Two Iowa newspapers recently ran essays of mine. Yesterday, the Waterloo Courier ran Why Hollywood Hates President Trump. And this morning, the Des Moines Register published Democrats Trumpet Their Intolerance and Turn Off Americans. Since each is behind a paywall, I've added them below.

From Waterloo Courier: Why Hollywood hates President Trump

 

 

It's fashionable in mentally disheveled circles to revile and disrupt President Trump, America's ICE agents, and law enforcement in general. Doing so is symptomatic of the subversive impulse. 

Barely a week passes without some entertainer voicing anti-Trump poison into the nearest microphone. This includes both active (and interchangeable) camera-junkies and industry has-beens desperately grabbing for contemporary relevance. None will be named by this writer, who doesn't wish to aid miserable lost souls' quests.

And despite the objective sorrowfulness of Christian conservative Charlie Kirk's assassination last year (and prior attempts on President Trump's life), no small number of red-carpet fops donned party hats at the direful news. 

It's true, of course, that entertainers are as much citizens as any of us, and have no less right to opine on significant events and officials. I don't dispute that. And some show business successes are inarguably talented. They merit respect for that.

Dismayingly, though, many have exploited their platforms to inveigh against America's duly elected president and our foundational liberty spirit. 

While I appreciate their superior creative ideas, I certainly do not value their inferior political ones. Often, though some may be skilled at stagecraft, their skulls seem jam-packed with yellowish diarrhea, when they speak on matters of cultural or political import.

The ability to galumph about under lights and effect pratfalls does not automatically confer wisdom as to weighty matters. A rancid opinion remains just that, regardless of the speaker's renown in an unrelated area.

I believe there are two reasons some marquee names acquit themselves despicably.

First, celebrities prioritize profit in grubby calculations. Unfortunately, a hatred market does exist. And just as there are garbage-hearted buyers, there breathe conscienceless show-business graspers with big eyes. Whether someone is selling a movie ticket, TV program, or recording, market viability is surely a consideration. 

Potential sales-chart downturns from foul public brayings would be negligible. A star's audience yesterday likely already knew his leanings. New anti-American rants might even heighten ardor in desired precincts. 

Persons previously outside a celebrity's base - well, they were already not in the equation. Save for this: Non-fans who vocalize criticism play as much of a role in stoking fame as do rah-rah fanatics. Controversy means headlines. Headlines mean sales.

"Why do you think Frank Sinatra punches some driver in the mouth?," Alice Cooper manager Shep Gordon asked writer Bob Greene, in the seventies. "To get into the straight press - which is hell of a lot harder than getting into the entertainment press."

From Gtreta Garbo donning slacks in the 1920s, to the Sex Pistols cursing on 1976 UK television, to current Pop and Rap annoyances hurtling toward cameras and bellowing PR agent-blueprinted venom, celebrity has often been a schemed contrivance, not an organic product.

Too, audiences want to believe they and an idolized celebrity are as one. That the person on screen or stage shares their opinions. Surely, that is especially the case for callow enthusiasts. Their generational contrarianism is a knee-jerk animal. Many, I suppose, are eager to shout or do absolutely anything to antagonize the world at large. To feel significant. 

And they will spend monies on those stars that claw most visibly at existing mores. 

Important to remember is that spotlighted sorts may say one thing in public - to curry fan approbation - but seize opposite voting levers when in a booth's secrecy.

Of course, there is a second possible explanation for celebrities' stated terribleness: They may truly be terrible people.

Waterloo's DC Larson is the author of That a Man Can Again Stand Up and Ideas Afoot.  He counts among freelance credits Daily Caller, The Iowa Standard, and American Thinker.  His political blog is American Scene Magazine.

From Des Moines Register: Democrats Trumpet Their Intolerance and Turn Off Americans

I've not only caucused for President Trump, but cast precious votes for him each time he's sought the Resolute Desk. I don't hold conservative opinions because I'm not familiar with alternatives, but because I am.

In 1996, after having always been a Democrat (and a volunteer for numerous of that party's candidates), I became an independent. I voted for independent presidential hopeful Ralph Nader, and volunteered for him in 2000. The same year, I co-founded the Iowa Green Party. I served as its Media Coordinator for years, also serving on the national Greens' media committee.

By 2004, I was a paid state representative for Nader. I traveled our state, and gathered petition signatures which helped get him on the ballot. I also attended protests in various Iowa cities, as well as in Washington, DC.

Those were conducted lawfully. No vandalism, no attacks on law enforcement, no screaming at passersby. 

I champion untrammeled speech as vigorously now as I ever did. But increasingly Marxist Democrat activists do not respect others' expression. They blow whistles, beat tattoos on sauce pans, shout down disfavored speakers, block roadways, perpetrate property destruction, and otherwise disrupt civil order.

Too, having always opposed racial bigotry, I despise and condemn anti-white hostility, just as I've always done regarding all other forms of that odious prejudice. All are equally wrong and immoral. 

Contemporary Democrat voices like Ibram X. Kendi, though, argue present and future hate is justified by historical wrongdoing. As Sen. John Kennedy might say: That dog don't hunt. Aged injustices are to be dispensed with, not reversed into perpetuity.

In 2026, it is Republicans that genuinely safeguard women's rights (including to life itself). Democrats won't even acknowledge that femininity is strictly biological and cannot be manufactured. (An advanced case of this madness is Biden-appointed / Democrat-approved Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.)

Members of both major parties, I long ago believed, loved America equally. They simply left in different directions from that shared foundation. Boy, was I wrong. While that might once have been true, it is not, today. Conservatives hold fast to our Constitution, unifying language and culture, and unique character. But many on the left loath the same, denounce this nation as the inherently wicked cause of global suffering, and advocate non-vetted immigration for all the world's peoples.

(Too, liberals often rail against billionaires, while leaving unmentioned their own, like Bill Gates, Neville Roy Singham, Mark Cuban, and George and Alex Soros. The hypocrisy shouts as it cartwheels. Of identical cloth are celebrities spewing "stolen land" claptrap, whilst lolling in walled-off mansions guarded 24/7 by private armed militias.)

It was my return (some 13 years ago) to the Catholicism of my youth and acknowledgement of our Supreme Creator's authority, that put me on the Trump path. Progressives tend to wave toward downward stairs. The recent, Don Lemon-led invasion of a church (when a constitutionally-protected worship service was underway, attended by innocent men, women, and children) hardly recommended the Democrats. Especially given the hearty salutes that the anti-Christian crime subsequently received from the left's bleachers. 

(Lemon would later smear church attendees as "white supremacists," though he knew none of them.)

Conservatism offers respect for our traditional national identity, values, and customs. Again, I don't currently hold conservative, pro-Trump opinions because I'm not familiar with alternatives, but because I am.

Waterloo's DC Larson is the author of That a Man Can Again Stand Up and Ideas Afoot.  He counts among freelance credits Daily Caller, The Iowa Standard, and American Thinker.  His political blog is American Scene Magazine.