Forms of government are not laboratory specimens. You cannot line them up like competing scientific theories, test them under controlled conditions, and then apply the “correct” model to every nation on earth.

The United States learned that lesson the hard way in places like Afghanistan. The George W. Bush vision of exporting liberal democracy across the world was delusional because cultures differ and human beings are not blank slates. People must be governed in ways that align with their nature and customs.

If conservatives wish to make the United States a republic again, they must begin by admitting what America has become.

Government forms have limits. They are not universal ideologies that can fit any situation, and when nations ignore those limits, they fail. America keeps expanding beyond what a republic can bear and refuses to admit it, with predictable consequences.

In its classical form, a republic rests on a set of virtuous citizens capable of self-government through shared beliefs, values, and customs. Citizenship is limited and precious. It conveys as many responsibilities as rights. Citizens do not gain the vote simply because they reside inside a border. They earn it through constant engagement with the body politic. They are soldiers, business owners, family men, and stalwart church members. They have shown both a willingness to sacrifice for society and the capacity to contribute meaningfully to it.

The phrase “self-governing” can mislead because it suggests isolated, autonomous individuals. That is not what classical thinkers meant. A republic needs the lightest touch of any governmental form because the community reinforces itself. Citizens hold each other to account.

From Aristotle to Machiavelli to the American founders, the assumption was the same: A republic requires a virtuous people bound by thick ties of identity and shared moral expectations. Formal authority exists, but most of the real enforcement happens through custom and communal pressure, with the civil magistrate stepping in only when necessary. A republic works only when its people possess enough virtue and cohesion to govern themselves.

That is why republics are rare. They have a strict limitation: scale.

Most successful republics in history have been compact city-states with contained populations capable of maintaining identity and virtue. Once a republic expands, it must incorporate people who do not share its customs or worldview. In “The Prince,” Machiavelli warns rulers who wish to expand that they should only conquer nations sharing similar religion, language, and heritage. That common ground allows the conquered population to assimilate.

Ruling peoples with radically different cultures is far more difficult because the subjects cannot easily accept the rule of a leader whose assumptions differ so dramatically from their own.

A country that does not share culture, religion, tradition, or heritage cannot function as a republic because the people lack the common ground necessary for self-rule. The gaps are too wide to be bridged by normal political debate. A stronger form of authority becomes necessary to bind disparate groups together.

This is why kingdoms and empires are far more common throughout history. Most populations do not possess the cohesion or virtue required for republican government and must instead be ruled by a king. Empires are simply multicultural kingdoms, held together by an emperor who forces cooperation among groups that otherwise could not form a single polity.

Even classical empires understood the need to respect the character of their diverse subjects. Wise rulers did not attempt to make every people act the same. They allowed local custom to continue as long as taxes were paid and troops supplied. Local leaders were often retained. Sometimes a local king stayed on his throne but only if he showed deference to the emperor. The multicultural empire required a much stronger hand, though wise emperors used that power sparingly.

This historical reality explains much about the behavior of modern liberal democracies. Many citizens wonder why their leaders insist on importing large numbers of foreigners despite popular opposition. Cheap labor and imported voters are part of the answer, but in the end, it comes down to the pursuit of raw power.

RELATED: Do you want Caesar? Because this is how you get Caesar

Blaze Media Illustration

Large-scale immigration introduces deep cultural differences that destabilize the political order, and the only way to manage that instability is more centralized authority. A liberal democracy that becomes too diverse must govern in the manner of an empire. Its leaders must exercise the level of authority required to hold multiple nations together under one state.

The fact is, multicultural societies trend toward authoritarianism. They must. The differences are too great to manage through ordinary civic persuasion. This dynamic intensifies when the state attempts to integrate its various peoples rather than allowing them to exist separately. By transforming their democracies into multiethnic empires, Western leaders acquire imperial levels of power while maintaining the appearance of popular rule.

No republic can survive the level of diversity now celebrated as a civic virtue.

If conservatives wish to make the United States a republic again, they must begin by admitting what America has become. The country has been transformed into a multicultural empire and is governed accordingly. It grants immense power to its ruling elite in the hope that it can manage the instability produced by extreme diversity.

A republic cannot endure under these conditions. America must end immigration, scale back its foreign ambitions, and cultivate a shared, virtuous culture. Without these steps, talk of republican revival is performative. The structure of a republic cannot survive the substance of an empire.

If Americans will not reclaim the unity that makes self-government possible, then they will be ruled, not represented. Republics are earned. Empires are endured.

​Opinion & analysis, Republic, Empire, Multiculturalism, Self-government, Decline, Liberty, Freedom, Duty, The prince, Machiavelli, Monarchy, King, Cheap labors, Wisdom, Immigration, America, Elite, Ruling class 

A federal judge partially sided with a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union against warrantless detentions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the administration vowed to appeal it.

Federal Judge R. Brooke Jackson said in his ruling that the warrantless detentions violated the restriction that said individuals must be deemed a flight risk to be justifiable.

‘Allegations that DHS law enforcement engages in “racial profiling” are disgusting, reckless, and categorically FALSE. What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the US — NOT their skin color, race, or ethnicity.’

“Immigration officials are entrusted with enforcing immigration laws and are authorized to pursue an aggressive deportation agenda,” Jackson wrote in the ruling. “They may arrest and initiate removal proceedings against individuals they believe are present without lawful status. But in carrying out these responsibilities, they must follow the law.”

One of the four plaintiffs in the lawsuit is 19-year-old Caroline Dias Goncalves, a student at the University of Utah who was detained after a routine traffic stop in Mesa, Arizona, in June. The deputy released her with only a warning, but he passed on her information to ICE officials, who detained her a few miles down the road.

Jackson said ICE agents had improperly ignored the flight risk stipulation or improperly applied it.

“Plaintiffs are four individuals who had deep and longstanding ties to their communities, including parents, spouses, children, stable employment histories, and active participation in their local churches,” Jackson said. “No reasonable officer could have reasonably concluded that these plaintiffs were likely to flee before a warrant could be obtained.”

Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, released a statement vowing to challenge the ruling at the Supreme Court.

“This activist ruling is a brazen effort to hamstring the Trump administration from fulfilling the president’s mandate to deport the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens,” McLaughlin said.

“Allegations that DHS law enforcement engages in ‘racial profiling’ are disgusting, reckless, and categorically FALSE. What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the U.S. — NOT their skin color, race, or ethnicity,” she added. “There are no ‘indiscriminate’ stops being made. DHS conducts enforcement operations in line with the U.S. Constitution and all applicable federal laws without fear, favor, or prejudice.”

RELATED: Church worker pretended to be ICE agent to extort $500 from massage therapist, police say

Jackson further ordered the government to refund the costs incurred by the four defendants. The judge denied a request from the plaintiffs to obtain the training requirements at ICE, but added that if the government did not comply with the order, the plaintiffs could renew the request.

“The Supreme Court recently vindicated us on this question elsewhere, and we look forward to further vindication in this case as well,” McLaughlin concluded.

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Vice President JD Vance did something remarkable last week: He described Canada more honestly than most of its own political leaders.

In a short series of posts on X, Vance captured the two anxieties that now define Canadian life — mass immigration and a refusal to take responsibility for national decline.

The deeper problem is leadership that seems consistently more focused on the fortunes of global capital than the welfare of Canadians.

“While I’m sure the causes are complicated,” he wrote, “no nation has leaned more into ‘diversity is our strength, we don’t need a melting pot we have a salad bowl’ immigration insanity than Canada. It has the highest foreign-born share of the population in the entire G7 and its living standards have stagnated.”

Vance continued, “And with all due respect to my Canadian friends, whose politics focus obsessively on the United States: your stagnating living standards have nothing to do with Donald Trump or whatever bogeyman the CBC tells you to blame. The fault lies with your leadership, elected by you.”

Truth hurts

Those comments struck a nerve because they describe a reality that Canadians live with every day. Immigration levels have soared to historic highs. Canada’s population is closing in on 40 million, with roughly 23% foreign-born in the 2021 census — and likely much higher today, given the recent revelation that 42% of babies born in 2025 will have foreign-born mothers. For years, political and media elites insisted that this was a sign of national strength. Ordinary people can now see the strain everywhere: stagnant wages, collapsing services, unaffordable housing, and infrastructure buckling under the load.

Vance’s second point was equally accurate. Canadian politicians — especially Liberal ones — have long relied on Trump as a universal scapegoat. No matter the problem, the reflexive response has been to point south and blame “American extremism” for Canada’s failures. It was a convenient distraction from the consequences of their own policies.

Man with no plan

Prime Minister Mark Carney was a master of this blame-shifting. Before entering politics, he spent years burnishing his reputation as a global technocrat. Yet when he ran for prime minister, he adopted an almost paranoid tone toward the United States, claiming in one speech: “President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us. … We need a plan to deal with this new reality.” His “plan,” as it turned out, was simply to win power — and once in office, Carney abandoned the rhetoric even as he continued neglecting basic economic and security interests.

Nowhere has that neglect been clearer than in defense procurement. Ottawa is reportedly considering scrapping the F-35 fighter jet program in favor of Sweden’s Gripen — an aircraft incompatible with the F-35s flown by every branch of the U.S. military and central to NORAD’s interoperability. As U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra has warned repeatedly, such a move would be sheer folly, undermining both North American defense and Canada’s most vital alliance.

The deeper problem is leadership that seems consistently more focused on the fortunes of global capital than the welfare of Canadians. Brookfield Asset Management — the firm Carney chaired before deciding to seek the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada and replacing Justin Trudeau as prime minister — recently surfaced in headlines for its involvement in an $80 billion agreement with the Trump administration to produce nuclear reactors. That deal may be good business, but it has only reinforced public suspicion that Carney’s loyalties were formed long before he stepped into elected office.

RELATED: Is this the end of Canada?

Dave Chan/Getty Images

Soft authoritarianism

Meanwhile, Canada’s once-vaunted bureaucracy is looking increasingly ideological, unaccountable, and hostile to the people it purports to serve. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s ongoing occupation of a family farm — and its insistence on slaughtering hundreds of healthy ostriches despite nearly a year without symptoms of avian flu — has alarmed Canadians across the political spectrum. It is the kind of aggressive, unrestrained government action that would have been unthinkable a generation ago.

All of this is unfolding as the Liberal government pursues sweeping censorship and surveillance legislation, from online speech controls to broad new powers for federal regulators. The United Kingdom has already slid into a soft authoritarianism that polices “offensive” speech through arrests and intimidation. Canada appears determined to follow the same path.

This is what Vance was speaking to: a country drifting into economic stagnation, cultural fragmentation, bureaucratic overreach, and political corruption. A country that no longer seems capable of telling itself the truth about what is happening. A country that responds to national crises not with reform, but with scapegoats — whether Donald Trump, American conservatives, or anyone who challenges the official narrative.

Canada is not yet lost. But it is undeniably breaking, and the political class shows little interest in repairing it.

As Vance noted, the ultimate responsibility lies with Canadians themselves. They elected the leadership that brought the country to this point. Whether Canada recovers will depend on whether they are willing to demand something better.

​Mark carney, J.d. vance, Immigration, Justin trudeau, Donald trump, Lifestyle, Canada, Letter from canada 

The newly self-appointed prosecutor has dropped the case against President Donald Trump and others in Georgia over alleged election tampering charges.

Peter Skandalakis, the director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, stepped in after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was disqualified from the case. On Wednesday, he said the case would be dropped in order “to serve the interests of justice and promote judicial finality.”

‘The few remaining Democrat Witch Hunts will soon meet the same embarrassing end. We are going to keep winning.’

The lawsuit was roiled by the discovery of an improper romantic relationship between Willis and Nathan Wade, a top prosecutor in the case. Trump made a reference to the relationship in his post on Truth Social.

“LAW and JUSTICE have prevailed in the Great State of Georgia, as the corrupt Fani Willis Witch Hunt against me, and other Great American Patriots, has been DISMISSED in its entirety,” the president wrote. “This Illegal, Unconstitutional, and unAmerican Hoax was perpetrated against our Nation by Fani and her Low I.Q. Lover, Nathan Wade, at the direction of Crooked Joe Biden and his ‘Handlers.'”

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ordered the case “dismissed in its entirety” against Trump and the co-defendants.

“In my professional judgment, the citizens of Georgia are not served by pursuing this case in full for another five to ten years,” Skandalakis said.

The president went on accuse the former Biden administration of orchestrating the prosecution in Georgia.

“The Deranged Democrats did all they could to viciously attack me, my supporters, and our MAGA Movement, for telling the TRUTH — THE 2020 ELECTION WAS RIGGED AND STOLEN,” he added, “and they committed Crime after Crime as they weaponized our Law Enforcement and Justice System against HONEST AND LOVING Americans but, we have fought back and won both in the Courts and Politically with our Historic, Country saving, Landslide Victory of November 5, 2024.”

RELATED: Georgia judge drops 3 charges in Trump election interference case

“This case should never have been brought,” said Trump’s lead attorney, Steve Sadow, in a statement. “A fair and impartial prosecutor has put an end to this lawfare.”

“The few remaining Democrat Witch Hunts will soon meet the same embarrassing end. We are going to keep winning,” the president concluded in his post.

Skandalakis said the case would be “best pursued at the federal level.”

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​Georgia racketeering case, 2020 election fraud, Fani willis vs trump, Trump case dismissed, Politics 

Since the 1990s, after Somalia’s central government collapsed and civil war broke out, Somalis have been immigrating to the United States, especially to Minnesota, where the first organized refugee resettlement began. Today the state has the largest population of Somalis in the country by a wide margin.

Given that Somalis are by and large Muslim, many conservatives worry that their growing numbers are contributing to what they call the “Islamification” of the nation — the gradual cultural, political, and demographic takeover by Islamist influences. Somalia-born Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar (D) inflames these fears with what many have labeled a Somalia-first rhetoric and an openly Muslim agenda.

Just a few days ago, President Trump made waves by announcing that he is ending the Temporary Protected Status program that has allowed hundreds of Somalis to stay long-term in the United States, citing claims of “fraudulent money laundering” and “Somali gangs.”

Sara Gonzales, BlazeTV host of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered,” is thrilled and hopes Trump’s plan goes through.

She does, however, wish it would have happened sooner, as now 72% of Somalis who have immigrated to the United States have since become naturalized citizens.

“We need to completely reform the way that people are allowed to do that so quickly. … You have people like Ilhan Omar who are going through the process … who don’t appreciate anything this country has given them, even though they’ve risen to the level that they’ve risen to, who really don’t want to assimilate at all,” says Sara.

In a recent speech responding to President Trump’s announcement, Omar audaciously declared that Somalis are “the fabric of this nation” and insisted that they “aren’t going anywhere.”

“The audacity to say such a thing when you don’t plan on assimilating,” scoffs Sara. “The streets of Dearborn, Michigan, and certain parts of Minnesota basically look like Tehran. That is not the fabric of our nation.”

“I want you to understand how dangerous this is,” she says, playing a video clip of a Somali police officer from Minnesota saying in his native tongue that Somali officers work for their “own people” (fellow Somalis) and are different from “white officers.”

“How can you be both the fabric of our nation and also claiming we are so separate that only we who come from Somalia can represent you?” asks Sara.

“Both of those things cannot be true at once.”

Further, because these Somali officers have pledged allegiance to the Somali people, we have to ask ourselves, “What law will these police officers enforce?” Sara adds.

Then there is the recent exposé by BlazeTV host and investigative journalist Christopher Rufo that alleges billions in welfare fraud by members of Minnesota’s Somali community, with some stolen funds remitted to Somalia via hawala networks and ultimately supporting the Al-Qaeda-linked terror group Al-Shabaab.

“Somalians were setting up fraudulent autism treatment centers, and they were sending all of these bills, all of these charges, to Medicaid, and then they were reimbursed by taxpayers, and then they funneled that money overseas to terror groups,” says Sara, citing Rufo’s report.

Because these fraudsters are largely naturalized citizens, she says, eliminating TPS for a minority population of Somalis accomplishes “essentially nothing,” she snaps.

“What else are we going to do to get these people the hell out of our country?”

To hear more of Sara’s analysis and commentary, watch the episode above.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

To enjoy more of Sara’s no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Sara gonzales, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Blazetv, Blaze media, Ilhan omar, Somalia, Somalis, Somali immigration, Tps, Illegal immigration, Minnesota 

In response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, then-North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) stated, “This decision is a victory for the many North Dakotans who have fought so hard and for so long to protect the unborn in our state.”

The law ‘protects unborn children throughout gestation from abortion, except to prevent the death of the mother as well as other exceptions.’

While Burgum was ultimately right in claiming victory, his celebration was premature as it pertained to the Roughrider State. It was not, after all, until Friday when abortion was formally and finally banned in the state.

Quick background

The overturning of Roe triggered a 2007 law making it a Class C felony to perform an abortion in North Dakota, except to save the life of the mother or in the case of rape or incest.

Just prior to the law taking effect, the abortionists from the Red River Women’s Clinic who moved their abortion clinic from Fargo to Minnesota successfully sued to get an injunction.

Months after South Central Judicial District Court Judge Bruce Romanick blocked the law, the North Dakota Supreme Court ruled that the abortion ban would remain blocked while the legal battle over the law’s constitutionality proceeded.

Jon Jensen, chief justice on the court, noted that the abortionists had “demonstrated likely success on the merits that there is a fundamental right to an abortion in the limited instances of life-saving and health-preserving circumstances, and the statute is not narrowly tailored to satisfy strict scrutiny.”

Republican state Sen. Janne Myrdal, the former head of ND Choose Life, subsequently introduced a similar piece of legislation, which repealed and replaced the 2007 law. Myrdal’s Senate Bill 2150 passed the North Dakota House and Senate in landslide votes and was ultimately ratified by Burgum in April 2023.

Desperate as ever to keep abortion legal, the abortionists behind the initial challenge filed an amended complaint asking that the same judge who previously gave them an injunction would deem the ban unconstitutional under the North Dakota Constitution.

RELATED: ‘Abortion Is Everything’ book for kids calls killing unborn children ‘human superpower’

Photo by © Ralf-Finn Hestoft/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images

Romanick proved happy to oblige them, stating on Sept. 12, 2024, that the law was “void for vagueness” and that it was violative of the North Dakota Constitution, which supposedly recognizes a fundamental right to choose abortion before viability.

The state kept pressing the issue in court — North Dakota Attorney General Drew H. Wrigley (R) appealed Romanick’s decision — and prevailed.

Victory at last

The North Dakota Supreme Court reinstated the abortion ban on Friday. While three of the five justices deemed the ban “unconstitutionally vague,” the state constitution requires at least four justices to agree in order to find a law unconstitutional.

In his dissent, which was joined by Jensen, Justice Jerod Tufte said that the state district court erred both in concluding the law was unconstitutionally vague and in concluding that the state constitution protects a right to abortion broad enough to conflict with Senate Bill 2150.

Pro-abortion activists were apoplectic over the codification of the people’s will on the matter of abortion in North Dakota.

“This decision is a devastating loss for pregnant North Dakotans,” Meetra Mehdizadeh, senior attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement. “As a majority of the Court found, this cruel and confusing ban is incomprehensible to physicians.”

Tammi Kromenaker, executive director of the Red River Women’s Clinic, complained that “making it illegal just makes it harder” to get abortions.

Pro-live activists, alternatively, were overjoyed.

Ingrid Duran, the National Right to Life’s director of state legislation, welcomed the decision, noting that the law “protects unborn children throughout gestation from abortion, except to prevent the death of the mother as well as other exceptions.”

Myrdal, the Republican who introduced the legislation, reportedly said that she is “thrilled and grateful that two justices that are highly respected saw the truth of the matter, that this is fully constitutional for the mother and for the unborn child and thereafter for that sake.”

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​Abortion, Pro-life, Babies, Fertility, Life, Anti-abortion, North dakota, Senate bill 2150, Myrdal, Republican, Winning, Politics 

In 2023, a group of German climate change activists protested for their cause by gluing themselves to objects at the Hamburg and Dusseldorf airports and spray-painting pieces of art.

This week, a court found that the group was liable for €403,000 in damages to the Lufthansa Group, a landmark decision that could have far-reaching consequences for other protests.

‘The Last Generation isn’t protecting the climate; they’re engaged in criminal activity.’

The figure equates to over $467K in U.S. dollars. The group also has to pay €700,000 in related costs, meaning the total figure is over $1.28 million.

The protesters of the Last Generation group infiltrated the airport on July 13 and caused 57 flights to be canceled. Lufthansa sued for repayment of costs from payments to airline customers as well as additional kerosene consumption.

If the defendants fail to pay the damages, they will each face two years in prison.

Industry experts believe the order will influence other ongoing lawsuits against climate change protesters.

In 2022, Last Generation activists along with others orchestrated disruptive protests at facilities in the U.K., Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. German law enforcement authorities threatened to place Last Generation members in “protective custody” to prevent the disruptions.

The groups at the time were demanding higher taxes on people who fly more frequently as well as a ban on private jets.

RELATED: Climate protesters glue their hands to floor of car exhibit, get upset Volkswagen won’t bring them bowls to defecate and urinate into

In 2023, the group made headlines when a frustrated German woman grabbed a protester blocking traffic by the hair and dragged her out of the way. She was dubbed the “brutal blonde” by some in the media who applauded her efforts after video of the incident went viral online.

“The Last Generation isn’t protecting the climate; they’re engaged in criminal activity,” Transport Minister Volker Wissing said at the time.

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​Climate change protest, Environmentalists fined, Politics, Last generation protest, Lufthansa sues activists 

Ten years ago, I sat in the dark at the Public Theater in downtown New York City, surrounded by a murmuring crowd, waiting for the curtain to rise on a brand-new play called “Hamilton.”

At that point in time, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop musical had yet to become the behemoth it is now. Quite the opposite — there were no cast albums or Disney+ recordings, and aside from a few regional workshops years earlier and its word-of-mouth reputation as the “next big thing,” no one in the audience had any idea what we were in for.

A pansexual Latina Anne Frank with an Afro-Caribbean tiger mom and a chronically ‘neurospicy’ closet case for a dad? Now you’ve gone too far.

Expanding the form

The next few hours were filled with a strange, albeit thoroughly impressive, showing of lyrical prowess. Miranda had somehow managed to turn historian Ron Chernow’s 818-page Alexander Hamilton biography into a crowd-pleasing, pop-culture-infused depiction of the earliest days of a fledgling America.

More provocative was Miranda’s deliberate choice to cast primarily black and Latino actors to portray the founding fathers. While a few nitpickers balked at the spectacle of “people of color” portraying slave owners, most marveled at the audacious ingenuity of it: What could be more revolutionary than retelling the American story so that it reflects all Americans?

The crowd left the theater excited. There was no doubt that we had witnessed something groundbreaking. If Aaron Burr could be black and Alexander Hamilton Puerto Rican, what else was possible?

Decolonizing ‘Diary’

Eight years later, lyricist and composer Andrew Fox stumbled upon an answer. It came to him in the form of a (since-deleted) 2022 Twitter thread hotly debating a never-before-asked question: Did Anne Frank ever acknowledge her white privilege?

As is often the case, the online arguing devolved into acrimonious ad hominem and fruitless whataboutism. Fox realized that mere words would never get to heart of the matter. As with “Hamilton,” it would take the power of musical theater to win hearts and minds. And he would do Miranda’s non-white casting one better — reimagining Anne Frank herself as a person of color.

And so Fox and librettist Joel Sinensky set out to transform the “Diary of Anne Frank” into “Slam Frank,” an intersectional, multiethnic, gender-queer, decolonized, anti-capitalist, hyper-empowering Afro-Latin hip-hop musical.

Originally slated for three weeks at small off-Broadway venue the Asylum, “Slam Frank” has become a massive hit for the theater, which recently extended its run through the end of December.

Piercings and Patagonias

Want diversity? Look no farther than the viewers showing up in droves. At any given performance, you can find a septum piercing, a Patagonia vest, and a pair of bifocals all in the same row.

Yes, even liberals enjoy “Slam Frank,” despite the outrage it has provoked in some of their compatriots. “This whole project is head-spinningly grotesque and offensive,” went one post to the r/JewsOfConscience sub-Reddit. “Bringing up the holocaust and not mentioning the current genocide in Gaza just gives me the ick,” lamented another.

The irony of takes like these is thick, since one can imagine these same critics of “Slam Frank” being perfectly open to the idea of race- and gender-swapping other historical characters. But a pansexual Latina Anne Frank with an Afro-Caribbean tiger mom and a chronically “neurospicy” closet case for a dad? Now you’ve gone too far.

RELATED: ‘Anne Frank’ kindergarten is being renamed for the sake of diversity: ‘We wanted a name without a political background’

TIM SLOAN/AFP via Getty Images

A real production

The show’s earliest marketing attracted attention with a simpler question: “Is ‘Slam Frank’ a real musical?”

The answer is a decisive “yes.” “Slam Frank” is not a social media gimmick or an expertly crafted exercise in long-form rage- bait. Again: It is a full-length show, with a cast, that is being performed on regularly scheduled dates at the Asylum NYC.

I know because I’ve seen it. “Slam Frank” is not just a real production, but an entertaining one. It is smartly written, balancing humor with sincerity, featuring songs composed and performed with impressive musicianship. Think Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s “The Book of Mormon” or the award-winning puppet extravaganza “Avenue Q” — but with a final gesture of leftist piety that pushes the logic of your average keffiyeh-clad student protester at Columbia to uncomfortable extremes.

The shocking finale is played so straight that plenty will miss the satire, and even those in on the joke may notice how easily it could be mistaken for peak-wokeness agitprop. If there is a clear “message” here, the show’s creators aren’t about to clarify it. “Slam Frank” is happy to offend each viewer in whatever way he, she, or they wish to be offended. How’s that for inclusive?

​Slam frank, The diary of anne of frank, New york city, Off-broadway, The asylum nyc, Culture, Theater, Entertainment, Anti-semitism, Jewish, Hamilton, Review 

A shooting near the White House led to two National Guard troops being shot, according to early reports from the scene in Washington, D.C.

The Metropolitan Police Department said the scene was secured and a suspect was in custody.

‘[We] heard multiple shots fired as we passed Farragut West. A member of the National Guard fell while others rushed onto the scene.’

A White House correspondent for NTD News said she witnessed the shooting.

“National Guard shot near the White House at a little before 2:15,” Mari Otsu said on a social media post.

“I was in an Uber to work, with my cameraman, and heard multiple shots fired as we passed Farragut West. A member of the National Guard fell while others rushed onto the scene,” she added.

“Area still on lockdown and Secret Service being deployed,” Otsu wrote.

She added a video of the law enforcement response to the area.

President Donald Trump had ordered a surge of troops into D.C. in order to combat the violent crime rampant in the area. The order was met with legal challenges from critics who accused him of acting unlawfully.

Department of Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem confirmed the shooting on social media.

“Please join me in praying for the two National Guardsmen who were just shot moments ago in Washington D.C.,” she wrote on social media. “@DHSgov is working with local law enforcement to gather more information.”

RELATED: ‘Knock the hell out of them’: Trump federalizes DC police, readies National Guard to crack down on crime

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, admitted that the troop surge lessened crime in the district, but she was immediately assailed by other Democrats who were angry that she credited the president. She has since announced she is not seeking re-election.

This is a developing story, and more information will be added as it becomes available.

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​National guard troops, Guardsmen shot, Washington dc surge, Shooting near white house, Politics