-We begin today’s rattle with an interesting story about an Indian-or Muslim, depending upon PR needs of the open borders squad-athlete who was ushered into this country by our very own Senator Chuck Schumer. Unfortunately, this gifted sportsman is also a sex offender. Perhaps this isn’t quite as bad as having an alien interning for your office who is also a registered sex offender, but it does make you question the collective wisdom of our Democratic friends in Congress. Maybe we shouldn’t be taking their advice, vis-a-vis, controversial immigration decisions made by the Executive branch.

-In a reminder that there are actually rational people living in The People’s Republic of Vermont, the voters of Rutland have just turned out their incumbent mayor, Chris Louras, after he attempted to deluge their town with Muslim refugees from Syria and Iraq. While ignoring the public’s deep discontent with our government’s refugee resettlement programs-when not imputing racism and bigotry to Americans who express reservations about these schemes-is the norm, even the alternative weekly was forced to concede the enormous political consequences of this decision.

-For those of you who were wondering whatever happened to the thousands of unaccompanied minors who were allowed to enter into this country, wonder no more. According to an in-depth backgrounder from the Center for Immigration Studies, our government has absolutely no clue what it’s doing. While over 80 percent of their sponsors are illegal aliens, 44 percent of the UACs in question were ordered deported. Have the vast majority of these children been deported? Of course not, silly!

-You may ask yourself, “Why is this important?” It’s a good question. After all, it’s not as if these individuals will bring brutal Central American inter-gang warfare to the placidity of our nation’s suburbs, right? Well, I have some bad news for you on that score. It turns out that Latin American gangs, including MS-13, one of the most prolific and ruthless criminal networks in the Western Hemisphere, has actually established a pretty firm beachhead in our own backyard. Naturally, almost all of these gangbangers are criminal aliens. In an ironic twist, the moniker of the man who made an abortive attempt to unify the Mara Salvatrucha within the United States is, you guessed it, Dreamer.

-For those of you who think Europe’s approach to immigration is any less self-defeating and preposterous than the United States, I give you France. A nation where municipal authorities in Calais are attempting to prevent thousands of migrants from recreating the notorious refugee camp known as The Jungle. The biggest proponents of turning The Camp of the Saints into reality are, of course, other Europeans who believe Western civilization is uniquely evil. The ostensible plight of migrants from the third world is simply a cudgel with which the Gramscian left-with the help of corporate bean counters-can beat native Europeans into submission.

-After all, what are a few dozen, or a few hundred, honor killings in the grand scheme of things? Is the systemic dehumanization and murder of girls in nations which were responsible for the idea of religious toleration and freedom of conscience too high a price to pay for erecting the beautiful mosaic? When bad whites are saying intemperate, obnoxious things about people who are off-white, doesn’t that negate their entire philosophical worldview?  Even if that perspective is confirmed multiple times every single day?

-Everyone knows that the real reason millions of Muslims across the world support ISIS, Al Qaeda, and similar jihadist networks is because there isn’t enough inclusion in Hollywood casting decisions. See, the real villain isn’t Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. It’s those bastards who refused to green light an all-Muslim reboot of Star Trek!

-The cognitive dissonance at work in the mind of an an open borders leftist must be overpowering. They want to live in a high-trust, quasi-collectivist techno-utopia-along the lines of something created by Gene Roddenberry-yet simultaneously support policies which make this already far-fetched goal virtually impossible. The mentality of a social justice warrior in high dudgeon can be found in this VICE piece, which laments the role homeless shelters have been playing in the deportation of migrants. The traditional liberal concern for the working class and the poor is discarded when it conflicts with the categorical imperative, i.e. preserving diversity. The spiritual hollowness and intellectual vapidity of this type of leftist ‘thinking’ was brilliantly and caustically skewered by George Orwell nearly a century ago. It’s good to know that some things haven’t changed all that much.

-I’d like to leave you on a good note, so here’s some refreshing news to come out of Austria. 8 Iraqi men have been convicted of the gang rape of a tourist. Unlike the Middle Eastern cab driver in Halifax who was, to all intents and purposes, high-fived by a Nova Scotia judge for raping an unconscious passenger, these rapists were actually given (relatively) stiff prison sentences. What’s more, we’ve discovered that these horrific incidents actually constitute an anomaly within the Islamic immigrant community.

Migrants and refugees from other countries expressed concern that the crime will make Austrians hostile toward all newcomers.

“Eight people raping a woman — that’s honor-less! Such a thing doesn’t exist in our religion,” Burhan Akbas, a migrant from Turkey, said.

“When such people come here and screw up like that, then everybody will think that Chechens, Afghans, all refugees from war areas are all the same,” Mansur Salamou, an asylum-seeker from Chechnya, said. “But it’s not like that. For example, the majority of us — we also cause problems, commit crimes. But no rape! Only criminal assaults and robberies.”

See, Europeans?! You only have to worry about being assaulted and robbed by the millions of North African and Middle Eastern refugees and migrants making their way towards Europe. What a relief.

As most of you probably know, a federal judge has blocked portions of President Trump’s executive order pertaining to refugees from 7 Muslim majority nations. Josh Blackman has published a good summary of what this injunction accomplishes, as well as a copy of the temporary restraining order itself. According to reports, it applies to a few hundred foreigners who were either on American soil or on their way to the United States before the EO was issued. Although these individuals have temporary avoided the fate of the character portrayed by Tom Hanks in The Terminal, it’s worth noting that there are much bigger issues at stake in this debate.

The open borders know nothings have deftly exploited the ignorance of large swathes of the American public to score a public relations victory against a man whom they’ve impotently warred against for over a year. Ironically, one of the refugees Democratic partisans claimed to be rescuing was able to succinctly explain why our new President’s immigration policies were in fact pretty reasonable. Beyond the simple observation that this executive order is not a ban on Muslim refugees, we have to confront the truly bizarre notion that our current refugee resettlement policy is somehow beneficial to American citizens. While some armchair analysts on social media have made the assertion that this is not the point of refugee resettlement-a point on which we agree-others have claimed that not importing tens of thousands of Muslim refugees from abroad poses a risk of future terrorism. By this token, Japan-which has a de facto ban on Muslim immigration-should be as unlivable as Afghanistan or Pakistan. Or, at the very least, have as many terrorist attacks as Turkey.

It’s a patently absurd suggestion, yet one which is repeated without shame by open borders apologists who have no rational justification for our country’s bizarre refugee resettlement program. Just as the beliefs of Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande-two European leaders who have presided over an unprecedented spree of Muslim terror within their countries-is a laughable excuse to invite in potential security risks, so to is the misguided notion that we’re creating terrorists by not letting potential terrorists onto American soil. Nearly half of the refugees admitted to the United States, and over 30% of those admitted since the 9/11 attacks, are Muslim. To comprehend why this is such a problem you need only scroll through a week’s worth of posts on Refugee Resettlement Watch.

Leaving aside the potential for terrorism-both domestically and abroad-exploitation of the welfare system, and crime, there’s the fundamental incompatibility of cultures. As the economist Nassim Taleb has pointed out, Americans expect foreigners who come here to accept American values and customs-and at a bare minimum, not to impose their values upon us. Whether or not this is a realistic expectation is another matter, but the idea that every person coming here does so because they want to become part of American society-a notion regurgitated endlessly by open borders advocates-is simply preposterous.

Even those who don’t pose a direct threat to the health and safety of American citizens-who don’t engage in honor killings, as dozens of Muslims families in the United States do each year-hold beliefs that are fundamentally at odds with those which shaped this nation. While those views are normal in Iraq, Somalia, or Syria, they are not in the United States, and we should not attempt to normalize them-to borrow a phrase from the unhinged left. President Trump’s order, however crudely executed, was the right thing to do. Hopefully, it’s just the beginning of a completely new approach to this vital issue.

Update: Tommy Robinson right again, the perp arrived in Turkey via Syria. 

ISIS claims responsibility. 

Burying the dead. 

Graphic photos of the Istanbul massacre. 

A profile of the victims of jihad. 

For good ongoing overage of this attack, follow Abdullah Bozkurt’s Twitter feed.

One of the most exasperating parts of following news coverage of the latest wave of Islamic atrocities is the deliberately mendacious way these crimes against humanity are portrayed by the Fourth Estate, the Santa attack inside of an Istanbul nightclub being just the latest example of this willful deception. At least the editors of the Daily Beast had the courtesy to enclose that word in quotation marks, but people who didn’t read beyond the headline of this story would probably be under the impression that a deranged mall santa decided to go on  a bloody rampage, a la A Christmas Horror Story. No, this wasn’t a case of an otherwise non-ideological lunatic going postal, or a person cosplaying a scenario from a Batman vs. Joker film.

It was a calculated jihadist methodically mowing down Kufr and infidels-foreign tourists, but also secular Turks who enjoy living in (relative) freedom-as is prescribed in his scripture, i.e. the Koran. This terrorist was acting upon the same impulse as his fellow Turks, some of whom spent the Christmas season holding Santa Claus at gunpoint in order to express their displeasure at a religious/cultural festival which does not involve rivers of blood. When an acquaintance informed me of this massacre on New Year’s Eve, the way he described it made it seem like an utterly random outbreak of ultra-violence. This popular misconception needs to be challenged at every opportunity, because it is literally taking innocent life.

As horrifying as it is to admit that over 11,000 human beings have had their lives erased because of Islam in 2016 alone, this truth needs to be assimilated if we are to ever hope of living in anything approaching Western civilization. People need to reject the comforting delusions which have made these types of massacres more, not less, likely. We are facing a global ideology which is anti-civilization, anti-thought, and anti-humanity.

Saint Nicholas would not be allowed to live in modern-day Turkey, and if Santa Claus existed I’m almost certain he would have been quickly beheaded by one of the many Sunni terrorist groups operating within that country. 2016 should be a wakeup call to those who have been ignoring the exterminationist war being fought against crusaders and infidels. Continuing to live in ignorance is no longer an option.

Update: I’m not saying it’s an inside job, but…

Erdogan reaches out. 

The assassin was a member of the riot police, according to Turkey’s interior minister. 

Syrian opposition celebrates the assassination. 

The assailant-now deceased-appears to have been a Turkish policeman. Heckuva job, Erdogan! 

Footage of what appears to be the assassination. 

As if we needed another reason to halt our country’s disastrous involvement in Syria, the Russian ambassador to Turkey was just shot and killed in that nation’s capital. Syria, like Lebanon from 1975-1990, is an irresolvable tinderbox with too many warring factions to enumerate, all of whom-even the Kurds-are committing atrocities. Instead of sending more troops to this charnel house, we should be withdrawing every soldier on the ground and cutting off all military supplies to the jihadist rebels. Instead of following this sensible policy, the lunatics serving in Congress have decided that it would be a swell idea to arm these same Sunni terrorists with weaponry capable of downing civilian aircraft.

Just like in Star Wars, there are no good guys in this conflict. Whether it’s the Russian air force indiscriminately bombing Syrian cities and towns, Iranian proxy Hezbollah attempting to ethnically cleanse Sunni villages, American-backed moderate rebels beheading children, or Syrian Christians facing complete extinction at the hands of emboldened Sunnis, there are no parties to this conflict with clean hands. This country has no strategic interests in Syria, other than thwarting the spread of ISIS-which humanitarian, liberal interventionists have facilitated-and preventing jihadist sleeper cells from establishing roots in American soil through refugee resettlement.

Update: Brilliant pre-debate analysis by James Taranto. 

Josh Marshall makes a salient point, re: Trump’s greatest handicap entering tonight’s debate. Personally, I tend to agree with Derb. Most voters will overlook an ignorance of policy details-see Aleppogate-if they have confidence in a candidate’s leadership abilities. That said, Trump does have to exhibit some minimal command of the issues, if only to dispel pre-existing negative impressions. 

After months of anticipation, later tonight we’ll finally be able to watch the two presidential frontrunners square off on national television. Despite portraying their candidate as an intellectual juggernaut-and her opponent as nothing short of a gibbering dolt-Clinton surrogates are intent upon working the refs, and the refs seem more than happy to oblige. Whether or not this influences the course of the debate remains to be seen. Expecting professional journalists to fulfill their duties is a bit of an ask, admittedly.

Personally, I think Trump supporters expecting Hillary to publicly humiliate herself are somewhat delusional. Although she’s an historically bad candidate-and arguably the worst Democratic nominee in recent memory-she has spent nearly 2 decades questing after the Oval Office. The idea that she’ll embarrass herself in a one-on-one format as she stands on the precipice of that goal borders on the absurd. On the other hand, Trump has one ace in the hole, which is the insatiable lust for power which animates his rival.

Mrs. Clinton will do or say anything in order to secure more votes, i.e. inch closer to her ultimate goal, even if doing so reveals her deep mendacity or makes herself appear preposterous. Trump needs to take a page from the playbook of Chris Dodd and expose this proclivity in real-time. Per Pat Buchanan, the aim of Donald Trump shouldn’t be to win this debate. Even if he ran rings around Hillary, and bowled over both the TV audience and those watching the candidates in person, the media-driven narrative wouldn’t reflect the outcome. Trump should simply do what he does best, i.e. use his opponent’s greatness weakness against her. Exploit her vulnerabilities and ensure that his audience is aware, even if only on a subconscious level, of precisely what he is doing.

Whether or not he’ll accomplish this-or even attempt it-is something we’ll discover later tonight. Those of you who’d like to follow my reaction(s) to the debate as it’s happening can check out my Twitter account, from which I’ll be posting my thoughts intermittently-at least, until my cell phone battery dies.

Although overshadowed by your regularly scheduled terror attacks, as well as pre-debate effluvia, the media’s attempt to turn Donald Trump Jr.’s recent tweet into a cause célèbre for smug leftists is worth examining in detail.  While some right wing pundits pointed out the similarity between his Skittles metaphor and a feminist-inspired meme involving a different chewy candy, the actual root of this analogy is the precautionary principle, a deeply flawed approach to risk management. The idea being that the introduction of a new  product or process whose impact is unknown or disputed should be resisted.

The problem is that the United States-and the West in general-has  served as a treatment group for the effects of Islam for well over half a century. We already have an extensive body of data points which demonstrate that randomly dispersing skittles across the non-candy fruited plain is a terrible idea in practice. And even if you subscribe to the bizarre notion that experiencing a major terrorist attack every 4-6 months is an acceptable risk to ensure vibrant diversity, somehow forgetting that this is a deliberate, unnecessary risk introduced by our government, you’re making the assumption that this potential danger will remain static in perpetuity.

The people who want to flood our communities with Skittles fail to appreciate the fact that these risks will only increase the more this country is filled with Skittles-and there is never the hint of a suggestion that we decrease either the quantity or the percentage of increase in the future. I’m sure the French once believed that welcoming emigres from their former colonies in Africa was a swell idea. Several decades later, more than half the prison population of that country is comprised of Muslims and their jails have become small scale replicas of ISIS training camps. The same holds true for the UK, as well as every other Western European nation with a significant Muslim population.

If you want to get a picture of how this translates to the United States, take a look at Oregon, where there are now over 70 active terrorism investigations according to the FBI. There are over a thousand probes into individuals with possible links to the Islamic State, a single global terror network. Is it any wonder that jihadists are winning the intelligence war when we’ve armed them with the most precious weapon of all, i.e. access to our shores and our people?

Yet we have to endure the censorious lectures of bloated UN leeches who believe that the problem isn’t the gross ingratitude of the West’s guests, but the handful of public figures willing to point out this unpleasant reality. The problem we’re facing is not a handful of cyanide-laced skittles. It’s a civilization having skittles, which they were never allowed to refuse, forced down its throat year after year. Forget about theoretical poisons. What if we simply don’t like skittles? What if we find skittles sickening, and get nauseous when we eat them? What if eating an endless supply of skittles ruins your dental health?

Shouldn’t we be allowed to decline junk food?

Yesterday’s press conference was remarkable for a number of reasons, not least because it revealed the naked contempt this nation’s media has for the men and women who’ve served in the Armed Forces. A sneering condescension that they can’t mask, even as they bang the drums for more interventions in the quagmire of the Mid-East, i.e. more chaos, more refugees deluging Europe and North America, and more power for jihadists of every stripe and sect. You can just imagine the sulfuric rage these reporters had to suppress as they were forced to listen to a group of reactionary knuckle-draggers who had done nothing for their country, quite unlike the roster of exemplary Americans Hillary has assembled.

As if watching these troglodytes, who obviously don’t live in the current year, prattle on about their support of Donald Trump weren’t bad enough, our esteemed press corps had to endure the humiliation of seeing their beloved narrative vanish into thin air. The utter gall of a candidate willing to reveal how a cudgel used to impute racism to the Republican Party actually originated within the Hillary Clinton campaign! The next thing you know he’ll be implying that Sidney Blumenthal, Hillary’s very own Rasputin, was going around telling journalists that Barack Obama, the future President, was born in Kenya. Or that the Clinton machine tried to smear him in order to win the 2008 Democratic primary. Or perhaps that the Clintons view the President with disdain? Can you believe the gall of this scoundrel?!

The biggest insight to be gleaned from yesterday’s media event, however, is the discovery of how self-deluded the media remain about their own ignorance. These are individuals and entities which believe themselves to be the height of enlightened, progressive, cosmopolitan thought. In fact, many pursued their vocation expressly because it gave them the opportunity to hector those benighted cretins living in flyover states who believe in antiquated concepts like borders. Yet here they were being humbled by a vulgarian who was gauche enough to become an entrepreneur rather than pursue a respectable career like news editor of Buzzfeed or professional Hispanic activist masquerading as journalist. Even as they publicly conceded being duped by Donald Trump, acting like petulant little children who had their favorite toy taken away, they cloaked this admission in an aura of insufferable condescension, the one area in which they excel.

The reaction to the MSM’s Austerlitz on social media is equally revealing. I’m thinking specifically of this comment, which encapsulates the ethos of Twitter political commentary, i.e. an inapt pop culture reference about a  TV show which was cutting-edge 2 decades ago. No, Donald Trump is not Homer Simpson, and journalists are not Frank Grimes. He is the Roadrunner, while his hapless inquisitors are variants of Wile E. Coyote, i.e. characters who vastly overestimate their own intelligence. Yes, they hate him because his values, primarily his emphasis on American exceptionalism and distinctness-with its corresponding acceptance of national borders-are anathema to them. But that is not the reason why he drives them into rage spirals and the depths of despair-and compels them to publicly dissect their own psychological trauma in print and on television.

Trump derangement syndrome results from the fact that he not only knows how to play the game, but how to win it. On some subconscious level, the media recognize something that their acolytes refuse to even consider. Namely, that Trump-unlike any other Republican politician or conservative public figure in recent memory-understands what motivates the drive-by media and is using that knowledge to meticulously demolish them. Trump is the anti-Romney, and it drives the left, neo-Buckleyites and  the targets of his precision-guided missiles absolutely batty.

As for the rest of us, we’re delighted.

For those of you who needed confirmation that gleeful Nazi accomplice and evil billionaire George Soros is a real-life, Hungarian version of Emperor Palpatine, wait no more! According to a leaked memo from his Open Society Foundation, the man whose chief source of protein is human misery believes Europeans should accept the refugee crisis, i.e. effacement of their civilization, as the “new normal.” Congratulations, Germany, France, Sweden, and the rest of Western and central Europe, you have decades of taharrush, unexpected jihadist violence, and random crime to look forward to. Don’t forget the trillions of dollars lavished upon new Europeans who will never be able to reciprocate the favor for very obvious reasons.

Imploding welfare states? Endless civil strife which never existed prior to this grand social experiment? Increasing militarization of civil society and diminution of fundamental liberties? A wholesale reversal of the values cemented during the Age of the Enlightenment? Well, that’s just collateral damage in the war for vibrant diversity, isn’t it? Thank you, Francois Hollande. Thank you Pope Francis, Angela Merkel, and Tony Blair. I’m sure future generations of Europeans will realize what a small price to pay these sacrifices were for a world where the Crypt Keeper can ball out for a wedding ceremony to his 40 year-old gold digger, i.e. wife.

The Benghazi Report has finally been published, you can read it in its entirety here, which means we’ve been treated to some predictable political reactions, including this illuminating headline from the New York Times. Leaving aside the predictable spin from Hillary boosters in the fourth estate, one of my main problems with the national debate over Benghazi is its tunnel vision, especially as it relates to the former First Lady’s shortcomings as a political leader and decision-maker.

The intentionally deceptive narrative crafted by this administration in the aftermath of the Benghazi assault is simply one of many outrages to stem from this unprecedented attack upon one of our country’s diplomatic outposts. Leaving aside the despicable treatment of the survivors by then Secretary of State Clinton, the private and public treatment of this disaster by the Obama administration demonstrates their policy preferences clearly. Namely, to exculpate Islam from blame for any and all atrocities it’s responsible for, even if the link between the two is undeniable to any rational observer.

Beyond the Orwellian whitewashing of the world’s most violent ideology, the baleful consequences of the invasion which preceded the 2012 sack of America’s Libyan compound continue to be downplayed by its unintended authors. Both by this administration and its supporters, as well as neoconservative intellectuals and politicians who would have us believe that a foreign policy disaster was a brilliant geopolitical move. The fact that a global Sunni jihadist network was given yet another base of operations from which to operate, however attenuated, seems to have made no impression upon the people who charted this catastrophic path. The fact that the invasion of Libya led directly to ISIS atrocities within the heart of Europe, as well as permanently altering the very nature of European civilization, seems to have had no discernible impact on the very people who are responsible for these horrific outcomes.

To the contrary, Hillary Clinton has made the importation of tens of thousands of Muslim refugees from the Middle East-the same sort of refugees responsible for the rape pandemic enveloping Europe-a cornerstone of her campaign. Even as she seeks to displace blame for the fiascos in Syria and Libya onto her former boss, she continues to fully embrace the idiotic policies which have wrought havoc across the Middle East and threaten to devour the continent of Europe-to say nothing of the threat posed to American citizens. The grand policy of invade the world, invite the world will be continued under another Clinton administration, which threatens to make the horrific events currently unfolding around us pale by comparison.

The victims of the Benghazi stretch beyond Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone S. Woods and Glen Doherty-and even their bereaved families-all the way across the globe. Anointing Hillary Clinton as the next Commander-in-Chief will not only be an insult to the memories of those victims, it will be an invitation for more chaos, bloodshed, and disasters which we cannot even envision at this point in time. Pandora’s box cannot be closed, but that doesn’t mean we should go searching for new demons and inviting them into our homes.

While I’ve had to delay this post for obvious reasons, here are some of my thoughts on Donald Trump’s national security speech delivered in New Hampshire this past week. Although I’ve criticized Donald Trump’s deficiencies, re: prepared speeches, in the past, even while acknowledging the rhetorical brilliance of his extemporaneous remarks and verbal ripostes, I don’t think you can describe Monday’s speech as anything other than superb. He not only articulated the defining issues in this election brilliantly, he also boldly clarified the differences between himself and Hillary Clinton going forward.

The fact that the intellectually and financially bankrupt media spent most of the following day mendaciously parsing a single sentence merely illustrates how solipsistic they are and how little they have learned over the course of this campaign. They will continue to dissimulate because Trump, unlike past Republican nominees, is someone whom they truly fear. That said, there are a few liberal journalists who were able to briefly step out of their bubble to concede the effectiveness of this speech.

The foreign policy portion is praiseworthy, particularly the candidate’s refusal to make any concessions, rhetorical or otherwise, to the broadly unpopular interventionist wing of the Republican Party. The hysteria and moral preening from those responsible for the global catastrophes which have engulfed the Middle East-and which threaten to efface Europe as we know it-is a function of their loss of power within the GOP. It’s hard to underestimate the potential harm these individuals would have posed, had they determined the eventual Republican nominee.

Donald Trump summed up why the Libya intervention was a complete and utter disaster-which continues to inflict untold misery upon millions-and rightfully laid the blame at the feet of Hillary Clinton. His denunciation of nation-building was worthy of applause from patriotic conservatives. It’s a principle that George W. Bush strongly embraced in a pre-9/11 context and one which the Republican Party needs to make a mainstay of its foreign policy in the future. The fact that former Bush administration officials and gurus from one of the most disastrous epochs in American history continue to enthusiastically endorse Trump’s opponent illustrates the stark differences between these two candidates.

Perhaps most importantly, his speech exposed the emptiness of the Democratic Party’s commitments to the welfare of American minorities, particularly those targeted in Orlando by a determined jihadist. In the hierarchy of grievances, the right of women and homosexuals to not be assaulted, raped, or even murdered in their own countries is superseded by the feelings of Muslims. Judging by the reactions of some in the LGBT community, this ineluctable truth is lost on many of those whose lives are most imperiled by the Democratic Party’s embrace of open borders Islamophilia. The fact that a purported gay rights leader-whose family was interned in a concentration camp by a Democratic President-believes that the solution to this problem is disarming gays and lesbians illustrates the cognitive dissonance at work. A popular front does not work when one part of the coalition is trying to exterminate another, something supporters of the Second Spanish Republic learned during the 1930s.

For an insightful analysis of Donald Trump’s Manchester speech, I would recommend reading Ann Coulter’s latest column, which cuts through the veil of media hatred to accurately sum up what this November’s election is truly about.