Commentary Culture Investigations

Ross Ibbetson, Daily Mail Thousands of Iraqi Kurdish fighters have a launched a ground invasion in Iran, according to a US official.

By most metrics, Rep. Byron Donalds is the frontrunner to win the GOP nomination in the Florida gubernatorial election this year. He’s been endorsed by 17 of Florida’s 20 Republican representatives, as well as Florida U.S. Sen. Rick Scott. He also has the backing of President Donald Trump, which is as close to a golden ticket as you can get in a GOP primary.
While there remains some grumbling from the camp of current Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis about Donalds, thus far, they’ve not been able to rally around a viable alternative. Florida Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins and former Florida state House speaker Paul Renner, both candidates considered to be aligned with DeSantis, have failed to attract significant support. A recent Emerson poll, for example, found Donalds with 46 percent support among likely GOP primary voters; no other candidate received even 5 percent.
Why, then, is Azoria CEO and upstart candidate James Fishback getting so much attention?
“So much attention,” if anything, understates the case. According to Google Trends, Fishback has over three times the search interest as Donalds, and roughly 32 times the search interest as Collins and Renner, both of whom are polling around Fishback’s level. One cannot scroll social media without seeing some sort of viral content featuring the GOP gubernatorial hopeful.
And that’s not because Fishback has any great groundswell of support, despite his high profile. Polls of likely voters taken since February have found him averaging just 5.8 percent, marginally behind Collins and ahead of Renner.
Perhaps the most obvious reason is that Fishback, as a matter of style and deliberate strategy, has courted controversy. Among other attacks, he’s criticized Donalds as a “slave” to corporate interests, and that he would turn Florida into a “Section 8 ghetto” (Donalds is black, if that wasn’t apparent). Fishback has also praised far-right influencer Nick Fuentes and his supporters.
The candidate’s policy proposals, such as they are, are less inflammatory but no less unorthodox. Unherd’s Nikos Mohammadi wrote of Fishback that while “he trades in racist invective and has ties to open anti-Semites… these antics mask a somewhat reasonable populist agenda.” Fishback’s economic message is largely centered on affordability, a focus he credits to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Democrat. He’s proposed a 50 percent sin tax on OnlyFans creators, raising teacher pay by 25 percent, and expanding paid maternity leave. He also opposes the construction of more AI data centers due to environmental concerns and is a harsh critic of the H-1B visa program.
Fishback has also had to battle legal woes as he seeks public office. Most prominently, he has been engaged in a complex legal battle with Greenlight Capital, his former employer. He sued them in 2023 for defamation over a dispute about his job title. In 2024, Greenlight countersued for alleged misrepresentation of his role, breach of his employment agreement, and defamation.
In 2025, Greenlight and Fishback reached a settlement in which Fishback admitted that he had shared confidential information and that obligated him to pay Greenlight’s legal fees. However, he has thus far been unable to do so. As a result, a court ordered that Fishback turn over his Azoria stock to them, and his Tesla Model Y was seized by U.S. Marshals to help satisfy the judgment against him. On April 1, a federal judge stopped short of holding him in contempt for refusing to turn over related documents, but gave him two weeks to either hand over the documents or swear that they don’t exist.
Fishback’s non-payment doesn’t just extend to his opponents’ legal fees: his own lawyers in the matter have sought to drop him as a client for not paying them. Fishback defended himself by saying that his lawyer had “lost my case… why on earth would I pay him for losing?” He added that as governor, he would make that official policy, a proposal that seems as impractical as it is self-interested.
Accusations of sexual misconduct have also been levied at Fishback. The Broward County School District cut ties with his high school debate organization, Incubate Debate, over allegations that he was having an inappropriate relationship with a female student who was, at the time, a minor. He has denied all wrongdoing in connection with the allegations, and he was never criminally charged or convicted in relation to them. Fishback did have a relationship with the woman in question after she turned 18; she later sought a restraining order against him, alleging that he harassed her after the relationship ended. A judge declined to do so, however, citing a lack of evidence.
Recently, when questioned by a voter concerning the allegations, Fishback said that the man, who is black, should be “lynched.” In typical Fishback fashion, he added that he would also “lynch every Epstein criminal in this country,” though it’s questionable if the Florida gubernatorial office has the authority to do so. Fishback is, of course, entitled to the presumption of innocence. Why he doesn’t extend to alleged Epstein clients the same deference he demands for himself is less clear. 
Fishback has been compared, implausibly, to William F. Buckley. A more credible comparison might be to Patrick Buchanan, the populist upstart who challenged George H.W. Bush in the 1992 Republican presidential primary and whose campaign portended the rise of Donald Trump. There’s a key difference between the two, however. Buchanan was chasing a real underserved bloc of voters: the Middle American Radicals.
By contrast, Fishback seems to have made the same error as many in the mainstream media about the nature of the Republican coalition. While some Trump voters, especially young ones, might seem sympathetic to Fishback-ism, it would be a mistake to see them as a coherent voting bloc. 
Many of these voters hold traditional political norms about what you can say and how you can act in contempt. Some readily admit to finding influencers such as Fuentes amusing. But, by and large, these disaffected Trump voters are not ideologically committed adherents to the philosophy of the radical right, or any philosophy at all. Trump was able to rally them through his unique, personalist appeal, rather than any specific ideology.
Whatever your view of Fishback’s personal merits or demerits, it’s quite clear that he’s no Donald Trump. While some liberal reporters who have an interest in making Fishback and those like him the face of the American right might disagree with that assessment, Florida voters writ large evidently don’t. That’s why, despite all of the coverage he’s getting, Fishback’s real-world support appears to be marginal. In other words, the Fishback feeding frenzy is just a media mirage.
READ MORE from Stephan Kapustka:
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Last weekend, America was subjected to its third “No Kings” protests. While there was no king, there were many rallies. There were even more pawns.
Extensively hyped by the establishment media, they then gave them extensive coverage. They continue to do so. However, if you are an average American, you likely only saw evidence of them from the establishment media. (RELATED: Why the ‘No Kings’ Protests Are Actually America’s Biggest Therapy Session)
Establishment media reported protest organizers’ estimate that 8 million participated in 3,100 events across America. Needless to say, protest organizers have every reason to inflate their numbers (in St. Paul, Minnesota’s Department of Public Safety estimated a crowd of 100,000; organizers claimed 200,000), and the establishment media are certainly not going to question these figures: As in, how many actually showed up, versus people who were merely gawkers (and there was much to gawk at), or those involuntarily caught up in the chaos these protests caused?
Even taking the organizers’ figures at face value, though, that only averages out to 2,581 per protest. In comparison, 23 million attended 1,312 NHL games last season — America’s smallest major men’s professional sports league. Even assuming organizers’ “wish-timate” of 8 million is correct, that amounts to 2.4 percent of the U.S. population and less than 11 percent of the total who voted for Harris in 2024.
The protests that drew the biggest crowds were in New York City (“tens of thousands”), L.A. (“coordinators said they expected more than 100,000 people at the dozens of local events, which also were being planned for Beverly Hills, Burbank, Venice Beach, Newport Beach, West Covina, West Hollywood and Thousand Oaks”), and Philadelphia (“about 40,000”). In other words, the usual suspect cities — and cities where Trump lost overwhelmingly in 2024: Trump won only 17 percent of New York City’s vote, and overall, exit polling found Trump lost 38 percent to 60 percent in urban areas.
And we know that these rallies were heavily funded by the Left. According to Fox Digital News, 500 groups with $3 billion in annual revenues helped foot their bill. “Socialist, communist, and Marxist activist groups” were part of Saturday’s mélange of malcontents and “openly discussed using the demonstrations to spread what they describe as revolutionary organizing.”
So, last Saturday’s “No Kings” protests would seem to boil down to: A relatively small percentage of the population (U.S., Harris supporters, you name it) showing up in rallies heavily covered by a left-leaning establishment media and funded by outside socialist organizations in cities that Trump lost heavily in 2024.
This is not to say there was no news coming from last Saturday’s primal screams. There was. Only it was not the news organizers wanted you to know, the establishment media wanted you to see, or the Left dares to admit publicly.
Saturday’s real news is that while there were indeed “no kings,” there were a plethora of pawns: millions to be exact.
Those protesting last Saturday undoubtedly had many of the same shills who protested Israel defending itself immediately after Hamas’s terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, 2023. Many are undoubtedly the same people who incite violence against ICE agents, doxing them, and calling for the abolition of ICE. And many undoubtedly are the same as those who called for defunding the police not long ago, too.
Undoubtedly, these are the same people who protested after the death of the terrorist kingpin, Ayatollah Khamenei, and are rallying in support of the Iranian regime. The same ones who protested the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. The same people who visit ICE detention centers. The same who traveled to Cuba to lend support to that decrepit regime and forestall its overdue collapse — expressing their solidarity by staying at the socialist Alcatraz’s swankiest hotels as the people who are forced to endure socialism’s failure go without necessities and protest the oppressive regime.
Undoubtedly among them are those who, like Mamdani’s wife, denied Hamas’s atrocities and ignored that Hamas’s attacks were against civilians. The same ones who called for a ceasefire in Gaza but never said a word about returning Israel’s civilian hostages. The same people who now have said nothing as Hamas has not only refused to lay down its arms — as it agreed to — but turned its terrorism against Palestinians who dared to resist it.
These are the same people who did not hold rallies for the 30,000 Iranian protestors killed by Iran’s terrorist regime. Who did not protest when Iran recently publicly hanged three more of its people. Who say not a word and hold nary a rally when Iran’s theocracy has violated the rights of women and every group that these “No Kings” protestors claim to support.
These are the same “sympathizers” who have not said a word as their socialist brethren have impoverished Cuba, taken away its people’s rights, forcibly kept them from escaping, and jailed those who dare to protest the failed policies of Castro and his successors. The same people who have been equally silent about the gulag that is the entire country of North Korea. Who are equally silent about the atrocities (President Biden called treatment of the Uyghurs “genocide”) and bellicosity of China’s communist party (remember when Tibet was last a concern?  Remember when Hong Kong was promised “two systems”?  Does anyone at “No Kings” care about Taiwan’s independence?)
These are the same people who have no words of protest for Russia’s four-year war of aggression against Ukraine. The same people who have no concern over those like Sheridan Gorman who have been killed by illegal immigrants in the U.S. in the sanctuary cities they support.
The pieces that were moving hither and yon over the chessboard of last Saturday’s protests were not kings but pawns. These are today’s versions of Walter Duranty, who covered for yesteryear’s butcher Joseph Stalin, seeing what they want to see and ignoring reality. The same people Lenin purportedly called “useful idiots”: pawns that the Left is happy to see sacrifice themselves for their own ends. After all, America’s Left underwrote it all with a check. Checkmate, indeed.
READ MORE from J.T. Young:
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J.T. Young is the author of the recent book, Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left, from RealClear Publishing. Follow him on Substack.
Image licensed under Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International.

Americans correctly believe that the federal government is notoriously fiscally inefficient and irresponsible. This inefficiency is particularly noticeable regarding the legislative branch. The nation endures government shutdowns and massive budget deficits despite general prosperity because Congress lacks the political will to reach compromises or enact painful reforms (like reducing massive entitlements, raising taxes, downsizing federal bureaucracy, ending congressional earmarks, or selling government land or other assets). Recent massive lines at airports in March 2026 arose not from the weather but because of the Capitol Hill budgetary stalemate. (RELATED: Partial Government Shutdown Pushes Airport Security to Its Limits)
“What we’ve got in Washington is a credentialed ruling elite that cares more about keeping their jobs than doing their jobs.”
As a consequence of the Keynesian Revolution that upended an unwritten but generally honored fiscal mandate to balance budgets, current congressional job security suggests the perceived political costs from reducing the $39 trillion national debt through reduced spending or increased taxes far exceed the political benefits gained from being fiscally responsible. The government literally shuts down too often from political stalemates related to budgetary issues, and Congress hasn’t passed a complete, timely (much less balanced) budget in many years: fiscal year 2026 will be the 25th consecutive year of running budget deficits, imperiling our global economic leadership as well as future generations. (RELATED: The CBO’s Latest Report and the Choice Between Reform and Disorder)
I have worked and consulted with many congressmen, testifying at their hearings over several decades. They are mostly hard-working, bright, and reasonable people. Most have generally good, if not sterling, moral character, although the addiction to the money and fame associated with political power provides notable exceptions, leading occasionally to criminal convictions (Sen. Robert Mendenez and Representative George Santos are two recent examples). Especially worrisome: legislative branch dysfunctionality seems to be growing. Why does the system work so poorly these days? (RELATED: Is it 2006 for 2026 Senate Republicans?)
Three Senators (one now retired) recently wrote insightful books about national governance, confirming that Washington is truly a swamp: John Fetterman (Unfettered), Joe Manchin (In Defense of Common Sense), and John Kennedy (How to Test Negative for Stupid). The first two are or were for most of their career Democrats, while Kennedy is a Republican. All three are considered mavericks. Fetterman hates Senate dress codes, Manchin became viewed as a traitor by his own party but venerated by some Republicans over thwarting perceived Biden-era excesses, and Kennedy has ridiculed many senatorial practices, changing party affiliation himself.
A sentiment from Kennedy’s new book with which I suspect the others would concur: “What we’ve got in Washington is a credentialed ruling elite that cares more about keeping their jobs than doing their jobs.”  Fetterman, in his book, says, “I have never viewed my political party as an iron shackle adhering me to the party line. And I don’t take positions for my self-interest. I take positions based on what I believe is right.” Manchin indicts both political parties. He says, “I am fiscally responsible and socially compassionate…Today, the Democratic and Republican parties have drifted so far from these fundamental ideals that it’s hard to tell what they truly stand for anymore.”  Similarly, Kennedy adds, “It’s hard to get straight answers in Washington, D.C., in part because common sense is illegal.” (RELATED: Is John Fetterman Channeling Scoop Jackson?)
Empirical evidence suggests members of Congress themselves are increasingly dissatisfied with the system. The number voluntarily retiring this year is a good deal higher than normal. A recent report in The Hill indicates some 63 are not seeking reelection in 2026, a marked increase compared with the last four election cycles. It appears that congressional retirement announcements have increased this cycle at least 40 percent from the recent average, perhaps reaching a modern era high.
Why? Six factors come to mind. First, we probably have the oldest contingent of Congressional lawmakers in history. Take the Senate. The average age as of the beginning of this year exceeded 62, and 37 of the 100 are 70 or older, compared with only 10 under 50. Senator Chuck Grassley, Senate president pro tempore, a spry 92, has been in Congress for over 50 years (45 in the Senate). Like most non-political septuagenarians, many incumbents simply want to retire, often to nice pensions and no longer needing to maintain two residences. They want more leisure time, opportunities to be with grandchildren, and to take long cruises.
Second, public opinion is low regarding both Congress and the state of America in general. The Rasmussen poll shows that a majority of likely U.S. voters think the nation is not headed in the right direction, while a minority have approved of the president’s performance in both the Biden and Trump eras. Similarly, low voter satisfaction undoubtedly negatively impacts the perceived job security of lawmakers. Winning reelection is becoming harder and costlier.
Third, the general prosperity of recent years arising from free markets and new innovations has disproportionately advantaged higher-income earners, many holding lucrative jobs in business or law, potentially occupied by former members of Congress. The pay of Congressmen has fallen relative to that of other individuals with similar talents and knowledge. Why not join the gravy train of prosperous individuals enjoying private sector largesse? More money, fewer occupational pressures such as incessant fundraising.
Fourth, the D.C. area, where members of Congress live much of their time, is increasingly costly — housing is expensive and often means paying high private school tuition fees. A study by Pallavi Rao for Visual Capitalist last year found that Washington was the eighth least affordable city in the country.
Fifth, in some states, notably California and Texas, recent gerrymandering efforts have sharply lowered normal reelection probabilities for some House members. Moreover, perhaps a perceived recent decline in the popularity of the Trump administration swayed retirement decisions of some Republican members of Congress, fearful of becoming a powerless minority in a lame duck administration.
Lastly, the prestige associated with being in Congress has probably declined with rising dysfunctionality in D.C. associated with heightened partisan infighting. While being in Congress is still more respectable than running a house of prostitution or drug dealing, the reputational gap between those occupations and Congressional service has narrowed.
Solutions to these problems are politically difficult, constitutionally dubious, or otherwise ineffective. The trio of Senatorial authors cited above had frequent problems with their own political party, echoing a concern identified by some Founding Fathers lamenting the rise of “factions.” Yet eliminating political parties is a nonstarter — mimicking Churchill, political parties are the worst way of achieving policy outcomes, except all others. Or, to quote from Jonathan Turley’s great new book Rage and the Republic, “The Constitution was premised on the assumption that factions are inevitable and created a system designed to allow their expression and transformation.”
Most congressional irresponsibility relates to budgeting, because the political costs of borrowing to pay for new spending currently are small relative to potential political benefits. The nation nearly completed the first steps in procuring a balanced budget constitutional amendment late in the last century. Such an amendment seems increasingly needed, working reasonably well in most of the 49 states having one, as have budgetary constraints used in fiscally responsible nations like Switzerland.
How to change the Constitution? Our Founders wisely made it difficult, and it was last amended more than a third of a century ago. Calling for a constitutional convention is wisely viewed as too radical and potentially dangerous. One politically more doable thought: have Congress approve a 15-member commission of respected, distinguished Americans to reassess current federal budgetary practices. Have the House of Representatives appoint four members, no more than two from any one political party, the Senate do the same, the National Governors Association pick four members, no more than two from each major party, and living former presidents of the U.S., three members, one from each major party and the third politically independent. Let the commission make recommendations, probably ultimately requiring a constitutional amendment initiated either by Congress or through the states, since previous statutory attempts to solve the problem (such as the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings budget act of 1985) have not worked.
Social Security is nearly broke; continued budget deficits endanger the dollar’s valuable status as the world’s most respected currency. Public respect and trust in our leadership is low: recent polling shows that only about 40 percent of Americans think we are headed in the right direction. Congress needs new, stronger constraints on its aberrant behavior. Let’s get serious about federal budgetary reform needed to keep from moving from American exceptionalism to banal mediocrity.
READ MORE from Richard K. Vedder:
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Richard Vedder, distinguished professor of economics emeritus at Ohio University, is a senior fellow at Unleash Prosperity and the Independent Institute.

We had an unusual situation here in the prodigious arts and theatre metropolis of little Grove City, Pennsylvania. For the first time ever, our talented theatre programs/directors at both Grove City College and Grove City Christian Academy chose the same play to perform this spring. It was pure coincidence, and a blessed one at that. Both chose the classic You Can’t Take It with You.
For my family, the choice was wonderful, heaven-sent. The 1936 play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. We had never seen the play, but several times we watched the terrific 1938 film adaptation by the great Frank Capra. My youngest daughter, who likes to act as well as dance, and had some training in ballet, loved the character “Essie,” an aspiring ballerina who’s bubble-headed and a bit clumsy. Capra described Essie as having “the brain of a butterfly that flitted on its toes.” My daughter often talked about how much she wanted to play that role, if such a situation ever somehow presented itself. She pretty much came out of the womb ready for that role. Like Essie herself, she would often spin around our crazy, eccentric house — which, like the house in the movie, is often teeming with people and guests and silly characters — and pirouette and point and stretch and walk on her toes and do all the ballerina stuff in a cute, endearing way.
Well, lo and behold, this year, the first in which my daughter was eligible to be in the school play, You Can’t Take It with You, was selected, and Essie was open. She got the part, and she was splendid. The tricky decision for her and the director was to what extent she should portray Essie in a clumsy or graceful way. They opted for an entertaining, inspired combination of the two. In the Capra film rendition, the accomplished Hollywood dancer Ann Miller did the same.
Aside from the Essie character, the entire production is loaded with colorful characters and is hilariously fun. It’s one of the most entertaining couple of hours you’ll ever see on stage, especially when the performers are up to snuff. And among the young folks in our Grove City community, they most certainly were — and then some. I’m amazed at the ability of these kids.
All of which compels me here to do something I’ve long wanted to do: remember and commend the 1938 Capra classic. (READ: “It’s a Wonderful Film—Yes, the Best Ever.”)
The Kaufman-Hart play debuted in late 1936, first in Philadelphia and then quickly on Broadway, getting rave reviews. It caught the attention of Hollywood instantly. Frank Capra himself glimpsed the first act at New York’s packed Booth Theater. He jumped at the film rights. At that point, Capra had done smash hits like It Happened One Night (Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert) and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Gary Cooper). He would win his third Academy Award for You Can’t Take It with You. Kudos, too, to the brilliant script by Robert Riskin, Capra’s frequent collaborator.
In his memoirs, Capra described the plot of You Can’t Take It with You this way: “The show was about a happy-go-lucky family of rebels — and some outsiders who joined them as ‘family’ — living in perfect concord, finding happiness in individual expression: doing the things they had always wanted to do, even though they did them badly.” Capra marveled at how this “heterogeneous group of ‘happies’ found the courage to do what most Americans secretly wished they could do.” Led by the example of their jovial patriarch, the grandfather played the legendary Lionel Barrymore, they had sought to “escape from the modern rat-race which pressured the average American into a lifetime of accumulating wealth and living standards he could never take with him.”
“What the world’s churches were preaching to apathetic congregations, my universal language of film might say more entertainingly to movie audiences.”
Beyond that message and the laughs, Capra discerned in the play “something deeper, something greater.” He saw in You Can’t Take It with You “a golden opportunity to dramatize Love Thy Neighbor in living drama. What the world’s churches were preaching to apathetic congregations, my universal language of film might say more entertainingly to movie audiences.”
Boy, did it ever. And with perfect casting. Aside from Barrymore, who in this film was the total opposite of the mean, villainous “Mr. Potter” that he portrayed superbly in Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, there were Jimmy Stewart and Jean Arthur as the guy-girl love interests, Edward Arnold as the bad businessman (“Mr. Anthony P. Kirby Sr.”) who in the end turns out to be “a pretty good egg after all” (in the words of “Grandpa”), Spring Byington as the air-headed mother, and a uproarious group of secondary characters, including the dour, anti-Bolshevik Russian “Boris Kolenkhov,” who declared of practically everything, “It stinks!”
Byington’s character, “Penny Sycamore,” embodies their carefree attitudes. While Essie spends her time merrily prancing about the room, Penny spends her time merrily banging keys on a typewriter, constructing nonsensical, unfinished, unpublished book manuscripts. Why is she writing? For this simple reason: Because a deliveryman mistakenly brought a typewriter to the house eight years earlier. So, why not?
In one especially funny exchange, Penny, described by Capra as the “pixie, moonstruck mother,” innocently busts on Mr. Kirby’s stuffy, snobbish wife for embracing the dark trend of occultism/spiritualism, telling her it’s silly nonsense: “Oh, Mrs. Kirby! Everyone knows that’s a fake.” Mrs. Kirby is highly offended, but Penny is too innocent and lackadaisical to even realize she’s offending anyone.
In a line that’s pure Frank Capra, Grandpa urges people to instead adopt good old-fashioned “Americanism.”
Speaking of “isms,” there’s a tremendous soliloquy in the film when Grandpa calmly goes off on the various toxic “isms” of the day, from communism to fascism to voodooism, lamenting to Penny that “everyone has an ‘ism’ these days.” In a line that’s pure Frank Capra, Grandpa urges people to instead adopt good old-fashioned “Americanism.”
It’s a wonderful moment.
Grandpa also deliciously roasts the federal income tax, which had been implemented in America only two decades prior, and which Franklin Delano Roosevelt had jacked up to an obscene level — 90 percent-plus on upper incomes. Capra himself despised the tax, and he didn’t like FDR either. In his memoirs, Capra, a conservative Republican, consistently shared with readers how little he made from his movies because the vast majority of his earnings went directly to Washington, D.C. To note just one example, his first royalty check for the 1944 Arsenic and Old Lace was $232,000, of which he retained only $27,000. Yes, $205,000 went to federal and state income taxes. Those were the criminal tax rates of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
You Can’t Take It with You is filled with funny moments — too many to reprise here. There is not a wasted line. My tribute here really can’t do it justice. I strongly recommend it to anyone, and especially to young families. It delivers a meaningful moral message about what matters most in life and what you can and can’t take with you.
READ MORE from Paul Kengor:
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For years now, I’ve written, with something between sadness and exasperation, that NATO is dying. Despite pious pronouncements to the contrary, not even the Russian invasion of Ukraine has done much to bring NATO back to its original purpose, namely protecting Europe against a Russian threat. When Germany and other European countries chose climate change fantasy — and Russian oil — over energy independence, they betrayed a fundamental unseriousness about the threat posed by Vladimir Putin’s overweening ambitions. (RELATED: Trump Delivers Europe’s Much-Needed Wake-Up Call)
Much is being made this week of Donald Trump’s scathing dismissal of NATO in the wake of NATO’s refusal to support efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, or its refusal to take any visible steps to support U.S. efforts to finally, decisively, lance the festering global sore represented by the Iranian theo-thugocracy. The refusal of Spain to allow the U.S. to use our shared bases on Spanish soil is just the latest and most screamingly blatant middle finger waved in our faces by a supposed NATO ally. (RELATED: Five Quick Things: Bye, Pam)
What we hear from the leaders of various NATO countries — and also from the usual suspects in the old-line U.S. foreign policy establishment — is that NATO is a “defensive” alliance and that Trump, along with Israel, is waging an “offensive” war, thus relieving NATO of any obligation to support our efforts. This, however, is arrant nonsense. It’s not just that American presidents have, for decades, insisted that Iran must never be allowed to threaten the world with nuclear weapons; European leaders have also done so, repeatedly, and in a wholly bipartisan manner.
These same leaders, however, have tried to wish the threat away, signing up eagerly to Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, in spite of the obvious fact that it merely offered a fig leaf to the mullahs’ nuclear ambitions. This eagerness betrayed an obvious, but for NATO leaders unspeakable truth, namely that nothing short of delivering a crushing blow to Iran’s nuclear facilities and its military capabilities could prevent Iran’s leaders from acquiring both nuclear weapons and long-range delivery systems whenever they felt like it, and specifically when they felt they’d sufficiently insulated themselves from a response from Israel.
What the Europeans still want … is not a true defensive alliance … but instead a very narrowly defined promise that the U.S. will always protect them against Russia.
What the Europeans still want, albeit only on their terms, is not a true defensive alliance, an alliance against all threats to their existential security, but instead a very narrowly defined promise that the U.S. will always protect them against Russia. However, unlike the days of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, the Western European NATO members refused to pull their own weight, a fact decried by every American president since the fall of the Berlin Wall. (RELATED: What Exactly Is the Purpose of NATO in the Year 2026?)
I don’t discount the contributions various NATO countries made in the war against terrorism after 9/11. On the contrary, as I’ve insisted previously, these contributions deserve recognition and respect. This, of course, was conceived largely in Article 5 terms, fulfilling their obligation under the NATO treaty to come to the assistance of a fellow member who’d been attacked. Moreover, the immediate post-9/11 world was a very different place, different in ways that explain NATO’s failure to step up in the present moment.
Put very simply, and bluntly, NATO has failed to act alongside us against Iran because it’s incapable of doing so. This incapacity is reflected in NATO’s military weakness, particularly its naval weakness, but that is, in the larger scheme, a lesser issue. The decisive weakness, the weakness that speaks to the death of NATO, lies in how NATO countries have opened the door to millions of illegal Muslim immigrants, many from homelands where Islamist radicalism runs deep, many whose allegiance to the sharia supremacism of the mullahs outweighs any allegiance they might have acquired for the European countries where they now reside. (RELATED: Putin, Iran, and Europe in a Post-NATO World)
Clearly, when the threat comes from radical Islam, countries like Germany, France, Italy, and Spain are no longer capable of defending themselves, nor even honestly acknowledging the threat. After October 7, the massive pro-Hamas “demonstrations” — often nothing less than riots — paralyzed cities across Europe, a challenge that none of these governments proved willing or able to counter.
Having demonstrably lost control of their streets, these governments also find that they’ve lost control of their political institutions. In the U.K., for example, Keir Starmer’s Labour government looks increasingly toward members of Parliament who are either representatives of predominantly Muslim districts or, equally disturbing, of the old Jeremy Corbyn wing of Marxists, all of whom view their own country as a colonialist enterprise to be repudiated, while making heroes of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the Iranian regime that stands behind them. To Labour’s left, the Green Party has become explicitly pro-Hamas and pro-Iran.
It’s not just Labour. For years, really decades, Conservative governments refused to come to terms with the rape gang issue in a number of cities, largely because it would have meant acknowledging that these gangs consisted of Muslim men, who viewed English girls as sluts undeserving of respect. Again and again, the secular establishment’s fear of being labeled “Islamophobic” and, more fundamentally, its fear that it could no longer control its own cities, stood in the way of any kind of forthright action. (RELATED: The Fall of Britain — and the Warning for America)
And it’s not just the U.K. Much the same dynamic operates across western Europe. Despite Macron’s occasional fulminations about bringing the Islamist threat under control, usually after some terrorist atrocity too egregious to ignore, the French government consistently fails to deal with the problem. Again, perhaps they can’t. The French left would explode if any such action was taken, and the center would wallow in inaction, fearful of giving encouragement to the conservative and right-wing parties.
The problem is almost everywhere. Even Giorgia Meloni, who recognizes the problem and has been more forthright in calling for solutions, has grown hesitant to support Trump’s campaign in Iran. This bears mute testimony to the fragility of her government coalition and the residual power of the left to topple her conservative government. Even the Vatican, whose administrative ranks are filled with Italian leftist clerical drones, has been quick to criticize the U.S. and Israel. (RELATED: Pope Leo vs. President Trump)
Almost everywhere, and the “almost” tells an important part of the story. The front line eastern European states, such as Poland, the Baltics, and Finland, have nothing meaningful to contribute militarily in the Middle East, where naval and air power is most needed. Moreover, their increasing military capabilities remain fully subscribed in containing the Russian threat. But they retain the freedom of action that comes from not having opened their borders to the tsunami of Muslim immigration that followed Angela Merkel’s disastrous invitation to the world.
The threat from Iran to Europe was real, even though the European leaders quailed at the thought of owning up to this. The missile strike at Diego Garcia demonstrated that Iranian missiles would soon be capable of reaching almost every European capital. Well-documented North Korean support for Iran’s ballistic missile program lent an urgency to the missile problem that the Europeans willfully chose to ignore. Iran’s ability to close the Strait of Hormuz was a latent threat to European prosperity, made all the more acute as European governments confronted life without Russian oil imports.
Furthermore, despite the disdain of the NATO mandarins both in Europe and the U.S., the “Axis of Evil” was and is a real thing. We’ve seen how Iranian drones propped up Putin’s war in Ukraine, and we now know that Iran’s missile and drone attacks on its Gulf neighbors have been enabled by Russian satellite imagery and other intelligence sharing. Behind the North Korean involvement lurks Chinese technical assistance, and sometimes direct aid. Even Venezuela and Cuba had dipped a hand in support for Iran.
Not incidentally, subversive anti-American networks funded by such bad actors as George Soros and Neville Roy Singham have also entered the field, sowing division here and in Western Europe. Connecting the dots isn’t hard. Singham, for example, is now based in Shanghai, and he acts as an agent of Chinese influence, including promoting pro-Iranian narratives in the media and on the streets.
An unlikely source gives the game away. Recently, the mayor of Toronto beclowned herself by insisting that ICE would not be allowed to operate in her city, ignoring the obvious silliness of such a fear. But ICE is now the boogeyman, not only in Canada, but also among urban elites in Europe. Some of this is the usual echoing of American leftists’ favorite tropes.
This speaks, however, to a deeper anxiety, namely that for NATO to serve once again as a meaningful defensive alliance, it will need to learn how to protect itself against today’s threats. If NATO countries are to ever regain relevance, they will all need to create and fully support their own versions of ICE. And this, sadly, they will not do.
In successive years, JD Vance and Marco Rubio have made this point, the one bluntly, the other more gently, but in both instances unmistakably. Iran and its radical brand of Islam have become the pacing threat, and countries unwilling to defend their own civilizations have ceased to be worthy security partners. Now, Donald Trump is making this even more explicit. Ironically, Spain’s base denial makes the case for our taking full control of Greenland.
Iran was a threat to Europe, and until its capabilities are permanently neutered, it will remain such a threat. By failing to defend its members against the Iranian threat, NATO has utterly forfeited its 21st-century relevance. One can complain about Trump’s brusque failure to observe the usual diplomatic niceties, but these niceties, over multiple presidencies, have only obscured geopolitical strategic reality. NATO may have hobbled itself through a generation of declining defense spending, but its member countries killed it by allowing Islamist subversives to take control of their streets and their politics.
NATO has an honorable history, and as a one-time devoted Atlanticist, I will always respect what it once meant to the world. There may be something, someday, that can take its place, some kind of alliance worthy of our continuing support. We might, for example, pursue a focused alliance with the Eastern European states aimed specifically at Russia. We might pursue other regional alliances with a genuinely shared purpose. But the NATO that once stood proudly astride the North German plain and the Fulda Gap died at the hands of Angela Merkel and her imitators.
Let’s be honest with ourselves and with the world. NATO, today, isn’t merely a shadow of its former self. It’s a moldering corpse that must be buried before something new and better can emerge.
READ MORE from James H. McGee:
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James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a nuclear security and counter-terrorism professional. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. His most recent novel, The Zebras from Minsk, was featured among National Review’s favorite books in 2025.  You can find The Zebras from Minsk (and its predecessor, Letter of Reprisal) on Amazon in Kindle and paperback editions.
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