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As the Democratic Civil War Continues, Are Some Libs Suggesting Adopting GOP Economics?

By Selwyn Duke

There’s currently a war raging for the soul of the Democrats. Having been repudiated in the 2024 election, the party appears rudderless and leaderless, with two of its most prominent current faces being an ex-bartender and a career-politician lawyer, both from New York. (Yes, that would be Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Chuck Schumer.) And learning wokeness doesn’t play with Americans raised on realness — i.e., most everyone — Dem policy wonks seek a new agenda. Some believe they’ve found it, too:

Embrace Republican economics.

Or, at least, something approximating it.

You might not have heard about this policy proposal, but it’s called the “Abundance Agenda.” What’s that?

Is the Blue-state Model on the USSR’s Path — and Poised to Collapse?

By Selwyn Duke

“If something can’t go on, it won’t,” goes the paraphrase of economist Herb Stein. Speaking of which, we often hear about America’s below-replacement-level birth rate. What we don’t hear much about, however, is which Americans aren’t reproducing. And if you guessed that the biggest offenders are our land’s liberals, go to the head of the class.

In fact, the most ardent Republicans apparently have a fertility rate at or above replacement level (2.1 children per woman).

The staunchest Democrats’ rate is down in the demographic-death-spiral range of 1.2.

(The abortion mentality will do that.)

This isn’t the only reason why the liberal-state model would be collapsing. But it is collapsing, says history professor Victor Davis Hanson. In fact, while the mainstream media and Democratic Party are apoplectic over the Trumpian counter-revolution, Hanson states, “they are missing some of the most revolutionary and insidious changes in American society of the last century.”

Be Like Sweden? Actually, America Beats Europe — Hands Down

By Selwyn Duke

“There oughta be a law!” goes the old frustration-born refrain. Or if not a law, maybe another regulation or mandate — one making us, perhaps, more like Europe. After all, they have “free” healthcare, maternity leave, better quality of life, and more vacation time. In a nutshell, “Europe is better,” as multimillionaire director Oliver Stone has put it.

But not so fast, says investigative reporter John Stossel. In fact, while this or that economically hobbled nation may sometimes be called “the sick man of Europe,” the reality is now different.

The sick man is Europe.

Socialist/Communist Influencers Aim to Make Socialism Great(?) Again

By Selwyn Duke

They want to MASA: Make socialism great again. Or, so they would say, claiming to their millions of social-media followers that it actually did and does work. Really, truly — you just missed it, somehow.

At issue are socialist/communist “influencers,” who, ironically, earn big money via “capitalism” influencing people to embrace socialism. Mounting their arguments, they make many seductive claims. Not surprisingly, however, says investigative journalist John Stossel in a new report, their claims are all smoke and mirrors.

In reality, these leftists are just riding an already existing socialist wave. Back in 2010, I wrote about how the Communist Party in Japan was rapidly winning converts and Karl Marx’s birthplace in Germany had become a tourist attraction. In 2017, MIT Press actually released a “Communism for Kids” book. And then there was the 2021 survey finding that 41 percent of Americans overall, and 51 percent of young adults, view socialism positively. It all could bring to mind, too, an observation by German philosopher Georg Hegel. “The only thing that we learn from history,” a paraphrase of him goes, “is that we learn nothing from history.”

Hanson: Germany, Poster Boy for the West’s Decline, Is Committing “Slow-motion Suicide”

By Selwyn Duke

While summering in Germany at the age of 12, a person I was visiting mentioned something about his countrymen. “Germans are always 100 percent,” he said. He was referencing how, by his lights, they were a monolithic lot. This isn’t literally true. But what is surely correct is that Germans can be “100 percent” in applying themselves to endeavors — and to beliefs. Thus did they pioneer modern educational developments. Thus were they ground breakers in optics, brewing, and industrial engineering. Thus do the Germanic Amish likely lead the world in pacifism, with their 100-percent devotion to it.

And thus are the Germans perhaps now also at the forefront of a darker development: the decline of the West.

With Trump in Office, the Income-inequality Lie Is Again Being Pushed

By Selwyn Duke

Ah, the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. Starbucks-drinking, video-game-playing, iPhone-pecking non-workers of the world unite!

Or something like that, anyway.

This may just, essentially, be the message delivered by Scott Galloway, podcaster and professor of marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business. In a Morning Joe appearance in which he called President Donald Trump “an insurrectionist and a rapist,” Galloway claimed that “income inequality” was bringing us closer to revolution. But is it?

Or is a perception of it doing so?

Related to this, are the typical presentations of income-inequality statistics enlightening or deceptive?

And most significantly, does “inequality” really matter? What does it actually tell us in and of itself?

One BILLION Americans? When Do We End Immigration?

By Selwyn Duke

It’s funny, the discussions we never have, even when they involve that proverbial elephant in the room. Here’s one:

Since the U.S.’s population is only increasing because of immigration, when do we decide we have enough people and end it?

Following the Science, Trump Moves to Pardon CO2

By Selwyn Duke

First there were the Biden family pardons; then there were the pardons of the J6 political prisoners. Joining the latter now, though, may be another case where the unjustly convicted would be absolved from guilt. It’s high time, too, as this condemned party has spent almost a generation in the pokey of public opinion and pseudo-science. His name?

Carbon dioxide — CO₂ for short.

The gas’ savior may be President Donald Trump, who has decided that CO₂’s case deserves another look. At issue is a 2009 “endangerment finding,” in which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under Barack Obama, unilaterally decided the gas was a “pollutant.” (Never mind that it’s necessary for life’s existence.) But now Trump has ordered that this finding be revisited.

H-1B Blues: Dividing MAGA, Americans From Their Jobs — and America From Americanism

By Selwyn Duke

To H-1B or not to H-1B, that is the question. As is well known, and as is well loved by Democrats, there currently is an immigration battle among Republicans. Pitting the forces of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy against those of anti-immigrationist Laura Loomer and political strategist Steve Bannon, the dispute concerns H-1B visas, which are used to bring foreign high-tech workers into the U.S. The issue evokes deep passion, too, and for good reason. Musk himself came to America via an H-1B and declares that bringing new talent into the U.S. is necessary for our continued preeminence. His opponents counter that the program is actually used to replace American-born employees with foreigners who’ll work more cheaply. This is often true, too.

Also true, but rarely discussed despite being the most important issue, is that H-1B doesn’t just separate Americans from jobs. It also separates America from Americanism. That is, there’s a point that Musk, Ramaswamy, and most conservatives miss. (More on this later.)

Government Spends Billions of YOUR Money to Build … NOTHING

By Selwyn Duke

“The best government is that which governs least,” goes the old saying. And if ever there were evidence for this proposition, it’s our federal government’s efforts at creating infrastructure. In fact, I built more as a child playing with Lincoln Logs and LEGO blocks than the feds do via some of its billion-dollar projects.

Consider, for example, a plan the government hatched three years ago to lay thousands of miles of fiber-optic cable. Costing $65 billion, this effort’s goal was to bring high-speed internet to all of America. (So everyone can watch online porn.) And how many are connected today, three years later?

Zero.

In fact, “Not a single project is underway,” relates investigative journalist John Stossel in a new video report.