Author: Thomas L. Knapp

Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Ryan McMaken

“The idea of political unity has long been a popular trope and slogan in politics. ‘He’s a uniter, not a divider’ is a sentiment that many American politicians like to cultivate about themselves. Over many centuries and across many jurisdictions we encounter the claim that unity is a political virtue, and that anything that ‘divides us’ must therefore be condemned. Some even label opposition to unity as a type of treason. So, it makes sense that political unity is often the language employed by those who seek to enhance and increase the power of the state.” (01/27/26)

https://mises.org/mises-wire/we-can-have-unity-or-we-can-have-freedom-we-cant-have-both

Source: Independent Institute
by Craig Eyermann

“President Donald Trump recently celebrated the first anniversary of his second term in office, the first two-term President since Grover Cleveland to not serve consecutive terms. When he was sworn in on January 20, 2025, the U.S. government was almost four full months into its 2025 fiscal year. With that being the case, there wasn’t much he could do to alter the U.S. government’s fiscal situation through September, the end of its 2025 fiscal year. In January 2025, the Congressional Budget Office projected the U.S. government was on track to spend $7.028 trillion during its 2025 fiscal year, while collecting $5.163 trillion in taxes. The federal government was set to rack up an annual budget deficit of $1.865 trillion.” (01/27/26)

https://www.independent.org/article/2026/01/27/fiscal-trends-trump-first-year/

Source: spiked
by Fraser Myers

“Voters want the law enforced, fairly and consistently. They want criminal elements removed from their communities. But when it appears, fairly or not, that agencies like ICE have themselves become sources of disorder or lawlessness, it is entirely understandable that public opinion will turn. The killings of two citizens have not been the only outrages. In Minnesota this past month, immigration officers have arrested a five-year-old child, and were filmed pepper spraying a man they had already detained. Last week, they wrongfully arrested a US citizen at gunpoint, searched his house without a warrant, and led him out on to the streets in his underwear, in sub-zero conditions. This aggressive, confrontational approach – by masked-up heavies – may appeal to the diehards, but it shocks ordinary folk who would otherwise support robust border control.” (01/27/26)

https://archive.is/q04Xy

Source: Fox News
by Jonathan Alpert

“After my Wall Street Journal opinion piece, ‘Is ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ Real?’ was published, the response was immediate and intense. Some readers thanked me. Many were furious. I was accused of excusing Donald Trump, minimizing harm and betraying my profession. Some messages were hostile. A few crossed into threats. What struck me wasn’t the disagreement itself, but how quickly disagreement turned into fury. Simply questioning the idea was enough to set people off. That reaction stayed with me, because it reflected something I had already been seeing in my clinical work. Over the past decade, one psychological pattern has quietly become dominant in American life. It cuts across education, geography and socioeconomic status. I would even go so far as to call it the defining pathology of our political era: a state of chronic political anxiety in which outrage becomes habitual and threat becomes the default lens.” (01/28/26)

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/therapists-warning-trump-didnt-break-america-permanent-outrage-did