Trump’s tariffs take a flamethrower to the free trade lie



The globalist fairy tale is finally unraveling — and not a moment too soon.

For decades, Americans were sold the shiny promise of globalization: open markets, booming trade, cheaper goods, and peace through economic integration. But behind the glittering sales pitch was a brutal reality — the slow, deliberate hollowing out of the American middle class.

Trump’s tariffs are not just about trade. They’re about rebuilding what our elites sold off piece by piece.

Enough of this.

President Donald Trump’s recent announcement on tariffs sent the elites — those who profited most from this decades-long experiment — into full panic mode, and for good reason. Their gravy train may finally be running out of track.

This isn’t about economic theory. This is about the lives, livelihoods, and dignity of the American people — especially those in towns and cities that once hummed with the sound of industry.

How it started

The North American Free Trade Agreement was the appetizer in a global feast that served American manufacturing to foreign competitors on a silver platter. Even President Bill Clinton, at the NAFTA signing ceremony in 1993, seemed eager to get past the domestic details and embrace the coming wave of globalization.

By the early 2000s, the United States was importing at unprecedented rates. Today, the trade deficit with the European Union alone is $235 billion. That’s not trade — that’s surrender. Our deficit with Europe hasn’t fallen below $100 billion since 2011.

None of this happened by accident.

It began with a handshake in 1972, when President Richard Nixon traveled to Mao Zedong’s China. At the time, China was riding bicycles and rationing rice. No one imagined that opening the door to trade would lead to the economic superpower we face today.

But by 2001, that door had been blasted open. China joined the World Trade Organization, committing to lower tariffs and removing trade barriers. American markets were flooded with cheap Chinese goods — and American workers were left holding an empty lunch pail.

The result was a trade deficit with China that ballooned to $295 billion last year. That’s the largest deficit we have with any country. Our total trade deficit in 2024 was a record $1.2 trillion — the fourth consecutive year topping $1 trillion.

The human toll

The fallout from this one-sided relationship with China is staggering. A 2016 MIT study found that, in the decade following China’s World Trade Organization entry, the U.S. lost 2.4 million jobs — nearly a million in manufacturing alone. The researchers concluded that international trade makes low-skilled workers in America “worse off — not just temporarily, but on a sustained basis.”

You’d think a quote like that would be plastered across every office in Congress. But no. The political class — especially on the left — chose to ignore it.

Instead, they wring their hands in confusion when working-class Americans turn to a leader like Donald Trump. “Why are they so angry?” they ask, while standing atop the wreckage of towns they helped dismantle.

About that wreckage

In Galesburg, Illinois, Maytag once employed 5,000 workers. The last refrigerator rolled off the line in 2004. The site is now rubble and weeds.

Youngstown, Ohio — once a titan of American steel — has lost 60% of its population since the 1970s. Gary, Indiana, once home to U.S. Steel’s largest mill, has over 10,000 abandoned buildings. In Flint, Michigan, over 80,000 GM jobs vanished. By 2016, over half of men ages 25 to 54 in Flint were unemployed. Buick City, once a symbol of industrial might, was demolished in 2002.

Detroit, once richer than Boston, is now 40% poorer. The U.S. auto parts industry lost 419,000 jobs in the decade after China joined the WTO.

Even NPR admitted that “the China Shock created what looked like miniature Great Depressions” in these areas.

From dream to despair

Between 2000 and 2014, America lost 5 million manufacturing jobs — the steepest decline in American history.

Meanwhile, in the same time period, corporate profits soared 600%. CEO pay has ballooned to 290 times that of the average worker. In 1965, it was 21 times. Since 1978, CEO compensation has grown by over 1,000%. Regular worker pay? Just 24%.

They told us the rising tide would lift all boats. Turns out, it mostly lifted yachts. And the rest of the boats? Capsized.

This economic assault came with a steep psychological toll.

A 2017 Princeton study found a link between rising deaths of despair — suicide, alcoholism, drug overdoses — and job losses in trade-exposed areas.

Since 1999, overdose deaths in America have increased sixfold. In Ohio, they rose 1,000% between 2001 and 2017. The hardest-hit areas? Deindustrialized, working-class communities.

The American middle class is vanishing. In 1971, 61% of households were middle class. By 2023, it was just 51%. In 1950, manufacturing jobs made up 30% of total U.S. employment. Today, they make up just 8%.

RELATED: Why tariffs are the key to America’s industrial comeback

Bet_Noire via iStock/Getty Images

There are fewer Americans working in manufacturing today than there were in 1941 — before we entered World War II — despite our population more than doubling.

This collapse hit black workers especially hard. Between 1998 and 2020, more than 646,000 manufacturing jobs held by black Americans disappeared — a 30% loss in that sector.

A reckoning long overdue

Trump’s tariff push is a long-overdue confrontation with the failed consensus of globalization. For 25 years, the arrangement has been spectacular — for China and for U.S. corporations chasing cheap labor. But for America’s workers and towns, it has been catastrophic.

Yes, the corporate press is scoffing. CBS News recently “fact-checked” Trump and Vice President JD Vance’s claim that America has lost 90,000 factories since NAFTA. The correct number, they said, was actually 70,500.

Oh? Only 70,500? As if that’s supposed to be reassuring.

These aren’t merely statistics. These are livelihoods — entire communities turned into ghost towns. Every shuttered factory was once a promise of stability, dignity, and upward mobility. And with each closure, that promise was betrayed.

We’ve allowed globalization to crush the backbone of this country — the working men and women who don’t show up on CNBC but who built the very foundation we all stand on.

Trump’s tariffs are not just about trade. They’re about sovereignty. They’re about self-respect. They’re about rebuilding what our elites sold off piece by piece.

This is not a perfect plan. But it’s the first real attempt in decades to confront the human cost of globalization. It’s a wager that America can still choose dignity over dependence, self-sufficiency over servitude.

Let’s hope we’re not too late.

Let’s build a statue honoring Pat Buchanan



The life of an unheeded prophet rarely ends in comfort and often courts danger. Pat Buchanan endured both with the resolve of a warrior. As the most prominent paleoconservative in American politics, Buchanan stood so far ahead of his time that today’s MAGA agenda looks like a photocopy of his 1992 presidential campaign platform. From the culture war to working-class economics and immigration, Buchanan served as the American Cassandra — right about nearly every major question yet scorned by Republican elites.

Republican pundits and politicians dismissed him as a bigot, a racist, an anti-Semite — even likening him to a Nazi. Many of the loudest voices came from within his own party. But Buchanan never bent. He held the line. Decades later, nearly all his predictions have come true. He kept the torch of paleoconservatism burning when no one else would — and that torch lit the fire of the MAGA movement.

Buchanan took on the thankless task of warning his party and his country about the real dangers ahead, long before anyone in power was ready to listen.

Born in 1938 in Washington, D.C., Buchanan rose to prominence as a newspaper columnist and editor before joining President Richard Nixon’s White House as a speechwriter and political strategist. He later became a fixture on TV with shows like “Crossfire” and “The McLaughlin Group” and did a second tour at the White House as Ronald Reagan’s communications director from 1985 to 1987.

Buchanan could have coasted on that résumé. He didn’t. Instead, he broke with the GOP’s managerial, globalist consensus and challenged it head-on. In 1992, he ran against George H.W. Bush in the Republican primary, furious over the president’s betrayal of his “no new taxes” pledge. But Buchanan’s campaign wasn’t just about tax policy. He warned against endless foreign wars, the abandonment of Christianity, the hollowing out of American industry, and the long-term consequences of mass migration.

In his famous “culture war” speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention, Buchanan didn’t just warn Republicans. He challenged the entire direction of the American ruling class.

“My friends, this election is about more than who gets what. It is about who we are,” he said. “It is about what we believe and what we stand for as Americans. There is a religious war going on in this country. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we shall be as was the Cold War itself, for this war is for the soul of America.”

After two more failed presidential bids, Buchanan returned to writing and commentary. He published several influential books, including “The Death of the West” and “Suicide of a Superpower,” launched the American Conservative, and penned columns for VDARE. At every turn, he tackled controversial topics — foreign intervention, demographic transformation, and the destruction of the American middle class. While neoconservatives dominated Republican politics, Buchanan stood firm, laying the groundwork for the civil war now raging inside the GOP.

Most voters aren’t driven by ideology. They want a politics that serves their families, communities, and country. Conservatism shouldn’t revolve around abstractions but should exist to preserve a way of life. Despite the “conservative” label, Republican leadership made clear it cared only about cutting taxes and waging endless wars.

Then came Donald Trump, who bulldozed the GOP establishment by campaigning to secure the border, protect American workers, and end the forever wars. Trump won on Buchanan’s platform.

As Millennial and Gen Z conservatives came of age under Trump, many sought intellectual roots for the movement. They found them in the paleoconservatives: Paul Gottfried, Samuel Francis, and, most of all, Pat Buchanan. Clips of Buchanan’s speeches and passages from his books now go viral across social media, revealing a man who diagnosed America’s decline with uncanny foresight. He has become, retroactively, the elder statesman of the New Right — an inspiration to a generation of conservatives eager to challenge the party line and reclaim their country.

Buchanan’s return to prominence hasn’t gone unnoticed by establishment conservatives or the legacy press. Neoconservatives have taken to calling Trump supporters the “Buchanan right” — a clumsy insult aimed at discrediting the movement by association. The Atlantic recently ran a hit piece titled “The Godfather of the Woke Right,” recycling the slur peddled by James Lindsay. The article begrudgingly acknowledged “Suicide of a Superpower” as a formative text for the MAGA right but framed this influence as toxic — an engine of xenophobia and racism.

In a time when the GOP sold out to neoconservative globalism, Buchanan held the line. He took on the thankless task of warning his party and his country about the real dangers ahead — mass migration, national decline, foreign entanglements — long before anyone in power was ready to listen. For his efforts, he was ridiculed, condemned, and cast aside.

That must never happen again. We won’t let it happen again. The term “Buchanan right” shouldn’t be a smear — it should be a badge of honor.

While the left tears down statues of America’s founders, the right should start building. We must erect monuments to the men who stood firm when it mattered most. The first should be Pat Buchanan. We can no longer elect him president — but we can honor him now, while he’s still here to see it. Let’s build the monument he deserves — one that pays tribute to the man who carried the torch through the wilderness and lit the way for the movement that would Make America Great Again.

John Wayne’s epic ‘Freedom Train’ could save America’s 250th birthday



Many Americans of Generation X and older will recall the red, white, and blue American Freedom Train that was a centerpiece of America’s glorious bicentennial celebration in 1976. But few know that the Freedom Train — pulled by a steam locomotive and filled with American historical artifacts — was the brainchild of none other than John Wayne. As we fast approach the 250th anniversary of American independence, it’s time to get Wayne’s American Freedom Train back on the tracks as part of the quarter-millennium celebration.

Ross Rowland, who spearheaded the American Freedom Train effort as a young man, recently told me how Wayne came to have the idea. Rowland had run away from home in the 1950s and fortuitously ended up working as a groundskeeper for Wayne. The Duke befriended Rowland and eventually convinced him to return home. Rowland, whose father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had all been railroad men, had success on Wall Street and then commemorated the centennial of the 1869 “golden spike” — the completion of the transcontinental railroad — by having a steam train travel from New York City to Salt Lake City.

There’s still a chance to make the quarter-millennium anniversary a spectacular, unifying event like the bicentennial was a half-century ago.

Wayne joined Rowland for the final leg of that journey (and arranged to have “True Grit” premiere in Salt Lake City the night before). As they rode in an open-air train car, observing the large crowds as they passed, Rowland says Wayne told him something to the effect of, “You know, Ross, we’ve got America’s 200th birthday coming up. We should do this for that.” And they did. Rowland handled most of the planning and execution, Wayne got support from Bing Crosby and others in Hollywood, and President Richard Nixon agreed to let the train carry artifacts usually housed at the Smithsonian, Library of Congress, and National Archives.

The American Freedom Train was a tremendous success. During the bicentennial period, it traveled to all 48 contiguous states, stopped 138 times, and had an average of more than 50,000 visitors board at each stop. Riding along a moving walkway, visitors saw such artifacts as Paul Revere’s saddlebags, President George Washington’s copy of the Constitution, the actual Louisiana Purchase document, Abraham Lincoln’s top hat, Babe Ruth’s bat, John F. Kennedy’s handwritten copy of his inaugural address, and other artifacts, enough to fill 12 display cars.

The American Freedom Train, perhaps more than anything else, tied the national and local bicentennial celebrations together. John Warner, who headed up the congressionally created American Revolution Bicentennial Administration, said the train was “the most visible” of the bicentennial offerings and was able to “sew together” various festivities. President Ford said it “brought the story of America to the people.”

During the recent period of peak wokeness — from around 2020 to 2024 — it looked like the nation’s 250th anniversary risked becoming more of a condemnation than a celebration of American history. President Donald Trump’s defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris largely ensured that the occasion would be a celebration. Yet there is a very real danger that this milestone anniversary — perhaps the best chance in 50 years to reset how Americans view our nation’s founding — might barely register with the public, making it a massive lost opportunity.

Planning for the quarter-millennium is woefully far behind where planning was at this stage for the bicentennial. The official planning entity, created by Congress during the Obama administration, is useless and focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion. President Trump wisely created Task Force 250 to fill this void, but it faces a severe shortage of time.

Fortunately, the American Freedom Train could hit the tracks in the first half of 2026. Rob Gardner, president of the American Steam Railroad, told me the “sister engine” of a locomotive that pulled the train during the bicentennial is being restored and will be ready for action. All that’s really needed is for President Trump to authorize the use of federal artifacts at the Smithsonian, Library of Congress, and National Archives, consistent with his recent executive order telling the Smithsonian to stop denigrating America and instead “remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage.” Everything else would quickly fall into place.

There’s still a chance to make the quarter-millennium anniversary a spectacular and unifying event like the bicentennial was a half-century ago. Reprising the American Freedom Train is a big part of that. Let’s bring back John Wayne’s rolling tribute to America’s finest.

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

How Trump’s ‘Reverse Nixon’ Foreign Policy Can Avoid Nixon’s Costly Mistakes

President Trump’s 'reverse Nixon' approach carries profound risks, as the current geopolitical realities starkly contrast those of the 1970s.

Is Fort Knox still secure?



For over 50 years, Americans have grown accustomed to the sound of cash-printing machines, generating dollars as if our economy were a Monopoly board. Yet, amid the flood of money, a critical question remains unanswered: What about gold? It’s one of the most important and historically trusted assets in the world, and yet it’s often overlooked in the conversation about our financial future.

Last week, I sent a letter to President Trump urging him to conduct a full audit of our nation’s gold reserves, which have been stored at Fort Knox for nearly 90 years. Given the widespread distrust Americans now have for their government, confirming what’s inside Fort Knox could begin restoring much-needed faith in our monetary system.

Revaluing America’s gold reserves to match the current market price could change everything.

History underscores the importance of auditing our gold reserves. From the late 1800s until the start of World War II, the U.S. dollar operated under the gold standard, meaning its value was directly tied to a fixed quantity of gold held by the government.

In 1944, as the Allies moved toward victory in World War II, the United Nations convened the Bretton Woods Conference in New Hampshire to establish a new global financial system. The conference transformed U.S. monetary policy by making the dollar the world’s reserve currency, allowing countries to exchange dollars for gold at a fixed rate of $35 an ounce. Soon after, under the Marshall Plan, the U.S. shipped vast amounts of gold to Europe to aid its recovery, cementing the dollar’s role as the dominant global currency.

By the 1960s, cracks in the system began to show. The Vietnam War and Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” programs drained government coffers, leading to massive spending and excessive dollar printing. The U.S. could no longer maintain the Bretton Woods dollar-to-gold ratio and faced the risk of depleting its gold reserves.

To prevent this, President Richard Nixon took the drastic step in 1971 of severing the dollar’s tie to gold. This officially ended the gold standard, leaving U.S. currency backed by nothing tangible.

This shift created an increasingly unstable financial landscape. Despite that, gold remains a crucial asset in the global financial system — serving as a “fail safe” hedge against inflation and a reliable store of value. Yet for decades, while countries, particularly in Asia, have been amassing gold, the United States has provided little transparency about the status of its own gold reserves.

Why gold matters in 2025

Major shifts are making waves in the global gold market, and the U.S. needs to be part of that conversation.

Countries around the world are buying gold in record amounts — could it be that the United States is doing the same, perhaps in preparation for a major revaluation of gold to stabilize our currency? Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently spoke about “monetizing” the U.S. balance sheet for the American people. Could this include revaluing our gold reserves to better reflect market prices?

The U.S. Treasury’s gold stockpile is currently priced at just $42 an ounce, a value set by law back in 1973. In the real world, gold is worth nearly $3,000 an ounce. What if we revalued America’s gold reserves to match the current market price? That could change everything — maybe even provide a stabilizing force for the dollar, fight inflation, and stop the endless money printing.

Do we really own our gold supply?

But one major roadblock poses a severe risk to gold’s promise: rehypothecation.

Rehypothecation is like borrowing $10,000 from a friend and giving him your motorcycle as collateral and then he uses that same motorcycle to secure his own loan — the practice of using the same asset multiple times as collateral for different debts.

If America’s gold has been used to back multiple loans or obligations, our actual access to gold as a liquid asset might not be as great as we think. That’s why we need a full audit of Fort Knox. The complex hasn’t been fully audited since 1953, and we have no way of knowing how much gold we actually own and how much has been rehypothecated in the global market.

Restoring confidence in our financial system begins with opening the vault and showing the American people what we really have. Moreover, taking stock of our usable gold supply paints an actual picture of the country’s total assets, which is critical if the United States will maintain her role as the leader on the global financial stage — a position that is not guaranteed and can, if it hasn’t already, slip into other hands under our negligence.

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Trump Traces Nixon's Path

Most presidents want to start with a bang. Donald Trump is looking to outdo them all. Over the weekend, the administration made important progress in the Western Hemisphere, bringing hostages back from Venezuela and driving Panama out of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. On Monday, Mexico and Canada barely avoided hefty tariffs by launching new border security initiatives. Trump then sent Elon Musk to launch a hostile takeover of the United States Agency for International Development, restarted the maximum pressure campaign on Iran, and, flanked by Benjamin Netanyahu, announced his plan to seize and rebuild Gaza.

The post Trump Traces Nixon's Path appeared first on .

No One Wants A Biden Presidential Library

There is absolutely nothing commendable about Biden and his career, especially about his four years in the White House.

Could these bold and quirky quotes be tops among Trump’s legendary sayings?



“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Who could deny that these emphatic words spoken by President Ronald Reagan in his 1987 speech in Berlin were his most famous (among many) from his stellar two terms in the White House? And if you thought about it, wouldn’t Richard Nixon saying, “I am not a crook,”seem to be the words that sum up Nixon’s days in office? One president rose at the Brandenburg Gate; the other fell from Watergate.

Trump hasn’t even reclaimed his seat behind the Resolute desk, and he’s already gifted the world with gems like “Canada could become the 51st state.”

And before Nixon, who will ever forget John F. Kennedy’s powerful expression, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country”?

Our presidents’ words, whether simple phrases or entire speeches, paint a picture of the men in America’s highest office and can, rightly or wrongly, be used to label them either a good or bad leader. Nixon, for example, accomplished much good for this country during his tenure. But the Watergate scandal, which by today’s barometer might appear tepid, marked the event that chased him from the Oval Office.

So with Donald J. Trump’s triumphant return to the White House, and with many of his words still fresh in our collective consciousness, what can we pare down as possibilities for his most memorable quotes?

Trump is nothing if not a showman. Even those who dislike him or didn’t vote for him must admit his actions commanded constant attention, placing him center stage both nationally and internationally — whether willingly or unwillingly. More than in his previous two presidential campaigns, this time around, Trump-related merchandise — from T-shirts and buttons to bobblehead dolls and even a shot glass complete with a bullet — flew off internet shelves. Many items, of course, featured his most memorable phrases. And what other president can claim credit for inspiring a worldwide dance craze?

Setting aside his iconic campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again” (first revealed in a 2013 interview, two years before he descended the escalator), Trump has also added a powerful 2024 tagline: "Too Big to Rig," a nod to the shenanigans in 2020. Trump has continued to coin meaningful expressions at a relentless pace, as if from a busted gumball machine.

Here, then, is a partial list of Trump quotes, keeping in mind that some of my choices and their order of appearance here are based on a bit of whimsy and a dash of snark.

“They're not after me, they're after you — I'm just in the way.”

Trump tweeted this out back on December 18, 2019. This defiant blast came along with a black-and-white photo of the president pointing his finger and indicating that people’s attention should be focused on what was really going on behind the impeachment proceedings at the time.

“Fight! Fight! Fight!”

Elon Musk may have captured it best when he described Trump’s life-on-the-edge-of-death experience on July 13, 2024. The former president’s immediate response to a bullet whizzing past his head was not to hide or flee, but to stand in defiance.

Many who witnessed the moment — either in person or on television, as I did — were struck by a mix of emotions. At first, fear gripped us, thinking Trump might have been wounded or killed. But relief swept over us when he raised his fist in defiance and shouted like a victorious leader emerging from battle. In that moment, it felt as though the race, with nearly four months to go, had already been won.

“Do you want fries with that?”

OK, maybe McDonald’s employee Trump didn’t actually say these words as he leaned through the drive-through window at the fast-food restaurant that is as American as mom and apple pie. But when the jolly old grandpa who has been compared to Hitler can pull this one off, followed by sitting in the co-pilot's seat of a garbage truck, what unknown person in the future won’t be fooled by this application to President 45 and 47? (Future me is already saying, “I’m lovin’ it!”)

“As I was saying …”

During Trump’s return to Butler, Pennsylvania, in October, it was clear to anyone paying attention that this moment was coming. He opened his speech with words that underscored his determination to deliver his message — nothing, not even a bullet, would stop him. His opening remark seemed to dismiss the threat as casually as swatting away a fly.

Trump also paid tribute to firefighter Corey Comperatore, a brave soul who lost his life during Trump’s first visit to the small Western Pennsylvania town.

“The electrician must be a Democrat.”

OK, OK — another Trump-didn’t-actually-say-that quote. Even though it sounds like something Trump might have said if his microphone had gone on the fritz in the middle of a rally speech. But he didn't. I just had to slip that one in. Besides, Trump never goes after ordinary citizens, Democrats or Republicans. When it comes to taunts and “mean tweets,” his focus has always been on the leadership class. (That line, by the way, is from my all-time favorite movie, “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken,” and spoken by Don Knotts as Luther Heggs.)

Finally, here is the quote that I think received the most traction because it hit the mark on so many levels:

“They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. ... They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

During Trump’s one and only debate with Kamala Harris, many outlandish statements were made — many of them baseless and previously debunked claims from Harris’ rambling thoughts as a candidate. However, the only substantial issue to emerge from the long-winded and contentious exchange was Trump’s assertion that Haitian migrants were committing unspeakable acts involving people’s household pets — a claim that turned out to be true.

This statement could easily have been turned into ridicule, but instead, it spawned memes and even a song with a catchy tune portraying Trump as a savior of cats and dogs. Later, when New York bureaucrats exterminated P’Nut the squirrel and Fred the raccoon, this trend of animal cruelty became a symbol of the ruling class’ heartlessness. (Had the “snuffed out” squirrel been a tenant’s pet in Trump Tower, and its execution carried out by a vindictive doorman, would Trump have emerged unscathed?)

This brief and narrowly focused collection of Trump’s statements highlights his colorful rhetoric as both president and candidate. With his anticipated return to the White House for another four years, we can expect even more witticisms to add to his already vibrant repertoire. After all, Trump hasn’t even reclaimed his seat behind the Resolute desk, and he’s already gifted the world with gems like “Canada could become the 51st state.”

We might even speculate that what the incoming president has promised to be a Golden Age of America could also be the dawn of brand-new maxims that might very well be ...“Yuuuuuge!”

How DOGE Can Tackle The National Debt By Returning To Constitutional Spending

DOGE should begin by proposing to eliminate funding that furthers only local rather than truly national interests.

Who betrayed America’s warfighters?



Before the Trump administration can execute a MAGA national security policy, the legacy of Henry Kissinger must be exorcised.

Kissinger’s legacy has been a curse for 49 years. His intellectual brilliance, his Harvard credentials, his skill in cultivating elite patrons by feeding their illusions of self-importance brought him power and wealth on false pretenses and at a cost to his country.

This is our opportunity to replace a culture of self-indulgent delusions with a culture of truth and courage.

On January 9, 1971, Kissinger met secretly with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. Without consulting President Nixon, Kissinger decided the United States could effectively “win” the Vietnam War by allowing this sequence of events to unfold:

  • the North and South sign a peace treaty;
  • the United States withdraws its troops from South Vietnam;
  • the North leaves its 13 divisions inside South Vietnam;
  • the South has two years of freedom; and
  • with massive Soviet and Chinese support, the North conquers the South.

After their meeting, Dobrynin reported to his ministry in Moscow that Kissinger said: “Ultimately it will no longer be the Americans’ concern, but that of the Vietnamese themselves, if some time after the U.S. troop withdrawal they start fighting with each other again.”

In reading the transcripts of Kissinger’s conversations with President Nixon, we see the unctuous and devious manipulation of Nixon’s political needs and phobias. Nixon was left in the dark about Kissinger’s “possibility” that the North could win its war if it gave the South a short period of freedom. Nixon never knew the depth of Kissinger’s betrayal until I told him in 1989. He went white and lost all composure as he internalized the horrific implications of what he had just heard.

By setting up the South for failure and defeat, Kissinger betrayed not only his president but also American warfighters and their families, along with our allies in South Vietnam and a generation of men and women who believed in American leadership abroad. Kissinger’s machinations undermined America’s moral authority in world affairs, paving the way for policy failures in Iraq and Afghanistan and imposing the curse of defeatism on the American people.

When thinking of Kissinger’s reputed accomplishments, we might call to mind the passages in the Gospel of Matthew where the devil himself tempted Jesus with rule over powers and principalities. Jesus merely said: “Get thee hence, Satan,” and the devil was left powerless.

The moral stain and political stench of betrayal must be cleansed.

We need the right person to make possible such a victory over our sinful past.

Pete Hegseth could be the change agent America needs.

Hegseth has affirmed that his mission is to focus on warfighting, on how to win when the chips are on the table. As a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hegseth knows firsthand the battlefield consequences of weak political leaders who cover their own misjudgments with deceit, who lack any fidelity to those who sacrifice their minds and bodies to execute the mission.

To cure the evil left behind by Kissinger and other elites groomed in his image, our national security institutions need a moral reform from top to bottom. This is our opportunity to replace a culture of self-indulgent delusions with a culture of truth and courage.

The subtitle to Hegseth’s most recent book — “behind the betrayal of the men who keep us free” — indicates he has internalized the lesson of Kissinger’s betrayal of an earlier generation of Americans and can point our minds and hearts in a new direction of securing our country with pride and honor.

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