'Making us sound cool': MAGA America gladly adopts rabid Trump critic's 'brutal American' epithet



One of the more rabid Trump critics at the Atlantic came up with a new branding for the president, Vice President JD Vance, and similarly constituted Americans earlier this month: "the brutal American."

Rather than ignore or laugh off the liberal's latest attempt at relevancy, the MAGAverse embraced the epithet. It appears that some of the very qualities that most enrage Anne Applebaum and her European comrades are those that distinguish Americans from lesser nationalities.

Anne Applebaum is a historian turned sensationalist at the Atlantic with something of a credibility issue.

The 60-year-old writer smeared as propagandists early proponents of the pandemic lab-leak theory; criticized skeptics of the experimental COVID-19 vaccines; downplayed the revelations on the Hunter Biden laptop and framed the damning emails as a potential "psyop"; argued that to prevent nuclear war with Russia, the U.S. needs to send more and greater weapons to Ukraine; and spent a great deal of time in recent years screeching about imagined parallels between Trump and various 20th-century dictators. She continues, however, to confidently spill ink for the liberal publication.

Applebaum noted in a March 5 piece that her liberal publication decided to push again over the weekend that while hobnobbing around Europe — where she also is a citizen of Poland — she was immersed in foreign nationals' displeasure with the American president over his Feb. 28 meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

"In just a few minutes, the behavior of Donald Trump and J. D. Vance created a brand-new stereotype for America: not the quiet American, not the ugly American, but the brutal American," wrote Applebaum, a former member of the Council on Foreign Relations and former board member of the National Endowment for Democracy.

Applebaum suggested that her fellows on the continent no longer can cling to positive postwar stereotypes of Americans. Instead, they are now processing this alternative — the "rude" and "cruel" type of American who would dare halt transfers of military equipment to Ukraine, castigate a man for risking nuclear holocaust, hint at ending sanctions on Russia, impose tariffs on allies, and "get" Greenland.

'The American is the European who Europe was too tame for their spirit.'

"These are the actions not of the good guys in old Hollywood movies, but of the bad guys," wrote Applebaum. "If Reagan was a white-hatted cowboy, Trump and Vance are Mafia dons. The chorus of Republican political leaders defending them seems both sinister and surprising to Europeans too."

After portraying Zelenskyy as the victim of deluded hosts, Applebaum suggested that Trump's assertions that failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama "founded ISIS" and that "the Google search engine is suppressing the bad news about Hillary Clinton" were somehow evidence of a Russian worldview.

Having tried her best once again to paint Trump as a ruthless Russophile, Applebaum concluded, "Europeans know, everyone knows, that if Trump and Vance can talk that way to the president of Ukraine, then they might eventually talk that way to their country's leader next."

While there was nothing novel about her complaints about Zelenskyy's treatment in the Oval Office, Trump supporters and others outside Applebaum's target demographic seized upon the term "brutal American" online, adopting it as a positive epithet.

BlazeTV host Auron MacIntyre wrote, "Why bother coming up with good branding when your enemies will do it for you?"

The Heritage Foundation tweeted Emanuel Leutze's 1851 painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware with the caption, "Brutal Americans."

William Wolfe, the executive director of the Center for Baptist Leadership, shared an image captioned, "Brutal American," that shows Theodore Roosevelt in his cavalry uniform waving an American flag along with a banner stating, "Europe take notice. Keep off American soil."

Various other commenters shared images of American soldiers from various conflicts engaging in conduct that Atlantic staff writers and continentals might find objectionable, albeit indirectly liberating.

The account Aristophanes noted, "I'm almost convinced that we somehow secretly purchased legacy media and they are just subverting themselves on purpose."

One user on X wrote, "'The brutal American.' Stop making us sound cool."

@Instantundit tweeted, "B***h please. This is a country that crossed a river at night to kill foreign invaders in their beds on Christmas. And we'll do it again."

"The American is the European who Europe was too tame for their spirit. And the European needs for the American to remain that way," said Andrew Beck, vice president of communications at the Claremont Institute.

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'Who's got ahold of my son?' Liberal parents panic over losing their sons to MAGA



Some liberal parents have discovered that their sons aren't simply disinterested in their woke worldviews but are actually leaning hard in the opposite direction, donning MAGA hats and turning their backs on land acknowledgments, climate alarmism, fake pronouns, DEI, depopulationist rhetoric, and attacks on masculinity.

The New York Times ran a sob piece Sunday titled, "When Your Son Goes MAGA," detailing progressives' increasing difficulty speaking to the young men in their lives who voted for President Donald Trump.

Alex Behr, for instance — a 59-year-old Democrat in Portland, Oregon, who "voted enthusiastically" for Kamala Harris — figured her son for a "thoughtful college junior who had a serious skateboarding phase" until she and her ex-husband made the "appall[ing]" discovery that 20-year-old Eli, whom they adopted from China, had a mind of his own.

Apparently Alex Behr's strategy of tossing her son's "Make America Great Again" hat, telling him "facts don't matter to you," and badgering him over his views on guns, immigration, and abortion was ineffective. Eli Behr voted for Trump.

Alex Behr, concerned over her son's exposure to political views besides her own, told the Times, "I've had to do a lot of soul-searching and reading about it to not feel like I've failed as a mom."

Whereas his mother is working to displace blame for her domineering reflex in therapy sessions, Eli is apparently maintaining a level head.

"I love my mom," Eli told the paper, which indicated that he refrains from wearing his MAGA hat around his mother as a nicety. "I want her to stay a part of my family."

The Times told the tale of another leftist couple's perceived bereavement — that of Chris and Melanie Morlan of Spokane, Washington.

Everything was apparently working out nicely for the Morlans back when their son would still parrot their political views. However, around the time that Black Lives Matter rioters and other leftists started tearing coastal cities apart in 2020, their son reportedly began listening to YouTube channels that disparaged feminism and diversity, equity, and inclusion and, even more troubling, signaled support for Trump.

Their 24-year-old son was ultimately drawn to the Republican Party "as a defender of more conventional notions of manhood" — an appeal CNN talking head Dana Bash alluded to during the Democratic National Convention in August when she suggested that whereas the Republican Party courted the "testosterone-laden, you know, gun-toting kind of guy," Democrats were courting the Doug Emhoff and Tim Walz variety, "a man comfortable in his own skin who supports a woman."

Realizing she was losing her son to traditional conventions of manhood, Melanie Morlan, a family therapist, asked herself, "Who's got ahold of my son?"

Although keen to patronize her son, who voted for Trump in 2024, Melanie Morlan took a more diplomatic approach than Behr.

'Everything you're doing is destroying the planet. You've got to eat your peas.'

"I always tell him, 'I might get worried about you and I might feel sad because I don't think you understand some things that maybe you will down the road,'" Morland told the Times. "'But I'm going to love you more when you're struggling, because it's just politics.'"

In 2020, 41% of men ages 18-29 voted for Trump. Four years later, that number jumped to 55% — a spike that should have surprised no one.

Democratic strategist James Carville noted in a Times interview several months ahead of the election that the left was doing a great job of alienating red-blooded American men.

"'Don't drink beer. Don't watch football. Don't eat hamburgers. This is not good for you,'" said Carville. "The message is too feminine: 'Everything you're doing is destroying the planet. You've got to eat your peas.'"

While "feminine" browbeating coupled with the left's "faculty lounge" attitudes and "woke stuff" proved to be ballot-box poison, as Carville indicated, there were motivators besides the leftist chatter in the nation's capital.

The same month, the Guardian noted that young men's shift rightward was not just prompted by the society-wide feminism that painted them as monsters but by their corresponding push out of higher education and into financial uncertainty and depression.

Richard Reeves, head of the American Institute for Boys and Men, said, "This is less about young men being pulled towards the right than it is about them being pushed away from the left."

"Economically [men under 30 are] getting shafted, politically they're getting shafted, culturally no one's looking out for them," Daniel A. Cox, director of the Survey Center on American Life at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Times in August, indicating that Trump represented a remedy and another way.

Alex Behr and Melanie Morlan have wondered what exactly about Trump and MAGA attracted their sons. They might be better served asking what about their leftist worldviews wouldn't harm or repulse them in the first place.

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New York Times sets high bar for derangement by suggesting Trump's 'terrorist' label for cartels could hurt economy



Mexican drug cartels are responsible for the untimely deaths of hundreds of thousands of people over the past two decades. When factoring in the fentanyl they smuggle into the United States, the cartels are also culpable for the deaths of over 200 Americans a day. In addition to dealing in murder and addiction, they routinely engage in mass kidnappings, rape, torture, and political intimidation.

Evidently keen for a change, President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Monday setting the stage for Mexican cartels as well as other criminal gangs operating in the Western hemisphere, including MS-13, to be designated foreign terrorist organizations.

The New York Times, afforded an opportunity with a new year and a new administration to embrace common sense, instead reverted to its old ways on Wednesday, concern-mongering about the economic impact of Trump's plan to identify and hold terrorists accountable.

The piece in the Times — a paper compromised by the CIA during the Cold War, reflexively willing to print Hamas propaganda, and instrumental in recent Democratic attacks on conservative Supreme Court justices — stated at the outset that "President Trump's executive order designating Mexican cartels and other criminal organizations as foreign terrorists could force some American companies to forgo doing business in Mexico rather than risk U.S. sanctions."

Maria Abi-Habib and Simon Romero of the Times, both based in Mexico City, suggested that American companies fearing sanctions might think twice about doing business south of the border, especially with terrorists involved at various levels in supposedly legal industries, "from avocado farming to the country's billion-dollar tourism industry." The terrorist designation will make it easier to prosecute businesses and individuals suspecting of aiding the cartels, which could come down to transferring money to a compromised Mexican entity.

Fabian Teichmann, an expert on terrorist financing, told the Times that banks might be among the organizations that will ultimately decide it's no longer worth doing business with potential cartel members.

"Banks might say, 'We don't want to be anywhere close to those who are considered to be terrorists, so we want to avoid that risk,'" said Teichmann. "From a banking perspective, that will be a very reasonable decision."

'The Cartels' activities threaten the safety of the American people, the security of the United States, and the stability of the international order.'

There are, of course, steps businesses can take to avoid working with terrorists.

The American firm FTI Consulting noted in a recent report that "the potential FTO designations underscore the urgent need for heightened due diligence when engaging with third parties."

"Recommended actions include conducting thorough background checks on potential partners, suppliers, employees and clients to ensure no direct or indirect connections to criminal organizations," continued the report. "Risk assessments of third parties should include close monitoring of changes in ownership, financial health and legal standing. Enhanced due diligence also requires regular updates to internal databases, cross-referencing with OFAC and other international sanctions lists, and utilizing advanced screening tools for continuous monitoring."

Whereas the FTI report, which was cited in the Times report, made clear there are possible steps corporations could take to ensure they're not getting into bed with killers, Abi-Habib and Romero nevertheless cast doubt on the possibility of identifying businesses devoid of cartel links, insinuating that the greater risk is not Americans going into business with mass-murdering rapists and drug traffickers but what might happen economically if they took the higher ground.

The Times, which failed to consider potential gains from Trump's EO such as fewer terrorists and a check on the opioid crisis that cost the U.S. an estimated $1.5 trillion in 2020 alone, suggested that the terrorist designation might lead to American companies having to wean off Mexican labor; a loss to the Mexican economy in the form of reduced remittances, in which the nation received $63.3 billion in 2023; and unilateral American military strikes on terrorists and terrorist facilities.

Trump, who has a mandate to do things the New York Times does not like, has a different set of concerns.

"The Cartels' activities threaten the safety of the American people, the security of the United States, and the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere," he stated in his executive order Monday. "Their activities, proximity to, and incursions into the physical territory of the United States pose an unacceptable national security risk to the United States."

'Journalists at the New York Times get together in an editorial meeting and actually come up with this s**t.'

"It is the policy of the United States to ensure the total elimination of these organizations' presence in the United States and their ability to threaten the territory, safety, and security of the United States through their extraterritorial command-and-control structures, thereby protecting the American people and the territorial integrity of the United States," added the president.

Regarding the Times article, Utah Sen. Mike Lee (R) wrote, "The New York Times publishes its own version of 'abrazos no balazos' — 'hugs not bullets' — a term popularized by former Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador, calling for gentle treatment of drug cartels."

"That was a bad strategy for Mexico," Lee continued. "It'll fare no better in the U.S."

"Of course it is the New York Times concocting this framing," tweeted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).

Stephen Miller, contributing editor at the Spectator, wrote, "A room full of journalists at the New York Times get together in an editorial meeting and actually come up with this s**t and publish it. There's not a single person in the room who goes hey wait a second."

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'Did that mother****er pay extra to yell?' Southwest passenger loses his mind over crying baby, gets booted off plane



A crying baby proved too much to handle for one middle-aged Southwest Airlines traveler who responded with his own temper tantrum, of a far more vulgar variety. While it appears the nonverbal infant ultimately made it to Miami, the deranged passenger was escorted away by police.
Mark Grabowski, a passenger on the flight, captured the incident on video, which has since gone viral.
Grabowski told WOFL-TV that the flight was originally headed to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, but got diverted to Orlando International Airport due to undesirable weather conditions.
"It was a little bumpy and uncomfortable for everyone and the child was upset, but we couldn't get up because of the weather, and we were strapped in our seats," said Grabowski.
With everyone confined to their seats, the baby's parents were no doubt limited in their ability to console the child, shaken by the turbulence.
According to Grabowski, upon being roused from his slumber, the deranged passenger "basically said shut that baby up, and it escalated from there."
The deranged passenger can be heard saying in the video, "Why is the baby yelling? I'm not screaming. You want me to scream? You want me to scream?! I'll f***ing scream. Please stop the baby."
Monique Pass, also a passenger on the flight, told "Good Morning America," "All of a sudden, this guy was just screaming on the top of his lungs. It was definitely a good five minutes or so, and it was just getting worse and worse and worse."
When one flight attendant informed the deranged passenger that he was yelling, he responded, "So is the baby."
To which the attendant said, "OK, you're a man."
This response prompted the deranged passenger to wonder aloud, "Did that motherf***er pay extra to yell?"
Flight attendants tried to pacify the passenger, going so far as to relocate a woman and the baby to the back of the plane. It wasn't enough, however; the passenger lost himself in an unhinged, expletive-filled rant.
"We are in a f***ing tin can with a baby in a g*****n echo chamber and you want to talk to me about being f***ing OK?" he can be heard screaming in the video.
At one point, the deranged passenger notes that as they had not yet entered the airspace over Florida, the baby was not yet free to do whatever it felt like.
After repeated attempts to calm down the passenger failed, WOFL reported that the flight crew contacted the authorities.
 
\u201cFlight attendant: \u201cYou\u2019re yelling\u201d\nPassenger: \u201cSo is the baby!\u201d\nFlight attendant: \u201cWell you\u2019re a man\u201d\nPassenger: \u201cDid that mf pay extra to yell?\u201d \n\nLmfaooooo\n\nhttps://t.co/qDSFV89ay6\u201d
— Akhil Vohra (@Akhil Vohra) 1681848643 
 
Upon landing in Orlando, the Southwest crew reportedly gave the deranged passenger the option of getting off the plane of his own volition or being forcibly removed after all other passengers were deplaned.
Grabowksi told WOFL, "He chose the latter, and we all got off the plane and there was a lot of mumbling past him."
"Good Morning America" reported that police officers met the deranged passenger at the gate.
Southwest Airlines said in a statement, "We commend our crew for exhibiting outstanding professionalism while handling a challenging situation, and we offer our apologies to the other customers onboard who had to experience such unacceptable behavior."

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