Ryan: The game of politics

February 07, 2020

Photo by Sean Ryan

Kevin is an award-winning writer who focuses on long-form literary nonfiction and investigative reporting.

Bullfighting is a gruesome art. A hateful, stomach-churning game.

In Spain, bullfighters are called "toreros," and they lead a cuadrilla, or entourage, of assistants and other fighters. Picadors are the men on horses with lances jabbing at the bull strategically, forcing it to keep its head lowered. Banderilleros pace around on foot, and jab decorative barbs into the bull's neck, disabling the muscles so that the bull's head droops and it can't use its horns.

The torero is the star, decked in his garrish traje de luces, an elaborate weave of silk and sequins and pendants of gold and silver.

Toreros are superstitious. They choose their flamboyant outfits' colors with pristine caution. They believe that different colors provoke different reactions from the bulls.

Of course, bulls are colorblind. They do not see red and get pissy. What incites their rage is the torero's sudden, inflammatory movement. Because, let's be real, bullfighting is just the masculine version of flamenco. And this is a parable for politics, as performed by President Donald Trump and Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, at this week's State of the Union Address.

A bullfight has three stages.

One: eruption.

Two: disaster.

Three: humiliation, confusion, death, betrayal and/or victory.

When bull trots out, he is full of rage and confusion and fear. The torero reads the bull. Taunts it with his capote, the red cape.
This stage of the fight is a dance, as the torero boasts his acuity as a dancer.

Distracted by the cape and the undulating torero, the bull is vulnerable to the surgical jabs and lances from the picadors and the banderilleros.

These cowardly bastards are savage.

For me, it's always excruciating to watch.

But, at this point, the bull is spirited and fiery, so the cuts have little effect.

*
In the second stage, the torero prances to safety, to a dugout, and the banderilleros sweep in. They face the bull head-on, then lunge a small lance into its back.

The bull shrieks and moans and rattles its eyes with helpless confusion.

At the start of a bullfight, the bull's gaze is aimed downward, but, as the bullfight progresses, the bull's vision sharpens so that, by the end, they're locking eyes with the torero, straining to keep their head lifted. Then, finally, it's nothing but clotted dirt.

So. Who's the bull? Depends on your view of the situation and your particular biases. Maybe it's Trump, maybe it's Pelosi. But also maybe we're the bull. That would be awful, wouldn't it?

Just remember that the toreros wear a montera, the sulky astrakhan fur hat with the velvet lining. The bulbous nubs on each side represent bull horns.

Because, although toreros fight the bull, they do so as a symbolic equal. A man so wild and dangerous that he can defeat a monster. A matador is just a bull in some wacky costume.

Or. You can see the mastery and performance of it all. That Trump and Pelosi are engaged in a mesmerizing dance. Above all, a game.

I have exactly one tatoo: "To do a dangerous / thing with style / is what I call art." From the poem "Style" by Charles Bukowski,

Style is the answer to everything.
A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing
To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without it
To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call art
Bullfighting can be an art
Boxing can be an art
Loving can be an art.
Opening a can of sardines can be an art

Also known as the "tercio del momento supremo," the final stage of the fight. When the torero lures the bull closer with each ballerina tilt and side hop.

By now, the bull is panting, coughing gasps, lungs contaminated with fluid, muscles severed, head impossibly heavy.

It moans occasionally, the lonesome bellow of an animal caught in unimaginable betrayal. All alone, facing hate and danger.

From the stands, you can hear its full-bodied exhalations, see the silver piercing quiver in its nasal septum. The torrero becomes the matador only if he kills the bull.

Matador means "killer," from "matar" to kill and the suffix "-dor," which signifies membership to an occupation.

*As his final maneuver, the torero takes his greatest risk. He must plunge a sabre into the bull's back, between its shoulders, dealing the fatal wound.

The toreros often fail to kill the bull on the first try. Only managing to deeply wound the animal.

The toreros repeat this dangerous maneuver until they shove the sword in deep enough that it pierces the bull's heart or severes its spinal cord.

As the bull writhes, the torero slits its throat slit, a spray of dark red into the well-lighted dirt.

Then it subsides. Surrenders. Its life vanishes, mostly.

Men on silly horses tie a rope around the bull's hooves and drag it out of the bullring, blood spurting into the chalky dirt.
It no longer matters whether you were even chanting for that bull, as the politician.

Because the bull seems so childlike and limp as men drag it through the dust and the occasional mud. Especially at the end.

If the matador did well, the crowd whistles, they wiggle white handkerchiefs into the air, and the matador is awarded one of the bull's ears. Or both if he performed flawlessly.

But, occasionally, the bull wins.

It may always die, but sometimes it makes sure not to die alone.

I've seen a few bullfights, in Madrid, and on one occasion the bull nearly won. It gored the torero's calf.

The audience gasped, recoiling, then leaned forward.

And the torrero — who was billed as the finest of the night —limped into a wooden crawlspace. He was young, lanky, all jaw and Roman nose like a jagged anchor. And, all decked in blinding pink, he became ladylike and uncertain.

He tiptoed around when he should have kept gliding. He trained his black eyes on floodlights pouring into the ring.

After a ten-minute pause, he returned with a bandage around his pink-and-gold socks, less mobile but still devilish enough to coax the bull into losing.

It's no secret that I dislike politics, and that I strive, in my writing, to transcend ideology and tap into the deeper meaning of life, the human enormities we all face, in the hope that I can find an answer.

Despite the fact that I work at a conservative news site, I'm neither conservative nor liberal, not left or right or center, not anything. I'm a journalist. I believe in the old way: Find the truth, tell it clearly and honestly, then let the people decide. Leave the activism out of it, all of which I will cover in an upcoming installment titled "The Fourth Estate."

The night of the disastrous Iowa caucuses, at a fashionably indifferent dive bar in Des Moines, I had a few beers with bleary-eyed caucusers.

"I hate politics," I blurted out at one point, with a mouthful of popcorn.

A guy my age who'd caucused for Bernie asked, "If you don't like politics, why do you write for a political news site?"

It's a question I get asked a lot, something I've spent a lot of time pondering. And next month, I'll run an installment called "Outcast of the media world," which describes my weird journey from fiction writer to English teacher in Spain to academic to music journalist to reporter at a conservative news network with credentials for the White House. But in the moment, I had no decent answer, thanks to a long day and a row of empty Pabst Blue Ribbon cans. But the question stuck with me, so here's my answer.

"I write about politics for many reasons," I would like to have said. "Most of all, I want to make people's lives better, or even just a tad brighter, and I've been told by many people over the years that my stories and my words are how I'll accomplish this."

I write about politics because I want to know the wolrd better. And being at political events is so illluminating and electric and surreal. So alive.

I write about politics because I believe that each of our lives matters, and I've worked hard to get here and now I have a platform and, in the words of French philosopher Albert Camus, "Those of us who can speak have a responsibility to say something for those of us who can't."

I write about politics because political writing has gotten so boring and it's time for a fresh voice.

I write about politics because, sometimes, politics is an art, and art is what will save us.

New stories come out every Monday and Thursday. In the next two installations, I'll describe my view of the chaotic night of the Iowa caucuses. Check my Twitter. Send all notes, tips, corrections, etc. to kryan@blazemedia.com As always, thank you for reading.

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Globalize the Intifada? Why Mamdani’s plan spells DOOM for America

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

If New Yorkers hand City Hall to Zohran Mamdani, they’re not voting for change. They’re opening the door to an alliance of socialism, Islamism, and chaos.

It only took 25 years for New York City to go from the resilient, flag-waving pride following the 9/11 attacks to a political fever dream. To quote Michael Malice, “I'm old enough to remember when New Yorkers endured 9/11 instead of voting for it.”

Malice is talking about Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist assemblyman from Queens now eyeing the mayor’s office. Mamdani, a 33-year-old state representative emerging from relative political obscurity, is now receiving substantial funding for his mayoral campaign from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

CAIR has a long and concerning history, including being born out of the Muslim Brotherhood and named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror funding case. Why would the group have dropped $100,000 into a PAC backing Mamdani’s campaign?

Mamdani blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone.

Perhaps CAIR has a vested interest in Mamdani’s call to “globalize the intifada.” That’s not a call for peaceful protest. Intifada refers to historic uprisings of Muslims against what they call the “Israeli occupation of Palestine.” Suicide bombings and street violence are part of the playbook. So when Mamdani says he wants to “globalize” that, who exactly is the enemy in this global scenario? Because it sure sounds like he's saying America is the new Israel, and anyone who supports Western democracy is the new Zionist.

Mamdani tried to clean up his language by citing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which once used “intifada” in an Arabic-language article to describe the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. So now he’s comparing Palestinians to Jewish victims of the Nazis? If that doesn’t twist your stomach into knots, you’re not paying attention.

If you’re “globalizing” an intifada, and positioning Israel — and now America — as the Nazis, that’s not a cry for human rights. That’s a call for chaos and violence.

Rising Islamism

But hey, this is New York. Faculty members at Columbia University — where Mamdani’s own father once worked — signed a letter defending students who supported Hamas after October 7. They also contributed to Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. And his father? He blamed Ronald Reagan and the religious right for inspiring Islamic terrorism, as if the roots of 9/11 grew in Washington, not the caves of Tora Bora.

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

This isn’t about Islam as a faith. We should distinguish between Islam and Islamism. Islam is a religion followed peacefully by millions. Islamism is something entirely different — an ideology that seeks to merge mosque and state, impose Sharia law, and destroy secular liberal democracies from within. Islamism isn’t about prayer and fasting. It’s about power.

Criticizing Islamism is not Islamophobia. It is not an attack on peaceful Muslims. In fact, Muslims are often its first victims.

Islamism is misogynistic, theocratic, violent, and supremacist. It’s hostile to free speech, religious pluralism, gay rights, secularism — even to moderate Muslims. Yet somehow, the progressive left — the same left that claims to fight for feminism, LGBTQ rights, and free expression — finds itself defending candidates like Mamdani. You can’t make this stuff up.

Blending the worst ideologies

And if that weren’t enough, Mamdani also identifies as a Democratic Socialist. He blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone. But don’t worry, New York. I’m sure this time socialism will totally work. Just like it always didn’t.

If you’re a business owner, a parent, a person who’s saved anything, or just someone who values sanity: Get out. I’m serious. If Mamdani becomes mayor, as seems likely, then New York City will become a case study in what happens when you marry ideological extremism with political power. And it won’t be pretty.

This is about more than one mayoral race. It’s about the future of Western liberalism. It’s about drawing a bright line between faith and fanaticism, between healthy pluralism and authoritarian dogma.

Call out radicalism

We must call out political Islam the same way we call out white nationalism or any other supremacist ideology. When someone chants “globalize the intifada,” that should send a chill down your spine — whether you’re Jewish, Christian, Muslim, atheist, or anything in between.

The left may try to shame you into silence with words like “Islamophobia,” but the record is worn out. The grooves are shallow. The American people see what’s happening. And we’re not buying it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Could China OWN our National Parks?

Jonathan Newton / Contributor | Getty Images

The left’s idea of stewardship involves bulldozing bison and barring access. Lee’s vision puts conservation back in the hands of the people.

The media wants you to believe that Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is trying to bulldoze Yellowstone and turn national parks into strip malls — that he’s calling for a reckless fire sale of America’s natural beauty to line developers’ pockets. That narrative is dishonest. It’s fearmongering, and, by the way, it’s wrong.

Here’s what’s really happening.

Private stewardship works. It’s local. It’s accountable. It’s incentivized.

The federal government currently owns 640 million acres of land — nearly 28% of all land in the United States. To put that into perspective, that’s more territory than France, Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom combined.

Most of this land is west of the Mississippi River. That’s not a coincidence. In the American West, federal ownership isn’t just a bureaucratic technicality — it’s a stranglehold. States are suffocated. Locals are treated as tenants. Opportunities are choked off.

Meanwhile, people living east of the Mississippi — in places like Kentucky, Georgia, or Pennsylvania — might not even realize how little land their own states truly control. But the same policies that are plaguing the West could come for them next.

Lee isn’t proposing to auction off Yellowstone or pave over Yosemite. He’s talking about 3 million acres — that’s less than half of 1% of the federal estate. And this land isn’t your family’s favorite hiking trail. It’s remote, hard to access, and often mismanaged.

Failed management

Why was it mismanaged in the first place? Because the federal government is a terrible landlord.

Consider Yellowstone again. It’s home to the last remaining herd of genetically pure American bison — animals that haven’t been crossbred with cattle. Ranchers, myself included, would love the chance to help restore these majestic creatures on private land. But the federal government won’t allow it.

So what do they do when the herd gets too big?

They kill them. Bulldoze them into mass graves. That’s not conservation. That’s bureaucratic malpractice.

And don’t even get me started on bald eagles — majestic symbols of American freedom and a federally protected endangered species, now regularly slaughtered by wind turbines. I have pictures of piles of dead bald eagles. Where’s the outrage?

Biden’s federal land-grab

Some argue that states can’t afford to manage this land themselves. But if the states can’t afford it, how can Washington? We’re $35 trillion in debt. Entitlements are strained, infrastructure is crumbling, and the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, and National Park Service are billions of dollars behind in basic maintenance. Roads, firebreaks, and trails are falling apart.

The Biden administration quietly embraced something called the “30 by 30” initiative, a plan to lock up 30% of all U.S. land and water under federal “conservation” by 2030. The real goal is 50% by 2050.

That entails half of the country being taken away from you, controlled not by the people who live there but by technocrats in D.C.

You think that won’t affect your ability to hunt, fish, graze cattle, or cut timber? Think again. It won’t be conservatives who stop you from building a cabin, raising cattle, or teaching your grandkids how to shoot a rifle. It’ll be the same radical environmentalists who treat land as sacred — unless it’s your truck, your deer stand, or your back yard.

Land as collateral

Moreover, the U.S. Treasury is considering putting federally owned land on the national balance sheet, listing your parks, forests, and hunting grounds as collateral.

What happens if America defaults on its debt?

David McNew / Stringer | Getty Images

Do you think our creditors won’t come calling? Imagine explaining to your kids that the lake you used to fish in is now under foreign ownership, that the forest you hunted in belongs to China.

This is not hypothetical. This is the logical conclusion of treating land like a piggy bank.

The American way

There’s a better way — and it’s the American way.

Let the people who live near the land steward it. Let ranchers, farmers, sportsmen, and local conservationists do what they’ve done for generations.

Did you know that 75% of America’s wetlands are on private land? Or that the most successful wildlife recoveries — whitetail deer, ducks, wild turkeys — didn’t come from Washington but from partnerships between private landowners and groups like Ducks Unlimited?

Private stewardship works. It’s local. It’s accountable. It’s incentivized. When you break it, you fix it. When you profit from the land, you protect it.

This is not about selling out. It’s about buying in — to freedom, to responsibility, to the principle of constitutional self-governance.

So when you hear the pundits cry foul over 3 million acres of federal land, remember: We don’t need Washington to protect our land. We need Washington to get out of the way.

Because this isn’t just about land. It’s about liberty. And once liberty is lost, it doesn’t come back easily.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

EXPOSED: Why the left’s trans agenda just CRASHED at SCOTUS

Anna Moneymaker / Staff | Getty Images

You never know what you’re going to get with the U.S. Supreme Court these days.

For all of the Left’s insane panic over having six supposedly conservative justices on the court, the decisions have been much more of a mixed bag. But thank God – sincerely – there was a seismic win for common sense at the Supreme Court on Wednesday. It’s a win for American children, parents, and for truth itself.

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s state ban on irreversible transgender procedures for minors.

The mostly conservative justices stood tall in this case, while Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson predictably dissented. This isn’t just Tennessee’s victory – 20 other red states that have similar bans can now breathe easier, knowing they can protect vulnerable children from these sick, experimental, life-altering procedures.

Anna Moneymaker / Staff | Getty Images

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, saying Tennessee’s law does not violate the Equal Protection Clause. It’s rooted in a very simple truth that common sense Americans get: kids cannot consent to permanent damage. The science backs this up – Norway, Finland, and the UK have all sounded alarms about the lack of evidence for so-called “gender-affirming care.” The Trump administration’s recent HHS report shredded the activist claims that these treatments help kids’ mental health. Nothing about this is “healthcare.” It is absolute harm.

The Left, the ACLU, and the Biden DOJ screamed “discrimination” and tried to twist the Constitution to force this radical ideology on our kids.

Fortunately, the Supreme Court saw through it this time. In her concurring opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett nailed it: gender identity is not some fixed, immutable trait like race or sex. Detransitioners are speaking out, regretting the surgeries and hormones they were rushed into as teens. WPATH – the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the supposed experts on this, knew that kids cannot fully grasp this decision, and their own leaked documents prove that they knew it. But they pushed operations and treatments on kids anyway.

This decision is about protecting the innocent from a dangerous ideology that denies biology and reality. Tennessee’s Attorney General calls this a “landmark victory in defense of America’s children.” He’s right. This time at least, the Supreme Court refused to let judicial activism steal our kids’ futures. Now every state needs to follow Tennessee’s lead on this, and maybe the tide will continue to turn.

Insider alert: Glenn’s audience EXPOSES the riots’ dark truth

Barbara Davidson / Contributor | Getty Images

Glenn asked for YOUR take on the Los Angeles anti-ICE riots, and YOU responded with a thunderous verdict. Your answers to our recent Glennbeck.com poll cut through the establishment’s haze, revealing a profound skepticism of their narrative.

The results are undeniable: 98% of you believe taxpayer-funded NGOs are bankrolling these riots, a bold rejection of the claim that these are grassroots protests. Meanwhile, 99% dismiss the mainstream media’s coverage as woefully inadequate—can the official story survive such resounding doubt? And 99% of you view the involvement of socialist and Islamist groups as a growing threat to national security, signaling alarm at what Glenn calls a coordinated “Color Revolution” lurking beneath the surface.

You also stand firmly with decisive action: 99% support President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to quell the chaos. These numbers defy the elite’s tired excuses and reflect a demand for truth and accountability. Are your tax dollars being weaponized to destabilize America? You’ve answered with conviction.

Your voice sends a powerful message to those who dismiss the unrest as mere “protests.” You spoke, and Glenn listened. Keep shaping the conversation at Glennbeck.com.

Want to make your voice heard? Check out more polls HERE.