Category: Organized Labor

The West Chester Tea Party is Not Antisemitic: Trying to control the world through managed free speech established by institutionalism

It’s all About Politics and candidates who are afraid to let people see who they really are in a setting they can’t control

Supposedly, there was a meeting at the West Chester Tea Party at the St. Gertrude the Great Catholic Church on September 5th, where accused vitriolic hatred toward the Jewish people was expressed in antisemitic rhetoric, and it was a news story that gained much attention. And it was members of the “Republican Party” who tipped off the Cincinnati Jewish Community Relations Council, pressing them to denounce the West Chester Tea Party for its actions. Apparently, there was a guest at that September 5th meeting where topics about the Jewish people’s role in the world came up. This Jewish organization wanted to attach that discussion to a form of controlled speech that we see as such a strategy of the political left, where they determine what parameters of debate anybody is allowed to have. Anyone who dares to step outside those boundaries will then be attacked publicly, such as what is being attempted by the West Chester Tea Party. And if that was all it was, we could perhaps overlook it. However, I have a long affiliation with the West Chester Tea Party and Tea Party groups in general, and of course, as Paul Harvey used to say, “there’s the rest of the story.” This isn’t about hate speech being expressed over a controversial speaker. But I would say this is all about the West Chester Tea Party coming out and not endorsing Lynda O’Conner for the Lakota school board and ensuring people knew about it. I wrote an article that has been seen by many thousands of people on August 27th, 2023, establishing that the West Chester Tea Party would not endorse Lynda for her next run for the school board. So just a few days later, at this September 5th meeting, supporters of Lynda were looking for something to attempt to water down that lack of endorsement because Lynda has been affiliated with the West Chester Tea Party for over a decade. And the Tea Party just didn’t become an anti-semantic group a few weeks ago.

How do I know all that? Well, because I know all the people involved and how it works. I know how phone calls are made and the favors from the media are granted. I understand that the West Chester Tea Party is an open, free-speech-oriented group and that the caricature created by an institutionalized religious group does not reflect who they are. Many tempers have flared in the background over their lack of endorsement. I’ve heard many of them myself and I just let it ride out. I can understand Lynda’s feelings being hurt, but she has brand damage that she did to herself. So getting mad at the West Chester Tea Party isn’t a rational expression of justice, but that has been the byproduct of their emphatic refusal to not endorse her. We keep hearing about how small the West Chester Tea Party is, yet so many people are concerned about what they say and when they say it as if they are rationalizing to themselves its importance in the community. But I like the Tea Party people quite a lot and know how they work, and they are as far from a hate group as you can get. But I do know they hate one thing I share with them. If hate is the correct expression, which I think it is, we all hate corruption, and this kind of story is dripping wet with just the sort of corruption that has targeted RINOs in the Republican Party, and that is the real essence of this story.

I write many articles, many of which are about religion.  Some of them, the West Chester Tea Party, has spread around their network, which is undoubtedly part of the criticism toward them by these institutionalized groups.  I’ve even specifically addressed the Jewish issue as conspiracy theorists think of it because it’s a natural part of modern politics.  I love the Jewish people and have said so many times.  Jesus was Jewish.  We wouldn’t have a Bible if not for the Jewish people.  I even recently wrote an article about why we should all participate in Jewish rituals such as eating unleavened bread.  Any criticism that was expressed falls under the general failures of institutionalism, which is a much larger issue.  And, of course, those who seek refuge in institutionalism to hide their levels of corruption are at the heart of the matter here, and the perpetrators of injustice are playing a dangerous game that is falling apart in this second decade of this new century.  The political game of controlled free speech.  To censor people based on what they say and do, as if institutionalism could control people’s thoughts through the act of peer acceptance.  This isn’t a new game; it’s an outdated one.  And the 2010s want their political games back.  Because in the increasing MAGA movement where President Trump continues to be the leader of the Republican Party, these games are exactly why there is a severe hatred of RINOs representing people in politics.  That is precisely why the West Chester Tea Party made sure to distance themselves from their long affiliation with Lynda O’Conner once they found out she was running again, because of the many mistakes she has made that they couldn’t endorse. 

We no longer live in a world where people care what the newspapers say or the television media in a city.  This idea of ruling over others with hurt feelings is what created the mess we are in presently, and what has given politics a bad name.  So, any hope that this story would destroy the West Chester Tea Party, by the established RINOs who want their party back, will only blow up in their faces.  The hope was to force anybody to crush free speech to stay within the parameters of institutionalized controls, which is expected of the West Chester Tea Party, to apologize, and condemn members with opinions.  Then, they minimize their message so that the RINO faction of the Republican Party can gain back some respect that they have lost.  Because of these games, the West Chester Tea Party is still around and a vital force that works in the background, especially for Central Committee members.  Party politics is never going back to what it used to be.  People are not happy with it.  And they certainly don’t appreciate being used by political figures to get elected, then to have those elected representatives turn away from the freedom movement, and align themselves with institutionalized politics.  And that is the merit of this entire West Chester Tea Party issue.  They have nothing to apologize for.  I think they will gain members with this news media coverage.  But more than anything, they will gain respect for their position against Lynda O’Conner and other political figures who have turned away from the Tea Party ways and hope to wipe their guilt away as Judas did after taking money to sell out Jesus.  When the responsibility doesn’t go away from the reflection in the mirror, getting rid of the mirror is all too tempting.  But the reflection comes in many forms, not just the bathroom mirror or a news media that is already a poor reflection of actuality. 

Rich Hoffman

The Communism of LinkedIn: It’s a dating app for job seekers who desire the destruction of corporate America

I was never a big fan of LinkedIn, even before they banned my account over my book The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, which they thought was disparaging to their excellent relationship with China.  So, to answer the question I get at least 50 times a week, no, I am not on LinkedIn.  I was, for a while, out of some obligation I thought was part of the modern world.  But I had little value for it, so at the first dispute, we parted ways happily, which has provided me with just enough emotional distance to have an objective opinion about it.  LinkedIn has a very menacing presence in all actuality and is laced with communism in ways that an entire generation has not considered, and I find it despicable.  I view people with a job with a good company yet still maintain a LinkedIn profile as adulterous married people who always look at their dating apps with an eye on something better.  It is impossible to be in a committed relationship with a spouse while always looking out to see if there is someone better.  A job, like a good marriage, requires a commitment, and dating apps are a clear sign that one or both spouses are not committed to the relationship.  That is essentially what LinkedIn does; it is a dating app for job seekers.  And if someone has a good job and a good employer, well, they should be committed to that relationship, and they shouldn’t always be looking for a better job.  Some people out there, just like people who get divorced a lot, are always looking for the next best thing, and by jumping from job to job, they might find opportunities that they otherwise wouldn’t have had.  But that is my position on LinkedIn. It’s a dating app that shows a lack of commitment to an employer and that people who are on it all the time are one-foot-in, one-foot-out types of people who are not very valuable to an organization. 

Yet, there is something far worse with LinkedIn that indicates its Chinese roots, which it is well known for supporting.  The hidden message of LinkedIn is that people don’t matter and that leadership is embodied in the collective, not the individual.  LinkedIn goes against the gunfighter metaphor that I use often, the comparison of the lone gunfighter who steps into a saloon out of a heavy rain and orders whiskey at the bar with their back turned to the room.  The gunfighter knows that nobody will make a move because the room is full of parasites who want to use anybody they can meet to further their life in some way.  So the gunfighter doesn’t worry about some assassin that might try to shoot them in the back.  Such thoughts are Hollywood fantasy.  In real life, people are much more malicious and lazy.  They’ll use them before trying to kill someone for all they are worth.  Therefore, people of worth are precious in the world because most people fall well short.  Instead, most people reside in the crowd, happy to follow others, which is why the gunfighter knows they can order a whisky at the bar and enjoy it without concern for potential assassins.  Nothing in the world is more valuable than leadership, and leadership is not formed through networks and relationships.  It’s in understanding the motivations of other human beings and what they are willing to do to obtain value, then directing them toward some state of usefulness.  LinkedIn is an audience of people in the saloon looking at the gunfighter, measuring to see if something can be gained from a relationship.  When discussing networking, we are talking about building relationships in this fashion. 

Yet China, as a collectivist, communist society, does not strive to empower its individuals into greatness.  They look for compliance as their primary objective, so they have much trouble building their economy.  Without the outside influence of globalists from the World Economic Forum mentality, China would still be a poor country.  All their wealth has been stolen; it wasn’t generated through individual achievement, as in Western capitalist countries.  In many ways, the designers of Linkedin are well aware of this.  The hidden message of LinkedIn is that individuals do not matter, nor do other companies.  By filtering down individual achievement, the people on LinkedIn are not looking for the next Jack Welsh or President Trump in the world, who ran a very successful show on television about the values of business in The Apprentice.  They want a society of bootlickers who are not committed to corporate leadership and are ultimately easy to control from the centralized state.  By always being willing to jump from one job to another, nobody has deep roots of commitment to their employers, making them weak toward centralized control.  The LinkedIn audience is looking for compliant, noncommitted people to populate the workplaces of the world, and the effect is noticeable.  Professionally, there are a lot of non-committed people out there who show fragile leadership toward their organizations.  And that is by design.  LinkedIn tells the professional world that people don’t matter; they can all be traded like baseball cards and easily replaced.  So, puff yourself up to potential employers looking for just such a poison and destroy the concept of capitalism by destroying the notion of authentic leadership among the corporate community. 

You have to watch these tech firms and understand their overall philosophy for getting into business, to begin with.  Facebook was a dating app that tapped into the human need to be wanted and then exploited that desire with a sense of community or communism.  That same approach was introduced to Western cultures by attacking the concept of marriage with easy divorce.  If you were unhappy with your spouse, get a new one.  Don’t fight out the problems; go somewhere else, which has destroyed the concept of the American family or even a European family.  And in so doing, that gives the state more power over the individuals involved.  Rather than the family or the corporate culture having the strength and ability to resist such temptations.  The way to attack the concept of family was to make divorce more socially acceptable and too tempting whenever things got tough in a marriage.  LinkedIn has sought to do the same in corporate structure, making it easy for talent to leave at the first sign of trouble and keeping CEOs always turning toward the state for approval rather than providing leadership through the frequent storms of life.  In many ways, we see the essential conflict of our times: Do you follow the leadership of Yahweh, or do you seek the many gods of Canaan and sacrifice your firstborn children to appease them?  LinkedIn says to appease the gods, make whatever sacrifices you need to make, and surrender leadership to the state.  I say, be the gunfighter, follow after the individual Yahweh and the rebellion against collectivism that he represented, which formulated the foundations of all Western culture.  Be the leader, not a follower.  And don’t seek the arms of always some new opportunity. Instead, continuously make the best of what you have and fight for a better day.  And stay away from the communist desires of LinkedIn. 

Rich Hoffman

Decoupling from China: Global communism was always only a drug-induced teenage fantasy

It wasn’t that long ago that I told the story about my LinkedIn account, which I no longer have because of an interview about decoupling from China once I released my book, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business.  LinkedIn is a bunch of communist China-supporting advocates on the wrong side of history, so I don’t miss them at all, and that’s a topic all its own.  However, the fear of China taking over America is on many people’s minds, and I have assured people that such a possibility is unrealistic.  Even as much as the set-up goes back for many decades by domestic enemies in America who propped up China to become that device for a one-world government run by communism.  Now that people realize that was always the strategy, there is a lot of talk about decoupling the American economy from China.  And now that the cat is out of the bag, there are a lot of lost globalists out there who have no idea what to do next because their entire lives have been planned around this China model taking over the world and collapsing the American market.  People like Larry Fink and Ray Dalio have been moving a lot of money in that direction, and Wall Street has been betting on it for decades, significantly impacting people’s private 401K plans.  But I cover in my book how easy it is for America to defeat any enemy, or any individual can defeat global thugs like gunfighters defeated lots of nasty bad guys in a dusty street for personal preservation and the perpetuation of law and order for a thriving civilization to flourish.  As we speak, the China model is dying, propped up by phony economic numbers and corporations terrified the public will figure out what a lousy bet China has been for them.  So far, the media culture has prevented that knowledge from getting out, but reality is spectacularly showing itself. 

It all goes back to that dumb John Lenin song, “Imagine,” and the high school days of many of the characters causing so much communist trouble today.  It’s not hard to reflect on the young antics of Larry Fink way before BlackRock was created for him by the Federal Reserve looking to dump a bunch of phony money in the market to start a chain reaction toward a collapse and to prop up the China model of global communism.  These current billionaires, like Ray Dalio, smoke dope in the backseat of a car and listen to classic rock and roll songs in favor of communism and how dead America was, such as America Pie.  “They drove their Chevy to the levy, but the levy was dry.”  Once they got out of college, many drunken binges later, they were ready to cheerlead America’s destruction while at the same time calling it “smart investments.”  But their minds were never right and always filled with ill intent from their ideological teenage days where their lifelong philosophies of destruction and American hating sentiment solidified as they learned to take off the bra of the next pimple-faced girl in their back seats masked by marijuana smoke.  I could even go back even further as to how those songs, teenage customs of rebellion, and what those young people learned in school were given to them directly by the KGB as their parents watched old westerns on television at home and couldn’t see the bad guys riding into town.  They were looking for people on a black horse in a black hat.  Not a bunch of communists hidden behind popular culture dressed like the Beatles. 

None of this happened quickly, but it is coming apart very fast.  Now that the globalists are in prime time and have been caught on COVID-19 and many other horrendous enterprises, the world economy has been turning away from tyranny for several years, and that decoupling effort is well underway.  And I would offer that trust in China as a global partner is never coming back.  All the corporations that have invested in this merger with globalism are left at the altar as the timid Chinese are losing power by the day.  Their entire strategy depended on secrecy and intimidation, and that has not been the American public’s reaction, suddenly all too aware of the threat.  President Trump certainly wasn’t the cause; he was the effect of this awareness.  And after his previous term, the mask of China has been ripped off, and all those previous business efforts are failing.  Doing business with China has a stigma that was never there previously, and they will never be able to repair that impression now that people have it.  China and the global communists who have infiltrated American politics never had a plan B.  And as scary as it is to hear that China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil are all moving away from a dollar-controlled currency, the sentiment in America, where most of the world’s productivity is centered, is to pull back and internalize, not to partner with hostile communist countries leaving them very vulnerable as a result.  That is why decoupling from China is something most Americans now want to do, meaning all those investments toward China becoming the next dominating centralized government are disintegrating in front of their faces.  So many American billionaires have spent money in that direction, yet the scam is coming apart rapidly.

It won’t happen overnight, but the trend will be anti-China for many future decades until the communist government there, and in other places, is defeated.  Not just cosmetically but economically.  China has difficulty concealing that information from the world, and their state-controlled media has helped them.  But the writing is literally on the wall, so all these corporate alliances where globalism controlled by China was utilized are already considered busted investments.   And if you lose a lot of money because of it, don’t say you weren’t warned.  I warned everyone for several decades now, and just because the Chinese-loving LinkedIn people have essentially employed a strategy of “keep away,” the reality was eventually going to catch up to them.  The teenage fantasies that many of these modern-day losers have been trying to fulfill were never originally ideas built on the hopes and dreams of human ambition but on the backs of the compromised, drunken fools and overly sexed counter-culture druggies who bought the KGB message hook line and sinker only to find themselves dinner of the globalist communist effort.  And they have been slow cooking for several decades now, thinking they were the ones doing the cooking.  But actually, they were the ones being cooked, and now it’s time to eat.  And Americans, those who haven’t become domestic enemies in support of global communism, are the ones at the table with hungry stomachs.   And corporate America, which has fallen for this scam, is on the wrong side of history.  None of what happens next is what anybody thought would happen.  Of course, I’ve been saying it, and those who listened will prosper greatly.  But most didn’t, and the tough times will be their own.  They were warned but didn’t listen because they thought all that rebellious music and drug use they did as teenagers was the wave of the future, instead of the communist propaganda that it was all along. 

Rich Hoffman

The Company of Tomorrow: Political trends are shifting away from the World Economic Forum values, and that’s a great thing

Everyone is always looking for the next great business tip for a competitive advantage, so here it is.  You can tell because of trends like what is going on with the Washington Redskins NFL team and the Cleveland Indians.  The fans of those teams are getting petitions signed to restore their names to what they were pre-woke.  The momentum of wokeness has shifted, and we see the political pendulum swinging the other way.  The Marxists had their chance, which didn’t have a positive impact that society could see for themselves.  The Beatles song “Imagine” didn’t come out very well when the World Economic Forum was starting mass viruses for their Great Reset and turning the responsibility of enforcement over to your local human resource office to do through businesses what nobody would ever be able to do through government regulation.  The Marxists of the world figured out that by design, our political systems in America were established to go slow to keep the government from interrupting the machine of capitalism.  So, they turned their attention to businesses to attack them there, and what we have seen happening in business climates over the last several decades has been Marxism, and people didn’t notice until recently.  Because most people have an adversarial relationship with their employers, it wasn’t something people saw coming in the front door.  But now that it’s here, they want it gone.  And that is the future state of business.  I’ve seen this communist, Marxist approach in the industry for a long time, growing year by year, and finally, after Trump was removed from office after a government-organized coup, no different from the many communist revolutions around the world, people finally have had enough of it, and that trend began to go the other way after the last Covid vaccine mandates. 

Just as professional sports teams were tricked into changing their names into woke acceptance, this is not what society wants.  They want cool names for their sports teams, not the Guardians, but the Indians in Cleveland.  I was just in Cleveland, and that name change a few years into it is still a joke, and it’s not getting better.  I have had some interactions with members of the family of that team, and their woke acceptance has not gone over well.  People are turning on them for allowing woke politics into their sacred sports franchise.  And that is certainly the case with the Washington Football team in D.C.  People want their Redskins back.  This anti-capitalist approach to life is not what people want in the world.  They have been patient with corporations that became politically active toward Marxism, some of America’s largest corporations.  When we talk about globalism, we are essentially talking about Marxism because that is how it is everywhere else.  Americans have taken the advantages of capitalism for granted because they didn’t know any better.  And they assumed that the companies they worked for had at least primary American values.  But that’s not how most corporations are these days; they have drifted into this Marxist compliance because if they had manufacturing plants in China, Vietnam, or Europe, they were dealing with some level of Marxism, whether it was outright communism or socialism.  It was not free market capitalism that was the driver of their economies.  It was the slow-moving and lazy administrative state, and it was slowing things down to levels that have been unacceptable in America.  I’m old enough to know what it was like before, and I have watched over several decades of being on the front line how Marxism has migrated into the human resource departments to influence how people live their everyday lives.  But the final straw happened during Covid and the slow realization that most people have from President Trump being in the White House, then Joe Biden.  Bidenomics has not been good for anybody but the global Marxists. 

I have often pointed out, over a long period, how the Lean Manufacturing trend was filled with cultural Marxism.  Many of the central foundations of business ethics these days attack the notion of the golf-playing CEO with a nice car, a trophy wife, and is oozing with success.  In Lean Manufacturing, they want the members of management to come from their offices out to where the work is done, not just to become more effective in understanding a problem.  That is how it sold to them.  But it’s really to minimize management in the eyes of the employees, to establish a level of sameness among everyone that displays nobody is in charge but the centralized employees.  Not even the marketplace.  Compliance with regulators as they get their talking points from the World Economic Forum has been their weapon of choice and has been a slow burn.  The CEOs and CFOs who have survived the most were those bootlicker types who appeased the bureaucratic regulators and were not focused on giving the public what they wanted—but imposing on the public Marxist restrictions not just in the employer but in the marketplace itself.  Rather than march people into Washington D.C. at gunpoint as Castro did in Cuba and kill political rivals off point blank, the Marxists took a much more passive-aggressive route.  They regulated capitalists out of existence.  But the marketplace is catching on and is pushing back.  Because of Trump’s successful administration, people tasted the good life again and want it back.  So, the political sentiment is swinging the other way. 

The World Economic Forum is failing; many of their 2030 plans, as scary as they are for their intent, are falling apart, much the way the name changes in sports are getting so much public pushback.  I do get to talk to people worldwide for perspective, and the sentiment is pretty much everywhere the same.  They are upset with Marxism and don’t want it in their products or the companies that make them.  And they certainly don’t want it in their sports teams.  People were willing to put up with it as long as they had the illusion of capitalism functioning in the background.  But now that they know differently, they want their capitalism back, so the future of business will go to those companies who most embrace capitalism for the majority of market share in the future.  Further woke trends from the human resource departments, such as paperless paychecks into bank accounts that centralized bankers can completely control, are not tomorrow’s trend.  But quite the opposite.  Ownership was diminished by the Marxists, including how pay was distributed or whether or not your employer could force you to get a vaccine of poison to keep your job.  The Marxists got caught talking out of both sides of their mouth; while they were saying work from home, fair pay for fair work, and make sure you get an excellent ESG score, the radical leftist Larry Fink and the Wall Street insurgents were saying, if you value your job, you’ll get the government medicine from the world’s largest drug dealer, the federal government.  People were willing to listen before and in the years leading up to these ridiculous sentiments of globalism on American corporations.  But now they aren’t, and success will be measured differently.  The less compliant with Marxist measures globally, the better companies will be.  And that is tomorrow’s trend for those who want to get a jump start.  Capitalism works not just because it makes money for those who utilize it.  But also, it’s a measure of morality that the public can influence, which was always at the heart of all economic activity and always will be.

Rich Hoffman

The West Chester Tea Party Does Not Endorse Lynda O’Conner for the Lakota School Board: And neither do I

For clarity, the West Chester Tea Party has not, and will not endorse Lynda O’Conner for the Lakota School Board.  There has been some rattling around from several people that they would, but they have told me personally that those rumors were untrue and they do not support her.  And neither do I.  We all have long friendships with Lynda and other candidates who these days call themselves Republicans but have drifted way to the political left.  But friendships or past relationships don’t make a good candidate.  Whether or not they represent our values to earn a vote is the issue at hand.  Too often, endorsements are given out because of friendships, not actual performance.  Lynda O’Conner has been the school board president for a while now, and she has attended Tea Party meetings in West Chester for over a decade and has formed relationships with many of us over the years.  However, based on her performance and what she did to Darbi Boddy as she begged us all to give her a conservative school board, the moment she had it, she essentially turned into the progressive governor that Ohio had, John Kasich, and betrayed us openly, even recklessly.  I tend to move on when I experience people like that.  I’ll give them a chance once, and once they show who they are, I don’t get too kinked up about it.  It’s always worth a try to give someone a chance.  Then, once they show who they are, you make decisions and move on.  Knowing she has betrayed many people in the Liberty movement within the Lakota school district and is running again, she is seeking endorsements for the upcoming election.  I had some reason to believe the rumors that the West Chester Tea Party might endorse Lynda, but quickly, they set the record straight and wanted to make sure they screamed from the mountaintops that they would not support Lynda O’Connor for the Lakota School Board and based on what they have learned about her, they never would. 

I wouldn’t usually talk about something that happened that was confidential, but looking back on it as I have, those privileges are meant within the context of friendly trust.  Yet after what happened with the previous Lakota school superintendent and the behavior against free speech that Lynda led against the incoming school board member Darbi Boddy, it’s clear what was going on, and I’m still insulted that she thought so little of me to try it.  I mean, she should have known better.  I spent hours and hours with Lynda O’Conner on the phone, meeting her in person, trying to help her.  But from her side, all she was doing was consensus-building in the classic sense against someone she had targeted as a political rival in the community.  And that didn’t become clear until the days after a specific meeting in the basement of some of our mutual Tea Party friends in May of 2022.  I should know what she was up to because I have covered these modern versions of The Delphi Technique for years.  It’s one of the most corrosive tools used in all public schools.  After a contentious school board meeting where I spoke in favor of Darbi Boddy, it was clear Lynda was trying to run her off the school board over minor issues.  Lynda had recruited Darbi to give her a majority on the board, along with Isaac Adi, and I did what I could to smooth out the edges and give credibility from the freedom movement side of things.  If I were on board with the effort, it would help the conservative base. 

I didn’t see a need to be overly cautious with this relationship with Lynda.  She had just spent the previous decade trying to win my trust, so I figured getting a functional, conservative school board in charge of Lakota schools was worth a shot.  Even that day I met with her and several other people, it became pretty clear what she was doing; I still wanted to give the effort a chance at working.  But she was looking for compliance out of Darbi Boddy to some liberal view of authority that was shocking to many of us, especially the West Chester Tea Party.  We all found ourselves in the basement of one of the leading members, with Isaac Adi and some school board mentor of his from Monroe schools pushing a sheet of paper in front of me, asking me what I wanted out of Lakota schools, which made me angry because of the amateur effort.  It was an apparent consensus-building exercise, much like the Lakota community conversations had been trying to win over opposition to school policy for a while.  And Lynda sat across from me with a smile, thinking all this was acceptable.  She had surrounded me with people I had trusted, especially in the Tea Party, and she felt that the peer pressure might win me over and away from the continued support of Darbi Boddy.  After all the years and everything I had written over all the time we had known each other, she thought I was that stupid. 

The meeting didn’t go well.  My wife and I left that day, never to speak to any of them personally again, because, within a few months, we had all the drama over the school superintendent.  Everything got worse after much further erosion in the community led by Lynda’s tampering with everyone’s political sentiments and wanting to pull everyone to the left, and lawsuits became a significant issue.  I had to explain to the attorney for the superintendent that if he had just apologized to Darbi Boddy for his role in trying to do what Lynda wanted, which was to remove her from the school board after many of us had spent the previous year trying to get her elected, then a lot of the trouble he found himself in wouldn’t have been such an issue.  But now that people knew and learned how much Lynda knew about it all along, those were self-inflicted problems that ultimately cost a lot of money in the district.  Through it all, I hadn’t talked to any of them in that basement meeting, so when I heard that the West Chester Tea Party was thinking of endorsing Lynda, it wouldn’t have surprised me after all the other people who had fallen off the wagon over the last year.  But if there is anything good that did happen, as a result, they did let me know that they felt the same way about Lynda as I did and that they would not support her or any of the other candidates who have gone over to the dark side of politics.  That’s certainly the case with Ann Becker, who is running for another term as trustee in West Chester.  She used to be president of the Tea Party for both West Chester and Cincinnati, but she has moved well away from those good old days now, more toward the political left.  Watching that kind of thing is painful, but it always happens.  And when it does, you always must wonder what people believe.  But happily, it is good to see that the West Chester Tea Party has not waivered, as others have, and they will not be endorsing Lynda O’Conner for the Lakota School Board.  And neither will I.

Rich Hoffman

Vote No on Recreational Marijuana in Ohio on November 7th: The world needs more shepherds, not more dope smoking sheep

There are few things I hate in the world as much as pot, so now that recreational marijuana will be on the ballot for the November 7th election, 2023, I will be an emphatic NO.  I’m against marijuana use in every way possible, especially recreationally.  I don’t care if you can make a rope out of it or clothes.  Marijuana is a horrendous drug.  I have about a third of my family members who either have used it or are using it.  Some for medical reasons because they have chronic pain, and my answer to them is all the same.  My relationship ends with them once they use it, which has been the case no matter who they were.  There are many things I can overlook, personal failures that I can sympathize with.  But the purposeful destruction of a mind is not one of them.  I have always been in the camp of capital punishment for drug dealers, even if small quantities might end up in the hands of kids.  But even further than that, I also feel that way about users.  Marijuana is a poison intended to decrease how a brain works and is detrimental to the human race.  I don’t care how natural it is. I’ve heard all the excuses about it making people “mellow.”  That the Indians used it and that its nature’s way of chilling out the world.  No thanks.  It didn’t help the Indians very much, and for what it did to them, bad people today want to do to the United States, which is the ultimate goal behind the mass destruction of America by its enemies.  The drug culture was a purposeful poison introduced to our country because nobody wanted to fight us on the battlefield after World War II.  So they plotted to ruin the minds of the youth, and the results are what we see today, several generations of people compromised by the drug.

I’ve never been a “libertarian,” a do-what-you-want-at-all-cost kind of guy.  I’ve always been a slave-destroying Republican promoting capitalist economies and an intellectual society smart enough to vote.  This live-and-let-live crap is for the birds.  If I smell marijuana, I get furious, even if it’s in my backyard.  I have gone to war, which is well chronicled in many courtrooms, police reports, and mayor’s offices over the last thirty years, and my thoughts on pot have never wavered.  I suppose my hatred of marijuana started in school as I watched kids in the back of the bus pass joints around.  It made them look stupid, and they were glad of it.  Then I saw a few Cheech and Chong movies which they seemed to want to copy, and I didn’t think they were funny in the slightest.  My earliest thoughts on pot are that it was a weapon given to American culture to poison it, and my observations have proven this to be the case over time.   I’m not unrealistic about marijuana; trying to find people who feel the same way I do about it is about as realistic as looking for a virgin in a whorehouse.  Just about everyone has at least tried it once or used it at a time in their lives.  Depending on what’s going on with people, they may come and go in their use of it.  The result is that most people don’t have strong opinions against it because they can’t afford to.  Well, I can.  I’ve never used it.  I have been in many bloody fights over it and was successful.  And I’m not changing my opinion about it now.  Once I find out that someone uses pot, they are dead to me, no matter who they are.

Marijuana is a poison meant to rob people of their intellect, and I would go as far as to say that it has no redeeming value.  Humans are supposed to be thinking creatures with dominion over nature.  Not a bunch of slack-jawed hippies stoned at a music festival.  Recreational marijuana use is an appalling concept.  If it doesn’t pass this time, it likely will in the future because many people out there are too weak to stand up to its temptations.  But there is nothing good about intoxication, not even with alcohol or prescription drugs.   And as I told a family member a few weeks ago, you don’t take marijuana under any circumstances; I don’t care how much pain you are in.  You fight through the pain and preserve your intellect.  I don’t care if marijuana is in a vaping condition or a little pill; you never take it.  It is a weapon of war against human civilization and was always meant to be that way.  I have lost many friends over my opinions about marijuana and am glad to have lost them.  I had some really close friends with whom I had gone through a lot when I was younger.  I went out to a movie, and when I returned to my apartment, I smelled pot in my bedroom, where I had a little parakeet bird.  While I was gone, they had tried to get the little bird stoned.  I moved out and never spoke to any of them ever again.  That is just one example.  Many similar situations go back to my essential hatred as a kid in watching how stupid people behaved when they used it and how it was a celebration of a lack of intellect.

I don’t care if Shakesphere smoked dope or Albert Einstein.  It doesn’t matter who it is; if they smoke dope and advocate for marijuana in any way, medicinally, recreationally, or historically, they are dead to me.  I have been let down by just about everyone in my life at some point over pot, and I’ve heard it often; maybe the problem is me.  Do you want to be the only one with such strong opinions?  Well, the answer is yes.  I would rather have nobody in my life and keep a strong intellect completely marijuana free than accept such a device to have a few worthless friends and family members.  Marijuana is the weapon of choice of people who want to control us, and they understand that using the drug lowers society’s IQ in general.  It slows down people and their thinking and makes them dumber.  And for me, that is the worst attribute any community could embrace.  So, I am a very emphatic no on recreational marijuana in Ohio.  I’m okay with that if I’m the only one who votes against it.  I will never accept pot in my culture and will work against it constantly.  Legalizing drugs, especially marijuana, is a race to the bottom by dumb people who want to hide their timidity in the collectivism of mass culture.  The more stoned people, the less guilty they feel for being diabolical losers.  That’s why they say, “Don’t judge.”  Well, I say, judge and judge often.  And don’t be a loser.  And the recreational use of marijuana is a choice to be dumb and to turn off your mind when the goal of existence is to think and create.  Marijuana is the opposite of those things, and once a state accepts it as a part of its culture, everything goes downhill. That is certainly the case for states that have already legalized it.  You can tell the moment you cross over their borders.  It would be terrible for Ohio, especially when companies have to deal with brain-dead employees who miss work too much and feel that they don’t have to pass a drug test to maintain employment.  Marijuana causes nothing but problems and should never be legalized in any way, shape, or form.  Anyone who advocates for marijuana consumption as a country, a state, or a personal right is attempting to destroy the consumer. The world needs more shepherds, not more sheep. And marijuana is for the sheep, those who would be herded to the slaughterhouse, which is just what the enemy wants.

Rich Hoffman

The Law of Fallow Ground in America: Corporations and Communist Governments are not in charge and never will be

One of the reasons I enjoy my time around Fast Draw Shooters, as a sport, is that most of them have reverence for old westerns and the values of the gunfighter instilling justice against bad guys as typically defined by a social dedication to the Ten Commandments.  I was at an event in Cleveland this past weekend, and we had a friendly little discussion going on about the moral erosion that is obvious to everyone.  Now these events are fun because everyone is armed with guns, and we wear our gun belts all day, and nobody thinks anything of it. It is productive because it puts me in the right frame of mind to discuss these things.  And I reminded people that the world isn’t as different as it always has been.  I reminded them of my report from traveling around the world that most countries, including England and Japan, love American Westerns, especially old ones.  If you turn on the tv in those places, you will constantly find a lot of old American Westerns playing.  Hollywood changed along the lines of the BlackRock view of radicalism that has caused much of the modern trouble.  But people are still people, and they always will be.  And I told these old gunfighters what I’m about to say to you, dear reader.  Never forget the Law of Fallow Ground, which, if you are a farmer or know farmers, is the deliberate rotation or avoidance of planting crops into the soil to allow it to replenish its nourishment.  If you keep growing the same crops in the same parcel of land over and over again, the product that comes out of the ground becomes compromised and much less efficient. 

I told those old gunfighters that America was going through just such a period.  For many years we planted good things in the ground of capitalism, and the return to society was fantastic, and the world clamored to be a part of it.  Our old westerns were reflective of that culture.  People always did love them, and they always will.  The decision not to make those Westerns by a radicalized leftist culture of communist sympathizers run by financial tyrants is a kind of Law of Fallow Ground in the greater scheme of things.  This is a period in America where we are letting the soil rest.  For too long, Americans got used to everything coming out of America being good.  It will be again, of course, the yearnings of the Trump administration and his supporters represent that hunger.  But the world needed a break from what America produced because they didn’t appreciate it when they had it.  People are seeing how good those crops were and having conversations like the one I was having with those gunfighters, talking about how messed up the world is now, they are getting hungry for the good stuff.  They should have appreciated America when America was producing good crops.  They are not happy with this Fallow Ground period.  And when America is great again, maybe they won’t take things for granted as they have been.

I was getting a hamburger just north of Columbus, Ohio, at a Hardees, and I caught a conversation with a woman with the cashier complaining about how high the prices were for fast food these days, and she was shocked.  On the store sound system was a station playing 80s greatest hits because music isn’t very relatable these days, just like the westerns that used to be expected on television.  Occasionally something good comes out in entertainment, but most of it is garbage compared to how it used to be.  The people at that Hardees were far from political people, but they missed the excellent ol’ days when fast food was cheap, great music came out every week, and people had a generally optimistic view of things socially.  Human potential was celebrated, and American culture cultivated it in everything from hamburgers to pop music.  This was never more obvious than our plans for a Disney trip with the grandkids we had been planning for a while.  I have personally been very hard on Disney.  When I think of Disney programming, I think of Davy Crocket and the Zorro television show.  As a little secret that I don’t usually talk about, I was deeply inspired as a kid by the Zorro television show, and it’s no accident that my life as an adult reflects those values.  So despite all the woke garbage that Disney puts out now, I want them to see the amusement parks while they are still there.  Yes, I predict they will be gone in the not-so-distant future.  They will not survive this Fallow Ground period because they took people for granted.  People are moving on since Disney no longer represents those classic American values.  I have been shocked by how badly Disney has fallen on vacation planning.  Their brand damage is substantial and unrecoverable.   They haven’t planted anything new for a long time, and their crops are stunted, wilted, and not consumable.  So, they are dying.  Ten years ago, planning a Disney vacation was a much different experience.  They are almost begging people to visit now, which they never used to.  But in many ways, what is happening to Disney will happen to every American corporation.  This plot to collapse capitalism into a communist centrally planned society was destined to fail from the outset. 

Just because people see a barren landscape and that the Law of Fallow Ground was imposed on a culture by a hostile society, such as the levels of Marxism we now see injected into the American economy by radical leftists; the unfortunate answer is that we needed to let this happen so that we could restore greatness to the soil of our economy.  Giving the soil time to rest by allowing other things to grow, mostly garbage has been good because people will appreciate the good stuff when it returns.  And it will return.  Companies like Disney will likely be gone forever, as will many companies that have tried to take advantage of this Fallow Ground period and grow weeds in our gardens.  But once pulled and cleared, many companies won’t be there any longer.  But the values of our culture, shown in all those American Westerns which people worldwide appreciate so much, will return in whatever form they grow into.  And as I told those gunslingers, the values are still desired.  Because communist corporations have tried to plant weeds in our culture, people will tire quickly of their offerings and want a restoration of the good stuff.  So I don’t see all this depletion as permanent.  It’s a trait of the Law of Fallow Ground.  It’s a necessary period that people need to gain an appreciation for what America has produced in the past.  Once our culture makes those things again, people will appreciate it more because now they will have seen the option.  When Zorro was on television for the first time, produced by Disney, people expected a good society that understood why that show was essential and enjoyed.  Now they see the benefits and want more of it in the future.  The lesson is that corporations and communist governments are not in charge.  The market economy is the desires of people and values that most represent them.  And what we see today is just the Law of Fallow Ground, and the good crops from that ground will return. 

Rich Hoffman

It’s Not About Unity in the Community or the Power of a Vocal Minority: But entirely a standard of right and wrong

This will be a nice yard sign for Trump supporters who can’t wait for next year to vote for, or against some anti-American political enemy.

Because I, like many people involved, I must at least provide fair warning. Enjoying people is one thing; agreeing with them is an entirely different matter. This was grotesquely obvious while driving by Lakota West in West Chester, Ohio, on August 8th, 2023, where the special election was a significant focus. As far as the eye could see from the road were Vote No signs, a blatant reminder that the progressive government school there is a factory of liberal politics intent to convert confiscated wealth from property owners and to turn it into Democrat activism. And many Republican-leaning people have been suckered into the game, even to support it against conservative, traditional values. Even on issues like Issue 1, which would have made it more difficult to change the Ohio Constitution, Lakota schools are aggressive in favor of change. That’s the purpose of their existence, to change our traditional American culture into some monstrosity of liberalism. And that election day was just a reminder of that sentiment and the genuine catastrophe of the upcoming fall election in November. Lynda O’Conner is up for re-election, and many people close to the matter have been hoping that she wouldn’t run because the opposition against her is on a crusade that has not been seen at Lakota in all the years of its existence. Before things get too messy here, I would call to mind a few monumental memories of the past, such as when the Tea Party had to take a stand against John Kasich after he turned into a progressive after his loss with the state labor unions. They turned him into a progressive pretzel, and many of us worked hard to destroy him because we had to. In a few short years, you don’t see him around anymore. And many of the people who are now pushing for Lynda O’Conner to be re-elected this fall, after all that’s happened, went after Speaker of the House John Boehner and essentially knocked him out of the Republican Party because he was too much of a RINO.

The plan is for these to be everywhere

It’s an old game; we all get it. Friendships are made with people who are politically dangerous so that they can be controlled and perhaps worked against their original positions. And that certainly has been the case with the Butler County Republican Party. It’s always tempting to be invited to the cool kids’ table just so they can control you, not because they really like you. I just spoke about an excellent event with Nancy Nix where some of us have had some cantankerous hostilities toward each other. But at that event, we put a lot of that aside and had a nice evening together and enjoyed the comedians who were performing. It was a nice story. But all that is about to go sideways with Lynda O’Conner, which is fine. But the belief that friendships and private meetings would turn the resistance against her into captured assets of compliance with party sentiments was ill-advised and has only stirred up the hornet’s nest. The people involved with this next generation’s fight against the progressive objectives of Lakota schools will not be enamored with the shiny keys of friendship and gaining a seat at the table with the cool kids of power. The people I know standing against Lynda O’Conner for this upcoming election have a moral problem with her. It goes far beyond even calling her a RINO. They are not interested in Unity for the Community or coming together as a Republican party; this is all about right and wrong and standing up to the intrusions of a progressive political machine that works against conservative values in every way possible. And the passion is much greater than in those days of Governor Kasich and John Boehner. Many of the people involved in those old battles are now part of the cool kid’s club, and they like it, and they are supporting Lynda for the upcoming election and have been whispering in her ear and thinking that little secret meetings and emails of consensus building might work as it had on them in the past. I heard about some of these attempts while driving by Lakota West on that August election day, and I feel compelled to warn everyone that this is different, and there will be severe brand damage in the aftermath. This is unlike anything yet experienced in politics, which says a lot. And I don’t think many people understand.

There is a really graphic version of this one that will be used later

The advice that I have been giving to people is that this is a throw-away election. If a new school board will not work with a three to two majority to eliminate excessive administrators to save runaway cost losses at the government schools, then what’s the point of any of it? Cutting 20 or 30 equity and inclusion administrative hires could save many millions of dollars, which Lakota needs to do. But there are a lot of soft-shelled tacos out there, some in the GOP who would be running as Democrats if it wasn’t Butler County who want to feel good about themselves by supporting a big government school. The trans issue has been a challenge forcing people’s real politics to emerge along those lines. I would say that because of the way everyone has treated Darbi Boddy as a school board member to let them choke on it. Let the rope go and let Lakota destroy itself; let the liberals have their way. Let them do what Biden has done to the country because then and only then will people wake up. The campaign to fight them will become more apparent when people see what they are about and can’t focus their union efforts of progressivism against someone like Darbi. And for the soft-shelled types who want to support Lakota under Lynda’s leadership, the tax levy they have in mind will change their sentiments quickly. And we’ll be back to fighting tax increases instead of legitimately trying to control the costs.

The people I have been talking to who are thinking of running and don’t think they have much of a chance, I have told them the same thing I’ve said to Lynda in the past. The union threshold is around 7000 voters. That is a baked-in number. If you want to beat them, you must get over 8000 voters, however possible. Lynda hopes to blend that a bit with GOP support, and enough RINO types are willing to cross that line because they don’t want more of a fight than what we have seen so far with Darbi on the board. Yet Lynda’s role against Darbi has woken up something new in the Lakota school district that goes far beyond typical political disagreements. Something that traditional politics has no way of dealing with. This is a battle over ethics and the essence of right and wrong, and the way Lynda handled the superintendent issue and the protection of children at Lakota is a deeply emotional issue that there is no compromise on. This isn’t like the days when the Tea Party wanted John Boehner out, and a more Tea Party type like Warren Davidson was put in, and everyone shook hands and ate a sandwich together. This is more of a civil war, casualties included. Many Lyin’ Lynda types have been waiting for this opportunity, and it’s only fair to warn everyone involved. Because I generally like everyone involved. But right and wrong are not negotiable. That’s certainly always been my position. If people wanted to be friends, okay, I’ve been willing. But I’ve never been willing to compromise right and wrong as determined by conservative, Republican politics. I’ve never been some dope-smoking libertarian. I’ve always been a traditional Republican party supporter. However, some of this new generation are perfectly willing to abandon any pretense of friendship to defend traditional, conservative values. And they are far more interested in doing what is suitable than compromising with what’s wrong to have unity in the community and an intact Republican party. And I provide that warning with sincerity for the good things in the past that have been done and the good memory of them.

These are the kind of teachers Lynda, Julie and Doug want teaching your kids at Lakota. Here is a recently hired teacher at Endeavor Elementary

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

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Larry Fink: The President of the World and power of the new country, BlackRock–as created by the Fed

Here’s the problem with the Federal Reserve, and it goes back to 1913, when after many attempts at centralized banking, the Fed was created to handle monetary policy.  And it hasn’t been an experiment that worked, it simply ushered in a communist approach to banking that was aligned with a progressive invasion of the United States at the turn of the last century, and essentially the policy of the Fed has been to cover up its many mistakes over that entire duration.  I am not so much of an anti-Fed guy.  I think a country needs to manage its money supply.  But letting the banks form a partnership with the government has been disastrous, and the ultimate form of that destruction was in the creation of Larry Fink, the most dangerous man in the world.  Larry Fink would be nobody if not for the Fed.  Jerome Powell, Janet Yellen, and Ben Bernanke used reckless quantitative easing to print endless amounts of money and pour it into Wall Street, where people like Fink would flow it into the economy.  And the net result of that scandalous activity has made BlackRock, the company Larry Fink manages that controls around a ten trillion dollars of assets, the most politically active company in the world, and Larry Fink is far more powerful than an American president, even to the point where this unregulated power can then control elections and policy that superseded the American constitution in dangerous ways.  By printing phony money and giving it to people like Fink to manage, the Fed gave the government power it never would have had otherwise, and now the results are out of control.  Most of the bad things we are seeing now in the political world are because of Larry Fink, his connection to the World Economic Forum, and a leftist radicalism that is being imposed on people that they would never vote for. 

People are starting to get it when these are the discussions on the Joe Rogan podcast, which discussed this topic recently.  People are now seeing how out of control this Larry Fink thing is.  Larry Fink, because of BlackRock and the way the Fed made it powerful with Modern Monetary Theory, and that it now manages the money in China, as the only money manager that can do so, is essentially the president of the world, ruling behind the scenes and imposing politics that is far removed from any representative form of government.  This was a hostile takeover using Larry Fink as the figurehead to do what people like Napolean, or Genghis Kahn, the legendary figure in history, known for his conquests and his role in founding the Mongol Empire. He was a skilled warrior and a brilliant strategist, and his military campaigns changed the course of history. Despite his reputation as a ruthless conqueror, Genghis Kahn is still remembered as one of the most influential figures in world history. Alexander the Great similarly comes to mind.  Larry Fink is right there with the rest of them. Still, he was not a warrior; he was a person willing to carry the water of the shadow government running behind the Fed. This corporate alliance sought to take power in the world, and they made their move by propping up Larry to be that new world conqueror.    

And you conquer this new world by not taking over countries.  You ignore the politics of nations, take away the people’s will, and take control of where they work, how they spend their money, and on what.  Larry wanted to be in politics during college and just happened to be in a position to acquire wealth through Wall Street.  He only had success once he was willing to partner with the Fed after the housing collapse of 2008.  But what risk was there really when the Fed was ready to print infinite amounts of wealth and pump it into Wall Street through Larry and his friends?  The writing is certainly on the wall with this one, much more dramatic than in Nebuchadnezzar’s time, the attackers planned the downfall of America, and the plan was to cover it all up before people realized it with Central Bank Digital Currency.  It was a different kind of war which Fink has been talking about in his letters to CEOs, such as the one in 2022, “In consultation with our stakeholders, BlackRock has also joined the global effort to isolate Russia from financial markets, the ramifications of this war are not limited to Eastern Europe, they are layered on top of a pandemic that has already had profound effects on political, economic, and social trends.  The impact will reverberate for decades to come in ways we can’t yet predict.”  Then ultimately, Fink finished up his address by saying, “As I wrote in my letter to CEOs earlier this year, (2022) access to capital markets is a privilege, not a right.  And following Russia’s invasion, we saw how the private sector quickly terminated long-standing business and investment relationships” to implement political objectives.  I’ve read all of Larry’s dumb letters to CEOs each year and always thought of him as a fool.  But he’s a very politically active fool who was given the power of money through fake monetary Fed policy to take global military power through the private sector to bypass the actions of war generally regulated to countries to play out. 

That is why Larry Fink, the very left-leaning political activist that nobody voted for, is directly connected to the radical Marxist activism of the World Economic Forum and was given the power by the Fed, which is also connected to the World Economic Forum, and strategies by China for global communism is the most dangerous person in the world.  He now manages most of our 401K plans and conquers us by capturing wealth, part of his leftist ideology, whether we like it or not.  And now that BlackRock is the majority shareholder of most American corporations, he has taken away the average shareholder values and converted them to ESG-driven stakeholder values.  And at some point, people will be furious at Larry Fink and the Fed.  But they hope that before people figure out what they have been doing, America will be on a digital dollar, and they can hide their scam behind the push of a button where a centralized authority will control all value for all money.  So while the world looks at the conflict in Ukraine, the potential conflict in Taiwan by China, or the latest missile flight in North Korea, the real fight has been by BlackRock, led by Larry Fink, to take over the world’s supply of money, and to place it in the hands of the real threat in the world, the World Economic Forum.  And because we are all a little complicit in the action because of our money management, we tend not to look at it in favor of a more classic interpretation of war.  But those wars no longer matter.  The real fight is with finance, who controls it.  Larry Fink is now more powerful than any president in the world, and he knows it.  But he didn’t get that way from well-fought battles as a master strategist.  But because he was willing to be the bag man for the Fed, which is a power they never should have had in the first place. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

It’s a Wonderful Life in Butler County, Ohio: Because Nancy Nix is in it

I don’t usually talk about the social life that goes on at fundraisers for the GOP, but there were so many interesting stories at the latest Nancy Nix event at the Elks Club in Hamilton, Ohio, in Liberty Township. But there was a moment of absolute truth that was worth recognition. At this event, some hilarious comedians told great jokes that made the audience laugh hard. But hidden in those exchanges was talk about the movie It’s a Wonderful Life that was applied to the life of Nancy Nix and was very accurate. Like all comedy, the truest things are often the funniest because of their roots in the things many people hope to remain secret. But in talking about them in a comic setting, the mass exposure to truth sets off the relief valve, and people bond due to the shared experience. And ironically, then, while people are sharing those unique moments of honesty, it opens the door to profound truths, and that was the comparison of Nancy Nix to the character from that excellent Christmas movie to George Baily, the honest banker from the fictional town of Bedford Falls. Nancy is now the auditor for Butler County, Ohio, as she has been the treasurer for many years. And the people in the room at her fundraiser were all influencers to a vast degree, and it was a moment where your life flashes in front of everyone, and a potent truth becomes apparent, what would the world be like without you and in the case of Nancy, how much better is Butler County, Ohio because she is in it. And the answer is cinematically evident in the ways that happy endings to movies are most hoped for. Only this was reality.

Things have been contentious in the Butler County Republican Party this past year. You can tell that without a Republican in the White House to set the temperature in the room of politics; people have drifted. When Trump was president, more Republicans were unified toward an America First agenda than they have been in the year of indictments, now that Covid has been over and another election year was coming up. Biden has been a massive but predictable failure, and Republicans, through federal, state, and local elections, were finding themselves lost a bit, and there have been some significant disagreements. There was nothing so wrong that they couldn’t shake hands at the next event, such as the Nancy Nix fundraiser. But some of them were very serious and contentious within local party politics. And in some cases, there were very emotional disagreements, politics as a blood sport was messy, and people were hurt in the process, which brings up the entire problem of whether or not people should even get along if they’ve done terrible things to each other. Is it even honest, moral, or proper to think such things? In many ways, the problems that George Baily had at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life, the entire premise of the movie was that he wanted to commit suicide because he was being crushed by the immense evil in the world, and his good sensibilities just couldn’t hold up to the pressure. For a dramatic comedy, that is a severe way to start or end the movie. And those same themes were undoubtedly in the air at Nancy’s fundraiser. What was the purpose of party politics if so many people disagreed with each other within their party? Was it more important to be authentic to your beliefs or to find a way to get along?

Ironically, the solution to George Baily’s condition was to see how the world would be without him, to be shown how much his impact on his community was better because he was in it.  And if he had committed suicide, so many lives would fall apart, and much evil would be unleashed.  But authentically, that was what happened at the fundraiser for Nancy Nix; through the comedy of some very talented people, the life of Nancy Nix was put into a sharp focus by how the room had united behind her, and people put aside their differences, if just for a few hours because she is a genuinely good person who makes Butler County so much better. After all, she is in it.  And the comedy of the evening was essentially a celebration of her life, even if moment to moment it doesn’t feel like it, or it doesn’t seem as though anybody ever cares to do the right thing.  When someone like Nancy Nix is being celebrated, it all comes into focus, and the best in people finds its way to the surface.  And the world is indeed a much better place.  It is a wonderful life, and when many talented people find focus through friendships, it makes life better for everyone else, especially Butler County. 

I enjoyed talking to some people I hadn’t seen in a while, primarily because of all the contentious issues.  I stay pretty busy anyway, and my wife and I have been traveling for most of the summer.  So it was good to see so many people again in one place and to see them generally happy and unified.  That is what politics is all about, managing community resources and nothing more.  All the personal needs don’t mean anything because the entire effort is about ensuring people get what they need out of government.  It gets complicated because politics is a popularity contest, and you have to raise money, work with other people, and find a way to work with others who are all doing the same things.  Maintaining authenticity can be difficult under the best circumstances, so I’m pretty forgiving of mistakes because there is often so much pressure, and things go wrong.  But often, good intent does improve the world positively for people in general.  And I couldn’t think of anybody in that room, which is most of the major players of Butler County, who weren’t doing what they did with the best of intent, from their perspective.  When we talk about the path to Hell being paved with good intentions, that is often how everyone arrives there.  But what prevents hell from happening is when those good intentions are focused behind the efforts of a genuinely good person, such as Nancy Nix.  And she is the real deal.  Whatever preferences other people have, like in the famous Jimmy Stewart movie, their efforts are made better when a good person is the glue that holds them all together.  And that is the role Nancy Nix has in Butler County politics.  It’s why Butler County is one of the best Republican Parties in the nation and continues to do great work for the people who vote.  Butler County has many talents, which is always apparent when they find themselves in one place together.  The difference in leadership is when it becomes evident that Nancy Nix, like the fictional character of George Baily, is not such a fantasy but a reality in Butler County after all.  And sometimes, we do get happy endings, and everyone is better for it, which was evident at the Nancy Nix fundraiser.  We have much to be proud of regarding the Butler County Republican Party and that life is worth living, rather than jumping off a bridge because it doesn’t always feel that way.  

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business