Recent Viewpoints

Penna Dexter Often, successful people build lives, livelihoods, and reputations in one place with the goal in mind to retire somewhere else. They dream of living out their later years playing golf in Florida or enjoying a quiet life in a mountain community or a small town. Why not stick around in the place where you know people, carry weight and have influence? Where you started and grew a business? Where you have the gravitas to pass along your wisdom,…

Kerby Anderson In a recent essay, Frederick Hess laments that “Professors Have Drifted Away from the Classroom.” I would argue that drift happened long ago, but I will agree that the problem of professor absence has grown worse. Hess does acknowledge that the problem isn’t new. “I still recall walking across campus during the summer as a doctoral student at Harvard three decades ago. I was making small talk with a senior professor when he looked around the sparsely populated…

Kerby Anderson Sixteen years ago, I wrote the book, Making the Most of Your Money in Tough Times. I tried to cover all the important issues connected with money, including a chapter on materialism and consumerism. But it didn’t occur to me to write about the group of Americans now referred to as the HENRYs. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, many Americans qualify as HENRY, which stands for high earner, not rich yet. These are people…

Kerby Anderson The Chinese Communist Party has been cheating international trade, and many are happy Trump’s tariffs are giving China what it deserves. Katie Pavlich documents the “more than two decades of lying, stealing and wildly nefarious trade practices.” Many (even in the former Clinton administration) admit they made a mistake letting China into the World Trade Organization. The communist leaders came in with ambitions of global dominance and used the special rules and treatment to operate inside the United…

Kerby Anderson When I first heard about the survey, I doubted its credibility. That’s what most people might conclude when they hear that half of left-leaning Americans say that assassinating Donald Trump would be justified. It turns out the survey was conducted by NCRI and Rutgers University Social Perception Lab. It had the chilling title “Assassination Culture: How Burning Teslas and Killing Billionaires Became a Meme Aesthetic for Political Violence.” The data included in the report is based on responses…

Kerby Anderson While there is a pause in tariffs (at least for most countries), I thought it might be worth putting some facts on the table. Different groups may disagree about the value and impact of tariffs, but at least we might agree about some basic facts. First, let’s look at our domestic market. Americans only make up about 4 percent of the world’s population. That means that 96 percent of our potential customers live outside of the U.S. Notice…

Penna Dexter The U.S., like most first world countries, needs more babies. Wife, mom, and writer, Peachy Keenan (not her real name) addresses the population crisis in her book, Domestic Extremist: A Practical Guide to Winning the Culture War. She told her audience at the 2025 Natalism Conference that the best and easiest way to raise birthrates is to “make motherhood great again.” But first, we must make marriage great again. Peachy says it’s best for babies if they are…

Kerby Anderson Joy Pullman is the executive editor of The Federalist. In a recent speech, she reminded her audience that even though economic issues are important, we should not neglect the social and cultural issues of our nation. She admitted, “I love low taxes and regulation as much as the next Milton Friedman fan, but I also know a great culture and nation is not built or sustained simply on low marginal tax rates.” We need to also focus on…

Kerby Anderson Several people have told me that they think President Trump is moving too fast. My answer is simple: “it’s a feature, not a bug.” To understand this, you need to look at history. In a previous commentary, I talked about the plan by leftists to engage in “the long march through institutions” and quoted Rich Lowry’s commentary about “Trump’s Countermarch Through Institutions.” Victor Davis Hanson describes a parallel perspective with his “Reflection on the Counter-Revolution in America.” He…

Kerby Anderson “Target is the latest in a string of retail giants who have taken a stance against the wildly unpopular diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.” That is how Steve Forbes begins his commentary on DEI in the business world. He adds that the recent move comes in the wake of similar actions by Walmart, Amazon, Meta, and Tractor Supply Company. As I mentioned in my commentary last week, the decision by large companies like Walmart to move away…

Kerby Anderson Today is Tax Day. But I would suggest that a more important date is Tax Freedom Day. That is the date when your tax burden is lifted. It is calculated by dividing the official government tally of all taxes collected in each year by the amount of all income earned in each year. Put another way, it is when you are no longer working for the government but are now working for yourself and your family. This year…