Post-op and Prognosis

The Blue Wave (AI-image)

Sarge's latest batch of fiction has really intrigued me. I love the spy, thriller, action-adventure genre as a lot of people do, and to me, this latest creation of his fits that perfectly.  In the comments on a recent post we briefly chatted about Tom Clancy and Vince Flynn novels, and how those two are probably the best in the biz.  Unfortunately both have passed away and the mantles of their books have been taken up by others.  Some of those are decent, but all are somewhat lacking.  The many books in the Jack Ryan universe are very much hit or miss, often formulaic at times and unremarkable.  The authors who took on writing about Mitch Rapp and his CIA exploits do a good job, but again not really scratching the itch that I am looking for with that character.  There seemed to be an arc for Mitch Rapp that was carefully crafted by Vince Flynn, but are now we just get one-off books with a standalone crisis that Mitch solves, and nothing is tied to some advancing storyline. 

"Oh dear, Mr. Wolf, not at all. We don't want you to intimidate them, we want you to kill them."  

Where Sarge might be going in with this work, using a lethal team to permanently deal with a problem, is probably going to be a bit more popular as a theme in movies and fiction due to the changing demographics of Europe and the United States. There's a movie on Amazon Prime called Citizen Vigilante.  It was good but not great, though it does relate to current events.  The main character was fed up about unchecked behaviors by newcomers to his country.  Actually he wasn't just fed up, he was angry and disgusted by the gut-wrenching crime that was committed and the inaction by the legal system.  That led him to take matters into his own hands since the government was either unwilling or afraid to have justice served. 

AI Image

Those October riots in Paris were terrible, but not all that shocking. What started as supposed protests about school cuts quickly filled with people who weren’t students at all. A lot of them were wearing keffiyehs and waving flags that were not the French tricolor.  In the end the damages reached nearly 2 billion Euros, around 500 to 600 police injured officers, gendarmes, and firefighters, and over 3,000 shops were looted, damaged, or destroyed.  How is looting related to school cuts?

Europe has had its hands full with this for over a decade now. Paris, parts of Italy, and to a lesser extent the UK and Germany have basically been overrun by a combination of heavy immigration, high crime in some communities, and much higher fertility rates. Some of these people came looking for a better life or as refugees from war-torn countries. But once they became firmly entrenched in society, it became clear that many of their values simply don’t mesh with Western culture and attitudes. Couple that with large families at younger ages (25% of births in France are from foreign-born mothers), plus 10% unemployment in these communities, and you get a lot of disaffected young men turning to crime.

In the UK, this problem exploded into the grooming gang scandals. For years, organized groups of mostly Pakistani men systematically raped and trafficked thousands of young British girls in places like Rotherham, Rochdale, and others. Authorities knew what was happening but deliberately downplayed it, ignored victims, and covered it up for fear of being called racist. The 2014 Jay Report revealed that at least 1,400 girls were abused in Rotherham alone. Police and social services were terrified of "racism" accusations, so they sacrificed the children to protect political correctness.

This isn’t about every single immigrant. But the pattern is clear, and as our President warned them, Europe needs to wake up before it’s too late.  When is it too late?  Maybe that point was passed last month.

Meanwhile, to ensure representation, some aspire to and achieve political office. We’ve now seen this play out in Minnesota, and with Zohran Mamdani winning the NYC Mayor race in 2025 — he’s a democratic socialist, the first Muslim mayor of the city, born to immigrants.  And in Michigan, the new Senator also comes from an immigrant Muslim background with fanatical ties that have raised a lot of eyebrows.

This can be problematic due to the concept of taqiyya, an Islamic concept of concealing one’s true beliefs or intentions when living as a minority under non-Muslim rule, particularly if it serves the advancement of Islam.  Because of that, I'm not sure if we can trust these politicians to uphold the Western values they claim to support when they’re campaigning.  Yet some are bold enough to spout anti-American values, but they're still elected.  Are they truly committed to our way of life, or are they working to change the system from the inside?

I don't think we'll have that type of crime or a push to embrace their culture happening here.  Not that we're immune to riots, ones planned and executed by power brokers on the left, but not by disaffected minorities for the most part.  We also wouldn't stand for such crimes without either official justice, or more home-grown versions supported by our 2A freedoms.  Those freedoms will also keep both unchecked governments and specific demographics from becoming unruly.  I'm talking about deterrence, not actual violence.

Why does this seem to be increasing?  Partially due to demographics, fertility, and concentrated voting blocs that where their voting power is enough to win major offices.  Add in guilt-driven “diversity” politics and some disaffected youth, and we get candidates who check multiple identity boxes to get a massive boost.

As for the youth embracing socialism (or at least far-left policies), it seems to come from a mix of things.  Many young people, like my daughter, have grown up in a time of sky-high housing costs, student debt (not for her fortunately), stagnant wages for average workers, and endless social media telling them that capitalism is the root of all evil.  They may not have been taught about, nor did they live through the Cold War.  They haven't seen what real socialism does to a country, so the word “socialist” doesn’t scare them.  They hear promises of free college, free healthcare, and “equity,” and it sounds like justice instead of what it actually is — government control over more and more of their lives.

The combination is dangerous. You have immigrant communities that haven’t fully adopted Western values (and in some cases actively reject them), paired with a large chunk of young native-born voters who think socialism sounds like a good idea. Together they create a voting coalition that is pushing hard-left policies and putting people with questionable loyalties into positions of real power.

Now here in the US, there are hints of the same growing concerns.  After the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we graciously allowed many refugees to come here.  Some have recently been elected to some of the highest positions in our country, tapping into the youth vote and conning the Democratic Party to bring them under the tent.  Did the USA suddenly embrace socialism?  No, but the media still dominate discourse.  Did all the things we voted for in 2024 suddenly collapse?  No, the border is still closed and crime is way down.  Is DEI and the trans movement still dominating govt and academic institutions?  No again.  Wages are up, inflation is down, unemployment is down and the GDP is growing.  Is Iran capable of building a nuclear weapon?  No to that too.  Wars around the world have also been turned off.  All of this is true, although you wouldn't know it without digging into the corners of the interwebs to find the reports.  All of these are good news stories that would shower accolades on the sitting President in times past, but again- the media decides what you know and how you think about these.  Even more so in an election year.

I get it- our international policy has dramatically affected our energy policy, and oil runs everything- literally and figuratively.  The high diesel¹  and fuel prices hurt everyone and raise the price of everything.  That's an easy message for the media to pound, and the GOP suffered because of it.  Does that mean Trump was wrong to do what so many other politicians have given lip service to?  No, he's just the one to have the balls to do it.  Some think we should have never gone in, but many of them would have also agreed that something had to be done and that we can't allow a nuclear Iran.

I'm sure no one anticipated that Iran wouldn't have some moderate faction that could step forward to lead in the wake of the clerics.  Nor that there would still be a faction of IRGC fanatics that would continue their attacks.  This has kept the prices at the pump high while the war continues, angering the voting public info a repudiation of the GOP.  Remember "It's the economy stupid" from 1992?  That was true on Tuesday as well, despite us seeing the successes that were promised before we elected him 2 years ago.

What's going to happen now?  Well, it'll be Biden-era angry revenge politics 5.0.  There will likely be an end to the filibuster, impeachment attempts at Hegseth¹¹   for sure, and Trump probably.  We'll see endless hearings for much of the cabinet and the Trump family, trying to nail them for unethical or supposedly illegal activities.  They'll try to push legislation to end ICE and the war.  However, they don't have a super-majority and Trump is still President, so little will come of it.  They'll also spend all their time on Trump that they'll do nothing to lower the cost of living.  Therefore, more ineffective politics and we'll get nothing done.  There was a repudiation of Biden-era politics in 2024, and we got the policies we wanted.  However, the economy rules out and we have a short attention span, so repudiation 2.0. The war was just a wildcard thrown in the mix that is taking too long.  

Will the war be over by Nov 2028?  I would expect so.  Will our country still be secure with locked-down borders?  For sure.  Will the economy, specifically gas prices come down? I expect that to.  Will Vance run?  Probably.  Would we have a better chance with Rubio?  Probably that too, but I don't think he will.  My only real concern is Senate confirmation votes for a couple of aging conservative Supreme Court Justices, if it comes to it.  

Well, that's how I see it- what happened and what's next.  Hold on tight.

¹  The price of oil is way down, below $85 a barrel, but the gas prices are really lagging that.  Almost like it was planned.

¹ ¹ SecWar Hegseth may be a sacrificial lamb.