Tag: GOP

Meet the Candidates for Butler County Commissioner: Why Michael Ryan is the best

So, why Michael Ryan over the other two people running for the same Butler County Commissioner seat?  Well, a nice walk down High Street in Hamilton, Ohio, makes it all very clear.  Cindy Carpenter is the incumbent in this race, and she has held that seat for about 15 years.  The other is Roger Reynolds, who used to be the auditor of Butler County.  Before getting into any of the negative stuff, let’s just say that Michael Ryan is a good fresh start for the Butler County Republican Party, and he is coming into the race highly endorsed by a lot of very important people.  And he has great donors who are supporting him early in this process, which was quite evident at his October fundraiser.  Michael Ryan doesn’t have any baggage; he and his wife are a really good couple, and what he has done as vice-mayor of Hamilton has been very enterprising.  The good job that he and the city council have done for Hamilton is obvious just by walking down the streets of the West Side.  I was born in Hamilton.  I’ve lived in and around it most of my life.  And I have traveled all over the world and have an excellent idea of what good is, and the Hamilton of today is fantastic.  And Michael Ryan has a lot to do with its recovery from a not-so-good place.  Ryan has been optimistic and shown a remarkable ability to work with others to make things that seem impossible happen.  And there really aren’t many people anywhere better for the Butler County Commissioner job than Michael Ryan.  Butler County is lucky to have him, and I think he could do great things for the County over the next decade. I’m very excited to vote for him. 

But why not Cindy Carpenter?  Well, Cindy has always been thought of as a RINO.  Most of the time, she has run unopposed.  She has been a yes vote on police budgets.  But she has essentially been a Democrat socially, and recently proved it by campaigning for the Democrat mayor of Middletown, Ohio, Elizabeth Slamka.  Cindy was caught at a voting location openly pushing for the Democrat, and it was all caught on camera, which was very embarrassing for her.  Of course, when Cindy was caught, there wasn’t much she could say; she was the Republican endorsed candidate openly pushing for a Democrat mayor in a town that needs a lot of help, Middletown.  Simply put, after all these years, that’s the best Cindy can do, and she will never be a spectacular success.  She has had her chance; we know what she is, and we know she supports Democrats and doesn’t respect the endorsement process.  It’s not like the Elizabeth Slamka issue was in the past; it was very recent, and I think it ruined her forever.  She’ll never be able to live it down.  We’re in a period of party politics that wants more MAGA representatives, and Cindy isn’t one of them.  She’s too much of the kind of politics that people want to run away from.  Not to sign up for another term, especially when they openly support Democrats who have proven to be really detrimental to cities and counties where they gain a majority.  Hamilton didn’t improve because of people like Cindy Carpenter.  It improved despite her.  Michael Ryan gets much of the credit, and we want a lot more of his kind of presence.  I’m sure Ryan will support police budgets, even as tax cuts become a higher priority for him.  In a one-for-one comparison, all the positives go to Michael Ryan, and there are none for Cindy Carpenter.  She did her thing, it wasn’t perfect, and she is a closet Democrat.  So let’s dump her and move on to someone better.

The other candidate is someone I’ve supported in the past.  I would have preferred that he not run until he got his life back together after a rough trial he just went through, which cost him well over a million dollars.  I was very supportive of him during all that, so people are wondering why I’m not supporting him for commissioner.  Well, through the trial, I got to know him better.  I’ve known him for a long time, and I like him.  But he tends to get combative with people, and you learn a lot about them by how they handle pressure.  And under pressure, Roger Reynolds showed he’s someone people want to fight.  And that’s how he ended up in court to begin with.  As a commissioner, you need to be able to work with people and build relationships.  And Roger has a hard time with relationships.  So I might like the guy.  But he’s not ready for a public office.  He has had relationship problems with his wives, and in my book, if you can’t handle a marriage, you are going to struggle with a lot of other things in your life.  And after listening to the testimony of the former Lakota treasurer, Jenni Logan, there was a lot of poor judgment that gave early indications of spousal commitments.  Most of those are private problems, but he’s the one who decided to run for office, even though there are a lot of red flags about him personally that have only muddied this race for what I think are really selfish reasons. 

I would have said the same thing about President Trump’s marriages, and it took me a while to start taking him seriously.  I’ve met Trump several times, especially during the early Tea Party and Reform Party years.  And I’ve met Melania Trump, too, and I’ll say she’s been good for Trump and has made him better for the public office he’s now doing so well in.  Maybe Roger will find someone who will help him improve as a person, like Trump did.  But right now, he has a lot of digging to do to get out of a hole he put himself in.  And, unfortunately, he is seeking redemption through public office, even though a much better person is running for the job.  Roger is damaged goods, and he needs to present himself undamaged.  And it’s not just marriages that Roger has destroyed.  He has relationship problems, which raise major red flags for a job like this commissioner position.  Again, Roger has been around for a long time, and everyone knows what they are getting.  He’s not going to do anything significant.  But Michael Ryan has a chance to, so it’s really not a hard decision for voters.  Because of the way the world is changing toward better MAGA options at these positions, Michael Ryan is the only reasonable choice.  That’s why I am happy to support him over these other candidates.  If Roger wants to return to public office, he needs to fix some things about himself first.  Seeking redemption by voter validation isn’t healthy.  And Butler County needs to do good things for itself, not provide a platform for personal growth at the expense of progress.  And that is what anybody but Michael Ryan would be for the Republican Party, Hamilton, Ohio, in general, and Butler County as a whole.  People deserve the best person for the office, and for me, nobody would be better than Michael Ryan.     

Rich Hoffman

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

Democrats Will Die on the Government Shutdown Hill: Who needs Obamacare when people will live for hundreds of years in greatly improved health

Democrats were already on the outside looking in politically, and for a lot of bad reasons, they have decided to die on this government shutdown hill.  Now that we are well into October 2025, Democrats have insisted on a shutdown of the government, pushing for subsidies on Obamacare, which has always been about socialized healthcare, and control over a large segment of the economy.  And this is a particularly foolish thing to do for many reasons, not just politically.  Healthcare is changing, so the kind of political control over it that Democrats want is already a thing of the past; therefore, their position on it really spells doom for them as a party going forward.  Nobody is missing government services, except for an inconvenience.  We live in a world where many other things can be done, and people are willing to do them.  When they find out they can’t get something because of a government shutdown, it only reminds them that the government shouldn’t be involved in holding things up, but rather in providing the service they are seeking.  Shutting down the government only solidifies the bad feelings toward the government that people already have.  It doesn’t make people feel like they need to go out of their way to accommodate government workers, but rather to find a way to eliminate them so as not to inconvenience them.  So this position of a strike essentially to get what they want, “they” being democrats, is really out of step with reality.  They aren’t going to out-market Trump. Democrats are going to get the blame for the whole thing because Republicans have been trying to pass CRs to get the government going, so Democrats are going to eat the entire thing, which is fine with me.  I want to see the Democrats destroyed and obliterated from politics.  And I see more people will join me as a result of this shutdown.

However, being tone deaf to the world, the healthcare market has changed tremendously in just the last six months.  Not to mention, since Obamacare first came into effect in 2010.  Healthcare changed forever when the industry itself made a significant move with COVID-19 to take over the world, essentially.  Everything dangerous about Obamacare came to people’s minds just ten years later, internationally, with COVID-19, healthcare workers essentially trying to take over the management of everything.  At that point, people began to lose trust in doctors and the industry as a whole, and they started asking numerous questions.  And now, five years later, the whole healthcare assumption has come unraveled, and just as many medical breakthroughs are hitting the market as we speak, such as cures for cancer and repairing tissue that deteriorates typically as we age.  The way we treat illnesses is going to change dramatically by 2030, and many of the legacy costs of the healthcare industry are expected to decrease.  The cheapest form of healthcare is not needing it, as our bodies are capable of repairing themselves.  The best way to not get sick is to stay healthy, and that is the future of healthcare.  Not continued insurance costs to fund an industry that nobody wants anymore.  Democrats view labor in healthcare completely wrong and assume that doctors and nurses are going to be needed, and that isn’t the case.  AI is better than a doctor, heck, and Apple Watch replaces a lot of the need for a doctor’s visit.  And when something is found, it will be stem cells and nanobots that are used to repair the body to its infinite state of healthiness. 

Most of healthcare is a scam, where the industry itself is controlled by the influence of pharmaceutical companies.  Many people have always been suspicious of it, but many of our fears were grotesquely confirmed during the COVID pandemic, and as a result, healthcare as we know it will likely never return to the trust it had before 2019.  People who don’t know any better will use healthcare as it has been sold to the public; they’ll go to the doctor, go to the hospital, and take the drugs that they tell them to take.  However, the future of healthcare is likely to involve nanobots, AI, and stem cells derived from placentas—waste from newborn baby births.  I have a few friends who are fighting off stage 4 cancers right now, and just a year or two ago, these would have been death sentences with a short time to live.  But there are treatments, primarily out of the country right now, that are shrinking their tumors and giving them a path to full recovery, which is what healthcare should be.  In a few years, to kill cancer, you’ll take a simple pill or get a vaccine, and the cancer will be destroyed, and people will live.  People could, and should, live as many years as biblical characters did, for hundreds of years, if not longer.  These lifecycles that we have endured for the last several thousand years are ridiculously short, and that is a consideration that the Schumer Shutdown never understood.  They are trying to preserve a system that is dying year by year.  They are funding for an industry that people would love to move away from.  They are late to a party that ended yesterday, and they are too ignorant to realize it, so they have dug in, seeking more than a trillion dollars in funding that taxpayers simply aren’t going to pay.

This will only help Republicans in the midterms.  It certainly won’t hurt them.  And remember what I say all the time, Democrats don’t have the numbers.  Without illegal immigration, they do not have party support.  Their only hope is to convince illegals to come into America to vote for them because of free giveaways like Obamacare.  However, the industry itself is already too far advanced for an Obamacare-like medical approach.  My advice to everyone is to avoid major surgeries if you can.  Instead of letting people cut away things from your body, wait for the stem cell treatment that is becoming commonplace.   Much of the world is further along in developing new therapies that repair the body because pharmaceutical companies in America have gained too much control over our government, which has received constant funding to cover their operational inefficiencies.  The future of medicine is not in the legacy costs, the hospitals, the doctors’ offices, and all the employees who care for the sick.  They will have to find other jobs in the economy, because more than a fifth of it will change as people stay healthier longer and treatment involves self-healing.  Looking back on this government shutdown over Obamacare credits will be really stupid, but it’s obvious how the Democrat party essentially died as if it wasn’t viewed that way already.  This just put the nail in their coffin.  They have no negotiating room and, out of desperation, are shutting down the government as a last-ditch effort to exert political power.  And all that will ultimately happen is that more people will realize what Republicans have always said.  And support for the GOP will increase dramatically.  Who wants Obamacare and perpetual sickness when you can heal and live much longer?  Which we need because of declining birthrates.  People need to do more because we don’t have a next generation that can take over like we did in the past.  And that means even worse for Democrats, who count on an uninformed youth as another part of their base support; they are going to lose them in this process, too.  But we warned them, and they didn’t listen. 

Rich Hoffman

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

It’s All About Family: Why Michael Ryan is Right for Butler County Commissioner

It was a successful fundraiser for Michael Ryan on the West Side of Hamilton, Ohio, where he has served as a vice mayor for several years.  Ryan is running for Butler County Commissioner, so a fundraiser was held at the Shooter’s Event Center, which was very well attended and well represented among donors, showing a great early sign for his campaign.  Under normal conditions, a person like Michael Ryan would be an easy one to vote for.  However, this campaign represents a significant shift in direction for the Republican Party, as two incumbent candidates are running for the same position.  Cindy Carpenter is already a commissioner, and it’s her seat that is up for election.  There are some serious issues with her that we’ll address specifically.  But as to who is best for this commissioner seat, Michael Ryan is the easy favorite.  Then there is the latecomer to the race, Roger Reynolds, whom I have supported a lot in the past.  For him, this is the wrong seat at the wrong time for a lot of reasons.  Things I’d rather not discuss, but he put himself out there for a public seat, so it’s going to get uncomfortable.  As for the Michael Ryan fundraiser and why he is the best pick for the seat, as well as the future of the Butler County Republican Party being best represented by him, there is no question.  The task will be to show the average voter the differences between those three Republicans in name.  It really comes down to how we define what the “Grand Old Party” is, and I would say its economic viability as best represented by the MAGA movement and political figures like J.D. Vance, Vivek Ramaswamy, and locally, Michael Ryan.  They are all around the same age, and the young Republicans, who were well represented at Michael’s event, are looking toward the next generation.  Not the over-50 crowd.  Many people are seeking Republicans for a fresh start, and that is why Michael Ryan is the best candidate for consideration.

Lots of great options on High Street in Hamilton, Ohio

As I met Michael’s parents and his wife Amanda’s, I couldn’t help but notice a pattern in the kind of politician I most support, in virtually all cases.  They are good families with working relationships with their spouses.  One thing that really stands out about Michael is that his wife, Amanda, is very engaging, and they make a strong political couple, working together as a team to meet the needs of a political office.  For instance, there is a lot that goes into a political job that goes well beyond the function of doing the job itself.  Being a representative means talking to a lot of people all the time, and it is best when there is a supportive spouse to help with that task as a team.  And Amanda fits right into that role very well.  However, what’s also noticeable is that they both have very supportive and intact parents who are deeply involved in the process.  That’s great when it comes to Michael and Amanda, but it’s something I notice among all the political people I support.  They all have strong families that help them in the background, and for me, that is the first ingredient for success in a political position.  How can you offer yourself as a manager of the public trust if you can’t work with the trust within a family unit?  That is certainly the case with George and Debbie Lang, a compelling political couple who are supporting Michael Ryan’s campaign very early in the process.  George was supposed to attend the fundraiser, but was held up in Columbus and was running late. 

There were other notable couples present as well. Mark Welch has been very supportive, as a West Chester Trustee.  And Nancy Nix, who has a great relationship with her husband, Bob, ended up covering for George’s absence.  But what they all have in common, which I think a lot of, is that they have functional relationships with their spouses, which I would say is the foundation of any political office.  If you can’t work well together with your spouse, how can you work together with other people in the party, or the community as a whole?  Even more than that, I had a chance to talk to the Butler County Young Republicans, who were there to support Michael from Miami University, all dressed up in suits and ties. All of them were inclined toward that kind of life, including a healthy marriage, good personal decisions, and taking responsibility for themselves. Ben Nguyen, a very young man running for the Lakota school board, was there to support Michael Ryan as one of those young Republicans. He represents the new generation of hopeful people joining the Republican Party, which is very family-oriented. I am very encouraged by meeting them; they are part of the party that has emerged from Charlie Kirk’s efforts at Turning Point USA.  Gone are the days when the public would support scandalous figures who used a powerful political office to nurture sexual affairs and financial despondency by abusing the public trust.  No, these were all people who expect the best from those running for public office, and they are being judged on how well they handle their affairs, starting at home.

Downtown Hamilton is Thriving These Days

And whether it’s fair or not, for people to know what a good family is, it starts with having a good family, so it’s no surprise that Michael and Amanda Ryan both had their parents at this event, and they were very engaging.  They actually reminded me of a younger version of George and Debbie Lang, in terms of a couple who work well together.  When you deal with the public, you really need a good partner in life to help keep everything sorted out. Typically, that’s what I look for when supporting a political person: how well they maintain a relationship with their spouse.  If they are bouncing around between girlfriends or boyfriends and wearing gold rings on their pinky fingers, I likely won’t be endorsing them because, in my experience, those types of people don’t fare well in politics.  And ultimately, the measure of a good office holder is in what they have done, and for Michael, because he has a happy home life, that has translated into being an outstanding city council member who has helped build a good team that has brought excellent economic value to a city that has needed it.  Hamilton, Ohio, is on the uptick economically largely because Michael Ryan has been very effective at attracting investment interest to the town, and it all starts with being a good person who doesn’t get swept away by the tides of influence that often accompany such activity.  Having a good spouse to help keep everything grounded is a key to being successful when those pressures are applied.  And they are usually the difference between success and failure.  And upon meeting the family of Michael Ryan, it becomes obvious very quickly that the headlines that emerge from his public life will lean in the positive direction, rather than the negative, as people who lean into an office to fill a void inside them often do.  In my experience, to run a successful public office, you need a good private life with a supportive spouse as a partner.  And Michael Ryan certainly has that.

Rich Hoffman

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rich Hoffman

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rich Hoffman

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

Violent Video Games and Furry Culture: Why so many trans kids are becoming killers

I would probably never know about this “furry” culture of sexual deviants if it weren’t for my grandchildren.  My oldest grandson came across them online while researching video game information.  Furries, as they are called, are people who like to dress up in animal costumes in public.  And that’s important because the killers of Charlie Kirk and his boyfriend were participants in this culture, as they would dress up for conventions and play video games that involved anthropomorphic animals having sex.  And of course, as the furry condition is a tremendous psychological concern for public health, we are dealing with a homosexual relationship with a couple of guys who had built up so much hate for the godly purity of Charlie Kirk that they made a move to murder him on a college campus.  And we are seeing a trend among many killers who are going through the same problem, killing people, as video games have desensitized them to killing without any genuine concept of consequences.  If you have read the text messages between Tyler Robinson and his boyfriend, Lance Twiggs, who is in the process of trying to convert to a woman, you will find that they were bizarrely out of touch.  So much so that people naturally think it was a fake narrative created by the deep state to hide the real killers, because it seems so outlandishly coherent, considering this kid just committed one of the most memorable assassinations the world has ever seen.  So a transsexual element is at play yet again, in addition to the furry culture obsession.  The killer of the Minneapolis church attack was a trans kid, and we know now that the assassination threat against Bret Kavanaugh of the Supreme Court was a man trying to become a girl.  So what’s going on here, and how is the gaming culture producing all these young killers?  It’s a question that goes way beyond free speech. 

I’m far from a person trying to reform the video game industry, but we’re no longer talking about Pac-Man here when we talk about video games and how they try to stand out from a very harsh crowd in the marketplace.  I saw the recent Wolverine preview for an upcoming video game, and it’s really very violent.  I have been alarmed at the level of violence in video games as developers have gotten away with more and more violence; there is no question of a desensitizing effect.  The popular game of Fortnite has more cartoon violence, but Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, and now this Disney-owned Marvel game, Wolverine, are very violent, where bones are ripped from the bodies of victims ruthlessly.  It is not a stretch to think that a small percentage of the population that plays these games is being desensitized to violence and is losing touch with reality.  I’ll repeat it, I used to write screenplays and I would submit them to studios and agents in the 1990s.  And I had a lot of mainstream people tell me that my screenplays were too violent for a mainstream audience, which Hollywood was a part of at that time.  They had a responsibility to the public good, that’s what they told me.  They would say to me I was a talented writer, but that resorting to so much violence took away from that talent, and they had a responsibility to the public not to be so graphic.  Then I saw Kill Bill and other Tarantino movies, and I mentioned to them that my work wasn’t any more violent than Tarantino’s.  And there really wasn’t an answer except that they said Tarentino’s violence was more comic book, and not as realistic as mine.  So, a line was being drawn, and watching that preview for Wolverine certainly was the result.  The self-censorship in the entertainment industry was ending about the time I mentioned, and it has devolved into what we see today, which is a very violent entertainment culture. 

For young people without strong father figures or good family structures, video games can distort reality.  And this Tyler Robinson supposedly came from a loving family.  Once he developed a sexual relationship with another young man, and they started crossing lines that society would judge them harshly over, they retreated into the violent world of video games, and we know that because those traits were marked on the shell casings from the gun used to murder Charlie Kirk.  We should be all over these traits because they keep repeating, the mode of operation for many of these killers is that they are involved in transexual practices and spend their free time on violent video games.  And when you spend many hours playing violent video games like Lance Twiggs did, there is a desensitization toward violence that ultimately becomes a psychological problem.   When kids delve into this rabbit hole, a trait emerges from this furry culture: the idea that people can be anything they want if only they wish it.  It’s consistent to make mistakes in a video game, where, if you wish, you can change the avatar of your character into anything you want to be.  And that is without question happening in these trans cases, where people make mistakes their families might look down on them for, and they turn to furries or trans sex to change their public image from mistakes they are ashamed of.  When society has opinions about those mistakes, they retreat into the world of video games, where you can be anything you want, you can change your name, and you can hide from society behind mass violence.  Given the frequency of these occurrences, this is a significant problem. 

This is one of those cases where treacherously evil acts are hiding behind conservative values, such as limited government oversight of the video game industry, allowing market forces to work out the problems.  Or to have a libertarian approach to sexuality.  We are told by those creating vile content that more oversight of these industry norms is intrusive.  Therefore, the attacks are occurring behind the values we advocate as businesspeople and conservative, market-driven economic values.  We’re not supposed to have an opinion on this topic because we support free markets, and in the free market, people want violence.  Just as we are supposed to accept that people want to smoke dope, or do other detrimental behaviors, that do not suit healthy mass psychology.  But that’s the thing, and it goes back to my days of writing scripts, when I was told that something was too violent, the standard was to go back and make the scenes less so, but just as impactful.  Violence is often used to make a point forcefully.  It can be necessary, but it can also serve as a creative crutch to avoid the details of actual artistic integrity.  Just like grotesque sex, violence is lazy in trying to appeal to our animal instincts.  And killing is a primal instinct we all have.  But we are expected to overcome that violent trait for something better.  And when we have artistic expression that feeds the fears and anxieties of a young generation with various insecurities, bad things can and do happen.  This video game culture is feeding them in a very negative way, and some of them are turning to actual killings.  And they are becoming desensitized to the world, especially once they start really embarrassing themselves with sexual practices they could never get their families to accept, and changing their public image like a video game avatar never solves their insecurities.  And before they turn to suicide, they are turning to mass social violence, which video games helped fuel their fantasies.  And we are now seeing a whole generation turning to violence and perversion to hide their mistakes, which they have never learned to deal with.  And it’s a really big problem that won’t go away on its own.

Rich Hoffman

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rich Hoffman

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

Carrying the Weight of the World: Trump’s UN Speech and earning the right to be blunt about escalators

Who wouldn’t love the UN speech of 2025 that President Trump gave, as the escalator broke as soon as he and Melania put their feet on it?  That’s the world we are living in, and obviously, the escalator incident was no accident.  Employees joked about the escalators’ malfunctioning leading up to that speech as a radical means of protest, hoping to garner more funding for the United Nations, as if additional resources would solve all the problems.  Instead, Trump and his wife walked up the escalator without a whole lot of drama and gave a speech that essentially wiped the smile off the face of a very radical world that has failed dramatically since the creation of the UN after World War II.  It wasn’t the usual speech of placation that often accompanies these kinds of things, with calls for unity, peace, and all that kind of rhetoric.  No, Trump had earned the right to call out everyone, right in front of their faces, and tell them what a bunch of low-life characters they all were.  And that is what earning the right by carrying the weight of the world earns you.  And why Trump changing positions on Russia is so important, because only by earning that trust, by enduring the weight of the world, can a person like Trump say the things he does in public.  The UN speech was a remarkable statement by a world that the United States was clearly leading.  All nations were not there equally.  Running the world by committee has turned out to be a disaster, and it took someone like Trump to point it out.  Not through the media with some passive-aggressive protest, but live, to their faces.  And while everyone was on their heels from what he was saying, they complained that the UN doesn’t work, and neither do its escalators or its teleprompters.  Technical sabotage was meant to throw Trump off his game, but it ultimately played to his advantage.

But to earn that right to be as blunt as Trump has been, carrying the weight of the world comes first, and when people wonder why people like Melania Trump and her husband would want to trade in their life of the rich and famous for this demanding job of being President of the United States, the answer comes from speeches like the one Trump gave.  Watching their faces on the 9/11 ceremony this year, the day after Charlie Kirk, a former friend of theirs, was assassinated in cold blood, was obviously hard for them.  And on the day of the speech, the would-be progressive assassin Ryan Wesley Routh was convicted on all counts in trying to plot the murder of Trump at his golf course, just a few months after the attempted assassination of the President at Butler, Pennsylvania, that drew blood, but had only clipped his ear.  Charlie Kirk wasn’t so lucky, and that was obviously weighing on Trump as he and his wife went through the rituals of 9/11 ceremonies to pay tribute to the most significant act of terrorism that ever occurred on American soil.  More terrorism on a larger scale than the escalator sabotage at the UN, but the same in principle.  And the knowledge that after someone of good character had just been killed on a college campus, many on the Democrat side of politics cheered about it, and to discover that so many of our public school teachers were happy that Kirk was dead, and were gloating about it.   The weight of all that evil when you are in a job like the one in the White House can really make you not want to get up out of bed in the morning.

Then, to add to that, the deceit of Vladimir Putin of Russia, who has been saying one thing about peace all along, while turning around and killing many thousands of people on both sides, ruthlessly can really shake your faith in any kind of relationship.  Even Benjamin Netanyahu has been deceitful in his platitudes of peace, while turning around and acting contrary, being very aggressive, knowing that the United States would always bail him out of any trouble he got into.  So he was picking fights anyway, putting Trump in a terrible position.  The evil that people showed, and being in a position to see it so bluntly, was really wearing on the President, as it does most people who find themselves in that perspective.  Leadership is hard when you know so much truth that most people get to dance through without too much thought.  And that leads to the question of why anyone would want to be a leader of anything, whether it’s the President of the United States or the CEO of a company.  Why would anybody want to put themselves through the ordeal of all the trouble?  Especially when they are wealthy and could choose otherwise?  Knowing the worst in people, because your perspective reveals it to you, why would anybody want to do it?  To know too much and to carry around so much weight, knowing the level of hatred in the world around you.  Most people never encounter this kind of situation because their relationships maintain an illusion of civility.  But Trump is seeing the raw evil that can come from people, and he never gets a break from it.  It’s tough to use the Power of Positive Thinking to overcome such menacing negative thinking, and the Democrats are the party of negativity and below-the-line victimization.

Well, you do it so that you get a chance to go to the United Nations and tell them all what you think of them.  You endure the pain of life so that you can throw it in their faces.  And in doing so, you make the world a bit less crappy because of the people in it.  The United Nations was a failure from the start, but it was able to hide its poor performance behind the evils of humanity.  And as long as people kept the speeches nice, nobody talked about the tough stuff.  And everyone could party on the town, buying prostitutes while away from home, and go to fancy restaurants without any real cares in the world.  But to pull that off, everyone needs to be equally trashy and guilty of the crimes that the world enjoyed.  But by carrying the weight of the world the way that Trump does, from a leadership perspective, he can break protocol and tell people what he thinks of them, because everyone he’s talking to knows they can’t do the same.  Their guilt weighs heavily on their minds, burdening them with the truth of it all.  And that is why it’s worth being in a leadership position.  And without all the pain and the desire to carry it from the White House, nobody earns the right to talk about the real problems.  And this United Nations meeting would be just one more eventless charade.  But because Trump has suffered through some terrible weeks where the worst that people can do to each other was made evident, and he smiles his way through it like nothing in the world can bother him, he earns the right to be critical of escalators that don’t work, or global organizations that fail just as spectacularly.  And that he can broker peace with the biggest nations of the world, who are up to no good, because he has been willing to carry the burdens of knowledge that comes from really knowing the deceit that people are capable of.  And we are all better off for it.

Rich Hoffman

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rich Hoffman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rich Hoffman

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