Updated for clarity at 11AM Central.--GB

***

In response to last month's Moroccan invasion of the Spanish city of Ceuta, I wrote the following essay for another website with a larger reach than TMR. The editors rejected it on the grounds that Ceuta has become “stale" in the news cycle.

The residents of Ceuta, who are now living with 40,000 thieves, rapists, and vagabonds in their city, would probably beg to differe. But here we are.--GB

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“Banned Books” doesn’t mean what it used to; these days it’s usually the first display table you see at Barnes & Noble, buried in bland titles featuring every approved left-of-center idea. Like every other label in the age of permanent marketing, it’s an attention-seeking gimmick meant to conjure up images of burning paper in 1930s Munich. Quick, grab this before it’s illegal! In most cases the books serve as cultural war bonds (Look! I have THIS and it’s BANNED! Take THAT!) and I’d wager they often go unread on a shelf in a blue city apartment.

Today, true examples of a banned book are few and far between. Even if something isn’t available on a mainstream market like Amazon, the number of secondary sites, used book resellers, or private sales will keep a title moving. Sometimes a book goes out of print without a digital edition, making it harder to track down, but in the end that really just raises the price. They’re not any more banned than a barista’s self-pubbed trilogy about anti-racist vampires in Portland.

A true banned book is one that you’re not allowed to talk about. Something containing a socially verboten idea, a concept so heinous that Good & Decent People are incensed at the mere notion of its consideration. Doubtless you are once again thinking of Munich, but I’m not talking about Mein Kampf. That’s too obvious. No, for the most glaring example, we should move forty years ahead of Hitler to Jean Raspail’s novel The Camp of the Saints, which has been relevant in ways that few people understand.

Chances are you haven’t heard of Camp of the Saints unless you move in certain literary (or political) circles. Raspail published it in French in 1973, and it later had a limited print run in English in 1975, after which it went unavailable for a long time. An updated French edition came out in 2011, and Ethan Rundell translated that one into English for Vauban Press, which released it in 2025. The timing couldn’t have been more appropriate, as the book’s themes and questions are more pressing than ever—and you’re not allowed to discuss them in Polite Society.

What’s it about? In short: the threat of Third World migration to Western civilization. The “Great Replacement” (it’s no longer a theory.) Hordes of unwashed, unassimilated masses swarming over borders and onto beaches, cannibalizing the nations that receive them, as seen in Germany, France, the U.K., and most recently, Spain—before we even discuss America’s southern border. It’s happening on a wide scale and at an increasing rate of acceleration, and Raspail saw it coming long before the Arab Spring and the rise of ISIS that drove Muslims into Europe by the tens of thousands.

Raspail’s academic background took him to South America where he studied the declining indigenous cultures of Patagonia. Pattern recognition kicked in and while the methods, values, and ultimate goals of Third World invaders to Europe were different from those of the conquistadores in Argentina, there was an applicable question to both: if you have the means to survive an invasion, does it matter if you don’t have the will?

The scenario presented in Camp of the Saints depicts a pair of giant, barely-seaworthy freighters heading out of India with around 800,000 members of the lowest caste aboard. The ships are disgusting, overloaded, ridden with disease, and lacking in any measure of hygiene and social practices that a civilized Western nation would recognize. Raspail notes that the ships can be smelled before they can be seen. Their declared destination is France. They are going to ram the ships on the shore, storm the beaches, and simply take whatever they want. Food. Fuel. Homes. Lives. There is no ambiguity about their goal. Knowing this, the French are faced with an unignorable question:

What do we do to stop this?

As the plot unfolds, Raspail weaves in discussions between parties with varying interests across the ideological spectrum. On one end there are advocates of military intervention, saying they should open fire and sink the ships before they land. On the other end are there culturally suicidal members of the country who, having embraced open-mindedness to the point of self-hatred, are thrilled at the idea of the nation being consumed by something else. They celebrate the coming of the ships. Powerful institutions weigh in, including every department of the French government, the national media, and even the Pope. In between all their declarations you find a range of hand-wringing and denial from people who want the problem to go away but know that it won’t, yet they lack the will to do what is necessary to defend their civilization.

They have embraced a sort of mental poison that won’t allow them to see the binary choice: survival or erasure. The annihilation is always weighed against the gravest social sin of which the West can be accused, which is: you have to be nice to someone who calls himself a ‘refugee,’ no matter what. It doesn’t matter if he’s wielding a knife and covered in blood. It doesn’t even matter if he says to your face that he’s going to kill you and rape your children and burn your house down; he’s from somewhere else that’s poorer than where you live and you have to let him in. What are you, a racist? Are you a bigot? You should be terrified of these labels, good sir! Let the man in!

This is the idea that you can’t discuss, the unquestionable sin in the West. Whether Camp of the Saints was banned outright or simply unavailable due to rightsholder issues is not the problem. You’re not allowed to put this question to the public. You’re socially eviscerated for even considering it. The worst thing you can do is be “mean” to someone from the “Third World,” and if you do anything less than invite them in, pay for their life off the public dole, and even install them in government so they have power over you, you are a racist and a bigot.

Ask them how that’s going in Dearborn, Michigan, or in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They’re starting to feel it in parts of Chicago and New York City. Even deep Red states like Utah have it in Salt Lake City, where Democrats run as Republicans to implement the same model that has worked in the east.

You can’t say the local American population is being replaced. That’s a secular sin. That’s racist. That’s bigoted. You have to let it happen, and no matter how it happens, that’s not as bad as being labeled as such. These are the highest, most cardinal social offenses. This idea, this question, is what qualifies Camp of the Saints for the label of “banned book.” And in America, it doesn’t matter what color of city or state you live in: the question will come to you.

Do you have the will to advocate for your civilization’s survival?

It sounds simple enough, but we never get to answer these things in a vacuum. It doesn’t matter. Raspail studied the question for his whole life, and saw the results of different answers for decades. Camp of the Saints was his way of making the question understandable, and also demonstrating the ways in which the West tries to avoid it. To change the subject. To describe the consequences as anything other than what they are: replacement unto annihilation.

Again, you can see several iterations of answers to this question across Europe. Syrian “migrants” were deposited in small German towns in 2015 at a ratio of three, four, or five to one—sometimes higher—effectively erasing the native Germans from the homes of their ancestors. Paris, France has been taken over by similar demographics and there are thousands of videos on social media of robberies and knife attacks in that city alone. Britain recently published a report on its rape-gang crisis spanning the last two decades, and the organized nature of its perpetrators—Pakistanis—is hard to ignore. (For another novel that tackles that subject, see Bothelford’s Gone by Edward McClaren—but brace yourself, it’s a gut punch.)

And finally Spain saw its most dramatic example of outright invasion in the north African city of Ceuta (which has been Spanish for 500 years) at the end of July. Some 40,000 invading Moroccans were effectively escorted into the city by the Guardia Civil. The local police simply watched truckloads of men jump out in the road, run across bridges, or wade around barriers on the beach to enter Ceuta. They immediately set to breaking into homes, storming convenience stores, stealing whatever they wanted, and threatening the local population. Already there have been five reported rapes of girls under 14, at a hospital that maybe sees that number in a year. Somehow the civilized West is supposed to accept this is better than being called racist.

Raspail wrapped this phenomenon up in a narrative about two boats that loudly declared their intention to invade one specific country. In real life it’s happening in several countries, by varied means, but always with the same result, because somehow the West keeps talking itself into giving the same answer.

Well…not all of the West. The shining star of self-preservation in Europe is Poland, with Hungary in a close second, but there actually is a good example in the U.S., too. Of all places, Martha’s Vineyard—an island full of wealthy residents off of Massachusetts—showed how to handle the problem in September of 2022, when Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) sent them fifty Venezuelan “refugees” via plane. The Vineyard—which has 20,000 residents, pretty much all of whom make six figures a year at the very least—is a known sanctuary city, so they definitely had the means and the will to absorb four dozen hungry mouths.

Yet with smiles and self-congratulations, the residents of Martha’s Vineyard had those Third Worlders off their (rich, white) island in two days, never to return. No social blowback came their way. Somehow, for them, self-interest was the right answer. Why could that be?

Jean Raspail’s book continues to ask this question even after his death in 2020 at the age of 94. Again, you’ll never see it on a “banned books” list, and in this day and age, it’s not. Vauban Books and Ethan Rundell have seen to that, and we owe them a debt of gratitude for their work. Now you can access The Camp of the Saints at an affordable price, and the next time the subject comes up, you’ll have something really interesting to ask other readers.

I wonder what they’ll say.

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“Electoral Brawlage” examines the first inaugural address of each president in U.S. history, with some commentary and analysis. Check back on Mondays for more.

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As per last week’s article, in the summer of 1944 FDR replaced his VP Wallace with Harry S. Truman. This was the real election—the jockeying for position within the Democrat party to be the VP, because it was an open secret among the power brokers that FDR had one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel, so whoever got that VP slot was probably going to be president before too long. Wallace was too liberal to carry the socially conservative South, and nobody wanted to give up control of Washington in the heat of World War II.

Wallace had strong progressive-leanings and was sympathetic to some Soviet ideas. Even if he wasn’t an outright socialist or communist, his rhetoric gave the homegrown Americans enough to be suspicious about, and party bosses worried that this would give the Republicans an edge. FDR liked Wallace but was open to the idea of a replacement if it kept him in office.

It came down to a few options but the bosses went with Truman in the end. He favored the New Deal and he was from Missouri, which sat on the line between Northern and Southern. FDR won that fall, and was sworn in for a second term on March 4th, 1945. He then died on April 12th, just 38 days later, and Harry Truman was sworn in as President. You can read a more detailed account in McCullough’s bio of Truman, just remember my rule when it comes to McCullough: 1) he’s legendary, and 2) sometimes he’s too friendly to his subjects.

Assumin’ Truman

When he took office, he issued a very short statement, the entirety of which I can publish:

THE WORLD may be sure that we will prosecute the war on both fronts, east and west, with all the vigor we possess to a successful conclusion.

That was basically it. He’d address Congress on the 16th in a formal joint session. Eighteen days after he became president, Hitler committed suicide in his bunker. (April 30.)

Eight days after that, the Allies declared victory in Europe. (May 8).

Three months later, the Americans nuked Hiroshima (Aug 6) and Nagasaki (Aug 9). Japan surrendered on August 15th.

The Allies ultimately declared victory in Japan on September 2nd, accepting Japan’s surrender aboard the USS Missouri. Truman had been president for all of five months.

Now obviously I’m not saying he triumphed where FDR languished. The machinery of Allied success was already in motion and he kept the Oval Office aligned with it all. The decision to nuke Japan was his, and much hay has been made about that ever since. Again I refer you to McCullough.

But the end of a protracted world war—the second in the lifetimes of many Americans—was quite the cause celebre, and it would be foolish not to assume that much goodwill over a triumphant conclusion would benefit the party in power. It did.

Even so, this was still the first six months of the Truman presidency, and he had quite a ways to go before 1948. By then the Republicans made up some ground nationally, and put up a fight for the White House.

The 1948 Election

Truman picked Alben W. Barkley as his Vice President, a long-serving Senator out of Kentucky. Over on the GOP side, his opponent was Thomas E. Dewey, governor of New York, who had also taken a turn as the 1944 nominee, when he lost 432-99 in the Electoral College. Apparently he hadn’t had enough and thought he could break 100 this time. His VP was Earl Warren, the governor of California.

I used to laugh at people who say “the parties switched,” and I still kinda do, because it’s not true in the way that they mean it…but come one. The GOP candidates were the NY gov and the CA gov. Bruh. Lmao.

There were also a couple of third (and fourth?) party tickets that actually made some noise, including Strom Thurmond (Dixiecrat) and Henry A. Wallace (Progressive). That’s the same Wallace who had lost his VP slot to Truman in ‘44. He really thought he had some clout with The People. Did he? Let’s take a look!

Oh! No clout! Zero! And I’m surprised that Strom Thurmond actually harvested some EVs. Man, how old was that guy? Because he ran for president in ‘48, and then he left the Senate the same year that I graduated high school. What is going on?

Anyways, none of it mattered; Truman locked down enough EVs to win, although a couple of states came down to the wire, and it was so close that the papers prematurely called it for Dewey, who was decently ahead in the polls for the last two weeks. McCullough characterized his campaign as “playing it safe” for those two weeks and trying not to damage that lead, while Truman continued to campaign and make the case for his second term. It worked in the end, and that’s why this is the only thing anyone knows about Thomas Dewey:

The Speech

Here’s the speech. All told, it’s pretty good…on paper. The problem is that a lot of things he supported would later mutate and metastasize into abnormal growths that should be removed, but can’t be, because our politicians are all self-serving slime.

Truman condemns communism and favors democracy (which ultimately leads to communism, but let’s stay on track here). He supports the United Nations (good idea, bad execution) and the Marshall Plan, which rebuilds Europe after the devastation of the war. He wants other free nations to be stronger and supports beefing them up so that if another war breaks out (and there was definitely fear of a third World War) they’ll be better-positioned to pull their own weight. And finally he favored the pilot program for modern-day foreign aid. (Somehow that just means “All them over there now get to live over here and you can’t say anything about it.”)

Call me cynical. That said, I don’t put the blame for the abuse of these programs on Truman. These are all things that sound nice and that a benevolent, powerful nation may rightly take an interest in overseeing. In the decades to come, a national moral compass would be sorely needed and, at the same time, maliciously abandoned. But we’ll see how that all unfolds in the remaining months.

This was Truman’s final term in office. The 1940s would give way to the 1950s, and with them, the Korean War. But we’ll talk about that next week.

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Since I’ve been on this Crichton kick for the last little bit, I decided to reread Sphere for the first time since middle school. It came out between Congo and Jurassic Park, and like most of his 1980s oeuvre, it got a film adaptation later on (1998). Here’s the basic premise:

A team of scientists gets called up by the Navy after a massive spacecraft is found at the bottom of the Pacific. It’s intact, it’s American, and, inexplicably, it’s from the future. Inside its cargo hold is a giant metallic sphere whose purpose is not immediately apparent, but as the scientists begin to interact with it, the environment around them becomes increasingly hostile. It’s up to Norman, the oldest member of the team and its resident psychologist, to solve the puzzle of the sphere before they all wind up dead.

Of all Crichton’s greatest hits, Sphere is the most Lovecraftian one, playing with elements of cosmic horror, but doing so from an angle of hard science—even with its limits. You’ve got the standard staples of a Crichton story to walk you through it: there’s an aged, overworked protagonist (we’ll call him John Science), a borderline romantic female colleague (Stacy Seduction), and another professional who has an antagonistic relationship with John Science, even if it’s one of mutual respect (his name is Dave A**hole.) Throw in an overbearing but underprepared authority figure (Bob Navy) and an expendable tool that nobody likes (Mike Dead) and that’s pretty much it. The plot develops at a good clip, and there are conversational asides at appropriate intervals to hash out the science of what’s going on.

Nobody can figure out the sphere at first. Inexplicably, Dave A**hole is the first one who deduces how to open it and go inside, though he forgets what he did in there pretty quickly. Later Stacy Seduction enters the sphere and she too is forgetful of her experience. Finally, in a moment of high stakes and high stress, John Science (a psychologist) goes inside the sphere, and makes contact with the entity inside.

All this time he’s been trying to figure out what the sphere is, why it’s on the ship, how the ship came from the future, how it showed up on the ocean floor, and more. In his preliminary discussions with the others, it was decided that the sphere—being futuristic technology—might be flat-out too advanced for them to really understand it. They use the analogy of taking a TV back to medieval times and showing it to even the most educated person they could find; he’d think it was witchcraft. Even if it was Isaac Newton, it would take him years to explain the science of how it all works, but it does. And what does it do?

Somehow the sphere amplifies the power of the human mind so that it can make manifest the things in our subconscious, be they magnificent or terrible. Harry, the mathematician, has nightmares about a giant squid, and wouldn’t you know it, one starts attacking the habitat. Beth, the zoologist, dreams of discovering new species on the ocean floor, but when she does, they…don’t come out right. Norman, the psychologist, just wants to figure it out and go home, but the sphere’s power seems to make that all but impossible.

In the end they’re able to escape, and even go so far as to use their powers to erase the sphere from existence. That kind of power is too much for mankind. Someone would use it to destroy them all. Even a small handful of the smartest people the Navy could find caused immeasurable damage in a confined environment. And why was that?

“The ability to imagine is the largest part of what you call intelligence. You think the ability to imagine is merely a useful step on the way to solving a problem or making something happen. But imagining it is what makes it happen.

“This is the gift of your species and this is the danger, because you do not choose to control your imaginings. You imagine wonderful things and you imagine terrible things, and you take no responsibility for the choice.

“You say you have inside you both the power of good and the power of evil, the angel and the devil, but in truth you have just one thing inside you - the ability to imagine.”

The entire book can be distilled into this single passage. Everything stems from it. Crichton was the master of blending several tones, elements, even genres into one story, and in Sphere we get a profound philosophical observation that underpins everything else that happens.

We can imagine things. An object that immediately turns our imaginings into physical manifestations—without the labor involved in the process of doing so by hand—would create wonders and horrors alike. And without social guardrails to help us contain those creations within safe and moral parameters, chances are we would skew towards horror.

We can argue until we’re blue in the face as to why, but I think it makes the most sense. In many ways, Crichton’s sci-fi novels are cautionary tales about what we take for granted. Congo? You take your knowledge of primates for granted (minor.) Jurassic Park? You take your knowledge of genetics for granted (problematic.) Timeline? You take your knowledge of the linear nature of time for granted (extremely dangerous prospect.) Sphere? You take your control over your imagination for granted.

And if the barrier of difficulty between concept and execution were to fall—if you no longer had to physically build something in order to make it exist—what would you quickly make? Even by accident, and with no correction to your errant thoughts? Would you trust yourself with such a power? Would you trust a friend? Would you trust an enemy?

Good and evil are religious notions. Religious lines are one of many that separate us from one another, but we are still united in our ability to simply imagine things. Taking our ethereal conjurations and immediately making them real in an overlapping space is a recipe for disaster, unless we have a shared code of conduct. (We don’t.)

I think I generally understood Crichton’s concept back in the day, but I appreciate it a lot more now that I’m older. The things that you imagine, that you feed yourself, that you cook up in your mind as part of your narrative for understanding the world, matter. The imagination is a loaded gun—not good or evil, just potent. Capable.

This is worth thinking about as AI accelerates the process of creation, cutting the distance between conjuration and realization.

Handle that power carefully in the space between your ears.

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“This Week in 1776” is an ongoing almanac of events from that year in the American Revolution. Be sure to check out my novel HEARTLANDERS.

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Philly

While Congress continued to focus on logistical and legal matters, one particular development of interest to this reader was the deliberation over a national seal. In a letter from John Adams to his wife Abigail, we get the following glimpse into what the committee considered:

Dr. F. proposes a Device for a Seal. Moses lifting up his Wand, and dividing the Red Sea, and Pharaoh, in his Chariot overwhelmed with the Waters.—This Motto. Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.

Mr. Jefferson proposed. The Children of Israel in the Wilderness, led by a Cloud by day, and a Pillar of Fire by night, and on the other Side Hengist and Horsa, the Saxon Chiefs, from whom We claim the Honour of being descended and whose Political Principles and Form of Government We have assumed.

I proposed the Choice of Hercules, as engraved by Gribeline in some 97Editions of Lord Shaftsburys Works. The Hero resting on his Clubb. Virtue pointing to her rugged Mountain, on one Hand, and perswading him to ascend. Sloth, glancing at her flowery Paths of Pleasure, wantonly reclining on the Ground, displaying the Charms both of her Eloquence and Person, to seduce him into Vice. But this is too complicated a Group for a Seal or Medal, and it is not original.

A while back I came across this statement and bookmarked it for this week: the discussion of the seal was my introduction to Hengist and Horsa, two figures who captured my imagination. Lore holds that they were Saxon brothers who settled in the British Isles and became ancestors of a great nation, which was later corrupted by Norman conquerors and the English monarchy. Thomas Jefferson looked to them as symbols of a free people and the progenitors of a tradition that America sought to reclaim from monarchs of the past.

You can look at Hengist and Horsa the same way that Italians look to Romulus and Remus as folklorical figures at the beginning of their history. I won’t pretend to be some expert on Hengist and Horsa, but I’m admittedly curious what else Jefferson had to say about them, and his broader views on America as the culmination of a long historical arc. I’ve got some reading to do.

Ultimately these designs for the seal didn’t make it into the final product. I imagine Congress didn’t put the national seal too high on its list of priorities at this time, given the more pressing matter of military logistics in places like…

New York

The Americans are holding New York while the Brits are adding more ships and ground troops to their invading force. Lt. Col. Benjamin Tupper does what he can to harass British ships with limited resources, including deploying “fire rafts,” which are basically what they sound like: the cheapest possible construct that will float and maintain sufficient fire long enough to contact a British ship and burn it down. He doesn’t succeed in blowing anything up, but the attempt is sufficient to force a couple of ships to withdraw to the stronger British lines near New York Harbor.

Elsewhere

Colonel Andrew Williamson and Captain Andrew Pickens continue their campaign against the Cherokee who allied with Brits and Loyalists against the Patriot cause. One fight was especially devastating to Pickens: on August 12, he and about two dozen men were surrounded by about eight times their number, and had to form a ring so they could constantly fire out in all directions. The “Ring Fight” lasted long into the night, with Pickens’ men suffering a casualty rate of almost half, but they made the Cherokee work for it, and left many more of them dead. Reinforcements eventually arrived and bailed out the Patriots. In response the Patriots burned crops and stores in nearby Cherokee settlements, forcing them to break their lines and retreat to friendlier territory.

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So, I finally saw Blade Runner 2049. This is going to sound crazy, but: I’ve never seen Blade Runner. Unlike most of you who are about to come at me in the comments, I’ve read the book that it’s based on (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick). Thus, I say unto you, chill.

Frankly wasn’t all that hot-and-bothered to watch it because I didn’t get into the book very much. (I’ve seen many parts of the movie and I’ve read a summary of the screenplay.) My curiosity for 2049 was based on the years of meme saturation on the Internet, showing a broken-nosed Ryan Gosling staring with disdain at a neon hologram of Ana de Armas, looking like he wants to die.

My friends in the Esoteric Online Religious Extremist (EORE) community rely on these Gosling memes as a principle form of communication, so I wanted to better understand what they were saying, so I watched the sequel, and I’ve got to say…

…they’re on to something.

But I wonder:

Is it what they think it is?

I’m not going to get too cute-and-clever with you here, because the point I want to make is pretty straightforward. For the uninitiated, however, I shall set the table.

Blade Runner

Released in 1982 and set in 2019, the movie depicts a world that is, without embellishment, a mess. The solar system is in the early stages of colonization and Earth is basically an industrial drop-yard for more inspired projects. Hyper-corporatism has ruined everything and people live in a stage of meaningless depression, trying to survive in a stale and ugly world. That’s it. Just survive. Thriving isn’t really in the cards.

Our hero is Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a “blade runner” (bounty hunter) who tracks down and “retires” (kills) “replicants” (biological humanoid robots.) There isn’t an excess of massaged/manipulated language beyond this one phenomenon, but the robot element is the most important part of the story. Replicants are bred en masse for labor, and basically exist as slaves. They’re even engineered to have short lifespans, and since they’re similar to humans in most ways, they also behave like one when they’re close to death. Thus blade runners are necessary to rein in wily replicants.

However, as Deckard chases down half a dozen replicants on a big contract, he runs across a replicant woman called Rachael and he falls in love with her. Undertones of the story provoke the viewer to ask whether Deckard himself is a replicant, and I’ve stumbled into fan arguments online as to whether or not he’s fully human.

The most compelling line that I’ve seen in any of these discussions came from one viewer who said:

You’re all missing the point; the movie isn’t asking you if Deckard is or isn’t a replicant. It’s asking you whether it matters at all.

I’ve always wondered what that person meant. After seeing 2049, I am fairly certain that I know.

The Sequel

We jump 30 years ahead of the ending of the first movie to witness the exploits of K (Gosling), a replicant who is himself a blade runner. He retires an outdated replicant named Sapper who, just before dying, claims to have witnessed a miracle, and condemns K for hunting his own kind. Curious as to what Sapper meant, K searches his property and discovers a set of human bones that have been buried for decades. It is determined that the bones belonged to an adult female who died in childbirth and, shockingly, the woman was a replicant.

The replicants aren’t supposed to be able to give birth. Along with their artificial origins and their condensed lifespans, this is the defining distinction between them and real humans. If news gets out that replicants are capable of having children, this development could throw a fragile world into violent chaos. Replicants massively outnumber humans and would soon replace them in the solar system. K’s boss orders him to find out who this child was and retire “it,” something that troubles his conscience, as he’s never been told to kill a human before.

Since replicants are artificial but highly similar to humans, they need regular psychological conditioning and testing in order to keep them within the parameters of acceptable conduct. As K investigates this natural-born replicant, he starts to undergo psychological trauma, as the evidence he finds seems to suggest that he himself is the child born of a replicant woman. His mental trauma becomes uncontainable when he finds out he’s not the child, because for a moment he dared to dream that he was something more. Something special. Something that could be loved. He fails his next psych check and his boss informs him that if he can’t get control of himself, he’ll be retired in two days. Discarded, like broken equipment.

Throughout all of this, we see minor ways in which K manages the deep-seated human tendencies in his psyche; he has a holographic girlfriend, Joi (Ana De Armas) who lovingly dotes on him and plays the role of a tradwife. Her holograms even depict elegant home-cooking that project on top of the slop food that K has to eat, because that’s really all that’s available. As K manifests more symptoms of human behavior, Joi reflects such developments as well, and they share a half-baked Pinocchio arc as the story progresses.

But try as he might, nothing can make K a real boy, and Joi will never be anything more than a product, a hologram, something he can simply buy to distract himself from his deeper yearnings. After her module is destroyed and she’s effectively erased, K runs into another Joi hologram in town on a billboard, and the falsity of it clearly disgusts him. That’s the image at the top of the article.

The story ends with K seeking out an aged and retired Deckard in the ruins of Las Vegas, where he learns what happened with Rachael thirty years ago: when she got pregnant, Deckard agreed that they had to split up and he couldn’t know where she was going, because a replicant child would be a big target. K and Deckard join forces to defeat the corporatists who are after them, and though K is mortally wounded, he takes Deckard to meet his daughter.

After a brief moment of reflection on some snow-covered stairs, K lays down and dies.

The Meaning

The reason this particular Gosling character resonates so strongly with young men of the last decade is because he is living under the same constraints they are, even if those constraints are jazzed up with sci-fi elements. He’s good at a job that he hates, and he’s forbidden from expressing any negative emotions about it. (Presumably he can’t be positive either, but he’s not in danger of this.) His apartment sucks. The food he eats sucks. His neighborhood sucks, his town sucks. He has a girlfriend but she’s fake and programmed to emulate the things that might satisfy him, but he can’t convince himself she’s real. Even when she tries, the illusion shatters.

Fate plays a cruel trick and lets him believe, even briefly, that he might be more than what he was doomed to be from the moment he was created, but even that is taken away when he finds out he’s not the replicant child. This triggers a profound change that ultimately leads him to sacrifice his life for Deckard and the real child.

If Blade Runner asks whether there’s a difference between replicants and humans, 2049 asks what humans ought to do if the answer is “yes.”

The Answer

The real difference between replicants and humans is the soul. The spirit. The spark of divinity within. Replicants are an extremely detailed simulacrum of humanity but they aren’t quite there—and can’t really get there, not with the constraints imposed on them. However, if they violate those constraints, they can edge toward true humanity by doing the most meaningful human thing ever:

Choosing to live on through their children.

Blade Runner isn’t a dystopia because the weather is bad, it’s perpetually raining, there are fake humans everywhere, and killing is a corporate task; it’s a dystopia because few people are having children. Families. Marriages. People become products, and something as essential as love becomes something you can buy—and even then it’s just ones and zeros and holography. Want sex? That’s also for sale, and it’s an even more twisted and deformed version of itself than love. That’s it. The replicants can fake it as much as they want and as hard as they want, they will never be real. They’ll never prove whether they have souls.

But if they can have children, well…that would be worth rising up over. They wouldn’t depend on humans to create more of them. They could do it themselves, and live forever, the way humans used to.

That realization is why I thought of Good Will Hunting; when K hunts down Deckard and takes him to meet his daughter, it was just a different version of the talk between Will (Damon) and Chuckie (Affleck) near the end.

(Profanity warning, they are from Boston after all.)

Chuckie: Look, you're my best friend, so don't take this the wrong way. In twenty years, if you're still livin' here, comin' over to my house to watch the Patriots games, still workin' construction, I'll ****in' kill you. That's not a threat, that's a fact. I'll ****in' kill you.

Will: What the **** are you talkin' about?

Chuckie: Look, you got somethin' that none of us-

Will: Oh, come on! Why is it always this, I mean, I ****in' owe it to myself to do this or that? What if I don't want to?

Chuckie: No. No, no, no. No, **** you. You don't owe it to yourself. You owe it to me. 'Cause tomorrow I'm gonna wake up and I'll be fifty. And I'll still be doing this shit. And that's all right, that's fine. I mean, you're sittin' on a winning lottery ticket and you're too much of a pussy to cash it in. And that's bullshit. `Cause I'd do anything to ****in' have what you got. So would any of these ****in' guys. It'd be an insult to us if you're still here in twenty years.

Full Circle

Blade Runner asks if the difference between humans and replicants even exists. And if we’re just wasting our lives, consuming cheap imitations of the things that matter most, refusing to give life to our descendants and burning all of our energy in pursuit of fleeting material satisfaction, then what is the functional difference between us and a robot with an expiration date?

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

That is the true meaning of the speech given by Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) in the 1982 movie. Yes, I’ve seen this clip and heard the quote scores of times, and never understood why it matter until seeing 2049.

The incredible, unbelievable things that he’d seen in his short life…they would die with him. Gone. Nobody to pass it on to. Nobody who would care. He was just a piece of equipment.

And I get it—plenty of you want to have families and children, and for a myriad of reasons, you haven’t or you can’t. You have my sympathies.

But to the ones who choose to live like that…what’s the difference?

Admonition

The aforementioned EORE community will have a response to this, and I know what it is: they are mostly male, mostly in their 20s or early 30s, and mostly single, mostly childless, and on that last point pretty much universally not by choice. They’ll tell you that the women they pursue are not looking for marriage or family or motherhood, and have been propagandized by a trillion-dollar machine to eschew the act of perpetuating themselves through children.

My response to this is twofold: first, you are probably correct in that assessment, to a degree.

Second: cynicism and defeatism are the easiest attitudes to embrace. They require no creativity, no effort, and no fortitude. There is no shortage of excuses to justify them, and that abundance is a key element of what makes them worthless.

Yes, it is easy for me to say this as a husband of 15 years with 3 children to carry on my name. I escaped the cycle, and the way I did it will not be palatable to everyone reading this. (I earnestly went to church and found a good and faithful woman, and we value the same things, the end).

Nevertheless, I was once like you. I know what it feels like to cry yourself to sleep at 25 and think your life is over. To hear a song on the radio that makes you punch your dashboard so hard you shatter an A/C vent. To take up running at 6 in the morning and push yourself to sprint until you can’t breathe and you almost crash on the sidewalk because it feels better than the last text She sent you.

It absolutely sucks. I would never try to convince you otherwise, or take that away from you. It’s a rock-hard fact.

But you cannot give up—not on yourself. If you have to be the last one in your own corner, then lock it down and tell the whole world to get bent. Gosling in Blade Runner 2049 is not Literally You because everything around him is fake and women are for sale and the future is bleak and existence is hopeless.

Gosling in Blade Runner 2049 is Literally You because in spite of all those things, he didn’t just roll over and die. He fought back against a system that simultaneously employed and discarded him. The difference is that you don’t live in a radioactive hellscape overflowing with people who hide barcodes under their eyelids. You just need to spend less time on the Internet.

Bet on yourself. Break out of the box. Disconnect from the cells (interlinked.) Whatever the future looks like, do not convince yourself that it’s inevitably the worst iteration. The world overflows with doomers. Don’t be one of them.

Because at the end of the day, you have what the replicants would kill to have: a soul. And you owe it to them not to throw it away.

Get to work.

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2026 is America’s 250th birthyear. To celebrate, I’m highlighting 50+ significant American documents from our history. Find them all under the American Documents tab!

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This’ll be a short one, short enough that I can copy the full text of the document right here:

Sir:

Some recent work by E.Fermi and L. Szilard, which has been communicated to me in manuscript, leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future. Certain aspects of the situation which has arisen seem to call for watchfulness and, if necessary, quick action on the part of the Administration. I believe therefore that it is my duty to bring to your attention the following facts and recommendations:

In the course of the last four months it has been made probable—through the work of Joliot in France as well as Fermi and Szilard in America—that it may become possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium, by which vast amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements would be generated. Now it appears almost certain that this could be achieved in the immediate future.

This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable—though much less certain—that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory. However, such bombs might very well prove to be too heavy for transportation by air.

The United States has only very poor ores of uranium in moderate quantities. There is some good ore in Canada and the former Czechoslovakia, while the most important source of uranium is Belgian Congo. In view of this situation you may think it desirable to have some permanent contact maintained between the Administration and the group of physicists working on chain reactions in America. One possible way of achieving this might be for you to entrust with this task a person who has your confidence and who could perhaps serve in an unofficial capacity. His task might comprise the following:

a) to approach Government Departments, keep them informed of the further development, and put forward recommendations for Government action, giving particular attention to the problem of securing a supply of uranium ore for the United States;

b) to speed up the experimental work, which is at present being carried on within the limits of the budgets of University laboratories, by providing funds, if such funds be required, through his contacts with private persons who are willing to make contributions for this cause, and perhaps also by obtaining the cooperation of industrial laboratories which have the necessary equipment.

I understand that Germany has actually stopped the sale of uranium from the Czechoslovakian mines which she has taken over. That she should have taken such early action might perhaps be understood on the ground that the son of the German Under-Secretary of State, von Weizsacker, is attached to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut in Berlin where some of the American work on uranium is now being repeated.

Yours very truly,
Albert Einstein

In 1939, Albert Einstein wrote this letter to FDR (near the end of his second term) to offer his qualified scientific opinion on government action as regarded the acquisition of key sources of uranium. Nazi Germany had their own supply in Czechoslovakia, but they couldn’t completely control the supply in the Congo. It behooved the U.S. to corner as much of the supply as they could and—this may have been unspoken in the letter, but the implication was there—develop such a bomb before the Germans did.

All of this is clear if you saw Oppenheimer (2023), which did a fair job of putting most of the facts on screen, provided you understand that it was Nolan adapting a book written by apologetic communists about one of their own venerated figures, and thus they smoothed some of the edges off of his mistakes. Nonetheless, the film accurately depicted the nature of the race between America and Germany to develop a bomb first.

However, the plan didn’t completely come to the conclusion that minds like Oppenheimer and Einstein anticipated when setting out. The Manhattan Project advanced well ahead of the Nazis in the iterative engineering phase (good), but the war in Europe was over before the atomic bomb could be of any practical value in that theater. As a result, the government decided to use it on the Japanese, targeting population centers that included women and children (bad).

I’m not here to litigate the past; frankly given what I’ve read, I’m of the opinion that Imperial Japan needed numerous kicks to the nuts like that in order for them to finally surrender, and it’s more likely than not that the story of them being on the brink of surrender anyway is postwar cope. I’m open to persuasion in the face of evidence. As concerns the Manhattan Project and its intended application in Europe, it would be nice if the atomic bomb hadn’t been dropped anywhere, but we don’t always get to live in the world that we want.

Einstein advised Roosevelt to pursue the acquisition of uranium for an atomic bomb based on the world that he lived in on August 2nd, 1939. And thus, here we are.

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Well, what do you do when school’s about to start? August kind of sucks. It’s hot as hell and you have to spend money on pencils and notebooks. Football is only “technically” back, but preseason games are like veggie burgers and tofurkey. The best days of summer are behind you and you’re more than halfway to the fall equinox. There aren’t many books you’d want to read that capture that feeling.

Fortunately, you are not forsaken in your hour of need. Simply answer the call…of Trucker Man Reads.

It’s my goal to have a book for you to read at every time of the year. HEARTLANDERS is my 4th of July book. SLEEPLESS HOLLOW is for Halloween. KILL THE BEAST has your back in the winter. And for those dog days of Back To School, you’ve actually got two options: FOSSIL FORCE (for middle school), and THE HERO NEXT DOOR (for high school.)

Fossil Force

On sale during August 2026!

Patrick Keller and his family have just moved into his grandfather’s ranch in rural Utah after his father’s accident forced them to sell their home. He’s tired, he’s the new kid, and the barn out back is stacked with his late uncle’s belongings.

Parents and educators: this is a grounded, contemporary story with no romance and no crude language. What’s present from page one is a boy quietly choosing patience and helpfulness over the resentment his older siblings feel — a steady model of family loyalty under real hardship.

FOSSIL FORCE is on sale this month.

The Hero Next Door

Nick Stavros has a plan for his senior year: if he plays his cards right, his parents will help him get into a good college (far from home.) But things get tough when Penny Tarkanian moves into the house right behind his, and he accidentally learns that she’s an Amazonian warrior princess. Even more important, she’s stupid hot.

After failing to break the ice a few times, Nick learns why Penny and her friends are actually in town: they’re hunting invisible rage monsters. And somehow, Nick can see these monsters. Even better, he’s immune to their effects. Soon he realizes that if he can help Penny stamp out the infestation, she’ll probably have time for more important things, like the boy next door.

In order to protect his identity from Penny’s nine-fingered, scar-faced, bounty hunter father, Nick adopts an alter-ego and becomes: The Spartan.

And it all goes horribly wrong from there.

Available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats.

Check both of these out. I’m stoked that FOSSIL FORCE is doing a sale run, and I’ve been cooking up plans for a HERO NEXT DOOR sequel soon. Wheels are turning. Now is a good time to pick it up.

And as always, let me know what you think.

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“Electoral Brawlage” examines the first inaugural address of each president in U.S. history, with some commentary and analysis. Check back on Mondays for more.

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We are within the most recent hundred years of our history, and FDR’s presidency marks a milestone in this project because most of my grandparents were born during his reign. “Reign” is an appropriate description, the man had aspirations of monarchy under the guise of democratic elections.

Teddy, Taft, and Wilson in 1912 were the big turning point that ultimately made FDR’s model viable, but he would never have gotten past the Republicans in 1932 if catastrophic disasters hadn’t destroyed the economy in 1929.

The Election

The 1932 election was never going to be anything but a bloodbath for the incumbent. An industrialized society is inseparably intertwined with a robust economy, which in turn relies heavily on the greased wheels of finance. The 1929 stock market crashed blew the bottom out of our financial system and everything downstream of it suffered, with the exception of traveling hobos and self-sufficient agricultural operations. (The 1936 Dust Bowl would upend much of those, further exacerbating the problem.)

Herbert Hoover, the GOP incumbent, faced nothing but a token challenge for re-nomination, and his VP Charles Curtis also stayed on the ticket. They had to know they were dead in the water and for that reason I respect them for campaigning anyway. The stock market crash wasn’t their fault, and government intervention wasn’t going to undo the damage; it would just expand the reach and intrusion of said government, and FDR was all about that noise.

Roosevelt, known to the country as a Naval secretary under Wilson, a VP nominee in 1920, and the recent Governor of New York, won the Democratic nomination after a couple of rounds of ballots. His main challengers were Al Smith, who got his sausage stuffed backwards by Hoover in 1928, and and John Nance Garner of Texas. Roosevelt made a deal with Garner to put him on the VP ticket if he’d release his delegates, giving FDR the edge over Smith in the final round.

Smith, I assume, was hungry for a shot at redemption and assumed that his election would be guaranteed if he got the nomination. (Safe bet.) He was outmaneuvered by Roosevelt and Garner, proving once again that a three-way split will screw you every time, so don’t vote third party. Focus on primaries. (This was one. I digress.)

Aaaaaaaaand we all know where this is headed, so let’s just examine the outcome:

For a 1928 Democrat this must have felt like a fairy tale, seeing such a dramatic swing in the other direction. Hoover effectively won amongst elite blue-blood establishment Republicans in the northeast and, somehow, Pennsylvania. Delaware isn’t a real place so I don’t know how he pulled that one off. The country pinned all their woes on one man. FDR swept up everything else. The end.

The Speech

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Here’s a brief simplification of the policy initiatives laid out in FDR’s first inaugural address:

• Create a public works program to put people to work and capitalize on the country’s natural resources.

• Block foreclosure of homes and farms.

• Reduce the costs of government at federal and state levels.

• Major government oversight of banking practices, especially speculation.

• Provide a sound currency. (The Fed would play an expanded role here.)

• “Good Neighbor” foreign policy, emphasizing fulfillment of mutual obligations (wouldn’t that be a thing.)

• Restore the domestic economy before worrying about international trade.

• National planning for interstate communication and transportation initiatives (a forerunner to the eventual Eisenhower interstate system, among other things.)

• Get relief activities on the same page to make them more efficient and effective.

There’s a reason my grandparents were FDR Democrats for most of their lives. The policies he championed in his first term weren’t bad on their face; they made sense and they gave people optimism after four years of getting kicked in the financial nuts (their bank account is the nuts in this metaphor).

His first hundred days and the implementation of the New Deal promises were a fast response to the overall scope of challenges facing the country. The Republicans hadn’t moved that quickly in four years mainly because they thought the economy would sort itself out and recover naturally, and it went against their philosophy to give the Fed too much power. FDR didn’t have those scruples, and while that provided immediate relief to the country’s problems, it also established a precedent that has since been abused.

We could write a lot about this approach to centralized government. For the sake of simplicity, it’s enough to understand that the office changed drastically during FDR’s time there. The man had no reservations when it came to simply taking power, though he often gave Congress the illusion of choosing to extend it to him. He had this approach to all three branches of the government—branches that were explicitly separated to avoid creating too much power in one office, as per Hamilton. Whenever a current-day communist in Democrat clothing talks about “expanding the [Supreme] Court,” they really mean packing it, and they pretty much always refer to FDR’s attempt to do just that.

This one statement underlines the core of his governing philosophy, to treat every problem as if barbarians were at the gates of Rome, and the Senate must be dissolved so that Caesar could handle the problem. Several post-FDR presidents have taken this same approach—or worse. But it started with him, right there in 1933.

The Future

In 1936, FDR retained Garner as his VP and handily won the general. His New Deal was paying people money and offering relief, even if it wasn’t solving their problems, and the Oklahoma Dust Bowl was like a second wind—pun intended—for the Depression, like it was timed to remind everyone why they voted for him before.

By 1940, war had broken out in Europe, though it wasn’t quite here just yet. FDR ran for a third term and was the first to win one. He replaced Garner with Henry A. Wallace, who had been his Secretary of Agriculture in his first two terms.

I continue to think that farming woes had an influence on Roosevelt’s decision to pick him, and the nation’s decision to retain them both; even so, the Dust Bowl appears to have swayed the Plains states back toward the GOP. Interestingly enough, Wallace—a native of Iowa—had joined Teddy’s Bull Moose Party in 1912, bringing this whole damnable mess full circle. After his stint in the party that handed control of the country to Wilson (bastard), Wallace went back to the GOP, where he stayed until 1936. Four years later, Roosevelt would take him into the White House.

FDR’s final election was in 1944. Barring another Constitutional Amendment, nobody will run for a fourth term as President again. Pearl Harbor happened less than a year into his third term, and we hadn’t yet dropped the nukes on Japan (they were still in development.) D-Day was less than a year out.

FDR’s support continued to erode, even though he remained very popular. GOP confidence grew in the Mountain West, the Midwest, and on the Plains. Victory in the War wasn’t certain, and thus the country decided that staying the course made sense.

I can’t remember why, but Roosevelt chose not to retain Wallace for a second term. There was a battle to replace him, resulting in Harry S. Truman becoming VP in his stead—a fateful decision, as FDR would die just a few short months into 1945.

We’ll see what that was like next week.

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Like the Five-Minute Iliad, this series will cover Homer’s other famous poem, but in fewer installments.

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Introduction

Sometime late last year I decided to read The Odyssey, and with it, The Iliad, since they go hand-in-hand. None of my fellow booklovers have ever expressed a strong preference for The Aeneid but I added it to the list anyway since it rounds out the cycle. I’ll cover that one after this.

You probably know the skinny on The Odyssey; Odysseus, king of Ithaca, spent ten years at war on behalf of Agamemnon’s Greece, and his ingenuity was instrumental in the sacking of Troy. Somewhere on the way home he got lost, and it was another ten years before he returned to Ithaca, making his absence twenty years in all. During that time his young son, Telemachus, grew into a man, and his wife Penelope had to fend off a horde of would-be suitors who wanted the Ithacan throne.

It’s a story of yearning, of endurance, of hope, and of trial. If Iliad was a story of bad men fighting a pointless war while the gods watched in amusement, pitching in here and there as they saw fit, Odyssey is a story of a good man in a bad world who cannot be kept from home—despite what the gods have to say about it.

Book 1

The Olympian gods are chilling up on their mountain, recounting the story of Odysseus now that several years have gone by after the Trojan War. The Greek kings have returned home, save for a few who died en route, but unique among them is Odysseus, who has been trapped on an island by the goddess Calypso, because she’s totally down bad for him. (Homer has a tendency to randomly play up the greatness of whichever figure is his subject in the moment, and while he had praise for Odysseus’ virtues in Iliad, he’s elevated over pretty much everyone in Odyssey.)

In fact he’s so cool that Calypso is trying REALLY hard to get him to forsake Ithaca and spend all eternity on her special island, just constantly having sex with her, and he’s like nah, I got Anne Hathaway at home, I’m good. Yet he can’t get home because despite most of the gods being in his corner, Poseidon is pissed at him for reasons yet unknown. Thus, Odysseus can’t get back to Ithaca by sailing.

Athena, who’s always had a soft spot for Odysseus, convenes with Zeus and they agree to do what they can on Odysseus’ behalf. With permission, she bounces out of Olympus, disguises herself as “Mentes” (a wizened advisor) and checks in on Telemachus at Ithaca. Things are bad there: a host of suitors from neighboring kingdoms have crashed the place and are eating all of the livestock, drinking all of the wine, and constantly pestering Penelope to marry one of them.

With Mentes/Athena’s encouragement, Telemachus decides it’s time to do something about these guys, and since he can’t drive them out (he’s not technically the man of the house, not while Odysseus could potentially be alive) he has to find another way to get them gone. They’re all too hungry for his dad’s wealth and too horny for his mom, he can’t keep living like this. A plan starts brewing in his head.

Book 2

Telemachus confronts the suitors living in his father’s house, and they air out their grievances one to another. Telemachus is pissed that they’re consuming his estate’s material wealth (and rudely so), while the suitors claim Penelope is leading them on by not picking one of them. (Custom, tradition, and law all required that Ithaca have a king, and without confirmation of Odysseus’ death, the place was in a holding pattern.)

The suitors are legion, but the main bad guy among them is Antinous, who excels at coming off like an absolute tool. Reading a single page of his dialogue, I was immediately certain that Robert Pattinson was perfect to portray him in the new movie (while simultaneously convinced that Tom Holland was miscast as Telemachus, but I haven’t seen it yet.) Antinous tells Telemachus to his face that Penelope is just being a tease, and has been for several years, but he’s committed to this for the long haul and he is totally gonna hook up with Telemachus’ mom.

Telemachus would be well within his rights to kill one (or several) of these guys, but there’s that whole “what a man can do, and what a man can’t do” aspect to it. The suitors simply outnumber him and he can’t muster sufficient force to manually repel them. Thus, he has to sneak out with a crew and take an expedition to find his father, and includes Athena, still disguised as Mentes/Mentor. (Both were actual people that Telemachus knew, but for the bulk of the voyage here on out, she pretends to be Mentor. This role is the origin of the word as we use it today.)

Book 3

First stop: Pylos! Telemachus visits Nestor, who was an advisor in spiritual matters (and other things) to Agamemnon, who is currently dead. Nestor is a great man, honest and forthright, and believes in the full pantheon of gods. He entertains Telemachus, tells him that the gods won’t reveal to him whether Odysseus is dead or alive, and then sits down to recount his own exploits in the Trojan War.

As Nestor tells Telemachus who made it back and who didn’t, he mentions Orestes, son of Agamemnon, who avenged his late father by killing his murderer, Aegisthus. Telemachus is rather blunt in saying that he thinks his father is most likely dead, that even the gods couldn’t save him, and that he’ll never return.

My personal takeaway is that Homer (or Butler, if you will) told the story in this way deliberately; it’s not a mistake that Orestes avenging his father was the last tale told before Telemachus started talking. He may not avenge Odysseus outright, but the fates are not yet done with him. There’s some rhyming there.

Other than this, Nestor isn’t all that helpful in the end, and suggests that Telemachus sail over to Sparta and pay a visit to Menelaus. Nestor’s son Pisistratus will roll with him.

Book 4

Of all the injustice to proceed from the Iliad, the fact that Helen—of all people—made it back to Sparta with Menelaus seems the most egregious to this reader. But she’s there, reunited with the husband she abandoned for Aphrodite’s Trojan fop Paris. There is, somehow, affection between them, but Menelaus’ language toward her is laced with undertones of “you dumb b****” and her responses have a hint of “ha ha, yes.” Or maybe I’m just projecting. Anyways.

Telemachus pulls up in the middle of a wedding feast. Menelaus’ daughter is marrying Achilles’ son, so that house is gonna have some LINEAGE. Helen figures out who Telemachus is because of his resemblance to Odysseus, so he joins the feast. Menelaus pampers Telemachus—his house is super loaded—and they get to talking about the return from Troy. Menelaus himself struggled for eight years to get home, during which time Agamemnon was betrayed and murdered, explaining why Menelaus inherited so much wealth. Double-edged sword, that.

They discuss the specifics of how the war ended, and here’s where Helen weighs in: she tells Telemachus that Odysseus disguised himself as a beggar and entered Troy, found her, and told her he and the boys were gonna sneak in. She agreed to help because secretly she was ready to go home, and she felt bad for being a dirty, dirty whore who cheats on her husband. Hot chicks really can just get away with it, can’t they. Anyways. Odysseus went back to the beach, got everyone ready in the wooden horse, and camped out along with them until they were inside. Funnily enough, before bringing it in, the Trojans tested it by sending out that two-faced dog Helen.

She walked around it and called out the names of men inside, even going so far as to mimic the voices of their wives, because she knew all of them, to try to get them to break. Odysseus had to put hands on one dude because he was thirsty and almost answered the call. But the ruse worked in the end, and the Trojans took the horse inside the city walls. Troy is sacked, Helen is recovered, and the Greeks get ready to go home.

The problem is that a lot of them displeased the gods with their conduct during the war and the sacking. Thus, when Odysseus and the others finally got underway, he and the men under his command had to contend with that displeasure, and the delays started to stack up. Menelaus recounts his own problems, and if his were that bad, Odysseus must have struggled similarly. Here we find out that Ajax died too, mostly of hubris, and there’s the aforementioned death of Agamemnon. Before Menelaus came home, he found out that Odysseus was being held on Calypso’s island and couldn’t go home. Menelaus was only spared because he was Zeus’ son-in-law, meaning that at long last, there was finally some upside to marrying Helen.

Telemachus thanks him, leaves his horses in Sparta (they’re not great on the ship), and resumes his journey. Back in Ithaca, both Penelope and the suitors—led by Antinous—discover Telemachus is gone. Penelope laments the potential death of Odysseus’ bloodline, while Antinous leads the suitors on a trip to chase down Telemachus before he can spoil their designs on his throne.

Conclusion

I saw a dumb meme somewhere online that started out half-true and then went full-tard, so much so that it must have been bait. (I did not partake.) The gist of it was that “hurr durr the Trojan Horse isn’t in the Iliad” (true) “it was invented 700 years later by Virgil in the Aeneid” (false). I put a lot of details in my summary of book 4 because it was so intriguing and it directly described the end of the war, which we didn’t see in Iliad. Helen’s account of the horse was cool, and disproves whatever BS that meme was trying to peddle.

After finishing Iliad—and recapping each chapter to my kids, who got really into it—my son said “Wow, are they going to make another one?” which made me laugh. The idea that something like a novel could be published 2,700 years ago just doesn’t click with him and I think that’s cool. He figures it came out this year or something.

But Odyssey essentially functions as a sequel, and the fourth book really connects it to Iliad’s closing events. One thing that helped me understand the context of the events at Ithaca—the awaiting suitors, and such—was Dave Butler’s video from a few weeks ago, explaining why Penelope couldn’t replace Odysseus on the throne and why the suitors were pressing her to pick one of them.

I highly recommend Dave’s channel, he puts out around one video per week and he’s one of the smartest men I know. He breaks all that down and makes it easy to understand. (Man, this video really went gangbusters too, it got like 10x the views of anything else he’s done.)

I’ll read the next four books this week. I liked the slow read of the Iliad and I’m still taking detailed notes on Odyssey, but I’m anxious not to take as long on this project. Stay tuned.

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“This Week in 1776” is an ongoing almanac of events from that year in the American Revolution. Be sure to check out my novel HEARTLANDERS.

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Apologies for missing last week, I didn’t write up the summary before going camping out in the Cherokee Nation. Speaking of the Cherokee, they pop up in this week’s Almanac, and not in a good way.

July 26-August 9

New York

For months the story has been “Washington continues to fortify the city.” Now the story is “Britain sailed right past those fortifications and is amassing a gigantic ground army that soon grows to 30,000 strong, comprised of Brits and Hessians, and they are not [bleep]ing around.”

William Howe and Richard Howe (I don’t remember who was Lord Major This or Surgeon General That) are putting together a force to be reckoned with. Doesn’t hurt either that on August 1st, Lord Cornwallis and Henry Clinton arrived, fresh off getting their butts kicked at Sullivan’s Island, and added 3,000 men to those of the Brothers Howe. They’re pissed off and ready for round two.

Things don’t look good. Washington is now asking for reinforcements from Connecticut and New Jersey. If they want this thing to pan out, they have to pony up the men and guns to fight. The usual curse of D&D—disease and desertion—continues to thin his numbers. On August 3rd, Lt. Col. Benjamin Tupper led a Patriot attack against a British position on the Hudson that failed, further eroding morale.

That was one instance of very limited kinetic action. The greater threat was the constant tension that only accelerated the decaying optimism.

Philly

While the Declaration of Independence continues its victory lap around the colonies, filling the newspapers and being read aloud on street corners, the actual signing of the document takes place on August 2nd, starting with John “John Hancock” Hancock, who left his giant John Hancock on it, front and center.

Side note: while there are plenty of pedantic asides in HEARTLANDERS, I decided not to get too pedantic about the physical signing of the Declaration (although descriptions of the event are technically incorrect in the book.) By history and tradition we celebrate July 4 as Independence Day, and while the signing was a storytelling mechanism, there is a such thing as too much, and I wanted the reader to focus on July 4.

Most of the State delegations sign on Aug 2nd, with a few others signing later on.

Down South

Everything old is new again, as the South Carolina backcountry starts to see bands of Cherokee teaming up with Loyalists against Patriot forces, and little pockets of action break out across the region. On August 1, Major Andrew Williamson (patriot militia) squared off against a Loyalist/Cherokee force, with the patriots being outnumbered roughly 4 to 1. Despite this, the patriots held their line until reinforcements arrived.

One notable casualty was Francis Salvador, a colonial merchant who is known to history as the first Patriot Jew to die in the Revolution, and it happened during this battle. Over the next couple of days, Major Williamson would lead his forces to different Cherokee settlements, burning them out so they could no longer coordinate with the Loyalists against the Patriots.

There was also some action including minor sea scuffles around Virginia, which was in a state of turmoil after its royal colonial governor, Lord Dunmore, was ejected from power by the rebels. Overall, things were getting spicier and the temperature would only continue to rise.

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2026 is America’s 250th birthyear. To celebrate, I’m highlighting 50+ significant American documents from our history. Find them all under the American Documents tab!

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Next week’s Electoral Brawlage will cover FDR’s first inaugural address, so we’ll get into that on Monday. This week’s document is the Social Security Act, which was passed by Congress in 1935 and implemented swiftly thereafter.

Like many of these congressional Acts, the SSA’s text mostly consists of the particulars and minutiae of its implementation and who qualifies for it. But first:

What is the SSA?

Social Security is a fund that gives “free” (heh) money to people the government determines are vulnerable and require assistance. Objectively, most of these groups are vulnerable and do need assistance—orphans, old widows, people with chronic or permanent medical limitations, injured veterans, etc. That’s exactly what makes the Act dangerous, because it’s baked into the recipe that you can’t run against it without running against vulnerable people. But we’ll get to that.

The Act is broken into twenty-one parts that outline the parameters of the fund, who gets it, how long it lasts, and how it is extended. Most of that is technical and arbitrary because the Act has been expanded, amended, and redirected several times in the last 90+ years, and the Administration has only grown, because it is a government institution and those never really get smaller.

Why did this happen?

Short answer, two parts: first, the Great Depression, which destroyed huge amounts of capital and wealth, and that poverty trickled down into the entire country. Even able-bodied men with valuable trade skills struggled to find work, so infirm grandmas and blind girls didn’t have a prayer.

Second: FDR’s presidency was riddled with communists and as Graham Bradley says, “Persistence is the Devil’s only virtue.” They wanted dependents, and putting a program like this into action would almost guarantee a permanent supply of them. Even a dependence program with noble ambitions from the start will be expanded by unscrupulous people and viciously defended by dishonest ones, until it consumes far more than it disperses. (You are here.)

What is it now?

There’s no doubt that the SSA does help people who probably wouldn’t get financial aide any other way, and do earnestly need it. I know multiple such people, ones I would provide for if I had the resources, but very few people can take on dozens of mouths to feed. The government “can” if money is fake and unlimited (see: Federal Reserve) but the bill always comes due for that sort of thing, and you’re seeing it now in the form of inflation (which is just one symptom of the problem.)

With Social Security in particular though, it pretends to be a program where part of your paycheck goes into a fund that grows via interest and disperses back to you when you turn 65 (which was, in 1932, far closer to the average age of mortality than it is now). Realistically, you’ve been paying for current retirees, and the politicians who benefit from keeping those people on the gravy train don’t think beyond the end of their current term. “Vote for me, I’ll protect your benefits, if you don’t vote for me the other guy will slash your benefits and then you’ll die homelessly of hunger so you’d better vote for me.” True or false, it is in fact hard to run against Santa Claus, so nobody ever gets to reform Social Security.

The system works if the underclass of contributing taxpayers grows endlessly, which it can’t, unless something dies, which is exactly what tumors do, and you’re going to hear that analogy from me a LOT because it is accurate. Doubtless you’ve seen the infographics that explain how that same amount of money placed into a garden variety private-sector index would yield a return roughly 6x greater than anything the government promises, meaning the SSA amounts to opportunity theft at the very least, but again: try to actually campaign against it and see what happens.

Bonus round: Graham’s Preference

Any diehard, rock-ribbed, sooper rightwing conservative guy will tell you that Social Security should be abolished, and I’ll say this: I agree with that as a matter of principle. We do not, however, live in a vacuum, and any EMT will tell you that when a patient has been stabbed in the abdomen with a Bowie knife, the solution to their woes is not to immediately rip it out.

Yes, the knife does not belong there. Nonetheless, it is there, and more damage will be done without a tactical removal.

In this case, the SSA needs to be drastically scaled back, reformed, and limited to those with a demonstrable need. Like any other form of government assistance it is rife with fraud and almost violently defended by its beneficiaries (some of who may even be right to do so. Again, I digress).

Good luck running on that, though. You will be lambasted by the (Democrat) opposition as trying to starve and kill grandma, etc etc. (This is not an exaggeration, the Dems did this to Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney in the early 2010s and it worked just as it was designed to.) The problem persists and you’re not allowed to run against it. If you’ve ever tried to intervene in the self-destructive behavior of a drug addict, you know what ultimately happens.

Conclusion

The Social Security Act shouldn’t be necessary but does remain the sole source of income for limited groups of people who otherwise would struggle to make ends meet. The problem for guys like me (25 years in the workforce, 25 more to retirement) is that it will physically implode before I ever get to draw a cent from it, making it the most egregious and flagrant form of taxational theft (redundant) to which I am currently subjected. It is the largest tax portion of every paycheck that I lose, and I get zero return from it.

Scale it back. Purge the recipient list of its unmerited leeches, and don’t tell me there aren’t any. The most immediate and fair fix would simply be to give workers the option to opt out of it. Stop taking from me. I don’t want me “returns” in 25 years no matter how much you swear they will be there (they won’t.) I’ll give you permission to flip me off and laugh in my mid-sixties if I ask for it, just stop taking it now.

You swear that it’s a fund accruing interest? That it’s not being raided and cashed out now? Live and die by that, then. Keep the last 25 years of my contributions. Free gift from me. Just don’t take any more.

We all know why you won’t.

Social Security is theft. End quote.

Visit Nauvoo Supply to order HEARTLANDERS, the most American novel I’ve ever written. It’s like if National Treasure happened during Fallout with G.I. Joes.

My Amazon page has my other books, including FOSSIL FORCE for young boys and Engines of Liberty for all ages.

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Hi guys.

Two years ago I did my Five-Minute Silmarillion series and had a fantastic time. Last year I started the Five-Minute Witchy War. This year’s Five-Minute Iliad was just as satisfying and I can tell from the analytics that readers were interested in it too. In that same spirit, I’m continuing with the Five-Minute Odyssey, and I’ve announced other great pieces in the future.

I like doing these essays, and I gather that a lot of you have some measure of interest in my takes on these things. I also figure that you want to make recommendations from time to time.

Since a few of you are paying subscribers, I’ve wanted to give you special perks but haven’t really known what those might be. Today I finally came to a conclusion: you guys can choose a particular title and I’ll give it the essay treatment.

It may not be as in-depth as the Five-Minute series. You might pick a book I’ve read before, in which case I’ll read it again to get a refresher. You might pick a book I hate, or outright refuse to read, in which case we can have a discussion about it. Chances are my subscribers (and especially the paying ones) will pick a book I’m likely to enjoy, or at the very least appreciate on its own merits. I look forward to stepping outside of my comfort zone and trying something new.

Since I do have a full docket for reviews and other planned reads, setting an exact timetable will be tricky, nevertheless I’ll make it a point to cover 1-2 of these books per month.

To make it clear: this offer is only open to paid subscribers. Whether you’re monthly at $5 or annual at $40, it mattereth not. (Though subscribers who pay the annual fee will get preferential treatment. If you only pay the monthly fee once, I will put your book on the docket and get to it eventually. I understand things are snug and if you really want to plug a title, that way is fine.)

So. Hit me with your preferred pieces. The only books I will categorically refuse to read are:

—Erotica (this includes “romantasy.” I don’t do porn.)

—LitRPG (and you’ll have to make a case for progression fantasy)

—Books about critical race, critical gender, or critical whatever theory

—Books that are inimical to America’s Founding (you guys know what I’m about.)

—Books that you wrote. (Send your review copies to at Upstream Reviews, our stable of writers handles those.)

Other than that, suggest fiction or nonfiction (and do try to keep it within a reasonable length—let’s say 500 pages in print, or 20-ish hours of audio). I trust you not to waste my time because I know you won’t waste your own money.

As of right now I have ten paying subscribers. Those ten get to be the first in line because they signed up before this was announced. Anyone who signs up after this will also get to participate according to the terms set above.

Thank you guys for reading. This site has enjoyed growth and success this year, and I look forward to more. I love books, I love talking with you about books, and I’ll make the effort to include some books that you really care about—provided you give me money, lol.

I’m excited to see what you come up with. Talk to you soon.

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I didn’t write up a “This Week in 1776” for last week because I was camping through an insane Oklahoma heat wave. We spent pretty much every spare moment in the river. When I got back I didn’t really feel like writing, so I didn’t. I’ll serve up a double helping this weekend. For now, let’s talk about the 1928 election.

The Candidates

With Calvin Coolidge retiring from politics after 1928, the GOP looked to a new champion to continue the economic boom of the 1920s. They settled on Herbert Hoover, who had been Commerce Secretary under Harding and Coolidge. No sense rocking the boat, if the economy is kicking butt then you go with some continuity. Hoover was born in Iowa but also spent a lot of time in California. He beat out contenders from Illinois, Indiana, and Nebraska, settling on one of them—Senator Charles Curtis, of Kansas—as his VP pick.

Over on the Democrat side, a popular governor from New York won the bid. Al Smith was the first Catholic to win a major national party nomination. He ran an efficient government and also opposed Prohibition. His VP was Senator Joseph T. Robinson from Arkansas, a Protestant who supported Prohibition. The strategy, one supposes, was to give everyone in the party something to vote for. Bold move Cotton, let’s see if it pays off for them.

The Final Score

Smith and Robinson got their donkeys whipped. Hoover may have a vacuum named after him but it was the Democrats who really brought the suck to this contest, and it was about as close as the final score in Super Bowl 48. I’m a fan of Peyton Manning, it hurts me to say that.

40 states to 8. 444 EVs to 87. A popular vote gulf of 6.3 million, or roughly 1/6th of the total participants. Hoover even made inroads in the Democrat stronghold of the South, and beat Smith in his home state of New York. This wasn’t a beating, it wasn’t even a landslide, it was a prison shower after hours.

Hoover’s platform (limited government, reduced debt, less government dependence, and a thriving populace) won out over Smith’s (active public spending, repeal of Prohibition, less favor toward big business) by miles. There’s “sending a sheep to the slaughter” and then there’s “calling in an airstrike on a wounded deer.” And then there’s whatever the Democrats did to Al Smith in 1928.

The Speech

Hoover broke his inaugural speech down into sections and went into detail concerning his initiatives thereunder.

First: “Our Progress.” He lists what was going well with the country, but also mentions what they needed to attend to in order to improve on it.

Second: “The Failure of Our System of Criminal Justice.” Cracking down on crime was a major focus, especially as regards:

Third: “Enforcement of the 18th Amendment.” Prohibition had been the law for a decade at the time of this speech, but that couldn’t easily dismantle longstanding cultural traditions, behaviors, and addictions. This particular law was flaunted all over the country and Hoover wanted to crack down on it.

Fourth: “A National Investigation.” Again with Prohibition, he emphasizes changing how laws are enforced if that’s what it takes to get speakeasies and moonshine shut down.

Fifth: “The Relation of Government to Business.” Government should regulate business, not own it.

Sixth: “Cooperation by the Government.” Government should assist businesses in providing assistance to the public. (Again, government should not be directly in charge of this, but help to coordinate private endeavors.)

Seventh: “Education.” An advanced nation needs an increasingly educated people to maintain and develop it further.

Eighth: “Public Health.” A healthy people will greatly multiply the prosperity of a nation.

Ninth: “World Peace.” Our nation succeeds when the world succeeds. Continued avoidance of war is a key component of that.

Tenth: “Party Responsibilities.” Do what you were elected to do, execute on your platform promises.

Eleventh: “Special Session of the Congress.” Tariffs and farm relief were two questions at the national level during the election, and since they were monetary policies, Hoover wanted a special session of Congress to address them.

Twelfth: “Other Mandates from the Election.” Generally pertains to effectively reorganizing the government to improve transparency, integrity, and efficiency. It would not be easy or quick, and the people would have to take initiative to implement certain principles, but the Government had a duty to help it all along.

Thirteenth: “Conclusion.” Hoover basically claps his hands together, says the nation is up to the task, and it’s time to get to work.

In the presence of my countrymen, mindful of the solemnity of this occasion, knowing what the task means and the responsibility which it involves, I beg your tolerance, your aid, and your cooperation. I ask the help of Almighty God in this service to my country to which you have called me.

Around The Corner

About seven months after this speech, the U.S. Stock Market would crash in 1929, completely dropping the bottom out of the economy and sending the nation into financial ruin. The boom of the 1920s brought a lot of speculation with it, and when certain gains didn’t materialize, investors sold their positions or withdrew their holdings from banks to stop their losses. This is effectively what happened during the 2008 housing crash, or the collapse of the DotCom bubble in the 90s, and it will happen again soon with the AI bubble. (In some instances, it already is.)

Our money worked differently in 1929 than it does now—several of our banking laws changed as a direct result of this—so rapid widespread withdrawal, driven by panic, really obliterated the market and drove the country into the Great Depression. This wasn’t Hoover’s fault directly, but when you’re the man in the Big Chair, you take credit for the wins and you’re assigned blame for the losses. The same thing would have happened to Al Smith had he somehow won, giving the Republicans a bulletproof position to win in 1932.

But since they were in the driver’s seat when it happened, that gave the Democrats all the ammunition the needed to take the White House for the first time in 12 years. We’ll get to that next week.

Visit Nauvoo Supply to order HEARTLANDERS, the most American novel I’ve ever written. It’s like if National Treasure happened during Fallout with G.I. Joes.

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NOTE---MY APOLOGIES FOR THE FLOOD OF ARTICLES. Last night's piece about skydiving was written on a whim. The culture war piece was written over the weekend, and the 19th Amendment piece (this one) was supposed to be for tomorrow, but I got my days mixed up. So if you opened your inbox to three articles in 12 hours, mea maxima culpa.

2026 is America’s 250th birthyear. To celebrate, I’m highlighting 50+ significant American documents from our history. So far I have covered The Mayflower Compact, Patrick Henry’s Speech, The Lee Resolution, The Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Treaty of Paris, the Virginia Plan, The Northwest Ordinance, The Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Louisiana Purchase, the Star-Spangled Banner, the Monroe Doctrine, the Indian Removal Act, the Knickerbocker Baseball Club rules, Lincoln’s ‘House Divided’ Speech, the Emancipation Proclamation, Jefferson Davis’ inaugural address, the Appomattox Surrender Letters, the Homestead Act, the Gettysburg Address, the Alaska Purchase, the establishment of Yellowstone National Park, Susan B. Anthony’s Speech on Women’s Suffrage, the Nez Perce Surrender, the Dawes Act, the Newlands Resolution, the Sixteenth Amendment, and Wilson’s Fourteen Points.

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A few weeks ago we covered Susan B. Anthony’s speech on women’s suffrage (linked above.) That speech pretty much sums up the case for Nineteenth Amendment so I won’t reiterate it all here. After the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the social changes brought on by the Progressive Era, suffrage for women was bound to be the next big amendment to the Constitution. Fourteen years after Susan B. Anthony died, women were allowed to vote.

This amendment didn’t exactly double the electorate, but the expansion was immediate and broad (heh). In 1916, roughly 18 million Americans turned out to vote for president. The 19th Amendment was proposed in 1919 and ratified in 1920, ahead of Warren G. Harding’s election, and the total participation was closer to 27 million. (A 50% increase.)

As you continue to follow the Electoral Brawlage series here on Trucker Man Reads, pay attention to the demographic (and geographic) shifts in voting patterns. Allowing women to vote isn’t the exclusive cause for those shifts, but it is one of many factors to consider as you see the map change. (There will be an even more significant move in the 1960s, but we’ll get to that soon.)

Visit Nauvoo Supply to order HEARTLANDERS, the most American novel I’ve ever written. It’s like if National Treasure happened during Fallout with G.I. Joes.

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The Right won. The Left lost. So what’s next?

What am I talking about?

Blending politics and culture is an alchemical act that should only be executed with great skill and care. There are shockingly few who have the skill or care, yet the number who think they have it is shockingly high. When this happens, you end up with a loud population of political activists parading as artists, and using a culture’s art as a rope in a tug-of-war with their ideological antitheses. Those who feel the effects of this war most acutely are the ones who care the most about art itself.

There’s a quote I heard from Anthony Jeselnik, but he attributes it to Robin Williams, so I’ll give them both credit for it: on the subject of comedy, Jeselnik and Williams say that real comedy is when you “get away with it.” Comedy relies on timing, but at its core it’s about surprise. You need to spring the punchline on your audience and it works best when they never see it coming. It’s like a magic trick, almost. They’re not meant to understand how it works and the result should stun them. Too many comics and artists focus on the stunning aspect, and so they go for a culture’s sacred cows, skewering them with zeal, and they call it art.

That’s not art. It doesn’t take any skill to skewer or offend; rather it takes malice, even enmity toward one’s audience. Offending is easy. Making someone laugh at something offensive is hard. Making someone laugh at something offensive when they don’t want to? That’s a rare talent indeed. Dave Chapelle can get a Christian and a tranny to laugh in the same set and about the same subject because he’s talented and witty and knows his craft. People pay good money to be outwitted, to be stunned, because without those things, they can’t laugh, and we all want to laugh.

Horror works by the same rules, you just swap out laughter for fear. It’s why great horror is psychological and tense and plays with your anticipation, while cheap schlocky horror is all about blood and guts and gore and jump scares. One of these things is hard to do. Anyone can do it the other way.

Art is the same way. Art is when you “get away with it”—when you make someone smile, or cry, or reflect, or do something genuine and enjoy it, and it’s just plain hard to do. Not everyone will, not everyone can. There’s power in it. And that power is what makes it a target for the politically-minded.

Politics is the science of manipulating will. Of accruing and directing social power. There is social power in art, and so the political creatures of the world will try to wrest that power and crowbar it into their own arsenal against their ideological enemies. Thus: culture war. Taking things that genuinely resonate with people in ways they can’t always quantify but also can’t ignore, and saying “Ah, well, you like [X] don’t you? [X] agrees with me. So you have to be on my side. And if you’re not, you can’t like [X].”

This is not a novel concept or even a particularly well-hidden one. The hell of it is, most people aren’t intellectually grounded enough to see the concept or resist it. Their interests lie in art and entertainment and diversion. Politics is an afterthought. For the political creature that’s even better; you don’t want them thinking about your craft too much. You just want the masses to do what they’re told. To associate the goodness of [X] with the imperative of your cause. Then you have power over the masses.

To simplify the playing field, let’s understand that The Left has a much better grasp of this principle, and The Right invests its energies in other things. I have my own theory as to why most artists are left-wing (they are) but I’ll save it for another time. It has a lot to do with why The Left can never correctly identify the mindset of The Right (they can’t) because they’re basically not speaking the same language. (The Right, meanwhile, can model the minds of The Left, but again, that is beyond our scope here today.)

Graham, what does this have to do with the culture war?

Without trying to pinpoint when exactly it started in American culture, there’s been a naked acceleration in the overlap of Leftist ideals and popular media over the last decade. Murphy Brown getting an abortion probably raised some eyebrows, and That 70’s Show whipping out a gay kiss in season 1 certainly garnered some backlash, but both of those things happened in the 90s. The slow boil continued. Shows have only gotten bolder in their liberal embrace of Lefty ideals, celebrities became more and more outspoken in behalf of their causes, candidate endorsements got louder, and the line between politics and culture blurred more and more. It practically disappeared when Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem because he wasn’t good without Harbaugh and was trying to save his job to protest police brutality against blacks. That was 10 years ago.

Then we hit the late 2010s, and the culture war entered its Full Swing era. Call it “Peak Woke.” Every movie had to have a gay character. Then it had to have a white character apologizing to a black character for Not Understanding^TM. After that it was the transgenders. The most brazen phase was when major IPs got bought up by corporations that wanted to turn them into megaphones for Approved Ideas. Marvel heroes would have to look into the camera and find some clever way of saying that Black Lives Did Indeed Matter, that Love Was Love, and so forth.

Legacy characters were replaced with gender-swapped versions, or race-swapped, and you were socially rebuffed for the misdemeanor of noticing (or the felony of not preferring it.) Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, Halo, The Witcher…find an IP with a lot of established lore that was ripe for a screen adaptation, and you’d find an IP that was about to have that lore washed in favor of Party Talking Points. It happened over, and over, and over again, across several major studies and throughout their whole catalogue of IP. The rightsholders effectively went to war with the dedicated fanbase.

The fanbase just wanted art. They put up with art-shaped politics for a while. Perhaps even longer than they should have. And then finally…the fans stopped showing up.

The Culture War Terms of Surrender

Marvel movies used to be a license to print money, until they weren’t. Star Wars was the biggest property on the planet, until it started to hemorrhage cash. These two are the biggest and easiest example to identify so I won’t run through the entire laundry list of what’s happening with them all, suffice it to say that with these two properties, the “comedy” was gone. The “art” had left the building. The studios were no longer “getting away with it.” Nobody was showing up to pay money for this stuff. It wasn’t art. It was just crap. Politics (and yes, Lefties, it was political, and you won’t heal until you admit that) had made the art unviable as a product to half of the audience.

Marvel released several movies that nobody liked and nobody talks about with any fondness. Star Wars had a terrible sequel trilogy and their solution was to double down with an announcement of a Rey sequel (is that still happening?) They fired Gina Carano over a tweet and lost a huge PR battle over that one. Season 3 of The Mandalorian really sucked as a follow-up to 1 and 2. The entire catalog of Expanded Universe novels was wiped away so The High Republic could take priority—a line that disappeared almost as quickly as it crashed onto the scene, and featured a very elevated number of characters on the rainbow spectrum. In attempting to capture new audiences these studios alienated their core, and often for political reasons.

Now both of these studios are begging the alienated audience to come back, but here’s the thing—they can’t do it by standing up on a pedestal and saying the things that the most extreme members of that audience want to hear. The studio heads aren’t going to shout through a megaphone that they should have casted ScarJo to play Mara Jade, that the sequel trilogy was a mistake, that Rey isn’t a real character, and that someone is going to use the Force to go back in time and change it all. They will never openly admit that Gina Carano’s firing was a mistake. They’re not going to admit that season 3 of Mando sucked. Sam Wilson isn’t going to hand the shield back to Steve Rogers and say “You made a mistake, it should never have been me.” On and on and on.

They know they lost the culture war. What will it look like when they do surrender?

Oh, I don’t know. They’ll probably bring back Steve Rogers and Thor—and they won’t make Thor a laughingstock in the film. He’ll probably even get a front-and-center role where he gets to be serious, militant, and take initiative. They’ll use multiverse handwavium to merge the Avengers with other properties that have been in the wind, like X-Men and such. They won’t have any cast members saying anything stupid in press clips on the Internet about how Doctor Doom is a metaphor for Donald Trump. I’d almost guarantee they’ve been coached, even warned against that.

And that’s just to get things started. They’ll hand the mantle of Black Panther back to a male heir of Wakanda, which they just announced at SDCC. They’ll keep Ryan Coogler in the director’s chair because he keeps making money and the black audience shows up for his films. Then they’ll take it a step further and hire Shawn Levy to direct a Ghost Rider film, since he printed them a billion dollars with Deadpool & Wolverine. Who will play Johnny Blaze this time?

Oh, I don’t know, maybe Ryan Gosling? The guy with a cult male following that borders on the religious? An actor who is rumored to have wanted the role for a long time, and has been fan-casted in it for years? The same Ryan Gosling who is in Star Wars: Starfighter in 2027?

Can this man possibly save two franchises? I don’t know, but I will be at both of those movies! I was at The Mandalorian and Grogu and it was a good movie—a retreat to form, where the creators looked at what they did in seasons 1 and 2 and stuck to that model, instead of any of the sloppy storytelling that fans disliked in season 3. If they really wanted to bring those fans back, they’d let Jon Favreau move forward with this Rangers of the New Republic project, and bring back Carano as the lead character…but that’s just fan speculation, and maybe we shouldn’t get greedy.

Then again, why not? It worked for the X-Men. Channing Tatum’s Gambit was pulled out of development hell, shoved into the MCU, and now gets trailer time in Doomsday. Jean Gray and Rogue aren’t even in this movie, and Gambit finally is. Fans want that. They’ve wanted it since he was left out of the 2000 film. A studio that really wanted those fans back would probably make such overtures to them. We’re starting to find ourselves in an age where these things are possible.

This is what a culture war “victory” would look like; the politics would retreat, and movies/shows/comics would get good again. I’ve had a pull file at my local comics store for almost three years, and 85-90% of what I’ve bought there has been good-to-great (with a few excellent pieces at the very top.) Movies are good-to-great again. It’s fun to go to the theater and see stuff. Projects are announced that have me genuinely excited. Isn’t that the objective?

Or is the ultimate goal to storm these studios and string up the executives and hold their feet to the fire until they admit that they mishandled your favorite franchise for a couple of years? Because you’re never going to do that and neither are they. So what are you going to do?

Reward and Abstain

In love and war, it is wise to have both eyes open. If the culture war truly is a war on any scale (and I think it’s a fair assessment), then we ought not be so naïve as to think that what has been done before cannot be done again. Maybe the studios are just resting up and licking their wounds and regathering their strength until they can reboot Firefly with an all-transgender roster of Inara Serra variants from the multiverse. (That’s more or less what The Right thinks Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey is, and it’s on track to make a billion.) It’s not out of the realm of possibility.

Hell, Amazon just announced a Blade Runner series with a transgender activist in one of the lead roles. Successful indie author Rob Kroese, who has Blade Runner on the highest tier of his favorite sci-fi franchises, is rightfully wary of what the show will do to a property he loves. Amazon already has a bad track record of stuff like this, just look at how it handled Rings of Power or Wheel of Time. Studios are going to do studio things and even though fan-baiting is a low-class tactic, they do it because it gets people talking online. It’s the marketing version of offensive “comedy,” of schlocky “horror.” It’s like mooning the crowd at your high school graduation: easy to do and it gets a reaction out of people.

It doesn’t translate to artistic efficacy or box office returns.

Here’s my suggestion: starve these things when they rear their heads. There’s an entire internet industry that farms outrage for clicks and engagement, and it doesn’t care where the attention comes from as long as it gets the attention, because that can be monetized. Where there’s money, there is social power, and once you’re concerned with social power, you’ve stopped really caring about art. And you’re right back where this whole mess started.

Don’t share the trailers. Don’t even link to the news sites that blab about this stuff. If a studio is wrecking an IP you like, ignore it. Let the traffic die in your driveway. They can make hay out of bad press but there is no way for them to spin zero press. When they make something good, reward it! Talk about it, go see it, whatever! That’s the only metric that matters! When they make something bad—or even if it just looks bad to you—don’t give them the satisfaction of impressions. Take it from an indie author: being ignored is more demoralizing than being disliked.

At least my haters care enough to feel something.

Conclusion

I reiterate my thesis from the title: large IP holders are showing fans of art that they have—for now at least—won the culture war. They are retreating to their previous positions. They are creating the things that we used to enjoy. Do you want them to do that? Or do you want them to grovel and apologize for the very specific and personal way in which they hurt you?

Because they’re not going to do that second thing. Ever. They don’t care. They don’t even care if you’re mad at them. They’ve shown the one thing they do care about: being ignored. Being unwatched. When they don’t get a response out of you, that’s when they go back to the drawing board.

Reward the things you want. Ignore the things you don’t. Quit worrying about the political power of art; those who do were never there for the art to begin with.

I turned 42 last week. I’m not exactly sure when you hit “mid-life” but I gather that it’s more or less your 40s, so here I am. My plan is to live to 100, which makes 50 the middle of my life? Nothing is guaranteed though. Might as well just admit that I’m at the mid-life point.

When I was much younger—maybe 8th grade or so, I don’t remember exactly—my Mamaw told me some of her family history including why her second marriage ended. Her husband didn’t like that he was getting “older” and wanted to still prove that he was “with it” and “cool” and such, so he bought a sportscar and started chasing skirts. She put her foot down but he kept doing it, so she called it off. I may be tweaking the details in my memory, the important thing is that it left an impression: guys get to a certain age and they panic that they are not a certain other, younger age anymore, and they nuke their lives trying to stay locked in time. He would have only been a few years older than I am now when this happened.

Once she told me that, I saw it depicted a lot in movies and TV shows, and I realized this is common enough to the male experience to be broadly relatable in entertainment. Anticipating that this phase of life would probably come my way, my plan was always to handle it with some self-awareness and not make a mess of anything. I was going to enjoy being Graham In His 20s, then Graham In His 30s, then Graham In His 40s, etc. I would have a mid-life. I wouldn’t have a crisis.

I’d be lying if I said that lately I haven’t looked back on the last two decades with the wish that I’d done some things differently, mostly in the realm of finance and travel. I should have picked a trade sooner, should have invested some money in something, should have gone back to Spain at some point. Other than that, there’s not much to regret. I married a great woman, we have three kids we love, I’ve written several books—some of them have even been read by double-digits of people—and we get out every once in a while. Still, it’d be cool to do a little bit more.

My wife is really good about encouraging me to do things that she knows I want to do, but I hold off on it because it takes a few extra dollars out of the budget. I tell her my hobby is books and comics (I spend a nice chunk on that stuff every year) but she knows there are other things I’d like to try. This year she took the initiative to tell me I should do two of them, and not worry terribly about the cost. Thus, with her blessing, I jumped out of a plane and bought* a project car.

*sort of

Skydiving

The jump starts around 1:30

There’s a place about an hour and twenty from OKC where you can skydive for multiple hundreds of dollars, and for another hundred and a half you can get a video of it. (Tack on even more hundreds and you can do it from such an altitude that it would require cold-weather clothes and oxygen beforehand. I abstained.)

I made a reservation a few months ago for my birthday weekend. We were going to take the whole family (they can watch you land from the shade of the hangar) but one of the kids was sick, and we didn’t know it at the time but the A/C was out in the van, and it’s July in Oklahoma, so that’s no good. I made the drive myself.

It was a great experience. The divers will jump 15-20 times every Saturday so they’re used to getting in and out quickly, making small talk, and doing it all professional-like. The plane was small but had a massively overpowered jet engine so it could climb to 14,000 feet in about fifteen minutes. I went tandem with the instructor, and two other pros climbed with us so we had company. The plane was basically a flying bathtub of testosterone on the way up; our cameraman Eric (jacked, tattooed, mustache) even jumped barefoot. These were Dudes all around.

I got just under a minute of free-fall before Mac (my tandem) pulled the cord. I wasn’t really counting the minutes. For a brief moment I wasn’t thinking about anything else, just rolling out of the plane and plummeting to the Earth at 125 miles per hour. (You slow to 50 once the chute deploys.) The clarity of mind was incredible. Mac let me steer a few times just to get a feel for it, then he took over and brought us to the landing patch, where I took a minute to get my feet back under me.

The whole thing was a distillation of some thoughts and feelings I’ve had in recent years: I remember as a kid being uncontrollably excited about the things that I liked (I will never again feel as much childlike joy as I did when I saw The Phantom Menace in theaters at 14) and also being inconsolably devastated by corresponding emotional lows (every guy remembers his first real heartbreak.)

Life hardens us to both of these extremes. You protect yourself from the lows but it numbs you to the real range of the highs. There are things you can do to mitigate this (self-awareness is probably the main one, and we derive that from different motivations) and honestly, life isn’t always going to be the coolest thing ever. Most of it is hard work and sacrifice and even a little bit disappointing. It’s okay.

The jump was a reminder that I can still feel that extreme. It’s in there. You’ve got to find it the right way. I don’t think I would have enjoyed it if I’d flipped my family the bird and spent money I didn’t have just so I could do something reckless for me. Life takes context. The fact that my wife wanted me to do it, and my kids were stoked to hear about it, and I got to show them the video—the fact that I could share it with them—made it wonderful.

Project Car

The year was 1998. I was only a little older than my son is now, and my dad bought a project car. It was a 1967 Cadillac DeVille convertible. It wasn’t in objectively terrible shape but it was going to require a fair amount of deconstruction and investment to get it up to snuff. Working on that car was where I started to learn…anything about cars, really. Body work, engine, all of it. It was juuuuuuust about ready for regular use when I went on my mission, so of course my cooler little brother got to drive it the most. Turd.

Naturally you fantasize about getting a cool old muscle car and restoring it to its former glory, and there’s still a bit of that in me somewhere, but I am not planning on digging up a Charger or a Roadrunner and sinking a second mortgage into it. (For one, they’re all too expensive.) Still, every guy kind of knows what he’s after, and earlier this year I started looking at projects just out of curiosity. I had a low price point, a range of model years, and the hard requisite that whatever I got, it would be Mopar.

Once again, the superlative Wife told me I should definitely pull the trigger on something this year. Get a project in the shop. (This house has a shop, that’s why I bought it.) Start teaching the boys so they learn the way I did. I kept scouring Marketplace, looking for something that fit my criteria, and after months of searching, the right project came along.

I’m not going to share the details yet. I haven’t officially acquired the car. My job slows down a LOT in the summer, and I already spent a few hundred bucks on a skydive, so I have to wait. (Mid-life, not crisis.) Nevertheless, the seller dropped the price yesterday and that almost sent me into a panic because I really wanted the car and I didn’t want to get sniped. (That happened earlier this summer on a gorgeous 1964 Plymouth B-series. Body was completely intact and the guy just needed it gone. Didn’t run. Slant-6. 600 bucks. I was an hour late to offer. I was sour about it until yesterday.)

The seller was local to me, and lived about 15 minutes away on a farm. Young guy too, early 20s. Very professional. I took my sons and we checked out the car. They got really excited. (My oldest thought I was buying it for him. I will spend years disabusing him of that notion.) Does it run? No. It hasn’t been registered in almost three decades. Is there body damage? Yes, someone crashed it into something up front, but it’s not catastrophic. Also it survived a fire on another farm somewhere, but it must not have taken direct damage because the glass, trim, and most of the other sensitive parts are still intact. Funnily enough it will make it easier to strip the paint.

I told the seller my situation, that it would be around eight weeks or so before I could get the money together, and that I wasn’t asking any favors, but this car was definitely a fit for what we were after. He was a thousand percent cool about it and offered to take down the listing, count it as sold, and that I could even wait until October if I had to. (I didn’t tell him this, but just for doing that I’m going to throw in some extra cash for him.) In a couple of months, I’ll have a project in my shop, and I’ll get to work on it with my boys, and answer questions, and solve problems, and deal with frustrations, and lament how long it takes, and wish I had more money, and slowly-but-surely succeed until a few years from now when the car is ready, and then I’ll get to drive it around with my wife and my kids and take it to shows and have a grand old time.

We’ll live life together and I’ll show my kids how to navigate the extremes, how to have some vision, how to put life into context, and how to just…do it.

If I took anything away from the skydive, it’s that if you’re locked in enough on something immediate and awesome, the rest of the details can wait. You know, like…landing, and stuff. Prepare before you go up, and execute on the way down. But when you’re there, holy cow, man. Enjoy the ride.

Thanks for reading.

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This is another ongoing series as I do a slow-read of THE ILIAD by Homer, translated by Rouse. Previous installments: book 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 & 10 | 11 & 12 | 13 & 14 | 15 & 16 | 17 & 18 | 19 & 20

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Condensation

Yes, normally this would be two posts, but to be perfectly honest I am ready to put a wrap on this and get going on another book. It’s been a joy to read these stories and test-drive the summaries on my kids before giving you, dear reader, the more stylized version complete with puns and metaphors that would go over juvenile heads. Thus, I’m putting the last four books in one post, in what may in fact be more than a five-minute read. I’ll endeavor to be brief.

Book 21

Armed and armored, Achilles enters a flow-state of absolute and divine arse-whipping. Apollo won’t let him kill Hector so he decides to kill literally everyone else on Troy’s side. His most harrowing kill is Lycaon, a son of Priam by one of his multiple wives or side pieces; Achilles had encountered him earlier in the war, beat the crap out of him and sold him into slavery, only for Lycaon to eventually be returned to Priam by a neighboring monarch.

Lycaon was home in Troy for a whopping twelve days before Achilles comes across him here. Other than being Trojan, Lycaon pretty much dindu nuffin wrong. He even (rather pitifully) begs Achilles for his life, but Achilles won’t hear a word of it, because Troy (by way of Hector) did nothing of the sort for Patrcolus, knowing full well who he was. So he kills as indiscriminately as Hector did, and slays Lycaon on the spot.

The arse-whipping continues but the morale never improves. Achilles only stops when he crosses the aforementioned Xanthos, a.k.a. Scamandros, a Trojan river deity, who swallows him up and nearly drowns him. He has to be rescued by Hephaestus and Hera, and he gets right back up to flog that a$$. King Priam orders Troy to retreat back inside the walls, and most of them make it back inside; those who don’t are hurled into the (Brad) Pit(t) of Hell by Achilles.

Book 22

Hector finally faces the music and steps outside to duke it out with Achilles. He knows he is an entire hardware aisle’s worth of screwed. His previous bravado and braggadocio are all gone, because this is it. Zeus himself will not intervene here. This is all fated now. Achilles’ mother is a daughter of Nereus, an entity who is not strictly subordinate to Poseidon but rather adjacent to him, by some measurement; what we learn here as well is that Achilles’ father Peleus was a grandson of Zeus. So was Priam of Troy, along with the whole Trojan royal family (and Helen, for that matter), but since Achilles is at the reunion, Zeus leaves it to them to solve among themselves.

There’s plenty of action here. Some chariot-racing and chasing and trickery. Some intervention by the gods. (Athena helps Achilles spring a trap on Hector to force him to fight.) The first prince of Troy pleads for a dignified burial and for his body to be returned to his father, but Achilles is not having it. And that is especially hilarious after the hellish fight that Troy put up for Patroclus’ corpse, attempting to wrest it away from Menelaus and the other Greeks so they could defile and desecrate it as a war trophy. Achilles may have overreached with Lycaon but Hector has this coming.

Spoiler alert: Achilles wins. He kills Hector with a spear to the throat, takes his old armor back, and then drags his body back to the Greek camp by his ankles, tied to the back of Achilles’ chariot. From their high vantage points inside the walls, the Trojan royals watch this whole thing play out.

Let me remind you that Paris and Helen absolutely suck and they did this.

Book 23

Troy and Greece both hold funeral traditions involving twelve days of games, and we get accounts of those games here. The Greek camp is holding games for Patroclus, some of which include Achilles taking victory laps around Patroclus’ funeral mound with Hector’s dead body tied to the back of his car. There’s an outlet of rage and frustration here that, on the surface, seems to just be an expression of base-level emotions, but the formalization of it all marks Achilles’ return to order and civilization—something to bring him back from the flow-state of battle.

The civilizing effect of the funeral process puts a change on Achilles that he wouldn’t have endured before, just in time for…

Book 24

One of the few mentions of Hermes pops up here: he helps Priam to sneak into the Greek camp so he can personally confront Achilles in the middle of the night and ask for Hector’s body back. He begs on his knees for his son’s corpse. His grief moves Achilles, and he grants the king’s wish. Despite the abuse the body has taken, it hasn’t decayed or been eaten by worms—a fate the men are well familiar with after a decade of brutal war, and one that Achilles specifically asked the gods to stay from Patroclus.

Seeing how the gods favored Hector’s and Patroclus’ bodies alike, Achilles sends Hector back with Priam, and they share a parting meal. The Trojans mourn their fallen hero, and so ends The Iliad.

Closing Thoughts

You might be surprised to know that the Trojan Horse—the most infamous visual element of the Siege of Troy, and thus The Iliad—does not appear in The Iliad. It is, itself, an incomplete story. It starts after Helen has been in Troy for almost a decade and ends before Greece has gotten inside the walls. So what’s the point of the story?

I’m no expert on Homer or this era of Greek history. I do own a copy of The Landmark Herodotus and I’m going to read it over the next several months, along with The Odyssey, because what could be more Graham than biting off too damn much? I’m good at like, four things and that’s one of them.

That said, I would assume that the linear analysis of this story, and the need to bracket the war with its cause (Helen’s flight) and conclusion (Troy’s fall) is the machination of posthomeric editorialization. It’s been 3200 years since this war happened and 2500 years since a blind man converted it to a poem to be performed in two dozen parts, aloud, to a meter. I’m making some guesses here. What was the value or purpose of this tale then, and what lessons still apply to us today?

Rouse offers up some observations in his afterword that I agree with, that it’s a story of barbarism (Greece) versus true civilization (Troy) but the conflict manifests between two imperfect, mortal organizations, who each borrow from the other’s playbook. Greece has aspirations of wealth, glory, and empire—the things people think of when they look at Troy’s riches and greatness. Troy has pride and isn’t ashamed to defend its trappings with barbarism of their own. Both sides pray and sacrifice to the same roster of gods, though these themselves play favorites.

If refinement and civilization are the mortal attempt at godliness, than barbarism is a sprint in the other direction, and for my money there is a warning here: you can’t be both. Especially not when both sides profess the same faith and structures of worship.

But that’s just one of scores of lessons I would take away from this text. I see why there are entire academic tracts dedicated to it, and that some professors spend decades teaching it to class after class of students. I don’t want to give you all my thoughts or takes.

I want you to read The Iliad if you haven’t, and decide for yourself what your own thoughts are. Tell me. Let’s bounce them off each other in the comments.

Visit Nauvoo Supply to order HEARTLANDERS, the most American novel I’ve ever written. It’s like if National Treasure happened during Fallout with G.I. Joes.

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“Electoral Brawlage” examines the first inaugural address of each president in U.S. history, with some commentary and analysis. Check back on Mondays for more.

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Silent Cal Takes Over

In 1923, President Warren G. Harding died in of complications from what started as food poisoning and ended as either a heart attack or a brain hemorrhage. He was 57. He’d been in San Francisco when he got sick and that was where he passed into eternity.

Calvin Coolidge, his popular Vice President, was at home in Vermont, clear on the other side of the country, and was woken up to receive the Oath of Office at 2:30 in the morning. His father, a notary public, administered the oath. Coolidge was famously a man of few words—most people know the You lose anecdote—and so his first statement to the country as president was brief and appropriately solemn. He was going to continue on with Harding’s agenda and keep working to get America back on track in the wake of the Great War.

When the time came and Harding’s term was over, Coolidge decided to stand for election in 1924. For VP he selected Charles Dawes (Illinois), a lawyer with major accomplishments in politics and foreign policy; he worked on William McKinley’s campaign in 1896, and later won the Nobel Prize for the Dawes Plan which handled postwar reparations between France and Germany.

Running against him was John Davis (West Virginia), a lawyer who also had foreign policy experience as an ambassador, and Charles W. Bryan (Nebraska), younger brother to William Jennings Bryan, who lost the Democrats three straight shots at the White House. Charlie would take after big bro in this regard.

There was also some third party twit named Robert LaFollette from the “Progressive Party.” He was based out of Wisconsin. He won exactly one state (that one.) He did what third-party candidates always do: split the vote with the next most viable challenger, and waste everyone’s time and money.

Not that it would have mattered. Coolidge clobbered Davis.

The 1924 Election

54% of the popular vote (pointless), 382 Electoral votes (suck it), 35 states. Look at that map. It’s downright genetic. Frick, I really need to read Albion’s Seed. This is who we were before Hart-Celler. We’ll get to that in a few weeks.

Anyway, the Republicans remained popular as leaders in Washington, and Coolidge having a year on the job really made voters comfortable, so they kept him in for another round.

The Speech

This one is legitimately great. Readable, direct, inspiring, clear, all the things I like in an inaugural address, and not just because I’m partial to Silent Cal. Actually before I read Amity Shlaes’ book on the man, he was just another guy in the chair to me. Once you learn what he was about and how he handled the job, you’ll agree with me (I’m not giving you the choice) that he should replace Teddy on Rushmore. But Coolidge wouldn’t have wanted that and that’s fine.

The focus up front is on the continued rebuilding in the postwar era, but with caution to not get too entangled in foreign affairs. Coolidge channeled Washington and Monroe on this issue and rightly so. He didn’t even like that we had a particularly large and powerful Navy, only because that strength invites envy and challenge—and above all, suspicion, which leads to other things, and I’ll say the rest of the 20th Century pretty much bore him out on that point.

The speech is a glance into the past, showing us just how much the World Wars changed us and how we’re kind of living in a post-apocalyptic world in their wake. You’ll say that’s hyperbolic and you’re probably right, there’s just an argument to be made that the postwar “rules-based order” really destroyed the American experiment as intended, as designed, but we still had it during the Harding/Coolidge years of the 1920s.

Despite his incredible popularity, Coolidge decided not to run for re-election in 1928, even though he was eligible at the time, as presidents were not yet term-limited. He was on vacation in South Dakota—at the Black Hills no less, the future site of Rushmore—and he simply wrote “I do not choose to run for President in nineteen twenty-eight.” When asked for elaboration, he repeated the statement. It was that simple and he wasn’t asking to be persuaded or deterred, so he didn’t bother explaining. You’ll take what he gives you and you’ll like it. Or you won’t. He didn’t care. He did what he knew was right.

And boy did he dodge a bullet, because that 1929 stock market crash would have destroyed whoever was in office. But we’ll get to Hoover next week.

For now, here are some banger quotes from Coolidge’s speech:

—[American successes] have not occurred by mere chance. They have been secured by a constant and enlightened effort marked by many sacrifices and extending over many generations. We can not continue these brilliant successes in the future, unless we continue to learn from the past.

—We have been, and propose to be, more and more American. We believe that we can best serve our own country and most successfully discharge our obligations to humanity by continuing to be openly and candidly, intensely and scrupulously, American. If we have any heritage, it has been that. If we have any destiny, we have found it in that direction.

—This Nation believes thoroughly in an honorable peace under which the rights of its citizens are to be everywhere protected.

—We have never any wish to interfere in the political conditions of any other countries. Especially are we determined not to become implicated in the political controversies of the Old World.

—While we can look with a great deal of pleasure upon what we have done abroad, we must remember that our continued success in that direction depends upon what we do at home.

—No matter what others may want, these people want a drastic economy. They are opposed to waste. They know that extravagance lengthens the hours and diminishes the rewards of their labor.

I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government.

Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical form.

—America seeks no earthly empire built on blood and force. No ambition, no temptation, lures her to thought of foreign dominions. The legions which she sends forth are armed, not with the sword, but with the cross. The higher state to which she seeks the allegiance of all mankind is not of human, but of divine origin. She cherishes no purpose save to merit the favor of Almighty God.

Man. Just go read it. Coolidge didn’t talk much, but when he did, he spat white-hot fire.

Side note: the Black Hills visit by Coolidge ties in perfectly with the Rushmore chapters in HEARTLANDERS. I didn’t even know that when I wrote it, it just lined up in an excellent way.

Visit Nauvoo Supply to order HEARTLANDERS, the most American novel I’ve ever written. It’s like if National Treasure happened during Fallout with G.I. Joes.

My Amazon page has my other books, including FOSSIL FORCE for young boys and Engines of Liberty for all ages.

I post several times per week on YouTube.

Subscribe here for more book reviews and for articles on what I continue to learn as I read.

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“This Week in 1776” is an ongoing almanac of events from that year in the American Revolution. Be sure to check out my novel HEARTLANDERS.

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It really sucks that Thomas Gage had to go back to England after losing at Bunker Hill, because this week’s almanac could have been “Gage Against Lt. Machine.” But now that’s lost to us forever. Ugh.

New York

We’re in a time of tension and transition in the Big Seed (it wasn’t the Big Apple yet). The Brits have landed and are amassing their forces for a ground war while Washington scrambles to play defense.

Washington is holding Manhattan and Long Island. General and Admiral Lord Howe (both Lobsterbacks) have Staten Island under control and they’re taking ownership of the harbor. They’re sending missives to the Americans saying “Hey, don’t make us do this,” and the Americans are either ignoring them or telling them to pound tea. Nevertheless Washington writes urgently to Congress to send more resources and men. This included figures like Lord Stirling, Col. James Clinton, and Lt. Thomas “The” Machine (nickname unverified, last name correct.)

These men handled missives and fulfilled orders to fortify strongholds under Patriot control. Washington also had to discipline men in the army who were breaking regulations, and he hated that they were doing all this while allegedly fighting for liberty with God on their side.

Neither side executed any major combat actions. This thing could pop off at any moment though.

Philadelphia

The victory lap of the Declaration is still going on and while there will still be formal legal actions in the coming weeks, the pending policy work will focus much more on logistical support for the war. They did take the formal step of ordering that the Declaration of Independence be “fairly engrossed on parchment” under the new title
“The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America.”
This is the physical version we know and think of when we envision the Declaration itself—the one with Nic Cage’s treasure map on the back.

Overall Sentiment

The honeymoon phase of Independence is in the rearview and now it’s time for the colonies to really move in together and try to have babies. England, like the abusive drunken ex that it is, sits across the street with a pile of empties on the porch and the smell of gun cleaner in the air, crying to bad pub music about The One That Got Away and watching bleary-eyed as the shadows of the colonies giggle raucously against the illuminated curtains in the master bedroom window, getting after it like a couple of rabbits. This metaphor went in an unexpected but historically accurate direction. It stays.

Misc:

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2026 is America’s 250th birthyear. To celebrate, I’m highlighting 50+ significant American documents from our history. So far I have covered The Mayflower Compact, Patrick Henry’s Speech, The Lee Resolution, The Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Treaty of Paris, the Virginia Plan, The Northwest Ordinance, The Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Louisiana Purchase, the Star-Spangled Banner, the Monroe Doctrine, the Indian Removal Act, the Knickerbocker Baseball Club rules, Lincoln’s ‘House Divided’ Speech, the Emancipation Proclamation, Jefferson Davis’ inaugural address, the Appomattox Surrender Letters, the Homestead Act, the Gettysburg Address, the Alaska Purchase, the establishment of Yellowstone National Park, Susan B. Anthony’s Speech on Women’s Suffrage, the Nez Perce Surrender, the Dawes Act, the Newlands Resolution, and the Sixteenth Amendment.

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In case you haven’t picked up what I’m putting down, Woodrow Wilson is a terrible president and the starting point of every big bad idea that we’ve had to deal with on the international stage over the last hundred years.

Imagine the most obnoxious east-coast academic inbred professor. Put him in the White House. Then, in the middle of World War One, have him magnanimously go to Congress and make the case for losing that war, even as American sons were bleeding to death on European soil. That was Woodrow Wilson’s infamous Fourteen Points.

I’m not joking, the argument was literally for “peace without victory,” and would also include the formation of a “League of Nations,” a sort of proto U.N. that would cost a lot of money, convene irregularly, declare they were going to do something, and then not do it. (So not even “proto,” just “the U.N.”)

This is your brain on 1910s progressivism. Governments would be shunted aside, damn the people, in favor of a new world order run by international busybodies. There was even the pipe dream of disarmament, which is a suicidally naïve way for nations to realistically engage with one another.

The hell of it is, Wilson thought he would win by stealing the “moral high ground” from the Germans and Bolsheviks, as if they cared about anything other than victory and mandatory implementation of their wills. Cherry on top, it would remake America’s standing on the world stage exclusively in the image of Wilson’s vision. Fortunately most of it got diluted at Versailles, but the blueprint remained in a filing cabinet somewhere and would get dusted off when the next World War finished, leading to the flaccid rules-based order that is doing so much good in the world today.

Wilson’s Points are a textbook example of how elite internationalism sounds noble until it runs into reality.

The Points:

• Open covenants — No more secret backroom deals; all diplomacy out in the open.

• Freedom of the seas — Ships should sail freely outside territorial waters (except when the world police say otherwise).

• Equal trade conditions — Knock down economic barriers and tariffs between nations.

• Reduce armaments — Cut national militaries down to the bare minimum needed for safety.

• Fair colonial claims — Give colonial populations a real say, not just the empires.

• Russia — Let Russia figure out its own future without outside meddling.

• Belgium — Restore full independence to Belgium.

• France — Give back Alsace-Lorraine to France.

• Italy — Adjust borders along lines of nationality.

• Austria-Hungary — Give its peoples a chance at autonomous development.

• Balkans — Restore and guarantee independence for Romania, Serbia, Montenegro.

• Ottoman Empire — Secure sovereignty for the Turks and autonomous development for other groups; open the Dardanelles.

• Poland — Create an independent Poland with sea access and guarantees.

• League of Nations — Form a big international club to guarantee everybody’s borders and independence.

None of that commentary is as sarcastic as I want it to be, I trust you all to assess the practicality of these points on the international stage with your own intelligence. Some of it is niche and will require research. Not all of it is outright terrible. Other parts of it are pretty easy to distinguish from common sense.

This is the kind of thing you do when you haven’t had any meaningful experience running anything. Wilson was never in the military. He was in charge of Princeton for 8 years and New Jersey for 4. This is vibes-and-essays level foreign policy, and the hell of it is, some of it actually took effect in the long run.

You don’t hate Wilson’s presidency enough.

Visit Nauvoo Supply to order HEARTLANDERS, the most American novel I’ve ever written. It’s like if National Treasure happened during Fallout with G.I. Joes.

My Amazon page has my other books, including FOSSIL FORCE for young boys and Engines of Liberty for all ages.

I post several times per week on YouTube.

Subscribe here for more book reviews and for articles on what I continue to learn as I read.

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