America’s is Facing an Economic Nightmare. It is Past Time to Get Serious. The Party is Over.

by Rod Williams, Aug. 26, 2026 - For decades, people, mostly Republicans, have expressed concern about the growing national debt. They were right to be concerned, but since the disasters never came true, people stopped being alarmed.  I think it was the "Chicken Little," or the "boy who cried wolf" effect.

So, why is this time more concerning than all of the other times people expressed concern about the national debt? Because, as predicted, out-of-control debt increases at a faster and faster pace, and now we are seeing the beginning of the predicted effects.

Consider a household that has a budget shortage one month. Maybe someone did not get the overtime they expected, or they purchased something they didn't have the cash to pay for. At first, the additional credit card bill is small. But then, in addition to all their other bills, they have to pay that small credit card bill every month, and any month when expenses exceed income, they just put more of their bills on the credit card. Also, it gets easier and easier to forget about delayed gratification, and the household buys things when they need or want them, instead of waiting. Soon, they have no choice but to put more daily expenses on the credit card because the credit card bill is now as large as their car payment or even their house payment. 

In the case of the household, when the borrower reaches the credit card limit and without the ability to borrow more, the borrower has to file for bankruptcy. Of course, the US is not a household, and a sovereign nation has more tools in its toolbox than a household. The US is not facing bankruptcy yet, nor are we going to default on our debt in the immediate future. However, our debt causes us to put more debt on the credit card each month. 

The "Penn Wharton Budget Model" is a highly respected program associated with the University of Pennsylvania and provides nonpartisan, research-based estimates and analysis on the fiscal impact of public policy. It predicts that on the current trajectory, the government will have no choice but to default on its debt within 20 years.

For fiscal year 2025, the U.S. federal government ran a deficit of about $1.78 trillion. It spent $7.01 trillion and collected $5.23 trillion in revenue. The US will have an even bigger deficit this year. The U.S. government will pay $1 trillion in interest payments to current debt holders. And like the household that reaches the point where the credit card bill is larger than the car payment, the US interest on the debt exceeds the Defense budget or any other departmental budgets.  Interest payments are now the third-largest spending item in the budget behind Social Security and Medicare. This is not sustainable.

Also, we are at a point where the interest we pay on the debt is variable and beyond our control. It is such a large part of the budget that it could rise rapidly even if, somehow, we balanced a budget. As a recent article in National Review pointed out;

An enormous baseline debt also makes interest rates the most dangerous variable on future spending. Although projections assume that rates remain moderate forever, a single percentage-point increase would be the fiscal equivalent of adding a second military. And, as debt accumulates and financial markets grow wary, higher interest rates become all the more likely.

A concerning trend is that other nations are dumping US debt. We have been able to ignore our large debt for so long because we were the world's reserve currency. Other countries wanted to buy our debt. We remain the world's reserve currency, but there are troubling signs that this is changing. Other countries' currencies are becoming attractive.  Japan and China have been dumping dollars, and other nations are diversifying from holding almost all dollars in their reserve portfolio to holding dollars, other currencies, and gold. 

Another disturbing trend is that the US is issuing more short-term debt and buying up long-term debt. Doubts are growing about the US economic stability, and holders of our debt are reluctant to buy long-term debt. The yield the US pays on bonds is easing up. 

In addition to people feeling less secure holding U.S. debt than before, the U.S. is competing with technology companies for money. For example, Meta’s investment‑grade bonds currently offer yields well above the U.S. Treasury 30-year yields. Both are rated in the high‑grade category by credit rating agencies, with the US bonds having only a modest edge. To compete for investors, we have to raise the yield on US debt instruments. This has an impact on the cost of the American consumer. Things like credit card rates, car loans, home loans and student loans are all tied to the interest rates paid on bonds.

One way of looking at the size of the debt is to look at the debt as a percent of GDP. Gross Domestic Product, of course, is the value of all economic activity in a country in a given year. The GDP-to-debt ratio is now, 130.6%. That is the highest it has ever been. Ten years ago, it was 99.5%. 

Some, will say we have nothing to worry about, and we could fix our problem if we withdrew from the world and reduced our military spending, or if we heavily tax the trillionaires or made the rich "pay their fair share," or if we stopped illegal immigration or if we got rid of waste, fraud, and abuse.  None of those positions address the issue. These are simply solutions that do not solve the problem. The size of the military and how progressive the income tax should are debatable points. However, they do not solve the problem of an out-of-control debt spiral. A massive reduction in our defense spending could lead to costly wars, and confiscatory taxation could lead to less economic growth. Illegal immigration is an insignificant contributor to the budget woes, and I am not sure it even adds to the national debt. Some studies show that the illegal immigration we have experienced has actually been an economic plus.  We should always strive to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, but doing so won't solve the problem of deficits and debt.

People who offer simple, easy solutions are living in la-la land. The problem is larger than they think, and when the government takes any single action, one cannot hold the other variables constant. 

I do not think there is nothing we can do, but it will not be easy. I do not think any president or Congress can pay off the debt in four years or eight years. I don't want to hear a candidate promise that. Maybe in 1981, when the debt to GDP was only 31.1% that would have been believable, or maybe as late as 2001 when it was 54.5%, but not now. What we can do is stop cutting taxes and increasing spending. We need to stop adding to the problem. 

It is not that some strategic tax policy, including tax cuts, cannot sometimes spur economic growth, and not that new spending may occasionally be needed to fix certain problems, but basically, we need an austerity budget. Unfortunately, Democrats are talking about more large social spending programs, such as Medicare for all and national childcare and free college for all.  We simply cannot afford more major spending programs, but almost every Democrat running for office is pledging support for Medicare for all and some of the other costly programs.

We need leaders who will tell the American people that we are facing a crisis and are going to have to feel some pain for a while. While I don't think there is any quick fix, we can bend the curve and avoid a disaster, but not if we continue with business as usual and continue to use tax cuts and more spending as the bait to get elected. 

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You Cannot Blame the Debt Crisis on Joe Biden

Kevin D. Williamson

 by Kevin D. Williamson, The Dispatch, Aug. 24, 2026 - “We inherited this debt bomb from the Biden administration,” J.D. Vance, vice president and knee-walking sycophant, insisted during an appearance on a Newsmax program where someone called Carl Higbie pretends to be a journalist. “American taxpayers are getting fleeced because of the very high debt charges … very high debt charges that started under the Biden administration. This is a crisis that we inherited. … The issue that we’ve had under the Biden administration and what we’re still kind of dealing with is that the debt was growing faster than American GDP.” 

.... The economy in fact grew more quickly than the debt did during Biden’s term in office: When Joe Biden entered office (Q1 2021), debt was 124 percent of GDP; when Biden left office (Q1 2025), debt was down to 121 percent of GDP. Joe Biden had more cause than Donald Trump has to make Vance’s kind of complaint about his successor: When Donald Trump first entered office (Q1 2017), debt was only 103 percent of GDP; by Q2 2020, debt was 133 percent of GDP, and while debt pressure eased somewhat in the COVID recovery, it was 124 percent of GDP when Trump left office. But even before the dramatic COVID spike, debt-to-GDP was headed the wrong way during the first Trump administration. And it is headed the wrong way now: Debt was 121 percent of GDP when Trump took office the second time around and is about 126 percent today according to the latest estimates. Some of those numbers can be blamed on COVID, but much of it is just the usual stupid spending and cowardly tax policy. 

Vance’s argument is, of course, dishonest: This is J.D. Vance we are talking about—of course it is dishonest. Vance is a man without integrity who serves men who hold honesty and honor in contempt, and he is nothing if not servile when it comes to his masters. But Vance’s argument is also a stupid one, which maybe also should go without saying. American pundits’ and partisans’ favorite party game is pin-the-debt-on-the-president, but the power to collect taxes, appropriate spending, and borrow money belongs to Congress, not to the president. Republican members of Congress voted for a great deal of spending while Biden was president. They had voted for a great deal of spending, and for tax cuts, during the first Trump administration, too. And then Republicans put together a gigantic—and gigantically irresponsible—spending package in the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, for which not one single solitary Democrat in Congress cast a vote. The Trump bill added as much as $4.7 trillion to the debt through spending, through tax cuts, and, according to analysts at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, by contributing to higher interest rates on U.S. government debt—i.e., it is one cause of those “very high debt changes” that Vance is caterwauling about. 

The Democrats have been no great shakes when it comes to fiscal probity. But to try to pretend that our current fiscal situation—entitlement and discretionary spending, the tax code, interest rates—is the result of Democratic actions taken during the Biden administration is beyond dishonest.

Kevin D. Williamson is national correspondent at The Dispatch and is based in Virginia. Prior to joining the company in 2022, he spent 15 years as a writer and editor at National Review, worked as the theater critic at the New Criterion, and had a long career in local newspapers. He is also a writer in residence at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

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This is a Masked Event. Why?

by Rod Williams, Aug. 23, 2026 - I signed up for the Democratic Socialist of America, Nashville Chapter newsletter recently and today I got this notice of an upcoming meeting:

"A masked event!" Why? While some people still get COVID, the pandemic is over. 

Unlike some on the right who viewed wearing a mask as some sort of submission to a tyrannical government and refused to wear a mask or get vaccinated, I did not. I always reasoned that we were experiencing a new phenomenon, and I trusted health officials. If they made some mistake, we were all figuring this out as we went along, and those who overreacted were doing so in good faith. 

I know some jurisdictions kept schools closed far too long. Children under 5 years of age were required to wear a mask when they did not need to. Some wore masks in their car alone or while hiking in the woods and were super paranoid.  Wearing a mask also became a means of ostentatious virtue signaling for some. During the massive Black Lives Matter protest and riots of 2020, the government did not require those participating in BLM riots and protests to wear masks, while people attending outdoor sporting events and those attending church were often required to do so. This liberal hypocrisy galled me. However, I viewed most wearing of a mask as a reasonable and socially responsible act. 

In April and May 2021, as the country's vaccination program reached more people and rates of transmission dropped drastically, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued guidelines stating that fully vaccinated individuals did not need to wear masks or physically distance when in public. 

It is now August 23, 2026. It has been five years and three months since the CDS has recommended people were a mask. Why would the DSA require masks to be worn at a chapter meeting? I think the DSA are just weird. 

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The Cost of Price Controls

by Diogo Costa, Foundation for Economic Education, Aug.22, 2026 - There’s a new poll showing that
Americans favor price controls. The results are striking:

• Democrats: 75%
• Independents: 62%
• Republicans: 54%

Support for price controls is now the majority view across the board.

In July 2006, Russ Roberts interviewed Milton Friedman, just days before Friedman’s 94th birthday and less than four months before his death.

Russ brought up gasoline price controls and the lesson learned from their obvious failures in the 1970s. Friedman responded with a warning. Americans’ resistance to price controls rested in part on living memory of what had happened: “After there’s nobody living who had experience with price controls, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it come back again.”

Americans, Friedman explained, were then only 20 or 30 years removed from the gasoline controls of the 1970s. A large share of the population still remembered the shortages and lines personally. Once that generation disappeared, he expected the idea to become politically attractive again.

“Twenty or thirty years from now.” That was Friedman’s estimate for how long economic knowledge acquired through painful experience might take to depreciate.

Here we are, 20 years later. It’s 2026, and price controls are attractive again. New York is now the poster child for them, having elected a mayor who explicitly ran on government price-control policies, whether through mandates or the direct government management of retail. As I watch this news, the ghost of Milton Friedman is living rent-free in my head.

Price controls are one of the flagship ideas of economic illiteracy.

Prices are not agents you can control. They are signals. They tell us about the relative scarcity or abundance of the goods and services around us. This goes back to the basics of economic thinking: human beings have innumerable goals and ends, but limited means and resources with which to realize them. Prices allow us, both as individuals and as a society, to decide how those means should be allocated among our goals. They are information.

In modern language, you want prices to be connected to the source of truth. That source is the market. When you manipulate prices by decree, you disconnect the signal from the underlying economic reality. Yes, the world feels more abundant the moment you fix or reduce the prices of basic goods and services such as rent or groceries. You feel as if there is more food or more housing. You feel as if you are living in a more abundant world.

But you are not. The scarcity that existed before the price was fixed did not disappear when the price changed. We are now living in a falsely abundant world. The shortage has not disappeared. What has disappeared is part of the signal telling producers how urgently additional supply is valued, along with part of the reward for supplying it. FEE is developing a new interactive experience, rentsohigh.org, to help people see how restrictions on housing supply make scarcity, and therefore high prices, worse.

As Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok say, prices are signals wrapped in incentives. A higher price tells producers, “We need more of this. If you give the world more of it, you will be rewarded accordingly.” That draws resources toward the things we need most, whether workers into construction or arable land into farming. Fix the price, and you corrupt the signal and break the incentive system.

Price controls are a trick. They are not economic thinking. They are political thinking: the use of power to alter a world built on human cooperation. They make people feel that someone is being punished, whether landlords, capitalists, or private equity, while someone else, such as shoppers or renters, is being rewarded. Our minds are more naturally wired for political thinking than for economic thinking. So yes, price controls will always be politically attractive. It is the task of economics to prevent politics from running us into poverty.

And economics does not go away because scarcity does not go away. You cannot “defeat” economics. You can try to control prices, but you cannot control costs. If scarcity is real, the cost will still be there, waiting for you to pay it.

If you prevent the price of a $2,000 apartment from rising to $2,500, something else has to give. Demand will exceed supply, so search times will increase. You will pay with time. The incentive to keep the apartment in good condition so that it can command a higher price will weaken. You will pay through lower quality and poorer maintenance. Your ability to express the intensity of your preference by bidding more than another potential renter will disappear. You may instead have to pay through personal connections.

The economic reality is still there. The cost is still there. That is why price ceilings turn money prices into other forms of payment: gasoline lines, housing queues, longer waits for appointments, deteriorating quality, favoritism, black markets, and, in the most extreme cases, empty shelves and bread lines.

Even if you say, “I would rather wait in line, defer my satisfaction, or postpone my healthcare,” remember that the incentives to increase supply have also been reduced. That means less production of the goods and services people need. Even if the money price remains fixed, scarcity will be greater than it otherwise would have been, so the real cost will rise.

Price controls are not cost controls. The difference between a price and a cost is something everyone should learn in a modern, complex society. But we are not learning it. As Friedman said, the lived experience of economic disaster is receding behind us. And, as I wrote last week, we have oversupplied our intellectual landscape with bad translators of economics.

When Friedman said that we lose our understanding of bad economics as those who lived through it disappear, I hope he was not saying that experience is the only teacher. I know he was not, because he was one of the greatest teachers of economics the world has ever seen.

But he was looking at a world in which economic phenomena were increasingly taught not through an economic lens, but through whatever political lens happened to be fashionable. We subordinate economics to politics. We subordinate social cooperation through market processes to collective action through political antagonism.

I have lived through a great deal of bad economics. I grew up in an inflationary, protectionist, price-controlling Brazil. I saw immense gasoline lines when the government controlled fuel prices. I saw people pay through risk for contraband goods they could not legally import. I saw, and still see, Brazilians fly to Miami to shop while the poorest Brazilians are forced to pay high prices at home.

But I also came to understand the consequences of political control by reading great economists. Studying Friedman, Hayek, and others gave me the concepts to understand what the hell was actually happening around me.

And here I would go further than Friedman: living through economic disaster is not enough. I have watched a country move from one economic disaster to another without ever fully understanding what went wrong the first time. Much of the world lives this way because most of the world never had a Milton Friedman explaining what the hell is going on. People experience inflation, shortages, protectionism, capital controls, and black markets, and they don’t necessarily develop an economic theory capable of explaining them. Experience supplies the evidence, but it’s economics that supplies the explanation.

Without economic thinking, even the most obvious economic failures can find a political excuse: “The policy didn’t go far enough,” “The wrong people were in charge,” “Corporations sabotaged the policy,” etc. As Ludwig von Mises warned, the failure of intervention too often becomes the justification for more intervention. Economic understanding does more than help us recognize prosperity when we have it. It gives us the intellectual equipment to understand economic failure while we are living through it.

I do not know how far New York or any other American experiment with price controls will go in the coming years. But I am certain of this: unless we make a serious effort to teach economic thinking, help a new generation understand the economics of economic failure, and cultivate a deep appreciation for the marvel of modern market cooperation, that poll will be more than lamentable. It will be a warning of worse things to come.

I often use this space to mention the things FEE is doing to improve economic understanding: producing videos and seminars, running the Economics Olympiad across our country and continent, developing new and more scalable versions of FEE’s traditional seminar, and creating new engaging competitions. As part of our most exciting competition running this month, over 100,000 people have taken our milliondollarquestion.org quiz, which challenges Americans to grapple with the economics behind the affordability crisis. Among those who completed the 10 questions, a majority of 56% conclude that subsidies and regulations make major expenses more costly.

Friedman’s lesson can still be learned. The problem is that every generation has to learn it again.

Rod Williams's comment: 
I am a supporter of FEE and recommend the organization. In an era in which Republicans as well as Democrats are embracing socialism and radical policies, there are still several think tanks, advocacy groups, and publications speaking the truth and resisting the post-liberal politics of the era.  One such organization is FEE. To learn more about FEE, follow this link. 

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National debt hits $40 Trillion. But, Didn't Trump Say He Would Pay Off the National Debt?

by Rod Williams, Aug. 21, 2026- Remember all of those times Trump said he would pay off or pay down the national debt? 

Fooled again.

When Trump took office for his first term in January 2017, the national debt stood at $20 trillion. When he left office in January 2021, it was $27.8 trillion.

When Trump took office for his second term in January 2025, the national debt stood at $36 trillion. It has now reached $40 trillion after only one year and 8 months in office. 

Former President Barack Obama accumulated the most debt of any president, but Trump has accumulated the most debt per year served in office. Obama never promised he would pay it off.

In case you have forgotten that Trump promised to pay off the national debt, here is a compilation of times Trump said he would. 

If you believed him when he said he would pay off the debt in eight years while he was running for the first time, here is why you shouldn't have.

I never did believe him. I knew he was a con artist carnival barker from day one. If you are a Trump true believer, I don't expect you to admit that you were wrong or that Trump just lied. I know that would require some thinking and some humility. Go ahead with one of your three standard responses: 1. TDS, 2. Fake News, or 3. It was Biden's fault. 

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The Case for Proportional Representation

by Rod Williams, Aug.20, 2026- Yesterday, initially spurred by a Facebook post by Raph Bristol, which I reposted to my page, Michael Dioguardi and I had a discussion of proportional representation. I was only vaguely informed about the concept.  Michael explained it and made the case for it. I think I am almost persuaded.

Unfortunately, with so many people vested in and accustomed to our current two-party, winner-take-all system, changing how we elect our political leaders would be difficult.  However, proportional representation is legally possible under the existing constitutional and statutory frameworks. The Constitution does not even mention political parties, and the founders warned against them.

In my view, with the rise of Donald Trump and the more extreme factions controlling the parties, and the moderate, sensible center shrinking, I think it is time to question the way we govern ourselves. 

Below is the conversation:

 Ralph Bristol:

THE NEW NORMAL?

ORLANDO, Fla.—Rep. Byron Donalds, President Trump’s staunch ally, cruised to victory in the Republican contest in Florida to succeed Gov. Ron DeSantis, while a Democratic socialist, state Rep. Angie Nixon, scored an upset win in the Democrats’ Senate primary.

Is it my imagination or is there less and less room in politics for anyone other than a staunch Trump ally and a Democratic socialist? 

I'll bet a lot of people are feeling "disenfranchised." I know I am.

Michael Dioguardi:

 

Michael Dioguardi

I did not know Donalds was fully aligned with Trump but listening to interviews with him in months past, he sounded sane and reasonable.

Hopefully he serves the people of Florida first and does not have his nose up Trump’s behind like Ogles did.

The larger question about socialism and Trumpism is spot-on, but I think the deeper problem is structural. Our primary system and single-member districts reward the most partisan and intensely motivated voters, then force everyone else into a winner-take-all choice between candidates they may not actually support.

The answer to that is often, “Then people should vote in the primary.” But voting in a primary does not make the resulting system representative. A primary selects one candidate for a party. The general election then selects one person to represent an entire district containing people with many different political views.

Nobody is forced to vote, but the structure does force a winner-take-all outcome. If 45% vote for A and 55% vote for B, B receives 100% of the representation. Those 45% do not become represented simply because they had the opportunity to vote.

The result is predictable. Candidates have an incentive to appeal to the most partisan voters in the primary, then personalize the general election around defeating one opponent rather than persuading voters with competing ideas. The problem is not simply the candidates. It is the electoral structure that continually produces these incentives.

Consider a moderate Democrat or Republican faced with candidates representing the extremes of their respective parties. Whichever party wins, that voter may still have no meaningful representation. After repeatedly being told that the choice is between two candidates neither of whom represents them, apathy is hardly surprising.

Proportional representation changes the equation. A vote for a minority viewpoint can become a vote for actual representation rather than merely a vote against the candidate you fear most. That is the fundamental distinction between having the right to vote and having a reasonable expectation that your vote will produce representation.

Rod Williams

Rod Williams

How would that work in a congressional district? In Tennessee's 7th, Republican Matt Van Epps defeated Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn in the December 2, 2025 special election. to replace retired Rep. Mark Green in Nashville.

Final vote totals were approximately 180,000 votes. Matt Van Epps received 97,034 votes (53.9%), and Aftyn Behn (D) received 81,109 votes (45.1%). So how would proportional representation work?

In the Dem primary, Democratic participation was about 31,002 voters.

Aftyn Behn 8,653 27.9%

Darden Copeland 7,720 24.9%

Bo Mitchell 7,498 24.2%

Vincent Dixie 7,153 23.1%

I understand ranked choice, which, if we had it, would most likely have resulted in Bo Mitchel being the nominee. I would have voted for him. Not that I would prefer his policies, but I think derailing Donald Trump's agenda is important. I could not vote for nut-job socialist Afyn Behn, however, and voted for Vam Epps.

So how would proportional representation worked in the primary and the general election?

Michael Dioguardi

 The first thing to understand is that proportional representation would not simply take the existing congressional districts, the existing two parties, and divide the existing election results among multiple seats. That would miss the entire point.

Under PR, the districts would be larger and multi-member, and the number of seats assigned to each district would be determined by the system adopted. More importantly, the political dynamics would change. If voters knew that a party receiving 10%, 15%, or 20% of the vote could actually win representation, they would have far less reason to abandon that party and vote strategically for one of the two major parties.

We would therefore likely see more parties competing and different coalitions of voters emerging. The electoral map would not simply produce a proportional version of today’s Republican and Democratic vote totals. It would produce a political landscape that more accurately reflects the range of views that actually exist.

That is why I would not use the Van Epps/Behn result to say, “54% would get this many seats and 45% would get that many.” That assumes today’s two-party SMD election would somehow exist unchanged under PR. It would not. The point of PR is to change the incentives so that voters can support the party or political philosophy they actually prefer and have that support translated into representation.

There is another important part of this. PR would not simply give the existing Republican and Democratic factions more seats. It would change the incentives that produce those factions in the first place.

Today, a voter who is politically moderate may have little choice but to identify with whichever major party is closer to them, even if neither party actually represents their views. Meanwhile, the most intensely partisan voters have disproportionate influence because they dominate primaries and determine which candidates emerge.

Under PR, those dynamics change. The more ideological voters could have a party that genuinely represents their views without having to capture one of the two major parties, while moderates could likewise support a party that actually reflects their preferences. Instead of forcing the entire political spectrum into two parties and then allowing the most motivated factions to fight for control of them, PR allows that spectrum to be represented by multiple parties.

So the point is not simply to take today’s election results and divide them among multiple seats. The point is to create an electoral system in which the political choices themselves become more representative.

Rod Williams

 Ok, that makes sense. Thanks for the explanation. So, we would have far fewer, much larger districts? Would such a system require a much larger Congress? Are there examples of democracies having such a system?

Michael Dioguardi

 You are correct. And yes, there are plenty of real-world examples. Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, and Finland are all examples of countries whose national legislatures are elected through proportional representation rather than the single-member-district system used by the United States and United Kingdom. Germany and New Zealand are also proportional systems, but they use mixed-member systems, so I would not include them in this comparison.

The important point is that PR does not simply take today’s two-party election results and divide them among multiple seats. Once voters know that smaller parties can actually win representation, the incentives change. Voters have a reason to support the party that actually reflects their views, which produces a political landscape far more diverse than the two-party system we see today.

And any concerns one may have about PR are mitigated by the Senate as the body representing each state because the Senate preserves the federal principle. The House would represent the people proportionally, while the Senate would continue to represent the states equally, regardless of population or political composition. One chamber would therefore reflect the diversity of political opinion among Americans, while the other would protect the sovereignty and interests of the states.

Rod Williams

So, would this eliminate primaries?

Michael Dioguardi

Yes, it would, and that is one of the significant advantages of PR. The exact mechanics depend on whether an open or closed list is adopted, but either way the current primary system becomes unnecessary.

With a closed list, parties would determine their candidates and voters would choose among parties in the general election. The idea here is that voters are primarily choosing a party based on its ideals and platform rather than choosing one individual candidate.

With an open list, voters could choose individual candidates within each party directly in the general election. That also recognizes that a party is not necessarily ideologically uniform. A Republican ballot, for example, could include several Republican candidates with different views, and voters could decide which candidates receive seats. The idea here is that voters choose both the party whose ideals they support and the candidates they believe best represent those ideals, even when there is not complete uniformity among the candidates.

After the votes are tallied, seats are allocated to each party based on the percentage of the vote that party receives. In an open-list system, voters can choose among as many candidates as the electoral rules permit. If a party hypothetically fields 50 candidates but earns enough votes for only five seats, the five candidates with the strongest individual support would receive those seats. There is no requirement that the party limit itself to a single candidate, as it must under our current single-member system.

That eliminates the need for a separate primary whose purpose is to select one candidate to represent an entire party in a winner-take-all contest. More importantly, candidates would no longer have to appeal disproportionately to the most partisan voters who dominate primaries. They would have to persuade voters in the general election, while voters would have more choices both between parties and within them. That is another way PR changes the political dynamic: instead of forcing diverse viewpoints into two parties and then forcing each party to choose one person, it allows that diversity to be expressed directly through the general election.

If you would like to join the conversations, follow or friend me on Facebook. 

Michael Dioguardi is a friend of mine living here in Nashville and along with three or four other well-informed, smart people, we get together once a month for a dinner to discuss current events and ideas. He is a residential property manager in Nashville and is an independent blogger writing under the title Seeker of Liberty. Drawing on years of dedicated study of the U.S. Constitution, the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers, landmark court decisions, and Austrian School economics, he analyzes contemporary challenges to individual liberty, institutional accountability, and economic stability. 

 

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Trump Versus the DSA

Ralph Bristol

…or is it “Trump nurses the DSA”

by Ralph Bristol, Facebook, Aug. 18,2026 - There is very interesting recent history involving President Trump and the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

Immediately after Trump's 2016 victory, 1,000 people joined DSA in a single day. DSA says that previously, 1,200 new members in an entire year would have been exceptional. Another contemporary DSA account reported 1,600 new members in the first six days after Trump's victory—an 18% increase. 

In 2017, DSA wrote that its membership had nearly tripled because: “Bernie Sanders brought democratic socialism into the political conversation, while Trump's election sent thousands looking for an organization to oppose him.”

A 2026 academic study (by the International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society) describes the post-2016 DSA surge as the "Trump Bump," noting that DSA membership had been relatively flat before spiking immediately after Trump's election. 

SUCCESSFUL POPULISM IS CONTAGIOUS

Successful populism on one side can encourage counter-populism on the other, because both movements draw strength from the same underlying dissatisfaction with institutions and elites. 

The proposed villains and solutions are radically different, but the political structure is remarkably similar: ordinary people versus an entrenched establishment.

Once Trump demonstrated that an insurgent could capture one of America's two major parties by attacking its own establishment, the lesson wasn't confined to Republicans. Politicians on the left reasonably concluded: “We do the same thing to the Democratic establishment?”

Trump may ultimately have changed American politics more by demonstrating the viability of anti-establishment politics than by the specific policies he enacted. If that model is successfully copied by the left, his longest-lasting political legacy could include movements he vehemently opposes.

Donald Trump didn't create American populism and he certainly didn’t create democratic socialism. But he demonstrated that an anti-establishment populist movement could overthrow a major party's establishment and become the dominant force within that party. 

His success also produced a powerful counter-mobilization on the left. Together, those effects helped create fertile ground for the rise of DSA-style politics.  Populism can be contagious without ideology being contagious.

One of Trump's most consequential political legacies may eventually prove to be teaching his ideological opponents how to overthrow their own party establishment.

If the political establishment on both sides are kicked to the curb, that may be a good thing, but it depends on who’s doing the kicking. 

That, my friends, is far from settled.

Ralph Bristol is the former long-time morning talk radio host broadcasting on Supertalk 99.7 WTN. He was one of the less provocative and bombastic of conservative radio personalities, more thoughtful and grounded in conservative ideas. He left talk radio in 2018 and retired. He lives in Nashville. 

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The Democratic Socialist of America Love Fidel Castro

by Rod Williams, August 17, 2026 - The Democratic Socialists of America has been in the news a lot lately. They have been growing and winning primaries within the Democratic Party. The DSA is the largest socialist organization in United States history, officially surpassing the Socialist Party of America under Eugene V. Debs, which reached its peak of dues-paying membership in 1912. As of July 12, DSA had 120,000 members. That is huge. And that is not just self-identified socialists; that is card-carrying members.

There is a tug of war going on in the Democratic Party between the sane center-left Democrats (or normie Dems or establishment Dems) and the extremists of the DSA. It is the topic of conversation on news panels, and almost every prominent Democratic politician being interviewed is asked his views on the DSA.  Dems are trying to walk a fine line and have a party big enough to welcome Marxist radicals and yet not be tarred as a party that endorses radical policies such as defunding the police. 

If you think the DSA is just a bunch of nice, naive, starry-eyed people concerned about income inequality and would like for the US to be more like Finland, you are wrong. You can tell a lot about a person by the type of people they admire and look up to. This is what the DSA said about Fidel Castro in a statement issued August 13, 2026: 

Today is the centenary of Fidel Castro, and the Democratic Socialists of America recognize the historic significance of both this day and the man. Fidel was an organizer, a fighter, and endures as a stalwart symbol of anti-imperialist struggle and self-determination for the Global South. DSA has a long history of solidarity with the Cuban people, their revolution, and their self-determination. (link)

Castro is in the pantheon of the world's worst dictators. Maybe not quite in the same league as Hitler or Stalin, or Pol Pot, but close. After Castro's revolution, he turned Cuba into a totalitarian Communist state. He controlled the press, suspended free and fair elections, and banned protests. He abolished private property, and people could not even own their own homes. If you owned a home, the ownership transferred to the government. The island was cut off from the outside world, and thousands were imprisoned, beaten, and executed. Over a million people fled the socialist paradise, most on flimsy rafts through shark-infested waters.  If anyone thinks of Fidel Castro as an admirable role model, and someone to admire, they, at a minimum, should not be trusted with political power. All of their opinions should be suspect. 

While I want to derail Trumpian authoritarianism, I will not throw my lot in with socialists who admire Fidel Castro. When it comes to the lesser of two evils, between socialism and Trumpism, I think Trumpism is the lesser evil. Thankfully we are not to the point to where those are the only choices. 

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The Democrats Can’t Just Laugh Off ‘Woke 1’

by Idrees Kahloon. The Atlantic, Aug. 16, 2026 - On Sunday, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made two striking remarks that seem related. ... Second, she tried to laugh off stances that progressives in her wing of the Democratic Party had taken in the preceding years: “‘Woke 1 was crazy,’” she said, echoing a comment that one of her allies had made about the heyday of ideas such as “defund the police.”

... The fact that she is declining to defend—and indeed wishing to move past—these positions shows how radioactive they have become.  ... Democratic politics have been reshaped by an ideology centered on systemic oppression and the radical policies ostensibly needed to correct it. 

... Members of Congress were photographed taking a knee while wearing African-inspired kente cloth.

Companies rolled out diversity, equity, and inclusion action plans and donated huge sums to Black Lives Matter and other racial-justice causes. Universities denounced themselves as complicit in systemic racism. Staffers at news outlets revolted against colleagues they deemed counterrevolutionary, and nonprofit leaders and corporate executives treated the books of the anti-racism gurus Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo as revelatory.

... Cities that cut police spending reversed course after murders spiked. Elite universities built up large DEI bureaucracies to manage every oppression—yet embarrassed themselves in their inability to address campus anti-Semitism ... 

... Woke 1 may be over, but progressives have not given up their attempt to take over the Democratic Party apparatus. ... One DSA-aligned candidate who is expected to be elected to Congress, Darializa Avila Chevalier, is a prison abolitionist who cannot bring herself to say that murderers should go to jail. (read it all) 

Rods Comment: 
Woke and Socialist Democrats are making it hard to create a broad coalition focused on derailing Donald Trump's agenda and ending his corruption, his mismanagement, and his authoritarian and unconstitutional enactments. As much as I want to see a check on Donald Trump and his agenda, I will not support any candidate who wants to defund the police, abolish prisons, ban Thanksgiving, have open borders, enact amnesty for all illegal immigrants, enact Medicare for all, and enact universal childcare. 

I could overlook some of this. I could hold my nose and vote for someone advocating policies that I disagree with for the greater good of stopping Donald Trump's threat to our country and the world. For example, despite opposing a complete government takeover of health care, knowing that doing so would be very difficult and likely unachievable, I could support a Democrat advocating Medicare for all. To stop Trump's damage to our nation and the world, I could overlook a lot. However, I could not support any candidate who at one time or still favors defunding the police and closing all prisons.  

More and more, I feel like we are screwed regardless of which party governs our country in the future. The choices in front of us are bleak. 

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There is a Valuable Campaign Training Class Being Offered by the Nashville GOP

by Rod Williams, August 5, 2026-If you ever plan to run for public office or want to be a valuable volunteer and help others win elections, I encourage you to get lots of training. Over the years, I have witnessed some great campaigns and some really bad campaigns. I have seen campaigns waste enormous amounts of money and campaigns that made every dollar count. Money is certainly important in politics, but I think of equal importance, or maybe even more importance, is working hard and smart, being well organized, and exercising good time management. Let me give you one example from my own campaign for Metro Council from years ago.

All serious candidates for office purchase a voters list of their district, and so did I. Before I knocked on my first door, however, I created an index card for each household with a registered voter. I then put colored tags on each card: one color if there was more than one voter in the household, another color if they were Republican, and a different color for frequent voters. After visiting the voter, if they told me I could put a yard sign in their yard, then the index card got an additional tag of a different color.

The advantage of this is that I did not waste time knocking on doors with no voters; I could approach the door by calling the person by name, and I could tailor my message. Also, I could make notes on the card about the household that might help me with follow-up campaign contacts.

One can now get a voter list on your cell phone that does all of this for you and more. Yet, I still see people wasting time with the door-to-door campaign. How to get the most benefit out of the voter registration rolls is one thing that one can learn in a campaign school setting. One needs to know how to order a voter roll and how to get the maximum benefit out of it.

The upcoming training session offered by the Nashville GOP has to do with fundraising and campaign finance training. Raising money is important. Learn how to do it. Knowing how to file a campaign finance report is also very important. One does not want to run afoul of the law.  In addition to the legal liability, filing a faulty campaign finance report can make the news and be a campaign liability. Also, should one give their campaign money or loan their campaign money? There is a difference.

I have taken several campaign training classes over the years. All I have taken were non-ideological. They teach skills and do not proselytize a point of view. So, if you are a traditional Regan Republican or a Democrat or of some other political persuasion, learn the skills regardless of who is teaching them. After all, it doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.

You’re Invited: Build to Win — Free Political Fundraising & Compliance Workshop We’re excited to invite you to Citizen Activate 2026’s Build to Win: Political Fundraising and Compliance Training, a FREE Brunch & Learn workshop designed to give present and future candidates, campaign teams, and volunteers practical tools to build the financial support needed to run strong, effective campaigns.  BUILD TO WIN Political Fundraising & Compliance Training Saturday, August 29, 2026 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM CST Delta Hotels Nashville Airport 733 Briley Pkwy Nashville, TN 37217 This event is FREE to attend, and brunch will be provided. We’re bringing together experienced professionals for a hands-on training focused on two of the most important—and often most intimidating—parts of running a campaign: raising money and staying compliant. RSVP Featured Speakers Carlos Cardena — Leadership Institute Carlos will lead our political fundraising training, providing practical strategies candidates and campaign teams can put to work immediately. Jessica Darby — Political Financial Management Jason Baker — Political Financial Management Jessica and Jason will provide campaign compliance training tailored specifically to   Tennessee and help attendees better understand the financial and reporting   responsibilities that come with running a campaign. During the workshop, you’ll learn: Current political fundraising trends and how campaigns raise money today How to practice strong donor stewardship and build long-term support The Arc of the Ask — how to confidently ask for contributions Real-world lessons from a candidate panel sharing fundraising experiences Campaign compliance training tailored specifically to Tennessee  Who Should Attend? This workshop is ideal for candidates preparing to run for office, campaign managers and team members, and volunteers helping build and support local campaigns. Whether you’re preparing for your first campaign or looking to strengthen an existing campaign operation, you’ll leave with practical tools, clear strategies, and greater confidence in your fundraising and compliance efforts. Space is limited, so reserve your spot today by clicking the link below. We hope you’ll join us for a morning of training, brunch, and practical campaign education. RSVP

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