Molineaux is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and president/CEO of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
Half of our political class is delusional. There’s an old adage in the marketing business that goes, “Half of all ad dollars are wasted. The problem is, we don’t know which half.” This quip came to mind recently as I was thinking about the culture and narrative war we are living through and our inability or unwillingness to agree on observable facts without interpretation.
In 2018, 89 percent of Americans said that they want both parties to try to find places to compromise. The American public clearly wants something better from our leaders but the question is: What, if anything, are they willing to do about it?
Like the European crusaders who fought to liberate Jerusalem or the revolutionaries in 18th century France and 1930s Germany who built an ideology on liberating their people from oppression, the political class in the United States has been captured in the delusion of “saving the nation” from the forces of evil. On one hand, there is the evil of authoritarianism; on the other, socialism. The political class on each side claims themselves as the warriors of liberation. Russia’s encroachment and now invasion of Ukraine’s territory is their proxy war – protectionists and freedom fighters, battling for the soul of the world. But are they?
What if they are both wrong?
Considerable research has pointed to the “exhausted majority,” those Americans who don’t vote for a variety of reasons, ( here, here and here). These citizens want to get on with their lives, loving their friends and family without tip-toeing through political landmines. Businesses would like to get back to serving their customers without feeling internal and external pressure to make statements about politics and social issues. If we want a better future for our nation, we need everyone to do their part. If our democracy is to work, and perhaps even survive, every resident, citizen and neighbor must realize they can make a difference.
If the political class cannot lead then it is up to the exhausted majority to engage and offer a course correction. One of the many reasons people do not engage is their mistaken belief that their vote doesn’t matter and their perspective won’t be represented. History shows us that We the People can make a difference. Unions helped course-correct businesses from unsafe and abusive practices in the last century. American citizens can course-correct the political class by voting. Given our gerrymandered districts, voting in the primary is critically important. Given that less than 25 percent of eligible voter votes in primaries, your vote is even more important. We’ll need three things to make a course correction happen.
- Enact automatic voter registration and easy access to voting for all eligible citizens. ( The Heritage Foundation shows 1,165 convictions of voter fraud since 1982 – so let’s stop the pretense that voter fraud is widespread or election changing.)
- Open primaries and allow people to vote for their chosen candidate, regardless of political party. Does this cause discomfort? Please ask yourself why. One person, one vote is the foundation of democracy, why not in primaries, too?
- Be friends with people who are different from yourself. American innovation comes from our diversity. When we stay in homogenous groups, our thinking is more likely to become extreme and deepens our delusions.
I live in the D.C. area. I attend meetings with the political class every day and am frustrated with what I see. These people are my friends and colleagues. But we need your help to co-create a better future for us all. Let’s end the delusion of the political class that believes they are in charge. If they are, it’s because you fail to use the power of your vote.
Please vote in EVERY primary and general election this year. YOU are the course correction we need.
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address during a joint session of Congress in the House Chamber at the Capitol on Feb. 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump delivered his address days after the Supreme Court struck down the administration's tariff strategy, and amid a U.S. military buildup in the Persian Gulf threatening Iran.
Some MAGA loyalists have turned on Trump. Why the rest haven’t
I recently watched "A Face in the Crowd" for the umpteenth time.
I had a better reason than procrastination to rewatch Elia Kazan’s brilliant 1957 film exploring populism in the television age. It was homework. I was asked to discuss it with Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz at the just-concluded TCM Film Festival in Los Angeles. As a pundit and an author, I do a lot of public speaking. But I don’t really do a lot of cool public speaking, so this was a treat.
With that not-very-humble brag out of the way, I had a depressing realization watching it this time.
"A Face in the Crowd" tells the story of a charming drifter with a dark side named Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes, played brilliantly by Andy Griffith. A singer with the gift of the gab, Rhodes takes off on radio but quickly segues to the brand-new medium of television. He becomes a national sensation — and political kingmaker — by forming a deep connection with the masses, particularly among the rural and working classes. His core audience is made up of people with grievances. “Everybody that’s got to jump when somebody else blows the whistle,” as Rhodes puts it.
The film’s climax (spoiler alert) comes when Rhodes’ manager and spurned lover, Marcia, turns on the microphone while the credits rolled at the end of “Cracker Barrel,” his national TV show. Rhodes tells his entourage what he really thinks of the “morons” in his audience. “Shucks, I can take chicken fertilizer and sell it to them for caviar. I can make them eat dog food, and they’ll think it’s steak. … Good night, you stupid idiots.”
It was a canonical “hot mic” moment in American cinema. But the idea that if people could glimpse the “real person” behind the popular facade, they’d turn on them is a very old theme in literature — think Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" (1782) or Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s "The School for Scandal" (1777), in which diaries and letters do the work of microphones.
Kazan and screenwriter Budd Schulberg were very worried about the ability of demagogues to whip up populist fervor and manipulate the masses through the power of TV, in part because everyone had already seen it happen with radio and film, by Father Coughlin in America and Hitler in Germany. But as dark as their vision was, they still clung to the idea that if the demagogue was exposed, the people would instantly turn on their leader in an “Emperor’s New Clothes” moment for the mass media age.
And that’s the source of my depressing realization. I think they were wrong. It turns out that once that organic connection is made, even a shocking revelation of the truth won’t necessarily break the spell.
In 2016, a lot of writers revisited "A Face in the Crowd" to understand the Trump phenomenon. After all, here was a guy who used a TV show — "The Apprentice" — and social media to build a massive following, going over the heads of the “establishment.” Trump’s own hot mic moment with "Access Hollywood," in which he boasted of his sexual predations, proved insufficient to undo him. That was hardly the only such moment for him. We’ve heard Trump bully the Georgia secretary of state to “find 11,780 votes.” He told Bob Woodward he deliberately “played down” COVID-19. After leaving office, he was recorded telling aides he shouldn’t be sharing classified documents with them — then doing it anyway. And so on.
Trump’s famous claim that he could “shoot somebody” on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters may have been hyperbole. But it’s not crazy to think he wouldn’t lose as many voters as he should.
In the film, Lonesome Rhodes implodes when Americans encounter his off-air persona. The key to Trump’s success is that he ran as his off-air persona. Why people love that persona is a complicated question. Among the many complementary explanations is that he comes across as authentic, and some people value authenticity more than they value good character, honesty, or competence.
This is not just a problem for Republicans. Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner once had a Nazi tattoo and has said things about women as distasteful as Trump’s “grab them by (the genitals)” comments, and the Democratic establishment is rallying around him because he’s authentic — and because Democrats want to win that race.
Many prominent MAGA loyalists are turning on Trump these days. They claim — wrongly in my opinion — that he’s changed and that the Iran war is a betrayal of their cause. But if you look at the polls, voters who describe themselves as “MAGA” still overwhelmingly support Trump. In short, he still has the Fifth Avenue voters on his side.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.