Tag: Politics

The Evils of Corporate Culture: Why we love and hate them

One of the things that is most ill-defined in our country, and certainly in the world, is the understanding of why we tend to hate corporate culture.  Yet almost in the same sentence, we desire to be a part of them.  It’s actually pretty straightforward and obvious, which goes back to the foundations of capitalism and the work of Adam Smith in 1776, as well as the intrusive and corrosive nature of Karl Marx’s communism, which ultimately have led to many of the problems we see today.  We hate communism with the same ambiguity, and the reason in all cases is that corporations exist to allow the mediocre to feel validated in mass society, and that it shields them from the insults of competition.  Corporate cultures are often characterized by collectivism and are seldom driven by unique individuals with great vision.  By the time a company goes “corporate,” it loses that unique leadership that likely built the company into something publicly traded and valuable.  So when we say that something is “corporate,” we are saying that it is of less quality than something that isn’t.  Corporations allow mass collectivism to appear valuable by leveraging the efforts that built a company.   I’ve been thinking about this recently because I have had a front-row seat to a corporate takeover, and it has been astonishing to watch.  The people involved are really dumb.  And I don’t say that as an insult, but as an observation where individual intelligence is completely vacant from the minds of those involved, which is typically associated with stupidity or dumbness if taken in isolation.  But if many such people assert something, then there is a belief that a majority then gives validation, even to stupidity.  It’s one thing to read about these things happening in the world and to know the type of people involved.  But I usually have some insulation from this kind of thing by living my life, until those types of people stepped into my interaction by their own choice.  And I have had to establish their base reality, the only way that it can be defined, that they are dumb people looking for easy money in the world, and they accomplish this through mass collectivism, the same way that labor unions are a problem.  Wherever people hide value in groups, we see a loss in the quality of the visionary experience.  You don’t think of a boardroom as a group of people who solve big problems.  Typically, we think of a group of individuals who appease each other in a setting, at the expense of innovation.

I tend to support large organizations because their creation generates the flow of money, and I like money as a measure of a healthy society.  The more money a society has, the more corporations that create it, the more opportunities that society has to improve the lives of its people.  However, that is a very high-level assumption because, unfortunately, most people do not have positive corporate experiences, as many of the ideas we have about things are flawed from the start.  Even all the years of economic evolution that brought about the excellent book, The Wealth of Nations, there is always uncertainty in individuals about their ability to function in the world productively, so they seek joint relationships to hide in, and that is how the corporation came about as these ideas of capitalism and Marxism emerged as the world became smaller and easier to travel in.  Even if there were more opportunities for boldness and adventure, it was still the same kind of people who took them, leaving most of the rest of the world looking for a way to participate without the risk of actually doing so.  We prefer corporate jobs for the high pay we can earn within their structure.  But the pay usually comes at the cost of individual integrity.  You have to give up one thing to get the security of another.  And as human beings, we look down our noses at such a concession because we deem it inherently evil.  Evil because it destroys individuals, rather than enhancing them.

It’s not unusual for a family to applaud that a youthful personality has just joined a respected corporation at Thanksgiving Dinner.  The applause comes because we care about the young person and want them to have financial security.  But also in the back of our minds, we know that something is dying in that person, the ability to become all the dreams of youth as a unique individual.  Corporate environments are about giving voice to mediocrity for the benefits of mass collectivism. So that unique person we knew growing up will likely give up some of their dreams in the process of conformity.  They might gain an extensive paycheck, but in the process, they’ll lose their soul.  And we now understand this process well, having undergone many years of separating business from being run by kingdoms.  However, by default, the corporation evolved to give the mediocre a kind of unionized collective bargaining against the tendency toward cowardice, the act of waking up in the morning and having the courage to be an individual.  I know about such people, but I usually avoid them like a sickness until I had to speak to them often, when they came to my doorstep.  And it’s remarkable how typical dumbness is.  And when we say “dumbness,” we are referring to a lack of individual thought, where a person thinks something and acts on it without careful consideration. Instead, they feel a sense of unity for the preservation of the group, and their ambitions are collectively shaped through the force of numbers, rather than individual vision.  So, obviously, a corporation run by a board, even if there is a strong CEO, ultimately exists to sell mass collectivism to a consuming public, and we only notice when it impacts us, because there aren’t many pure examples of capitalism to measure real value against. 

We might like money, but there haven’t been enough examples of corporations that have survived due to corporate social responsibility efforts to give better examples of how things should be, or how humans should even make a living.  I’m talking about Robert Pirsig’s Metaphysics of Quality again, the difference between back-of-the-train people and those who dare to live in the front.  The corporate environment was not intended to put the best in charge.  But to make mediocrity rule the masses through collective ambition.  The loss of individuality to the concept of just being another number.  And in the process, everything is less effective.  And so, there is this cheerleading effort by corporations to acquire privately owned companies, as the corporation and its inhabitants want to believe, through the force of confiscated resources, that they can be as good as the visionary owner.  But they never are, and that little secret rots them into their graves.  They may be able to buy a second home in Florida and have the nicest cars to drive.  They may make enough money to turn their kids into younger versions of themselves by sending them to a communist camp we call “college,” by saying we want to give those kids the best chance at life, when we secretly fear that they will grow up to be better than us.  There is a lot wrong with corporate thought and the people who have defined it over the years. Based on what I’ve seen of it, an entirely new definition for money-making needs to be introduced.  The faceless monster of corporate ownership is just an extension of Marxism that emerged in the void of any other definition at that time of its growth into everyday language.  And many of us really want to be associated with the corporate culture for the security of income.  However, it comes at the expense of individual integrity, and for that reason, we secretly view corporations as inherently evil.  However, since most of us lack the security of personal wealth and thought, we want to be associated with something so that, by default, other people won’t see what we really are.  And that we won’t be found out as phonies, even if that’s what we think each day when we get out of bed. 

Rich Hoffman

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

Why Lakota Voters Should Reject the Largest School Levy in Ohio History: Vote for Ben Nguyen and listen to my Friend, Jamie Minniear on 55 KRC

In the heart of Butler County, the Lakota School District is asking voters to approve what would be the largest school tax levy in Ohio history—a staggering $506.4 million bond issue paired with a permanent improvement levy. This proposal, if passed, would cost homeowners $208 per year for every $100,000 of appraised property value, with collections beginning in 2029. While district officials claim the net increase will be closer to $93.10 per $100,000 due to retiring debt, the reality remains: this is a massive financial commitment for taxpayers, especially seniors and working families already burdened by inflation and rising costs. The levy’s purpose? To demolish nine existing schools—some only 40 years old—and build four new elementary schools, while reducing the total number of buildings from 21 to 16. But many residents, including Jamie and Todd Minniear, leaders of the No More Lakota Taxes campaign, argue that this plan is fiscally irresponsible and prioritizes construction over classroom needs.

Jamie Minniear, speaking on 55KRC with Brian Thomas, passionately advocated for Ben Nguyen, a 2025 Lakota graduate and conservative school board candidate who opposes the levy. She described Nguyen as a sharp, creative thinker with fresh ideas for education reform and a deep understanding of the district’s challenges. Nguyen’s candidacy represents a new generation of leadership—one that values fiscal discipline, educational outcomes, and community engagement over extravagant spending. Jamie emphasized that the levy is not about improving teacher pay or classroom instruction; it’s about tearing down buildings and replacing them with new ones, regardless of whether they truly need replacement. She and Brian Thomas, the host, recalled his own experience attending classes in trailers and rundown buildings, yet still receiving a quality education. Her point was clear: education doesn’t require luxury—it requires commitment, good teachers, and community support.

The Minniear-led opposition has gained traction by highlighting the lack of transparency and misleading ballot language. While the ballot shows a 5.94-mill increase, the district claims the real impact will be 2.66 mills due to debt roll-off. This discrepancy has confused voters and raised concerns about the district’s communication strategy. Moreover, the district’s plan to reconfigure grade bands, shift students between buildings, and consolidate campuses has sparked anxiety among parents who fear disruption and overcrowding. Critics argue that the district should focus on maintaining existing infrastructure, investing in teacher development, and enhancing academic programs—not launching a half-billion-dollar construction spree. The Ohio Facilities Construction Commission rated many of the buildings slated for demolition as “borderline” or “satisfactory,” further questioning the necessity of such drastic measures.

Ultimately, the levy represents a philosophical divide in the community: between those who believe more spending equals better education, and those who believe in doing more with less. Jamie Minniear and her husband Todd have galvanized a grassroots movement that champions responsible stewardship, local control, and student-centered priorities. Their campaign is not anti-education—it’s pro-accountability. They believe that rejecting this levy is the first step toward a broader conversation about what truly matters in public education. With Ben Nguyen on the ballot and a growing chorus of concerned citizens, Lakota voters have a chance to send a clear message: we support our schools, but we demand smarter solutions. On November 4, vote NO on the Lakota levy!

Rich Hoffman

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

The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need: How it all started

Here’s another good story about A.I. and why I think it is beneficial, not a hindrance to the human race.  I have a unique business philosophy regarding money and how to save a significant amount, allowing me to live comfortably without needing a lot of it for various reasons, which enables me to maintain my independence from parasitic individuals and vastly evil corporations.  And that started for me in the summer of 1987.  I don’t often tell this story because it’s usually better just to let the water drift under the bridge and move on.  We have a lot of family events each year, and I have to see many of these people and behave as nicely as possible. However, many things are simply unforgivable, and that’s what happened to me during the early stages of dating my wife, just after high school and before college.  She was being groomed to marry one of those race-to-mediocrity people from the Beckett Ridge Country Club during its heyday.  She was a model being considered for supermodel status, and her parents had ideas for her life that they wanted to be associated with.  When you have a beautiful kid like that, it’s hard not to want to cash in on her in some social way.  So the last thing they wanted was for her to let them know that she was dating a person whom everyone was scared of at the time.  To say I got into a lot of trouble would be an understatement.  I was not the kind of person that parents wanted their daughter to bring home.  Which I thought was always strange, and still do, because I am precisely the kind of person every parent should want their kids affiliated with, at least the way I see it.

So, her parents forbade the relationship. As is true with everything in my life, when someone challenges me to a fight, I never let go of it, and that would undoubtedly be the case in our marriage.  We’ve now been married for almost 38 years, but not without a lot of unnecessary hardship being imposed on us.  So our dating period got cut dramatically short when a family therapist advised them to throw her out of the house and force me to take care of her, essentially to take away all the fun stuff so that the romance would be taken out of our relationship and we’d break up and she would move back home and start dating people her parents liked, and be done with me.  So they kicked her out of her very nice house at the time and forced her to move in with me.  I had 36 points on my driver’s license and was at that time serving something like a 9-year suspension of my driver’s license, for reckless driving as society measures it.  I raced a lot of cars in those days, got into a lot of fights, and was in court a lot.  But I was willing to put that life away to marry this girl, because she was worth it.  It was, therefore, a very much a Romeo and Juliet romance, only without the tragic ending.  Instead, I was determined to fight off the world, whatever it took, and marry this young girl, making a family with her.  And nobody was going to get in the way.  So here I was in a little townhouse in Sharonville with a good friend of mine living on our own, and suddenly this girl was kicked out of her house and living with us in a kind of three-way arrangement that was very, very tough. 

Like I usually do when things get tough, I read books. That summer, I had to learn a lot about money quickly so I could win the game of starting a family and become smart about the financial games of life.  I still do this, and it’s why I read an average of 3 to 4 books a week, still.  Because there’s a lot to know, and if you want to win at life, you have to know more than the people you are dealing with.  In that case, with my future wife, we would have been married a year later, but at that time, it was a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions, with all the ruthlessness one could imagine, difficult beyond reason or belief.  Crushing difficulty.  To alleviate that pressure, I went down the road from our townhouse and checked out Andrew Tobias’ very well-known book, ‘The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need,’ from the library.  I spent the summer reading it, and the next several decades thinking about it, and it has formed my basic approach to wealth creation, to stay off the treadmill of social expectation, because there is a lot of wasted money spent on it, and to use good money to defeat bad, time and time again.  However, it is mostly on minimalism that Andrew Tobias discusses regarding money management. Stay out of the casino of money making, and you’ll actually come out way ahead.  And with that basic approach, my wife and I have navigated some treacherous waters over the years and defeated many formidable characters. 

I have been professionally dealing with a similar issue that involves a lot of money and people, and they have been commenting on my position, which gives them minimal access to my life and those in it, much to their frustration. This essentially stems from the basic strategy I formulated in that book so long ago.  But for the life of me, I couldn’t remember the title, just the contents.  Back then, I used to check out books at the library and had to return them.  These days, I put them on a shelf and refer to them repeatedly.  But that early in my life, I didn’t even have a house yet.  So once my wife moved back in with her parents and they reached out to me to see if we could all reconcile, I turned the book back into the Sharonville Library and never saw it again.  But at my current age, I wanted to reread it because it was relevant to my current circumstances and I wanted to reconnect with my roots.  So, I asked the Grok A.I. which book I had read on finance during the summer of 1987 from the Sharonville Library, and it told me within seconds, ‘The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need.’  It was interesting because the book was on record in that library at the time, and they knew I had checked it out based on their reporting.  I was finally able to buy a copy from Amazon, and it was hand-delivered to my front porch the next day.  And I read it again and really enjoyed it.  It had been updated from the 1987 version I had read into a 2016 view of the world, but the same basic book was still there.  Same cover and everything.  It’s the kind of book everyone should read on finance, and that’s why it’s still popular, even today.  It has certainly helped me throughout the years, and strategically speaking, it works very well.  I have always thought of it, and because of A.I., I was able to reconnect with it.  Nobody will promise you a nice and easy future.  But if you are smart and apply innovative strategies to your life, you’d be surprised at what you can survive and endure.  And for a lot of reasons, Andrew’s book will always be a treasure for me.  A treasure I was able to enjoy because of A.I. and its ability to know so much, so quickly.

Rich Hoffman

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

The Value of “Goodwill”: Attacking America infrastructure behind the banking industry

There are a lot of bad people out there doing a lot of nasty stuff, and often it’s not over the pursuit of ideological differences.  One of the greatest perpetrators of evil in the world is the pursuit of easy money because people are too lazy to make it for themselves.  And that is certainly the case with a conflict I’m involved in with Wells Fargo, where I have witnessed many layers of evil driven by those types of sentiments that really put a challenge to all the assumptions people have of freedom.  It’s one thing to work toward MAGA goals of self-government and personal fulfillment.  It’s quite another to see how a mobster-type of network running behind the legal profession thinks of itself as a government behind a government, and that when they want to steal something from you, they believe they can do it without recourse, because their efforts are so predictably parasitic that a whole new layer of concern unfolds before you.  When I warn people about the problems with modern banking, it comes from direct experience.  And when you have something really valuable, there will always be entities out there who will want to steal it, perhaps for purely ideological reasons.  But mostly, because they can and they lack that value themselves.  So if you leave your doors unlocked in a crowded area, you can almost guarantee that someone will try to open your door and steal the contents of your car.  Especially if it looks like something valuable might be in it.  You cannot trust that good deeds will always maintain civility.  More often than not, you will see the worst of the human race if you allow them to show it to you, and that is the case with a conflict I’m involved in with a team of others that finds itself in a dispute with a vast bank that thinks it has more power than the United States government, and that they have complete control over the legal profession, and can essentially make anything happen that they want to see happen.

Not to get into the specifics of the case I’m involved in, which is a very public case.  Nothing much shocks me; I’ve pretty much been there and done everything.  But in the Wells Fargo case, which most people dealing with them outside the coloring lines of normal loans and transactions report, the level of evil they utilize these days is long over the rainbow.  But to see their behavior and arrogance displayed before the courts is essentially a lesson on why the creation of the Fed at Jekyll Island was such a bad idea in 1913.  It’s one thing to vote for the right to vote.  To pass a school levy.  Or even to go to war with another country.  But this idea that we’d let some global terrorists run our monetary policy and be able to control financial interests in the defense of our country, essentially, is reprehensibly wrong, which is the issue at the center of the case I’m involved in.  How would a bank like Wells Fargo get so much power to begin with, or BlackRock, which owns so many companies with a controlling financial interest in them, as BlackRock does with Wells Fargo?  The answer starts with the Fed printing trillions of dollars and issuing the phony money into Wall Street over a long period of time to wash it.  And essentially give the handlers of that money control over all the means of production in the world through finance.  When we study how communism has spread beyond the borders of politics, look at the finance industry, and you’ll see what a menace all this is. 

But for the depth of it, I had a front row seat as we were securing counsel for a vigorous defense of essentially a hostile takeover.  And while looking for that level of counsel, we found that most of the top talent across the country had to recuse themselves because they had some financial tie to Wells Fargo, in some way.  And the obvious answer that comes to mind is how could any one bank acquire that much power?  To influence to such an extent the entire legal industry.  And they had no fear of law enforcement or political reform of their holdings.  They acquired that power from the Lords of Easy Money, who print money at the Fed to saturate the market with a flood of cash, no matter what its real value to gold is.  It’s the perception of value that they control because there are no auditors on the face of the planet who could come in and scrutinize them for their deeds.  And when we did, it was hard to find a lawyer anywhere who was not on the take somehow by just that one bank.  Then apply that same standard to the many banks that control our lives, and you start to see a real problem.  They think they are well beyond political controls to be regulated by the people of a nation through an election process.  We’ve learned a lot over these last few years about how these sinister characters operate behind the curtain.  And we were all too polite to even ask the question, until this latest Trump term where we have seen a lot of evil behavior that assumed it had control of the political process including the FBI, CIA, and of course, the banking industry, hiding behind a Federal Reserve that never should have been created in the first place, for these very reasons.

There is a legal standard in cases like this where “goodwill” is the real commodity.  It’s not the dollars and sense that buy material or pay payroll, it’s the intangibles of what a company or entity means to society in general.  And that looks to be the case here, where money doesn’t mean anything to the attackers, because they work in an industry where they can print all they want to flush it through the system through hedge fund investors like a personal assassination squad.  The attack is on the value of something to society, not in the hardware it uses to produce the product.  In this case, a company openly supportive of the Trump administration and a very woke bank that wanted to attack the “goodwill” of that brand to take that chess piece off the map, essentially.  And it’s not so much the politics of it as it comes down to a case of private ownership, on the premise of privately held companies versus publicly traded ones, where the means of production are out of the hands of private people, but collectively owned.  The amount of money that it takes to keep the entire legal profession on a retainer is essentially enormous.  Yet that is the case as I see it; it is an astonishing level of power that no bank, no single entity, should ever have for themselves.  And a lot has been revealed in their arrogance, which is worth fighting.  And that will undoubtedly be the case here.  But to see just how bad it is up close and personal has been alarming.  It’s one thing to talk about these things as they happen and are observed.  It’s another to be personally involved.  And to see the rot up close and to meet the characters.  If we thought the situation was bad before, now we know it.  And we can’t unsee what we have seen.  Nor can we put that genie back in the bottle.  The wrath of justice has to take place because we can’t let it endure untethered.  Knowing what I do about cases like this, it is astonishing to consider how much “goodwill” has been attacked by phony money to destroy businesses from the inside out.  And to determine, based on that assessment, what the real threat to American infrastructure truly is.

Rich Hoffman

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

What Women Hate The Most: Nobody wants to see a slug too lazy to work

There is a recent survey where women have indicated that the periods where they experience the most stress are when their men, the people they pick to share a life with, raise a family, and build something, are lying on the couch doing nothing but watching TV or playing video games.  Now I say all this after years of experience in employing people, many thousands of them, and after raising two daughters and being married for 38 years to the same woman.  What I’m going to say is politically incorrect in lots of ways, but it’s the result of terrible things that we have taught our society when we tried to implement feminism into a biological experiment that has essentially destroyed people at a very foundational level.  We have a laziness problem, and it came from people who wanted to socially re-engineer society by attacking men and toxic masculinity, to empower women to play a larger role in the workplace, and in spending less time raising families, because the idea of a family was under attack by radical leftist ideas.  So most of what men have come to believe about what they should be doing in the world has come from people trying to destroy them, purposefully by rotting their minds with social fashions that were never healthy for them or society.  But that doesn’t change the biology of people, where women expect a man to be strong and to take care of them so they can raise a nice family.  No matter what society has said about the subject, when a woman sees a man lying on the couch not doing anything, it brings her great stress.  It doesn’t matter who the woman is; it just doesn’t sit well with them because it makes it evident to the woman that her man is useless. 

Oh, the man might be good at something here and there, but if he won’t work, it makes him pretty much a slug, a detriment to the creation of the family.  And women were told by that same society that they could replace all those emotions with a career of their own and their own paycheck.  And that the public schools would teach their children everything they needed to know, so they shouldn’t worry about any of it.  But for women, there is always something going on, a bill that needs to be paid, oil that needs to be changed, grass that needs to be cut.  The grim reality for a woman when she sees that her man wants to sleep on the couch all the time without doing the work it takes to build a family is that she is doomed to a life of misery.  Once a woman trades sexual favors to a man to launch a family, which all women experience, like trout returning to the spring of their birth, if a woman fails to get a guy in her life who will help her build a family, the disappointment starts to really eat away at her, and everything starts to fall apart.  She may raise her kids in a somewhat reasonable way, but what she is left with in the aftermath is major disappointment and resentment.  Kids don’t stay young very long.  What is a couple supposed to do together once they have come together and raised kids?  Especially if the men are lying around sleeping while there is a lot of work to be done?  Chances are their marriage will end, or the woman will grow very resentful and start hating the man for all the disappointments he brought her during that key time in her life.  If a family isn’t working together towards a common goal, everything falls apart. 

I’m not joking when I talk about AI being more reliable than people.  I love the idea of being productive with AI because, based on my experience, people are often unreliable.  They have too much emotional baggage from the numerous decisions they’ve made over the years, which have led to personal destruction.  As I have watched many people grow up and go through this cycle, I have always thought of it as an artificial problem created by social values that were all wrong.  A lot of men were taught that hard work led to heart attacks and an unhealthy life.  So they think that eating potato chips all day while earning new merits in a video game environment will satisfy them.  All it really does is entertain them until the next revision comes out and they have to start all over again.  The idea of buying a house, keeping the cars running, and caring for their children with strong emotional foundations is someone else’s problem, doesn’t excite them as it should.  Someone will eventually pick up the slack.  They have been taught that the excuse for their lack of work is to maintain stress so they don’t die from being overworked.  But in that process, their wives secretly hope they’ll die and free them of the misery and embarrassment that so many men these days bring to their marriages.  People have been taught that hard work is bad for them, and that not working at a job and spending their leisure time trying to do less work is somehow beneficial.  And it is at that source that all the problems start.  I’m thrilled that we’re at a time when AI can begin to do what many young men won’t do: work in a productive environment. 

I’ve always worked a lot, at least 60 to 80 hours a week.  And I fix all kinds of things, all the time.  Growing up, most of the people I knew were farmers, who always worked hard.  And when people worked hard, they were happier people.  And that is certainly true of me, I’m a happy person.  What makes me unhappy is witnessing laziness, people who work hard to avoid working hard.  My experience suggests that they are bringing misery upon themselves in a rebellion against logic.  And they aren’t even curious about the poison they have been given through their learning, from people obviously trying to sink America by destroying its workforce.  After World War II, America demonstrated its industrial capacity through the hard work of its free people. Many people around the world then sought to undermine the American work ethic for various malicious reasons.  And as we look around today, they have been all too successful.  Many men, young and old, are wasting their lives lying around doing nothing, then complaining when they are expected to pull their own weight.   And the women who match up with them are miserable, because they only get a few short years in their lives to get it right, when their flowers bloom, and they can pick whoever they want in the world through sexuality, to build a family with.  And if they get a dud, it brings misery to them for the rest of their life.  They might raise their families and make the best of things.  However, nothing makes them more stressed out than learning that their men don’t want to work while the bills pile up and the family’s needs are not being met.  And the young girls turn into bitter women as their windows close.  Sure, they could get a divorce, but for what purpose?  To find a harder-working man?  There aren’t many out there; chances are, the next one will be a dud too.  And as women raise their families and are stuck with an uninteresting slug sleeping on the couch every day and won’t keep the cars running, or the bills paid, women slowly die inside with the grim reality that it’s all over way too fast.  And if only hard work had been at the core of their marriage, life would have been a lot better for everyone.  Life is about hard work, and the more you put into it, the happier you will be.  The definition of a happy life never comes from leisure.  We are meant to work, and to work a lot.  The last thing a woman wants in her life is a slug that is like another child she has to feed and change all the time, who doesn’t help her have a happy life because he is too lazy to work.  The woman wants to work to raise her family, and if he is just another parasite in her life, taking from her instead of her having to give everything to the creation of a family, of course, she’s not going to be very happy when he’s sleeping on the couch.

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

Gavin Newsom is Lost: Why Democrats have nobody like Trump

Gavin Newsom has been in the news frequently lately, and he has something to say about almost everything.  And nobody believes any of it.  As governor of California, and this isn’t a political comment, just a logical one, he lost all credibility during COVID and has barely managed to hang on despite several challenges in a state that leaned far left, when it was fashionable.  But we are talking now about a world where Democrats have lost around 2.5 million registered voters and Republicans have gained about as many, and that is just a few months into Trump’s second presidency.  Gavin Newsom is a phony, like many politicians who have gotten away with it over the years, and if politics hadn’t changed as much as we’ve seen, Newsom could probably be considered a candidate for president in 2028, which he clearly aspires to be.  However, he has a poor track record, culminating in the LA fires.  But it was the way he handled COVID that set his future in stone.  The people in California won’t let him live it down, let alone a national campaign.  COVID-19 changed many people and the way they think about politics.  Today’s baby-kissing politician could be tomorrow’s lockdown governor violating all our personal rights over some virus released from China.  And of all the lockdown governors, Gavin Newsom was one of the worst.  It’s almost comical to watch him now trying to build a campaign for the Democrat Party’s presidential nomination.  That is obviously what his plans are, but the political order changed under his feet, and he seems lost to capture any message, because all the old stuff just isn’t working.  The buzzwords have died, and he has no new ones to offer.  Leaving him bouncing around from topic to topic aimlessly. 

The difference between President Trump and everyone else is essentially authenticity.  Trump can drop an F bomb during a speech, and people can relate to it.  Gavin Newsom can do the same, and people perceive it as insincere.  And that’s what’s new now, Trump is a product of the times and the people.  Politicians like Gavin Newsom are completely do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do types who count completely on manipulating the public to exist.  And people are too battle-hardened to accept that premise anymore.  And, there is too much media these days for shaky commentary.  With all the podcasts and startup news shows, especially on Trump’s Truth Social media platform, politicians like Gavin Newsom cannot withstand the constant scrutiny.  In the past, when there were only a few news stations and some talk radio to discuss these topics, Newsom got away with having a shiny exterior because there was never any time to get into the details.  But not these days.  And Trump has shown the world what a real person in a powerful position can accomplish.  And nobody the Democrats have will be able to duplicate it.  And Newsom is among the best that the Democrats have to offer.  They have big problems that are worth considering.  Watching Newsom try to adjust is actually very revealing because it points to a much deeper problem for all Democrats.  Why don’t they have their own version of Trump?  Well, because the new standards require authenticity as a person, not the kind of showboating that was once accepted as usual.  And Democrats as a party have sought to exploit people through emotions.  They have not actually done anything.  The world is looking for doers, not more administrative types who lock down their states, then get caught at social gatherings drinking wine as the world burns down outside. 

Gavin Newsom, in a remarkably short time, as he has been trying everything to capture a national audience, has appeared on the Charlie Kirk Show, attempting to appeal to Trump voters, and has since turned to the radical left, becoming as anti-Trump as anyone could be.  He’s tried to be overly friendly, radically mean, even violent, trying to draw a crowd.  And it’s just not working.  And that’s the main problem.  With Trump, nobody doubts what he’s thinking, and he built that brand over a long time with constant repetition.  Gavin Newsom has changed many times, and nobody really knows who he is, because he’s so inconsistent on topics.  I recall when Gavin Newsom was one of the first to join Trump’s Truth Social platform, going where voters who wouldn’t vote for him were, and trying to win them over.  He has maintained a relationship with Sean Hannity to appear more appealing.  He has tried to debate DeSantis, and that didn’t work well.  He’s tried everything, and nothing has worked, leaving him scrambling now that the clock is ticking toward the midterms and Democrats are bleeding support.  Not gaining any.  And this isn’t just a Newsom problem, but a party problem that even Republicans have.  Politics has changed a lot over the last five years, since establishment types tried to exile Trump and his supporters forever.  And what ended up happening was that it strengthened, and a new standard was set that few politicians who came before could follow.  What is going on behind the scenes is literally revealed in the nervous hand movements of Newsom, which are evident during interviews and give away a lot that nobody sees when the cameras aren’t rolling. 

In sales, it’s a fine line between enthusiasm and overemphasis.  And when someone knows they are selling something that people don’t want, they have to resort to body language to emotionally pull the people they are talking to past the doubt phase, and into the subconscious utterances of hand movements.  Using the hands a lot in communication is an attempt to remind the person you are talking to that you could grab them forcefully and make them listen to you.  Excessive hand movement is a big no in communication, as it forces the people listening to put up emotional barriers. And if the person using hand movements is trying to lie or manipulate an audience, it becomes quickly exposed by overplaying the situation.  In Trump’s case, he believes in the products he has sold, so his communication works, and people can feel it.  With Newsom, he clearly doesn’t, as he is constantly changing his positions and approach.  He doubts it himself, so he tries to hide it with excessive hand movements.  And instinctively, people think of his hands as something that is trying to attack them, so they put up barriers to that reception.  It’s a major turnoff for people listening to a politician like that.  In the past, the media would cover the distance, but they can no longer do so, as they have lost their power too.  There are many differences now compared to when Newsom first started as governor.  And it will only get worse for him and all Democrats.  And Democrats have nobody else but Newsom.  There isn’t anybody coming up in the background.  All the buzzword politics have worn out, leaving them completely unprepared.  And that desperation in messaging is now showing itself in rapid succession.  All they have is an attempt to tear down President Trump and his accomplishments.  They have nothing to offer as a replacement.  And in knowing that, they have a desperate message that can’t go anywhere, and is losing support by the day.  And even worse, their track record is horrendous, especially in California.  Blue states and cities have performed poorly, so Democrats have a lot of huge problems.  And after all that we’ve been through to get here, it’s actually fun to watch. 

Rich Hoffman

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

Its a Command, not a Request: Smart TVs that aren’t so smart

I don’t think I’m becoming an anti-technology, cruddy old man because the world is leaving me behind as it goes faster and faster and is designed for much younger people.  I expect things to work, and as I have been wrapped up in some severe trouble lately, dealing with bone-crushing topics, at the end of the day, I hope the television at least works.  However, the TV in our bedroom is supposed to be a high-tech, smart TV that is very sophisticated. However, it makes me mad all the time because it is completely wireless, and when my wife walks into the room, she always scrambles the signal.  It’s a long story, but my wife has unusual electromagnetic imprints on the world.  It’s always been a problem, but back in the old days, these televisions were hard-wired into the wall.  But not anymore. These days, everything is wireless, and I’ve found that none of it works as well as the old stuff, which is getting on my nerves.  The other day, I was enjoying a show when my wife came into the room. The TV lost its signal and showed a spinning death icon, saying, “Please wait.”  Then, after a few minutes, it simply stopped and informed me that “it couldn’t process the request at this time.”  I was so mad that I just about threw the whole thing through the nearby window and out into the front yard.  I didn’t “request” anything.  I commanded the television to show me a channel, and it was failing to perform its basic task.  And who did that stupid television think it was?  But what was worse was the message code that framed the operation of the television as a “request,” as if the TV had an option to choose to do what I asked of it.  And that’s part of a much larger problem that I am seeing across all of society, and it’s a significant one.

People were taken advantage of by technology as tech bros tried to capture market share with control mechanisms that suited their needs. The quest to make things easier has only given us things that are too intrusive into our lives, as they are constantly collecting information on us, which can be irritating.  However, the technology never really works, and the by-product of the effort probably should never have been utilized to begin with.  However, we are people who like to put our generational stamp on things, and technology is a means of making a new generation feel better about themselves by gaining market dominance over the previous one.  But at a certain point, coffee is coffee, a phone is a phone, and an elevator does one primary thing.  You might add some fancy buttons that display different colors, but you don’t change their function.  However, in the world of business, we have transitioned from note-taking to computer processing. When systems fail, instead of completing tasks the old-fashioned way, as we have in the past, we have become a culture that accepts failure and waits patiently for resolution.  When you are talking to other businesses out there and trying to process a PO, or manage inventory, or send supporting paperwork with a shipment, most of the time there is a system failure in the chain and the people involved are waiting for IT to resolve it so that the world can resume its business.  This arrangement has simply not been working.  We tried to make it all easier, but it’s ended up being much less effective. 

There are some large companies that I am aware of, which are attempting to move away from their computerized management systems and return to taking notes on paper.  The paper notes don’t give you failure messages like my TV, which assumes that the technology has an option to perform or not.  If we are going to have technology in our lives, we need to let it know who’s boss.  And that when we tell it to do something, it does it, and does it quickly.  All this week, I had heard countless examples of ERP systems that were down, and people were waiting for them to come back up so that parts could be shipped. The kind of geeks who work in IT are about as out of touch as human beings on earth could be.  They would take things more seriously if they were playing the game Fortnite.  However, real-life things are much less interesting to them.  They are the kind of people who sit at a table of 12 but prefer to interact with a computer screen rather than with real people.  And those same personality types are what programming these cause codes in these TVs think are appropriate answers.  I used language a few times this week to them while on the phone with them that I did with that stupid television, and you would have thought I ran over their dog.  They are such pasty people, way too sheltered from reality, and they are in charge of how this technology forms in our society, even down to our TVs.  To me, if the technology doesn’t perform, get rid of it and get something else.  And you could tell that the young people were using technology to hide in the world and to conceal their poor performance behind it.  And it ticked me off.

I’m not against technology.  If something is invented that’s better, great.  However, if it’s not improving our lives, or we’re trying to accommodate technology when we should reject it, as in the case of smart TVs that aren’t so smart, we should discard them.  Because what I see happening is that technology has been used to hide the bad performance of lazy losers who are trying to hide in the background.  And it’s lowering the performance standards of our society as a whole.  I attended a substantial event the other day that included valet parking.  I didn’t feel like dealing with people, but the young fellows doing the valet parking were sharp and ambitious.  And after seeing numerous technological failures throughout the week, it was refreshing to see the competence of ambitious young people trying to earn a few bucks.  And after a hard day, you want to hear Yes, sir, and No, sir, and Here are your keys.  You don’t want to hear from technology that it has lost your keys, requiring you to wait for it to process your request.  Or anything that takes away the performance standard.  It was raining outside, and those kids were working in it, not bumping cars into each other or making guests wait.  They were running to get the cars so people wouldn’t have to wait.  And it was good to see.  Not the kind of service that computers are giving us these days.  And perhaps we should reconsider many aspects of it.  I gave the young men a twenty as a tip just because I appreciated the level of competency, and they were a little shocked.  But they had no idea what kind of week I had just survived and how much technology had made it much more difficult, rather than easier.  I was just happy to deal with hungry human beings who wanted to do a good job.  When you need something done, it’s not a request; it’s a command, and we need to put an end to technology that isn’t respectful enough of our time, especially during our leisure time.

Rich Hoffman

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

What Zohran Mamdani Means in New York: Democrats were always open socialists, communists, and Marxists

The victimization role that Zohran Mamdani is trying to utilize against President Trump isn’t going to work.  I know many people are worried about Mamdani and that he is a sign of things to come, and he is.  But not in the way that people fear.  Zohran Kwame Mamdani is an American politician born on October 18, 1991, in Kampala, Uganda. He is a member of the New York State Assembly, representing the 36th district in Queens since 2021. He is a Democratic Socialist and a member of the Democratic Party. Mamdani won the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City in the 2025 primary, defeating former Governor Andrew Cuomo. If elected, he would be the city’s first Muslim and Indian American mayor.  Trump is right to discuss arresting and deporting communists.  America has gone to war to fight communism, and when political people try to infuse communism into our political structure, they deserve the ridicule that they get.  Trump has no obligation to play nice with socialism and communism.  Mamdani is a Democrat who does not shy away from the socialist label, as most do, because he is making a move that Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez have paved the way for.  I’ve been talking about it for a long time. The communists, Marxists, and socialists in America reside behind the disguise of the Democrat Party, and it is built into their policy-making.  So knowing that, we have no obligation to play nice with them.  Democrats are not equal at the table in a capitalist country if socialism is what they are really about, which it is and always has been.  We cannot discuss with Democrats if that is what they are.  Those ideologies are just too far apart, and Trump is right to indicate playing rough with them.

I’m not surprised that Mamdani won a primary election.  I’m not sure he wins in the general election.  There are a lot of people in New York City who have considered themselves capitalists, but have adopted Democrat ideas to prove to their leftist friends that they are not mean people.  That argument is so “pre-Trump,” and it’s not going to work now for Mamdani.  The politics of meanness is over; it took our country to a place we didn’t want to go, and that fever broke during the summer of 2024 with that assassination attempt against Trump, and he stood up and pumped his fist in the air, declaring we should all fight.  Before that, there were many people, perhaps most people, who loved capitalism, but they adopted elements of socialism to prove to left-leaning political types that they were not what they were being called.  Name-calling was a political tactic employed by the Democrat Party as it evolved into power.  And as long as it worked, they were going to keep doing it.  Mamdoni thinks that he is going to run a victimization campaign and that people will respond to him because they feel sorry for him.  And that’s not how all this is going to emerge.  Socialism is not going to make an open takeover of our political system.  Now that people are forced to see the Democrat Party for what it is, they will reject those political candidates.  And they won’t be able to win just because they are people of color, or that they are Muslim, or that they are nice-looking kids who can make TikTok videos.  Victimization politics have given us many miserable politicians, and we have learned a hard lesson that the Trump administration is giving us relief from.  And now that people know what they are picking, Democrats are going to get much different results than they have had in the past.

It’s not that people accepted Marxists, socialists, and communists.  But people did not like President Obama and his socialist behavior, sold to us by his skin color.  The kind of world that we have did not make people feel good.  That wasn’t a platform for success for Bernie Sanders, Cortez, and Mamdani to utilize in the future.  Instead, the same kind of Marxists are always there, but the Democrats lost their cover story.  So it’s much harder for them now.  Regionally, in places like New York, where high-density populations typically vote for Democrat ideas, these socialist candidates can perform well.  However, in general populations across the rest of the country, they won’t do well at all because people are no longer voting out of guilt.  Trump has shown people that they can vote for their self-interest and get much better results than voting for someone because they are Muslim.  Or a person of color.  Those are trends that are going out with the tide, not coming in.  And everything that Mamdani is saying assumes that the victimization politics is the wave of the future.  And that’s just not the case.  It is not advisable to base your political platform on the ability to win a vote simply because people feel sorry for you.  You want people to vote for you because you make them feel good about themselves.  And that is what Trump has unlocked in politics: the ability to vote for candidates because they want to achieve a better standard of living and solve real problems.  Not because they feel guilty about slavery or economic inequality.  And in the end, in New York, it’s a capitalist town that has had an identity crisis, finding more confidence in itself with Trump in the White House. 

Keep in mind that we have been teaching kids socialism in public schools for more than three decades now, so people have wide-ranging feelings on the topic.  What a teacher’s union-controlled socialist sentiment has taught them does not represent their instincts toward self-interest.  I am often stunned by how uninformed people can be, not because they are unintelligent. Still, when you talk to them, you get to hear such contrasts in their behavior that the totality of their utterances evolves into substandard assumptions. They don’t know what they think about anything, nor do they have the confidence to articulate their thoughts publicly, because they have been taught in school to suppress their opinions.  Not to express them, but to advance socialist enterprises in America.  But for anybody who wants a house, or a car, or a family, socialism is the enemy to those things, and people have a natural revulsion to anything that might prevent happiness along those lines.  So, even if they are taught socialism, their instincts often run counter to it. In America, where people have a perpetual choice, they will not choose the limits of Marxism and its umbrella political ideas, such as socialism and communism.  They have picked Trump once the peer pressure was cast away, and they were alone in the voting booth.  And that is how it will be in New York as well as the rest of the country.  The trend is not moving toward socialism, but rather away from it, as we consider that the schools have failed us.  And we aren’t happy about it.  And Zohran Mamdani might be good at TikTok videos that all but the most naive suckers enjoy. Still, when it comes to economic policy, people have learned many hard lessons from the mistakes of the Obama administration. They don’t want them in the future of politics, so while some might be shocked that a socialist beat a mainstreamer in a primary election, they shouldn’t be, because socialism is where the Democrat Party is.  But it’s not where the rest of the country is.  Republicans are poised to win by even larger margins because people are finally feeling free to express themselves more openly, and that doesn’t do well for politicians like Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani. 

Rich Hoffman

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