By Douglas V. Gibbs
Fear is a nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes. When we believe an economic crisis is at hand and we believe it is out of our direct control to do anything about it, we experience a kind of psychological paralysis. We lose the ability to use critical thinking to make our decisions, and through fear we begin to normalize actions that would normally be seen as taboo: bank runs, hoarding, reduced spending and theft.
Fear is irrational and counterproductive. Worry solves no problems, and stress kills. We then begin to think with our emotions, rather than common sense. We are then prevented from taking the very actions that would resolve the crisis because in our panic we believe the perpetrators of the fear that their strategies are the best. “After all,” we convince ourselves, “they are the experts.” Psychological restoration occurs when we move away from emotional reactions, and begin to use logical and analytical approaches. Through that process, we then also build confidence, which pushes against the paralysis of fear.
In our Constitutional Republic, historically the greatest threats to our American System have not been external evils. Fear of those evils, and fear of internal evils, causes us to voluntarily surrender our freedoms. The opposition to our System of Liberty and Free Market understand this. You can’t fix what isn’t broken, and new policies calling for drastic change can never take place if the American public feels confident about their lives in America – so, a deception must be put into place if the hard-left is ever going to be able to achieve the fundamental transformation of America that they are seeking. You must be convinced not to believe your eyes and ears, and place all of your fears and anger into the one place the leftists fear the most – which in current times is President Trump and his policies.
As has happened numerous times in history, fear of recession, or an “affordability crisis,” becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because the purveyors of the deception claim the correct policies are the wrong policies and then put up all kinds of information that just is not true if given proper context. But, out of fear, we believe their lies, and those very fears then lead to the destruction of what keeps us afloat and opens up the floodgates to actual economic problems.
Yes, we are experiencing incredible damage from a rising national debt that is now over forty trillion dollars, and half of a century of “free trade deals” that drove manufacturing overseas leaving millions of blue-collar American workers unemployed and added to the rising list of those who receive some kind of government benefit. Public policies have arrested American population growth by discouraging marriage, discouraging families, rewarding government dependents who have children without the father in the home, encouraging promiscuity, and encouraging abortions (now, all the way up to the due-date). As a result, we live in a dark world. We walk through the “valley of the shadow of death” (Psalm 23:4). Many segments of our population live in deep darkness, extreme fear, experience unimaginable trials in this world that has become highly sexualized, self-indulgent, impatient, uninspired, and a lonely place to exist. Then, to allegedly solve the problems, they have thrown open our borders, welcoming foreign ideas that oppose America’s Christian and Constitutional foundation, transforming our prosperous land of liberty and virtue into a battleground of warring factions, attacks against Christianity, and attacks against our traditions and heritage. Today we fight to preserve any semblance of tranquility, security, our American identity, and our Western beliefs.
We are under attack from within as well as from abroad. The enemy is not only at the gates, they are inside the gates, and they have been infesting the halls of government.
America, however, may be under assault, but we have not yielded to the enemy just yet. While China and the United Kingdom uses surveillance cameras to spy on their citizens, Americans are targeting and destroying the Flock Safety cameras that have been increasingly plaguing our cities. While governments that we claim share our Western values (like Canada, United Kingdom and Australia) censor online communication and criminalize public dissent, in America our fight to preserve our First Amendment enumerated rights to speech and the press is in high gear. We have seen the enemy, and we know that “political correctness,” “disinformation,” and “misinformation” are simply code names for censorship and suppression of our God-given rights.
In America the public awareness seems to be a little bit stronger, and the taste of liberty still lingers on the tips of our tongues. So, we stand firm. And, I believe we are winning the battlefield in America. You wouldn’t know it, however, if you were to listen to the mainstream media, leftist politicians, and communist candidates for the Democratic Party.
While The West is already beginning to write its own obituary, something happened in America on the way to collapse. President Donald J. Trump emerged, and he became the ultimate proverbial stick in their spokes. With firmness and fervor he stands between America and tyranny, using tariffs to eliminate an international scheme of a “redistribution of wealth” against the United States, and taking into his own body the fiery darts of the enemy as he works to turn things around after so much damage caused by the Obama and Biden administrations (along with two centuries of gradual creeping rot within).
But, he can’t do it alone. We have a choice to get into the fight with him, or succumb to the fear that the enemy is trying to pump into our brains.
Here’s the truth:
It began with DOGE, but the search to locate and eliminate fraud and waste didn’t end with getting rid of USAID. The Trump administration has uncovered massive fraud within the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), as well. Between 2021 and 2024, for example, roughly $10 billion in taxpayer money was improperly paid out due to weakened enrollment safeguards under President Joe Biden. The current administration has already removed nearly three million fraudulent or improper Obamacare enrollments, and estimate another 2.6 million questionable enrollments remain.
ActBlue, a Democratic fundraising powerhouse, is being investigated after it weakened fraud safeguards, accepting suspicious contributions and misleading Congress about how it screens donations. ActBlue took the lax approach despite detecting at least 22 significant fraud campaigns on the platform in recent years, including several from foreign sources. Congressional investigators are now accusing ActBlue of accepting illegal foreign political contributions and attempting a “subsequent cover-up” when investigators begin digging into the platform’s practices. Internal communications reveal staff approving donations despite potentially suspicious signals. ActBlue is rejecting the claims that they knowingly facilitated illegal foreign donations.
President Trump’s call for a National Fraud Enforcement Division was made permanent when the bill for the division passed the House of Representatives with a bi-partisan vote of 352-72. The division has already targeted fraud affecting the federal government, federally funded programs, and private citizens and earlier this year had its sights on Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and State Attorney General Keith Ellison, referring them for a potential criminal investigation.
Leftist policies have not only bankrupted the State of California, and made it the home of more homeless people than any other state in the Union, but after 114 years even Paramount is planning an exit from California. Their contingency plan to leave the dark-blue State of California depends upon a current legal fight against its Warner Bros. Discovery merger and more importantly any settlement tied to the antitrust case. The complaint about taxes and regulations by California were already in the mix, and Paramount’s board has already approved a relocation strategy as other states are currently and openly courting the company. Paramount’s proposed acquisition of Warner Brothers Discovery ended up in court when California and eleven other states sued to block the move on antitrust grounds. The threat to leave California follows years of production declines, strikes and layoffs.
President Trump’s policies, however, have pushed us in the right direction regarding affordability, despite claims to the contrary. The Trump administration provided a chart to compare major household costs during the first 20 months of his current term to the same stretch of the Biden presidency. Across inflation, groceries, gasoline, rent, electricity and vehicles, the Trump-era increase shown on the chart is lower in every single category.
- Inflation: Biden it rose 12.3%, Trump 4.3%
- Groceries: Biden rose 15.8%, Trump 3.3%
- Gasoline: Biden 69%, Trump 12%
- Rent: Biden 7.7%, Trump 4.5%
- Electricity: Biden 19.1%, Trump 8.4%
- New and Used Vehicles: Biden rose 23.9%, Trump decreased 1.2%
That does not mean prices are wonderfully low, or that there is no affordability difficulties at all. Prices in all items, except vehicles, rose in all categories for both Presidents, and steps are being taken by President Trump to bring down costs. President Trump recently took various actions to tackle beef prices, recognizing in the animal protein markets the culprit is supply and demand, and the cost of doing business. When it comes to fuel prices, President Trump is engaging in a sweeping agreement with Venezuela, expanding American influence over one of the world’s largest collections of oil reserves. The deal will send tens of billions of barrels of oil to the U.S., plus dramatically increase the supply of oil on the international stage. And it is not a short-term fix. The U.S., with a joint venture with another private company, is gaining 100-year rights over 17 oil fields that have proven reserves of over 65 billion barrels. When that oil hits the American market it will help bring down U.S. gas prices.
According to President Trump a “big decision” is coming soon regarding the war in Iran. Economic isolation through the “Operation Economic Outcast” effort should cripple what remains of the Iranian Islamic regime, and an end to the hostilities will also provide an important impact on the reduction of fuel prices.
The economic impact of President Trump’s economic policies have been good domestically – being particularly beneficial to minority populations and children. Poverty rates, including for child poverty and Hispanic poverty, have hit the lowest numbers on record – ever. Meanwhile, median household income after inflation is at a record high. As Trump’s administration roots out fraud in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP/Food Stamps), with the USDA finding “250,000 people that are using dead people’s social security numbers in one state alone,” almost 6 million people have been moved off of SNAP in just a year and a half. The numbers are a direct result of President Trump’s promise to add work requirements to welfare programs, eliminate illegal aliens on Welfare, and get rid of the fraud.
The number of Americans filing unemployment benefit claims has fallen below 200,000 for the fifth time this year, according to new government data, marking the third-lowest level since 1969. Private employers added an average of 16,250 jobs per week in the four weeks ending August 29, up from an average weekly increase of 12,250 in the previous four-week period. Nonfarm payrolls data confirms the U.S. economy added 162,000 new jobs in August.
Meanwhile, Democratic Party run economies like California are moving in the opposite direction. Los Angeles, for example, ranks last among 100 metro areas for affordability and new home construction. Des Moines, Iowa ranked first. Failing grades also belonged to New York City; Providence, Rhode Island; Honolulu; and Boston.
The most interesting twist is while Democrats claim there is an affordability crisis, affordability concerns that do exist or are being taken care of haunt us because of leftist policies. They created the elements of the crisis they scream about. And in their actions, Democrats admit they want to bring the Third World to America, and place them on Welfare. It’s about overwhelming the system. It’s about forcing America’s hand, and then the Democrats swooping in to claim they will fix the problems they largely created through their own one-party rule. New York City’s socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani, in fact, announced that his city will lead a new lawsuit suing President Trump’s efforts to deny green cards to “immigrants” who are “likely at any time to become a public charge.”
It’s a classic Cloward and Piven move – overwhelm the system, and then from the rubble raise up a new socialist system. That’s the plan, and it begins with convincing you to give them power so that they can fix problems they created as they scream that President Trump and the Republicans have created an “affordability crisis.”
It’s a classical tyrannical move by people who care nothing about affordability, and everything about increasing their own political power. A coup based on fear and deceptive tactics to get you to believe anything, without ever revealing the true context, or actual numbers.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
