SOLVING NEW YORK STATE'S RISING ENERGY COSTS

A Power-Positive Data Center Partnership

POSITION PAPER

Jonah Ritter, Citizen

THE POSITION

New York should welcome major data centers only when their developers add more dependable generating capacity than their facilities consume, pay the costs they impose, strengthen the grid, and produce enforceable benefits for the host community. Niagara Falls is the natural place to begin.

Benefits at a Glance

• Adds new electricity supply instead of merely adding demand to the existing grid.
• Places downward pressure on long-term energy costs by increasing dependable supply.
• Makes the developer, rather than ordinary ratepayers, finance project-driven generation and grid improvements.
• Improves reliability through new generation, storage, modern substations, transmission upgrades, and demand response.
• Gives utilities access to additional dependable supply and useful new infrastructure without placing the project's financing burden on their existing customers.
• Uses private and international capital to move generation forward faster while preserving public safety and environmental review.
• Uses Niagara's existing energy and industrial infrastructure as a platform for contributing more power to New York.
• Captures data-center waste heat for nearby factories, schools, hospitals, government buildings, housing, and greenhouses.
• Returns former industrial property to productive use while protecting residential neighborhoods and farmland.
• Creates construction work, permanent technical jobs, local contracts, workforce training, and new tax revenue.
• Helps attract additional manufacturers seeking dependable electricity and lower-cost heat.
• Gives New York a constructive alternative to either banning data centers or allowing them to burden the public grid.

Executive Summary

Data centers are becoming essential infrastructure for artificial intelligence, banking, healthcare, communications, commerce, national security, and everyday internet services. They also require extraordinary amounts of continuous electricity. A large facility may demand 100 megawatts or more - an amount comparable to the annual electricity use of tens of thousands of homes.

That demand becomes a public problem when it is simply placed upon an existing grid already facing rising loads, transmission constraints, an aging generation fleet, and the need for substantial new investment. New Yorkers should not be required to subsidize the power needs or infrastructure risks of one enormous private customer.

But rejecting data centers is not an energy policy. It sends investment elsewhere while leaving New York's shortage of dependable, affordable power unsolved. The better approach is collaboration with firm conditions: major data-center developers should build or finance new generation greater than their own needs, export the excess through approved market and interconnection arrangements, fund required grid upgrades, participate in emergency demand reduction, recover useful waste heat, and guarantee benefits for the host community.

This paper calls that approach the Power-Positive Data Center Partnership. It recommends establishing the first such development district in the Niagara Falls region.

THE KEY WORD IS "EXISTING"

The central problem is not simply that data centers use a great deal of electricity. The problem is what happens when their demand is imposed upon the existing public system.

When enormous new loads arrive faster than dependable supply, electricity costs can rise, expensive substations and transmission facilities may be required, reliability margins can shrink, and older generators may have to operate longer. Unless the rules are established in advance, some costs or risks can be shifted to households and existing employers.

The answer is not complicated: do not allow a major new electrical load to arrive alone. Require it to arrive with new power.

Political Courage, Not Political Opportunity

Politicians can make themselves appear to be heroes for ordinary citizens by campaigning against the 'big, bad data centers.' It is an easy position. Data centers are large, unfamiliar, and owned by powerful companies. A politician can oppose one, claim to have protected the public, and collect votes without solving New York's underlying energy problem.

That is short-sighted political opportunism, not leadership. Data centers are coming because the modern economy requires them. New York can reject the investment, jobs, tax revenue, and technical development, or it can demonstrate the courage and creative thinking required to turn a huge new demand for power into an opportunity to build new supply.

The answer is not simply to stop data centers. The answer is to require them to help solve the problem they would otherwise make worse.

The Power-Positive Partnership

New York should adopt one clear principle:

A data center should bring new power to New York - not merely consume the power New York already has.

Suppose a proposed data center requires 100 megawatts of continuous power. The developer should be required to build or finance a new generating and storage system capable of serving that load while adding a defined amount of dependable net capacity for the wider system. The exact margin should be established through engineering and reliability review rather than a political slogan, but it must be measurable, additional, and enforceable.

The data center would ordinarily take its power behind the meter. Excess generation would be exported under NYISO, utility, environmental, and market rules. New York already recognizes behind-the-meter net generation, in which a generator serves a host load and has the ability to export excess electricity. The proposal expands that concept into a public-benefit requirement for exceptionally large loads.

How Utility Companies Benefit

Utility companies should not view this arrangement merely as an accommodation for a very large customer. Properly structured, it can provide the utility and its existing customers with additional dependable supply, stronger local infrastructure, and a better-balanced system.

A power-positive campus can add generation, storage, modern substations, and transmission improvements at the location where new demand is being created. The utility gains another source of electricity and operational flexibility without having to finance the entire project through customer rates. During periods of high demand or system stress, contracted exports, stored energy, and demand reductions by the data center can provide additional tools for maintaining reliability.

Additional efficient generation can also increase competition in the wholesale market. It should not be promised that one project will automatically lower every customer's bill, because retail bills contain many costs and market conditions change. But increasing dependable, competitively priced supply - especially in the right location - can reduce upward pressure on wholesale prices and help avoid more expensive emergency solutions.

The developer also brings something utilities and governments do not always have readily available: rapid access to large pools of private capital. Major technology and infrastructure companies can raise money through international capital markets, institutional investors, private-equity funds, pension funds, banks, and long-term energy partners. The generating plant can therefore be financed principally by investors accepting the project's risk, rather than by families through utility rates or by taxpayers through government borrowing.

Private financing does not eliminate regulation. Power plants, transmission connections, water systems, and data centers must still satisfy applicable state, federal, local, environmental, and reliability requirements. The advantage is that one financially capable development team can coordinate the load, generation, storage, and construction schedule as a single investment. Federal regulators are now recognizing that studying associated load and generation together can reduce unnecessary grid upgrades and make interconnection faster and less costly.

How Government Can Help

Government's role should be neither passive approval nor automatic obstruction. It should establish demanding public standards and then clear an efficient path for projects willing to meet them.

New York is competing with Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and other states for data centers, power investment, construction activity, technical jobs, and the industries that will grow around artificial intelligence. Developers compare sites according to power availability, approval time, infrastructure, cost, community support, and regulatory certainty. Delay can be the same as rejection: capital moves to the state that is prepared to act.

Government therefore has to think more like a competitive entrepreneur. It must recognize an opportunity, assemble the necessary partners, anticipate obstacles, set a timetable, and make a convincing offer before another state does. That does not mean lowering safety, environmental, labor, or community standards. It means making the requirements clear at the beginning and coordinating the agencies responsible for enforcing them.

New York should designate one accountable project team to coordinate state and local review; establish a single public schedule for environmental, energy, water, zoning, and interconnection decisions; allow related generation and load to be studied together; identify pre-screened industrial sites; and give qualified power-positive projects priority without guaranteeing their approval.

Fast-tracking should mean faster decisions, not weaker decisions. Projects should earn expedited treatment by committing to new dependable generation, full cost responsibility, transparent water and emissions plans, enforceable community benefits, and meaningful excess power for the grid.

Some politicians are moving in the opposite direction. They treat delay, blanket resistance, or a moratorium as proof that they are protecting the public. That may produce an easy headline, but it can also drive private investment, jobs, tax revenue, and new power generation into competing states. A state that only knows how to say no will eventually watch other states build the infrastructure of the future.

Real leadership is harder. It protects the public while finding a way to say yes to a project that leaves New York with more power, stronger infrastructure, and greater opportunity than it had before.

Why Niagara Falls Is the Natural Location

A Great Energy Foundation - But Not a Free Supply

The Niagara Power Project in Lewiston is New York's largest electricity producer and can generate up to 2,600 megawatts of clean hydropower. That electricity is already serving utilities, public bodies, municipal systems, industries, and residents. A new data center should not consume a large portion of that existing resource or compete with current employers for low-cost power.

It must contribute to the supply. Niagara's hydropower and energy expertise should serve as the foundation for a larger system, not as an excuse for placing another immense load on the region.

Infrastructure for Contributing to the Grid

Niagara already has major generating facilities, transmission corridors, substations, industrial land, energy professionals, and decades of experience moving large volumes of electricity. This makes the region a natural place to connect new generation to the grid, subject to detailed engineering studies.

The developer should finance every new substation, transmission line, storage facility, or related upgrade primarily required by the project. Properly designed, those improvements could do more than connect one data center: they could reduce bottlenecks, strengthen regional reliability, and prepare industrial sites for future employers.

The test is simple: after the data center is operating, does Niagara have more dependable power available or less? If the answer is less, the proposal has failed.

Water and Climate

Data centers produce great quantities of heat and require dependable cooling. Western New York's Great Lakes location, colder winters, and moderate annual temperatures offer an advantage over hot, dry regions. Outside air can provide part of the cooling during much of the year, reducing mechanical cooling demand.

Regional water abundance is not permission for unlimited consumption. Any project must protect drinking water, aquatic life, and the Niagara River, and should use closed-loop or other highly efficient cooling wherever practical. Water withdrawals, treatment, and discharge must be independently reviewed and publicly disclosed.

Industrial Land and Economic Need

Niagara Falls has industrially zoned land, legacy utility corridors, transportation connections, and former industrial properties that may be suitable for careful redevelopment. Proper siting can return underused land to productive use rather than consuming farmland or intruding upon residential neighborhoods.

The city also has a real need for durable investment. Census estimates for 2020-2024 place Niagara Falls' median household income at $49,101 and its poverty rate at 23.7 percent. The community that helped power New York's industrial development should be a priority for the next generation of energy and technology investment.

Data centers do not employ as many people as the great factories of the past, and advocates should not pretend otherwise. Their local value comes from large construction programs, specialized permanent positions, service contracts, infrastructure investment, and a substantial tax base. Those benefits must be secured in writing.

Turn Waste Heat Into a Second Energy Resource

Almost all electricity used by servers ultimately becomes heat. Ordinarily, cooling systems remove that heat and release it into the environment. A planned Niagara energy district could capture it and distribute it to nearby factories, schools, hospitals, government buildings, housing, greenhouses, and other large users.

A district-heating network uses insulated pipes to carry heated water between facilities. Because data-center heat is often below the temperature required by older heating systems or industrial processes, large heat pumps may be needed to raise its temperature. Proximity matters: heat users should be planned near the data center so the network is economical and energy losses remain low.

This is not theoretical. Microsoft and the energy company Fortum are developing Finnish data-center projects expected eventually to provide about 40 percent of the district heat required in nearby communities. In Ireland, recovered heat from an Amazon data center supplies public buildings including a university and library.

New York should require every major data-center proposal to include a waste-heat recovery study. In Niagara, the State should evaluate a shared thermal network as part of the original district plan, rather than trying to add one after the buildings are complete.

The Virtuous Energy Cycle

The developer builds new generation and storage.

The system serves the data center and exports dependable excess electricity.

The computers produce heat as they operate.

The heat is captured and delivered to nearby buildings and industry.

Those users buy less natural gas, heating oil, or electricity for heat.

Lower heating demand leaves more energy available to the rest of New York.

Modern grid and thermal infrastructure helps attract additional employers.

This Approach Is Already Emerging

New York would not be inventing the idea of pairing data centers with new generation. It would be improving it.

Ohio reported approving five behind-the-meter natural-gas and fuel-cell plants at data-center sites during 2025, while also developing special tariffs intended to protect other customers.

Governors in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia advanced a 'Bring Your Own Generation' concept that would connect large loads with dependable new generation and faster review.

Pennsylvania has pursued stronger affordability, environmental, transparency, workforce, and community requirements for data-center projects.

Federal regulators are examining co-located generation, large-load reliability, grid-upgrade responsibility, and consumer protection.

Texas and other states are seeing large campuses plan their own behind-the-meter power because public-grid interconnections cannot arrive quickly enough.

Most existing programs stop at 'bring your own power.' This paper proposes the stronger standard: bring more dependable power than you use, and leave the public system stronger than you found it.

Conditions New York Must Require

9 requirements that define success:

1. True additionality. The new generation must add capacity. An existing plant must not simply stop serving the public and redirect its output to a private customer.
2. Ratepayer protection. The developer must pay the direct and indirect costs primarily caused by its project, with deposits, minimum payments, and financial guarantees protecting the public from abandoned or downsized projects.
3. Power before operation. The data center should not reach full load until its promised generation, storage, interconnection, and required grid improvements are ready.
4. Guaranteed net contribution. The amount and availability of exported power must be established by contract, independently verified, and enforceable.
5. Emergency cooperation. The facility should provide demand response, stored power, or flexible-computing reductions when the grid is under exceptional strain.
6. Climate and environmental compliance. The technology must comply with applicable air, water, land-use, and New York climate requirements, including the State's zero-emissions electricity objective for 2040.
7. Local benefit agreement. Jobs, training, tax payments, infrastructure, local contracting, and community protections must be specific rather than promotional promises.
8. Transparent agreements. Material energy subsidies, special rates, cost allocations, water plans, emissions assumptions, and public obligations should be disclosed.
9. Heat recovery planning. Every project must study nearby thermal users and reserve practical routes for a future or immediate district-heating network.

Technology Must Meet the Standard

This position paper does not prescribe one generating technology. New York should invite competing proposals using combinations of hydropower, advanced nuclear energy, geothermal energy, fuel cells, renewable generation, storage, demand flexibility, or other qualifying resources.

It should also avoid claiming that any new plant will automatically produce electricity more cheaply than the existing system. The developer must demonstrate cost competitiveness through transparent assumptions about construction, fuel, financing, maintenance, interconnection, emissions compliance, and useful life.

The public standard should focus on results: dependable net power, affordability, environmental compliance, local benefits, and protection from financial risk.

A Niagara Power-Positive Development District

New York should create a focused planning process for a Niagara Power-Positive Development District. State agencies, NYPA, NYISO, the serving utility, Niagara County, the City of Niagara Falls, neighboring municipalities, labor, educational institutions, community representatives, environmental experts, and prospective developers should work from one integrated plan.

• Identify suitable industrial and brownfield sites away from residential neighborhoods.
• Map realistic electricity, transmission, water, wastewater, fiber, transportation, and thermal connections.
• Set a minimum dependable net-power contribution for exceptionally large loads.
• Establish developer-funded interconnection and infrastructure rules before projects are negotiated.
• Design a shared district-heating backbone and identify anchor heat customers.
• Create enforceable workforce, tax, local-contracting, and community-benefit standards.
• Use a transparent competitive process that rewards the greatest lasting public benefit.

Conclusion

New York does not have to choose between stopping data centers and allowing them to overwhelm the existing grid. It can insist upon a better bargain.

Niagara Falls is uniquely positioned to demonstrate it. The region has water resources, a cool climate, industrial land, energy expertise, generating and transmission infrastructure, international connections, and a community that deserves serious investment. But its existing hydropower must not be treated as a prize for a new data center to consume.

The developer must contribute. It must add generation, improve infrastructure, export dependable excess electricity, recover useful heat, protect ratepayers, and leave the host community better off.

Niagara Falls once helped electrify America's industrial age. With courage, discipline, and creative partnership, it can help power the digital age - while giving New York more energy than it takes.

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THE WARNING IN JOSEF GANZ’S STORY

Sometimes protecting your party means drawing a line inside your party.

The story of Josef Ganz has been on my mind—not because history repeats itself exactly, and certainly not because today’s DSA is the Nazi Party. It isn’t.

The warning is subtler than that.

Josef Ganz was a Jewish German engineer and automobile visionary. Germany was his country. He initially viewed the new government with enough optimism that he welcomed some of its plans for roads and inexpensive automobiles. Then reality came quickly. In May 1933, the Gestapo arrested him on fabricated accusations. His career was systematically destroyed, his life became endangered, and in June 1934 he fled Germany.

Ganz’s story illustrates something deeply human: we tend to believe tomorrow will still resemble yesterday.

We tell ourselves that the extremists are only talking. The institutions will hold. Reasonable people remain in charge. Surely things cannot go that far.

And perhaps most dangerously: I am a citizen. I belong here. It can’t happen to me.

That is where I see a lesson for America today.

Again, the parallel is not that democratic socialism equals Nazism. The parallel is what can happen when a political movement becomes increasingly radical while the larger political establishment hesitates to confront it.

The Democratic Socialists of America are quite open about wanting fundamental change. Their current constitution says they reject an economic order based on private profit and envision popular control of resources and production and economic planning. Their current program goes considerably further, describing the goal of creating a “democratic socialist republic,” drafting a new constitution, and ultimately building a new society rather than merely reforming the existing one.

Those ideas deserve to be taken seriously precisely because their advocates take them seriously.

My concern is that Democrats have become so afraid of conceding even an inch to Republicans or conservatives that too many seem reluctant to confront radical elements developing within their own coalition.

A healthy Democratic Party ought to be capable of saying: We disagree with Republicans, but this goes too far. These ideas are incompatible with what we believe America should be, and these people do not speak for us.

Republicans should be expected to do exactly the same thing when extremism develops on the right and they have. Republicans have demonstrated that a political movement can draw lines against people who once seemed firmly inside its own camp. Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Candace Owens and others were once influential voices within the broader Trump coalition. Yet when serious ideological divisions emerged, those relationships fractured—sometimes spectacularly. Republicans did not simply say, “We must defend them because they are on our side.”

That is precisely what I believe Democrats must be willing to do with the radical left. Political parties have an obligation to police their own boundaries. Democrats should not be so afraid of giving Republicans a political victory that they refuse to say plainly when elements within their coalition have gone too far.

Political tribalism becomes dangerous when defeating the opposing party matters more than policing your own side.

That is what Josef Ganz’s story makes me think about.

Ganz had every reason to believe in Germany. He had talent, accomplishments and a German identity. Yet none of those things could protect him once the political environment around him fundamentally changed.

The lesson is not to panic.

The lesson is to pay attention early.

Do not dismiss radicals because their objectives sound impossible. Do not assume institutions automatically preserve themselves. Do not keep moving the line of what is acceptable simply because acknowledging the danger might give your political opponents a talking point.

Sometimes the greatest mistake reasonable people make is assuming that everyone else will eventually become reasonable too.

Josef Ganz learned otherwise.

DON'T BET AGAINST THE DONALD

 

TO THE READER

Trump supporters probably recognize every quality described in this essay already. They have watched him closely, often for years, and many understood these dimensions of his character long before his critics were willing to consider them. This essay is therefore not primarily written for them.

It is written for the Trump hater.

I do not use that description for everyone who opposes Donald Trump. Disagreement is not hatred. A person can reject his policies, dislike his conduct, question his judgment or vote against him without surrendering fairness. I am speaking instead to people whose hostility has hardened into a certainty that Trump possesses no intelligence, courage, compassion, accomplishment or redeeming quality at all.

If critical thinking means anything, it must include the willingness to examine evidence that complicates our preferred conclusion. It is easy to analyze an opponent’s failures. The harder test is whether we can recognize his strengths without feeling that we have betrayed our own beliefs.

I am not asking the reader to approve of Donald Trump. I am asking the reader to become curious about him.

Keep an open mind. Consider the whole man rather than the caricature. Allow the possibility that a person can be deeply flawed and historically extraordinary at the same time. Perhaps that small opening small will tone down some of the hatred and let in a little appreciation for the history we are witnessing.

A FRESH LOOK AT AN AMERICAN PHENOMENON

I have written about Donald Trump before. But it has been several years, and he has survived, returned and accomplished so much since then that I decided it was time to take another look at him.

What follows is a shortened and condensed version of more than fifty pages of developing thoughts, notes and research. Even those fifty-plus pages would have been considerably longer had I fully fleshed out every trait. There is enough material here for a book—but my purpose is narrower: to assemble essential characteristics that explain why Donald Trump has been so persistently underestimated.

This is not intended to prove that Trump is flawless. He plainly is not. He can be boastful, abrasive, impulsive, repetitive and needlessly insulting. He has made mistakes in business and government. Some of his habits annoy even people who admire him. But admitting those qualities should not require us to accept the opposite caricature: that he is stupid, incompetent or merely lucky.

That caricature has prevented many intelligent people from understanding one of the most consequential figures of our time. Again and again, Trump’s enemies have predicted his political death. Again and again, they have mistaken a setback for an ending. They judge the latest round; Trump keeps fighting the entire match. 

The thesis of this essay is simple: whatever else one thinks of Donald Trump, betting against him has repeatedly proved to be a very expensive mistake.

There are hundreds of thousands of extremely wealthy Americans, and there have been many times that since the nation was founded. Yet only forty-five individuals in all of history have served as president before Trump began his second, nonconsecutive presidency. He became both the forty-fifth and forty-seventh president— not because there have been forty seven men but because presidential terms are numbered separately when they are interrupted. Only Grover Cleveland had previously returned after losing office. Trump also became the oldest person ever inaugurated as president.

He turned inherited wealth and opportunity into a worldwide name. Then he placed that name, his fortune, his family and his reputation into the service of a political mission. Long before he ran, he told interviewers that he preferred his business life but might seek the presidency if the country became bad enough. Eventually he concluded that it had.

How did he get from Queens to the White House, lose it, and then return? Accomplishments alone cannot answer that. We have to examine the formation, instincts, appetites, weaknesses and unusual strengths of the man himself.

Link to my essay. 

A QUIET BOOM

A "quiet manufacturing boom" is underway in the U.S., especially in the heartland, driven by sticky long-term capital investments in factories rather than short-term speculation. 

Key data include the ISM Manufacturing Index at 55 (a four-year high after seven months of gains, signaling expansion) and manufacturing employment at a new four-year peak in high-paying, family-supporting roles. Factory- and trade-related construction jobs have surged under President Trump—from just 9,300 added in Q1 2025 to 93,000 so far in Q3 2026.

The Administration's reciprocal trade policies that reject predatory practices (especially from China) and non-tariff barriers like Europe’s VAT subsidies, plus a lighter regulatory environment and aggressive energy development that attract capital are to be credited. Foreign direct investment hit $232 billion in 2025 (up 50% from 2024), with commitments reaching a record $321.4 billion and a 23.6% global share.

Capital investment in factories is only the beginning because it commits long-term resources to actual production cycles that unfold over years, generating cascading economic and social effects far beyond the initial spending.

In short, the capital inflows create the physical capacity; the subsequent years of production, hiring, innovation, and wage growth are where the deeper, lasting impact—and potential political payoff—materializes.

I called this a "quiet manufacturing boom." It is only quite because the Trump hating legacy media largely ignore the trend. No wonder why.

TERRIBLE IRONY

DEAR JARED KUSHNER: WESTERN WAYS WON’T WORK

Jared Kushner is negotiating with Hamas and Iran on matters that could profoundly affect Israel’s and America’s security. If I could send him one message during those talks, this is what I would want him to understand.

WESTERN WAYS WON’T WORK

Western diplomacy begins with certain assumptions. It assumes that both parties desire compromise, peaceful coexistence and a lasting agreement. It assumes that negotiation is a path away from conflict and toward peace.

Hamas does not treat negotiations that way.

For Hamas, negotiations, ceasefires, humanitarian aid and international pressure are instruments within a continuing ideological struggle. Its strategy is not simply peace interrupted by occasional warfare. It is warfare conducted by many means.

Terrorism is one means. Propaganda, political influence, international institutions and temporary agreements can be others.

Western negotiators enter the room searching for common ground. Hamas enters searching for advantage. The West views an agreement as progress toward peace. Hamas may view the same agreement as a more favorable position from which to continue the struggle.

That is why Western ways will not work as long as Western leaders refuse to understand the ideology sitting across the table.

CIVILIZATION JIHAD

The expression “civilization jihad” appeared in a 1991 Muslim Brotherhood memorandum introduced as evidence during the federal Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing trial. Hamas developed as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

“Civilization jihad” does not necessarily begin with armies crossing borders or terrorists carrying weapons. It describes a long ideological struggle pursued through institutions, propaganda, political influence, intimidation and the exploitation of a free society’s openness.

The uniforms and flags may be absent, but the objective remains domination rather than coexistence.

This does not describe every Muslim. It must never become an accusation against people merely because of their faith. It describes an Islamist political strategy expressed by elements of the Muslim Brotherhood and pursued violently by Hamas.

That distinction helps explain why negotiations with Hamas cannot be treated like negotiations with an ordinary political opponent seeking a permanent compromise.

For Hamas, negotiation is another instrument of war—a way to gain time, preserve its leadership, secure an Israeli withdrawal, obtain the release of prisoners, attract reconstruction money and survive to fight another day.

A temporary agreement with the appearance of concessions can be accepted without abandoning the ultimate objective.

APPEASEMENT IS NOT PEACE

Appeasement will never work with Hamas. Every concession risks being interpreted as weakness, and every agreement can be exploited as an opportunity to regroup, rearm and continue the struggle.

Words and promises are not enough. Any agreement that leaves Hamas armed, organized or in control of terrorist infrastructure is not peace. It is merely an interval before another conflict.

Peace requires two parties willing to accept one another’s permanent existence. Hamas has provided no reliable evidence that it seeks that kind of peace. Its leaders may adjust their language, accept an interval of calm or offer carefully worded assurances. None of that constitutes transformation while Hamas retains its weapons, tunnels, command structure and declared hostility toward Israel.

There can be negotiations over the release of hostages and the terms of Hamas’s surrender. But Israel must never negotiate away its security based upon promises.

There must be no withdrawal that allows Hamas to survive as an armed force and no reconstruction that enables it to rebuild its terrorist infrastructure.

Disarmament must come first—complete, verifiable and irreversible.

THE SAME WARNING APPLIES TO HEZBOLLAH

Hamas and Hezbollah do not arise from precisely the same ideological movement.

Hamas developed from the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood. Hezbollah is a Shiite organization created and sustained under the influence of Iran’s revolutionary regime. Despite those differences, both can treat diplomacy, political participation and temporary agreements as instruments within a larger struggle.

Hezbollah has participated in Lebanese politics while maintaining an armed force outside the effective control of the Lebanese state. It has used the language of “resistance” to justify preserving its weapons and building power within Lebanon’s political and civilian institutions.

The West repeatedly mistakes political participation for moderation and temporary restraint for transformation. But an organization does not become peaceful merely because it sits in parliament, enters negotiations or observes a ceasefire.

With both Hamas and Hezbollah, every agreement must be measured by what is verifiably dismantled—not by what is temporarily promised.

If the weapons, command structures and hostile objectives remain, the threat remains.

THE HEAD OF THE SNAKE

At the center of this network stands the Islamic Republic of Iran—the head of the snake.

The Iranian regime has transformed its revolutionary interpretation of Twelver Shiism into a political and military project. Through the doctrine of velayat-e faqih—the guardianship of the Islamic jurist—Iran’s ruling clerics claim religious authority over the state while supporting armed movements that extend Iranian power and advance the regime’s objectives.

The distinction is important. The problem is not every Shia Muslim, nor is every Iranian responsible for the regime’s ideology. Many Iranians have suffered under that regime.

The problem is the present Iranian leadership’s weaponization of religion, its commitment to exporting its revolution and its use of terrorist proxies and partners against Israel, America and other perceived enemies.

Hezbollah is the regime’s closest ideological and military extension. Hamas is different: it is Sunni and descended from the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet Iran has armed, financed and supported Hamas because they share an enemy and a determination to destroy Israel. Their theological differences have not prevented strategic cooperation.

Hamas threatens Israel from Gaza. Hezbollah threatens it from Lebanon. Other Iranian-backed organizations exert pressure elsewhere.

Different names. Different sects. Different battlefields. But behind much of that coordinated pressure stands the Iranian regime.

Western leaders will misunderstand this conflict as long as they treat every proxy as an isolated problem. Cutting one branch is insufficient while the regime nourishing the network remains willing and able to grow another.

THE THREAT DOES NOT STOP AT ISRAEL

Iran’s revolutionary reach does not end at the borders of the Middle East.

Iran and Hezbollah have developed networks extending into Europe, Africa and the Americas. Their activities adapt to their surroundings. In one country, participants may raise money or operate businesses. In another, they may spread propaganda, gather intelligence, cultivate influence or prepare the groundwork for violence.

The outward activity changes according to the environment, but the organizations and loyalties behind it remain.

The FBI has testified that Hezbollah has sent operatives to establish terrorist infrastructure worldwide. British authorities reported that police and MI5 responded to twenty Iran-backed plots presenting potentially lethal threats between January 2022 and May 2025. The United States has also identified Hezbollah support and financial networks operating across Europe and Africa. 

Sources: 

FBI - https://www.fbi.gov/news/speeches-and-testimony/examining-the-current-status-of-iran-s-axis-of-resistance-and-the-implications-for-homeland-security-and-us-interests

British government - https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/update-on-counter-terrorism-policing-operations

U.S. Treasury -  https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm0388

This does not mean that every Muslim organization, mosque, protester or critic of Israel belongs to an Iranian-controlled network. Nor does it mean that Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood are one organization. They represent different movements and sometimes pursue competing interests.

But Western leaders make a dangerous mistake when they examine every organization in isolation and ignore the larger ideological struggle directed against Israel, Western influence and liberal democratic society.

THEY ARE SERIOUS ABOUT INTIFADA

The word intifada means an uprising or a “shaking off.” Within the history of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, it is not an innocent synonym for political disagreement. The Palestinian intifadas included sustained campaigns of violence.

When activists demand that the intifada be “globalized,” their language cannot simply be dismissed as theatrical rhetoric. The slogan carries a history. Responsible leaders must take that history seriously.

The threat does not come from ordinary Muslims living peacefully under democratic law. It comes from organized Islamist movements that exploit Western freedoms while rejecting the principles that make those freedoms possible.

Their methods vary, but their seriousness must never be underestimated.

They tell us that their struggle is global.

The West’s continuing mistake is refusing to believe them.

THE TERRIBLE IRONY

Here is the terrible irony: we must believe them—and we must not believe them.

Believe Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran’s rulers when they speak openly to their own followers about their objectives. Believe them when they glorify “resistance,” threaten Israel’s destruction and describe their struggle as continuing from one generation to the next.

Those statements are not meaningless rhetoric. They explain the sacrifices these movements demand from their followers and reveal the future they are pursuing.

But do not believe the softened language delivered across a negotiating table.

Western diplomats repeatedly reverse this rule. They dismiss threatening declarations as rhetoric intended for a domestic audience, yet treat diplomatic assurances as evidence of moderation. They regard the words spoken to followers as performance and the words spoken to Western officials as truth. Why should we assume that?!

An organization’s consistent declarations, governing conduct and long-term investment in weapons reveal more about its purpose than promises made when it is under pressure. A promise offered during negotiations may represent a tactical concession rather than an ideological transformation.

So, Jared Kushner, believe them when they tell their followers what they ultimately intend to accomplish.

But when they tell Western negotiators exactly what the West wants to hear, demand proof.

Believe their objectives, but verify their promises.

And never exchange Israel’s security for words that leave the weapons, infrastructure and ideology intact.

That turn can work, but it should advocate strategic leverage—not secretly negotiating under false pretenses before launching an attack. The objective should be the end of Hamas as an armed and governing organization through surrender, disarmament, removal from power, and verifiable dismantlement.

WATCH ME PIVOT!! 

TURN THEIR STRATEGY AGAINST THEM

Recognizing Hamas’s negotiating mentality does not require America to abandon negotiation. It requires America to stop negotiating like a sucker.

Hamas believes it understands the West. Its leaders assume that American negotiators sincerely desire a peaceful resolution, fear the collapse of talks and will eventually offer concessions to preserve the appearance of progress. Hamas tries to turn America’s good faith into American weakness.

That assumption can be turned against Hamas.

The United States can use negotiations strategically—not to preserve Hamas, but to bring about the end of Hamas as an armed and governing organization. Every proposal should move toward that objective: the release of every hostage, the surrender of every weapon, the dismantling of every tunnel, the removal of Hamas from power and the establishment of a Gaza that can never again threaten Israel.

Negotiation should leave Hamas with an increasingly clear choice: surrender its weapons and relinquish power, or face growing isolation and consequences. There should be no advance rewards for promises, no Israeli withdrawal based upon intentions and no reconstruction money released before verified compliance.

Hamas expects negotiations to weaken the West’s resolve. Instead, negotiations should expose Hamas’s deception, divide its leaders from those who merely want to survive, deny it international legitimacy and build support for its complete disarmament.

We do not need to imitate Hamas’s dishonesty. We need to understand its assumptions and refuse to be controlled by them.

Let Hamas believe that talking will buy it time. Then let it discover that every day of negotiation has narrowed its choices, strengthened the coalition against it and brought it closer to surrender.

Hamas has long attempted to use negotiations as a weapon against Israel and America.

It is time to turn that weapon around.

DOES PRESIDENT TRUMP ALREADY UNDERSTAND?

I would like to believe that President Trump already understands this—and that what appears to be conventional negotiation may actually be something far more strategic.

Perhaps he understands that Hamas and Iran enter negotiations believing they are playing America for a sucker. Perhaps he is allowing them to believe that while his administration steadily narrows their choices and advances an objective he could never announce publicly.

No president could openly reveal such a strategy without destroying its value. So I cannot claim to know what President Trump or Jared Kushner is privately attempting to accomplish.

But I hope the purpose is not to rescue Hamas through another temporary agreement. I hope negotiation is being used to secure the hostages, isolate Hamas and bring about its complete disarmament and removal from power.

If that is the strategy, Hamas may eventually discover that it was not playing America after all.

America was playing Hamas.

TRUMP’S ULTIMATE 3D CHESS GAME?

Is America Turning Hamas’s Negotiating Strategy Against It?

If that is what President Trump and Jared Kushner are doing—allowing Hamas and Iran to believe they are manipulating America while America steadily turns negotiation against them—then that would truly be three-dimensional chess.

The final move would not be another temporary peace agreement. It would be checkmate.

THE PROBLEM AND SOLUTION TO AMERICA’S STRATEGIC PETROLEUM RESERVE

This article began with my own curiosity due to the subject being in the news. 

I had heard about America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), but I did not understand how it really worked. So I decided to do some digging. (Pun intended.) 

The more I researched, the more fascinating—and troubling—the story became.

This is not intended to be a political argument. It is the result of my own curiosity and research—an attempt to understand what the SPR is, what has gone wrong, and what can be done about it.

PART ONE: AMERICA’S UNDERGROUND OIL RESERVE

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve may be one of the most remarkable pieces of infrastructure in America—and most Americans never see it.

There are no enormous fields of storage tanks or warehouses filled with barrels. Instead, the United States stores its emergency crude oil deep beneath the Gulf Coast in enormous caverns carved into natural salt domes.

Managed by the Department of Energy, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve—or SPR—was created after the 1973–74 Arab oil embargo exposed America’s vulnerability to disruptions in foreign oil supplies. Congress authorized the reserve in 1975 to provide the country with emergency oil during wars, natural disasters, embargoes, and other serious interruptions.

Approximately 60 underground storage caverns are divided among four sites:

1. Bryan Mound — near Freeport, Texas
2. Big Hill — near Winnie, Texas
3. West Hackberry — near Hackberry, Louisiana
4. Bayou Choctaw — near Plaquemine, Louisiana

Why Salt Caverns?

Salt caverns offer several advantages over conventional aboveground tanks:

- Lower cost: Underground storage is considerably less expensive than constructing enough surface tanks to hold the same amount of oil.

- Natural containment: Rock salt has extremely low permeability. Under pressure, it also moves gradually, allowing small fractures to close naturally.

- Physical security: The oil is stored thousands of feet underground, protected from weather, fire, and many forms of physical attack.

- Strategic location: The sites are close to Gulf Coast refineries, pipelines, ports, and marine terminals—the center of the American petroleum industry.

How Are the Caverns Created?

The caverns are not naturally empty chambers. They are created through a process called solution mining.

Engineers drill into a salt dome and pump fresh water underground. The water dissolves the salt, creating a vast hollow chamber. The resulting saltwater, called brine, is pumped out as the cavern is enlarged.

Some caverns are more than 2,000 feet below the surface and large enough to hold millions of barrels of oil. Yet from aboveground, there is little indication that an enormous reservoir lies beneath one’s feet.

How Does the Oil Come Out?

When the President orders an emergency release, the extraction process works like this:

- Fresh water is pumped into the bottom of the cavern.

- The rising water pushes the crude oil upward.

- The oil reaches the surface and enters commercial pipelines or barges.

- It is transported to refineries.

- The refineries turn it into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, heating oil, and other products.

The SPR is designed to begin delivering oil within 13 days of a presidential decision. Its official maximum drawdown capability is 4.4 million barrels per day, which it was designed to sustain for approximately 90 days, depending on how much oil is available.

That does not mean gasoline immediately appears at the neighborhood station. The SPR stores crude oil, not finished fuel. The oil must still be transported, refined, and distributed.

A Reserve Built for Emergencies

The SPR was never intended to control gasoline prices permanently or replace normal American oil production. Its purpose was to provide time—a bridge during a severe interruption while producers, refineries, pipelines, ships, and international suppliers adjusted.

The reserve has repeatedly demonstrated that it can move enormous amounts of crude oil when the country needs it.

But the method used to remove the oil contains an unavoidable weakness.

Every time fresh water is injected into a cavern, it dissolves a little more of the surrounding salt. The cavern becomes larger and changes shape.

The process that makes the oil accessible also slowly alters the chamber holding it.

America therefore possesses an extraordinary emergency reserve—but it is not an everlasting one.

PART TWO: THE PROBLEM

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is nearly 50 years old—and it is showing its age.

The problem is not simply that America has less emergency oil. The caverns, wells, pumps, and pipelines needed to deliver that oil are also deteriorating.

The Reserve Has Been Severely Depleted

At its peak, the SPR held approximately 727 million barrels of crude oil.

That amount declined through emergency releases and sales ordered by Congress. The largest previous drawdown came in 2022, when approximately 180 million barrels were released following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Then, in March 2026, President Trump authorized another 172-million-barrel release after war in Iran disrupted international oil shipments. This release was structured as an exchange, meaning participating companies are expected to return the oil later—with additional barrels added.

As of August 5, 2026, the SPR held approximately 305 million barrels, less than half its authorized capacity and dangerously close to its lowest level since the early 1980s.

But the number of barrels tells only part of the story.

Every Release Changes the Caverns

To remove oil, fresh water is pumped into the bottom of a cavern. That water dissolves some of the salt and pushes the oil upward.

Every drawdown therefore makes the cavern slightly larger and changes its shape. Over time, cavern roofs can flatten and the salt separating neighboring caverns can become thinner.

Most SPR caverns remain in relatively good condition. However, several are approaching their safe operating limits. At Bayou Choctaw, three of the six caverns may have only one full drawdown remaining.

The reserve is not one giant tank. Each cavern has its own condition, history, and remaining useful life.

The Wells Are Wearing Out

Even a healthy cavern is useless if the government cannot safely reach the oil inside it.

The wells connecting the caverns to the surface were generally built to last 20 to 30 years. Most are now considerably older.

At Big Hill, more than 70 percent of the wells showed moderate-to-severe deformation during a 2023 inspection. At West Hackberry, many caverns have only one access well. If that well fails, the oil may be temporarily unreachable.

According to Sandia National Laboratories, well problems are developing faster than the government can repair them with its present resources.

The Surface Equipment Is Also Failing

The SPR depends on pumps, pipelines, valves, electrical systems, storage tanks, and fire-suppression equipment.

Much of this equipment is old.

The Government Accountability Office documented 16 major equipment failures between 2013 and 2026. During the massive 2022 release, workers had to manage leaking pumps and pipes while continuing to deliver oil.

DOE officials told the GAO that parts of the reserve were being held together with “Band-Aids.” By December 2025, the major-maintenance backlog had reached approximately $230 million.

The Bottom Line

The SPR is not empty, and most of its caverns are not about to collapse. Its workers have repeatedly managed to deliver oil during national emergencies.

But America has been withdrawing oil more frequently while postponing some of the maintenance needed to keep the system dependable.

That leaves us with an uncomfortable question:

What good is having millions of barrels underground if we cannot safely and quickly get them to the surface?

The problem is no longer just how much oil America has in reserve. It is whether the reserve itself will be ready when America needs it again.

PART THREE: THE SOLUTIONS—AND THE ALTERNATIVES

The good news is that America has options.

Some involve repairing the existing reserve. Others would change how—and where—the country stores its emergency energy supply.

Repair What We Already Have

The first solution is the most obvious: fix the SPR.

The Department of Energy already operates a program to inspect and repair damaged wells. Engineers use sonar, pressure testing, and underground modeling to monitor the caverns and identify problems.

But inspections are not enough. Aging pumps, pipelines, valves, electrical equipment, and fire-suppression systems must be repaired or replaced.

The government must also decide whether some damaged caverns should be restricted or permanently retired. A somewhat smaller reserve that works may be more valuable than a larger reserve that cannot be trusted.

All of this requires sustained funding—not another round of temporary “Band-Aids.”

Stop Using the SPR as a Piggy Bank

Congress has repeatedly ordered non-emergency oil sales to pay for other government priorities.

That raises money in the short term, but it also lowers the reserve and places additional wear on the caverns.

Congress has already canceled approximately 147 million barrels of previously scheduled sales. However, as of May 2026, another 92.6 million barrels remained scheduled through 2031.

Canceling those sales would not add oil to the SPR, but it would stop making the problem worse.

Refill Through Oil Exchanges

The government does not always have to purchase replacement oil directly.

Under an oil exchange, companies receive SPR oil during a disruption and agree to return it later—along with additional “premium” barrels. The extra oil acts somewhat like interest on a loan.

The first portion of the 2026 release illustrates this approach: companies received 45.2 million barrels but agreed to return 55 million.

The returned oil must still be pumped back into the reserve, but an exchange can restore the inventory without requiring taxpayers to purchase every replacement barrel.

Accept Oil Instead of Cash

Companies drilling on federal lands normally pay royalties to the government in money.

Another possibility would be to accept part of those royalties in oil and transfer it to the SPR. The United States used this royalty-in-kind method in the past.

A revived program could replenish the reserve gradually without requiring a large single purchase. However, it would require careful oversight to ensure that taxpayers received the correct amount and quality of oil.

Use Commercial Storage

America could also store some government-owned emergency oil in privately operated tanks and terminals.

This would spread the reserve across more locations and make the country less dependent on four Gulf Coast sites. Commercial facilities may also be closer to particular pipelines, refineries, and population centers.

Private oil inventories alone are not a national reserve—the oil belongs to the companies that purchased it. But the government could contract with private operators to maintain clearly designated emergency supplies.

Keep Finished Fuel Closer to Consumers

The SPR stores crude oil. Before that oil becomes useful to most Americans, it must reach a refinery and be converted into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, or heating oil.

Regional reserves can shorten that process by storing fuel that has already been refined.

The Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve is one existing example. Its fuel is stored near the region where it would be needed during a severe winter shortage.

Regional fuel reserves cannot replace the much larger SPR. Finished products are more expensive to store and can deteriorate over time. But carefully placed regional reserves could provide faster help during local emergencies.

Protect the Supply Already at Sea

During the 2026 Middle East crisis, many tankers faced sharply higher insurance costs or lost coverage entirely. Without insurance, ships may remain in port even when oil is available.

The federal government responded with a reinsurance backstop intended to help energy shipments continue through the Persian Gulf.

This does not repair the SPR or add oil to its caverns. It addresses the larger problem: sometimes the quickest way to relieve a shortage is to keep existing commercial oil moving.

Financial intervention in the oil-futures market has also been discussed. That idea remains controversial because government trading could affect prices without creating any additional physical supply.

What Kind of Reserve Does America Need?

The choice is not simply between keeping the SPR and abandoning it.

America could combine several approaches:

- Repair and modernize the safest salt caverns.

- Retire caverns that have reached their limits.

- Cancel unnecessary congressional sales.

- Replenish the SPR through purchases, exchanges, and royalty oil.

- Store some government-owned crude in commercial facilities.

- Maintain smaller refined-fuel reserves in vulnerable regions.

- Protect commercial shipping during international disruptions.

President Trump’s approach to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the subject of sharp political and economic debate. That debate is beyond the scope of this article.

But one fact should be beyond politics:

An emergency reserve matters only if it is ready before the emergency arrives.

The SPR helped protect America for nearly half a century. The challenge now is not merely to refill an old reserve, but to decide what America’s next strategic reserve should become.

Stay Tuned…

Follow this issue if you would like. But like it or not, the condition of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve affects all of us. It touches the price of nearly everything we buy, the security of our country, and our ability to respond when the next crisis arrives. The SPR may be hidden deep underground, but the questions surrounding its future are quickly rising to the surface.

MARXISM’S TWELVE BROKEN PROMISES—AND WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE THEM

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

—Margaret Thatcher

Marxism does not spread only through force; it exploits human desires and attaches itself to legitimate needs—belonging, justice, security, meaning, and compassion. 

Marxism is often presented as compassionate, fair, and progressive. Its promises are emotionally powerful: equality, security, justice, belonging, and freedom from want. That helps explain why an ideology with such a destructive historical record continues to attract new followers.

Marxism succeeds by identifying genuine human needs and offering counterfeit solutions. It recognizes real suffering, inequality, loneliness, corruption, and injustice—but then uses those problems to justify concentrating power in the state.

Here are twelve hard truths about Marxism, along with the reasons each one continues to appeal to people.

1. It seeks to replace faith and family with the state

Marxism is rooted in atheistic materialism and has historically treated religion as a rival source of authority. It also weakens the traditional family—the institution that teaches responsibility, sacrifice, loyalty, and moral restraint. As faith and family decline, the state becomes increasingly powerful.

Why it appeals:

Faith and family can both involve obligations, moral limits, disappointment, and conflict. The state offers an apparently easier relationship: support without sacrifice, belonging without covenant, and moral approval without submission to a higher authority. For people wounded by families or disillusioned with religion, a political movement can become a substitute community and even a substitute faith.

2. It replaces personal responsibility with dependency

A system that promises to provide everything eventually discourages initiative. Work, study, discipline, and delayed gratification lose their value when rewards are detached from effort. Citizens gradually become dependents, and dependents are easier to control.

Why it appeals:

Personal responsibility is demanding. It requires people to admit mistakes, endure discomfort, take risks, and accept that choices have consequences. Marxism offers a more comforting explanation: your failures are primarily the fault of society, the system, or an oppressor. That message can relieve guilt and replace difficult self-examination with political blame.

3. It redistributes wealth upward, not downward

Marxist leaders speak endlessly about taking from the rich to help the poor. In practice, confiscated wealth often flows to government officials, political allies, and party insiders. The public receives shortages while the ruling class enjoys privileges.

Why it appeals:

Economic inequality is visible, and some wealth is indeed gained through corruption, exploitation, or inherited advantage. Marxism takes a legitimate concern about unfairness and turns it into a promise of immediate correction. “Take from them and give to us” is easier to sell than the slower work of education, enterprise, reform, charity, and economic growth.

4. It depends upon deception

Socialism is sold as an earthly paradise: abundance without competition, prosperity without risk, and benefits without cost. When those promises fail, leaders do not abandon the ideology. They blame enemies, saboteurs, foreigners, previous governments, or insufficient socialism.

Why it appeals:

People are drawn to simple explanations and sweeping promises, especially during periods of fear or hardship. Marxism provides both a villain and a utopia. It tells followers who caused their suffering and assures them that history will vindicate their cause. That combination can be emotionally stronger than complicated truths, uncertain outcomes, and gradual reform.

5. It replaces stable law with arbitrary power

Under the rule of law, citizens know the rules, and government is restrained by them. Under Marxism, rules can be rewritten whenever the ruling party requires it. Rights become temporary permissions, granted or withdrawn according to political need.

Why it appeals:

Stable law can feel frustratingly slow. Courts require evidence, procedures, and protections even for unpopular people. Revolutionaries promise to cut through delay and deliver justice immediately. Many followers accept arbitrary power because they imagine it will be used only against their enemies. They rarely consider what happens when that same power is eventually turned against them.

6. It promises equality while intensifying division

Marxists claim to oppose class distinctions, yet they view society almost entirely through competing classes and identity groups. People are divided by wealth, race, sex, and political status. Equal opportunity is replaced by government-managed outcomes—and some groups inevitably become “more equal” than others.

Why it appeals:

Everyone wants dignity, recognition, and fair treatment. Marxism gives people a powerful identity within a larger struggle. It tells them they are not isolated individuals but members of an oppressed class fighting on the right side of history. This can provide belonging, moral importance, and an explanation for personal pain. It also offers status through victimhood without requiring achievement.

7. It offers security but produces shared misery

Marxism promises freedom from economic fear. Instead, it concentrates security at the top of the political pyramid. Ordinary people face scarcity, surveillance, and limited opportunity while party leaders live comfortably behind armed protection.

Why it appeals:

Freedom includes uncertainty. A free economy allows success, but it also permits failure, competition, unemployment, and change. Marxism promises protection from those risks. For people who fear instability, guaranteed housing, employment, health care, or income can sound more attractive than liberty. Security is offered first; the loss of freedom becomes visible later.

8. Its advocates enjoy the freedoms they condemn

Many Marxist activists in free societies criticize capitalism while benefiting from its products, salaries, universities, technologies, and civil liberties. They praise authoritarian systems from a safe distance but rarely volunteer to live under them.

Why it appeals:

It is easy to romanticize a system one has never experienced. From a distance, socialism can be imagined as universal health care, affordable education, and generous public benefits without censorship, shortages, or repression. Supporters often compare the failures of real capitalism with an idealized version of socialism rather than comparing the real-world records of both systems.

9. It suppresses independent thought

Marxism favors ideological conformity over open inquiry. Art, education, journalism, and culture are pressured to serve political objectives. Creativity is tolerated only when it supports the approved narrative. Groupthink replaces critical thinking, and humor becomes dangerous because it exposes absurdity.

Why it appeals:

Independent thought is difficult and socially costly. It requires uncertainty, disagreement, and the possibility of being wrong. Ideological conformity offers clarity and community. Followers receive approved beliefs, approved language, and a ready-made moral identity. Repeating the correct slogans can become easier—and more rewarding—than wrestling honestly with complex questions.

10. It refuses to learn from history

More than a century of Marxist experiments has produced repression, economic failure, political prisons, mass flight, and enormous human suffering. Yet every failure is explained away as an imperfect application of the theory. The ideology is never blamed; only its implementation is.

Why it appeals:

Admitting that an ideology has failed can mean admitting that one’s teachers, heroes, friends, and personal sacrifices were mistaken. That is emotionally painful. It is easier to say that true socialism has never been tried. The purity of the dream is preserved by blaming every disaster on the wrong leaders, foreign interference, or insufficient commitment.

11. It redefines virtue and vice

Traditional virtues—self-control, duty, faithfulness, courage, gratitude, and personal responsibility—are dismissed as oppressive or outdated. Meanwhile, envy, grievance, resentment, and entitlement are repackaged as moral awareness. Those who undermine liberty then lecture everyone else about democracy.

Why it appeals:

Virtue requires self-denial. It asks people to control appetites, fulfill duties, forgive enemies, and persevere without applause. Political grievance can feel morally satisfying while demanding far less personal transformation. Anger is renamed courage, resentment becomes justice, and public performance replaces private character.

12. It is a politics of permanent immaturity

Marxism encourages people to demand what others have earned while blaming society for every personal disappointment. It projects its own authoritarian impulses onto its opponents and excuses coercion whenever coercion advances the “correct” cause.

Why it appeals:

Immaturity is not always childish behavior; it is the refusal to accept limits. Marxism promises a world without painful trade-offs, unequal talents, economic scarcity, disappointing outcomes, or personal failure. It treats politics as a vehicle for giving everyone what they believe they deserve. That promise is impossible to fulfill, but it remains enormously attractive.

The deeper attraction:

Marxism endures because it does not present itself as tyranny. It presents itself as compassion.

It appeals to the wounded by promising justice, to the fearful by promising security, to the envious by promising equality, to the lonely by promising solidarity, and to the ambitious by promising power. It converts private frustrations into political grievances and then offers the state as the answer to nearly every problem.

Its strength is that it attaches itself to virtues people already value. It speaks of mercy, fairness, community, dignity, and concern for the poor. Its deception lies in redefining those virtues until compassion requires coercion, equality requires confiscation, unity requires conformity, and justice requires unlimited political power.

A free society does not promise perfect outcomes. It offers something both less glamorous and more valuable: equal protection under law, freedom of conscience, private property, open debate, voluntary generosity, strong families, and the opportunity to rise through talent, effort, and perseverance.

Marxism promises to eliminate the burdens of freedom. In doing so, it eventually eliminates freedom itself. 

This article was adapted and expanded from Christian Milord’s “Twelve Glaring Realities of Marxist Socialism,” originally published in The Epoch Times.