RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.city-journal.org/article/conservatives-trump-anti-semitism-conspiracism-racialism

There is a moment in the life of every political movement when aspirations become reality, when the dissidents become the establishment.

For the Right, that moment is now. After the death of George Floyd in 2020, the Right functioned mostly as a dissident movement. It rallied opposition to coronavirus lockdowns, the radicalization of our institutions, and corruption in the federal government. With Donald Trump’s victory last year, however, this opposition movement earned an opportunity to become the new establishment.

I watched the process unfold behind the scenes. During the transition period, the incoming Trump administration’s best thinkers finalized their plans and, in many cases, announced them on Inauguration Day. Many of the ideas formed during the Right’s dissident period—including some of my own—suddenly became policy: abolishing the DEI bureaucracy, rescinding Lyndon Johnson’s executive order on affirmative action, dismantling the Department of Education. In the early months of this year, the feeling was triumphant.

The administration continues to do good work, but I’ve noticed a growing concern—more discussed in private than in public—about elements of the Right that have failed to make the transition. Since Inauguration Day, we’ve seen a splintering, especially in the media and intellectual worlds. Some have assumed the responsibilities that come with victory, while others prefer to remain as dissidents and, unfortunately, have fallen into various ideological rabbit holes.

Sometimes it’s a question of temperament. There will always be gadflies and pot-stirrers who fixate on criticism and grant trust only sparingly. My concern, however, is with a larger section of the Right that has proved vulnerable to three ideological trends: racialism, anti-Semitism, and conspiracism.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/say-her-name/

The savage murder of Iryna Zarutska in North Carolina last month has laid bare the daily terror of American urban life, the hypocrisy of the American mainstream media, and the negligence of the American political elite. 

On Monday, President Donald Trump briefly addressed the murder during a speech on religious liberty. “When you have horrible killings, you have to take horrible actions,” Trump said. “There are evil people. We have to be able to handle that. If we don’t handle that, we don’t have a country.”

I agree with the sentiment. My basic philosophy of law and order is this: Someone’s head is getting bashed. The only question is which heads will be bashed and who will be doing the bashing. Personally, I think we’ll all fare better if the heads belong to bad guys and the bashers have police badges.

But the president should do more to highlight the Zarutska murder, discussing it in blunt terms to seize the political advantage, kick off an honest conversation about violent crime in America, and restore public safety. A Truth Social post he published later on Monday was a great start, and the Trump administration needs to keep up the pressure on the Democrats and liberal media.

A Ukrainian refugee who fled her war-torn homeland in 2022, the 23-year-old Zarutska was stabbed to death last month by Decarlos Brown Jr., a 34-year-old black man, on a light-rail car in Charlotte. Zarutska entered the car a little before 10 p.m. after finishing a shift at the pizzeria where she worked. She sat in front of Brown, looked at her phone, and made herself most unobtrusive, tiny arms and ankles crossed.

That proved too much for Brown to handle. A career criminal whose numerous past convictions include armed robbery, felony larceny, assault, and breaking and entering, Brown rubbed his forehead and shifted in his seat before stabbing the young woman repeatedly with a pocketknife from behind. In a clip that went viral on X Monday evening, Brown stumbles through the car, blood dripping from his blade, and appears to mutter “I got that white girl.”

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/09/10/unhappy-with-fed-worried-about-economy-70-of-voters-say-interest-rates-are-too-high-ii-tipp-poll/

If Americans were asked to vote right now on whether the Federal Reserve should continue existing, the central bank might have a tough time staying in business. Why? Voters overwhelmingly think interest rates and prices are too high and that the Fed is not doing enough to bring them down, as the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows.

There’s no question that average Americans are keenly awaiting a cut in interest rates. And that anticipation no doubt grew last Friday after the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a meager 22,000 jobs created in August, with unemployment hitting 4.3%, its highest point since October 2021.

In the latest online national I&I/TIPP Poll, taken from Aug. 27-29, 1,362 adults were asked the following question: “How would you describe the cost of borrowing money these days — for things like credit cards, car loans, or mortgages?”

An overall 70% described interest rates as either “very high” (39%) or “somewhat high” (31%), while a mere 4% described rates as either “very low” (2%) or “somewhat low” (2%). Another 13% said they were “not sure.” The poll has a margin of error of +/-2.9 percentage points.