To my avid readers (who have been wondering where my timely two-cents have gone), I offer my apologies. I’ve been preoccupied – indeed, I have become father to a little girl.
As someone who has an ear for platitudes, stereotypes, clichés, and banalities, fatherhood is one case where I found that almost all the tea-towel truisms are actually correct, hitting me with more emotional force than I had anticipated.
Perhaps the strongest instinct is the urge to protect my daughter. While my wife was pregnant, I, like many I’m sure, had a latent anxiety in the pit of my stomach due to the state of the world into which I would soon be ushering a brand-new child. Later, when looking at my daughter’s cherub-like face, I remembered the words of Tennessee Williams, ‘How beautiful it is, and how easily it can be broken.’
I experienced a great fear of impeding impotence against a world filled with things like trans lobbies which push for the inclusion of biological men in female sports, green lobbies that brainwash us into a self-inflicted energy shortage, DEI lobbies ruining workplaces and social cohesion, and the general decrease in stability of a world headed by a barely sentient Biden along with his empty shell of a Vice-President.
Anticipating the baby, I switched off from the news for a few months. Since then, things have changed considerably.
Despite multiple assassination attempts, both on his reputation and life, Donald Trump’s emphatic election win has ushered in a sense of optimism. He won the popular vote, the Electoral College, and has gained control of the House and the Senate.
Listening to his lengthy conversation with Joe Rogan, one gets the impression that Trump’s first term was undercut by inexperience and riddled with people who acted in bad faith within his administration. Given how much he was able to accomplish, one can’t help but have great hopes for this second administration. In anticipation of his Presidency, the US stock markets broke records. This is astonishing.
Optimism is especially warranted as Trump is poised to put a lot of people who were wrongly maligned during Covid into his administration, such as Professor Jay Bhattacharya, whom he nominated to lead the National Institute of Health (NIH). Bhattacharya, along with others, disagreed with the authoritarian mainstream health advice of the NIH, much of which has since proven to be wrong. These individuals were grossly maligned by health authorities and the media. To have people of this high moral quality appointed to these institutions brings us closer to draining the proverbial swamp.
Against all the leftist dogmas that sow disunion, Trump managed to coalesce under his banner prominent former Democrats Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He also received open endorsements from X owner Elon Musk and podcaster Joe Rogan, who are historically considered to be liberals.
Reflecting this cross-party unity, Trump’s vote share increased across almost every demographic. This is a demonstration of the changing course of the public zeitgeist. As I started to meander through the news headlines, a myriad of stories confirmed my initial assumption.
For instance, Daniel Penny was acquitted of the charge of second-degree manslaughter for the death of Jordan Neely. In my piece on the matter, I expressed concerns that the ex-Marine, who stood up to protect his fellow New Yorkers from an erratic Neely, would not get a fair trial in leftist New York. But perhaps even New Yorkers are waking up to the state of collapsing scenery around them. Trump, despite losing deep-blue New York, has improved his vote share in every metropolitan area compared to last time, whereas the Democratic Party lost about 1 million New Yorkers who voted for Biden in 2020. This statistic represents a failure of the Biden/Harris government to hold its base.
Even as the New York Police Department celebrates a ‘lowering’ of overall crime, murder and rape have increased. This includes the recent high-profile murder of Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare. Shockingly, among extreme leftists, there are people openly celebrating the murder of the father of two, hailing the accused as some sort of anti-capitalist folk hero.
However, even the media is adjusting, expelling from their ranks editors and journalists who make crass and insensitive comments about acts of violence. Are publications finally learning that people are sick of their deceits and are turning elsewhere to get their news and entertainment?
After the election, the worst Democrat Pravda networks like MSNBC and CNN all experienced massive drops in viewership. And they deserve it.
Across the pond, the zeitgeist is shifting. In the UK, Nigel Farage’s Reform Party has been greatly boosted its influence by appointing the billionaire and ex-Tory donor Nick Candy as its treasurer. This closely follows a poll which has put the Reform Party in second place, behind the Tories, and ahead of the governing Labour Party. Reform is looking more and more like a serious threat to replace the complacent and ineffectual Conservative Party. It may even topple the ghastly Labour Party after a single-term Starmer leadership.
Wins by right-wing parties in Italy, France, Austria, the Netherlands, and gains in Germany, Spain, and elsewhere all indicate that people in the West have had enough of the technocratic, illiberal, censorious, nonsensical, and often inhuman governance of leftist elites.
All the signs point to a righting of the ship – and not a moment too soon. Suddenly, the world seems like a much happier place for my daughter. I hope I can have the courage of those people who have braved insults, innuendos, insinuations, smears, and worse to assert what is right, decent, and true so that I can be an example to my little one. She too may need courage to protect the world.
At least for now, briefly, we may be able to pause and welcome in a new year with a smile.
In the words of T.S. Eliot: For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.
