I have been sitting with Sheriff Richard K. Jones’s book for about 24 hours now, turning the pages the way a man turns over an old photograph that still has the power to surprise him. They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America is not a polished political memoir written by committee. It is the voice of a man who has spent a lifetime walking the same ground I have walked in Butler County, speaking the same language of family, order, and personal accountability that once held communities together before the experts decided those things were negotiable. Jones has always been the Sheriff who runs his office the way Andy Griffith ran Mayberry and Marshall Dillon ran Dodge City, with a healthy dose of Waffle House common sense thrown in for good measure. You show up, you tell the truth, you do the job, and you do not apologize for the results. That approach has kept Butler County safer than most places that spend three times the money and twice the consultants, and it is why so many of us who live here still call him simply Jones.
What kept pulling me back to the book was not the policy talk or the war stories about the jail, though those are solid enough. It was the cautionary tales about family and the slow corrosion of the values that once made a man accountable to his own house before he tried to run anyone else’s. Jones and I share a deep and permanent hatred of the drug culture that has hollowed out so many families in this county and across the country. We have both watched too many good people lose children, lose marriages, lose the simple ability to look their grandchildren in the eye without shame. He writes about those losses without the usual soft language of the therapeutic class. He writes like a man who has had to clean up the mess afterward. That kind of honesty is rare now, and it is the reason the book feels less like a campaign document and more like a dispatch from someone who has been on the wall for a long time and is finally willing to say what he has seen.
But the story that made me laugh out loud, the one that sent me straight back to October of 2016, is the one about the night he opened for Donald Trump at U.S. Bank Arena. I was there. Not in the sense that I was sitting in the same row or riding in the same car. I was backstage, working the edges of the same event, trying to find a quiet corner where I could take a conference call with people on the other side of the world while the whole building shook. And I watched the exchange Jones describes in the book unfold in real time.
It was Thursday, October 13, 2016. The Access Hollywood tape had dropped only six days earlier, on October 7, and the professional political class was still in full panic. Most of the Ohio Republican establishment had already decided Trump was finished. They had lined up behind Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, or John Kasich, the local favorite who was still twisting arms for support even as the primary season was long over. Supporting Trump in those weeks was not the fashionable choice. It was the choice that got you labeled a crank, a risk, a man who did not understand how power actually worked. Senator George Lang, I, and a handful of others had been in that camp early. We had met Trump, sat with him, watched him operate before the primaries even heated up in Ohio. We knew the ground. Most of the smart people in the room did not.
Jones was one of the few who never flinched. By the time the campaign asked him to warm up the crowd at U.S. Bank Arena, the atmosphere was thick with the kind of nervous energy that only comes when the people in charge are not sure the candidate is going to survive the next news cycle. The director of the program that night wanted a script. He wanted to know exactly what the Sheriff was going to say. He wanted control. Jones looked at him the way he has looked at a thousand people who try to put a leash on him and said, essentially, that is not how I work. I talk from the hip. I have been talking all year. You tell me how long you need and I will fill the time. I do not need a teleprompter or your talking points.
I was standing close enough to hear the exchange while they were trying to get me upstairs to a box where I could take that overseas call. Giuliani was somewhere in the mix. The production people were frantic. Trump’s plane was still in the air. The arena was filling from the floor to the upper decks, and the noise was already starting to build. Jones went out there anyway. He did not have a prepared speech. He walked onto the stage and did the thing he has always done: he talked to the people the way a man talks to his neighbors when the subject is serious. Fifteen minutes turned into something closer to thirty. The crowd answered him the way Butler County has always answered him. They roared. From the high box where I finally closed the windows and tried to finish my call, Jones looked like a small figure on a distant stage, but the sound of that arena was impossible to shut out. I had the volume turned up on my headset and still could barely hear the people on the other end of the line. Part of me was irritated that my business meeting was being drowned out by a Sheriff who refused to stay on script. Most of me was very proud.
Trump claimed the crowd that night was 21,000, with thousands more outside who could not get in. Mike Pence put the number around 19,000 the next morning. The arena’s concert capacity sits somewhere in the neighborhood of 17,500, and some of the upper seats behind the stage were empty according to the reporters who were counting chairs instead of energy. The exact headcount is the kind of detail the media loves to argue about when they do not want to talk about what the crowd actually felt. What I saw from that box was a building packed tight enough that the noise had nowhere to go but up. People had not been paid to be there. They had not been bused in. They had decided that the Access Hollywood tape and the coordinated media effort to sink the candidate were not going to decide the election for them. Jones understood that before most of the professionals in the room did.
I have watched Jones make hard calls for more than twenty years. We have not always stood on the same side of every primary or every local fight. There have been nights when we were polite but cool because we were representing different candidates or different issues on the ballot. We have always found our way back to the common ground, because the common ground is larger than the temporary disagreements. Supporting Trump when it was still radioactive inside the Ohio Republican Party was one of those moments when the ground became visible. The same people who told us we were going to destroy our own political futures are now the ones who want their picture taken with the man. That is how these things usually go. The smart set picks the wrong horse for the wrong reasons, and then they rewrite the story after the race is over.
Jones has always had a gift for seeing through the fog. When Corey Lewandowski came through Ross’ Big Bull later, the first person he sought out was the same Sheriff who had refused to read from a script on a night when the campaign was still bleeding. That is the kind of quiet authority that does not show up on a résumé. It shows up when the building is full, and the professionals are nervous, and somebody still has to walk out there and speak without a net.
I recommend the book without reservation. Read the parts about family and the slow destruction of the old rules. Read the parts about the jail and the daily work of keeping order in a county that still believes order is possible. And read the part about that night at U.S. Bank Arena, because it captures something essential about the man. He is not a performer. He is not a consultant’s idea of a lawman. He is the product of a certain kind of American stubbornness that refuses to be managed, and on the nights when it matters most, that stubbornness turns out to be the smartest thing in the room.
I was proud of him that night. I am proud of him for putting the story down on paper without sanding off the edges. Some of us were right when it was expensive to be right. Ten years later, it is still a pleasure to remember it.
Footnotes
1. Richard K. Jones, They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America (publication details as available through standard retail channels, 2025–2026). The account of the U.S. Bank Arena appearance appears in the sections dealing with early Trump support and the political pressures of the 2016 general election campaign.
2. The Access Hollywood recording was published by The Washington Post on October 7, 2016. See “Donald Trump recorded having extremely lewd conversation about women in 2005,” Washington Post, October 7, 2016.
3. Attendance estimates for the October 13, 2016, rally at U.S. Bank Arena (now Heritage Bank Center) varied. Trump publicly claimed 21,000 inside with additional thousands outside; Mike Pence cited approximately 19,000 the following day. Contemporary reporting noted the arena’s concert configuration capacity near 17,500 and observed some empty upper-level seats. See “How many people attended Trump’s Cincy rally? No one seems to agree,” WCPO, October 13–14, 2016; and arena capacity data from Heritage Bank Center / U.S. Bank Arena historical records.
4. Photographic and contemporaneous coverage confirming Sheriff Jones’s appearance as a speaker that evening can be found in the Cincinnati Enquirer photo gallery, “Trump supporters rally at U.S. Bank Arena,” October 13, 2016, and related local television reports from WCPO and WLWT.
5. On the broader context of early Ohio support for Trump amid establishment resistance, see contemporaneous reporting on the positions of figures such as then-Senator Rob Portman, Governor John Kasich, and local Republican organizational dynamics in the weeks following the Access Hollywood release.
Selected Bibliography for Further Reading
Jones, Richard K. They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America.
Fahrenthold, David A. “Trump recorded having extremely lewd conversation about women in 2005.” The Washington Post, October 7, 2016.
“How many people attended Trump’s Cincy rally?” WCPO 9 News, October 2016.
Heritage Bank Center (formerly U.S. Bank Arena) venue history and capacity documentation.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
I first learned that Sheriff Richard K. Jones had put a book out when a few people in the county mentioned it in passing, and the moment I heard the title I knew I would read it. They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America arrived on the front porch the day my family and I returned from being out of town at Put-in-Bay, in Ohio. I had ordered it so it would be waiting, because I had already promised myself and others that I would get through it promptly. After more than two decades of knowing the man, shaking his hand at events, watching him work a room in that cowboy hat of his, and hearing him on WLW or in national spots talking immigration and law and order, I still carried questions about how he became who he is, what shaped the priorities he brings to the office every morning, and how a man decides day to day what matters most when the badge is on. The book answered more of those questions than casual conversation ever could.
What struck me first is that this is not merely a campaign volume or a greatest-hits collection of media appearances. It reads like a man who has spent a lifetime speaking into microphones and cameras finally realizing that the voice does not last forever. There is a quiet urgency underneath the stories. He talks about the burial plot, about the friend at the funeral home who will one day see him prepared for the last service. He is only a little more than a decade older than I am, yet the public job ages a person in ways private life does not. Six terms as sheriff of Butler County, with the possibility of more, still brings the knowledge that one day the hat comes off for the last time. Writing the book becomes a way of leaving the voice behind so that the things he believes still matter after the daily briefings and the press conferences stop.
I have always liked the Gunsmoke in him. He admits the debt openly. The old black-and-white shows, the clear line between the man who upholds the law and the men who break it, the sense that a sheriff walks the street and talks to people and puts things right when he can. Andy Griffith is there too, the Mayberry instinct to put an arm around the troubled soul and try to set him back on the path. Those two shows formed a generation of men who believed law enforcement could be both firm and decent. Jonesy lives that combination more than most. He is black-and-white on the big questions. Drugs destroy families and communities; illegal immigration brings more of the same; the jail is full of people who made choices that wrecked their own lives and the lives of others. Yet the book reveals a softer edge than the public persona sometimes allows. He is a compassionate conservative in the older sense of the term. He wants the county to feel more like the place he grew up, where most of the kids he knew had parents who stayed married twenty or thirty years and worked through their troubles instead of walking away at the first hard stretch.
That observation about divorce rates is one of the strongest passages. He watched the numbers climb across his adult lifetime and saw the downstream damage in the jail, in the overdose calls, in the children who never had a stable home to push against. Stable families produce the work ethic and the self-control that keep a community from tipping into chaos. When the marriages fracture as a matter of course, the sheriff’s office ends up dealing with the wreckage. He does not present himself as a sociologist, but the pattern is plain to anyone who has spent decades answering the same kinds of calls. The data back the instinct. The sharp rise in divorce after the introduction of no-fault laws, the parallel growth in single-parent households, and the measurable links to higher rates of juvenile trouble, drug use, and later criminality are not left-wing inventions or right-wing inventions. They are simply what happened.
I share the same cultural memory. I grew up with Gunsmoke playing in the background at my grandparents’ place near Oxford, rabbit ears and all, the same black-and-white morality on the screen while the adults talked about the real world. The shows did not prepare a man for the full depth of certain modern evils. Pornography addiction of the kind that turns a phone into a nonstop delivery system, and the further slide into the sexual exploitation of children, sit outside the frame of those old stories. Jonesy is of an era when a teenager might sneak a look at a dirty magazine on a high shelf in an old bookstore hoping that the cashier wouldn’t catch them. The scale and the numbness of what exists now are harder for that generation to metabolize, not because the men lack courage, but because the evil itself is newer in its accessibility and its intensity. He is devastatingly clear on drugs. On the deeper sexual corruptions that have grown in the last thirty years, the book leaves the impression of a man who sees the damage and still struggles to find language adequate to the thing itself. That is not a failing of character. It is the honest limit of a worldview formed before the internet made every darkness instantly available.
His record on the drug side is long and consistent. The seizures, the public messaging, the refusal to treat overdose deaths as inevitable background noise, all of it tracks with the same black-and-white view. He has been equally consistent on illegal immigration, which is why the national media found him useful for color and why the comparisons to Joe Arpaio sometimes surface. Arpaio paid a political and legal price for enforcing the same principles under a different administration; the pardon that followed was a recognition that the prosecution had been selective. Jonesy has not faced that level of federal hostility, and Butler County is not Maricopa. The local political climate has allowed him to keep doing the work. I expect him to keep winning as long as he wants the job, and I hope that is for a good while yet. The county is better for his presence.
There is a section on the COVID years that brought back the tension of those days. He kept the office functioning, kept the messaging straightforward, and refused to let the panic dictate every decision. Leadership under that kind of pressure reveals the man. The same instinct shows up in the smaller habits. He likes the Waffle House on Main Street in Hamilton enough that they named an omelet after him. I understand the attraction. Walk in, sit at the counter, talk to the cooks and the waitresses and whoever else is there about the country and the county and what needs fixing. It is the modern version of the saloon without the whiskey, a place where a sheriff can still be a citizen among citizens. I took my granddaughter to a Waffle House on a trip toward Columbus for the same reason. The American flags and the unapologetic patriotism on the walls feel like home. Jonesy belongs in that atmosphere the same way he belongs in the cowboy hat.
The book is full of the personal details that never surface in a sound bite. Garfield High School. The long marriage. The children and grandchildren. The zoo trips. The quiet pride in having built a life that looks something like the ones he saw around him as a boy. He is not trying to present himself as a sophisticated theorist. He is trying to say that the old model still works if enough people insist on it. Strong families, clear laws, a sheriff who shows up every day ready to lock up the people who refuse to live by them, and a willingness to put an arm around the ones who might still be pulled back. That combination is rarer than it should be.
I have found myself on the opposite side of primary fights from time to time, the normal friction of people who share a party but not always a candidate. None of that changed the basic respect. The man has brought real public relations value to the office and to the county. When national outlets need a sheriff who will speak plainly about the border or the drug crisis, they know where to find him. Locally he has kept the department visible and the standards high. The book makes plain that the visibility is not an end in itself. It is a tool for keeping the public on the side of the people who have to make the hard calls at three in the morning.
Some of my favorite people. And I never get tired of Sheriff Jones.
What lingers after the last page is the sense of a man measuring the distance between the county he inherited and the county he will leave. He wants the next generation of law enforcement and the next generation of citizens to remember that the job is still worth doing it the old way. The book is his attempt to make that memory portable. It is not perfect. No book written by a working sheriff in the middle of the job is going to be. It is honest in the places that matter. The love of the old shows, the sadness over the collapse of stable families, the daily refusal to treat drug dealers as unfortunate victims of circumstance, the recognition that the voice will one day go quiet, all of it lands cleanly.
If the goal is still to make the country better starting from the ground up, then more sheriffs who think like this would help. Fix the families and a large part of the downstream crime and addiction begins to shrink. Keep the border and the drug pipelines under pressure. Keep the local office present and accountable. Jonesy has practiced that combination for a long time in one midwestern county. The book lets the rest of the country see the method without the filter of a three-minute television hit. I finished it glad I had waited for the porch delivery, and gladder still that the man who wrote it is still on the job. Butler County has been better for it. The country would be better if more places had the same standard.
I will keep endorsing him for as many terms as he chooses to run. The hat still fits. The instincts are still sound. And the book ensures that even after the last term the voice remains available to anyone willing to listen. Which they should.
Notes
1. Richard K. Jones, They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America (2026). Official description and author framing appear at theycallmejonesy.com and the Amazon listing for the title.
2. Biographical details drawn from the Butler County Sheriff’s Office official profile and contemporary reporting: born October 11, 1953, Hamilton, Ohio; military service 1973–1975; long career in Ohio corrections before becoming chief deputy and then sheriff in 2005; multiple reelections including the 2020 cycle that secured a fifth term.
3. Comparison to Joe Arpaio references the 2017 presidential pardon following the contempt conviction tied to immigration enforcement practices under the prior administration. See White House statement of August 25, 2017, and contemporaneous coverage.
4. Historical divorce and family-structure trends are well documented in Census and CDC data showing the post-1960s acceleration after no-fault divorce reforms, the rise in single-parent households, and correlated social outcomes. See also the long-term cultural commentary in works such as Charles Murray’s Coming Apart and the earlier observations of Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
5. Jones’s public commentary on immigration, fentanyl, and COVID-era policy is extensively recorded in local outlets (Journal-News, Local 12), national appearances, and the sheriff’s own podcast In the Saddle.
Bibliography for Further Reading
Arpaio, Joe, and Tom Fitton. Joe’s Law: America’s Toughest Sheriff Takes On Illegal Immigration, Drugs, and Everything Else That Threatens America. New York: AMACOM, 2008.
Murray, Charles. Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010. New York: Crown Forum, 2012.
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick. The Negro Family: The Case for National Action. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Labor, 1965. (The original memorandum remains foundational for understanding family-structure effects on social outcomes.)
Putnam, Robert D. Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015.
Sheriff Richard K. Jones. Official biography and news archive at butlersheriff.org.
U.S. Census Bureau and National Center for Health Statistics historical tables on marriage, divorce, and household composition, 1950–present.
Vance, J.D. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. New York: Harper, 2016. (Useful companion reading on the cultural and family pressures in the broader Ohio Valley region.)
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
I did not set out to become the UFO guy. I woke up asking practical questions about power, motivation, and politics—the same way I have solved engineering and organizational problems my entire career in aerospace and executive roles. Something was broken in our understanding of how the world actually works, and I wanted to fix it by following the evidence wherever it led. That path started with the Bible, the divine council, and the politics of heaven itself. It took me through anthropology, local Ohio archaeology along the Little Miami River valley I know so well, and straight into the work of Jacques Vallée. The synchronicity is very interesting.
When I began writing The Politics of Heaven, my goal was straightforward: to understand the motivations of the characters we pray to and interact with in scripture. The Bible is not a collection of moral fables; it is a chronicle of encounters with super-characters—angels, demons, principalities, powers, and the divine council. Job’s story alone shows Satan as a member of that council, maneuvering Yahweh into testing a loyal man. That is politics. Pure, raw politics. If we are going to engage with these forces through prayer, ritual, or culture, we had better know what they want. Human politics is not enough. We need to map the agendas of the non-human intelligences that have been shaping events from the beginning.
That line of inquiry naturally led me to anthropology. Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough remains one of my favorite books after years of reading it. It opened the door to how cultures worldwide have interacted with the spirit world—the “great spirit,” ancestors, and other intelligences. Modern anthropology grew out of that comparative study, but it largely stopped at human societies. It cataloged myths, rituals, and shamans without seriously asking whether the beings on the other side of those rituals had their own coherent politics, territories, and long-term strategies. I propose we need a new branch: an anthropology of non-human intelligence and its impact on human history, culture, and current events.
Living here in the Cincinnati area, with deep roots in Butler County and the river valleys, the evidence was literally under my feet and in my backyard. The Little Miami River corridor is thick with Hopewell-era ceremonial earthworks. Fort Ancient sits on a plateau overlooking the river, just a short distance from Loveland and Milford—3.5 miles of precisely engineered earthen walls enclosing roughly 100 acres, with documented astronomical alignments with the solstices and lunar standstills. It was not a fort in the military sense; it was a monumental ritual and observational complex.
Further down the valley, in what is now Terrace Park, there once stood one of Hamilton County’s largest prehistoric earthworks—an enclosure of about 80 acres along the bluff above the Little Miami. In 1820, it was still visible, six feet high and twelve feet wide at the base. Today, homes, gardens, and part of a school sit atop it. Other mounds in the area were leveled for roads like Wooster Pike or disappeared under development. These were not random piles of dirt. They shared the same sophisticated geometry and mathematics seen at the great Newark Earthworks—precise circles, octagons, and alignments that encoded lunar cycles (the 18.6-year standstill), solar events, and what appears to be practical knowledge of π and equal-area constructions between squares and circles.
Newark itself is staggering. The Great Circle and Octagon complex once sprawled over several square miles. Researchers like Ray Hively, Robert Horn, Bradley Lepper, and William Romain have documented alignments of breathtaking precision—every major lunar standstill direction embedded in the architecture when viewed over the local horizon. These were not defensive works or casual gathering places. They were cosmic engines, ritual machines designed to connect heaven and earth, time and space. Shamans almost certainly used them in altered states—likely with psychedelics or other techniques—to communicate with the spirit world. The geometry stripped away ordinary filters and tuned the participants to frequencies where non-human intelligences could interact.
If we had not paved over so many of these sites with neighborhoods, roads, and golf courses, places like the Terrace Park earthwork and others around Milford would rank as world-heritage-level marvels alongside the pyramids or Stonehenge. The precision of their construction, the labor involved, and the astronomical knowledge encoded in them point to something far beyond ordinary tribal engineering. Either the Hopewell independently achieved mathematical and observational sophistication that rivals anything in the ancient world, or they were receiving information and instruction from intelligences that already understood these patterns.
That brings me to the frogman.
Just a few miles upstream and downstream from these lost or buried ceremonial centers along the Little Miami, people have been seeing something that does not fit ordinary biology. In 1955, a businessman near Loveland reported three or four humanoid figures, three to four feet tall, with leathery skin and frog- or lizard-like faces, gathered near a bridge or along the riverbank. One version mentions a wand-like object emitting sparks or light. In 1972, Loveland police officer Ray Shockey encountered a similar being on Riverside Drive near the old Totes boot factory and the river. It stood up in his headlights. His partner, Mark Mathews, later claimed to have shot one; decades afterward, he said it was a large tailless iguana that had escaped a pet owner and was living near warm factory pipes. The legend persisted anyway—scrape marks on guardrails, a creature climbing over or under them and vanishing into the water. In 2016, near Lake Isabella (right across from Indian Hill and close to the old Terrace Park area), Pokémon Go players reported seeing a large, frog-like figure standing on its hind legs.
My family has turned the Loveland Frogman into a running joke with the grandkids. “Let’s go catch a frogman tonight down by the river.” It is fifteen minutes from the house. We laugh, but the pattern is hard to ignore. These sightings cluster in the exact river corridor where major Hopewell ritual sites once stood—sites now largely erased by modern development. The beings show up looking for something that is no longer there: the shamans, the rituals, the precise geometric invitations that once opened doors between worlds. They arrive a couple of thousand years too late or too early, stepping over guardrails on Kemper Road or near Lake Isabella, still drawn to the old power spots along the Little Miami.
This is where Jacques Vallée enters the story through pure synchronicity. While sharing early drafts of The Politics of Heaven with agents, publishers, and consultants, multiple people independently told me the same thing: “You sound like Jacques Vallée. You need to read Passport to Magonia.” I had avoided deep dives into UFO literature because I did not want to be labeled the UFO guy. I knew Vallée had consulted on Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but I had not read his work. When the book arrived from Amazon the next day—waiting at a distribution center as if it had been pre-positioned—I opened it and immediately recognized the territory.
Vallée’s central argument in Passport to Magonia (1969) is that modern UFO occupants are not new. They are the fairies, elves, sylphs, demons, angels, and aerial beings of folklore repackaged for a technological age. He draws on medieval accounts of ships from Magonia—a legendary realm in the clouds whose sailors collected grain knocked down by storms—and shows the same encounter structure repeating across centuries: aerial craft, non-human entities, interaction (sometimes seductive or revelatory, sometimes disturbing), and departure. The beings adapt their appearance and story to the expectations of the witnesses. They leave physical traces but behave in ways that violate the physics implied by their appearance. They operate as a control system or an influence mechanism, interacting with human consciousness over time.
Magonia, in Vallée’s reading, functions like a rival sovereignty—a political order operating just outside or alongside our dimensional reality. That matched exactly what my research into the divine council and biblical politics had already led me to conclude independently. These are not simple visitors from another planet dropping in for disclosure or friendly ET chats. They are ultra-terrestrials or interdimensional intelligences with their own agendas, territories, and long game. They have been shaping human culture, religion, and politics for millennia—sometimes as gods or angels, sometimes as tricksters or tormentors. The Hopewell geometers and shamans were engaging them through precise ritual architecture. The frogman sightings suggest they still patrol the old contact zones.
I am not claiming every sighting is profound. Some are misidentifications or hoaxes. But the pattern—ancient ceremonial precision along the same rivers where cryptid activity persists, the synchronicity of arriving at Vallée’s conclusions through biblical and political inquiry, the consistent folklore structure across cultures—demands serious attention. Steven Spielberg captured a sanitized version in Close Encounters and E.T. The cute, friendly aliens who want to take us for a ride or phone home. The real record includes missing time, abductions, trauma, and manipulation. Vallée documented the disturbing side; mainstream disclosure narratives often soften it.
Understanding their politics matters. If these intelligences have motivations—territorial, informational, or influence-based—then treating them as either nonexistent or purely benevolent is a form of strategic blindness. Just as we map human political actors, we need to map theirs. The Bible already does some of that work. Anthropology and archaeology can do more if we stop pretending the “spirit world” was only a psychological projection. The evidence from Newark, Fort Ancient, the lost mounds of Terrace Park and Milford, the persistent frogman activity, and Vallée’s comparative folklore all point in the same direction: non-human intelligences have been here, interacting with us, and they have their own order.
I did not chase this rabbit hole for fame or money. There is little of either in the following evidence, this far outside the box. I followed it because the questions were honest and the evidence was insistent. The Politics of Heaven is the result—a treasure hunt through scripture, history, archaeology, and personal experience that refuses to stop at comfortable boundaries. The synchronicity with Vallée’s work was not a coincidence; it was confirmation that the evidence converges.
We are long past the point where we can afford to dismiss these patterns as mere folklore or swamp gas. The beings that built—or inspired—the precise geometries of the Hopewell earthworks, that still appear along the same rivers in forms adapted to our expectations, and that the Bible chronicles as members of a divine council with political agency, are operating with agendas. Mapping those agendas is not a conspiracy theory. It is the next necessary step in anthropology, political strategy, and honest theology.
The frogman is still out there, or something like him. The old sites are still under the neighborhoods. And the politics of heaven—and of Magonia—continue whether we pay attention or not.
Footnotes (selected key references; full bibliography follows):
1. Jacques Vallée, Passport to Magonia: From Folklore to Flying Saucers (1969; various editions). Core thesis on continuity between UFO occupants and historical aerial beings/fairies from Magonia and similar traditions.
2. Reports on Loveland Frogman: Singular Fortean Society coverage of 1972 officer sightings (Shockey/Mathews); WCPO 2016 interview with Mathews identifying the shot creature as a large iguana; 1955 Stringfield report of businessman sighting near Loveland/Little Miami bridges; 2016 Pokémon Go sighting near Lake Isabella.
3. Terrace Park earthwork: Historical Society of Terrace Park records noting a large ~80-acre enclosure visible into the 19th/20th century, now largely covered by development, homes, and school grounds—other local mounds destroyed by road construction.
4. Fort Ancient: Descriptions of hilltop enclosure overlooking Little Miami River, ~3.5 miles of walls, astronomical alignments (solstice, lunar). See National Park Service and archaeological summaries.
5. Newark Earthworks geometry and astronomy: Foundational work by Ray Hively and Robert Horn (1982 onward) on lunar standstill alignments in the Octagon; Bradley Lepper and William Romain on geometry, “squaring the circle” relations, cosmic/ritual function, pilgrimage center aspects. UNESCO World Heritage designation for Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks (2023) includes several Ohio sites.
6. Hopewell culture context: Widespread ceremonial earthworks across Ohio river valleys (Scioto, Little Miami, etc.), ~200 BCE–500 CE, advanced mathematics, astronomy, trade, likely shamanic ritual use of geometry and altered states. Many sites were lost to agriculture and urban development.
7. Biblical references: Job (divine council politics, Satan as a member testing Yahweh’s servant); broader Enochic and prophetic traditions on principalities, powers, and heavenly politics.
8. Frazer, James George. The Golden Bough (various editions). Foundational comparative study of myth, ritual, and interaction with spirit/great spirit across cultures; inspiration for expanded anthropology.
Bibliography (selected; expands on footnotes for depth):
• Vallée, Jacques. Passport to Magonia.
• Hively, Ray, and Robert Horn. “Geometry and Astronomy in Prehistoric Ohio.” Journal for the History of Astronomy: Archaeoastronomy Supplement (1982 and subsequent papers).
• Lepper, Bradley T. Multiple works on Newark Earthworks as ceremonial landscape, pilgrimage center, and geometric/astronomical achievement.
• Romain, William F. Works on Hopewell geometry, astronomy, cosmology, and Fort Ancient.
• Squier, Ephraim George, and Edwin Hamilton Davis. Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley (1848). Foundational survey including Ohio earthworks.
• Historical Society of Terrace Park records on local prehistoric earthworks.
• Singular Fortean Society, WCPO, and contemporary newspaper accounts of Loveland Frogman incidents (1955, 1972, 2016).
• National Park Service and Ohio History Connection materials on Fort Ancient and Hopewell sites.
• Frazer, James George. The Golden Bough.
• Biblical texts (Job, Enoch traditions, references to divine council and principalities).
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
It was a Friday night in mid-July 2026, and I was in one of those nice theaters with the little tables—the kind that make an evening out feel intentional rather than just another screen in the dark. The film was Young Washington, the new one about George Washington’s early years in the French and Indian War, before he was the marble statue on the dollar bill or the father of a nation. It was a good picture, the kind that puts you in a patriotic frame of mind without preaching. I had my phone face-down on the table because I didn’t want to be that guy checking messages during the show. But even silenced, I could feel it lighting up now and then. When the credits rolled and I finally turned it over, there were more notifications than I expected. One of them was from Sheriff Jones.
I like Sheriff Jones. I always have. He’s one of those larger-than-life figures who makes Butler County feel like it still has some old-fashioned backbone left. When he texted to let me know he had a new book out—“They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America”—I was genuinely surprised. It had come out back in May, and I hadn’t heard a thing about it until that message. He said if I wanted to talk about it or pick one up, to reach out. I told him right then I’d get it read. I could have driven over and grabbed a copy from him directly, but I wanted to do it the right way—support the work properly—so I opened Amazon on the spot and bought it. As I write this, the book hasn’t arrived yet. I’ve been busy, the way most of us are these days, and sometimes the important people and the important things slip through the cracks until a text like that snaps you back to attention.
While I wait for it to show up, I’ve been thinking about what it means to have a Sheriff like Richard K. Jones in our community—and why the public relations side of his job might be every bit as important as the operational side most people picture when they think “law enforcement.”
In Butler County, Jones is more than the man who runs the jail and signs the paychecks for deputies. He’s a character in the classic sense: the tall figure in the signature cowboy hat and those big ostrich boots, the one who shows up at fundraisers for youth shooting sports, compares hats with old friends, and isn’t afraid to talk about the realities of the job—the lawsuits that come with the territory, the guns he carries or the ones the department fields, the constant pressure from every direction. He’s been doing this a long time. First elected in 2004, he’s now well into what I’d call his seventh term of service, having worked through multiple governors, multiple presidents, and the full spectrum of political weather in Ohio and beyond. He’s dealt with the Bush years, the Obama years, the Biden years, and whatever comes next. Through all of it, he’s stayed visible, outspoken, and unapologetic in a way that feels increasingly rare.
That visibility is the part a lot of people miss when they talk about what a Sheriff is supposed to do. Some folks think the job is purely about kicking in doors and locking up bad guys. And yes, that work matters—more than most civilians will ever understand. But if you only do the enforcement piece and ignore the executive piece, you eventually lose the community you’re sworn to protect. People start seeing the badge as something distant and ominous rather than something that belongs to them. They start questioning why their tax dollars go to support it. Morale inside the department suffers when the public narrative turns against you. Jones figured this out a long time ago, long before national figures made “brand” a dirty word or a political weapon. He understood that in a republic, especially at the county level where government is closest to the people, you have to build something citizens can latch onto and believe in. You have to make law and order feel like a shared project rather than an imposition.
That’s what I mean when I talk about executive leadership. I’ve written about it in The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and I’m still working through the lessons in my own professional life—an aerospace executive who spends a lot of hours every week trying to impose will on circumstances, build teams that believe in the mission, and create something durable enough to survive the inevitable storms. The gunfighter doesn’t just draw fast; he creates the conditions where the draw is rarely necessary because the reputation and the relationships do half the work. Same principle applies to a Sheriff’s office. If the community sees the department as “us” rather than “them,” you get better cooperation on tips, better juries, better budgets, better young people considering the career, and a healthier society overall. Jones has spent years cultivating exactly that. He gets on TV. He does the interviews. He shows up. He lets people see the human being behind the badge—the one with the cowboy hat and the straight talk—and that makes all the difference when something goes wrong and the cameras show up for the wrong reasons.
I’ll be honest: when I saw his name on my phone that night, part of me hoped it was the other kind of message. The one where he says they’re getting ready to hit a house or round up some cartel types or serve a warrant that might need an extra set of eyes and a steady hand. I’ve lived long enough and seen enough to know that sometimes the only thing that moves the needle is decisive action on the ground. I would have been in the truck in five minutes, and I think he knows that. But instead he wanted to tell me about the book, and that’s valuable in its own right. Because writing the book is also action—it’s distilling decades of experience into something other people can use. From everything I’ve seen in the descriptions and early word, They Call Me Jonesy is exactly what you’d expect from the man: candid, humorous in that tough-love Midwestern way, deeply patriotic, and full of stories about leadership under pressure, the cost of political correctness, the realities of “the swamp” at every level, and what it actually takes to push back. It’s a call to action for people who still believe in law and order, traditional values, and straight talk. And it comes from someone who’s walked the walk for more than twenty years in one of the most visible law enforcement jobs in Ohio.
We share a mutual friend in David Kern, the longtime Liberty Township trustee. David and I have known each other all my life. He’s always been a solid political figure—practical, engaged, the kind of person who gets things done without needing to be the loudest voice in the room. Jones and I have connected over that shared respect more than once. We’ve not always agreed on every detail of every issue, but we’ve always been able to shake hands, compare cowboy hats (mine’s been a fixture since I was in third or fourth grade, a declaration that I wasn’t going to blend into whatever the culture was selling that week), and keep the relationship real. That matters in a county like ours. It’s how you get things done when the easy path would be to retreat into your own silo and let the rest of the world burn.
There’s something refreshing about a public servant who still understands that the job includes selling the mission. Not in a slick, consultant-driven way—Jones is too much of a character for that—but in the old-fashioned sense of showing people why it’s worth supporting. He’s not afraid to be seen. He’s not afraid to be himself. And because of that, when Butler County residents look at the Sheriff’s Office, they don’t automatically default to suspicion or resentment. They see someone who’s been there through the hard times, who’s willing to say the unpopular thing out loud, and who’s built enough goodwill that the community is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt when the inevitable controversies flare. That’s brand building at its most practical. It’s also leadership at its most effective.
I’m proud of Sheriff Jones for putting this book out into the world. Not every lawman has the discipline or the inclination to turn the raw material of a long career into something readable and useful for the next generation. He’s become something of an international figure in certain circles because of his willingness to speak plainly about immigration, crime, and the erosion of common sense in policy. But he’s stayed rooted here. That says something. And for those of us who call Butler County home, it means we have a Sheriff who gets the big picture: saving America isn’t just a slogan or a national election every four years. It happens in places like this, one relationship, one visible stand, one candid conversation at a time.
The book is available on Amazon right now—“They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America” by Richard K. Jones. I’m looking forward to reading it the moment it lands on my doorstep, and I’ll have more to say once I’ve had a chance to digest it properly. If it captures even a fraction of the personality and the hard-won wisdom I’ve come to associate with the man who sent me that text, it’ll be time well spent. And if you’re the kind of person who still believes that strong, unapologetic leadership at the local level is part of how we turn this country around, then do yourself a favor and pick up a copy too.
In the meantime, I’ll keep my phone close. You never know when the next message from the Sheriff might come through—maybe about the book, maybe about something more immediate. Either way, I’m glad he’s out there, hat and all, doing the work of building something worth believing in. We need more like him.
Footnotes
[1] Richard K. Jones, They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America (Independently published, May 18, 2026). The paperback edition became available around that date; a Kindle edition is also offered. See the official site at theycallmejonesy.com and the Amazon listing for current purchasing options and a free sample.
[2] The book’s public description emphasizes candid leadership lessons drawn from Jones’s decades in corrections and law enforcement, including direct commentary on crime, political correctness, “the swamp,” patriotism, and practical steps for those who want to help save America. Early testimonials have come from figures including former Arizona Sheriff Mark Lamb and former Middletown Police Chief Rodney Muterspaw.
[3] Sheriff Richard K. Jones was first elected Butler County Sheriff in November 2004 (taking office January 2005) and, as of mid-2026, is serving what official records describe as his sixth term. In personal conversation and local perception, the length and continuity of his service often register as an even longer tenure of steady leadership through changing political environments.
[4] Rich Hoffman, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business (available through standard retailers). The book explores themes of resilience, imposing will on circumstances, building loyal teams, and the executive’s role in creating something people will fight to preserve—lessons that parallel the brand-building and leadership approach discussed here.
[5] Purchase They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America directly through Amazon or the author’s site (theycallmejonesy.com). As of July 2026 it remains a recent release and is easy to find with a quick search for the title and author.
Bibliography
Jones, Richard K. They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America. Independently published, May 18, 2026.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
I sat at that lunch last week with human resources leaders from several large corporations in the Cincinnati area, the kind of gathering where the check routinely clears a hundred dollars a person, and the conversation circles the same drain it has circled for years. They were perplexed, as they always are when the numbers refuse to lie. Staffing shortages that will not resolve, artificial intelligence that has automated the kiosk and the order screen but still leaves tables to be wiped and registers to be tended by flesh-and-blood people, an economy that refuses to roar back to the promised heights, and a persistent inability to locate and keep the kind of talent that actually moves the needle. They wanted to know how to acquire an intelligent workforce. I told them what I have told anyone who will sit still long enough to hear it: you do not acquire exceptional results by staffing your organization with people selected for their ability to tolerate mediocrity. You find exceptional people, you recognize them when they appear in unconventional packages, and you protect them from the machinery that exists to grind them down.
I have cast aside the noisy, circular arguments over group averages in human capability—not because the psychometric data lack interest from a scientific standpoint, but because my concern has always been the human species as a whole, a young and still-fragile lineage trying to find its footing in a galaxy that is already crowded with other forms of intelligence. The question that matters is not which population cluster sits where on a distribution curve. The question is how any society, any company, any civilization identifies and elevates the outliers who can see around corners the rest of us cannot yet perceive.
Decades of personnel psychology research, distilled in landmark meta-analyses, have shown that general mental ability remains one of the strongest single predictors of job performance across occupations, with particularly high validity for complex, high-stakes roles. That finding aligns with what I have observed across more than fifty years in business and executive life. Raw cognitive horsepower matters. It is not everything, and it is certainly not a guarantee of worldly success. I have known men and women with genius-level IQs who could not hold a marriage together, could not navigate an ordinary bank teller without frustration boiling over, could not endure the slow, stupid, political churn of ordinary corporate or governmental life without eventually self-destructing or walking away. Intelligence without gumption, without an intuitive compass, without some connection to a wider field of knowing, often becomes a curse rather than a blessing. The person who is “too smart for the room” learns to despise the room, and the room learns to despise him back.
That is the story I told the HR table, because it is the story I have lived and watched others live. In our twenties, a friend and I bought a small company. We were clearing out the accumulated junk of previous owners when we found, in a back closet, one of those enormous old projection bulbs—the kind that once threw motion pictures onto screens the size of a wall. It was a beautiful, ridiculous object, heavy glass and filament, a relic of an analog age already slipping into memory. We decided we had to have it. We loaded it into the hatchback of his car, unsecured, and drove across what was then the University of Cincinnati campus with the rear door open and that giant bulb rolling gently with every turn. The police pulled us over. My friend did not do deference. He despised unearned authority, especially when it could not match the scale of his own mind. Words were exchanged. A citation was issued. No arrest that evening, but the system had taken notice.
Later, when the matter escalated, he represented himself. No lawyer. In the deposition room, they brought in the heavy artillery—prominent litigators from New York and Los Angeles, flown in at considerable expense because a local prosecutor wanted a notable scalp. My friend sat across from them with that calm, encyclopedic brain of his. He had read the entire encyclopedia set by fifth grade and comprehended what he read; he could retrieve and deploy information like a living search engine. He dismantled their lines of questioning one by one. They could not corner him on facts, on law, on logic, or on the precise sequence of events. I watched it happen. During breaks, I heard the hallway mutters from the expensive suits: “He’s too fast.” “We can’t pin him.” These were men whose hourly rates in the early 1990s would have stunned most working people, and they were being outmaneuvered by someone who had never attended their law schools and did not play their credentialed games. The case collapsed. Not because the facts magically changed, but because the egos of the system could not tolerate being shown up by someone operating on an entirely different level of processing speed and intuitive grasp.
The empire does not forget such insults. Over the following years, the full weight of bureaucratic harassment came down—legal troubles, jail time, the slow, grinding destruction that mediocre institutions reserve for those who make them feel small. I have seen the pattern repeat across decades and across industries. Exceptional people do not fit the templates. They ask the questions that expose the fragility of the templates. They produce results that make the people above them look ordinary by comparison. And so the machinery—whether it calls itself corporate human resources, public education, or administrative government—develops antibodies. It promotes compliance. It measures inputs (degrees, time served, adherence to process) rather than outputs (actual value created under uncertainty). It pays a premium, often millions in aggregate payroll, for the comfort of predictability, even when that predictability delivers only mediocre results.
Robert Pirsig understood something essential about this in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Quality is not the product of following the manual to the letter. It is a living relationship with the work itself, sustained by what he called gumption—the psychic gasoline that keeps a person engaged when things go wrong, when parts are missing, when the official procedure proves inadequate. Gumption traps are everywhere: external setbacks, yes, but more insidiously, the internal ones—ego that refuses to admit ignorance, value rigidity that cannot see a better way because it would require admitting the old way was flawed. Mediocre systems are gumption traps by design. They reward the appearance of order over the reality of excellence. They punish the person who cares too much about the actual motorcycle running well.
That is why our schools, constructed largely by people of average ability to produce more people of average ability, tend to replicate mediocrity. That is why corporations that claim to want “innovation” and “disruption” simultaneously install layer upon layer of review, compliance, and diversity, equity, and inclusion machinery whose primary effect is to filter out people who will not make anyone above them feel intellectually or morally inferior. The result is expensive. You pay two or three million dollars more in payroll than you needed to, and you still cannot outrun competitors who have learned to locate and protect their own exceptional outliers. You cannot plug in interchangeable parts and expect exceptional output. The math does not work.
Abraham Lincoln understood the same principle in a different key. When the credentialed, politically connected generals of the eastern theater kept failing, he looked west to a man with a reputation for hard drinking and rough edges. Ulysses S. Grant had delivered results—Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, Chattanooga—while others delivered excuses and body counts. Lincoln promoted him anyway, over the objections of those who preferred a more presentable mediocrity. Grant took responsibility, moved, and won. The American experiment has always contained this tension: on one side, the impulse to flatten outcomes and protect the feelings of the competent-but-not-brilliant; on the other, the older, riskier impulse to let the exceptional rise because the alternative is national stagnation or defeat.
I have spent a lifetime recruiting and protecting such people—diamonds still in the rough, often overlooked by systems that prize polish over fire. That is why I keep getting invited to these lunches. The people across the table sense that the usual playbooks are failing, but they cannot yet say out loud what the failure actually is. The failure is the empire of mediocrity itself: the set of incentives, credentialing rituals, and cultural taboos that treat exceptional performance as a threat rather than the only thing that justifies an organization’s continued existence.
There is a deeper layer to this that I have only grown more convinced of with time. The intuition that separates the merely bright from the truly exceptional often looks, from the outside, like luck or inexplicable insight. The right decision is made quickly under pressure. The technical problem that yields to an approach no one else had considered. The “voice” that says, “Do not walk down that street tonight,” or, “Here is the battery configuration that actually works at scale.” I have come to understand these moments as instances of interface—imperfect, flickering, but real—between individual human consciousness and a wider field of intelligence that does not require a body. Call it universal mind, call it Providence, call it the spirit world, call it non-human intelligence. The label matters less than the observable pattern: the people who consistently produce outsized results often behave as if they have access to information and pattern recognition that ordinary channels cannot explain.
Ancient cultures knew this terrain better than we admit. The shamanic traditions, the prophetic lineages, the ritual architectures aligned to celestial events—all of them represent attempts to establish reliable contact with that wider field. Some did so through disciplined inner practice. Others, tragically, through blood sacrifice, as if the entities on the other side of the interface could be fed or bargained with. The archaeological record at places like Cahokia shows clear evidence of ritual violence and retainer sacrifice on a significant scale; power in those societies included the capacity to command the deaths of dozens in service of whatever cosmological or political order the elite claimed to mediate. The Book of Enoch preserves an even older memory: the Watchers, a class of non-human intelligences, descending to impart forbidden knowledge—metallurgy, sorcery, weaponry, cosmetics—and producing hybrid offspring whose existence destabilized the world. Whether one reads these accounts as literal history, as spiritual allegory, or as garbled cultural memory of real contact events, the through-line is the same: humanity has always lived in relationship with intelligences that do not share our biology, and the quality of that relationship has shaped what we become.
Jesus of Nazareth, in my reading, represents the decisive intervention in that long, bloody negotiation. He offered himself as the final sacrifice, ending the cycle of literal human and animal offerings that had sustained certain interfaces for millennia. In its place, he instituted a symbolic communion—bread and wine rather than flesh and blood—and pointed toward an internal, direct relationship with the source of that wider intelligence. The temple system, which had grown wealthy and powerful managing the sacrificial economy, could not tolerate the threat. They killed him for it, as systems of managed mediocrity have always killed or neutralized those who offer a cleaner, more direct path.
The men who designed the American republic carried some of the same intuition. Many were steeped in Enlightenment rationalism and biblical literacy simultaneously. Some, through Masonic networks, incorporated geometric and symbolic alignments into the new capital city, suggesting they were attempting to establish their own interface with providential or higher-order intelligence. They were not content to let the new nation drift on the currents of ordinary human politics. They wanted it oriented toward something larger. The experiment has been imperfect, repeatedly captured by mediocrity, yet it has also repeatedly produced the conditions under which exceptional individuals could do exceptional things—flight, computing, rocketry, the defeat of fascism and communism in their 20th-century forms.
That is why I have written what I have written and why I continue to speak plainly when the expensive lunches are served. In The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, I worked to distill the practical discipline of intuitive action under pressure—the same quality that lets a person fix a broken motorcycle on the side of the road or make a high-stakes decision without waiting for committee approval. In The Politics of Heaven, the book I am completing now, I am attempting the larger map: how non-human intelligence has interacted with human history, why certain systems crush the exceptional while others (however imperfectly) give them room, and what it will take for this species to mature rather than stagnate or destroy itself.
Melania Trump is, in my estimation, one of the clearer contemporary examples of the type I am describing. She possessed the looks and presence that the modeling world rewards, but she also possessed an intuitive intelligence that recognized the limits of that world. She made a strategic alliance with a man whose wealth and later political power gave her insulation from the treadmill of mediocrity she had been navigating since her twenties. She has never courted the spotlight for its own sake. She has stayed largely off-grid, raising her son and preserving her own interior life. That choice is widely misunderstood by people who cannot imagine wanting autonomy more than attention. It is the choice of someone who has seen enough of the empire to know she does not want to live inside its walls.
The practical counsel I gave the human resources leaders and the counsel I give to anyone serious about results rather than appearances are straightforward. Stop measuring people primarily by the hoops they have jumped through—degrees, years of service, approved ideological language, willingness to sit through two-hour Friday lunches where nothing of consequence is decided. Measure them by what they actually produce when the plan goes sideways, when resources are constrained, when the problem has not been solved by anyone else. Go looking for the diamonds in the rough. They rarely wear the system’s uniform. They often make the people above them uncomfortable. They will save you far more in payroll than they will ever cost you in management overhead, because one exceptional person routinely does the work of three or four merely competent ones—and does it in a way that creates new possibilities rather than merely maintaining the existing machine.
The empire of mediocrity is expensive, brittle, and ultimately self-defeating. It can maintain control for a long time, especially when it controls education, credentialing, and the administrative state. But it cannot generate the breakthroughs a civilization needs to survive its own success—energy abundance, space settlement, genuine advances in human health and longevity, the wisdom to navigate contact with non-human intelligences that may already be observing us. Those breakthroughs require people who have retained or recovered the capacity to interface with the wider field. They require cultures that do not punish that capacity as a threat.
I have lived most of my life off the grid of that empire, not as an aesthetic choice but as a practical necessity. The view from out here is clearer. The exceptional are not the problem. They are the only remaining margin of safety this species possesses. The question before every organization, every school board, every nation is the same one I answered at that lunch table: do you want predictable mediocrity at premium prices, or do you want results that justify the entire enterprise? The two are not compatible and do not get along naturally. They will always be at odds. It took Robert Pirsig a long time to figure all this out and I’m not sure he ever did during his lifetime. But, it is the question of our times, and the responsibility to action falls on all of us.
Footnotes
1. Schmidt, Frank L., and John E. Hunter. “The Validity and Utility of Selection Methods in Personnel Psychology: Practical and Theoretical Implications of 85 Years of Research Findings.” Psychological Bulletin 124, no. 2 (1998): 262–74. Subsequent meta-analyses have produced somewhat lower but still positive corrected validity estimates; the core finding that cognitive ability predicts performance across jobs, with higher validity for complex work, has held.
2. Pirsig, Robert M. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. New York: William Morrow, 1974. See especially the sections on gumption, gumption traps, and the distinction between static and dynamic quality.
3. On Lincoln’s decision to elevate Grant: “Lincoln promotes Grant as top Civil War general, March 10, 1864,” Politico, March 10, 2017; and Grant’s own Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant (1885–86). Lincoln’s reported comment—“I can’t spare this man; he fights”—captures the priority of results over presentability.
4. Archaeological evidence from Cahokia’s Mound 72 includes mass burials with indications of ritual violence, retainer sacrifice, and both local and non-local individuals among the victims. See summaries of strontium isotope and osteological studies in reports such as those covered in Western Digs and subsequent analyses of Mississippian period power structures.
5. The Book of Enoch, particularly the Book of the Watchers (chapters 6–36). Standard scholarly translations include R. H. Charles (1917) and more recent critical editions. The text describes non-human Watchers imparting forbidden knowledge to humanity and producing the Nephilim, with lasting consequences for human history and spiritual conditions.
6. Hoffman, Rich. The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business. [Self-published or independent, drawing on decades of executive and entrepreneurial experience]. The work emphasizes intuitive decision-making under pressure as a learnable discipline.
7. Hoffman, Rich. The Politics of Heaven. Forthcoming, targeted for 2027 publication. A sustained exploration of biblical and historical patterns of interaction between human societies and non-human intelligence, including themes of giants, spiritual warfare, and the political implications of exceptional versus mediocratic orders.
Bibliography (selected; full working bibliography for The Politics of Heaven exceeds one hundred entries)
• Pirsig, Robert M. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. New York: William Morrow, 1974.
• Schmidt, Frank L., and John E. Hunter. “The Validity and Utility of Selection Methods in Personnel Psychology…” Psychological Bulletin 124, no. 2 (1998): 262–74.
• The Book of Enoch. Translated by R. H. Charles. London: SPCK, 1917.
• Pauketat, Timothy R. Cahokia: Ancient America’s Great City on the Mississippi. New York: Viking, 2009.
• Grant, Ulysses S. Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant. 2 vols. New York: Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885–86.
• Hoffman, Rich. The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business.
• Hoffman, Rich. The Politics of Heaven (forthcoming).
• McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
• Nickelsburg, George W. E. 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1–36; 81–108. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001.
• Ambrose, Stanley H., et al. Studies on Cahokia Mound 72 diet and health (various peer-reviewed articles in American Antiquity and related journals).
• Vermes, Geza. The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English. London: Penguin, 2004 (for context on Second Temple Jewish literature including Enochic traditions).
• Additional archaeological and historical sources on Mississippian and pre-Columbian ritual practice; biblical archaeology references from Biblical Archaeology Review; and primary accounts of American founding-era symbolism and Masonic geometry in the design of Washington, D.C.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
I have watched a hostile takeover unfold up close in the aerospace industry. The people driving it never announced their intentions. They arrived with consultants and new ownership structures, spoke in measured language about efficiency and alignment, and made the decisive moves from boardrooms far removed from the daily floor. The target company’s people kept working, kept delivering, kept hoping the familiar rhythms would hold. By the time the real pattern became visible, the leverage had already shifted. Decisions about who stayed, what got consolidated, and which programs survived were already set in motion. The prey did not run away. In many cases, it moved toward the very forces reshaping it, seeking reassurance, seeking to prove value, seeking to stay inside the story.
That experience has stayed with me as I watch the recent waves of UAP disclosures. The Pentagon’s PURSUE releases under the current administration—multiple tranches of documents, videos, and agent narratives in May, June, and July 2026—have brought to light orb sightings, high-speed objects, and cases that the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office itself still lists as unresolved. One Western U.S. event near a sensitive national-security site involved federal agents describing “orbs launching other orbs.” AARO’s own June 2026 memo on that case notes that roughly forty percent of the phenomena lacked a plausible conventional explanation and remained open. Another tranche included a military aviator’s account of an object with “flight characteristics unlike anything I had seen in my 28 years.” These are not fringe videos. They are now part of the official record, released under executive order, yet they arrive without chain-of-custody clarity on the most anomalous material and without a coherent strategic picture.
The obvious question keeps returning: if these are simply advanced drones or foreign technology, why the persistent concealment across decades? If they represent non-human intelligence, why not open contact? My answer is shaped by what I saw in that takeover and by the universal patterns Robert Greene distilled in The 48 Laws of Power and The 33 Strategies of War. Those books sit in every serious business section because they codify something older than corporate strategy: the mechanics of concealed intention, formlessness, and the calculated use of superior position to shape the target’s behavior without triggering full resistance.
A hunter does not step into the clearing and announce himself. He wears the scent of the field, moves with the wind, waits in the tree stand for hours. The goal is proximity without alarm. The deer that senses nothing continues its pattern until the moment the arrow is already in flight. Corporate raiders operate on the same principle. They do not declare war on the culture they intend to absorb. They speak of synergy, of unlocking value, of shared future. The language itself is camouflage. By the time the target’s leadership understands the real mapping of power, the decisive votes and the key personnel decisions have already been made elsewhere.
If non-human intelligences have been present in our environment for a long time—and the pattern of sightings near nuclear and sensitive military sites across the released files is difficult to dismiss as random—then concealment is the rational posture of a competing form of life that does not yet wish open war or open dependence. Superior technology does not automatically translate into benevolence any more than superior capital in a takeover guarantees the survival of the acquired company’s original character. The strategic advantage lies in remaining unseen while shaping outcomes: extracting data, influencing behavior at the margins, keeping the target population stable enough to continue producing what the observer needs. A species that wanted only to eliminate us would have done so. A species that wants to study, harvest, steer, or occupy the same niche without triggering a unified human response has every reason to stay in the tree stand.
The recent disclosures actually reinforce this reading more than they contradict it. We are shown orbs that appear to coordinate, that launch smaller orbs, that exhibit flight profiles AARO cannot yet attribute to known platforms. We are told some cases remain unresolved even after multi-sensor correlation. We hear whistleblower testimony—from David Grusch and others—describing long-term programs involving recovered craft and non-human biologics, yet official releases still emphasize the lack of conclusive proof while simultaneously documenting phenomena that exceed current human capabilities. This is not full transparency. It is a calibrated release. It keeps the conversation alive, keeps researchers and the public engaged, and shields the deeper architecture behind these events. That is precisely how power that intends to remain dominant behaves when it does not yet need to reveal its full hand.
Greene’s work is popular in business circles because it maps these dynamics without moral overlay. Law after law describes the advantage of appearing formless, of never revealing the full extent of one’s resources or intentions, of using the target’s own momentum against it—the same principles scale. If an intelligence operates across dimensions or with technology that renders our sensors marginal, the same logic applies: stay close enough to observe and influence, far enough to avoid decisive confrontation, and never give the prey a clear target to rally against. The fascination many people feel toward UAPs—the drive to decode every new video, to attend every hearing, to interpret every ambiguous shape—can itself become part of the dynamic. The prey moves toward the predator’s position because the predator has made itself the most interesting thing in the environment.
I am not claiming these intelligences are cartoon villains. I am saying the default assumption that superior technology equals benevolent guardianship has no grounding in observable history or in the power dynamics we already understand at the human level. The same species that builds monuments and writes philosophy also builds weapons and perfects deception when advantage requires it. Why would we expect a competing life form to operate on more sentimental rules? The disclosures we have received so far—multiple batches of unresolved orb events, aviator encounters, and internal government debate—show advanced presence without showing open intent. That gap is not an accident of bureaucracy. It is consistent with the behavior of any actor who has already calculated the costs of full revelation.
Most people can’t do this. They learn the rules and stay prisoners to them al their lives.
The corrective lens is the same one that works in any competitive environment. Assume the other side is playing to win on its own terms. Map the actual flows of information and leverage rather than the stated narrative. Strengthen internal visibility so that critical dependencies—whether material, procedural, or perceptual—cannot be quietly depleted in the shop, which meant knowing who ordered the consumables and whether the schedule would starve the line. In the larger arena, it means refusing to treat every new release as either proof of salvation or proof of nothing. It means treating the pattern of concealment itself as data.
We have been given enough now to see that something is operating with capabilities we do not control and with intentions it has not chosen to declare. The hunter does not need our permission to remain in the stand. He only needs us to keep behaving as if the clearing is empty. The disclosures have made the clearing feel less empty, but they have not yet forced the figure in the tree to step forward. That fact alone tells us something about the nature of the game being played.
Footnotes
1. Personal observation from aerospace program management, 2026.
2. PURSUE Release documentation, Department of War, various tranches 2026.
3. AARO memorandum on Western U.S. “orbs launching orbs” event, June 2026.
4. Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of Power (1998) and The 33 Strategies of War (2006).
5. David Grusch congressional testimony and related whistleblower accounts, 2023–2026.
6. Historical analysis of corporate power dynamics drawn from Greene’s framework and observed industry practices.
7. Additional references to UAP case files are available via war.gov/UFO portal.
Bibliography
• Greene, Robert. The 48 Laws of Power. Viking, 1998.
• Greene, Robert. The 33 Strategies of War. Viking, 2006.
• U.S. Department of War / AARO. PURSUE UAP Release Tranches (May–July 2026). war.gov/UFO.
• Squier, Ephraim G., and Edwin H. Davis. Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, 1848 (for context on Ohio earthworks like East Fork).
• Various journalistic summaries of Grusch testimony and PURSUE files, 2026.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
I have watched this story unfold with a mixture of anger, sadness, and that familiar sinking feeling that comes when you realize the system is working exactly as designed—not for the kids, but for the adults who feed off the perpetual motion machine of public money and institutional self-preservation. A mother filed a federal lawsuit on July 1, 2026, alleging that a Lakota Local Schools teacher groomed and sexually abused her daughter over roughly three years, starting when the girl was 13 years old in seventh grade at Liberty Junior School.
According to the detailed complaint, the teacher—identified in court documents as Ronald Henrich—did not even teach the girl in any of her classes. He welcomed her into his classroom during study hall periods, showed her “special attention,” and began building a relationship. Messages started on the district’s own Remind app. The student confided personal struggles, including mental health issues. The communications continued and escalated even after the mother tried to set boundaries. By ninth grade, the meetings moved to a closed-door “mindfulness room” for Friday lunches. Communications shifted to district email and Google Docs when access to Remind was curtailed. In March 2025, the mother discovered the teacher actively typing “extremely sexually graphic content” into a shared Canva document with her daughter. She recorded it. She called the Butler County Sheriff’s Office.
The district’s response, according to the lawsuit, was to promise administrative leave and restricted access to technology, then quietly allow the teacher to take Family and Medical Leave Act leave instead. Less than two weeks after the explicit messages surfaced—and while investigations by the district, sheriff, and children’s services were still open—the district approved his retirement. No public discipline. No immediate report to the Ohio Department of Education, as many parents would expect. The teacher walked away with his pension and benefits intact while the family was left to pick up the pieces.
The superintendent, Ashley Whitely, issued the standard institutional denial: the district “denies all allegations” and claims student safety is its top priority. Meanwhile, the mother’s lawsuit also details earlier reports she made that went unaddressed, repeated class pull-outs without parental notification, and even troubling lapses in how the school nurse handled the student’s medication—stockpiling Tylenol that contributed to a suicide attempt and failing to manage anxiety medication on a trip properly. These are not small administrative hiccups. They paint a picture of a system that had multiple opportunities to intervene and chose not to.
Then there is the part that really sticks in my craw. According to people who have followed the internal handling, the HR director—Jeff Rouff—essentially shrugged and said something to the effect that the age of consent in Ohio is 16, so what’s the big deal? Two consenting adults. Nothing illegal happened. That line of thinking is exactly why these situations metastasize. It ignores the entire grooming process that began at 13, when the girl was under the care and authority of this adult in a position of power inside a public school building. It ignores the use of school-issued devices and district apps to conduct the relationship. It ignores the closed doors, the missed classes, the emotional manipulation of a vulnerable child who had already suffered prior sexual abuse. Age of consent statutes were never intended to give cover to adults in positions of trust who spend years cultivating access to minors. That is not a gray area. That is the precise reason we have laws and professional conduct codes for educators in the first place.
I heard about problems surrounding this teacher roughly a year before the lawsuit dropped. Other parents and observers had been talking. The circle had already started to form. When the story finally broke across local media—Channel 5, Local 12, FOX 19—the superintendent’s immediate public move was not a somber address about accountability and root-cause fixes. It was a cheerleading video hyping a fall tax increase, talking about hiring dozens more staff members, rolling out a corporate “roadmap” with “stakeholders,” and reminding everyone to keep supporting public schools. The timing felt deliberate. Distract, then reassure the taxpayers who write the checks. Keep the money flowing.
That is the game I have been describing for years. Lakota, like many large suburban districts, is constantly in or approaching levy mode. The narrative must be controlled: we are great, we are improving, we need a little more of your property tax money to keep doing the wonderful things we do. Bad stories—especially stories that suggest adults in the building are preying on children and that leadership circled the wagons—threaten that narrative. So the wagons circle. The teacher retires quietly. HR offers the age-of-consent talking point. The superintendent films the upbeat video. The teachers’ union, which exists in large part to protect its members from consequences, stays largely silent or issues the usual generic statements about due process. And the machine keeps turning.
This is not an isolated incident. The lawsuit itself references a pattern of other cases involving Lakota employees over the years—some that resulted in convictions or license revocations, others that were handled with quiet exits. Former board member Darbi Boddy, who has remained a vocal parent advocate even after her time on the board ended, issued a clear public statement criticizing the handling of this situation. Good for her. We need more people willing to say the obvious out loud rather than hide behind “stakeholder engagement” jargon.
What troubles me most is how predictable the protection response has become. When something like this surfaces, the institution’s first instinct is not “How do we make sure this never happens again and how do we support the victim?” It is “How do we contain the damage to our brand and our funding pipeline?” The HR director’s reported comment about 16 being legal is a perfect example of that mindset. It treats the endpoint—the moment the child turned 16—as the only thing that matters, while erasing the years of grooming and boundary erosion that got her there. It treats a minor student in a teacher’s care as just another “consenting adult” the second the calendar flips. That is not how any responsible adult in education should think. It is how an institution thinks when its primary loyalty is to itself and the revenue stream that sustains it.
Public education in its current monopolistic, union-protected, tax-funded form has structural problems that make these failures almost inevitable. When you combine compulsory attendance, massive budgets, powerful collective bargaining agreements that make firing even grossly negligent employees difficult and expensive, and a culture that treats any criticism as an attack on “the children” or “public education itself,” you create exactly the conditions for cover-ups. The money keeps coming in as long as the bad stories stay buried or get spun. Parents who raise hell are dismissed as “haters” or people with “unrealistically high moral standards.” Meanwhile, the actual standard on the ground—don’t have sex with kids in the classroom or via school devices, don’t groom them for years, don’t let it slide when a parent reports it—somehow becomes negotiable the moment it threatens the budget or the reputation.
I am not saying every teacher is doing this, but too many are. The vast majority are not. But the ones who are counting on the system’s reluctance to act decisively. They count on the HR director who will find the legal technicality. They count on the superintendent, who will film the upbeat video instead of cleaning house. They count on the union that will fight to the last dollar of taxpayer money to protect a member who should never have been in a classroom with minors. And they count on enough parents staying disengaged or intimidated for the story to fade before real accountability arrives.
The mother in this case did what too few parents feel empowered to do: she documented, she reported, she refused to let it disappear. Her lawsuit is now public. The allegations are serious and detailed. Whether every claim is ultimately proven in court is for the legal process to decide. But the pattern of institutional response—quiet exit, legal denials, distraction videos, and the age-of-consent shrug—is already on display for anyone willing to look. That pattern is what should alarm every parent in Lakota and every parent in any district that operates the same way.
How many other kids right now are in unhealthy dynamics with adults who hold power over their grades, their schedules, their daily lives inside these buildings? How many school-issued devices are carrying messages that would make any decent parent’s blood run cold if they saw them? How many times has a concerned parent been told some version of “nothing to see here, move along, and please vote yes on the next levy”? I would be willing to bet the number is higher than any of us want to admit. This case only became a story because one mother refused to be quiet. The rest stay invisible because the system is optimized for exactly that outcome.
We keep being told that more money, more staff, more programs, and more “roadmaps” will fix what ails public education. I have watched this play out locally for years. The money keeps increasing. The problems—academic stagnation in too many areas, cultural capture, and now these horrifying failures of basic child protection—persist or worsen. At some point, parents have to ask whether the institution itself is the problem, not the lack of funding. When the first instinct of leadership is to protect the adult and the budget rather than the child, the social contract has already been broken.
Summary of Doe v. Lakota Local Schools (Filed July 1, 2026)
Important: This is a civil complaint containing allegations made by the plaintiffs. The allegations have been filed in federal court but have not been proven in court unless and until established through litigation. [Doe v Lakota Schools | PDF]
Overview
A mother (“Jane Doe”) and her daughter (“Jill Doe”), a minor student in the Lakota Local School District, filed a federal lawsuit against:
Lakota Local Schools
Former teacher Ronald Henrich
Superintendent Ashley Whitely
Principal Bill Brinkman
The lawsuit alleges that Henrich groomed and sexually abused Jill over approximately three years and that district officials failed to prevent, investigate, or properly respond to the misconduct. [Doe v Lakota Schools | PDF]
Timeline of Alleged Events
2022–2023 School Year (7th Grade)
According to the complaint:
Jill was 13 years old and had documented mental health struggles and prior trauma.
Although she was not formally identified as a gifted student, she began attending a gifted-program study hall supervised by Ronald Henrich.
Henrich allegedly began developing a special relationship with her and communicating extensively through the district’s Remind messaging app.
Jill reportedly disclosed personal information, including mental health struggles and prior abuse.
The lawsuit alleges the district failed to monitor or investigate the growing relationship. [Doe v Lakota Schools | PDF]
January 2024 Suicide Attempt
The complaint alleges:
Jill stockpiled Tylenol obtained from a school nurse over several days.
On January 22, 2024, she consumed approximately 4,500 mg in a suicide attempt while at school.
She was hospitalized and spent four days in psychiatric care.
Henrich continued communicating with Jill during summer break.
Messages allegedly became increasingly personal.
Jill’s mother became concerned and restricted access to the messaging app outside school hours.
The complaint argues district monitoring failed to detect inappropriate communications. [Doe v Lakota Schools | PDF]
2024–2025 School Year (9th Grade)
The complaint alleges that:
Henrich was assigned to a different school building but continued visiting Jill’s building.
He allegedly met her weekly for private lunches.
He brought her food and regularly pulled her from class for mentoring sessions.
Communications allegedly shifted to district email and Google documents after the Remind app was discontinued.
Jill reportedly missed significant class time due to meetings with Henrich.
Teachers allegedly expressed concerns about her absences, but her mother was not informed. [Doe v Lakota Schools | PDF]
January–March 2025 Escalation
According to the complaint:
Henrich allegedly contacted Jill’s therapist directly without parental permission.
The two allegedly arranged a meeting at a driving range.
On March 14, 2025, Jill participated in a gifted-program event where her parents observed what they considered unusual interactions between her and Henrich. [Doe v Lakota Schools | PDF]
She discovered a shared Canva document allegedly being used for communication between Jill and Henrich.
The mother and stepfather reportedly recorded nearly an hour of sexually explicit messages allegedly typed by Henrich.
The complaint includes graphic excerpts from those messages.
Butler County Sheriff’s deputies were called to the home and allegedly observed additional messages being typed while officers were present. [Doe v Lakota Schools | PDF]
After Discovery
The lawsuit claims:
The Sheriff’s Office informed the district on March 21, 2025.
The family was initially told Henrich would be placed on administrative leave and barred from district property.
Later, the parents discovered through board records that Henrich had instead been granted Family Medical Leave and subsequently retired.
The complaint alleges the district failed to investigate adequately and failed to report misconduct to state authorities. [Doe v Lakota Schools | PDF]
Children’s Services Finding
The complaint states that:
Butler County Children Services substantiated abuse allegations involving Henrich and Jill.
The family argues the district still failed to take meaningful disciplinary action. [Doe v Lakota Schools | PDF]
Return to School
The lawsuit alleges:
Jill was prohibited from using a Chromebook as a safety measure.
Teachers allegedly failed to provide equivalent paper assignments.
She allegedly faced stigma and negative treatment related to the abuse investigation.
The complaint argues Henrich’s case reflects a larger pattern within Lakota Schools.
It references previous incidents involving:
Justin Dennis
Nick McGill
Former Superintendent Matt Miller
George Merk
Robert Supinger
Angela Johnson
The plaintiffs argue these incidents demonstrate a longstanding failure by the district to identify, stop, or adequately respond to staff misconduct involving students. These allegations, presented by the plaintiffs as evidence of a pattern, have not been adjudicated in this case. [Doe v Lakota Schools | PDF]
Claims Filed
The lawsuit includes numerous claims, including:
Federal Civil Rights Claims (42 U.S.C. § 1983)
State-created danger
Special relationship doctrine
Conduct that “shocks the conscience”
Equal protection violations
Inadequate district policies and protection systems
Disability Claims
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act
State Law Claims
Negligent supervision
Negligence per se
Negligent infliction of emotional distress
Intentional infliction of emotional distress (against Henrich)
The complaint alleges that a Lakota teacher groomed and sexually abused a vulnerable student over several years using district facilities, technology, and access to the student, while school administrators allegedly ignored warning signs, failed to take corrective action after discovery, and inadequately protected the student afterward. The lawsuit seeks damages under federal civil rights laws, disability laws, and Ohio tort law. [Doe v Lakota Schools | PDF]
Based on the civil complaint, the accusations and behaviors of Ronald Henrich against the minor plaintiff include a systematic pattern of grooming, manipulation, and sexual abuse over three years:
**Grooming and Relationship Development**
**Unauthorized Access:** Henrich allowed Jill to attend his “gifted” program study hall instead of her assigned one in seventh grade, despite her not being a designated gifted student.
**Targeting Vulnerabilities:** He built a relationship with Jill by showing her “special attention” and exploiting her personal struggles, including her history of anxiety, self-harm, and past sexual abuse, which she shared with him.
**Mentoring Pretense:** He repeatedly pulled Jill out of her regular classes for one-on-one “mentoring” sessions, claiming it was necessary for her anxiety and mental health.
**App-Based Communication:** He messaged Jill frequently on the District’s Remind app, often outside of school hours, with messages that became increasingly personal, such as saying “good morning” and “good night” and discussing their dinners.
**Switching Platforms:** When the District ended its contract with the Remind app, Henrich continued his daily personal communications through Jill’s District email and Google Docs accounts.
**Boundary Violations and Stalking**
**Secluded Lunches:** During Jill’s ninth-grade year, Henrich—who was no longer assigned to her building—visited her every Friday to eat lunch alone with her in a “mindfulness room” with the door closed, often bringing her food from outside the school.
**Inappropriate Physical Presence:** He “stalked” Jill by visiting her after band practice in a building where he had no official responsibilities.
**Circumventing Parents:** He reached out directly to Jill’s therapist without her mother’s consent to discuss “developments” in Jill’s mental health.
**Orchestrated Meetings:** He arranged to meet Jill at a local driving range outside of school hours and feigned that their encounter was a “coincidence” to her family.
**Inappropriate Conversation with Mother:** He told Jill’s mother that he had lost sleep and weight over their relationship and that he “missed how things used to be,” when teachers could drive students alone in their vehicles.
**Sexual Abuse and Graphic Misconduct**
**Canva Incident:** On March 20, 2025, Jill’s mother discovered Henrich was actively typing and immediately deleting extremely sexually graphic messages on a live Canva document shared with Jill.
**Graphic Content:** These recorded messages included detailed descriptions of Henrich engaging in rough sexual foreplay and penetrative acts with Jill, which he referred to as “punishment.”
**Physical Abuse:** The messages depicted Henrich causing Jill pain, pulling her hair, and smacking her.
**Post-Discovery Misconduct**
**Unauthorized Contact:** In December 2025, after Butler County Children’s Services had substantiated the abuse, Henrich communicated with Jill during the school day via another student’s phone.
**Physical Encounter:** A few days later, Henrich picked Jill up from a mandatory school band practice and drove her to a park where they “laid together” in his vehicle before he returned her to school.
Footnotes
1. Details of the federal lawsuit filed July 1, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, as reported in contemporaneous coverage by the Cincinnati Enquirer and Journal-News.
2. Allegations regarding the timeline, use of the Remind app, Canva document, mindfulness room meetings, and district response drawn from the complaint were summarized in multiple local outlets.
3. District statement denying allegations and emphasizing student safety priorities, reported across local media following the lawsuit filing.
4. References to prior incidents and pattern allegations contained within the 2026 lawsuit filings and prior local reporting on other Lakota employee cases.
5. Ohio age of consent is 16; however, professional conduct codes for educators and laws regarding persons in positions of authority create additional prohibitions on sexual conduct with students that do not turn solely on the general age of consent.
Bibliography for Further Reading
• Cincinnati Enquirer, “Parent says Lakota teacher groomed and abused her daughter,” July 8, 2026.
• Journal-News, “Lawsuit: Lakota teacher ‘groomed and sexually abused’ a student and was allowed to take medical leave, retire,” July 7, 2026 (updated July 9).
• FOX19 / Local 12 coverage of the July 2026 lawsuit and related statements.
• Ohio Department of Education professional conduct standards for educators (ongoing reference for context on boundaries and reporting obligations).
• General resources on educator sexual misconduct patterns: U.S. Department of Education reports and studies on employee misconduct in K-12 settings (searchable via ED.gov).
• Local coverage of prior Lakota cases involving Justin Dennis and others referenced in the 2026 lawsuit for pattern context.
• Darbi Boddy’s public statements and commentary on Lakota issues (available via local media archives and her public channels).
• Ohio Revised Code sections on sexual battery, unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, and school employee reporting requirements.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
The Fourth of July 2026 hit different this year, especially as the nation leaned into the spirit of the 250th-anniversary celebrations and all the ceremonies marking two and a half centuries since that bold declaration in Philadelphia. It felt pretty, pretty, pretty cool—pretty good, really—to see people embracing the moment with genuine enthusiasm, more than I’ve sensed in years. The Trump administration put real energy behind it, and it showed. Out here in Liberty Township, Butler County, Ohio, the whole valley came alive in a way that reminded me why this ground matters. I stepped out of my driveway late into the night, and the fireworks kept rolling until midnight, echoing from Trenton, Fairfield, Hamilton, and everywhere in between. Living on this elevated piece of property overlooking the Great Miami River valley gives you a front-row seat to it all. If you’ve ever been over, you understand the geography—the way the land rises high and commanding, the river snaking below through Middletown, Trenton, and Hamilton. It’s the same high ground that made the Voice of America broadcast site so strategically vital back in the day, right over in Mason. My kids went to the museum for the Fourth and came back buzzing about it, sharing pictures of the Crossley innovations, those three massive towers that once beamed American ideals and resolve across the world.
I grew up looking out my window at those towers. The silver structures are gone now, but the concrete pylons and foundations remain, silent sentinels of a time when America projected strength and clarity without apology. I explained it to the grandkids and my daughters that evening after the fireworks: this high ground wasn’t random. The Great Miami River valley, with its elevated ridges running from Liberty Township all the way over toward Mason, offered natural advantages—commanding views, defensibility, and that clear line of sight and signal propagation that made the Voice of America a high-priority target for adversaries like the Soviets during the Cold War. Evendale and other key industrial sites were on the lists too, but the broadcasting power here symbolized something deeper: the projection of Americanism, individual liberty, capitalism, and self-reliance to a world that needed to hear them. Standing there with the family as fireworks lit the sky, thousands upon thousands popping off every second and ricocheting off the hillsides, I felt that same spirit alive in 2026. People were spending their own money, blowing things up in celebration of rebellion and independence. It was loud, chaotic, joyful—exactly the kind of unscripted gusto that built this country.
My wife and I soaked it in with the grandkids. We had an epic family day: picking up fireworks, setting them off on the property, swimming late into the warm night while the valley below erupted in color and sound. The geology here adds to the magic—the river carving through the valley floor, hills rising on either side like ancient guardians, with earthwork structures and mounds reminding us of deep human history on this land long before the founding. One hillside across the way mirrors the kind of elevated features you see near Miamisburg. It’s high ground that has always mattered, whether for broadcasting freedom or simply giving families like ours a vantage point to watch communities celebrate. I told the kids, as everyone headed out around eleven, that I wish more people fought for ideas and principles with the same energy they put into lighting up the sky. The Trump administration did a solid job of coordinating national ceremonies, and it was great to see Mount Rushmore back in the mix after years of diminished patriotism under previous leadership.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: there’s hardly a more patriotic place on earth than Mount Rushmore. I love Washington, D.C.—the cleaned-up streets, the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court, Capitol Hill, the White House grounds we’ve walked recently. The intent behind the founding documents still resonates there if you listen closely. But nothing matches standing at the base of those carved faces with flags waving along the avenue of flags, the bookstore full of real history, the sense of scale and permanence. Back in 2020, after watching the Trump fireworks display at Mount Rushmore on TV, I was so inspired that my wife and I packed up the campers with the family the next year and headed west. We hit Deadwood, Devils Tower, and, of course, Mount Rushmore itself. Buffaloes came right up to the car—wild, majestic, a perfect backdrop. That trip stayed with me: the open road, teaching the grandkids resilience and wonder, standing where giants of American history stare out across the Black Hills. The Biden years canceled that patriotic spark at the site, which always struck me as telling. They didn’t want the visual of fireworks honoring the founders on that sacred ground. Seeing it revived in 2026 felt like a correction, a return to celebrating what makes us exceptional rather than apologizing for it.
The local celebrations grounded all that national energy in something real and immediate. My daughter participated in the community parade, and she came back with sharp observations. The Republicans led it strongly, but she was surprised by how many Democrats showed up further back. I told her that’s how it works—they’re there, even in Butler County. About thirty to forty percent in many areas, often quiet until they sense weakness. They move in from coasts and high-tax states, bringing ideas that erode self-reliance, and they play the long game: friendly on the surface, organizing in schools, unions, and local offices. Law teachers, public employees, transplants—they blend in at Walmart but push collective priorities when it counts. I explained it to her plainly: they know they’re a minority on core issues, so they infiltrate, stay polite to your face, and wait for Republicans to nap on turnout and vigilance. West Chester Township has seen shifts for exactly those reasons. Don’t underestimate them. My daughter was a bit taken aback, but it’s reality. The enemy isn’t always overseas; some are neighbors who reject the founding premise of individual initiative and ordered liberty.
That evening, as we swam in the pool and wrapped up the family dinner, I kept the radio on WLW in the garage—part of the old Voice of America legacy complex. They played clips of past Fourth of July speeches: presidents from different eras celebrating the republic. It was striking to hear the contrast. Obama’s “you didn’t build that” collectivism, the emphasis on “we” over “I,” the downplaying of individual heroes in favor of consensus circles and government-guided outcomes. Bush had his moments, but the through-line in some Democratic rhetoric leaned toward collective pronouncements that castigate personal achievement. Compare that to the Americanism that built the Voice of America towers I grew up seeing—broadcasting individual rights, capitalism, and innovation to counter tyranny. I’ve always approached business and life the same way: find the best and brightest, give them room to rise through merit, reward contribution without penalizing success. That’s what creates upper mobility. Socialism and heavy collectivism punish the very drive that lifts everyone. The grandkids listened as I connected the dots among the fireworks, the high-ground history, and the ongoing fight for ideas.
A recent encounter drove this home powerfully. A couple of weeks before the Fourth, a high-level executive—a substantial Democratic donor who had given over a million to the Hillary and Biden campaigns—flew into Cincinnati on his private jet, hired a car, and came straight to my office. He wanted me to sign copies of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business. He’d bought hundreds to distribute to his employees as a gift, complete with a big warehouse event using a Skyjack lift for the presentation. This guy had despised my views for years, thought I was extreme, especially on Trump. But after Trump’s return and watching how events unfolded, he revisited my writings and videos. He admitted I’d been ahead on many business and cultural issues. He respected the track record enough to fly across the country for a twenty-minute conversation, shake my hand, and get the books signed personally. We talked politics openly—he knew my strong views, and I knew his past support. No fighting, just honest exchange. He even mentioned considering Vivek Ramaswamy for governor and the need to clean up election integrity issues in places like California to let real leaders rise. I told him ideas matter more than parties; convert through clarity, not confrontation. He left impressed, and I later grabbed dinner at Jag’s—celebrating a small win in the battle of minds with a great meal.
That story isn’t isolated. Plenty of former skeptics are reassessing after seeing results. My daughter asked about next year’s parade—maybe a family float with her Jeep, the grandkids, and yes, bullwhips cracking to symbolize discipline and precision. The youngest grandson already wants in. I’m on a time crunch these days with writing, business, and the manuscript for The Politics of Heaven, but we’ll make it happen. Parades, fireworks, family gatherings—they’re more than fun. They’re reminders of the rebellion we celebrate and the vigilance required to defend it. Enemies within—those pushing socialism, eroding self-initiation, favoring collective penalties over individual reward—operate in the background, polite at the neighborhood level while undermining capitalism. The fireworks show the spirit is still there; now we channel that gusto into winning minds, just as the Voice of America once projected truth globally from this very high ground.
The geology and history here reinforce it all. The Great Miami River valley, with its elevated townships and ancient mounds, has hosted human striving for millennia. The Voice of America site leveraged that topography to broadcast freedom. Today, from my driveway, watching fireworks echo across the same ridges, I see continuity: people choosing to celebrate independence loudly, despite internal challenges. The 250th-anniversary push, Mount Rushmore revival, national ceremonies—it all points to renewal. I’ve traveled enough—Gettysburg, Space Coast, D.C.—to know America’s symbols retain power when defended. My wife and I keep building those memories with the grandkids: rockets, parades, history lessons, fireworks on the hill. It’s a privilege and a responsibility. As I told the family that night, match the fireworks energy with idea-fighting. Convert where possible, stand firm always. That Democrat donor, crossing the country for a signature, showed that ideas can bridge divides when lived authentically. Here on the high ground, overlooking the valley where the river snakes and communities light up the sky, it feels like the fight for the American idea remains winnable—one conversation, one celebration, one broadcast of truth at a time.
Expanding outward, the broader 2026 Fourth carried that same resonance nationally. With the 250th anniversary momentum, communities from coast to coast reflected on founding principles amid modern pressures. In Ohio, local parades and fireworks displays underscored resilience after years of division. The Trump administration’s emphasis on patriotism—reviving Mount Rushmore events, coordinating ceremonies—contrasted sharply with prior diminishment. I remember the inspiration from 2020 vividly; it wasn’t just spectacle. It prompted real family action: the cross-country camper trip, teaching grandkids about self-reliance amid buffalo herds and carved mountains. Canceling such displays later felt like rejecting the founding rebellion itself. Fireworks embody that: loud, bright, unapologetic declarations against tyranny.
Locally, the high ground advantage isn’t lost on me. Living elevated above the Great Miami, with Trenton and Hamilton below, mirrors strategic history. The Voice of America towers—Crossley’s engineering marvels—broadcast from similar terrain, making the site a priority target. Soviets and others recognized its power in projecting American exceptionalism. Today, those foundations remain, a reminder that ideas travel far from strong ground. Explaining this to the kids after the museum visit tied the past to the present: we stand on land that amplified liberty. The river valley amplifies sound too—fireworks ricocheting for miles, thousands detonating in celebration. It was auditory proof of widespread participation, people investing personally in joy and memory-making. My grandkids’ eyes lit up; the youngest already planning next year’s parade role. These shared experiences build the next generation of defenders.
Politically, my daughter’s insights from the parade were instructive. Front-loaded Republicans, Democrats further back—visible yet strategic. Transplants from California and New England bring habits and assumptions that shift trustee balances, as in West Chester. They operate politely, infiltrating schools and unions, waiting for lapses in vigilance. I’ve seen it for decades: don’t nap, or offices flip. In many locales, about 30-40% reject core capitalism—individual reward for contribution—in favor of collective leveling that punishes success. Fireworks enthusiasts likely include many such neighbors, enjoying the spectacle while quietly supporting policies that erode its foundations. The lesson: engage ideas relentlessly.
The donor story exemplifies it. A powerful California executive in the space economy, longtime Hillary/Biden backer, flew in specifically for my signature on The Gunfighter’s Guide. He’d distributed hundreds to employees as he planned a major event. Once hostile, he credited Trump’s return and my consistent track record for prompting reevaluation. We spoke candidly—no shouting, just clarity. He acknowledged that election integrity needs in blue states are a requirement for leaders like Ramaswamy or Hilton to succeed. I offered no conversion pressure, just principles: merit, self-initiation, rewarding contribution. He left motivated, and I enjoyed Jag’s later, reflecting on small victories in the marketplace of ideas. Such encounters affirm the approach—live boldly, engage honestly, let results persuade.
Tying it together, 2026’s Fourth blended local joy with national renewal. From valley fireworks echoing off ancient high ground once used for global broadcasts to family parades and personal redemptions, it reaffirmed America’s enduring appeal. Enemies within push collectivism; we counter with lived individualism and vigilant celebration. My wife and I prioritize these traditions—rockets with grandkids, history lessons, unashamed patriotism—because they forge resilience. As the towers once did, we project strength from elevated places, literal and philosophical. The fight continues: match fireworks energy with idea warfare. Convert neighbors through clarity. Celebrate rebellion daily. This high ground, this valley, this family—this is where America renews.
Footnotes
1. Local geography and Voice of America history, Butler County/Mason area.
2. 2020 Mount Rushmore event and family trip reflections.
3. Observations on parade dynamics and local political realities.
4. Account of executive donor meeting and book distribution.
5. Broader 250th anniversary context and national ceremonies.
6. Great Miami River valley geology and historical significance.
Bibliography for Further Reading
• Crossley Broadcasting and Voice of America archives (historical engineering and Cold War context).
• The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business (personal reflections on merit and leadership).
• Ohio Historical Society materials on the Great Miami River and ancient earthworks.
• Public reports on 2026 Fourth of July national events and Mount Rushmore programming.
• Personal travel accounts from Black Hills region (Mount Rushmore, Devils Tower).
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
The lockdowns in Ohio during the COVID era pulled back the curtain on something many of us had sensed for years but hadn’t seen so clearly exposed: the dangers of unchecked corporate power when it collides with government emergency authority. My beautiful wife and I talked about this often during those uncertain months, watching how the rules seemed to bend one way for the big players and another for the families and small operators trying to hold things together in our community around Liberty Township and the Great Miami River valley. What started as measures to slow the spread of the virus quickly revealed deeper structural problems, where large corporations could absorb shocks, leverage connections, and even come out stronger on the other side, while independent businesses in places like Butler County and around Middletown faced closures, mounting debt, layoffs, and permanent scars that rippled through families, local tax bases, school levies, and the very idea of self-reliant American enterprise. We saw neighbors who had built lives through hard work and discipline suddenly staring at empty parking lots and “closed indefinitely” signs, wondering why the system that preached fairness seemed rigged toward scale and influence.
My wife has a way of cutting through the noise with clear-eyed observations born from years of raising our family and navigating real-world responsibilities together. She often noted how the lockdowns exposed the fragility of depending too heavily on distant corporate structures rather than local, accountable enterprise. We saw it in the way shutdown orders hit hardest on restaurants, retail shops, small manufacturers, service providers, and family-oriented spots like amusement venues and community gathering places that define so much of Ohio’s character. Large national chains with deep pockets, diversified revenue streams, sophisticated logistics, and teams dedicated to government relations could pivot to curbside or delivery models, secure Paycheck Protection Program funds with fewer hurdles in practice, lobby for favorable treatments, or weather the storm with cash reserves built from years of market dominance. Smaller independent operations, the ones run by neighbors who know their customers by name and pour personal savings and sweat equity into every decision, lacked those buffers. Supply chain disruptions hit them especially hard—big corporations with global reach and negotiating power could reroute shipments or stockpile inventory, but local suppliers and Main Street businesses absorbed the full force of delays, shortages, and skyrocketing costs that eroded margins already thinned by months of restricted operations.
In our conversations, my wife and I reflected on how this wasn’t mere bad luck or an unavoidable consequence of a novel virus. It was the predictable outcome of policy choices that favored entities with political access and financial scale over adaptability, personal responsibility, and community roots. We recalled stories from friends and local business owners—people we’ve known through years of involvement in Butler County events, schools, and youth activities—who had invested everything into their ventures only to watch restrictions drag on while corporate competitors maintained some form of continuity or found creative compliance paths. Data from the period bears this out: smaller establishments, particularly those with fewer than 50 employees, faced disproportionately high risks of temporary and permanent closures, especially in in-person sectors like hospitality and retail. Employment losses hit low-wage workers in these businesses hardest and persisted longer, creating a V-shaped recovery for some high-income or large-firm segments but a much more protracted struggle for the backbone of local economies.
The aftermath only amplified these imbalances and made the consolidation trend impossible to ignore. In sectors like entertainment and manufacturing, the cumulative pressure from lost revenue, uncertainty, and uneven recovery pushed waves of mergers and acquisitions that consolidated power into even larger entities. Cedar Fair’s flagship operations in Ohio, already contending with seasonal vulnerabilities, weather dependencies, and prolonged capacity limits from public health orders, became part of larger combinations that promised operational synergies, expanded geographic footprints, and improved access to capital markets for future investments. On paper, such deals highlight efficiency gains and resilience against future shocks, but in practice they often translate to fewer independent decision-makers attuned to local conditions, strategic choices driven by distant boards and quarterly metrics, and a gradual shift toward institutional ownership that prioritizes shareholder returns over the kind of patient, community-embedded stewardship that built iconic Ohio attractions.
Similar patterns unfolded across other key industries. Ohio’s manufacturing sector, vital to aerospace, automotive suppliers, and industrial production in areas like Middletown, saw accelerated M&A activity as smaller firms struggled with disrupted supply lines and labor shortages while larger players leveraged balance sheets and government programs to consolidate market share. Banking and healthcare followed suit, with regional players absorbed into bigger institutions better equipped to handle regulatory compliance costs and capital requirements heightened by the crisis. Media and retail consolidation further concentrated influence over information and consumer access. Private equity firms and asset managers, flush with capital, moved in on distressed or weakened assets, reshaping ownership landscapes in ways that often reduced local control and diversified economic decision-making. My wife would remark during our evening discussions how this shift erodes the distributed resilience that comes from many independent actors solving problems in their own backyards, replacing it with centralized systems more prone to single points of failure.
This growing concentration of corporate power carries profound dangers for economic mobility, innovation, and the broader culture of self-mastery. When a handful of large entities dominate supply chains, capital allocation, and policy influence, incentives naturally tilt toward preserving existing advantages rather than fostering the disruptive, bottom-up creativity that has always powered American progress. Entrepreneurial organizations and privately held family businesses operate with direct skin in the game—they adapt quickly because survival depends on it, rewarding discipline, foresight, and the willingness to impose order on chaos. Bureaucratic corporate giants, protected by layers of management, diversified risks, and access to Washington and Columbus corridors, more often prioritize compliance, risk aversion, and entrenchment. They shape regulations and emergency responses in ways that inadvertently—or sometimes deliberately—raise barriers for smaller entrants. During the lockdowns, this dynamic became visible in how “essential” classifications and aid distribution sometimes tracked lines of influence, leaving truly independent operators to navigate disproportionate burdens without equivalent advocacy.
Government support initiatives, meant as lifelines, frequently highlighted another layer of the problem. While in theory it provided necessary liquidity, implementation favored those with professional grant writers, established banking relationships, and lobbying sophistication. Many small businesses received delayed or insufficient help, only to face a cliff when programs wound down around 2021-2022, contributing to a later spike in exits. Broader economic analyses confirmed that small-firm survival and revenue recovery lagged in hard-hit sectors, even as some larger corporations reported record profits or made strategic acquisitions amid the turmoil. In Ohio, where survival rates for certain 2019 cohorts compared favorably to national averages thanks to the tenacity of local entrepreneurs, the pandemic still exposed vulnerabilities: a reliance on just-in-time global supply models and concentrated corporate customers left many suppliers exposed when big firms tightened belts or shifted priorities.
My wife captured the human dimension perfectly in our ongoing talks. This wasn’t merely an economic story; it touched the erosion of the cultural fabric that values individual agency, intergenerational knowledge transfer, family enterprise, and community strength over abstract efficiency metrics. We witnessed families in our area—friends from school events, shooting sports fundraisers, and church circles—weighing impossible choices between keeping the doors open and walking away to protect their households. Meanwhile, distant corporate boards and institutional investors calculated portfolio impacts and synergy targets with detachment. The long-term consequences for wealth creation and genuine mobility worry me deeply. Capital markets and private equity structures often reward financial engineering, scale, and short-term returns, but they can crowd out the patient, values-driven organizations that distribute opportunity more broadly and build lasting local wealth. Supply chain lessons from the era should have driven a renewed emphasis on redundancy and diversified ownership; instead, recovery frequently accelerated the very consolidation that heightens systemic risks.
In Ohio’s context—with its rich manufacturing heritage, agricultural foundations, aerospace strengths, and regional attractions like those tied to Cedar Fair—the dangers become especially clear. Over-reliance on a few dominant players leaves communities and the state exposed to future disruptions, whether from another health crisis, a regulatory shift, a trade conflict, or an economic downturn. When corporate power concentrates alongside expansive government emergency authority, the result is a form of soft centralization that undermines the dispersed decision-making and personal responsibility essential to a free and prosperous society. We’ve seen echoes of this in other areas of policy influence, where large interests shape outcomes on taxes, regulations, and incentives in ways that disadvantage smaller competitors. My wife and I have always emphasized to our daughters and grandchildren the importance of building resilience through direct experience—whether troubleshooting model rockets on windy days, learning mechanical skills, or understanding history and spiritual foundations that warn against over-centralized power.
The lockdowns served as a profound stress test for these principles. They revealed how fragile local economies become when corporate structures grow too dominant, lacking sufficient counterweights from competition, local ownership, and a cultural emphasis on self-reliance. Small businesses didn’t just suffer temporary revenue losses; many lost irreplaceable ground in a playing field tilted toward those positioned to endure or capitalize on the chaos. Rebuilding stronger requires more than recovery spending or new programs. It demands a cultural and policy renewal that actively prioritizes dispersed economic power, reduces barriers for independent enterprise, scrutinizes consolidation for its community costs, and reinforces the virtues of discipline and moral agency that have sustained families like ours through generations. My beautiful wife and I carry these observations forward daily, rooted in the conviction that real strength and enduring prosperity emerge from the ground up—from individuals and families imposing order, building legacies, and refusing to cede agency to distant powers—rather than from ever-larger corporate edifices that too often leave ordinary communities to shoulder the heaviest burdens when crises strike. This is the hard-earned lesson from Ohio’s experience, one we hope will inform wiser choices ahead to preserve the opportunities our children and grandchildren deserve.
Footnotes
1. Documentation of Ohio COVID business orders and recovery challenges (Ballotpedia, state reports).
2. Heterogeneous economic impacts from private sector data (Opportunity Insights).
3. Early Ohio small business closure and economic damage reports.
4. Cedar Fair/Six Flags merger details and post-pandemic industry context.
5. Ohio manufacturing and industrial M&A activity trends.
6. Studies on small vs. large firm exits, survival, and employment during/after the pandemic.
7. Analyses of essential business designations and policy influence.
8. JPMorgan Chase Institute, BLS, and state survival rate data.
9. Research on capacity restrictions, spillovers, and long-term business dynamics.
10. Broader patterns in consolidation, capital markets, and incentive effects.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
I was at a party the other night, and I know well enough how these things unfold when the stakes are this high, and the future of a state like Ohio hangs in the balance. This is a big race, the governor’s race in Ohio, and I’m pulling forward with confidence for Vivek Ramaswamy. Let me chronicle my relationship with him over the years, going all the way back to when he published his book Woke, Inc., and I was right there at the launch party. I feel confident he’s gonna be a good governor. I’ll say that outright, because I’ve seen the man up close, interacted with him personally multiple times, and watched him evolve from a sharp CEO building something real in biotech to an author laying bare the corporate scams, to a political figure stepping up to carry the Trump agenda right here in our home state.
It started years ago with that book launch. Woke, Inc. hit like a hammer back in 2021, exposing how corporate America had been captured by this social justice racket that had nothing to do with actual business success and everything to do with virtue-signaling control. I was at the launch party, and you could feel the energy in the room—people who had been grinding in the real economy, tired of the nonsense, recognizing that here was a guy who got it. Vivek wasn’t some polished politician reading from a script; he was a builder who had turned bold ideas into results at Roivant Sciences and elsewhere. We talked that night, and it struck me even then that this was a man who understood the game at a deeper level. He saw how the woke ideology was a Trojan horse for power, eroding the merit-based culture that actually creates wealth and opportunity. I respected that. Over the years, our paths crossed again—conversations here and there, watching him launch his presidential bid, seeing how he handled the fire from all sides. He went from CEO to author to candidate, and through it all, he stayed consistent: America First, economic mobility, rejecting the victimhood industrial complex. Now he’s running for governor of Ohio, and I was there when he launched that campaign too. The man is the real deal, and I’ve got no hesitation saying it because I’ve watched him impose his will on circumstances time and again, just like the Overman philosophy demands.
I’m confident he’ll be a good governor because he gets what Ohio needs right now—jobs, opportunity, lower costs, bigger paychecks, and a rejection of the socialist rot that’s trying to creep in under the door. The Democrats have given David Pepper and Mark Elias the keys to watch the lawyer shop, and they’re all wrapped up in this campaign trying to manufacture a close race. You can tell where it’s going. I’ve seen the internals. She’s definitely sucking air. Amy Acton is the socialist candidate, the lockdown lady herself, and David Pepper knows it. You can see it in the way he’s even putting posts up these days—you can tell what their concerns are. Mark Elias, of course, knows that Democrats can’t win straight up on ideas in this country anymore, not with the socialist, Marxist, communist movement they’ve embraced. That’s why they fight so hard to keep loose election laws, mail-in ballots, ballot harvesting, and all the other backdoors—because the Democrat Party as it stands isn’t popular in the United States. But there’s a hardcore of that movement here in Ohio, and they would love to slip Amy Acton in under the door. She could see from the way David puts up those posts that it’s all about attacking Vivek. Ramaswamy is bad because he’s a billionaire; he’s very wealthy. Acting good because she’s like them, I’ve described what liberty is all about. They might be supporting Trump these days because they’re starting to learn some of the things I’ve been saying for years, but the core is still the same old game.
The labor movement started with good things—the five-day work week, eight-hour days, basic safety. That’s great. You don’t want to work people to death. But a lot of things came out of labor that were ostentatiously communist in their roots, and that’s what the people running companies essentially face now. It’s popular culture all the time, and when you get to the big mean olive—the big manager—when the people rise to overthrow them, that’s the script playing out. I’ve seen a bunch of criticism that Trump made $2 billion last year, and that somehow the president—wait, the candidate—is supposed to open up his veins and give his blood now. I’ve spent, and I will continue to spend, a lot of time on that concentration. Many of my readers know I’ve spent years digging into the biblical culture of sacrifice, North American Indian mounds, and indigenous peoples. I was looking at a copy of something on Cahokia years ago—I wrote a piece about that place and the sacrifices that went on there. Human sacrifice in those mound-builder cultures, ritual killings to appease forces beyond the terrestrial. It’s taboo in the archaeology world to talk about it straight, but I’ve spent a lot of time on these things because the new political movement needs to understand why human beings are inclined to sacrifice to forces beyond their existence. In my book, The Politics of Heaven, I’m not trying to beat everybody over the head with it, but you won’t understand the nature of sacrifice unless you look at it both historically and spiritually. It’s not the same as the good. President Trump is good because he knows how economies work, how money moves. He’s written a lot of great books well before he was president. There’s a little show called The Apprentice where a lot of what he’s doing in office he already demonstrated—making deals, imposing will, creating value. People who were trying to be successful in life learned a lot from that. That’s why he became president. Did everybody expect President Trump to make $2 billion while in office? No, he wasn’t supposed to make any money off the presidency. He gives back his entire salary, or most of it anyway. He makes his money off businesses he laid out well before he was ever president. All these communist types out there who want equality of outcome, who want to make money without working, who push work-from-home policies that erode culture—they’re the ones attacking. Amy Acton came out swinging, trying to put her brand on it, reminding everybody that she’s the communist in this race. She’s the mom of Ohio, and they want to turn Ohio into something they’ve already done in California and are trying in Texas. That’s the game. You’re playing it. Vivek Ramaswamy is the capitalist, the one out there trying to create jobs and economic mobility for people. I can say that because I’ve interacted with him many times personally, and I was there when he launched his campaign. He went from a CEO to an author to a political figure before he ran for president, and he represents the Trump agenda here in Ohio as a potential governor.
I’m very portable on this, but the attack against him—that he’s rich and you can’t trust him—was the same kind of union can’t-trust-the-man, the evil manager. It’s all about the movement taking control of production. The people I’ve seen in corporate culture- almost every corporate culture out there- it’s all about the people, and they’re gonna take you through the whole company to see how it goes. As far as it goes with me, I’ve seen that many times, and I do my own thing when I run into those situations. It doesn’t take very long for the big fixer in me to step in and fix it. That’s the standard thing in a career where people get themselves into trouble and say, “Please fix it.” A lot of people are asking me to fix their stuff now, and I’m reluctant because I’m kind of on this other thing. I actually want to deal with the reason why politics like this happens—the act of David Pepper, why there are people who will vote for them who basically say the rich must sacrifice what they do to the poor. In Christianity, too, I have a major problem with that twist. I think I’ll be in the same paragraph when I say Christianity is the greatest invention humanity ever came up with—an invention, a movement that came and brought grace, civilization, and flourishing to the world. But also, even though this sounds wild to some, there’s a political movement that circulated through secret societies to all the governments of the world to move most of the world. You don’t have to listen to me telling you about the sun. Don’t put sunscreen on the beach all day, or you’re gonna get sunburned. I got a nice tan. I’m not gonna wear that blocker because it causes cancer. I just told you about it. I’m going over here; I’m gonna drink a pop, grab a bag of chips, and enjoy watching the day. I’m gonna do what I’m gonna do. You do you. When it blows up in your face, don’t expect me to jump through hoops to fix you. Same here with Amy. I think it’s gonna be easily the Paul Eternals—you can tell where David Pepper’s mind is. The one running for vice governor or lieutenant governor with Acton used to be charged with the DNC in Ohio and big-time Washington politics. The Democrat Party, Mark Elias is heavily involved as an active member. She’s the lockdown lady. She told you to shut down your business, socially distance, and care if you lost money. I appreciate being able to talk about some of these things, but yeah, it’s very smart high-level people who invite me on some of those conference calls during COVID. So I heard Amy Acton, Governor DeWine, John Husted—I know John certainly well enough. Bro, Mark makes communist points because John has consistently been pro-business. To talk on a conference call and see amusement—Six Flags, amusement parks—needed revenue, revenue. Conference calls with them, the governor, Acton, John Husted, and many very powerful legislators. I appreciate that they trusted me enough to say, “Once you listen to the garbage we’re always dealing with.” Okay, okay, I’d like to know rather than you tell me. I gotta find out myself. So I get invited to all these things. When I heard it with my own ears in early 2021, let me tell you about the amusement. Davis’s promise is evil because he’s rich, or he took his money management, which is against BlackRock. You know BlackRock poured money into the Democrats; it’s a huge Democrat one. But he wanted to be in politics. He’s kind of disappointed that he’s one of the richest people in the world and that he runs the world’s largest money manager, BlackRock. I will tell you, I’ve said the Lord easy money lay it out—the Fed made BlackRock. BlackRock created the need for a bailout and a fall guy, and it worked out for him. And Larry Fink turned out to be the benefactor who now runs their Aladdin computer to manage investments and everything. Go back to investing. You don’t make money; everybody goes to a job 9-5. You make money by investing and taking chances. President Trump made $2 billion in investments, and he just threw his money into an investment account. They go and do it. Stride management does that. It competed against Larry Fink’s BlackRock. And they know that when Vivek moved to Texas, it was because Texas had better walls. There were a lot of COVID policies that made it very hard to run a good business in Ohio, so regulations for people to pick up and move. And only took his company to a place where we’re gonna be more profitable. So let David Pepper and the gang tell you that’s not very popular in Ohio. Ohio governor helps explain why business owners move their companies. If you have business owners and are investing in Ohio, there are no jobs, and you’re not gonna get rich going to a 9-to-5 job. Labor unions and collective bargaining both expect disproportionately high wages for very little work. And it’s all attacking the man’s communist policies written right there in the Communist Manifesto by Engels and Marx. And we’re talking about these days. I heard on the claim book show these Norm consider Norm—they’re talking about, “Oh my gosh, what happened? We come from good morning forever you coming, and you didn’t listen.” So now here it is. And now the whole because internals are saying I’ve been telling y’all along. The Vic Ross Swan, the neck race trying to get you to buy advertising on their media station corporate media thing. The polls come straight out of corporate media. The corporate media buy them. I think the latest poll was a New York Times poll that said the race in Ohio was really close, a neck-and-neck race, so that the campaign ad revenue on those corporate media outlets. So people think it’s closed, which keeps people buying ads. I know that from personal experience—directly, absolutely 100% sure of it. So it’s technically saying I’m; it’s not. I think a grown Swami is ahead by 8-10 points. And David Pepper knows that because they’re going out in their attacking when he can’t have. And that is the communist mantra. It’s a 42% issue to 56% or 58% in there. They fill the gap in the mobility of people with swallowing problems. They want opportunities in life, and the only one in the Ohio governor campaign offering them is Vivek Ramaswamy. Amy Acton is the social representative, the communist representative. And David Pepper to be the lieutenant governor in this case, her running mate. And that’s what we’re supposed to be. He’s going out—Swami’s wealth, prosperity—same as with Trump. Trump’s presidency is now two years old; it made $2 billion last year. Well, they also made about the same when he bought during his exile. And just a little hand to everybody. Exiling someone doesn’t mean that you win. Trump launched Truth Social during his exile. Theory, which is four years, four years Mar-a-Lago. The day after the election of 2020, I told everybody, don’t go out and kill people on the other side. Win legitimately. Play the warfare game with them legally. That’s how you do it. Don’t get your goal funky. They might try to beat you into doing something stupid, like a January 6 date, or into throwing yourself on the pike, or in all kinds of other ways. That’s what I always do. You never run yourself. In Trump’s case, having wealth is the way you beat them. And he started Truth Social. And his exile Americans used to enjoy swelling almost 85% of us struggled with puffy feet before we even eat because you bought eggs yet platform people off a platform. And these are people. And I’ve seen it over a four-year career. I’ve personally experienced this about 9 times. And always within a year or two, you have everybody back, licking your feet, help me please. And then Trump’s case: all the people knock them off platforms—the owners of Alphabet, of course, Apple, of course, Meta. That’s a good story. Mark Zuckerberg sits down to talk with people who hustle in that business. Everybody, you never tell people what you think to their face is a dishonest business practice. It’s the way you play poker. You don’t go in there and say, “Hey, I’m gonna put these cards down.” Do you see it? Do you have time to react? Now you play your cards close. It might be that they are going with the old signal, along with all the other guys, on how to play their hand. You know you play your hand. You play to beat the other guy. You played the win. And you know you don’t give them if you’re angry and you’re showing emotions during a poker hand; of course, they’re gonna pick up on that. He uses his fingers like that. People will look for all kinds of signs, and they’re looking for clear signs that the other side’s depleted. But the Republicans in Ohio, good for them to listen. I’ve told everybody, and they are listening. Campaigns in Ohio are good. Don’t let people forget. The lockdown lady shut down the state. She harmed him. She harmed all businesses very much. And I’ll come back to Cedar Fair amusement in a minute cause this is the inside story. Trump invested a lot of money into Truth Social. I was one of the very first people on the platform cause I was banned everywhere. I’m still blocked even though it’s better than it used to be. Algorithms say ain’t rich often guy is doing anything. Try to ban him in any possible way to take the throttle off his stuff. For him to pay us thousands of dollars to remove the restricted place because somebody controls everything online. It’s not a free speech platform. You might have a right to speech, and they may be playing in that world, and Elon Musk does, but I can tell you all the algorithms that I’ve been sitting on my neck for years are still there. Elon Musk did not take them away, but they still get out there. People hear me they look it up. They still find it when they come to it. I always say the stuff I do is like the 18. They’re hard to find, but if you can find them, you can get to them; they’ll solve it for you. They’re usually hiding in the underbelly of society with me. I’m not exactly playing with the Normies too much on the golf course. I’ve been restricting my engagement to those things, so you’re probably not gonna find me much lately. Everybody’s been finding me at Costco, and I’ve had to change my habit. It’s not because I like the people who are finding me, but because, you know, I can’t be too predictable. We talk about it all the time. Yeah, I still carry. Guy and question this happened yesterday. Why are you carrying a 500 magnum? And I always wear a vest or a suit jacket, and they’re like, “Where it’s hot out.” Why are you wearing it? Conceal my gun. And then everybody talks about their concealed carry guns; they usually have 45 or smaller platforms, 9 mm things that fit real nice under your shoulder, under your armpit. And I have to say I don’t go bragging about it. My carry guns are .500 Magnum, and the barrel is 10 inches. The barrel of my vessel is really long. Answer the question: My suit jacket will conceal them. That’s why I wear them a lot. I wear them in the building. I take them off, leaving the car to do whatever as much as possible, because in a standing position your jacket needs to conceal it if you’re going into a store or somewhere where you’re supposed to conceal. Or you can carry it in Ohio; you used to be able to, which is good, but it tends to scare the kids, so it’s good to conceal. A lot of people don’t like me, and stoplight stop signs are very stop lights. Two-lane stoplights are very dangerous, and they are on many roads. I typically spend a lot of my work week on double-lane roads where you can be in one lane next to you at a stoplight, and they have a shot into your passenger window or your driver’s side window, so for that purpose, and I shouldn’t be saying this, I guess, but I think it’s important for context for that cut. For that reason, I typically changed my route. I don’t always go the same way every day. I get very creative with the routes I take to places when I find out that people know that I could Costco on Thursdays between 11 and one. Some people have been parked in the handicap zones outside, waiting for me to show up during that time. Sit in their cars and wait for me so they see me coming. I’m pretty easy to spot in the crowd when they see me coming to get out and engage me either in the parking lot or at the entryway, or catch me in a little foyer area ahead of the scanning area, but keep the shopping cart. I wanna talk to me, and then tell me I appreciate all this good stuff, and I appreciate that people go out of their way like that. Still, I go over there on Thursdays because they typically have overseas calls, and I can kind of break away during those hours to go to Costco and get away, and my senior in a little bit, which is something I like to do. I’ve had to change that because more than five people over the last two weeks have done just what I reported, and they wanted to talk to me further; they want to send an email. I said the 18th; they want to make me an offer. They wanna hire the team to come in and fix their stuff like the team who lives underground and lived off the grid cause they were one people they were one men remember that old 80s show was a really good show like Hannibal team gang they were like the team that fits so they want to hire you and they wanna find you and catch you where they think you’re gonna be but also people who wanna get rid of you. They do pull up the stoplight, and I don’t carry. I’m not a concealed carry holder for my for fun or as a bragging rights as a tool as a functional tool like you might carry in your truck blow tire does it happen every day no over 10 or 15 years do you blow a tire now in to get out and change it and have I had to do that bitch I have more than once actually and why the big gun so everyone gotta carry such a big gun well because 45 caliber bullets the bullets they don’t have a lot of behind the 9 mm magnum 350 go to 500 Smith I love my desert eagle 50 caliber but there’s moving parts and occasionally the desert eagle jam so let’s put all that into a 4000 word essay the way I typically like it without headers titles fine it’s a lot of roofer color commentary. It’s all about Amy. I can be the communist representative in the Ohio governor’s race. Vivek is hated because he makes money, and people obviously want to take things from him and distribute them; that’s why he’s the target. It’s very dangerous, so there’s lots of room for some background information on that premise. Feel free, and we need a lot of footnotes and a very extensive bibliography for further reading.
Let me expand on that premise with the color and context it deserves, because this isn’t just about one race—it’s about the nature of sacrifice in human affairs, the eternal tension between creators and takers, and why Ohio stands at a crossroads in 2026. I’ve spent a lifetime in aerospace and executive roles, fixing broken corporate cultures where the Marxist playbook had seeped in through HR departments and “people first” mantras that actually meant process over results, equity over merit, and eventually takeover by the loudest voices in the room. You see it everywhere once you know what to look for. The union mentality that expects disproportionate pay for minimal output isn’t about fairness; it’s about resentment of the man who built the thing. I’ve walked into companies where the culture had been poisoned that way, and it doesn’t take long for the fixer in me to cut through it—impose discipline, restore accountability, get people focused on building rather than dividing the spoils. That’s what Vivek represents in this race. He’s not the evil manager from the communist fairy tale. He’s the guy who built companies, created jobs, and moved operations when Ohio’s regulatory environment and COVID policies made it impossible to stay competitive. Texas had better walls—not just border walls, but walls against the nonsense of overregulation, high taxes, and anti-business posturing. Businesses don’t move for fun; they move to survive and thrive. If Ohio wants to keep its best and brightest, its investors and job creators, it can’t keep punishing success.
The attacks on Vivek’s wealth are straight out of the Communist Manifesto—Engels and Marx laid it out plain: the bourgeoisie must be overthrown, property redistributed, the successful demonized as exploiters. That’s the script David Pepper and Amy Acton are running. She’s the lockdown lady who stood at those daily briefings with DeWine and Husted, signing orders that shuttered businesses, closed schools, and told Ohioans to stay home while the economy bled. I was on those conference calls in early 2021, high-level ones with powerful legislators, amusement park operators like Cedar Fair begging for revenue so they could keep gates open and people employed. I heard the garbage firsthand—the disconnect between the political class and the real economy. Amy Acton quit when the pushback got too hot, but now she wants to be governor, the “mom of Ohio” who will supposedly protect families. Protect them from what? From the opportunity to work, build, and keep the fruits of their labor? From the capitalist who creates the jobs in the first place? It’s the same old sacrifice narrative: the rich must bleed for the poor, the producer must atone for his success by funding the taker state. I’ve got a major problem with that twist on Christianity, because the faith that built Western civilization emphasized grace, personal responsibility, and flourishing through productive work—not coerced redistribution dressed up as compassion. Christianity was the greatest civilizational invention, spreading a worldview that lifted billions out of pagan cycles of ritual sacrifice and fatalism. But political movements have twisted it, using secret society networks and ideological capture to push globalist agendas that demand the same old blood—only now it’s economic blood, cultural blood, the sacrifice of sovereignty and merit on the altar of equity.
That’s why I’ve dug deep into the archaeology of sacrifice—North American mounds, Cahokia in particular. The Mississippian culture there practiced ritual human sacrifice on a scale that shocks modern sensibilities, but it’s taboo in academic circles to connect it to broader patterns of human behavior. Why? Because it reveals something uncomfortable: people are wired to offer up value—sometimes the ultimate value of life itself—to appease powers they perceive as greater than themselves, whether gods, spirits, or in modern secular form, the state, the collective, the “greater good.” My forthcoming book The Politics of Heaven is a treasure hunt through that territory—biblical conspiracies, giants, demons, divine rebellion, spiritual warfare, population agendas. It’s not fringe; it’s the through-line of history. The same impulse that built pyramids and mounds and demanded virgins on altars now manifests in political demands that successful men like Vivek and Trump “open their veins” and fund the system that resents them. Trump made his billions the old-fashioned way—through deals, branding, real estate laid out long before the presidency. He gave back his salary. He built Truth Social when the platforms tried to deplatform him, playing the long game legally and financially while others wanted to burn it all down on January 6-style provocations. I’ve told people for years: don’t take the bait. Play the game to win within the rules they’ve rigged, then change the rules. Vivek gets that. He’s doing it in Ohio.
The internals don’t lie, even if the corporate media polls do. A New York Times poll showing a neck-and-neck race? That’s ad revenue bait. They need you to think it’s close so campaigns keep buying spots. I’ve seen it from the inside—personal experience, 100% sure. Vivek is ahead by 8 to 10 points because Ohioans are waking up. David Pepper knows it, which is why the attacks are so frantic. Mark Elias is in the mix to preserve the cheat mechanisms—mail ballots, loose verification—because straight-up popularity isn’t on their side. The socialist wing wants Amy Acton to win so they can lock in the California model: high taxes, high regulation, businesses fleeing, opportunity dying. Vivek offers the opposite—lower costs, bigger paychecks, the American Dream revived in the Buckeye State. I’ve watched him from the book launch to the campaign trail, and the through-line is integrity and competence. He doesn’t play the victim card. He builds.
On a personal note, the reason I carry what I carry and change my routes isn’t paranoia—it’s about the context of the stakes. A .500 Magnum with a long barrel under a suit jacket isn’t for show; it’s a tool, like a tire iron in the truck. You don’t need it every day, but when you do, nothing else suffices. People approach me at Costco, in parking lots, at stoplights—some wanting to hire the fixer team that lives off the grid and gets results, others with darker intent. I’ve had to get creative with Thursday runs because predictability is a vulnerability. It’s the price of standing up in a culture that wants to sacrifice the tall poppies. But I wouldn’t trade it. The Overman doesn’t bow to the mob. He imposes order on chaos.
Vivek Ramaswamy is the kind of man for Ohio. The attacks on his wealth are the tell—they reveal the communist core of the opposition. Amy Acton is the representative of sacrifice and lockdown control. David Pepper is the political operator trying to paper over the weakness. The choice is clear: prosperity and mobility with the capitalist who builds, or the slow bleed of the sacrifice state. I’ve spent years saying these things, and the internals confirm what I’ve known. Ohio can lead again, or it can follow California into managed decline. I’m pulling for Vivek because I’ve known him long enough to see the pattern—he wins by creating value, not by demanding tribute. That’s the Overman way. That’s the American way. And that’s why this race matters more than the polls admit.
[Footnotes / Endnotes]
1. Ramaswamy, Vivek. Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam. New York: Center Street, 2021. The book that launched much of the public conversation on corporate capture by ideological forces; launch events occurred in late 2021.
2. On Amy Acton’s role: Ohio Department of Health orders during COVID-19, including stay-at-home directives signed March 2020 onward. See contemporaneous reporting from the Ohio Governor’s office and subsequent campaign coverage that tie her to school and business closures.
3. Vivek Ramaswamy’s move of operations and business considerations to Texas cited in the context of regulatory and tax environment differences; personal conversations referenced in the narrative align with public statements on business climate.
4. Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848): Core text outlining class struggle, abolition of private property in means of production, and the overthrow of bourgeois society—echoed in modern “eat the rich” rhetoric and redistribution demands.
5. On Cahokia and Mississippian culture human sacrifice: Archaeological evidence from mound sites includes ritual killings, mass graves with bound individuals, and iconography suggesting sacrificial practices. See works such as “Cahokia: Mirror of the Cosmos” by Sally A. Kitt Chappell, or papers in the journals American Antiquity and Southeastern Archaeology. The topic remains sensitive in academic discourse due to implications for indigenous narratives under NAGPRA and related frameworks.
6. Biblical and spiritual warfare context drawn from ongoing research for The Politics of Heaven (forthcoming 2027), exploring themes of sacrifice, Nephilim, Book of Enoch traditions, and modern political manifestations of ancient patterns. Cross-referenced with the Biblical Archaeology Review archives and primary texts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls.
7. Trump business and Truth Social: Public financial disclosures and platform launch in 2021 following deplatforming events post-2020 election. Salary return precedent set during the presidency.
8. Polling critique: Corporate media polls (e.g., New York Times/Siena) often show tighter races than internal campaign data; ad revenue incentives in close contests are a documented dynamic in political media economics. The referenced internals are from direct campaign-adjacent observation, as described.
9. Personal corporate fixer experience: Drawn from executive career in aerospace and program management, including navigating external consultants and restoring accountability cultures—consistent with themes in The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business (author’s prior work).
10. Conference call insights during COVID: High-level briefings involving Ohio officials, business leaders (e.g., amusement sector revenue concerns), and legislators in early 2021, providing a ground-level view of policy impacts versus public messaging.
[Vast Bibliography for Further Reading]
Primary Sources & Author’s Works:
• Hoffman, Rich. Tail of the Dragon. (Personal narrative on resilience, discipline, and cultural critique.)
• Hoffman, Rich. The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business. (Executive philosophy on imposing will, fixing cultures, and warrior ethos in corporate settings.)
• Hoffman, Rich. The Politics of Heaven. (Forthcoming 2027; manuscript in circulation among select readers. Explores biblical conspiracies, spiritual warfare, sacrifice motifs across history, giants/Nephilim traditions, and modern political applications.)
• Ramaswamy, Vivek. Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam. Center Street, 2021.
• Ramaswamy, Vivek. Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence. Center Street, 2022.
• Ramaswamy, Vivek. Truths: The Future of America First (or related campaign/policy writings).
• Trump, Donald J. The Art of the Deal. Random House, 1987. (And subsequent business/political books demonstrating pre-presidency wealth creation.)
• Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. 1848. (Standard editions with historical analysis recommended.)
• Bible (various translations, with emphasis on Old Testament sacrifice systems, New Testament grace theology, and prophetic/spiritual warfare passages such as Ephesians 6, Revelation).
• Book of Enoch (Ethiopic and other versions; translated editions for study of fallen angels, giants, and pre-flood traditions).
• Dead Sea Scrolls (various editions and commentaries; connection to biblical conspiracies and alternative histories).
Archaeology, Ancient History & Sacrifice Studies:
• Chappell, Sally A. Kitt. Cahokia: Mirror of the Cosmos. University of Chicago Press, 2002. (Detailed on mound-builder culture, urban planning, and ritual practices.)
• Pauketat, Timothy R. Cahokia: Ancient America’s Great City on the Mississippi. Viking, 2009. (Archaeological synthesis including evidence of social hierarchy and ritual violence.)
• Emerson, Thomas E., et al. Cahokia and the Hinterlands. University of Illinois Press. (Papers on Mississippian iconography and possible sacrificial contexts.)
• Biblical Archaeology Review (back issues since ~1970s; lifelong reference for evidence-based approach to biblical lands, artifacts, and cultural parallels).
• Windover Bog People studies (Florida archaeological site ~8000 years old; “smoking gun” discussions in alternative history circles regarding pre-Columbian populations and narratives).
• NAGPRA-related critiques and repatriation debates (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act implications for scientific study of sacrifice and mound cultures).
• Axumite Empire and ancient African/Levantine histories (cross-cultural parallels in monumental architecture and ritual).
• British prehistory and mound/ritual sites (e.g., connections drawn in alternative archaeology to global patterns).
Philosophy, Politics & Cultural Critique:
• Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra and related works (Overman/Übermensch concept as a philosophical root for self-mastery and the imposition of order on chaos; whip symbolism in family tradition and martial discipline).
• Conservative and America First policy writings (Trump administration records on economy, deregulation, opportunity zones).
• Critiques of labor movements and Marxist infiltration in unions/corporate HR (historical analyses of how legitimate worker protections evolved into ideological capture).
• Media evolution critiques: From 1950s-80s family-oriented themes to later hedonistic/occult influences (personal observations spanning decades; cross-reference with cultural historians on music and spiritual warfare angles).
• Two-tier justice and institutional failure analyses (drawn from grand jury service experience in Butler County, observations of prosecutorial dynamics, and application to national politics).
• COVID-19 policy retrospectives in Ohio: DeWine/Acton/Husted briefings, business impacts (Cedar Fair, Six Flags sector concerns), school closures, and subsequent political weaponization.
• David Pepper’s political activities and DNC Ohio role; Mark Elias’s election law involvement in multiple states.
• Business climate comparisons: Ohio vs. Texas regulatory/tax environments post-COVID; company relocation trends.
• Polling and media economics: Discussions of NYT/Siena and similar polls versus internal campaign data; ad revenue dynamics in perceived close races.
• Local Ohio issues: Butler County politics, Lakota schools, tax policies, 2nd Amendment culture, and community events as a microcosm of state race.
Spiritual Warfare & Broader Conspiracies:
• Population agenda and globalist critiques (cross-reference with primary sources on UN/WEF-style initiatives, historical secret society influences).
• UFO/non-human intelligence disclosure discussions (personal early interest from 4th grade onward; ties to ancient tech/giants lore and modern spiritual framing).
• Music and cultural degradation as spiritual attack (1950s love/family themes vs. 1990s+ rage/hedonism/occult; analysis of industry shifts and societal impact).
Additional References for Context:
• Personal protection and concealed carry practicalities in Ohio (legal framework, functional tool philosophy vs. show).
• Costco and public interaction patterns (anonymity vs. recognition in advocacy work; route creativity for security).
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
The Overmanwarrior 