It wasn’t all that long ago that Italy was the punchline of every joke about European politics.

The country’s governments came and went. The debt never seemed to go away. Skyrocketing youth unemployment pushed an entire generation to look for opportunities abroad, while Rome developed a reputation for being unable to get much done.

The Eurozone crisis in 2009 only made things worse. Banks were under pressure, economic growth was stagnant, and Brussels seemed to be watching Italy with equal parts concern and frustration.

Italy’s political divisions ran just as deep. Immigration became increasingly hot-button, only fueling the divide between north and south. And after years of out-of-touch technocratic governments, with constantly shifting coalitions, many Italians were simply tired of the politics as usual that seemed to produce more instability than results.

To many, including the outside world, Italy appeared stuck. Now, that picture is changing.

First, a dose of reality: Italy is not suddenly an economic powerhouse, and many of its old institutional problems remain; however, the country has regained a degree of political and economic credibility that seemed impossible to imagine a decade ago.

Unemployment has fallen to levels Italy has not seen in years, borrowing costs have eased, and the government deficit has reduced significantly. Furthering this transformation is Italy’s rise as an assertive player within the European Union, where it’s become increasingly active on issues such as migration and energy, as well as strengthening relations with Africa.

But this transformation didn’t begin with Giorgia Meloni. In many ways, Silvio Berlusconi helped lay the groundwork.

Berlusconi changed Italian politics after the collapse of the old party system in the early 1990s. He demonstrated that a center-right coalition could win nationally and govern for an extended period. He introduced a very different style of communication into politics never before seen at the time, one built around television, personality, and popular culture rather than the traditional language of Italian party politics.

Admittedly, his governments were hardly models of stability. They were often chaotic, and Berlusconi’s legal and personal controversies frequently became distractions. But his importance to Italy’s right is difficult to overstate. He helped normalize the idea that Italy could be governed from the center-right without the country immediately descending into crisis.

When the sovereign debt crisis eventually forced Berlusconi from office in 2011, the political realignment he had helped create didn’t disappear. It simply needed someone else to carry the torch.

That person was Meloni.

Her Brothers of Italy party (Fratelli d’Italia) had spent years on the political sidelines. It emerged from the post-fascist fringe of the Italian right and, for a long time, was a relatively small force in Italian politics. Meloni stuck with it while other parties took turns governing, compromising, and eventually disappointing voters.

But by 2022, the political environment was ripe for change. The traditional parties were exhausted, the Five Star Movement - Italy’s first major anti-establishment party in the digital age - had lost much of its momentum, and the country had just come through the technocratic government of Mario Draghi.

Meloni offered something different: a clear ideological identity combined with a promise to actually govern.

She became Italy’s first female Prime Minister after her coalition of Brothers of Italy, Matteo Salvini’s Lega, and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia won the 2022 election.

And just last week, Meloni’s government officially became the longest-serving government in Italy’s postwar history, surpassing Berlusconi’s previous record. That is a particularly significant achievement in a country that has had 68 governments and 31 prime ministers since the republic was established in 1946.

Longevity alone does not make a government successful; however, in Italy, longevity is meaningful because political instability has been such a defining feature of the country’s postwar history.

So why has Meloni managed to endure?

Part of it is that she has been more disciplined than many people expected.

Meloni took a party with extremely complicated historical baggage and moved it toward a broader form of national conservatism centered on immigration, family policy, national sovereignty, and Italian interests. She has also managed to keep her coalition together despite the very real differences between Brothers of Italy, Lega, and Forza Italia.

But also, just as importantly, she has shown a willingness to be pragmatic in government.

The Meloni who campaigns in front of a partisan crowd can sound very different from the Meloni sitting across the table from European leaders or international investors. That flexibility has allowed her government to maintain relationships with Brussels and Italy’s European partners while still presenting itself at home as a nationalist alternative to the political establishment.

While the country’s economic picture remains more complicated than some might suggest, there are genuine improvements worth recognizing.

Italian unemployment has declined, and the European Commission expects the government’s deficit to fall from 3.1% of GDP to 2.9% by the end of this year.

This doesn’t mean Meloni’s government has solved every problem, but it does mean that, for once, Italy finally looks like a country that is not constantly on the verge of making its problems worse.

That distinction matters more than some might realize.

Still though, the country’s economic growth is weak. Its debt burden has shrunk but remains enormous. The South continues to lag behind the North. Real wages and purchasing power are among the concerns discussed nightly at the kitchen table. The country’s demographic situation is particularly serious, and its population is projected to shrink substantially over the coming decades, creating yet another challenge for its workforce and welfare system.

Meloni has also benefited from circumstances that sometimes had little to do with her personally, however. European Union recovery funds gave Italy additional support following the pandemic, and energy prices, migration, and geopolitical tensions created political openings for a government willing to emphasize national security and economic stability.

For instance, her government pursued the controversial Mattei Plan for Africa - which opponents on the left view as modern neocolonialism that prioritizes European energy needs over African development - and has positioned Italy as a more prominent player in the Mediterranean, particularly on energy, migration, and trade.

Speaking of immigration, it remains one of the most politically important issues within Italy. Meloni campaigned heavily on reducing irregular migration, and her government took steps to adopt tougher asylum and anti-smuggling measures. Arrivals have fallen substantially from some of the peaks seen earlier in the decade, yet migration pressures have certainly not disappeared.

But, despite all of this, there is a broader change that is even harder to measure.

For decades, Italian politics often seemed to be about surviving until the next government rather than building something that would last beyond it. That mentality has not disappeared, but Meloni’s tenure has disrupted it.

Berlusconi showed that the Italian right could win and build a durable political coalition.

Meloni has shown that it can stay in power without the constant political drama that once seemed almost inevitable.

Again, that doesn’t mean Italy has solved all of its problems.

But Italy today is different from the Italy that struggled through the Eurozone crisis a decade ago. It has more political stability and a government that has established itself as a serious player in Europe and on the world stage rather than a perpetual source of anxiety for Brussels and financial markets.

Whether that becomes a lasting political realignment or simply another period of calm before Italy’s next political storm remains to be seen.

For now, though, Italy no longer looks like a country waiting for someone else to rescue it, and, at least to some extent, it has found its footing again.

That’s no small achievement in a Europe still wrestling with its own instabilities.

President Trump recently has allowed for 80,000 metric tons of lean beef trimmings from Argentina to help offset the cost of beef in the United States which has drawn both criticism and support all over the country.

President Trump recently posted to Truth Social, “As we work to rebuild this herd and help our ranchers, for the next 90 days, the United States will allow up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef to be imported with no out of quota tariff. We have a commitment that this beef will be sold at 25 percent below current market prices. This deal will reduce prices for Americans while giving space for our Great American Beef Herd to grow again”.

That is the administration’s case. A lot of ranchers are not sold on it.

Affordability is on everyone’s mind this upcoming midterm election. Everything from gas, diesel, groceries have all skyrocketed and people feel it.

Its stated via, The White House: “the United States herd has fallen to its lowest level in 75 years” (https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/09/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-supports-americas-ranchers/). It may be easy to import beef from other countries to ease the sticker price but it doesn’t fix the long term ramification.

I recently interviewed an Oklahoma rancher who knows a thing or two about this issue. Stephanie Hodges of Stigler, runs a 320 acre cow-calf operation. The costs of keeping it going is real.

She stated, “Diesel and feed (about $290 a ton) keep climbing and I’m lucky to see a profit”. Hodges feels the effects of decisions made in DC. She and other producers and residents, I spoke with believe the Argentina imports and other countries hurt American cattlemen and producers. “Stigler is not happy with Trump’s beef initiative”.

She said that larger chains are taking advantage of the moment, which is why people should only by local not through big grocery stores. This is a short term solution to a long term problem. Americans wants American beef not imported beef.

Do not get me wrong, I support President Trump, but I have disagreements with this specific issue. Right now, Trump and his administration is taking steps to stop the bleeding. The first order is removing the grey and Mexican grey wolves off the endangered species list allowing farmers to protect their herd. Then the second order is to allow farmers to process their own meat to sell on the market. This will be an interesting fight and needs to be addressed before the midterm.

For around a week the country carried out something that it had not done for years. It reached an agreement. Accounts associated with MAGA and accounts linked to the Democratic Socialist party were both posting messages of condolence within hours of one another. Trump instructed the flags to be lowered and referred to her as irreplaceable, while Bernie Sanders called her a hero of the working class. Pelosi stated that she had made America kinder. The country radio stations stopped broadcasting their normal programmes and instead played her music continuously. For a few odd days the nation, which is normally unable to agree on almost anything, agreed that Dolly Parton was one of the good ones.

Then the week ended. The flags went back up. Everybody went right back to hating each other. Which, if you think about it for more than five seconds, tells you almost everything you need to know about where we are right now. It took an 80-year-old woman from a one-room cabin in the Smoky Mountains dying of cancer to remind us we’re even capable of agreeing on anything anymore.

That’s worth sitting with longer than a news cycle usually lets you. Because Dolly wasn’t just a singer people liked. She was proof. Walking, breathing, rhinestone-covered proof that the American Dream used to actually be real, not the bumper-sticker version of it, the real one. A kid with nothing. A country with enough room left in it for her to become something. And a woman who spent the back half of her life making sure that room stayed open for other people too.

That dream died with her. Not because she was the last human being on earth capable of living it, but because the country that made it possible for her doesn’t really exist in the same way anymore, especially not for the generation that needs it most right now.

A Cabin, Twelve Kids, and No Plan

Start at the beginning, because the beginning is basically the whole argument.

Dolly Rebecca Parton was born in 1946 in a one-room cabin on the Little Pigeon River in Sevier County, Tennessee. Fourth of twelve kids. Twelve. Under one roof, in one room, with two parents trying to keep everybody fed in one of the poorest corners of Appalachia at the time.

Her dad, Robert Lee Parton, worked constantly, farming, laboring, taking whatever job he could find in a place where jobs weren’t exactly lying around, just to keep food on the table for a family that size. Her mom, Avie Lee, stayed home and did the equally exhausting, equally unpaid work of raising twelve kids, which is its own job; nobody clocks out of that one. There wasn’t extra money for anything. Dolly told the story for decades of a coat her mother stitched together out of fabric scraps because there was nothing else to make it from- the coat that eventually became “Coat of Many Colors.” Kids made fun of her for wearing it. She wore it anyway. It was what she had, and her mom made it out of love, and that’s basically her whole childhood in one garment.

No training wheels on this story. No family business waiting for her. No college fund. No connections in the industry, none. No safety net if any of it went wrong, and a lot of it could have gone wrong. Just a cabin, a guitar, a big family, and whatever grit a kid could scrape together in a place where scraping by was the only option most people had.

She graduated high school in 1964 with no five-year plan and no backup career. What she had, by her own telling, was a bus ticket to Nashville and a dream. That’s it. She got off that bus in a city she didn’t know, with a sound nobody was asking for, and bet the whole thing on hope.

Try picturing that today. Now picture doing it today as a broke 18-year-old carrying student loan debt for a degree you were told you needed, applying for the entry-level job that used to not require a degree at all, and getting told you’re still not qualified. That gap, between what a leap of faith bought you in 1964 and what it buys you now, is basically the whole argument of this piece, and we’ll get back there. First though, what she did after getting off that bus is the part that actually matters, because this isn’t just a rags-to-riches story. What she did with the riches is what makes it the American Dream and not just an impressive career.

The Riches, and What She Did With Them

Dolly didn’t just make it in Nashville. She took the place apart.

Over six decades, she built one of the biggest careers in American entertainment, full stop. Dozens of top-ten country hits. Pop crossover stardom in the late seventies and early eighties. Movie roles that made her one of the most recognizable faces in the country: “9 to 5,” “Steel Magnolias,” take your pick. Songs like “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You” have completely outlived every trend that came and went around them, still getting covered and sampled by artists who weren’t alive when she wrote them. She sold more than 100 million records worldwide. Not the best-selling country artist. Best-selling artist, period, one of the biggest of all time.

She built Dollywood and turned her home region into one of the biggest tourist draws in the South, creating thousands of jobs in a part of East Tennessee that badly needed them. By any normal measure, she became a business empire in her own right, the kind that could have pushed her into billionaire territory if she’d played it the way most people at that level do, holding on to everything, optimizing for the number instead of the impact.

She didn’t do that. She chose, over and over, publicly, not to. That choice is really the hinge the whole story turns on.

Instead of stacking her fortune skyward, she spent decades pouring it back into the place that raised her. Sevier County. East Tennessee. The mountains. She built an industry where there hadn’t been much of one. She created jobs for people who, without Dollywood and everything that grew up around it, might have had to leave the region just to find work, which is exactly the kind of exodus that’s hollowed out small towns across this country for generations. She kept the wealth local instead of shipping it somewhere else.

Then she went bigger, national even. Her signature program, the Imagination Library, mails a free book to a kid every single month from birth to age five, no cost, no strings, just a book with the child’s own name on it showing up like something worth waiting for. By the time she died, the program had given out more than 300 million books and was shipping something like 3.4 million a month to kids across the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, and beyond. That’s not a marketing campaign. That’s not a tax write-off wearing a charity costume. That’s real, sustained, decades-long infrastructure for literacy, funded by one woman who remembered what it was like to grow up without books in the house.

It didn’t stop with kids she’d never meet, either. She turned that same instinct on the people who actually worked for her. Free health insurance. Free childcare. Continuing education and tuition help. Not because a law made her do it. Not because some PR consultant said it would poll well. Because she remembered what it felt like to not have any of that, and she had the means to make sure her own employees didn’t have to live that way.

This is the part people skip past when they talk about her success. It’s easy to admire the bus ticket to Nashville. Easy to admire the number ones and the movie roles and the theme park. But what actually makes her the embodiment of the American Dream, the real one, is what she did once she had the money. She didn’t hoard it. She didn’t chase a bigger number just to have a bigger number. She looked at the place and the people who shaped her, and spent the second half of her life making sure other people got a shot at what she got.

That’s really the whole idea, when you strip it down. Get rich, sure, nobody’s saying don’t. But then build something bigger than yourself with it. Put money into the people around you instead of just walling yourself off with it. Dolly did that as completely and as publicly as anyone this country has produced in the last hundred years. It’s not a side note to the American Dream. It is the American Dream. Getting rich is just the setup. What you do after that is the actual point.

A Week the Country Forgot How to Fight

Which brings us back to what happened after she died.

Something happened in the days right after that hasn’t happened here in a long time. People stopped fighting, at least about this.

Trump ordered flags at the White House and federal buildings flown at half-staff for a full week and said losing her felt like losing family. Bernie Sanders, who’s built a career fighting basically everything Trump stands for, called her one of the great entertainers of her era and praised her decades of work on literacy and education. Pelosi said her voice and her spirit made America kinder and more hopeful. The Democratic Socialists of America, an organization that exists in direct political opposition to most of what this administration represents, put out a statement calling her a hero of the working class.

Sit with that. Trump and the DSA. Pelosi and Mike Johnson. People who can’t agree on the time of day found themselves saying almost the same thing about the same woman within hours of each other. One post that went viral put it about as well as anyone could: we probably won’t see anything like this again for the rest of our lives. Somebody else called her the last person that everybody liked.

And it wasn’t only politicians performing grief for the cameras, though sure, some of that happened too; it always does. Radio stations across the country dropped their regular programming and just played her catalog for hours. Taylor Swift, Reba McEntire, Miley Cyrus, Oprah Winfrey, Beyoncé, Celine Dion, artists who rarely show up in the same sentence together, were all publicly mourning the same woman within 48 hours of each other. Fans showed up at her statue in Sevierville and outside the Country Music Hall of Fame with flowers, candles, and handwritten notes. Someone painted a mural of her in Costa Mesa, California, three thousand miles from her home county, and people drove out just to stand in front of it for a minute. Her music shot back to the top of the streaming charts within hours, and nobody had to push it there. Millions of people just decided, independently, at basically the same time, that they needed to hear her voice again.

For about a week, this country remembered it’s capable of feeling something together that isn’t outrage.

That matters more than a week of tribute segments. Ask yourself honestly, when’s the last time a single person’s death made Republicans and socialists say the same thing about anything? It wasn’t a policy. Wasn’t a court ruling. Wasn’t an election. It was a woman from a one-room cabin who spent her whole life refusing to pick a side, who once said flat out she was an entertainer, not a politician, and backed it up for sixty years by just being kind to whoever crossed her path, no matter what they voted.

That’s a nearly impossible needle to thread in this country right now, and she didn’t thread it with some clever strategy; she threaded it by actually meaning it. She wasn’t neutral because it was good for business, though it probably was that too. She was neutral because the values she actually lived by- generosity, hard work, faith, taking care of people who have less than you- don’t fit neatly into either party’s branding, and she never pretended they did. She just lived them out loud for six decades until living them became one of the last patches of common ground both sides could still stand on without feeling like they were betraying anything.

We don’t have many of those left. If we’re being honest, we might not have any left now.

That’s a loss worth grieving on its own, separate from grieving her music or her movies or even her philanthropy. We lost one of the last threads the whole country could still hold onto together, across every divide we’ve built for ourselves. And the fact that it took her dying to remind us we’re even capable of holding onto something together should worry us a lot more than it should comfort us.

What the Dream Actually Required

Here’s the part that’s harder to sit with. Dolly’s story isn’t just inspiring; it’s also, if you actually look at it closely, a list of ingredients that mostly don’t exist anymore, at least not in the combination she had.

She grew up poor, genuinely poor, but she grew up in a household where a dad working multiple jobs could actually keep food on the table, and a mom staying home to raise twelve kids was a hard but workable way to run a family. She graduated high school and, within days, moved to a city to chase a dream with basically zero capital behind her, and found a path into an industry that still had room at the bottom for someone with nothing but talent and nerve. She built a career in a media landscape where a distinct voice and years of grinding could actually turn into stardom, without you needing to already be famous or connected or independently wealthy enough to bankroll years of unpaid exposure first. She built a business in a place where the cost of living, relative to what a working person could earn, still left room to get ahead instead of just barely keeping your head above water.

None of that is a knock on her. She worked for every bit of it, harder than almost anyone. But hard work inside a system that has room for it to actually pay off is a completely different thing than hard work inside a system that’s quietly closing the doors behind you as you go. Dolly’s hope and a dream worked because the road, uphill as it was, actually went somewhere. That’s the part that’s changed.

The Ladder Gen Z Is Standing Under

Gen Z isn’t lazy. People keep throwing that word around, usually people who built their careers in an economy that doesn’t exist anymore, and it needs to be said plainly: it’s not laziness. It’s arithmetic.

We’re watching entry-level jobs, the exact kind of foothold Dolly needed and found in Nashville in 1964, get automated out from under us before we even get to apply for them. Companies are bragging to shareholders, openly, about replacing junior roles with AI tools- the same roles that used to be how you got your start, learned the ropes, and worked your way up from nothing. That’s not some future threat. It’s happening right now in newsrooms, customer service, coding, design, law- exactly the kind of entry-level industries where an ambitious kid with no connections used to be able to break in on talent alone, the same way Dolly broke into Nashville with nothing but a voice and a bus ticket.

We’re doing the math on a starter home and coming up with a number that just isn’t in our bank accounts, not after years of saving, not after doing every single thing we were told to do. Home prices have outrun wage growth so badly that the old markers of adulthood, buying a house, starting a family, putting down roots somewhere the way Dolly’s parents did, have quietly turned from a goal you work toward into a fantasy you’re supposed to let go of without complaining.

We’re told to work hard and save, the same advice every generation before us got, in an economy where wages haven’t come close to keeping up with rent, groceries, healthcare, insurance, any of it. The math just doesn’t add up. You can do everything right, work the hours, skip the coffee, live well within your means, and still end every month further behind than when you started, because the cost of simply existing has outrun what a normal paycheck covers for the first time in a long time.

And the people who benefited most from the old version of this economy- plenty of boomers, plenty of the wealthy elite who oversaw or profited from, or in some cases actively built the policies that got us here- are the ones standing at the top calling us lazy and entitled and unwilling to work for it. You don’t get to kick out the rungs and then blame the kids at the bottom for not climbing fast enough. You don’t get to offshore the jobs, automate what’s left, inflate housing past reach, gut pensions, saddle a whole generation with debt for degrees you told them were mandatory, and then act shocked that the generation living with the consequences is anxious and cynical and running out of patience.

Dolly’s story worked because the pieces were still there. A shot at a stable job. An industry you could break into on grit instead of a resume padded with unpaid internships you couldn’t afford to take in the first place. A cost of living that didn’t eat your paycheck before you’d even cashed it. Pull those pieces out, and hope and a dream stop being a strategy. It becomes magical thinking, the kind of thing you tell yourself to get through the day rather than an actual plan with real odds of working.

And there’s the tragedy underneath all the tributes, the flags, the whole strange week of unity. We spent seven days honoring a woman who proved the system could work, while living inside a version of that same system that mostly doesn’t anymore.

Why Her Death Hit This Hard

Part of why the grief was so instant and so universal, cutting across every generation and both parties, is that Dolly represented something almost nobody left on the public stage represents anymore: proof of concept. Living, singing proof that the story we all grew up hearing about America- start with nothing, end up somewhere extraordinary if you work hard enough and treat people right along the way- actually happened to somebody. Not in some vague, black-and-white-photograph way. In our lifetime. On camera. With receipts.

People weren’t just mourning a singer. They were mourning the clearest remaining evidence that the story used to be true.

And they were doing it together, briefly, because grief over losing that kind of proof doesn’t split along party lines. It’s not a policy fight. It’s not a culture war flashpoint. It’s just loss, the plain kind, the kind that reminds you that whatever you vote, you were rooting for the same thing when you watched her interviews and heard her songs: a version of America where a poor kid from a one-room cabin could actually make it, and then choose, on her own, to spend the rest of her life making sure other people got a shot at the same thing.

That’s not really a Republican value or a Democratic one. It’s just a decent human value, the kind this country claims to be built on every time it tells its own founding story. Dolly didn’t just tell that story; she lived it, from the cabin to the theme park to the Imagination Library trucks pulling up to another kid’s door with another free book, month after month, decade after decade, without ever needing it to be about her.

What We Do With This

None of this is a call to just feel sad for a week and move on, which is exactly what usually happens after a week like the one this country just had. The flags go back up. The tribute specials wrap. The unity fades, and everybody heads back to their corners as if nothing happened.

If Dolly’s death is going to mean anything past a good week of TV, it has to mean something harder than that. It has to mean actually reckoning with the gap between the country that produced her and the one we’re leaving behind for whoever’s coming up next. It has to mean asking, honestly, whether a kid born today in a one-room situation, literal or otherwise, poor, disconnected, armed with nothing but hope and a dream, would actually get anywhere close to the shot Dolly got in 1964. And it has to mean admitting that for a huge chunk of young people right now, the honest answer is no. Not because they lack her talent or her grit. Because the ladder itself got kicked out from under an entire generation by the same people now standing at the top lecturing them about laziness.

Dolly never lectured anybody, for what it’s worth. She built things instead. Gave away books instead of speeches. Paid for her employees’ healthcare instead of bragging about how hard she worked to earn her own fortune. Put money into her home county instead of parking it offshore somewhere. If there’s one lesson in how she actually lived that the people in a position to fix any of this should take from her, it’s that one. Less lecturing. More building.

None of what she pulled off means less because the world around it got harder. If anything, it means more, and it’s more of a warning too. She’s proof of what’s possible when a country still has room left for someone to climb out of nothing and build something real, both for herself and for everyone who came up behind her. The question this country needs to actually sit with now that she’s gone, once the flags come back up and the specials stop airing and the unity fades out the way it always does, is whether that room still exists for anybody else.

Right now, for most of a generation trying to find its footing, it doesn’t. Not the way it did for her. That’s not a reason to give up. It’s a diagnosis of exactly what needs rebuilding, and a reminder, courtesy of one woman from a one-room cabin in Tennessee, of what it actually looks like when it’s working.

Dolly Parton was what America is supposed to be.

The Sunday Paper

Hey everyone,

It’s been a few weeks since our last edition and I owe you an explanation. Not because we went quiet, we’ve actually been busier than ever. We’ve had so many active projects running at once that something had to give, and unfortunately it was this newsletter. So let’s catch up.

What we’ve been working on

The biggest story we’ve been chasing is the ongoing situation with Taylor Sharp. A few weeks back he reached out to us directly, and we sat down and talked with him. That turned into this piece:

I Spoke To Taylor Sharp

Not long after that, we heard from his soon to be father in law, who had a very different story to tell. We published what he told us here:

Exclusive: The Father Of Taylor Sharp’s...

We’re going to keep following this one wherever it goes. That’s the job.

We also had a genuinely great piece from Peter Giunta breaking down James Fishback’s loss in Florida and what it actually means. If you haven’t read it yet, you should:

James Fishback’s Moment, And Why It...

And then we lost Dolly Parton.

Dolly Parton, Dead At 80

Her passing hit different than most celebrity news does, and it reminded us of something we needed reminding of. Not everything has to be political. Some things are just human. We wrote about that here:

Politics Isn’t Everything, And It’s...

The Top 5 Headlines This Week

1. Dolly Parton has died at 80. Tributes are pouring in from every corner of the country and honestly, they should. Few people earned that kind of universal love.

2. The Postal Service is appealing the court ruling that blocked Trump’s mail in voting order, setting up what looks like a real Supreme Court fight ahead of the midterms.

3. Wildfires in Spokane have torched more than 900 structures, and families are still sifting through what’s left.

4. Far right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos was arrested by federal immigration authorities, a story that’s still developing.

5. Flock surveillance cameras are getting torn down, blocked, and vandalized in at least 36 states, as more communities push back on automated license plate tracking. More on that below, because we have thoughts.

Our take: the backlash against Flock cameras is justified

Speaking of Flock, I want to talk about it for a second because the anger is real and it’s growing, and honestly, we think it’s earned.

Here’s our stance. America should not become a mass surveillance state. Full stop. We understand the pitch. These cameras can help find a stolen car or a missing person, and there are real cases where they have. Nobody’s arguing that never happens. But that’s not the whole story, and it’s not close to it.

We’ve now seen multiple documented cases of police officers using this exact technology to stalk their exes. We’ve seen a sheriff’s office track a woman who may have had an abortion. We’ve seen departments quietly sharing data with federal immigration agencies. This isn’t a hypothetical slippery slope. It’s already happening, in real departments, to real people who did nothing wrong.

And that’s the trade we’re being asked to make. Give up your privacy, let a network of cameras track everywhere you drive, every doctor’s appointment, every trip to church, every time you pick your kid up from school, on the slim chance it might someday help solve a crime. Meanwhile the same tool is sitting there ready for any officer with a grudge and a login.

That math doesn’t work for us. A tool that can be this easily weaponized against ordinary Americans isn’t worth what it occasionally gets right. People vandalizing cameras and cities canceling contracts isn’t some fringe overreaction. It’s a pretty reasonable response to being watched without ever agreeing to it.

We’ll keep an eye on this one too.

Thanks for sticking with us. More soon.

- Kameron Rudat, Editor in Chief

I get it, we live in an age where everyone wants everything to have a huge meaning, but here’s hoping that conservatives don’t take this next step, which I do not believe is conservative-friendly at all: that there are some things that are just about the thing itself. Just because we can twist it all into the culture wars doesn’t mean we should always do that. There are some things that are about the person, the tragedy, the song or the sermon or the moment, and we should not try to take even that away from people. It’s not healthy.

When Trump Made Dolly About Himself

Dolly Parton has died this week at the age of 80, and for around twelve hours, it was rare to see anyone in this country disagree about something. Everyone from Hollywood to Nashville, from the White House to the most politically disengaged neighbor, was paying tribute. Parton has always kept herself out of politics for the majority of her six-decade-long career, refusing the presidential medal of freedom twice so it wouldn’t seem “political,” and she was one of the last remaining cultural icons that managed to keep her appeal across the aisle.

President Trump’s first reaction was perfect, as he ordered flags to be flown at half-staff and called her irreplaceable - the kind of gracious, unifying thing he’s been great at in times like these.

He then apparently couldn’t contain his excitement to talk about something else entirely, and on the Glenn Beck radio show the next morning, he jumped right into the hot seat, going from a eulogy for Dolly Parton to talking about how much she apparently liked him, calculating the number of fans he could lose, and talking about his poll numbers in the next election. Many of his fans probably wish he could’ve kept it about Dolly for once, and this is, yet again, an example of how this president just can’t seem to let anything be about itself.

Is it a big deal? Not really, but it’s a shame, and it’s a shame that reflects badly on the kind of discourse we want to have in this country. It’s an unfortunate statement about our society that we feel the need to politicize even a brief, shared moment of unity and grief for something as non-political as a country music icon.

Democrats Do It Too - Usually Faster

Before conservatives go all self-righteous about this, let’s keep in mind that both sides do this kind of stuff. The left has a habit of politicizing pretty much everything, usually faster and louder. When a mass shooting happens, before the perpetrators are even caught, everyone on the left is already on camera talking about how gun control is going to change because of it. When a natural disaster happens, the first questions are about climate change before anyone even thinks about what can be done to help the victims. The last time Texas had those deadly floods, before any of the rescues had even finished, already some partisan warriors on both sides were fighting about whose fault it was, with the Democrats eventually realizing on the air that it was impeding their ability to help. The reflex is the same on both sides, with the only real difference being the subject they’re screaming about.

Now They’re Coming for the Church

This next one is actually really scary. For a long time, the only place where politics weren’t actually about politics was in churches. It was one of the few places where Republicans and Democrats could get along, but now it seems it’s trying to become another battleground. With pastors openly endorsing candidates, congregations splitting up based on their political views, “Christian nationalism” becoming a bad word for wanting to bring faith into government, and conservatives doing the same things with MAGA hats and Bible verses, it’s becoming more difficult for everyone to see themselves in something bigger than their political identity.

They actually aren’t the same thing at all. Jesus was hardly ever about politics. He did not support the “political” party of his time, he confused the political zealots of his day, and he baffled the religious leaders by refusing their questions about paying taxes to Rome. When they tried to trap him, he said to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God, what is God’s.” He didn’t endorse either side and stopped them from making him a political figure. As soon as we began applying political tests to faith, we stopped believing in faith at all.

Some Things Should Just be Allowed to be What They Are

Not everything has to have a hot take, not every disaster needs to become a political discussion point, and not every church needs to have an official stance on everything. We’ve become so used to having an opinion about everything, all the time, that we forget that the most human thing we can do is simply to enjoy a moment, to appreciate someone for what they are, not what they can give us. Dolly Parton has spent her life doing that, and maybe now is a good time for the rest of us to try it too.

AVERAGE AMERICAN EXCLUSIVE: Throughout our reporting on Taylor Sharp we have received tips, testimonies, and accounts, sometimes anonymous. We treat these as claims, not established facts. Taylor Sharp is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. We attempt to fact-check where possible and to report what both sides tell us with accuracy.

Today’s account comes from the father of Taylor Sharp’s fiancée, Gianna Carlson. He has gone on the record describing alleged encounters with Sharp and the impact he says those encounters had on his family. The statements below are his claims. They have not been independently adjudicated, and no criminal charges related to these specific allegations are known to have been filed at the time of publication.

Who is Scott Carlson?

When I spoke with him on the phone for over an hour, he had all the strength and passion of the man that I read about. He is best known for being a decorated and distinguished firefighter who sacrificed his career in favor of his values by refusing to take a COVID vaccine, a story I know all too well even in my own family. But Proverbs says that Children’s greatest glory is their fathers, and Scott is the father of 3, including Gianna, the now Fiancée of the embattled Taylor Sharp.

“There’s not enough time in this call to describe how amazing Gianna is,” He said, speaking about his daughter. He told us many things, from the coffee dates they used to go on to the mission trips she took, including one deep in the Amazon, where they didn’t have contact. “She raised the money herself. Dana and I didn’t encourage her at all. She said, I want to go to the Amazon.” Scott recounts how they were scared, particularly her mother, and she said in response “If it’s for God, I’m going to be fine.”

Scott’s First Impression of Taylor

“So the first time I met him, I thought he was insecure. Because he talked so much, and he constantly wanted to tell me all the people he knew, like, oh, I’m friends with Ken Paxton. Oh, I can call Greg Abbott right now, he was just flexing.” He recounts telling his wife of his first impression of Taylor, saying he thought he was just young and immature.

Scott recounts an alleged interaction he had with Taylor during dinner one night. I chalked it up to being immature. “I was cooking dinner for him, and he’s like, what are you guys eating? And I was like, oh, I’m barbecuing chicken. He goes, I don’t eat chicken. Taylor allegedly took Gianna’s car and drove out to buy a wagyu steak to grill, saying “This is how Americans eat.” there was allegedly a buildup of small incidents leading up to that.

The Buildup

Another incident he recounted was in their home when Taylor was allegedly watching Nick Fuentes on their TV. Scott told Taylor to turn it off, citing Fuentes’s inflammatory and often racist rhetoric. “The biggest thing I hate in this bullying, any form of bullying, I consider racism a form of bullying.” He asked them to turn it off and walked away, but when he got back it was still playing, which upset him further. He recounts talking to Gianna about it the next day, and that she allegedly downplayed it and made it out to be a big joke. “That was the first time that I was taken aback, that she was okay with something that she would have never been okay with herself. She herself was against people that acted like that.”

He also recounted another incident involving another person very close to the Carlson Family. “soon after, when he left, my middle kid was dating a boy named Mason. And he’s Latino. And he had made some comments to him that weren’t very kind.” he recounts that Gianna’s sister resorted to commenting on Sharp’s posts and trolling him on TikTok. “There was a bunch of times that Taylor’s responses were just pure racist. So I went to Gianna and I said, you know what, even if your sister’s trolling your boyfriend, no, absolutely not. I will not tolerate that. That is inexcusable. And he owes him an apology.”

How Has Gianna Been Affected?

Scott talked extensively on the things that changed since Taylor came into the picture. “Before him, we had a great relationship, like phenomenal relationship. Gianna and I had a road trip to Oxford, Mississippi. Just her and I, we just stayed there to do the JD Vance, TPUSA thing. I stood in line with her for four hours just talking in the rain, just her and I just hanging out. And then she won a National Photography Award. And that award was in Savannah. So her and I drove there, and we stayed there for a week together, had a great time. When she was debating on going to college, we flew to Liberty University, just her and I. Her and I were so close. And we talked every day.”

He talks about how Gianna became more withdrawn from her family and from her life leading up to her departure. “We verbally talked every day. And then once she met Taylor, she sat in her room, and she disappeared. And I was just like, okay, puppy love, whatever. And a lot of us didn’t pay much mind because we just thought it fizzle out because we all thought he was a tool. But then when she decided not to come home, she didn’t even call us, she sent us a text and said, I’m 18, I can do what I want. I’m not coming home.”

How Did Gianna Leave?

He recounts how what started as a 4 day trip to Prescott, Arizona, turned into Gianna refusing to come home. “Gianna kept selling us. She goes, no, listen, we won’t even go to Denise’s house. We’re going to go to his grandparents house.

And they’ve been married for 60 years. And they’re super Christian. I was talking to Dana about it, I was like, well, they’re going to be at the grandparents. They’re not going to be just sitting in the city. Maybe, you know, we could look the other way.”

He laid out some ground rules for the two. One boundary he set was he wanted her only to stay with Taylor’s grandparents and not his mom, Denise. He also said he didn’t feel comfortable with Gianna accompanying Taylor to a protest, a request they allegedly ignored. “That was the last real interaction I had. I tried to text and try and do things. And the next time I heard anything from her is when she texted Dana and I saying that she was 18 and she could do what she wants, so she’s not coming home.”

When I asked him what that was like, he said “Panic. In an instant, all the things that I’ve just told you came flooding back to me as bright red flags. The moment she texted me like that, I was like, That’s not who my girl is. And it was sheer panic.” He recounted that he called anyone he could, from Gianna to Denise, and nobody answered. It got to the point where they all blocked him, which further added to the terror. “I was loading the car up and I was ready to go. Like, I was gonna get her home because in my in my heart, she was being kidnapped. She was being held against her will. There’s no way my girl would act like this.”

Responding To Claims Made By Taylor

During his conversation with Average American Chief Editor Kameron Rudat, Taylor claimed that the Carlsons withheld Gianna’s diploma. Scott heavily disputes this. “Where Taylor is absolutely lying and saying that we’re withholding it, Gianna didn’t complete her classes. Once she met Taylor, she stopped logging online and stopped attending the in-person classes.” For context, Gianna attended a local homeschool co-op where she took an in-person class, and she also took separate online classes (not affiliated with the co-op). All of these were administered by her mother, who is herself a schoolteacher. “She had multiple classes there that she never went to again. She left here in early February, they didn’t graduate until May. So how would we possibly withhold a diploma when a student didn’t set foot in a class or finish her classes from early February through May?”

Another claim Scott denied was that Taylor was well liked among the people in their circles before this all climaxed. Scott listed off the names of many family friends and townspeople, including their pastor, who allegedly voiced their concerns with him behind Taylor’s back. “So when [a family was] driving home, the dad called me and he’s like, dude, that guy’s a tool. I don’t know how you’re letting that guy hang around with you. He’s a no for me.” Scott alleges that many of them saw him as a “tool” who was “Full of himself” and “couldn’t stand him,” among other quotes Scott gave me. “They’re presenting themselves in a manner that is not accurate to what they’re portraying.”

“If you could say one thing to your daughter, what would it be?”

“Just that I love her. We love her and we just want her home. This is not what we want at all. We just miss her terribly.”

One specific claim Taylor made was that Gianna’s parents hate him because “she chose him over them.” Scott vehemently denies that this is the reason; it’s a multitude of things: the feeling of their daughter being allegedly “taken away” from them, Taylor’s remarks regarding women, Taylor’s actions while visiting them, and what Scott calls his “manipulation” of their daughter, because he says she wouldn’t have said or done most of these things until she met Taylor.

Closing

Since Average American published its article on what Taylor Sharp shared after reconnecting with Editor-in-Chief Kameron Rudat, Sharp has cut off all communication with this outlet.

That silence follows our refusal to pursue a separate story he pushed us to run: an investigation into Faith Merrill’s finances, prompted by his stated dislike of what he called her “lavish lifestyle” and his suggestion that questions be raised about where her money comes from.

We said no. Average American doesn’t report on people’s personal finances based on speculation, personal grievance, or a source’s discomfort with how someone else lives. We held that line with Taylor Sharp throughout this investigation, and we’re holding it here now. If real evidence of wrongdoing regarding Faith Merrill’s finances is ever brought to us, we’ll look at it and evaluate it on its merits, the same standard we apply to every claim in this story. Until then, it isn’t a story. It’s an accusation without a foundation, and we’re not going to print it.

Videos provided by Scott Carlson. Content has not been independently authenticated as complete or unedited by Average American News. The statements and allegations contained in or accompanying this video remain unproven. Taylor Sharp is presumed innocent. We have made minor edits to shield the identity of the individual shown in the videos.

With roughly 48% of the vote, the congressman from Southwest Florida easily outpaced Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins and the rest of the field, including James Fishback. As we’ve seen over and over again this cycle, Trump’s early and full-throated endorsement mattered. So did institutional money and name recognition. Some things, they say, never really change.

That doesn’t mean the contest wasn’t interesting.

Fishback, a 31-year-old investor with social media savvy and a talent for occupying the spotlight even when the cameras were pointed elsewhere, polled in the double digits and forced serious coverage for months.

In a different era, a candidate running on property-tax elimination, a ban on new AI data centers, and a 50 percent “sin tax” on OnlyFans creators would have been dismissed as a novelty act. In 2026, he was treated - at least for some time - as a real factor. That, by itself, is worth paying attention to.

But first, Donalds. He entered the race with the resume of a conventional rising star.

Born in Brooklyn and raised by a single mother, he moved to Florida, earned a degree in finance and marketing, and built a career in banking and insurance before winning a state House seat in 2016. He jumped to Congress in 2020 and quickly aligned himself with the House Freedom Caucus.

His record on school choice, fiscal restraint, and border security is straightforward. Trump’s endorsement early last year gave him an immediate institutional advantage that no amount of online energy could erase. And even without a formal blessing from the Florida GOP or from the man he hoped to succeed, Governor Ron DeSantis, Donalds still controlled the institutional lanes that matter in a statewide primary.

Fishback, however, had something different: the internet.

His campaign was built almost entirely on digital reach and cultural provocation. He understood that attention is a form of currency, and he spent it aggressively. Clips of him attacking “DEI Republicans,” warning about data centers draining Florida’s water and power, and promising to scrap the state’s three-day gun waiting period circulated widely among the younger, online-right crowd.

He also drew sustained attention for his sharp criticisms of U.S. support for Israel, including calls to end Florida’s investments in Israeli bonds and rhetoric that frequently veered into territory that many mainstream Republicans considered inflammatory.

He framed himself as the purest defender of “Old Florida,” the version that existed before the explosive growth seen in the last decade. For a segment of voters who felt like the state’s rapid transformation had outrun their ability to keep up, that message resonated.

And yet the same qualities that made Fishback magnetic online also limited his ceiling. Primary electorates still reward candidates who look and sound like they could govern a large, complex state.

Florida is not a political laboratory. It is a place where insurance rates, property taxes, hurricane preparedness, and workforce housing often dominate the kitchen table.

Promising to eliminate homestead property taxes is extremely popular in the abstract, but explaining how local governments would fund schools and first responders without them is harder.

A tax on OnlyFans income sounds like a morality play, but it’s also a policy that invites legal challenges and does little to address the actual drivers of housing costs or energy prices.

Opposing AI data centers taps into legitimate concerns about water use and grid strain, yet Florida’s economic model has long depended on attracting capital-intensive industries. Voters may have shared Fishback’s frustrations, but they were less certain they wanted a governor who treated growth itself as the enemy.

And there is a deeper cultural point here that goes beyond just one candidate, though. We live in a political moment where a non-trivial share of the electorate holds views - on immigration, cultural change, and social costs - that they hesitate to express openly. The fear of social exclusion remains powerful. Online spaces lower that barrier. They reward intensity and punish nuance.

A candidate who masters those spaces appears larger than they really are because the people who agree with that candidate are often louder and more concentrated than the broader primary electorate. Fishback’s double-digit showing was real, but it was also a reminder that intensity is not the same as breadth.

None of this is to say that Fishback’s central grievances were imagined. Florida’s property tax burden is high. The state’s rapid population growth has strained infrastructure. Cultural questions that once stayed on the margins now sit in the center of politics.

The problem, however, is translation. Ideas that generate applause in a Telegram chat or on X do not automatically survive contact with the broader Republican primary voter. It has been tried and tested before. Those people want competence, predictability, and a candidate who can win a general election in a state that, for all its redness, remains demographically complicated.

Donald’s now moves on to face Democrat David Jolly in November, and he will do so with the usual advantages of a Trump-backed nominee in a Republican-leaning state.

But whether he can expand beyond the coalition that nominated him is a different question.

For young politicos, this primary offers a serious lesson worth remembering.

Social media can force a candidate into the conversation. It can even make a 31-year-old political newcomer a legitimate contender for governor of one of the country’s biggest states.

But rarely is it a substitute for the slower, less glamorous work of cultivating relationships and building a majority.

Fishback proved that he could capture the spotlight. He just never proved that he could win the room.

Well, here we are. Dolly Parton is gone.

It hardly seems real to type that. The rhinestones, the banjo, the laughter, the heart of gold - it all belongs to a woman who passed away today, Aug. 25, 2026, in her Nashville home. She was 80. Her nephew Bryan Seaver announced the sad news in a statement exactly as she requested years ago, saying she had passed in the “light” and “in the arms of Jesus.” There is no official word on the cause of death - only that she left us peacefully.

If you’re anything like me, you’re feeling a mixture of conflicting emotions upon reading this news. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that Dolly Parton was a complicated woman to follow. As a conservative, I couldn’t agree with all of her public stances. She kept her politics largely private, but it’s no secret that she generally favored the Democratic party over the Republicans. Parton had fans on both sides of that fence, and she always kept her support of socially liberal causes like Planned Parenthood out of her public discourse. That’s fine, but it’s also understandable that others might criticize her for it. We can’t all be best friends, after all. Adults are allowed to disagree

What we can all agree on, however, is the legacy of positivity and generosity that Dolly Parton leaves behind.

She was the daughter of Robert Lee Parton and Avie Marie Parton in a poor family of twelve children living in a one-room cabin in the Smoky Mountains. The only book they owned for a long time was the family Bible, which her mother would read aloud to them. Dolly’s father was a hardworking man who could barely read, and that fueled a fire in young Dolly to better her future. When she grew up and found success, she made sure to use her resources to give back to those less fortunate.

This is where some of her most notable philanthropy comes in.

In 1995, she created her Imagination Library, which provided free books to children up to the age of five. It began in her hometown as a tribute to her father, but it has since expanded to provide over 300 million books to children across the globe. 300 million books! That means that hundreds of millions of young people who might have struggled to learn to read now have the ability to explore new worlds through the written word.

That’s a pretty incredible legacy to leave, if you ask me

She gave endlessly to her community, funding scholarships for local students, donating to hospitals and disaster relief funds, and even private institutions for COVID-19 research when the pandemic first hit.

She gave to her community in the form of jobs, too, through the creation of Dollywood. This theme park not only serves as a fun vacation destination for millions of people each year but has put thousands of people from her region to work in the meantime. Dolly Parton could have easily used her wealth and fame to indulge in selfish behavior or to stoke the flames of class warfare, but she chose to give selflessly to the same small towns that raised her.

Throughout all of this, she never lost her strong Christian faith.

While Dolly Parton might not have been a theologian, she knew that God had blessed her tremendously, and she wanted to share that generosity with the world. She spoke openly and publicly about her faith and even performed gospel music, despite criticism from some who said that it was divisive and shouldn’t be shared in public discourse. Dolly Parton knew who she was and where she came from, and she wasn’t afraid to share it, even when it was inconvenient

She balanced her faith effortlessly with her life in Nashville and never seemed to compromise one for the other. In fact, she carried her faith with her wherever she went, speaking on it publicly, sharing Scripture, and keeping a Bible in her personal possession. When asked to stop talking about her faith, Parton always replied that this was her personal relationship with God, and it was important to her. She shared her faith not in an annoying, preachy way, but in a generous, open way that many people likely felt in their hearts.

In a world where so many hide their faith or act as if it’s an embarrassing secret, Dolly Parton wore hers like a badge of honor.

She genuinely loved the Lord, and it showed in the way she lived her life. It showed in the music she made, the way she spoke to her fans, and the way she treated everyone she met.

Time is a privilege we’re all too aware that we don’t have enough of. Dolly Parton knew that as she neared the end of her life, and she chose to make the most of it, as we should all strive to do. She took the struggles of her past and turned them into music we can still enjoy today. She turned her fame and fortune into opportunities for children from underprivileged areas to succeed. She took her relationship with the Lord and made it something others wished to have in their lives, too. And so many people from all walks of life are now remembering this beloved entertainer with nothing but kind words, as they should

Dolly Parton made the most of the time she had, and now the rest of us are left trying to do the same.

We can give back to our communities, pay it forward, and show our children and grandchildren the same kindness and love that she did. This incredible woman left this world far too soon, but she did so with a legacy that will inspire us all to live life to the fullest for as long as we’re granted it.

Read more

We aren’t being paid by Faith Merrill or any intelligence agency, and we definitely aren’t biased in this discussion. We aren’t pro-Faith or pro-Taylor, no matter what anyone claims. There have been times when we’ve been extremely frustrated with both Taylor and Faith, but in the end, that does not affect our reporting. Politics is a marketplace of ideas, and our goal isn’t to tell you what side to take. That is definitely not the intention of this article.

HOW THIS HAPPENED

Two days ago, we released a message to Taylor Sharp. Here is the main point: “We want to be honest: you have taken nearly every step possible to let people cast you as a villain. But we don’t think you are one. Maybe immoral, maybe ill-advised. But not a villain.”

That single statement has defined our reporting. The following day, Taylor began correspondence with me, and it created an avenue for his side of the story to be shared, a side that has never been shared.

Taylor and I spoke on the phone for nearly an hour and a half. This was one of the most interesting conversations of my political career. We agreed to speak under the notion that it would just be him and me, no legal team, no consultants. He held up his end of the bargain, and so did I. We discussed all matters relevant to our reporting, misconceptions, and outright lies that have been spewed by others. We both agreed that for the conversation to be helpful, we would do it in good faith.

A note before we go further: some of what Taylor shared aligns with what we’ve been able to verify independently. Some of it does not. We are presenting his account, in his own words where possible, because it is a side of this story that has not been heard. We’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

ON THE ALLEGATIONS, GENERALLY

We opened by each voicing our overall thoughts on the allegations. Taylor told me there is some truth to what has gone out publicly, but he was firm that the physical abuse allegations are not true. We have followed up with our sources on this specific point, and they maintain the opposite.

On infidelity, Taylor did not deny it. He confirmed the allegations of rampant infidelity are factual, both in his current relationship with fiancée Gianna Carlson and in past relationships. Near the end of the call, he put it bluntly: “Don’t ever come to me for relationship advice.”

He was fairly candid throughout the conversation. There were moments where I knew, or believed, he wasn’t being fully truthful with me. We’ve chosen not to litigate those moments point by point here. The goal of this piece is to share his side of the story, not to referee every claim in real time.

THE MS. REED ALLEGATIONS AND THE ORDER OF PROTECTION

Taylor reiterated his denial of the alleged abuse involving Ms. Reed, standing by the same timeline he laid out in his response video several weeks ago. He offered nothing new on that front.

I also asked him directly about an active restraining order from a past relationship, something we’d received in an anonymous tip, and something others have referenced publicly in response to the allegations. Taylor said it is not a restraining order, but an order of protection, and that it stemmed from him exposing an ex-girlfriend for seeing someone else the day after their relationship ended. According to Taylor, that’s what led her to pursue the order against him. We were not able to independently verify this account.

ON OUR SOURCING

Taylor pushed back on our editorial process directly, telling me our reliance on anonymous tips isn’t something people are going to find credible. I defended it. I told him we’ve heard, from more than one source, that he pressures people who speak out against him with threats of legal action. He denied that as well. To be clear: we have no proof that he does this, and we have no proof that he doesn’t.

FAITH, POLITICS, AND CHARLIE KIRK

I asked Taylor if he considers himself a Christian. His answer: “We’re all sinners. We all fall short of the glory of God. But yes, I’m a Christian.”

I also asked how he got into politics, since there’s a competing story floating around suggesting his real origin in the space isn’t what it appears to be. Taylor said he dabbled with posts here and there starting around age nine, but didn’t take politics seriously until after Charlie Kirk’s assassination this past year. He said he and Kirk crossed paths often. Taylor used to attend Dream City Church in Phoenix, which no longer counts him as a member, and which regularly rented its auditorium to Turning Point Faith, the ministry arm Kirk founded. Public reporting confirms Dream City Church was, in fact, a church Kirk attended and where Turning Point Faith events were held.

Taylor also addressed criticism, including from Faith Merrill, that Dream City Church holds an ultra-Zionist, pro-Israel stance. He said he wasn’t aware of the church’s position on Israel until a friend later pointed it out to him and that prompted him to stop attending the church.

THE PHYSICAL ALLEGATIONS: KISSES, HOTELS, AND AN AIRBNB

Taylor flatly denied the forced-kiss allegation, saying the only person he kissed that night was Gianna, now his fiancée.

He also confirmed something we’d already heard independently: that he and Gianna met on day two or three of AmFest, that he thought she was attractive, and that he invited her onto his podcast, an account corroborated by TikTok clips of the two of them from that event. He said Gianna went home afterward, and he later visited her in Texas, where he described having “a great week.”

Taylor confirmed the two of them are now living together, and that Gianna’s parents, who initially liked him, no longer do, a shift he attributed to “her choosing him over them”. He also confirmed a tip we’d received that Gianna left high school before finishing, though he disputes the framing: he says she was homeschooled, and that her family withheld her diploma rather than her simply dropping out. Our source denies that framing.

On a separate incident we’d previously reported, allegations that Taylor became angry with Gianna in a van after the NHSC conference because she forgot his shoes, allegedly telling her she “wanted this job,” Taylor denied it happened, and said there’d be no reason for Gianna to need to work given his income. Faith Merrill has publicly disputed that financial claim.

Asked about a separate incident that weekend, where he allegedly got into it with a volunteer at the NHSC conference after being questioned about his security detail, Taylor said he did not recall the exchange at all.

Taylor also confirmed a previously reported incident in which he arranged to meet someone at a hotel, an encounter that person has described as harassment. Taylor maintains he was invited there. A third party present that day disputes his account and stands by the description of harassment.

ONE LIGHTER MOMENT

Not everything on the call was heavy. Taylor confirmed a quote we’d previously reported, that he once called Annie (an alias for one of our sources) “a fridge blocking the snacks,” calling it accurate, word for word. He said he plans to buy one of the shirts we’ve made referencing the line.

ON RESPECT

Near the end of the call, I asked Taylor a simple question: does he respect women? He said yes.

We’ll leave it to you, the reader, to weigh what’s here. Some of it we could confirm. Some of it we couldn’t. All of it is presented as Taylor told it to us, because for the first time, it’s being told at all.

But this event is far more than pageantry. It is a calculated attempt to reclaim the microphone ahead of the most consequential midterm election in a generation, reminding a restless coalition just how important it is to hold on to Congress this November.

Republicans entered this cycle with a problem that should not be papered over. The broad coalition that delivered Donald Trump’s decisive victory in 2024 was beginning to fall apart as enthusiasm cooled and ideological differences triggered infighting. Midterms are historically brutal for the party in power and early numbers heavily favored the opposition.

In 2018, Democrats took the House and spent two years grinding Washington to a halt. Gridlock, investigations, and two impeachments followed. Whatever you thought of those battles, the political reality was clear: Trump spent the final two years of his first term fighting to get anything done.

Republicans cannot afford a repeat of that blue-wave disaster.

That’s why this convention matters. In Dallas, symbolism will be secondary; narrative control will be primary.

Political warfare isn’t complicated. You hold the microphone, and, no matter what, you don’t cede the frame. Dallas is an attempt to do just that.

The question, though, is what Republicans choose to talk about. Will they use this platform to talk about what voters actually care about, or will they head back to the well and indulge in the familiar list of grievances that fire up the base but leave independents out in the cold?

It starts with the economy. A July Pew Research survey found that voters overwhelmingly want congressional candidates to talk about economic concerns, specifically affordability. The cost of living, groceries, gas, housing, and healthcare sit atop the list for most Americans - just as they did two years ago.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise. The tricky part about midterms is that they have always been referendums on the state of people’s wallets. This one will be no different.

Republicans must convince voters - their own, and especially independents who decide close elections - that they are better off than they were two years ago. It’s a challenge that requires more than cheap slogans. It requires concrete claims about tax policy, the real impact of tariffs, and progress on reducing drug prices, among so many other initiatives that Republicans have undertaken since their 2024 mandate. Those arguments certainly exist, but they need to be made clearly and without apology.

The ongoing conflict with Iran complicates that messaging entirely.

Fighting has lasted longer than most expected, and failed attempts at a negotiated resolution have left the United States shouldering the burden of higher costs. Oil prices spiked several times since the start of the conflict, feeding into higher prices at the pump and on store shelves.

Making it even more complex is that, nearly six months into the conflict, the American public is now divided into one of roughly three camps: those focused on Israel’s security, those focused on Iran’s sovereignty, and those who simply want the United States to stay out of another entanglement in the Middle East.

Trump and Republican leaders are going to have to navigate this carefully - projecting strength and resolve while acknowledging the temporary economic pain with empathy and communicating the longer-term strategic interests that the United States hopes to achieve. Pretending the costs do not exist will not work. Neither will abandoning the claim that American power still shapes outcomes.

This convention offers a chance for Republicans to set that frame before Democrats define it for them.

None of this is to say that other issues don’t matter. The 2024 coalition was energized in large part by anger over what many saw as a weaponized Justice Department, pandemic-era government overreach, and concerns about election integrity. Republicans have made progress on some of those fronts, and they should talk about them - but they cannot become the entire message.

An electorate worried about the cost of groceries or a tank of gas will not be moved by institutional score-settling, no matter how justified. Republicans are going to need to speak first to the kitchen table.

The 2024 mandate was real, but mandates do not renew on their own. Coalitions require maintenance. Low turnout and low engagement usually punish the party in power; however, this midterm doesn’t have to follow the same script.

A midterm convention is an admission that business as usual is no longer enough, and it’s a major bet that the party can still generate the energy and clarity needed to defy historical patterns.

Dallas alone won’t decide the midterms, but it can help determine whether Republicans enter the final stretch of this campaign cycle with a coherent story about competence, results, and the stakes of the next two years.

If Republicans fail to tell that story, Democrats would be more than happy to tell it for them - and we already know what that will look like.

With less than 90 days until the midterm elections, one thing is certain: they will be a test of Trump’s second-term agenda, and, ultimately, a significant part of how his presidency is remembered as the sun begins to set on an otherwise remarkable chapter.

Tell me…. How out of touch can you be?

Wanting to fly to the Middle-East, to be more specific two of the most dangerous places in the world per the State Department, and also demanding NYPD officers escort you around? The Champagne Socialists never cease to amaze us.

Rama Duwaji, wife of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, requested NYPD protection for a family trip to Syria and Lebanon, which last we checked is under a Level 4 “Do Not Travel” advisories.

A NYPD spokesperson told CBS 12: “The NYPD does not send officers to countries with level 4 travel advisories for discretionary reasons such as personal travel’.

I’m on the side of the NYPD. How do you demand something that egregious? It shows exactly how out of touch the Mandani’s truly are.

Not only that, the mayor is so hot-tempered he’s now blaming and fighting with NYPD for refusing his wife’s request.

Another interesting note: the Mamdani’s are not poor. They can easily afford private security for personal trips overseas. Zohran still collects royalties from his old rap career as Mr. Cardamom (trust me, wear earplugs). Rama’s work as an illustrator should more than cover her own protection in the Middle East. Or here’s a crazy thought: DON’T GO!

This is nothing but a power trip from a socialist couple who have run New York into the ground ($5,000-a-month rents, licenses to get groceries, 114,000 residents leaving, businesses fleeing, and rising antisemitism. Phew! Mamdani better get his own house in order.

We’ve been covering the allegations against Taylor Sharp for weeks now — the whistleblower partnership with Faith Merrill, the tip line, the fallout. And along the way, this story stopped being just about Sharp. It became a story about how the media handles allegations like this, and who gets to shape the narrative.

So on August 19 at 9:30 PM EST, we’re putting that conversation on the record.

(our own co-founder and CEO) and will go head-to-head on:

• The underlying allegations against Taylor Sharp

• How Average American News has covered the story — and whether that coverage has been fair

• The personal remarks made by people involved along the way

This isn’t a scripted back-and-forth. It’s a real debate, with real disagreement, about a story that’s touched a nerve for a lot of you.

Why this matters: We built Average American News on the idea that people deserve news without the spin — but that doesn’t mean we’re above scrutiny ourselves. If there are questions about how we’ve handled this story, we’d rather answer them out loud than pretend they don’t exist.

Watch on YouTube

Got a question you want asked on air? Reply to this post or drop it in our tip line — we’re taking submissions from readers ahead of the debate.

China has been aggressively pushing its space program, chasing a lunar base and deeper exploration of the cosmos. It’s interesting that we are now living in a Space Race 2.0…but instead of Russia its China.

State media has claimed the rocket “experienced an unidentified anomaly during flight” and that an investigation is underway (as reported by the Associated Press)

The Long March 7A which had a long lasting rocket launches since 2021, was carrying the ChinaSat 4B satellite, designed for internet and broadcasting services, with a payload capacity of 7 metric tons. It launched but 85 seconds later, the rocket blew up.

It’s still too early to know the real cause. And let’s be honest: the Chinese government isn’t goijg to tell us the story.

Of course, Elon had something to say about it “Rockets are insanely hard”, he wrote on X.

You’ve seen the stories in the paper about some tech giant building “the worlds largest AI campus” and all the jobs and tax revenue it will bring in for the local economy. But you most likely haven’t heard the other side of the story; the one about tightening water supplies, increased electric bills, and people who are supposed to be able to help you with these problems taking a nice chunk of change from the companies responsible for them

I’m not saying this is anything close to the most important thing happening in the United States today, but I do believe this could be an issue that affects millions of everyday Americans in the coming decade and there isn’t much being done to stop it.

The Power Grid Issue Is Not A Conspiracy Theory

Did you know that data centers consume about 176 terawatt hours worth of electricity per year; about 4.4% of the worlds total electricity consumption? Thats a lot, but it gets better. This number is projected to more than double by 2030 (upwards of a few hundred terawatt hours) due to AI companies constructing new data centers to store information.

This is a problem because this demand for electricity is coming out of the same power grid that your household uses to power your home.

Prices for this electricity can and will go up when this kind of demand is placed on the grid. In penna and the PJM grid region, the price for power capacity spiked upwards of 800% for utilities that were buying and selling power around the time data center demand for power began to skyrocket and continues to climb steadily year after year.

This means when you go to pay your electricity bill this month, it might be a little more expensive than it was two years ago. Part of the reason for this may be due to a server farm in another state that you have no control over and are indirectly subsidizing.

There Is Also A Water Conservation Angle

This angle is complicated because the companies often times make misleading claims about their impact on water conservation.

While it’s true that data centers only consume a fraction of the waters used nationwide (about 0.3% according to recent studies), most of that number comes from indirect consumption due to the electricity needed to power these facilities. Once you factor in the water needed to power these facilities at the power plant level, the number jumps to an astonishing figure that is more than double what the companies have originally claimed and is set to climb even further by 2028.

The other issue with the way companies report their impact on fresh surface water use is that the statistics are often reported at a national level; completely disregarding the impact these large-scale industrial facilities have on local economies and water supplies.

The residents of these areas don’t care that the data center industry only comprises a fraction of total water use in the United States, they care that their family’s well is running dry because a multi-national corporation has drained it.

“Big AI” Has Bought Itself A Lot Of Friends

This issue does not reflect badly on just the general population, many state legislators have been aware of this issue for quite some time, and have even paused proposals for new data centers during the legislative review process to better understand their impact on the community. This shows us that the issue is serious enough that it warrants attention from people who are in power; however, many elected officials have bent over backwards to support tax incentives, regulatory rollbacks, and expedited project completions for data center companies.

Some states even give these companies tax exemptions worth more than $1.6 billion to the tune of Virginia each year! In fact, some legislators are now trying to roll back some of these incentives, but the data center industry is pushing back hard.

This shows us that these companies don’t get favorable treatment in the government because they’re beloved or popular; rather, it shows us that they have more money than most small countries and can afford to buy favors from people who put themselves in office so they can control what happens to an industry worth trillions of dollars.

The people who are paying for these bribes by having their electricity rates hike at an unsustainable pace and having their local water supply contaminated have little to no representation from people who will actually fight for them.

Now Lets Talk About What We Do From Here

Please hear me out on this one, I’m not saying you need to run out and join some doomsday cult and stop using social media, but I am saying we need to put people in office who will fight for the little guy and not give million dollar tax breaks to corporations that fund their re-election funds.

This includes putting pressure on elected officials to ensure that these companies pay a fair share for the impact they’re making on the power grid, ensuring transparency on the amount of power and water they’re using in local areas (not just massaged figures that favor the companies bottom line), and fighting for communities to have a voice in approving or denying these projects in their area before they get permits.

Some states have begun doing this by implementing policies that force large electricity consumers to fund their own power grid improvements instead of passing the cost onto rate payers, as well as pausing new projects until legislators have enough information to effectively analyze the economic and environmental impact.

But none of this would have happened if the general population hadn’t taken notice and brought this issue to light.

So now its your turn. Pay attention to the politicians who can make a real change in your community and ask them about data center projects that may be coming to your area. Ask about tax incentives and loopholes for these companies and how it might affect the electricity rates in your area. This is how we can fight for the little guy and make sure he doesn’t have to subsidize a multi-billion dollar industry.

That is Newsom’s Paradise!

Remember folks- Newsom shut down California under “Dr.” Plead the 5th 111 times COVID guidelines, promised a high-speed rail which still hadn’t arrived, and left a long list of other failure behind him. The only good news is that he’s termed out. But Xavier Becerra is lining up to become Newsom 2.0. If he win, get ready for more economic pain, more mass homelessness, and another wave of people leaving the state.

And never forget: as “Secretary” Becerra, he lost track of thousands of migrant children after the Border was thrown open under Sleepy Joe and Cackling Kamala.

It doesn’t have to stay this way. California has been a stronghold for Demorat and liberal elites for far too long, but I see a red wave coming-and a much-needed change with it. Because, everyone is paying attention and are wanting to get involved more. Thanks to leaders/organizations who truly are making a difference in The Golden State. To name a few, Araceli Martinez, Carina Powers, the Republican National Hispanic Assembly of California, Rudy Melendez, Kenia Peraza, Christian Matsumoto, Spencer Pratt, and Steve Hilton.

To quote the great Princess Leia, “The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin (Newsom), the more star systems will slip through your fingers”. There is always hope in this world. I know every election year is the ‘most important election in our lifetime’. I truly mean it Cali you have an opportunity to do something great. I urge every Californian to wake up and see that Newsom and Becerra are the same side of the coin, and that coin is worthless.

Also, FYI Newsom, as incompetent as you are…You will never be President.

Peace Everyone

!

Much of the nation will be hot throughout the next 3 days, as heat alerts are issued from Colorado through Southwest Missouri, as temperatures could exceed the single digits highs, mainly in places like Texas, Oklahoma, and Nevada. Make sure to take breaks if working constantly outside throughout the next couple of days! If outside, drink plenty of fluids. Lows will be on the nicer side, with much of the mid-west reaching the lower 80s, with other locations seeing as low as 45 possible, mainly in Wyoming.

Severe weather threat continues today, mainly from Indiana to New Jersey, along with other states like Arizona, South Dakota, and into portions of Colorado. Today, August 10th, we’re watching a low-end tornado threat into portions of Ohio, and from Maryland to New Jersey, along with winds of 55-70 MPH and small hail, with some locations even seeing up to quarter size into South Dakota.

Then, tomorrow, August 11th, we’re watching a slight risk for severe weather from Virginia into Illinois, while a marginal risk remains from North Carolina to South Dakota. Same concerns remains tomorrow, with an isolated tornado threat, damaging winds, and small hail.

And again, another marginal risk for severe weather remains from North Carolina to Nebraska Wednesday.

Make sure to have multiple ways to receive weather watches and warnings throughout the week!

Highland Weather is a 24/7 locally focused network serving northeast Georgia, Piedmont and Western North Carolina, Upstate South Carolina, and Cocke, Greene, and Sevier counties in East Tennessee. However, Highland Weather will provide the Average American News national weather updates and maps.

Turn on any cable news channel, check Twitter, skim through a campaign email - and you’ll quickly realize that the most pressing issue facing the public today is something that most of the public doesn’t really care about, or at least doesn’t want to think about.

Namely, that no one is actually trying to persuade you anymore - everyone is just trying to scare you.

This is a business model.

I want to talk to you about “facilitated hate”, or, more specifically, the way in which the manufactured sense of victimhood and villainy coming from both sides of the aisle is not an incidental feature of our political discourse, but rather its foundational pillar, the thing which allows everyone from politicians to pundits to make a living doing what they do - not persuade, not serve, not lead, but facilitate hate.

The Republican View: We Are Being Hunted

If you look at any mainstream conservative media outlet right now, you’ll find that they all more or less agree on a particular interpretation of events that has less to do with actual policy than with a certain specific worldview. Namely, that there exists a vague and shadowy conspiracy of sorts, composed of faceless bureaucrats, radical prosecutors and judges, and other pro-Uranus figures in various governmental agencies tasked with bringing the republic to its knees, one inconvenient conservative figure at a time.

The idea of a shadowy conspiracy is not inherently racist or dishonest - the type of systemic issues the right has with the establishment, especially of the judicial branch, are real and worth talking about.

The problem is that somewhere along the way, the belief that “these institutions have certain ideological biases that may have been formed due to their specific place in the system” was conflated with the idea of “there exists a coordinated set of forces acting in a way designed to personally oppress me, which I therefore have the right to oppose”. The reason why this is such an insidious doctrine to accept is simple: it serves as an excuse for everyone, on both sides of the aisle

While it provides rational grounds for opposing figures or parties holding views you disagree with, it also serves as an excuse not to engage with their positions at all, to oppose them on a purely visceral level

Once the establishment is framed as a corrupt entity that systematically oppresses you in its entirety, it’s far easier to dismiss its members as liars than to actually listen to what they have to say. It’s far simpler to accuse the other side of being corrupt and power-hungry “elites” than to have an honest debate about policy.

The Democratic View: We Are Being Oppressed

The left’s view of things is, in many ways, the exact same problem wrapped in slightly different rhetoric. While the right talks about a shadow conspiracy, the left talks about systemic oppression, a set of discriminatory policies, behaviors, and traits ingrained in all parts of the establishment, holding all citizens back except the most privileged ones. The left’s preferred term for this is “structural racism”, although they’re not alone in using it.

It’s easy to understand why this rhetoric takes the shape it does - the fact is, certain groups of people do systematically suffer more than others, and it’s a real policy issue that’s worth discussing.

As with the right’s preferred view, however, somewhere along the way, the belief that “certain institutions have discriminatory practices that may have been formed due to their specific place in the system” has been conflated with the idea that “everything emanating from the establishment is inherently oppressive”.

There is no room for nuance in this line of thinking, because there can’t possibly be, not if you want to avoid being accused of being “one of them”. As a result, once again, it becomes far easier to oppose one’s detractors on a visceral level than to engage with them in a meaningful way.

Nobody Is Actually Talking Anymore

Now, here’s where I’m going to do something that will piss off almost everyone on both sides of the aisle: I’m going to argue that both positions are, in their own ways, utterly ridiculous - and back it up with facts.

The way in which the Democratic party talks about Trump is an example of the sort of thinking I already discussed - in many ways, the entire Democratic campaign around him has been one of pure opposition.

The goal has not been to present an alternative vision of America - it has been to reassure the public that “if it comes to that, we will stop them at all costs”, regardless of what they actually mean

This isn’t inherently a bad thing - sometimes, when faced with particularly despicable rhetoric coming from the other side, all you can do is oppose it in a similarly visceral way, especially if there isn’t really a need to defend your own positions beyond stating them. It’s just that the Democratic party has consistently failed to do so, not only with Trump but with just about everybody they disagree with.

The problem with the Democratic rhetoric against their detractors is that, as with the right’s accusations of “establishment”, it allows them to dismiss almost anything coming from the other side as “irrational”, therefore not worthy of a serious rebuttal.

Meanwhile, Trump and his followers do practically the same thing with whoever happens to be in the opposition, painting them all in the same shade of radical socialists, communists, social engineers, etc., depending on who they need to appeal to at the time.

Both sides of the aisle commit what I call “semantic outsourcing”, framing an argument in such a way that it allows them to dismiss any counter-argument as either “irrational prejudice” or “ideology coming from an unfair establishment”. By doing this, they essentially shift the burden of proof to the other side - instead of having to prove that the opposition’s claims are false, they can get away with simply accusing their detractors of being deluded, dishonest, “elites”, or “social engineers”.

Why This Is A Problem For You Regardless Of Your Politics

I’m a conservative, which means that I’m naturally inclined to side with the accusations made by the right against the establishment, but I hope you can see how what I’m saying applies to both sides of the aisle, because, really, that’s the point. I’ve already stated that I think both views are completely ridiculous,

but I’m not saying that they’re equivalent - it’s actually far more harmful for a regular Republican to accept the premise of the “establishment” narrative, simply because it’s far more difficult to defend in most cases

As stated earlier, both views allow the author to shift the burden of proof to the other side, but whereas defending oneself against accusations of “elites” requires nothing more than a simple rebuttal, defending one’s positions against “systemic discrimination” requires a full-scale proof in most cases.

This is why I’m not advocating for Republicans to adopt the establishment view - it would only lead to more frustration among right-wing commentators and politicians who would feel like they have to defend their very existence.

What I’m saying is that both sides should stop pretending that the burden of proof in an argument rests with the other side, especially when they’re clearly using semantic outsourcing to avoid it.

What I Actually Want

What I actually want is for everyone to stop doing that, is all I’m saying.

If the right wants to make the case that they’re being unfairly targeted, they need to actually provide evidence, not just claim that they are without providing any grounds for that claim.

If the left wants to make the case that the establishment is inherently prejudiced, they need to actually provide evidence, not just claim that they are without providing any grounds for that claim.

And if either side wants to actually have an honest discussion about policies, they need to stop pretending that the burden of proof in that discussion is on anybody but themselves.

It’s perfectly okay for you to think that your establishment is inherently prejudiced, or that yours is being unfairly targeted by the other side - just don’t act surprised when everybody goes “well, that’s just the way it is” the next time you try to do something that somebody else actually cares about.

Because if we keep talking to each other like this, we’ll never be able to have an honest discussion about anything, which is, of course, the entire point

Let me start by saying this as a supporter of many of Trump’s policies: I’ve stood behind his tariffs, his walls, his fights with the media, and his battles with the so-called “intelligence community.” But Epstein is different, and I think many conservatives would agree, even if they’re not saying it openly. This isn’t a dispute about policy, it’s a test of character; a trial by fire of whether he truly wanted to “drain the swamp” and “open up the government” as he so loudly proclaimed, and he has failed spectacularly. And no amount of DOJ press releases from his defenders are going to convince me otherwise.

He Ran on This

Nobody made Trump promise to declassify Epstein’s files. He decided to run on them, and the promise to release a client list to voters. That’s his doing, not mine, but nevertheless, many of those voters are now disillusioned with his performance on this particular issue.

Congress Had to Force His Hand

This is the part where he gets to blame everyone he doesn’t like, because he’s the kind of person who only does what he’s forced to do.

The House voted to release the Epstein files 427-1. The Senate did so unanimously.

Republicans and Democrats, MAGA loyalists and people who despise him all voted for it, in what could possibly be the most bipartisan vote we’ve seen since the Civil War. After that, realizing he was in danger of losing that vote spectacularly, Trump changed his tune, claiming he had nothing to hide. Call it what you want, but I don’t really think that’s leadership. If he really wanted to release these files, he wouldn’t need 427 members of congress to make him do it.

The Files Said What the Survivors Said All Along

Now that they’re out, what do we see? Proof of Mr. Epstein’s claims that there was a trafficking ring going on for years. Dozens of influential people circling his orbit, who all conveniently failed to hold him and his associates accountable despite repeated requests. Even though he was the second richest man in the world, he was able to get away with it for as long as he did; it took years for institutions across several parties to finally put him in prison. The survivors who fought for this to happen deserve much more credit than they’re getting for their part in seeing it through, but even people as seemingly unqualified as myself should have been able to see it happen long before it did. They should’ve been able to release those files to the public domain long before they did, without the obstruction of the entire government.

Another thing people fail to realize is, where did Epstein get the money to pay for all of his luxury items and trips, not to mention the upkeep of his several mansions, if he didn’t have access to some sort of legitimate income stream? Luckily for us, there’s one member of the administration who’s actually asking that question, and who seems to understand the gravity of it. I’m speaking, of course, of Vice President JD Vance, who in a recent interview with Joe Rogan, stated that Epstein was, to his knowledge, likely paid by Mossad, the CI A, or “some other deep state,” to keep quiet about “his knowledge of the upper, the highest levels of American intelligence” and “the highest levels of Israeli intelligence.”

VP Vance, if you’re reading this, I believe this has the potential to be a truly defining moment for you, as well as the rest of the administration as a whole. Please, continue asking questions, and don’t be afraid to state your findings in public, when they can help us uncover corruption of this scale. I think you owe it to yourself, the public, and most importantly, the survivors, to speak up. Hopefully, your colleagues will have the decency to do so as well when their turn comes around.

Then Bondi, Then Blanche

Speaking of decency, once these files were released, one would expect there to be some sort of accountability doled out to those in positions of power who failed to act on these allegations for so long. Instead, we get Pam Bondi, and then Todd Blanche.

Bondi spent months lying to the public about a “client list sitting on her desk,” before backtracking and saying there was no client list at all, so I think in this case we can all agree that trust is pretty much non-existent at this point. Blanche, meanwhile, has done little more than serve as a human shield for whatever secrets the DOJ wants to keep buried with Epstein. He’ll tell you “there are no closed investigations,” he’ll tell you “it isn’t a crime to party with Mr. Epstein,” and he’ll tell you “the DOJ currently has no evidence to support new charges against any of Mr. Epstein’s known associates,” but mostly he’ll tell you that “the Epstein files should not be a part of the DOJ’s future priorities.” He’ll tell you all of this, and then the senator investigating your department can accuse you of withholding a memo showing that Mr. Epstein was investigated for trafficking as early as 2015, and a federal judge can accuse you of having violated the Transparency Act several times, including once recently in regards to documents mentioning President Trump himself, and he’ll continue to say the same thing.

“Nothing more to investigate, nothing more to see here”

is not a defense. “It’s a Democratic hoax” is also not a defense

It’s an insult to the people, to the survivors, and especially to the young people of this country who trusted him, who trusted the system, and who believed that he was different enough to change everything.

Vance, meanwhile, is one of the few people in this administration who seems to understand that. In his Rogan appearance, he admitted that “We absolutely screwed up the comms of the Epstein files, like we just did,” blaming much of it on Bondi’s infamous “it’s sitting on my desk” comment. He said that much of it was her fault, which it probably was, but he didn’t try to blame it on democrats when he had the opportunity, which he probably shouldn’t have. When your president is telling Joe Rogan that “we just absolutely screwed up the communications on Epstein,” and the Attorney General is telling the Senate that “there is no evidence to support new charges,” while a Federal Judge is accusing the DOJ of having “violat[ed] the Transparency Act” by withholding documents mentioning the president of the United States himself, those are not the words of people who share the same position on the issue. One of them is lying.

“Nothing More to Investigate” Isn’t Really an Answer Anyway

This is really more of just an afterthought, but it needs to be said. Here we are, months later, and New Mexico’s AG is still waiting for unredacted documents regarding Epstein’s ranch there. Survivors are pointing out that the DOJ’s actions with regards to the files are doing more to protect him than expose him, and the people in that department are being accused of violating the very law that Trump himself signed into office. None of this is a “hoax.” This is an open-and-closing thread; a thread that they keep pulling so that they can tie it around the necks of anyone who gets in their way, and it’s a thread that people of every age and every political affiliation have been waiting for them to cut.

Calling this all a hoax is not a rebuttal; it’s an insult to the people who fought for it to happen and who continue to fight for it to this day.

Why This One Sticks

Almost every other issue this administration touches seems to have an off-ramp; a convenient talking point or policy change or news cycle that moves on to the next big thing. Epstein doesn’t have one; it was never really about policy, it was always about whether or not these people in power would follow through when it was inconvenient for them to do so, when it threatened to expose their friends or family, or when it happened to someone they personally knew. It’s about whether or not they’re really as committed to “transparency” as they claim to be, and it’s about whether they want to protect the people they think are their own when it matters most. Trump ran on this issue, and he only did what he had to in order to get it done, once he was forced to by the entire congress voting against him on it. Vance knows the communications were bad, and Blanche knows there’s always “more to investigate.” Hopefully, one day, they’ll all understand why so many people are looking to hold their feet to the fire on this one, too.

Especially the kids. This isn’t just some talking point, it’s a defining moment for an entire generation, and none of us want to look back on it and remember how the people we elected to protect us chose to look the other way when they should’ve stood up.