech-genius of the century on our side is a game changer.

Who could have foreseen that Elon Musk, an immigrant from South Africa, would value liberty so much that he would defy the political orthodoxy of the progressive movement?

Marxist revolutionaries have strangled Western political and cultural commentary during the last four years. When Musk bought, renamed, and repurposed Twitter (now X), he turned the tide against woke malignancy.

Musk invited the authors and researchers Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger to investigate the previous executive operation of Twitter. Taibbi and Shellenberger exposed — in the “Twitter Files” — the fact that President Biden’s federal agencies and a network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) exerted great pressure on Twitter to censor the expression of any opinion, and to stifle any discussion, even factually correct information, that countered and undermined the agenda of the Democratic Party.

For the entire length of the Biden Administration, totalitarianism blossomed in America and in Western Europe. NGOs and malevolent bureaucrats in Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the FBI, the CIA, and the State Department exerted a malign leverage to silence critics.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, valid questions were smothered about the lockdowns of businesses, about the origin of the virus, about the closures of public schools, about the efficacy of mRNA vaccines compared with alternative medicines, about the harm done to American liberty by vaccine mandates, about the effectiveness of masks to prevent infection, and about the “safe” distance we were required to stand apart from each other. Politicians divided businesses into categories of essential and nonessential. Politicians impoverished those that couldn’t afford the bribe money in the form of campaign donations. Giant pharmaceutical companies profited enormously from vaccine mandates. Large and connected corporations prospered while the middle class suffered. Public-school students stayed home and didn’t learn at the behest of national teachers’ unions.

The prominent, stubborn, and courageous dissenters from progressive orthodoxy who challenged progressive narratives were either shadow-banned or censored on social media. Because they lacked mainstream forums to broadcast their facts and opinions, dissenters and critics were silenced, slandered, demonized, isolated, demoralized, and “canceled” — many lost their jobs.

What do Elon Musk, and Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger (authors of the “Twitter Files”) have in common? They all consistently voted for Democrats before the 2024 elections. Each has abandoned the anti-American, accusatory, hate filled, intolerant, totalitarian impulse of the Democratic Party and the progressive movement. Tech wizards Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and Mark Zuckerberg (better late than never) have also abandoned and spoken against the malice of the Left.

People who cherish liberty must trust in the eventual victory of justice and decency. Help arrives from unexpected sources.

Who could have predicted two years ago that the liberators of America would come from the ranks of disillusioned, elite entrepreneurs and intellectuals of leftist persuasion?

Elon Musk and a cadre of young, tech-savvy computer engineers, in the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), are a lance that pierces the secretive and insular blob of federal bureaucracy. These 20-year-old geniuses whom Musk recruited use a spear of algorithms and AI to trace streams of federal revenue that previously were hidden from public scrutiny.

Musk revealed that $59 million was spent by FEMA within one week to house illegal aliens at high-end hotels in New York City — in defiance of the Trump Administration. At the same time, impoverished American citizens continue to suffer the aftereffects of hurricane Helene in North Carolina. The misspent $59 million is a data point that adds to a mountain of evidence that progressives put the welfare of illegal aliens above devastated American citizens.

One egregious example of woke ideology run amuck is the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). This agency for decades has functioned as a slush fund for all sorts of wasteful and mendacious activity. The following is a partial list of what DOGE has exposed so far:

• $7.9 million to teach Sri Lankan journalists how to avoid “binary-gendered language.”
• $20 million for a new Sesame Street show in Iraq.
• $4.5+ million to “combat disinformation” in Kazakhstan.
• $1.5 million for “art for inclusion of people with disabilities.”
• $2 million for sex changes and “LGBTQ activism” in Guatemala.
• $6 million to “transform digital spaces to reflect feminist democratic principles.”
• $2.1 million to help the BBC “value the diversity of Libyan society.”
• $10 million worth of USAID-funded meals, which went to an al Qaeda-linked terrorist group.
• $6 million for tourism in Egypt.
• $2.5 million to promote “inclusion” in Vietnam.
• $40 million was directed to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
• $20 million for a group related to a key player in the Russiagate impeachment hoax.
• $1.1 million to an Armenian “LGBTQ group.”
• $1.2 million to help the African Methodist Episcopal Church Service and Development Agency in Washington, D.C., build “a state-of-the-art 440-seat auditorium.”
• $1.3 million to Arab and Jewish photographers.
• $1.5 million to promote “LGBTQ advocacy” in Jamaica.
• $1.5 million to “rebuild” the Cuban media ecosystem.
• $2 million to promote “LGBTQ equality through entrepreneurship” in Latin America.
• $500K to solve sectarian violence in Israel (just ten days before the Hamas October 7 attack).
• $2.3 million for “artisanal and small-scale gold mining” in the Amazon.
• $3.9 million for “LGBTQ causes” in the western Balkans.
• $5.5 million for LGBTQ activism in Uganda.
• $6 million for advancing LGBTQ issues in “priority countries around the world.”
• $6.3 million for men who have sex with men in South Africa.
• $8.3 million for “USAID Education: Equity and Inclusion.”
• USAID’s “climate strategy” outlined a $150 billion “whole-of-agency” approach to build an “equitable world with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.”

• $25 million for Deloitte (a “multinational professional services network”) to promote “green transportation” in the country of Georgia.

The money spent by the USAID is filtered through a network of hundreds of shady non-governmental organizations (NGOs) — inside America and globally. The NGOs have vague names. One such NGO is the “Civil Society Engagement Program” in the nation of Georgia. The names are purposely cryptic so that the purpose of the group remains obscure to critics. It appears that the mission of USAID, and of the NGOs it employs, is to convert both American institutions and foreign governance to progressive “woke” ideology. USAID is very much an American, imperial, left-wing enterprise.

USAID is an epitome of how the federal bureaucracy works. For decades, USAID has successfully repelled Congressional oversight. Recently, Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa has spoken of how the staff of USAID has simply refused to provide her with information about the ageney’s operation. The bureaucrats, and the Democrats who support them, have considered themselves above and beyond Congressional accountability.

Recent essays in the media report that USAID and NGO activity, with clandestine CIA participation, have meddled, destabilized, and even toppled several foreign governments — in Ukraine, Georgia, and Romania. Also, there are questions raised about USAID involvement in the funding and organization of anti-Semitic protests on university campuses last year, in the two impeachments of President Trump, and in the Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots of the summer, 2020. USAID has hundreds of media companies on the payroll internationally and domestically. Captured media reliably push a global, woke agenda. The revolutionary activity of USAID overseas, which raises mobs of protestors on the streets, mirrors the massive protests that have disturbed American cities and campuses recently. Who funded and organized the anti-Israeli violence in America last year, and during the summer riots of 2020 after the George Floyd incident?

The velocity of change in the first three weeks of the Trump administration is overwhelming. So much has been revealed so quickly that comprehension is difficult. We are in the process of discerning truth from fiction.

What we have now are suspicions about the depth and character of the left-wing perfidy of USAID. It will take a long time to discover the factual details of the damage and dubious legality that USAID committed. We may never uncover all the evil deeds.

Every day, new facts emerge from the work of Musk and DOGE. Blizzards of arcane and outrageous stories are brought to light daily to boggle, astound, and outrage Americans. The Democrats have turned the federal bureaucracy into an enormous engine of propaganda, oppression, and grift. DOGE has yet to target the Department of Education and the Department of Defense. Who knows what mountains of negligence, corruption, and waste will be found? Time and patience will be necessary for the American people to absorb the magnitude of corruption involved.

The public esteem of the mainstream media is at a nadir. According to Gallup, 36 percent of U.S. adults “have no trust at all in the media,” and 33 percent have “not very much” confidence. A recent CBS poll measured President Trump’s approval: Sixty-nine percent of Americans see him as “tough,” 63 percent see him as “energetic,” 60 percent as “focused,” and 58 percent as “effective.”

The media shield of Democratic deceit has dissolved. For the first time in generations, the corruption of the Democrat Party stands exposed to a vast swath of the electorate. Good-hearted Americans should be grateful!

The American people are alert and attentive. They recognize that they have been swindled for four years. From the first days of his administration, Joe Biden was unfit to be president. The Democratic Party and corporate media lied and boldly insisted that he was capable.

President Trump defeated the Democratic Party, the progressive movement, and the corporate media. Elon Musk lent Trump a mighty hand. Brighter days are ahead!

Consider the arc of civil rights in America. Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of the bus, the area where blacks were forced to sit during the Jim Crow era. The composure and self-sacrifice of Parks has been overlaid with the entitled arrogance of Maxine Waters. Waters, a long-time bitter partisan, led a mob of furious Congresspeople to the doors of the Department of Education. These lawmakers represent the pro-censorship and oppression of the Democratic Party. They wanted to interrupt a DOGE audit of the Department of Education. A brave and determined security guard impeded the mob. The mob was stopped.

Note: An excellent introduction to the Alice-in-Wonderland rabbit hole of USAID, State Department, CIA, and Department of Defense operations are two of Joe Rogan’s podcasts with Mike Benz. To listen to Benz is to be initiated into a cloak-and-dagger reality that surpasses spy fiction.   *

The mission of The St. Croix Review is to end the destruction of America by reestablishing the family as the center of American life, restoring economic prosperity to an independent middle class, and reviving a culture of tradition.

The Rise of the Counter Elite

Barry MacDonald

Bari Weiss recently had a remarkable conversation with Marc Andreessen on an episode of her podcast, Honestly.

Weiss is a journalist who wrote for the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. She left The New York Times in July 2020, when she was repelled by the radical takeover of the news and editorials. She founded the media company The Free Press, and she hosts the podcast Honestly.

Marc Andreessen is a software engineer, entrepreneur, billionaire, venture capital investor, and political activist. He voted for Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden (in 2020), and for Donald Trump in 2024. He sits on the board of Meta (formerly Facebook) and is involved with other tech companies.

Marc Andreessen’s views can be summarized as follows:

• Andreessen was in the meeting when the Facebook board decided on the definition of hate speech. They determined that hate speech is that which makes people “uncomfortable.” Andreessen compares the power to censor speech to the use of the One Ring in the Lord of the Rings trilogy: The use of the One Ring inevitably corrupts and turns to evil. Facebook’s definition inevitably leads to the establishment of commissars who rule over speech for the benefit of an autocratic elite.
• Andreessen cites James Burnham. Burnham was a Trotskyite who became a Cold War conservative writer and co-founded of The National Review with William F. Buckley. Burnham believed that government always takes the form of an oligarchy. Andreessen believes that America is not a democracy, but an oligarchy. The question is whether the American oligarchy is benevolent or repressive to the American people. Andreessen spoke about Burnham’s view of the “managerial class,” that explains much of the power of the federal bureaucracy today: A few people in advantageous positions may control many because they are able to come together and cooperate. Burnham also wrote about the “circulation” of the elite, which means that a “counter elite” rises from the ranks of the elite to contest for power. The counter elite is more inventive and productive than the elite. A resistance to the Biden/Harris campaign, and to the radical Democrats of Washington, D.C., arose composed of discontented Democrats who could no longer stomach the deranged agenda of the radicals.
• The Biden Administration expresses “seething contempt” for the tech industry. Andreessen and his business partner, Benjamin Horowitz, met with officials of the Biden Administration in Washington, D.C. They were told not to invest in startup AI tech companies. The Biden Administration would suppress a free market for AI. Only two or three companies would be allowed. The government would “cocoon” and control them. The Biden people would classify the mathematics underneath AI, just as the federal government classified entire sections of physics and atomic science during the Cold War. The Biden Administration wanted total control of AI. AI control of society would be 1,000 times worse than social media censorship. AI would control banks, health care, education, and the economy for the benefit of the elite. AI control would be like the Chinese totalitarian, social credit system. The meeting with the Biden crew horrified both Andreessen and Horowitz. They decided to endorse Trump for president.
• Donald Trump’s escape from an assassin’s bullet was the turning point of the 2024 election. The moment when Trump rose with a fist in the air to shout “fight, fight, fight” was iconic. Trump wore a blue suit, red tie, and a white shirt — the colors of the country. An American flag was in the background. Americans don’t see that kind of courage except on a battlefield in wartime. Afterward, the photo of a bloodied Trump went viral on the Internet. Elon Musk endorsed Donald Trump after the attempted assassination. Musk’s endorsement was a cascading event that gave permission to others. Andreessen and Horowitz endorsed Trump after the shooting. Andreessen and Horowitz had met with Trump on the weekend prior to the shooting.
• The 2020 election of President Biden was a dark turn in American history. Questions linger. Did Biden compromise with radical progressives to get the nomination? Was he fully cognizant of the viciousness of his government? Has Biden been in charge all along? Or did the aggressive young White House staffers take advantage of Biden’s senility to seize control of policy? To what extent is Biden complicit?
• The Biden Administration is incredibly repressive. To them, capitalism is bad. Technology is bad. Their attitude is a radical departure from the progressive movements of the Clinton administration, from the first term of the Obama administration, and from the thought of moderate Democrats. They don’t even want economic growth. Before 2020, Democrats wanted America to succeed. The Biden team is anti-business, anti-growth, anti-technology, anti-liberty, anti-American.
• Andreessen is appalled by the “soft totalitarianism” of the Biden people. They weaponized social media and the Department of Justice to go after their enemies. Andreessen cites: 1) the destruction of the crypto currency industry; 2), the threats against startup AI companies; and 3) the proposed tax on unrealized income, that he believes would obliterate business formation and capital enterprise. Andreessen cites the systematic and punitive process of “de-banking” that emerged in the Biden years. Political opponents and disfavored individuals discovered that they were denied access to their bank accounts, and that no other banks would do business with them. Melania and Barron Trump were de-banked. Thirty CEOs of crypto companies were de-banked. The Biden people went after the families of their “enemies,” which is a move that is evil, totalitarian, and Stalinist. People were unable to obtain loans for homes or businesses. Car insurance and home insurance were denied to them. When the federal government acts through the agency of private companies to punish political opponents, federal laws are violated. Andreessen said that the Trump people are aware of the problem, and that he hopes to see prosecutions.
• Andreessen commented on John Stewart’s comedy. Stewart joked about the coincidence of the name of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the emergence of the COVID virus in close proximity. The official narrative was that COVID-19 came from a wet market in Wuhan, and not from the Wuhan lab. Stewart punctured the propaganda. Andreessen’s tech friends laughed about the monologue and on the spot, they decided not to censor the lab-leak theory. Stewart instigated a cultural shift in acceptable opinion and the tech barons responded.
• Andreessen has spent half of his time since the November 5 election in Palm Beach. He is in consultation with the future Trump Administration. In association with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, he will be an unpaid volunteer in the department of government efficiency (DOGE).

Conservatives have vigorous new allies in our battle against the radical, Orwellian, Marxists. They are Democrats who have been driven out of the moderate Democratic party. They include Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Bari Weiss, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Joe Rogan, and others. They will disagree with us on certain issues.

Our new allies are refugees who fled totalitarianism, just as the Russians did when they fled the Soviet Union. Our new allies include reporters, scholars, and intellectuals such as Matt Taibbi and Michael Schellenberger. Taibbi and Schellenberger were invited by Elon Musk to audit the operation of Twitter (presently named X) prior to Musk’s purchase of the social platform. In the “Twitter Files,” Taibbi and Schellenberger exposed the pervasive and unconstitutional suppression of free speech on social media by the government. The FBI, CIA, and the Department of Homeland Security pressured Facebook and Twitter to suppress valid counternarratives to Biden policy on school closures, the efficacy of masks and vaccines, the lab-leak theory, and more during the years of the COVID pandemic.

We should be grateful for our new allies. They have shifted the arena of civilized debate to the right — toward us and away from the radicals. They have helped to stigmatize the Marxist, Machiavellian, Saul Alinsky-inspired, sadistic Left.

On the other hand, we in the conservative movement must consider who we are and what we believe as conservatives. In this issue of The St. Croix Review, we will consider how we might better align conservative principles with the evolution of American society. Is the conservative movement up to the task of the ongoing defense of America? How should conservatives approach AI, social media, foreign policy and defense, the education system, trade, the state of our courts and the law, health care, bureaucracy, social services?

Did Trump win the election because Americans were just fed up with the obvious lies and incompetence of the woke Left? Did Americans just have enough of the brutal and intolerant censorship? Did the radicals go only a couple of steps too far? Doesn’t the Left retain 90 percent control of the cultural highpoints of American culture? Can the Left bide its time and return with renewed vigor and better strategy? Did the radical Left lose a battle, or the war?

How should we attempt to reform the rotten Ivy League colleges? Should we tax their endowments? Should we, and could we, cease government support for elite universities? Should we reconsider the issuance of student visas for foreigners who partly compose the anti-Semitic mobs on campus? Will a degree from Harvard suffer continuous loss of prestige due to the infection of woke ideology? Will student debt and profitless degrees dissuade potential students? How may we influence the graduation of indoctrinated students into elite positions inside bureaucracy, law firms, and Fortune 500 corporations? How do we heal the continued blight of education in America? Could we foster a competitive network of private schools to compete with public schools — enough to reap the benefits of competitive discipline?

Perhaps the most pivotal figure of this election cycle, besides Trump, was Elon Musk. Before the 2024 election, Musk was a Democrat. Musk provided permission for intellectuals and entrepreneurs to publicly abandon the radical Democratic party. Would Trump have won the election if Musk had not bought Twitter and revealed the Left’s machinery of censorship? It is doubtful.

Musk’s brilliance is invaluable. Will Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy manage through DOGE to minimize and humble the federal bureaucracy? Will they achieve more than the Reagan Administration? The Democrats controlled the House of Representatives during the Reagan years. The next two years of Republican control of the House, the Senate, and the Presidency will be decisive: Will the entrenched cooperation between corporations, too-big-to-fail banks, and the federal government be weakened or ended?

The American people have much to be grateful for. The arena of debate is now recentered on shared ideals of honesty, decency, patriotism, prosperity, and liberty. Good-hearted Americans may sigh in relief. Patriotic, productive Americans may relax. We are free of tyranny for now.     *

Kengor Writes . . .

Paul Kengor

Paul Kengor is a professor of political science and the executive director of The Institute for Faith and Freedom at Grove City College, in Grove City, Pennsylvania, and he is the editor of The American Spectator. These essays are republished from The Institute for Faith and Freedom, an online publication of Grove City College, and The American Spectator. Paul Kengor is the author of God and Ronald Reagan: A Spiritual Life (2004); The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism (2007); The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan’s Top Hand (Ignatius Press, 2007); and The Communist — Frank Marshall Davis: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor (Threshold Editions / Mercury Ink 2012).

Reagan Conservatism Is Alive and Well

Note: This essay was originally published by The American Spectator.

Donald Trump could check the box on almost all of Reagan’s principles.

Donald Trump oozes personality, but he lacks Reagan’s winsome disposition. That winsomeness is a winner. Likewise, so is conservatism. Successful politics requires matching the right person with the right principles.

Conservatism conserves the timeless truths that need to be conserved. Eternal truths don’t suddenly become untrue, even if a depraved people insist otherwise. The key is finding the right conservative politicians, especially at the presidential level, to attractively communicate that conservatism.

The alleged death of Regan conservatism, proclaimed even by many on the right, is not just greatly exaggerated — it’s outright wrong.

It has to be wrong because Reagan conservatism is true conservatism, and conservatism conserves the time-tested principles, values, and traditions that are, well, true. Ronald Reagan himself put it this way:

“Conservative wisdom and principles are derived from willingness to learn, not just from what is going on now, but from what has happened before. The principles of conservatism are sound because they are based on what men and women have discovered through experience in not just one generation or a dozen, but in all the combined experience of mankind.”

Reagan was speaking almost verbatim from conservatism’s preeminent philosophical spokesman, Russell Kirk (1918–1994), who had quoted G. K. Chesterton on that combined wisdom. Kirk called conservatism not an ideology, but an attitude. Conservatives endeavor to conserve what Kirk and Edmund Burke (1729–1797) described as an “enduring moral order.” Think about that: A moral order that endures. Sure, a country and culture and its corrupt people can leap off a cliff and descend to hell in a handbasket, but an enduring moral order nonetheless remains, rooted in the timeless traditions of biblical and natural law that the conservative conserves.

Reagan conservatism is genuine conservatism. If it isn’t winning today for Republicans, well, that’s not the fault of conservatism; that’s the fault of the conservatives. The problem isn’t the message but the messenger.

Sure, I’m the first to acknowledge that certain such principles, especially those related to eternal teachings on matters like marriage, family, life, and gender, are now rejected by wide swaths of a degenerate culture, but that doesn’t mean the principles are wrong. And sure, a Republican candidate running on conservative positions on marriage, family, life, and gender can today lose on that platform. But still, there is more to conservatism, and Reagan conservatism, than moral — social issues. Ronald Reagan was both a social and economic conservative, and he urged fellow conservatives to embrace both.

In 2014, I published a book titled 11 Principles of a Reagan Conservative. It has gone through several printings. The Young America’s Foundation has a special edition of the book, which it has given out to students nationwide by the tens of thousands. That book has resonated with conservative youth because it lays out succinctly what Ronald Reagan really believed — a handy thing to know, given that countless conservative candidates since the 1980s have called themselves Reagan conservatives. Here are the eleven principles: Freedom, Faith, Family, Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life, American Exceptionalism, the Founders’ Wisdom and Vision, Lower Taxes, Limited Government, Peace Through Strength, Anti-communism, and Belief in the Individual.

I need not delineate each of those principles here. Most are self-evident to readers of this magazine. Our readers, too, will agree that Ronald Reagan articulated those beliefs with splendid appeal to the nation at large in a way that won him two landslide elections. Reagan, an unflinching and unapologetic conservative, twice won states such as New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, and even ultra-liberal Massachusetts.

Reagan’s conservatism never lost at the ballot box, nor in the eyes of the American public. Reagan’s successor, George H. W. Bush, won the presidency in November 1988 because Americans felt he was their best chance at something approximating a third Reagan term.

Reagan conservatism never died, even when Bush lost in November 1992 (especially because Bush abandoned Reagan’s tax cuts). Newt Gingrich viably resurrected it in 1994 with his tremendous capture of Congress by conservative Republicans. Pretty much every major conservative running for national office since Reagan left the White House in January 1989 has extolled his core principles.

So, what accounts for the current claims of the death of Reagan conservatism? I think the claims are more of a complaint, an attitude, not one of conservatism but of defeatism. They come from folks on our side who didn’t like the rise of neoconservatism during the George W. Bush years and, more so, today lament Donald Trump’s inability to exceed 50 percent of the vote against the unlikable Hillary Clinton, the pathetic Joe Biden, and the downright awful Kamala Harris. (Even if Trump wins in November 2024, I don’t think it will be with 50 percent — plus of the vote; he never polls above 50 percent.)

Of course, the Trump years have seen a new kind of conservatism, or Republicanism. It is decidedly more populist, nationalist, and even protectionist. Still, if you look at those eleven principles of a Reagan conservative, most have been taken up by Trump. Trump certainly heralds the ideas of freedom, American exceptionalism (it was Reagan who in 1980 coined the now-Trumpian phrase “Make America Great Again”), lower taxes, limited government, peace through strength (particularly against the likes of the communist Chinese), and belief in the individual. Really, if you take a hard look at the eleven principles, there isn’t one that Trump and his supporters reject.

And even if one doubts that Donald Trump is a believer on matters like faith or the sanctity and dignity of human life, as Ronald Reagan was, he at least appealed to and has been supported by those constituencies. More so, to Trump’s credit, he did way more for the pro-life cause than Reagan was able to achieve. That includes appointing three Supreme Court justices — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — who reversed Roe v. Wade. Of Reagan’s three picks, Justices Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O’Connor were profound disappointments on the life issue and much more. Indeed, they affirmed Roe via the hideous 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which contained the stupidest statement in the history of high-court jurisprudence, namely Kennedy’s laughable “mystery clause.”

Ronald Reagan batted only one for three on his Supreme Court picks: Antonin Scalia was a fabulous choice. Kennedy and O’Connor were grave betrayals. Trump’s three high-court picks, by contrast, have all been home runs.

But to return to the point: Today’s leader of the Republican Party, Donald Trump, could check the Reagan box on pretty much all those Reagan principles. At the least, the policies that President Trump pursued align with those Reagan principles.

That being the case, why hasn’t Trump had greater success with this Reagan conservatism if Reagan conservatism isn’t dead and is, indeed, as my article here proclaims, alive and well?

The answer isn’t the principles but the person. Donald Trump can’t get over 50 percent of the popular vote because over 50 percent of the populace loathes the man. They don’t merely dislike him; they hate his guts. Conversely, Ronald Reagan was the most-liked figure of his generation. Over the last one hundred years, only Eisenhower and FDR compare in terms of likability among presidents.

Remember that Reagan’s conservative predecessor for the GOP presidential nomination, Barry Goldwater, was just as principled as Reagan but, like Trump, was not liked. Goldwater was slaughtered by LBJ in 1964. He won only six states and lost the popular vote 61 percent to 39 percent.

How did Reagan fare with conservative principles similar to Goldwater’s? He did profoundly better. In 1980, he crushed Jimmy Carter, an incumbent president, by 51 percent to 41 percent (there was a third-party candidate, John Anderson). Reagan won 44 of 50 states and took the Electoral College 489 to 49. In 1984, Reagan received nearly 60 percent of the votes, won an incredible 49 of 50 states, and took the Electoral College by an astounding 525 to 13. He did a total reversal of Goldwater; same principles but different personalities.

It was said that whereas Barry Goldwater was conservative with a frown, Ronald Reagan was conservative with a smile. That was spot-on accurate. Reagan not only smiled, but joked, laughed, and communicated so well that he will be forever remembered in American politics as the Great Communicator.

Donald Trump oozes personality, but he lacks Reagan’s winsome disposition. That winsomeness is a winner. Likewise, so is conservatism. Successful politics requires matching the right person with the right principles.

Conservatism conserves the timeless truths that need to be conserved. Eternal truths don’t suddenly become untrue, even if a depraved people insist otherwise. The key is finding the right conservative politicians, especially at the presidential level, to attractively communicate that conservatism.

The Washington Post’s Looney Liberal Readership

Note: This essay was originally published by The American Spectator.

Jeff Bezos’ statement almost makes me want to start reading The Washington Post again.

It has been years since I gave a rip about anything in The Washington Post. Like The New York Times, the Post has become so dreadfully biased that reading it is downright agonizing. There is little point in reading it, other than as an exercise in masochism or for the explicit purpose of finding a cornball leftist perspective. Colleagues here at The American Spectator will attest that if I need a quote from the Times or Post, I’ll ask them (as suffering subscribers not blocked by the paywall) to cut and paste the text for me.

Thus, it was largely by happenstance that I read Post owner Jeff Bezos’ statement to readers explaining why the newspaper didn’t endorse Kamala Harris for president. I saw the Bezos statement posted at RealClearPolitics, a rare and genuinely balanced source that daily does a splendid job of posting both liberal and conservative opinions. RCP displays a remarkable nonpartisanship that the dominant mainstream newspapers are clearly incapable of doing, including The Washington Post.

And so, I clicked the Bezos statement at RealClearPolitics, and I was surprised and impressed. If you haven’t read it, I think you’ll agree, unless you’re one of the ideologically deranged readers of The Washington Post (more on that in a minute) under the headline “The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media”:

“In the annual public surveys about trust and reputation, journalists and the media have regularly fallen near the very bottom, often just above Congress. But in this year’s Gallup poll, we have managed to fall below Congress. Our profession is now the least trusted of all. Something we are doing is clearly not working.

“We [newspapers] must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose.”

Spot on, Mr. Bezos. And as I’ll note below, The Washington Post readers raging at Bezos do so from a position of refusing reality and fighting it like petulant preschoolers. Bezos continued:

“It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility.”

Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, “I’m going with Newspaper A’s endorsement.” None. What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one. Eugene Meyer, publisher of The Washington Post from 1933 to 1946, thought the same, and he was right. By itself, declining to endorse presidential candidates is not enough to move us very far up the trust scale, but it’s a meaningful step in the right direction. I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it. That was inadequate planning, and not some intentional strategy.

Indeed, when a purportedly unbiased newspaper endorses a political candidate, it reveals its bias in favor of that candidate and against the opponent. In turn, readers naturally suspect biased coverage. How does that help the newspaper portray itself as objective? It would be better for newspapers to stay neutral or at least try to appear so.

Bezos’ statement then dealt defensively with various rumormongering by silly progressives accusing him of a conflict of interest. Those progressives had also focused their ire at a chief executive of one of his companies, who is apparently guilty of the unconscionable sin of meeting with Donald Trump or some such blather. It’s laughable that such a transgression would have liberals foaming at the mouth, given how many executives and staff at the Post and other media organizations have obvious conflicts of interest with Kamala and Biden and Hillary and Pelosi and every big-time lib in Washington. In liberal la-la land, they’re all in bed together.

Bezos then returned with this strong closing statement:

“Lack of credibility isn’t unique to The Post. Our brethren newspapers have the same issue. And it’s a problem not only for media, but also for the nation. Many people are turning to off-the-cuff podcasts, inaccurate social media posts and other unverified news sources, which can quickly spread misinformation and deepen divisions. The Washington Post and The New York Times win prizes, but increasingly we talk only to a certain elite. More and more, we talk to ourselves.”

Yes, they do. Of course. No question.

Bezos stated what ought to be obvious:

“Now more than ever the world needs a credible, trusted, independent voice, and where better for that voice to originate than the capital city of the most important country in the world?”

He finished:

“Many of the finest journalists you’ll find anywhere work at The Washington Post, and they work painstakingly every day to get to the truth. They deserve to be believed.”

In all, it’s an excellent statement. Jeff Bezos is exactly right about what newspapers ought to be. His statement almost makes me want to start reading The Washington Post again.

But here’s the most fascinating part of Bezos’ post. At the end of his statement is an astonishing collection of reader comments from the Post faithful. At the time of my writing, there are over 15,000 comments. And really, they are less comments than temper tantrums. Picture a fat, bratty 5-year-old holding her breath and jumping up and down in the kitchen demanding a chocolate donut for breakfast. Actually, I would call the comments childish, but I have eight kids, and none of them talk like these people.

I could fill this [essay] with examples. They’re all against Bezos in the most ridiculous ways. It’s like a parody of liberals. If you received an email from one of these crazies, you’d be even crazier to respond. They’re so poisoned by ideology that they’re beyond the ability to dialogue with anyone who disagrees.

Here are just three examples from the five lead comments in my most recent look:

Mickey Brazil:

“I’m not going to tell you [Bezos] to get out of the road, there’s a truck coming, because you might not believe me. He thinks we’re stupid, just like Trump.”

Southernpoliticalbelle:

“Sounds to me all you have done is listen to OAN and Fox declaring WaPo as untrustworthy. You clearly do not know the American people. Readers are not going to believe you. Sorry but this was a political stunt or you are too uneducated to filter the garbage. Either way you have caused WaPo to be untrustworthy because it is clearly under the whims of your thumb. If your goal was to destroy this paper then you are right on track.”

Susan.micari:

“Mr. Bezos, you are a coward, pandering to those who would destroy our democracy. What do you know about democracy? You are king of your sweat shop empire. Shame on you. Hedging your bets at the expense of the Post’s readers, reporters, and opinion writers. You have decided that these reporters and opinion writers don’t matter, and we will all suffer for it.”

Those are merely three examples. And they’re mild. Grab some popcorn or crack a beer and page through them this evening for kicks. There’s one howler after another.

But more important, they prove precisely Bezos’ point, which I’ll express more candidly than he could: The Washington Post is a left-wing newspaper for left-wingers. The bias is so appalling, so repellent, that non-liberals flee it like the plague. If you’re not a liberal, there’s no reason to read the Post. It cannot be trusted because of its bias.

If Jeff Bezos is truly trying to change that, then good for him. But as he does, the Post’s looney liberals will be kicking and screaming.

Indigenous Peoples’ Day: Cherokee Leader Stand Watie

Note: This essay was originally published in The American Spectator.

Our intrepid progressives have tossed Christopher Columbus and his special day of remembrance to their ash heap of history. They have instead created something they find much more noble. They call it Indigenous Peoples’ Day. This day, they assure us, will allow Americans to honor better men, men who were not white European males who brought to this land disease, slavery, colonialism, imperialism, racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, and whatever other litany they would like to cast at the feet of the villainous Columbus — the dreaded DWEM (Dead White European Male) that he was.

“When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Watie wasted no time in joining the Confederacy.”

Resisting the revolutionaries’ new holiday gets increasingly difficult as they saturate our culture with it, much as they have with an entire Pride Month. Their presidents, including noted historian Joseph Robinette Biden (himself a descendant of DWEMs), has encouraged “the people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.”

Faithful liberals now officially recognize this day each year on their ideological calendar, and damned well try to ensure that the rest of us do as well. I’m sure they have the kids in their government schools dressing up as Seminoles and Eskimos today. They build teepees in kindergarten rooms and provide rubber tomahawks and cute little squaw dolls to the girls (and gender-confused boys).

Rather than resist the zeitgeist, dear readers, I’ve decided that every second Monday of October henceforth, I shall pause to remember this day at The American Spectator. Your editor shall not fail you. (For the record, in October 2022, I personally proclaimed here at The American Spectator that every second Tuesday of October henceforth be recognized as “Western Civ Day.”” I am saddened to report that my idea has not caught on.)

Thus, for Indigenous Peoples’ Day last year, I wrote my inaugural piece, titled, “Indigenous Slavers: American Indians Who Whipped and Owned Blacks.” I gave attention to the enslavement of black people by the five so-called “Civilized Tribes” — i.e., the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole Indians. These tribes owned thousands of black African slaves and were brutal slave masters. They were so dedicated to slave ownership that many sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War. To this day, there are African American descendants of these slaves with lawsuits against these indigenous tribes seeking redress. (See my book, The Worst of Indignities: The Catholic Church on Slavery.

These Indian slavers even defied the Emancipation Proclamation, continuing to subjugate black men, women, and children well after the white man had freed slaves. For instance, as noted by one scholar:

“Even Emancipation and the end of the Civil War did not bring immediate relief to the enslaved living in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations. Although the Choctaw and Chickasaw sided with the Confederacy during the conflict, the United States considered them to be separate political polities; therefore, the abolition of slavery as stated in the Thirteenth Amendment did not apply in Indian Territory.”

In that same spirit, for this year’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day, I’m pausing to recall one Stand Watie (1806-1871). The powerful Cherokee leader likewise not only supported black enslavement but became a fearless Confederate general. He, too, resisted the Emancipation Proclamation. In fact, he was the last Confederate general to surrender in the Civil War. He is often referred to as “The Last Confederate General.” Many articles use that exact title.

Watie was born in December 1806 on Cherokee Nation territory (present-day Georgia). He was there raised in a slave-owning family. He quickly rose up the ranks of the Cherokee leadership. He was respected and feared. When fellow Indians looked to preserve the institution of slavery and keep their black folk in shackles, they looked to Watie as a “gifted field commander and a bold guerrilla leader.”

As one historian writes at History.com:

“When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Watie wasted no time in joining the Confederacy, viewing the federal government — not the South — as the Cherokees’ principal enemy. He raised the first Indian regiment of the Confederate Army, the Cherokee Mounted Rifles, and helped secure control of Indian Territory for the rebels early in the conflict.”

Watie was a force to be reckoned with. He and his Indian troops orchestrated savage attacks. They were notorious, prolific scalpers. They struck terror in the enemy.

When Gen. Robert E. Lee and his Confederate troops surrendered, Watie was fit to be tied. He would not surrender his blacks. Again, here’s an account at History.com:

“Watie was so committed to the Southern cause that he refused to acknowledge the Union victory in the waning months of the Civil War, keeping his troops in the field for nearly a month after Lieutenant General E. Kirby Smith surrendered the rest of the Confederacy’s Trans-Mississippi Army on May 26, 1865. A full 75 days after Robert E. Lee met with Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Watie became the last Confederate general to lay down arms, surrendering his battalion of Creek, Seminole, Cherokee, and Osage Indians to Union Lieutenant Colonel Asa C. Matthews at Doaksville on June 23.”

I’ve here quoted History.com as a reliable popular source on Watie, but it’s just one of numerous sources that could be cited. There are government historical websites, educational sites, archival libraries of various battlefields, Native American historical societies, plus articles at sources like History.net and RealClearHistory.com, with detailed accounts of Watie and his life.

Interestingly, the Wikipedia entry for Watie is fairly brief, but the Cherokee general was not some minor player. Indeed, as one piece at The History Reader puts it, “The War Had to Wait for Watie.” His obstinacy delayed the Civil War’s formal end.

Stand Watie’s role in the Confederacy, stalwart support of slavery, and rebellion against black emancipation is known to those who bother to carefully, objectively study the history of the era. Of course, properly studying that history means being properly taught the history of early America, from its discovery by the great Columbus to the Mayflower to the American Founders to the Civil War. And that, pilgrim, is precisely the problem.

If you teach little Jimmy and Suzy about old Stand Watie, don’t expect their public school peers to be learning the same. Expect the kids in the government schools and lousy universities to offer nothing but a blank stare if Jimmy or Suzy raise a hand to ask the teacher, “Hey, what about Stand Watie? Didn’t he and a bunch of other Indians own slaves and fight for the Confederacy?”

That would surely earn Jimmy or Suzy a quick denunciation as a “racist” or perhaps a “Christian nationalist.”

But fear not, Jimmy or Suzy, at least you’re getting an actual education. You’re getting a much fuller presentation of history, rather than a selective, politically correct, ideologically sanitized account. Such an education will teach you that the indigenous tribes of this land were not some perfect, pristine people living in peaceful harmony until the wretched Christopher Columbus marched in and ruined utopia.

General Stand Watie is a striking example of just that. We at The American Spectator remember him on this Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

Moment of Unity: Reagan United the Country Like No Other

One of the cool things about being a biographer with special expertise on a specific subject — in my case, Ronald Reagan — is that readers come to you with all sorts of neat revelations. I’ve published eight books on Ronald Reagan, which I believe is more than any other author. People who know Ronald Reagan usually know me, and they come to me with stories that have never been reported.

I could write a separate article on those stories. A few have been quite dramatic, such as my late, wonderful friend Herb Meyer disclosing to me the bombshell revelation that he and his boss, CIA Director Bill Casey, and President Ronald Reagan knew that the Soviets were behind the attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1981. What Herb told me in confidence went further than what my dear friend Judge Bill Clark (I was Clark’s biographer) had told me about the shooting. I shared that story at The American Spectator at the time of Herb’s death. Until then, I could not reveal Herb as my source.

The revelations Herb and Bill Clark shared with me ultimately led to my book, A Pope and a President.

Speaking of assassinations, there were the revelations shared with me by Ronald Reagan’s pastor at his Presbyterian church in Washington, D.C. The Rev. Louis Evans called me shortly before he died because he wanted me to know some things about the near assassination of Reagan on March 30, 1981. Among the fascinating things that Evans told me was about his meeting with Nancy Reagan after the shooting of her husband. Nancy confided: “I’m really struggling with a feeling of failed responsibility. I usually stand at Ronnie’s left side. And that’s where he took the bullet.”

If only she had been next to her husband as he walked to that limousine outside the Washington Hilton, positioned between him and John Hinckley’s pistol, Nancy could have taken the bullet for her beloved Ronnie. She was willing to lay down her life for her beloved.

The Rev. Evans told me that after reading my 2004 book, God and Ronald Reagan. I incorporated the touching story into my 2006 book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, which is the basis for the Reagan movie starring Dennis Quaid that releases this weekend. (I also told the story in an op-ed piece for Fox News when Nancy died in March 2016. Megyn Kelly was so moved by the story that she invited me on her show to tell it.) I’m pleased to note that Nancy’s statement about taking a bullet for her Ronnie made it into our movie. It is a touching scene.

“That Is My Job” — All of this brings me to another nice story that I learned more about only in the last few weeks, after reporting it almost 20 years ago at the close of The Crusader. It’s a wonderful account of a Cold War survivor of Communism in the Ukraine, and the chance meeting that he and his grandson had with Reagan after their liberation and well after his presidency when the president was in the throes of Alzheimer’s disease. Here was what I knew back then in 2006 and recorded in the epilogue:

In the summer of 1997, Ronald Reagan strolled through Armand Hammer Park near his Bel Air home when he was approached by a tourist named Yakob Ravin and his twelve-year-old grandson, both Jewish Ukrainian émigrés living near Toledo, Ohio. They cheered Reagan as he got near and briefly spoke to the former president, who posed for a picture with the boy, which his grandfather proudly snapped. “Mr. President,” said Ravin, “thank you for everything you did for the Jewish people, for Soviet people, to destroy the Communist empire.” The slightly confused 86-year-old Reagan paused and responded: “Yes, that is my job.”

That was his job — one he had assigned to himself long ago.

And then, after it all, after the task was complete, and after he was permitted, mercifully, a short window of time to comprehend and savor the accomplishment, it all quietly disappeared through the last 10 years of his 93 years of life. And then, finally, Ronald Reagan’s time on this earth terminated on June 5, 2004, as he ended that long, quiet drift into oblivion, and perhaps, again, drifted back to the Rock River.

The Rock River is a central theme of The Crusader and thus also the Reagan movie, with Reagan’s lifeguard years played terrifically by actor David Henrie. Unfortunately, that scene with Yakob Ravin did not make our script. There are only so many great stories that one film can include and stay on theme. Still, it’s a touching scene that chokes up many readers when they visualize it. One reader called me to say he was on vacation with his family at the beach and was embarrassingly sobbing when he read it. It chokes me up as well.

So, I nearly fell off my chair a few weeks ago when my email box suddenly received a photo of that very scene in real life, plus added details over two decades later. Indeed, I can now tell the rest of the story of Yakob Ravin and his grandson, thanks to a reader from Toledo, Ohio named Robert Loeb.

Living the American Dream, Thanks to Reagan — Rob, a certified financial planner who works in Sylvania, Ohio, was likewise touched by that scene. (He actually read about it in my 2017 book, A Pope and a President, where I told the story again.) When he got to the page about Ravin and his encounter with President Reagan, Rob was surprised and excited to learn that Yakob likewise lived in Toledo. He decided to try to track him down and found him in an assisted living facility in a suburb of Toledo. Rob informed me that Yakob was alive and well:

“He will turn 92 this week and is in reasonably good health, although he has faced a plethora of challenges in the past few years, including the death of his wife of nearly 60 years.”

. . . reported Rob. Rob was “thrilled to meet him along with his daughter Marina” on June 18.

Rob explained that it was Marina’s son who was with Yakob that day in 1997 and got his picture with President Reagan. The son, whose name is Rostik, is now a doctor in Florida. He was 12 years old at the time.

“Yakob retold me the story of his chance encounter with Reagan,” said Rob, who pleased the author of the book by telling me: “You had every detail exactly right!” Remarkably, Rob said that Yakob had never seen my book. He wasn’t aware that I had shared his story with the wider world. Rob gave Yakob a copy of the book.

Those details were striking enough, but what really got me was that Rob attached a photo of Ronald Reagan’s encounter with the grandson. I never knew that a photo existed. To our knowledge, the photo might well be the final public photo of the private Ronald Reagan before Nancy closed him off from the public due to his slow deterioration from Alzheimer’s.

Yakob has that photo proudly displayed in his tiny apartment. Little does he know that it is probably the last public picture of The Gipper.

That email from Rob was sent on June 20. He closed: “If you’d like any information about Yakob or his grandson, let me know.” To that, I replied, “Yes, thank you, go!” I gave him several follow-up questions, tasking the good man as a research assistant, a job he took up with enthusiasm.

Rob’s sleuthing generated key added details, including the exact date of the encounter. It was Aug. 23, 1997. He shared this in a follow-up email that I shall quote in full:

“Yes, you nailed the quote and the story perfectly! His daughter read out loud that section of your book, and he said ‘that’s exactly right, that’s what President Reagan said.’ Yakob and his 12-year-old grandson Rostik (Marina went instead to South Carolina) were visiting a friend in California and were just walking in the park when they spotted Reagan. Yakob told me that he felt he had to say something to him. Reagan had two Secret Service guys with him, but they let him approach Reagan. After he thanked Reagan, you eloquently stated his [Reagan’s] humble response in your book. Yakob and Rostik then walked away, but after a few minutes he thought he’d ask for a picture. The Secret Service guys told him they didn’t allow pictures, but Reagan overheard him and Said, ‘sure come on over, I’d love to take a picture.’ And this is the picture!

Rob learned that a few weeks later the local newspaper, the Toledo Blade, did a story about their meeting, which was picked up by the AP wire and various newspapers. That was where I first learned about it.

Interestingly, the story almost got much larger exposure. Yakob and his grandson received a phone call from “Good Morning America” asking them to come to New York (all expenses paid). They were scheduled to do the show on Monday, Sept. 1, 1997, but they learned early that morning that their segment was canceled because Princess Diana had just died in a fatal car crash and the entire show would be devoted to that tragedy. They were thanked and told to enjoy New York. GMA never rescheduled the segment.

Rob Further Added of Yakob — He also talked about leaving Ukraine in 1992, and the trepidation they felt. He was 60 years old, starting over in a new country. This was not to be taken lightly. He spoke English, but his daughter (Marina), Marina’s husband at the time, and son Rostik did not speak much English. Marina is a successful nurse today, and Rostik is a doctor in Gainesville, Florida. In Ukraine they were not treated well as Jews, but also his wife’s doctor told her that they should leave Ukraine because of their proximity to Chernobyl. They only lived about 85 miles away in Kiev and the doctor felt there that would be long-term health consequences if they stayed. So somewhat reluctantly, they moved to Toledo where they had some friends. They were only allowed to take $200 (equivalent) each and some other stuff that fit in a duffle bag, which he still has. Luckily, he was an engineer and found work right away. Fast forward to today and they all love our country, and of course President Reagan, and are incredibly grateful that he ended the evil empire. They are incredibly grateful to be here. They still have friends in Ukraine that they worry about.

As for Rostik, Rob proceeded to later meet him in Toledo as well. He goes by “Ross.” When Rostik and his family and grandfather came to America in 1992, he spoke almost no English — in fact, the only words he knew were “I can’t speak English.”

Now, Rostik is living the American dream, just as Ronald Reagan would have hoped when he had sought to peacefully liberate the “Captive Peoples,” as Reagan referred to those languishing behind the Iron Curtain in the Evil Empire.

I thank them for their witness and story. And I thank Rob Loeb for wrapping it up for me in a splendid bow.

We Should All Just Appreciate What Is Good — In all, it is a nice, feel-good story, much like the Reagan movie that premieres nationwide in theaters this weekend. That movie is receiving nice reviews from nice people. I’m told that the New York Times and Washington Post both panned it. I’m not surprised. That’s why I don’t read either paper. I prefer to spare myself the agony.

What these modern liberals don’t understand is that there was once a time in America when everyone liked the president of the United States, including even the liberals who didn’t vote for him. To quote no less than CBS News anchor (and liberal) Walter Cronkite:

“Ronald Reagan is even more popular than [Franklin] Roosevelt, and I never thought I’d see anyone that well-liked . . . . Nobody hates Reagan. It’s amazing!”

That was why Reagan was reelected by winning 49 of 50 states, nearly 60 percent of the vote, and crushing the Electoral College by 525 to 13. There were literally millions of Democrats who voted for him. It was a moment of real unity. Our 2024 Reagan movie shows that rare unity in the 1980s and focuses on the epic achievement of Reagan’s life and presidency: His peaceful effort (his crusade) to undermine Soviet Communism, to win the Cold War. That was a truly grand event that no one could or should complain about.

If modern liberal reviewers of Reagan can’t celebrate that triumph, well, that’s sad. I suggest they put aside their partisanship and try to like what is good. What Ronald Reagan did was good. Individuals as different as Mikhail Gorbachev, Democrat House Speaker Tip O’Neill, and Pope John Paul II all agreed on that. And if liberals would like a modern witness or two, maybe they should talk to some folks like Yakob Ravin and his grandson.

They certainly appreciate Ronald Reagan. And one day in August 1997, they let him know.

*

Israel’s Finest Hour

Barry MacDonald — Editorial

Israel’s existence is a fact that only barbarous acts may alter.

Historical perspective is necessary to assess present circumstances, but humane statesmen should form their policies upon the assumption of Israel’s continued existence.

Two million Arabs, 21 percent of Israel’s population, live in Israel. Israeli Arabs have equality under the law and the right to vote. Arabs serve in the Knesset, and an Arab judge sits on Israel’s Supreme Court. The mixture of Arabs and Israelis makes for occasional frictions, with charges of discrimination against the majority. However, the overall peaceful coexistence of Israeli and Arab citizens argues mightily in favor of the decency of Israel. Internal civility endures despite the decades of warfare between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, was a shock. The eruption of vile, unashamed, antisemitism in Western cities, starting on October 8, was disheartening.

Unspeakable atrocities committed on 1,200 innocent Israeli children, women, and men were laid before the world on October 8. Immediately afterward hatred for Jews was expressed by mobs in the major cities of America and Europe.

Violent protests bloomed — as if the Devil snapped his fingers, and an army of demons rioted.

Since October 8, Jewish students at elite universities, including Harvard and Columbia, have been hemmed about and threatened by violent mobs — while university administrators have fecklessly stood by. The ambivalence of university officials to the safety of Jewish students amid the hostility of faculty and the rage of mobs was stark. The rot of America’s “higher education” stands exposed.

The ancient hatred of Jews continues. I had believed that widespread antisemitism was impossible in America. Sadly, I was wrong.

If one wants to learn about the history and circumstances of Israel, about its relations with the Arab world, Jordan Peterson, Victor Davis Hanson, and David Murray are magnificent intellectuals to listen to. Peterson, Hanson, and Murray offer podcasts online. Recently, Jordan Peterson interviewed Naftali Bennett, Israel’s 13th prime minister.

Much like Europe and America, Israel in 2023 was paralyzed by polarized partisan politics. Israelis were at each other’s throats over issues of “woke,” identity politics. There were massive protests in the streets of Israel. Prime Minister Bennett described 2023 as a time of “mass distraction,” leading to a complacency for defense — leading to a successful surprise attack by Hamas.

Americans and Europeans should attend: Complacency toward belligerent nations and Islamist terrorists inspires contempt and aggression. If we don’t take the hostility of enemies seriously, we, too, will be surprised one day.

A silver lining came from the atrocities of October 7, said Naftali Bennett: A sudden end to internal discord and the emergence of unity.

Across the political spectrum in Israel, the question of Palestinian statehood is off the table for the foreseeable future. Because Palestinians overwhelmingly support Hamas, and because Hamas wants to exterminate all Israelis, a Palestinian state is impossible. Only a change of heart of the Palestinians will make a difference.

Bennett is immensely proud of Israeli youth. When news of the morning attack spread, young people rushed to the defense of brothers and sisters whom they had not met. They went with pistols, or bare hands, to oppose machine guns. Many died.

Bennett said:

“[American] kids need the right pronoun, otherwise they are triggered. Safe spaces, micro-aggressions — all this nonsense builds feeble people. Newsflash — the world out there is a tough world, and you need strong kids.

. . . .

“American G.I.s came back from Europe and they carried America for its best 50 years from 1945 to 2000 . . . .

“. . . this is the reason I am so optimistic about the next 50 years of Israel. This is our finest generation. . . . [We are] manufacturing super men and women who will carry us forward, who are embedded with values, work ethic, working as a team. . . with innovation, self-reliance, responsibility. They are going to be amazing.”

Election Results

Derek Suszko and I endured a couple of nervous hours on election night. It appeared, briefly, that the 2024 contest would be closer than it was. Our patience was rewarded. Eventually, we celebrated the unstoppable triumph of Donald J. Trump. Trump will be the 47th president of the United States!

Despite the mighty forces arrayed against him, Trump earned an undeniable victory. He gained an unusual cohort of stellar supporters, including Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Vivek Ramaswamy and Joe Rogan. He added impressive numbers of the working-class, black men, Latinos, and Jewish people to the ranks of Republicans voters.

Trump and J. D. Vance vanquished a decade of the corporate media’s vile, deranged, and relentless hatred. Trump also defeated the skullduggery of the Justice Department, the FBI, the CIA, and Homeland Security. America’s intelligence agencies successfully stymied Trump’s first administration with false charges of “collusion with Russia” in the 2016 election. They succeeded in rigging the 2020 election when 51 intelligence officials wrote a letter denying the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s laptop computer. These hitherto unaccountable bureaucracies have connived from the shadows to undermine Trump for a decade.

For years Trumps supporters have endured the continuous contempt of “journalists,” Hollywood narcissists, intellectual snobs, and authoritarian prigs.

Law-abiding Americans have been called garbage, Nazis, fascists, misogynists, because we object to rampant inflation; feckless and weak foreign policy; drag queens in kindergartens; open borders; tens of thousands of annual deaths due to fentanyl poisonings; the illegal traffic of human beings into America perpetrated by Mexican drug cartels; gender “corrective” surgeries on adolescents; out-of-control crime on our city streets; the stealthy censorship of free speech by social media monopiles in cahoots with government bureaucracies; and an unprecedented misuse of the law to attack political opponents, etc.

The American people have acquitted president-elect Trump of the travesties of justice directed against him by Democrat judges and prosecutors.

Trump and Musk are bulwarks in the preservation of American free speech. They have exposed the totalitarian tendencies of Leftist Democrats.

A majority of the American people want a return to normalcy. It feels like morning in America again.    *

The mission of The St. Croix Review is to end the destruction of America by reestablishing the family as the center of American life, restoring economic prosperity to an independent middle class, and reviving a culture of tradition.

Weird

Barry MacDonald — Editorial

The Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate, Tim Walz, aimed the word “weird” at Republican v. p. candidate J. D. Vance.

The word “weird” leaves a mark. It is a potent smear.

Democrats accuse opponents of being haters, racists, etcetera, etcetera. They exacerbate and demonize in the tradition of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.

Never apologize, always accuse — these are effective techniques.

Another technique is to lie.

Candidate Tim Walz talked about his family’s struggles with fertility. He said that in-vitro fertilization (IVF) allowed he and his wife to have children. He accused J. D. Vance and the Republican Party of the desire to limit IVF. “If it was up to him, (J. D. Vance) I wouldn’t have a family because of IVF,” Walz said in a campaign speech.

The question of how to treat the creation and disposal of frozen embryos is a thorny ethical question that reflects on the proper respect due to human life. Technology verges into the sacred. The care of embryos is worthy of debate. Different states will come to various conclusions, just as various states will come to different conclusions on the gamut of issues that arise with abortion.

Vance has said that he supports continued access to IVF, so Walz mischaracterizes Vance’s position.

Walz is quite crafty. He appears vulnerable and sincere on stage when he confides that IVF enabled him to be a father. He cries and elicits sympathy from his audience. He also points a dagger at Vance.

But the fact is that Walz repeatedly and deliberately lies. He and his wife didn’t use IVF to conceive children. They used intrauterine insemination (IUI), which is less controversial. Walz lies to gain political leverage. He uses his children as talking points.

What kind of parent reduces his children to talking points? One who is weirdly similar to President Biden.

Biden often claims that his son Beau died in war when he actually died of cancer. At solemn ceremonies that honored the deaths of soldiers who died in battle, President Biden falsely claimed that his son Beau died in battle. Biden horns in on the grief of Gold Star parents.

It is curious that denizens of the sinister Left employ a simple trick to confuse and deflect Americans from the truth: The sinister Left does exactly what they accuse their opponents of doing.

Their accusations are a blame shield that deflects attention away from their own horrible intentions and policies.

Democrats use lawfare against Donald Trump and his supporters, while they accuse Republicans of being threats to Democracy. Democrats categorize and stigmatize people by race and ethnicity, while they accuse Republicans of being racist. Democrats smear conservatives with charges of extremism, while they impose gender ideology on primary school students, while they imprison people for praying outside of abortion clinics, while they sic the FBI on parents who protest at school board meetings against gender ideology and critical race theory in the classroom.

A branch of Planned Parenthood opened in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood to deliver free abortions and vasectomies. These services were timed to coincide with the fanfare of Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

The American Left does all it can to devalue motherhood, fatherhood, and the family. That is just plain weird.     *