…as the ship of the Deep State crashes into it and starts to sink. Lurking below the Trump figurehead is the basic essence of American culture: personal freedom. We became a nation so we could avoid being dominated by hereditary tyrants. Now we need to resist the attempted predations of today’s crop of reckless authoritarians and totalitarians.

This struggle was foreshadowed some years ago when a heresy emerged within the ranks of the staunch environmentalist Sierra Club. The rebels wanted to include unchecked immigration as an environmental hazard -- but the organization’s hierarchy clung to their knee-jerk woke-progressive refusal to express opposition to ethnically “stigmatized” foreign border crashers. The San Francisco Chronicle went so far as to solicit an op-ed from a Sierra Club board member (who just happened to have a Hispanic surname). In his statement he declared that immigration was not an environmental problem -- but personal freedom was. The Earth is being threatened because we get to live where we want to live, go where we want to go, eat what we want to eat and make a living by doing what we choose to do. Yeesh!

Yeah, these days we’re still getting a bellyful of this dictatorial nonsense. Immigration remains a political battleground. A vast majority clearly agree with Trump’s efforts… but the cause of protecting the illegals is not nearly as publicly toxic as the psychological and genital mutilation of children, sometimes even without parental consent. It is beyond amazing that a serious political party would continue to advocate such unpopular policies. But they do. The issue is why?

The answer is found in the power of dogma. True believers are committed to their agenda regardless of obvious facts… and they have taken over the Democrats. This is not good for the party as a whole, though I’m having a really hard time feeling sorry for them. What is being starkly revealed by the MAGA revolution is how seriously corrupt and unnecessarily expensive our government has become. It’s really hard to remain loyal to something that is so deeply flawed. And yet, strident advocacy for the benefits intended for ethnic minorities and women is their only “go-to” in the face of all this corruption.

Why didn’t freedom-loving Americans rise up against this tyranny long ago? It had to take a rash billionaire named Donald J. Trump to break through the longstanding protective barriers and thoroughly upset the statist applecart. Trump is much smarter than his foes can comprehend. Not only is it quite an advantage to be seriously underestimated by your adversaries, but it’s also really, really hard to bribe a billionaire. Biden was a piece of cake for bribery since his only wealth came from holding office and the perks coming from that. Musk is even harder to bribe than Trump. And both have sufficient resources to provide for themselves excellent legal representation… such being needed in the face of entrenched opposition. Were it not for this advantage we most likely would not be looking so enthusiastically to the future.

Image: Gage Skidmore