Someone on Twitter said #NoKings is just grandstanding from people who lost, that Trump’s power grab doesn’t approach monarchy—but they’re historically illiterate. Most kings throughout history had less power than Trump claims: they couldn’t fire every official, ignore parliaments, or eliminate institutions that constrained them because financial dependency, nobles with armies, and customary law weren’t ideals but survival mechanisms. Trump claims authority to purge agencies, ignore Congress, override courts, and centralize all executive power personally through “unitary executive theory”—control most monarchs never possessed. The Founders fought a revolution against exactly this, built an entire constitutional system to prevent it, and traitors in America are dismantling it voluntarily while calling themselves patriots.
You Can’t Vote Democrat and be a Good Christian?
I’m a veteran, pro-Second Amendment Catholic who’s voted Republican most of my life. Christians have quoted Scripture to condemn my interracial marriage as “white genocide.” Now they quote the same verses at my gay son. When someone says “you can’t vote Democrat and be a good Christian,” I hear the same biblical arguments once used to defend slavery and ban interracial marriage. Arguments history proved catastrophically wrong. The data demolishes conservative culture war narratives. The history reveals abortion became a wedge issue through political strategy, not theology. And the Bible has far more to say about welcoming strangers than Republicans want to admit. Good Christians can vote Democrat. Let me show you why.
The Perfect Specimen
A couple days after publishing “The Price of Reform,” someone calling themselves “El Bearsidente” sent me 500 words of fury attempting to refute my documentation of dangerous rhetoric patterns. He accused me of ignoring the left, betraying conservatism, and being like Eichmann. Then he suggested I’m so unhinged I might “Charlie Kirk” my own family—proving my entire thesis about dehumanizing language in a single sentence. It was like watching someone angrily insist “I DON’T HAVE AN ANGER PROBLEM” while punching holes in drywall. Sometimes critics hand you exactly the evidence you need.
The Price of Reform
Two weeks before Charlie Kirk’s assassination, I documented the rhetoric that historically precedes mass violence. When the crisis hit on September 10th, I watched the pattern activate exactly as predicted, grief weaponized into apocalyptic framing, half the country painted as existential threats. I refused to give them a grief exception. Four days later, my publisher cancelled my five-book contract. This is the timeline, these are the receipts, this is what it costs to document dangerous patterns when your own tribe demands you look away—and why I’d do it again.
This We’ll Defend
I raised my right hand in January 1994 and swore to defend the Constitution with my life. That oath didn’t expire. Now I’m watching domestic enemies dismantle it while calling themselves patriots. Federal troops in American cities despite courts finding no justification. Judges called “corrupt” for doing their job. The three-phase authoritarian playbook: delegitimize Congress, delegitimize courts, elevate the executive. My son serves under that flag. The same flag these bastards wrap themselves in while tearing apart everything it represents. This isn’t political disagreement. This is constitutional demolition at speed.
Screaming into the Wind
I’m losing my publisher’s audience. Former allies are calling for my cancellation. Friends are abandoning me. Not because I attacked them—but because I pointed out alarming patterns of dehumanizing rhetoric within the conservative movement I’ve belonged to my entire adult life. When people use eliminationist language about my gay son, my immigrant family, I can’t stay quiet. Even when speaking up costs me everything. Even when it feels like I’m the only one in my circles willing to say it. This is about what happens when you refuse to be silent—and what it costs to be a witness when no one’s listening.
When Grief Becomes Justification for War
When tragedy strikes, we face a fundamental choice: do we use it to build bridges or burn them? Do we distinguish between extremists and ordinary people, or do we use extremists to justify viewing entire populations as enemies? I wasn’t being tone deaf when I called for de-escalation. I was watching the early stages of how democracies die—when grief becomes grievance, grievance becomes dehumanization, and dehumanization enables atrocities. When “gentle grandmothers” start contemplating violence, we’ve crossed a line that’s very difficult to uncross. The people celebrating Kirk’s death deserve condemnation and consequences. But using their moral bankruptcy to justify viewing half the country as enemies worthy of violence is exactly what the bad actors want—be they social media firebrands, algorithmic amplification, partisan operatives, or foreign agents provocateur. They profit from chaos, division, and conflict. They want us to see neighbors as threats, coworkers as enemies, fellow Americans as foreigners. Charlie Kirk deserved far better than assassination. He also deserves better than having his death used to justify the very divisions he spent his life fighting. The best way to honor his memory isn’t to embrace the logic of civil war, but to reject the forces trying to tear our democracy apart.
Tracking Two Decades of Ideological Violence in America
After Charlie Kirk’s assassination I heard growing rhetoric from the Right about dramatically escalating leftist violence and decided to dig into the data and see where things were trending. What I didn’t expect to find was the rhetoric wasn’t just wrong, it was catastrophically backwards. Compiling 20 years of ideological violence data from FBI reports, academic databases, and terrorism research centers revealed that right-wing extremism accounts for 68-78% of all fatalities—over 375 deaths—while left-wing violence represents barely 1.5-2%. Even generous sensitivity analyses couldn’t bridge this chasm. The gap is so large that no amount of methodological adjustment changes the fundamental conclusion: right-wing violence kills Americans at 20 times the rate of left-wing violence, minimum.
The Infrastructure of Atrocity
Genocide doesn’t start with gas chambers. It begins with dehumanizing rhetoric, legal discrimination, and deportation systems. Right now, the U.S. is progressing through the documented early stages that preceded every modern genocide: systematic dehumanization of immigrants, Muslims, and LGBTQ+ Americans; mass detention infrastructure; military involvement in civilian operations; and emergency powers that bypass normal legal protections. This isn’t hyperbole—it’s pattern recognition based on decades of genocide research. The warning signs are unmistakable, and the time to act is now, before prevention becomes impossible.
Sticks and Stones: When Words Kill
For twenty years, American political discourse has crossed a dangerous line—and no, both sides aren’t doing the same thing. There’s a fundamental difference between attacking what people believe versus who they are. Right-wing rhetoric increasingly targets immutable characteristics: race, sexuality, ethnicity. Left-wing rhetoric more often targets chosen beliefs and roles. This distinction isn’t semantic—it’s the difference between democratic conflict and the ideological groundwork for atrocities. The data is stark: hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people have doubled. Right-wing ideological killings outpace left-wing by an order of magnitude. When words systematically dehumanize people for existing, body counts follow. We’re watching the permission structures for genocide being constructed in real-time.
Beyond the Margins 