The Democrats Need a New Code Talker

 Last week, Tim Walz spoke before a forum at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he revealed Kamala Harris's reason for choosing him as her vice presidential running mate. 

“I could code talk to white guys — watching football, fixing their truck,“ Walz explained. “I was the permission structure to say, ‘Look, you can do this and vote for this.’”

Apparently, the Harris campaign strategists realized Kamala had no credibility with working-class white men. Harris needed a middle-aged midwestern white guy on her team who could talk like Clint Eastwood did in the barbershop scene in Gran Torino. 

Barber Martin: Perfect! A Polak and AND a Chink! 

Walt Kowalski: How ya doing, Martin, you crazy Italian prick?

How did that work out? Not so well. Kamala lost ground in three crucial demographic groups compared to Joe Biden's performance in the 2020 presidential race. Hispanic men, African American men, and younger voters all swung Trump's way. Indeed, Trump won over a majority of Hispanic men.

What went wrong? Walz came off as insincere, and cisgendered white guys can sense when they're being played for rubes. When Walz tried to establish his bona fides as a pheasant hunter, the guys who watch football and drink Blue Ribbon beer noticed that he appeared unfamiliar with his own shotgun.

The Dems need to up their game, because they are losing ground--even among voters in reliably Blue states. Last November, Donald Trump carried 41 of New York's 62 counties, including two counties on Long Island. Harris won the state, of course, but her margin of victory was narrower than Biden's win in 2020.

If the Democrats hope to win the presidency in 2028, they need a new strategy. It would help if their candidates were authentic human beings and not a clown team comprised of Dumb and Dumber.

And the Dems should ditch their crazy obsession with transgender sports.  Guys who watch football and know how to change the oil in their trucks don't want their high-school-age daughters competing against bulky males at varsity track meets, even males who call themselves Linda.  

"You crazy Italian prick."

Did Pope Benecict XVI Go to Hell?

 I grew up in a small Oklahoma town where most people were Evangelical Protestants. These folks were grouped in several denominations, but they all held one central belief: The Bible is the word of God and must be interpreted literally.

For example, the Nazarenes, a little-known sect that began in North Texas, prohibited women from cutting their hair or wearing makeup based on church leaders' interpretation of a few obscure verses in the Old Testament. The Church of Christ, almost unheard of outside the South, allowed no musical instruments in their worship places because the Bible did not mention pianos.

All these sturdy groups shared one iron-clad belief: dancing and the consumption of alcohol were grave sins. Thus, Jesus did not change water into wine at the wedding in Cana; he transformed it into Welch's grape juice. And Jesus didn't dance.

In midlife, I converted to Catholicism, and I now believe that at least one verse from the Bible must be interpreted literally. This is the verse:

But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

Matthew 18:6 (NCB)

Sexually abusing a child is a great sin, and all the experts agree that a child or youth never recovers psychologically from it. Surely, an adult who molests or rapes a child deserves to have a stone attached to his neck and be thrown in the ocean and drowned.

Tragically, the Catholic Church has been cursed for more than half a century by the sexual abuse of children by priests--hundreds of thousands of children across the globe.

Much of this abuse took place while Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger presided over the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican agency in charge of handling sexual abuse allegations.

In Jesus Wept, published this year by Alfred A. Knopf, Philip Shenon established conclusively that Ratzinger knew about the sexual abuse crisis and did virtually nothing about it. 

Shenon wrote:

Vatican documents made public in court records proved Ratzinger had always been involved personally in the handling of especially notorious child-abuse cases and that he regularly acted to delay the punishment of pedophile priests, even though that put more children at risk.

Shenon's book describes the sexual abuse calamity in detail, and Ratzinger was not the only person in the Vatican who fell short. Pope John Paul II probably knew almost as much as Ratzinger did. John Paul was surely aware that Father Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legion of Christ, was a serial child abuser, but he continued to pal around with him.

This week, the cardinals will convene to choose a successor to Pope Francis. I hope they all will have read Shenon's book and will choose a new pope with the courage to tackle the sexual abuse crisis that continues to scandalize the world. 

Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI upon the death of Pope John Paul II in 2005. He stepped down from the papacy in  2013 and died in 2022. It's too late to tie a millstone around his neck and cast him into the sea.

I don't believe in a literal hell, but Ratzinger might dwell there if it exists.  Catholics should pray for his soul and the souls of all the children who were ravaged by priests over the past several decades. 

May God have mercy on the abusers and the men who covered it up. And may the balm of God's compassion heal all the children and youth who were sexually abused by Catholic priests.

Pope Benedict XVI

America is now two countries: Which one do you want to live in?

 Not long ago, voters in 33 Illinois counties voted to leave Illinois and become part of Indiana. Twelve counties in eastern Oregon--perhaps America's wokest state-- voted to leave the Beaver State to become part of Idaho.  And in Texas, a robust secession movement has been active for many years.

What's going on? 

Clearly, Americans are dividing into two camps.  Blue State residents vote Democratic and are comfortable with the Democrats' woke agenda, which includes heavy government intervention in the national economy, transgender participation in girls' sports, and open borders.

Red State voters tend to hold traditional cultural values that emphasize patriotism, family, and Christianity. Red State voters are suspicious of federal regulations, and they're frightened by the Democrats' open border policies and the insertion of woke values in the public schools.

As a map of national voting patterns illustrates, Blue and Red states are geographically distinct. The Blue states are mostly clustered on the East and West Coasts, while the Republican-leaning Red states comprise the South, the Midwestern plains, and the Rocky Mountains west (except for Colorado and New Mexico).

As Abraham Lincoln observed in a 1858 speech, "a house divided cannot stand," and we are a divided nation. I thought the 2024 election results might usher in an era of political calm, but the election of Donald Trump for a second presidential term has been met by calls for resistance and a "civic uprising" by the coastal elites. Trump's enemies have filed well over 100 lawsuits to sabotage his political agenda.

What does the future hold? I think it is unlikely that conservative populations in woke states will be able to break away and join more conservative states.  The conservative counties in Illinois will never be able to escape to Indiana, nor will the eastern counties of Oregon ever become part of Greater Idaho.

Nevertheless, America's political and cultural divide is becoming sharper and more contentious by the day. I live off a gravel road in rural Mississippi, where cultural values are as different from Boston as Congo is different from Canada. America is now truly two separate countries.

America today is becoming more and more like the United States in 1860. As Bruce Catton, Erik Larson, and others have explained, by the eve of the Civil War, the radical abolitionists in New England and the rabid pro-slavery advocates in South Carolina despised each other and actually longed for war. 

And war is what they got. 

Unless academia, Democratic politicians, and the legacy media show more respect for the hard-working and decent people of Flyover Country, the nation will one day fall apart. If that occurs, my loyalties will be with Flyover Country--my doctoral degree from Harvard notwithstanding.

 

2024 Presidential Election Results by County

David Brooks Says that the Universities are the Crown Jewels of American Life. That’s Baloney

In a recent op-ed essay in the New York Times, David Brooks called for a “civic uprising” against the Trump administration. Brook envisions a revolt of the intellectual elites, including those who hang out in the universities, which he described as “the crown jewels of American life.”

The universities, Brooks extols, “are hubs of scientific and entrepreneurial innovation,” and “[i]n a million ways, the scholars at universities help us understand ourselves and our world.”

Brooks goes so far as to attest that the universities mold young students to become cultured, critical thinkers:

I have seen it over and over. A kid comes on campus as a freshman, inquisitive but unformed. By senior year, there is something impressive about her. She is awakened, cultured, [and] a critical thinker. The universities have performed their magic once again.

I’m sorry, David, but that’s pure, unadulterated bullshit. As the media shows us daily, the universities are not nurturing students to be cultured, critical thinkers. They’re producing anti-Semitic racists who rampage through college campuses spewing venomous hatred toward Jews.

If the universities were doing their jobs, they would be educating young people to think rationally and to have some understanding of Israel’s heroic struggle to maintain the only democratic society in the Middle East. Instead, anti-Israel student protesters voice their support for Hamas--a gang of rapists, torturers, kidnappers, body snatchers, arsonists, and-child killers.

Moreover, if the nation’s university leaders were compassionate champions of social justice, which they claim to be, they would not be hiking tuition year after year, forcing their students to take on ruinous levels of debt to obtain liberal arts and humanities degrees that are worthless.

To be fair, Brooks admits that American universities have flaws. “Many have allowed themselves to become shrouded in a stifling progressivism that tells half the country: ‘Your voices don’t matter.’”

Brooks fails to acknowledge that the “flaw” he describes as “stifling progressivism” is not a quaint and harmless eccentricity. It is an expression of the universities’ bigotry, provincialism, and base contempt for traditional American values.

In short, Brooks is wrong to say that American universities are advancing “the glories of our way of life.” On the contrary, the gasbags who run the colleges and teach in them are programming their students to be intolerant, racist, simplistic, and self-absorbed. And they’re charging a boatload of money for the privilege of destroying American culture. 

An anti-Israel encampment at Columbia: "the glories of our way of life"

To the Barricades! NY Times's David Brooks Calls for a "Civic Uprising" Against the Trump Administration

 David Brooks recently published an op-ed essay in the New York Times calling for a "civic uprising" against the Trump administration. A terrifying vision flashed through my mind of blood in the streets.

A civic uprising! In my mind's eye, I saw an enraged Times columnist Maureen Dowd shaving President Trump's head as the Parisians did to Nazi collaborators at the end of World II. I also saw Frank Bruni and Paul Krugman filling empty Perrier bottles with gasoline to make Molotov cocktails to throw at Teslas.

The more I contemplated Brooks's call to arms, the more frightened I became. In the Hamptons, I envisioned the Beautiful People mocking RFK Jr at an inquisition and forcing him to eat Spam sandwiches made with Wonder Bread. I saw Hedge Fund managers dragging Tulsi Gabbard by her hair through the streets of Martha's Vineyard and making her answer for the despicable crime of trying to get foreign rapists out of the country. 

However, after reading Brooks's essay a second time, my panic subsided. I realized the shock troops for his "civic uprising" were not so fearsome. Brooks called for "Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits, and the scientific community" to form "one coordinated mass movement" to stop Trump. That doesn't sound too scary.

After carefully rereading Brooks's manifesto, I also discerned that Brooks's "civic uprising" was not a call for guerrilla warfare. No, he was just pleading for more litigation. "Pile on the lawsuits," he urged.

I understood then that David Brooks's game plan for destroying Donald Trump was nothing more than the same, tired tactics the coastal elites have used unsuccessfully since the beginning of Trump's first administration. Litigation, hysterical references to Fascism, and mass rallies led by the grouchy old cranks in the Democratic party--that's David Brooks's big idea.

It never occurred to him to try to defeat Donald Trump at the ballot box by presenting Americans with sound ideas for improving their lives. That's because the op ed writers at the Times, the nation's pampered university leaders, and the Democratic Party hacks don't have any ideas. That's why they bray about "the end of democracy," spew profanity, and call  for a "civic uprising."

The New York Times editorial board is leading a" civic uprising" against Donald Trump.
Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd, Frank Bruni, and David Brooks are pictured from left to right.

90-Second Food Review: An Excellent Hospital Breakfast for a Cardiac Patient (A Day Without Grits Is Like a Day Without Sunshine)

I underwent a catheterization procedure at a Baton Rouge hospital this morning. By the time the procedure was over, I hadn’t eaten in 24 hours, and I was hungry.

"Would I like some breakfast and a cup of coffee?" a nurse asked.

"Yes, I would," I replied, silently wondering what a cardiac patient gets for his hospital breakfast. Low-fat cottage cheese and a carrot stick?

Soon, the nurse returned with a Styrofoam tray and a cup of strong, black coffee. I knew from the first sip that I was drinking Community coffee, the only coffee people in South Louisiana drink. Indeed, the F word in Louisiana is not F---; it's Folger's.

My Styrofoam tray was separated into three compartments. One compartment held a single link sausage. The second compartment contained hot scrambled eggs. The third and largest compartment was filled with grits, a food I came to love after moving to Louisiana more than 30 years ago.

How about condiments? I examined a Styrofoam bowl containing packets of butter, salt, pepper, and grape jelly for my toast. I was disappointed not to find a little bottle of Tabasco sauce, but my condiment bowl contained the next best thing: a packet of Cajun seasoning, which I sprinkled on my eggs and grits.

All in all, I had a great hospital breakfast, and I was grateful that the hospital dietitian had approved me for a hearty helping of grits. 

My hospital care team included seven or eight young, energetic, and efficient people. Thank God, I thought to myself, that the folks bustling around me had chosen a medical career instead of majoring in gender studies or sociology.

Millions of Americans lack skills or training for a worthwhile vocation.  Seven million working-age men are unemployed and aren't even looking for work. Millions of others are pursuing college degrees in fields that don’t lead to a well-paying job. 

Every day, I meet workers in the service industry who are lethargic, sullen, and resentful because they work in menial jobs they don't want to do. I wonder how many hold bachelor's degrees in fashion design or art history.

Americans should be grateful to everyone who has chosen to pursue a healthcare career. I am constantly astonished by how cheerful and competent most of these people are.

At this stage of my life, I'm convinced that universities should close their liberal arts and humanities programs and focus solely on training young people for useful and meaningful jobs. In the future, America will need marine biologists, environmental engineers, and medical technicians. I don’t think we will need many people with degrees in philosophy, anthropology, sociology, or diversity studies.

If the U.S. Department survives the Trump administration's commitment to shut it down, I hope it will stop issuing student loans for worthless college degrees in liberal arts, humanities, and social sciences. Too often, borrowing money to get an education in these fields doesn't lead to a good job and leaves graduates with mountains of debt--debt that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. 

Image credit: Jake West

Colleges peddling expensive liberal arts degrees are engaging in fraud

My professors defined sociology as the painful elaboration of the obvious and psychology [as] the painstaking study of human behavior by people who need to be studied.

Dan E. Dunlap

As Mike Rowe pointed out recently, "Nothing has gotten more expensive in the last 40 years than a 4-year degree. Not real estate, not healthcare, not energy, nothing.” Indeed, it now costs around $90,000 a year to attend a private college.

And it is not just the exclusive schools that charge nose-bleed prices.  Columbia University costs $93,000 a year, including tuition, housing, and books. Landmark College, a tiny, obscure Vermont school, is almost as expensive. The total cost of attending Landmark for one year is $86,000. 

Is a college degree worth a quarter of a million dollars? No, of course not. And though a case can be made that an undergraduate degree in accounting or business will eventually pay off, no one can defend the insane cost of obtaining a liberal arts degree at a private school.

Columbia, for example, a university riddled with anti-Semitic racism, offers degrees in sociology, gender studies, and Yiddish studies. What kind of job will a Columbia grad be qualified to fill with a degree in those fields?

Colleges across America fund degree programs in the humanities, liberal arts, and social sciences that don't give graduates useful job skills. Why aren't these programs closed down?

Two reasons. First, universities continue to offer degrees in these fields because they have tenured professors who staff liberal arts departments who are very difficult to fire. 

Second, hundreds of private colleges define themselves as liberal arts colleges. It would be tough for these schools to justify their existence if they scrapped their liberal arts majors.

In my view, colleges that charge outrageous tuition prices that force students to take out loans to obtain low-value degrees are engaging in fraud.  College students are beginning to figure that out, and that's why enrollment in liberal arts programs is declining.