No peace without steel: Why our factories must roar again



Our country is standing at a crossroads. Neither the world nor America’s place in it is what it was a generation ago. The unipolar moment is over. And yet, many in the Republican Party seek to claim the mantle of America First while continuing the same failed adventurism of the past.

National conservatism as a movement agrees that these people and ideas must be stopped. But we have failed to check their influence in the party largely because we have not offered an alternative that both meets the real threats to American security and balances national interest, the deterrent effect, industrial capability, and political will.

We cannot deter our adversaries if we cannot outbuild them.

I outlined a framework for what a genuine America First foreign policy would entail in an essay for the National Interest. I called for developing a doctrine that I dubbed “prioritized deterrence.” That essay was the first step toward forging a set of foreign policy principles that can unite national conservatives and set the agenda for the Republican Party for the next generation.

A key component of prioritized deterrence is industrial capacity. Deterrence depends not only on our military’s technical capability, but also on our industrial capacity — certainly in defense, but particularly in non-defense. Without factories humming, shipyards bustling, and energy production roaring, our ability to deter wanes. We cannot project strength abroad if we cannot produce strength at home.

Prioritized deterrence is not retreat. It is a recalibration. It rejects the fantasy that America can — or should — police every corner of the globe. Instead, it demands that we concretely identify our vital national interests. No more vague talk of values or entering endless nation-building campaigns. This will require open and honest debate.

The days of tarring dissenting voices as unpatriotic should be left in the rearview mirror. In fact, I recently sent a letter to President Donald Trump urging him to award Pat Buchanan the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Buchanan was right about nearly everything 20 years before anyone else realized it, including his recognition that Iraq was not aligned with our strategic national interests. We need serious voices like his in the conversation during these all-important debates.

Prioritized deterrence belongs firmly within the realist school of thought. It rests on restraint and on the quantifiable limits of a nation’s resources and people. Those limits force policymakers to rank threats to the American way of life by urgency and severity.

Deterrence depends on credibility: An aggressor must believe it will pay an unacceptable price for attacking the United States. But not every hostile nation deserves brinkmanship. National constraints and the risk of escalation demand that we focus only on the gravest threats.

Kinetic action must remain credible but reserved as a last resort. The U.S. military exists not only to fight and win wars but, more importantly, to deter them before they begin and ensure American security.

Prioritized deterrence in practice

What does a strategy that contends with these essential questions look like in practice?

Consider the 2020 strike on Qassem Soleimani. A single, precise action eliminated a key architect of Iran’s malign influence, sending a message to Tehran: Kill Americans, and you will pay. No endless wars, no nation-building, just a clear signal backed by lethal force.

Now consider Operation Midnight Hammer. President Trump authorized a precision strike that was executed flawlessly. He rejected calls to further escalate into regime change. As a result, we eliminated a key threat while managing the retaliation from Iran and successfully stepped off the escalation ladder before the region became destabilized. That’s prioritized deterrence in action.

What do these strikes have in common, other than the antagonist? In both cases, the president laid out clear, precise explanations of America’s vital national interest. He aligned the use of force with American goals, and he did so precisely with explicit acknowledgment of our constraints and limitations.

Additionally, both strikes relied on American technological supremacy: drones, stealth bombers, precision munitions, and intelligence — all products of a sophisticated industrial base. However, we cannot just rely on our qualitative military advantage as a silver bullet for deterrence. At a certain point, quantitative advantages become qualitative, which is one of the reasons China’s industrial might has made it so formidable on the world stage.

What is making us less formidable on the world stage is Ukraine. We should not be funding the war in Ukraine, and we should never have been involved in that conflict from the beginning. The proponents of prolonging this conflict seem unable or unwilling to grasp the reality that we do not have the industrial capacity to provide Ukraine with what they need — to say nothing of providing for our own needs here at home.

RELATED: Why won’t American companies build new factories here?

Photo by Kirk Wester via Getty Images

In fact, Ukraine’s defense minister has said his country needs 4 million 155-millimeter artillery shells per year and would use as many as 7 million per year if they were available.

In 2024, then-Senator JD Vance correctly noted that even after drastically ramping up production, the U.S. could still only produce 360,000 shells per year — less than one-tenth of what Ukraine supposedly needs. Vance was also doubtful of expert claims that we could produce 1.2 million rounds per year by the end of 2025. In the end, he was right, and the experts were wrong.

The Army now confirms that the U.S. is only on pace to produce 480,000 artillery shells per year. These aren’t highly sophisticated guided missiles either. Quantity, not quality, ended up winning the day.

Very simply, we must choose to put America first, as we do not currently have the capacity to both arm Ukraine and defend ourselves should the need arise.

Lagging behind

A candid assessment of our industrial capacity is that it’s lagging. The same voices that called for foreign adventurism also hollowed out our heartland and sent our manufacturing jobs overseas. We now face a new choice: Rebuild or be left to the ashes of history.

We cannot deter our adversaries if we cannot outbuild them. Our defense industrial base — shipyards, munitions factories, aerospace plants — lag significantly behind our peers, especially China. This is a far cry from the industrial base that won World War II.

The Virginia-class submarine program, for example, is crucial in countering China. Yet limited shipyard capacity, supply chain bottlenecks, and a shortage of skilled workers have created years-long delays. Chinese shipyards account for more than 50% of global commercial shipbuilding, while the U.S. makes up just 0.1%.

In 2024, a single Chinese shipbuilder constructed more commercial vessels by tonnage than the entire U.S. shipbuilding industry has since World War II. We cannot deter China in this state of industrial atrophy.

Reviving the entire industrial base

Just as critical — perhaps even more so — is the need to rebuild the U.S. industrial base as a whole, not just the defense sector. “If you want peace, prepare for war” means more than building ships. It means strengthening industry, shoring up families, and restoring the backbone of society. That creates jobs, secures supply chains, and projects strength without overextending our forces or wasting resources.

During World War II, the United States retooled civilian manufacturing almost overnight. Ford and General Motors turned out aircraft. Singer Sewing Machine Company built precision cockpit instruments. IBM produced fire-control systems for bombers. Civilian industry became the arsenal of democracy.

That capacity has withered. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed just how hollowed out our domestic base has become. America now relies on China for more than 80% of the active ingredients in pharmaceuticals. That dependence gives Beijing leverage.

Our weakness feeds China’s confidence. If defending Taiwan means empty pharmacy shelves across America, would Washington still respond? Beijing is counting on the answer. That calculation could determine whether China invades.

We need a manufacturing renaissance — steel mills, factories, foundries — because a nation that outsources its industry outsources its power.

Taiwan is indicative of another vital manufacturing sector where our capacity is lagging: the semiconductor industry. These chips power everything from smartphones to missile systems, yet the U.S. produces less than 12% of the world’s supply. Meanwhile, Taiwan’s TSMC dominates. If China invades Taiwan, our military and domestic economy will grind to a halt.

This is not theoretical; it’s a ticking time bomb, one that is tied directly to our ability to credibly deter China.

This equation must change. If America produces pharmaceuticals and semiconductors at home, adversaries lose their leverage. Deterrence grows stronger without firing a shot or putting boots on foreign soil.

I think of my home state of West Virginia, where Weirton Steel once stood as one of the largest steel producers in the world. At its peak, it employed 23,000 people.

That steel not only secured American dominance in industry, it sustained families, churches, schools, and communities. A single paycheck could buy a home and support a family. Mothers could raise children and stay active in their schools and churches because one income was enough.

The same bipartisan leaders in Washington who chased short-term gains instead of building a strong industrial base and healthy families signed Weirton Steel’s death warrant. They let China flood the U.S. market with cheap tin plate steel, and Weirton paid the price.

We begged President Joe Biden for tariff relief, but he followed the pattern of his predecessors and did nothing. The result: Weirton’s tin plate mill was idled, thousands of workers lost their jobs, and the community was gutted.

Today, only one blast furnace capable of producing tin plate steel remains in the entire United States. One.

China’s gotten the picture

Economic capacity and industrial output are critical in the defense of the nation and create a better quality of life. A strong manufacturing sector is, in itself, a strong deterrent. China understands this.

Its “Made in China 2025” plan, cited in then-Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2019 address at the National Defense University, declared:

Manufacturing is the main pillar of the national economy, the foundation of the country, the tool of transformation, and the basis of prosperity. Since the beginning of industrial civilization in the middle of the 18th century, it has been proven repeatedly by the rise and fall of world powers that without strong manufacturing, there is no national prosperity.

This is obviously true.

China now produces more than half the world’s steel, powering both its infrastructure and its military. Meanwhile, we’ve allowed our own steel industry to wither, importing from abroad while American mills rust. That failure is not only economic. It’s strategic.

We won World War II in part because we built planes, tanks, and ships faster than the Axis powers could destroy them. A robust industrial base — defense and non-defense — is a deterrent in itself. It signals to adversaries: We can outfight you, outbuild you, and outlast you.

We need a manufacturing renaissance — steel mills, factories, foundries — because a nation that outsources its industry outsources its power. Deindustrialization was a choice, a choice with disastrous consequences. We must now make the choice to rebuild and reindustrialize.

RELATED: Read it and weep: Tariffs work, and the numbers prove it

Photo by IURII KRASILNIKOV via Getty Images

Unleashing American energy

To have manufacturing dominance, we must unleash energy dominance. Factories don’t run on hope; they run on power — reliable, affordable, and abundant power. Wind and solar power are obviously not able to power anything. Thankfully, America’s superpower is the massive quantities of natural resources we have at our fingertips.

We have some of the largest proven reserves of both oil and natural gas of any nation in the world. This is a textbook example of our quantitative advantage becoming a qualitative advantage.

We have the largest proven reserve of coal in the world, nearly double the supply of the next closest country. Our energy potential is unlimited, and we must drastically ramp up our output if we want to meet the energy demands of the future economy.

Fossil fuels have long been the backbone of industrial power, and West Virginia’s coal and natural gas is its beating heart. Yet coal in particular has been under siege, not just from regulations but from corporate environmental, social, and governance policies pushed by firms like BlackRock that waged war on fossil fuels.

As state treasurer of West Virginia, I took a stand. I made West Virginia the first state in the nation to divest our tax dollars from BlackRock. I refused to let Wall Street’s agenda use our own state’s money to kill our coal industry. Today, more than a dozen states have followed our lead, rejecting ESG policies that undermine American energy dominance.

China, meanwhile, builds coal plants at a breakneck pace, powering its industrial juggernaut. They use coal to fuel their steel production while we let our own mines and mills idle. We cannot let this continue.

Thanks to President Trump, we’ve begun to change course. For the first time in my lifetime, a president took a stand for coal, signing executive orders promoting domestic coal production. But we need to go further. We must become a global juggernaut with an “all of the below” approach to energy — coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear must power our path to energy dominance.

Prioritizing America, deterring aggressors

America cannot do everything, everywhere, all at once. We are not a nation of infinite industrial capacity, infinite goods, or infinite will. Scarcity — of materials, of capacity, of resolve — forces us to choose. Prioritized deterrence is a framework for grappling with those choices.

It is a commitment to focusing our energies, rebuilding our industrial might, and unleashing the energy to power a 21st-century industrial base. It’s a rejection of overreach in favor of strength, of focus instead of distraction.

Leaders on both sides of the aisle over the last 40 years squandered the inheritance of peace, security, and industrial might in favor of globalization and foreign adventurism. We cannot afford to continue down that path. Correcting course will require open, honest, and sometimes intense debate.

It will require serious investments from business leaders in American manufacturing and public policies that assist in this reorientation. It demands that we do more to appropriately train and equip a skilled workforce.

But we must start now. America will build again, power again, and deter again. Not everywhere, not always — but where it matters most, with a strength that none can match.

Editor’s note: This article has been adapted from a speech delivered on Tuesday, Sept. 2, to the fifth National Conservatism Conference (NatCon 5) in Washington, D.C.

The God-given idea that helped make America great — and can save us again



Well before America’s founders drafted the Constitution, they understood that they had a national security problem rooted in economic and technological gaps.

Colonial America supplied Britain with raw materials, and the motherland traded us finished goods. That was tolerable then, despite its one-sided nature.

The intellectual property framework the founders designed democratized invention and creativity — and rewarded merit.

Then, Great Britain crossed the Rubicon. It unilaterally levied taxes on the colonies with the Sugar Act, which colonial resistance caused to be repealed. The Stamp Act of 1765 also imposed taxes without colonial consent. Then the taxes and regulations of the Townshend Acts further stirred colonial anger.

Revolutionary sentiments brewed, with public protests resulting in the Boston Massacre of 1770 and the “tea parties” in 1773 and 1774. Finally, combat broke out at Lexington and Concord in 1775.

Britain had the economic and military advantage over the largely agricultural colonies, which suffered chronic shortages of guns, gunpowder, blankets, and shoes.

Flourish by design

For America to survive as an independent nation, the model had to change. It needed to promote rapid economic and technological advancement. It needed a policy that coupled economic liberty with property rights.

The founders set a course for achieving what Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution calls “the progress of science and useful arts.” This was done “by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”

The intellectual property framework the founders designed democratized invention and creativity — and rewarded merit. The Constitution was crafted to secure and enable an individual’s rights, including patent rights to the property someone created.

The founders understood that the ownership right would help unleash human flourishing. They had learned this from the Bible, the legacy of the Reformation, and great minds such as Edward Coke, William Blackstone, and John Locke.

Biblical basis

Property rights incentivized creative endeavors, which is precisely what the framers sought to do.

The biblical framework for invention and creativity flows from foundational truths. He who created the universe (e.g., Genesis 1:1, Job 38, Psalm 8:1-5) also claims ownership of His creation (e.g., Deuteronomy 10:14, Psalm 24:1, Isaiah 64:8).

RELATED: The American principle: There can be no blessings without God in our lives

joebelanger/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Moreover, God not only creates and owns, but He communicates those attributes to human beings, the creature who bears His image and is charged with stewardship of the lower creation (e.g., Genesis 1:26-30, Psalm 8:6-8, Micah 4:4). The founders applied this combination of creativity and ownership as the formula for maximizing human flourishing.

This resulted in America growing from a vulnerable agrarian society to the world’s premier industrial economy. By the 20th century, the United States led the world in economic and technological strength.

Our golden age

The golden age of American patenting started in 1836, when Congress established a dedicated U.S. Patent Office.

When someone produced a novel invention, he was awarded a patent. Applicants could appeal patent denials to impartial chief examiners — and they could obtain review in a federal court. A patent had a 14-year term from the date it was issued. Economic historian Zorina Khan notes in "The Democratization of Invention" that a seven-year extension could be provided to ensure “reasonable remuneration for the time, ingenuity, and expense bestowed” in developing and bringing an invention to market.

This system embodied the founders’ vision, implementing the biblical model of human creativity incentivized by secure ownership. This creativity-ownership combination has clearly stimulated mass flourishing in America, where we have experienced wealth creation and prosperity in vast measure.

Today, we approach the 250th anniversary of our independence, knowing what the founders did not: The American experiment turned out quite well.

Yet keen observers are less sanguine about our future.

Creative comeback

In recent years, the federal government has undermined the successful intellectual property model the founders gave us.

For example, a cardinal rule of the patent process was maintaining the confidentiality of inventions for which a patent was sought but not yet granted. But then the Clinton administration and Congress began publishing U.S. patents that were still being examined. Cutting-edge American technology was being transferred to Japan and China before an inventor’s exclusive legal rights had been secured at home.

RELATED: China’s greatest export isn’t steel — it’s industrial theft

MF3d/Getty Images Plus

The 2011 America Invents Act wiped out several useful elements of the Patent Act. It established the quasi-judicial Patent Trial and Appeal Board, before which anyone can challenge and more easily invalidate issued patents. Today, the PTAB destroys value and wealth in newly created property, the very inventions that promise American leadership in the most cutting-edge technologies.

The United States is now falling behind in global technological leadership — but we must out-innovate foreign competitors, particularly China.

America must relink ownership with creativity to incentivize creativity through reliable, enforceable property rights. Secure IP rights coupled with economic freedom are pro-growth policy, just as much as the right tax policies.

To re-establish America’s technological and economic prowess, we must return to God’s design — that which the founders adopted with world-changing success.

Administration Finds Millions of Individuals Double Enrolled in Taxpayer-Funded Coverage

The existence of duplicate payments demonstrates the left’s desire to make all Americans dependent upon government.

Private equity’s losing streak is coming for your 401(k)



One of the late comedian George Carlin’s most famous rants gave us the line, "It's a big club ... and you ain't in it.” That sentiment rings especially true when it comes to the financial services industry, where wealthy investors and insiders gatekeep the most lucrative opportunities for themselves and their friends.

So what should you think when they suddenly want to let you in?

The private equity party is a bit dim right now, and that’s why they are sending out more invitations. Be careful before you RSVP.

There's no red flag bigger than when someone wants to let you in on something very exclusive — especially if it’s from people who’ve spent decades keeping you out of the club.

Case in point: the private equity industry’s latest push to open its funds to everyday retail investors.

The private equity world is one I know well, as a recovering investment banker who works with a firm to evaluate deals. My husband also worked in the sector. Like any other industry, it has both good and bad players.

Private equity involves deploying capital to buy ownership stakes in private companies, distinct from equity invested through the public markets in publicly traded companies. These firms are often actively involved with the company, as opposed to the more passive investing in public market companies. Their stakes are typically substantial, often including majority ownership.

The good players in private equity provide capital, professionalization of businesses, governance, business insights, and capital for growth. They may reward employees with an ownership stake to align incentives.

Some private equity players, however, focus on financialization — that is, playing around with the capital structure of a company and not adding a lot of value otherwise. Private equity is rife with examples of firms that have ruined businesses with too much leverage and engaged in a variety of greedy — and often, outright abhorrent — behaviors.

But this latest trend isn’t about good firms versus bad firms. It’s about the broader industry’s poor performance — and desperation.

The returns are drying up

Private equity has a problem. Too much money has flooded the space in recent years, driving up valuations and pushing down returns. Funds are struggling to find new investors to cover their high management fees. So now they’re turning to you.

They aren’t suddenly being generous. They’re just trying to survive.

According to the Financial Times, a major private market index has underperformed the S&P 500 over the past one-, three-, five-, and 10-year periods. Any outperformance was skewed toward earlier years — and even then, it came with significantly higher fees and far less liquidity.

This underperformance comes with heavy fees and a lack of liquidity for your investment. It's not a coincidence that you are seeing private equity opening up to retail now when it is struggling from deal competition, higher valuations, higher capital costs, and slower deal exits.

RELATED: Red states get it: Economic freedom beats blue-state gimmicks

Nuthawut Somsuk via iStock/Getty Images

Speaking of slower exits, the Wall Street Journal noted that “private equity remains the biggest fee generator for the broader Wall Street ecosystem of banks and advisers” and that private equity firms are sitting on a record number of companies that they are waiting to exit — that is, sell and record a profit ... or a loss. Longer hold times for private equity firms mean they are not returning capital to their investors, and, in turn, the investors are not reinvesting in the latest and greatest fund.

Whether it’s the new push to allow private investments into your 401(k) or your financial planner calling you with “new, exciting alternative investment opportunities,” please be appropriately skeptical. Always probe a fund’s track record (especially over the past several years), fee structure, and whether it is a fit for your objectives and goals.

The private equity party is a bit dim right now, and that’s why they are sending out more invitations. Be careful before you RSVP.

The Left Would Rather Embrace Mass Immigration Than Help Struggling Americans

[rebelmouse-proxy-image https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-24-at-10.43.15 PM-1200x675.png crop_info="%7B%22image%22%3A%20%22https%3A//thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-24-at-10.43.15%5Cu202fPM-1200x675.png%22%7D" expand=1]The praise of immigrants over troubled native-born Americans demonstrates the Left’s tendency toward convenience and replaceability.

Business spending reaches near 30-year high under Trump: 'It's the real deal'



Business production spending has seen its highest climb since 1997, when accounting for post-COVID reopenings, the Trump administration has announced in a release obtained by Blaze News.

Capital expenditures — or capex, which refer to what companies spend on their research and development, software, transportation, and more — are a great way to gauge how much businesses are expanding or developing their operations.

Additionally, real wages are also rising, according to the Trump administration, and the growth speed in 2025 has been outpaced by only one previous administration.

'Trump is a real idea man. Everything in his plan is interconnected.'

Business equipment production jumped 11% in Q2 2025 after already garnering a 23% gain in Q1, which marks the strongest growth since 1997, the announcement said.

"President Trump's capex comeback has clearly been generated by the One Big Beautiful Bill," Joe Lavorgna, counselor to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, told Blaze News. "Businesses trusted from the get-go that President Trump would implement positive policies, and they implemented them sooner rather than later. This caused the growth we've seen in both quarters."

Capex are up over 16% in the first half of 2025, the administration explained, noting that there is a major wave of investment in American industry already under way.

Another strong factor the administration pointed to was the growth of blue-collar wages. Lavorgna said that President Trump had one former president he had to compete with in this regard: himself.

RELATED: Read it and weep: Tariffs work, and the numbers prove it

— (@)

"Real wages are rising at a very fast pace. The second fastest ever, second only to President Trump in 2017," Lavorgna told Blaze News.

Secretary Bessent said on X that thanks to Trump's policies, real wages for hourly workers are up nearly 2% in the first five months of Trump's second term. This marks the strongest growth in the category in 60 years.

Lavorgna added, "The 'big, beautiful bill' was designed to encourage high-tech manufacturing, and the fact that wages for non-supervisory production workers are going up, that means we're making the right moves."

In comparison, President Biden saw a 1.7% decline, while Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan all saw negative growth in real wages.

RELATED: We’re finally living through the conservative revolution we’ve always needed

— (@)

Lavorgna stressed that the Trump administration wants to bring high-value manufacturing jobs back to the United States, and at the same time, ramp up production in certain industries to become a worldwide leader.

This includes the artificial intelligence race, which has seen significant investment that has since spawned data centers and campuses. These campuses and centers employ more people and need more energy brought to them, providing employment to even more people.

"Trump is a real idea man. Everything in his plan is interconnected; it's the real deal," Lavorgna added.

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Robo-billionaire Palmer Luckey brings the 'hype' train to American manufacturing



The American hype train is real, according to Anduril founder and billionaire Palmer Luckey.

Appearing at the Reindustrialize Summit, Luckey seemingly proved the power of positivity makes nearly anything possible, and not in a cringey, motivational speaker sort of way, either. Rather, it is in the create robots, video games, and military warfighter technology kind of way.

In fact, Luckey found a way to corroborate his belief at the summit and showed it off in such a manner that was far more interesting than the movie "Real Steel."

'Hype is what allows you to get investment in these problems.'

With a Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts, and an unsightly wig, Luckey delivered a 20-minute speech on the conference stage by remotely controlling a robot using virtual reality.

While the bot seemed a bit primitive by today's expectations, basic movements were controlled by the billionaire from afar using just VR goggles.

"I finally pulled off my long-standing goal of speaking at a conference via VR telerobotics!" Luckey wrote on X. "Thousands of miles of travel saved, and no chance of Luigi."

While the robot's ability to shake a hand was suspect, Luckey's message was not as static. The entrepreneur emphasized his goal of making a "Star Trek" future and said a lot of the ability to make that happen comes from "hype."

RELATED: Palmer Luckey-led crypto bank promises startups a capital hoard safe from scheming feds

I finally pulled off my long-standing goal of speaking at a conference via VR telerobotics! Thousands of miles of travel saved, and no chance of Luigi. https://t.co/9WqZAxOFEW
— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) July 17, 2025

A lot of hype is "bad if you really let it break your thinking," Luckey told author Ashlee Vance on stage.

While the billionaire explained that over-hyping a project and forgetting prime directives can result in "really playing yourself," he clarified, "hype is what allows you to get investment in these problems."

"Investors don't want to hear, 'It's going to be a 20-year slog, and it's probably not going to work out for us, it's probably our other companies that are going to win,'" Luckey continued.

To that end, the Anduril boss said the "enormous power" of optimism can help drive innovation forward and produce real results. The example he provided was exactly the technology Luckey was showing off.

"I think the hype around virtual reality and augmented reality in the early 20-teens led to tens of billions of dollars in research and development. It would not have happened if people had been ... a little less on the hype train."

Luckey has indeed ventured into AR military equipment with this mindset and recently revealed his first project would be a military helmet called Eagle Eye, which gives Army soldiers access to advanced augmented reality systems that make them "superhuman."

Luckey added at the conference, that while some will downplay the hype, he finds it hard to "get too upset" about hype happening "in a space like American manufacturing."

RELATED: 'Insane radical leftists' are gone: Zuckerberg and Palmer Luckey reunite for US military project

- YouTube

As for Luckey's robotic stand-in, look no further than the Phantom robot from company Foundation.

Founder Sankaet Pathak said on X in early 2025 that his company has no issue with being at the forefront of the weaponization of robotics.

"Unlike most humanoid robot companies in the U.S., which have committed to non-weaponization, we believe it's essential for our robots to master these tasks to support human expansion," Pathak said, per MikeKalil.com.

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One town got a nuke plant; the other got a prison … and regret



Two Southern towns in different states share the same name: Hartsville. They were both chosen as future sites for nuclear plants in the late 1960s and early 1970s. One of those nuclear plants was completed and went online, helping to foster a thriving and prosperous community. The other plant was canceled, leaving a derelict cooling tower as a reminder of what might have been for the downtrodden town that has been economically left behind.

Hartsville, South Carolina, with its nuclear generating station, is thriving. Hartsville, Tennessee, with its for-profit penitentiary and abandoned nuclear project, is dying.

The 'tale of two Hartsvilles' shows the power of a town producing an actual product — requiring technicians, skilled tradesmen, and engagement with local businesses.

The Pamphleteer, a Nashville-based publication, published a piece by Hamilton Wesley Ellis titled “Atomic Hartsville: A small Tennessee town’s forgotten history as a nuclear leader.” The article draws a stark contrast between the two Hartsvilles — and explores what might have been if Hartsville, Tennessee, had completed its nuclear power plant.

But this story goes beyond one town’s missed opportunity and another’s industrial success. It serves as an allegory for a larger truth: Industrial vitality sustains American communities. Where industry thrives, prosperity and opportunity follow. Where industry dies, decline sets in — dragging despair in its wake.

A ‘tale of two Hartsvilles’

Ellis writes of Tennessee’s Hartsville:

Today the nuclear plant is quiet as the grave. Surely the town of Hartsville would look different had the plant’s four reactors reached criticality and provided power to the region. Since opening its doors in 2016, the private prison next door has had three fatal stabbings, three COVID deaths, and multiple cases of assaults on guards, mental health workers, and inmates alike. The prison’s short brutal history has firmly established it as a more dangerous place than any operational nuclear facility in US history, but at least they’re hiring.

The juxtaposition of a prison-based service economy and a nuclear-fueled industrial economy is certainly compelling, especially for those old Nader-ites still fighting against nuclear energy. Beyond the nuclear argument, the “tale of two Hartsvilles” shows the power of a town producing an actual product — requiring technicians, skilled tradesmen, and engagement with local businesses. This industrial ecosystem creates wealth, which is recirculated through a variety of other employers and supports an environment that enables a middle-class lifestyle.

If completed, the four-unit Hartsville facility would have been the largest nuclear power plant in the world.Photo by Karen Kasmauski/Corbis via Getty Images

To that point, Ellis observes:

The South Carolina Hartsville is home to a university, technical college, and the state Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics. Hartsville, Tennessee, has a Dollar General. Both towns have roughly the same population, give or take a couple thousand people, but extremely disparate vibes. One is a thriving community built on science and industry, the other a struggling village blanched gray by a very long run of bad luck.

Hartsville, Tennessee, is the story of too many such towns across the U.S. that have had a “long run of bad luck” — and that bad luck was no accident. It lies at the intersection of an America-last political mindset among our ruling class and a wicked business school philosophy that sees any labor expense as unacceptable.

RELATED: Comparative advantage was built on patriotism. That’s gone.

adventtr via iStock/Getty Images

American jobs were outsourced to countries where working conditions often resemble slavery. That decision triggered an industrial collapse across large swaths of the United States. With the collapse came a cascade of local devastation. Community institutions fell apart. Economic activity dried up. Social pathologies filled the vacuum.

The so-called “principled free traders” who once cheered the offshoring of American jobs now ridicule those calling for the reshoring of industry. They claim automation made industrial labor obsolete. Andrew Yang, a former Democratic presidential candidate, often promotes this idea, as he did in a 2019 New York Times op-ed headlined, “Yes, Robots Are Stealing Your Jobs.”

Let’s bring workers home

Maybe so. But if that’s the case, then let’s reshore those plants that are using robotics. Transportation costs should decrease significantly. If labor expense is so “reprehensible,” aren’t transportation expenses also bad? Moreover, automation still requires human workers to build, service, and install the robots, as well as skilled tradesmen to do the plumbing and electrical work. Moreover, people will need to deliver products from the bays, handle deliveries, service vehicles, and so on.

Hartsville, Tennessee — with its decaying cooling tower looming over a long-abandoned project — stands as a monument to the dismantling of reliable energy and the destruction of industrial jobs. This is the green, globalist vision for America. By contrast, Hartsville, South Carolina, with its thriving industrial base and a product globalists love to sneer at, represents the America-first alternative championed by the MAGA movement.

Whether it is nuclear power, appliances, microchips, or any other product, industrial manufacturing drives local prosperity. It circulates money through the economy, creates stable jobs, and builds strong communities. The United States doesn’t just benefit from this activity — it depends on it.

American innovation is dying — and Congress is the culprit



The United States once led the world in manufacturing, producing more than 25% of global industrial output. Today, China holds that title, controlling over 30%, while the U.S. struggles to maintain even half that share.

Plenty of factors drove this decline — decades of offshoring, the collapse of industrial job bases, and an obsession with short-term profits over long-term strength. But if America wants to reclaim its industrial leadership and restore economic self-reliance, we need more than reshoring slogans and infrastructure bills.

Innovation isn’t an expense. It’s an investment — in national security, in American workers, and the future of US leadership.

We must fix and expand the research and development tax credit.

A recent Wall Street Journal analysis focused on our loss of industrial capacity. But capacity starts with innovation. Every new factory, process, and product begins with research — and that remains our greatest untapped advantage.

Yet Congress has punished companies for investing in R&D. Since 2022, the tax code has forced businesses to amortize R&D expenses over five years instead of deducting them immediately. That change has choked innovation, especially among small and midsized manufacturers that depend on near-term tax relief to fund future growth.

The result? Reduced domestic innovation, fewer advanced manufacturing breakthroughs, and an economy less equipped to compete with subsidized foreign rivals.

R&D incentives work

The research and development tax credit was meant to drive economic growth. It helps businesses offset the steep costs of developing new technologies, improving production, and staying competitive.

But today’s credit falls short. It’s too small, too complicated, and — after the amortization change — actively harmful.

Now compare that to China. Beijing offers “super deductions,” direct subsidies, and aggressive industrial policies tailored to national priorities. The results speak for themselves: China leads in semiconductors, solar, electric vehicles, and other strategic industries.

Four immediate fixes

To reverse course and restore American competitiveness, Congress must act.

  • Restore full expensing of R&D investments so businesses can deduct costs in the year they’re made — not years later.
  • Expand the R&D credit to reach startups, family-owned manufacturers, and small tech firms that often drive innovation but struggle to access support.
  • Streamline eligibility rules and reduce audit risks that discourage many companies from claiming the credit at all.
  • Create bonus credits for R&D tied to domestic manufacturing in key sectors like semiconductors, energy, defense, and infrastructure.

R&D as economic infrastructure

American manufacturing won’t come back without innovation. You can’t revive the auto industry, reshore chip production, or scale clean energy without continuous investment in research and development. And without smart tax policy to back it, capital won’t go where it’s needed.

Lawmakers in both parties love to talk about supporting U.S. industry. But support doesn’t come from speeches — it comes from policy. If Congress is serious about restoring American manufacturing, it should start by fixing the one tax tool designed to keep us competitive.

The auto industry didn’t boom just because someone built a car. It took Ford’s innovation of the assembly line and the machines to make it work. Thomas Edison didn’t invent the light bulb — he made it viable. Steve Wozniak didn’t invent the microchip, but he made the personal computer scalable.

Inventors didn’t build the modern economy. Innovators did.

Innovation isn’t an expense. It’s an investment — in national security, in American workers, and in the future of U.S. leadership.

How California’s crisis could lead to a big political shift



California’s wide range of problems — including declining schools, widening inequality, rising housing prices, and a weak job market — shows the urgent need for reform. The larger question is whether there exists a will to change.

Although the state’s remarkable entrepreneurial economy has kept it afloat, a growing number of residents are concluding that the progressive agenda, pushed by public unions and their well-heeled allies, is failing. Most Californians have an exceptional lack of faith in the state’s direction. Only 40% of California voters approve of the legislature, and almost two-thirds have told pollsters the state is heading in the wrong direction. That helps explain why California residents — including about 1.1 million since 2021 — have been fleeing to other states.

California needs a movement that can stitch together a coalition of conservatives, independents, and, most critically, moderate Democrats.

Unhappiness with the one-party state is particularly intense in the inland areas, which are the only locales now growing and may prove critical to any resurgence. More troubling still, over 70% of California parents feel their children will do less well than they did. Four in 10 are considering an exit. By contrast, seniors, thought to be leaving en masse, are the least likely to express a desire to leave.

In some ways, discontent actually erodes potential support for reform. Conservative voters, notes a recent study, are far more likely to express a desire to move out of the state; the most liberal are the least likely. “Texas is taking away my voters,” laments Shawn Steel, California’s Republican National Committee member.

New awakenings

Given the demographic realities, a successful drive for reform cannot be driven by a marginalized GOP. Instead, what’s needed is a movement that can stitch together a coalition of conservatives, independents (now the state’s second-largest political grouping), and, most critically, moderate Democrats.

Remarkably, this shift has already begun in an unlikely place: the ultra-liberal, overwhelmingly Democratic Bay Area. For years, its most influential residents — billionaires, venture capitalists, and well-paid tech workers — have abetted or tolerated an increasingly ineffective and corrupt regime. Not only was the area poorly governed, but the streets of San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, and other cities have become scenes of almost Dickensian squalor.

Over the past two years, tech entrepreneurs and professionals concerned about homelessness and crime worked to get rid of progressive prosecutor Chesa Boudin. Last year, they helped elect Dan Lurie, scion of the Levi Strauss fortune, as mayor, as well as some more moderate members to the board of supervisors. Lurie, of course, faces a major challenge to restore San Francisco’s luster against entrenched progressives and their allies in the media, academia, and the state’s bureaucracy.

Similar pushbacks are evident elsewhere. Californians, by large majorities, recently passed bills to strengthen law enforcement, ditching liberalized sentencing laws passed by Democratic lawmakers and defended by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D). Progressive Democrats have been recalled not only in San Francisco but also in Oakland (Alameda County) and Los Angeles, with voters blaming ideology-driven law enforcement for increasing rates of crime and disorder.

Critically, the liberal elites are not the only ones breaking ranks. Pressure for change is also coming from increasingly conservative Asian voters and Jews — who number more than 1 million in the state and largely are revolted by the anti-Semitism rife among some on the progressive left. Protecting property and economic growth is particularly critical to Latino and Asian immigrants — California is home to five of the 10 American counties with the most immigrants — who are more likely to start businesses than native-born Americans.

These minority entrepreneurs and those working for them are unlikely to share the view of progressive intellectuals, who see crime as an expression of injustice and who often excused or even celebrated looting during the summer of 2020. After all, it was largely people from “communities of color” who have borne the brunt of violent crime in cities such as Los Angeles, Oakland, and San Francisco. Minorities also face special challenges doing business here due to regulations that are especially burdensome on smaller, less capitalized businesses. According to the Small Business Regulation Index, California has the worst business climate for small firms in the nation.

The shift among minority voters could prove a critical game-changer, both within the Democratic Party and the still-weak GOP. In Oakland, for example, many minorities backed the removal of Mayor Sheng Thao (D), a progressive committed to lenient policing in what is now California’s most troubled, if not failed, major city.

Latinos, already the state’s largest ethnic group, constituting about 37.7% of the workforce, with expectations of further growth by 2030, seem to be heading toward the right. In the last presidential election, Trump did well in the heavily Latino inland counties and won the “Inland Empire” — the metropolitan area bordering Los Angeles and Orange Counties – the first time a GOP presidential candidate has achieved this in two decades.

Back to basics

After a generation of relentless virtue-signaling, California’s government needs to focus on the basic needs of its citizens: education, energy, housing, water supply, and public safety. As a widely distributed editorial by a small business owner noted, Californians, especially after highly publicized fire response failures in Los Angeles earlier this year, are increasingly willing to demand competent “basic governance” backed by a “ruthless examination of results” to ensure that their government supports “modest aspirations” for a better life.

California once excelled in basic governance, especially in the 1950s and '60s under Democratic Gov. Edmund G. “Pat” Brown. The state managed to cultivate growth while meeting key environmental challenges, starting in the late 1960s, most notably chronic air pollution. In what is justifiably hailed as a “major success,” California helped pioneer clean air regulatory approaches that have vastly reduced most automotive tailpipe emissions as well as eliminated lead and dramatically cut sulfur levels.

All of this starkly contrasts with the poor planning, execution, and catastrophist science evoked to justify the state’s climate agenda. Even Pat Brown’s son, former Gov. Jerry Brown (D), recognized that California has little effect on climate. Given the global nature of the challenge, reducing one state’s emissions by cutting back on industrial activities accomplishes little if those activities move elsewhere, often to locations with fewer restrictions such as China and India.

Rather than focusing on “climate leadership,” Sacramento needs to tackle the immediate causes of record out-migration, including sluggish economic growth and the nation’s highest levels of poverty and homelessness. The great challenges are not combatting global temperature rises but the housing crisis and the need to diversify the economy and improve the failing education system. As these problems have often been worsened by climate policies, there seems little reason for other states and countries to adopt California’s approach as a model.

halbergman via iStock/Getty Images

Fixing housing

California now has the nation’s second-lowest home ownership rate at 55.9%, slightly above New York (55.4%). High interest rates that have helped push home sales to the lowest level in three decades across the country are particularly burdensome in coastal California metros, where prices have risen to nearly 400% above the national average. The government almost owned up to its role in creating the state’s housing crisis — especially through excessive housing regulations and lawfare on developers — earlier this year when Newsom moved to cut red tape so homes could be rebuilt after the Los Angeles fires.

Current state policy — embraced by Yes in My Backyard activists, the greens, and unions — focuses on dense urban development. Projects are held up, for example, for creating too many vehicle miles traveled, even though barely 3.1% of Californians in 2023 took public transit to work, according to the American Community Survey. As a result, much “affordable” development is being steered to densely built areas that have the highest land prices. This is made worse with mandates associated with new projects, such as green building codes and union labor, that raise the price per unit to $1 million or more.

A far more enlightened approach would allow new growth to take place primarily outside city centers in interior areas where land costs are lower and where lower-cost, moderate-density new developments could flourish. These include areas like Riverside/San Bernardino, Yolo County (adjacent to Sacramento), and Solano County, east of San Francisco Bay. This approach would align with the behavior of residents who are already flocking to these areas because they provide lower-income households, often younger black and Latino, with the most favorable home ownership opportunities in the state.Over 71% of all housing units in the Inland Empire are single-family homes, and the aggregate ownership rate is over 63%, far above the state’s dismal 45.8% level.

Without change, the state is socially, fiscally, and economically unsustainable. California needs to return to attracting the young, talented, and ambitious, not just be a magnet for the wealthy or super-educated few.

More than anything, California needs a housing policy that syncs with the needs and preferences of its people, particularly young families. Rather than being consigned to apartments, 70% of Californians prefer single-family residences. The vast majority oppose legislation written by Yes in My Backyard hero Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener banning single-family zoning in much of the state.

Investment in the interior is critical for recreating the old California dream for millions of aspiring households, particularly among minorities who are being driven out of the home ownership market in the coastal metropolitan areas. The only California metropolitan area ranked by the National Association of Realtors as a top 10 pick for Millennials was not hip San Francisco or glamorous Los Angeles, but the more affordable historically “redneck” valley community of Bakersfield.

The numerous housing bills passed by Sacramento have not improved the situation. From 2010 to 2023, permits for single-family homes in California fell to a monthly average of 3,957 units from 8,529 during 1993-2006. California’s housing stock rose by just 7.9% between 2010 and 2023, lower than the national increase (10.3%) and well below housing growth in Arizona (13.8%), Nevada (14.7%), Texas (24%), and Florida (16.2%).

A more successful model can be seen in Texas, which generally advances market-oriented policies that have generated prodigious growth in both single-family and multi-family housing. This has helped the Lone Star State meet the housing needs of its far faster-growing population. A building boom has slowed, and there’s been some healthy decrease in prices in hot markets like Austin. Opening up leased grazing land in state and federal parks — roughly half the state land is owned by governments — could also relieve pressure on land prices. Until California allows for housing that people prefer, high prices and out-migration will continue into the foreseeable future.

Ultimately, California has room to grow, despite the suggestions by some academics that the state is largely “built out.”In reality, California is not “land short,” either in its cities or across its vast interior. Urbanization covers only 5.3% of the state, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, while parks, agricultural land, deserts, and forests make up the bulk of the area.

Diversifying the economy

Even Jerry Brown has remarked that the “Johnny one note” tech economy the state’s tax base depends on could stumble. This would reduce the huge returns on capital gains from the top 1% of filers, who now account for roughly half of all state income tax revenues. This overreliance may be particularly troublesome in the era of artificial intelligence, where tech companies may continue to expand but have less need for people. Indeed, San Francisco County, which boasts many tech jobs, experienced the nation’s largest drop in average weekly wages, 22.6%, between 2021 and 2022.

To expand opportunity and, hence, its tax base, California has to make more of the state attractive to employers. The best prospects, again, will be in inland areas.Today, when firms want to build spaceships, a clear growth industry where California retains significant leadership, as well as battery plants and high-tech and food processing facilities, they often opt to go to Nevada, Arizona, Tennessee, and Texas. Given lower land and housing costs, San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, as well as spots on the Central Coast, should be ideally situated to compete for those jobs.

The current economic pattern creates a situation where AI developers, elite engineers, and venture capitalists may enjoy unprecedented profits, but relatively little trickles down to the mass of Californians. Not all Californians have wealthy parents to subsidize their lifestyle, and few are likely to thrive as AI engineers. To address the dilemmas facing the next generation of Californians, the state needs to focus not just on ephemera, software, and entertainment but on bringing back some of the basic industries that once forged the California dream. In this way, President Trump’s policies could actually help the state, particularly in fields like high-tech defense and space.

In the 1940s, California played a key role in the American “arsenal of democracy.” Today, it could do the same, not so much by producing planes and Liberty ships, but drones, rockets, and space-based defense systems. Indeed, there are now discussions of reviving the state’s once-vaunted shipbuilding industry that buoyed the economy of Solano County — something sure to inspire the ire of the Bay Area’s rich and powerful environmental lobby.

Photo by Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Improving education

Climate and environmentalism are not the only barriers to California’s revival. No problem is more pressing and consequential than the state’s failure to educate California’s 5.9 million public school children. In fiscal year 2023-2024, California will spend about $128 billion on K-12 public education — an amount exceeding the entire budget of every other state except New York. Despite this level of spending, about 75% of California students lack proficiency in core subject areas based on federal education standards.

Two out of three California students do not meet math standards, and more than half do not meet English standards on state assessments. Overall, less than half of California public school students performed at or above grade level for English language arts (reading, writing, etc.), while only 34.62% met or exceeded the math standard on the Smarter Balanced 2023 tests. The failures are particularly clear among minority students. According to the latest California testing results, only 36.08% of Latino students met or exceeded proficiency standards for English language arts. Only 22.69% met or exceeded proficiency standards in math. Latino students, for example, in Florida and Texas do somewhat better in both math and English, even though both states spend less per capita on education than California.

Not surprisingly, many parents object to a system where half of the state’s high school students barely read at grade level. One illustration of discontent has been the growth of the charter school movement. Today, one in nine California schoolchildren attend charter schools (including my younger daughter). The state’s largest school district, the heavily union-dominated Los Angeles Unified School District, has lost roughly 40% of its enrollment over two decades, while the number of students in charters grew from 140,000 in 2010 to 207,000 in 2022.

In addition to removing obstacles to charters, homeschoolers are part of the solution. California homeschool enrollment jumped by 78% in the five-year period before the pandemic and in the Los Angeles Unified School District by 89%. Equally important, some public districts and associated community colleges, as in Long Beach, have already shifted toward a more skills-based approach. Public officials understand that to keep a competitive edge, they need to supply industrial employers with skilled workers. This is all the more crucial as the aerospace workforce is aging — as much as 50% of Boeing’s workforce will be eligible for retirement in five years. In its quest for relevance, Long Beach’s educational partnership addresses the needs of the city’s industrial and trade sectors.

This approach contrasts with the state’s big push to make students take an ethnic studies course designed to promote a progressive and somewhat anti-capitalist, multicultural agenda. They will also be required to embrace the ideology of man-made climate change even if their grasp of basic science is minimal. A “woke” consciousness or deeper ethnic affiliations will not lead to student success later in life. What will count for the students and for California’s economy is gaining the skills that are in demand. You cannot run a high-tech lathe, manage logistics, or design programs for space vehicles with ideology.

More to come

Conventional wisdom on the right considers California to be on the road to inexorable decline. Progressives, not surprisingly, embrace the Golden State as a model while ignoring the regressive, ineffective policies that have driven the state toward a feudal future.

Yet both sides are wrong. California’s current progressive policies have failed, but if the state were governed correctly, it could resurge in ways that would astound the rest of the country and the world. Change is not impossible. As recent elections showed, Californians do not reflexively vote for progressives if they feel their safety or economic interests are on the line.

If change is to come in California, it may not be primarily driven by libertarian or conservative ideologies but by stark realities. Over two-thirds of California cities do not have any funds set aside for retiree health care and other expenses. Twelve of the state’s 15 large cities are in the red, and for many, it is only getting worse. The state overall suffers $1 trillion in pension debt, notes former Democratic state Rep. Joe Nation. U.S. News and World Report places California, despite the tech boom, 42nd in fiscal health among the states. This pension shortfall makes paying for infrastructure, or even teacher salaries, extraordinarily difficult at the state and local levels.

Without change, the state is socially, fiscally, and economically unsustainable, even if a handful of people get very rich and the older homeowners, public employees, and high-end professionals thrive. California needs to return to attracting the young, talented, and ambitious, not just be a magnet for the wealthy or super-educated few.

This can only happen if the state unleashes the animal spirits that long drove its ascendancy. The other alternative may be a more racial, class-based radicalism promoted by the Democratic Socialists of America and their allies. They have their own “cure” for California’s ills. We see this in debates over rebuilding Los Angeles, with progressives pushing for heavily subsidized housing, as with the case of the redevelopment of the Jordan Downs public housing complex, while seeking to densify and expand subsidized housing to once solidly affluent areas like the Palisades.

California has survived past crises — earthquakes and the defense and dot-com busts — and always has managed to reinvent itself. The key elements for success — its astounding physical environment, mild climate, and a tradition for relentless innovation — remain in place, ready to be released once the political constraints are loosened.

Fifty years ago, in her song “California,” Canada-reared Joni Mitchell captured the universal appeal of our remarkable state, not just its sunshine, mountains, and beaches, but also how it gave its residents an unprecedented chance to meet their fondest aspirations. Contrasting her adopted home with the sheer grayness of life elsewhere, she wrote, “My heart cried out for you, California / Oh California, I’m coming home.”

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.