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For a good laugh, turn to page 42 of the report President Donald Trump’s Energy Department released in July. On this page, the huge gulf between climate modeling and observed warming comes into sharp focus. The report includes a chart of all thirty-six climate models as well as the warming that actually occurred from 1973 to 2022 in the U.S. Corn Belt. The big red bars represent what the models predicted for the twelve Midwestern states that make up the Corn Belt, while the tiny blue bar represents the observed amount of warming. Look for yourself.  Subscribe to The American Spectator to receive our fall 2025 print magazine. We are not talking about some narrow disparity that could be explained away through subsequent studies and minor recalibrations. A chasm has emerged between what global warming alarmists have been telling us for years and what rigorous scientific study actually demonstrates.  The Corn Belt comparison is a particularly acute example of the flawed modeling exercises that have been in motion for years. It’s also one that the Trump administration has brought to light thanks to its willingness to provide five independent scientists with a platform to probe the climate impact of greenhouse gas emissions. The scientists draw from expertise in physical science, economics, climate science, and academic research — and they have upset the climate apple cart by cutting right to the heart of what erroneously has been used to impose expensive regulations on the American economy.  Tear Down These Regulations! Donald Trump has already had his “tear down this wall” moment, although it may not become apparent for a few decades. That moment came on July 29, 2025, when Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency announced it would begin the process to rescind the “Endangerment Finding” that sits at the heart of the climate agenda. By releasing the Energy Department’s updated scientific report in tandem with the EPA’s reversal of its prior rulemaking, the Trump administration has delivered a powerful one-two punch that will give added momentum to its “America First” energy agenda. Bonner Cohen, a senior fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research, is all on board with the Trump administration’s strategy and gives special recognition to Chris Wright, the Energy Department secretary, and Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator. “The Endangerment Finding served as the keys to the kingdom that would deliver the power the alarmists sought,” Cohen said in an interview.  The overreaching of climate activists has been a critical asset along the way toward unleashing American energy.  When posterity looks back at this moment, it will have good cause to place the climate catastrophe predictions in the same category as some other historical doozies. A few that come to mind include Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s line “We will bury you!”; the belief that the Titanic was “unsinkable”; as well as the 1970s “peak oil” predictions that said the world would run out of energy.  Subscribe to The American Spectator to receive our latest print magazine. But there’s a critical difference when it comes to climate activists. Being sincere, full of conviction, and wrong at the same time is all part of the human condition. But cooking the books to achieve policy goals is another matter. The Climategate scandal of November 2009 exposed Big Science for all to see when emails leaked from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Great Britain, revealing that researchers were willing to fabricate data and muzzle dissenting voices when Mother Nature did not cooperate with theories linking human activity to dangerous levels of global warming. Since then, climate modeling has only taken on more water, as it has become clear that the faulty assumptions underlying the models continuously run counter to reality. The recent warming that began in the mid- to late twentieth century is much more gradual and modest, and is very likely even beneficial, according to the Energy Department report.  The authors refrain from completely lampooning the example of the Corn Belt modeling failures. Instead, they play it straight, as well they should.  A chasm has emerged between what global warming alarmists have been telling us for years and what rigorous scientific study actually demonstrates. Readers are told, “This example shows that users need to assess model projections carefully on a case-by-case basis since local biases might be sufficiently large that the models are simply not fit for purpose.” They go on to conclude, “[C]limate models show warming biases in many aspects of their reproduction of the past few decades.” Those of us who identify as climate skeptics opposed to the overgrowth of the administrative state — which has become a major conduit for unconstitutional policy measures, many of them in the name of climate change — might want to grab a few cigars.  We could gather around the table at a local favorite (I’ll pick Shelly’s Back Room in D.C. for anyone paying attention) — and put our own cheeky spin on what a well-credentialed group of scientists and researchers have produced for the benefit of the American people.  Here’s just a snippet of what might come out of that conversation. It’s put more in laymen’s terms, and with a little less D.C. beltway restraint: The example of the modeling in the Corn Belt shows us that we are dealing with science fiction. “Users” should know that these models are not designed to reflect reality but are instead designed to advance a political agenda detached from science. We can go on to conclude that the ending is written before the modeling process even begins so that climate activists can line their pockets with taxpayer-funded grants and collaborate with their government benefactors to impose burdensome regulations on those same taxpayers. That’s the kind of language that’s going to resonate with beleaguered taxpayers and ratepayers who are victimized by climate policies and the junk science that gives rise to those policies. But notice that this imagined rant is not quite so humorous as it reaches the end. Trump’s EPA estimates that climate regulations have cost the American people more than $1 trillion since 2009. That was the year President Barack Obama’s administration issued the “Endangerment Finding” — enabling the EPA to run wild under the Clean Air Act.  How did we get to this point? In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. EPA ruled that greenhouse gases qualify as pollutants under the Clean Air Act. Under the act, the EPA must regulate pollutants that it determines can “reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” The Supreme Court left it to Obama’s EPA to determine whether it wanted to expand its authority by controlling carbon dioxide emissions. Not a good idea. Progressive government figures rarely relinquish political power once they have it. This is precisely what the Obama administration did when it finalized the Endangerment Finding in 2009, therefore enabling the EPA to set limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, cars, and trucks, while also imposing methane fees on oil and gas companies. The Endangerment Finding enabled the Obama and Biden administrations to bypass Congress all in the name of fighting what they called the “climate emergency.” But wait. Should carbon dioxide really be categorized as a pollutant given how beneficial it is for animal and plant life? Here’s the answer we get from our five scientists: While the definition of “pollutant” is ultimately a legal matter, there are important scientific distinctions between CO2 and the Criteria Air Contaminants. The latter are subject to regulatory control because they cause local problems depending on concentrations that include nuisances (odor, visibility), damage to plants, and, at high enough exposure levels, toxicological effects in humans. In contrast, CO2 is odorless, does not affect visibility and has no toxicological effects at ambient levels. It is a naturally occurring part of the atmosphere and a key component of human and plant respiration. CO2 is essential for plant photosynthesis and higher levels are beneficial for vegetation. In these aspects, CO2 is similar to water vapor. In other words, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Back in our cigar bar, it would not be unreasonable for someone to chime in and describe the assault on carbon dioxide as “an assault on humanity itself.” After all, bigger families with more children and expanding populations breathe out more carbon dioxide. But is this bad news for the planet? Is carbon dioxide the control knob for climate?  The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, which dates back to 1988, published the series of reports most responsible for linking anthropogenic (human) emissions with potentially dangerous levels of global warming. But the team of scientists working with the Energy Department sees “three areas of substantive criticism” that can be directed toward the IPCC: 1) “inadequate assessment of natural climate variability”; 2) “inappropriate statistical methods”; and the now-famous 3) “substantial discrepancies between models and observations.”  Just to briefly discuss No. 1., there is growing evidence that Total Solar Irradiance — the term used to describe the sunlight or energy that arrives at the Earth — is much more significant than what was previously thought. The Energy Department report strongly suggests that the contribution of solar activity to the late-twentieth-century warming has been greatly underestimated by the IPCC and others. The Heritage Foundation has also released a new report on behalf of another independent scientific team, a group called the Center for Environmental Research and Earth Sciences, that takes a deep dive into solar influences. After identifying “at least 27 different estimates of the changes in [Total Solar Irradiance] since 1850,” the Center for Environmental Research and Earth Sciences team concluded, according to Heritage, that “[s]everal of these estimates suggest that global warming is ‘mostly natural,’ and several suggest that global warming is a mixture of natural and human-caused factors.” There is a healthy debate raging on the causes of climate change that is finally out in the open. If anything, the evidence has shifted in a direction that says we are dealing mostly, but perhaps not entirely, with natural variability.  Cohen, the think tank energy policy analyst, told The American Spectator on the current state of climate science:  For years we were told that “The science is settled on climate change” and that the only responsible thing to do was to clean up our act and go about the urgent business of reordering our society to meet the crisis at hand. The “science is settled” claim was a rhetorical tool designed to shut off any and all debate on the matter. Pretending that models were science was part of the game. Models can be easily manipulated to produce the desired result, and a sufficiently terrified public could be counted on to go along with what their betters said needed to be done to confront the “crisis.” The whole exercise had nothing to do with the climate; rather, the climate served as a pretext for a breathtaking power grab. The Endangerment Finding served as the keys to the kingdom that would deliver the power the alarmists sought. Looking ahead, there could very well be challenges associated with climate change regardless of the main causes. But humanity will most certainly be in a better position to address those challenges if societies across the globe are wealthier and more economically robust. That scenario doesn’t play out without having access to affordable and reliable energy sources.  The Real Devil: Climate Change or Climate Change Policies? The Energy Department report warns us that “models and experience suggest that CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed, and excessively aggressive mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial.” Our cigar smokers would like to paraphrase and cut to the chase. Apparently, “We should be concerned not so much with climate change,” they say, “but with harmful climate change policies.”  That’s the succinct, informal way of explaining what’s at stake. Our crew at Shelly’s is also wondering whether the policy damage has already been done, as the regulatory costs flowing out of the Endangerment Finding amount to about $1 trillion.  But help is on the way.  In the same press release announcing its decision to uproot the Endangerment Finding, the EPA also said that if its reversal is finalized, the American people could expect to save $54 billion in annual costs through the repeal of greenhouse gas standards.  There’s an argument to be made that Trump’s decision to move against the Endangerment Finding makes his entire presidency worthwhile just by itself. But there are others worth noting. Tom Pyle, the president of the American Energy Alliance, was pleased to see the “One Big Beautiful Bill” take down what he calls “market-distorting subsidies” for wind and solar schemes. Pyle also credits Trump for withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement.  “The Paris Agreement was a bad deal from the start,” Pyle said in a press release. “It committed the U.S. to unilateral economic disarmament by saddling the economy with unnecessary regulations and would have driven energy costs sky-high for American families.” Had Trump not been reelected to consecutive terms, we would not be talking now about revoking the Endangerment Finding or withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. The four-year interval enabled the president to get all the right personnel in place and to hit the ground running with the right strategy.  Returning for a moment to the chart on page 42 of the report our man Wright put into circulation, my cigar club stumbles on a seemingly obvious mistake the climate critters made that skilled prevaricators typically avoid. Here’s how the conversation goes down in Shelly’s:  “Since the kids are back in school, that’s a reminder for us about how to cheat without getting caught.” That observation comes from a club member asking not to be named. Intrigued, we all press on for an explanation.  “The old joke, and the old rule,” he says, “is that if you’re going to copy off the smart kid sitting next to you, then be sure to get one or two answers deliberately wrong just for the purpose of appearances. After all, if you both get a hundred on the test, they’re sure going to know who the real deal is between the two of you. But the climate goons didn’t learn that lesson.” No… they sure didn’t. Instead, they went for it all. They bent, manipulated, and reshaped data into all kinds of contortions to produce outcomes in line with their agenda. That much is obvious. These missteps give Team Trump a clear opening to secure lasting, transformative policy changes in the energy space. Eliminating the Endangerment Finding remains a heavy lift, and there is complicated legal terrain. But the economics and the science are on our side. Let’s also not forget that the complexion of the U.S. Supreme Court has changed in the right ways since Massachusetts v. EPA.  That calls for more cigars! Kevin Mooney is a journalist and investigative reporter for the Commonwealth Foundation and the Heritage Foundation. Subscribe to The American Spectator to receive our fall 2025 print magazine.

Once again, the blinding bubble surrounding the New York Times readership shows the rift between our two Americas. Alan Sepinwall, in his guest essay “This HBO Miniseries Gets Rural America Right,” the top “Reader Picks” in the comment section, does his best to mockingly depict Red State MAGA deplorables in shows like Task, Yellowstone, Tulsa King, and Sterlin Harjo’s The Lowdown as living lives of violent desperation in “geographically and politically disparate locales” in the miserable backwaters of rural America. Insert the obvious clichés of a shattered, drunken, fetid milieu where blue-collar rubes’ dreams and dignity have crumbled along with their factories, families, and churches. Thankfully, the Times readership seems to possess both the wisdom and moral high ground to comprehend the working man’s dilemmas — and save these dummies from themselves. Sepinwall and the op-ed editors, though not as ham-fisted, might be secretly pleased with the smug responses it inspired. At the top of the list on the first click was: “It’s not a story of rural dignity rising; it’s a story of white dominance fading,” wrote one from Brooklyn. Another declared, “I’m tired of being preached at to ‘understand’ the people there… I’m done.” A Philadelphian said she’s “tired of being asked to understand people who see me … as the enemy.” Others were blunter: “Rural America is not the best of America, sorry … Urban areas are the future regardless of what reactionaries think of them.” Many of the Times’ readers have nothing but contempt for these shows’ characters and locales. It’s a gritty portrayal of working-class life that explores moral compromise, community decay, and the difficult line between doing what’s right and what might be wrong. The writer and editors don’t help much, as the centerpiece of the essay and headline is Task, a seven-episode HBO miniseries set in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, which follows Robbie Prendergast (Tom Pelphrey), a garbage man who becomes Robin Hood by stealing from outlaw biker drug dealers to support his family and avenge his brother’s murder by the same gang. Tom Brandis (Mark Ruffalo), a boozy middle-aged FBI agent and former Catholic priest, is tasked with capturing him. Written by Philly local Brad Ingelsby (Mare of Easttown), it’s a gritty portrayal of working-class life that explores moral compromise, community decay, and the difficult line between doing what’s right and what might be wrong. (The show is entertaining and well-acted, though it has a few moralistic and somewhat predictable elements that we won’t focus on here. Overall, it functions as dependable Sunday night entertainment.) What the title and Sepinwall overlook from the jump is that Delco ain’t rural! It’s a dense Philadelphia suburb with 576,000 residents spread over 191 square miles, making it one of the most urbanized counties in the state — but that’s an obvious and pedantic oversight I won’t dwell on, but does work for the Times as its “rural” avatar. What’s more disturbing is how readers want to fit their political narrative neatly into a collectivist worldview. It seems too easy for many of them to reduce complex human lives into sentimental categories of victimhood, desperately needing the Times’ readers’ guidance — or should we say, elite pandering? The subtext here is a classic example of repurposing Task to align with a left-leaning, Democratic-friendly framework that seeks to bring working-class Americans under its influence by portraying them as powerless victims. This narrative, of course, is useful for mobilizing independent minds — and hopefully their votes. (RELATED: Working-Class Whites Anxiously Losing Ground) Sepinwall’s clunky essay argues that “it’s undeniable that larger societal forces in the region have worn these places, and their residents, down to a nub.” But Task, like Mare of Easttown before it, is not an overt sociological morality play; it’s a local story about culture, not a case study for the Columbia anthropology department. The gritty, dramatic tension and humanity of Robbie Prendergast come from his moral agency and foolish decisions. For the Times crowd, they’re political avatars — props for ideological gain. For this crowd, everything must be political; everything. (RELATED: Why Democrats Can’t — and Won’t — Replicate MAGA) For Sepinwall, these shows “may not be offering escapism, but they provide a chance at empathy.” Empathy for what? Their human foibles and fumbling? Their foolish blindness? Or something more political — like late-stage capitalism — or their subconscious clinging, as many commenters suggested, to the fading of their white cultural primacy? (RELATED: MAGA and the Citizen Against Globalism) This, of course, is a lazy and dangerous reading. Still, it does find a useful purpose among many on the left who want only to winnow these dramas into quick props by portraying Delco as a political allegory of what happens when “rural America” loses its cultural privileges. What is lost in these interpretations is the deeper philosophical struggles that underpin a show like Task: the way nostalgia can distort reality and cause individuals to lose themselves. Unmoored nostalgia is a form of bad faith: it imagines that something once satisfying can never be recaptured, leaving us as victims of decline. Jean-Paul Sartre understood this and warned against living in “bad faith,” the denial of freedom by treating the past as fixed. Unmoored nostalgia is a form of bad faith: it imagines that something once satisfying can never be recaptured, leaving us as victims of decline. The result isn’t reflection but paralysis — civic and personal energy replaced by resignation. If one believes that their Delco Thanksgiving morning parish football games “peaked” in the late 1970s, no amount of Yuenglings will bring them back. The kids on the field become apparitions of a bygone era, and one’s identity begins to slip away. The warm blanket of nostalgia — mixed with eight too many Yuenglings and a few bumps — feels safe, but the kids lose. The freedom of what could be becomes overwhelming. These ideas, not identity politics, are the most interesting aspect of Task. But of course, that’s not helpful to Sepinwall or the Times’ subscribers’ agenda. It’s not what they want to get “right” about “rural America.” So the decline explored in Task is not socio-economic — it’s moral. People collapse not when jobs vanish but when virtue and discipline disintegrate. That’s not a crisis the government can solve. It’s deeply personal and requires effort and honesty. Something new can always be made. That is what America was founded upon. Sepinwall’s empathy — and that of the Times — may be sincere, but it’s deeply pandering. Many of their readers seem just plain vengeful. Pity is not understanding; it’s condescension. Working-class communities of any race don’t need to be pitied or mythologized by coastal elites. They need to be taken seriously — as individuals — and they certainly don’t need the Times editorial board and their readers to rescue “them.” READ MORE from Peter Connolly: AI Can Save Education Real Leadership in the Unsung Men of the Armed Forces The Poisonous Fruit of Youth Worship

I have a friend who has a foolproof trick for when he wants to do something forbidden: “act completely normal.” Using this system, he’s crashed other people’s weddings to eat the appetizers, sneaked into concerts without tickets, and gotten me into a few troubles, because I, unlike him, am incapable of acting normal while doing something abnormal. Once, he drove me, against my will, to a golf club where I wasn’t a member but he was. The security guard stopped us at the entrance. He said, “Act normally.” The guy rolled down his window and triumphantly showed his ID, and when he came to my window to ask for mine, I got nervous and, inexplicably, improvised gestures and guttural sounds, pretending to be mute. My friend, putting his hand to his forehead like an emoji, said, “He’s mute. He’s a member, but he didn’t bring his ID.” They let us in. But it wasn’t because I was acting normal — it was because the guy had never seen anyone as stupid as me up close. I’m not a good liar either. At least not sober. After four drinks, I become a wonderful liar. But I’m the friend who always avoids finding out there’s a surprise party planned for someone. Because if I know, I’ll run into that person without hesitation two minutes later, and the first thing I’ll say is exactly what I don’t want to say: “Well, I’ll see you at your surprise party on Saturday — it’ll be fun!” And then I’ll wish the ground would open beneath me. Who the hell would suspect someone climbing the facade of a museum in a damn crane? Now you know who not to take as an accomplice if you’re planning to rob a bank or pull off a big scam. I was reminded of this while watching the heist of the century at the Louvre Museum. Those guys acted as normally as possible. They were dressed as construction workers. Who the hell would suspect someone climbing the facade of a museum in a damn crane? Still, there was a striking opportunity to be suspicious — not during the climb, but when the thieves pulled out a radial saw, smashed the window, and started destroying the cameras protecting the treasures. They had a full four minutes to start realizing that something was seriously wrong — hell, they were robbing the museum and smashing it with a radial saw! Just think: France is the typical country turned into a hellhole, full of thousands of idiotic prohibitions and hundreds of cameras on every corner. You can be fined for not wearing a seatbelt, for being on your cell phone in the car, for driving an unlicensed car into an environmental protection zone — you name it. Those guys can fine you for almost any stupid thing you can imagine! I imagine their cameras and drones have ultrasonic zooms to detect environmental stickers on cars. And therein lies the amusing paradox: they can detect a tiny, incorrectly placed environmental sticker, but they can’t see a seven- or ten-ton articulated-arm truck ascending the most visited museum in the world, one of the few cultural icons still unmolested by French politicians. (RELATED: Carbon Tax and the Green Deal: The EU’s Climate Heist Is Underway) I’m not happy about the robbery, of course, but I can’t think of a better metaphor for Macron’s France: infinitely incompetent, with no laws for illegal immigrants or major criminals, and the full weight of the law and surveillance aimed at French citizens. And if that weren’t enough, all its cultural pillars are crumbling. If years ago the terrible symbol was Notre Dame on fire, now the symbol of decadence will forever be linked to the image of four thieves climbing the Louvre facade in broad daylight with the museum open. (RELATED: France: A Country Perpetually at Odds with Itself) You might think it’s an exaggeration to say that the robbery signifies France’s decadence. But that’s because you haven’t yet heard that Culture Minister Rachida Dati went to the museum to expressly congratulate the security guards for their conduct, as they failed to react when intimidated by the thieves, thus avoiding casualties — something that could obviously have had an even greater political cost for the government. Why promote heroism, right? Now I’m just waiting for Macron to step out and, too, congratulate the thieves for the audacity of their plan I know France well because it’s a neighbor of Spain. The last time I was in Marseille, I realized there wasn’t a single French person left. And trying to walk through neighborhoods dominated by Islamic illegal immigrants without ending up stripped down to your underwear is a pipe dream. Not just in Marseille, of course, but across all of France. The state has a monopoly on violence, but it only uses it against its own truly French citizens. (RELATED: Paris Is Still Beautiful — From Behind Bulletproof Glass) France is a former state, and it will remain so if it continues to be governed by globalist dwarves. READ MORE from Itxu Díaz: A Brief World History of Conversation Trump Is Europe’s Alarm Clock Why the Left Can’t Congratulate Trump

Over the past century, American women have been blessed with freedom, making us the envy of the world. It is no accident that the majority of legal immigrants to the U.S. are women. Even former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted in 2015, “[T]here has never been a better time in history to be born female.” Subscribe to The American Spectator to receive our fall 2025 print magazine. However, both women and men have come under attack from an extremely toxic worldview that undermines our progress and obscures the truth of women’s unique dignity. Gender theory infected our nation in the 2010s, intensified during the COVID pandemic, and reached new extremes during the Biden administration. Its supporters have worked to upend universal and timeless natural law, placing women in harm’s way while also emasculating men. The Attack on Women The public proliferation and popularization of gender theory over the past decade represents the biggest blow to women’s rights in my lifetime. Yet rather than resisting this ideology — which undermines decades of our many advancements — most progressive feminists have remained silent or, worse, openly embraced it.  Subscribe to The American Spectator to receive our latest print magazine. Everywhere we look, the damage from the lie that men can become women is unmistakable. Women are losing out on sports scholarships and trophies that should rightfully be theirs while also being forced to share locker rooms, prisons, and domestic violence shelters with men. Careers have been derailed, families destroyed, and women and children deeply harmed. Although this nightmare began in the 1930s at the Frankfurt School, which also brought us critical race theory, it did not proliferate beyond academic lounges until the 1990s. Academics finally got their wish in the pre-COVID era as American public schools, following Great Britain, planted and nurtured the idea that kids could be born in the wrong body and could magically change their gender or even their sex. Everywhere we look, the damage from the lie that men can become women is unmistakable. Prepubescent girls who felt uncomfortable with their bodies were rushed into puberty blockers and mastectomies before they could even apply for a driver’s license. They were promised that the drugs would simply “pause” puberty, but instead they were left with irreversible consequences, including deep voices, infertility, and reduced bone density. This toxic worldview even made people afraid to answer the question “What is a woman?” for fear of being shamed, harassed, or labeled a bigot simply for acknowledging biological reality. Thankfully, with President Donald Trump’s election, we have begun to unwind the chaos. The course of a nation — its triumphs or failures — starts at the top. During the Republican primary, Trump made his stance on women’s rights clear when he signed Concerned Women for America’s Presidential Promise to American Women. He pledged to “uphold the truth that women are exclusively female” and promised that, under his administration, “the status and dignity of women and girls [would] not be compromised in law or policy.”  Further, he agreed, “That sex is binary is a scientific reality, and all federal agencies will be directed to uphold this fact in every policy and program at home and abroad. A person’s claim of ‘gender identity’ does not overrule their sex.” Undoubtedly, voters in the 2024 presidential election were sick and tired of the transgender madness and wanted a leader who would stand up for biological women’s rights. An exit poll by Concerned Women for America found that 70 percent of voters shared this conviction. Clearly, they viewed Trump as the candidate who would uphold the sex-based distinctions that protect women across every area of society. After his inauguration, President Trump moved quickly, signing an executive order establishing that there are only two sexes — male and female. The order requires government-issued identification to reflect biological sex and protects single-sex spaces such as women’s shelters and prisons. States are also moving in the right direction, no doubt bolstered by the new administration. To date, twenty-seven states have passed laws to protect children from the harms of so-called gender-affirming care. The Trump administration also worked quickly to protect women’s sports. Under the Biden administration, women had been slapped in the face by a radical Title IX athletics rule that stripped female athletes of federal protection against sex discrimination in sports. In response, Trump signed the “No Men in Women’s Sports” executive order, which upheld Title IX’s original intent and banned biological males from competing in women’s sports, therefore protecting female athletes’ opportunities and safety. Underscoring the importance of this action, research by Concerned Women for America found that trans-identifying males have stolen over 1,941 gold medals from women and girls in the United States. The fight for female-only sports continues, however. In July, the Trump administration filed a lawsuit against the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation for violations of Title IX. It is seeking a permanent injunction against the state’s policy of allowing biological males to compete in girls’ sports. The “bathroom wars” of recent years — in which school districts have allowed students to use the bathroom they identify with rather than the one that matches their biological sex — are also still front and center. The Department of Education has rightly interpreted that Title IX prohibits sex discrimination, and, as such, biological males and females must have sex-segregated bathroom facilities. However, there are some school districts that are refusing to comply, including five school districts in Northern Virginia, putting the safety of female students at risk. The Trump administration has made tremendous progress for women. But it is appalling that we even had to fight for this at all. Just over one hundred years after the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote, the definition of a woman was up for debate. Thankfully, President Trump is restoring what was too easily lost under the last administration. The Attack on Men Ultimately, national success is bolstered by strong families. And strong families depend upon strong men and strong women. Children growing up in homes in which two parents (male and female) are married are more likely to thrive and less likely to experience a wide range of problems, not only in childhood but also in adulthood. By Bill Wilson for The American Spectator And yet masculinity has come under attack, with it constantly being smeared as “toxic.” Senator Josh Hawley from Missouri captured the situation well when he said the Left “want[s] to define the traditional masculine virtues — things like courage, independence, and assertiveness — as a danger to society.” Men cannot provide a stable foundation for their families when their strengths are constantly emasculated and deemed harmful. Women want strong men, and true masculinity is the opposite of toxic. Men have been so thoroughly emasculated that some have overreacted by following faux-masculine influencers like Andrew Tate, who stands completely opposite to conservative values. Tate has not only been charged with sex trafficking in Romania, but he is also openly in favor of creating pornography and exploiting women, and he teaches young men to do the same. Men are inundated with pornography, weed, sports betting, and other vices that seek to captivate them, but all of which ultimately cause destruction. Men need to be empowered to be strong, to embrace marriage and remain faithful husbands, and to have children and build families. Our nation cannot truly be great again until our men are great again. A now-famous picture from the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan shows a baby being lifted over a wall with barbed wire to U.S. Marines. One of the soldiers involved in the rescue remarked that helping that baby to safety was one of the “greatest things” he’d ever done in his life. During the recent Minneapolis school shooting at Annunciation Catholic School, it was reported that one young boy threw himself over his friend to shield him from the bullets. These stories are as far from toxic masculinity as they can get. President Trump won with strong support from young men, who recognized a leader who fights for them and wants to build up our men, not destroy them. Decisive Action for American Families Crucial to the well-being of both men and women is the sanctity of human life, and the Trump administration has brought a pro-life mindset to the White House. President Trump signed an executive order enforcing the Hyde Amendment, secured the release of pro-life prisoners jailed for peaceful protests, and rallied congressional support to block Medicaid reimbursements for abortions. The latter action has dramatically led to the closure of twenty-five Planned Parenthood clinics across ten states in anticipation of lost government funding. No president has moved so decisively to protect Americans, uphold faith, and restore common sense. Future generations will marvel at how quickly the conservative movement gained ground and rectified the ills of the Biden administration. But we are only several years away from a new presidential election, bringing the potential for conservative policies to be reversed. Ultimately, the foundation for conservative success rests on protecting women and emboldening men, and we should carry these goals into all of our efforts.  Penny Young Nance is CEO and President of Concerned Women for America, the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization, and author of Seven Rules for Success in Business and Life: A Woman’s Guide. Subscribe to The American Spectator to receive our fall 2025 print magazine.