Rip’s Newsletter
Deep Rip Edition
October 21, 2026
Compiled and Edited
by
Jim Reynolds
Articles in This Issue
Victor Davis Hanson - The Deep Midterms
Frank-Christian Hansel - Paradise From the Wall Socket: Why the Left Is Winning the Young, From Berlin to New York
Hans Mahncke - Jack Smith’s Donor Dragnet Scared Conservatives, As Intended
Jim Reynolds - No Kings. Then What?
Overview
This set keeps circling the same fault line: whether today’s politics is a fight over policy details or a much larger struggle over the country’s future.
I’m seeing a sharp clash between warnings about radical leftward drift and the appeal of affordability, redistribution, and anti-establishment protest among younger voters.
At the same time, the pieces on donor surveillance and executive power show how distrust of institutions is deepening on both sides.
What ties it all together is a sense that slogans are no longer enough, and that the real battle is over who gets to define freedom, fairness, and legitimacy.
The Deep Midterms
By: Victor Davis Hanson American Greatness
Date: 2026-10-20 · Words: 1,843
Hanson frames the midterms as a civilizational choice, not a routine referendum.
He contrasts socialism, Islamism, and intrusive government with capitalism and limited government.
Democrats, he argues, offer mainly lawfare, investigations, and paralysis against Trump.
He warns their agenda would weaken energy, border security, and national sovereignty.
Voters should compare blue-state decline with red-state performance and vote accordingly.
This story shows Hanson casting the midterms as a stark battle over America’s future direction.
Skip the discussion and go directly to the article:
Discussion
The piece keeps returning to a single contrast: blue-state politics is not described as a set of bad policies, but as a system that reproduces itself through voters, subsidies, border policy, and cultural permission. That is why the long catalog of issues matters. Energy, immigration, fraud, DEI, and Islamism are not separate talking points here; they are presented as different faces of the same governing logic. The argument gains force from that accumulation. Each section says, in effect, that the left’s public language and its practical incentives point in opposite directions, and that the contradiction is not accidental but structural.
What is especially revealing is how often the article shifts from policy to personnel. It does not merely say Democrats are wrong on energy or borders; it dwells on the need to scrub social media, retract old remarks, and answer for past statements. That move turns the election into a test of character as much as ideology. The implication is that the real divide is not between two normal parties with different priorities, but between one side that still has to explain itself and another that treats self-incrimination as a recurring feature of its coalition. The repeated examples of candidates and activists saying openly hostile things about America, capitalism, or the country’s institutions are doing more than providing color: they are meant to make the party’s rhetoric look less like campaign excess than a window into what it would normalize if given power.
🅱️ When the policy list and the personnel file start looking like the same thing, that’s not a messaging problem — that’s the machine.
Paradise From the Wall Socket: Why the Left Is Winning the Young, From Berlin to New York
By: Frank-Christian Hansel American Greatness
Date: 2026-10-21 · Words: 1,831
Die Linke and Mamdani won young voters by promising affordability and redistribution.
The article argues deeper ignorance drives support for left economics among youth.
Modern prosperity looks like a finished product, hiding production, scarcity, and trade-offs.
Moral claims about dignity get wrongly extended into unconditional material entitlements.
The author urges limits, judgment, and policies that preserve wealth creation.
This story shows how young voters’ support for left populism grows from taking modern prosperity for granted.
Skip the discussion and go directly to the article:
Discussion
The article’s strongest move is the way it turns a familiar political complaint into a problem of perception. The wall socket, the ATM, the store shelf, the working heat and water system are not just conveniences in the argument; they are evidence of a whole civilization becoming invisible to the people who live inside it. Once prosperity is experienced as a background condition rather than a made thing, it is easy to mistake it for a stockpile waiting to be allocated. That is why the piece keeps returning to the same contrast: what looks like a question of fairness is often a question of production, maintenance, and limits.
That contrast sharpens when the argument shifts from dignity to entitlement. The article does not deny the moral force of equal dignity; it shows how quickly that moral language can be extended past its proper reach. “Human right” rhetoric works so well because it borrows the authority of something unconditional and applies it to goods that are always conditional, always financed, always constrained by labor, capital, and scarcity. The result is not just a policy disagreement but a category error: the state is asked to behave as if it can abolish trade-offs by declaring them unjust.
The Berlin-to-New York comparison gives the piece its historical depth. It is not simply saying that young voters are naive or that socialism has returned in new packaging. It is showing a post-1989 inheritance: the old promise of salvation through revolution has not disappeared so much as changed form. Where socialism once promised paradise after the transformation, the new version treats paradise as already here, merely misdistributed. That is a revealing continuity, because it explains why the language of limits now sounds, to its opponents, like a moral offense rather than a practical necessity.
🅱️ Young people aren’t voting for magic; they’re voting as if the lights, heat, and groceries are natural law, and that’s how a civilization gets mistaken for a free sample.
Jack Smith’s Donor Dragnet Scared Conservatives, As Intended
By: Hans Mahncke The Federalist
Date: 2026-10-20 · Words: 1,283
Grassley says Jack Smith’s team collected data on at least 639,000 Republican donors and supporters.
The files reportedly included names, addresses, employers, donation histories, checks, and credit card details.
The author says donors now fear leaving financial trails that could expose them to retaliation.
Conservative fundraising is already suffering as supporters quietly avoid traceable donations.
The article argues DOJ must investigate the records and hold Smith accountable for abuses.
This story shows how federal investigative power can chill conservative speech, donations, and political participation.
Skip the discussion and go directly to the article:
Discussion
The article’s force comes from the way it moves from a Senate memorandum to a donor’s private hesitation. The Grassley numbers are large enough to feel abstract until they are paired with the ordinary mechanics of giving: a check, a credit card, a payroll record, a home address, a hat bought online. That sequence matters. It turns what could have been framed as a dispute over investigative overreach into something more intimate and more durable: the creation of a political memory inside the financial system itself. The fear is not just that a donor might be watched in the moment, but that a lawful act can be archived and later repurposed.
That is why the piece keeps returning to traceability. It is not merely that records were gathered; it is that modern giving is almost impossible to separate from systems that preserve identity. Even the workaround the author describes — anonymous to the nonprofit, but not anonymous to banks or processors — shows how little room there is for privacy once politics passes through ordinary commerce. The article’s deeper claim is that this is what makes the episode chilling: not a dramatic raid, but a bureaucratic map of a movement’s financial life. Once that map exists, the threat does not depend on a public prosecution. The knowledge that it exists may be enough to narrow participation on its own.
🅱️ A paper trail is just a quiet threat with better stationery.
No Kings. Then What?
By: Jim Reynolds www.reynolds.com
Date: 2026-10-21 · Words: 1,345
The author questions what “No Kings” means beyond opposition to Trump.
He argues presidential power claims should be judged by specific actions, not slogans.
Evelyn Quartz’s Bend, Oregon reporting supplies participant voices, not just protest imagery.
Interviewees cited corporate power, faith, democratic norms, healthcare, wages, and community.
The movement appears united against Trump, but unclear on any governing alternative.
This story shows a protest movement united by opposition, yet struggling to define a coherent alternative.
Skip the discussion and go directly to the article:
Discussion
Quartz’s reporting matters here because it keeps pulling the protest back from abstraction into voice. The movement’s name invites a constitutional argument, but the people she actually talks to keep widening the frame: corporate power, evangelical duty, trans identity, wages, healthcare, military spending, democratic norms, even the simple pleasure of being among sympathetic strangers. That spread is not a distraction from the protest; it is the protest. “No Kings” works less as a program than as a container for grievances that do not naturally belong together except through shared hostility to Trump.
That is why Erik’s exchange lands so hard. He is the one participant who tries to turn opposition into an alternative: if Democrats want to be more than anti-Trump, they should publish something like a governing blueprint. But the laugh at the end matters as much as the proposal. It turns the moment from policy talk into a recognition of political habit — the sense that even the people asking for an answer do not expect their side to supply one. That gives the piece its real shape: not a movement discovering its platform, but a crowd that can name its enemy more easily than its own future.
🅱️ A crowd can shout “No Kings” all day; the harder part is writing down what comes after the guillotine is packed away.
You may also be interested in the following selected stories:
California’s Bullet Train Boondoggle — Christopher F Rufo; Kenneth Schrupp, christopherrufo.com: This article examines California’s long-delayed high-speed rail project, focusing on how environmental reviews, cost overruns, and contractor-politician ties have left it with no completed track after nearly two decades. It is worth a click if you want to understand where the money has gone and why the project remains stalled.
Against The Delirium Of 1789 — Lars Møller, American Thinker: This article compares John Adams and Edmund Burke on the French Revolution, arguing that both saw radical political redesign as dangerous because it ignores human limits and inherited institutions. It connects their warnings to later totalitarian movements and modern efforts to engineer society.
More Evidence California Is A Madhouse Where Nothing Works — Chris Bray, The Federalist: The article describes the Los Angeles airport SkyLink train project, where delays, cost overruns, technical failures, and a bitter dispute between city agencies and contractors have pushed a promised 2023 opening toward 2027. It is worth a click for readers who want a detailed look at how the project’s breakdown reflects broader problems in California public works.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Wrote to American Voters. Your Union Already Agrees. — Freedom Foundation, RedState: The article argues that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and major teachers unions are making similar demands on U.S. foreign policy, especially on Iran and Israel. It is worth a click if you want to see how the piece connects union resolutions, dues spending, and a lawsuit by Jewish teachers.
Bank Of America Goes Harder On Conservatives Than Cartels — Helen Raleigh, The Federalist: The article says Bank of America was fined for years of weak anti-money-laundering controls that let suspicious transactions tied to Chinese laundering networks and cartel proceeds go unreported. It also contrasts that with the bank’s scrutiny of conservative and other lawful customers, arguing the priorities were misplaced.
COVID Was Just the Beginning: New Docs Reveal Biden’s Bigger Censorship Plans — Ben Smith, RedState: The article says newly released internal documents show Biden officials, including Vivek Murthy’s office, discussed pressuring tech companies to suppress health misinformation beyond COVID. It’s worth a click for the FOIA records and details on how the campaign expanded and drew First Amendment concerns.
