A year ago, it would have been unthinkable that Rand Paul’s presidential campaign could underperform that of his father, Ron Paul. Rand had expanded his father’s presidential base, attracting Tea Partiers and Evangelical Christians and even winning over Establishment Republicans like Mitch McConnell. Time ran a cover story proclaiming Rand Paul is the Most Interesting Man in Politics [by Michael Scherer, October 16, 2014] and most polls showed him at or near the top of GOP pack—indeed, a May 28-31, 2015 Washington Post/ABC poll found Rand Paul tied for first place with Jeb Bush (!). However, after that Paul failed to receive double digits; he had been below 5% since August [ 2016 Republican Presidential Nomination, Real Clear Politics]. Now he’s out. What happened?

The most obvious answer: Donald J. Trump, who announced his candidacy just as Rand Paul’s numbers began to fall. Rand Paul was on the receiving end of numerous Trump stumpings. Thus when Paul tried to attack Trump by saying “I think there’s a sophomoric quality about Mr. Trump … about his visceral response to attack people on their appearance, short, tall, fat ugly," Trump hit back brutally: “I never attacked him or his looks, and believe me, there’s plenty of subject matter right there." [ Donald Trump hits Rand Paul on his looks during GOP 2016 debate, by Adam Edelman, New York Daily News, September 15, 2016]

But Rand Paul has been an afterthought since Trump began his campaign, and Trump’s insults were not really key. Instead, three other aspects of the Trump campaign—Trump’s opposition to Political Correctness, his celebrity appeal, and his nationalism—have deflated whatever air Read more >>

Donald Trump won more votes in the Iowa caucuses than any Republican candidate in history.

Impressive, except Ted Cruz set the new all-time record.

And Marco Rubio exceeded all expectations by taking 23 percent.

Cruz won Tea Party types, Evangelicals, and the hard right.

Trump won the populists and nationalists who want the borders secure, no amnesty, and no more trade deals that enable rival powers like China to disembowel American industries.

And Rubio? He is what columnist Mark Shields called Jimmy Carter, 35 years ago, "the remainderman of national politics. He gets what's left over Read more >>

Any politician who claims to care about the drug overdose deaths sweeping the nation, but does not demand that we build a wall, deport illegal aliens and end the anchor baby scam, is a liar.

In 2014, more people died from drug overdoses than any year in U.S. history: 47,055. That's more than die in car accidents—and it's not even close.

This is a huge, horrible problem—and it's a problem caused entirely by the fact that Mexico is on our southern border.

The diverse, hardworking people of Mexico manufacture the majority of heroin in the U.S. and import "nearly all" of it, according to a 2014 Washington Post report.

The media and political class respond to this fact by asking themselves: How do we blame this on Americans—preferably white males?

Even as Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the head of Mexico's largest drug cartel, is all over the news boasting, "I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world" ( The New York Times, Jan. 10, 2016), we're informed, Hey, don't blame Mexicans! It's America's appetite for drugs that's driving the narcotics trade!

Mexicans aren't at fault for dumping these poisons on our country because ... it's the 14-year-old American kid's fault for getting addicted! Hucksters of cigarettes, subprime mortgages and fake weight loss pills should try that argument. We're just selling what Americans are buying!

About the time President Bush threw open our southern border—followed by Obama Read more >>

In the film Groundhog Day (which Charles Murray thinks will still be remembered centuries from now) a selfish man is doomed to relive the same day over and over again until he understands what it is to lead a good life and is permitted by whatever cosmic force exists to move on to February 3.

The Beltway Right seems to think it will forever be 1980, and the same old hoary slogans and invocations of vaguely-defined “principles” will carry the day. After Iowa, Marc Rubio is their current candidate to do this.

But unlike Bill Murray’s character, the GOP won’t get a chance to do the election over again. The Left’s triumph will be complete—and the historic American nation will be decisively dispossessed.

Thus for Conservatism Inc., the Iowa p Read more >>

Latin America's Zika virus is the latest undocumented immigrant to hit our shores, but have no fear. Self-appointed Zika Warrior Prince Charles Schumer has declared that he is here to stop it.

The New York Democrat has a "three-point plan" of attack to build a "firewall" that will prevent an Read more >>

Teen displacement?  Winter storm Jonas passed through, dumping 24 inches of snow on my property, more where it drifted.  I put in four hours steady shoveling the morning of January 24th.

Yes, I shovel my own snow, politely declining the services of the three- or four-man crews of Aztecs who work my street offering to shovel for a modest fee. (Though not declining the offer from a kind neighbor to help me finish off with his gas-powered snow blower. Thanks, Charlie. Gotta get one of those things … but I say that every year. The truth is, I belong to the masochist school of home-ownership. If you're not suffering, you don't deserve your title deeds.)

It makes me sad to see those Aztec crews. They're pleasant enough people, but the few dollars they pick up should, it seems to me, be going into the pockets of American teenagers.

If the Aztecs weren't out there, though, would our youngsters take up the shovel? Or are they too supervised, safe-spaced, helicopter-parented — or too absorbed in their gadgets — to expose their precious selves to manual labor?

My own son used to shovel for money, but it wasn't quite the same thing. His best friend's Dad runs a landscaping firm, and in winter hires out as a snow-plow service. Junior and his buddy would ride along in the plow truck and clean off steps and other places the plow couldn't reach. He made some serious pocket money in a bad winter. Without the buddy thing and the pre-found customer base, though, would Junior have been up and down the street hustling for business? I don't know, and too late now to find out.

The impregnable fortress of Diversity.     I try not to read too much about the horrible slow calamity engulfing England as a result of unrestrained immigration. It's too upsetting.

Once in a while, though, someone directs me to a piece on the topic that is so good, I can't stop reading. There was one such this month: veteran writer and editor Benjamin Schwarz's article in The American Conservative. Sample:

The mass immigration that Britain has experienced since 1997 — the year Tony Blair's New Labour government radically revised the immigration laws in a deliberate effort to transform Britain into a multicultural society — has had an effect wholly different from that of all previous political and social disruptions. Mass immigration hasn't merely embellished, changed, or even assaulted the enduring, resilient national culture that [George] Orwell adumbrated. Rather, by its very nature

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It is often repeated that the only way to influence culture is to produce it. This isn’t entirely true: much like solving the current immigration mess, the first step is to use what we already have.

One of the founding principles here at VDARE.com is that America is real. To quote directly from our “About” page:

"America is not a melting pot, or a tossed salad or any other fashionable dietary metaphor that strips our nation of its rightful identity. We founded a country unique to history that has its own philosophies, values, social structure, attitudes, festivals, foods and aesthetic. VDARE.com strives to preserve and celebrate the distinctive culture of America."

(Donate today!)

While the Cultural Marxists are busy importing festivals from other cultures irrelevant to American history (Cinco de Mayo) or instituting holy days of obligation for their saints (Martin Luther King) we need to get busy having FUN— celebrating the historic American nation.

The anniversary of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is an obvious choice. Here are the facts:

• The Mexican-American war basically started as a dispute over our southern border. Mexico fired the first shot in 1846 and the conflict lasted about a year, concluding with American troops’ capture of Mexico City.


• The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,

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Whoever wins the nominations, the most successful campaigns of 2016 provide us with a clear picture of where the center of gravity is today in both parties and, hence, where America is going.

Bernie Sanders, with his mammoth crowds and mass support among the young, represents, as did George McGovern in 1972, despite his defeat, the future of the Democratic Party.

That Hillary Clinton has been tacking left tells you Sanders is winning the argument. Should she avoid indictment in the email scandal, and win the nomination and the election, Clinton would be a placeholder president.

Yet, should Sanders win the nomination and election—highly improbable—he would become a frustrated and a failed president.

Why? Consider what he has on offer.

Free college tuition and universal health care, a breakup

Read more >>