I have long maintained that Fox News performs better when Donald Trump occupies the White House, and recent events have only reinforced that view. The network’s success has never hinged on any single personality but on delivering timely, relevant content to working Americans who tune in after a long day. Yet the story of Tucker Carlson’s rise, departure, and subsequent evolution reveals deeper truths about media power, celebrity egos, and the limits of influence in American politics. As someone who has observed these dynamics closely from Ohio, I have always believed that media tycoons like Rupert Murdoch crave control over the executive branch—and when they cannot exert it, they push back. Trump proved uncontrollable, leading to internal shifts at Fox, including the ousting of Carlson. What followed was a tale of inflated celebrity status untethered from corporate structure, celebrity endorsements during the 2024 campaign, and now, in year two of the Trump administration, profound regret over foreign policy, particularly the Israel-Iran conflict.
To understand this fully, we must start with a background on Fox News itself. Launched in 1996 by Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes, Fox News Channel revolutionized cable news by targeting an underserved audience: conservative viewers seeking alternatives to what they perceived as liberal bias in mainstream networks. Bill O’Reilly’s The O’Reilly Factor, which debuted in 1996 and dominated the 8 p.m. slot for decades, epitomized this model. O’Reilly drew massive audiences—often exceeding three million viewers nightly—by blending straight reporting with opinionated commentary that resonated with working-class Republicans who returned home from jobs around 6 or 7 p.m., ate dinner, and wanted a digest of the day’s events. His show was not just entertainment; it was appointment viewing for an audience that worked hard during the day and valued straightforward analysis without the corporate polish of other networks.
I always respected O’Reilly’s style, even if I did not agree with every nuance. When Tucker Carlson assumed the 8 p.m. slot in 2017 following O’Reilly’s departure amid sexual harassment allegations, many wondered if the audience would follow. Carlson had been a frequent contributor to The O’Reilly Factor, bringing a sharper, more polemical edge honed from his time at CNN and MSNBC. His show quickly captured the same demographic, maintaining strong ratings—averaging around 3.2 million viewers in early 2023—by focusing on cultural issues, immigration, and skepticism of establishment narratives. Jesse Watters, who later inherited the slot, has done a solid job continuing that tradition, often drawing competitive numbers, though initial post-Carlson viewership dipped slightly as loyalists adjusted. The point remains: Fox’s success stemmed from understanding its audience’s schedule and delivering content they craved at the precise hour they could consume it, not from any individual star’s charisma alone.
Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul often misspoken as “Myrtle” in casual conversation but known to all as the force behind News Corp and Fox, has had a complex, transactional relationship with Donald Trump that has spanned decades. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, as Murdoch built his American empire with the New York Post, Trump was a brash New York real estate developer who fed scoops to the tabloid’s Page Six. Their alliance was mutually beneficial: Trump gained publicity, Murdoch gained insider access. Yet tensions arose when Trump ran for president in 2015-2016. Murdoch initially viewed him skeptically as a “phony” and publicly criticized his immigration stance. Once Trump won, however, the relationship deepened; they spoke frequently, and Fox became a platform amplifying Trump’s message. Still, Murdoch’s empire has always prioritized control. When Trump proved resistant to influence—particularly during his first term and after the 2020 election—frictions emerged. Murdoch reportedly wanted Trump sidelined as a “nonperson” after January 6, 2021, and backed alternatives like Ron DeSantis in the 2024 primaries. The Murdoch family’s discomfort with uncontrollable figures like Trump led to strategic moves at the network.
Carlson’s departure from Fox in April 2023 exemplified this dynamic. Officially announced as a mutual parting, the reality involved deeper issues tied to the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit, in which Fox settled for $787.5 million over 2020 election coverage. Internal texts revealed Carlson’s private frustrations and inflammatory language, alienating executives. Critics inside Fox described him as having grown “too big for his boots,” with racially charged comments and misogynistic undertones surfacing in discovery. Murdoch himself reportedly ordered the firing, viewing Carlson’s toxicity as a liability amid mounting legal and reputational risks. I always thought Carlson did a decent job as a reporter—grounded enough to challenge narratives effectively—but he was never as consistently anchored as O’Reilly. His style appealed to the same audience, yet the corporate structure eventually constrained him.
Once freed from Fox, Carlson found a massive platform on X (formerly Twitter), bolstered by support from Elon Musk and others. Celebrity status untethered from corporate oversight can be intoxicating. I have observed this pattern repeatedly: individuals discover fame independent of the old guard, and their heads swell. Carlson’s post-Fox trajectory followed this path. He campaigned vigorously for Trump in 2024, headlining events, interviewing the candidate, and even influencing discussions about the VP selection, including J.D. Vance. Many Democrats and independents joined the “Trump bandwagon” too—Joe Rogan, Alex Jones, and others—uniting behind a shared vision. I was invited to several VIP package events in Ohio where Carlson was set to headline during the election cycle. These were high-profile gatherings with figures like Bernie Moreno and J.D. Vance, promising networking and insight. As someone deeply involved in Ohio politics and conservative circles, I enjoy such environments. Yet I declined. My calendar was full, but more importantly, I sensed something off with Carlson—a growing ego, a detachment from the grassroots he once claimed to represent. I had a feeling this might eventually reveal itself, and it has.
In the 2024 election, Trump secured victory with approximately 73.5 million popular votes and 312 electoral votes, compared with Kamala Harris’s roughly 69 million popular votes. Turnout was solid but lower than 2020 in many areas, with Trump maintaining or slightly improving margins in key demographics. Claims of widespread fraud persisted on both sides post-election, echoing 2020 debates, but the results held under scrutiny in states with voter ID requirements and robust audits. I have long argued that election integrity matters profoundly; where voter ID is absent, or mail-in processes lack safeguards, problems arise—as seen in 2020. Yet the core truth is this: Trump did not win because of celebrity endorsements. Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, or any podcaster did not deliver the one or two percentage points that carried him across the finish line. Voters did. Trump positioned himself as their representative—listening, adapting, and embodying frustrations with the status quo. Without any of those high-profile backers, the numbers would not have changed meaningfully. People vote for whoever they believe represents them, not for whoever a media figure tells them to support.
This brings us to the present, year two of the second Trump administration. Carlson has fallen dramatically out of alignment with the Trump agenda, particularly over U.S. involvement in the Israel-Iran conflict. He has publicly expressed regret for campaigning for Trump, apologizing on his podcast for “misleading people” and admitting he will be “tormented” by his role. He has accused Trump of becoming a “slave” to Israel, claiming external pressures from donors and influencers pushed the administration into war despite America First promises. Carlson argues the conflict serves Israeli interests over American ones, a stance that has alienated him from many former supporters. I find this preposterous and ego-driven. No single commentator, no matter how influential on X or in podcasts, possesses the power to “make” a president or dictate foreign policy outcomes. Carlson never had that kind of sway at Fox, nor does he now. His regret stems from a fantasy that his endorsement was pivotal—when, in reality, it was the voters who chose Trump as their representative.
I have seen this celebrity bubble up close. During the campaign, many high-profile figures climbed aboard the Trump train after initial skepticism. Musk poured resources and personal endorsement into the effort; Rogan hosted landmark interviews. It was a unifying moment for the right and some disaffected left-leaning voices. Yet as I have written in my own work, including The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, true leadership and strategy come from understanding systems, not inflating personal myths. Trump adapted to the people’s will—he listened to their concerns on the economy, borders, and cultural erosion. If elections were held again today under fair conditions (no Covid-era irregularities, full voter ID enforcement), the outcome would likely mirror 2024. Democrats traded Biden for Harris, knowing the 2020 fraud playbook could not be replicated without backlash. People ultimately vote for their representative, not the podcast host’s narrative.
The hard lesson for Carlson—and anyone tempted by similar hubris—is that loyalty to the movement and its representative endures. Trump voters are not abandoning him over foreign policy disagreements; they see the bigger picture of domestic priorities. Fox News knew this audience intimately: Republicans who clock in early, work hard, and catch news at 8 p.m. after dinner and a shower. The network thrived by reliably filling that slot, whether with O’Reilly, Carlson, or now Watters. When Fox pushed Carlson amid tensions with Trump and the Murdoch family’s unease, a segment of the audience followed him to X, but that loyalty fractured when he turned against the agenda voters had endorsed. Rebels who break from the core movement find themselves on the outside looking in.
This is not unique to Carlson. Media personalities often overestimate their role. I did not attend those Ohio events, not out of disdain but intuition: something in Carlson’s independence felt unmoored, destined to clash with the representative nature of Trump’s coalition. I have met Vance, Moreno, and others in collaborative settings focused on political tasks, and those environments succeed because they prioritize the people’s will over individual egos. Tucker’s current path—anti-Trump rhetoric on Iran—illustrates the peril of believing one “made” the president. It is preposterous, ego-driven, and disconnected from electoral reality.
In the end, the true essence of politics lies in representation. Trump offered himself as that vessel, adapting to voters’ intentions without needing celebrity validation. Media figures report what busy Americans lack time to discover; they do not create presidents. Celebrities like Carlson, Musk, or Rogan provided support and enjoyed the ride, but Trump’s victories—past and future—stem from the courage of ordinary voters rejecting the status quo. Election fraud debates aside, when the system functions with integrity, the people’s choice prevails.
The Murdoch family’s Trump skepticism, Carlson’s bubble, and the 2024 bandwagon all underscore one fact: no media tycoon or podcaster controls the executive branch. Voters do. And that will remain the case.
Footnotes
¹ Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump’s relationship has been documented extensively as transactional yet fraught; see sources below.
² Tucker Carlson’s firing and internal dynamics are detailed in contemporaneous reporting.
³ Viewership data from Nielsen via industry analyses.
⁴ 2024 election tallies from Associated Press and state certifications.
⁵ Carlson’s 2026 statements on Iran from interviews and podcasts.
Bibliography
• “The Intertwined Legacies of Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump.” The New Yorker, September 12, 2025.
• “Tucker Carlson’s Ugly Exit From Fox News.” Vanity Fair, October 31, 2023.
• “Tucker Carlson Fired by Fox News.” The Guardian, October 31, 2023.
• “Tucker Carlson Apologizes for Backing Trump.” KOMO News, April 21, 2026.
• “Tucker Carlson Says He Is ‘Tormented’ by His Past Support.” The New York Times, April 21, 2026.
• “Jesse Watters Ratings Compared to Tucker Carlson.” Newsweek, July 19, 2023.
• 2024 U.S. Election Results. Associated Press, November 2024.
• Hoffman, Rich. The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business.
• Additional reporting from NPR, BBC, and Fox News internal analyses on ratings and programming.
Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, political strategist, systems thinker, and independent researcher of ancient history, the paranormal, and the Dead Sea Scrolls tradition. His life in high‑stakes manufacturing, high‑level politics, and cross‑functional crisis management gives him a field‑tested understanding of power — both human and unseen.
He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.
Hoffman writes with the credibility of a problem-solver, the curiosity of an archaeologist, and the courage of a frontline witness who has gone to very scary places and reported what lurked there. Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.
I have been saying for years that the vertical air taxi market—powered by electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft—would quite literally take off, and that by the end of 2026 it would become commonplace in major cities and airports across the country. Leading up to 2025 and into 2026, I told everyone who would listen that Joby Aviation was positioned to lead this transformation, turning what many dismissed as science fiction into everyday reality. And right on cue, at the end of April 2026—specifically during demonstrations from April 25 through April 27 and extending into the following days—Joby completed New York City’s first-ever point-to-point eVTOL air taxi flights, soaring from John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) to Manhattan heliports in under 10 minutes (some reports clocked segments at just seven minutes). This wasn’t just a flashy stunt; it was a critical FAA milestone under the eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP), showcasing seamless integration into one of the world’s busiest and most tightly regulated airspaces. The flights validated everything I had predicted: quiet, emissions-free, stable vertical flight that outperforms noisy traditional helicopters, all while promising to slash travel times and transform how we move in and out of urban centers.
To understand why this moment feels so validating, it helps to step back and consider the substantial background of the eVTOL industry and Joby Aviation specifically. eVTOL technology represents the convergence of electric propulsion, advanced batteries, distributed electric propulsion (multiple rotors for redundancy and safety), and fly-by-wire controls—essentially combining the vertical agility of a helicopter with the efficiency and quiet operation of a fixed-wing aircraft. Unlike traditional helicopters, which rely on loud combustion engines and single rotors, Joby’s S4 aircraft uses 12 electric propellers (six tilting for forward flight, six dedicated for lift) powered by high-energy-density batteries. This design delivers near-silent operation—reportedly 100 times quieter than helicopters during takeoff and landing in some metrics —with cruise noise levels around 45 dB at altitude, quieter than normal conversation. It uses no jet fuel, produces zero tailpipe emissions, and offers far greater stability in flight. The aircraft carries a pilot and up to four passengers, making it ideal for premium, on-demand service akin to Uber Black but in the sky.
Joby Aviation, founded in 2009 and headquartered in Santa Cruz, California, has spent more than a decade refining this vision. Backed by heavyweights like Toyota (a manufacturing partner providing automotive-grade expertise and capital), Delta Air Lines, and Uber, the company has methodically progressed through FAA certification stages. By early 2026, Joby had flown its first FAA-conforming aircraft (March 11), entered the final Type Inspection Authorization phase, and cleared Stage 4 of the five-stage certification process. The April 2026 Manhattan demonstrations—part of a week-long campaign using existing heliports such as Downtown Skyport, West 30th Street, and East 34th Street—were not passenger-carrying commercial flights but rather critical proof-of-concept operations. They demonstrated point-to-point integration with FAA-controlled airspace at one of America’s busiest airports, building on New York’s selection as part of the White House-backed eIPP announced in March 2026. Joby was named a partner on five projects spanning 12 states, accelerating the path to commercial rollout. These flights weren’t isolated; Joby has conducted similar demos globally, but Manhattan’s dense urban environment was the ultimate credibility check.
The numbers tell a compelling story of momentum. Joby aims to launch a paying passenger service in late 2026, starting potentially in Dubai (where regulatory support is strong) before scaling in the U.S. Production is ramping aggressively: the company acquired a second major facility in Dayton, Ohio—a 700,000-square-foot site now operational and poised to help double output to four aircraft per month by 2027. Combined with its California operations, this positions Joby for rapid scaling. Analysts project that the global eVTOL market could reach tens of billions of dollars annually within a decade, driven by urban congestion relief, airport access, and tourism applications. Joby has already acquired Blade Air Mobility’s passenger business, integrating into Uber’s app for seamless booking. Early economics suggest fares comparable to premium ground services or helicopters today, but with far greater speed and comfort. I have watched this trajectory closely, and the April 2026 events align perfectly with the economic development path I outlined a year ago: infrastructure, certification, and political vision converging to make air taxis as routine as ride-sharing.
Here in southern Ohio, this revolution hits close to home. Butler County—home to Hamilton, Middletown, Fairfield, and Oxford—sits just north of Cincinnati and is ideally positioned for an air taxi hub. I have long advocated for this alongside Michael Ryan, the Republican nominee for Butler County Commissioner and a forward-thinking leader who gets it. Ryan, a former Hamilton City Councilman and Vice Mayor, has been pushing for advanced manufacturing and aviation infrastructure since his early days in local government. He has toured facilities such as the National Advanced Air Mobility Center of Excellence and met with Joby representatives multiple times in late 2025 to lay the groundwork for a vertiport (vertical takeoff/landing pad) in Hamilton or across broader Butler County. While others dismissed it as futuristic fantasy, Ryan saw the opportunity to position our community as a leader rather than a late adopter. With Joby’s Dayton facility just up the road—already gearing up for mass production—Butler County could become a regional nexus for eVTOL operations, serving Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, Dayton International, and local business travelers. Imagine skipping hour-long traffic snarls on I-75: a quick app hail from a city-center pad or Westchester area, a 10-15 minute flight, and you’re at the terminal. No more rental cars, buses, or tolls for trips to Orlando’s cruise ports or Disney parks—direct sky taxi from hotel to ship in under 15 minutes.
This brings us squarely into the political arena and the critical May 2026 primary election. As primaries loom in early May—specifically May 5 for Butler County—the choice for commissioner couldn’t be clearer. Michael Ryan is the endorsed Republican candidate, backed overwhelmingly by the Butler County Republican Party (71% of the central committee vote in January 2026). He faces incumbent Cindy Carpenter, who chose not to seek the party’s endorsement and has a track record that many in the community find troubling. Roger Reynolds, the former county auditor whose past legal issues lingered in the background, briefly entered the race but dropped out after the GOP’s decisive support for Ryan. I have driven around Butler County and seen the contrast in campaign signs firsthand. Ryan’s signs look sharp, crisp, and well-maintained—fresh volunteers keeping them upright across Hamilton, Middletown, and beyond. Carpenter’s signs, plastered aggressively in early April (or late March), now appear tattered, faded, and weather-beaten just weeks before the vote. They flap like old, neglected flags, a visual metaphor for a campaign lacking the grassroots energy to sustain momentum. Signs can deceive at first glance, projecting illusory support, but maintenance reveals the truth: real backing requires ongoing work, not just a burst of spending at the outset.
I have followed local politics closely, and the differences between the candidates stand out vividly. Michael Ryan is a conservative with proven results in job creation, tax relief, and economic development during his time on Hamilton City Council. As vice mayor, he championed initiatives like the Advanced Manufacturing Hub and aviation-related projects that align directly with the eVTOL future. His energy, fresh ideas, and willingness to engage visionaries like Joby early—when they were still navigating hurdles—set him apart. Ryan understands that politicians with foresight bring communities into leadership roles on emerging technologies. Butler County doesn’t need to play catch-up a decade from now; it can lead now, while the market is at its hottest. The vertical airspace sector is arguably the most dynamic in the U.S. economy right now, with Dubai, China, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Orlando all moving fast. A Joby hub here would mean jobs, tourism boosts, and infrastructure that attracts businesses—opportunities that would be impossible without proactive leadership.
In contrast, Cindy Carpenter’s tenure has been marked by controversies that have alienated even fellow Republicans. She has faced scrutiny for public behavior unbecoming of high office—including documented incidents of intimidation and foul language—and was caught campaigning for Democrats in races like Middletown’s mayoral contest, a move that cost her the GOP endorsement. Everyone I speak with wants to move on from that style of politics. Her campaign’s reliance on outdated signs and legacy networks feels like an attempt to manufacture the illusion of broad support from “Rhino” elements resistant to change. But voters see through it. The Republican Party has adjusted, listening to the grassroots and aligning with leaders who embrace the future rather than clinging to the past. Ryan’s team has volunteers out maintaining visibility because the support is real—not propped up by a handful of upset insiders.
As someone who has collaborated with Ryan on these forward-looking ideas, I can attest to his genuine commitment. He has been trying to schedule deeper engagements with Joby, but their schedule is now packed, as Joby is the hottest ticket in aviation. That alone shows how prescient his initial outreach in 2025 was. Once through the primary—widely seen as the real contest in this heavily Republican county—Ryan will be well-positioned for the general election. Over the summer and fall of 2026, I expect him to facilitate demonstration events showcasing Joby aircraft right here in Butler County. Imagine community fly-ins or vertiport planning sessions that highlight the vision: quick hops to Dayton or Cincinnati airports, avoiding traffic, and positioning us as an eVTOL leader alongside Manhattan, Dubai, and Orlando. This is the kind of bold, conservative leadership that drives sustainable growth without raising taxes or burdening residents.
The broader implications extend far beyond one county. Globally, places like Orlando are eyeing eVTOLs to ferry tourists from Disney hotels directly to cruise terminals on the Space Coast—no more buses, rental cars, or toll roads. China and the Middle East are investing heavily. Here at home, airports like Dayton International and regional pads in Westchester or Hamilton could become hubs. Joby and competitors like Archer Aviation (with its focus on Georgia) are racing, but Joby’s Dayton presence and certification lead give it the edge, in my view. Archer has strong backing and production ambitions, yet Joby’s momentum—Toyota manufacturing expertise, Uber integration, and real-world demos—makes it the frontrunner for near-term scale. The industry isn’t zero-sum; both will grow, but early adopters like Butler County win by partnering with the most advanced player now.
I do not doubt that if elections were held today under these dynamics, Michael Ryan would prevail because voters crave representatives who deliver results and vision. Primaries often see lower turnout, but that makes every vote crucial. Do not take it for granted—get out and vote for Michael Ryan on May 5, 2026. This primary is the gateway to a stronger general election campaign and, ultimately, to realizing these opportunities. With Ryan in the commissioner’s seat, Butler County secures its place in the new transportation economy. Cindy Carpenter’s approach—reactive, divisive, and disconnected from innovation—offers no such path. Her signs may have looked imposing at the campaign’s start, but their current state tells the real story: neglected support from a candidate whose time has passed.
Looking ahead, the future of air taxis is bright and efficient. Start with pilots, transition to autonomous operations as regulations evolve, and watch as it becomes as simple as ordering an Uber. For working professionals, families heading to cruises, or business travelers dodging gridlock, this changes everything. Joby’s Manhattan milestone isn’t the end—it’s the beginning of nationwide rollout. And thanks to leaders like Michael Ryan, who embraced it early, southern Ohio won’t be left behind. I have been consistent on this for years because the technology, economics, and political will are aligning exactly as forecasted. Those who invested early—financially or politically—stand to benefit enormously. The hottest market sector in the economy is vertical airspace, and Butler County is poised to claim its share.
This episode also underscores a deeper truth about politics and progress: true leadership adapts to people’s needs and future realities, much like the representative government I have discussed in other contexts. Trump voters and everyday Americans choose leaders who listen and deliver—not those trapped in past grievances. Ryan embodies that forward momentum. Carpenter’s record of supporting Democrats in key races and public missteps has left her isolated. The party’s decision to back fresh ideas over incumbency was wise and reflects a broader adjustment toward innovation.
The rubber is hitting the road—or rather, the aircraft are taking off. Joby Aviation’s April 2026 demonstrations in Manhattan confirm what I have been saying all along. With Michael Ryan leading Butler County into this new era, our communities stand to gain jobs, infrastructure, and a competitive edge that legacy thinking could never provide. Vote early, vote often in spirit, and make your voice heard in the primary. The future is electric, vertical, and fast—and it’s arriving right on schedule.
Footnotes
¹ Joby Aviation press release detailing April 2026 NYC demonstrations and eIPP participation.
² FAA certification progress and conforming aircraft timeline from industry reports.
³ Noise and stability comparisons between eVTOLs and helicopters.
⁴ Butler County Republican Party endorsement and primary candidate details.
⁵ Michael Ryan’s economic development record and aviation advocacy.
⁶ Joby manufacturing expansion in Dayton, Ohio.
⁷ Market projections and global adoption outlook for the eVTOL sector.
Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, political strategist, systems thinker, and independent researcher of ancient history, the paranormal, and the Dead Sea Scrolls tradition. His life in high‑stakes manufacturing, high‑level politics, and cross‑functional crisis management gives him a field‑tested understanding of power — both human and unseen.
He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.
Hoffman writes with the credibility of a problem-solver, the curiosity of an archaeologist, and the courage of a frontline witness who has gone to very scary places and reported what lurked there. Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.
James Comey has justifiably found himself in the crosshairs of another indictment. This time, it is not just some rehash of old Russia-hoax issue, which is very serious in its own way, or his handling of the Clinton emails; this time, it is for something far more sinister and far more revealing about the way power really works in this country. He posted a picture on Instagram last year of seashells arranged on a beach spelling out “8647.” To the untrained eye, it might look like a harmless beach walk memento, captioned innocently enough as “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.” But those of us who have lived a little, who have brushed up against the real underbelly of society, know exactly what that means. “86” has long been mob slang for “get rid of,” “cancel,” or, more directly in the circles I have known, “kill him.” And 47? That is the 47th president of the United States, Donald Trump. Comey knew what he was doing. He was sending out a signal, the kind of coded message that people in the shadows understand perfectly, while the rest of us are left scratching our heads, wondering why the former director of the FBI would suddenly become an amateur seashell artist.
I said the last time he wiggled out of an indictment that he would keep pushing. And here we are. The indictment dropped just days after another attempted assassination plot against President Trump and members of his administration at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner held at the Hilton in Washington, D.C. The timing is no coincidence. The preparation for these legal moves had been underway in the background, but the justification—the public outrage, the manifestos left by disturbed individuals—gave them the cover they needed. The guy who tried to breach security at that dinner left a manifesto that screamed the kind of radical, unhinged hatred that has been stoked for years by people in high places. These are exactly the sort of fringe lunatics Comey and others like him have been winking at for a long time. I have said it before, and I will say it again: there is always a tiny percentage of the population—maybe half a percent—who are so unhinged that they will act on the signals sent by powerful figures. They do not need direct orders. A seashell formation, a casual remark about “hitting hard,” a call to “fight” in the streets—that is enough for the right kind of crazy to interpret it as permission. And when that happens, the people who sent the signal keep their hands clean while the blood flows elsewhere. I actually provide several chapters of detail on this kind of activity in my upcoming book, The Politics of Heaven, and yes, God has assassins always trying to plot his downfall, in much the same way. And we see that battle playing out in many levels of spiritual warfare.
This is not speculation on my part. I have seen how this world operates up close, and that experience is exactly why I can look at Comey’s little seashell stunt and know, without a shadow of doubt, what he intended. I have never hidden the fact that I spent time around some rough characters in my younger days, particularly in the Cincinnati and northern Kentucky area. Newport, Kentucky, just across the river, was once known as “Sin City,” a place where organized crime ran wide open with gambling joints, brothels, bootlegging operations, and every vice you could imagine. It was the prototype for what Las Vegas would later become, funded by the same networks that stretched from Chicago to Cleveland to New York. The mob had its tentacles deep into southern Ohio, too—along Chester Road in Sharonville, in the shadows of City Hall in Cincinnati, places where legitimate business mixed with the illegitimate in ways that most people shopping for milk and cookies at the grocery store never wanted to know about. Judges knew what was going on and looked the other way. Prosecutors were afraid for their families. Cops took envelopes or pretended not to see. It was the way business was done, and I had a front-row seat because I could absorb risk without cracking under pressure. I did not drink, I did not do drugs, and people trusted me with large sums of money because they knew I would do the right thing.
Let me tell you a couple of stories that illustrate exactly the kind of signaling I am talking about. Back when I was working for a company that dealt with a lot of cash flow, one of these characters—a guy connected in ways I did not fully understand at the time but later pieced together—asked me to drive him down to a townhouse in Cincinnati, not far from City Hall. I was doing legitimate business with City Hall in those days, so it did not seem out of place. He had a suitcase in the back seat of my car. I had a strict no-smoking rule posted clearly, and everyone respected it because I was the sober driver they could trust. While he was inside the house longer than expected, something felt off. So I cracked open the suitcase. Inside was a lot of cash and a lot of cocaine. I closed it right back up, left him there, drove straight back to the office, and told the bureau manager exactly what I had seen. The look on that manager’s face told me everything—he knew. They had been using me as the clean driver, the guy who would not ask questions and take them in and out of really dangerous situations. I did not work there much longer after that. It got weird. But I walked away with my integrity intact. There’s a lot more story to tell, but let’s just say I’m still around. Many of them aren’t. Bad things happen to bad people, and I don’t have to spell that out with seashells on a beach.
Another time, I was driving a professional sports celebrity—one well-known in Cincinnati—along with four of his girlfriends, all about my age. We pulled into a nightclub parking lot, and this guy, drunk as a skunk, dropped ten thousand dollars out of his jacket. Hundreds scattered everywhere in the wind. The girls in their heels were stumbling around trying to help, and one of them even broke a heel. I got out, chased down every last bill, and handed it all back to him. I could have kept some—no one would have known—, but that is not who I am. I have always been the guy who gives it back, who does the right thing even when no one is watching. That same circle of people trusted me because I was reliable, sober, and not interested in their girls or their vices. They sought me out to drive them around with their celebrity friends, stacks of cash, and all the temptations that come with that life. I saw the signals they used among themselves—casual phrases, gestures, the way they would talk about “taking care of business” without ever saying the quiet part out loud. Hitmen I knew in those days operated the same way. They did not advertise; they responded to the bat signal, the coded message that let them know what was expected without leaving fingerprints.
That is precisely what Comey did with those seashells. As director of the FBI, he spent years dealing with organized crime, making deals with witnesses, flipping hitmen, and understanding the language of the streets better than most street operators themselves. He knew “86” was not just restaurant slang for canceling an order; in the mob world, it has meant something darker for generations. He knew 47 referred to the man who had just been elected president for the second time. And he knew there were radicals out there— the kind who write manifestos and case hotels like the one at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner—who would read that message loud and clear. The same goes for the assassin who took out Charlie Kirk in September of last year at Utah Valley University. These are not isolated incidents. They are the result of years of reckless rhetoric from people who should know better. Eric Holder talking about “when they go low, we kick them.” Nancy Pelosi ripping up speeches on camera. Maxine Waters telling crowds to harass Trump officials in public places. Chuck Schumer, standing on the steps of the Supreme Court, warned justices that they would “reap the whirlwind” if they ruled the wrong way. These are not neutral political statements. They are signals, the modern version of putting out seashells on a beach.
I can say without hesitation that I have despised Barack Obama for years. “Hate” is too soft a word; I see him as a product of the Weather Underground crowd—Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, and the rest of those America-hating radicals—who helped shape a worldview meant to undo the foundations of this country. He was always a communist at heart in my view, always playing the long game to weaken the United States from within. But even in my angriest moments, I never once contemplated violence against him. I never plotted, never whispered a word to anyone about harming him or anyone in his circle. The only thought I ever had was to defeat him at the ballot box. I rallied behind Mitt Romney in 2012, felt the sting when he lost, and watched John McCain play too nice in 2008 while Obama played hardball. Republicans kept bringing a softball to a knife fight, and we kept losing. That frustration is what led many of us to support Trump in the first place—he was willing to fight back the way the Democrats had been fighting for decades. But fighting back means holding elections, engaging in debates, filing lawsuits, and exposing corruption in the light of day. It does not mean sending coded messages that inspire lunatics to grab guns and storm hotels or snipe activists on college campuses.
That is why I got involved in politics myself. I want to shape the world the way I believe it should be—through truth, justice, and the American way. I participate in discourse; I write; I speak out; I support candidates who share my values. I do not sit in the shadows hoping some unhinged person will do my dirty work for me. The manifesto left by the guy at the Hilton showed real planning, real hatred, the kind of thinking that does not come from nowhere. It comes from years of mainstream figures normalizing the idea that Trump and his supporters are not just political opponents but existential threats who must be stopped by any means. Comey’s post was the latest in a long line of those signals, and the fact that it came right before—or right around—the time of another assassination attempt is not lost on me. The day after that incident at the dinner, the indictments were announced. The background work had already been done, but the public justification was now there.
People who have not lived the life I have lived do not understand how these things work. They think threats have to be explicit: “Go kill him.” But that is not how the real operators do it. They keep their hands clean. They project desire through symbols and phrases that sound innocuous to outsiders but carry weight for those in the know. I have known hitmen, judges who looked the other way, and mob figures who ran entire regions while pretending to be legitimate business people. I have seen how intimidation works—threats to families, dogs killed, cars blown up, houses vandalized. It happened all the time in Newport and along Chester Road in Sharonville back in the day. The mob had real power because people feared the consequences of crossing them. Prosecutors did not want their kids targeted. Judges did not want their reputations ruined. That is how organized crime survived for so long in southern Ohio and northern Kentucky. It is also how political corruption survives today. Comey knew this world intimately from his time at the FBI. He prosecuted some of these people, flipped others, and learned the language. When he posted those seashells, he was speaking that language, hoping one of the “crazies” on the fringe would act while he played the innocent Boy Scout afterward.
Look at his record. He let Hillary Clinton off the hook on the emails despite clear evidence of mishandling classified information. He sat on the Weiner laptop that contained damning material. The Hunter Biden laptop? Everyone in the intelligence community knew it was real, yet they suppressed it. The Russia collusion hoax against Trump was allowed to fester under his watch. These were not mistakes; they were choices. Choices that protected one side and targeted the other. That is the two-tier system of justice we have been living under for far too long. And when Trump got reelected, the desperation kicked in. The signals got louder. The seashells came out. Now, Comey faces charges for threatening the president and transmitting that threat across state lines via Instagram. Legal experts are already calling it a stretch, citing First Amendment issues, but I say those “experts” are wrong. Wrong in a big way. It is time someone held these people accountable.
The mob in this region did not disappear overnight. It lost power in the late 1960s and 1970s when federal crackdowns finally got serious, with casinos shut down and corruption scandals piling up. But the culture it left behind—the understanding of how power really operates, how signals are sent and received—lingers in the background. Normal people go about their lives unaware that there are networks of influence, coded communications, and people willing to act on them. I had the rare opportunity to see that world from the inside without becoming part of it. I drove the car, I saw the cash, I rejected the drugs, and I returned the money. I learned that ethics matter most when no one is looking. And I took those lessons into my political life. That is why I can call out Comey with confidence. That is why I know he was not just sharing a pretty picture. He was activating the same kind of network he once helped dismantle—or at least pretended to.
There is a larger conversation here about how criminal elements coexist with polite society. While families shop for groceries and cheer at ballgames, there is another layer operating just beneath the surface. In Newport during its heyday, celebrities like Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe rubbed shoulders with gangsters. Money flowed through legitimate businesses that fronted for illegal ones. Judges played golf with the same men they were supposed to be sentencing. It was a web of relationships that protected the powerful. The same web exists in politics today. Comey is not some lone eccentric posting pictures; he is part of a network that has spent years trying to undo the results of fair elections. The attempted hits on Trump—multiple now, including the one at the Hilton—and the murder of Charlie Kirk are symptoms of a sickness that starts at the top with people who should know better. They talk tough, they wink at violence, and then they act shocked when someone acts on it.
I have never participated in or condoned assassination talk. I have friends and acquaintances across the political spectrum, and we disagree fiercely, but we settle it at the polls or in the public square. That is the American way. Anything else is the road to chaos. Comey needs to face the full weight of the law, not just for the seashells but for the pattern of behavior that has eroded trust in our institutions for years. He should never see the outside of a jail cell again if justice is truly impartial. The same goes for others who have played the same game. It is time to prosecute the signals as well as the shooters. The bat signal has been sent one too many times. The public is watching now. The manifestos are being read. The connections are being made.
Truth, justice, and the American way are not slogans for me; they are the operating system. And right now, that system is under attack from within by people who think they can signal violence and then hide behind plausible deniability. Comey’s indictment is a step in the right direction, but it needs to be the beginning of a much larger reckoning. More charges. More accountability. More exposure of the two-tier system that has protected the corrupt for too long.
The guy who tried to get into the Hilton had been planning. The killer of Charlie Kirk had a rifle and a clear shot. These are not random acts of madness; they are the predictable outcome of years of demonization and coded encouragement. When powerful former officials post cryptic messages right before or around such events, it is no coincidence. It is pattern recognition. I have the experience to see the pattern because I lived it. I drove the car. I saw the suitcase. I picked up the money and gave it back. I reported what I saw even when it cost me a job, a really high paying job. That is the difference between people like Comey. He chose the shadows.
There is a lot more that could be said about the history of organized crime in this part of the country. Newport’s casinos and brothels were legendary. Figures like Moe Dalitz and connections to Meyer Lansky funneled money that helped build Las Vegas. Local officials were bought or intimidated. The Cleveland mob had a strong presence here, as did Chicago’s influence. It was a sophisticated network that understood how to operate in plain sight. Numbers runners worked out of places like Chester Road. Judges knew the players and still presided over their cases. It took federal intervention and public outrage to clean it up finally, but the lessons remain. Power protects itself. Signals are sent. And the little guy who gets caught in the middle either plays along or stands up.
I stood up. I still stand up. That is why I am in politics, why I speak out every day, and why I will keep calling this out until real justice is done. James Comey knew what those seashells meant. He knew the kind of people who would hear the message. He knew the history of coded communication because he lived it at the highest levels of law enforcement. And now he is facing the consequences. It is about time. There needs to be a lot more indictments, a lot more prosecutions, and a lot more honesty about how the game has been played. The American people deserve better than manipulative elites playing with fire while pretending to be above it all. We deserve leaders who fight fair, who respect the ballot box, and who do not wink at violence when their side loses.
We have seen the underbelly. We know how the signals work. And we will not let them get away with it. The seashells have been swept away, but the message they sent will not be forgotten. Justice is coming, and it starts with holding people like James Comey accountable for the words—and the symbols—they choose to put out into the world.
Footnotes
1. Details of the Comey indictment and “8647” interpretation drawn from multiple contemporaneous reports, April 2026.
2. White House Correspondents’ Dinner attempt by Cole Tomas Allen, April 2026, with released video and manifesto references.
3. Assassination of Charlie Kirk, September 10, 2025, at Utah Valley University.
4. Newport, Kentucky, “Sin City” history, including mob influence, gambling, and corruption from the 1920s to the 1960s.
5. Personal observations of Chester Road and Cincinnati-area organized crime activity consistent with local historical accounts.
6. Examples of political rhetoric from Holder, Waters, Schumer, and Pelosi are documented in public statements over the past decade-plus.
7. FBI and DOJ history with Comey’s handling of Clinton emails, Weiner laptop, and related matters referenced in official reports and congressional testimony.
8. Hank Messick’s works on the Cleveland mob and Newport, including Razzle Dazzle and Syndicate Wife, provide a detailed background on the regional syndicate operations.
9. General statistics on rising political violence post-2024 election drawn from public analyses by groups tracking domestic extremism.
Bibliography
• Messick, Hank. Razzle Dazzle: The Story of the Cleveland Mob.
• Messick, Hank. Syndicate Wife: The Story of Ann Drahmann Coppola.
• Bronson, Peter. Not in Our Town (local history of Cincinnati-area crime).
• Official DOJ indictment documents against James Comey, April 28, 2026.
• News coverage from NBC, Fox, Politico, and BBC on Comey seashell post and related events, 2025–2026.
• Historical accounts of Newport, KY, organized crime from Cincinnati Magazine and Northern Kentucky University sources.
• Public records on political violence incidents, including the Charlie Kirk assassination and the Trump attempts, 2025–2026.
• Durham Report and congressional investigations into FBI conduct under Comey.
Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, political strategist, systems thinker, and independent researcher of ancient history, the paranormal, and the Dead Sea Scrolls tradition. His life in high‑stakes manufacturing, high‑level politics, and cross‑functional crisis management gives him a field‑tested understanding of power — both human and unseen.
He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.
Hoffman writes with the credibility of a problem-solver, the curiosity of an archaeologist, and the courage of a frontline witness who has gone to very scary places and reported what lurked there. Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.
In the quiet rhythm of everyday life, where once a family gathered around the radio on a Sunday drive to church or tuned in to Casey Kasem’s countdown of the top hits, a profound transformation has unfolded—one that few recognized as it crept through the airwaves and into the bedrooms of children across generations. What began as innocent expressions of yearning for love, commitment, and the building of families has morphed, decade by decade, into a calculated barrage of confusion, anger, victimization, and raw hedonism. This is not mere artistic evolution or market demand; it is, I argue, a deliberate strategy woven into the fabric of mass media, engineered by producers and influencers who traded short-term celebrity and power for something far darker—an alignment with forces that undermine the very foundations of stable society, traditional relationships, and the biblical understanding of eternity. It ties directly into what I have long described as the depopulation agenda: a multifaceted campaign not just to control numbers but to erode the human impulse toward marriage, children, and generational continuity, replacing it with isolation, addiction, and spiritual fragmentation. The evidence is voluminous when viewed across the full scope of history, technology, and culture, and it reveals a pattern too consistent to dismiss as coincidence.
Consider the family structure before the age of electricity and broadcast media. Doors were locked, parents controlled the household narrative, and social interactions happened in churches, businesses, or community gatherings. Polite society relied on shared experiences—songs that everyone heard together on the radio, reinforcing values of courtship, devotion, and the dream of a white-picket-fence life. Parents were the gatekeepers; external influences had to pass through them. But with radio waves, then television, and now personal devices streaming infinite content, that gate has been smashed open. Mass marketing and advertising discovered the power of repeated stimuli to sway opinions, and the family unit—once a fortress—became decentralized. Spouses disconnected, children tuned into private worlds on smartphones, and the shared cultural experience evaporated. Apple Music and Spotify deliver algorithm-curated isolation; no longer do families bond over the same top 100 on Sunday afternoons. This fragmentation is no accident. It mirrors the broader spiritual war against sovereignty—of nations, communities, and the individual soul—where outside forces, whether earthly producers or something more sinister, erode the intellect needed to raise good kids and build enduring families.
Trace the musical trajectory since the discovery of broadcast power, and the degrading plot becomes unmistakable. In the 1950s, songs like Elvis Presley’s “Love Me Tender” or classics such as “Earth Angel” by The Penguins captured a culture yearning for genuine connection. Love was portrayed as destiny, leading naturally to marriage, family, and stability. The purpose was clear: find your soulmate, build a life, and contribute to society. These were not raw expressions of lust but hopeful anthems of commitment, played in cars with the whole family, shaping a collective mindset of hope and responsibility. The 1960s continued this trend with Elvis hits emphasizing man and woman in a harmonious partnership, while the 1970s brought soulful ballads from artists evoking deep emotional bonds—songs about finding “the one,” weathering life together, and the warmth of devotion. Even into the 1980s, tracks like Huey Lewis and the News’ “The Power of Love” or Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is” celebrated the drive to connect meaningfully, to work hard, buy a home, and raise a family. Music sold records because it reflected what people wanted: a date that led to vows, children, and a legacy. Producers catered to a market hungry for that vision because society itself still valued it.
Then came the pivot—late 1980s into the 1990s—a deliberate experimentation that shattered the mold. Artists like Marilyn Manson emerged as shock troops, with androgynous imagery, anti-Christian rage, and lyrics that attacked the family unit head-on. Manson, openly tied to the Church of Satan and drawing from occult traditions, embodied the transsexual confusion and demonic rebellion that would later flood mainstream culture. Songs weren’t about building; they were about tearing down—heartbreak as permanent, hookups as norm, authority (especially parental and religious) as the enemy. Rob Zombie and similar acts amplified the anger rock movement, blending horror aesthetics with nihilistic messages. Even KISS, with its demonic stage personas, had earlier produced some love-oriented tracks, but the new wave glorified destruction. This wasn’t organic rebellion; it was engineered to pit children against parents. Kids raised on 1950s-1980s love songs suddenly heard their own generation’s soundtrack declare the old ways oppressive. The goal: undo the values of sacrifice, fidelity, and long-term investment.
Rap music’s mainstream explosion accelerated the assault. Early artists like Run-DMC offered energy and positivity, but by the 1990s, figures like Snoop Dogg—pushed into the spotlight by industry producers—delivered tracks like “Gin and Juice.” Here was the shift crystallized: laid-back hedonism, pocketful of rubbers, smoking dope, partying till dawn in depressed neighborhoods. No more Huey Lewis-style work ethic or dreams of stability; instead, victimization cycles, hopelessness, and a culture of easy sex without consequence. Quincy Jones’ earlier proactive, uplifting productions for artists of color gave way to this new narrative—one that appealed to confusion and resentment, perfectly timed for kids with personal devices bypassing parental oversight. Rap wasn’t just music; it was marketed as rebellion against the “square” family values of prior generations. Studies confirm the lyrical evolution: from 1959 to 1980, popular songs were largely free of explicit content and focused on romance. Post-1990, references to sex, drugs, violence, and substance abuse skyrocketed—drug mentions up 66% since the 1970s, with degrading sexual lyrics linked to earlier teen sexual activity and riskier behaviors.
This cultural reprogramming coincided with measurable societal decline. U.S. marriage rates fell from around 11 per 1,000 people in the 1950s to roughly 6 per 1,000 today. The share of adults who are married dropped from two-thirds in 1950 to about 46% now. Divorce rates, while peaking in 1980, remain elevated compared to mid-century levels, with ever-married women experiencing divorce rates nearly quadrupling since 1900. Fertility rates have plummeted alongside these shifts, contributing to real demographic pressures—not some abstract “overpopulation” panic of old eugenics movements, but a modern crisis of underpopulation driven by delayed or foregone family formation. Attitudes toward same-sex marriage and transgender issues shifted dramatically among younger generations, with Gallup and Pew data showing support rising from minority views in the 1990s to 69%+ today for same-sex marriage, and LGBTQ+ identification reaching 9.3% overall (over 20% among Gen Z). While personal freedoms matter, the broader effect—when combined with music’s normalization of fluid sexuality, hookups, and identity confusion—has been fewer traditional families and births.
Behind the scenes, the producers who greenlit this shift often operated with occult undertones. Aleister Crowley’s influence permeates rock history—from Jimmy Page buying Crowley’s Boleskine House and incorporating his philosophy into Led Zeppelin, to the Beatles featuring Crowley on the cover of Sgt Pepper’s, to David Bowie and the Rolling Stones’ documented flirtations, as documented by filmmaker Kenneth Anger. Marilyn Manson’s self-identification as a Church of Satan minister and his Antichrist Superstar-era provocations weren’t subtle. These weren’t fringe eccentricities; they represented deals for fame, where short-term gains—celebrity, wealth, power—traded against traditional biblical eternity. As I detail extensively in my upcoming book The Politics of Heaven, such alignments with cult practices echo ancient Baal and Moloch worship: human sacrifices to dark forces for immediate reward, now repackaged as artistic “expression.” The intent was never to satisfy audience yearning but to steer it toward brokenness, away from the soulmate/family model that perpetuates civilization.
Streaming technology completed the isolation. No shared Sunday radio experiences; instead, personalized algorithms feed each person their own echo chamber of below-the-line thinking—victimhood, Democrat-driven despair, sexual fluidity. Most modern output assumes a broken society rather than aspiring to one worth building. Love songs still exist, but from fractured perspectives: heartbreak as default, commitment as naive. The depopulation agenda thrives here—not overt sterilization, but cultural seduction that makes family formation seem outdated or oppressive. Pride events, trans narratives, and same-sex normalization, amplified through entertainment, further dilute the reproductive imperative. It is spiritual warfare: demons of old answering modern pacts, undermining God’s creation by targeting the family—the bedrock of sustainable intellect and good society.
Yet awareness is the first counterstrike. By graphing this 70-year arc—love anthems to rage anthems, shared culture to solitary despair—the pattern emerges clearly. Music didn’t just reflect change; it drove it, with producers knowingly wielding it as a back-door weapon into isolated minds. The proof lies in the statistics, the lyrical analyses, the occult threads, and the demographic results. My earlier book, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, showed how to navigate such battles in practical terms; The Politics of Heaven, due in 2027, will map the full treasure hunt through history’s spiritual undercurrents. It’s not too late. Reclaim the narrative—curate what enters your home, teach discernment to the young, and recognize the game for what it is: a military campaign against humanity itself. The airwaves once united us in hope; now, understanding their weaponization can help us rebuild what was nearly lost.
Footnotes
(Integrated via key citations above; full sourcing below for transparency.)
Bibliography
• Bowling Green State University National Center for Family & Marriage Research. “Divorce: More than a Century of Change, 1900-2022.” (2024).
• USAFacts. “How Has Marriage in the US Changed Over Time?” (2025).
• Our World in Data. “Marriages and Divorces.”
• Fedler, Fred et al. “Analysis of Popular Music Reveals Emphasis on Sex, De-Emphasis of Romance.” (1982).
• Madanikia, Y. & Bartholomew, K. “Themes of Lust and Love in Popular Music Lyrics From 1970 to 2010.” SAGE Open (2014).
• Primack et al. Studies on substance use in popular music (various, 2008+).
• Martino, S.C. et al. “Exposure to Degrading Versus Nondegrading Music Lyrics and Sexual Behavior Among Youth.” Pediatrics (2006).
• Louder Than War. “Aleister Crowley’s Influence On Popular Music.” (2017).
• Bebergal, Peter. Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll. (TarcherPerigee, 2014).
• Gallup Historical Trends on LGBTQ+ Rights and Identification (2024-2025).
• Pew Research Center. Reports on LGBTQ+ experiences and attitudes (2025).
Further reading: Michael Hur’s works on the music industry’s shadows; historical analyses of the culture industry (Adorno et al.); and primary sources on 20th-century population policy debates. The full scope demands ongoing research, but the trajectory is undeniable. This essay captures the essence of the deep dive—proof that understanding the game is the path to winning it.
Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, political strategist, systems thinker, and independent researcher of ancient history, the paranormal, and the Dead Sea Scrolls tradition. His life in high‑stakes manufacturing, high‑level politics, and cross‑functional crisis management gives him a field‑tested understanding of power — both human and unseen.
He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.
Hoffman writes with the credibility of a problem-solver, the curiosity of an archaeologist, and the courage of a frontline witness who has gone to very scary places and reported what lurked there. Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.
Looking at the data, I feel really good about where things stand with Jon Husted running to keep the United States Senate seat that Governor Mike DeWine appointed him to after JD Vance became Vice President. It was back in January 2025 when Vance resigned from the Senate to take the oath of office as VP, and DeWine made the smart call to send Jon Husted up to Washington to fill that vacancy until the people could vote on it in the special election this November 2026. Jon had already proven himself as lieutenant governor, as secretary of state, and even before that as Speaker of the Ohio House, but getting that individual platform in the Senate has let him shine in ways I always knew he could. I get to meet a lot of people through my work and my networks here in Ohio, and I do know Jon Husted a little bit—we share quite a few mutual friends, and I’ve been on conference calls with him during the thick of the COVID days, when he was still lieutenant governor. Those calls were tough for him personally because he’s a pro-business guy at heart, and he wasn’t thrilled being wrapped up in the administration’s policies that sometimes felt like they were driving everything over a cliff, especially with the health director calling so many shots. He had to stand there as one of the three faces, giving daily updates on protocols and representing the governor’s point of view, even when it went against his own instincts to keep businesses alive and families working. But even then, I saw how he operated in the background, whispering in the right ears and pushing back on some of the worst lockdown ideas, especially around business interruption insurance claims and keeping some sanity in the administration that could have gone even further off the rails. I can personally say that because I was on several of those phone calls where Jon presented ideas that helped pull things back from the edge, and it showed me he’s the kind of leader who gets results even when he’s not the one out front taking all the credit. Now that he’s in the Senate as an individual voice rather than part of a team, he’s been able to put a sharp professional edge on the issues that matter most to Ohio, like election integrity and preventing fraud through simple, common-sense measures like voter ID that should be national policy for every federal election. He’s done a monumental job in his short time there, and I’m proud of him for it—proud enough that I think it’s going to be fantastic for him to win a full term and stand alongside Bernie Moreno as Ohio’s two Republican senators. Having Bernie and Jon in those seats would be exciting for the state, especially after Bernie knocked off Sherrod Brown in 2024, one of the most satisfying political upsets in recent memory.
Sherrod Brown, of course, is trying to sneak back into politics now that the seat is up for grabs in this special election. He lost to Bernie Moreno fair and square in 2024, but Brown has always been the face of progressive politics in Ohio—the Democrat embodiment of everything that’s wrong with big government overreach, endless spending, and policies that hurt working families while pretending to help them. He wants back in bad, and he’s campaigning hard against Jon, but the polling right now tells a story that should make every conservative in Ohio breathe a little easier, at least for the moment. RealClearPolitics, as of late April 2026, has Jon Husted at 48.3 percent and Sherrod Brown at 45.7 percent, and that three-point edge holds pretty steady across most of the well-known polling houses that are out there. It’s early—primaries are May 5, and the general is still months away in November—but for a race this high-profile, that lead feels significant. I don’t put a ton of stock in polls the way some people do because a lot of conservatives I know are too busy living their lives and working to sit around answering pollsters, while the other side tends to over-sample their base. So when Republicans show even a slight edge this far out, it’s actually quite telling. Ohio has been trending more Republican for years now, and Trump’s influence has redefined the kind of union voters who used to automatically go Democrat in the north, where Brown built his career. Those folks—steelworkers, autoworkers, the backbone of Ohio’s industrial heart—are now openly voting for whoever Trump picks, and that includes Jon Husted. It’s a three- or four-point swing that used to go the other way, giving Democrats a shot in what they thought was a purple state. But Trump pulled Ohio by double digits in 2024, and the same momentum is carrying over. Brown isn’t saying anything new; he’s been peddling the same progressive line for decades, and people have caught on. The voters who swung eleven points or more toward Trump from Obama or Biden eras aren’t going back.
What makes me even more optimistic is how Jon has handled his short run as senator so far. He came in with a track record that screams competence and results. As Ohio secretary of state, he was the architect of “easy to vote, hard to cheat” election reforms, including voter ID requirements that have held up in court and proven themselves in real elections. Ohio’s system is a model now—strict enough to prevent fraud but accessible enough that turnout keeps climbing. In the Senate, one of the first big things Jon did was introduce S. 4155, a bill to require photo identification as a condition of casting a ballot in federal elections nationwide, along with other security measures. That’s exactly the kind of common-sense reform we need to stop the kind of loose election laws in other states that invite problems. He’s also sponsored the Upward Mobility Act to tackle the benefits cliff that traps people in poverty by punishing them for earning more, the Critical Minerals Investment Tax Modernization Act to boost American manufacturing and reduce dependence on China, and even Sammy’s Law for protecting kids in certain contexts. He’s pushed the No Fentanyl on Social Media Act and worked on railway safety improvements. In his first year alone, three of his bills were signed into law, including a Congressional Review Act resolution that repealed a Biden-era appliance-efficiency rule that would have driven up costs for Ohio families on everything from air conditioners to washing machines. Jon also helped pass tax relief through the Working Families Tax Cuts Act—no taxes on tips or overtime, expanded child tax credits, and income tax cuts that put real money back in people’s pockets, about $7,000 more per average Ohio family. That’s the kind of pro-growth, pro-family work that defines him, and it’s why I think he’s going to be even better with a full six-year term.
I contrast that with Sherrod Brown, and it’s night and day. Brown built his brand on being a populist for workers, but his voting record in the Senate for eighteen years showed something different—support for trade deals that hollowed out Ohio manufacturing, big spending bills that fueled inflation, and resistance to basic security like voter ID, which he’s called an “unnecessary barrier.” He lost in 2024 because Ohio voters saw through it; they wanted real change, not the same old progressive package wrapped in a union jacket. Now he’s back, trying to reclaim the seat, outraising Jon in the first quarter of 2026 with over twelve million dollars, but money alone doesn’t win when the ground has shifted. Ohio is redder than it’s been in decades. Trump’s coalition—working-class voters, rural folks, even some traditional Democrats—has stuck. Recent polls even show Jon leading among union households, which would have been unthinkable ten years ago. A Coalition to Protect American Workers survey had Husted up 48-42 in union homes, and that’s before Trump comes through Ohio this summer, campaigning hard for Jon, for Vivek Ramaswamy in the governor’s race, and the whole Republican ticket. Once that engagement kicks in, I expect the numbers to move even more in Jon’s favor. People are busy right now—spring planting, kids in school, jobs humming along under better economic policies—but by fall, with Trump on the trail and the contrast clear, turnout will favor us.
The path for Brown to close that gap just isn’t there. From now until November, what’s he going to say that he hasn’t said for a decade? Nothing new. His policies haven’t changed, and neither have the results they produced—higher costs, more regulation, government telling businesses and families what to do. Jon, meanwhile, has been delivering. He’s advocated for veterans’ access to care, fought for better competition in health insurance to lower costs, and kept the focus on Ohio values: hard work, personal responsibility, secure borders, and safe elections. During his time as lieutenant governor and in those COVID calls I mentioned, I saw firsthand how he balanced loyalty to the administration with pushing for sanity—preventing some of the worst lockdown overreach that hurt small businesses like mine and thousands of others across the state. He wasn’t the one driving the bus off the cliff; he was trying to steer it back. That experience prepared him perfectly for the Senate, where he’s now able to operate without the constraints of being number two. He’s a workhorse, just like DeWine said when he appointed him, focused on Ohio but with a national vision on issues like election security that affect every American.
Looking at the bigger picture, keeping this seat Republican is crucial for the Senate majority. Republicans hold 53-45 right now, and projections had Democrats hoping to pick up seats like this one because they thought Ohio was still competitive and Brown was more popular than he really is. But the data shows otherwise. Ohio went for Trump by eleven points or more in recent cycles, and the coattails are real. Bernie Moreno’s win in 2024 flipped a long-held Democratic seat and proved the shift. Now, Jon defending Vance’s seat would lock in two solid Republican senators who actually represent the state’s values rather than Washington special interests. I’ve followed Brown’s career, and while he talks a good game about workers, his support for open borders and amnesty policies has hurt Ohio families through wage suppression and strained public services. Jon’s approach—secure elections, pro-business policies, and upward mobility—actually delivers results. Look at Ohio’s economy under the Republican trifecta in recent years: unemployment is low, manufacturing jobs are returning, and energy production is up. Jon was part of that as lieutenant governor, championing tax cuts and school choice through EdChoice expansions that gave parents real options. As secretary of state, he modernized elections without the chaos you see in states with loose rules. Those are the facts on the ground, and they’re why I think Brown’s comeback attempt is more nostalgia than momentum.
Of course, none of this is automatic. I don’t take anything for granted in politics because I’ve seen too many races where good candidates coasted and let the other side sneak in through low turnout or last-minute surprises. Engagement is everything here. Conservatives need to stay fired up, not just assume the lead will hold. Yard signs, door-knocking, sharing facts on social media, and especially making sure friends and family vote early or on Election Day—that’s how we finish strong. Jon knows how to win; he’s been in tough races before, and his team is professional. But we can’t fall asleep at the wheel. Trump will be here campaigning this summer, putting his name behind Jon and the ticket, and that will energize the base. The union shift I mentioned earlier is real and permanent because Trump redefined what it means to fight for workers—tariffs to protect American steel, energy independence, and no more endless foreign wars draining resources. Those voters in Youngstown, Toledo, and the Mahoning Valley aren’t going back to Brown’s brand of politics. Add in voter ID security nationwide, and Democrats lose their edge in close races where fraud has historically been a factor in low-security states. Ohio proves simple measures work: turnout hasn’t suffered, but integrity has improved. Jon’s national push for photo ID is exactly the safeguard we need so we don’t have to chase conspiracy theories—we prevent the problem upfront.
Personally, knowing Jon the way I do—even if it’s through those shared circles and the calls—gives me extra confidence. He’s not some career politician chasing headlines; he’s a guy who built a career on results in state government and now brings that to the federal level. He wasn’t happy being the administration’s spokesperson during the height of the health mandates because it clashed with his pro-business worldview, but he handled it with class and still found ways to mitigate the damage behind the scenes. I remember one call in particular where he laid out concerns about how certain policies were hurting small businesses and insurance claims, and it led to adjustments that helped real people. That’s the kind of quiet leadership Ohio needs in the Senate—someone who whispers sanity into the process rather than grandstanding. Now in the Senate, he’s out front on the issues that matter: election security, tax relief, and reducing regulations that hurt families. His first-year accomplishments speak for themselves—three bills signed, more in the pipeline, and a focus on making life more affordable for Ohioans. Contrast that with Brown, who spent years in the Senate voting for policies that drove up costs and left working people behind. The numbers don’t lie: Ohio families are better off under the current direction, and Jon is part of continuing that.
As we head into the summer and then the fall campaign, I expect things to get even better for Jon. Trump’s rallies will draw huge crowds, the economy under better national policies will keep improving, and the contrast with Brown’s tired progressive pitch will sharpen. But we still have work to do. Don’t sit on the sidelines thinking it’s in the bag. Talk to your neighbors, share the polling data and Jon’s record, volunteer if you can, and make sure voter turnout is sky-high. Ohio deserves two strong Republican senators who fight for us every day—Jon Husted and Bernie Moreno delivering on the promises that got us here. I’m excited about the future because leaders like Jon represent the best of what Ohio has to offer: practical, pro-growth, integrity-focused governance. Sherrod Brown had his time, and the voters spoke in 2024. Now it’s Jon’s turn to finish what he started in the appointment and earn the full term. I’ve seen enough in my years following this stuff to know momentum like this doesn’t come along every cycle, but it can slip if we get complacent. So let’s stay engaged, keep pushing the message, and make sure Jon crosses the finish line strong in November. Ohio will be better for it, and the country will benefit from another solid conservative voice in the Senate who actually gets things done.
Footnotes
1. Ballotpedia, United States Senate special election in Ohio, 2026.
2. Wikipedia, 2026 United States Senate special election in Ohio.
3. RealClearPolitics, 2026 Ohio Senate Special Election – Husted vs. Brown polling average.
4. Congress.gov, Senator Jon Husted’s legislation record, including S.4155 (voter ID) and S.3583 (Upward Mobility Act).
5. Ohio Capital Journal reports on fundraising and polls.
Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, political strategist, systems thinker, and independent researcher of ancient history, the paranormal, and the Dead Sea Scrolls tradition. His life in high‑stakes manufacturing, high‑level politics, and cross‑functional crisis management gives him a field‑tested understanding of power — both human and unseen.
He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.
Hoffman writes with the credibility of a problem-solver, the curiosity of an archaeologist, and the courage of a frontline witness who has gone to very scary places and reported what lurked there. Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.
The more I think about it, now that the news stories have settled down and the people blowing on the fire revealed themselves, I really don’t like The Rooster, who goes by the real name D.J. Byrnes. It just so happens that the young lady he is saying had an affair with Vivek Ramaswamy, Alicia Lang, I watched grow up, and I think a lot of her, all positive. And it really bothers me that some lowlife like The Rooster would put her in political crosshairs as he did, purely out of desperation. I really haven’t thought much about The Rooster’s style of political reporting until he did this. But he crossed the line, and his actions actually match a deeper pattern of criminal activity, drug use, and vile behavior that deserves consideration, especially after what he purposely did to innocent people, which I think requires a deeper dive analysis. After he put out his hit piece story about Alicia, trying to hurt Vivek and his family in a purely inflammatory way, based on just jealous rumors and whispers, I don’t feel like being civil or fair to people who present themselves as openly bad for themselves and society at large. Ironically, a person like The Rooster would feel entitled to attempt to hide his own bad deeds behind speculative politics at best, with the intent to help the joke of a person, Amy Acton, with her campaign, now that people are remembering her as the Lockdown Lady, from her bad policies during the COVID-19 lockdowns in Ohio, which she was completely responsible for. We’re talking about a person who is saying terrible things about a young lady I know and like quite a lot, and I’m not happy about it, especially coming from a substance abuser of cocaine and other intoxicants, who has a police record. He’s the last person in the world who should be saying anything about bad behavior, especially when I know a lot about the characters involved and that the statements are excessively inflammatory, purposefully so.
Back in 2007, when he was a sophomore at the University of Montana, The Rooster got mixed up with a group planning to rob a local drug dealer who lived across from campus. The guy was supplying high-grade marijuana from California. Byrnes admits he helped scout the house and passed along info about money and weed—he thought it was just going to be a quick stick-up, no violence. On the night it went down, he showed up, saw it was turning into a party, texted the others to call it off, and left. But the rest of the crew went through with it—ski masks, forced entry, pistol-whipped the dealer, tied up his girlfriend.
A few months later, after some of the others flipped and cooperated, his name came up. In May 2008, he was hit with four felony charges in Missoula, bail set at $100,000. He turned himself in, and it all got resolved—he ended up with a two-year suspended sentence, no prison time, and the charges were eventually dismissed.
Then, in 2012, in Franklin County, Ohio, he pleaded guilty to two counts of misdemeanor criminal damage from a drunken property crime. It got really bad after he lost a union job in 2021. He was living in Franklinton with a liquor store right across the street, and had a serious drunk-driving car accident in 2020 that didn’t even slow him down. None of this is ancient history; he is still very much the same person today. Friends staged an intervention in 2022, and he’s been sober since.
President Trump’s next major executive order could create more millionaires than any single event in modern history, and he’s been dropping hints about it everywhere. It’s the kind of bold, pro-growth move that cuts through all the noise in Washington and actually puts real opportunity back in the hands of everyday Americans who are tired of being held back by bureaucracy and overregulation. But right now, what’s weighing on my mind even more is the ugly underbelly of Ohio politics, especially this smear campaign that’s unfolding against Vivek Ramaswamy as he fights to become the next governor of our state. I feel like I need to lay it all out here because it’s not just politics as usual—it’s something deeper, something that touches on character, truth, and the kind of righteous indignation that has defined human history from the days of the Dead Sea Scrolls right up to today. Amy Acton, the former health director under Governor DeWine who’s now running as the Democrat nominee for governor in 2026, has been having a rough time explaining herself. Her record from the COVID lockdowns is a disaster, and her personal life has come under scrutiny with that 2019 police report showing a domestic dispute where she and her husband had been drinking, she took some prescription meds, got upset over work hours, pulled a mirror off the wall, and shattered the glass. Her team calls it just a simple argument, but it paints a picture of someone who doesn’t manage personal affairs all that well, and in a high-stakes race like this, it matters. She was the lockdown lady, one of the worst in the nation, pushing policies that wrecked small businesses, families, and the economy of Ohio. A lot of people are still digging out from under that, and her bedside manner, which might comfort some Democrats, isn’t winning over moderates, independents, or conservatives. She’s not grabbing independents because they remember the damage.
I was covering this hit piece by a Columbus-based Substack writer known as The Rooster—real name D.J. Byrnes—on Vivek Ramaswamy, and at first I thought it was just the usual noise that comes with being the frontrunner. Vivek has Trump’s endorsement, he’s leading in most polls against Acton in what’s shaping up to be a competitive but Republican-leaning race, and when you’re out front, people take shots. But there’s another layer to this that left me unsatisfied and, honestly, filled with a deep sense of righteous indignation. I don’t say that lightly, and I’ll explain why it hits me so hard. I happen to know a lot of the people involved personally, not because I’m out there name-dropping for clout, but because in my work as an independent journalist and through my networks in Ohio, I’ve built real relationships over the years. People want to know how I can speak with such conviction on these matters, and it’s because I’ve been in the room, on the calls, and seen these folks up close. That includes Senator George Lang, whom I know very well—our friendship goes beyond politics, it’s mutual respect outside the arena. And crucially, I know his daughter to be a very respectable young lady who doesn’t deserve to be thought of in such a trashy way, as The Rooster tried to portray her, as a shadow of himself to carry the sins of his own actions as a displaced figure, outside himself. The Rooster pushed a story about a supposed sexual relationship or “booty calls” with Vivek whenever he’s in southwestern Ohio. I’ve known Alicia for a very long time. She’s nothing like a Stormy Daniels type, as The Rooster tried to make her sound in order to tear away at Vivek Ramaswamy’s reputation, even without a grain of truth. She’s smart, dedicated, hardworking, and involved at the highest levels of politics because she comes from a family that values service and excellence. The assumption that just because she traveled with Vivek’s campaign or worked as his deputy chief of staff or whatever her role was, that there must be some sleazy affair—that’s absolutely presumptive on behalf of very low-life opinions on how professional people conduct themselves. It’s not just false; it’s malicious.
When I first talked about this story, I tried to keep a level head, but it came across a bit restrained because I was containing my extreme anger. It bothers me at a fundamental level. Knowing the people involved, knowing how false this is, it stirs something in me that goes straight back to the kind of ethical conduct and judgment I’ve been studying deeply. As a birthday gift to myself this year, my wife and I treated ourselves to a membership at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. We’ve been there several times, but this visit was special because of the traveling Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit straight from Israel. I’ve always wanted to see them up close—the real thing—and I love the writings from the Second Temple period. We spent the entire afternoon there, no phones, no distractions, just hours immersed in those ancient texts. I bought gifts from the shop afterward, all Dead Sea Scroll-themed, because the material and content put me in heaven. That exhibit, combined with everything else at the museum, reminded me why I wear this particular hoodie so often these days—it’s my new favorite, a constant reminder of that day. What struck me most wasn’t just the scrolls themselves, but the philosophy of ethical conduct and righteousness that pours out of them. I think often of the Teacher of Righteousness, the enigmatic leader of the Essene community at Qumran who wrote or inspired so much of what we have in those scrolls. He led this sect in a righteous rebellion against the “Wicked Priest” of the Temple establishment—corrupt figures who had twisted power and law for their own gain. You don’t see a ton of direct talk about it in the canonical Bible, but Jesus himself was likely influenced by or connected to that Essene tradition as it spread from the desert community near the Dead Sea, a day’s walk from Jerusalem. In whatever way people remember me down the centuries, I think it will be in a similar way as the Dead Sea Scrolls talked about this Teacher of Righteousness, and for that, I would be quite satisfied.
Those scrolls are an exploration into righteousness and how it confronts evil in the world. The Teacher of Righteousness embodied that judgment call against hypocrisy and wickedness, helping lay the groundwork for what became Christian thought and, ultimately, Western civilization’s emphasis on moral clarity. The Dead Sea Scrolls are filled with righteous indignation—clear distinctions between good and evil, the War Scroll outlining battles against the forces of darkness, the Book of Enoch with its visions of judgment, the Copper Scroll, and apocryphal texts that didn’t make the final cut but reveal the raw sentiments of the time. The Essenes hid these in jars in caves to preserve truth against purges and turbulence, and they survived the Romans, the Crusades, everything, to reach us. That’s why seeing them in person on my birthday was one of the happiest days of my life. I was removed, for those hours, from the daily grind of dealing with people who don’t always deserve the encouragement or support I try to give them. It was a day where righteousness was openly embraced, unfiltered.
That same righteous indignation is exactly what I feel toward this smear against Vivek Ramaswamy and, by extension, Alicia Lang. The Rooster’s piece is based on innuendo, whispers from people with personal gripes or political axes to grind, hoping something sticks to help Amy Acton, whose campaign is struggling to close the gap. Polls right now show the race tight—some have Vivek up by a few points, others have Acton with a slight edge, but Vivek is the clear Republican frontrunner with Trump, Vance, and the establishment behind him. RealClearPolitics averages and surveys from Emerson, Bowling Green State University, and others put it within a couple of points, but Ohio is trending Republican, and Vivek’s vision for the state—pro-business, anti-woke, focused on actual results—resonates. Acton has name recognition from her days as a health director, but it’s mostly negative among anyone who lived through the lockdowns she championed. The Rooster, D.J. Byrnes, has a history of this kind of thing. He’s a left-leaning Substack writer in Columbus known for hit pieces on politicians, often with a partisan edge. His own background includes past legal troubles—felony charges back in 2008 as discussed, related to robbery planning, alcohol and substance issues, misdemeanors for criminal damage. People who aren’t doing well themselves often project their failings onto others, tearing them down to avoid personal judgment against them. That’s the pattern here. He wanted dirt on Vivek to prop up Acton, so he ran with rumors of an affair, implying booty calls in southwestern Ohio, travel together somehow equaling infidelity. No evidence, no pictures, no proof—just whispers. If he had real dirt, he’d have used it, but instead it’s all fabrication to hurt a good man and a nice young woman whose only crime is being effective and connected to strong Republican figures like her father, Senator George Lang, the majority whip.
I watched Alicia grow up. It’s very weird to hear her name associated with any kind of detrimental behavior, which is why the credibility of the accusation falls apart so quickly outside the minds of really stupid people. She’s too smart, too dedicated to public service and making the world better, to throw it all away on something reckless. Vivek is a family man, a brilliant entrepreneur who has written books, built businesses, run for president, and is now all-in on Ohio as Trump’s pick for governor. He’s too calculating, too focused on big ideas—reforming education, cutting regulations, fighting the administrative state—to risk it on some affair. He’s seen up close what Trump went through with endless false accusations, and he’s smart enough not to hand ammunition to enemies. Republicans I know in these circles are productive people—running businesses, passing bills at 2 a.m., obsessed with enterprise and results. They don’t have time for the kind of extramarital nonsense or “cocaine bins and gentlemen’s clubs” that seem more common in certain Democrat or swampy circles. I’m not saying it never happens on our side, but in my experience, the busy, value-creating conservatives don’t live double lives. Democrats, by contrast, often project their own base instincts—obsession with sex, loneliness, primal urges—onto everyone else. They assume that because they think that way, everyone does. It’s part of a broader spiritual warfare: dumbing people down to biological instincts so evil can play in their minds unchecked. That’s why they hate judgment, hate the Bible, hate capitalism, hate billionaires who succeed through merit. “Don’t judge,” they say, while judging everyone who holds them accountable.
The Rooster’s article feels cooked because he’s in trouble himself—trying to get clean, mad at the world, unable to maintain relationships. People like Alicia walk by and don’t give him the time of day because she’s in a world of jackets and ties, reverence for law and order, not slobs in sleeping-bag clothes. He wants to beat others to the punch, psychologically tearing down good people so he doesn’t feel bad about his own choices. That’s evil in the classic sense—the kind the Essenes railed against in their scrolls: wicked priests who corrupt institutions, attack the righteous to cover their own rot. The Teacher of Righteousness stood against that, and so should we. This smear isn’t just politics; it’s an attempt to undermine Trump’s pick, hurt Senator Lang’s family, and drag down anyone positioned to impose judgment on unrighteous behavior. Vivek is out there fighting for Ohio—higher education reform, economic dawn, real leadership—while Acton offers complaints about billionaires and special interests without a positive vision. Her lockdowns hurt the very people she claims to champion, and now personal issues resurface at the worst time.
I’ve known a lot of characters in the Ohio Statehouse, and the productive ones—Republicans focused on bills, sponsorships, businesses—aren’t the ones chasing Hooters servers or Twin Peaks nights out with the guys trying to get the phone number of 21-year-old kids working there trying to hustle tips from creepy old men. They’re on conference calls at odd hours talking policy, not conquests. Vivek’s too busy saving the world, literally, with his ideas on everything from biotech to government efficiency. Alicia’s the same—interested in politics because her family instilled values of service, not some emotional fling. Intelligent people fight animal instincts; that’s what Genesis teaches—dominion over nature, including human nature. You don’t yield to the snake. True conservatives live that way, all hours. Democrats often don’t, and when they can’t catch Republicans in real scandals, they invent them, just like the endless failed attacks on Trump—no evidence here either; the Rooster dusted off rumors to fit the narrative.
That’s why the Dead Sea Scrolls resonate so powerfully with me. They represent an awakening: a rebellion against institutional evil, preserved through centuries because the Essenes were clever enough to hide truth in plain sight, yet protected places. The Teacher of Righteousness made judgment calls that shaped righteousness as we know it—unfiltered criticism of wickedness. I despise the kind of people who tear down goodness: the Rooster, Acton’s defenders, Democrats who solicit the down-and-out to unleash chaos while screaming “no judgment.” They yearn for approval through base means because their minds are vacant of higher thoughts. Sex, for many of them, is about filling loneliness or seeking validation, not the sacred trust it should be. Lonely, unfulfilled people project that onto productive leaders like Vivek. But I know better from personal experience. I’ve been on calls with these high-level figures; they talk policy, bills, sponsorships—not “hot 21-year-olds,” they can send naked selfies to at 3 AM. That’s the difference between those with righteous indignation fighting daily for truth and those attacking to avoid self-reflection.
As we head into the May 5 primary and then the November 2026 election, this race matters. Vivek vs. Acton is a contest of visions: one of excellence, innovation, and Ohio-first results; the other of big-government nostalgia and lockdown mentality. Polls fluctuate—Bowling Green had them nearly tied recently, Emerson and others show Vivek with edges or Acton with slight leads depending on the sample—but the ground is shifting toward Republicans, especially with Trump’s coattails and the union voters who’ve flipped. Acton’s past as the face of COVID overreach haunts her; people remember the wrecked economy, the businesses lost. Knowing Alicia and her family, and seeing how this hit piece tries to cause collateral damage to good people to prop up a weak candidate, it demands that we apply the wrath of righteousness the scrolls celebrate. Rub their noses in the evil of fabrication, projection, and tearing down the upright so the wicked feel better.
I gave myself that day at the Museum of the Bible because I spend so much energy encouraging people who most of the time don’t deserve it, trying to lift them toward a better life. It’s usually worth it, but exhausting. The scrolls recharged me with unapologetic judgment against evil. That’s what we need now: call out the Rooster’s pattern of hit pieces rooted in his own unresolved issues, Acton’s inability to escape her record, and the broader Democrat strategy of no judgment on themselves while attacking anyone who might impose it. Vivek and Alicia represent the productive, value-creating side—the capitalists, the church-goers, the constitutionalists who think big thoughts, not just act on instinct. They don’t have room for double lives because they’re too busy building.
In my upcoming book, The Politics of Heaven, which I’m excited to release in 2027, I dig deep into these themes—a treasure hunt through heaven and human history, exploring how spiritual warfare plays out in politics and daily life. The Dead Sea Scrolls are a big part of that, showing how righteousness rebels against the kingdoms of evil, did good things that have impacted many thousands of years in a positive way. This whole episode with the Rooster’s article fits perfectly: an attempt to dirty the best-positioned people to cast judgment, just like the Wicked Priest against the Teacher. But truth prevails, as those scrolls did. I’ve seen enough in my years following politics to know that lies like this eventually flush out. Vivek will win because Ohio voters see the contrast, and people like me will keep shining light on it. Don’t take anything for granted—engagement matters, turnout matters. But I feel good about where things stand because leaders of character rise above smears.
Personally, this fills me with the kind of indignation the Essenes captured so vividly. The world hates righteousness because it exposes darkness. Democrats hate judgment because they don’t want mirrors held up to their choices. The Rooster attacks Alicia and Vivek because good people make him feel small. But we judge bad behavior—that’s our duty. The scrolls teach that, the Bible affirms it, and Western civilization thrives on it. I’m proud to stand with Vivek, with the Lang family, and with anyone fighting that good fight. Ohio deserves better than recycled lockdown architects or rumor-mongers. We deserve governors who create opportunity, not destroy it—like the executive orders Trump hints at that could mint millionaires by unleashing American potential.
What really bothers me about people like the Rooster is how they’ve wrapped themselves in layer after layer of bad conduct—criminal enterprises, drug abuse, alcohol abuse—and then spent the rest of their days trying to bury it by tearing down everyone else. He’s never built a real life for himself: no lasting relationship, no wife, no kids, no one who depends on him in the way that forces a man to grow up and take responsibility. Instead, all he has is this parasitic habit of pointing fingers at others, inventing lies when there’s nothing real to find, all so he doesn’t have to face the wreckage of his own choices. That’s why he gravitates to Democrat politics; it’s the same reason most of them do. They’re drowning in their own bad decisions, and they want government to prop them up, to blur the standards and give them a false sense of value, the way that union jobs once did before it all fell apart. I’ve watched him for years now, and it’s clear he’s the type who can’t stand the sight of good people succeeding because it reminds him how far he’s fallen.
The people in the Statehouse—Republicans especially—have treated him with more decency than he deserves. They gave him the presumption of free speech, let him roam the halls, answered his questions, and never turned their backs on him, even when his “investigative reports” were obviously aimed at dragging everyone down to his level. They let him get away with it for too long, thinking fairness and open dialogue would eventually win out. But fairness only works with people who still have a conscience. With someone like the Rooster, that goodwill just gets weaponized. He abuses the very respect he’s been shown, using it as cover while he tries to smear good families, good candidates, and good public servants who actually build things instead of tearing them down.
At the end of the day, people like him are just bad from the inside out, and they’re what makes the world, politics, and every social interaction worse. They flock to tyrannical, centralized figures like Amy Acton because that kind of top-down control lets them avoid judgment and lets them keep living the same reckless, unaccountable lives. They’re a detriment to the perpetuation of the human race, plain and simple. The only real solution isn’t dragging them into some court or legal loophole—it’s maintaining a steady, unapologetic presence of righteous indignation. They need to feel the full wrath of righteous judgment cast straight at them, not out of cruelty, but because they’ve proven themselves too despicable to be granted the same affiliation and respect given to people of real value. Only then will they lose the free rein to keep casting their weapons against the good people who are actually trying to make things better.
In Columbus, reporters like The Rooster have stepped into this fray to fill a void they desperately seek to hide from the public. He has been somewhat open about his criminal past, struggles with drug and alcohol abuse, and the inability to maintain relationships. This reflects the broader plight of unrighteous Democrats and their fervent support for figures like Amy Acton, collective bargaining agreements, and leftist policies in general. These approaches serve primarily to conceal the fact that many of them have spent significant portions of their lives making poor choices.
They resent and actively hate individuals like future governor Vivek Ramaswamy, Senator George Lang, President Trump, and the broader billionaire class because these people demonstrate what is possible through discipline, innovation, and hard work. While successful Americans build businesses, create wealth, and provide sustainable upward mobility for their families and communities, others squander what little they have on casinos, drugs, and self-destructive behaviors. Rather than emulate what works, they tear down the achievers and advocate for government collectivism—a system where the unrighteous mob rules over the productive through taxation and redistribution. This allows them to confiscate resources from wealth builders and funnel them to those who refuse to build value in their own lives. Through Substack writings and similar platforms, they pretend to be crusaders against crime or corruption, when in reality, they are waging war on anyone who exposes their own shortcomings.
Ultimately, Vivek Ramaswamy and President Trump represent the opposite philosophy: they strive to restore opportunity so that anyone willing to get out of bed and work hard can achieve upward mobility. In the latter part of his life, President Trump has focused on giving back this chance to the American people. The critics, like this Columbus reporter and his ideological allies, know deep down they will never get their own lives in order enough to seize such opportunities. Staring into the mirror each morning reveals their failures, breeding a deep resentment toward those who succeed. This is why they slander the virtuous and push policies designed to drag everyone down to their level of dysfunction.
Footnotes
1. The Rooster Substack article on Vivek Ramaswamy and Alicia Lang rumors, published April 2026.
2. NBC News report on Amy Acton’s 2019 police report, April 2026.
3. Ballotpedia and Wikipedia entries on the 2026 Ohio gubernatorial election, with Amy Acton as the Democratic nominee.
4. RealClearPolitics and Bowling Green State University polling averages for Ramaswamy vs. Acton, April 2026.
5. Museum of the Bible official site on Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibition, November 2025–September 2026.
6. Wikipedia and scholarly sources on Teacher of Righteousness, Essenes, Qumran, and Damascus Document.
7. Ohio Capital Journal and Dispatch coverage of Acton campaign and fundraising, 2026.
8. Background on D.J. Byrnes (The Rooster), past legal issues from public records and reporting.
Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, political strategist, systems thinker, and independent researcher of ancient history, the paranormal, and the Dead Sea Scrolls tradition. His life in high‑stakes manufacturing, high‑level politics, and cross‑functional crisis management gives him a field‑tested understanding of power — both human and unseen.
He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.
Hoffman writes with the credibility of a problem-solver, the curiosity of an archaeologist, and the courage of a frontline witness who has gone to very scary places and reported what lurked there. Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.
It’s interesting how we tend to compartmentalize these things in modern culture, shoving them into neat little boxes so we don’t have to confront the bigger picture. You hear the debates about sexual roles, the push for alternative lifestyles, abortion rights, and the whole pride movement, and the proponents of secular thinking immediately label any critique as “just Christian right-wing hysteria.” They pack it away in that tidy category, dismiss it as outdated prejudice, and move on. But if you step outside your normal circle—talk to people at the soccer game with your grandkids, chat at a bowling alley birthday party, or strike up conversations at a baseball game—you start to see how crazy and lunatic the underlying agenda really is. It’s not isolated social progress; it’s a coordinated deep population movement designed to remove humans from the Earth, and it’s been hiding in plain sight for decades.
I’ve been working on this for a long time in my book The Politics of Heaven, which I just finished the first revision of—140,000 words or so at the moment, and I’m proud of how it turned out. It fills a void that polite society has left: the theological sector where these discussions used to live has been sidelined, so we struggle to wrap our minds around their true intentions. This isn’t just a human thing. It’s a hatred against the creation of God, playing out through vile characters and obsessive pursuits of righteousness and destruction that echo the apocalyptic warnings in prophetic writings from the Second Temple period. Biblical scholarship shows us that these ancient texts weren’t abstract—they grappled with spiritual forces manipulating humanity, and that same dynamic is at work today.
Take the pride stuff, the transsexual advocacy, the gay rights push, and the celebration of alternative sexual lifestyles. On the surface, it’s sold as liberation and happiness, recognizing people for who they are. But peel back the layers, and you see it’s facilitating a depopulation agenda. Same-sex relationships, by their nature, don’t produce children. When you decentralize sex from the institution of marriage and turn it into a centerpiece of personal identity—making 90 percent of someone’s human experience about sexual preferences—it becomes like building your whole life around liking a particular wine. It’s silly, limited, and exactly the strategy to keep people from forming families. I’ve had difficult conversations with my own grandchildren about this as they enter that age, and I watched my children in their thirties navigate the social experiments pushed by MTV and the culture club era. Back in high school in the 80s, being gay wasn’t something you talked about openly. Some people lived that way, and I’m not advocating harassment or poor treatment—that’s not a proper way to deal with anybody for any reason. But it wasn’t paraded as the defining feature of life. Sexual lifestyles were private, meant for the commitment of marriage between a man and a woman, to perpetuate the human race as God intended from the Garden.
Now, it’s reckless and casual, swinging into multiple partners, no dedication to building anything lasting. The need for sexual relationships among humans is fundamentally about continuing the species. Anything advocated as an alternative—whether it’s same-sex, polyamory, or the hyper-focus on individual pleasure—is anti-family at its core. It’s an assault on the institution of marriage, which Scripture presents as a beautiful reflection of God’s covenant with creation. The same voices pushing abortion are the ones championing these lifestyles: they want God out of the classroom, the Ten Commandments out of courtrooms, and Christianity marginalized because their intent isn’t freedom—it’s using people to fulfill an anti-God agenda that destroys families and prevents the perpetuation of human beings.
Look at the corporate landscape for proof. Disney and Marvel invested heavily in this world politics, sliding same-sex relationships into Star Wars characters and celebrating them in films and shows. They gambled that people would accept it, but it hasn’t landed the way they hoped. Audiences feel uncomfortable; box office numbers for projects heavy on that messaging have suffered, and parents notice when influencers and entertainment make sexual experimentation the priority for kids in their twenties—the prime years for building families with energy and dedication. Instead of sacrifice for children, it’s endless self-focus, delaying or skipping parenthood altogether. By the time someone sorts through the confusion from public education and peer pressure, they might be in their mid-thirties, past peak fertility, with eggs running low and careers consuming the time that should have gone to raising the next generation. It’s a strategy, plain and simple: confuse sexual roles, tie it to bizarre directions like abortion on demand, and erode the family so humans don’t repopulate the Earth.
This ties straight into the deep population movement. Global fertility rates have plummeted—from about five children per woman in the 1950s to around 2.2 today, with many developed nations well below the 2.1 replacement level needed for stability. In places like South Korea and parts of Europe, projections show it dipping below 1.0, leading to shrinking populations, aging societies, and economic strain. The causes get debated—education, women’s careers, urbanization—but underneath is a cultural shift away from family-building. And who’s been advocating it? The same progressive ideology that worships the Earth over humanity. Look back at history: Thomas Malthus warned of overpopulation in 1798, sparking fears that led to eugenics in the early 20th century. Margaret Sanger, founder of what became Planned Parenthood, had ties to those ideas, pushing birth control partly to limit “unfit” populations, including through the Negro Project aimed at Black communities. Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb, published in 1968, amplified the panic, influencing environmental groups and policies that framed humans as the problem. It’s Earth worship at its root: to save the planet, reduce the people. Abortion becomes a tool, pride lifestyles another—anything to curb birth rates.
But here’s where it gets spiritual, and why The Politics of Heaven had to tackle the politics of the spirit world interacting with living people. These aren’t random human trends. The agenda traces back thousands of years, likely millions, with roots that may not even originate on this planet. The obsessive pursuit of destroying evil and warnings in Second Temple apocalyptic literature point to fallen entities manipulating humanity against God’s creation. It’s a cult ritual migrated across cultures: same voices against God in schools are the ones normalizing reckless sex outside marriage. They recognize that committed families produce children who carry forward the divine mandate to “be fruitful and multiply.” Disrupt that, and you erode the foundation.
I talk broadly to people because if you stay in your bubble, you miss how maniacal it is. At a grandchild’s event, you hear parents worried about influencers pushing this on kids. Music from Boy George and Culture Club in the 80s started subtly normalizing it—flamboyant, androgynous styles that MTV beamed into homes—but it was still somewhat contained. Now, it’s mainstreamed as identity, not private preference. The result? Declining birth rates aren’t just statistics; they’re symptoms of a war on the human race. Families take tremendous effort—sacrifice, dedication, the work of young vigor. Divert that into individual lifestyles, and the population drops. It’s anti-God fulfillment: destroy the creation to worship the Earth instead.
Thankfully, the trend is turning. People aren’t buying the offerings as easily. Corporate pushes like Disney’s have backfired in some ways, with audiences rejecting the overemphasis. But we have to call it what it is: a weapon of war, an ancient ideology aimed at erasing humans from the face of the Earth. It’s not about ridiculing individuals caught in these lifestyles—that’s not the point. Many are products of peer pressure and confusion. The real crime is elevating sexual lifestyle to the center of the human story when it’s only a minor part. The strategy behind it is the depopulation agenda, a cold ritual to prevent repopulation and family perpetuation.
In The Politics of Heaven, I lay out the receipts in detail—the hows, whys, and what to do from here. It’s not bullet-point politics or theology in isolation; it’s a narrative connecting spirit-world entities to modern manipulations. The book proves this isn’t personal belief or partisan rant—it’s observable across cultural lines. For those uncomfortable saying it out loud, it’s okay to admit: advocating reckless, anti-family paths is an attempt to erase God’s creation. We treat it as the malicious scheme it is, because the future for our grandchildren depends on rejecting it. The institution of marriage and family was meant to bring heaven to Earth. Anything attacking that is the opposite and should be considered a weapon of war against our culture.
Footnotes
¹ Global fertility trends and demographic data.
² Disney/Marvel representation timelines and controversies.
³ Historical population control and eugenics links.
⁴ Second Temple apocalyptic scholarship overview.
Bibliography for Further Reading
• Roser, M. (2014). “The global decline of the fertility rate.” Our World in Data.
• Fauser, B.C.J.M., et al. (2024). “Declining global fertility rates and the implications for family structure.” Human Reproduction Update.
• Wikipedia contributors. “Disney and LGBTQ representation in animation.” (Ongoing updates on examples like America Chavez, Phastos in Eternals).
• Sanger Papers Project. “Birth Control or Race Control? Sanger and the Negro Project.” NYU.
• Ehrlich, P.R. (1968). The Population Bomb (for historical context on overpopulation fears).
• Hahne, H.A. (Various). Works on apocalyptic literature in Second Temple Judaism.
• Hoffman, R. (Ongoing). The Politics of Heaven manuscript (your own forthcoming work for the full spiritual/political framework).
• United Nations Population Division. World Fertility Reports (latest data on global TFR declines).
Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, political strategist, systems thinker, and independent researcher of ancient history, the paranormal, and the Dead Sea Scrolls tradition. His life in high‑stakes manufacturing, high‑level politics, and cross‑functional crisis management gives him a field‑tested understanding of power — both human and unseen.
He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.
Hoffman writes with the credibility of a problem-solver, the curiosity of an archaeologist, and the courage of a frontline witness who has gone to very scary places and reported what lurked there. Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.
I have always loved museums—the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, the British Museum in London, and the way National Geographic captures the wonders of the world in ways that make you stop and think about where we came from and what we’re really made of. They stand as caretakers of our shared human story, holding onto artifacts and treasures that remind us of the long arc of civilization, even when I don’t see eye to eye with every choice they make or every story they tell. I’ve said it many times, and I’ll say it again here: institutions like these sometimes cling to timelines and narratives that don’t hold up under real scrutiny, not because the evidence demands it, but because their beliefs about history shape what they’re willing to accept. That’s why I famously got into it with a curator at the British Museum over their crystal skull display. They had this thing presented as an ancient Mesoamerican relic from around 1000 BC, but the details didn’t add up. A skull like that, carved with such precision without ruining the quartz itself, struck me as something that could have been done even further back—with tools and techniques we have only come to know in more modern times. The museum’s insistence that the skull was more of a fake felt less like science and more like a way of fitting the piece into their preferred timeline of human development, regardless of what the physical evidence suggested. We’ve seen technology rise and fall in cycles throughout history; civilizations have come and gone, and what looks “primitive” to us today might have been achievable with the ingenuity we underestimate. That argument stuck with me because it revealed how even the best caretakers of history can let belief override discovery. But that doesn’t stop me from appreciating what these places offer. The Smithsonian, in particular, has a fantastic collection of all kinds of good stuff, from artifacts spanning continents and eras to displays that spark real conversation. I recommend that anyone visit if they get the chance. It’s not about agreeing with every exhibit; it’s about seeing what’s there and letting it provoke thoughts about our own place in the grand scheme.
During one of my visits to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, I found myself drawn to the minerals and rare jewels section, which is exceptionally well curated. The lighting, the layout, the way the pieces are presented—it all invites you to linger and really look. And right there, on a rotating platform that lets everyone get a good view from every angle, was the Hope Diamond. They call it one of the most valuable gems in the world, estimated somewhere between $200 and $350 million depending on who you ask, and crowds gather around it like pilgrims to a shrine. It’s a 45.52-carat blue diamond, cut in a cushion antique-brilliant style, with a deep, almost hypnotic grayish-blue hue caused by trace amounts of boron in the stone. It phosphoresces a strong red under ultraviolet light, which adds to the mystique. The history of this thing is wild: it started as a much larger rough stone from the Kollur Mine in India back in the 17th century, bought by French merchant Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, then passed to King Louis XIV of France as the Tavernier Blue. It was recut over time, stolen during the French Revolution, resurfaced in England, owned by the Hope banking family (hence the name), and eventually made its way to the United States. Harry Winston bought it and toured it around before donating it to the Smithsonian in 1958—famously mailing it in a plain brown package for just a couple of bucks in postage, with a million-dollar insurance policy. Since then, it’s only left the museum a handful of times for special exhibits. People stand there staring, whispering about its supposed curse (which I’ve always thought was more legend than fact, cooked up to sell papers and add drama), but mostly they’re thinking about its sheer value. “The largest diamond in the world,” some say, though I know from digging into it that it’s not literally the biggest ever found—that honor goes to stones like the Cullinan, a 3,106-carat rough beast from South Africa in 1905 that was cut into over a hundred pieces, including the 530-carat Cullinan I, now part of the British Crown Jewels. Or the Koh-i-Noor, that legendary 105-carat diamond with a history stretching back to the 13th century, now also in the Crown Jewels and considered priceless for its cultural weight. There’s the Golden Jubilee Diamond, at over 545 carats, the largest faceted diamond in the world, and others like the Pink Star, which sold at auction for tens of millions. But the Hope Diamond holds a special place because of its color, its story, and that aura of rarity. Blue diamonds like this are incredibly scarce—only about 0.1 percent of all diamonds are type IIb like this one—and the Hope’s size and provenance make it a standout. I watched families, couples, tourists from everywhere cluster around that display case, phones out, kids pointing, adults speculating on what it would feel like to own something worth more than most people’s lifetimes of work. It wasn’t just the rock; it was what it represented.
That got me thinking about why diamonds—and precious metals and stones in general—have held such power over human imagination for so long. Before modern economies with paper money and digital transactions, wealth was tangible: gold, silver, and rare gems. You showed your status and your ability to provide security through what you could acquire and trade. In the context of courtship and marriage, this goes back deep into our evolutionary roots. Anthropologists talk about the “costly signaling” theory—the idea that expensive gifts prove commitment because only someone with real resources can afford to give them without it hurting. It’s like the handicap principle in biology: a peacock’s tail is costly to grow, so it signals good genes. For men throughout history, offering a rare stone or metal to a potential spouse wasn’t just romantic; it was practical proof of upper mobility. “Look, I can secure a home, protect a family, outcompete the other suitors.” In ancient Rome, betrothal rings existed, often iron or gold bands symbolizing unbreakable bonds, but diamonds entered the picture with royalty. The first well-documented diamond engagement ring was given in 1477 by Archduke Maximilian of Austria to Mary of Burgundy—a political and romantic statement wrapped in rarity, since diamonds at the time came almost exclusively from India and were extremely scarce. Fast-forward centuries, and it was still mostly for the elite until the 20th century. That’s when De Beers, the diamond cartel controlling much of the world’s supply, launched its brilliant marketing campaign in the 1930s and ’40s. Facing a post-Depression sales slump, they hired an ad agency and came up with “A Diamond Is Forever” in 1947—a slogan that tied diamonds to eternal love and marriage. Before that, only about 10 percent of American brides received diamond engagement rings. By the 1990s, it was up to 80 percent. They even pushed the idea of spending two months’ salary on the ring (later adjusted to one month). It worked so well that diamond sales in the U.S. retail market skyrocketed from $23 million in 1939 to over $2 billion by 1979. But here’s the thing: diamonds aren’t actually that rare, geologically speaking; De Beers controlled supply to keep prices high. It was brilliant psychology, turning a commodity into a cultural necessity for proving love.
Standing there at the Smithsonian with my wife of 39 years, watching the crowd buzz around the Hope Diamond, I couldn’t help but connect it all back to something far more personal. We had talked about it before, but that day it hit different. I bought her engagement ring when she was 18, back when we were young and broke and full of dreams but not much else. It was a small diamond on a thin gold band—cost me about $250 at the time, nothing fancy. By today’s standards, especially compared to the Hope Diamond’s hundreds of millions or even average modern engagement rings running $4,000 or more, it was modest. Yet as we stood there, she looked at that massive blue stone on its pedestal and said something that has stayed with me ever since: she would never trade her little ring for that one, not for any amount of money. Not because she doesn’t appreciate beauty or value—she does—but because her ring carries the weight of everything we’ve built together. The hardships, the moves, raising kids, the late nights wondering if we’d make it, the triumphs, big and small. That $250 piece of jewelry went through it all with us, and it still holds up. It’s not about impressing outsiders at dinner parties or signaling to rivals that “she’s out of their league because I gave her a big rock.” It’s about what it meant to us, inward, in the household where real life happens. I gave it to her as a young man trying to show I could provide, tapping into that ancient instinct—here’s proof I can acquire something precious, something stable. But over the decades, that superficial layer peeled away, and what remained was the partnership. Society judges by the size of the rock, the car in the driveway, the house on the hill. Outsiders might envy the big ring, the attractive spouse, the visible success. They might even plot your demise out of jealousy. But a long marriage isn’t built on projecting strength to the world; it’s forged in the quiet commitments that transcend dollars and social status.
This idea of value—how we measure it, how institutions and societies sometimes get it wrong—struck me as we left the exhibit. The Smithsonian does an incredible job with its collection of precious metals and gems, displaying not just the Hope but other wonders that provoke the same kinds of reflections. Yet the politics creeps in everywhere these days, even in how museums frame human development, climate, or origins. Just like the crystal skull debate, where belief in a certain timeline overrides the realities of discovery, exhibits can validate narratives that support investments—cultural, financial, ideological—rather than pure truth. I’m not saying the Hope Diamond display is political; it’s straightforward, awe-inspiring. But the way people react to it reveals a lot about human behavior. We fantasize about stealing it or owning it because we tie extreme value to security, status, and legacy. Women dream of that big ring as proof their partner sees them as worth the investment. Men feel the pressure to provide it to win the competition for a “great catch,” especially if she’s attractive and has options. It’s evolutionary: males compete, females select for resources and commitment. Studies bear this out in colorful ways. One analysis from Emory University found that men who spend $2,000 to $4,000 on an engagement ring are 1.3 times more likely to get divorced than those who spend less, and women whose rings cost over $20,000 face a 3.5 times higher risk of divorce. Why? Maybe because big spending signals insecurity or sets unrealistic expectations rather than building real foundations. Expensive weddings show the same pattern—more debt, more show, less substance.
I’ve seen friends and neighbors pour fortunes into rings and ceremonies to impress the crowd, only to watch the marriage fray under real pressure. My wife and I never did that. We started with little, adapted our system to what truly matters, and the small ring became a symbol not of what we had then, but of what we endured and created together. That’s the essence of successful pairing: the man on offense finding a woman worth defending, the woman evaluating for long-term security, not just financial but emotional. In the animal kingdom and human history, resources signal fitness. Precious metals and stones were the currency before banks. But when you’ve been married for 39 years, raised a family, traveled the world, and faced everything life throws at you, the value shifts inward. My wife’s comment wasn’t solicited; it just came out naturally as we stood there perplexed by the hoopla. “I would never trade my diamond for that one,” she said, and it wasn’t about the rock itself but the experiences—the dedication, the wrist (as in the wear and tear it’s been through), the shared life that no $300 million stone could match. Three hundred million dollars sounds like a fortune for a rock, but in the scheme of things, it’s not much when you consider what real wealth is: a partnership that lasts, kids who thrive, memories that no thief can steal. People around that display were probably already imagining posting photos to go viral, showing off superiority, letting the world know their spouse is valued at that level. But they miss the point. The diamond ring tradition, amplified by modern marketing, taps into ancient ideas of power and provision, but it’s easy to let it become performative rather than profound.
Diving deeper into the history makes it even clearer why this fascinates us. Diamonds have been symbols of power and eternity for millennia. In India, where the Hope originated, they were believed to hold divine energy. European royalty used them to seal alliances. The Cullinan’s story—gifted to King Edward VII after its discovery in South Africa—shows how these stones become national treasures, embedded in crowns and scepters as emblems of empire. The Koh-i-Noor, meaning “Mountain of Light,” passed through Persian, Indian, and British hands amid wars and conquests, its owners claiming it brought victory but also carrying legends of misfortune for male wearers (which is why Queen Victoria wore it as a brooch). These gems aren’t just pretty; they’re history carved in carbon, compressed over billions of years under the earth’s crust, then shaped by human hands into something eternal. Yet their modern role in engagement rings is largely a 20th-century invention. Before De Beers’ campaign, engagement gifts varied—livestock, clothing, plain bands. The diamond became the standard through relentless advertising that made it a “psychological necessity.” Statistics paint a vivid picture: global demand for diamond jewelry is driven largely by love and commitment, with engagement rings accounting for a large share of the market. In the U.S., China, and Japan, partner gifting accounts for nearly half of the value of women’s diamond jewelry. Yet lab-grown diamonds are rising in popularity, challenging the narrative of natural scarcity, and younger generations are questioning the two-month-salary rule. Still, the symbolism persists because it works on a primal level.
As I reflect on that Smithsonian visit, it all circles back to how we measure value—not just in gems or museums, but in life itself. Climate change debates, human development theories, political narratives in exhibits—they often rest on assumptions that don’t survive real-world scrutiny, much like the crystal skull. People get it wrong because they start with the wrong premises. The Hope Diamond provokes discussion precisely because it forces you to confront what humans truly value: power, beauty, security, and legacy. But my wife’s quiet wisdom cut through it all. Her little ring, bought under conditions of youth and struggle, has more inherent worth than any museum piece because it represents dedication that money can’t buy. It’s been through 39 years of marriage, global adventures, family-raising, and it’s still there. That’s the kind of value that transcends social judgments. Outsiders might envy the flash, but they don’t provide the fulfillment. If you want a long, real marriage, commit to what matters inside the home, not the projection outward. Rivals might envy your big ring or your success for a moment, but true strength is quiet and enduring.
Everyone’s circumstances differ. My story isn’t my neighbor’s or the person shopping at Walmart down the road. Value is personal, shaped by experience. Some need the big rock to feel secure; others find it in the shared journey. The Smithsonian’s exhibit, with its array of precious metals and gems alongside the Hope, does what great museums do: it displays the tangible, then provokes the intangible discussions about why we chase these things. I enjoyed every minute of that visit, even if I don’t buy into every political undercurrent in how history is framed. Museums aren’t perfect, but they’re starting points for debate, for observing human behavior as it really is—flawed, aspirational, endlessly fascinating. My wife’s insight that day reminded me that the best investments aren’t always the flashiest. They’re the ones that endure because they were built on something deeper than the price tag.
5. British Museum conservation reports and Walsh et al. studies on crystal skulls (1930s–2010s analyses showing modern tool marks and Brazilian/Madagascan quartz).
7. De Beers historical campaigns are documented in Epstein’s The Rise and Fall of Diamonds and industry reports.
8. Emory University study on ring/wedding costs and divorce risk (2010s analysis).
9. Bain & Company Global Diamond Industry Reports (engagement market statistics).
10. Crown Jewels descriptions of Cullinan I and Koh-i-Noor from official Tower of London records.
11. Gemological Institute of America data on blue diamond rarity (type IIb).
12. Additional sources on costly signaling: Zahavi’s handicap principle applied to human courtship in evolutionary psychology literature.
13. De Beers “A Diamond Is Forever” campaign impact: pre-1940s vs. post-1990s U.S. bride statistics.
14–20. Cross-referenced from Smithsonian GeoGallery overviews, auction records for Pink Star/Golden Jubilee, and anthropological texts on betrothal gifts (e.g., Rings for the Finger historical accounts).
Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, political strategist, systems thinker, and independent researcher of ancient history, the paranormal, and the Dead Sea Scrolls tradition. His life in high‑stakes manufacturing, high‑level politics, and cross‑functional crisis management gives him a field‑tested understanding of power — both human and unseen.
He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.
Hoffman writes with the credibility of a problem-solver, the curiosity of an archaeologist, and the courage of a frontline witness who has gone to very scary places and reported what lurked there. Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.
I’ve been catching a lot of heat lately for talking about socialism on my podcast, but honestly, I don’t see why it should be controversial at all. The pushback tells me everything I need to know: a whole lot of people have built their entire lives around government paychecks, public-sector benefits, and the steady drip of tax revenue that keeps the whole machine humming. They get defensive because the conversation about taxes hits too close to home. When you point out that the income tax proposal of 1913 was a colossal mistake—one that’s strangled growth, rewarded bureaucrats, and penalized the very risk-takers who drive real prosperity—you’re not just debating policy. You’re challenging the foundation of how they pay their mortgages and fund their retirements. And the data, especially from that outstanding book Taxes Have Consequences: An Income Tax History of the United States by Arthur B. Laffer, Brian Domitrovic, and Jeanne Cairns Sinquefield, backs me up every step of the way.
Let me take you back to 1913. That single year changed everything. The 16th Amendment was ratified on February 3, giving Congress the power to lay and collect taxes on incomes “from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States.” Just months later, the Revenue Act of 1913 imposed a 1 percent tax on incomes above $3,000 (about $90,000 in today’s dollars) with a top rate of 7 percent on incomes over $500,000. It affected maybe 1 to 3 percent of the population at first, and early revenue was tiny—only about $28 million in 1914. At the same time, the Federal Reserve Act was signed on December 23, creating a centralized banking system that promised stability but, in my view, locked in the same progressive-era thinking that favored administrative control over free markets. Both moves came during the Wilson administration, a time when socialist ideas were swirling globally, and centralized power looked like the future to some. Tariffs and excise taxes had kept federal revenue under 3 percent of GDP before 1913; after the amendment, the door was wide open. By the post-war era, federal receipts stabilized around 17-18 percent of GDP, no matter how high the rates climbed—a pattern economists call Hauser’s Law. The pie didn’t grow faster just because the government took a bigger slice; people and capital adjusted.
What Taxes Have Consequences lays out so clearly—and what a century of statistics confirms—is that the top marginal income tax rate has been the single biggest determinant of economic fate, tax revenue from the wealthy, and even outcomes for lower earners. The authors divide the income-tax era into five periods of tax cuts and explosive growth and four periods of high rates and stagnation. When rates were slashed—as in the 1920s under Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon (top rate down to 25 percent), the 1960s Kennedy cuts, the 1980s Reagan revolution, the 1990s, and briefly under President Trump’s 2017 reforms—the economy roared. Investment flooded in, jobs multiplied, and the rich actually paid a larger share of total revenue because the tax base expanded dramatically. In the 1920s, for example, real GDP nearly doubled, unemployment plummeted, and revenues from the top brackets rose even as rates fell. The same pattern repeated in the 1980s: top rates dropped from 70 percent to 28 percent, the top 1 percent’s share of income taxes climbed from about 25 percent to over 37 percent by the late 1990s, and real per-capita GDP growth accelerated.
Contrast that with the high-rate eras. The late 1910s, the 1930s, the 1940s-1950s, and especially the 1970s saw top rates reach 77 percent during World War I, 94 percent during World War II, and remain north of 90 percent for decades afterward. The book makes a compelling case that the 1932 tax hikes—pushing the top rate to 63 percent amid the Depression—actually deepened the crisis. Revenue from the rich collapsed, investment dried up, and the economy stayed mired until wartime spending and later rate reductions kicked in. During the 1970s stagflation, 70 percent-plus top rates coincided with sluggish growth, high unemployment, and inflation that hammered everyone, especially the working class. Lower earners suffered precisely because the rich weren’t investing or expanding businesses when the government was confiscating the upside. The Laffer Curve isn’t a theory; it’s observable history. Push rates too high, and you cross into the prohibitive range, where behavior changes: less work, less risk, more avoidance, and ultimately, less revenue.
I’ve seen this play out in real time with people I talk to. Just the other day, I was explaining basic economics to some younger folks who were upset they weren’t making enough money. Their lifestyles told the story—video games, complaints, minimal effort. I told them straight: this is a free country. You have twenty-four hours every day. If you’re only pulling in $20,000 a year, maximize the hours. Get a second job, learn a skill, take a risk. Once you get a little capital, that engine starts turning faster. Money makes money, but you have to earn the first bit through productive behavior. The progressive tax system we’ve had since 1913 punishes exactly that ambition. Why grind harder if the government is going to take 37 percent—or more when you add state taxes—just because you succeeded? The book spends chapters on this psychological reality: high earners respond to incentives. They hire lawyers, accountants, and lobbyists. They structure investments to minimize liability. They move. And who can blame them?
Look at the migration numbers today. IRS data from 2022-2023 shows high-tax states hemorrhaging wealth and people. California lost $11.9 billion in adjusted gross income from net out-migration; New York lost $9.9 billion; Illinois lost $6 billion. Meanwhile, no-income-tax states cleaned up: Florida gained $20.6 billion in AGI, Texas $5.5 billion, South Carolina and North Carolina billions more. High earners—those making $200,000 and up—drove most of the shift. Florida’s net gain came disproportionately from wealthy movers, whose average incomes were far higher than those of those leaving. This isn’t random; it’s rational human behavior. People vote with their feet when the “fair share” rhetoric turns into confiscation. The same dynamic happened after California and New York jacked up top rates: businesses and talent fled to Texas and Florida, starving the high-tax states of the very revenue they claimed the rich owed them.
And don’t get me started on the people who lecture us about “fair share” while enriching themselves in public office. Nancy Pelosi comes to mind immediately. She entered Congress in 1987 with a few hundred thousand in stocks; today her family’s net worth is estimated at north of $280 million, with massive gains from timely trades in tech and other sectors while she sat on committees with insider knowledge. Critics have hammered her for years over this, yet no charges stick because the rules somehow allow it. The rest of us pay accountants to navigate a tax code thicker than a phone book while members of Congress trade on information the public doesn’t have. That’s not wealth creation through risk and ingenuity; that’s parasitic behavior enabled by the very system that claims to soak the rich. The book details how, throughout history, the wealthy have found ways around punitive rates—through capital flight, tax shelters, and reduced effort. Congress critters have a faster, easier on-ramp.
This brings me to the real heart of the problem: the administrative state and the public-sector workforce that depends on confiscated wealth. I was in Washington, D.C., recently, and the parking garages told the story better than any chart. At 8 a.m., they’re packed—government workers streaming in. By noon? Empty. Half-day culture, cushy benefits, pay scales that often run 20-25 percent above comparable private-sector jobs when you factor in pensions and job security. Federal data show the pay gap persists; total compensation for many federal roles exceeds that of private-sector equivalents, especially at mid- to senior levels. Meanwhile, private-sector risk-takers—the ones who actually grow the economy—get penalized. We’re not funding productive infrastructure or national defense with all this revenue; we’re propping up a class of paper-pushers who enjoy lives the average taxpayer can only dream of. Democrats love to create these jobs and fund them with “progressive” taxes, then act shocked when the rich use every legal tool to protect what they’ve earned. It’s human nature. People who work hard, innovate, and build don’t willingly hand over the fruits of their labor to subsidize easy government gigs. The 1913 experiment assumed otherwise, and a century of data proves it wrong.
The book hammers this point with statistical precision. When top rates are low, the rich bring capital out of hiding, invest it, hire workers, and expand the tax base. When rates are high, they shelter, defer, or produce less. The result? Less overall growth, which hurts everyone. Real per-capita GDP growth averaged around 2 percent across eras, but the booms under low-rate policies lifted lower incomes far more effectively. Poverty fell faster, wages rose, and government actually collected more from the top 1 percent—not because of higher rates, but because of a bigger, more dynamic economy. In 2022, the top 1 percent (incomes above roughly $663,000) earned about 21 percent of income but paid 40 percent of all federal income taxes—an effective rate around 26 percent after deductions. That share has risen over the decades as rates have come down and growth has accelerated. The progressive myth that “the rich get richer and everyone else suffers” ignores how the system actually works. Once you have capital, you can leverage it—but you earned that first pile by outworking and out-risking everyone else. Penalizing success doesn’t create fairness; it creates stagnation.
President Trump understood this during his first term, and especially in the interregnum before his second term. His tax policies—cutting corporate rates, lowering individual brackets, doubling the standard deduction—aligned with everything we’ve learned since 1913. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act delivered exactly the results Taxes Have Consequences predicts: strong GDP growth, record-low unemployment (especially for minorities and low-wage workers), and higher revenue from the top brackets. The rich got richer in absolute terms, but so did everyone else, and the government’s slice of the larger pie increased. That’s the opposite of the socialist collective model, which assumes we can perpetually extract from producers to fund a utopia. Centralized banking and progressive taxation were sold as stabilizers, but they became tools for an administrative state that grows regardless of economic reality. The Federal Reserve’s money creation, paired with endless deficit spending, has only amplified the damage—debt now exceeds GDP, and interest payments alone rival major budget items.
I’m not saying there should be no taxes. A consumption-based system—sales taxes on what people actually use, transaction fees tied to real economic activity—would align incentives far better. Fund highways and services through the people who use them. Let growth compound without the drag of income confiscation. The book shows that broad-based, low-rate systems maximize revenue while minimizing distortion. We’ve tried the Marxist-inspired “from each according to ability, to each according to need” approach for over a century, and it has delivered exactly what human psychology predicts: avoidance, resentment, and slower progress. Younger generations especially need to hear this. Stop waiting for the system to hand you enough; the system was never designed to reward complaints or video-game marathons. Get out there, create value, take risks. The engine only accelerates once you’re in motion.
The backlash I get for saying these things proves the point. People whose livelihoods depend on the status quo—government employees, public-sector unions, politicians who promise “free stuff” funded by someone else’s ingenuity—don’t want the conversation. But facts don’t care about feelings. We have a century of statistics now. The 1913 experiment failed. It fed a monster of debt, bureaucracy, and distorted incentives that neither party has fully dismantled. President Trump’s approach pointed the way forward, and the next decade must be about rethinking the entire process. Repeal or radically simplify the income tax. Reconsider the Federal Reserve’s role in enabling endless spending. Align policy with human nature: reward risk, protect what people earn, and stop pretending government workers deserve 30 percent more compensation for half-day effort while the private sector carries the load.
This isn’t some fringe, scandalous idea. It’s an observable reality documented in Taxes Have Consequences across hundreds of pages of data, charts, and historical analysis. The rich don’t pay their “fair share” under high rates because they’re not stupid—they adjust. The economy doesn’t grow when ambition is taxed into oblivion. And society doesn’t thrive when we build it on the backs of parasites who show up at 8 a.m. and vanish by lunch, all paid for by confiscated wealth. At their core, human beings do not want to slave away so others can live easily. That truth has never changed, and no amount of political spin or election-year rhetoric can repeal it.
As we head into the 2030s, the discussion will only intensify. People are done subsidizing inefficiency. The genie is out of the bottle. If you’ve followed my work, you know I’ve been saying this for years. Subscribe to my blog and business updates—I think you’ll love the deeper dives into these ideas and practical ways to protect and grow what you earn in a world that still rewards the ambitious. The progressive tax experiment of 1913 was a gamble based on flawed psychology and socialist dreams. A century later, we have the receipts. It’s time to learn the lesson and move on.
Footnotes
1. Laffer, Arthur B., Domitrovic, Brian, and Sinquefield, Jeanne Cairns. Taxes Have Consequences: An Income Tax History of the United States. Post Hill Press, 2022.
2. U.S. National Archives. “16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”
3. Revenue Act of 1913 historical summaries, IRS and congressional records.
4. Federal Reserve Act of 1913 documentation.
5. FRED Economic Data, Federal Receipts as Percent of GDP (historical series).
6. Tax Foundation and IRS Statistics of Income reports on top 1% tax contributions.
7. IRS migration data 2022-2023, state AGI flows.
8. Congressional financial disclosures and OpenSecrets analyses on member wealth.
9. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Federal Salary Council reports on public vs. private compensation.
10. Laffer Center summaries and book excerpts on specific historical periods.
Bibliography
• Laffer, Arthur B., et al. Taxes Have Consequences. Post Hill Press, 2022.
• U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Statistics of Income historical reports (1913-present).
• Tax Foundation. Various reports on historical tax rates, migration, and economic growth.
• Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED). Federal Receipts as % of GDP.
• Congressional Budget Office and Tax Policy Center data on effective tax rates and income shares.
• OpenSecrets.org and Quiver Quantitative congressional wealth tracking.
• Bureau of Economic Analysis and BLS employment and payroll data.
This essay reflects exactly what I’ve been saying and living: free markets, personal responsibility, and an honest look at a century of bad policy. The evidence is overwhelming. Now it’s time to act on it.
Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, political strategist, systems thinker, and independent researcher of ancient history, the paranormal, and the Dead Sea Scrolls tradition. His life in high‑stakes manufacturing, high‑level politics, and cross‑functional crisis management gives him a field‑tested understanding of power — both human and unseen.
He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.
Hoffman writes with the credibility of a problem-solver, the curiosity of an archaeologist, and the courage of a frontline witness who has gone to very scary places and reported what lurked there. Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.
I’ve always said that Eric Swalwell was a crook. From the moment he burst onto the national scene as a freshman congressman from California back in 2013, something about the guy never sat right with me. He was Nancy Pelosi’s right-hand man in so many ways—her attack dog on Trump, her reliable vote on every progressive cause, and the guy who seemed to relish every opportunity to grandstand against conservatives like me who just wanted honest government. Remember how he behaved during the Supreme Court nominations? The way he went after Brett Kavanaugh with that smug certainty, or how he hammered away at Trump for years on everything from Russia to January 6th? It was all so performative, so self-righteous, while the man himself was hiding a mountain of personal failings that made those accusations look tame by comparison.
I mean, let’s start with the elephant in the room that everyone on Capitol Hill has known about for years: the Chinese honey pot named Christine Fang, or “Fang Fang” as she was affectionately called by those who knew her. This woman wasn’t some random flirt; she was a suspected Chinese intelligence operative who embedded herself in California politics like a tick. She helped Swalwell with fundraising for his 2014 reelection campaign, placed an intern in his office, and had what can only be described as an uncomfortably close relationship with him. The FBI briefed him on her in 2015, and he cut ties—publicly claiming he cooperated fully and that the case was closed. But come on. A congressman on the House Intelligence Committee sleeping with a foreign agent who was actively cultivating access to American politicians? That’s not just reckless; it’s a national security red flag the size of the Golden Gate Bridge. And yet, the media gave him a pass. Pelosi and the Democratic machine circled the wagons, and Swalwell kept rising through the ranks, preaching about ethics and women’s rights while his own conduct screamed hypocrisy.
Fast forward to early April 2026, and suddenly the mask slips in spectacular fashion. Between April 9 and April 11, four women came forward accusing Swalwell of sexual misconduct—unsolicited explicit photos sent to their phones, non-consensual encounters while they were intoxicated, abuse of power with staffers and interns, and offers of political access in exchange for sex. The San Francisco Chronicle and CNN laid it all out: one former staffer detailed how he raped her when she was too drunk to consent, leaving her bruised and bleeding. Another spoke of waking up in a hotel room with no memory after a night out, only to realize what had happened. These weren’t random accusers; they were people who worked for him or crossed paths in his professional world. Then, just a week later, around April 14 or 15, a fifth woman, Lonna Drewes from Beverly Hills, went public with her story of a 2018 incident where she believes she was drugged and raped—classic Cosby-style horror, complete with choking and loss of consciousness. She described it in harrowing detail at a press conference, standing with the other women and vowing to report it to law enforcement. By then, Swalwell had already suspended his campaign for California governor—the race he was leading as a top Democratic contender—and soon after resigned from Congress altogether amid a House Ethics investigation and calls for his expulsion from both sides of the aisle.
I wasn’t surprised one bit. I’ve been watching this guy for over a decade, and the pattern was always there. The same Eric Swalwell who loved to lecture America about Donald Trump’s alleged mistreatment of women was allegedly drugging and assaulting young women in his orbit while holding positions of immense power. The irony is thicker than the fog rolling off the Bay. He positioned himself as a progressive champion, a defender of the vulnerable, all while his staffers and associates whispered about his behavior behind closed doors. And let’s not forget his wife—how does someone in that position not know or at least suspect? The whole thing reeks of the kind of entitlement that comes with unchecked power in Washington. You get elected, you surround yourself with ambitious young interns and staffers in their 20s and 30s who are hungry for advancement, and suddenly the lines blur. It’s not hard to see how it happens: a late-night drink after a long day on the Hill, a flirty text on Snapchat, an offer to “help” someone’s career. But when it crosses into coercion, assault, or exploitation, it becomes something far darker.
What really gets me—and what should scare every American—is the timing and the coordinated silence until it became politically convenient. These women didn’t just materialize out of nowhere in April 2026. Rumors had been swirling on Capitol Hill for years about Swalwell’s personal life. Everybody knew, or at least suspected. Nancy Pelosi, his longtime ally and mentor in the California Democratic machine, suddenly developed amnesia? Please. The same Democrats who rushed to defend him during the Fang Fang scandal years earlier turned on him like a pack of wolves the moment he became a threat to their control of the governor’s race. California Democrats were already scrambling in a crowded field with no clear frontrunner—Katie Porter, Tom Steyer, Xavier Becerra, and others jockeying for position. Swalwell was polling strongly, and his presence was complicating matters, especially as Republicans like Steve Hilton were gaining ground. I picked Steve Hilton early on; I even had him at my place of business here in Ohio to announce aspects of his run alongside other conservative voices. I told folks over a year ago that this shakeup was coming. Now, with Swalwell out, Hilton’s leading in polls, and the race is wide open. Coincidence? Not a chance. This was a calculated hit from inside the party to clear the field and protect their power structure.
I’ve seen this playbook before, right here in my own backyard in Ohio. Take the Cindy Carpenter case in Butler County— a local commissioner who couldn’t handle the power and got called out for misconduct. Republicans didn’t circle the wagons; we held her accountable and moved on to someone who could do the job without the drama. That’s how it’s supposed to work. But Democrats? They protect their own until the political math changes. Swalwell wasn’t exposed because of some noble pursuit of justice for these women. He was exposed because he was running for governor and threatening the status quo. The media that had ignored or downplayed his ties to Fang Fang for years suddenly amplified every accusation. The same outlets that spent years attacking Trump over Access Hollywood or Stormy Daniels looked the other way on Swalwell until it suited the narrative. It’s selective outrage at its finest, and it erodes trust in the entire system.
Think about the broader culture this reveals. Politics attracts ambitious people, especially young staffers and interns flooding into state capitals and Washington, D.C. They’re in their 20s and 30s, working long hours, volunteering for campaigns, hoping to climb the ladder. Some are genuine public servants; others see it as a shortcut to power, money, and influence. How do you stand out in a sea of thousands of eager faces? Exceptional work is one way, but too often it’s by compromising—attending the right parties, accepting the “extra” invitations, blurring professional boundaries for that extra boost. I’ve talked to enough people who’ve been through it to know the temptation is real on both sides. Power is intoxicating. You’re no longer “Dad” or “Husband” at home; you’re “Congressman Swalwell,” the guy with staff calling you “sir” and donors throwing money at you. Your family doesn’t worship you like the political machine does. It’s easy to fall into the trap of late nights, flattery, and affairs that make you feel alive again. But it takes real integrity to resist, and Swalwell clearly didn’t have it. The same goes for plenty of others—Anthony Weiner sending explicit photos while married to a Clinton insider, or the countless scandals we’ve seen from both parties. It’s human nature amplified by proximity to power.
Swalwell’s hypocrisy on this front is what sticks in my craw the most. He spent years weaponizing accusations against Trump—impeachment after impeachment, endless hearings, public shaming—all while allegedly engaging in the very behavior he condemned. He preached progressive values, women’s empowerment, and holding the powerful accountable, yet treated his own staff and associates like personal playthings. The unsolicited explicit photos, the drugged encounters, the abuse of authority—it’s the kind of thing that would have ended any Republican’s career instantly. But for Swalwell, it took a gubernatorial bid and internal party pressure to bring it to light finally. Even then, he categorically denied everything, calling the claims “flat false” and vowing to fight them. Fine, let the investigations play out—due process matters. But the pattern, combined with the Fang Fang mess, paints a picture of a man who was always more interested in self-preservation and advancement than in serving the public.
And don’t get me started on the media’s role. For years, they carried water for Swalwell. They platformed him as a fresh face against Trump, ignored the spy scandal’s implications, and only turned when the Democrat establishment signaled it was time. It’s the same machine that protected Biden’s obvious decline until it couldn’t, or that downplays scandals on their side while amplifying anything on the right. This isn’t journalism; it’s narrative control. The public deserves better. We need a vetting process that actually works—real scrutiny of candidates’ personal lives, financial dealings, and associations before they get near power. But in a system where the press picks sides, that rarely happens until it’s too late or politically expedient.
Looking back, I remember watching Swalwell’s rise and thinking, “This guy is too slick for his own good.” He went from local prosecutor to Congress, landed on the Intelligence Committee despite the red flags, and became a fixture on cable news attacking conservatives. His wife had to have known about the wandering eye; the staffers whispered; the Hill insiders joked. Yet nothing stuck until April 2026. Now, with him out of Congress and the governor’s race in chaos, California Democrats are scrambling, and Republicans like Steve Hilton—who I backed early—are poised to capitalize. It’s a reminder that power corrupts, and absolute power in one-party strongholds like California corrupts absolutely. The women who came forward deserve justice, not to be used as pawns. But the real scandal is how long the system protected one of its own.
This isn’t isolated to Swalwell. It’s systemic. From local capitals to D.C., the temptations are everywhere. Young people enter politics with stars in their eyes, only to learn that climbing requires compromises. Staffers trade favors for access; politicians leverage their positions for personal gratification. Politics should be about service, not a lifestyle upgrade. When you see someone like Swalwell preaching against Trump while allegedly living the exact opposite, it confirms what I’ve long suspected: many in that bubble can’t handle the power. They’re weak, entitled, and dangerous to the republic.
The Fang Fang connection adds another layer of recklessness. A suspected Chinese spy with direct access? Helping pick interns and raise money? And Swalwell on Intelligence? It boggles the mind that he wasn’t removed sooner. The FBI knew, briefed him, and yet he stayed. Now, with fresh scrutiny amid the scandal, calls are growing to release those old files. Why the resistance? If he has nothing to hide, let it all out. But transparency has never been the Democrats’ value.
In the end, this whole saga should be a wake-up call. We can’t trust the process when it’s this rigged by insiders. The women spoke out when it mattered for the party machine, not necessarily for justice alone. Everybody knew, but nobody said anything until it served their interests. That’s the real betrayal—of the public, of women seeking fair treatment, and of the democrat ideals they claim to uphold. I’ve been saying it for years: Democrats like Swalwell aren’t just misguided; they’re often operating with a different set of rules. The hypocrisy, the cover-ups, the selective amnesia—it’s all part of maintaining power at any cost. California voters, and the rest of us watching, deserve representatives with integrity, not predators in suits. As more details emerge from the investigations, I hope the truth finally prevails over the politics. But based on history, I’m not holding my breath. The machine grinds on, and guys like Swalwell are just symptoms of a deeper rot.
Footnotes
¹ San Francisco Chronicle report on former staffer allegations, April 10, 2026.
² CNN investigation detailing four women’s accounts, including unsolicited photos and non-consensual encounters.
³ Axios original reporting on Fang Fang ties, December 2020 (updated context in 2026 coverage).
⁴ Coverage of Lonna Drewes press conference and fifth allegation, April 14-15, 2026.
⁵ Reports on Swalwell’s resignation and governor campaign suspension.
Bibliography for Further Reading
• “Four women describe sexual misconduct by Rep. Eric Swalwell,” CNN, April 10, 2026.
• “Ex-staffer says Rep. Eric Swalwell sexually assaulted her,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 10, 2026.
• “Woman alleges violent sexual assault by Eric Swalwell,” CalMatters, April 14, 2026.
• “How a suspected Chinese spy gained access to California politicians,” Axios, December 8, 2020.
• “Eric Swalwell’s exit shakes up chaotic California governor’s race,” BBC, April 13, 2026.
• “Trump endorses Republican Steven Hilton for California governor,” Washington Post, April 6, 2026.
• Various AP, NYT, and Politico reports on the timeline of allegations and investigations, April 2026.
Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, political strategist, systems thinker, and independent researcher of ancient history, the paranormal, and the Dead Sea Scrolls tradition. His life in high‑stakes manufacturing, high‑level politics, and cross‑functional crisis management gives him a field‑tested understanding of power — both human and unseen.
He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.
Hoffman writes with the credibility of a problem-solver, the curiosity of an archaeologist, and the courage of a frontline witness who has gone to very scary places and reported what lurked there. Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.
The Overmanwarrior 