Free Republic

President Donald Trump told a gathering of pumped-up Christian conservatives on Friday that he’s keeping his promise to stop government intrusion into people’s faiths and return the country to more traditional values. “In America, we don’t worship government, we worship God,” Trump declared to a cheering crowd at the Values Voters Summit in Washington. "How times have changed," he added, " but you know what? Now they are changing back again, just remember that." Trump, the first sitting president to address the Values Voter Summit, cited the promises he's fulfilled, including the revocation of the Johnson Amendment, which prohibited religious...

When Palo Alto High School sophomore Jackson Druker wore his red "Make America Great Again" hat to school last year, he said he was bullied, harassed and even physically assaulted. Students took his hat and stepped on it. Others cursed at him. One student punched him in the back of his head, he said. Another told him "I literally want to shoot you right now if you don't take off that hat," he said during a class presentation on the experience. Druker's account with online schoolwork-management system Schoology was hacked and his contact information changed to hillaryclintonlover3@gmail.com, he said.

From now on, I'm no longer going to call myself a conservative. I am a proud "Normal"! Words have power and we've allowed the left to define terms of the debate for too long. By calling myself a "Normal", I'm declaring that the left, the sexual anarchists, the communists and all their ilk are "not normals". The right lost the marriage debate when we allowed the left to frame the argument in terms of "marriage equality." Time to change the debate.

I guess now we’re not supposed to be fighting culture wars anymore – man, it’s so hard to keep up with these ever-changing new rules! I’m old enough to remember way back to 2016, before Trump got nominated, and I could have sworn Conservative Inc., was gung-ho for the whole culture war thing. But then Trump actually fought it, taking on the big, soft target that is the spoiled, semi-literate athletes who like to rub their contempt for the flag we love in our faces in the guise of woke wokedness. Now we suddenly discover that fighting back is horribly...

Once upon a time Red State types were just like their Blue State brethren. They settled in for the night by watching Jay, Conan, Dave, or Jimmy. A few monologue jokes later, and they were off to dreamland with a grin on their faces. That was then, and by "then" we mean roughly five years ago. Today, some of the late-night faces have changed. Jay became Jimmy (Fallon). Dave gave way to Stephen (Colbert). And new talent like Trevor Noah, Jim Jefferies, and Chelsea Handler entered the arena. The entire tenor of late night changed, too. What was once a...

Being neither a religion nor an ideology, the body of opinion termed conservatism possesses no Holy Writ and no Das Kapital to provide dogmata. So far as it is possible to determine what conservatives believe, the first principles of the conservative persuasion are derived from what leading conservative writers and public men have professed during the past two centuries. After some introductory remarks on this general theme, I will proceed to list ten such conservative principles. Perhaps it would be well, most of the time, to use this word “conservative” as an adjective chiefly. For there exists no Model Conservative,...

Having refused to repeal Obamacare, the Republican Party is dead, as was the Whig Party in 1854 after it colluded in the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act which opened these territories to slavery. Republican majorities in both Houses of Congress as well as control of legislatures and governorships in 26 states veil the fact that, in 2017, there are no longer reasons to vote Republican any more than there were to vote Whig after 1854. The Republican Party’s successes in recent electoral cycles were due to the American people’s desire not to be governed by a ruling class, headed by...

Aug. 15 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended his initial response that "many sides" were involved in the violent confrontation between white supremacists and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Va. "You had a group on one side that was mad, and you had a group on the other side that was violent," Trump told reports at Trump Tower in New York. "Nobody wants to say that, but I'll say that." He noted it was a "fine statement" Saturday even though Republicans and Democrats criticized him for not specifically condemning those who staged the demonstration in the city. Trump said he...

Well, first, when I announced my candidacy for the presidency, I reminded people that Gallup has been asking a very specific question to the American people for decades, do you think the federal government is incompetent, and corrupt? 80% of the American people say yes. 80% of us think the federal government's incompetent and corrupt, which means that Republicans, Democrats, independents, we all kind of agree on that. Well, if you think you want more incompetent, corrupt government, then please, vote for Hillary Clinton, because clearly that's what she would've brought, more. More politics, more corruption, more big government, more...

To say that Donald Trump is a kind of American version of Jean-Marie and Marine Le Pen, the French populist leaders, has become a bit of a cliché. What is more interesting is what it means for where America is headed. But first, let us rehearse the case for Trump being the American Le Pen. We can check off the list. There is the rhetoric: the over-the-top nationalism (Trump calls for “America First,” Marine Le Pen’s consigliere wants to rebrand her National Front party as “The Patriots”), the xenophobia, as distinguished from sensible immigration restrictionism, complete with not-so-naked ethnic appeals...

We hoped they would go away after the election. We hoped they would stop their whining and grandstanding once Donald Trump took office. We hoped they would accept defeat and embrace our Republican president, that they would hold him accountable regarding policy and support any effort to right the ship that has been lurching toward the brink for decades.

So, when it was impossible to repeal or replace or do anything about Obamacare because President Obama was in the Oval Office with his veto pen?  As the Daily Caller noted here: “Forty-eight current Republican senators supported the 2015 Obamacare repeal bill, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia.”  Then? Then the unexpected, as explained here by Republican Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey recently. The headline: “Sen. Pat Toomey on health care delay: I didn't think Trump would win presidency.” The story saying, in part, this: “‘I didn't expect Donald Trump to win. I think most of my...

It’s always hard in politics for people to take their opponents’ views seriously, but it has become ever harder in Trump’s America. People are more engaged with politics, but only because they want to beat the other side, not understand it. This means scholars have a greater responsibility than ever to help ordinary citizens understand how the people with whom they disagree think, and what their political opponents are actually doing. Most scholars get this. For example, political scientists and historians, who tend to range from the political center to the left wing, have written extensively about the origins and...

It seems that Trump's actions are more conservative than those of actual Conservatives. Cutting cost, de-regulations, asking for an ACA repeal, shrinking EPA, supporting Christiananity, helping vets, backing the military, addressing illegals and sanctuary cities, investigating voter fraud, budget cuts, cutting waste and fraud, calling out propaganda media, etc. And yet, the so-called conservatives that fought for Obamacare repeal every election don't have the courage to do that now. Nor do they publicly back Trump. Who's the real conservative here? I prefer Trumps conservative actions over any conservative mouth piece. For the hand wringers and pearl clutchers, Trump is fighting...

Summary - Judge Jeanine asks where is GOPe on defending Trump. They are not interested because, for them, getting rid of Trump is a return to business as usual. Hillary as President would have been no problem. Trump is. They think they can get rid of Trump and by the 2018 election everything will be fine

Both victory and defeat have been radicalizing experiences for the Democratic party during this century. Democrats moved left after losing to George W. Bush; they moved farther left after winning with Barack Obama; and now they seem to be moving farther left still under President Donald Trump. The cumulative effect of all this movement has been to put the party well to the left of where it was during Bill Clinton’s administration. Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign felt it necessary to disavow many of her husband’s old stances, and some of her own. President Clinton signed a tough-on-crime bill; Hillary Clinton...

The most recent of incident of Cultural Marxist commissars refusing to admit that dissidents are to be treated as fellow citizens is the crazed female professor who accosted the NPI’s Richard Spencer while he was exercising at a Alexandria gym. She, recognizing him from coverage of the election campaign, started haranguing him and calling him a “Nazi.” Instead of having her ejected for this behavior, the gym’s management terminated Spencer’s membership. [Georgetown professor confronts white nationalist Richard Spencer at the gym — which terminates his membership, By Faiz Siddiqui May 21, 2017] Back in 2011 VDARE posted a commentary of...

The Sinclair group, which owns 173 television stations, is in the process of acquiring 42 more, and the New York Times doesn't like that.  It has run a hit piece claiming that Sinclair's local stations produce politically biased news – conservative news, that is – therefore making Sinclair unfit to own more of them. As Sinclair prepares to expand its stable of local TV stations with a proposed acquisition of Tribune Media  –  which would add 42 stations to Sinclair's 173  –  advocacy groups have shown concern about the size and reach the combined company would have. What "advocacy groups" would those be?  Have...

Up to two fifths of Americans describe themselves as Conservatives, and in England that number is roughly the same. The beliefs and principles that relate both the US and UK Conservatives are generally similar, yet any individual definition of what Conservatism means to each person who identifies as such would probably differ greatly. And of course, those who are not Conservative have a very different view as to what principles (if any) underlie its present incarnation. Those on the Left (who would be happy to identify as Liberal) generally define themselves through a core set of “values”. That these are...

It's something most conservatives a year ago would not have imagined: the opening act of Donald Trump’s agenda in the White House contains a real whiff of Ronald Reagan. To be sure, there's plenty the Reaganites won't like -- talk of trillion-dollar federal building campaigns, taxing business at the border, etc. -- but there's plenty to applaud as well. He’s proposing dramatic across-the-board tax cuts. That’s Reaganesque. He’s reasserting American strength and resolve in response to the dictators who rattle sabers at America. That’s Reaganesque. He’s appointing judges and Supreme Court justices that follow the Constitution instead of acting like...