We have indeed always had coarse political rhetoric in America, and it has often spilled over into actual violence. Yet the quality of our language still matters enormously because coarse language is often a tell for coarse thinking. When senior government officials—whether the heads of law enforcement agencies or cabinet departments—resort to shouting, smearing opponents as “Nazis,” “white supremacists,” or “terrorists” simply for their religious or political commitments, they are not defending democracy; they are imitating the worst habits of totalitarian regimes. This is the old game of dehumanization and marginalization: the very tactic that has always paved the way for real persecution, from the Jacobins’ Reign of Terror to the Nazis’ path toward the Holocaust. At some point, we must ask soberly: who is actually acting like the Nazi here? Political purges—whether physical purges or purges of reputation and conscience—are not the tools of rational men or of legitimate institutions.
Passions have always run high in American politics. From the bloodshed of the Revolutionary era to the caning of Charles Sumner on the Senate floor, to the chaotic and inexcusable breach of the Capitol on January 6th, we have seen moments when crowds lost their bearings. There is no excuse for storming legislative chambers, and there is no excuse for deliberately stoking a mob mentality with inflammatory rhetoric, manipulated video, or calculated security failures. No mob has ever had a conscience. A mob is what happens when individuals abandon the disciplines of reasoned thought, moral responsibility, and personal accountability in favor of emotional contagion and group rage.
Today, the divorce between reason and emotion in our public life threatens to become permanent. Instead of debating immigration policy, we hurl the accusation “racist.” Instead of engaging arguments about athletic fairness and women’s sports, we cry “sexist” or “misogynist” at those who object to testosterone‑charged males competing against women and girls. This kind of name‑calling does not resolve a single issue; it simply silences dissent and hardens grievances. As a pro‑life advocate, I believe the first and most important statement to make is not about biology or law, but about mercy: there is no limit to God’s forgiveness, and we are all great sinners—including the very person making the pro‑life argument. To omit that confession is to court a violent reaction, because a moral argument made without humility is heard as an accusation rather than an invitation to repent and to heal.
When political violence—verbal or physical—becomes so bitter that opponents forget the original logic of their positions and the legitimate passions that once animated them, they end up fighting only for the gratification of their own wrath. The contest ceases to be about truth or policy and becomes instead an “existential” death match, where the only goal is to annihilate the other side. In such a climate, no one has time for careful, antecedent reasoning rooted in Biblical principles or in Natural Law. The person who invokes these enduring standards of justice is shouted down as “dangerous,” precisely because transcendent norms stand in judgment over the raw will to power.
The phenomenon often labeled “Trump Derangement Syndrome” is one example of a political movement losing its mind. We have seen this before. When Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II, and Lech Wałęsa helped break the back of the Soviet empire—an evil regime that murdered millions and enslaved half of Europe—they did so without firing a shot in anger. They won the greatest geopolitical struggle of the twentieth century against perhaps the most dangerous empire in human history, and they did it by moral clarity, strategic patience, and courage. Yet much of the media and the progressive intelligentsia at the time, and even now, refused to acknowledge the magnitude of that achievement, because it did not fit their ideological narrative.
We see a similar refusal to acknowledge achievement today. Over the past two years, Donald Trump has taken concrete steps to stabilize our border, enforce our laws, and restore some sense of order to an immigration system our political class had allowed to descend into chaos. Millions of illegal entrants have either been deported or have self‑deported in the face of renewed enforcement. Thousands of hardened criminals without legal status have been apprehended and removed from our streets. Violent crime in some of our most dangerous cities has been driven significantly downward. Most importantly, our armed forces are being brought back into fighting trim after years of neglect and politicization.
On the economic and strategic front, this administration has moved decisively to secure our access to energy and critical minerals, instead of placing our future in the hands of unfriendly regimes. After nearly half a century of Iranian‑backed Islamist terrorism and nuclear brinkmanship, the United States has finally confronted the central reality: a nuclear‑armed revolutionary Iran is intolerable. Yet this confrontation has been pursued without the loss of American lives, thanks to a renewed seriousness in our military posture and the rediscovered professionalism of a force that remains underfunded but is again approaching the limits of its material and personnel capabilities. This stands in stark contrast to the humiliating, chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan five years ago, a debacle orchestrated by a Pentagon more focused on DEI sloganeering than on victory and leadership—and no one was held responsible.
By the end of the Biden administration, our institutions were buckling under social and economic strain. When governments and major institutions fail, as they plainly were under the Biden–Obama regimes, history teaches that only great men—willing to take great risks—can arrest the decline and help a nation remember its own greatness. If American exceptionalism is to be more than a nostalgic slogan, we need leaders who think beyond the next election cycle, who are willing to sacrifice short‑term popularity for long‑term stability, and who have a strategic plan to preserve liberty for our children and grandchildren. We do not need more corporate courtiers currying favor with lobbyists, pharmaceutical giants, and union power brokers. We need statesmen.
I believe Donald Trump has been such a leader, and that he is, right now, doing precisely what the moment demands. That conviction, more than anything else, explains the hysteria of his opponents. The reason the Democrats and the broader progressive left are crying in their beer today is not because America is failing, but because they see how successful this administration has been in spite of them. They love their power more than they love their country. The more successful we become—economically, militarily, morally—the less relevant they are. Their fury is the fury of a class watching its unearned privileges erode.
They are afraid for themselves, not for us. As Sun Tzu taught, when you can hear your enemy loudly, it is often because he is afraid. When the enemy falls silent, it is because he is preparing to strike. In recent months, we have heard comparatively little from the entrenched “deep state” that spent years trying to undermine an elected president. Do not mistake that silence for surrender. It is the quiet before the next charge. We would be wise to keep our eyes open, our minds clear, and our courage intact.
