Category: Gun Rights

The Fantastic Four: It all comes down to the Statue of Liberty

The new movie, Fantastic Four: First Steps, was pretty fantastic.  Disney attempted to create a film for the Marvel franchise that would bring people back to the level of the first Avengers movie and the Iron Man film that preceded it.  Fantastic Four was wonderfully not woke, and the characters were all well done.  The acting was top-notch, with significant special effects, music, and story that was all good; it was a lot of fun.  So it is a shame that people are not rushing to the theaters to watch it.  The movie is set in a kind of idealistic 60s art style set into an unknown future, and it had a cool vibe to it.  And it had a great point.  I think the sacrifice of the baby plotline to save humanity is one of those key issues in the human race that should resonate much more than it has at the box office.  But we are talking about trust here, and Disney has lost it.  Marvel has lost it.  After the movie, The Eternals, which features homosexual lifestyles and men kissing in it, Marvel sealed its doom.  Hollywood, in general, was politically way off base and divided the movie-going public from their products, sealing their doom in the process.  I was able to see The Fantastic Four with my grandchildren.  They were interested in it because of the video game Marvel Rivals, so we agreed to take them. The movie turned out to be a fantastic family film, full of excellent ideas and old-fashioned filmmaking.  And the Fantastic Four family itself was one that audiences could all like.  I would recommend the movie and give some credit to Disney for listening and stepping away from their woke agenda as much as possible in this environment.  However, there are some lessons to take away here that might improve things in the future if Disney is willing to listen. I think it’s too late for them; their audiences are never coming back, which is why Fantastic Four is underperforming at the box office.  But it’s always worth trying.

One of the things that is hurting these Marvel movies is that they are too comic bookish for most audiences.  Most people lack a strong interest in quantum physics and the concept of multiple universes.  Comic writers, and now all entertainment writers, have found that the multiverse concept gives them a great deal of creative liberty, allowing them to set their stories within any known historical timeframe.  For instance, this Fantastic Four movie does not take place in a timeline and universe that overlaps with the original Avengers.  Technically, they don’t know about each other, leaving the audience to not invest in the characters.  The story might be neat and fun.  But does it matter to their belief in the reality of the previous storyline?  And I think for most people, the multiverse storylines are just too much for them to invest in emotionally.  Like a dream, people might have them, but they wake up from them never to remember them again, and they become meaningless in waking life.  And that is the problem with the Fantastic Four it doesn’t take place in a world people can relate to.  It’s just far enough out of reality to become prohibitive.  In the original Marvel movies, such as Iron Man, Spider-Man, and the Avengers, people could accept the superpowers as long as the universe itself was part of a narrative world built around a historical timeline, allowing them to invest emotionally in the characters.  For instance, in Captain America, his story takes place during World War II, a conflict that people have a grounding in.  And it was patriotic and gave people what they wanted, a defender of American ideas, which the world is very interested in. 

However, Disney and Marvel in general have been pushing for a post-American world of the global citizen, and that element was certainly present throughout the Fantastic Four.  They essentially have a world where the United Nations is in charge of everything, and Sue Storm from the Fantastic Four is in charge of the United Nations.  In many ways, the Fantastic Four was in charge of the world as a government power, which runs counter to the trend of individual lives being self-governing.  That is an idea that people will reject at the ballot box, and they will certainly reject it with their entertainment dollars.  People do not want to be told what to do, especially from the Fantastic Four.  That’s why it’s dangerous to let these Santa Monica types write these movies from the pier, talking to their friends at a bar.  That lefty political view of existence might be fashionable among 20 to 30-year-olds in sanitized settings, such as in the hip Santa Monica region.  However, the world doesn’t like that idea and will reject it completely, and it has.  They did everything they could with this movie to make it as enjoyable as possible, and it’s fun.  People don’t want the Fantastic Four to govern over them as gods.  That is a rejected premise in the world, and it certainly hurts the emotional investment that people are willing to give to these characters.  The movie doesn’t take place in our universe; it’s an alternative universe to the other Marvel stories.  And it doesn’t have a message that people enjoy; it assumes that movie audiences want to be saved by superheroes.  Not that the audiences want to be superheroes themselves.  So that is a fatal flaw. 

However, the biggest mistake was when the villain, Galactus, who was the size of Godzilla, came to New York to retrieve the baby born to the Fantastic Four, and he looked at the Statue of Liberty with some disdain.  Just saying, nobody is going to get away with that kind of thing these days.  The world wants to believe in the light of liberty coming from a free America.  And that is represented by the Statue of Liberty.  Having a massive villain that eats planets come to the Statue of Liberty as if to say that there are much bigger things in the universe than the idea of America is a bad move.  It might be the view of radical, Santa Monica lefties, but it’s not what the world wants to hear.  They want someone who likes America fighting bad guys.  Not something bigger than America looking down on our country as if to say that the scale of the fight is beyond the political whims of nation-building.  That’s a line that people won’t cross, and they have rejected it at the voting booth and the box office receipts.  It was a dumb scene.  Galactus didn’t try to smash the Statue of Liberty.  He just gave it a look that was demeaning but did not provide commentary.  Yet, audiences picked up on it; the liberal writers of these movies aren’t going to get away with that kind of thing.  People will see another film.  And that is what they have been doing.  The Fantastic Four is a great movie, but people have better things to do, and if the story is not aligned with the politics of our day, it’s unlikely to do well.  The fantasy that artists can rule the world through liberal politics behind commercial films is a thing of the past.  It was never a good idea, but now there are just too many entertainment options.  People tend to overlook things that do not align with their values.  And that is why The Fantastic Four is not doing well, despite being an excellent movie.  It’s too far outside the known world for people to invest emotionally in.  And that’s a shame. 

Rich Hoffman

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

Trying to Make Padro Pascal the New Sexiest Man: But you can’t fake it

The new Fantastic Four movie was pretty fantastic.  I’ll do a review on it, which it deserves later.  However, for now, we must discuss the promotional activities taking place in Hollywood, so that people can understand how they are manipulated by mass PR culture, which is currently in transition and at the forefront of a rebellion.  Hollywood is distancing itself from woke culture, yet still trying to fulfill its former commitment to it, which lies at the heart of a fascinating problem that Hollywood has with leading men.  They do not have people like Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis, and Clint Eastwood to drive box office numbers because they went woke a long time ago and have seen value into the Hollywood product decline ever since.  So they need a leading man, but it can’t be a white man from America, as is traditionally the case.  So Pedro Pascal as a Latino man kind of gives them that and they have been trying to milk him for all they can.  I think he was pretty good in the Star Wars television show, The Mandalorian.  And he’s been in other things since the success of that show launched him into fame.  But, he’s not quite the package that PR firms would like him to be.  He’s missing some things that normal “sexy” men usually have.  Hollywood would love Pedro to be the next Harrison Ford.  But in a kind of woke way, so it’s interesting to watch how the press handles him.  And that has certainly been the case, as Pedro Pascal has been doing press for The Fantastic Four alongside his co-star in the film, Vanessa Kirby.

You might have heard about how affectionate Kirby and Pascal have been with each other during interviews.  And I think much of it is natural.  As much as actors want to say “it’s just acting,” the truth is that actors fall in love with each other all the time.  Case in point, the recent discussion about Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson from The Naked Gun set, where they were spotted kissing at the movie premiere.  For years now, we have been told by Hollywood that men could be women, and women, men.  And that romance was overrated, and even showing romantic scenes in movies was a downward trend, because behind all this was a very anti-family agenda.  And it has cost Hollywood a lot, and continues to do so, because movie fans like romance and seeing the people they watch in movies like each other.  It has been quite interesting to see how Vanessa Kirby has been playing up her role in promoting Pedro Pascal as a romantic figure that women can’t keep their hands off.  Because Pedro is safe, because he’s not a white male, Hollywood thinks it’s OK to promote him as the new sexiest man, because it still checks off their woke box within the culture itself.  I believe there is some genuine affection between Kirby and Pascal, but with all the romantic touching that they have been doing, with her pregnant with another man’s baby and Pedro dating someone else, they are trying to start rumors of an affair so that people believe more in their film’s character’s relationship, and this is a new strategy for Hollywood, as they are trying to repair their anti-family, anti-romance reputation with a public that has decided to move on without them.  Despite these efforts by Kirby and Pascal, The Fantastic Four has been pretty flat at the box office.  Not because it’s a bad movie, but because the public has lost faith in Disney as a film producer.

I don’t think actors are ever really actors, and I’ve known quite a few very well.  I’ve shared a trailer on movie sets with a few and can report that they are very human people behind the PR stunts.  And I was personally invited to the home of Jennie Garth from Beverly Hills 90210 and her husband at the time, Peter Facinelli who was doing the Twilight movies then, and it’s a tough life to essentially be a 24/7 PR relations billboard.  The pressure that is put on relationships is crushing, and I don’t think any actor in that business ever really figures it out.  I believe Vanessa Kirby loves the guy she’s engaged to the best she can.  And I think Pedro Pascal loves everyone in a kind of metro sexual way.  But the MAGA loving public doesn’t like the woke stuff so there is no real way to dress it up.  My reference to Jennie Garth essentially is to point out that I think the PR people behind The Fantastic Four, and the agents involved have told these two to act in the press as they would in the movie, and if that means acting like they are sleeping together to get the public excited to see them in a film together, then do it.  Usually, actors are told to refrain from that kind of public affection.  But with Hollywood out of ideas and trying to win back a jaded public, they are trying everything.  And one thing that actors do is act.  It’s hard to tell when they are sincere about anything, including things to themselves.  They are often not very grounded in reality because they always serve someone’s PR machine. 

To explain it away, as people have been talking about the possible reality that Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby are cheating on their significant others with each other, it has been leaked to the press that Vanessa knows Pedro so well that she knows he suffers from anxiety and that he requires physical contact to maintain himself.  Well, that sounds like a cheesy pickup line to me, but it’s not very sexy.  So either way all this goes, it’s not the kind of appeal that audiences are looking for.  Right now, The Fantastic Four will be lucky to break even at the box office for a whole lot of reasons that Disney is unsure how to deal with.  It will take a lot more than rumors of affairs to win people over to their leading actors and actresses.  And when it comes to whether an actress would continue to act long after the cameras are off, well, of course, they would.  And I’m sure with Vanessa Kirby, she is acting when it comes to playing Pedro Pascal up as the next, sexiest, leading man in Hollywood.  I often feel sorry for actors because at the Hollywood level, the job never goes away.  I saw in Jennie and Peter a genuine attempt to be a real family, but the cracks were certainly there in trying to balance a private life with the pressures of PR needs for their entertainment projects.  People see romance between actors and want to believe it’s real.  As a last-ditch effort to save themselves, PR specialists and their agents are advising their clients to show affection for their co-stars in public, thereby fueling speculation and promoting film sales.  But what nobody has figured out is that what the public wants is authenticity, not more phony relationships.  Instead of fixing the problem, Hollywood is making it worse.  And woke is not going to work with the movie going public.  Hollywood can’t have a leading man who is also woke.  There are certain things that a sexy man is, and Hollywood won’t be able to define them for their use.  They either provide a product that people want.  Or they don’t.  The market is, and has always been, in charge.  Not the PR people. 

Rich Hoffman

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

Lakota School Teachers Need to Stop Having Sex with Students: The problem starts at the top

The worst thing about the recent case of 42-year old Lakota school teacher Justin Daniel Dennis from Lakota East, who had sex with a 17-year-old girl in his classroom and many other places, was that we warned about it when it was happening, during the 2021 school year.  And hundreds of people allowed it to happen because of their open sexual attitudes within the public school, from the school board, to other administrators, to the schools’ at all costs supporters.  At that time, we were discussing many administrative problems leading to the school superintendent’s resignation due to his bizarre sexual lifestyle, and many of us warned the Lakota schools that he was just the tip of the iceberg.  And instead of doing anything about it, the school board chose to do what they are known for, dancing on tabletops naked and passing out drunk in dirty bathrooms face down.  No wonder people like Justin Daniel Dennis thought he could get away with it.  And not just once, but according to the victim, the girl, now that she is a few years older and in her 20s, in college, who stated to police, they had sex in the school, in parking lots, all over the place, many times.  Lakota schools, like many public schools, have a permissive attitude toward sex in general, and it’s been out of control for a long time, and it starts at the top.  When you have stories like this one, it’s no wonder teachers think this behavior is acceptable.  Rather than addressing these problems when they arise, the school seeks to conceal the information.  We only became aware of this incident because four years later, the former student provided police with a statement, which they were able to verify, leading to an arrest on the first Monday of August, 2025. 

Justin Dennis taught psychology, economics, government, and cybersecurity at Lakota East and Lakota West, and was a listed advisor for the Hope Squad, a student assistance group.  This is more than an accusation of loose lips; his arrest was based on a recorded statement from the victim to Butler County deputies, provided on August 4, 2025, and they were shown corresponding evidence of a text thread with the teacher discussing their past relationship.  Of course, he is pleading not guilty as he is facing one to five years in prison and a $10K fine, and he’ll have to register as a sex offender.  Most criminals always deny committing the crime.  By the court documents that we have so far, it’s pretty obvious what happened, and it goes far beyond the sex of a 40-something-year-old teacher and a 17-year-old student.  It points to a culture itself that facilitates this kind of loose behavior, and it’s a massive problem.  Most of the teachers engaging in this behavior are not getting caught because nobody ever comes forward to report them.  And when we have discussed these things in the past in a community setting, all the apologists get upset and call us all right-winged extremists, because they think it’s unreasonable that we expect good behavior out of the teachers we pay for with property tax money.  And when something like this happens, they are all a little guilty, from the school board that covers up all these cases, to the school’s cheerleaders who overlook everything for the chance to keep their free babysitting service.  We now have numerous screenshots from this Lakota teacher’s social media accounts, and it’s pretty apparent what he was doing, as many in his position are as well: using the children of the school to mask their failures as individuals.  The shell game of unionized public education employment provides them with a convenient mask to hide their true identity from the public. 

There is an alarming post that Dennis made once this girl graduated from high school, where he said, “We did it, kid.  I’m so proud of you.”  What he didn’t say was that they were having sex in his classroom, at his home, in the parking lot where she worked in Springdale, and many other places.  He was using his position of authority to gain personal sexual fulfillment out of a young person who was at a very vulnerable time in her life. As we learn more about the situation, it appears that this young lady was initially considering becoming a young man but has decided to remain a woman.  And when you reflect on the kind of Biden-era pronoun usage, which this guy Dennis has indications of on his X page, no wonder this kid was so confused.  And under the mask of helping troubled young kids, it gives teachers a mask to hide their sexual perversions.  Even making that statement, many people who live and work in the Lakota school system think that kind of value judgment is unfair.  If you are a man and you walk by a knothole in the fence, you should not feel inclined to stick stuff into it.  As a rational human being, you should know better than to indulge some animal instinct toward pleasure.  And that is even more the case when it comes to other human beings under your care—vulnerable young people who trust the adults in their lives.  And Lakota schools, as a culture, let these kids down time and time again.

And this teacher isn’t some guy stuck in the corner that nobody knew about.  On his X social media account, he only had 370 followers, and Lakota school board president Julie Shaffer is one of them.  And another school board member, Kelly Casper, reposted some of his articles.  So he’s an insider, known to the people who run the school.  And they were either foolish or they were in on it.  And based on what I know of the former school superintendent, who had all kinds of sexual problems of his own, which they worked very hard to cover up, the evidence points to them being in on it.  People were aware of what was happening, but they didn’t take action.  And it’s much bigger than just this case.  These are rotten individuals who often engage in questionable activities, and they exploit children to mask their flawed personalities. This is why the bad behavior from Lakota’s school board, which I was first-hand informed about by another school board member, is so important.  You can’t dance on tabletops with no panties and end the night puking your guts out and expect all the employees of the school to behave themselves.  The Lakota school board has created a permissive environment that is dangerous for children.  Cases like this give us just a hint of the magnitude of the problem.  And all the apologists who are talking about what a good teacher this Justin Dennis guy was, they are part of the problem too.  They are suckers, and they are all contributors to the guilt of this case.  It’s bad enough that an old man was having sex with a kid.  The crime is the abuse of authority that violates a relationship of trust, only to surrender to animal instincts and to act no better than a dog humping somebody’s leg.  And if you are a teacher or someone in authority, you never do it, under any condition.  However, instead, Lakota schools, like most public schools, often yield to primal instincts and surrender to the worst of human nature.  And it’s what they teach, and it’s what their role in the community entails.

Rich Hoffman

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

Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans: America’s newest sweetheart

When Steve Bannon is talking about the primal scream of a dying regime, this is what he’s talking about: the social reaction to the Sydney Sweeney American Eagle Jeans ad.  It has been astonishing, to say the least, to see just how much throwing water on this wicked witch has melted the political left.  Until a few days ago, I had no idea who Sydney Sweeney was.  From my perspective, even looking at her as a sexy American sweetheart is too much.  She’s a few years older than my grandkids are now, so I see a kid in her.  Not a sex object.  However, I have some experience in public relations and marketing. And I have known A-list celebrities and their agents up close and personal, and I have to say, ahead of this new movie release for ‘Americana’ which Sydney Sweeney is in and is a kind of Tarantino movie that I think I’m going to like quite a lot, this young lady made a power move that is going to make her the next Bo Derek and or, Brooke Shields.  Her timing on coming out as a Republican, and shooting guns on TikTok, couldn’t have been better, or more coordinated.  This is an intelligent young lady.  And American Eagle and her agent, manager, and personal advisors knew what they were doing to go as anti-woke as possible with the marketing of these blue jean ads that have so many diabolical leftists so upset.  I love it because, strategically, it exposes something that I have known for a long time and was ripe for someone to take advantage of.  But watching Sydney’s Saturday Night Live monologue from a year ago, this model for all things MAGA wasn’t so obvious.  Now that Trump has won the election and America is certainly headed in a much different direction than the Joe Biden administration anticipated, Sydney Sweeney is poised to become not just America’s sweetheart, but also a mega-explosive model and actress on a scale nobody has seen in a long time.  And I think she knows exactly what she is doing, and I admire her a lot for doing it.

Bo Derek comes to mind when I think of Sydney Sweeney. She gained fame from the movie ‘10’, which propelled her to Hollywood fame in ways that everyone from that period remembers.  But Sydney Sweeney is talented in ways that Bo Derek never could be.  And I make that comparison because both women have large breasts, and they don’t mind showing them off.  Sydney Sweeney has been known up to this point in her young career, at only 27 years old, to enjoy doing nude scenes.  So, she would seem very unlikely to become the spokesperson for the MAGA movement and have President Trump very excitedly endorse her from the White House.  And as long as she was showing her boobs in movies and having very provocative sex scenes in her acting profession, the political left didn’t mind at all.  They put their arm around her and were entirely ready to endorse her as just another actress who was willing to get naked to get film roles.  But like Bo Derek, Sydney Sweeney is a much deeper person that people fell in love with.  The sexiness gave a cover story to the real issue lingering beneath the surface that nobody wanted to see past their boobies, and that was that they were conservative women, and America loves women who are conservative and not afraid to show it.  And Sweeney has fully embraced that conservative appeal as a marketing move she is ready to stand behind, and exploit the woke agenda as one of the first wrecking balls to it in the entertainment industry.

To say that this American Eagle ad for Sydney features great jeans is an accident that coincided with the release of one of the most explosive films she happens to be in is not to understand the industry.  I would say there are hundreds of people behind the scenes who are in on the Sydney Sweeney decision-making process.  There are numerous agents, managers, producers, financiers, and business types who all have a few cents to add to what a fashion model does and when they do it, in an attempt to exploit a new market trend.  And American Eagle decided they wanted to be the anti-Bud Light commercial by putting a very hot and willing young woman into their ad campaign, and Sydney Sweeney just made the Americana movie that spins on its head a lot of social assumptions that we make for a movie set in South Dakota, one of my favorite states.  A lot is happening here that is a direct reaction to Trump’s win back in the White House, and it’s much bigger than just jean sales.  It’s a decision and a gamble that will pay off in a big way for Sweeney.  But it’s also a market indicator for where the entire entertainment industry is headed.  And the goal from the left was to destroy American ideas about beauty and exceptionalism.  And here was Sydney Sweeney making a power move to dominate the landscape at just the right time, and to do it boldly, to the point where she has everyone talking about her.  Like I said, this is a lot more complicated than bare breasts and sex scenes.  It’s about the conservative values under it all that men and women both find irresistibly attractive, and since she has been willing to put her arm around it, it exposes a significant weakness that the political left has always had, and they hate her for it.

Sydney’s parents went bankrupt trying to support her acting career, and they divorced.  And that looks to have had a significant impact on her, so she isn’t planning to waste her opportunity.  And an opportunity that was only given to her because she was gifted with big boobs and a pleasant personality.  But women can’t live very long on just looks, so she is looking to make a much bigger splash, and this move by her is a pretty smart move, that politically exploits something that leftists have tried to destroy in American culture.  And I’m saying that this new movie, Americana, is going to be for Sydney Sweeney what ‘10’ was for Bo Derek, and culture in general.  It is going to capture America’s hopes and dreams at a time when Trump is in the White House, and it will be used to significant effect.  And for Sydney Sweeney to stand firm amid all this criticism, she will see great things happen because of it.  We all will.  We’re not just talking about a young lady who looks good in American Eagle Jeans and the stock price of that company exploding in value.  We are discussing the values of the human race as a whole, as only American culture can display them.  And Sydney Sweeney has gone from an aspiring actress wanting to repay her family for believing in her desire to become an actress, to taking on a political movement and essentially changing the world in ways that few have ever accomplished.  In this case, it has always fallen a little short.  But with Sydney Sweeney, America’s new sweetheart, something much better has happened.  A spell of corruption and hate has been broken, and she was the one who first broke it.  And people are going to be in for quite a treat from her over the next decade.  What good timing, and tremendous guts on her part. 

Rich Hoffman

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

Republicans Need to Redraw the Maps: Redistrict wherever possible, do not play fair with Democrats

Don’t feel bad about winning.  Do Republicans owe it to Democrats to be fair?  Never forget, Democrats want to change the way America works, and we should have learned the hard lessons from playing fair with them in the past; we know what they do when given a chance at fairness.  We are now at a point where we control all branches of government, and there is a chance to gain many seats in the House and Senate, thereby strengthening our majorities.  And that we should do everything we can do, even if it means gaining just a single seat.  It drove me crazy in the 2024 election to see so many close races going to the Democrats, especially in California.  If we had monitored election fraud more closely, there would already be larger majorities in Congress. And yes, there was a lot of election fraud where illegal aliens and mail-in ballots pushed tight races to Democrat wins.  We were all paying attention to Trump and were happy he won.  We were delighted to get majorities in the House and Senate.  But we could have had more.  It should not be as close as it is right now.  So, we owe it to ourselves to stop the midterm trend of giving the keys back to the other party and instead gain deeper majorities. There are several ways we can do that.  And even with all that said, remember what I say all the time, because it’s true.  If you make it harder for Democrats to cheat, they can’t win elections.  Not even in places like Los Angeles and New York.  Democrats only have any trace of power through election fraud and other scandalous activities, so don’t feel bad doing what must be done to keep them from acquiring power ever, especially for these upcoming midterms. 

The biggest news of the moment is that Texas is redistricting some of its congressional seats to favor GOP candidates, which could result in an additional 3-5 seats, a very positive development.  Other states are considering the same approach, particularly in Florida and Missouri, which could result in a few additional seats.  The rule is, if you can pick up one seat, Republicans should do it.  Democrats have only been playing nice because they assume they will take back power in Congress in the midterms, and they plan to be obstructionists on every issue.  And you can bet that they plan to impeach President Trump over every radical issue, just as they did in 2019 and 2020.  The best way to prevent that is to eliminate the threat of power by not allowing them to have it.  They might be upset at gerrymandering intentions with redrawing the maps to take advantage of Democrats, but what they have planned is far, far worse, and at this stage in 2025, completely avoidable. Historically speaking, a president’s party loses 32 House seats during midterm elections because voters swing between parties in frustration with the rate of progress that comes from the White House.  Which is part of the plan in stalling everything Trump is trying to do, including appointing radical judges and even Jerome Powell keeping the Fed’s interest rates high, hoping to hurt Trump’s economy ahead of the midterm elections.  So Democrats are already doing much worse than gerrymandering congressional districts.  The key to success in holding onto Republican seats and even gaining more is for Trump to maintain an approval rating of around 63% and for Republicans to gain advantages in redistricting.  Trump’s approval rating was excellent in June as the bombing in Iran and the Fourth of July events had everyone feeling good.  Lately, with the Epstein talk and Russia causing lots of trouble, Trump is hovering at 44%.  Democrats see that as blood in the water for them to exploit, so they will continue to throw gas on any fire that might hurt Trump.

Republicans, through redistricting efforts, could pick up 5-10 extra seats, which is a significant gain right out of the gate.  There is additionally a Supreme Court case, Louisiana v. Callais, that indicates that Democrats have been accused of severe unconstitutional racial gerrymandering under the 14th and 15th Amendments.  And if this provision were found to be the case, as we should not be making up districts based on race or sex, Republicans could pick up as many as 25 seats.  This Supreme Court case is essentially judging on the premise of election fraud; the system is set up to take advantage of disadvantaged people for exploitation.  Not fairness.  This is the case regarding most things coming from Democrat politics.  The argument in the Louisiana case is expected to occur in the fall of 2025, with a decision anticipated in mid-2026.  And suppose the court rules that the Section 2 requirements for majority-minority districts are unconstitutional. In that case, states across the nation will need to redraw new maps before the 2026 midterms, potentially resulting in Republican pickups of 1-3 seats in states like Louisiana, Georgia, and Alabama.  The probability of the strike down of S.B. 8 to limit Section 2’s will likely come down to a 5-4 or even 6-3 decision with Kavanaugh and Roberts siding for the change, which is now racial-based intent that supports unconstitutional gerrymandering.  So do not feel bad about pushing back. Democrats have already made a mess of things for years, and countless Democrats who should never have been in representative government have been elected to seats they never should have had.  And it’s time now to change all that.

Obviously, in the Senate, things are counted a bit differently, as two senators represent each state.  So, gaining majorities requires a different strategy. However, suppose the trend toward wins in the House breaks the cycle of expectation that currently exists, where the party in power loses power during midterm elections. In that case, there is a possibility of gaining supermajorities in 2026 through 2028.  And that is how we should all think about these things.  So drop the pretense of fairness and play these things to win.  And keep in mind the long game.  The things we do today have an enormous impact on tomorrow.  And you win tomorrow by planting the seeds for it today.  I would add that if election reform were implemented alongside these mitigating factors, Republicans could achieve supermajorities in the House and Senate, possibly even before 2028.  Numerous close Senate races fall within the margin of error that Democrats have built into their assumptions.  And if we take that away from them, they will start to drop away like flies.  They won’t be able to win future elections.  So, redraw those maps wherever possible.  Fight the Democrats in court over every issue, and don’t feel bad about wearing them out.  They intend to destroy America; we have seen their actions before.  So when you get a chance to take their head off with a boot to the neck, do it.  Don’t hold back with compassion.  Don’t get caught up in a contention of playing fair.  Play to win, and play to defeat a political enemy that seeks at every turn to manipulate things toward our self-destruction.  We don’t owe them any assumptions of fairness.  The best thing we could do as Republicans is play to win by any means possible.  And let the sums of those wins add up to supermajorities that will take our nation to a much better tomorrow because tomorrow starts today.

Rich Hoffman

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

Racism as a Weapon of Marxism: The violence in Cincinnati was about more than name calling

There is a lot wrong with what the mayor of Cincinnati, Aftab Pureval, did after the fight that broke out in the streets after a music festival that became a grotesque example of violence from minority communities.  And the reason for it was perfectly uttered by city councilwoman Victoria Parks, who said in the aftermath, “They begged for that beat down!  I am grateful for the whole story.”  Regarding some white victims of a horrible beating, where a mob of attackers consolidated on them ruthlessly.  A young woman by the name of Holly ended up sucker punched and knocked cold in the middle of the street, leading to what everyone already assumes: it’s dangerous for white people to walk around downtown.  Otherwise, they might get attacked like these people did after a music festival.  And they might not live through the encounter.  The whole incident has brought up something much worse that needs to be discussed, and that is how Marxism has been taught in these communities of color to destabilize capitalism in America and how they have hidden it behind skin color to always have a destabilizing element present to undercut American society.  It’s not a matter of skin color that is the problem; it’s what people believe and how racism has given them a victimized status that is always ready to advance elements of socialism to a cityscape environment, to destabilize it.  As the city leaders were getting vast amounts of criticism from Senator Bernie Moreno, Vivek Ramaswamy, Jennifer Gross, and many others, they dug in even deeper on the mob rule elements and justification for the beatings that took place on July 26th in the small hours of the morning.  It doesn’t matter what camera angle you look at; there was no justification for the mob that broke out to do what they did, because it wasn’t about words and feelings.  What they did intended permanent harm to the victims and was brutally hostile in its intent. 

There are very few people who get called as many names as I do.  Most of the people I know dislike me for some reason or another.  They might be nice to my face, but behind my back, they hate me very much and call me every name in the book, and even some in books that have never been written.  So I can say authentically that no amount of name-calling justifies the violence that we saw in Cincinnati.  It doesn’t matter what anybody said to anybody; nothing justifies a fight at that level. Remember, sticks and stones?  People would do well to teach that to young kids in school once again.  Instead, political movements like what we have experienced from Democrats have sought to use victimization status to weaponize entire groups of people, preferably by color, into doing their work of radicalism in overthrowing American society.  The things people say to me are that people wouldn’t say such nasty things about me if I fought people more.  But the truth is, I care so little for what people think of me that I don’t waste time on it.  To get violent with someone to convince them to change their mind, you have to care what they think, and I just don’t.  And for the people of color to react to something that a group of white Russians said to them that they believe provoked this level of violence, they would have to care what those white people thought of them to get upset about it.  I never get upset when people call me names because I don’t care what they think. 

And as far as conflicts, and I know Vivek Ramaswamy thinks this way as well, there is no reason to fight people with violence when you can destroy them with debate.  If you have to resort to violence to get your point across, you have already lost.  As I tell people who criticize me for my lack of engagement with my enemies, I say it’s because forcing someone to think something out of fear of a beating is an dishonest exchange.  I would rather want to know what they believe than to beat them into submission to make them think what I want them to.  The best tool for convincing people to accept your way about something isn’t to win them over the head with pain and suffering, but to convince them that what you think is in their self-interest.  So when there is violence like this, there is a lot wrong that indicates a very unhealthy society.  And racism isn’t the problem.  Racisim is the weapon of the Marxist movement in America that has been trying to advance socialism and communism in communities of color to use their lack of judgment to build armies on the street to drive through fear a social discourse, such as, white people aren’t welcome on the streets of Cincinnati, especially after dark unless they appease the tribal chiefs of the community like visitors from a foreign land.  Never forget, it was Republicans who freed the enslaved people, who fought a civil war to free people of color.  Democrats were fighting to keep people slaves, and that is still a problem, because people of color are still serving the political efforts of Democrats.  All the problems of this fight are Democrat problems.  Republicans have been the critics.

We’re talking about purposely not knowing what good conduct is in society and believing, because people on city council like Victoria Parks, or Mayor Pureval let them think it as social victims, that violence is acceptable as a means to restore to them as people of color, a restitution to the notion that all American society was built on the backs of slave labor.  Slave labor that those same Democrats utilized and fought a war to continue, against Republicans.  So racism in this case, and most cases, has been kept alive to drive forward Democrat complaints about the kind of society Republicans want to build, which then becomes a quest to destroy capitalism with Marxism, and that is the case with most race wars all across the world.  And people never get around to talking about it properly because Democrats need a hostile demographic that will fight for change, meaning a shift from capitalism to micromanaged socialism, or even communism.  A quick study around the world among most race troubles will have as its root cause provoked racism to create the ground troops for change, which is what was behind the fight in Cincinnati, Ohio, after that music festival.  White people aren’t allowed to say anything to people of color, otherwise they will get a beating down.  And that is the message of fear that is laying territorial claim to all that the taxpayer streets of Cincinnati belong to the mob, not the people with property value who pay for everything.  It doesn’t matter what anyone said to each other; there was nothing that deserved what happened.  The city was likely not well-prepared for the music festival.  It was Democrat incompetence on all levels.  But it wasn’t all because they were stupid.  Most of it was part of the planned attack against capitalist society by overt Marxists hiding their malice behind skin color to advance their diabolical cause.  And that was why there was violence in Cincinnati.  It’s not about fairness or equality.  It was exclusively about overthrowing our society and strengthening Marxist cells within American culture for power politics from a Democratic viewpoint.  And it is ruthless on all levels and can’t be tolerated. 

Rich Hoffman

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

We Have To Teach People Why Capitalism is Good: The Vivek Ramaswamy approach to Zohran Mamdani

I think people misread Vivek Ramaswamy’s comments about Zohran Mamdani incorrectly, for the most part.  However, when Vivek placed an ad in New York challenging the socialist candidate for mayor to a debate, it raised several interesting questions that will undoubtedly be part of future discussions about politics.  Vivek, of course, is jumping into the conversation about New York politics because, as a capitalist who made a lot of money in New York and is now planning to be the governor of Ohio, he is uniquely positioned to have a debate with what the political left thinks of as a bright young star, in Mamdani.  But critics of communism and socialism expect a more visceral hatred of Mamdani than Vivek shows to people.  I’ve had the fortune of knowing Vivek personally, and this is true for most people: bright individuals who can debate any topic with anyone don’t have to get defensive every time a challenge arises to their belief system.  So Vivek can have a very cerebral discussion about Mamdani without getting too upset that the trend in Democrat politics is a radical leaning towards far-left, Marxist policies.  And most people have been taught, through years of Cold War policy from the over 50s crowd and onward, that we are to approach communists and socialists with anger, like they are the invaders we saw in the movie Red Dawn.  Vivek comes from a much younger generation, and that’s a good thing because, in the post-Trump years, many things are going to change.  People are realizing right now, and with Mamdani, just how dangerous all the socialist instruction in our public schools has been.  And most young people have had extensive exposure to it through public education. For too many voters, this issue has snuck up on them, evoking a lot of fear in people like Mamdani.

I have been warning everyone about the problems with socialism for many years.  And while public schools don’t overtly have classes teaching Marxism in general, it is implicit in the background of almost everything done in the teaching process, including in kindergarten, when the teacher instructs you to share your toys with your neighbor.  And that everyone is equal.  Vivek Ramaswamy’s approach to the communist problem is to debate it, because he can.  Not to fight them in the streets or call them names.  There are many young people, like Zohran Mamdani, who will be able to utilize social media to capture the attention of young voters who lack opportunities to surpass their parents’ achievements.  For many young people who can’t afford to buy their own home or have children, life seems unappealing and not worth fighting for.  While most MAGA supporters of today’s politics likely have their own car, their own home with lots of property, maybe even a boat.  Several kids.  A pretty good life, and something that they want to defend from people who want to take all that from them.  Vivek understands that the under-50 crowd has vastly different motivations and perspectives, and that they don’t feel the need to fight for anything, because, from their perspective, they don’t have much to fight for.  Their minds have mainly been rotted out by the public education experience that taught them all the wrong Marxist things about social equality and the value of private property ownership.  Therefore, portraying our political enemies as revolting figures will not win over new voters, because those new voters essentially share Mamdani’s perspective. 

That’s why the future of the MAGA movement needs to include people like Vivek Ramaswamy and J.D. Vance, who can debate any issue with anyone, anywhere.  And Vivek certainly can, and that is the way to win over the next generation of voters.  If, during the Trump years, the goal was to overcome all the lies that had been told to us by a government that sought global socialism as its governing principle, now the shoe is on the other foot.  It’s not enough to question the government of socialists and to run them out of office.  The problem that J.D. Vance and Vivek Ramaswamy will face with young people is that many of them have to be taught the virtues of capitalism from scratch.  We can’t just hold up Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and tell them to read it.  They need to understand it relative to their thoughts as young socialists who we have let get out of control, rob away their hopes and dreams.  Fighting socialism and communism with the kind of Cold War hatred that we have in the past won’t work on today’s social media.  Capitalism has to be sold to people all over again.  It will help to have a successful Trump administration to point to so that young socialists can see for themselves how much better a capitalist system is than their socialist and communist teachings.  In the world’s plans, they never thought a Trump character would ever hold a position of power, revealing just how powerful capitalism could be.  His election was crucial in many ways at this particular point in history.  But do not assume that the new generation will have a hatred for communism as previous generations in America have.  It’s quite the opposite.  Most young people will have to be taught from scratch why capitalism is so much better, because they certainly haven’t been taught why in school, or entertainment, or their social groups. 

The shock everyone has felt at hearing Mamdani utter outright communist sentiment, wanting to be the mayor of New York City, what many think of as the capitalist capital of the world, is the reality that this new generation of young people is more prone to accept elements of Marxism because it’s all they know.  And for many, this issue snuck up on them as they realized how much of modern-day social media is dominated by young people who are just like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and now Mamdani.  We say today they won’t and can’t win elections if this is what the Democrat Party is.  However, this is what the Democratic Party has been for quite some time.  They just hid it all behind a social mask, but it’s always been there, and now that people see it and hear them talk, the realization they have toward it is hatred.  However, be cautious not to demonize all these young socialists, as the goal is to win over that generation in a competitive race for the minds of a new generation.  And understand that capitalism has to be sold to them because they were not taught its value, and they do not have a natural love for it.  It will take someone like Vivek Ramaswamy to explain it to them and show them why it works.  They can’t expect just to read Adam Smith’s book and draw their conclusions.  They will have to be taught, with considerable debate.  And Vivek is just the right mind for all that.  He understands the problem all too well, even as many are just now waking up to it and have been caught off guard.  The next generation in America has to be mainly taught from scratch.  Their minds have been ruined.  And hating them won’t convince them to join you.  We have to earn them to our side person for person. 

Rich Hoffman

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

The Greatness of Truth Social: Controlling market viability

Strategically speaking, as history views it, Trump’s commitment to the social media platform Truth Social will be the defining characteristic that was most important in the political movement that has reshaped the world.   And not enough people are talking about its importance.  But as I have said for a long time, and it’s more obvious now than ever, Trump’s creation of Truth Social, after he was kicked off Twitter following the 2020 election, will always be known as the most important thing he did.  And when it mattered most, just as the many court cases against Trump through lawfare were about to collapse upon him and he was facing hundreds of years in jail and things were looking very bleak, it was his ownership of Truth Social that completely reversed his financial fortunes back into the billions of dollars and took the gas out of the efforts against him, legally.  It’s quite an extraordinary story and is a lesson for all who study these kinds of things.  I love Truth Social; I was one of the very first people to join it as a social media platform, and I see it only getting better with time.  Even though the news that Elon Musk bought Twitter and renamed it X has captured everyone’s attention, Truth Social has quietly gained some market dominance worth discussing.  X has been a significantly improved social media platform under Elon Musk’s ownership, but it has seen a decline in influence.  It has maintained its value to some extent, despite Musk’s claim that X is the number one app in Japan.  There is significant growth on these social media platforms.  However, Truth Social under Trump has emerged as the next great thing, and at a considerable time.

Like many people on Truth Social, I received an offer to participate in their Patriot Package, which provides access to what they call Truth+.  It’s like Disney+ but without all the liberal programming.  So I accepted their offer and have been very impressed with it.   As I started using it, I have been thinking that this is the next best thing in entertainment to come out.  It works a lot like Roku and has its lineup of programming, complete with a TV guide that you can access on your television or computer.  But the programming is better, and this is early in the process.  Already, it has Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News, as well as many other shows, such as The WarRoom, which is on Real America’s Voice, a news station that emerged to challenge Fox News during the same period of post-2020 censorship.  However, there is also sports coverage on it, as well as other programming that is growing, making it a viable entertainment option.  So Truth Social isn’t just a social media app where you can express opinions and get some basic news.  It’s becoming a complete entertainment package that is a real game changer for the media in general and decentralizes information in dramatic ways.  Even though Elon Musk restored President Trump’s X account once he gained ownership, and it could be said that a lot of what made Trump a great candidate in 2016 was his Twitter account where people could see him unfiltered from the media, Trump has kept his exclusive content confined to Truth Social out of loyalty and the necessity of development.  And it has paid off. 

I wasn’t sure what to think about Truth Social over these last few years.  I thought it was great that Trump could continue to post his opinions directly to the public, and people could pick up his message and carry it everywhere else.  And it has worked; it has dramatically decentralized the way a president of the White House communicates with the public.  For as long as there has been a media culture, they have had control over how and what communication is disseminated to the public.  This is something I learned several years ago: it is far better to provide your content to the public, even if fewer people initially see it, than to be accepted by a mainstream media outlet that has its own political goals.  Which we certainly saw with Fox News against Trump when they sought to make him a non-person.  That has been a widespread tactic and for well over a hundred years, has been a real problem regarding free speech.  Sure, you can say and think what you want, but what if nobody can hear it?  For a long time, newspapers and broadcasting dominated the narrative.  Twitter wasn’t the first social media platform to emerge, but it was among the first to provide alternatives, even if, under different leadership, it had a controlled intelligence narrative to steer society toward mass socialism, until Elon Musk changed that.  However, it remains that Truth Social is the official mouthpiece of President Trump, making it historically significant, and now emerging as something that I think will push the rest of the cord-cutters over the edge.  And Trump will replace people like Ted Turner as the king of entertainment options.  A sitting American president has never had the advantage of a personal media platform, which has been a source of incredible frustration for many American presidents, especially Theodore Roosevelt.  What Trump has been doing with Truth Social has been epic, but its significance is just getting started.

And when you control the message, or can’t, it decides what people want through the freedom of information.  In this way, people can express their political opinions without the filter of tampering to determine market viability.  Since the invention of mass media, essentially the printing press, human beings have never had this option authentically.  And now, through Truth Social, and subsequently Truth+, which you access through your regular social media account, there is a competitive option to Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, and Hulu.  Once you pull up Truth+ on your television, it navigates through the channels just like Roku and Spectrum.  So this is a significant improvement for a social media platform that emerged essentially to give President Trump, sent into exile in the world, a voice to continue stating his opinions, and not to let him fall into the dust of history, as Rupert Murdoch indicated they would make him, which was a non-person.  Trump, out of necessity, has become the next entertainment mogul, and that is what it has taken to preserve the concept of free speech, even as we saw from the world just how dangerous it was to have all entertainment controlled by a radical leftist few.  Truth Social, through market capitalism, has emerged as a surprising frontrunner, and the world is changing dramatically as a result.  The goal isn’t to tell people what to think, but to let market viability determine which ideas emerge, as the speech is truly free for the first time. People tend to gravitate to where they can most express themselves through entertainment consumption, making Truth Social more than just a social media platform that communicates President Trump’s opinions.  But an entertainment platform that can replace what we have known in the past with something much better.  And if you are thinking of joining the Patriot Package for yourself, you can’t go wrong.

Rich Hoffman

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

The Radicalism of Stephen Colbert: Trying to kill off toxic masculinity as been very expensive and not worth it

There is a much deeper reason that the news about Stephen Colbert being taken off the air is such big news.  Or why ABC is re-thinking some of its daytime programming, such as The View.  There will be numerous television changes because many of these big production companies have been so committed to progressive causes that the financial impact of it is finally starting to catch up to them.  However, in everyday conversation, the real reasons for economic failures have been largely unexplored.  People know they are generally happy to hear that the Trump-hating Colbert is losing his late-night show, and that many of the other late-night hosts are in danger as well, because of the anti-Trump agenda.  Anti-Make America Great Again agenda points are not popular for good business.  And typically, CBS Studios, a division of Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS, would not hesitate to donate $40 million to progressive political causes.  Which is what they are saying the show is losing per year.  It’s not about the money; it’s about the viability of the position.  Losing that much money by putting Stephen Colbert on television every night to attempt to destroy the Trump agenda is more or less a financial contribution to their political platform.  The problem for them is that they spent all that money and committed so many resources to it, yet they were unable to move the political needle at all.  Trump did not end up in jail, or bankrupt as radical liberals had fantasized about.  Instead, six months into his re-elected term, he is doing great, and there are no signs of him slowing down.  And he’s more popular than ever, which is breaking the back of the production companies and their commitment to communism that dates back to the fifties and sixties. 

I know quite a bit about all this as I have been discussing it for years.  For many people, it has been hard to connect the dots.  However, I hosted a major radio show on this topic, specifically centered on the release of the Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, where Disney killed the very popular character of Han Solo.  A friend of mine and I discussed the poor decision that Disney made in killing off the white hero Han Solo and replacing him with a DEI cast that nobody ever took to.  And now, ten years later, the things we said have turned out to be hauntingly accurate.  After that big, popular show, my friend received an offer to work at Disney for an excellent salary.  I always thought they did it to shut him up and get him off the air.  It is much easier to throw money at controversial voices to contain them somewhat.  My friend loved the Disney Company and hoped to improve it, so more power to him.  I told him there was no saving the company, but he had to try.  But the point of the matter is this: Disney didn’t need to kill off the original heroes of the Star Wars saga.  But they did it anyway, and they did it for purely political reasons.  That’s how radical the hatred in Hollywood is for the Make America Great Again movement, which was emerging openly as Disney was committing to these new Star Wars movies that had a DEI cast, and a killing off of the strongest character of them all, Han Solo, who was made popular by the very popular actor, Harrison Ford.

Now I’ve heard it all before.  People tell me that old Harrison Ford always wanted to kill off the character of Han Solo.  As an actor, he hears all the stories about toxic white masculinity, which he has made a lot of money over the years popularizing.  So, for him, to sacrifice one of his roles to the gods of progressivism is a logical choice.  And he has been saying for forty years that Han Solo should die in the Star Wars series.  However, George Lucas knew better, so they brought him back for The Return of the Jedi, and that character went on to become one of the biggest and most popular in the Star Wars brand.  If Han Solo is on the movie posters, people are excited for Star Wars and the toys that came from that series of movies.  But if the movie posters, as they turned out to be, were just diversity, equity, and inclusion characters, then the public was going to reject the offering.  And in that process, Disney killed the Star Wars brand forever.  I don’t think it will ever come back. The damage was so significant that they begged Harrison Ford to return and make an appearance in the last Star Wars movie, The Rise of Skywalker, but it was too late by then.  And Disney has not been making any more Star Wars movies because their DEI characters were being rejected left and right.  A similar controversy arose on The Mandalorian television show involving Gina Carano.  She turned out not to be a DEI hire, but a conservative fighter, and Disney tried to punish her for it, and it blew up in their faces in terrible ways.  We are seeing entertainment that is not intended to entertain, but rather to convey political messages through popular franchises, and it has turned out to be a disastrous business decision. 

So, the writing was already on the wall when Trump was re-elected, and Disney was already undergoing its assessment process.  They had to learn, as a large entertainment company, that their public would reject them if they did not produce content that they wanted.  Kathy Kennedy should have known better about the Han Solo character.  Her husband, Frank Marshell, should be able to help her understand it.  He produced all the Jurassic Park movies and was the German mechanic in the very popular Raiders of the Lost Ark movie, notably in the fight scene.  He’s not a progressive lunatic.  However, he and Kennedy are fans of Jimmy Buffett and music from that era, so they have a left-leaning side that certainly comes through in their movies.  Kathy, as a woman CEO, went completely DEI and began pushing for female directors and characters.  I mean, they killed off Han Solo, knowing he was the father figure of the series, and they gave his famous spaceship, the Millennium Falcon, to some girl that nobody knew, as if the public would just accept it.  And they never did.  And the franchise took a permanent hit that it will never recover from.  I tried to tell them.  My friend and I laid it all out on that now-famous radio show, so we know the Disney bigwigs heard it and offered us jobs afterwards.  I have had numerous companies offer me money to try to keep me quiet, essentially.  I don’t blame my friend for taking the money.  Many people do, and it can lead to a fulfilling life.  And that is essentially why nobody understands these kinds of things structurally.  But that’s what’s going on with Stephen Colbert, and many others that will follow.  The man-hating Hollywood has not been working, and if they want to survive at all, they will have to make adjustments because the consumer is the boss.  Not the studios, and they have had to learn some tough lessons, too late.  The ramifications of all those bad decisions are only now becoming well-known and prominent.

Rich Hoffman

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

Making Parents into Children: When motherhood becomes destructive

It’s something most people have to deal with at some point in their lives, and I think we don’t do it very well.  However, it’s one of those things that doesn’t have many good answers, and that is the care of elderly people.  As our parents age, what do we do when they struggle to care for themselves and lose independence?  For me, I think death is worse than losing freedom and independence, quite literally.  And as I look at medical costs as a government offering, keeping sick people alive longer as they lose their freedoms with more government dependence is the worst kind of sickness of them all, and I think people are better off no longer living.  But, we have a lawyerly society that is way too litigious and a snoopy medical industry that is full of cosmetic do gooders who have created policies and rules that pay a lot of money and give medical expenses quite an income, so there is a lot wrong with the entire industry and the problems come down to just a few basic human assumptions that are more emotional than practical.  And most of us would rather not think about it, but what cost is the nursing home industry to our society for the services they provide when the litigious decision making process puts the burden of care judgement on people not prepared to deal with an emotional crises, making a lot of the wrong kind of people rich off the process, feeding a parasitic health care industry with a demeaning end of life trajectory that the courts find acceptable, but on scale of human need, is dramatically lacking.   And it takes lives once well lived, and essential, and makes them into uneventful closures of forgetfulness and an almost vile hatred for the perpetuation of the human race that has vast evil wrapped all around it.

I usually don’t associate with many people in the healthcare industry, especially those involved in care for older people, for all the reasons mentioned.  However, I did run into Commissioner Dixon and his son, Brent, at a recent event, and we had a good discussion about this very topic.  I hadn’t seen Brent for many years, even though we live in the same general area, and I knew he had managed a nursing home facility, so we hadn’t seen each other since we were ten years old and racing together in a soap box derby event in Hamilton that was the talk of the town back then.  So it was fun to see him again and talk about what has happened over the last four and a half decades.  And I like Don Dixon quite a lot, so we had fun catching up.  But nearby, because of some nursing home talk, a couple of women caught on to our conversation, and it provoked in them discussions they were having about a father in their lives. One of the women was the direct daughter, the other one was a sister-in-law.  And they were talking about how their dad had fallen and hit his head, and they were worried about him and thought he was losing the ability to be the caregiver to his wife, who is in an entirely dependent state.  So, for the discussion with these two women, they were determining that their dad needed to go to a home before he hurt himself and let something bad happen to their mom.  And as I was listening to this conversation, it was getting more revolting by the moment because there were a lot of psychological things wrong with it. 

So, for clarity, I think it would be better for the dad they were talking about to pass away of natural causes at peace in his own home, on his own terms as much as possible.  But the decision was a legal one; if the kids knowingly allow the father to care for the mother and something happens to him, it would provoke something to happen to her, and then they would be found guilty of elder abuse in the eyes of the court.  But even worse than that was a social neurosis that involved the women regarding the decision-making process of how to manage their dad.  Here was a man who had lived his whole life doing things that were important to both society and himself.  And had raised a family and done many things, and now all that was coming to a close with the impending doom of losing personal freedoms to the point where he was just a fetus entirely dependent on the parental figures of society at large.  And this was not the way human beings should be planning their exit from life.  The women I noticed were very animated about this topic for unusual reasons, and it was not by accident that they both had kids who had just recently grown up and moved away from them; emotionally, they were looking for a new baby to care for.  Being middle aged women without the prospect of a baby to have, to give them the feeling of meaning that motherhood often does, they were instead taking that emotional baggage and looking to apply it to their parents, to make their elderly parents into incapable toddlers unable to care for themselves to satisfy the lack of importance they were feeling as aging mothers. 

It wasn’t hard to see how many terrible decisions were being made, which had enormous social costs and were destructive to the individual lives of the parental figures.  And baked into the rule-making process was a desire to humiliate older people and their personal lives into dependent toddlers who ended their life the way they started it, wetting the bed, having their diapers changed, and needing help even to feed themselves.  And there are a lot of women like these two talking who are feeling old, thrown away by their husbands and kids, and they gravitate to their elderly parents to turn them into dependents to give meaning to their lives, which is losing value by the day.  And, of course, a significant amount of money is invested in this process to generate something from it for a very parasitic industry.  In my opinion, I would say let the parents have their independence for as long as possible, because it’s better than losing it.  And if the dad passes away tripping on a pebble on the sidewalk, he is better off than a much slower death while in a nursing home.  And the lawyers should stay out of it.  And the emotional children who have been trying to give meaning to their own lives by making their parents into replacement children for their own grown children have created a real mess.  The costs associated are more parasitic to the burdens of those who define care than to the values of a life well lived, and to protect that meaning from life to death.  A few years in a nursing home and turning once strong people into complete dependents, in my eyes, is far worse than death.  And it is something we should completely reconsider.  Because the emotional children of older people are not in positions themselves to make decisions for their parents because they are dealing with their own sense of value as their children grow up and away from them leaving everyone feeling empty and useless in the process, and no amount of money can solve the problem in the way that human beings require it to be solved.  However, what we can be sure of is that we should not make our parents dependents to avoid dealing with our lack of security once our child-rearing days are behind us.  There is more to life, and adults need to figure that out, rather than putting their parents in homes to satisfy their selfish needs to care for somebody in an infinite state and quell the whims of motherhood once it has been unlocked in them for the perpetuation of the human race, for which they are no longer needed. 

Rich Hoffman

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