Joe Biden kicked off campaign season with a fiery speech claiming that democracy itself is on the ballot this year. He’s absolutely right—though not in the way he intended.

Biden was disparaging his likely opponent, Donald Trump. But there’s never been a more autocratic administration than his own. It sought to censor Americans’ lawful speech on the internet. It sicced the FBI both on parents who complained at school board meetings and on traditional Catholic churches, in a hunt for supposed domestic radicals.

None of this is how our democratic republic has ever worked. Nor has any president so blatantly broken American immigration law, allowing eight million illegal immigrants to overwhelm our southern border.

It’s certainly unprecedented for any president to try to imprison his top political opponent, destroy his business, and have him thrown off the ballot.

America, indeed, faces a crisis of democracy. But it’s not coming from Donald Trump.

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It needs saying, again: the world is a dangerous place.  The question is whether we’ll make it more dangerous or less, by what we do and don’t, by who we support or don’t.  And when.  And how.

For 45 years, Iran has been at war against the United States—taking American hostages, killing Americans, targeting allies—directly and via proxies. Its most lethal proxy is Hezbollah—whose Manifesto makes it clear: America is their number one target. And now Israel, our ally, is called upon to fight Hezbollah. We’d better be clear where we are on this front, too.

We should not be sleepwalking as danger is exploding everywhere—not just the Middle East. This very moment is, as Paul Harvey once said, a testing time.  

One can fail tests.  In foreign policy, that’s how world wars start.

Right now, our grade is not good.  We’d better wake up from our lethal slumber and fix it!

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At the top of the ballot on Election Day next fall, American voters will likely have to choose between President Biden and former President Trump. That matchup isn’t inevitable, it’s just very likely. 
 
If, indeed, the Biden-Trump rematch is the marquee event, the outline of what will drive voters making that choice is already clear. The election is going to be marked by three great divides.
 
First, I’d point to irascibility vs. infirmity. Some subset of voters are simply not up for another four years of President Trump’s trademark combativeness. And, with President Biden, another set see a man who has declined too much.
 
A second chasm separates the starkly different approaches of Biden and Trump on issues of national security, especially regarding the use of force and the need to secure the nation’s border.
 
But the biggest divide is not between Trump and Biden, but involves Trump alone and how voters view him. Some see him as a threat to the republic—the end of democracy. I think that’s nuts, but some people do. Others think he’ll save the country from out-of-touch elites. I think that’s a lot to home for from one guy, but it’s a beginning. He is sort of a wrecking ball—and we need that when it comes to places like Harvard.
 
All of it starts shortly in Iowa.
 
Welcome to the 2024 presidential election cycle.

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The forces of war and evil are exploding everywhere. In the Middle East, in Europe, in Asia, in Africa. One might even call it pandemonium.  Our allies are at risk, our enemies and the enemies of our allies are unrelenting. Add to this: We’re looking at an unprecedented free-for-all invasion at our southern border.

This election year is looking a lot like 1980. In that campaign, Ronald Reagan said: “We know only too well that war comes not when the forces of freedom are strong, but when they are weak. It is then that tyrants are tempted.  We simply cannot learn these lessons the hard way again without risking our destruction.”

Tragically we are learning these lessons, the hard way.  One can only remember where the world was—from the Middle East to Europe to Central America—in 1980, and imagine the nightmare it could have become, were Ronald Reagan not elected.  We’re getting that same sense right now.

President Biden needs to be defeated.

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The President of Harvard, Claudine Gay, has resigned—despite the Board of Fellows’ support and behind the scenes lobbying by Barack Obama. Not only did she disgrace herself in congressional testimony by failing to condemn calls for Jewish genocide on campus; Gay was credibly accused of more than 40 instances of academic plagiarism.

Along with Gay herself, the scandal’s greatest victims are elite education and the DEI movement. But the resignation is too little, too late. The public scrutinized the leader of what’s billed as the nation’s preeminent university—and realized the empress figuratively had no clothes.

It became obvious Gay was selected as Harvard’s president of Harvard because of her immutable characteristics—sex and skin color. And Harvard’s drama became a microcosm of the decay and corruption DEI has imposed on many of our greatest institutions.

Gay may be gone, but the lessons Americans learned will linger.

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The Biden administration, European leaders, and the UN want Israel to halt its operations in Gaza – first in hostage exchanges, and then in yet another cease-fire with Hamas. Few among these supposed allies grasp how Hamas’ October 7 massacres changed all of the calculations for Israel and its mission to defend its Jewish homeland.

The Israelis, however, have not miscalculated this moment. This week, they delivered on Benjamin Netanyahu’s promise to destroy Hamas to the last man in a drone strike on the group’s Beirut offices. The strike killed Ismail Haniyeh’s chief deputy, Saleh al-Arouri, along with five others in the Hamas office. This followed an absurd set of demands from Haniyeh regarding hostage negotiations that demanded thousands of prisoners released as well as an IDF withdrawal from Gaza. 

This sends a direct message to Hamas that their time has run out, from the top to the bottom of the terrorist network. It should also send a message to the Biden administration about the folly of deals with terrorists bent on genocide. The Israelis will no longer play by Hamas’ rules – or Biden’s.

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As 2023 comes to a close, we ought to look to 2024 with a renewed resolve to reclaim our American capacity for self-renewal. Over the course of these past several years we have witnessed an America—and the West—in serious decline. 

Domestically—we look to the languid state of our economy, our border crisis, our drug crisis and the homelessness plaguing so many of our major cities.

On the world stage, we have lost the confidence of our allies and the world—it’s all too clear—is a very dangerous place.

Culturally, church attendance, marriage rates and family formation are in serious decline.

The combined impact of this political, economic and cultural decline is accelerating.

A comeback must come soon. 

Our nation has demonstrated a remarkable capacity for self-renewal time and time again.

As we turn to 2024, let us make that renewal, that comeback, all our new year’s resolution. 

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Often the institutions that most affect your life are not household names. 

For example, when it comes to influencing major corporations, the big dogs are actually the proxy advisory services, especially ISS and Glass Lewis, but also the scrappy up-and-comers such as Egan Jones and Strive. The first two represent 97 percent market share, and their recommendations affect the way trillions of dollars vote at annual shareholder meetings. 

Recently, a number of groups such as the State Financial Officers Foundation—basically red state treasurers—and state Attorney’s General and financial advisors recruited by Inspire Investors representing 250 billion dollars have sent letters to the proxy services asking them to eliminate political bias in their voting policies and to provide non-ESG alternatives. 

Your investment dollars are your investment dollars and your voice should not be hijacked into supporting social causes that you disagree with. Ask your financial advisor or the funds you invest with what they're doing about the problem.

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Harvard is America’s oldest university with a cherished reputation as the quintessence of academic excellence.

Over the last five decades, the university has veered sharply leftward. Yet amid increasing radicalism and intolerance, its status has remained intact.

But what’s happening now proves the truth of Benjamin Franklin’s adage: “It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.”

The virulent antisemitism evident on its campus and the tone-deaf incompetence of its leadership have taken a toll. Early applications to Harvard have fallen a whopping seventeen percent—nearly one-fifth.

Of course, there is no shortage of excellent students to fill the seats at Harvard. But the drop is a welcome sign that market forces exist, and that Harvard’s institutional prestige will not continue indefinitely without real and meaningful reforms to the university’s operation.

Let’s hope we see some.

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“For unto us a child is born, unto us a child is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”

That’s what the great prophet Isaiah promised centuries before the birth of Christ. The fulfillment of that promise is what we celebrate at Christmas.

It happened in little Bethlehem, and the angel announced to shepherds: “I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”

And so that baby was born, history was riven in two, and salvation came. As the angelic host declared: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

May you and those you love celebrate a wonderful Christmas, filled with the glory of Christ.

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