Category: Drama

The Truth Kamala Harris and All Democrats, Can’t Handle: In ‘107 Days,’ every day only eroded support

There is more that has been exposed than just the rise of the MAGA movement against a backdrop of authority figure Marxism.  And that was a theme that kept coming to me as I read Kamala Harris’s new book, 107 Days.  Yes, it is garbage, but I’ll read anything, just as I’ll listen to just about anybody, so I can make reasonable conclusions about things, even if it’s from people I don’t like or agree with on much of everything.  And her book is complete with the worst kind of fiction; it’s presented as a fact when the actual content is blisteringly fantastical in its scope.  And this is true of everything from the radical political left, where they think something and can make it so with the power of their observing it.  Such as deciding one day that a man is a woman.  That anal sex is just as natural as vaginal intercourse, that the rest of the world is equal, when in reality, they struggle to make bubble gum wrappers.  And that all facts and figures can be manipulated until reality is forced to agree with them at the point of mass authority rule over a docile and complicit society that has never grown up and away from their parents, and wants an overwhelming government power to rule over their perpetual insecurities. What has fallen apart most devastatingly for the Marxist left, for which the world’s socialist and communist governments have emerged to various degrees, is the sting of reality.  And that is what Kamala’s book most clearly conveys: the degree to which they have lied to their own faces, denying the nature of reality itself, which they are at war with.  The political left despises the truth about the world, and they have been at odds with it; if there is anything that is most devastating to their movement, it’s that all their fantasies have fallen apart under the scrutiny of reality. 

So let’s revisit this notion that I talked about extensively at that time, and which is the essential theme of Kamala Harris’s book, which she has said while on her media tour, giving the whole thing away under press questioning, there is nothing Kamala could have done with more time to run that could have helped her.  Her entirely fictional premise was that if only she could have run a regular campaign, she could have performed better in the 2024 election.  She could not have done better than she did; in fact, for every day she was in the presidential race, she bled support.  She didn’t gain it.  The more people heard from Kamala Harris, the less they liked her.  She wouldn’t have been able to build any support; her campaign was a complete fabrication created by people who thought they controlled the entire narrative and could autopilot her into office, just as they had been running Joe Biden’s campaign all along.  Kamala was not very likable; she came across as someone who had slept her way to the top, and people didn’t like her.  Her best support was the day she announced she was running, once Joe Biden had been pushed out.  Before many people heard her talk, there were a certain number of not very well-informed people who would vote for her because she was a woman of color, and nothing else.  Her most popular day in the campaign was the first day.  On day 107, as the book attempts to erase, her support had eroded as more people heard her talk and got to know her a bit.  The more she opened her mouth, the less people liked her. 

Kamala Harris, in her book, repeatedly mentioned that the 2024 election was the closest in history, which is another example of Democrats seeking something to rally behind.  Trump won 312 electoral votes to Kamala’s 226.  Most of the states where Harris won were states with very loose election laws, such as those allowing mail-in ballots and not requiring voters to show ID at the polling booth.  So when we talk about Trump having a landslide, 312 is a pretty significant number these days, given that things are so heavily leveraged to favor Democrats, at least until President Trump came along.  That’s also why Democrats want to get rid of the Electoral College so they can mass manipulate the way we count votes so that a few states with loose laws can win.  As I say all the time, if Democrats don’t cheat, they can’t win, because they are the seriously minority party in America, and they have only kept things close through election fraud.  In the popular vote, Trump had 77,302,580 million votes to Kamala’s 75,017,613.  That is out of 155,238,302 total voters, which is a very high number.  But lets just call it as they say it is, out of all the voters that there are in America, with a population of 342,034,432 million including all the people who are under 18 and can’t yet vote, where would Democrats close that gap of the 2 million that they fell short on, assuming you had a clean election with no election fraud whatsoever?  And that is the real problem that planners faced when making the decision to replace Joe Biden with Kamala Harris.  They had that plan all along, and they used that June debate with Trump to set up the real story.  It was a desperation shot to put in a woman at the last minute and hope that the math worked in their favor.  But they knew the truth all along.

In 2020, Trump received 74,216,154 votes, just three million fewer than his 2024 total, which was 77,223,615, while Joe Biden received 81,268,924.  Where were all those voters in the 2020 election?  The answer is, of course, that roughly 10 million, likely more, of the votes for Democrats were produced illegally by mail-in ballots cast under the new Covid rules, and the election was rigged entirely from the top down.  The FBI knew it because they assisted with the effort at the Capitol Building on January 6th, when people arrived extremely angry that Trump was being pushed out of office.  The FBI planted over 274 people into the audience to provoke them into violence so that the narrative of the election fraud could shift to some made-up insurrection and put people on their heels to the massive reality that the election had been stolen.  And we can prove it because Democrats were caught not being able to duplicate the numbers of the 2020 election when the rules had returned to normal in 2024.  And if states that voted for Kamala over Trump had to play by more rigorous rules, with voter ID and much more restricted mail-in balloting, they would have lost even more voters than they actually did, which is likely overstated by more than 5 million votes.  Because there aren’t that many people dumb enough to vote for Democrats, and they know it.  The illusion they have lived with through election fraud and a media that sold their socialist fantasy as a reality has been eradicated from the public scene, and they have no means of stopping that process.  And Kamala’s book only spells it out grotesquely for them, rather than changing the nature of reality in the way they wish it would be.  More time for Kamala Harris would have eroded her numbers even more.  But they couldn’t afford to have Joe Biden run again and come nowhere close to his original 81 million with a performance 10 million less.  People would have been outraged by the obviousness of it all.  So their best shot, Democrats, of concealing the election fraud of 2020 was to hope that Kamala would change the numbers because she was a woman and because she was a person of color, which gave her a few throwaway votes.  But the more people heard from her, the less they liked her, and there was nothing she could have done to change that.  And that is the truth of all future elections. 

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

The Arrest of James Comey: Bring a sword, don’t turn the other cheek

I feel like spiking the football on the James Comey indictment and arrest that occurred just shy of his statute of limitations expiring after five years, at the end of September 2025.  His crimes are actually far more extensive than the obstruction of justice and lying to Congress that they put his way.  And once again, I think one of the best experiences I have ever had in life was the period I spent as the foreman of a grand jury, so I know very well what kind of cases prosecutors bring forth and how the evidence is presented and discussed.  And how a grand jury handles multiple cases, not just one.  You get a chance to talk to a lot of legal people and see how different prosecutors react to other cases.  So I can understand why there was reluctance to prosecute James Comey.  There is a whole Deep State of career political people who could make life very difficult for future administrations, because in their minds, Trump will come and go.  Many of these individuals believe they will have entire careers in government and will last through many future presidents, so they approach them with a tongue-in-cheek attitude, as if our system of management from the White House were an inconvenience that they sneer at.  And they treat the rest of us the same, as if the power of the Administrative State was far superior to the voters whom they are supposed to serve.  James Comey and the government workers like him think they are superior to the basic intellect of the average American and that they can lie to our faces and not face any punishment for the deceit.  And with James Comey, I called him out a long time ago, in May 2017, just a few months into Trump’s first term, where I was one of the first people in the country to call him a liar.

CNN was looking to dislodge Trump supporters from the new president at the time, so they came to Butler County to speak to a hard-core group of Trump advocates.  We met at a local sports bar and watched live on television, with CNN producers, as Comey testified after Trump fired him from his role as FBI Director.  This was an all-day event, and later that night, we would gather on Anderson Cooper’s show to share our reactions to the testimony.  CNN hoped that Butler County would start to doubt their support for Trump with the horror of firing Comey, who at the time was thought of as America’s squeaky-clean Boy Scout, beyond refute.  But what I said shocked the producers, and they let me know it after the cameras were off and the live feed had concluded.  I said when asked on the air that I thought James Comey was more like Eliot Ness from the famous Al Capone mob cases in Chicago.  But what he turned out to be was more like Ian Fleming, the James Bond novelist.  And that the FBI Director was more inclined to fiction, which I thought was a nice way of saying that he was a liar.   Well, at that time, that was a shocking statement, and that was one of the last television interviews that I ever did.  Before that, I appeared frequently on radio and television; producers would seek my opinion on various topics, and I would offer it.  But after that, things changed dramatically.  I didn’t care because my own media efforts were much more potent.  I found it much more rewarding to express my thoughts than to try to fit into a producer’s narrative.  However, that fracture indeed occurred that night after the CNN segment.

That was 8 years ago, and the information was self-evident.  It took that long to reach justice in indicting James Comey.  And like most deceitful people who get caught in these terrible scandals, he sought mass collectivism to shield himself from personal judgment.  To show what a manipulative loser he really is before this indictment, which he knew was coming, he put out a video attempting to get support from Taylor Swift’s audience, hoping to manipulate pop culture soothsayers to his side, and to pit them against Trump.  This is actually a much more dangerous trait that indicates a deeper problem at the FBI and how they handle cases in a mass society.  We’ll talk about the way the FBI planted 274 agents into the J6 crowd to accelerate activism and cause trouble.  The FBI has been picking winners and losers for a long time, grossly abusing its authority in multiple cases.  Which is why they thought they’d get away with this Russian story on driving Trump out of office.  So yes, I saw it well in advance and I said so on national television, and I turned out to be right about everything, even when the world took a hard turn toward regime suppression just a few years later in 2020 with Covid and election fraud to throw Trump out of office.  It seemed that the bad guys truly had the kind of control that James Comey thought shielded them from reality.  And that he and the FBI could abuse their power to maintain a political order that they thought was more appropriate, a Taylor Swift kind of progressivism, they were going to impose on us whether we liked it or not.

So this is actually a grave crime, not just an FBI Director who went bad and abused his power to throw out an elected official from the White House that he disagreed with.  This is about a fourth branch of government that thinks it exists beyond voter approval, and this goes back to the killing of JFK and the getting rid of Richard Nixon.  And that’s why it was so absurd to everyone when Trump was elected that he would actually last, let alone serve a second term.  The CNN guys that night told me in the parking lot that we were all living in a bubble with our support of Trump, and that it was a regional issue.  That the rest of the world would disregard us as backward and out of touch.  And it made me so angry that I stopped answering calls from media producers and participating in their shows, because they all pretty much thought the same way as these people at CNN.  And after eight years, they all turned out to be very wrong, and I was right.  And they are all on the way out, and my position is stronger than ever, and it all feels pretty redeeming.  So I’m thrilled to see bad things happening to James Comey, and I want to see even more happen to people who are just as bad as he is.  Those who believe that an unelected form of government should be allowed to hold power need a reality check, and that’s what’s happening now.  It’s not revenge for what these same people did to Trump and many of us who supported him.  Although revenge is very appropriate, I would encourage people not to turn the other cheek, as Jesus said in Matthew 5:39, but to do as Jesus said in Matthew 10:34: ‘Do not bring peace, but a sword.’  We must fight evil wherever we find it, and James Comey was a facilitator of evil, hiding behind a deceitful façade.  And he has to be made an example of, and I am thrilled to see that day arrive.

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

Nancy Nix and I Discuss Friendships, Corruption, and the Future of Politics: Why we can’t support Roger Reynolds for Butler County Commisioner

Nancy Nix and I have strong feelings about Roger Reynolds’ decision to run for Butler County Commissioner.  We have been very supportive of Roger after he found himself in a lot of trouble with a court case that accused him of abusing his office.  While we believe what happened to him was not fair, and we have both worked to help him restore his name, we have been surprised by his behavior, especially his attempt to return to public office in the way he is.  Politically speaking, we have moved on to the next generation of consideration and have selected Michael Ryan to be the next Butler County commissioner in a race that presents some challenges.  It involves an incumbent, so support for a challenger needs to be focused and have the backing of the party.  And now that Roger Reynolds, aware of these difficulties, has decided to split the vote even further, making it even harder for Michael Ryan, it has a personal aspect to it that Nancy and I chose to discuss in front of a camera, rather than on the sidelines somewhere.  Nancy had stood by Roger throughout his court case and was really the only friend he had left in county politics.  So when he turned around to sue her for his old job back, after she had stepped in as Butler County Auditor to make sure his old office didn’t fall off the rails, the hurt was quite defined.  We both wanted to see good things happen to Roger, but the way he was going about trying to restore his name was an all-too-grotesque reminder of what had gotten him in trouble to begin with.  Because, in truth, even though we feel that what happened to Roger was unfair, the cause of the problem in the first place was a personality issue that was now manifesting itself, working against the people who had tried to help him the most in the first place, and it was alarming to discuss.

Roger is not a political newcomer.  He understands what he’s doing by joining the commissioner race this late in the process, which is the same kind of self-centered action that got him into trouble in the first place.  Even if you have political enemies within the Republican Party, how you deal with that problem says a lot about the kind of person you are.  And that personality trait is what now has Nancy and me talking as an answer to the many people who think that we should automatically support Roger Reynolds because he decided to run for public office, due to our previous support.  While our opinions about the case didn’t change, the court case process did reveal elements of Roger’s character that give us pause.  I can promise I would never find myself in the situation that Roger Reynolds did.  I have a lot of enemies who are always looking for me to stumble upon something, and that is part of the cutthroat world we live in.  And when it comes to the testimony that was most damaging to Roger Reynolds in his dispute against Sheriff Jones and Ohio Attorney General David Yost, it was his personality that ultimately turned out to be his downfall.  The love of seeing his name in lights after winning a political seat and the feeling of redemption that such an office brings with it.  Obviously, the need to run for public office is mainly for Roger Reynolds, not for the benefit of the seat.  Because Nancy Nix stepped into his old auditor role and has done an excellent job, the job performance in that position actually improved, and the people of Butler County were well served in the exchange. 

And that is where things start getting nasty in this commissioner race.  Nancy and I have been thinking about the next generation, the kind of politicians who have a clean slate and many years ahead of them.  And we endorsed Michael Ryan because of the extended runway he has ahead of him, which doesn’t have court cases and corruption charges attached to it.  And honestly, as cutthroat as politics can be, I doubt Michael Ryan will ever find himself in the kind of trouble that Roger Reynolds did, because he knows how to work with people instead of against them.  One thing that got Roger in trouble, which is why Nancy and I decided to take a pass on him for an endorsement for the commissioner job, is that he seems to like the titles that politics gives him too much.  That certainly came out in the trial.  The testimony that Jenni Logan, the former treasurer of Lakota schools, showed in his trial was embarrassing to me.  As it turned out, I still supported Roger, but with considerably less enthusiasm.  Knowing Jenni as I have for many years, there are elements of that conversation that should have never happened.  I would never find myself in that same trouble, that is for sure.  And that is a sign of a deeper problem that Roger Reynolds needs to work out.  Private sector work is a good place to do that kind of thing.  Getting back into party politics in a helpful way would be another.  However, attempting to emerge with a crash-and-burn strategy to recover name recognition was the kind of bad decision that made the trial, with Jenni Logan’s testimony, so damaging. 

For Nancy, as we discussed on camera, the breaking point came when Roger sued her to regain his old job and decided to turn against her.  It deeply hurt her.  As we were talking, her eyes welled up as she fought back tears.  It took a lot of courage for her in the height of that political situation to go against the logic of self-preservation and to stay by Roger’s side during that complex court case, as a friend.  Because that same arrogance that got him in trouble in the first place was now being turned on her, because the title of a job that doesn’t pay that much was much more important to him.  And now, as she was trying to build a team in politics that actually got along and worked together for the benefit of voters in elected offices, Roger was seeking redemption by tearing it all apart for his own purposes.  And while we can certainly understand wanting to restore a name, we don’t understand burning down positive things as a means to do it, which is why he found himself in court in the first place.  We all have political enemies.  Some of them are vicious.  I have a lot of nasty enemies who would love to bring significant harm to me if they could.  But it’s up to me not to fall into those traps.  Nancy Nix is a very popular and influential character.  She has the Vice President of the United States just a phone call away, as well as Vivek Ramaswamy and many other national figures of great significance.  The chance to make the kind of mistakes that Roger made is frequent, yet she avoids them and maintains a good reputation, despite the desires of her political enemies to see her downfall.  And that begins with being a good person in all phases of life, not in seeking a public position to hide personality flaws at the expense of taxpayers and voters in general.  And that is why Nancy and I had a conversation about why we couldn’t support Roger Reynolds for this Butler County Commissioner position.  There are steps that he could have used and teams he could have been a part of building.  But instead, he went for the kind of slash-and-burn strategy that got him into trouble to begin with, which was a decision he clearly made on his own, regardless of the cost.

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

The Arrest of James Comey: It’s time for justice

Nobody should be surprised by the arrest of James Comey.  Of course, it was proper to let the statute of limitations run just short of 5 years, then arrest the old FBI director, letting him think he was going to get away with his crimes, of lying to Congress and obstruction of justice.  Comey purposely misled lawmakers during the Russian probe into Crossfire Hurricane, and it wasn’t forgivable.  You can’t have a law and order society if those who are supposed to be caretakers of that law and order are committing crimes, and James Comey clearly did.  And he’s not the only one.  But Comey started a lot of the Deep State activism against Trump, and the rest of us with a reckless disregard for the truth and he has to be punished for it.  And we knew that when Trump pushed Pam Bondi to move on some of these indictments, this was all going to go down.  It’s time.  The stall tactics of the career bureaucrats, who were expecting to wait out Trump’s term, have revealed an arrogance that needs to be broken up.  They can’t be allowed to conduct themselves as they have and resist justice.  With people we expect to run these investigations, such as Pam Bondi and Kash Patel, this unique window was only going to open up for a short time, and now is that time.  The expectation that people like Comey could commit crimes and stall the results and sit on a beach somewhere waiting out the previous administration until voters simply removed them is over.  As I have said, and this is key, from the beginning.  You can’t throw people like Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon in jail without expecting punishment.  These people tried to destroy Trump’s life just for daring to be in politics, and now he has the authority of the American people behind him to set right all these many wrongs, starting with Jim Comey.

Scum bag

I will be talking about it a lot, my now-famous CNN segment where I said live on the air to Anderson Cooper’s audience that Comey had lied in his first testimony in May 2017, when Trump first fired him.  At that time, it was a very scandalous thing to say.  Not that I cared much, because I had my own media outlet that was much more popular than any of those mainstream ones.  So my punishment for saying what I did about Comey put me in the radical right-wing crazy column, and everyone stopped asking me to appear on television and radio shows after that CNN segment.  And all I said was that I thought Comey was more inclined to fiction when saying anything.  I was pretty nice about saying that the former FBI Director was a lying scum bag.  However, people had a hard time getting their minds around that idea because Comey projected a Boy Scout-like honesty that defied the reality of him.  And people wanted the illusion.  And the Deep State took note, figuring they could get away with anything.  And the arrogance of Comey continued to escalate.  And the career types who are in these jobs were cheerleading the demise of Trump from their way too comfortable jobs.  They conspired against the hand-picked administration and thought we were all fools as they manipulated the FISA courts, expecting us all to just sit on our hands and let it happen.  They thought we were suckers who would not fight back.  And they ended up stealing an election just a few short months after the testimony that got Comey in all the trouble he is in now.  These charges are not the only ones for which he is guilty.  But the trend was evident at the time, and now, in hindsight, there were a lot of crimes that were committed against Trump and the idea of an open election that is impossible to ignore.

This idea of stalling out investigations, as seen with Pam Bondi in the Department of Justice and Kash Patel, is reminiscent of what Comey used to do.  And people like Dan Bongino helping in the background, that the system was designed to hide people like Jim Comey from justice was going to be allowed to stand.  It was a dumb concept that was never going to work.  I have been very forgiving of Pam Bondi.  It takes a few months to learn some of these jobs, especially when all the employees who report to you are sandbagging.  You don’t want to prosecute unfairly, and Trump certainly didn’t want to win office and start throwing his political rivals in jail.  But, they asked for it.  And after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, after the attempted assassination of Trump, there simply is no other option.  We can point to the killers and send them to the firing squad.  But there is an entire system behind them of these career Deep Staters who are really causing all the trouble in the world, and justice has to point in their direction, starting with one of the worst of all, James Comey.  He lied and hid his malice behind a “golly gee” Tayler Swift façade, like he’s the dad in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, instead of a conniving villain trying to protect the pensions of career leeches off taxpayer dollars. 

And the public will reward Trump with the arrest of Jim Comey, and they’ll expect many more to be prosecuted as well.  The best way to undo the system is to crush it and let it collapse.  Let the media have a meltdown over what they thought was a protected class of criminals, the career bureaucrats, such as James Comey, who were protected by government unions into perpetual activism and could lie, cheat, and steal because all the laws were rigged to favor them.  And to get away with their crimes, all they had to do was outlast the elected office holders who would come and go.  They were protected by a media driven by the same labor union mentality, which led them not to criticize their brothers and sisters in government, but instead to criticize the elected representatives who send those people to Washington to work on their behalf, only to rotate out every four years or so.  Arresting Comey is the start of something truly outstanding and orderly.  No longer can career political figures hide in the background and get away with horrendous legal tampering, as we saw happen with the former FBI Director.  And he won’t be the last, but is just the first.  And that’s how it should be, given this long history.  It was eight years ago that I interviewed on CNN, where I stated that Comey was a liar.  It has taken this long to have him finally arrested for his crimes, and that is with someone like Trump in the White House.  These crimes are committed because there is an expectation of being too nice, and the criminals have been taking advantage of that gullibility for too long.  And they expected it to continue perpetually.  But we all have an obligation to a law and order society, and that starts by not letting these criminals get away with it, and to hide behind union cards and mass collectivism.  And with that in mind, James Comey is just the very first.

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

I Disagree with Erika Kirk: Forgiveness is not an option, the world will never be the same

The psychology of the Charlie Kirk memorial service at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, will forever change America.  While I disagree with Erika Kirk, as she said she forgave her husband’s killer, I’m not that kind of person.  It might be a good “Christian” thing to do, but when it comes to professional religions, that’s where my off ramp is.  I might share values with people who have deep religious convictions, but I am not humble or forgiving.  And as I said recently in answer to what many tried to point out to me in the wake of the Charlie Kirk murder, I simply love war, fighting, and destroying enemies.  And I don’t want to live in a world, or in an everlasting state in Heaven, where I am not at war with my enemies and destroying them for the injustice they do in the world.  I would be bored to death.  But I get what she and the more than 277,000 people who filled up the football stadium and the surrounding area where the Arizona Cardinals play NFL games were thinking.  It was one of the most significant public memorials for a public political figure in history, and the impact of that violence had changed the American consciousness.  Many millions more people watched the proceedings all over the world, and it’s safe to say that life will never be the same after the murder and brutal assassination of Charlie Kirk.  Forgiveness is not appropriate.  But it’s a nice gesture.  For people seeking meaning in their lives and who had been considering organized religion, I think this event gave them a reason to take the plunge, and that America changed for the better in the wake of the tragedy.  Almost as if the whole terrible thing were part of God’s plan all along. 

But let’s talk about the many firings that have been going on of teachers and other public officials working for the government who have been celebrating this assassination.  We almost came to this point with President Trump when he was nearly shot in the same way at Butler, Pennsylvania.  Nobody should celebrate a murder of another person.  If the shoe were on the other foot, I wouldn’t celebrate the killing of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, or anybody I can’t stand in politics.  The people celebrating the killing of a really good person in Charlie Kirk have no redeeming value.  They aren’t worth saving, or working with.  And any notions that Democrats had about living in a coexistence under government with such radical notions of right and left politics are now over.  They crossed a line, and people will never want to work with them again, because they showed themselves for what they really are: terrible people out for the destruction of the human race.  And perpetuators of a vile evil that deserves to be eradicated from society.  If there is any good that came from this horrendous murder, it is because of people’s unified reaction to it in a mass way.  There aren’t many people who could fill a stadium like that for a memorial service, and the silent majority that has always been out there has some extreme opinions on the matter.  Religion might tell them to forgive the vile creatures of evil disposition.  Erika Kirk might not have room in her grief to nurture conditions that combat evil itself.  But America will never go back to what it was, a country with a high tolerance for different beliefs, even if those beliefs were destructive and vile, as many of the thoughts of Democrats are.  There has always been an assumption of tolerance that has now been ripped away. 

It’s not a free speech protection to disclose to the world as a school teacher that you support violence where a public assassination took place, and to expect to keep their jobs.  It is a statement of what a lowlife the protestor is, and we don’t want to share space with those kinds of people.  We don’t want to see them at the grocery store.  We don’t want to work with them.  We don’t want our kids going to school with them and sharing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  We don’t want to know about their dumb parents or their lives in any way.  We don’t want to share elections with them where they vote for open communists and socialists for political offices.  We have reached a breaking point, where, for too many years, we have been too forgiving of terrible people, and we have watched as they have grown in confidence in working against America’s values, to the point where it has made us miserable.  And while forgiveness is an admirable trait, I think of Joshua and the wrath of Yahweh in these kinds of times, and I don’t believe the father of Jesus wants such horrible people to continue to exist, and that we are justified to eliminate them from our lives because they are beyond redemption.  We may not go out and slaughter them all under the sword and put their heads on a pike for people to spit on, which is what my advice would be if I were talking at the Charlie Kirk memorial.  But we certainly don’t want to pay them with public money to do jobs in government if that is how they really feel.  The times of live and let live are now over. 

The corruption of the Israelites after the conquest of Canaan, as the Book of Judges begins to explore, especially in the story of Samson and Delilah, who he sought to use as an excuse to love, comes to mind.  You cannot unify with treachery.  They will seek to take away your strength at every juncture and to blind you to observe their vast evil by cutting out your eyes.  And they do not deserve the benefit of the doubt.  And when the Jewish people failed to kill the evil doers in their society as God had instructed, and let them hang around and live in a shared space with them, God punished them many times over with their destruction.  Because they didn’t listen.  History has many Jezebels who became entangled in evil because society did not apply justice to their wicked deeds, and many people suffered unjustly as a result.  And I think the Charlie Kirk memorial was the end of the line for that mistaken approach over many thousands of years.  And that evil showed itself in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination, and we have decided we don’t like it.  And we don’t want to employ them.  We don’t want to share a country with them.  We don’t want them clogging up our jails and our welfare system.  There is no saving such evil, and now that we know what they really think in polite society, it’s time not to be so courteous.  And this isn’t a time for forgiveness.  It’s a time to draw a line in the sand and not share the earth with such evil people who cannot be reasoned with.  We can’t live with cancer cells taking over our body and we can’t have people with such hate that killed Charlie Kirk roaming around our streets and sharing a box of chicken nuggets with us at a local Dairy Queen.  And the judgments that are about to come are healthy and correct.  But not forgivable. 

Rich Hoffman

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Vote For Mark Welch on November 4th 2025: Its all about keeping West Chester great and taxes low

I think it’s an easy decision to vote for Mark Welch for West Chester Trustee.  He has been in that position since 2013 and is running for another term. West Chester has thrived during his tenure.  Several other people are running for Trustee this time as well, including another incumbent, Lee Wong, and a few others who are various degrees of Democrats.  Mark is a solid Republican who carries several endorsements, including those of Warren Davidson.  Given the nature of the 2025 election in November, I think Mark is the best pick, but we can’t take anything for granted.  There have been many new people from more Democrat areas who have moved into the area, and the hope of the opposition is that they’ll be able to take over the West Chester trustees, as they have been trying to do for many decades now.  However, we’ve managed to keep the politics relatively good, anchored behind Mark, which has created a very pro-business environment in West Chester, resulting in significant revenue and low taxes.  However, we have had some people fall off the rocker over the years, and Mark could use some help as a trustee.  But first, he needs to get re-elected.  And his message is one that everyone can understand. If you like West Chester, as many do, and see it as one of the best places in the world to live, which it is, then vote for Mark Welch, because he’s a big reason that it has been great for so long.  When rival people who want to run for his seat say we need to “change,” consider what that means.  To change from good to bad.  Because that is the only kind of change they intend.  The only type of change Democrats could give West Chester is to make it change from good to bad. 

The foundation was set when Mark Welch joined Senator Lang as a trustee all those years ago.  Before that, it was just George Lang who fought off two other trustees, one of whom was Lee Wong, who is also up for re-election.  When Mark won, he replaced one of the two liberals, and suddenly there was a two-vote majority. Over the last decade, they have kept taxes low and business interactions very friendly, which has helped maintain home values and made the township one of the most competitive anywhere, earning it the title of ‘best place to live’ many times.  George Lang has since moved on to other political positions and taken the West Chester message to the Ohio Statehouse, where he has done a great job as the current Senate Majority Whip.  And Mark has held down the fort.  We replaced George’s seat with a tea party-type person who was good for a while.  But people change over time, and she has gone wobbly in the knees and is more Democrat these days.  So Mark needs help.  Lee, even with all his problems that have been well chronicled over the years, votes with Mark a lot.  However, without Mark on the board, Lee will likely vote for the Democrats, which is the current situation.  Mark is the one who stands between success and failure in government in West Chester.  Democrats, seeing some of the changing demographics in the area, are licking their chops at a chance to interrupt a Republican foothold position, as they have on the Lakota school board, which just voted as all Democrats do, to implement the most significant school tax increase in Ohio history, which is also on the ballot for the November election.  They hope that enough Democrats will vote for the levy to carry some of these Democrat challengers over the top and to knock off Mark, after many years of trying. 

The meet and greet for Mark Welch was held at Lori’s Roadhouse, which is an excellent spot for that kind of thing.  Those who attended had a chance to really get to know what Mark and his wife, Karen, are like.  I filmed Mark’s speech and some of the activities at the event, so that people who weren’t there could have the opportunity to see the person beyond the yard signs.  Many people asked me what I thought about the race while we enjoyed the atmosphere.  There were a lot of GOP officeholders there to support Mark, so he is well represented with great enthusiasm.  However, many people were nervous about this one because the Democrats seem more confident than usual that they’ll pick up that critical seat.  And what I told everyone was that I thought Mark would win his seat back.  That people weren’t willing to change West Chester into something less desirable, and that they would keep Mark in his position as long as he wanted to run.  But it will come down to engagement.  Republicans need to show up to this election and vote against the Lakota levy, vote for Lakota School Board candidate Ben Nguyen, and, of course, vote for Mark Welch, as everything points to.  Low taxes and a resistance to Democrats, who always want to expand government, spend money, and micromanage people in detrimental ways.  Republicans will need to treat this election as if it had Trump on the ballot.  And if they do that, many good things will happen in this election.  However, people must take it seriously and show up; they can’t sit out on this election.  In many ways, it’s more important than last year’s when Trump was running for President. 

It’s challenging to raise money at fundraisers, and it’s expensive to print signs and host some of these political events.  And Mark and Karen have done the work.  I thought it was very classy that Mark called Ben Nguyen up on the stage, who is a very sharp young man, and introduced him as the future of Butler County politics, which I tend to agree with.  And Ben said something very true: it is cheaper to give money as a donation to these Republican politicians who will stand in the trenches and hold back tax increases than to pay for the massive tax increases that Democrats always want to put forth.  And that is certainly true of Mark.  If he had not been a West Chester Trustee, taxes would have gone up in West Chester a long time ago.  But because he was there over the last 10 years, West Chester, Ohio, has thrived in ways that are unique to the rest of the country.  As a result, people have had opportunities for truly fulfilling lives.  As I listened to Mark’s speech, I thought about all the charming aspects of West Chester that I enjoy, such as taking clients to Top Golf, going out to dinner at Jags, and the many books I buy at Barnes & Noble.  The nice roads, the many businesses, the parks, the hospitals, and the excellent highway access.  The low taxes.  Mark is at the center of all that and is a big reason why West Chester has remained great all this time.  And we want to keep it that way with a vote for another term.  Supporting Mark is significantly less expensive than the taxes that all the Democrat challengers wish to implement.  Nobody should take this election for granted.  Show up and vote.  Don’t give the Democrats a seat at the table because the only change they can bring with them is various degrees of bad.  And we certainly don’t want that.  So, vote to keep Mark Welch as trustee of West Chester and keep the community as the one that the world needs to watch and emulate for themselves. 

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

The Department of War: Its time to take the fight to the enemy

In the realm of global power and national identity, the names we assign to our institutions carry profound meaning. They reflect not only the purpose of those institutions but also the philosophy and strategic posture of the nation itself. One such institution—the Department of Defense—has long stood as a symbol of American military might, yet its name belies a deeper issue. Originally known as the Department of War, its rebranding in 1947 marked a significant shift in how the United States viewed its role in the world. Today, as threats to American sovereignty and values grow more complex and aggressive, it is time to reconsider that change and restore the Department of War to its rightful place in our national framework.

The Department of War was established in 1789, shortly after the founding of the United States. Its mission was clear: to organize and execute military operations in defense of the nation’s sovereignty. It was a department built on the premise that America, as a free and independent republic, must be prepared to confront adversaries and secure its interests through strength and resolve. This clarity of purpose was essential in the early years of the republic, when threats were immediate and existential.

In 1947, following the end of World War II, the department was renamed the Department of Defense. This change was not merely semantic—it reflected a broader ideological shift. The United States, having emerged victorious and possessing unmatched military power, sought to reassure the world that it would not become an aggressor. The new name was intended to project restraint, signaling that America’s vast arsenal would be used only in defense. However, this rebranding coincided with the rise of globalism, the formation of the United Nations, and the beginning of America’s role as the world’s de facto police force. The Cold War, Korean War, Vietnam War, and numerous Middle Eastern conflicts followed, many of which were rooted in ideological battles stemming from the post-WWII global order. Ironically, the Department of Defense presided over some of the most prolonged and controversial military engagements in American history.

The term “defense” implies passivity. It suggests that the United States will only act when provoked, that it will wait for threats to materialize before responding. This posture has led to strategic ambiguity and has emboldened adversaries who perceive America as hesitant or unwilling to assert its interests proactively. Consider the psychological impact of the name “Department of Defense.” It evokes an image of a nation on its heels, waiting for an attack before it responds. It suggests a reluctance to engage, a preference for negotiation over action, and a tolerance for provocation. This perception has allowed hostile actors—whether state-sponsored or non-state entities like drug cartels—to operate with impunity, confident that the United States will not strike unless directly threatened.

In contrast, the name “Department of War” conveys strength, readiness, and resolve. It signals to the world that America is prepared to take decisive action against those who threaten its sovereignty, values, or citizens. It projects a posture of deterrence, not weakness—a message that is sorely needed in today’s geopolitical climate. The world has changed dramatically since 1947. The threats facing the United States are no longer confined to conventional warfare. They include cyberattacks, economic manipulation, ideological subversion, and transnational criminal enterprises. These threats require a proactive, assertive response—one that is better aligned with the mission of a Department of War.

Take, for example, the growing influence of drug cartels operating across the southern border. These organizations are not merely criminal; they are strategic threats to American stability. They poison communities, undermine law enforcement, and exploit weaknesses in border security. Yet under the current “defense” paradigm, the response is often reactive and constrained by diplomatic considerations. A Department of War would approach such threats differently. It would recognize them as hostile actors and treat their actions as acts of aggression. It would empower the United States to take the fight to the enemy’s doorstep, rather than waiting for the damage to be done. This shift in posture is not about promoting violence—it is about restoring deterrence and protecting American lives.

The renaming of the Department of War was part of a broader globalist agenda that sought to integrate the United States into a centralized international order. Institutions like the United Nations and NATO were created to manage global conflicts and promote collective security. While these organizations have had some success, they have also constrained American sovereignty and led to costly entanglements. Wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were all influenced by globalist ideologies—fighting communism, securing oil, promoting democracy. These conflicts drained American resources, cost countless lives, and often failed to achieve lasting peace. They were not wars fought for direct national interest, but for abstract global ideals.

The Department of Defense, under this paradigm, became a tool of global management rather than national defense. It was used to enforce international norms, protect foreign borders, and stabilize regions far from American soil. Meanwhile, domestic threats—like the rise of socialism, the erosion of personal freedoms, and the spread of narcotics—were often neglected. Renaming the Department of Defense back to the Department of War is more than a symbolic gesture—it is a strategic realignment. It reasserts America’s commitment to its own sovereignty and sends a clear message to adversaries: aggression will be met with force.

This change also reflects a broader philosophical shift. It rejects the notion that peace is the ultimate goal at any cost. Peace is valuable, but not when it comes at the expense of justice, freedom, or national integrity. A nation must be willing to fight for its values, and it must make that willingness known. Critics may argue that such a change is provocative, that it sends the wrong message to the international community. But who decided that America’s role is to usher in peace while others plot its downfall? Who said that restraint is more virtuous than resolve? These are questions worth asking, especially in a world where hostile regimes and criminal networks operate without fear of reprisal.

President Trump’s executive order to restore the Department of War is a bold and necessary step. It acknowledges the failures of the post-WWII globalist framework and seeks to correct them. Congress’s support for this initiative indicates a growing recognition that America must reclaim its strategic identity. When one visits the Pentagon—a massive, imposing structure across from the National Mall—it should represent a nation prepared to defend itself through strength, not hesitation. The Department of War, housed within that building, would embody the spirit of a sovereign republic willing to confront threats head-on.

The renaming of the Department of Defense to the Department of War is not about glorifying conflict—it is about restoring clarity, purpose, and strength to America’s military posture. It is about recognizing that the world is not always peaceful, that threats are real, and that the United States must be prepared to act decisively. This change marks the end of an era defined by globalist entanglements and passive defense. It signals the beginning of a new chapter—one in which America reclaims its role as a sovereign power, committed to protecting its people, its values, and its future.

In a world filled with hostile actors, weak governments, and ideological adversaries, the Department of War stands as a beacon of resolve. It tells the world that America will no longer wait to be attacked—it will act to prevent aggression, secure its interests, and defend its way of life. And that, ultimately, is the message that must be sent—not just through words, but through the very institutions that define our national character.

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

I Hate the Communist Holiday of Labor Day: A.I. complains a lot less and works much more

I say it every year, and this year was no different.  I don’t like Labor Day, and I don’t celebrate it.  I think it is the only Holiday that I really don’t care for.  It’s a dumb, communist Holiday created by lazy people who don’t like to work.  Personally, I enjoy working.  I don’t have a lot of respect for people who don’t want to work, so I despise and can’t relate to the Union-created Holiday that celebrates taking time off work.  I had an interesting conversation with some brilliant people the other day, and we discussed AI and whether it would take over the world.  And my part of it was that I love AI, because Artificial Intelligence never takes a day off.  It is always ready to do work, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  It never says that something is too hard to do.  It never takes time off with FMLA, or brings a stupid doctor’s note to work, thinking that some pin-headed doctor has authority over the work that an employer needs done.  AI works, and it’s always cheerful about it, which I love.  Work is a measure of productivity, and why would anybody celebrate an unproductive culture?  Why do people think a culture can be good if it always takes off Saturdays and Sundays and never answers their phone during off-business hours?  I think Labor Day is ridiculous, and I’ll repeat it.  If we want to Make America Great Again, we need to start with its work ethic.  We have too many people who are lazy and complain about Mondays while celebrating Fridays because they get a chance to reach the weekend and can be off work. 

I really get tired of people telling me all the great things that unions have done for workers.  That term, “workers,” is a communist term that comes straight from the mouth of Karl Marx, Mr. “Workers of the world Unite!”  The premise of the union mentality is to deny work to an employer and to the market unless compensation is provided at a level they approve of, and collectively applied.  Given to all, equally, no matter how good, bad, or indifferent the worker may be.  So when we hear the Marx phrase about workers uniting, what they are doing is sticking together to lobby an employer to do less work and to get paid more for it.  And this has been a misguided idea that has put many companies out of business.  When workers dread Monday and look forward to Friday so they can escape their work, and then spend all the money they’ve made on leisure activities, such as boating on Saturdays, you have all the signs of a declining culture.  And I hear all this talk about America First jobs, which sounds fine on paper.  However, with only around 200 million workers in America, and a need for employment in an expanding economy of over a billion, having more people dread Mondays and look forward to the weekends so they don’t have to work is not the solution we need.  We need people who want to work and who enjoy working.  Not people who want to be paid a lot of money for barely doing anything.  The entitlement culture of collective bargaining involves withholding labor from an employer through collective force.  Unfortunately, most people have been taught the wrong way their entire lives about how to view work, and it shows up pathetically in their daily work ethic, which has really held back the American economy.

I hear the complaints, but what do I expect?  What do I think is a good example of work ethic?  Well, I would point out the Japanese as an obvious example.  They work hard in that culture, and they take things very seriously.  They have a very balanced culture, low crime rates, and are very industrious as a society.  When you arrive at the airport and a car is waiting for you, the driver rushes to the car to retrieve it.  He doesn’t walk with his pants half down while talking on the phone.  They take everything very seriously, including buying a pack of gum.  The complaints are that they are a stressed-out culture that puts in too many work days, and they don’t have sex enough.  Japanese women are repressed because their men spend too much time working.  That isn’t the case at all; those complaints come from a world that doesn’t want to live up to the expectations of the Japanese economy, which has done so much with a tiny island.  This idea of cheap labor is the union’s pitch to steer employers toward collective bargaining by controlling access to only certain kinds of labor, those who don’t want to work and have a boat sitting in their driveway, paid for after only 40 hours of work per week.  What idiot came up with the 40-hour work week?  And all the overtime rules?  It was union lobbying, and they want a pat on the back for bringing to the Middle Class all these protections from work against the elements of productivity, an employer.  I think we should be celebrating employers who make jobs.  Not workers who deny work to the world so they can sip beer on a lake, trying to catch a fish while listening to classic rock that is probably a communist song selling propaganda through entertainment, such as the dumb Beatles song, “Imagine.” 

Too much leisure time is detrimental to a culture, as well as to the people within it.  When we talk about the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the kids involved through that Discourse app, which is a gaming culture discussion platform, one thing that really jumps out with young people is how much effort they’ll put into their video games, but they don’t want to go to a job and actually do real work.  They’ll work hard and grind it out on a video game to get a new skin for their avatar characters.  But they don’t want to grind it out for a new house, a spouse, and a nice new car.  They live like rats and have been taught to be that way by a lazy society that values leisure time more than opportunities for labor.  So no, I don’t like Labor Day.  I’m not going to like it ever.  I will perpetually see it as an attack on American productivity to see so many people drop off the map and stop answering calls for business because they think the Labor Day Holiday gives them insulation from the realities of a productive society that needs a question answered at 9 AM on Labor Day.  AI answers the calls.  People, not so much so.  Which is why I think AI is so good.  If people want to work less, put in fewer hours, and demand more pay for their time, I’d rather deal with a robot or an AI program that does all that work and then some, without all the complaints.  I do love many of these technical breakthroughs that involve automation, because I hate to see manufacturing facilities with empty parking lots on a Saturday.  Or after 5 PM on a weekday.  To me, success is a complete shop at 2 AM or vibrant work on a Saturday with lots of cars in it.  And the best work environment is one where those who aren’t happy to see Fridays can work without other lazy people dragging them down.  There are too many lazy people in the world, and the world will be a lot better off if people worked more, not less.

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?

Trump Hosting the Tech Bros: Making enemies work for you, instead of against you

A lot of people from the MAGA side of things had a lot of problems with Trump hosting the Tech Bros in the White House, the Bill Gates types, along with Zuckerbucks, and many others.  All the big tech companies, such as Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Apple, and many others, worked hard against Trump to destroy him, not just to beat him in an election.  And with Bill Gates, he has his hands all over COVID, and many deaths that resulted from the created bioweapon.  Why was he sitting next to Melania?  He should be in jail!  I get it.  I don’t like any of them.  But I understand what Trump is doing, and I think it’s a great idea.  It would be hard to cheerlead a dominant, thriving economy and to leave those guys out of it.  And there is a bigger point to make about it that we’ll get to.  However, the wealth creation that comes from the tech sector is truly massive – the kind of economy that most European countries would love to have from just one of the people sitting at that table.  And here was Trump getting all of them, former enemies, cheerleading his efforts to expand economic opportunity through the use of AI.  As I have been saying from the beginning of AI, our experience isn’t going to be Skynet from the Terminator movies; it’s going to be more servant-oriented, like Star Wars, where bandwidth expansion will make human beings busier than ever.  AI is going to want to serve the human race, not to take it over, and the people at that dinner were happy to have a President who could put differences aside and help bring their passion projects to life.  I personally love Apple products, and it has bothered me to see them working against the Trump administration all this time, except for recently.  Watching everyone at that big table praise the Trump administration was more than a little satisfying.  And I only see good things coming out of it.  Should we trust any of them?  Of course not.  But it’s good to get your enemies to work on your behalf, any time you can.

Now, there are many things to consider, especially regarding technology.  The downside to AI and computer software in general is the impact on the human mind as it attempts to adapt to it.  The Furry Culture that people are discovering now, as a result of Tyler Robinson, is very sexually disturbing, but emerges from a mind incorporating these new changes from technology to reality.  Tyler Robinson is the killer of Charlie Kirk and his boyfriend, who was a persistent gamer who seldom ever left the house, and lived in that virtual world, losing touch with reality, obviously.  If there weren’t so much anxiety between this new technical gamer culture and reality, would Charlie Kirk be alive today?  Would the world be better off?  And many would say that technology is the root of evil, corrupting the youth.  And there is a lot of evidence in that direction that is perfectly justified.  However, with all these new elements comes the need to ground all thinking in the traditions of the past that have proven effective, and to build a future around them.  And that responsibility comes directly from leadership, which is what President Trump is providing.  In many ways, Trump’s embracing of those who have worked against him allows rebellion to be pushed aside and for the human race to accommodate the changes it needs for its own sake much better.  With leadership, people will find their way through the changes, rather than letting them emerge in a vacuum where everyone loses touch with reality.

But even more important is the notion that the Trump administration is a fascist one, that suddenly has all kinds of implications after the murder of Charlie Kirk.  Why do young people think that Trump is a fascist, or anybody from the MAGA movement, for that matter?  Elon Musk obviously fell off the wagon as a tech leader, which has continued to mystify people who wonder why Musk was ever drawn to Trump at all.  But why would Trump let these crazy characters near him in any way when they have shown themselves to be enemies?  Well, because it’s better to have people close than isolated.  And nothing dispels the fascist accusation more than not being one, and being accommodating of all people with all kinds of different beliefs and working them toward a common goal that they share with many other people.  When Trump sits down with people who have not been friendly toward MAGA positions, he is building the party.  Elon Musk, for instance, is leaning against trying to start a new party, but is considering getting behind J.D. Vance after the Vice President did a nice job hosting The Charlie Kirk Show podcast after his assassination.  You do much better in life bringing people together than in driving them apart, and in so doing, Trump takes the air out of any fears leveled at him that he wants to rule as a dictator.  The argument falls apart whenever Trump does these big meetings with people many think he should make enemies out of, or pay back with revenge.  That kind of thinking is what holds back the world.  As a businessman, Trump believes he can utilize everyone as an asset that benefits the task at hand.  In this case, a thriving economy that benefits all people, providing many with upward mobility.

I personally have a lot of enemies, and people I wouldn’t trust with a 30-foot pole.  However, in my day-to-day life, I don’t let everyone know who my enemies are.  If they want to talk to me, I accommodate them and measure if there is anything useful that can come from the experience.  But I don’t trust them.  And I’m sure that is the case with Trump.  If you are powerful, you don’t need the approval of others, and Trump doesn’t need the approval of the Tech Bros.  But they need him, and if he can bring them all to a table to expand the economy and work with him instead of against him, then so be it.  We don’t have to prove anything by putting them in jail.  There is still time for Bill Gates to atone for the harm he has caused to the world and many others.  But if there is a benefit to be extracted from them in some way, you will never know it if you don’t open the door to the possibility.  And that traditional way of validating honor is what we’re talking about.  When people mean to do you wrong, we measure a resistance to them as the only ethical outcome.  However, building larger entities, such as an economy or a political party that truly affords people personal freedoms, is even better.  And people shouldn’t know where they stand with you.  Conflicting with people you hate isn’t always the best thing. Instead, it seldom is.  However, if you can get them working in a direction you support and can guide them in that direction without compromising yourself in the process, then that is best.  And that’s undoubtedly what Trump is doing.  And I think it’s a good idea that many good things will come from it.  Not without their challenges, but they are things that will improve the world we live in.  And that is always a good idea.   

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

Ethics in Politics: Holding grudges won’t help win races, or maintain political management

Social interactions are at the heart of human discourse, and I speak from the perspective of someone who has spent a long time building relationships—not always easily, and certainly not always with universal approval. People often talk about love and unity, but I wouldn’t say I’m universally loved. In fact, I’m probably excessively hated by many, and I understand why. It’s not something I wake up hoping to change. I don’t start my day thinking, “I want people to love me today.” That’s not the goal. The goal is to make things work, and sometimes that means doing things others aren’t willing to accept. That’s when people get mad.

Recently, I’ve been vocal about supporting Ben Nguyen for the Lakota School Board. That’s stirred up some discussion. Lynda O’Connor has supported him, the former Lakota school board member who a lot of people are still very angry with.  I was at Ben’s fundraiser at Nancy Nix’s house, and Isaac Adi, another Lakota school board member was there too. I’ve seen Isaac at a few events, and we’ve had the opportunity to talk a bit. There has been tension between us, especially with the way his relationship with Darbi Boddy evolved, and how our policies got tangled up. That situation has many layers behind the scenes. If you want to talk ethics, you can justify being mad at people for what they do to each other.  I’ve been married for 37 years and have learned a lot about dealing with other people. I’ve dealt with all kinds of people—kids, grandkids, colleagues—and not everyone aligns with your goals. You have to find a way to make it work.

If you draw a hard line and say, “It’s my way or the highway,” you might be ethically correct, but you’ll lose people. And if you’re trying to influence something, losing people means losing effectiveness. Politics isn’t about making friends. When you’re trying to bring groups together, you can’t fall into the trap of friendship-based peer pressure. You have to rely on the strength of your ideas in a competitive environment. Politics isn’t a branding exercise. You can either withdraw from society or face the challenge of building teams to accomplish a task. It becomes dicey when political affiliations are based on relationships rather than ideas.

You want the best ideas to emerge. You want a competitive atmosphere where ideas collide. That’s the way you get an authentic system. You have to trust people to vote correctly, but only if you articulate your ideas properly. Sheriff Jones and I have supported other candidates within the Republican Party, and recently we have talked about the things we have in common. We want to help the Trump administration achieve its goals, even if there’s controversy—like the situation at the county jail over immigration policy. We agree on some things and disagree on others. We joke about it when we see each other to stay on ground we can work with. But ultimately, it’s not about building friendships or consensus. It’s about who can make the best argument.

Politics should be about argument, not popularity. If feelings get hurt in the process, that’s part of the election cycle. Politicians often use likability as a tool—they kiss babies, shake hands, and make themselves accessible to the public. But that’s just the first layer. You have to be confident in your ability to articulate a message. Many politicians get elected but don’t raise money or debate effectively. If you can’t engage with people who disagree with you, things fall apart. People get mad. I’ve had people mad at me just for being in a picture with Isaac. They say, “You know what he did to Darbi Boddy?” and assume that by being seen with him, I’m supporting him over her.

That kind of division doesn’t help a party win. There are all kinds of people with different thoughts. Isaac and I are not going to the movies together any time soon, but he represents a vote on the school board. He has opinions about how things should be done. I think he cares about kids and schools, even if I disagree with his methods. That’s what political faith is—believing in the process. If you base everything on popularity—“If you like me, vote my way”—you’re not making a real argument. You have to go further. If you can’t, things fall apart.

It’s essential to communicate with one another. Political candidates need to engage, not isolate. You don’t have to be best friends, but you need common ground. On immigration enforcement, for example, we can sit down and have a great discussion. It’s about positioning your statement and believing in what you’re saying. If you can’t win people over with your argument, people often fall back on popularity. That’s dangerous. You’re using your elected position to steer people through peer pressure, not persuasion.

That’s not sustainable. It’s why political parties struggle to work together. If you do that in your family, you’ll have a broken Thanksgiving dinner where people show up, but nobody likes each other. You might have money, but no real friends, they just hang around you for what they can get out of you. How you handle relationships determines your success in politics. Shared opinion has to go through the funnel of the party system. You can’t have 30% of people on one side and expect unity. You need at least 50% alignment. Even if you’re 40% apart on issues, you can still be on the same side of the line. Democrats are on the other side, and you have to be willing to work with people of different opinions.  Republicans might be at the center line of 50% and others are at 90%.  But their Democrat opposition might be at 40% on the other side of the line, and those kinds of Democrats and Republicans are closer together ideologically than the hard-core Republican at 90%.  But Republicans have to find a way to work with other Republicans if the party is going to do the work voters need. 

That doesn’t mean you abandon ethics or break promises. But you can’t get caught in “It’s either me or them.” That’s not a good place to make articulate arguments. Politics should be about fulfilling voter objectives. That’s the goal. I’ve disagreed strongly with how Isaac and Darbi’s relationship on the school board collapsed. It made me reluctant to get involved in school board issues again. But it’s not fair to someone like Ben Nguyen—a good young man who wants to make a difference. He’s trying to partner with other people to build something positive.

Looking at Isaac during Ben’s fundraiser, I  thought, “Maybe we can get another vote. Maybe we have a chance.” Not right away, but in the near future, we can build something. That’s how I’ve survived—by staying true to myself, relying on my ability to make an argument, and letting public debate shape opinion. It’s good to stay away from popularity contests. Fights don’t help anyone. They create a disjointed approach, and then Democrats win their spots because they unify—even if their ideas are really far apart.

Republicans need to figure this out, especially in school board races. When people see me in pictures with other political people they don’t like, they hold grudges. But that doesn’t solve problems. I want progress. I don’t care if people want to get a corn dog with me. What matters is whether they consider the arguments and make informed decisions. That’s what we’re trying to do—get the correct arguments into the public arena and give voters choices that reflect their lives.

Most people have excuses and fights along the way. However, it’s all aimed at uncovering the truth about what the public wants in representation. You have to trust that process. Make your case with confidence. Don’t rely on popularity. Don’t expect people to vote your way just because they like you. Win the argument. Let the best ideas rise. Let people make their own choices. That’s how things work out for the better and you get a civil society.  And much better political teamwork.

Rich Hoffman

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