I remember back in the early Trump days, I would cruise by the Politics section of my local bookstore to see which celebrity leftist pundit they were promoting this week.

One day, I noticed a small subsection within Politics called the Alt-Right.

The alt-right was like the early punk movement. If you were actually there, it was crazy fun. If you weren’t, everything you heard about it was negative.

I was amazed that a bookstore in my blue city would admit that the “alt-right” existed. But then I saw that all these books were about the evils of the alt-right.

Without exception, these books described a dark and dangerous world of neo-Nazis, white supremacists, fascists, racists, homophobes, and misogynists … most of whom apparently lived in caves in the darkest reaches of Idaho.

The authors of these books often struck a self-congratulatory tone. How brave they were to explore these nefarious netherworlds!

Eggheads unlimited

The truth was that all of these books were incredibly dry and boring. Most were published by university presses and featured dubious statistics, out-of-context quotes, and obvious misrepresentations.

The writers were brain-dead academics. They had no understanding of trends, or vibes, or zeitgeists. They barely knew what a meme was.

And of course, they lacked any sense of humor at all. This made it impossible for them to understand the sarcasm and irony of the quick-witted young bloggers and commentators they were supposedly writing about.

An untold story

I remember wondering if anyone would ever write an honest account of the alt-right. Probably not. It’s fairly common that most vanguard youth cultures are dismissed or misinterpreted.

The alt-right was like the early punk movement. If you were actually there, it was crazy fun. If you weren’t, everything you heard about it was negative.

So you can imagine my surprise when I heard about Scott Greer’s latest book, “Whitepill: The Online Right and the Making of Trump’s America.”

Though the official title was relatively innocuous, the word on the street was this is it, this is the first serious history of the alt-right, by a writer who understood it, participated in it, and was very nearly destroyed by its fallout.

Needless to say, I was eager to read it.

How far we’ve come

Greer named his book “Whitepill” because it describes the many advances conservatives have made during the Trump era and celebrates their many victories.

For those of us over 50: To be “white-pilled” about something means to be excited or happy about it.

In the first sections of the book, Greer reminds us of the state of conservatism during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations.

It was “cuckservatism” basically, to borrow an alt-right-ism. The Republicans were so eager to please and so afraid of offending that they came up with catchphrases like “compassionate conservatism” to market themselves.

They promoted same-sex marriage, amnesty for illegal immigrants, affirmative action, and a host of other leftist projects.

We think of our current Republicans as being hypocritical, if not traitorous, for not protecting Americans from voter fraud, violent crime, and open borders.

But they were even worse 20 years ago! Greer gives a good, succinct accounting of this.

A new defiant energy

In response to the extreme wimpiness of 2000s establishment Republicans, a new defiant energy began to appear among young conservatives.

Greer describes an obscure 2008 article by historian Paul Gottfried, who predicted the end of that era’s gutless conservatism:

Beneath that crumbling establishment, [Gottfried] saw the stirrings of a “younger, less inhibited” generation of rightists willing to defy taboos and confront head-on what he described as an “intolerable political situation.” He called this nascent rebellion the Alternative Right.

Most people who read “Whitepill” will have a rough idea of what Gottfried’s alternative right became, but Greer simplifies it for the normies: “[The alt-right] was an online phenomenon, an ideological and aesthetic counter-culture that broke hard from the philosophical premises underpinning the modern [liberal] ‘idea’ of America.”

And more specifically:

Many young white men in particular came to feel alienated by a new liberalism that pathologized their “whiteness” and demanded that they “check their privilege.” The Alt-Right explained to them in explicit terms why and how they could reject this new social paradigm.”

RELATED: The cure for liking socialism? Visiting a socialist country

L-R: The author in East Berlin, 1984. Blake Nelson; Cuba, 2007. Matt Cardy/Getty Images

Youth must be served

From there, Greer takes us through the initial flourishing of alt-right culture. The kids were going to have their say!

But he also points out its obvious limitations, mainly that it was completely online and mostly anonymous. Its growth was therefore random and chaotic. There was no accountability; there were no boundaries.

If it sometimes felt like a “movement” or even a “political party,” in reality, it was a free-floating, spontaneous, cultural phenomenon created in the cartoon world of the internet.

Still, an entire generation came to know its symbols, its humor, its language, its youthful goofiness. It was hopeful and fun, and it pointed toward a way out of the mess we were in.

The end of the beginning

Of course, we all know where the alt-right story ended: in Charlottesville, in the summer of 2017.

The Charlottesville “Unite the Right Rally” was doomed from the beginning. Though I had only just become aware of the alt-right myself, even I could sense the danger inherent in its real-world manifestation.

I remember one blogger I followed begging people to stay away. “IT’S A TRAP!” he kept saying. And he was right. And a lot of people got caught in it.

Life in the swamp

Greer occasionally inserts his own experiences as a writer, editor, and journalist into this narrative. And it’s good that he does. As he describes his early career in Washington, D.C., you get a sense of what a treacherous time it was to work in politics.

Imagine trying to hold down a real-world job as a young conservative in the midst of peak wokeness! At different points, Greer was doxxed, fired, and blacklisted. But he managed to soldier on.

Which is good news for the rest of us. Because he has written an exceptional book about a very important subject.

Perhaps the most notable thing about “Whitepill” is that despite Greer’s obvious right-wing bias, he actually succeeds in producing a balanced and objective account of what happened and why. He is — as best he can — attempting to tell the truth.

Imagine that. An honest person in politics. That is indeed a white pill.

​Review 

Rupert Lowe, the head of Restore Britain in the U.K. Parliament, released a damning report on June 16, detailing the staggering scale of the horrific crimes committed against generations of young white girls in Britain by predominantly Muslim Pakistani gangs.

The 219-page “Rape Gang Inquiry Report” — which was commissioned by Lowe and led by Sammy Woodhouse, a rape-gang survivor who over a decade ago helped expose the mass rape of girls in Rotherham, England — estimated that the number of white girls subjected to “repeated rape, gang rape, trafficking, torture, pregnancy, forced Islamic conversion, and lifelong trauma” since the 1950s is “at the very least, 250,000.”

‘You’re going to have a real problem.’

The report’s disturbing insights not only into the crimes but into the British establishment’s egregious response captured Joe Rogan’s attention last month. In an interview released Wednesday, the podcaster sat down with Lowe to discuss what Elon Musk has elsewhere dubbed “the rape of Britain,” as well as the correlated issues of mass migration, the failure of multiculturalism, western Islamicization, and the fall of civilizations.

After raising the alarm about the costly and seemingly interminable inundation of foreigners into the United Kingdom, Lowe — whose party advocates for mass deportations — highlighted Britain’s problem with migrant populations, particularly those originating from Islamic nations, that “are increasingly living in small groups of people who haven’t integrated, who are living under Sharia law, and who have their own courts.”

Rogan, unsettled by Lowe’s observation of parallel Islamic legal systems operating in the U.K. and allegedly tolerated by British authorities, said, “There’s certain cultures that if you allow them to come into your community and then they institute the laws of the country where they came from, you’re going to have a real problem.”

“They don’t live the way you live. They don’t have the same respect for women that you have. They don’t treat them the same way. They don’t allow dogs,” continued Rogan.

“The idea is supposed to be that Western society is inclusive and progressive because we’re intelligent and educated and we care — but you can care so much that you let in criminals, and then you give those criminals all your money, and then the criminals can take over your country, slowly but surely.”

RELATED: ‘Beyond evil’: Nightmarish report reveals full scale of mass Islamic rapes of ‘250,000’ white British girls

L-R: OLI SCARFF/AFP/Getty Images; Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images

Rogan suggested that people are wrong to be skeptical about the possibility and ramifications of such a takeover, referring back to the collapse of the empires of yesteryear.

“People look at the Colosseum, you look at ancient Greece, and they think, ‘Wow, I wonder what happened to those guys.’ What do you think happened?” said Rogan. “Probably the same s**t that’s happening right now to England, the same s**t that could have happened to America. It’s — civilizations fall apart for various reasons. And one great way to get them to fall apart is to bring in a bunch of people and they don’t have to follow your laws.”

Lowe bridged the topics of civilizational collapse and rapacious parallel societies to the rape gang inquiry, suggesting that he and others had to crowdfund the report because the “government will not have a statutory inquiry” — a special kind of state inquiry that can compel witnesses to give evidence or to supply documents — because the powers that be are sensitive to the “Muslim bloc vote.”

Lowe claimed that as the result of his efforts to force disclosures in Parliament relevant to the inquiry, it has become clear that “a lot of the data has not been properly collected” by the police, the National Health Service, social services, and other institutions with regard to the crimes and the particulars of their perpetrators.

The Restore Britain leader suggested further that while the powers that be know that members of imported populations are disproportionately prowling about and preying on native British girls, “they don’t want to admit that their multicultural experiment” has failed, “which as you probably know, famously Enoch Powell warned would fail with his … ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, for which he was heavily criticized.”

“They don’t want to be called racist,” added Lowe.

Rogan said, “We hope you guys turn it around.”

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​Joe rogan, Rupert lowe, Britain, United kingdom, Rape gang, Islam, Immigration, Culture, Anti-white, Restore britain, Politics 

A Honduran national with prior convictions for child sex abuse and illegal re-entry has been taken back into federal custody after he allegedly jumped from a moving train in an attempt to slip into the U.S. undetected, according to details provided to Blaze News by the Department of Homeland Security.

Border Patrol agents assigned to the Uvalde Station were conducting train-check operations Saturday when three men reportedly jumped from a railcar and ran. One didn’t get far.

‘Child sex offenders who repeatedly attempt to enter our country pose a serious threat, and we stand ready to answer that threat.’

The DHS identified the man as Cristobal Cortes-Cartagena, 39, and a records check on scene revealed a lengthy criminal history.

Cortes-Cartagena was convicted in California in 2010 of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 and served five years in prison before being removed from the country.

In 2017, he was convicted of illegal re-entry and sentenced to 18 months in federal prison. California prosecutors also convicted him separately of failing to register as a sex offender, adding another 14 months to his time served.

RELATED: Democrat Pramila Jayapal gets ANNOYED by a mom whose daughter was killed by an illegal alien

Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

He was deported a second time in 2021.

Cortes-Cartagena is now back in federal custody in connection with the Saturday incident. He faces a federal charge of illegal re-entry after deportation, a felony carrying a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

“Constant vigilance by our Border Patrol agents is paramount to keeping our communities safe,” said a statement from Del Rio Sector Chief Patrol Agent Anthony “Scott” Good. “Child sex offenders who repeatedly attempt to enter our country pose a serious threat, and we stand ready to answer that threat.”

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​Child sex crimes, Department of homeland security, President donald trump, Texas, Us border patrol, Politics 

BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock isn’t giving “Citizen Vigilante” high marks as a film — rather, he argues it largely fails by traditional cinematic standards.

But the point of the film wasn’t to tell a compelling story or showcase great acting.

“‘Citizen Vigilante’ is not a movie. It doesn’t care about story. It doesn’t care about plot. It doesn’t care about acting. It doesn’t care about script. It’s not a good movie,” Whitlock says.

“It’s a provocative political statement,” he adds.

Whitlock believes the political statement is anti-illegal-immigration, anti-multiculturalism, and anti-Islam, explaining that the film is “capturing the anger that many people in America and in Europe have” regarding these topics.

However, while Whitlock doesn’t care for the film as a film, he does believe it’s important that “movies get put out to make political points.”

“For this movie to be put out and for Elon Musk to be supporting it and for the conversation that is driven and for the subject that it touches on, it’s an indication in my mind of where they want the conversation to go and what they’re trying to stir in white people globally,” he says. “Enough is enough.”

And Whitlock himself is “anti-multiculturalism” like the film.

“All cultures are not created equal. And we are tolerating cultures that are satanic, chaotic, not law-abiding, degenerate. We’re tolerating and embracing these things under, like, ‘Hey, this is what we’re supposed to do. Diversity is good,’” he explains.

“I’m fed up with the melting-pot mentality that, when I was younger, that slogan sounded good. As I’ve now reached full maturity, I’m like, not everything needs to be in this pot. Some of this stuff in the pot will kill you,” he continues.

And while television and media are always trying to “tug at our tribalism” — usually from the point of view of the left — “Citizen Vigilante” does the same.

“That’s the point of ‘Citizen Vigilante,’” Whitlock says, “to bring out our tribalism, justify our tribalism.”

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Citizen vigilante, Diversity, Elon musk, Illegal immigration, Islam, Jason whitlock, Left, Melting pot, Multiculturalism, Tribalism, Jason whitlock harmony 

Xbox is in dire straits. Following a financial spiral with hardware sales down 33% and gaming revenue down 7%, the management team suffered a huge shake-up, with CEO Phil Spencer announcing his sudden retirement and protégé Sarah Bond leaving the company without an explanation. Now the new CEO, Asha Sharma, is left to trim the fat. For her first order of business, Xbox is preparing to offload several first-party studios, all of which lost money on DEI-infused games, policies, and partnerships.

It’s layoff season at Xbox

Shortly after Sharma took the reins, she candidly admitted in a memo that Xbox needs to “reset the business” following a string of surprises and failures. Some of these were well within Xbox’s control; it reportedly spent more than $80 billion to acquire major publishers like Activision Blizzard and ZeniMax Media (parent company of Bethesda). Other challenges were unexpected, such as the AI-driven RAM shortage. Together, all of these led to a razor-thin 3% profit margin — far from a healthy business for a Microsoft brand.

Despite Xbox’s best efforts to spare its business and reputation, it still has a tough road ahead.

It was clear from the start that mass layoffs would be part of the formula to patch the sinking ship. As to when the exodus will begin, that’s been a big question percolating on the internet for several weeks. According to prolific video game journalist Jason Schreier, the layoffs could take place any time after the fiscal year, which is June 30 for Microsoft. And who will go? Five studios are reportedly on the chopping block, many with strong ties to DEI games that failed to generate a large audience or sustainable revenue.

Survival is not compulsory

Before we get into the weeds, reports on the fates of these studios have changed a lot in recent weeks, but most agree that they will either be spun off into their own companies, sold off for a bit of financial recuperation, or shut down entirely to make room on the books. Looking at its recent game portfolios, it’s no wonder Xbox wants to offload these as quickly as possible.

One of the first studios on the chopping block is Compulsion. Compulsion released “South of Midnight” in spring 2025. The game follows a female lead character named Hazel through black “Deep South” folktales depicting dark magic. Aside from unverified claims that Hazel was race-swapped due to DEI before the game was released, a comment made by one of the studio’s community managers particularly angered players. According to the gaming subreddit, the unnamed person said white gamers were a mistake following questions from players over the race-swap rumor.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Compulsion also accepted consultation from the leftist woke gaming group Sweet Baby Inc., whose negative influence on video game culture is now widely known. Sweet Baby Inc. earned its ire honestly while torpedoing gaming brands into oblivion. Its employees have repeatedly shared their disgust for white male players — a demographic that makes up more than half of the gaming community in the United States — with comments such as:

“Pay me to shoot down your white male lead game ideas”;“I usually get grossed out when straight white rich people kiss”;“Had a nightmare that I was a white male gamer”; and“Sometimes it is hard to work with white people” — when asked why Sweet Baby Inc. doesn’t hire white people.

“South of Midnight” was doomed from there, suffering from low player counts and dismal sales that made Compulsion an easy target for elimination. As for Sweet Baby Inc., it’s used to failed projects, with a growing list of woke games that all flopped in recent years, including “Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League,” “Unknown 9: Awakening,” “Contraband,” and “Gotham Knights.” It was also involved in “God of War Ragnarok” and “Marvel’s Spider-Man 2,” but these franchises proved to be too big to sink, despite the presence of LGBTQ+ characters, Pride flags, and other progressive ideologies.

RELATED: ‘You are killing ownership’: PlayStation goes digital-only as disc-loving gamers rage

RICHARD A. BROOKS/AFP/Getty Images

Latest reports indicate that Compulsion will transition back to an independent studio owned and operated by a team outside of Xbox.

More casualties of the woke regime

Although Compulsion may be the wokest casualty on the list, the remaining studios on Xbox’s shortlist come with their own woke-ified baggage:

Double Fine Productions: Founder Tim Schafer used DEI as a guiding principle at his company, stating that inclusivity was “an ongoing education for everybody” as he tried to be more sensitive to modern issues, seemingly in a quest not to offend players by deploying the usual “grab bag of stereotypes.” Like Compulsion, Double Fine will go independent under Schafer’s leadership.Ninja Theory Ltd.: With ties to Sweet Baby Inc., both teams contrived to build a series of glorified walking simulators devoid of any meaningful action as their female lead, Senua, explored haunting psychotic episodes in “Hellblade.” The series had potential, but the original and sequel just weren’t engaging enough to captivate players. Xbox currently plans to sell Ninja Theory to the highest bidder with its newly unveiled title, “Senua,” as a carrot to lure in potential buyers.Arkane Studios: Most notably dropping the ball hard on its latest title from 2023, “Redfall” tried to school players on the evils of capitalism and rich elite vampire bloodsuckers while grandstanding progressive values. Throw in a laundry list of bugs and technical issues that disrupted the gameplay loop, and “Redfall” swiftly fell to its doom. As part of the ZeniMax acquisition, Arkane’s inevitable fate is still unknown at this time.Undead Labs: Known for its zombie-infested “State of Decay” franchise, “female, nonbinary, and other marginalized” staffers accused the studio of “rampant misogyny” and a toxic work culture. The studio course-corrected by hiring new diversity-driven employees. Despite the progressive diversity, equity, and inclusion mandate, Undead Labs only shipped two games since 2013, leading to its downfall. Meanwhile, its third installment of “State of Decay” may be canceled amid Xbox’s shifting strategy. Undead Labs will also be sold off with its upcoming “State of Decay 3” positioned as the key selling point.

Xbox is smart to cut ties with its woke deadweight of the past. Double Fine is the only developer that might be worth saving (the creativity and storytelling in the “Psychonauts” series is top-notch). The rest serve as proof of what happens when corporations go woke — they go broke almost every time, and the damage control at the other end isn’t worth the trouble.

Despite Xbox’s best efforts to spare its business and reputation, it still has a tough road ahead on the journey to stability. So far, Xbox has cut 3,200 jobs to stop the financial bleeding. The gaming giant is also entertaining several ideas to keep itself afloat, including running ads on its platform, letting players build their own custom Game Pass subscription packages, and spinning Xbox off into its own subsidiary. Little is set in stone, though, so anything could happen.

​Tech, Xbox, Dei 

After Donald Trump’s stunning victory in the 2024 election, Democrats had to stop and ask what went wrong. One conclusion from the commentary class was that progressives had a serious man problem, and for once they were right.

Democrats had made contempt for men, especially young white men, central to their message, and that came with a cost. Any white man who remained on the left had to accept that he was either uniquely guilty or expected to participate in his own dispossession. The party even launched a $20 million effort to discover why men were abandoning it, only to arrive at the familiar conclusion that men were simply bad and deserved what they got.

Young men who believe the system is organized against them — and who have substantial evidence for that belief — will organize to defend their interests.

This should have created a golden opportunity for the GOP to secure the loyalty of young men for a generation.

Instead, conservatives are setting that opportunity on fire.

Men’s natural role in society is to protect, provide, and lead. Even when women earn good incomes, the data consistently shows that they still prefer men who are at least as successful as they are. Women generally do not form families with men who cannot find stable work, buy homes, or attain the status markers that signal competence and security.

A society that blocks young men from those roles is choosing dysfunction and decay.

In a recent Fox News interview, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt blamed the rise of democratic socialism on Gen Z. She said young people were “raised with silver spoons in their mouths,” called them lazy, and suggested sending them to Cuba or Iran.

Calling those remarks callous and tone-deaf would be generous.

Leavitt married a millionaire real estate developer more than 30 years her senior. It is unlikely that her “silver spoon” would be adjusted by deployment to a foreign combat zone. The entitlement only became more obvious when she defended the comments after deserved criticism.

The message to young people was unmistakable: Your concerns are not legitimate, and we despise you for expecting us to fix anything.

Of course, some young people are lazy and entitled. Every generation has its share. That does not mean most young men are or that the obstacles they face are imaginary.

Young men, especially young white men, have been systematically excluded from educational institutions, corporate hiring, and promotion. This is not mere resentment or speculation. It is the predictable result of decades of cultural indoctrination and civil-rights enforcement that trained institutions to prefer women, immigrants, and minorities whenever possible.

RELATED: America is squatting in its own ruins

Blaze Media Illustration

That has real consequences. Men who cannot secure education, employment, and status are less likely to marry or form families, no matter how often our culture repeats slogans about equality.

Housing has become another barrier. The average first-time home buyer is now approaching middle age. Young men cannot build wealth as their parents did or provide the stability women often want before marriage.

There are many reasons for this, including mass immigration and corporate speculation in residential real estate. But one factor is simply welfare for seniors. Many older Americans failed to save adequately for retirement and now depend on the inflated value of homes they bought decades ago.

President Trump has said explicitly that he does not want housing prices to fall for this reason. That is a deliberate choice to sacrifice young men’s development and family formation to protect older asset holders.

Young men have also watched their country import foreigners, legally and illegally, to replace them. Immigrants receive special access to education loans, business programs, and hiring preferences unavailable to natives. Mass immigration drives up housing, insurance, medical, and education costs while transforming neighborhoods beyond recognition.

In Minneapolis, the mayor now manages Somali clan politics like a colonial regent simply to maintain control.

The question is not why young white men are radicalized. The question is why it took so long.

On July 4, during America’s 250th anniversary celebration, Patriot Front marched in Washington, D.C. The group consists largely of young white men in quasi-military uniforms carrying American flags.

A comical number of conservatives rushed online to call them federal agents after Reuters published a photo of one black woman sitting in a subway car full of Patriot Front members. It later appeared that the supposed new Rosa Parks was a homeless drug user with a record of indecent exposure.

She was certainly safer than Iryna Zarutska, who was stabbed in the neck by a mentally ill black man while riding public transportation alone. The Patriot Front members may even have prevented another indecent-exposure incident simply by being present.

RELATED: Iryna Zarutska’s name should shame the woke

Peter Zay/Anadolu/Getty Images

Young white men remain the easiest group in America to attack publicly. The left has demonized them for existing, which should give the GOP an obvious opening.

Instead, conservatives once again take their social cues from progressives. Many still crave left-wing approval and believe belittling young white men proves they are neither sexist nor racist.

I do not think Patriot Front’s tactics are wise, and I have said so repeatedly. Nor is skepticism about the group irrational, given the relationship between the Southern Poverty Law Center, federal law enforcement, and manufactured panic over “white supremacy.”

But dismissing everything as a federal operation is easier than offering serious solutions. Telling ourselves that no legitimate grievances exist and that all unrest is manufactured is foolish and weak. If Patriot Front scares you, good. It should.

Young men who believe the system is organized against them — and who have substantial evidence for that belief — will organize to defend their interests. The answer is not to insult them, mock them, or pretend they are imagining their dispossession.

The answer is to address the problems driving them toward radical groups.

Young men are not asking conservatives to excuse every bad decision or endorse every organization that claims to speak for them. They are asking for a political movement that recognizes their interests, defends their future, and gives them a reason to build.

Conservatives should stop hating the young men they need to inherit the country.

​Conservatives, Democratic socialism, Democrats, Economy, Iryna zarutska, Karoline leavitt, Opinion & analysis, Patriot front, Progressives, Psyop, Radicalization, Republicans, Southern poverty law center, White men, White supremacy 

A Florida man’s drunken behavior that led to a brawl with a Vietnam veteran has led to felony charges and his possible dismissal as a sergeant, according to the Volusia Sheriff’s Office.

Jason Stickels, 44, was arrested by the New Smyrna Beach Police Department on Monday after officers responded to a report of a brawl at Merk’s Bar & Grill at about 4:20 p.m.

‘How to throw away your law enforcement career in 2 minutes. Off duty, stumbling drunk, harassing people who are just trying to enjoy their afternoon.’

Police said Stickels “instigated and created unwanted contact” with an elderly couple, which appeared to be corroborated by video.

“According to witnesses and video footage of the incident, Stickels first battered a 71-year-old woman seated at a table, then battered her 77-year-old husband when he intervened,” the statement reads.

The video appears to show the woman’s husband pushing Stickels after the sergeant tries to kiss the woman. Stickels then pushes the husband, and a waitress tries to break up the altercation. At that point, another bar patron puts Stickels in a chokehold and takes him to the ground.

No injuries were reported from the incident.

Police said Stickels was charged with two counts of felony battery on a person 65 years of age or older.

“He was immediately placed on administrative leave and surrendered his law enforcement equipment pending final discipline up to and including termination,” the statement reads.

Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood was far more scathing in his response to the arrest.

“How to throw away your law enforcement career in 2 minutes. Off duty, stumbling drunk, harassing people who are just trying to enjoy their afternoon. To the couple involved, please let me buy your next lunch at Merk’s,” the sheriff wrote on social media.

RELATED: 2nd grade school teacher arrested for teaching while allegedly being ‘extremely intoxicated’ in California

“I would also like to invite the good citizen who stepped in,” Chitwood added.

He included video surveillance of the altercation. Chitwood told WKMG-TV that Stickels entered a rehabilitation program and confirmed that the victim involved was a Vietnam veteran.

The Sheriff’s office said Stickels had been employed there since 2004.

Online jail records show that Stickels was given a bond of $5,000 for each count.

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​Felony charges, Fight, Florida man, Intoxicated, Off duty, Vietnam veteran, Crime 

I have spent much of my career around self-described communists, democratic socialists, admirers of Bernie Sanders, and professors who think Lenin and Stalin were not sufficiently progressive.

After so many faculty meetings, one begins to recognize that there are really only shades of red.

The American experiment never depended on producing perfect citizens. It depended on understanding that no political system could substitute for moral renewal.

Now, as younger voters embrace self-proclaimed socialists in places like New York, Americans naturally wonder what such movements would mean if they gained real political power. Mayor Mamdani has suggested that no problem is too large or too small for government intervention.

So let us conduct a thought experiment.

Suppose Karl Marx was right.

Suppose the wealthiest families accumulated their fortunes only through exploitation, political favoritism, monopoly, corruption, or violence. Suppose the rich become rich only by taking advantage of everyone else.

Even if we grant Marx that premise, where does it lead?

I know what you are thinking. Professor Anderson, have you lost your mind? Has much learning driven you mad?

Stay with me. I am asking the question socialists cannot answer.

When politicians promise that government will solve every problem, regulate every industry, subsidize every need, and redistribute every inequality, they demand extraordinary trust in political power.

Listen carefully to their rhetoric. No problem is supposedly too large or too small to be solved by expanding government authority into every corner of life.

But why should that follow?

Why would anyone embrace a philosophy that treats people as corrupt when they gather in families, businesses, churches, or private institutions, but assumes those same people become altruistic lovers of mankind when they enter government?

RELATED: Jefferson’s line of revolutionary fire still burns

John van Hasselt/Sygma/Getty Images

If concentrated wealth corrupts those who possess it, why would concentrating even more wealth and power in the state eliminate corruption?

The irony is as dense as a room full of critical-theory PhDs.

The democratic socialist says: Give me vast power so that you can be free.

You cannot have it both ways.

History supplies a remarkably consistent answer.

The French Revolution condemned aristocratic privilege. The Russian Revolution condemned the bourgeoisie and the czar. Communist revolutions throughout Asia and Latin America began by identifying corruption among wealthy or politically connected elites.

Some of those criticisms contained elements of truth.

Wealth has often been accumulated through injustice. Powerful families have oppressed the weak. Cronyism, favoritism, and corruption recur in every fallen society.

But the proposed socialist solution creates an even greater danger.

The revolutionary insists that the wealthy possess too much power. He therefore proposes creating an institution with vastly more power.

The wealthy may possess billions of dollars. The state can confiscate trillions.

The wealthy may own companies. The state claims authority over entire industries.

The wealthy may influence markets. The state commands armies, police forces, intelligence agencies, prosecutors, regulators, prisons, and courts.

If fallen human beings abuse power, why would giving some of them virtually unlimited political power solve the problem?

It never has.

Communist governments repeatedly follow the same pattern. They begin with promises of justice, equality, affordable housing, free education, medical care, and security for the poor.

They end with repression, stagnation, censorship, secret police, totalitarianism, and ruling classes whose privileges exceed those of the elites they replaced.

They also tend to end with rivers of blood.

Even if Marx correctly recognized that human beings exploit one another, he made one catastrophic mistake: He assumed that this tendency disappears when those same human beings become government officials.

Governments are not composed of angels. They are composed of people. And people do not become virtuous because they receive a government paycheck.

The contrast would be funny if the consequences were not so severe. Those who claim to distrust evil billionaires place extraordinary trust in politicians who possess powers no billionaire could dream of exercising.

If corruption follows power, why assume government is immune?

I have seen the same contradiction among the radical left-wing faculty that dominate our state universities. They condemn oppression, nepotism, cronyism, and abuses of authority.

Then they acquire power.

They promote their friends, punish dissenters, and censor everything to the right of Mao.

America’s founders confronted this problem directly. They understood that power corrupts because they understood something deeper: Human nature is fallen.

James Madison famously observed that if men were angels, no government would be necessary. Because men are not angels, government itself must be restrained.

The Constitution reflects that insight through divided powers, federalism, checks and balances, and limits on government authority.

The goal was not to create perfect rulers.

It was to prevent any ruler from accumulating too much power.

Yet the founders recognized something else modern politics forgets.

Political institutions cannot cure the human heart.

John Adams warned that the Constitution was made only for “a moral and religious people” and was wholly inadequate for any other.

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His point was not that Christians are incapable of sin. Free government depends upon citizens capable of self-government. When individuals cannot govern themselves morally, the state expands to govern them externally.

That is the lesson America risks forgetting as we celebrate 250 years of independence.

Our greatest danger is not simply expanding government or growing inequality. It is believing political power can redeem fallen humanity.

It cannot. Marx’s solution is doomed to repeated and bloody failure.

Whether oppression comes from wealthy corporations or an all-powerful bureaucracy, the underlying problem remains the same. Human beings misuse power because human hearts are corrupted by sin.

Democratic socialists now promise young voters the end of the wealthy and an endless supply of free goods. At the same time, they exploit constitutional forms to entrench their power, excuse election abuses, and stretch the 14th Amendment far beyond its authors’ intent.

The American experiment never depended on producing perfect citizens. It depended on understanding that no political system could substitute for moral renewal.

But if Americans abandon what is good and holy in sufficient numbers, checks and balances alone will not save us from socialist exploitation.

Christianity offers an answer that reaches beneath economics and politics to the human heart.

Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3 that he must be born again.

The gospel does not merely redistribute wealth. It transforms rich and poor alike. It teaches generosity instead of greed, service instead of domination, and humility instead of pride — out of love for God, not fear of government.

Without that transformation, every revolution produces a new ruling class.

Perhaps America’s greatest achievement after 250 years has not been discovering the perfect political system. It has been recognizing that no political system can save us. Christ can.

Only redeemed people can preserve a free republic. And redeemed people are not created by the state. They are created by the saving work of Jesus Christ.

​Bernie sanders, Communism, Constitution, Democratic socialists, Freedom, James madison, Jesus christ, Karl marx, Opinion & analysis, Totalitarianism, Zohran mamdani