The Charlie Kirk Assassination 

“Ideology – that is what gives evil doing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others’ eyes, so that he won’t hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors…. Thanks to ideology, the 20th century was fated to experience evildoing on a scale calculated in the millions. This cannot be denied, nor passed over, nor suppressed.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

 

I never met Charlie Kirk, but I feel like I know him pretty well because I have watched at least a hundred of the conversations he’s had with college students since he founded Turning Point USA when he was only 18 – an organization that went on to eclipse the Young Republicans and emerge as the largest political influence for young Americans.

Charlie never went to college. He was an autodidact who became one of the very best public intellectuals of our time, proving himself in countless debates with not only college students but media pundits, economists, academic scholars, and even politicians.

He was also – and this will surprise anyone who didn’t follow him – a very gentle and reasonable person who was always upbeat and eager to have a mutually respectful exchange of ideas.

He was a devout Christian who seemed to know the Bible – the New and the Old Testament – word for word. He was on a mission to bring the Western canon and Judeo-Christian ethics back into the culture by having civil conversations with young people.

One of the questions I’ve been asking myself is what if any impact Charlie’s death will have on our country. He was unquestionably an important figure. His discussions, debates, and lectures were seen on a daily basis by millions – sometimes tens of millions – of American voters. I’ve heard more than one political analyst say that Turning Point USA was almost singlehandedly responsible for Trump’s victory in the swing states.

But he was more than just a political pundit. In fact, in most ways he wasn’t anything like one. He was a Trump supporter, but he talked about Trump only when he was asked about Trump, and he rarely spoke the words Democrat or Republican. He wasn’t a fear monger. He wasn’t a trash talker. As a public figure, he was committed to the best of the Christian values, including showing love and consideration for your enemy.

If you saw 10 percent of what I saw of Charlie Kirk, it would be clear to you that his mission was to unite Republicans and Democrats, not divide them. He was much less about politics than about goodness and fairness and morality. It was pretty much all he talked about, which, I think, is one of the reasons he had such a large following.

Will Charlie’s Life Make a Difference? 

It’s possible that the assassination of Charlie Kirk may be yesterday’s news next month or even next week. The news cycle, as they say, has been getting shorter every year since social media replaced mainstream media as the primary way Americans get their information and their opinions. But I think that Charlie may be remembered because of his youth and his charisma and perhaps most importantly the fact that he was not a politician but a moral crusader.

It depends on what happens to the everyday thinking and morality of America’s left-wing voters.

In the past 10 years or so, a significant minority of American Progressives managed to confiscate and rewrite the moral playbook of the Liberals by introducing an ideology that was irrational and divisive. It began with a war on diction, the redefining of a handful of words, including “man,” “woman,” “rape,” and “violence.”

This mutated, as it was meant to, into concepts such as “women can be men,” “men can be woman,” “rape can be retroactive or consensual,” and that “there is no difference between cruelty and violence.”

It was highlighted when Jordan Peterson came into the global battle about “transgender rights” by refusing to be forced to use compelled speech. All of a sudden, it was considered reasonable to say that the definition of woman is “someone who identifies as a woman.”

The illogic of that was the basis for the irrationality of considering offensive speech a form of violence. This idea is probably the worst of the Left’s rhetorical revolution because it was more subtle and less absurd than the idea that men could be women and so was easier to accept. It felt, for many, like a better definition. The American conscience was progressing beyond the right to have one’s body and property protected by the government. It had moved on to protecting people’s feelings.

This change met with less resistance from careful thinkers because it felt harmless at worst and helpful at best. But it was, in fact, malevolent. Ben Shapiro, speaking to Bari Weiss in a panel discussion organized by The Free Press, pointed out that this error in logic led America directly to the country we have now, where political assassinations are not only happening at a higher rate than ever before, but are being justified and even celebrated by the offending factions.

“Permission Structures for Violence”

Shapiro had a good term for these verbal inversions. He called them “permission structures for violence.” His idea was that when it gets to the point where people really believe that a statement or opinion expressed can be actual violence, it seems reasonable to take the position that there is nothing wrong with battling one form of violence with another – in this case, retaliating against the “violence” of hearing ideas with which you don’t agree by killing the person who voiced them.

I hadn’t thought of that before he said it, but it seems exactly right.

We all have permission structures embedded in our consciences. Permission structures for eating a second slice of cake. Permission structures for jaywalking or going through a red light when no one is around to notice.

Many of us have permission structures for more serious violations, such as lying on a job application, gambling with money we can’t afford to lose, or cheating on a lover or spouse.

But how does one develop permission structures for violence?

I can think of only two ways. We are psychopathic. Or we have bought into an ideology that has permission structures for violence embedded in its doctrines.

Fundamental Islam, for example. Or, as in this case, the likely candidate is the ideology du jour of the Woke political Left, the ideology that contends, at its core, that scientific facts are cultural constructs and that communicating unwanted ideas is violence.

These sorts of ideas have become not just accepted by millions in the past 10 years or so, but have been taken seriously by otherwise intelligent and educated people. Actually, as far as I have seen, until recently, they have been embraced and articulated only by educated people. College educated people including people of influence – politicians and pundits and social justice warriors – viewing and then characterizing social and political issues through these dark and deranged Orwellian glasses.

We have been listening to these people – these influencers and the millions of people that take their cues from them – for what? Ten years now? Saying things we’d think they can’t possibly believe. What we have failed to grasp is that they do believe them in the same way that anyone believes when they believe in the tenets of an ideology. The nature of ideology itself is that truth begins with ideas that are meant not to be questioned. They can be supported with arguments that have the patina of rationality, but that patina rubs off quickly in rational conversation. Which is why, when Charlie Kirk would rationally and politely expose the irrationality of these core beliefs, his interlocutor would invariably call him a racist or fascist and walk away.

I’ve seen dozens of his conversations that ended like that. And each time, Charlie had this look on his face – that open-mouthed smile as he watched them walking away. He seemed perpetually surprised at their response, as if he couldn’t believe that anyone would be offended by kindly spoken statements of fact.

If that sort of mindset becomes the dominant mindset of America, then Charlie Kirk’s life and work will surely be forgotten. If his name survives at all, it will be in the footnotes of articles and books and he will be briefly identified as a “right-wing extremist.”

However, if these same Americans – those who were willing to vote for Kamala Harris because they feared and hated Trump so much – regain their common sense (and there is good reason to believe this is happening), Charlie Kirk will be remembered. Not just remembered but remembered as a brave and influential man who spent his young life fighting and dying for the best of America’s values.

Can All-Cause Mortality Studies Answer 
the Ultimate Question About the COVID Vaccines? 

A week ago, I received three separate reports from health bloggers I follow on a major study conducted in Japan and released in June 2025 on a data set of 18 million Japanese people who got the COVID vaccine.

It was an all-cause mortality study, which is a very reliable way to measure the effects of any number of factors on mortality rates, from lifestyle choices, to environmental conditions, to underlying health issues, and, yes, to vaccines.

About All-Cause Mortality Studies 

All-cause mortality is an objective endpoint without bias. The occurrence of death should be assessed through standard study processes and through supplemental interrogation of administrative registry databases to minimize the number of patients lost to follow-up and the need for imputation or sensitivity analyses. Factors contributing to the cause of death may be difficult to establish, and the relationship of death to the underlying MV disease or to the intervention may be uncertain.

For these reasons, all-cause mortality is preferable compared with cardiac mortality as a primary endpoint measure. Nonetheless, adjudication of the cause of death should be performed using pre-defined criteria.

The cause of death is subdivided into cardiovascular and noncardiovascular causes. Although categorizing the initiating or proximate cause of cardiovascular death may be difficult, major complications contributing to death should be identified to facilitate future efforts to reduce mortality. A diagnosis of noncardiovascular death requires the primary cause to be clearly related to another condition (e.g., trauma, cancer, or suicide). All deaths that are not unequivocally related to a noncardiovascular condition are considered cardiovascular death for regulatory purposes. (Source: Science Direct]

What the data showed was a significant correlation to all-cause mortality rates in Japan in the months following mass vaccinations.

Summarizing the findings, Dr. Yasufumi Murakami, who works at the Tokyo University of Science, one of Japan’s top RNA research centers, and is the author of more than 100 scientific papers, said that the data showed a clear pattern: The more doses of the vaccine a person got, the sooner they were likely to die after their last shot.

The steepest spike was after three doses. Those who got three doses were most likely to die about 90 to 120 days after their last shot date.

But as Dr. Murakami noted, non-vaccinated people never experienced a peak in deaths.

Is Donald Trump Going to Be Remembered as “the Greatest US President Since Abraham Lincoln”? 

Did you see Trump’s press conference last Saturday?

The purpose of it was for Trump to announce some accomplishments that he and his team had recently achieved. And, in case you didn’t see it (or read about it), the list of the accomplishments he was taking credit for was impressive – maybe even unbelievable. (I’ll get to that in a bit.)

What made it feel so different was the ambiance of the room – starkly different from any press conference I remember seeing since… well, since forever!

Hail to the King? 

I’m accustomed – as I’m sure you are – to the standard Trump press conference, with the POTUS, taking from the assembled mainstream journalists one tough question after another. Some of them “gotcha” questions, but just as many about executive decisions and policy proposals and his use of the command of the executive branch of government to ram through his political agenda. (Which, to be fair, got him decisively elected.)

The press corps rarely if ever threw Trump a lob. The questions were more like one down the middle, followed by two curves, followed by one change-up, and topped off with a straight throw at his head.

Nonetheless, I always enjoyed watching those conferences because the questions – or at least the intent of the questions – were obvious, and thus predictable. And so, what you had to spend your TV minutes on was a contest of banalities that would otherwise prompt you to change the channel, except that you never knew how Trump was going to respond.

Often, when asked accusatory questions, Trump would do what most politicians do in such situations. He would say something like, “I’m glad you asked that.” And then go on to say something he wanted to say – something negative about his critics or laudatory about his supporters, and then proceed to make whatever political claim he intended to make when he took to the podium initially.

Other times he would recognize the question as a criticism and argue directly and even specifically against the statements or implications made. But Trump’s best responses were when he asked the questioners whom they worked for and then went on to berate the news agency and tell the reporters how terrible they are at their job.

It was not like that last Saturday. Instead, what I saw was a throng of what sounded like recently born-again Trumpsters, not unlike wannabe partygoers who were stepping over one another to get through the ballroom door before it was shut in their faces for good.

And I wasn’t the only one who noticed it. If you watched it, you noticed that Trump looked like he was having a blast. And legitimately so. It could well have been the most-favorable-to-him press conference the Donald ever experienced – in his life!

What happened? 

What happened was that several of the longstanding critiques of and charges against Trump and his MAGA agenda had become “inconvenient” to ask. There wasn’t a single critical question about the three primary issues on which he based his campaign: immigration, inflation, and tariffs.

In previous press conferences, it seemed like a third of the questions were about the perceived illegality and/or unfairness of his administration’s deportation policies. Another third were efforts to get Trump to admit that tariffs were just another form of taxation. And the final third were veiled criticisms of his failure to bring down the cost of eggs and gasoline.

These questions were not asked on Saturday because everyone in that press conference knew, as did the media that employed them, that, had they been asked, Trump would have been able to respond to them with answers that they did not want to hear.

The Border Policy 

The Trump administration’s efforts to carry out the “largest deportation program in US history” has resulted in many questionable judgement calls and deplorable outcomes, such as the videos we’ve seen of unidentified men in civilian clothing and wearing masks rounding up, roughing up, and then forcibly “detaining” suspected undocumented immigrants without even the level of due process one might expect to be awarded as a foreigner in a Third World country. An especially disturbing example is one of a gardener who attempted to flee from an ICE raid being held down on the ground and punched repeatedly, even though he was clearly not “resisting arrest.” (In that case, it turned out that the 65-year-old man was the father of two decorated Marine Corps veterans.)

This could have been – and really should have been – a topic that merited ongoing critical questions. But several things had changed in the past few months that took the steam out of that engine of attack.

One was the fact that there were no more potential rapists, child molesters, and terrorists crossing the border illegally because there were no more people of any kind crossing the border illegally. In May, according to the US Border Patrol, there were exactly none.

Another was the recent Supreme Court’s ruling restricting federal judges to serve stays and injunctions against executive orders beyond their districts, which mooted questions like, “Aren’t you violating the Constitution by disregarding the rulings of federal judges?”

And a third one – which, although it’s gotten scant attention so far from political pundits, I’d like to believe was already germinating in the hard soil of TDS-addled brains – was the recognition that some brilliant person in the Trump administration had already figured out a way to achieve Trump’s Great Deportation promise in a manner that is less costly, more effective, and more humane. I’m talking about the self-deportation (i.e., pay to leave) program, which has already resulted in (from what I’ve read, at least) the exodus of more than a million undocumented aliens – quietly, quickly, and pleasantly for all.

None of this is to say that critical questions about Trump’s border policy will not return. Or should not return. What it means to me is that US voters no longer have much concern about what’s going on at the border because, regardless of their political affiliation, they are no longer hyped up about immigration.

So I think we are now in a position we’ve not been in for as long as I can remember: a pragmatic, by-default political détente that Congress and the administration could use, if it wanted to, to establish the “sensible” immigration policy that we’ve been unable to talk about sensibly in my lifetime.

It could happen. And if it did, it would be a huge accomplishment for Trump, an achievement that other presidents have worked towards but never got even close to achieving.

Tariffs 

During Trump’s campaign, he talked about imposing tariffs to “fix” the US trade imbalance and make trade fair again for US companies. And when he took office on Jan. 20, he began doing just that.

Trump has been making his arguments in favor of tariffs forever. It was part of his campaign in 2015. It was even a talking point he often made when interviewed as an up-and-coming real estate developer in NYC.

He was unable to enact his tariff ideas during his first term for the same reason he didn’t get a lot of his campaign promises done: He had no idea how politics work within the Capital Beltway and how much power the unelected bureaucracy had to quash his initiatives when they aligned themselves with his political opponents.

But that was then and this is now. Trump came back to the Executive Office with a much more realpolitik understanding of how to get things done in DC. He also bolstered his power by appointing a team of smart, capable, and most of all loyal people to head up the various departments and cabinets that he needed to work with – individuals who were happy to work 24/7 to assiduously carry out his plans. And that is why he was able to effectuate his (I think I called it “insane”) strategy of imposing record-breaking tariffs on virtually every country the US trades with.

But why? Why was this plan so important to him? So important that he was willing to push it forward even against almost universal criticism from both the Right and the Left?

I believe that Trump’s motivation for his trade policy is just as he says: He thinks it’s unfair that US companies have their exported products tariffed, which means they are more expensive to the foreign buyer, while foreign companies (often in the same industry) can sell their products into the US without that extra cost, thus, giving them a competitive advantage.

That is one way of looking at it. Another way, the view first espoused by Frederick Hayek and Ludvig von Mises (of the Austrian School of Economics) and then popularized in the US by Milton Friedman fans is that tariffs are bad for both the country on which they are imposed and also the country that imposes them, because the additional cost is ultimately paid for by the consumer with dollars that they would otherwise spend on additional products and services. In other words, tariffs make things more expensive than they should be. And that is always bad – not just for individual consumers, but for the economies of the countries affected by them.

That has been the argument that has, by and large, prevailed in the US for the last 40+ years, and with good reason: It allowed Americans to enjoy dozens of manufactured goods, from children’s toys to automobiles and everything in between, at prices much cheaper than those that could be bought from US suppliers, since they were being made, often by hand, first in Japan and then in China and then in Korea, and so on. But it was also a free-market, pro-Capitalism argument, made primarily by Republicans, whereas the pro-tariff crusade was a big-government cause, promoted largely by Democrats. And that is why it was so amusing to see the mostly Liberal and Leftist mainstream media suddenly embracing it and challenging Trump with it – as if they had converted to free-market, pro-Capitalism advocates in a few short months.

What they failed to understand is that, despite the occasional comment he made about “protecting” US workers, Trump was using tariffs for reasons that had little to do with free trade. He was threatening and then instituting tariffs for political purposes – as in, closing our borders with both Mexico and Canada, and then for all sorts of other geopolitical objectives with our foreign enemies and allies all over the world. And he has been astonishingly successful in that. In fact, he used the threat of tariffs (as well as the threat of other economic sanctions) to negotiate the ceasefires his team achieved in the international disputes he talked about at the beginning of the press conference.

(I’m going to skip, for the moment, Trump’s crazy idea that he was going to create an External Revenue Service, which would use tariffs to eliminate income taxes on Americans imposed by the Internal Revenue Service.)

Inflation 

I agree with Milton Friedman and his Austrian progenitors that tariffs are inherently inflationary. And that inflation is inherently bad for economies, large and small.

So I would not have been surprised if consumer prices would have been increased by US manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers from the beginning as a preemptive response. I would have also expected price inflation to continue to move up, even sharply, as countries that Trump was hitting with tariffs decided to fight back. This was exactly what the lamestream media was anticipating when, after less than 30 days into his term, they began to pepper him with questions about why the price of eggs and gasoline hadn’t come down.

And although for a while the media had some upticks to talk about (caused primarily by the artificial early responses), as the months passed, prices did not go up as expected. In fact, many, if not most, of them went down!

“Why was that?” you might wonder. For a while, I wondered that as well. But what happened was that it was soon clear by his seemingly erratic raising and lowering of tariffs with both threats and executive orders that his plan was not to punish US trading partners and get into a mutually destructive trade war, but to see if he could bully them down to either tariffs that were low (10%) on both sides or, as he said several times he would be happy with, a mutual zero-tariff agreement with any country that wanted it.

At least that was my interpretation. And I think it was the interpretation of many US business CEOs and the bankers and brokers whose fiscal and monetary actions and reactions are reflected in the stock markets.

So by the time Trump stood in front of the press corps last Saturday, those who would have liked to nail him with questions about rising inflation and cratering stock indexes had nothing to say.

Two Big Announcements and Two Huge Accomplishments… If They Hold 

I’ve covered the question about why Trump wasn’t assaulted with the usual critical questions. Now, let’s turn to the announcements he made, and why there wasn’t an immediate attack on them.

The principal theme of Trump’s press conference concerned the current state of global politics, and especially the current state of global war.

The two largest conflicts were, of course, the Russia/Ukraine war and the Israel/Iran war. Trump came to announce that he and his team had accomplished what had only a month earlier seemed impossible: ceasefires in both.

It’s difficult to know how he negotiated a ceasefire with Putin and Zelensky, but one imagines that a big part of it was in taking advantage of how exhausted they both must have been with the many lives that were lost and the massive destruction of towns and cities that had taken place on both sides. I believe that Trump has believed from the beginning that Putin’s primary concern was in preventing Ukraine from becoming a NATO member, which he was always opposed to and why he so many times said that the war would never have started had he been in office.

But now that the war was on, I think he also realized that Putin would not be happy with a return to the old equilibrium and was not going to stop until he had an agreement that gave Russia land concessions that would reduce its vulnerability to future threats from Ukraine on its common borders, bolster its own defense capabilities, and provide access to markets and transportation routes that it didn’t have before the war.

I think the ceasefire was struck because Trump had decided, either consciously or otherwise, that it would be in America’s interest if Ukraine was not destroyed by Russia, but lost this war.

I think he told Putin that he would support some of his (Putin’s) objectives in carving up Ukraine as part of the treaty, and he would also continue to veto Ukraine’s entry into NATO, so long as Putin’s demands for war spoils were not so great as to make him (Trump) look like a dupe – or more of a dupe than the Liberal/Leftist media liked to say he was.

I think he told Zelensky that unless he (Zelinsky) agreed to a ceasefire that would ultimately result in a treaty in which Ukraine would have to make some concessions, he (Trump) would start ratcheting back the military aid the US was giving Ukraine, including the US’s stockpile of missiles, and that if Zelensky stayed stubborn, Trump would tighten that flow to a trickle, which meant that Ukraine’s defeat, possibly a much more damaging one, would  happen sooner rather than later.

The ceasefire Trump’s administration achieved with Israel and Iran was similar in one way. I think that sometime between his first term of office and this one, Trump came to believe that Iran and its proxies in this conflict – Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthi – are deeply and eternally committed to their sworn purpose, which is the obliteration of Israel, the slaughter of all Jews, and the destruction of the Evil Empire (i.e., the United States). I don’t think Trump favors Isreal because of any ethical or ideological principles. (I don’t think he has any.) I think that, like the Russia/Ukraine conflict, he asked himself what outcome would be best for the US. (And his image?)

If that was his thinking, he would have had to conclude that, regardless of what may be said publicly, Iran would continue with its war against Israel, regardless of how many ceasefires were agreed to (during which Iran could arm up), and therefore the only way the war could end definitively would be for Israel to win definitively. From the perspective of what is best for the US, Trump recognized, it would be a total defeat of Iran, and a situation in which Gaza and the West Bank were effectively controlled by Israel.

That, I believe, is Trump’s agenda. He is not taking orders from Netanyahu. If anything, Netanyahu is taking orders from Trump. What is best for America, Trump believes, is to do away with countries that are committed to doing away with America.

Back to the Press Conference 

Putting aside my uneducated (but alarmingly astute) speculations as to how Trump and team achieved those two major accomplishments, the question remains: Why didn’t the press corps pummel him with questions that were critical to his decisions and actions in both cases?

I think there is a simple answer to this: I think the entire world is tired of watching these wars drag on and would see a ceasefire, no matter how it was achieved, as a good thing. And the fact that the bombing of Iran did not include thousands or even hundreds of casualties made it even more difficult for journalists to be critical of Trump’s plan. What they did do, which was a short-lived attempt, was make the case that the bombings were not successful. But that was based on a biased reading of a partial document that was also biased, and so the whole thing disappeared in the following two and three days.

Just a few months ago, political pundits from across the political spectrum were warning that either of these conflicts could flare into a global war at any time, and possibly even a war that included atomic weapons. That didn’t happen. And so the reporters who would have otherwise made statements and asked questions that were critical of Trump’s actions in these two arenas apparently decided to hold off with the tough questions until he did something stupid that resulted in a disaster they could feast on. That could happen still. But in the meantime, we are hearing crickets from them.

Trump was there to tell the world that while he and his team were working on these two WWIII potential problems, they were also putting out fires and making peace deals in other parts of the world.

The US–Houthi Ceasefire in Yemen 

Trump said he brokered a ceasefire between the US and the Houthi rebels on May 6, during which the Houthis agreed to halt attacks on American ships in the Red Sea. The deal, mediated by Oman, paused a recent US–UK bombing campaign.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda 

You probably didn’t hear much about this, which is part of the problem. For more than 25 years, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda have been locked in a brutal, drawn-out war that has killed an estimated 5 million people – making it the deadliest conflict since World War II. Most of the fighting has taken place in eastern Congo, where Rwandan-backed militias like M23 have been pillaging villages, killing civilians, and fueling chaos for decades. And through all of this, the Western world has done next to nothing. The UN has been on the ground, mostly observing. US diplomats have paid lip service. But because it’s an African war – with no immediate threat to the West and no compelling media narrative – it’s been allowed to rage, year after year, while the bodies pile up.

So yes, it’s significant that Trump managed to get both sides to the table and strike a deal. Rwanda agreed to withdraw its troops within 90 days, and both governments pledged to stop supporting armed groups. In return, the DRC offered US companies access to its vast reserves of critical minerals – cobalt, coltan, lithium. That appears to be the leverage Trump used – not sanctions, but investment. America got the minerals. The region got a shot at peace.

In his typically braggadocio manner, Trump called the agreement a “tremendous breakthrough” and “a glorious triumph,” claiming it would end “one of the worst wars anyone’s ever seen.”

So Trump had a good day making these amazing announcements without having to deal with a single gotcha question about all the old stuff. Those who had been asking those questions for so many years didn’t. I’m not naïve enough to think that Trump has turned the tide on how the mainstream media views him. Already we are hearing criticisms of the ceasefire he negotiated between Rwanda and the DRC (that it was “vague” and “transactional), but they are not gaining any clicks on the internet. Journalists and pundits that still hate Trump and everything he says and stands for (and there are plenty of them) will have to wait for him to be weakened by signing a particularly idiotic executive order or until one of his key people makes some major mistake in carrying out one of his policies (which I have no doubt they will) before they can get back to their sport.

Trump’s Major Foreign Policy Accomplishments Since Taking Office 5 Months Ago 

* Brokered ceasefire between Israel and Iran (June 2025): Trump spoke with Netanyahu and Iran via envoys, achieving a lasting pause in hostilities.

* Negotiated a 60-day Gaza ceasefire with Israel on board and urging Hamas to agree – includes phased hostage releases and humanitarian access.

* Brokers a peace deal between DRC and Rwanda (June 27): Rwanda and Congo pledged to halt support for armed groups and improve security and economic ties.

* Secured ceasefire with Yemen’s Houthis (May 2025) following US airstrikes – a calm restoration of Red Sea navigation.

*  Lifted most sanctions on Syria (June 30): Executive order aimed at supporting reconstruction under new leadership.

* Made big deals with Middle East leaders (May 2025): Met with leaders from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE – signed massive business, investment, and defense deals including securing sanctions relief for Syria and advancing the Abraham Accords.

* Secured valuable mineral deal with Ukraine (April 2025): Agreed reconstruction fund and natural resource exploitation plan.

* Assisted Pakistan in securing a ceasefire with India. (India downplayed Trump’s involvement, but Pakistan formally nominated Trump for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, citing his “pivotal and paramount” role during the conflict.

* Facilitated Ukraine-Russia ceasefire (Feb–Mar 2025): Phoned Putin and Zelensky; facilitated 30‑day ceasefire for energy and Black Sea strikes.

Don’t Get Me Wrong, Even Though I’m Right… 

Here is where I need to tell you what I think about Trump as a personality, a deal maker, and as our President – at least, so far!

Donald Trump has a serious issue with narcissism. This is not news. Anyone who watched The Apprentice and The Celebrity Apprentice could have figured that out. Part of the reason the shows did so well was exactly because of Trump’s narcissism. He was pompous but he was also smart. He was bombastic but he was also clever. He was hyperbolic but he used hyperbole for drama and for humor. And that is a big part of why he did so well on TV.

I believe Trump’s narcissism is the key to understanding his thinking and behavior – including his policies and actions as the POTUS.

He does not have a fixed political agenda because he doesn’t have committed political beliefs. Nor does he have any economic views that he takes as gospel. He’s a free-market guy, unless he can see an advantage in tariffs.

He hired Musk to get rid of government waste, fraud, and corruption, but then he came up with the Big Beautiful Bill that will add several trillion dollars to US debt and no doubt spur a good deal of waste and corruption in spending that money.

He joked about making Canada the 51st state and annexing Greenland, but then talked seriously about it when he thought the idea was getting a lot of positive traction on the internet.

He loves trolling his opponents. He loves criticizing those that criticize him. He has brought vulgarity back into the political vernacular, but at the same time he’s brought back a level of honesty and transparency that had all but completely disappeared.

Trump is a businessman and a Washington, DC, outsider. He’s much more aware of politics and bureaucracy now than he was 10 years ago, and that is helping him get his policies enacted. And that is exactly the reason why most politicians don’t trust him –including most Republicans. He doesn’t use their language. He doesn’t play their games. For Trump, everything is a deal, and every deal is a chance to get more love from the people.

I have no idea what he’ll do next, except that I’m quite sure that if he were offered a crown, he would take it. Hopefully, that won’t happen. In the meantime, we are all going to have to judge him by the effectiveness of his policies. And I’m okay with that.

In the waning days of Biden’s senescent administration but before the election, whoever it was that was running the Democrat campaign decided that they could bolster Biden’s chances of victory by repeatedly calling him “the most consequential president” in this or that many decades.

That never felt like a good tactic to me. It was, by then, so obviously absurd that it must have rung flatly to everyone who heard it, including the most ardent Trump haters.

But here we are just 166 days into Trump’s second term, and I can’t stop myself from thinking that, however challenged I believe Trump is due to his narcissism and complete inability (or unwillingness) to act “like a president,” he may indeed become the greatest – or at least “the most consequential” – president the US has had since… well, for my friends still fevered with TDS, since Abraham Lincoln.

If you disagree, please write to me. I promise to post your letter and respond to it, point by point.

The 12-Day War (or Whatever It Was) 

What the hell just happened?

Did the US military just bomb the hell out of Iran? Did it really fly thousands of miles over the ocean and then over Eastern Europe and then into and over Iran air space, undetected, and then drop “bunker buster” bombs on all of Iran’s major nuclear power facilities? Did it destroy them, as Trump claimed? Or does the Ayatollah and his war machine have “plenty more of that [enriched uranium]” hidden in some remote location we failed to hit?

And what the hell is going to happen now?

Will Iran launch a counterattack? Will it bomb US facilities in and around the Persian Gulf? Will other Arab countries get behind Iran and turn this now three-country conflict into a regional war? Or worse yet, will Russia and China, whose interests are tied up strongly with Iran, get involved? Are we talking about WWIII?

If Trump is right about how much damage was done, will Iranians give up (at least for now) their hopes of becoming a nuclear power? And if they do, would they consider talking peace with Israel? Would they consider, seriously for the first time in 40+ years, suspending their crusade to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth?

Let’s Look at the Pieces, One at a Time

Here are the questions that popped up in my mind the moment I decided to take a crack at writing about this. I’m sure they are the same questions that a thousand (10,000? 100,000?) online bloggers are asking themselves right now:

* What, exactly, happened?
* What was the goal?
* What was the rationale?
* To what degree was it achieved?
* What was the global reaction?

And as a headline in The Free Press asked:

Did Trump just start a war or end one? 

I am conscious that this will be read by many of my colleagues, friends, business associates, and especially members of various discussion groups I belong to – each of whom has intellectual prejudices related to this conflict that they are unlikely to be swayed away from by anything I say. (I can already hear them shouting at me, telling me what I should think!)

A Full Range of Ideological Biases and Predispositions

My Anarchist/Capitalist and Libertarian heroes have roundly denounced the bombings. They long ago figured out that war is always bad for freedom and the economy and is usually the result, as Hemingway noticed, of screwing around with the national currency.

My Liberal and Leftist friends that hate Donald Trump and are also antisemitic (as the majority of them are) are appalled by the bombings and have no doubt that this is another example of Trump thinking he’s a King and acting like a Dictator.

My Liberal and Leftist friends who hate Trump but think of themselves as fair-minded about the Arab/Israeli conflict and/or sympathetic towards Israel are confused. The hate-Trump part of their brains wants to hate the bombings. But another part – the part that understands that Iran is the largest sponsor of pro-Hamas/anti-Israel terrorism in the world – is secretly happy about the bombing and hopes it may remove from Iran the possibility of developing a nuclear weapon.

I don’t have any Neocon friends (or perhaps I do, but they know better than to let me know). These people are very happy with the bombings and are hoping to see much more of that sort of thing all over the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

Maybe it’s best to begin with stating something that everyone reading this will agree with: The bombing of Iran was a big thing. And it’s almost certainly going to have big consequences. The only question is: What sort of consequences? And how many?

Things were spicy hot around the globe before the bombing took place. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was already, under the Biden administration, another proxy war between the US and Russia. And when Israel defended itself after the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre of 344 Israeli civilians, and then began its attack on Iran, the tension was at a breaking point.

Now, with the US moving into the conflict actively, many media personalities, Foreign Relations analysts, and Cold War pundits are writing and speaking about the possible repercussions.

I’m neck-deep in reading what those guys have to say. But I’m finding very little in the press from the leaders of countries that have a stake in what just happened. I’ll try to figure out why they’ve been surprisingly quiet later in this essay. Meanwhile, let’s try to answer the first question: What, exactly, happened?

Some of the Relevant Facts

Last weekend, the US launched a precision strike targeting key Iranian nuclear sites – mainly facilities believed to be involved in developing nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. According to officials, the operation was planned months in advance, likely involving a mix of satellite imagery, signals intelligence, and possibly cyber operations.

Reports said cruise missiles and drones were used to hit specific underground bunkers and storage depots – places where Iran has been known to hide and protect sensitive material. Early assessments from US and Israeli sources claimed the attack caused significant damage, possibly delaying Iran’s progress by several months, if not longer.

Iran’s government immediately condemned the attack, calling it an act of war and promising retaliation.

Iran has been working relentlessly to develop nuclear weapons for years. It’s also been building up a missile arsenal capable of reaching Israel and potentially Europe and US interests.

According to US intelligence sources, Iran’s underground nuclear facilities – like the Fordow plant – are heavily fortified and dispersed. That makes them tough targets, but the US use of the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bomb, which can penetrate 100 feet into the ground or into 20 feet of reinforced concrete, can, in theory at least, reach and destroy them.

If It Were Only That Simple 

Iran has a history of secretly hiding and moving nuclear materials, and intelligence analysts suggest they’ve already taken steps to preserve their capabilities. Some leaks indicate that they might have already managed to transfer or hide key components, meaning this strike could have been a temporary setback rather than a knockout punch.

So, if you ask me, Operation Midnight Hammer was a targeted operation designed to delay Iran’s nuclear breakout – and it was probably the best shot we had right now.

But let’s be real. Iran’s regime remains deeply committed to its goal: developing nuclear weapons and ICBMs to attack and eventually destroy Israel and the US, and after that to convert or slaughter the rest of the non-Islamic peoples.

Why Did Trump Decide to Bomb Iran?

Trump had been saying, long before he took office, that Iran should not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon. During his first and second campaigns, he said it again, repeatedly, and chastised previous administrations for not taking aggressive action to stop it from happening.

Iran has long claimed its nuclear program is peaceful, but that’s nonsense. For peaceful purposes, uranium enrichment only needs to be in the single digits, and Iran has enriched uranium up to 60%. Apparently, that’s where you want to keep it until you are ready to use it because it’s more stable there, but it can be upgraded to 80% quickly and easily.

Iran’s regime has a proven history of threatening Israel with annihilation, along with ongoing missile development and regional destabilization. And intelligence leaks and reports from sources close to the Trump administration indicate that Iran has been clandestinely moving nuclear materials and deploying advanced centrifuges, despite their public claims of peaceful energy development. Meanwhile, many analysts believe – and I can’t see why they wouldn’t – that Iran regards nuclear weapons as its ultimate deterrent. Which is why they have spent so much money over so many years building out that capability while insisting they are creating fuel for peaceful reasons.

So, the declared reason for the US strike – which I think is 100% accurate – was the intention to prevent the Iranian regime from acquiring a nuclear bomb. And that striking now gave the US a good chance to at least set back its development by decades and possibly get the regime to accept a non-development agreement.

I think Trump and his team were right in thinking that, as risky as the bombing decision was, continuing to ignore Iran’s relentless and undeniable progress in developing nuclear war capability would have been riskier.

Has the Bombing Destroyed (or at Least Impeded) Iran’s Plan to Develop Nukes? 

This is the million-dollar question.

Everyone seems to agree that Iran’s most critical nuclear facilities are deeply underground, built within fortified mountains and designed explicitly to withstand conventional bombs.

Israel doesn’t have the bombing capability to reach those sites, but the US does. In the US surprise attack last weekend, stealth bombers flew thousands of miles into the region and then over Iran to deliver GBU-57 bombs that are specifically designed to destroy hidden, hardened underground bunkers.

It’s very probable that they caused significant damage, potentially crippling or even destroying Iran’s underground enrichment and storage capabilities.

However, Iran is supposedly notorious for its secrecy and clandestine activities. Intelligence agencies around the world believe that Iran has constructed multiple, equally fortified sites that are either undiscovered, disguised, or located in remote areas, especially in the mountainous regions along the border with Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Reports on the Success of the Strike from On High

Trump has said, several times, that the mission was “a great success” and that Iran’s nuclear option has been completely destroyed.

Others are saying that no one but the Iranians has any idea if that’s true, because they have a long history of moving and hiding their development sites, and there is no reason to think that they haven’t done that in recent months.

That’s what Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman seemed to be referring to when she said that the attacks were meant to “destroy what we could find” and to “send a message” that Iran’s nuclear ambitions won’t go unanswered. Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the goal was “to damage Iran’s underground facilities enough to force them to slow their program or reconsider their progress.” And Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders said that the strike was successful in causing “significant damage” to “key parts of Iran’s underground program.

So, guess what? Trump is exaggerating. He’s overstating the case – maybe because he can’t stop himself. But his team is saying that the bombings, even if they didn’t hit all the sites, were successful in severely damaging Iran’s ability to build a nuke any time soon.

The Logic 

Still, I don’t see any advantage in Trump’s team or Israeli officials saying that the US military had “largely” completed its mission if it hadn’t. If they are lying, what do they accomplish? A few weeks or months of patting themselves on the back before we discover the truth?

Assuming that the sites were at least damaged sufficiently to postpone any thoughts Iran had about becoming a nuclear power in the near future, what they have to focus on right now is the continuing military attacks coming from Israel.

From Israel’s point of view, the US has given them the one thing they would need to get Iran to come to the bargaining table and discuss not just disarmament but some sort of promise to stop funding Hamas and Hezbollah and all its other anti-Israel proxies. Or, if Netanyahu thinks that will never happen, to crank up his attacks on the country’s military infrastructure until it is completely destroyed.

Iran has to see that as a distinct possibility. A risk it would be foolish – no, insane – to take right now. There’s no doubt that the US bombings have only hardened their commitment to wiping Israel and the US from the face of the Earth, but they are not going to have any chance of doing that if they don’t persuade the rest of the world that they have seen the light and will sign a non-development deal.

For 40 years, Iran’s leaders have shown that they’re willing to bide their time, hide their true activities, and push forward behind a fog of deception. But at this point in time, at this stage of the war’s escalation, will the Ayatollah and his advisors take the rational path? Or will they pray to their God for courage and do what the Koran demands of them?

Bottom line: Iran’s long game is still very much alive. What they do next will depend on how much external pressure they face.

Reaction to the Strike from the Rest of the World

The reaction from the rest of the world? It’s been surprisingly muted, but that’s probably more telling than a loud outcry.

Most Arab countries, especially Sunni Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have historically been wary of Iran’s regional ambitions. But right now, they seem more concerned with how this might spiral out of control than about Iran’s nuclear threat.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman warned that escalation “could destabilize the entire region,” and many Gulf state leaders are quietly preparing for possible fallout – though they’re not openly condemning the strike.

Turkey’s response was cautious. President Erdogan called for “restraint and dialogue,” aware that Turkey’s own interests lie somewhere between balancing its fragile alliance with the West and its extensive trade relationship with Iran. As one Turkish official put it, “We want stability in the region, not another war,” but everyone is clearly wary of letting things get out of hand.

And then there was the response – or lack thereof – from Russia and China.

Russia has been openly opposing America’s moves and backing Iran as part of their broader push to challenge Western dominance. And yet the response from Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was understated. He said the attack “undermines regional stability” and that “military solutions will not resolve the core issues.” And Chinese authorities have urged “all parties to exercise restraint.”

That a little confusing because there are good reasons why China and Russia are allied with Iran in this conflict.

From an economic and political perspective, both nations should be in Iran’s corner. Russia benefits from Iran’s oil and military cooperation. And China profits from trade, including oil and infrastructure deals under the Belt and Road Initiative.

Politically, both superpowers see Iran as a resource in countering Western sanctions, influencing Middle Eastern stability, and reducing US leverage in the region. Supporting Iran allows Russia and China to push back against US efforts to isolate Tehran and assert their own regional and global power.

So, why such soft responses?

It could be because Russia, China, and even many Muslim countries in the region understand that they benefit from regional stability and are hyper-aware that that this conflict could escalate into full-blown confrontation – especially when the wild and unpredictable Trump card is on the table.

So, What Am I Saying?

If it feels like I’m landing this essay in limbo, it’s not on purpose. The stakes are high. The momentum is increasing. The principal players are unpredictable.

The decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities was a decisive move. We can only assume that there is a good chance that Iran will respond. And an equally good chance that the US and Israel are planning on it.

I think that Russia, China, and most of the Muslim countries that are “on Iran’s side” will sit this one out. That gives Iran the choice of fighting the US and Israel on its own or finding some way to capitulate with some degree of dignity.

I have to believe that Trump and Netanyahu would be very happy with that outcome, but I’m guessing that the Ayatollah will not be willing to make them happy. And if that’s so, the future – our future – will depend on whether he’s really the Supreme Leader.

Sources 

The Free Press, “Did Iran Just Sneak Out Critical Nuclear Materials?” 

The Free Press, Matti Friedman on Iran’s nuclear capabilities post-strike

The Free Press, “Trump Keeps His Promise on Iran”

The Free Press, Albert Eisenberg on murders by Iran and US involvement

The Wall Street Journal on Trump’s approach to Iran and its implications

Other sources include official statements and analyses from:

* Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, public speeches and interviews regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions

* Dr. David Albright, Institute for Science and International Security, analysis of Iran’s underground nuclear facilities

* Former CIA Director Michael Hayden, various public comments on Iran’s clandestine capabilities

My 100-Day Report Card for Donald Trump

Trump’s Second Term: Not a Sequel, a Reboot 

As I mentioned in the introduction to this issue, writing my “report card” on Trump’s first 100 days in office turned out to be a much bigger challenge than I had anticipated.

Researching the promises made and actions taken was not difficult. What I did not expect was how many promises I’d have to research. As you will see as you read (skim?) through this, Trump’s campaign consisted of an almost endless string of complaints about what the Biden administration was doing wrong, and an equal number of promises to set those errors right.

Thinking about how Trump went about business this year as compared to 2016, the unprecedented number of executive orders he has signed so far was predictable, given both the number of pledges and promises he made and the diversity of issues he covered.

It’s also clear that at least half of the orders he signed were historical firsts – declarations and decisions the likes of which I don’t remember prior presidents making, such as renaming the Gulf of Mexico, banning CRT from being taught in public grade schools, and declaring that there were only two sexes.

But I don’t fault Trump for that. I praise him for it. The political and ideological insanity that took place in government, academia, and media after Biden took office was absolutely mindboggling. A toxic mix of very stupid ideas exacerbated by an epidemic of Trump Derangement Syndrome (that affected nearly half of the voting population) transformed our political and social culture to something that I had believed could only exist in science fiction.

So yes, someone had to be, as they say, “the adult in the room” and say, “No, gender is not a spectrum. It is a binary. And no, race is not a binary. It’s a spectrum. And no, claiming to be a victim doesn’t make you a victim. And even if it did, that would not give you any right to demand compensation for it.”

Trump made so many promises during the campaign because there were so many things going on that were divisive, damaging, and dangerous. His election, winning the popular vote, capturing all the swing states, and improving his numbers with Hispanics, Black men, and young voters was a call for a return to common sense.

So, now you have my view on why Trump got so busy after Jan. 20. What follows is an attempt to look at what I thought were the most important issues about which he made promises and compare those promises to what he’s done so far to keep them.

Because of the number of promises I’ll be covering – and about issues that are not just important but strongly debated – I’m going to ease into this by starting with a promise that probably was the least important in terms of current and future affairs but has been eagerly anticipated almost universally. I’m talking about Trump’s promise to let us all see what is in the Kennedy assassination and Jeffrey Epstein files.

 

Make America Transparent Again

During his 2016 campaign, and again in 2024, Trump strongly implied that he would open long-classified government files – especially those related to the JFK assassination and Jeffrey Epstein.

This was a promise, I was thinking, that could be kept on Day One of Trump’s term. It certainly was a lot simpler than, say, draining the swamp or ending two raging wars.

Some files have been released. But where are the bombshell discoveries that were teased (and that I was, admittedly, hoping for)?

 

What’s Actually Been Released?

Some progress has been made.

In 2017, during his first term, Trump did approve the release of thousands of documents related to the Kennedy assassination. But under pressure from intelligence agencies, he also allowed key redactions and delays. By 2021, over 90% of the JFK files were technically public, but many pages remained heavily redacted. A 2023 tranche under Biden did release additional pages – but even then, the most sensitive files remained sealed on national security grounds.

As for Epstein, the most recent major disclosures – the unsealing of names from his 2015 defamation suit – were court-driven, not part of a Trump initiative.

Despite Trump’s past association with Epstein and his claims that he “knew things” and would expose the network, no presidential order or DOJ-led transparency effort has yet materialized.

What’s Still Hidden? 

* The JFK Files: According to the National Archives, as of late 2023, several thousand documents remain partially or fully classified. Some are believed to contain information about CIA operations, possible Cuban or Soviet links, or domestic surveillance activities that may still be deemed too sensitive – or embarrassing – to disclose.

* The Epstein Case: The FBI, DOJ, and other agencies still hold a mountain of sealed files, including evidence gathered from Epstein’s properties, communications with high-level figures, and testimony from alleged victims. None of this has been voluntarily declassified by any administration.

Success Grade: D
Effort Grade: D
Messaging Grade: F

 

To be fair, Trump is not the first president who has not kept his promise on this issue.

 

Who’s Done More to Declassify? A Quick Comparison 

Donald Trump 

* The JFK Files: Authorized large-scale release in 2017 but delayed full declassification at the request of intelligence agencies. Some additional files released in 2018.

* The Epstein Case: No formal effort to declassify or release files. Occasionally made public comments suggesting knowledge of the case, but no action taken.

* Other Transparency Promises: Vowed to release documents on 9/11 and other “Deep State secrets,” but most remain sealed.

 

Joe Biden 

* The JFK Files: Oversaw release of additional batches in 2021 and 2022. In Dec. 2022, the White House announced that 95% of JFK documents were now public – but watchdogs noted that the most sensitive documents remain redacted.

* The Epstein Case: No initiative to release classified government files. The 2024 unsealing of names came from civil court rulings, not the executive branch.

 

Barack Obama 

* The JFK Files: No significant action taken during his administration.

* The Epstein Case: No known effort to release or unseal documents.

* Other Transparency Promises: Campaigned on transparency in 2008 but faced criticism for prosecuting more whistleblowers than all prior presidents combined and for expanding state secrecy in areas like drone warfare and surveillance.
Conclusion 

Despite early rhetoric, no modern president has fully “opened the books” on either JFK or Epstein. Trump arguably went furthest with the JFK files – but even he fell short of full disclosure. The Deep State, it seems, still knows how to keep its secrets.

Now let’s move to a promise for which I gave Trump high grades – because he did exactly what he promised and what he promised was and is a very necessary thing. 

 

Make the Southern Border Secure Again 

What Trump Promised 

From the moment he launched his second campaign, Trump made it clear that immigration would once again be a central pillar of his presidency.

This time, however, his goal wasn’t just to stop new waves of illegal migration – it was to reverse what he described as an unprecedented invasion allowed (and encouraged) by the Biden administration.

He promised to “shut the border,” reinstate the policies that had worked in his first term, and go further by deporting the millions of undocumented migrants who had entered the country since Biden took office.

He also vowed to bypass the bureaucratic entanglements that had previously slowed immigration enforcement, saying he would “end the invasion” through direct executive action and tougher mandates on federal agencies.

What He’s Done 

Within days of taking office, Trump issued a sweeping executive order rescinding Biden’s border enforcement rules and reactivating the policies his administration had used during his first term. That included:

* Reinstating the Remain in Mexico policy for asylum seekers.

* Ending catch-and-release, replacing it with rapid expulsion protocols.

* Expanding funding for border wall construction, using previously authorized (but unspent) funds.

* Re-deploying ICE and Border Patrol with new rules of engagement – specifically lifting internal limitations that had prevented them from detaining or deporting many categories of illegal entrants.

The results have been dramatic. According to DHS data released in mid-April, illegal border crossings have dropped by over 90% since January. Some sources close to the administration say the actual figure may be closer to 97–98%, though that includes seasonal variation and changes in migrant routes.

Trump has also launched Operation Homeland Recovery, a new directive tasking ICE with locating and removing as many of the 12 million undocumented immigrants who arrived under Biden as logistically possible. The operation has already sparked legal resistance from sanctuary cities and lawsuits in several Blue states – but the White House is moving forward regardless, citing public safety and national sovereignty as the justification.

What Biden Did – and Why It Matters 

To understand the magnitude of what Trump is trying to reverse, it’s worth stating plainly: The Biden administration’s immigration policy wasn’t just lax. It was immoral and illegal.

Rather than securing the border or working through Congress, Biden used a patchwork of executive orders to dismantle every major Trump-era control. He neutered border enforcement, ended the Remain in Mexico policy, abandoned Title 42 protocols, and instructed CBP to release illegal entrants with mere notices to appear – often years in the future.

Worse, the administration secretly transported hundreds of thousands of migrants via government-chartered flights to small towns and cities across America – often at night. These communities received no funding, no advance notice, and no say in the matter.

The strategy was political: to flood Red and Purple states with future voters who, once given a path to legal status, would likely vote Democrat.

If true, it’s not just a breach of immigration norms – it’s a subversion of the democratic process by demographic manipulation.

 

What It Feels Like 

Trump didn’t just promise to fix a broken system. He promised to stop what many Americans (me included) see as an immensely brazen and immoral violation of one of Biden’s primary responsibilities by not just allowing but encouraging more than ten million unvetted immigrants to cross into the US during his term of office, and then abetting them by flying and busing them throughout the country, under cover of night, without even notifying the affected governors – all in the hope of tipping the balance of future voting irreversibly towards the Blue.

Why nobody pointed this out from day one – with only rare exceptions from conservative pundits – I could not, at the time, understand. But now, seeing it again from how crazy the embraced values were back then, how far they were from common sense, and how widespread the willingness was among the media to suppress the obvious truths, I have to think of it as an era of absolute irrationality driven by TDS, which was too strong and too widespread to stop.

I’m confident that when economists check the federal government’s tab since 2016 – both in terms of spending dollars it didn’t have and destroying wealth it did have – they will see that of the dozens of ideas and actions taken during those eight years, the two worst and most costly were locking down the economy during COVID and opening up the border.

And that is why I give Trump his best grades for keeping this promise.

Success Grade: A*
Effort Grade: A
Message Grade: B

Illegal crossings have collapsed. Enforcement is back. And for the first time in years, the border is being treated like a border.

The asterisk is there because although Trump has fixed the “invasion” problem, he hasn’t yet addressed the larger immigration problem, which is that the US needs immigrants – probably more than a million of them – every year to keep our economy strong and growing. There are reasonable ways to do this with both permanent citizens and temporary workers. If he doesn’t tackle this second issue, all the force and conviction he’s put into closing the border will amount to nothing.

There is hopeful news on this front. Trump has apparently initiated a “self-deportation” program for illegal immigrants to turn themselves in and get some money and a free ticket home, rather than be apprehended. That’s not the interesting part. What I’m excited about is that he said that those who do self-deport will be put on a “short list” to come back with a legal path to citizenship.

Next on the agenda is Trump’s promise to take a hard position on violent and gang-related crime in the United States, which shot up sharply during the BLM protests and is still alarmingly high in many cities across the country.

 

Make America Safe Again 

What Trump Promised 

During and after the start of the BLM movement in 2013, there was a significant rise in crime in the United States – and particularly in high-population Blue cities.

Aware of the potential voting points of this, Trump made crime one of his primary examples of how America was moving in the wrong direction and blamed it on the Biden administration. He promised, more than once, that he would “fix it” when he became president.

But it was not just the crime associated with urban riots that he spoke about. There were several social and political “movements” that had taken root in universities and among liberal think tanks that took the position that criminal arrests and convictions should result in ratios that corresponded to racial representation in the general population, that “disadvantaged” minorities should be treated with special consideration (i.e., more leniency) because they were disadvantaged, and that America’s justice system and prison system were systemically racist.

Thanks to leftist funding (most notably George Soros), these movements took hold in many Blue states and cities, with judges and DAs openly easing sentences for criminals and reducing crimes such as theft to misdemeanors, and with Democratic politicians making excuses for the hundreds of millions of dollars of public and private property that was destroyed during the BLM riots (though they were outraged by the Jan. 6 protest, where there was negligible property damage).

All this made it easy for Trump to criticize this obviously idiotic view of crime and criminality and to cast the blame on Woke politics – starring Joe Biden.

And it was not just the vilified White men who were encouraged by Trump’s criticisms and promises, it was Blacks and Hispanics, many of whom had to live through this chaos.

The progressive slant on crime never made a bit of sense – except to academics who wanted to be published in obscure leftist journals. And everyone – including most of the undecided voters in swing states and many liberals as well – knew it.

Trump vowed to restore law and order, re-center the criminal justice system around victims instead of offenders, and take federal steps – wherever possible – to reverse progressive criminal justice policies at the state and local levels.

What He’s Done 

In his first 100 days, Trump:

* Appointed a new Attorney General with a mandate to support law enforcement, pressure progressive DAs, and bring federal charges when local prosecutors declined to act.

* Reversed Biden-era DOJ guidance that discouraged federal prosecution for lower-level offenses.

* Launched a new DOJ task force to investigate and, where appropriate, override lenient charging practices by state prosecutors in cases involving violence, gang activity, or drug trafficking.

* Increased funding for federal law enforcement partnerships with local police departments through Operation Safe Streets.

* Issued a White House directive aimed at fast-tracking federal action against sanctuary cities that release criminal aliens into the general population.

The most important move Trump made was in appointing serious, law-and-order advocates to lead federal agencies. People who viewed crime not as a social mystery to be endlessly recontextualized, but as a serious problem needing to be solved.

What It Feels Like 

There is no doubt that Trump saw his pro-police and pro-law-and-order rhetoric to be good for votes. And that it helped him win.

What he can do about crime as president, however, is another question. Crime, like real estate, is a local enterprise. Cleaning up crime requires tough initiatives, but local ones. The best thing Trump can do to reduce crime in the US – and perhaps the only thing he can do – is to get rid of the bad public thinking that was ever-present during the Biden administration with liberal Democrats and reflected in the mainstream media. You can’t reduce crime by making it easier to commit a crime and making the punishment easier when you do.

Trump’s victory itself was a blow to that kind of thinking. We will see what his top law enforcement people can do to encourage state and city governments to get tough on crime and on criminals. I’m not holding my breath.

Success Grade: B- (so far)
Effort Grade: B
Messaging Grade: B+

Trump has moved quickly and appointed the right people to execute his strategy. When talking with outrage about crime, he appeals to an increasingly large percentage of US voters. But the results of his appointments and his advocacy of tough-on-crime policies haven’t yet materialized. And although this has disappointed voters who believed he would quickly reduce crime in the US, the data so far is looking positive. If he can make significant headway in the next several months, he will have yet another feather to put in his cap.

Let’s move now to energy – an issue that is much more important than most people realize.

 

Make America Energy Independent Again 

What Trump Promised 

Energy independence was one of Trump’s most consistent talking points during the 2024 campaign. As always, he blamed the Biden administration for driving up energy prices, restricting domestic production, and making the US more dependent on foreign oil – despite the risks to national security and economic stability.

He promised to reverse those policies immediately. He would cancel EV mandates, end subsidies for unproven technologies, reopen drilling on federal lands, revive coal, accelerate fracking, and make it easier to export natural gas to Europe and Asia.

And most importantly, he said he’d restore US energy independence – a goal he had briefly achieved during his first term.

What He’s Done 

In his first 100 days, Trump moved quickly and decisively. His administration has:

* Lifted restrictions on drilling and fracking across federal lands and offshore sites.

* Rescinded Biden-era EV mandates and emissions targets that forced automakers to prioritize electric vehicles over gas-powered ones.

* Reopened leasing for coal mining operations, particularly in Appalachia and the Mountain West.

* Approved liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals to supply European allies still cut off from Russian fuel.

* Ordered the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to begin modest refilling – after Biden had drained it to near-record lows in a bid to lower gas prices ahead of the 2022 midterms.

Oil production has surged. Gasoline prices are down. And the cost of natural gas for home heating and power generation has dropped sharply.

What Biden Did – and Why It Mattered 

The Biden administration came into office vowing to “end fossil fuels.” It prioritized a rapid transition to renewables, pushed through massive subsidies for EVs, solar panels, and wind farms, and restricted new drilling across public lands.

The intent, ostensibly, was to reduce carbon emissions. But the result was predictable: higher energy costs, reduced domestic output, greater reliance on imports, and a grid that was increasingly strained.

More fundamentally, Biden’s energy policy was based on wishful thinking: that a nation of 330 million people could transition from fossil fuels to renewables almost overnight, without major disruptions or economic fallout.

It didn’t work. Inflation soared. Energy-intensive industries faltered. And American households – especially those in the bottom half of the income ladder – felt the squeeze.

What It Feels Like

I’m not against renewable energy. I’m in favor of it. But what the Green movement has done in the US over the past five years has been irrational and counterproductive.

All economies run on energy. That’s as true today as it was 100 years ago. Reduce an economy’s access to affordable energy, and you reduce its GDP. You reduce productivity. You reduce the standard of living. And the people who get hit hardest are always the ones with the fewest resources.

Transforming an energy system from fossil fuels to renewables isn’t something that can be done quickly without serious economic damage. And if the goal is to lower global carbon emissions, doing it unilaterally is not just foolish – it’s futile. China, India, and large swaths of Africa aren’t giving up coal and oil just to appease Western sensibilities. They’re growing economies, and they’ll burn what they need in order to grow.

Even building renewable infrastructure – solar, wind, batteries – requires massive amounts of fossil fuel. If political leaders were serious about climate and energy, they’d work together to chart a rational transition path – one that acknowledges that we’ll need fossil fuels for at least another decade to power the shift itself.

Biden never understood that – or didn’t care. His energy policy wasn’t about solving the problem. It was about satisfying a political base with unrealistic promises.

Trump, whatever you think of him, understands the economics of energy. He knows we can’t kill off fossil fuels overnight and expect our economy to keep functioning. Becoming energy independent while continuing to build out smart renewable infrastructure is the only adult path forward – and he seems committed to it.

US Energy Prices Since Jan. 20, 2025 

Gasoline 

* As of May 2025, the national average price for regular gasoline is approximately $3.26 per gallon, reflecting a decrease from $3.79 a year ago – a nearly 14% drop.

* The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts an average of $3.10 per gallon for the summer months, marking the lowest inflation-adjusted summer average since 2020.

Natural Gas 

* In Jan. 2025, the Henry Hub spot price for natural gas averaged $4.62 per million British thermal units (MMBtu), up from $4.03 in January 2024.

* The EIA projects that natural gas prices will average $3.37 per MMBtu in 2025, a 24% increase from the previous year.

Electricity

* Residential electricity prices are expected to grow by 3% in 2025, the smallest annual increase since 2020, reflecting relatively low natural gas prices and ongoing grid infrastructure improvements.

The Real Costs of Transitioning to Renewable Energy

Lithium-Ion Battery Production 

* Producing lithium-ion batteries is energy-intensive. The manufacturing process requires substantial amounts of energy, often derived from fossil fuels, leading to significant greenhouse gas emissions.

* Despite a 90% decline in lithium-ion battery prices since 2010, reaching below $140 per kilowatt-hour in 2023, the environmental and energy costs of production remain considerable.

Electric Vehicle (EV) Infrastructure 

* The production of EVs and the establishment of charging infrastructure demand significant energy and resources. For instance, manufacturing EVs involves mining and processing of rare earth metals, which is energy-intensive and environmentally taxing.

* The US energy storage industry has committed $100 billion to develop domestic battery manufacturing, yet experts argue this may be insufficient to build a competitive supply chain from scratch.

Renewable Energy Deployment 

* While the cost of renewable energy technologies like wind and solar has decreased, the transition requires substantial upfront investments. For example, the global weighted average Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) for new onshore wind projects was 67% lower than fossil fuel-fired alternatives in 2023.

* However, integrating these technologies into existing grids necessitates additional investments in storage and infrastructure to manage intermittency and ensure reliability.

 

Success Grade: A-
Effort Grade: A+
Messaging Grade: D

 

Prices are down, production is up, and for the first time in years, energy policy is being driven by reality, not ideology. It’s a big shift – one that’s already having real-world impact.

But in terms of messaging, Trump isn’t even trying to win over his opponents. Now that he’s back in office with what he views as a clear mandate, he’s not looking to build bridges. He’s looking to rub his critics’ noses in the fact that his policies are working.

Slogans like “Drill, Baby, Drill!” aren’t policy statements – they’re rhetorical jabs meant to antagonize the people who’ve spent the last eight years attacking him, often unfairly. His base loves it. But for the good of the country – and the long-term success of his policies – he might consider dialing it back. Not because his critics deserve kindness, but because victory is more complete when it brings others along with it.

You might think that Trump is not particularly interested in this next issue, but during his campaign he spoke of it a lot and made some significant promises.

 

Make America Educated Again 

Success Grade: TBD
Effort Grade: A
Messaging Grade: B+

As with almost every item on his agenda, Trump has moved quickly to implement his platform on public education. What distinguishes this effort from many others, however, is that he is saying the right things when explaining or defending his actions. He’s made clear where he stands: with parents and against federal micromanagement.

Now to an issue that was already on its way to becoming a non-issue during the campaign. But since it was, in my opinion, a decisive factor in Trump’s dominant win, there was no way he was going to leave it alone after he took office. I’m talking about DEI and trans rights.

Make America Fair and Colorblind Again 

What Trump Promised 

During the 2024 campaign, Trump spoke repeatedly – sometimes bluntly – about his intention to end what he called the “Wokeification” of government. He tied this goal directly to two issues that had dominated headlines and polarized voters during the Biden years: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) mandates and the transgender rights movement, particularly as they applied to public schools, government hiring, and healthcare policy.

He promised to “ban DEI from the federal government,” defund agencies and departments promoting identity-based hiring, and restore what he called colorblind meritocracy. On the trans front, he vowed to roll back federal guidelines that redefined gender identity in ways many voters found extreme or confusing – particularly in schools, sports, and children’s medicine.

It wasn’t just rhetoric. These issues had become referendums – on common sense, on biology, and on whether the government was still connected to reality.

What He’s Done 

Shortly after taking office, Trump issued Executive Order 14094, formally ending all DEI-related hiring mandates and training programs within federal agencies. The order also barred any department from contracting with outside firms that promote race- or gender-based quotas. Several cabinet departments – including Education, Health and Human Services, and the Pentagon – were instructed to audit all internal diversity initiatives and eliminate any found to conflict with “merit-based governance.”

In parallel, he reversed Biden-era guidance that expanded federal definitions of gender identity. He directed agencies to return to biological sex as the legal standard in areas such as school sports, healthcare categorization, and prison housing.

In doing so, Trump effectively made good on his promise – not just to reverse a set of policies, but to signal a reversion to traditional definitions of equality and fairness.

What Biden Did – and Why It Backfired 

The Biden administration leaned hard into DEI and trans-rights advocacy. Initially, this seemed like a way to consolidate the progressive base and prove moral leadership. But both issues quickly became liabilities.

The DEI agenda, based on the idea that equity (equal outcomes) should replace equality (equal opportunity), led to widespread public discomfort and distrust – although, because of political correctness, most centrists and liberals would not criticize it. But those that were accusing US culture of structural racism, sexism, misogyny, and transphobia, and advocating DEI as a solution, had no idea that most Americans did not like it. Some may have pretended to be in favor of it, but election results exposed the truth about what common-sense people think about nonsensical ideas.

It’s no exaggeration to say that these issues cost Biden the swing states. And it’s telling that, in the aftermath of Trump’s victory, both have largely disappeared from the public stage. Not because the debates are resolved – but because many of the loudest advocates were never deeply invested. These were ideological bandwagons, not enduring principles.

What It Feels Like 

To me, this feels less like a policy reversal and more like a return to national sanity. The DEI and trans policy surge during the Biden years was unsound – not just politically, but economically and scientifically. And, as I said, most Americans, even if they stayed mute on the issue, didn’t like it.

Trump understood how important these issues were to the middle – especially to undecided voters in swing states. He campaigned on reversing them. And then he did. The fact that these issues have now mostly vanished from the media cycle is telling: The movement behind them wasn’t deep. It was performative.

Success Grade: C
Effort Grade: B
Messaging Grade: D

Trump delivered on his promise to eliminate DEI mandates and reverse federal trans policies – but it wasn’t a particularly difficult task, given how unpopular those initiatives had become. He kept his promise, but the political cost was low, and the opposition was already softening.

In terms of messaging, he won the election by articulating what most Americans were afraid to say. But I think he could have done even better – and won over more voters – if he had toned down the negative rhetoric and showed a little love and compassion.

Now we move to four issues that are in some ways the biggest.

Of all Trump’s promises, this next one may have been the most resisted – and the most revealing. “Draining the Swamp” wasn’t just about firing bureaucrats or eliminating inefficiencies. It was about confronting an entrenched system of unaccountable power that had calcified across decades of bipartisan complacency.
Make America Swamp-Free Again 

What Trump Promised 

“Draining the Swamp” was another popular campaign slogan that Trump used to appeal to his base.

He repeatedly vowed to slash waste, root out fraud, expose corruption, and gut the administrative state.

He called out the “Deep State” directly – unelected officials, agency heads, and career bureaucrats who, he said, acted more like a shadow government than public servants. He promised to bring the bureaucracy to heel, not just through oversight, but through reorganization and, when necessary, demolition.

What He’s Done 

Trump jumped on this promise in his first week in office. He created the Dept. of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and made one of the most consequential appointments of his presidency: Elon Musk.

Traditionally, Musk’s job would have been to investigate waste, fraud, and corruption and then to report back to the president and his department heads and let them decide what to do about it.
But Trump wanted to move faster than that, so he gave Musk the authority to not just investigate, but ask questions and audit documents and to some degree (this is not at all clear from anything I’ve read) execute some of his own recommendations.

The response was immediate and strong. Quicker and stronger than I expected. Within minutes after Musk accepted the role, Democrats in Congress, progressive media outlets, and entrenched bureaucrats from dozens of agencies sounded the alarm.

But they had a problem. What politician would be honest enough to say, “Waste, fraud, and corruption? That’s how we get rich!” What editorial board would be willing to argue against a mandate for honesty and efficiency?

They couldn’t attack the mission, so they decided to attack the man. Musk was painted as erratic, egotistical, inexperienced in government. His team of young technocrats – some barely out of graduate school – was mocked as naïve and unqualified. (Fact: They were all highly intelligent, more than well qualified, and thoroughly vetted before they were brought on.)

Despite the daily outrage, accusations, and by then tired claims that Trump was putting an end to Democracy, Musk and his team moved forward. And within a week, they were uncovering hundreds and then thousands of documents revealing hundreds of billions of dollars in misallocated funds, fraudulent contracts, and duplicative programs.

As each of these discoveries were made, they were posted to a public website that Musk put up so that the public could see exactly what DOGE was doing. Here’s just a small sample of what they found:

* Tens of billions in recurring “emergency” funds for agencies whose missions hadn’t changed in 20 years.

* Ghost employees and shadow contractors drawing full federal salaries without any verifiable output.

* Duplicated programs across multiple agencies – each with its own staff, budget, and lobbyists.

* Deep financial entanglements between regulatory agencies and the very industries they were tasked with overseeing, including Big Pharma, defense contractors, and agricultural giants.

At one point, Musk said his goal was to identify $1 trillion in waste. He didn’t hit that number before stepping down from active DOGE leadership, but what he uncovered during his time as director was so massive and so shocking that it’s hard to believe the total cost to taxpayers wasn’t at least $1 trillion a year.

Indeed, by the end of April verified DOGE documentation showed $618 billion in confirmed waste, fraud, and abuse – with at least another $300 billion still under review.

Meanwhile, progressive leaders were accusing Musk of authoritarian overreach. Mainstream media figures painted Musk’s reforms and recommendations as callous and disingenuous attempts to enrich himself at the expense of “ordinary voters.” DOGE was just one more attempt by Trump to replace America’s democratic institutions with a ruling class of billionaires.

And it was not just progressives or even just Democrats that were opposing DOGE. Opposition came from Republicans, Independents, and even some Libertarians.

As the anti-Musk vitriol got louder and more focused, Tesla became a political symbol for both sides of the aisle. There were arguments on both sides, but the violence and vandalism came almost entirely from the left.

There were Tesla boycotts. Vandalism. Even firebombing of Tesla cars – acts of political violence aimed not at protest, but intimidation. But neither Musk nor Trump backed down.

What It Feels Like 

I’ve always that believed government waste was real. But I used to think it was mostly due to bureaucracy, DEI-type standards, and incompetence stemming from a lack of giving-a-shite.  Watching the DOGE Show play out changed my mind. The backlash wasn’t bureaucratic inertia – it was politicians, lobbyists, government contractors, and bureaucrats joined together in a common effort to protect their scams.

Presidents have talked for decades about making government smaller and more efficient. But I believe this is the first time it was being tried in earnest.

Musk didn’t just shine a light on government waste and inefficiency. He exposed a vast, interconnected system employing, directly and indirectly, millions of people working on programs and projects that, for the most part, our country doesn’t need, including some that were outright damaging to our economic strength and, yes, our damned democracy!

Musk’s willingness to lead DOGE and to endure, without complaint, the undeserved and vitriolic criticism he got for it – not to mention the $100 billion he lost in net worth as a result of the threats and criminal acts made against Tesla – makes him, in my eyes, nothing less than the greatest American patriot alive today.

Success Grade: TBD
Effort Grade: A+
Messaging Grade: C+

It remains to be seen whether DOGE will survive and finish what it started. But finally, after decades and decades of presidential promises to get rid of government waste and corruption, someone – actually, two people – were willing to give it a try.

Okay, we are getting to the final three – starting with Trump’s pledge to change a century of American trade policy by instituting reciprocal tariffs against countries that “have been ripping off America for years.” 
Make International Trade Fair Again 

What Trump Promised 

Trade was one of the few issues where Trump clashed head-on with traditional conservatives – and he made no apologies for it. Throughout his 2024 campaign, he repeated a simple message: America gets ripped off.

He claimed that China, Europe, and other major trading partners had taken advantage of US economic openness for decades – flooding the market with cheap goods while keeping their own barriers high.

He vowed to change that, promising a new policy of reciprocal tariffs: If a country put tariffs or quotas on American goods, the US would do the same. And if a country wanted truly free trade, with zero tariffs on both sides, Trump said he’d welcome it.

Although he said so rarely during the campaign, since he’s begun imposing tariffs, he’s been providing another argument for what he’s doing. His goal, he now says, wasn’t protectionism – it was leverage. His best scenario result, he’s saying, is what he thinks of as real free marketing trading with zero tariffs on both sides.

What He’s Done 

In his first 100 days, Trump:

* Imposed a new round of targeted tariffs on Chinese steel, electric vehicles, and solar panels.

* Warned European automakers of pending tariffs unless the EU eliminates its own vehicle import duties.

* Pressured Mexico and Canada to renegotiate certain provisions of the USMCA that he claims are being “quietly gamed.”

* Called for a 10% universal baseline tariff on all imports from countries that don’t offer equivalent market access to the US.

* Reopened trade negotiations with Japan, Italy, and Brazil – each of which reportedly expressed interest in bilateral “zero-for-zero” deals: full tariff elimination on both sides.

As a political strategy, Trump’s tariff promise was imperfect at best.

It appealed to some portions of US industry and commerce – the companies that could not possibly compete with their overseas competitors. But businesses that build their products in China and companies that buy product components from China would not be happy with the US government imposing tariffs where there were none before or raising tariffs because that would force them to pass that extra cost to the consumer by way of higher prices, and that might reduce the demand for what they sell.

The strategy would also be unpopular with all the foreign countries that would be affected by such tariffs and their US partners and lobbyists who understandably benefit from our long history of charging no tariffs on products from countries that impose tariffs on US goods selling to their markets.

Trump himself acknowledged that there would be “some pain” during the negotiations, but insisted that if Americans were patient, he’d get them their cake and let them eat it too.

We are in that period of pain now, with prices rising on many imported products and many small business owners predicting that they will soon have to close shop if Trump can’t get to a reciprocal zero-tariff deal very soon.

In pursuing this agenda – an agenda that he has advocated for decades, by the way – Trump has encountered broader opposition than for any of his other campaign promises. When it comes to Classical Liberals and Libertarians, Trump’s tariff policies are downright stupid. And my colleagues who share these perspectives have not been shy about saying so.

As with his other campaign promises, the opposition Trump is facing now has not deterred him. Notwithstanding several temporary concessions on the tariffs he initially imposed, he seems intent on pursuing this strategy as far as he can.

What It Feels Like 

As I said, most of my Libertarian friends – and more than a few of my conservative ones – think Trump’s trade policies are both ill-conceived and bad for the economy.

What’s interesting is that all my liberal friends agree! Few of them can explain why they are bad except to mimic what they’ve heard other liberals say: “Tariffs make everything more expensive. The cost of the tariffs is passed through the companies that pay them to the consumers.”

And that is mostly true.

But Trump’s trade and tariff policies must be judged by their intent. In other words: What’s the goal here?

Because if Trump is right – and admittedly, that’s a big if – his tariff scheme could result in more free trade and, thus, lower prices.

What Trump’s tariff strategy can’t do is what he is promising now. It cannot produce both lower prices and more income to the government that it can use to lower taxes on middle-class Americans. Or, if it can, it’s beyond my understanding of economics. He’ll have to explain how that can work.

In terms of achieving two-way free trade, Trump’s deal making does seem to be making progress. At least three major nations are reportedly exploring zero-for-zero deals. That wouldn’t have happened without pressure.

But whether this approach succeeds or collapses into tit-for-tat retaliation remains to be seen. It’s not a completed policy. It’s a gamble in progress.

Success Grade: TBD
Effort Grade: A+
Messaging Grade: B+

Trump hit the ground running and clearly means business. He’s pursuing his idea of “trade fairness” the only way he knows how: hard.

But the strategy will only succeed if he is able to persuade not just individual countries but the European economic zone and, ultimately, China as well.

Meanwhile, he does seem to be trying to get his message heard, and I give him props for that. But he has so much of the world against him on this issue that I’ll be shocked if he succeeds.

Since we are talking about global relations, let’s look at what Trump promised to do on the broader stage of foreign affairs. 

 

Make America Great Again – Abroad

What Trump Promised 

Of all Trump’s promises, this may have been the most ambitious: to remake American foreign policy – to disengage from endless wars, stop subsidizing allies who freeload, and put American interests ahead of vague global ideals.

It won’t surprise you to know that I’m not an expert – nor do I consider myself to be an expert – in foreign relations, national defense, global diplomacy, or international trade. I haven’t worked in think tanks or briefed presidents. But, like millions of other Americans, I’ve followed these issues with interest over many years. And I believe I’ve developed a reasonably accurate sense of what’s going on – and what’s good for America.

That’s not nothing.

Because whether or not you’re an “expert,” having opinions about global politics today feels almost like a civic duty. So, while I’m aware that there’s nuance and complexity here, I’ll say what I think – and I’ll try to say it with a little humility.

Trump’s critics like to paint him as reckless or simplistic when it comes to foreign affairs. But the truth is, he has an underlying view of the world that’s more coherent than they admit. It’s not ideologically isolationist, nor is it neoconservative hawkish. It’s fundamentally pragmatic – and instinctively anti-war.

Trump sees war as expensive and destructive. He doesn’t reject it on moral grounds – he’s not a pacifist – but on practical ones. He’s not afraid to use military force if he believes there’s a serious, imminent threat to American lives. But he sees little sense in using our blood and treasure to fight proxy wars that don’t serve American interests. That’s why he was, and still is, deeply skeptical of the war in Ukraine, just as he was about our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He’s also right, in my view, to be far more wary of Islamist extremism than of Russia. The cultural values, long-term goals, and ideological rigidity of Islamic fundamentalist movements are more alien – and more hostile – to the American way of life than anything Putin is peddling. It’s not fashionable to say this, but it’s true.

Trump’s broader foreign policy message is that America should lead with leverage, not with lectures. And that’s worth taking seriously.

What He’s Done 

Much of Trump’s second-term foreign policy is still taking shape, but the broad strokes are familiar. In his first 100 days, he has:

* Renewed pressure on NATO countries to meet the 2% GDP defense spending target – this time making it clear that there will be penalties if they don’t.

* Halted new military aid to Ukraine and ordered a full audit of past US defense and financial transfers.

* Slashed US contributions to international climate and development programs, including UN and WHO initiatives.

* Launched back-channel diplomacy with Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

* Reopened trade negotiations with Japan and several European nations with the goal of reaching more balanced reciprocal deals.

He’s also reopened disputes with Canada over defense cooperation, and – yes – brought up Greenland again. But those who see this as erratic behavior miss the deeper pattern.

Trump often opens negotiations with provocative gestures or statements. They’re not random. They’re intentional. His goal isn’t to shock people for its own sake – it’s to disorient the opposing party and reframe the terms of the discussion. It’s a real estate tactic adapted to global politics.

Is it risky? Of course. But it’s not irrational.

The US has been playing global cop for decades. We’ve carried the heaviest load in NATO, the UN, and virtually every multilateral institution. We’ve spent trillions trying to stabilize countries and regions that neither love us nor thank us for it. And we’ve propped up an entire global order that allows other nations to focus inward while we pay the bills.

Trump’s foreign policy represents a challenge to all of that. He isn’t trying to destroy the Western alliance system. He’s trying to reset it. He’s trying to say: We’ll do our part, but no more than our fair share.

What he’s not doing – contrary to what many claim – is retreating from the world. He’s still talking to world leaders. He’s still engaged in trade negotiations. He’s still investing in defense. But he is not apologizing, virtue-signaling, or lecturing other nations while asking for nothing in return.

That’s not weakness. That’s a shift in posture.

And it’s about time.

What It Feels Like

It feels like Trump has a notion. Not really a plan. I don’t think he’s thought that deeply about it because it’s never been a realistic possibility.

But now that he has momentum, I expect that he’ll keep pushing this agenda forward. And now that he has talent and loyalty in the federal agencies, it seems likely he will have some success. Not all that he says he wants, but maybe all that he’s hoping to get.

Success Grade: TBD
Effort Grade: A
Messaging Grade: B

Trump’s foreign policy is aggressive, unapologetic, and one-dimensional. There is no reason to hope that he will win this battle on every field, but I’d be surprised if he doesn’t score at least a half-dozen solid victories. And as far as I can see, that feels like a good thing.

NATO Defense Spending – Who Pays What? 

As of 2024, NATO comprises 32 member countries, each committed to spending at least 2% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defense. This benchmark was established to ensure equitable burden-sharing among allies.

Key Statistics 

United States
* Defense Spending: $967 billion
* Percentage of GDP: 3.37%
* Share of NATO’s Total Defense Spending: Approximately 68%

Poland
* Defense Spending: $34.98 billion
* Percentage of GDP: 4.12%

United Kingdom
* Defense Spending: $82.11 billion
* Percentage of GDP: 2.33%

Germany
* Defense Spending: $22.78 billion
* Percentage of GDP: 2.09%

France
* Defense Spending: $64.27 billion
* Percentage of GDP: 2.06%

Canada
* Defense Spending: $34.98 billion
* Percentage of GDP: 1.55%

In 2024, 23 NATO members met or exceeded the 2% GDP defense spending target, a significant increase from only three members in 2014.

US Contributions to the UN and Climate Funds 

The United States has historically been the largest financial contributor to the United Nations (UN) and various international climate initiatives.

UN Contributions 

* Regular Budget: The US is assessed to contribute 22% of the UN’s regular budget.

* Peacekeeping Operations: The US is assessed to contribute 27% of the UN’s peacekeeping budget. However, US law caps its peacekeeping contributions at 25%, leading to accumulated arrears.

Climate Finance 

Green Climate Fund (GCF): Between 2014 and 2024, the US contributed approximately $2 billion to the GCF. In contrast, during the same period, Congress approved at least $79 billion in foreign military financing, highlighting a disparity between military aid and climate finance.

With that, we come to our last issue: a promise Trump made that, I must admit, I thought he could do and right away. That hasn’t been the case, but I’m still optimistic he’ll get it done before things spiral out of control.
Make America Peaceful Again 

What Trump Promised 

Throughout his 2024 campaign, Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine as soon as he took office. At one point, he stepped up the pledge, claiming he would end the war in Ukraine “before I even take office.”

At rallies, in interviews, and during the debates, he framed the war as a preventable catastrophe prolonged by US interference and bad diplomacy. He claimed the Biden administration’s foreign policy had all but started the war, and then intensified it to the point where it could escalate hugely.

He never said how he would end the war, but I believe lots of observers, including yours truly, knew what he was thinking. And I believe that those that were supporting Ukraine – in Congress, in the media, and in the military – knew, too. That is why there was so much opposition to his claims – even though, in terms of public awareness, no one knew anything.

What He’s Done 

Even before Trump took office on Jan. 20, he was working on his “secret” plan. He was having confidential conversations with Vladimir Putin, presumably to get a feel for his temperature generally and to feel out what he might think of Trump’s “solution.”

After taking office, he did several significant things. He paused all new US military aid to Ukraine. He ordered a full audit of weapons shipments and financial transfers made under Biden. And he made it clear, both publicly and through back-channel diplomacy, that continued US support would depend on Ukraine’s willingness to negotiate a ceasefire.

In February, he sent a delegation to meet with both Russian and Ukrainian intermediaries in Istanbul. While the talks were not officially acknowledged by the White House, several outlets – including The Wall Street Journal and The Times of London – reported that a framework for a provisional ceasefire was being discussed.

The White House neither confirmed nor denied this, but Trump later tweeted, “The war would be over already if not for the warmongers in DC and Brussels. We’re still working to bring both sides to their senses.”

What he was referring to was (in my opinion) the opposition he was facing from the “Deep State” – i.e., the Democrats and neocon Republicans that wanted the war to continue by boosting US support for Ukraine. Trump ran into the entrenched power of what President Eisenhower dubbed the “Military-Industrial Complex.” It was larger and stronger than he had imagined.

Trump believed, rightly I think, that Russia invaded Ukraine because the Biden administration had signaled that they would support a Ukrainian bid for NATO membership. This would have put the potential of ICBMs and even nuclear weapons on Russia’s border, dramatically increasing the danger of NATO’s core purpose, which was always to stand against Russia.

Ukraine’s bid to join NATO had been going on during Trump’s first term, but it didn’t go anywhere because the key players knew that Trump wasn’t happy with NATO. And I believe that Trump had promised Putin that so long as he (Trump) was president, it wouldn’t happen.

The neocons and Democrats that see Russia as a great threat to the US (or simply like the financial benefits the Military-Industrial Complex gets from continuing the Cold War) called Trump’s strategy “naïve,” and said it would undermine the existing deterrence against Russian ambitions and reward Putin for his invasion.

Meanwhile, the war continued and US political, media, and popular support for Ukraine grew. This emboldened Ukrainian President Zelensky, who doubled down on his position of giving up nothing to the Russians.

Despite almost universal condemnation against Trump’s policy among Democrat politicians and the mainstream, Trump continued his efforts to strike a deal by negotiating with Putin on what terms he was willing to agree to while pressuring Zelensky to accept terms that were less than he wanted.

There are obviously no public statements available about what those terms could be, but my guess is that, for Russia, they included a guarantee that Ukraine would not join NATO, as well as the acquisition of a slice of Ukraine, probably the Crimea. I say that because I don’t think Putin will be satisfied with just a promise about NATO. He must want something tangible, such as a strip of land along the border or access to the sea, to provide the protection from future threats that he now sees as probable.

My prediction is that unless Putin gets what he wants (not what he’s asking), the war won’t stop. And Donald Trump wants the war to stop. He wants it theoretically because he has always recognized the cost of war. And he wants it practically because he wants to be seen as the president that could do what Biden could not.

At this point, it’s hard to know what the outcome will be. Zelensky has agreed to Trump’s demand for mineral rights. And there are indications that he might be softening his no-compromise position on a peace deal. (Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in turn, said that Moscow would consider “new proposals from the Americans” if they were presented seriously.)

On the other hand, the closer Putin comes to getting what he wants, the more he will be tempted to see if he can get that much more – which is why I think we’ve seen Trump’s recent chastisements of him.

The current bottom line: No peace deal has been announced. No ceasefire has been signed. But there’s movement – more than we’ve seen in nearly a year.

What It Feels Like 

Trump said he’d end the war in Ukraine pronto. He hasn’t. But he’s taken visible steps in that direction. His critics argue that he’s caving in to Putin and that he’s weakening NATO unity and giving Putin leverage. But those that understand what’s at stake want this battle of the Cold War to continue. So, they will say anything they can think of to foil his efforts.

But as I said, Trump is a different president today than he was in 2016. He’s not concerned about his detractors. He’s dead set on doing what he wants to do.

I hardly feel good about the status of this war, but I do have some hope that Trump can succeed because it is in the best interests of Russia and Ukraine and the US to make peace. If Trump walks away from his role now, Putin may very well accelerate and intensify Russia’s assault on Ukraine. And that will be bad for everyone –especially Ukraine.

Success Grade: B- so far
Effort Grade: A+ 
Messaging Grade: B

Trump hasn’t ended the war, but he’s made a real effort to shift its trajectory. Whether that effort succeeds remains to be seen – but it’s too serious to dismiss.

Final Grade: The Long View 

At the end of Trump’s first 100 days back in office, a lot remains “TBD.” Many of the most significant promises – ending the Ukraine war, reforming the Dept. of Justice, slashing the Deep State, and negotiating new trade deals – are in motion but far from resolved. Even on easier wins like declassifying the JFK and Epstein files and sealing the border, we’re still waiting for real follow-through.

That said, looking at the campaign promises Trump is attempting to keep right now, it’s clear to me that no US President in my lifetime has tried to do so much, so fast.

Think about it.

Reagan’s first 100 days were mostly setup. Obama passed a stimulus bill and proposed a healthcare plan, but the first failed and, though the second passed, it was only one dubious achievement. Biden signed a string of executive orders – most of them reversals of Trump’s 2016 policies – but those that had any bite at all were negative for the economy, slowed GDP growth, and stimulated inflation.

I think you’d have to go back to FDR and his “New Deal” to find the breadth and depth of change that Trump’s first 100 days are on the verge of creating. But even FDR limited the scope of his ambitions to his major challenge: Depression-era economic legislation.

In this report card, I gave solid marks to Trump where progress is measurable – e.g., the border wall, deregulation, parental rights, and tariff policy. I gave lower marks where results are questionable or still pending – e.g., foreign policy initiatives and cultural reset promises.

So, what’s the final grade?

It’s not possible to give Trump a final grade at this point because, notwithstanding 100 days of unprecedented action, his agenda, however enormous, is mostly a grand ambition.

There are too many open questions and too many battles left to win. But for sheer determination, early energy, and the willingness to go to war on promises most politicians would water down or walk back, I’d say he has put himself in a position where he could be, if he is smart and the chips fall in his favor, what Nancy Pelosi used to say about Biden (to her embarrassment): the “most consequential president” of the last 100 years.

Tariffs and Free Trade: Theory vs. Reality
And My Evolving View of Trump’s Trade Strategy 

When Trump first started slapping tariffs on imports and threatening trade wars, I found myself cringing. I recall reading former Reagan budget director David Stockman’s scathing critique of Trump’s obsession with “winning” on trade by tallying up bilateral deficits and surpluses.

Stockman argued that Trump’s metric – the bilateral trade balance with each country – is “about the closest thing to meaningless statistical noise” one could find. In other words, fixating on whether we run a deficit or surplus with Country X misses the bigger picture of overall trade and economic welfare.

I shared those concerns. It seemed to me that Trump viewed trade as a zero-sum scoreboard, where any deficit meant we were “losing.”

My Miltonian education told me that unilateral tariffs would invite retaliation and hurt American exporters, while consumers at home would pay higher prices. Early on, many analysts warned of exactly that: higher costs for US businesses and families, disrupted supply chains, and alienated allies. Even some conservative free-marketers warned that a broad tariff war could backfire. I nodded along with those criticisms, worried that Trump was ignoring the timeless lesson that there are no real winners in trade wars – often everyone loses, even if one side loses less.

In theory, I remained convinced that Trump’s tariffs were a mistake. I feared we’d see the classic consequences: prices up, economic output down, and strained relations with trading partners.

And indeed, studies later found that the initial rounds of 2018–2019 tariffs produced a net negative impact on the US economy, shaving about 0.2% off long-run GDP and costing around 142,000 American jobs. A 2023 update by the US International Trade Commission reinforced this, noting that US importers bore 93% of the tariff costs on Chinese goods, and that prices increased significantly in categories like steel, aluminum, appliances, and electronics.

Those numbers reinforced my doubts. As an unabashed free-trader, I was hard-pressed to find much good in the tariff-heavy approach… at least at first.

A New Perspective

Despite my theoretical misgivings, as Trump’s trade battles unfolded, I began to see a different side of the argument. It started to dawn on me that tariffs aren’t just economic policy tools, they’re also geopolitical leverage.

In 2019, Trump threatened Mexico with tariffs unless they curbed illegal immigration. Mexico responded by deploying 6,000 troops to its southern border within days, agreeing to expand its “Remain in Mexico” policy for asylum seekers.

That surprised even skeptics. Since returning to office, Trump has revived this strategy, linking tariff threats to border enforcement and fentanyl trafficking. In early 2025, the administration announced 10% tariffs on select Chinese pharmaceuticals unless China strengthened export controls on fentanyl precursors – which Beijing quietly agreed to monitor more closely by March.

I couldn’t deny the pragmatic effectiveness of this use of tariffs. But would the economic cost outweigh the social and political gains? There were essays and articles being published at the time that defended Trump’s use of tariffs as a “big stick” with any number of trade partners. One argument that had me second-guessing my bias against tariffs: Global trade is so imbalanced in terms of supply and demand that the Miltonian prediction of reciprocal tariffs and trade wars wouldn’t happen. In a tariff standoff, “America holds all the cards,” one analyst said. Another analyst, writing for The Heritage Foundation, pointed out that US trading partners rely far more on access to the US market than the US does on theirs. The effect: The US wins if other countries submit to Trump’s demands and we win even bigger if the dispute evolves into an escalatory fight.

In the early days of Trump’s tenure, Canadian and European leaders objected furiously to his tariff threats. But by the end of March, the Office of the US Trade Representative was confirming rumors that several EU countries had reduced their industrial subsidies to avoid new steel tariffs that Trump threatened to impose.

Trump’s Tariffs – What the Data Show  1. Economic Impact of 2018–2019 Tariffs * Reduced US GDP by 0.2%, costing an estimated 142,000 jobs. [Source: Tax Foundation, 2020] * US importers paid 93% of the costs of Section 301 tariffs on Chinese goods. [Source: US International Trade Commission, 2023] * Price hikes in affected goods (e.g., appliances, steel) averaged 10–20% within months of implementation. [Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 2020] 2. Geopolitical Leverage * In 2019, Trump’s tariff threat led Mexico to deploy 6,000 National Guard troops to its southern border within days. [Source: US Dept. of State, June 2019] * In 2025, China agreed to stricter monitoring of fentanyl precursor exports following US tariff threats on pharmaceutical inputs. [Source: White House Press Office, March 2025] * EU nations in March 2025 agreed to reduce certain industrial subsidies to avoid new US steel tariffs. [Source: US Trade Representative, 2025] 3. Tariffs as Policy Tools * Trump administration argues tariff threats create a “win-win”: Either partners drop their own trade barriers or the US collects revenue from imports. [Paraphrased from Scott Bessent, Newsmax interview] * Countries more dependent on US markets have less leverage to retaliate. [Source: The Heritage Foundation, 2024]

It was no longer possible to deny that Trump’s willingness to use tariffs for strategic leverage was having some positive outcomes. His demands, in many instances, put the US in a better negotiating position and in other cases resulted in a more level playing field in terms of trade imbalances. Still, these were short-term strategies to achieve short-term political and economic results. The Miltonian argument – that they would eventually end up inflating the costs of goods and services – was not denied by those short-term wins.

So, while I reserve my skepticism about the long-term inflationary effects of these tariffs, I’m happy about the short-term benefits they have already achieved and I’m hopeful that if Trump’s promised tax breaks are large enough to have their effect, the US GDP will begin to rise on the tide of those billions of dollars floating into the private sector, along with the general optimism that could bubble up among the wealth-producing classes.

Recently, Trump has thrown out the idea that if he can raise tariff income enough, the US government would no longer need income taxes to fund its projects. On the face of it, that seems like a nutty idea.

But let’s see. In 2024, the federal government collected $2.4 trillion in individual income taxes plus another $2.5 trillion in corporate and other taxes for a total of $4.9 trillion. But it spent $6.7 trillion, leaving a deficit of about $1.8 trillion.

Elon Musk, perhaps the greatest patriot in American history since Patrick Henry, is trying to reduce that deficit by $1 trillion. If, by some miracle, the liberal and lefty lunatics in the Beltway let him do that, and let’s say a Trump tax cut would generate another $1 trillion in corporate and other tax revenue, the dollar figure to run the country would be about $4.7 trillion.

That would balance the budget. But to eliminate the income tax, Trump would have to successfully boost tariffs by $2.4 trillion. Last year, the US collected a mere $700 billion in tariff revenue. Trump says that if his scheme for creating an “external revenue system” through taxes happens, he can raise more than six times that much!

Oddly, running the numbers that way feels like Trump’s big idea could actually work. But I’m sure I’m missing something. It doesn’t seem possible that Trump, or anyone, could reverse the US trade deficit to that degree.

The Elephant in the Room  Thinking about federal spending and income taxes and federal debt reminds me of what is for me the fiscal elephant in the room. The federal deficit today is $36 trillion. To most Americans – in fact, to I’m sure many if not most people reading this now – that figure has become a meaningless abstraction. A number that fear-mongering conservatives keep talking about that has no bearing on the experience of the ordinary US taxpayer. That is, of course, insanely wrong. Since the beginning of this millennium, US presidents and politicians from both sides of the political divide have been working in lockstep on one project: trying to buy votes by spending money the government doesn’t have. The cost of financing this debt – i.e., the amount of interest the US government must pay on this debt – will be nearly a trillion dollars this year. Add to that the $2 trillion budget deficit our government representatives dig us into every year, and you have a debt burden for each US taxpayer of about $235,000 that is going up about $20,000 a year. That debt bubble is going to burst sooner or later. If it bursts in the next four years, there is no amount of tariff money that will save us.

Back to Trump’s tariff ideas. Where do I stand now?

I still believe, as Milton Friedman did, in the long-term benefits of free trade. But I now also believe there is room for tariffs as a tactical tool – especially when dealing with countries that flagrantly exploit trade imbalances or refuse to cooperate on key geopolitical issues. Used selectively and strategically, tariffs can create leverage and bring adversaries to the table.

But we must be careful not to let tariffs become the policy, rather than a means to an end. As policy, it could lead to protectionism, economic inefficiency, and a potential return to the very trade wars we should be trying to avoid.

My Report Card on Trump’s First 30 Days 

President Donald Trump has completed the first month of his second term in the Oval Office. In those four weeks, he has signed 73 executive orders, including 26 on his first day. That is more than any president has signed in their first 100 days. And that’s not counting the 23 proclamations and 12 memorandums he issued.

The response from Democrats and the Legacy Media has been nothing short of hysterical. All the tropes repeated so desperately as the election neared – the end of Democracy, the imminence of fascism – are being frantically repeated, creating a severe sense of anxiety among those who were certain Trump could never be re-elected.

However, the recent anti-Trump protests have not been well-attended, and the proclamations from TV anchors and Hollywood celebrities have reached an ever-decreasing watcher/listener base, as millions of subscribers to the Legacy Media have abandoned it for what Musk calls the “new media – i.e., internet influencers, some of whom have individually much greater viewership than the Legacy Media does as a whole.

That said, one cannot deny the impact Trump’s executive orders have had on American political discourse and that of the entire world. And for good reason. Although the total number he’s signed and may sign over the next four years is going to be substantial, it doesn’t look like he will smash any records.

What is an executive order?   According to the ACLU, an executive order is a written directive that orders the government to take specific actions to ensure “laws be faithfully executed.” Executive orders do not override federal laws and statutes. With an executive order, a president can order the federal government to take any steps that are within the scope of the constitutional authority of the executive branch and do not violate any federal law.

Executive orders have been a common tool for US presidents for all my adult life. Richard Nixon signed 346 of them for an average of 62 each year. Gerald Ford signed 169 for an average of 69, followed by Jimmy Carter, who signed an astonishing 320 in one term, averaging an all-time high of 80 per year.

Ronald Reagan signed 381 during his two terms, averaging 48 per year, followed by George H. W. Bush at 166 with a low of 42 a year. Bill Clinton signed 364, averaging 46 each year, followed by George W. Bush at 291, for just 36 a year.

Barack Obama signed 276 over his two terms, averaging a bit less at 35 a year. Trump signed 220 in his first term in office, a yearly average of 55. And Biden signed 162, for a yearly average of 41.

It’s clear (to me, at least) that this deluge of executive mandates that Trump has issued so far was a predetermined strategy to take full advantage of the fact that he won the popular vote and, more importantly, secured the Republican majority in both the House and the Senate in order to accomplish as many of his campaign promises as can be achieved before the 2028 midterm elections.

What’s not so clear is whether he will continue at this pace throughout the next four years.

Most Republicans and conservative voters are more than pleased with what he’s been able to do already. Yet there are still tens of millions of Americans who are not at all happy. In a recent poll by Market University (which traditionally skews to the left), approximately 40% of all voters are worried that he is on a path that will lead to all sorts of changes in government that they believe will be bad for them and possibly even for the nation as a whole.

Since 2016, Democratic politicians have united in opposition to everything Trump wants to do, as evidenced by the nearly unanimous opposition of Democrats to every single one of his departmental nominations. (This is not what happened with Biden’s nominees.)

The Legacy Media is also alarmed and upset, with CNN, MSNBC, the NYT, the WP, and the Associated Press publishing negative stories and editorials about Trump’s initiatives every single day.

(If Trump still likes seeing his name in print as much as he used to, he must be very happy with what’s going on now. I did a quick scan of one day’s worth of online news from the Legacy Media and found that more than 70% of it featured “Trump” in the headlines.)

What About the Voters?

I’d characterize the feelings of those that voted for Trump in 2016 as ranging from relieved to optimistic to overjoyed. In contrast, the feeling I get from those that voted against him twice – the Never-Trumpers – ranges from disappointed and fearful to outraged.

I know a few people who voted against Trump in 2016 but then voted for him in 2024. I’d characterize their feelings as uncomfortable.

Within my circle of friends and family members, the reaction has been in line with the opinions they have held about Trump for the last eight years. From what I’ve heard and seen of their conversations, their conviction that Trump is a wannabe dictator, and that America is doomed is very much intact. But since the election, the direction of their animus has widened. It now includes virtually all his cabinet appointees, whom they are labeling as racist, transphobic fascists unqualified for their jobs. Elon Musk is, of course, the worst of them. In their view, he’s a wannabe Hitler who has no idea what he’s doing.

Those are observations from my personal sphere of reference. They are not necessarily reflective of the US voting population overall. If you’ve been looking at the national polling on Trump in the last several weeks, you’ve seen that his overall approval rating is up about 5%, and up about twice that on the major issues he campaigned on (energy policy, DEI hiring, gender theory, and the handling of the Russia-Ukraine and Israeli-Palestine wars).

Why would that be?

It’s certainly not because of any favorable treatment Trump has been given by the mainstream media. At best, there is the occasional recognition of how the polls have moved in his favor – but 99% of the coverage of his actions has been negative.

In fact, I’ve been amazed at the creativity of some of the anchorpeople and pundits in explaining how every executive order that Trump has signed is bad news. And they are still using the same slanderous tropes in characterizing them – racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, illegal, unconstitutional, and a threat to Democracy. Don’t they realize that all those efforts to cancel Trump into oblivion were the very things that gave him the victory he enjoyed?

How is it possible to argue that it’s wrong to get rid of government waste and corruption?

Or that America should not be doing everything it can to end those two immensely savage and destructive wars?

Or that it is reasonable to prohibit children from smoking or getting permanent tattoos while they are still children, but they should be allowed to take life-altering drugs or have their body parts amputated?

I can think of only one reason why Trump’s approval ratings – both for himself and his executive orders – are so strong. It must be that, despite what they said in public, there were millions of Americans who voted for Harris that were disappointed in her nomination and felt that, despite his shortcomings, Trump had the better ideas. And now that he is putting those ideas into action, they are quietly relieved.

What did Trump promise to do? 

Throughout 2024, Trump was not shy about criticizing the things he believed Biden and his appointees did wrong. Nor was he abstemious in making promises about what he’d do if he were elected president.

I did a little search on the campaign promises he made most often, and this is what I found (including some of his specific phrasing when I thought it might be helpful). He said he would:

* Head up the “largest deportation of illegal immigrants in American history.”

* Bring a “quick end” to the Russia-Ukraine and Israeli-Palestine wars, both of which “broke out during the Biden administration because of Biden’s policies.” He also stated that the peace he would bring would be “one that would last.”

* Conduct a massive audit of all government spending, from every branch of government, for the purpose of uncovering “waste, fraud, and abuse.”

* “Put an immediate end” to federal government support of DEI, BLM, and other “America-last” programs and policies.

* “Root out corruption” in the FBI and the Department of Justice, which had taken part in the Russian collusion hoax that nearly overturned his presidency.

* “Bring free speech back to America” by ending the “collusion” between government agencies and big media, including social media, and by “hunting down” and prosecuting those that were illegally involved in such crimes.

* Ban “sex affirming care” for children.

* Make public a trove of currently classified documents that either should never have been classified in the first place or have no more reason to be classified, including documents about the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK.

* Impose tariffs on China, Panama, Canada, and other countries whose trade balances with the US “favored them and not America.”

* Use tariffs to get cooperation from Mexico and Canada on the border crisis, and to put pressure on US and foreign companies to locate their headquarters in the US.

* Pull the US out of various international agencies, such as the World Health Organization, that have “worked against the interests of the United States.”

* Launch a Department of Government Efficiency, headed by Elon Musk, to reduce the size of government by exposing and eliminating corruption, abuse, and inefficiencies in every sector.

So how many of those promises has he kept?

I’ve compiled a list of the executive orders Trump signed in his first 30 days that address the oft-repeated promises listed above. Note: They were compiled from several sources, but they are all linked to their entries into the Congressional Record so you can read them in detail.

* Restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship

* Ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing

* Withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization

* Ending the weaponization of the federal government

* Restoring the death penalty and protecting public safety

* Defending women from gender ideology extremism and

* Ending illegal discrimination and restoring merit-based opportunity

* Declassification of records concerning the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

* Emergency measures to provide water resources in California and improve disaster response in certain areas

* Enforcing the Hyde Amendment

* Reinstating service members discharged under the military’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate

* Protecting children from chemical and surgical mutilation

* Ending radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling

* Expanding educational freedom and opportunity for families

* Withdrawing the United States from and ending funding to certain United Nations organizations and reviewing United States support to all international organizations

* Keeping men out of women’s sports

* Eradicating anti-Christian bias

* Establishment of the White House Faith Office

* Eliminating the Federal Executive Institute

* Ending procurement and forced use of paper straws

* Implementing the President’s “Department of Government Efficiency” workforce optimization initiative

* Protecting the meaning and value of American citizenship

* Keeping education accessible and ending COVID-19 vaccine mandates in schools

How do I feel? What do I think? 

I am among those who feel optimistic about the overall effect of Trump’s executive orders, with one reservation. 

Let’s start with this: Most Americans, including college-educated Americans, have zero understanding of economics. They know nothing about trade deficits or balanced budgets or federal debt. Thus, they are blind to the elephant in the room: that the US is the most in-debt nation in the history of the world with $36 trillion of federal debt (that’s a $200,000 burden on every living American) plus trillions more in state, local, corporate, and private debt, totaling close to $100 trillion!

They don’t realize that our economy is on the brink of a massive collapse. A collapse much larger than the Great Recession of 2008. A Great Depression collapse. When you understand the numbers, it’s impossible not to see how true this is.

There are only two ways an economy can survive the level of debt the US is in right now. One way is for virtually all Americans – rich, middle class, and working class – to get a lot poorer, either by sustained inflation or by a huge economic depression. The other way – less likely but still a possibility – is by a sudden and sustained growth in the GDP at such a rate that the government (and its taxpayers) can use the extra wealth to pay off debts and return to a balanced budget.

This better scenario – a surge in GDP growth and thus tax revenues sufficient to pay down the debt – cannot be done without an equally great surge in energy production. (Energy is and always has been the fuel of economic growth.) Which would mean that Trump would have to convince Congress and the American voters that drill-baby-drill is a good idea. That won’t be easy.

And it won’t be enough. The Trump administration and Republican lawmakers must also put the brakes on government spending. Spending for social services. Spending for war. And spending for a thousand boondoggles that favor individual legislators from both sides of the aisle.

I want to believe that can happen. But I’m not holding my breath.

I feel desperately hopeful about the work Trump is doing on the Russia-Ukraine and Israeli-Palestine wars. 

I’ve always believed he was right when he said that neither of these terrible wars would have started had he been president from 2022 to 2024. And if he isn’t blocked from doing what he wants to do, he will succeed.

But he is already encountering strong opposition from Liberals and Conservatives and from the media. I was not surprised that the left-wing media has been promoting these wars. Nor does it shock me to see Liz Cheney and other neocon Republicans voting for it.

I am disappointed to see The Wall Street Journal and many other so-called conservative publications and news shows frantically criticizing Trump for intervening to end those wars. Not just end them but negotiate a deal with China and Russia to cut our mutually insanely expensive defense spending in half. How can that be a bad thing? (Unless you believe the same tropes about Communism that got us into the Vietnam War?)

How did it happen that my generation of Americans, the Baby Boomers, went from mistrusting government and denouncing war in our teens and 20s to advocating government censorship and war 50 years later?

I feel worried but hopeful about the immigration “crisis.” 

During the four years Biden was sitting in the White House, he, his cabinet, and the Democratic Congress executed a slew of laws, regulations, executive orders, and proclamations that allowed about 10 million migrants to cross the Mexican and Canadian borders. (About 60% to 70% of them have not been turned back.)

Since Trump took office, that torrent has slowed to a trickle, with average daily “encounters” of illegal immigrants being cut to a de minimus 500 or 600.

On a yearly basis, that means there are at least five million fewer migrants entering the country illegally now than there were in 2020. It has been costing us somewhere between $150 billion and $400 billion to support those that were able to settle in the States. Knocking that bill down by 80% is inarguably a good thing.

But not all migrants that settle in the US are on government handouts. Most of them are working hard, spending money, and sometimes even paying income tax. Losing that productivity and those taxes is inarguably an economic negative. That is, assuming that they are not, as some argue, putting an equal number of American citizens on government aid.

There is no doubt that the US economy needs some number of low-skilled and low-paid migrant workers. The question is: How many?

This is not an unanswerable question. The data is available. And it doesn’t take an advanced degree in math to figure it out. What we need is what both Republicans and Democrats have been calling for all along: a sensible immigration policy that is net positive for our future GDP.

We could do it. But it can’t happen so long as immigration is a political issue. I don’t think we ever could have done it with millions more people coming into our country than our economy needs. As I said, the data is easy to access. The numbers are easy to find. And the arithmetic is simple. What we are missing is the willingness of legislators on both sides of the aisle to stop using the “immigration problem” to win votes – to just get together and do the math.

I have mixed feelings about Trump’s initiatives on tariffs. 

As a student of Milton Friedman, I’ve long viewed tariffs as economically self-destructive. Used as a strategy to protect one industry or one group of products, tariffs will inevitably increase the average price of all products for everyone.

I still believe that in principle. But I can’t say I am not attracted to the argument that until the income tax was instituted in1913 (not counting a brief experiment with it during the Civil War), American citizens were able to enjoy the benefits of government (primarily protecting life, liberty, and freedom) without having to pay a dollar in income tax.

It was, of course, possible back then because our government was a fraction of the size it is now. The current cost of our federal government is about $4 trillion a year and growing. Our imports cost about the same. (I think I have that right. The numbers are tricky.) Even if DOGE was able to reduce government spending by half and we were able to tax all imports to the degree Trump has suggested, it would not come close to paying for all that our politicians, with our blessing, keep spending each year.

So, I’m doubtful about that.

That said, Trump has another reason for threatening tariffs. He’s a deal guy, and he has been using the threat of tariffs to achieve geopolitical goals. Most of which most Americans agree with. (Such as securing our border against unsustainable illegal immigration and drugs and criminal cartels.)

What he’s done so far by threatening to impose tariffs on Mexico and Canada has been nothing short of amazing. He’s persuaded them both to begin to police their borders and prevent the free passage of undocumented immigrants through their countries into ours.

And by the way. As I’m writing this, I see that Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on all goods coming from China has prompted Apple to announce that the company is relocating its headquarters to the US, which represents a $500 million investment in America and the creation of an additional 20,000 jobs.

I’m also hopeful about Trump’s promises to reduce taxes. 

Despite what Democrats can’t stop themselves from saying, it’s not possible to stimulate an economy by taxing the rich. Every country that has tried this has failed. The unpretty truth is that the only way to stimulate growth through taxes is to lower them on the rich.

When a government lowers corporate income tax and other taxes on big companies, the lion’s share of the money saved goes into growing more business, which means growing employment and increasing the income of workers. And all that money is taxed. The same is true when taxes are lowered on the wealthy. Unless they bury the money that they save from lower taxes, it flows into the economy in terms of investing, which grows the GDP.

Trump understands this, but most voters don’t. And that’s why, despite the success of the tax cuts we’ve had in my lifetime, it’s still difficult to get trickle-down economics to work.

I am doubtful but still hopeful that Trump can grow our economy.

If he manages to lower taxes on the rich, and uses tariffs sensibly, we could see an amazing renaissance of the American economy. We could see growth in the energy sector, growth in the high-tech sector, growth in Berkshire Hathaway companies, and growth in the financial sectors as well.

If Trump and his appointees can somehow convince their political opponents to cooperate, I believe it is absolutely possible to get the US economy growing again. And if that happens, so many other things that are troubling Americans – including weak employment metrics, stagnation in personal income, inflation in goods and services, a lack of affordable housing, and even many social ills (such as crime and even our pandemic of clinical depression and suicide) – can be reversed.

I’m not holding my breath, but I’ve got my fingers crossed.

I am 90% optimistic about all the Woke social issues. 

This is an area that frightens many people, particularly the gay population who have reason to be worried about all the old prejudices and even laws and regulations that minimalized and even criminalized homosexuality in America. And I believe there are some people of color that are worried about the same thing – that fear the ending of government support for DEI may trigger a regression back to Jim Crow days.

I don’t think these fears will be realized. But I won’t say it’s not possible. When the political or ideological pendulum swings too far in one direction, there is a possibility that it will return too far in the opposite direction.

I believe that the most important factor in Trump’s victory was not the economy or the wars or even immigration. I believe what did Biden and Harris in (and so many of their party), was the promotion of identity politics, including the BLM movement, concepts such as systemic racism and cultural appropriation, but most importantly the insane idea of trying to create a legal system where supposedly free citizens had to pretend that men can have babies and should be able to use women’s locker rooms and compete in women’s sports.

The reason I believe that was the key issue is the same reason that nobody is willing to say it was the key issue: It’s such an obviously fake idea that everyone, including those that promoted it and those that fought it, knew that it defied common sense.

Fundamentalists – Christians, Jews, Muslims – found the whole four years of it to be unbearable. Not frightening, but disgusting, retrogressive, and stupid. Conservatives found those years to be incomprehensible. They shook their heads and hoped identity politics would magically disappear. Libertarians, such as yours truly, believed that adults had the right to dress however they liked and refer to themselves however they wanted, but they had no right to impose their fantasies on others.

There were only two groups that advocated for trans ideology: ex- or avant-garde college professors that made a modest living indoctrinating students into post-modern nonsense, and identity hustlers – politicians, pundits, and public intellectuals who made sometimes very good money promoting the idiotic nonsense taught at the universities to left-leaning voters who believed that repeating these ideas would demonstrate how smart and virtuous they were.

I am hopeful that the pendulum will return to a middle position – one which grants to everyone, including those who believe they were born in the wrong body, the same human rights. They should be able to live without fear of being assaulted or discriminated against. But they must recognize that what our Constitution gives them is protection from bodily assault and slander, not from microaggressions that may make them feel bad.

I am hopeful about the possibility of making America healthy again.

The US spends more money (absolutely and on a per capita basis) on health and medicine than any other country on Earth. And yet in every health metric that matters, we are not even in the top ten. We are a fat, lazy, and sickly population destined to spend our after-30 years suffering from avoidable chronic diseases and then die at least 10 years before we should.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. understands that. I’ve been following him (including reading his books and essays) for decades – probably since I got into the natural health publishing industry in the late 1980s. As head of the Department of Health and Human Services Department, he has a big job ahead of him. I’m not going to take up any more of your time right now trying to convince you that he is (and was) the right man for that job – but I will be devoting an essay on that in the near future.

 

 

 

 

A Quick Course on the History of the Arab/Israeli Conflict 
Part 1: The Basics 

I tried to address this topic in a single essay, but I quickly realized that wouldn’t be possible for several reasons. First, because it is so divisive, provoking strong feelings and opinions on both sides. It’s also complicated, with a 3,000-year history in which there are multiple accounts for almost every major event and about which every important fact is disputed. And if all that weren’t enough, it’s a history that is rapidly reinventing itself at this very moment, and in doing so is reshaping and revising its own past.

No, a single essay wouldn’t do.

After looking at the material I was assembling, I realized that I should break it into two parts by: (1) recounting the history as objectively as possible, and then (2) reporting on the current war. And I decided to do it by presenting the information in the form of video essays and turning it into a course for my recently invented “Quick & Easy Video University.”

By doing it this way, as a series of lessons rather than essays, I felt that I would be less inclined to polemicize and would be more objective in presenting all the facts. So those who “took” the course would be able to arrive at their own understanding and conclusions.

But as I poked around the Internet looking for trustworthy video accounts, I realized the project would be more challenging than I thought.

Not only was virtually all the material slanted one way or the other, so were the search engines. In researching some facts and issues, I was obliged to settle for videos that were biased but good. And as you will see, my solution to that problem was to include in the description of the video my impression of whether it was slanted one way or the other, and by doing so at least alert you to that spin.

A second challenge was the immensity of the subject matter itself. The most obvious issue was the span of history I had to cover – more than 3,000 years, much of which was recorded spottily at best.

Another issue was the confusion I encountered, as names and dates and even locations were often unclear or in contradiction from different sources.

And finally, there was the undeniable fact that I was hardly an expert on this history. So I couldn’t fully trust the decisions I was making about which facts and stories -were trustworthy and which were not.

I did the best I could to make sense of everything I had learned about the history of this conflict – and today, I bring you the first part of the course.

Lesson One. A History in Maps
Watch Time: 11 min. 

I chose this video as Lesson One for three reasons: The graphic prompts and use of maps makes for easy comprehension… given its brevity, it is quite comprehensive… and it is one of the most objective accounts of the history that I found.

Watch it here.

Lesson Two. It’s Complicated
Watch Time: 12 min. 

“This conflict is often cast as a long-term beef going back thousands of years, rooted in a clash between religions, but that’s not quite true,” says historian John Green in this video from Crash Course. “Actually, it’s immensely complicated, and just about everyone in the world has an opinion about it.”

Watch it here.

Lesson Three. Three Thousand Years in the Making
Watch Time: 6 min. 

This video from The History Channel does a good job of covering the major points, although it has a discernable pro-Palestine bias.

Watch it here.

Lesson Four. A Full History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Watch Time: 13 min.

From The History Hub, another summary from the long view.

Watch it here.

Lesson Five. How Israel and Palestine Became Enemies
Watch Time: 12 min. 

Palki Sharma presents the history of the conflict from an anti-Jewish, anti-British, and anti-Semitic perspective.

Watch it here.

Lesson Six. A Jewish Historian Explains His View 
Watch Time: 8 min. 

Simcha Jacobovici, a three-time Emmy-winning filmmaker, must have a pro-Israel bias, but I couldn’t find anything he says here that is factually wrong.

Watch it here.

Lesson Seven. The History of the Israeli-Arab Conflict
Watch Time: 5 min.

This reasonably objective video from IntroBooks Education traces such key events as the rise of Zionism and Arab nationalism, the Balfour Declaration, the UN’s partition plan, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the Six-Day War, the Camp David Accords, the Intifadas, the Oslo Accords, and 21st century challenges.

Watch it here.

The above seven short videos comprise what I’d like to call the undergraduate program on the history of the conflict. Now here are three additional videos that are considerably longer. You might think of them as the graduate program. 

Lesson Eight. How Britain Started the Arab-Israeli Conflict 
Watch Time: 52 min. 

This video comes from The History Channel, and although it presents itself as objective, it seems to me that it has a restrained but recognizable anti-Israeli bias, along with an equal bias against the role of the British.

Here is how the channel describes it: “The bitter struggle between Arab and Jew for control of the Holy Land has caused untold suffering in the Middle East for generations. It is often claimed that the crisis originated with Jewish emigration to Palestine and the foundation of the state of Israel. Yet the roots of the conflict are to be found much earlier – in British double-dealing during the First World War. This is a story of intrigue among rival empires; of misguided strategies; and of how conflicting promises to Arab and Jew created a legacy of bloodshed which determines the fate of the Middle East to this day.”

Watch it here.

Lesson Nine. Origins of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict Part I: to 1949 
Watch Time: 30 min. 

Dr. Henry Abramson, a specialist in Jewish history and thought, does a good, relatively unbiased, job of covering the history from early days to 1949. (He has a follow-up video picking it up in 1949 and moving to the present day.)

Watch it here.

Lesson Ten. Ben Shapiro Gives a History Lesson
Watch Time: 40 min. 

From biblical times to today, Shapiro takes us through time to explore the long history of Israel and explain the many conflicts along the way. He is ardently pro-Israel, but he’s also fantastically smart.

Watch it here.

Why Trump Won and What It Means for Everyone

The Eve of Destruction 

The day before the election, a family member asked me if I was ready for a “landslide.” He was confident Harris would win by historic proportions because “No woman or person of color is going to vote for Trump.”

I just smiled because I wasn’t sure – and I didn’t want to set myself up for an “I told you so!” from him. What I believed was that the election would be very close. And I think I felt that way because I’d been reading predictions from both conservative and liberal media, and they were all reasonably convincing.

As the exit poll counts began shifting towards Trump later the following evening and it looked like he might achieve the unthinkable and win every swing state, I was tempted to send my relative an “I told you so!” text. But I didn’t.

Well… the truth is I did. But as soon as I hit the “send” button, I felt bad about it. It wasn’t fair to gloat.

In fact, my Never Trump friends and family members were so devastated by Trump’s win that I was told several times, in no uncertain terms, that I should not speak to them until they could “process” it.

How Close Was It? 

If you get your views from the NYT and CNN, you probably think Trump won the election by a narrow margin. The fact that he won the popular vote by only 1.5% could be said to support that view.

If you get your news from the NY Post or Fox News, you may believe it was a landslide. The fact that he won every one of the swing states could be said to support that view.

So let’s take a quick look at the numbers…

The Count by State 

As you can see from the map above, Trump won 31 states while Harris won 19 (plus the District of Columbia).

Despite the initial enthusiasm Harris’s candidacy created with the Democratic base when she entered the race in July, she fell far short of collecting the votes expected in every state and every demographic.

The belief among her campaign team, which was uncritically reported in the legacy media, was that her age, her gender, and her race would play strongly in her favor. And that, at the very least, her numbers would be better than Biden’s were in 2020.

It didn’t happen. In Arizona, she received about 90,000 fewer votes than Biden had. She received about 67,000 fewer in Michigan and 39,000 fewer in Pennsylvania. In four other states – Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, and Wisconsin – Harris won more votes than Biden. But Trump’s support grew by more. In some states, significantly more.

Harris’s strongest results came in Georgia, where she received almost 73,000 more votes than Biden did when he very narrowly carried the state. But Trump did better than that, adding 200,000 to his 2020 total, and winning Georgia by roughly two percentage points.

The Electoral College Vote 

Trump swept the seven most competitive states to win a convincing electoral college victory, becoming the first Republican nominee in 20 years to win a majority of the popular vote.

The Count by Cities, Counties & Rural Areas 

Of the 27 cities with populations of more than half a million, Harris won 12 (Boston, New York, Washington DC, Richmond, Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver, Albuquerque, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle). Trump won the other 15.

Though Trump improved across the map, his gains were particularly strong in the urban counties of Detroit, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia, and in the industrial swing states Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

Finally, Trump did better with rural Americans than he had in 2020, from the Southwest to the Acela Corridor. And in doing so, he bulldozed the once invincible Blue Wall.

The Count by Gender 

One of the biggest surprises of the election was the women’s vote.

Biden won 55% of the women’s vote in 2020 and it was expected that Harris would do much better than that. In fact, she did not even equal Biden’s numbers, winning only 53% of the women’s vote. Meanwhile, Trump won 46% of women, 3% higher than he’d garnered in 2020. Trump also increased his share of male voters, from 53% in 2020 to 55% in 2024.

The Count by Race 

The other big surprise of the election was the count by race. Democrats have long enjoyed a significant advantage with racial minority voters, but this lessened considerably in 2024. Compared to 2020, Trump increased his share of Black voters by 10%.

Harris beat Trump with Hispanic voters 52% to 43%. But in 2020, Biden won 69% of the demographic. That’s a 17-point swing in Trump’s favor.

The Count by Age 

The polls predicted that Harris would crush Trump with the youth vote. She won the demographic, but it was not a landslide, On the contrary, the results were mixed.

In 2020, Biden won the women-under-30 vote by 32 points, but Harris did considerably less well in 2024 by only 18 points. Meanwhile, male voters under 30, who had voted for Biden over Trump in 2020 by a margin of 15%, went for Trump by a margin of 13%. A 28-point swing.

The Count by Political Affiliation 

The biggest leaps to the right weren’t taking place exclusively in Republican-leaning counties, but also in the most Democratic-leaning counties. Michigan’s Wayne County swung 9 points toward Trump, tying the more Republican-leaning Antrim County for the largest movement in the state.

The Popular Vote 

The 2024 voter turnout was lower than 2020’s by 4.2 million. Nevertheless, Trump picked up about 6-7 points in the national popular vote, receiving 2.5 million more votes than he had four years before, while Harris lost about 6.9 million votes.

What’s interesting is that Blue state voters drove the shift. Six of the top seven moves to Trump occurred in hard-left states, led by California, the hardest of all. (Florida, the only exception, has gained hundreds of thousands of Blue state refugees since 2020, helping drive its shift.)

Was Trump’s Victory a Landslide?

The short answer is no.

Depending on how you do the count, there were probably two dozen presidential elections in US history that topped Trump’s win.

Just for fun, I did a little research, and the results surprised me.

In first place was the very first presidential election in 1789. George Washington won 100% of the electoral college. All 69 votes. Of course, he had a big advantage. He ran unopposed.

Next was the election of 1936, when Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Alf Landon, a very weak candidate, by 97 percentage points. It’s commonly believed that Roosevelt’s landslide victory was due in part to the promise of the New Deal. But it was also a result of his ability to read the shifting winds of voter sentiment and his willingness to change sides to accommodate them.

The third greatest landslide may surprise you. It was the re-election of 1984, when Ronald Reagan defeated Walter Mondale with a very successful campaign dubbed “Morning in America.” It crushed Mondale’s campaign by 525 to 13 electoral votes. This landslide has been credited to Reagan’s brand of folksy conservatism that gave American voters, after suffering through the turbulent 60s and 70s, hope for a new era of political and economic stability.

Fourth place in the landslide race may be, in retrospect, another surprise if all you remember about the victor was the inglorious way he left office. It was the 1972 victory of Richard Nixon over George McGovern, winning the popular vote by an astonishing 18 million. Nixon’s huge victory was in large part due to the ratification of the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. Nixon had already reduced the number of troops in Vietnam and had promised to end the draft.

There were two other landslides in my lifetime: The 1964 race, when Lyndon Johnson won 486 electoral votes against Barry Goldwater’s 52. And Barrack Obama’s 2008 win over John McCain by 9 million votes.

Next to those margins, Trump’s win was hardly a landslide.

Nevertheless… 

But it was a good deal better than the election of 2016, when Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the electoral college while losing the popular vote. And it was a slightly stronger electoral college win than Biden enjoyed when he beat Trump in 2020, which left the Republicans with control of the House.

I think the reason Trump’s win may feel like such a big victory to many voters on both sides is because it came as such a shock to virtually all the pollsters and pundits who had predicted Harris would win by a significant margin.

That said, the significance of Trump’s victory should not be discounted. He won all seven of the swing states, and the popular vote to boot. Furthermore, he moves into the White House in January with a Republican majority in both the House and the Senate. Which means he has just about all he needs in terms of political power and popular support to get his promised agenda done.

And there is one more thing: The fact that Trump beat Harris, the first Black and female presidential candidate, with both women and Blacks, as well as with Hispanics, Jews, and young voters, gives him a moral advantage that he will surely use to dismantle most if not all of the progressive policies and programs that were enacted during the Biden/Harris administration.
Why Did Trump Win? Let’s Count the Ways 

The Economy 

It’s often said that the ultimate determinant of federal elections is the state of the economy.

And that’s probably why, beginning about a year ago, the Biden administration began promoting the idea that the economy was strong and getting stronger. They had some numbers to support their case. Rising employment, for one. A rising stock market, for another. They went so far as to tout these increases as “Bidenomics.”

It was a cute idea, but it didn’t work. Throughout 2024, Biden’s “trust” ratings on the economy plummeted. The reason for that wasn’t complicated. The increase in employment was not due to an expanding GNP. It was merely the return of millions of working- and middle-class Americans that had lost or quit their jobs during COVID.

And those weren’t better jobs with higher paychecks. They were the same old jobs at the same salaries that workers were getting before the lockdown. But nearly four years later, those paychecks had much less purchasing power due the rising cost of all the most important things that middle- and working-class people spend their money on. Principally fuel and food, but also such things as building supplies, cars (new and used), and home, health, and life insurance.

Most working Americans never bought the “miracle” of Bidenomics. But the progressive politicians and media that were promoting the ruse didn’t notice that because during
that same period, from 2021 to 2024, they saw their stock rise by 50%.

In retrospect, it’s easy to see what a mistake it was to push the Bidenomics lie. Affluent voters knew that Biden had nothing to do with the fattening of their 401(k)s. And the rest of the voters were feeling the pain of stagflation.

Immigration 

Immigration was the second most important issue that affected the outcome of the election, according to most pollsters. And for good reason.

The Biden administration’s open-border policies resulted in something like 11 million immigrants entering the country during his term. Most were not vetted. Instead, they were given notices for court dates when they were expected to appear sometime in the future.

Notwithstanding the miniscule incursions sent by border states northward to upscale Blue communities like Martha’s Vineyard, the impact of this massive influx of largely uneducated, non-English-speaking foreigners had a direct and damaging impact on the lower-income communities around the country where the Biden administration had been sending them in military planes under the cover of night.

Looking back at it now, one might wonder why the Biden administration would have thought that letting so many millions of undocumented immigrants into the US would help them win the 2024 election. I don’t think that was ever their intention. It’s obvious to me that the play was to get by in 2024 and then lock themselves into successful reelections thereafter with a widely expanded base of Hispanic voters, which have traditionally supported Democrats.

But they didn’t quite get away with it. Instead, Biden’s open-border policy pushed a significant number of Black and Hispanic voters (mostly men) to Trump. The demographic remained predominantly Democrat. But there was enough of a shift to make a difference in key voting districts.

However, in my view, those two issues – the economy and immigration – which were touted by Republican analysts to be the critical issues in giving Trump a marginal win, were not what made the difference.

As I see it, more important were the “softer” issues to which the Biden team paid scant attention.

Social Media and the Woke Movement 

For the last 25 years, the way the world generates and consumes information has changed profoundly.

In 1999, for example, people in literate cultures received basically all their news from two media sources: television and newspapers. And each of those sources had fewer than six news channels, for a combined total of about a dozen. But those channels were not all doing primary research and reporting. Most relied heavily on international agencies. (UPI and AP were the largest.)

Which meant there was a limit to the amount of news that was being collected around the world and, therefore, to the diversity of events that could be reported on and facts that could be discovered.

To be sure, there were news channels that were thought to be left- or right-leaning and a few that were in between. But because they were all drawing from the same few wells, the range of opinions about the news was limited, too.

Another way of putting that is that in 1999 both conservative and media outlets were largely agreed on a great number of basic facts. Those facts were seen as indisputable and thus uncontroversial. Which meant that differences of opinion could, with good faith and logic, be discussed reasonably so that common agreement was possible.

This is what made the great 1965 debates between William F. Buckley and James Baldwin so civilized by today’s standards. And it is what allowed such debates to be watched by millions of Americans across the political divide.

Today, we have a very different media landscape. Thousands of independent outlets dispense news gathered from thousands of different sources and provide the potential for millions of different perspectives on a virtually unlimited number of facts.

I remember reading an essay about this about 20 years ago. The writer predicted that one of two things would happen: Either the production of information would fractionalize into hundreds of options feeding hundreds of different individual consumer profiles, which he saw as a “democratizing” event. Or a small handful of media outlets would oversee the production and dissemination of most of the information to most of the world.

As it happened, both predictions were right.

We now have countless primary news sources feeding into countless broadcasting channels. But because of the introduction of algorithms and AI, individual users are being fed information tailored to their individual interests and biases in a manner that has steadily eaten away at a consensus of common belief. Rather than enjoying a significant wellspring of factual truth, we live in a world where truth has become determined by computer programming and belief systems have become tribal.

This change from what I would call a belief in truth and rational discourse to tribal beliefs that feel true and rational occurred gradually at first. But then, according perhaps to Moore’s Law, accelerated to the point where a perfectly intelligent person could, based on his instincts and prejudices, believe almost anything, including such ideas as White people are inherently racist, men are inherently toxic, and men can give birth.

The final stage of this transition began, I’d like to say, with the MeToo movement of 2006 – which, when it became a viral hashtag in 2017, had half of the country accepting the “fact” that in the US and other Western countries, the underlying social system was a hierarchy of brutish men and toxic male values that oppressed women in every aspect of their lives and tolerated every sort of injustice towards them, including rape.

The George Floyd incident of 2020 deepened and extended that divide. Enter the Black Lives Matter movement, ANTIFA, and academics pushing the ideologies of intersectionality, systemic racism, White privilege, and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion). In this view, men were the oppressors and “people of color” were the oppressed. Whites were inherently racist. White privilege was ubiquitous. Racism was universal and systemic, and the only solution to that would be a Socialist (race-based) revolution and reparations to Black Americans.

You would think that would have been the highest possible level of the intersectional, blame-and-shame movement when suddenly, almost out of nowhere, a new entry emerged. What group could be more oppressed than homosexual women of color? It turned out to be a group that most of the world hardly knew existed – people who were even more marginalized and oppressed than women, homosexuals, and people of color, but whose biological gender didn’t comply with their gender identity!

At first, the larger public didn’t quite understand. Eventually, we learned that the term “trans” referred to girls/women who saw themselves as boys/men and boys/men who saw themselves as girls/women.

In prior days, we thought of them as feminine boys/men and masculine girls/women. But now we learned that these were not quirky preferences, but states of individual identity that were as deep and permanent as color and needed to be respected as such. Not only that, but they were not in any way artificial. If a biological boy displayed girlish tendencies, it was not because of some passing fancy. It was because he was a girl. An actual girl. The fact that he had only one X chromosome and male genitalia was irrelevant. Not only that, but if you referred to him as a boy – directly or indirectly – you were guilty of harming him. Violently. And there was a term that could be applied to you. You were “transphobic.” Which was as bad as or worse than being sexist, homophobic, or racist.

During Trump’s first run for office, it was hardly even a topic of discussion. But by 2023, a transwoman had been honored as “Woman of the Year” by a British magazine and another transwoman was Biden’s guest of honor at a celebration of international womanhood at the White House.

This was nuts. But Woke ideology had progressed so far by that time that laws were being enacted to allow biological males to use the bathrooms previously reserved for biological females and compete against them in sports. Worse were the laws passed that allowed such troubled children to be “treated” for their “dysphoria” through “gender affirming care” (i.e., chemical castration and bodily mutilation). In some cases, without parental knowledge or consent.

The Rise of the Silent Dissenters 

I believe it was this extreme development of the “trans” movement that ultimately led to Trump’s victory and the defeat of the Democrats in both houses of Congress.

It was one thing to acknowledge that children with “gender dysphoria” should be treated with kindness and respect. It was an entirely different matter to claim that we should abandon reality in how we thought about and treated them.

But by 2022, progressives had taken identity politics to such an extreme that it was impossible to say the obvious truth about this lunatic set of cultish beliefs without being shamed and ridiculed and, in some parts of the world, face legal action.

What happened then was a massive chilling of common sense. Voicing disapproval or even doubts about these unwritten transgender commandments meant condemnation and/or ostracization from one’s otherwise likeminded community. So, tens of millions of liberal and leftist American voters had to go quiet on the issue.

But in the privacy of their personal thoughts, they knew the progressive movement had gone too far.

There were few if any surveys to indicate how large the group of silent dissenters had grown. But there were plenty of indications in the declining viewership of the progressive media and the declining revenues of many of America’s largest companies that associated themselves with the trend.

From 2020 to 2024, all the major TV networks, as well as the largest liberal newspapers, saw their audiences decline precipitously. In some cases, by as much as 50%. Revenues from Disney-produced Woke movies plummeted, as did sales of Bud Light and Target when they put their chips on Woke advertising campaigns.

Some of the decline came from conservative consumers who were being exposed to the craziness daily by conservative media. But I believe there was also a very sizeable loss from moderate and even liberal consumers who quietly decided they couldn’t take it anymore. They weren’t rushing to Fox News or the New York Post necessarily, but they could no longer watch MSNBC and The Washington Post.

This disaffection from the extremities of the progressive movement happened not only with the news and entertainment, but in all sorts of other industries. In 2024, there were dozens of large businesses that turned their backs on their DEI efforts and returned to hiring and firing people based on merit.

But virtually none of this disaffection was being reported in the legacy press.

Depending on the poll you looked at, Harris was either going to win in a landslide or by a modest margin in the electoral college. But she was certainly going to maintain the popular vote.

My point is: The pollsters were so terribly wrong this time not because they were misreporting the facts, but because a whole lot of the centrist and even liberal voters weren’t being honest with their answers. They didn’t want anyone to know that they were going to vote for Trump.

What Trump’s Election May Have Put an End To 

As I said above, I don’t believe Trump’s victory was a landslide. Trump won a solid majority of the electoral votes, both houses of Congress, and a majority of the popular vote. But he will face resistance in trying to implement many of his promises. Not just from the Democrats in Congress, but also from a portion of the Republican politicians that have no desire to really drain the swamp.

What he can accomplish now that he understands Washington’s entrenched bureaucracy and has appointed outsiders to dismantle it has yet to be seen. But I do think that his victory may put an end to some of the worst excesses of the progressive movement.

For example…

Forbidden and Compelled Speech 

A nation doesn’t need a constitutional amendment to protect speech that the government approves of. The founders of our country understood that. They also understood that forbidden speech was, more than anything else (including political ideology), the primary and most powerful way that government can usurp democracy. That’s why they made freedom of speech the First Amendment.

The Biden administration seemed to have forgotten about that when it bent a knee to forbidden speech by entertaining the concept that certain kinds of speech were not protected by the First Amendment.

As Biden-Harris Climate Czar John Kerry said at a World Economic Forum conclave prior to the election: “If people only go to one source, and the source they go to is sick… our First Amendment stands as a major block to be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence.”

If that wasn’t scary enough, Biden and Harris went so far as to conspire to establish a government office to monitor and prosecute speech that might be determined to be hateful. The next step, something the Biden administration also entertained, was to establish laws and regulations to compel “correct” speech – like Canada did by passing its gender identity rights Bill C-16.

The percentage of Americans that believed this made sense was probably equal to the percentage of Americans who suffered from gender dysphoria. Almost none. But by embracing the craziness, Biden and Harris (who proudly announced her pronouns on several occasions) signaled to moderate, undecided voters that they – and the progressive wing of their party – had abandoned common sense. If they were willing to pretend that biological males could transform themselves into “real” females simply by identifying as female, what other insane political ideas would they embrace?

With Harris’s defeat, the madness of criminalizing hate speech and/or compelling “correct” speech has, at least for the foreseeable future, fallen into the cesspools of Woke thinking. I don’t think it will come back in my lifetime.

DEI and Virtue Signaling 

If you spent any time over the last four years watching Congressional hearings of Biden appointees, you witnessed the fruits of the “diversity, equity, and inclusion” ideology. One crazy person after another was nominated for important positions, most with no other qualification than fitting into and supporting some favored category of DEI. Harris herself, by Biden’s own testimony, was selected for her race and gender. (Imagine how much better the Democrats would have done in 2024 if Tulsi Gabbard, who demolished Harris in the elections, had been Biden’s nominee.)

DEI was dumb. But it was accompanied by an equally dumb idea: that espousing DEI was morally virtuous – and that denouncing DEI was racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.

As John Leake, a politically moderate Substack commentator recently wrote:

Memo from the American People to Democrats: We don’t believe your virtue-signaling is an expression of true moral integrity, so stop virtue-signaling and try to learn something from your humiliating defeat. Analyze your mistakes and try a fresh approach at the next election.

I don’t think we have to worry about this bad idea resurfacing during Trump’s term or for the foreseeable future. DEI was a hot topic among Fortune 500 companies and leading educational institutions in the last four years. But almost all of the companies and even many of the institutions are abandoning those policies after suffering the embarrassment of showing the world how well they work.

Lawfare 

Towards the end of the summer, as the election drew near, never-Trump celebrities and media personalities began talking about their fears that Trump would initiate a campaign of vengeance against his political opponents and even attempt to throw them all in jail. They made these statements with straight faces, oblivious to the fact that Trump had just endured two years of progressive-led lawfare against him. All of which was covered happily by the legacy media, and all of which was obviously political. The strategy failed completely. It couldn’t increase the base of Trump haters. They were already committed.

But it could, and I believe it did, make Trump a sympathetic character in the drama for enough undecided voters to help bring him the victory on Nov. 4.

On Jan. 20, Trump and the Republicans will be in the catbird seat to do exactly what his opponents are worried about him doing. It will be interesting to see if that happens.

Race & Gender Baiting as a Political Tactic 

I cannot think of a political personality in my lifetime that has been called a racist more times than Donald Trump. Or a misogynist, for that matter. Pick any version of these two pejoratives and ask Google how many times it’s been applied to public personalities. Trump will be at the top of every list.

It’s said that if you make a claim, true or false, seven times in a row people will begin to believe it. This did not happen with the vilification of Trump. Like the lawfare strategy, the effort to turn voters away from Trump by slandering him backfired. It may have sated to some extent the hate felt by those who did the name calling. But it had no chance of pitting undecided voters against him.

And that wasn’t the big mistake. The tactic that sealed the deal was the same one that give Trump the victory in 2016, when Hillary Clinton called Trump supporters “deplorables.” Watching the most visible Trump haters proclaim that anyone who would even think about voting for him is racist, sexist, transphobic, galvanized a significant percentage of undecided voters.

In retrospect, that so many prominent Harris supporters would employ this vicious and impulsive ad hominem name calling as a rhetorical strategy can best be explained as a symptom of the less virulent term of ridicule used by the opposition: Trump Derangement Syndrome!

Since the election, some outspoken progressives who called Trump racist and sexist during the campaign have admitted that the name calling was ineffective and questioned the wisdom of having done it. But others have doubled down by expanding the target of their slander to anyone and everyone who voted for Trump – i.e., the majority of the electorate! It seems clear to me that if the Democrats want to win back the White House and Congress, they will have to abandon this foolish exercise in self-indulgence.

Trust in the Legacy Media 

One of the most salient facts about Trump’s win was that he won convincingly without any support from the legacy media, including the NYT, The Washington Post, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, and NPR.

This was not a surprise. In the eight years that elapsed since he won the presidency in 2016, most of the major media outlets saw their audiences gradually get smaller.

And since the 2024 election, those numbers fell off a cliff. MSNBC, for example, lost roughly half its viewership, from an average of 1.34 million prior to Nov. 4 to an average of only 660,000. CNN lost about 40% of its prime-time viewership since Nov. 5, from an average of 739,000 to 448,000. Ratings for the broadcast and cable news channels saw a decline of 15 million since 2020, from an average of 57 million to 42 million.

A similar pattern has taken place in the newspaper industry, with daily nationwide circulations falling from more than 30 million in 2019 to less than 20 million. If the trend continues, one-third of newspapers will be lost by 2025, according to a 2022 study published by Northwestern University.

Fox News, on the other hand, has seen its prime-time viewership increase by about 25% since Election Day, from 2.4 million to nearly 3 million.

As for the why of this trend, some of it can surely be attributed to the rise of independent social media news outlets, and particularly conservative ones. But it’s also impossible to deny that an equally big part is attributable to a decline in the public’s trust of mainstream media. Recent polls indicate that only about one in three Americans have confidence in the media to report the news “fully, accurately, and fairly.”

It will be interesting to see whether the legacy media will try to recapture its audience by more balanced reporting or double down on their positions, as some liberal think tanks have advised.

And to be fair, the huge gap that currently exists between the legacy and the conservative media will probably narrow after Trump takes office in January. Some percentage of those that left CNN and MSNBC will almost certainly come back for news and views that are critical of Trump. But I don’t think there is any chance that the recovery will be much more than half of what was lost.

Recommended Reading 

Different perspectives on lying from The Free Press…

* Matti Friedman: “When We Started to Lie”

* Peter Savodnick: “The Big Scramble”

* Bari Weiss: “The Era of the Noble Lie”

How-to-Succeed-in-Business Books: Which Ones Can You Trust? 

“I’m a sophomore in college, majoring in business, and I want to start my own business after I graduate. I’m taking all the usual courses on accounting, management, and finance, but I want to supplement what I’m learning by reading books. A friend recommended Ready, Fire, Aim, which I really liked. I’ve already got copies of Seven Years to Seven Figures, The Architecture of Persuasion, and Automatic Wealth for Grads. What other books of yours should read? And can you give me some tips on how to choose books by other people on entrepreneurship and business building? (I did a quick search online and found hundreds of them. Literally, hundreds!)” – JP

My Response: 

I’ve never been a big consumer of business books. When I was your age, JP, the only books I read that were not required reading were novels, short story collections, and poetry. These days, my range is much wider. More than half of my reading consists of nonfiction books and essays. It is still only very occasionally that I’ll read the sort of how-to business book that Ready, Fire, Aim is.

Why? I’m not sure. It must be a form of pride or arrogance. It is surely connected to the fact that however lost I find myself in an unfamiliar city or even a large, unfamiliar retail store, I cannot bring myself to ask for directions.

Something must have happened in my early childhood that left me nearly disabled when it comes to asking for help. Doing so feels like a form of weakness or capitulation. I feel the same way about reading self-help business books. It feels like cheating.

In fact, in 2000, when I began writing Early to Rise (ETR), my daily blog about achieving “health, wealth, and wisdom,” you could count on one hand the total number of self-help books I had read.

I didn’t start ETR because I felt I had so many great ideas to write about. I did it because I could see that the world of internet publishing was exploding, and I wanted to get on board.

Having spent, by then, nearly 25 years as an editor and publisher, I knew enough about the publishing game to understand that if I wanted to succeed in this new world of digital newsletters, I had to (a) write about something that could generate income for my readers, and (b) restrict my writing to topics I could write about with authority.

But since I had read so little on “health, wealth, and wisdom” – the subjects I claimed to be an expert about – I had to anchor my theories almost entirely to my personal experience. That turned out to be a good thing, because my ideas and advice were, for the most part, different from the conventional ideas and advice one could find then in popular books and magazines. That gave me a USP (unique selling proposition) that drove ETR’s circulation up beyond 900,000 at its peak.

When I wrote Ready, Fire, Aim in 2007, it was similar in the sense that it was based almost entirely on my experience in starting and developing small businesses. When I referenced other books or magazine articles in its chapters, it was almost always to disagree with them.

Likewise in 2010, when my partners and I launched Creating Wealth, an internet periodical on entrepreneurship and wealth building. The content was 90% based on my personal experience.

You may be wondering, JP, why I’m telling you this. I’m sure you anticipated – and perhaps would prefer – a shorter answer to your questions. But I can’t really answer them without also giving you answers to other questions which, whether you meant to ask or not, still apply.

Point One: One idea that I hope you will take away from this is that my ignorance about such things as personal productivity and career-building gave me an advantage. My ideas and theories and stories that supported them were unique. They came from a different perspective, and gave my readers a way to achieve success that they couldn’t get anywhere else.

Your Takeaway on This Point: While absorbing ideas and insights about how to succeed in business from others, it is always smart to construct a filter between what they are saying and what you decide to do. Every business and wealth-building opportunity is unique. Never treat the ideas and advice you get from them as commandments. Treat them as pencil sketches for the masterpiece that will be yours and yours alone.

Point Two: In telling you about the difficulty I have in taking advice from others, it sounds like I’m suggesting that this is an advantage in business. Not so.

Your Takeaway on This Point: It was, for me, an advantage in developing a unique perspective. But if I could go back in time, I would have asked questions whenever I had them but filtered the answers through what I knew from experience. And that’s what I’m suggesting you do when you read how-to books on achieving success in business.

As I see it, there are basically two kinds of how-to books on business success:

* Outside-In Books – written by academics or professional writers, and

* Inside-Out Books – written by people who have achieved success on their own.

On the one hand, the books written by writer-researchers are often more objective and factual since they are derived from multiple sources over time.

On the other hand, books written by people who have done what they are writing about are often more believable because they are coming from the successful horse’s mouth.

Each kind of book has its advantages and disadvantages.

Outside-In Books: One thing I like about these books is that, if the writer is smart and articulate, the ideas are usually compelling and the reading is fun. But that is also their downside. Because the ideas are both fun and compelling, the reader is tempted to accept them without further investigation and without comparing those ideas with their personal experience.

Inside-Out Books: These books have the advantage of authority. They are coming from someone that has done what he is telling the reader to do. Why would you not follow such advice? I’ll give you one good reason. Because these books are often written by ghostwriters who have little to no prior knowledge of the industry or business they are writing about. They are getting their stories and their theories from the man that did it. And they have no way of knowing whether what they have been told by him is accurate or was invented to gild his lily.

The Bottom Line 

You should read as many how-to books on business and entrepreneurship and building wealth that you feel you have time for. But read them with an understanding of whether the ideas, strategies, and advice they present are outside-in or inside-out.

If it’s an outside-in book, remember that the author is in search of a clever idea that could become a bestselling idea. He may believe in the ideas he presents, but he hasn’t formulated them from experience. And that is a limitation you must keep in mind.

If it is an inside-out book, enjoy the stories. But remember that the person whose career you are reading about already has all the money and fame he could want. What he may not have is admiration and respect for his accomplishments. And if he thought he might generate such admiration and respect by altering his story or his insights, you might be reading bullshit.

66 Books Any Aspiring Entrepreneur or Wealth Builder Should Read
(Aside from My Own Books, of Course) 

These are not all the books one might want to read, nor are they necessarily the best – but they are the best books I’ve read and feel comfortable recommending.

Entrepreneurship

* The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
* Grinding It Out by Ray Kroc
* Zero to One by Peter Thiel
* Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
* The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
* Start with Why by Simon Sinek
* Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

Business & Business Management 

* How to Be Rich by J. Paul Getty
* A Passion for Excellence by Tom Peters
* Good to Great by Jim Collins
* Made In America by Sam Walton
* The Nordstrom Way by Robert Spector
* The World on Time by James C. Wetherbe
* The Disney Touch by Rod Grover
* You Can Negotiate Anything by Herb Cohen
* The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen

Biographies & Autobiographies

* The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie
* Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
* Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace
* Overdrive: Bill Gates and the Race to Control Cyberspace by James Wallace
* Trump: The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump
* Rupert Murdoch by Jerome Tuccille
* Iacocca: An Autobiography
* Be My Guest by Conrad Hilton
* Goals, Guts, and Greatness by Mark O. Haroldsen
* McDonald’s: Behind the Arches by John Love

Sales & Marketing 

* Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins
* Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy
* My First 65 Years in Advertising by Maxwell Sackheim
* The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini
* Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples
* How to Write a Good Advertisement by Victor O Schwab
* The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout
* Direct Marketing by Edward Nash
* Your Marketing Genius at Work by Jay Abraham
* The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy
* How to Win and Keep Customers by Michael LeBeouf
* Ziglar on Selling by Zig Ziglar
* The Guide to Greatness in Sales by Tom Hopkins
* How to Close Every Sale by Joe Girard
* The Art of the Hard Sell by Robert L. Shook

Investing & Wealth Building

* The Intelligent Investor Benjamin Graham
* The Warren Buffett Way by Robert Hagstrom
* Gold: The Once and Future Money by Nathan Lewis
* Market Wizards by Jack Schwager
* The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
* The Bond King by Mary Childs
* The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need by Andrew Tobias
* Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits by Philip Fisher

Economics

* The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
* Economics in One Lesson by William Hazlitt
* Das Kapital by Karl Marx
* The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek
* Human Action: A Treatise on Economics by Ludwig von Mises
* Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell
* The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson
* The Empire of Debt by William Bonner and Addison Wiggins
* Capitalism, Socialism & Democracy by Joseph A. Schumpeter
* Freakonomics by Stephen Dubner & Steven Levitt

Personal Development 

* 7 Habits of Highly Successful People by Stephen R. Covey
* The Giant Within by Anthony Robbins
* Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
* The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale
* How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
* The Essence of Success by Earl Nightingale
* Atomic Habits by James Clear