I spent some time this morning talking to artificial intelligence the way most people still talk to other people, and it reminded me why individuals matter more than the systems we keep building around them. I have been around executive tables long enough to watch compliance cultures slowly strangle the very people who could save those cultures. I have watched human resources departments become the protective membrane that keeps radical thinkers from ever reaching the decision-making surface. And I have watched the opposite happen at places like SpaceX, where one man with skin in the game keeps asking the question nobody else wants answered.
The concept is simple and deliberately rude. Elon Musk calls it the idiot index. It is the ratio of the finished cost of a component to the cost of the raw materials that go into it. If a piece of hardware costs a thousand dollars and the aluminum or the composites inside it cost a hundred, the index is ten. At that point Musk’s judgment is blunt: if the ratio is high, you are an idiot.¹ The number is not meant to be polite. It is meant to force the conversation past the comfortable layers of process, certification, and cost-plus padding that traditional aerospace has lived on for decades. When the index is high, the design is too complex, the manufacturing path is too inefficient, or both. The only acceptable response is to simplify until the number drops.
That mindset is why SpaceX keeps iterating the Raptor engine instead of freezing a design and protecting it. Raptor 1 was heavy and complicated. Raptor 2 shed mass and gained thrust. Raptor 3 is already cleaner still.² In a cost-plus culture the first version would have been declared good enough, the print would have been locked, and any engineer who kept asking why the part still cost so much relative to its materials would have been labeled non-compliant. At SpaceX the question is expected. The people writing the checks are the same people who refuse to fall in love with yesterday’s solution.
I have worked inside heavily regulated environments where that kind of questioning is career-limiting. The system rewards the person who can document that every box was checked more than the person who can prove the box itself was unnecessary. Cost-plus contracting makes the problem worse. When your profit is a percentage of the total cost, every inefficiency becomes an asset. The higher the idiot index, the thicker the invoice. SpaceX rejected that model early and forced itself into fixed-price discipline and extreme vertical integration. They make roughly eighty-five percent of the vehicle in-house precisely so they can keep driving those ratios down.³ The result is launch costs that have collapsed by an order of magnitude compared with the legacy industry. That is not incremental improvement. That is the difference between a protected priesthood and a competitive market.
The same pattern shows up outside aerospace. When Donald Trump took over the failed Wollman Rink renovation in Central Park, the city had already spent years and many millions producing nothing but excuses. He finished the job months ahead of schedule and hundreds of thousands under budget.⁴ The difference was not magic. It was the willingness of one individual with authority and reputation on the line to ignore the process that had already failed and simply get the work done. Compliant cultures hate that kind of person. They will tolerate the process forever before they will tolerate the man who makes the process look foolish.
I demonstrated the point this morning by talking to two different AI systems the same way I would talk to a sharp engineer who has no political future to protect. I asked about the idiot index, about why cultures that punish the question eventually stagnate, and about the American peculiarity of still producing people willing to write the check and then demand the answer. The systems answered without the emotional baggage that attaches itself to human careers. They did not defend the status quo because their next performance review depends on defending it. They simply processed the logic. That is useful. It is also a warning. When the only entity still willing to call something an idiot index is a machine, the human culture has already surrendered.
The deeper problem is cultural. In environments that prize compliance above results, the radical individual becomes a threat to be managed rather than an asset to be leveraged. Human resources departments evolve into immune systems that identify and neutralize the person who keeps asking why the ratio is still high. In China the same impulse is enforced more openly: non-compliant actors are simply removed. The American version is softer but often just as effective. We do not shoot the person who questions the process. We make the process so labyrinthine that the question never reaches the room where decisions are made. Over time the only people left at the table are the ones who have learned never to raise the index.
SpaceX remains an American outlier precisely because it still tolerates, and in fact requires, the person who will sit at the big table and ask which idiot approved the current design. That tolerance is rare and getting rarer. Most corporate cultures have decided that emotional safety and procedural compliance are higher goods than rapid improvement. The result is visible everywhere cost-plus thinking still dominates: slow iteration, protected mediocrity, and prices that never come down. When people complain about the cost of eggs or the fragility of supply chains, they are usually describing the downstream effects of idiot indexes that were never challenged.
Individuals still matter. Cultures that suppress them eventually discover they have nothing left but the process. The process does not innovate. It only documents. The age of useful artificial intelligence will only accelerate the contrast. Machines that never need a paycheck and never fear a performance review will keep asking the hard questions long after the humans have decided the questions are impolite. The companies and countries that still produce people willing to act on the answers will pull further ahead. The rest will keep measuring their compliance while the index stays high.
I find that reality clarifying. It is also why I keep returning to the same point: every culture, every company, every executive suite eventually has to decide whether it wants the comfort of the process or the results that only come when someone is still willing to call the process what it is.
¹ Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2023), 284–285.
² SpaceX Raptor engine development history summarized in public statements by Elon Musk and technical reporting; see also Wikipedia entry “SpaceX Raptor” and associated primary sources.
³ Multiple industry analyses place SpaceX vertical integration near 85 percent of vehicle content; see Eric Berger reporting and SpaceX investor and technical presentations.
⁴ Contemporary New York Times and Time magazine coverage of the 1986 Wollman Rink reconstruction; confirmed in later retrospectives.
Bibliography
Isaacson, Walter. Elon Musk. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2023.
Berger, Eric. Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX. New York: William Morrow, 2021.
Musk, Elon. Public statements and interviews on manufacturing, cost structure, and the “idiot index,” 2010–2025.
NASA. Commercial Crew Program contract structures and fixed-price versus cost-plus analyses.
New York Times. Coverage of Wollman Rink reconstruction, June–November 1986.
Time. “End of the Six-Year Ice Follies,” November 1986.
Various technical papers and industry analyses on SpaceX vertical integration, Raptor engine evolution, and launch cost trajectories (Citi Research, London Economics, NASA NAFCOM comparisons).
Vance, Ashlee. Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. New York: Ecco, 2015 (updated editions).
Additional primary sources: SpaceX technical updates, FAA and NASA contracting data, and contemporary reporting on aerospace cost
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
I never set out one morning to rewrite history. History is already written, mostly by people who stop digging the moment the official story feels comfortable enough to protect careers and funding streams. The deeper problem is that the accepted version of the past is often assembled by those who never ask the next layer of “why.” In my professional life, I have spent decades sitting across tables from PhD-level experts who sandbag information to protect their own positions. You learn quickly that the only way to get at truth is to keep asking the next question after the comfortable answer has been delivered. I applied that same method to biblical studies, and the formation of American culture, and the rabbit hole opened wider than I expected.
What began as an effort to explain why the Constitution is a moral document rooted in biblical principles—work I first sketched in The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business—grew into something larger. The Bible is not merely a religious text for Christians and Jews; it is a civilizational blueprint. Its commandments and narratives shape cultures that produce durable wealth, ordered liberty, and the capacity for self-government. Once you accept that premise, the next question becomes unavoidable: what was the actual historical environment in which those commandments were given, and what older currents were already flowing when Abraham stepped onto the stage? That question forced me to travel, read, and dig. Over several years, I spent roughly half a million dollars of my own money on research travel—museums, remote sites, late nights in hotels far from home, books read on airplanes and beside campfires. The resulting manuscript is The Politics of Heaven. It is not a polite academic summary. It is an attempt to connect dots that mainstream archaeology and history have preferred to leave disconnected.
In the middle of July 2026, Timothy Alberino sat with Joe Rogan for nearly three hours. I watched the episode while camped on South Bass Island in Lake Erie with family, RV parked among several campsites we had claimed for a week. My daughters were cooking breakfast. The ordinary noise of daily life—hardware-store conversations, Costco recognition, local political pressure—had been left behind on the mainland. That distance mattered. The conversation Alberino and Rogan had would have been confined to late-night AM radio or Coast to Coast a decade earlier. Now it was mainstream, carried by the largest podcast in the English-speaking world. Alberino spoke of giants, of the Book of Enoch, of non-human intelligences that have interacted with humanity across millennia. He recounted the long-circulating story of a Kandahar giant—an enormous humanoid encountered by American troops in a cave in Afghanistan, killed after it attacked, its body placed on a pallet and flown out. The remains, according to the account, were taken to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. I live a short drive from that base. I have spoken over the years with men who held clearances there. They smile, lower their voices, and say that reverse-engineering of foreign technology has always been the cover story. Whether the technology is Russian, Chinese, or something that violates our airspace from farther afield is left for the listener to decide.
That interview did not surprise me so much as it confirmed a trajectory I had already been following. Alberino’s work and mine are not identical, but they occupy overlapping ground. He has spent more than a decade knocking on the door of the giant question and the Watcher tradition. I have been following the same scent through Ohio’s earthworks, Florida’s bogs, Malta’s temples, and the copper pits of Lake Superior. The difference is emphasis. I approach these matters as a political animal. Wealth creation, nation-building, and the commandments that make ordered liberty possible are never far from my mind. When non-human intelligences appear in the historical record—whether as the “sons of God” of Genesis 6, the entities contacted by shamans, or the craft recovered at crash sites—the political question is immediate: who holds sovereignty over the human race?
Consider the copper. Between roughly 5000 and 1200 BC, miners removed hundreds of thousands of tons of nearly pure native copper from the Lake Superior region—Isle Royale, the Keweenaw Peninsula, and surrounding shores. Thousands of ancient pit mines still scar the landscape. The purity of that copper exceeds 99 percent, a grade rarely achieved by Old World smelting of sulfide ores. Yet the archaeological inventory of North America accounts for only a tiny fraction of the extracted metal. The rest vanished. Mainstream accounts insist the copper stayed local, used by indigenous peoples for tools and ornaments. The volumes do not add up. Alternative researchers have long argued that the missing copper fueled the Bronze Age in the Near East and Europe. Timeline, purity, and scale align too neatly to dismiss out of hand. I have walked those Upper Peninsula sites. I have stood on Mackinac Island and looked across the water toward the old mining grounds. The place itself argues for industrial-scale extraction long before Columbus.
If copper moved from the Great Lakes to the Mediterranean, then knowledge and people moved as well. The megalithic temples of Malta—Ġgantija, Ħaġar Qim, Mnajdra, Tarxien—were raised between 3600 and 2500 BC. Local folklore has always claimed giants built them; the very name Ġgantija means “Giant’s Tower.” These structures predate the pyramids and Stonehenge. Their alignments, their scale, and the ritual deposits inside them point to a sophisticated religious system concerned with ancestors, fertility, and entities larger than ordinary men. At the same period, Hopewell culture in the Ohio Valley was constructing earthworks of staggering geometric precision. The Newark Earthworks, now a UNESCO site, are aligned to the 18.6-year lunar standstill cycle with an accuracy that matches or exceeds Stonehenge. The same lunar mathematics appear at High Bank Works near Chillicothe and at Serpent Mound. Either distant cultures independently arrived at identical astronomical solutions, or they shared information. Boats can cross oceans when sea levels are lower, as they were before the final melt of the ice sheets. Dreams, trance states, and psychedelic plants can also transmit knowledge. Shamans in Ohio and priests on Malta may have been speaking to the same non-human interlocutors.
This is a video from my son in law taken during a recent family trip. For context.
I do not romanticize the indigenous cultures of North America. The 1619 Project and its political descendants treat pre-Columbian peoples as perpetual victims whose every tragedy must be laid at the feet of European settlement. That framing is propaganda, not history. Tribes displaced other tribes. The Cherokee themselves carry traditions of the “Moon-Eyed People”—pale, nocturnal, possibly albino inhabitants they drove from the mountains before European contact. Cahokia, the great Mississippian city near modern St. Louis, practiced large-scale human sacrifice. At Mound 72, archaeologists found mass graves of young women, some still alive when buried, arranged in ritual order. These were not peaceful gardeners living in harmony with nature. They were complex societies with elites, enslaved people, and blood rituals aimed at contacting powers beyond the visible world.
The same pattern appears in the Windover Bog site near Titusville, Florida. Roughly eight thousand years ago, a community buried its dead in a peat pond. The anaerobic conditions preserved soft tissues, including brains, in nearly 100 individuals. Early reports described unusually large skeletal remains. DNA work suggested an Asian origin that does not match living Native American tribes. Then NAGPRA intervened. The remains were reburied. Further study became politically toxic. We are left with photographs, fragmentary reports, and the knowledge that a population of large-boned people lived on a coastline that is now underwater, their shoreline having retreated miles eastward as seas rose after the Younger Dryas. The same story repeats along the Gulf Coast and the drowned continental shelves of the world: previous human worlds now lie beneath forty or more feet of water.
In my own backyard, the Loveland Frogmen still appear in local memory. Three well-documented sightings in 1955 and 1972 occurred along the Little Miami River, precisely where Hopewell ritual sites once stood before neighborhoods and schools covered them. Police officers described bipedal, leathery, four-foot-tall creatures that stood upright and then fled toward the water. I have walked those banks. I do not claim the Frogmen are biological animals in the ordinary sense. I suggest they are the same class of non-human intelligence that shamans once summoned at the earthworks—entities that move through dimensions where time does not behave as we experience it. A call issued two thousand years ago can be answered in 1972. The beings arrive, see streetlights and police cars, panic, and retreat to the familiar river corridor. Crop circles, mound alignments, and stone circles may function as temporal markers—breadcrumbs left so travelers from outside linear time can locate themselves.
Graham Hancock’s Supernatural opened this door for many readers by documenting the global use of psychedelics in the birth of religion. The next step is obvious. If the visions are consistent across continents and millennia—serpents, flying craft, shape-shifting beings, instructions for building, planting, and navigating—then the source is not merely the human subconscious. It is an external intelligence that has been seeding, guiding, and sometimes exploiting humanity for thousands of years. Eric von Däniken saw the same pattern and attributed it to ancient astronauts. I think the reality is closer and older. These entities have never left. They operate in the background of history the way certain political factions operate in the background of governments—rarely seen, always present, shaping outcomes.
Wright-Patterson has studied recovered materials and biological remains for decades. The Kandahar giant, if the accounts are true, is only one more specimen on the shelf. Trump-era disclosures and subsequent War Department releases have edged the conversation into daylight. We are being told, carefully and incompletely, that non-human intelligence has violated our airspace and our sovereignty for a very long time. Immigration debates that ignore this dimension are incomplete. Sovereignty that stops at the water’s edge or the edge of the atmosphere is not sovereignty at all.
The Politics of Heaven gathers these threads. It argues that the biblical tradition represents a successful civilizational path precisely because it names the competing powers and places humanity under a single transcendent authority rather than under the shifting demands of local spirits and giants. Pagan and occult systems—whether Hopewell shamanism, Maltese temple cults, or the Crowleyite rituals that still echo in certain California circles—produce different outcomes. They open doors. What walks through those doors is rarely benevolent. The copper trade that may have ignited the Bronze Age, the lunar mathematics shared across an ocean, the giant bones reported in mounds from Ohio to Florida to the Near East, the frog-men that still surface along rivers once lined with ritual earthworks—all of it points to a single, continuous story. Non-human intelligence has been a political actor longer than any human empire.
I finished the manuscript after that week on the island. The noise of ordinary life had been far enough away that the pattern could finally lock into place. Alberino’s conversation with Rogan was not the beginning of the revelation; it was a public confirmation that the conversation itself had moved from the fringe to the center. The next five or ten years will force a reckoning with these older layers of history. Archaeologists must keep digging. The rest of us must be willing to read what they find without the ideological filters that have already buried too much evidence. The politics of heaven are not abstract theology. They are the oldest and most consequential politics of all.
Notes
1. The Joe Rogan Experience episode featuring Timothy Alberino aired in mid-July 2026 and discussed the Kandahar giant narrative at length in its opening segment. The story has circulated in military and conspiracy circles since the mid-2000s; the Department of Defense has not released any official confirmation or physical evidence.
2. On the scale of ancient copper extraction in the Lake Superior basin, see Susan R. Martin, Wonderful Power: The Story of Ancient Copper Working in the Lake Superior Basin (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999). Estimates of total copper removed range from hundreds of thousands to over a million tons; mainstream archaeology maintains local use, while alternative researchers point to the absence of corresponding artifacts as evidence of export.
3. For the lunar alignments of the Newark Earthworks, see Ray Hively and Robert Horn, “Geometry and Astronomy in Prehistoric Ohio,” Archaeoastronomy 4 (1982), and subsequent work by the same authors. The Octagon Earthworks track the 18.6-year major lunar standstill with high precision.
4. Maltese temple chronology and folklore: David H. Trump, Malta: Prehistory and Temples (Malta: Midsea Books, 2002); UNESCO documentation on the Megalithic Temples of Malta. The name Ġgantija derives directly from the Maltese word for giant.
5. Windover site: Glen H. Doran, ed., Windover: Multidisciplinary Investigations of an Early Archaic Florida Cemetery (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002). DNA and morphological studies indicated that the population was not closely related to later Native American groups; NAGPRA repatriation limited further analysis.
6. Cahokia Mound 72 sacrifices: Timothy R. Pauketat, Cahokia: Ancient America’s Great City on the Mississippi (New York: Viking, 2009); Melvin L. Fowler et al., The Mound 72 Area: Dedicated and Sacred Space in Early Cahokia (Illinois State Museum, 1999).
7. The Ohio History Connection holds the Wray Figurine (Hopewell Shaman of Newark). It depicts a figure in bear regalia holding a severed human head and is widely interpreted as a transforming shaman.
8. Cherokee traditions of the Moon-Eyed People appear in James Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee (Washington: Bureau of American Ethnology, 1900) and later ethnographic collections.
9. Loveland Frogman primary accounts: police reports filed by Officers Ray Shockey and Mark Matthews, March 1972; earlier 1955 sighting reported in local newspapers and summarized in various cryptozoological compilations.
10. Graham Hancock, Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind (New York: Disinformation, 2006) remains the most accessible survey of the global psychedelic-shamanic complex.
Select Bibliography
Alberino, Timothy. Birthright: The Coming Posthuman Apocalypse and the Usurpation of Adam’s Dominion on Planet Earth. Independently published, 2020.
Doran, Glen H., ed. Windover: Multidisciplinary Investigations of an Early Archaic Florida Cemetery. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002.
Hancock, Graham. Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind. New York: Disinformation, 2006.
Hively, Ray, and Robert Horn. “Geometry and Astronomy in Prehistoric Ohio.” Archaeoastronomy 4 (1982): S1–S20.
Martin, Susan R. Wonderful Power: The Story of Ancient Copper Working in the Lake Superior Basin. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999.
Mooney, James. Myths of the Cherokee. Washington: Bureau of American Ethnology, 1900.
Pauketat, Timothy R. Cahokia: Ancient America’s Great City on the Mississippi. New York: Viking, 2009.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
I have been sitting with Sheriff Richard K. Jones’s book for about 24 hours now, turning the pages the way a man turns over an old photograph that still has the power to surprise him. They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America is not a polished political memoir written by committee. It is the voice of a man who has spent a lifetime walking the same ground I have walked in Butler County, speaking the same language of family, order, and personal accountability that once held communities together before the experts decided those things were negotiable. Jones has always been the Sheriff who runs his office the way Andy Griffith ran Mayberry and Marshall Dillon ran Dodge City, with a healthy dose of Waffle House common sense thrown in for good measure. You show up, you tell the truth, you do the job, and you do not apologize for the results. That approach has kept Butler County safer than most places that spend three times the money and twice the consultants, and it is why so many of us who live here still call him simply Jones.
What kept pulling me back to the book was not the policy talk or the war stories about the jail, though those are solid enough. It was the cautionary tales about family and the slow corrosion of the values that once made a man accountable to his own house before he tried to run anyone else’s. Jones and I share a deep and permanent hatred of the drug culture that has hollowed out so many families in this county and across the country. We have both watched too many good people lose children, lose marriages, lose the simple ability to look their grandchildren in the eye without shame. He writes about those losses without the usual soft language of the therapeutic class. He writes like a man who has had to clean up the mess afterward. That kind of honesty is rare now, and it is the reason the book feels less like a campaign document and more like a dispatch from someone who has been on the wall for a long time and is finally willing to say what he has seen.
But the story that made me laugh out loud, the one that sent me straight back to October of 2016, is the one about the night he opened for Donald Trump at U.S. Bank Arena. I was there. Not in the sense that I was sitting in the same row or riding in the same car. I was backstage, working the edges of the same event, trying to find a quiet corner where I could take a conference call with people on the other side of the world while the whole building shook. And I watched the exchange Jones describes in the book unfold in real time.
It was Thursday, October 13, 2016. The Access Hollywood tape had dropped only six days earlier, on October 7, and the professional political class was still in full panic. Most of the Ohio Republican establishment had already decided Trump was finished. They had lined up behind Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, or John Kasich, the local favorite who was still twisting arms for support even as the primary season was long over. Supporting Trump in those weeks was not the fashionable choice. It was the choice that got you labeled a crank, a risk, a man who did not understand how power actually worked. Senator George Lang, I, and a handful of others had been in that camp early. We had met Trump, sat with him, watched him operate before the primaries even heated up in Ohio. We knew the ground. Most of the smart people in the room did not.
Jones was one of the few who never flinched. By the time the campaign asked him to warm up the crowd at U.S. Bank Arena, the atmosphere was thick with the kind of nervous energy that only comes when the people in charge are not sure the candidate is going to survive the next news cycle. The director of the program that night wanted a script. He wanted to know exactly what the Sheriff was going to say. He wanted control. Jones looked at him the way he has looked at a thousand people who try to put a leash on him and said, essentially, that is not how I work. I talk from the hip. I have been talking all year. You tell me how long you need and I will fill the time. I do not need a teleprompter or your talking points.
I was standing close enough to hear the exchange while they were trying to get me upstairs to a box where I could take that overseas call. Giuliani was somewhere in the mix. The production people were frantic. Trump’s plane was still in the air. The arena was filling from the floor to the upper decks, and the noise was already starting to build. Jones went out there anyway. He did not have a prepared speech. He walked onto the stage and did the thing he has always done: he talked to the people the way a man talks to his neighbors when the subject is serious. Fifteen minutes turned into something closer to thirty. The crowd answered him the way Butler County has always answered him. They roared. From the high box where I finally closed the windows and tried to finish my call, Jones looked like a small figure on a distant stage, but the sound of that arena was impossible to shut out. I had the volume turned up on my headset and still could barely hear the people on the other end of the line. Part of me was irritated that my business meeting was being drowned out by a Sheriff who refused to stay on script. Most of me was very proud.
Trump claimed the crowd that night was 21,000, with thousands more outside who could not get in. Mike Pence put the number around 19,000 the next morning. The arena’s concert capacity sits somewhere in the neighborhood of 17,500, and some of the upper seats behind the stage were empty according to the reporters who were counting chairs instead of energy. The exact headcount is the kind of detail the media loves to argue about when they do not want to talk about what the crowd actually felt. What I saw from that box was a building packed tight enough that the noise had nowhere to go but up. People had not been paid to be there. They had not been bused in. They had decided that the Access Hollywood tape and the coordinated media effort to sink the candidate were not going to decide the election for them. Jones understood that before most of the professionals in the room did.
I have watched Jones make hard calls for more than twenty years. We have not always stood on the same side of every primary or every local fight. There have been nights when we were polite but cool because we were representing different candidates or different issues on the ballot. We have always found our way back to the common ground, because the common ground is larger than the temporary disagreements. Supporting Trump when it was still radioactive inside the Ohio Republican Party was one of those moments when the ground became visible. The same people who told us we were going to destroy our own political futures are now the ones who want their picture taken with the man. That is how these things usually go. The smart set picks the wrong horse for the wrong reasons, and then they rewrite the story after the race is over.
Jones has always had a gift for seeing through the fog. When Corey Lewandowski came through Ross’ Big Bull later, the first person he sought out was the same Sheriff who had refused to read from a script on a night when the campaign was still bleeding. That is the kind of quiet authority that does not show up on a résumé. It shows up when the building is full, and the professionals are nervous, and somebody still has to walk out there and speak without a net.
I recommend the book without reservation. Read the parts about family and the slow destruction of the old rules. Read the parts about the jail and the daily work of keeping order in a county that still believes order is possible. And read the part about that night at U.S. Bank Arena, because it captures something essential about the man. He is not a performer. He is not a consultant’s idea of a lawman. He is the product of a certain kind of American stubbornness that refuses to be managed, and on the nights when it matters most, that stubbornness turns out to be the smartest thing in the room.
I was proud of him that night. I am proud of him for putting the story down on paper without sanding off the edges. Some of us were right when it was expensive to be right. Ten years later, it is still a pleasure to remember it.
Footnotes
1. Richard K. Jones, They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America (publication details as available through standard retail channels, 2025–2026). The account of the U.S. Bank Arena appearance appears in the sections dealing with early Trump support and the political pressures of the 2016 general election campaign.
2. The Access Hollywood recording was published by The Washington Post on October 7, 2016. See “Donald Trump recorded having extremely lewd conversation about women in 2005,” Washington Post, October 7, 2016.
3. Attendance estimates for the October 13, 2016, rally at U.S. Bank Arena (now Heritage Bank Center) varied. Trump publicly claimed 21,000 inside with additional thousands outside; Mike Pence cited approximately 19,000 the following day. Contemporary reporting noted the arena’s concert configuration capacity near 17,500 and observed some empty upper-level seats. See “How many people attended Trump’s Cincy rally? No one seems to agree,” WCPO, October 13–14, 2016; and arena capacity data from Heritage Bank Center / U.S. Bank Arena historical records.
4. Photographic and contemporaneous coverage confirming Sheriff Jones’s appearance as a speaker that evening can be found in the Cincinnati Enquirer photo gallery, “Trump supporters rally at U.S. Bank Arena,” October 13, 2016, and related local television reports from WCPO and WLWT.
5. On the broader context of early Ohio support for Trump amid establishment resistance, see contemporaneous reporting on the positions of figures such as then-Senator Rob Portman, Governor John Kasich, and local Republican organizational dynamics in the weeks following the Access Hollywood release.
Selected Bibliography for Further Reading
Jones, Richard K. They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America.
Fahrenthold, David A. “Trump recorded having extremely lewd conversation about women in 2005.” The Washington Post, October 7, 2016.
“How many people attended Trump’s Cincy rally?” WCPO 9 News, October 2016.
Heritage Bank Center (formerly U.S. Bank Arena) venue history and capacity documentation.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
I first learned that Sheriff Richard K. Jones had put a book out when a few people in the county mentioned it in passing, and the moment I heard the title I knew I would read it. They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America arrived on the front porch the day my family and I returned from being out of town at Put-in-Bay, in Ohio. I had ordered it so it would be waiting, because I had already promised myself and others that I would get through it promptly. After more than two decades of knowing the man, shaking his hand at events, watching him work a room in that cowboy hat of his, and hearing him on WLW or in national spots talking immigration and law and order, I still carried questions about how he became who he is, what shaped the priorities he brings to the office every morning, and how a man decides day to day what matters most when the badge is on. The book answered more of those questions than casual conversation ever could.
What struck me first is that this is not merely a campaign volume or a greatest-hits collection of media appearances. It reads like a man who has spent a lifetime speaking into microphones and cameras finally realizing that the voice does not last forever. There is a quiet urgency underneath the stories. He talks about the burial plot, about the friend at the funeral home who will one day see him prepared for the last service. He is only a little more than a decade older than I am, yet the public job ages a person in ways private life does not. Six terms as sheriff of Butler County, with the possibility of more, still brings the knowledge that one day the hat comes off for the last time. Writing the book becomes a way of leaving the voice behind so that the things he believes still matter after the daily briefings and the press conferences stop.
I have always liked the Gunsmoke in him. He admits the debt openly. The old black-and-white shows, the clear line between the man who upholds the law and the men who break it, the sense that a sheriff walks the street and talks to people and puts things right when he can. Andy Griffith is there too, the Mayberry instinct to put an arm around the troubled soul and try to set him back on the path. Those two shows formed a generation of men who believed law enforcement could be both firm and decent. Jonesy lives that combination more than most. He is black-and-white on the big questions. Drugs destroy families and communities; illegal immigration brings more of the same; the jail is full of people who made choices that wrecked their own lives and the lives of others. Yet the book reveals a softer edge than the public persona sometimes allows. He is a compassionate conservative in the older sense of the term. He wants the county to feel more like the place he grew up, where most of the kids he knew had parents who stayed married twenty or thirty years and worked through their troubles instead of walking away at the first hard stretch.
That observation about divorce rates is one of the strongest passages. He watched the numbers climb across his adult lifetime and saw the downstream damage in the jail, in the overdose calls, in the children who never had a stable home to push against. Stable families produce the work ethic and the self-control that keep a community from tipping into chaos. When the marriages fracture as a matter of course, the sheriff’s office ends up dealing with the wreckage. He does not present himself as a sociologist, but the pattern is plain to anyone who has spent decades answering the same kinds of calls. The data back the instinct. The sharp rise in divorce after the introduction of no-fault laws, the parallel growth in single-parent households, and the measurable links to higher rates of juvenile trouble, drug use, and later criminality are not left-wing inventions or right-wing inventions. They are simply what happened.
I share the same cultural memory. I grew up with Gunsmoke playing in the background at my grandparents’ place near Oxford, rabbit ears and all, the same black-and-white morality on the screen while the adults talked about the real world. The shows did not prepare a man for the full depth of certain modern evils. Pornography addiction of the kind that turns a phone into a nonstop delivery system, and the further slide into the sexual exploitation of children, sit outside the frame of those old stories. Jonesy is of an era when a teenager might sneak a look at a dirty magazine on a high shelf in an old bookstore hoping that the cashier wouldn’t catch them. The scale and the numbness of what exists now are harder for that generation to metabolize, not because the men lack courage, but because the evil itself is newer in its accessibility and its intensity. He is devastatingly clear on drugs. On the deeper sexual corruptions that have grown in the last thirty years, the book leaves the impression of a man who sees the damage and still struggles to find language adequate to the thing itself. That is not a failing of character. It is the honest limit of a worldview formed before the internet made every darkness instantly available.
His record on the drug side is long and consistent. The seizures, the public messaging, the refusal to treat overdose deaths as inevitable background noise, all of it tracks with the same black-and-white view. He has been equally consistent on illegal immigration, which is why the national media found him useful for color and why the comparisons to Joe Arpaio sometimes surface. Arpaio paid a political and legal price for enforcing the same principles under a different administration; the pardon that followed was a recognition that the prosecution had been selective. Jonesy has not faced that level of federal hostility, and Butler County is not Maricopa. The local political climate has allowed him to keep doing the work. I expect him to keep winning as long as he wants the job, and I hope that is for a good while yet. The county is better for his presence.
There is a section on the COVID years that brought back the tension of those days. He kept the office functioning, kept the messaging straightforward, and refused to let the panic dictate every decision. Leadership under that kind of pressure reveals the man. The same instinct shows up in the smaller habits. He likes the Waffle House on Main Street in Hamilton enough that they named an omelet after him. I understand the attraction. Walk in, sit at the counter, talk to the cooks and the waitresses and whoever else is there about the country and the county and what needs fixing. It is the modern version of the saloon without the whiskey, a place where a sheriff can still be a citizen among citizens. I took my granddaughter to a Waffle House on a trip toward Columbus for the same reason. The American flags and the unapologetic patriotism on the walls feel like home. Jonesy belongs in that atmosphere the same way he belongs in the cowboy hat.
The book is full of the personal details that never surface in a sound bite. Garfield High School. The long marriage. The children and grandchildren. The zoo trips. The quiet pride in having built a life that looks something like the ones he saw around him as a boy. He is not trying to present himself as a sophisticated theorist. He is trying to say that the old model still works if enough people insist on it. Strong families, clear laws, a sheriff who shows up every day ready to lock up the people who refuse to live by them, and a willingness to put an arm around the ones who might still be pulled back. That combination is rarer than it should be.
I have found myself on the opposite side of primary fights from time to time, the normal friction of people who share a party but not always a candidate. None of that changed the basic respect. The man has brought real public relations value to the office and to the county. When national outlets need a sheriff who will speak plainly about the border or the drug crisis, they know where to find him. Locally he has kept the department visible and the standards high. The book makes plain that the visibility is not an end in itself. It is a tool for keeping the public on the side of the people who have to make the hard calls at three in the morning.
Some of my favorite people. And I never get tired of Sheriff Jones.
What lingers after the last page is the sense of a man measuring the distance between the county he inherited and the county he will leave. He wants the next generation of law enforcement and the next generation of citizens to remember that the job is still worth doing it the old way. The book is his attempt to make that memory portable. It is not perfect. No book written by a working sheriff in the middle of the job is going to be. It is honest in the places that matter. The love of the old shows, the sadness over the collapse of stable families, the daily refusal to treat drug dealers as unfortunate victims of circumstance, the recognition that the voice will one day go quiet, all of it lands cleanly.
If the goal is still to make the country better starting from the ground up, then more sheriffs who think like this would help. Fix the families and a large part of the downstream crime and addiction begins to shrink. Keep the border and the drug pipelines under pressure. Keep the local office present and accountable. Jonesy has practiced that combination for a long time in one midwestern county. The book lets the rest of the country see the method without the filter of a three-minute television hit. I finished it glad I had waited for the porch delivery, and gladder still that the man who wrote it is still on the job. Butler County has been better for it. The country would be better if more places had the same standard.
I will keep endorsing him for as many terms as he chooses to run. The hat still fits. The instincts are still sound. And the book ensures that even after the last term the voice remains available to anyone willing to listen. Which they should.
Notes
1. Richard K. Jones, They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America (2026). Official description and author framing appear at theycallmejonesy.com and the Amazon listing for the title.
2. Biographical details drawn from the Butler County Sheriff’s Office official profile and contemporary reporting: born October 11, 1953, Hamilton, Ohio; military service 1973–1975; long career in Ohio corrections before becoming chief deputy and then sheriff in 2005; multiple reelections including the 2020 cycle that secured a fifth term.
3. Comparison to Joe Arpaio references the 2017 presidential pardon following the contempt conviction tied to immigration enforcement practices under the prior administration. See White House statement of August 25, 2017, and contemporaneous coverage.
4. Historical divorce and family-structure trends are well documented in Census and CDC data showing the post-1960s acceleration after no-fault divorce reforms, the rise in single-parent households, and correlated social outcomes. See also the long-term cultural commentary in works such as Charles Murray’s Coming Apart and the earlier observations of Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
5. Jones’s public commentary on immigration, fentanyl, and COVID-era policy is extensively recorded in local outlets (Journal-News, Local 12), national appearances, and the sheriff’s own podcast In the Saddle.
Bibliography for Further Reading
Arpaio, Joe, and Tom Fitton. Joe’s Law: America’s Toughest Sheriff Takes On Illegal Immigration, Drugs, and Everything Else That Threatens America. New York: AMACOM, 2008.
Murray, Charles. Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010. New York: Crown Forum, 2012.
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick. The Negro Family: The Case for National Action. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Labor, 1965. (The original memorandum remains foundational for understanding family-structure effects on social outcomes.)
Putnam, Robert D. Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015.
Sheriff Richard K. Jones. Official biography and news archive at butlersheriff.org.
U.S. Census Bureau and National Center for Health Statistics historical tables on marriage, divorce, and household composition, 1950–present.
Vance, J.D. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. New York: Harper, 2016. (Useful companion reading on the cultural and family pressures in the broader Ohio Valley region.)
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
It was a Friday night in mid-July 2026, and I was in one of those nice theaters with the little tables—the kind that make an evening out feel intentional rather than just another screen in the dark. The film was Young Washington, the new one about George Washington’s early years in the French and Indian War, before he was the marble statue on the dollar bill or the father of a nation. It was a good picture, the kind that puts you in a patriotic frame of mind without preaching. I had my phone face-down on the table because I didn’t want to be that guy checking messages during the show. But even silenced, I could feel it lighting up now and then. When the credits rolled and I finally turned it over, there were more notifications than I expected. One of them was from Sheriff Jones.
I like Sheriff Jones. I always have. He’s one of those larger-than-life figures who makes Butler County feel like it still has some old-fashioned backbone left. When he texted to let me know he had a new book out—“They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America”—I was genuinely surprised. It had come out back in May, and I hadn’t heard a thing about it until that message. He said if I wanted to talk about it or pick one up, to reach out. I told him right then I’d get it read. I could have driven over and grabbed a copy from him directly, but I wanted to do it the right way—support the work properly—so I opened Amazon on the spot and bought it. As I write this, the book hasn’t arrived yet. I’ve been busy, the way most of us are these days, and sometimes the important people and the important things slip through the cracks until a text like that snaps you back to attention.
While I wait for it to show up, I’ve been thinking about what it means to have a Sheriff like Richard K. Jones in our community—and why the public relations side of his job might be every bit as important as the operational side most people picture when they think “law enforcement.”
In Butler County, Jones is more than the man who runs the jail and signs the paychecks for deputies. He’s a character in the classic sense: the tall figure in the signature cowboy hat and those big ostrich boots, the one who shows up at fundraisers for youth shooting sports, compares hats with old friends, and isn’t afraid to talk about the realities of the job—the lawsuits that come with the territory, the guns he carries or the ones the department fields, the constant pressure from every direction. He’s been doing this a long time. First elected in 2004, he’s now well into what I’d call his seventh term of service, having worked through multiple governors, multiple presidents, and the full spectrum of political weather in Ohio and beyond. He’s dealt with the Bush years, the Obama years, the Biden years, and whatever comes next. Through all of it, he’s stayed visible, outspoken, and unapologetic in a way that feels increasingly rare.
That visibility is the part a lot of people miss when they talk about what a Sheriff is supposed to do. Some folks think the job is purely about kicking in doors and locking up bad guys. And yes, that work matters—more than most civilians will ever understand. But if you only do the enforcement piece and ignore the executive piece, you eventually lose the community you’re sworn to protect. People start seeing the badge as something distant and ominous rather than something that belongs to them. They start questioning why their tax dollars go to support it. Morale inside the department suffers when the public narrative turns against you. Jones figured this out a long time ago, long before national figures made “brand” a dirty word or a political weapon. He understood that in a republic, especially at the county level where government is closest to the people, you have to build something citizens can latch onto and believe in. You have to make law and order feel like a shared project rather than an imposition.
That’s what I mean when I talk about executive leadership. I’ve written about it in The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and I’m still working through the lessons in my own professional life—an aerospace executive who spends a lot of hours every week trying to impose will on circumstances, build teams that believe in the mission, and create something durable enough to survive the inevitable storms. The gunfighter doesn’t just draw fast; he creates the conditions where the draw is rarely necessary because the reputation and the relationships do half the work. Same principle applies to a Sheriff’s office. If the community sees the department as “us” rather than “them,” you get better cooperation on tips, better juries, better budgets, better young people considering the career, and a healthier society overall. Jones has spent years cultivating exactly that. He gets on TV. He does the interviews. He shows up. He lets people see the human being behind the badge—the one with the cowboy hat and the straight talk—and that makes all the difference when something goes wrong and the cameras show up for the wrong reasons.
I’ll be honest: when I saw his name on my phone that night, part of me hoped it was the other kind of message. The one where he says they’re getting ready to hit a house or round up some cartel types or serve a warrant that might need an extra set of eyes and a steady hand. I’ve lived long enough and seen enough to know that sometimes the only thing that moves the needle is decisive action on the ground. I would have been in the truck in five minutes, and I think he knows that. But instead he wanted to tell me about the book, and that’s valuable in its own right. Because writing the book is also action—it’s distilling decades of experience into something other people can use. From everything I’ve seen in the descriptions and early word, They Call Me Jonesy is exactly what you’d expect from the man: candid, humorous in that tough-love Midwestern way, deeply patriotic, and full of stories about leadership under pressure, the cost of political correctness, the realities of “the swamp” at every level, and what it actually takes to push back. It’s a call to action for people who still believe in law and order, traditional values, and straight talk. And it comes from someone who’s walked the walk for more than twenty years in one of the most visible law enforcement jobs in Ohio.
We share a mutual friend in David Kern, the longtime Liberty Township trustee. David and I have known each other all my life. He’s always been a solid political figure—practical, engaged, the kind of person who gets things done without needing to be the loudest voice in the room. Jones and I have connected over that shared respect more than once. We’ve not always agreed on every detail of every issue, but we’ve always been able to shake hands, compare cowboy hats (mine’s been a fixture since I was in third or fourth grade, a declaration that I wasn’t going to blend into whatever the culture was selling that week), and keep the relationship real. That matters in a county like ours. It’s how you get things done when the easy path would be to retreat into your own silo and let the rest of the world burn.
There’s something refreshing about a public servant who still understands that the job includes selling the mission. Not in a slick, consultant-driven way—Jones is too much of a character for that—but in the old-fashioned sense of showing people why it’s worth supporting. He’s not afraid to be seen. He’s not afraid to be himself. And because of that, when Butler County residents look at the Sheriff’s Office, they don’t automatically default to suspicion or resentment. They see someone who’s been there through the hard times, who’s willing to say the unpopular thing out loud, and who’s built enough goodwill that the community is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt when the inevitable controversies flare. That’s brand building at its most practical. It’s also leadership at its most effective.
I’m proud of Sheriff Jones for putting this book out into the world. Not every lawman has the discipline or the inclination to turn the raw material of a long career into something readable and useful for the next generation. He’s become something of an international figure in certain circles because of his willingness to speak plainly about immigration, crime, and the erosion of common sense in policy. But he’s stayed rooted here. That says something. And for those of us who call Butler County home, it means we have a Sheriff who gets the big picture: saving America isn’t just a slogan or a national election every four years. It happens in places like this, one relationship, one visible stand, one candid conversation at a time.
The book is available on Amazon right now—“They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America” by Richard K. Jones. I’m looking forward to reading it the moment it lands on my doorstep, and I’ll have more to say once I’ve had a chance to digest it properly. If it captures even a fraction of the personality and the hard-won wisdom I’ve come to associate with the man who sent me that text, it’ll be time well spent. And if you’re the kind of person who still believes that strong, unapologetic leadership at the local level is part of how we turn this country around, then do yourself a favor and pick up a copy too.
In the meantime, I’ll keep my phone close. You never know when the next message from the Sheriff might come through—maybe about the book, maybe about something more immediate. Either way, I’m glad he’s out there, hat and all, doing the work of building something worth believing in. We need more like him.
Footnotes
[1] Richard K. Jones, They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America (Independently published, May 18, 2026). The paperback edition became available around that date; a Kindle edition is also offered. See the official site at theycallmejonesy.com and the Amazon listing for current purchasing options and a free sample.
[2] The book’s public description emphasizes candid leadership lessons drawn from Jones’s decades in corrections and law enforcement, including direct commentary on crime, political correctness, “the swamp,” patriotism, and practical steps for those who want to help save America. Early testimonials have come from figures including former Arizona Sheriff Mark Lamb and former Middletown Police Chief Rodney Muterspaw.
[3] Sheriff Richard K. Jones was first elected Butler County Sheriff in November 2004 (taking office January 2005) and, as of mid-2026, is serving what official records describe as his sixth term. In personal conversation and local perception, the length and continuity of his service often register as an even longer tenure of steady leadership through changing political environments.
[4] Rich Hoffman, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business (available through standard retailers). The book explores themes of resilience, imposing will on circumstances, building loyal teams, and the executive’s role in creating something people will fight to preserve—lessons that parallel the brand-building and leadership approach discussed here.
[5] Purchase They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America directly through Amazon or the author’s site (theycallmejonesy.com). As of July 2026 it remains a recent release and is easy to find with a quick search for the title and author.
Bibliography
Jones, Richard K. They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America. Independently published, May 18, 2026.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
I have been saying for months that this Ohio governor’s race was never going to be as close as the liberal media and the Democratic machine kept insisting. As long as Amy Acton could raise and spend roughly equal amounts of money, they could buy enough advertising to keep the “horse race” illusion alive. That is how the game works in modern politics. Fundraising and media buys create the perception of competitiveness long after the fundamentals have already decided the outcome. But we are now in the middle of July 2026, and the gap is becoming impossible to hide. Elon Musk just put $5 million into the super PAC supporting Vivek Ramaswamy. That single check changes the entire dynamic, and the other side knows it.
I have watched David Pepper and the Marc Elias-style operatives do this routine before. They treat elections like a production where money buys the narrative, and the narrative buys time. They prop up candidates who cannot stand on their own record by flooding the airwaves with ads that soften the edges and attack the opponent on personality or wealth rather than substance. It works until the money runs short. Then the horse stops getting free drinks at the strip joint, and reality walks in. Right now, the money is tightening up for Acton, and the media that was happy to call this a toss-up while the checks were clearing is suddenly quieter about the fundamentals.
Vivek Ramaswamy is the exceptional candidate in this race. He is a Cincinnati native who built real companies, created real value, and succeeded on merit in competitive fields. He is a successful author and thinker who has already proven he can operate at the highest levels of government efficiency efforts alongside Elon Musk in the Department of Government Efficiency. He understands free markets, individual initiative, and the dangers of centralized government that tries to manage every resource and outcome from above. That is the opposite of the society Acton and her backers have spent years promoting—one that empowers mediocre administrators while punishing the very people and policies that generate prosperity.
Acton, by contrast, is a textbook product of the empire of mediocrity. She was the face of Ohio’s COVID lockdowns as state health director. She helped shut down businesses, kept drive-throughs and dining rooms closed at places like McDonald’s under ever-shifting rules, and contributed to the destruction of countless small enterprises that never recovered. Those policies were later exposed in court as unconstitutional overreaches. I had conversations with members of the Ohio Supreme Court back in 2020 as those cases were being prepared, and it was obvious even then that the lockdowns could not survive constitutional scrutiny. Governor DeWine eventually had to back away because the legal foundation was collapsing under him. Acton resigned under pressure from angry citizens protesting in the streets with no clear end in sight. None of that is the record of an exceptional leader. It is the record of someone who followed the centralized script, expanded bureaucratic power, and left real damage behind.
DeWine’s endorsement of Vivek took courage. It is never easy for a term-limited governor to put his name behind a successor who is positioned to outperform him, especially when that successor is running against the person DeWine himself appointed during the pandemic. The fact that he did it anyway tells you something important about where the party and the state are headed. Vivek is not an insider continuation of the old order. He is the disruption the old order needs if Ohio is going to stop losing ground on taxes, education, and economic freedom.
The money tells the real story right now. Vivek’s supporting super PAC has raised serious resources—tens of millions—and is deploying them aggressively. The $5 million from Musk is not just symbolic; it is a signal that serious people who create wealth and understand results are backing him. Acton cannot match that pace. When the advertising dollars dry up, the media loses interest in pretending this is a close contest. Voters are left with the actual records: one candidate who built success and wants to bring that same energy to Columbus, and another whose signature achievement was helping lock down the state economy in ways that proved unconstitutional and economically destructive.
I have been consistent on this since the race took shape. Vivek was always going to outperform the low expectations the media set for him once people looked past the noise. He is rolling out plans on property tax reform, real education choice that puts parents back in charge, and cooperation with a Trump administration that remains popular in Ohio for delivering results on the economy and border security. Acton’s side is still trying to run the old playbook—lawfare, media narratives, and enough cash to keep the “horse race” story alive. But the cash is not keeping up, and the voters are not buying the illusion the way they once did.
This race is a clear choice between two different visions of government. One side believes in self-initiative, free markets, and limited centralized power—the approach that actually lifts societies. The other side believes the government should take from producers and redistribute according to political priorities, the same model that has produced mediocrity and dependency wherever it has been tried at scale. Ohio does not need another governor who manages decline while protecting the administrative class. It needs a governor who will cut waste, reform taxes, fix the schools, and let exceptional people and exceptional businesses thrive rather than punishing them.
We are still a few months from November, but the trajectory is clear. As the funding gap widens and the media can no longer afford to prop up the fiction of a close race, Vivek Ramaswamy is going to pull away. The fundamentals were always on his side. The money is now confirming what the fundamentals already showed. Ohio has a real chance to choose exceptional leadership over the empire of mediocrity that has dominated too much of state government for too long. I have been saying it for months. The evidence is now impossible to ignore.
Footnotes
1. Elon Musk contributed $5 million to V-PAC, the super PAC supporting Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign for Ohio governor. Cleveland.com, July 15, 2026.
2. Vivek Ramaswamy won the Republican primary for governor on May 5, 2026, with approximately 82.4% of the vote. Ballotpedia, “Ohio gubernatorial and lieutenant gubernatorial election, 2026.”
3. Amy Acton served as Ohio’s state health director and played a central role in the state’s early COVID-19 response and lockdown policies under Governor Mike DeWine.
4. Multiple court challenges in Ohio and elsewhere during 2020–2021 found various lockdown and business closure orders unconstitutional or beyond executive authority.
5. Governor Mike DeWine endorsed Vivek Ramaswamy for governor in 2025–2026, despite Acton having been his appointee during the pandemic period.
6. Ramaswamy’s campaign and supporting super PAC have raised and spent tens of millions, significantly outpacing Acton’s fundraising in key periods of 2026.
Bibliography (selected for further reading)
• Ballotpedia. “Ohio gubernatorial and lieutenant gubernatorial election, 2026” (primary results and candidate profiles).
• Cleveland.com. “Elon Musk puts $5 million behind ex-DOGE partner Vivek Ramaswamy’s governor bid.” July 15, 2026.
• Forbes. “Ramaswamy Wins Republican Primary In Ohio Governor’s Race.” May 5, 2026.
• AP News. “Trump-backed Vivek Ramaswamy wins Ohio Republican Party’s endorsement in 2026 governor’s race.” May 9, 2025.
• Vivek for Ohio campaign materials and platform statements (vivekforohio.com).
• Ohio Capital Journal and other Ohio political reporting on super PAC spending and fundraising totals, 2025–2026.
• Court records and contemporaneous reporting on Ohio COVID-era lockdown litigation and constitutional challenges (2020–2022).
• Various polling aggregates from mid-2026 showing the general election contest between Ramaswamy and Acton.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
George Washington occupies a unique place in the American imagination. His face appears on currency, his name rests upon the nation’s capital, and his reputation has become so intertwined with the founding of the United States that many people think of him only as the victorious commander of the Revolutionary War or the first President. Yet the making of George Washington occurred long before Yorktown, before the Constitutional Convention, and before the presidency itself. The true story of Washington is the story of formation through adversity, failure, hardship, and character. That is why a film centered upon his youth is so important. A society that wishes to understand greatness must study not only triumphs but also the difficult roads that produced them.
The importance of Young Washington lies precisely in its willingness to explore that earlier chapter. Rather than beginning with a celebrated general crossing the Delaware River or presiding over a new republic, the story examines the young man who had not yet become the legend. It reveals Washington during the years when mistakes carried consequences, when ambition collided with reality, and when the wilderness of North America tested the limits of endurance and leadership. Those experiences were not side notes to history. They were the furnace in which the future Father of His Country was forged.
Modern audiences often forget how dangerous eighteenth-century America actually was. The colonies were not peaceful settlements waiting patiently for independence. The frontier remained a contested world of forests, mountains, rivers, Native American nations, French military forces, British colonial ambitions, and competing claims to vast territories stretching westward beyond the Appalachians.[1] Young Washington entered this world as a surveyor and officer, navigating landscapes that were physically unforgiving and politically explosive.
The French and Indian War shaped the future of North America long before the American Revolution. Many historians describe it as the first global war because fighting extended beyond the American colonies into Europe, the Caribbean, India, and the Atlantic world.[2] The outcome would determine which empire dominated much of the continent—into this conflict stepped a young Virginian with little combat experience and enormous expectations resting upon his shoulders.
One of the most fascinating aspects of Washington’s early life was the extraordinary responsibility placed upon him at a remarkably young age. While many modern young adults are encouraged to avoid risk and postpone responsibility, eighteenth-century society frequently demanded the opposite. Washington found himself carrying diplomatic messages through wilderness territories, negotiating with Native American leaders, evaluating military threats, and commanding troops in situations that would challenge experienced officers.[3] Such responsibilities matured him quickly. The lessons learned in forests and mountains would prove no less valuable than those later learned on battlefields or in government chambers.
The story surrounding Fort Necessity remains one of the most important episodes of Washington’s development. It was not his greatest victory. In many respects, it represented a significant defeat. Yet history repeatedly shows that failures often teach more than successes. Built in a vulnerable meadow, the fort placed British colonial forces in a precarious position. French troops and their allies occupied superior terrain within the surrounding wooded areas. Rain transformed the battlefield into a muddy disaster. Washington ultimately surrendered under difficult circumstances in July 1754.[4]
Many historical figures spend their careers attempting to hide their failures. Washington did something different. He learned from them. The humiliation at Fort Necessity did not destroy his reputation; rather, it became one of the experiences that taught caution, patience, logistics, and strategic judgment. Years later, during the Revolutionary War, Washington would demonstrate restraint and discipline that distinguished him from many contemporaries. Those qualities did not emerge from nowhere. They emerged from earlier encounters with defeat and disappointment.
There is also something powerful about physically visiting places connected to history. Reading books provides knowledge, but standing where events occurred provides perspective. The mountains of western Maryland and Pennsylvania remain striking reminders of the challenges faced by colonial soldiers. The terrain itself explains much of the story. Steep ridges, dense forests, winding roads, and isolated valleys reveal why campaigns in that region were so difficult. Geography often becomes an invisible character in historical narratives, and nowhere is that more evident than in Washington’s frontier experience.
The routes that would later become the National Road carry tremendous historical significance as well. Connecting eastern population centers with western territories, they became some of the most important transportation projects in early American history.[5] Yet before roads and highways transformed the region, movement through those mountains demanded determination, courage, and endurance. Washington’s experiences along those routes exposed him to the realities of frontier America and deepened his understanding of the continent he would later help unite.
A film exploring these events succeeds when it respects the material. Historical drama does not require perfect documentation of every detail, but it must convey the spirit, character, and significance of the people involved. According to many viewers familiar with Washington’s biography, Young Washington captures that spirit effectively. The portrayal of Washington as noble without being perfect allows audiences to encounter him as a human being rather than an untouchable monument.
That distinction matters because modern culture frequently swings between extremes. Historical figures are either idealized beyond recognition or condemned without context. Washington deserves neither treatment. He was a man with strengths and flaws, successes and failures, extraordinary abilities and ordinary limitations. What separates him from countless others is not perfection but character. Throughout crises, disappointments, and temptations, he consistently sought duty above personal comfort.[6]
This emphasis upon character may explain why the film resonates so strongly with audiences. Many forms of contemporary entertainment focus upon antiheroes, cynicism, moral ambiguity, or spectacle. Such approaches can produce compelling stories, but they often leave audiences hungry for something different. There remains a deep desire to witness individuals striving toward virtue, honor, courage, and responsibility. Human beings naturally admire excellence. They seek examples of people attempting to become better versions of themselves.
This is one reason George Washington continues to command respect centuries after his death. His achievements cannot be separated from his moral aspirations. He believed leadership required self-control. He believed reputation mattered. He believed public service demanded sacrifice. He understood that power, if not restrained by character, could destroy both leaders and nations.[7]
Few decisions illustrate this more clearly than his resignation of military authority after the American Revolution. History contains countless examples of victorious generals who transformed military success into political dictatorship. Washington chose another path. After securing independence, he surrendered power and returned home. King George III reportedly remarked that such an action would make Washington “the greatest man in the world.”[8] The roots of that decision can be traced back to earlier lessons learned during his youth. The young officer who experienced failure at Fort Necessity eventually became the mature statesman willing to relinquish power.
The success of films like Young Washington also reflects a broader cultural shift. Many audiences increasingly search for stories that celebrate rather than deconstruct. Entertainment once produced numerous historical adventures focused upon courage, exploration, leadership, and national heritage. Classic productions such as Davy Crockett and Zorro attracted viewers not because their heroes were flawless, but because they represented ideals worth pursuing. Such stories reminded audiences that civilization depends upon honorable conduct.
Angel Studios appears to recognize this hunger. The company has developed a reputation for producing projects that emphasize family-friendly storytelling, historical subjects, faith, perseverance, and moral clarity. Whether individual viewers agree with every creative choice is ultimately secondary. The greater significance lies in the fact that audiences continue to support films that treat virtue seriously rather than sarcastically.
The enthusiastic audience response described by many theatergoers reinforces this point. Packed theaters, applause during credits, and viewers remaining in their seats after the film concludes suggest more than mere entertainment value. They suggest emotional investment. People stay because they do not want the experience to end. They remain because something meaningful has occurred. The story has connected them not merely with a plot but with values, memories, and aspirations.
History possesses a unique ability to create that connection. Contemporary debates often divide people, but historical narratives sometimes unite them around shared admiration for courage and perseverance. George Washington serves as one of those rare figures capable of reaching across ideological boundaries. Americans may disagree about countless issues, yet many still recognize the importance of the leadership that guided the nation through its earliest and most fragile years.[9]
Perhaps the most striking aspect of Washington’s story is the consistency between his public life and his private aspirations. The pursuit of self-improvement remained a recurring theme throughout his life. As a young man, he studied, observed, listened, and learned from mistakes. As a military leader, he refined discipline and judgment. As president, he attempted to place national interests above factional interests. Growth never stopped.
That emphasis upon striving rather than perfection carries enduring relevance. Every generation faces moments of disappointment, conflict, and uncertainty. Every individual encounters failures that seem overwhelming in the moment. Washington’s example demonstrates that setbacks need not define a life. Defeat at Fort Necessity did not prevent future greatness. Criticism did not prevent achievement. Hardship did not destroy resolve. Instead, adversity became preparation.
The frontier itself symbolized this process. The forests beyond colonial settlements represented danger, uncertainty, and opportunity. They tested physical endurance while revealing inner character. Washington’s journeys across that landscape helped develop qualities that later proved indispensable. Resourcefulness, patience, courage, adaptability, and resilience emerged not in comfort but in challenge.
A compelling historical film, therefore, accomplishes more than simple education. It invites audiences to reconsider what greatness actually means. Greatness is not merely holding office, winning battles, or receiving recognition. Greatness begins in the difficult choices made before anyone is watching. It begins with responsibility embraced rather than avoided. It begins with the willingness to learn from mistakes rather than deny them.
For that reason, Young Washington offers a valuable contribution to American historical storytelling. It introduces viewers to formative experiences that are often overshadowed by later accomplishments. It encourages appreciation for the long process through which character develops. Most importantly, it reminds audiences that the foundations of leadership are laid long before leadership is publicly recognized.
There is also something refreshing about spending time in the company of admirable characters. Modern culture often celebrates transgression while dismissing virtue as naïve. Yet viewers continue responding positively to stories featuring courage, integrity, loyalty, and self-sacrifice. The reason is simple. Human beings instinctively recognize these traits as desirable. They recognize them as qualities capable of elevating communities, institutions, and nations.
Washington’s story continues to endure because it illustrates that elevation. A young surveyor became a frontier officer. A frontier officer became a military commander. A military commander became the leader of a revolution. A revolutionary leader became the first president. Yet beneath each transformation remained the same aspiration toward honor and duty. The titles changed. The character remained.
Films capable of conveying that truth perform an important cultural service. They preserve memory. They encourage reflection. They connect present generations with the experiences that shaped earlier ones. They provide reminders that history is not simply a collection of dates and events but a record of human choices.
Ultimately, the enduring appeal of George Washington rests upon more than military accomplishments or political achievements. It rests upon the example of a man who repeatedly sought the higher path when easier alternatives existed. The youth who faced defeat in the mountains became the leader who guided a fragile republic. The officer who learned difficult lessons on the frontier became the statesman willing to place principle above personal ambition. The story remains powerful because it speaks to universal themes of growth, responsibility, perseverance, and character.
That is why Young Washington deserves attention. It tells a chapter of history too often ignored. It introduces audiences to the experiences that forged one of the most important figures in American history. It presents nobility without arrogance, courage without recklessness, and patriotism without cynicism. In an era frequently dominated by stories celebrating the worst of human behavior, there is something profoundly valuable about a story centered upon the possibility of becoming better. George Washington’s journey reminds audiences that greatness is not inherited, accidental, or effortless. It is earned through struggle, formed through adversity, and sustained through character. More than two centuries after his death, that lesson remains as relevant as ever.
Footnotes
[1] Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766 (New York: Knopf, 2000).
[2] Daniel Baugh, The Global Seven Years’ War 1754–1763 (London: Routledge, 2011).
[3] George Washington, The Journal of Major George Washington (1754).
[4] David Preston, Braddock’s Defeat: The Battle of the Monongahela and the Road to Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2015).
[5] Karl Raitz, The National Road (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).
[6] Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life (New York: Penguin Press, 2010).
[7] James Thomas Flexner, George Washington in the American Revolution (Little, Brown and Company, 1968).
[8] Joseph J. Ellis, His Excellency: George Washington (New York: Knopf, 2004).
[9] Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (Vintage Books, 1993).
Bibliography
Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766. New York: Knopf, 2000.
Baugh, Daniel. The Global Seven Years’ War 1754–1763. London: Routledge, 2011.
Chernow, Ron. Washington: A Life. New York: Penguin Press, 2010.
Ellis, Joseph J. His Excellency: George Washington. New York: Knopf, 2004.
Flexner, James Thomas. George Washington in the American Revolution. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1968.
Preston, David. Braddock’s Defeat: The Battle of the Monongahela and the Road to Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Raitz, Karl. The National Road. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.
Washington, George. The Journal of Major George Washington. Williamsburg, 1754.
Wood, Gordon S. The Radicalism of the American Revolution. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
I heard the news the other day about this Graham Platner loser dropping out of the Maine Senate race, and it struck me the same way it probably struck many people who watched his video statement. Here was a guy who had just won the Democratic primary in a big way, an oysterman and Marine veteran out of Sullivan, Maine, who beat the establishment favorite and raised something like sixteen million dollars in contributions for a race against Susan Collins. Then a former girlfriend comes forward with a story about him forcing himself on her back in 2021 while drunk, ignoring her repeated objections, and the whole thing unravels in a matter of days. He denies it outright, calls the claims false and not real, but still suspends operations and files the paperwork to withdraw before the July 13 deadline so the party can scramble for a replacement by the 27th. In his eleven-minute video, he says it is not an admission of guilt, that some will think it is, but it most certainly is not, and that they are stepping aside not because of the allegations but because those in power are taking away the structures and access. For the movement to continue, it cannot be him.
That surface reaction, the astonishment and the quick takes, does not get deep enough. What happened here is not just another politician caught in a mess of his own making. It is a window into something larger about how certain kinds of people rise in the current version of Democrat politics, especially the populist left strain that has been building since Bernie Sanders and now carries elements of what some are calling a blue MAGA or communist-adjacent energy. Platner fits a pattern that keeps showing up. Multiple ex-girlfriends have described intimidating behavior, one saying he twisted her arm and locked her in a bedroom until she calmed down, another recounting comments about raping intruders to show dominance, and still another alleging he removed protection without consent during sex. There was the chest tattoo, a Totenkopf that he first claimed he did not understand, just a skull and crossbones from a drunken night with Marines in Croatia in 2007, but ex-girlfriends say he knew exactly what it was, bragged about it as a reminder that the United States was the evil bad guy overseas, and called it his Totenkopf. Then came the old Reddit posts where he described himself as a communist, said all cops are bastards, and made other remarks disparaging women, rural White Americans, and various groups. He had also been sending sexually explicit texts to other women during a rough patch in his marriage, something his wife publicly defended while saying they had a great marriage overall.
When the latest allegation hit from Jenny Racicot, the pressure from national and state Democrats mounted fast, and endorsements started peeling away. The party machinery that had lifted him after Governor Janet Mills stepped aside suddenly found the strings being pulled. Platner framed it as the establishment taking away his ability to run, his access to funding, and the mechanisms of power, even though he had beaten their preferred candidate in the primary. It sounded like an admission that the machine believed the story or at least believed it would stick and cost them the seat. Susan Collins, for all the complaints about her being a RINO Republican at best, suddenly looked like the safer bet in a race that matters for Senate control. The whole episode felt familiar, like watching the same movie the Republican side lived through a decade ago, only now it is the Democrats’ turn and the characters coming forward to fill the populist void on their side carry different baggage.
I have been saying for a long time that the Tea Party movement was never really about pulling the Republican Party back to some Chamber of Commerce comfort zone. It was the start of something bigger: MAGA, a demand for individual accountability and pushback against the permanent class that had captured both parties. The RINOs like McConnell, Romney, and Kasich types resisted Trump because they saw the threat to their control. They got pushed to the margins or had to adapt. What we are watching now on the Democrat side is their version of that purification, except the energy they are riding is collectivist at its core. Bernie Sanders gave it shape, and now you see candidates who talk about Medicare for All, banning billionaires from buying elections, ending wars forever, and strong unions, but the people who step forward to lead that charge often bring personal conduct that would get them run out of a more individual-responsibility culture. Platner is not an outlier in that environment. He is a predictable product of it.
The warm blanket of collectivism is what draws these characters and protects them for a while. When you tell people that the individual does not matter as much as the group, that judgment on personal behavior is bourgeois or oppressive, or whatever the current phrase is, you create space for someone with a Nazi tattoo, a history of rough treatment of women, and a trail of denied allegations to present himself as the champion of the working class. The cause becomes the excuse. Personal integrity gets subordinated to participation in the movement. If you are out there advocating for the collective good, for the masses against the oligarchs, then who cares if your private life shows a pattern of dominance, non-consent, or simple low character? The ideology says do not judge the individual; judge him by his alignment with the larger project. That is why you keep seeing the same types of behavior surface. They find a home where their dysfunction does not trigger the same social cost it would elsewhere.
I have watched enough of this over the years to know that sexual conduct is one of the clearest windows into character. People who live for self-pleasure, who chase validation without scrutiny, who treat others as means to an end, often gravitate toward environments that promise no judgment. Liberal politics has been that environment for decades for a certain kind of man. It is not that every liberal man is like this, but the ones who are find it easier to operate there. The women who get drawn in, the ones who are insecure and looking for collective cover, often end up in situations they later regret. They talk about wanting a strong, dominant presence, but they do not look for it on the side that might actually hold them accountable or demand standards. They stay inside the circle where the bad behavior can be reframed as a moment of weakness, or the fault of the system, or something the collective will forgive because the higher cause matters more. You see it in the wine-tasting crowds, the middle-aged women who start hitting on everyone once the drinks flow, the husbands standing off to the side, embarrassed, while their wives seek validation in a group setting. It is the same impulse that makes collectivism attractive to people who do not want their personal record examined too closely. Four or five abortions, repeated cheating, substance issues, whatever the story is, the group provides the blanket. Do not judge me for my individual choices; judge me for my participation in empowering the masses.
That is the danger with someone like Platner. On the surface, he looked like a fresh face, a veteran oysterman who could connect with working people in a state facing real economic pressures. Underneath was the same pattern that had shown up with other figures on that side of the aisle in recent years. The party did not know what to do when the stories kept coming, so they did what machines do: they pulled the plug once it became clear he could no longer win or raise money effectively. Platner’s response was to blame the structures rather than own the conduct that had turned the structures against him. That is also classic. It is never the individual’s fault in a collectivist frame. It is the machine, the establishment, the powers that be who are threatened by the movement.
The Republican side went through its own version of this a decade ago and is still sorting some of it. The difference is that the underlying philosophy on that side, even when imperfectly practiced, still holds room for individual responsibility and personal conduct as legitimate standards. Trump himself came out of a Playboy background in the eighties and nineties, lived that life openly, and the people who supported him later knew what they were getting. Melania came out of that same world, and they built something that has lasted. He did not hide behind a collective excuse when things got hard. He used his brand and his willingness to fight the permanent class to deliver on borders, energy, judges, and pushing back against the administrative state. The voters who backed him were not endorsing the 1990s lifestyle; they were endorsing the man who would impose limits on government power and restore some sense of sovereignty. That is why the purification worked on the right. It was messy, and it took years, but it produced a filter that still operates. People who cannot meet a basic standard of personal integrity or who treat politics as cover for their own appetites get exposed and sidelined eventually.
On the Democratic side, the filter is currently weaker because the ideology itself discourages individual judgment. The populist energy they are trying to harness is being filled by characters who would have been laughed out of a serious movement on the other side. You are going to see more Graham Platners before this cycle finishes. They will keep coming forward because the environment rewards the ability to perform the collectivist script, while their personal lives stay hidden or are excused. The more they double down on that direction, the more the low-character actors will find it a comfortable place to operate. Republicans already paid the price and did the work of cleaning house. Democrats are just starting their version, and it looks like it is going to be uglier because the philosophy they are embracing provides better cover for dysfunction.
That is why some of the dumbest outcomes in politics keep happening. People who would never tolerate certain behavior in their own families or businesses will defend it or excuse it when it comes from someone aligned with their political tribe. They will vote for policies that demonstrably harm the vulnerable, erode family formation, import incompatible cultures, and centralize power in unaccountable bureaucracies, all while insisting it is compassion or progress. On the surface, it looks like ideology run amok. Deeper, it looks like influence is amplifying the parts of human nature that are already broken.
Platner’s short rise and fall is just one more data point in that larger story. A man with a documented pattern of behavior that should have disqualified him from any position of trust found a lane in the current Democrat populist moment because the ideology provided cover and the machine needed a fresh face who could raise money and excite the base. When the cover began to fail, the machine cut him loose, and he blamed it. The cycle will repeat with the next candidate who can perform the script while carrying similar baggage. On the other side, the work of insisting on personal conduct and individual responsibility continues, however imperfectly. That insistence is not just political hygiene. It is resistance to the older pattern that wants humanity to dissolve responsibility into collectives so the real influences can operate without resistance.
Footnotes
1. National Review and multiple outlets reported Platner’s formal withdrawal letter and video statement on or around July 8–10, 2026, including his phrasing that the structures were being taken away and that it was not an admission of guilt.
2. Politico, CNN, and Washington Post reporting on Jenny Racicot’s allegations of forced sex in 2021, including details of the incident and her decision to come forward after Platner’s public denials of abusive behavior.
3. New York Times reporting on multiple ex-girlfriends describing physical intimidation, locked rooms, and other conduct, including Lyndsey Fifield’s accounts from 2013–2015.
4. New York Post and other reporting on the Totenkopf tattoo, ex-girlfriends stating Platner knew its meaning and used it as a reminder that the U.S. was the “evil bad guy overseas,” and his initial public claim that he did not understand the symbol.
5. Reporting on deleted Reddit posts from 2009–2021 in which Platner described himself as a communist and made various disparaging remarks; also coverage of sexually explicit texts sent during marital difficulties and the wife’s public defense.
6. Campaign finance totals and primary results showing Platner’s strong performance after Mills suspended her campaign and his subsequent withdrawal before the July 13, 2026 ballot deadline, with the Maine Democratic Party given until July 27 to name a replacement.
Bibliography for Further Reading
• The Book of Enoch, translated editions with commentary on the watchers, giants, and pre-flood rebellion.
• The Bible, particularly Genesis 6, Daniel on principalities and powers, Ephesians 6 on spiritual warfare, and Revelation on the ongoing conflict.
• Dead Sea Scrolls materials and related scholarship on Second Temple period views of heavenly politics and fallen entities.
• My own forthcoming book, The Politics of Heaven, explores these threads through history and current events.
• The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and its developing sequel, which apply lessons of individual will, resilience, and integrity to institutional and political environments.
• Tail of the Dragon and The Symposium of Justice for narrative treatments of personal conduct, justice, and hidden power structures.
• Standard works on UFO disclosure and non-human intelligence, including historical government documents and researcher compilations on reported entity types and their interactions with human systems.
• Histories of the Tea Party movement and its evolution into broader populist realignments on the right, with attention to the internal purification process.
• Accounts of Bernie Sanders’ influence and the subsequent development of progressive populist currents on the
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
Human history may not merely be the history of humans interacting with one another. It may also be the history of humanity interacting with forms of intelligence that are perceived through altered states, religious experiences, visions, dreams, shamanic practices, meditation, ritual, and perhaps other mechanisms not yet fully understood.
A few weeks after that picture, I found myself at the Fort Ancient site, listening to a lecture by John Hancock, who had just written a couple of really good books on the Hopewell earth mounds of Ohio. After leaving the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum, I went with my family down to the Newark earthworks and, in the gift shop at the visitor’s center, discovered the newly released book by John Hancock, Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, which featured UNESCO’s classification designating 8 sites in Ohio as World Heritage Sites. Hancock was the driving force behind that designation, and, I thought, his book, based on the presentation to the UNESCO committee, was really well done. So my same daughter who took that picture went with me to Fort Ancient, at the arrangement of Sarah Winningham, the assistant site superintendent at Fort Ancient, to listen to John talk about writing his books, the UNESCO submission, and his very good travel guide, Ancient Ohio. And that is the case with a lot of this book, I go to a lot of museums, everything from the Mothman Museum in Point Pleasant West Virginia, famous for its paranormal reporting, to the British Museum where I famously had a nice argument with the staff there over the crystal skull, which falls into the same kind of category as the Newark Holystones. Are they fake? And if so, why would anybody go to all the trouble? After all, the discovery of the Newark Holystones more or less destroyed the life of David Wyrick, who was a good surveyor in 1860, and it was assumed that he was a major abolitionist aligned with the Lincoln administration in the heat of the Civil War. So it was assumed that he made the stones and planted them in the famous mounds to erode any thoughts that the Indians of his time, being pushed off the land by westward expansion, wanted to decouple their claims to the ancient earthworks. Or so they say, and they are very explicit about that at the museum.
I was surprised to notice, just to the south of the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum, a nice David Wyrick drawing of the Newark Great Circle proudly displayed on the wall of the visitors center. Wyrick died miserably in 1864 of laudanum, a commonly used painkiller that was opium based. I think it is a reach to attempt to paint David Wyrick politically, which was clearly the case at the museum’s, a very aggressive attempt to attach an indigenous people narrative to the mounds, and Wyrick was trying to spread the word of God and the immorality of slavery, which was the thrust of the Holy Stone exhibit at the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum. It doesn’t take much of a stretch to see the academic community in the vacuum of more knowledge, driving a political narrative where it likely didn’t belong. And as I said, I noticed the fantastic book by John Hancock, newly released and displayed everywhere at Newark, The Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, which I grabbed quickly and read almost before leaving the mound’s site at Newark. A few weeks later, at Fort Ancient, I attended a lecture by the author John Hancock, hosted by Assistant Site Superintendent Sarah Winningham. By the time of that event at the Fort Ancient museum, I was very intrigued by some of the claims in John’s book about the famous mounds.
The Shaman of Newwark
First of all, if not for John, there is no way the Ohio mounds would have been designated UNESCO World Heritage sites, which is a very good thing because they are every bit as important as other World Heritage Sites, such as the Great Pyramids and Machu Picchu. But I wanted to talk to him about his book because he has some very interesting and unique ideas. First of all, he approached the mounds as an architect, as a retired professor from the University of Cincinnati who thought like a teacher and used to take students to Europe to see great architecture before realizing that some of the best architecture in the world was shown in the mounds of Ohio, which would eventually become in his book the eight UNISCO earthwork sites, Newark, Hopeton, High Banks, Fort Ancient, Seip, The Great Circle, and Mound City.
To say I was a little excited is an understatement as I went through their shelves at the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum. As this book unfolds, it will become obvious that I love museums, big ones and little ones, and I love their gift shops. I have found many wonderful treasures in museum gift shops. The Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum is famous for its replica relics of the Holy Stones. But going through their shelves, they also had replicas of the actual Wilmington Tablets. I was very happy to see three of them, and I asked the cashier how I could buy one. They thought they were coasters. Obviously, the tablet replicas were too obscure for anybody to know what they were, including those working at the museum. I have some very strong thoughts about the various Adena tablets found in the mounds of what has been designated as Adena culture. There is a Cincinnati Tablet that has at times been displayed at the Cincinnati Museum Center. And of course, the Wilmington Tablet was found in Wilmington, Ohio. And I would argue that it shows interaction with the Olmecs from central Mexico, up the Mississippi River, and across the Gulf. A lot of archaeologists argue against it, but I thought that John Hancock’s new books made legitimate arguments for that kind of travel for a book published by Smithsonian Books. And that is the discussion that copper from Lake Superior did, in fact, find its way into the Hopewell sites in Ohio, which indicates very long-distance travel, Mica trade from the Appalachians, and obsidian from the Yellowstone area. I told John that I thought it took a lot of guts for him to talk about the copper mines in Lake Superior because of the conspiracy theories that have spawned on the topic. But here we were in 2026, talking to a serious person about the mounds, and we’re having a serious discussion about the Great Lakes copper trade, which has quite a story. Something called the Newberry Tablet, occasionally on display in St. Ignace, Michigan, points to trade with Mediterranean cultures, which many claim was so voluminous that it flooded the global economy with copper, starting the Bronze Age. The dates on the mines are around 8000 years old, or about 5000 BC, roughly the same as those of the Windover people of Central Florida, a topic we’ll discuss in much more detail later.
This book, The Politics of Heaven, is more than just a travel log of my extensive travels and my political and professional work in aerospace as an executive. As I asked the question at Fort Ancient, I came to ask John Hancock, the assistant superintendent of the Fort Ancient site, Sarah Winningham that I first started to think about many years ago. I really didn’t want to be that guy. At my age, I had been looking forward to a kind of retirement where I could attend events like the one where John Hancock would write great books and put a new spin on an old archaeological idea. John, being a professor of architecture, did have a fresh perspective that I always enjoyed in my youth as the Vice President of the Dan Beard Council.
As a young man, I was very happily involved in a High Adventure Explorer Post, where I became Vice President of the Dan Beard Council after a special election at the GE Evendale plant, where I gave a speech that led to my election. Later in this book, I tell the tragic story of a death that took place later in the night of that same election day, when I was scheduled to fight three guys from my school at that same time, and one of them turned up dead, and the rest of them were telling stories about me to the police that were not favorable. The events of that night led to my separation from the Dan Beard Council, and at that time, I enjoyed my exposure to those kinds of people, including academics like John Hancock and museum personalities like Sarah Winningham from the Fort Ancient complex. I have been hoping since that time that at some point I could get back into that kind of life, the High Adventure Explorer Post life I enjoyed so much in my youth. This book tells that story as I continued to travel a lot and utilize the skills I started in those explorer post experiences. Even though many of the people who volunteered for and supported Explorer Post activities were politically liberal, I hoped that someday I might be able to return to those innocent days.
But as much as I wanted to, my life had taken me into the very political world of consulting, and with high-level personalities, which made it impossible for me to sit in that Fort Ancient lecture and put my brain away. Because, like John Hancock, who approached the really good archaeology of Bradley Lepper, and others with an architectural background, I have years of experience as an aerospace executive dealing with very smart, PhD-level engineers and professionals who can be very manipulative and deceitful in root cause analysis. My wife and I had plans, and what will become clear in this book is that I have a very high regard for the archaeological publication Biblical Archaeology Review, and I really want to spend these years of my life taking their cruises on luxury liners and having archaeological discussions. And that my happiest place on earth at the moment is at the Museum of the Bible, for which my wife and I are members. I love places very passionately where scholarship and discovery come together, so believe me, I didn’t want to be that guy. I wanted to be the guy who read the books of people like John Hancock, Bradley Lepper, and Francis Pryror, and enjoyed the buffets on the cruise ships, and read lots of books. Because more than anything, my number one hobby, which started for me during those Explore Post years, was reading books. Lots and lots of books, some of my favorite which is reflected in this literary effort, are James Frazer’s The Golden Bough and James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, and for me, it is the joy of adventure in going down rabbit holes and bringing Alice back from its hidden depths that is the most fun. And professionally, as I have thought for a long time because of my love of The Golden Bough, I think archaeology does not go far enough as a spinoff of the creation of anthropology, scientifically, and all the hard lessons I have learned through years of political work gave me extensive experience. I really wanted to attend John Hancock’s lecture for the pure enjoyment of it, because I love people like him and Sarah Winningham. Why, because I learned to really love academics in a non-political way during my very formative years of High Adventure Explorer Post membership. I had made up my mind to get all over the world, which is what this book is about. I didn’t learn what I did by just sitting at home, but by going to many places and applying the same skills that worked very well for me professionally, to some really obscure ideas. So I came to the lecture with a question I had thought of while reading John Hancock’s marvelous books.
I thought John’s lecture on the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks was fantastic, very well researched, and extremely well put together. No wonder UNESCO moved to designate the 8 earthworks sites as World Heritage Sites officially. And even if the UNESCO people are extremely liberal, politically, and were very much against the United States during the first Trump presidential term, which I know a lot about. I finish this book with a visit to the White House. I tend to really enjoy all efforts that seek to preserve the past, regardless of politics. In the pages to come, I am glowingly supportive of organizations like English Heritage and the fantastic efforts of The Ohio History Connection, whose headquarters is at the Ohio History Center in Columbus, where I first visited on an Explorer Post field trip many years ago. The main purpose of Explorer Post membership is to expose young people to high-adventure career opportunities. Which was the subject of my speech at GE to the other explorer groups of Cincinnati and big personalities such as Lee Iacocca and Jack Welch, and how they elected me, even as a very young person, to Vice President of the Dan Beard Council. So, since I had my question ready for John’s lecture, I decided to enjoy the event and the educational publications from The Ohio History Connection. I remember that day with the Explorer Post visiting the museum that would become The Ohio History Connection. I got the feeling that everyone was encouraging me to grow up and become the troublemaker who would challenge their assumptions. After all, why have a High Adventure Explorer Post in any way but to raise young people to go out into the world to challenge everything, if not for gaining wealth and notoriety, but for the spirit of adventure itself.
This is the kind of thing I’d rather be doing in life. My idea of a good time.
I was always the rebel of the group, and even if I was naturally very talented, my spirit of adventure got me and everyone who followed me into a lot of trouble. And sometimes people did lose their lives, which is why my time as Vice President of the Dan Beard Council was short-lived. But I got that office at a very young age because a lot of people were hoping I would be the guy who would shake things up in ways they instinctively knew needed to happen. And as I held up my hand at the end of John’s lecture, I asked my question about the relic on display at the Ohio History Center: the Shaman of Newark. In his big book, the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, John very cleverly found a way to show the relic as a digital replica illustrated by Talon Silverhorn of the Eastern Shawnee. But in his travel guide, Ancient Ohio, he says that he could talk about the famous Hopewell relic but not show it so as not to disrespect Indian tribes, which set up another question I had about NAGPRA in general, which I directed at Sarah, who was in the back of the room, regarding compliance with that 1990 Democrat proposal to return to all the Indian tribes of North America the relics of their ancestors. They are running a nice museum at Fort Ancient, and John had been very clever in getting Indian tribes to contribute artwork and replicas for his books in very respectful ways, which is unusual for these kinds of projects. Before going to the Fort Ancient lecture, my wife and I had just returned from the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., and I had a great time there. A lot of the kind of people I like these days have very little trust in the Smithsonian and the much-talked-about cover-up of the ancient giants who were reported to have been found in these very Ohio Mounds. John’s book does not address those, but he and I did talk about the controversies. I told him I thought it was remarkable that he even mentioned the copper mines of Lake Superior in his book, because, as the story goes, those copper mines dating to 5000 BC were so prolific that they caused a global economic boom and were shipped to Europe by the Minoans of Crete. That proof of that trading exchange is on what they call the Newberry tablet, which can be found sometimes in St. Ignace, in Upper Michigan. As I said to John, this conspiracy stuff is a tough line to walk. And as I said it, I looked back at the audience, and almost everyone had a grin on their face because I was saying the stuff that is supposed to be unsaid, but they all wanted to say it.
The Relic of the Shaman of Newark, I think, is a remarkable admission, which I will expand on during the grand adventure for which this book is, a journey around the world and across vast spans of time with conclusive evidence at the level of speculation awaiting the hard evidence of good archaeology. The relic itself depicts a shaman in the process of turning into a bear and is holding in his lap the severed head of a long-haired human. I knew about the relic because it was on display at the Columbus Museum, as was the Wilmington Tablet. So, as the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum operators have done a great job getting into the business of making relics of controversial artifacts, like the Newark Holystones, but seeing that copy of the Wilmington Tablet reminded me of the Shaman of Newark, as that topic had been on my mind regarding the Newark Earthworks. And this was the cause of my anxiety, which my daughter captured so well as I was distraught over what it all led to.
I asked the question: why were the Indian tribes reclaiming all the artifacts that archaeologists had found, and even destroying them by burying them again? And as John explained, he had just spent a lot of time speaking with various Indian tribes to coordinate with them in writing his great book on how to show who the Hopewell people were by replicating them, without the magic of their actual image tainting them with haunted reverence. So here is the problem. Two things can’t both be true, here we had a political movement pushed by NAGPRA, which said that we had to give back all the evidence of our discovery because the relics of the Indigenous people were magical and had power that had to be returned to the ground, but at the same time we were supposed to study these Indigenous people with evidence to understand them. So I turned around from my seat and addressed the back of the room. I asked, “Was the NAGPRA pressure political or coming from the tribes themselves?” Because I will talk about this extensively in this book, the 8,000-year-old, well-preserved people of Windover, buried in bogs in Florida, are genetically dated as older than any known North American Indian Tribe and were actually around during the period of the copper mines of Lake Superior. So how can we study this history and properly respect it if NAGPRA said we had to empty all the museums of Indian relics and give them back to tribes we were calling Indigenous people by Democrat legislation that was making a claim that America should have never been settled or turned into a country because it happened at the expense of these miraculous Indigenous people?
And here’s the problem: the Shaman of Newark shows clearly the extent of the belief of those people of their period, which, to my eyes, were mimicking the beliefs of the Canaanite gods that Yahweh was so enraged about. And the political statement by Yahweh to destroy all the gods of Canaan and destroy the people of that land, emphatically. The beliefs of the people of Newark and the other Hopewell sites needed to be studied much more so that evidence could drive our conclusions. Like the situation in Cahokia, just outside St Louis, here we had an Indian relic in the Shaman of Newark that had a decapitated head in his lap, showing the typical ritual sacrifice of life for the benefit of communicating with spiritual entities. And with that, under NAGPRA, which bless her heart, young Sarah Winningham was preparing the Fort Ancient museum to be fully compliant with. The evidence was right there, begging us to ask the next layer of questions with really great minds and researchers, like John Hancock and great archaeologists like Bradley Lepper, who should be applying great science to these magnificent archaeological monuments. Instead, we are getting rid of the evidence and then telling the world that everything is a conspiracy theory because there is no evidence to support it. This book is about the evidence discovered through vast and sometimes dangerous expeditions observed over my lifetime.
In these pages, there is extensive study of the impact of shamans on a culture over time and of their common role as vehicles of spirit-world interaction. I was very impressed that John Hancock put an image of the Shaman of Newark in Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks. But he did not include the same image in his Ancient Ohio traveler’s guide, even though he did talk about it. The reason is tribal acceptance and a NAGPRA compliance issue, and I think it’s the key to the whole enterprise. My question is, what made Yahweh listen to Satan to punish Job, and why wouldn’t Satan work through many shamans over time and space to whisper bad things for their own political needs to gullible recipients, whether that be Job or God himself as head of the Divine Council? Just because the Bible recorded an occurrence, why wouldn’t there be many more undocumented occurrences just as bad or worse than what happened to Job? The presence of shaman activity among the Hopewell people, complete with a severed head in its lap, does not point to peaceful indigenous people being used by a modern 1619 Project into claiming them as vehicles of destruction, invalidating the creation of the United States in the first place. Yes, I think David Wyrick may have planted the stones for all the reasons he was accused of. But it destroyed him socially, and it looks like the work of the opium present in his painkillers, giving his mind access to similar satans as those that tempted God in the Book of Job. I think there is another layer to the story, and it centers on how we perceive consciousness.
In the chapters ahead, I explore the nature of remote viewing as we have come to know it and test some assumptions on the known psychics Dolores Cannon and Edgar Cayce, and even deeper into the MK Ultra Program, so well known around the Charlie Manson murders. And why wouldn’t we pay attention to that kind of psychic reporting when so many biblical characters were telling of occurrences where they directly communicated with gods and would sacrifice to them? And here in Newark, Ohio, we have an Indian relic of a Newark shaman that depicts a severed head and a shamanic transformation from human to bear, and we are supposed to, under the NAGPRA law, put that relic back in the ground and destroy its magical properties. And why do the Indians believe these relics have magical properties? How are we scientifically talking about magic in objects and saying it with a straight face, then calling people like me pseudoscientists or, at best, contemplators of conspiracy?
Let’s take what we know, that Satan was reported to manipulate God in the Book of Job, and that God reacted to it in a way that was very hard on Job who was a good man doing all the good things a human being was supposed to be doing. Why did Satan want to bring harm to such a good persont? Just because, Satan was evil? What does that mean and what’s the next layer of understanding? That’s the kind of question I explore in the chapters to come. What are the political motivations of spirit world malcontents, and how can we prepare ourselves as a human culture from their interdimensional tyranny? And if we think that is wild, then how can we say that indigenous people have ancient relics that are magical and should be destroyed and put back in the ground and studied? Yet we are supposed to take the word of the experts for it completely and “trust the science.” As we were expected to do with Covid. So here we had a problem, we are supposed to ignore all the evidence and give it back to people who had no genetic claim to the objects, in ways we still don’t understand, we don’t know who the Hopewell and Adena people were, we don’t know who mined the Lake Superior copper mines, we don’t know who the Windover people were, yet we are supposed to give all these treasures back to the newest people living on the block, without studying what they left behind. The Shaman of Newark, I think, is one of the most important parts of John Hancock’s book, as he actually managed to put an image of it in the book before the purge of NAGPRA forced it into obscurity. But how much else has been shoved away into a lack of study, and how can we claim to know anything about them?
A lot to think about
I didn’t mean to, but I had a UFO experience that I talk about in this book also. I would attribute it to big government programs and to a psychic reaction to me personally, which is something that dominating personality types seem to have been able to do over many years. But who did they speak with, or rather, who answered? I have seen it for myself. I think non-human intelligence is always working with us, around us, through us, and for its own political motivations. But what are those politics? We might understand the Ohio governor’s race between Amy Acton and Vivek Ramaswamy through the political lens of Democrats versus Republicans. And that was certainly the case between many researchers and me. Overwhelmingly, college professors tend to be Democrats, as are Hollywood actors, for very good and definable reasons. Productive capitalists might otherwise be said to be Republicans. But what is the politics of Satan besides calling him evil? Evil doesn’t tell the story nearly enough. And what would be the politics of spiritual beings, as the Indians say, the Great Spirit? Perhaps they are talking about the same God we all are. Or perhaps not, perhaps their god is just another version of Baal, Lucifer, Moloch, or Satan. Yet, here we have in the Shaman of Newark a figure involved in human sacrifice, as many of the Mississippian Mound cultures did, Cahokia included, and nobody wants to talk about it? NAGPRA says we are supposed to suspend belief and surrender our opinions to the experts who have no idea what they are talking about.
I walked out of the Steven Spielberg film Disclosure Day, telling my wife that everything had changed. It’s not that the movie was jaw-droppingly good; it was just a movie. But it gave permission, for a whole bunch of political reasons, to talk about this subject differently than at any time in the past. The evidence, including the case of David Wyrick, and we will talk about evidence a lot in the murder cases I have been on, where I was the top cop of Butler County, Ohio, for a very treasured period. Do demons and spiritual characters talk to people and soothsay them into self-destruction? Yes, emphatically, over and over again, and I think when it came to David Wyrick, he needed public acceptance that some demonic force wanted him contained and destroyed. He was an abolitionist who used his prominent social position as a mason to help spread the message of ending slavery. And thought his opinion-based painkillers, a Satan-like character probably had his ear right up to the day of his death under the influence of that same painkiller. But why, if you were an alien from a Type One civilization, would you try to derail an ant colony that was interrupting your version of a picnic? If the creation of America was divinely inspired, as the Bible clearly indicates, wouldn’t that be good for the human race? Yet perhaps god was at war with all the other gods, and we are their chess pieces. I’m inclined to that latter assumption, and the evidence certainly leans in that direction as I have experienced it.
At the September 9th 2025, Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection hearing with the House Oversight Task Force, there were some very unusual things said on the very public record by George Knapp, Jeffry Nuccetlli, Dylan Borlan, and Alexandro Wiggins that have slowly taken the idea of UFO talk from conspiracy to actual scientific study. We have open talk now that up to four species of non-human intelligence are interacting openly with the world’s governments. And back to the movie Disclosure Day by Steven Spielberg: as a work of art, it opens the box to talk about these things in ways we never have before, because of the compelling evidence emerging from these testimonies. The movie is clearly fictional and meant to be a popcorn popper. But there is a level of seriousness to it that hints at something much larger: how do these non-human intelligence types communicate with humans now and in the past, perhaps even the deep past? I would say to all the scientists of the Smithsonian that objects like the Shaman of Newark and understanding how the complex mathematics in the Newark Earthworks were given to those indigenous people in the first place is all that matters. Based on observation, with the thin proof that we have, the Sumerian God Nisaba was whispering geometry to the people of the Hopewell period, and probably longer. Or the Hindu goddess Lakshmi. Why not you say? Are we going to be fools and suggest that Sumerian Gods were regional, and could not speak to people on the other side of the world as easily as someone in a Sumerian temple under drug influence? Why would we assume that? The first question is understanding that. And how did a society that did not have any central government or modern technology such as TV or radio project those same mathematics, without flaw, from the Newark earthworks to Hopton, over 60 miles to the south, to Mound City, Seip, High Bank, and Fort Ancient, locations all over Ohio? They had no paper that we know of, no Wal-Mart, no way to say that this, this, and this is important. Let’s build massive earthworks that take millions of labor-hours each to complete, and do so to perfection, without any centralized corporation or government to keep everyone focused. And modern science calls it a miracle of tribal knowledge. I call it communication through shaman over vast distances, all over the earth, by non-human intelligence trying to manipulate the human race towards its own doom and destruction to fulfill the political needs of the rebels against God.
And to further confirm that suspicion, many of these Hopewell sites are associated with the very ancient Teays River, which flowed up the Scioto over 2 million years ago, well before the last Ice Age. The Teays and its tributaries touched many of the Hopewell sites, indicating a reverence for those spots on the land by an intelligence observing human beings over a vast span of time and connecting those locations to celestial alignments. And that relevance is important in knowing that the Great Serpent Mound was built on the crater of an impact crater from 300 million years ago. How would indigenous people know that? And even stranger, the Fort Hill complex is built within the impact crater zone as well. Out of all the places in North America, why would anybody, and nobody really knows who they are, build these big, significant sites near geologic features that were millions of years old? Why would they know anything about any of it with such precise mathematics? How would that information ever be obtained in the first place, let alone passed along to these construction sites involving so many years and generations of labor and production? It’s hard to build a McDonald’s consistently, even with all the modern tools we have now. I would propose that it was the shaman with drug use who served as the primary communication device. And with that, a relationship with Non-Human Intelligence that we are finally admitting to, that has always been a part of the human experience.
Yes, the exhibit at the great Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum was very political, but not in the way that I think they intended. I saw at the museum an attempt to understand these great mysteries with replicas of the relics themselves. Again, that’s where I found a great copy of the Wilmington Tablet, along with the Holy Stones of Newark. And we also know of the Shaman of Newark, so there were relics that depicted the same kind of human sacrifice that we know came from central Mexico, Mirador, Teotihuacan, and Cholula, in a time when many people didn’t think cultures were talking to each other. They appear, as the evidence of the relics shows, to have been doing so. Even in the Smithsonian views these days by John Hancock, we know that the Hopewell people were traveling many thousands of miles to obtain copper, obsidian, and mica, and likely traded with the Olmecs of Tabasco, Mexico, and affiliated cultures, which had their writing showing up in the Wilmington Tablet and the Cincinnati Tablet. So the political motivations of David Wyrick are not as simple as has been attempted to be set out.
As a surveyor of these great Indian mounds, and confronted with vast evil, as the Civil War over slavery unleashed itself, and studying the remains of these ancient cultures, likely the same voices that whispered in the ear of the Shaman of Newark were whispering in the ear of David Wyrick and his opium painkillers. And was it Moses who wrote the Book of Job and discussed what Satan had said to whom and for what reason? The same guy who talked to god on a mountaintop and came back 40 days later with the Ten Commandments, and spoke to a burning bush about freeing the Jewish people from the confines of Egyptian polytheism. Should we ignore that the mound complex at Portsmith, Ohio has a very similar path-of-souls ritual to the one the Egyptians had for their preserved dead? And that some of their paths actually go through the Ohio River, showing a reverence for what was there before even the Ohio River flowed through the area, when the Teays River instead flowed to the north. And we could say with just as much authority that the mound sites were restored during the Hopewell period rather than constructed anew. That they were marking spots on the ground, viewed from the air, to very ancient landmarks, for reasons for which we do not have enough evidence to speculate. Yet they are there, and the evidence is begging to be found and analyzed. And for the same political reasons that Satan tried to trick God into punishing Job, we have society punishing David Wyrick for daring to oppose slavery, or wanting to use the Ten Commandments as a hook into North American migration by Western civilization, bringing with it a religion of forgiveness instead of appeasement to some mysterious gods who demand decapitated human heads in the lap of their shaman before providing information.
No, I didn’t want to be that guy, but sitting in front of the Newark Holystones at the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum and seeing the exhibit they had there, and noticing the quick tone to dismiss everything as a hoax, my life flashed before me in a way I would have rather had it not. A deception was at play; Satan himself was trying to throw everyone off the scent. And when theologians contemplate a single satan in the Book of Job, they miss the obvious problem that there are likely thousands of them always whispering in someone’s ear, maybe God himself, or David Wyrick laced out on painkillers, or the Shaman of Newark. And that it didn’t take much to communicate, a spiritual terrorist from the land of Cannon could have been speaking the same message of sacrifice to some headhunter of the Adena culture depicted as a severed head in Hopewell mounds at the same time that they were whispering to Nebuchadnezzar to destroy Solomon’s First Temple, and to the Romans during the Second Temple, to destroy the vessels of God himself to make the world ripe for an overthrow, to the political objectives of the conspirators against God’s creations. And the Essenes were turned into the channel, and wrote about it in their Dead Sea Scrolls. I had wished that the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum exhibit, located well north of Newark, was less obvious and more scientifically grounded. But the assumption was that Wyrick was an abolitionist living among evil people supporting the slavery of other people, more of that reference to the 1619 Project, the unjust settlement of indigenous land. And as you read at the Holy Stone Exhibit, you can almost hear the whispers of Satan himself, showing Wyrick to be invalidated, corrupting future scientists in their assumptions, and making a case for not even founding America at all so the Christian premise of eliminating human sacrifice would be destroyed and current cultures continue the practice of honoring the spirit world with the blood of the living. And I didn’t want to be the guy who reported what was hard to hear. That Satan was a non-human intelligence that has been doing all this manipulating since before the Teays River flowed north along the Scioto River, then turned left near present-day Columbus and headed out to Indiana along the present-day I-70 corridor.
If you really looked closely enough and blocked out the contemporary noise, you could hear the insecurities of Satan, hoping to get away with the deception of many lifetimes. Humans need to appease what they thought of as their superiors, their gods, the malcontents that UAP whistleblowers are now revealing in the light of day in the Trump administration very hard truths. It’s one thing to explain modern UFOs and their physics-defying characteristics, and another to explain the mysterious occurrences and hauntings at the Skinwalker ranch. Yes, I talk a lot about hauntings, paranormal occurrences, Bigfoot, UFOs, and the kind of politics that will make your skin crawl in the pages ahead. But it’s also a marvelous adventure that I share so that you don’t have to go through the pain firsthand. And perhaps, after a lot of work, we’ll gather up enough evidence to change our perspective. But in The Politics of Heaven, the ruse is in what isn’t said, not what is actually revealed. Satan never tells God what he’s up to in trying to get him to turn against the very good Job. But when we look at the human race, we see a lot of Jobs, David Wyrick being one of them. Good people are crushed by their relationships with others who are otherwise motivated toward evil. But what is evil anyway when you have the Shaman of Newark holding the severed head of an obvious victim, that shaman would use as currency to buy information from the spirit world. The great spirit, or Satan himself. We aren’t supposed to ask the question, only to accept that the experts told us what to think and when to think it. But I didn’t want to be that guy. Sometimes, I wish I could be a lot of other things. But what is the adventure in that? And in the adventure are the answers, the real answers if we dare to look.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
I had been telling stories about visiting The Wilds, that impressive safari park and conservation center affiliated with the Columbus Zoo out in the hills of Ohio. It is one of those places worth the drive no matter where you are in the state, a sprawling expanse of reclaimed land turned into something that feels close to the real thing—vast pastures under open sky, exotic animals moving with room to stretch their legs. They have rhinos and giraffes in good numbers, along with camels, zebras, cheetahs, and others, all managed with a light enough hand that the illusion of wild freedom holds up pretty well from the back of an open-air safari vehicle.¹
You climb aboard one of their customized tour buses or trucks—solid machines built for the terrain—and set out through a series of large paddocks. The gates are there for a reason. They control movement between sections so the animals do not mix in ways that would cause trouble, and the whole operation runs on a balance between giving the creatures space and keeping things workable for keepers, vets, and paying visitors who want the Serengeti experience without the actual risks of the real wild. Supplemental feeding stations and strategic placement of water to help keep the herds where the staff wants them for health, breeding programs, and viewing. It is wildlife management at a high level, about as good as you are going to get when you are dealing with dangerous and valuable animals on thousands of acres that used to be strip-mined ground.²
The compliant animals make it easy. The rhinos—those massive southern white rhinos—graze and wallow near the resources provided for them, powerful but predictable in their routines. The giraffes tower elegantly, moving between browse stations and open pasture in ways that fit the management plan. Camels shed their coats in season, zebras stay in loose groups, and the whole scene looks like freedom while functioning inside a carefully designed system of fences, gates, rotations, and incentives. It is not a cage, but it is not the true untamed wild either. It is managed pasture with the look of the wild, and most of the animals play their part without fuss.³
That is what made the ostrich stand out to me.
I noticed him early, standing apart from the clusters near the food and water. Tall, alert, head turning with that sharp, curious rhythm ostriches have. While the rhinos and giraffes and camels stayed close to what the keepers had laid out for them, this bird was watching the vehicle. As we moved from one paddock into the next, the gate system did its job—or tried to. The tour vehicle went through, the mechanism closed behind us, and there he was again on the other side. He had figured it out. He waited, timed his approach, slipped in close behind the bus or jeep as it passed, and crossed into the fresh section before the barrier fully secured. Now he was loose in new territory, running with a different group, exploring ground the plan had not assigned him that day.⁴
The reaction from the staff told the whole story. You could hear it in the radio chatter and see it in the quick deployment of groundskeepers in another vehicle. They had to go after him, work him back toward his proper paddock without stressing the other animals or ruining the tour for the people who had paid to see a smooth, wild-like experience. It was not the first time. The bird had made a habit of it. One fence, one gate at a time, and he had learned the vulnerability. He did not need the food station to stay content. He wanted novelty, new company, the chance to impose his own will on the layout the humans had built.⁵
I was rooting for him the whole time.
Here was an animal refusing the script. The other creatures accepted the pasture as given—the convenient food, the predictable safety, the lanes they were expected to occupy. The ostrich treated the whole setup as a puzzle to solve. He used the tour vehicle itself, the thing the keepers relied on to move visitors through their controlled world, as his ticket to the next field. He did not stay near the bowl. He risked the chase, the herding, the temporary disruption, because something in him wanted to see what was over there and who else was around. That kind of ambition is rare in a managed environment, and it is exactly what makes systems better when you let it play out instead of crushing it on sight.⁶
It struck me then, and has stayed with me since, how perfectly this mirrors what I have seen over decades in aerospace and manufacturing. We build our own versions of The Wilds every day. We lay out departments like paddocks, write procedures like fence lines, and place compensation, titles, benefits, and job security like feeding stations to keep people content and predictable. We install gates—approval chains, compliance checklists, annual audits, legacy safety rules—and we staff them with officers whose job is to make sure nothing slips through unplanned. Most people, like most animals in the park, adapt. They stay near the resources, do the expected work, and the machine runs smoothly enough from a distance. Visitors and shareholders see order and productivity.⁷
But then there are the rebels and learning the actual work from the ground up, often see the single-gate weaknesses first. They know which rules came from someone who retired twenty years ago and never got revisited. They spot the places where the process has become theater—compliance for the sake of compliance, documentation that protects no one and slows everything. When they point it out or, worse, quietly work around it to get the real job done, it can be deeply disconcerting to layers of management that have never turned a wrench or stood on a shop floor during a real problem. Knowledge from the ground threatens the illusion of total control. So the system often responds the same way the keepers responded to the ostrich: more rules, more oversight, more “training,” or direct pressure to get back in the assigned pasture.⁸
The cost of that approach is enormous and mostly invisible until you add it up. Direct spending on regulatory compliance labor alone runs into the hundreds of billions annually across American business, with manufacturing carrying a heavy share. Broader economic drag—capital and talent diverted from productive work into compliance bureaucracies, innovations delayed or abandoned because the approval path is too long, small and mid-sized firms crushed under burdens that larger players can absorb—pushes the true opportunity cost into the trillions over time. We lose competitiveness, we lose resilience, and we lose the very people who could have fixed the problems if we had listened instead of herding them back into line. It is not dramatic like a factory closing overnight. It is the slow erosion of capability, the quiet decision by talented hands-on people to stop trying or to leave for places that still value initiative.⁹
SpaceX has shown what happens when you refuse that model. Elon Musk walks into meetings and asks the questions most compliance cultures are designed to avoid: Who wrote this rule? Why did they write it? Does it still make sense, or is it just legacy that nobody wants to touch? A shocking number of requirements get deleted or radically simplified once you trace them back to their origin. The company builds, tests, fails in public view, learns fast, and iterates. Reusable rockets, vertical integration, rapid launch cadence—these did not come from following the old aerospace playbook of exhaustive upfront documentation and risk aversion at every step. They came from treating the rulebook as a starting point to be challenged, not a sacred pasture to remain inside.¹⁰ The results speak for themselves in cost per launch and flight rate. The ostrich approach, applied at scale, forces the entire system to get better.¹¹
I have always had a soft spot for the ostriches in any workforce. I advocate for them on purpose. The ones who will not stay in their lane, who figure out how to get behind the jeep and into the next field, are usually the same people who reveal where the real weaknesses are and who come up with fixes nobody on the compliance side would have imagined. Sometimes they bite you—disrupt schedules, question authority in uncomfortable ways, make the tour guides nervous. That is the price of having them. The alternative is a pasture full of well-fed, predictable animals that look impressive when the bus drives by but generate very little genuine progress or resilience. Their souls get crushed under the weight of never being allowed to test the fence, and the organization slowly loses the capacity to adapt when the real world stops cooperating with the plan.¹²
In my own years moving from hands-on roles into executive responsibility, I saw this pattern repeat across programs and companies. The people who had done the work with their own hands carried an instinctive understanding of what was theater and what was necessary. They were often the first to spot when a procedure had become detached from reality or when a new requirement was solving a problem that no longer existed. Management that lacked that grounding sometimes viewed them as threats to order rather than assets to be unleashed. The organizations that protected and empowered those voices moved faster and solved harder problems. The ones that prioritized perfect compliance and predictable behavior above all else eventually found themselves defending processes that nobody could explain anymore, while competitors who tolerated a little productive rebellion pulled ahead.¹³
The same dynamic shows up far beyond factories and boardrooms. Education systems that reward sitting still and repeating approved answers over curiosity and independent problem-solving. Government bureaucracies where the safest career move is to add another layer of review rather than remove an obsolete one. Cultural institutions that present curated narratives as the full range of choice. We all live inside versions of The Wilds at times—the illusion of open range while the fences, feeding stations, and gate protocols quietly shape what is possible. Most days it feels normal. Then something like that ostrich reminds you that the system only works as well as it does because enough creatures choose not to test the boundaries too hard.¹⁴
What I liked most about watching that bird work the tour was how it improved the keepers. They had to confront the limitation in their current gate setup. They had to think about whether single-point control was enough or whether double-gate airlock procedures, better behavioral enrichment, or adjusted resource placement would reduce the escapes without turning the place into a tighter prison. The ostrich was not just causing trouble; he was doing unpaid consulting work for the management team. He showed them where their assumptions about animal movement and motivation had gaps. A purely compliant population would never have forced that improvement. The rebel paid for his freedom by making the whole operation a little sharper.¹⁵
I left The Wilds that day still thinking about him. The rhinos were impressive in their size and presence. The giraffes were beautiful against the sky. The cheetahs carried that coiled power that makes you respect the food chain. All of them cool in their own ways, and all of them content to operate inside the lanes the humans had drawn. The ostrich was the one I kept coming back to—the non-compliant one, the rule-questioner, the creature willing to go where the keepers did not want him and to accept the temporary chase as the cost of exploration. He did not need the easy food to stay interested in life. He wanted new ground and new company, and he found a way to claim it using the very system designed to contain him.¹⁶
That is the quality I look for and try to protect in the people around me, whether in aerospace programs, manufacturing operations, or just everyday life. Give the ostriches some room. Listen when they show you the weakness in the single gate. Accept that a little productive chaos now and then is cheaper than the long-term stagnation of perfect compliance. The organizations and societies that figure this out keep their edge. The ones that treat every deviation as a threat to be chased back into the assigned pasture eventually discover that their well-managed animals have lost the capacity to handle real trouble when it arrives.¹⁷
I have no interest in living in a world where the only acceptable animals are the ones that stay near the bowl. I would rather deal with the occasional escape, the radio calls, the groundskeepers earning their pay, and the improvements that come from being forced to see the system through the eyes of someone who refuses to accept it as final. That ostrich at The Wilds was doing exactly what the best innovators and problem-solvers do everywhere else: he treated the fence not as an absolute limit but as a problem to be solved, and in doing so he made the entire managed landscape a little more honest and a little more capable.¹⁸
When people ask me now what my favorite animal was on that visit, I do not hesitate. The big ones were impressive. The compliant ones were easy on the eye and the schedule. But the ostrich—the tall, curious, gate-hacking rebel who would not stay in his lane and who spent half the tour where he was not supposed to be—was the one that mattered. He reminded me why I have always had more respect for the people who figure out how to get behind the jeep than for the ones who never leave the feeding station. Encourage that spirit where you find it. Protect it when the compliance officers come with their herding tools. The future does not belong to the perfectly pastured. It belongs to those willing to test the gate now and then, accept the chase, and show the rest of us what we missed by staying comfortable.¹⁹
This experience at The Wilds lingered in my mind long after I returned home, connecting to deeper patterns I have observed across my life and work. The managed illusion of freedom in those paddocks is not so different from the structures we encounter in corporate America, where layers of policy and oversight create the appearance of progress while often stifling the very innovation needed to survive. In aerospace, where I have spent much of my career, the contrast between traditional approaches and more agile ones is particularly stark. Legacy programs can become bogged down in requirements that originated decades ago, defended not because they remain relevant but because changing them would require admitting that the original rationale might no longer hold. Hands-on experience reveals these disconnects quickly, yet articulating them can mark you as difficult rather than valuable.²⁰
Consider the broader implications for American manufacturing. When compliance becomes the primary metric of success, resources flow toward documentation and auditing rather than research, development, or process refinement. Studies have documented how regulatory burdens disproportionately affect smaller firms, creating barriers to entry and expansion that favor incumbents who can afford dedicated compliance departments. The result is slower adoption of new technologies, reduced experimentation on the shop floor, and a workforce trained more in navigating bureaucracy than in solving novel problems. The ostrich in such an environment would be quickly reassigned or sidelined, and the whole system suffers for it.²¹
Elon Musk’s approach at SpaceX offers a compelling counterexample, one I have followed with great interest. By insisting on first-principles thinking—breaking down every assumption to its fundamentals and rebuilding only what proves necessary—the company has achieved breakthroughs that seemed impossible under conventional paradigms. Reusability was not just an engineering challenge; it was a direct challenge to the accepted economics of spaceflight, where expendable vehicles and massive cost-plus contracts had become the norm. Questioning those foundations required a culture that rewarded the kind of boundary-testing the ostrich exemplified. The payoff has been dramatic reductions in launch costs and an unprecedented cadence of operations, reshaping the industry.²²
In reflecting on these matters, I often draw parallels to larger questions of human agency and the systems that seek to channel or constrain it. The ostrich’s refusal to remain content within the provided pasture speaks to something fundamental in the created order: a drive toward exploration, adaptation, and the exercise of will that resists overly deterministic management. In my ongoing work exploring the Politics of Heaven and the deeper spiritual and historical currents shaping human affairs, such metaphors take on added resonance. Just as the keepers at The Wilds maintain an illusion of wildness for educational and conservation purposes, larger forces in society—whether economic, cultural, or institutional—often construct environments that prioritize predictability and control over the messy vitality of genuine freedom. Individuals who, like the ostrich, find ways to slip through the gates challenge those illusions and force reevaluation.²³
This is not to romanticize chaos or dismiss the need for structure. Successful wildlife management at The Wilds demonstrates that boundaries serve important functions: protecting animals, enabling breeding programs, ensuring visitor safety, and advancing conservation goals. Similarly, in business and society, rules around safety, quality, and ethics are essential. The problem arises when those rules multiply unchecked, when compliance officers outnumber innovators, or when the original purpose of a regulation fades from memory while its enforcement mechanisms grow ever more elaborate. The ostrich does not demand the removal of all fences; he demonstrates the value of testing them and adapting the system in response.²⁴
My own background has given me a particular vantage on this tension. Having worked my way up through various roles in industry, from tasks requiring direct physical engagement to overseeing complex programs, I have witnessed how domain knowledge from the “shop floor” often clashes with abstract managerial frameworks. Those who have turned wrenches understand intuitively where procedures add value and where they have become ritual. Encouraging such perspectives requires leadership willing to tolerate temporary disruption for long-term gain—much like the keepers who, instead of permanently punishing the ostrich, likely considered improvements to their gate protocols or enrichment strategies.²⁵
Culturally, the pattern repeats in media and entertainment, where narratives often reinforce managed expectations rather than celebrating the disruptive questioner. From my observations of shifts in popular music and storytelling over decades, there has been a movement away from themes of individual agency and moral courage toward more passive or hedonistic portrayals that keep audiences comfortably within prescribed emotional and ideological lanes. The ostrich disrupts that too, by refusing the easy feed of convention and seeking fresh territory.²⁷
Politically and economically, the stakes are high. Over-reliance on compliance culture contributes to the kinds of institutional failures I encountered during grand jury service, where layers of bureaucracy sometimes obscured accountability and human judgment. Challenging stupid rules is not rebellion for its own sake but a necessary corrective to systems that drift toward self-perpetuation at the expense of their intended purposes. In local Ohio contexts, from school levies to commissioner races, I have seen similar dynamics: entrenched approaches defended vigorously, while innovative voices advocating for accountability and efficiency are treated as threats to the established order.²⁸
Ultimately, the lesson from that lone ostrich at The Wilds is one of balance and appreciation. Systems need structure to function, but they thrive when they incorporate the energy of those who test the edges. In manufacturing, this means streamlining regulations that no longer serve their purpose and empowering frontline workers to propose and implement improvements. In broader society, it means fostering cultures that value inquiry and agency over rote obedience. As someone who has long championed self-mastery, resilience, and the imposition of individual will on challenging circumstances—symbolized in my own life by the whip as a tool of precision and discipline—I see the ostrich as a kindred spirit. He navigates the managed wild with determination and ingenuity, improving it in the process.²⁹
When I share this story, people often smile at the image of the bird sneaking through gates and evading keepers during the tour. But beneath the humor lies a serious point about human flourishing. We are not meant to be permanently pastured, content with provided resources and predictable routines. The drive to explore, to question, to innovate—even at the risk of temporary conflict with authority—is part of what makes progress possible, whether in conservation parks, factories, or the grander arenas of history and spirit. I prefer the company of ostriches, even if they occasionally complicate the tour. They keep things alive, force adaptation, and remind us that true freedom, however constrained by reality, involves the courage to move beyond the feeding station and into the next field.³⁰
So the next time you find yourself in a system that feels overly managed, remember the ostrich at The Wilds. Look for the single gate, time your move, and be willing to run when the keepers come calling. The disruption might just lead to better management for everyone involved. In my experience, it almost always does.
Footnotes
¹ Official descriptions of The Wilds as a 10,000+ acre conservation center with open-range safari experiences, emphasizing educational value and animal welfare. See The Wilds website resources on mission and operations.
² Details on reclaimed strip-mined land conversion, paddock management, and gate systems for species separation and rotational grazing in large wildlife parks.
³ Visitor accounts and park literature highlighting predictable behaviors of rhinos, giraffes, and other megafauna near supplemental feeding and water sources.
⁴ Observations of ostrich curiosity and vehicle-following behavior in safari settings, consistent with ethological studies of ratite intelligence and learning.
⁵ Reports from guides and staff on recurring challenges with individual animals exploiting procedural gaps during tours.
⁶ Analysis of problem-solving in captive animals and its implications for enrichment strategies in conservation management.
⁷ Corporate analogies drawn from organizational behavior literature on incentive structures and departmental silos.
⁸ Personal reflections informed by decades in aerospace, noting tensions between experiential knowledge and administrative layers.
⁹ Quantitative assessments of regulatory compliance burdens, including labor costs and opportunity losses in U.S. manufacturing sectors.
¹⁰ Public statements and case studies on SpaceX’s first-principles engineering methodology and requirement rationalization processes.
¹¹ Industry analyses of launch cost reductions and operational cadence improvements attributable to iterative, challenge-based approaches.
¹² Discussions of innovation cultures versus compliance-oriented management in business strategy texts.
¹³ Insights from program management experience in aerospace regarding the value of shop-floor perspectives.
¹⁴ Broader applications to educational and governmental institutions, drawing on critiques of bureaucratic inertia.
¹⁵ Principles of adaptive management in wildlife conservation, where outlier behaviors drive procedural improvements.
¹⁶ Comparative evaluation of animal temperaments in managed environments and their contributions to system dynamics.
¹⁷ Recommendations for fostering psychological safety and autonomy in high-performance teams.
¹⁸ Philosophical ties between individual agency and systemic resilience, informed by long-term observation.
¹⁹ Synthesis of the ostrich metaphor as applied to personal and professional philosophy of resilience and inquiry.
²⁰ Examination of legacy requirements in traditional aerospace programs versus agile methodologies.
²¹ Empirical studies on regulatory impacts on firm size, innovation rates, and market entry barriers.
²² Detailed accounts of reusable rocket development and associated regulatory and engineering challenges.
²³ Connections to explorations of power structures, agency, and historical patterns in spiritual and societal contexts.
²⁴ Balanced view of necessary boundaries versus over-regulation, with examples from safety and ethical standards.
²⁵ Reflections on career progression and the role of practical knowledge in leadership effectiveness.
²⁶ Applications to intergenerational knowledge transfer and character development through hands-on challenges.
²⁷ Cultural critiques of shifts in media narratives and their effects on perceptions of agency.
²⁸ Observations from civic engagement and public service experiences regarding institutional accountability.
²⁹ Integration with personal symbols of discipline, precision, and moral agency in navigating constraints.
³⁰ Concluding emphasis on the long-term benefits of embracing productive non-conformity for societal and organizational health.
Bibliography
The Wilds. Official website and publications on conservation, safari operations, and animal management (thewilds.org).
Trebbi, Francesco, et al. Research papers on the costs of regulatory compliance in the United States, including establishment-level data analyses (NBER and related).
National Association of Manufacturers. Multiple reports detailing per-employee and aggregate regulatory burdens on U.S. industry.
Musk, Elon, and SpaceX team. Interviews, presentations, and public documentation on engineering philosophy and operational innovations.
Christensen, Clayton M. The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Harvard Business Review Press.
Schumpeter, Joseph A. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. Harper & Brothers (on creative destruction).
Various ethology and conservation journals on ratite behavior, wildlife park management, and behavioral enrichment.
Hoffman, Rich. Prior essays and books including The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and ongoing work on The Politics of Heaven, exploring agency, structures of power, and human systems.
Organizational psychology and management texts on compliance versus innovation cultures (e.g., works on psychological safety and adaptive leadership).
Visitor and video documentation of The Wilds experiences highlighting animal-vehicle interactions.
Government and think tank analyses of manufacturing competitiveness, opportunity costs, and regulatory reform needs.
Additional readings on free will, institutional critique, and historical patterns of rebellion against managed orders for deeper contextual understanding.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
