As we drill down on the dangers of corporate monopoly, we can observe that the worst offenders are Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple. We might even turn those four companies into an acronym, GAFA. And yes, GAFA is the antithesis of MAGA—Making America Great Again.
Author: Virgil
Virgil — Teddy Roosevelt’s Hammer: How the ‘Great Trust Buster’ Built the American Dream
In his famous “New Nationalism” speech in 1910, the “Great Trust Buster” Teddy Roosevelt described “the struggle of freemen to gain and hold the right of self-government as against the special interests, who twist the methods of free government into machinery for defeating the popular will.” A century ago, that was how one “drained the swamp.” TR knew that the struggle to reform, and thereby secure the full blessings of citizenship, must always be new because in any era, if the struggle for reform ever grows old and tired, then we will lose those blessings. Today, it’s not Standard Oil and the railroads we have to worry about, but rather Silicon Valley and Wall Street.
Virgil – American Centurions: The Thin Blue Line Is Blue Collar America’s Gift to the Nation
Like the latter days of the Roman Empire, in this American republic, much of the elite has abandoned its national duty. So it’s been the commoners, with no higher title than citizen, who have undertaken the hard work of defending. America’s cops have been our steady blue-collar centurions fighting crime. In fact, a 1971 study found that police force had overwhelmingly blue-collar backgrounds; the fathers of 80 percent of NYPD recruits in that era were laborers or service workers.
Virgil — The Emerging Trump Doctrine: The Defense of the West and Judeo-Christian Civilization
Watching Donald Trump speak in Warsaw today, in the shadow of that city’s memorial to the gallantly doomed Polish resistance heroes of World War Two, Virgil thought of another Western leader of indomitable resolve: Winston Churchill. Like Churchill, Trump made clear that we will not only stand up for our Judeo-Christian civilization; we will also, if need be, fight for it.
Virgil — Macomb County, Michigan: From Reagan Democrats to Trump Nation to… Where?
Macomb County, Michigan, was home to the famous “Reagan Democrats” who overwhelmingly gave their votes to Trump in 2016. A new report offers insights into the motivations of these working class swing voters that the Trump White House should heed.
Virgil: On This Memorial Day, Breitbart Readers Remember and Look to the Future
In a March 17 piece, “Donald Trump, Rosie the Riveter, and the Revival of American Economic Nationalism,” Virgil took note of President Trump’s speech, two days earlier, recalling the B-24 plant at Willow Run, Michigan. And that article brought forth an outpouring of WW2 memories from Breitbart readers, many of them recording what they had heard, over the years, from fathers, mothers, and other loved ones who lived, worked, and fought in that era. Virgil sifted through all the comments, more than 1800 of them; these left him inspired, informed, amused, and, okay, sometimes bemused. On this Memorial Day, let’s take a look at some of these comments from Breitbart readers.
Virgil: ‘Getting There Firstest with the Mostest’ — How Republicans Can Stop Losing and Start Winning on Health Care Reform
In military history, the quote “Get there firstest with the mostest”—that is, strike first, and strike hard—is often attributed to the Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest apparently never said it, but for sure, he practiced it. In the Civil War, he was the leader most skilled at combining mass and maneuver. A century later, another Tennessean, Howard Baker, made much the same point, although admittedly in a vastly different context. Baker was the leader of the Republicans in the Senate from 1976 to 1984, and he, too, had his share of victories. Most notably, in 1981, Baker guided President Ronald Reagan’s big tax cut through the Senate; indeed, later in the 80s, he served as Reagan’s White House chief of staff. Baker liked to say that he learned the secret of politics in the first grade: “I learned how to count.”
Virgil: Five Takeaways from the Georgia Special Election
President Trump took a risk by intervening in Tuesday’s special election in Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District. That is, a more cautious president might have chosen to “stay above it all” and just let the election play itself out. Instead, in the run-up to the April 18 balloting, Trump charged in, firing off a half-dozen tweets to his 28 million followers.