Dwain Northey (Gen X)

One of the more fascinating political magic tricks of our time is watching a problem be identified, then immediately proposing a solution that has absolutely nothing to do with that problem.

Last Thursday, Donald Trump once again complained that America’s elections are vulnerable to foreign interference. If that is truly the concern, then let’s have that conversation. Election cybersecurity, foreign influence campaigns, hacking attempts, disinformation operations, and protecting election infrastructure are legitimate issues that deserve serious attention.

But then comes the punchline.

The proposed solution is the SAVE Act.

Unless someone can explain the logic that has escaped the rest of us, restricting voter registration for American citizens has absolutely nothing to do with preventing Russia, China, Iran, or any other foreign actor from attempting to influence an election.

Foreign interference isn’t accomplished by millions of undocumented immigrants secretly voting. Every investigation over the last several election cycles has shown that such cases are extraordinarily rare. Foreign interference happens through cyberattacks, propaganda, fake social media accounts, disinformation campaigns, ransomware attacks, and attempts to sow distrust in democratic institutions.

The SAVE Act addresses none of those things.

It doesn’t harden voting machines.

It doesn’t strengthen cybersecurity.

It doesn’t stop foreign troll farms.

It doesn’t prevent hacking.

It doesn’t stop deepfakes.

It doesn’t combat online propaganda.

Instead, it makes it more difficult for American citizens to register to vote by requiring additional documentation that many eligible voters don’t readily have available or that may not perfectly match their current legal names or circumstances.

That’s not stopping foreign interference.

That’s changing who has an easier time participating in American elections.

Now Senator Markwayne Mullin has escalated the rhetoric by threatening states that refuse to adopt these policies, suggesting legal consequences for election officials and state leaders who don’t comply. Think about how extraordinary that is. Instead of presenting evidence that these policies stop foreign interference, the conversation shifts toward threatening the very people responsible for administering elections.

If your stated problem is cyber warfare, why are your targets election clerks?

If your stated concern is foreign governments, why are you threatening county election workers?

If your stated fear is international interference, why is every proposed remedy aimed squarely at American voters?

Those questions deserve answers.

Because either the problem has been misunderstood, or the proposed solution was never really about the stated problem in the first place.

History teaches us that whenever governments claim they’re protecting democracy by making it harder for citizens to participate in democracy, skepticism isn’t cynicism—it’s civic responsibility.

If there truly is foreign interference, then invest in cybersecurity. Protect election systems. Strengthen intelligence sharing. Hunt down foreign influence operations. Work with technology companies to expose propaganda networks. Increase funding for election security experts.

Those are solutions that actually address the problem being described.

But if the answer to every election concern somehow always ends with making it harder for American citizens to vote, then eventually people are going to stop asking whether the solution fits the problem and start asking whether the problem was simply being used to justify the solution all along.

In any other field, we’d call that solving the wrong problem.

In politics, apparently, we’re expected to call it election integrity.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

For one month, the world came to America, and perhaps the greatest lesson wasn’t about soccer at all.

Yesterday, Spain lifted the World Cup trophy in New Jersey, capping off a tournament that showcased incredible talent, passion, and sportsmanship. Congratulations to Spain—they earned every bit of that championship. But as impressive as the football on the pitch was, what happened in the stands may have been even more remarkable.

Millions of fans from every corner of the globe descended on the United States. They wore outrageous costumes, painted their faces, sang for ninety minutes without stopping, hugged complete strangers wearing the same colors, and transformed stadiums into celebrations of culture rather than battlegrounds. Rival supporters stood shoulder to shoulder before the match, shared food and drinks, traded scarves afterward, and, more often than not, left the stadium respecting one another regardless of the final score.

It was a master class in what being a sports fan can actually look like.

Contrast that with too much of American sports culture. We have all seen it. A team loses, and people overturn cars, smash storefront windows, or set couches on fire. A team wins…and somehow people overturn cars, smash storefront windows, and set couches on fire anyway. Apparently, in some cities, the only difference between victory and defeat is which direction the flames are blowing.

That has always struck me as bizarre.

If your team wins the championship, shouldn’t that be the happiest day of the season? Why celebrate by destroying your own neighborhood? And if your team loses, why punish businesses and neighbors who had absolutely nothing to do with the outcome? The athletes walk away with multimillion-dollar contracts. The only people paying for the broken windows are local shop owners and taxpayers.

World Cup supporters showed another way.

They were loud. They were emotional. They celebrated every goal as though it were the greatest moment of their lives. They cried when they lost. They danced when they won. But for the overwhelming majority, the emotion stayed exactly where it belonged—inside the stadium and among fellow fans. The passion wasn’t diminished by good sportsmanship. In fact, it was enhanced by it.

Maybe that’s because soccer supporters understand something fundamental: the game is supposed to bring people together. The competition is fierce, but it is still a game. Ninety minutes of football should create memories, not emergency room visits or insurance claims.

America loves to think of itself as the home of the greatest sporting events on Earth, and in many ways it is. But during this World Cup, the rest of the world gave us a lesson worth paying attention to. They demonstrated that you can be fiercely loyal without being destructive, passionate without being violent, and competitive without losing your humanity.

Congratulations again to Spain for becoming world champions. But perhaps the biggest victory belonged to the fans themselves. They reminded us that the loudest crowd isn’t necessarily the most dangerous one. Sometimes it’s simply the one enjoying the beautiful game exactly as it was meant to be enjoyed—with joy, respect, and a celebration that ends with songs instead of sirens.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

One of the greatest ironies in modern American politics is that there are countries the American right loves to dismiss as “socialist hellholes” that consistently rank among the happiest places on Earth.

Take Denmark. Take the Netherlands. Year after year, they sit near the top of global happiness rankings. Their citizens enjoy universal healthcare, affordable higher education, generous parental leave, strong labor protections, lower poverty rates, and high levels of trust in both their neighbors and their public institutions. They also pay significantly higher taxes than Americans.

According to much of the MAGA movement, this should be impossible.

For decades we’ve been told that high taxes destroy freedom, that government investment kills innovation, that helping your fellow citizens creates laziness, and that the only path to happiness is unfettered capitalism with as little government involvement as possible. Yet reality keeps refusing to cooperate with the talking points.

The countries most often ridiculed as “socialist” consistently report happier populations than many of the countries that pride themselves on having the freest markets.

That doesn’t mean these nations are perfect. No country is. They face immigration debates, housing shortages, inflation, and political disagreements just like everyone else. But when independent researchers repeatedly ask people around the world how satisfied they are with their lives, these countries continue to score remarkably well.

That documented reality seems to irritate some conservatives far more than it should.

It’s almost as if the existence of successful social democracies undermines the narrative that every public investment is a step toward tyranny. If citizens can have vibrant capitalist economies while also enjoying universal healthcare, affordable education, paid family leave, and strong worker protections—and still report some of the highest life satisfaction in the world—it becomes much harder to argue that every government program is inherently evil.

Instead of asking, “What are they doing right?” the conversation often devolves into insisting that the rankings must be meaningless, that those countries aren’t really free, or that Americans simply value freedom more.

But here’s the uncomfortable question: What is freedom if you’re one medical emergency away from bankruptcy? What is freedom if higher education leaves you buried in debt? What is freedom if missing a paycheck means losing your home? Freedom isn’t simply the absence of taxes. For many people, genuine freedom also means having enough security to build a life without constant fear that one stroke of bad luck will destroy everything.

Perhaps that’s why these countries routinely score so highly. Their citizens know they’ll receive healthcare if they get sick. They know they won’t lose everything because they become parents. They know education won’t saddle them with decades of debt. They know unemployment doesn’t automatically become homelessness.

Ironically, those policies don’t eliminate capitalism. Denmark and the Netherlands remain market economies with thriving private businesses, entrepreneurs, multinational corporations, and innovation. They simply made a different decision about where some of their tax dollars should go.

Americans often frame the discussion as an all-or-nothing choice: either complete capitalism or complete socialism. The countries consistently topping the happiness charts rejected that false choice decades ago. They embraced capitalism while recognizing that markets work best when citizens aren’t constantly living on the edge of catastrophe.

Maybe that’s the lesson many in MAGA find so frustrating. It’s harder to argue that compassion is economically impossible when entire nations have demonstrated that strong markets and strong social safety nets can coexist.

The happiest countries in the world aren’t utopias. They’re simply proof that investing in your people doesn’t automatically destroy prosperity. Sometimes, it helps create it.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

One of the arguments I hear over and over from some Christians is, “You can’t deny Jesus was the Messiah because He fulfilled every Old Testament prophecy.”

Really?

That’s presented as though it’s the end of the conversation, when in reality it’s the beginning of one.

As someone who enjoys writing, I know one simple truth about storytelling: you don’t start writing without knowing where you’re going. Every good author writes toward a conclusion. Characters are introduced because they’ll matter later. Details are planted because they’ll pay off in the final act. Foreshadowing only works because the author already knows the ending.

So when someone tells me the New Testament proves Jesus was the Messiah because it quotes prophecy after prophecy, I can’t help but ask a simple historical question: who chose those prophecies, and when?

The books that eventually became the Christian Bible were not bound together during Jesus’ lifetime. The canon developed over centuries through debates, disagreements, and church councils. The New Testament itself was written decades after Jesus’ death by authors who believed He was the Messiah and were writing to convince others of that conclusion. They naturally interpreted the Hebrew Scriptures through that lens.

That isn’t an insult. It’s simply how literature and theology work.

The Hebrew Bible itself is also the product of centuries of writing, editing, and compilation. Christians refer to it as the Old Testament, but Judaism understands those same texts as part of the Tanakh, interpreted within a much broader tradition that includes centuries of rabbinic scholarship. Christians and Jews often read the very same passages and arrive at very different conclusions—not because one side is stupid, but because they begin with different assumptions and different interpretive traditions.

Which raises another obvious question.

If the prophecies are supposedly so overwhelming and so undeniable, why are there millions of deeply religious Jews—people who have spent their entire lives studying these scriptures in their original languages—who do not accept Jesus as the Messiah?

It’s not because they’ve never heard the argument.

It’s because they read the same texts differently. Many point to messianic expectations that they believe were not fulfilled, such as universal peace, the gathering of all exiles, and a transformed world. They don’t simply ignore Christian claims; they evaluate them through a different theological framework.

That doesn’t automatically make Christianity false, nor does it make Judaism false.

It simply means the issue is far more complex than a bumper sticker apologetic.

Yet some Christians act as though anyone who disagrees must either be ignorant or deliberately rejecting obvious truth. That’s an astonishing level of confidence considering most of them have never read the Hebrew Bible outside the passages selected for Sunday sermons, let alone explored Jewish commentaries or the broader body of ancient Jewish literature.

Many Christians proudly proclaim, “The Old Testament proves the New Testament.”

Of course it does—if you’re reading it through the interpretive framework established by the New Testament.

That’s circular reasoning.

It’s like reading the final chapter of a mystery novel first and then declaring every clue in the earlier chapters obviously points to the killer. Well, yes. The author knew the ending before writing the beginning.

Faith doesn’t require pretending history is simpler than it is.

Belief doesn’t require dismissing centuries of Jewish scholarship.

And intellectual honesty certainly doesn’t require claiming that every question has already been answered.

If your faith is true, it should be able to withstand historical inquiry, textual criticism, and difficult questions. It shouldn’t depend on pretending there is only one way to read ancient texts or that every scholar who disagrees simply hasn’t “accepted the truth.”

Perhaps the greatest irony is that the same Christians who tell everyone else to “read the Bible” often have little curiosity about the scriptures, traditions, and historical context from which their own Bible emerged. They are content with the verses that support the conclusion they already believe, while dismissing the broader conversation that has existed for more than two thousand years.

Faith is a choice.

History is an investigation.

Confusing one for the other doesn’t strengthen either.

Dwain Northey

When Exactly Was “Again”?

Whenever someone asks me what trend I wish would disappear, my answer is simple: MAGA.

Now before anyone immediately reaches for the keyboard to accuse me of hating America, let me stop you. I’m an American. I’m a veteran. I love this country enough to believe it can always become something better. Patriotism isn’t believing your country has never made mistakes. Patriotism is loving it enough to acknowledge its failures and demanding that it live up to the ideals it proudly proclaims.

I have absolutely no problem with the phrase “Make America Great.”

Who wouldn’t want America to be great?

In fact, even Ronald Reagan—whose policies I disagreed with on many fronts—understood the distinction. His campaign message was “Let’s Make America Great.” Whether you supported his policies or not, his slogan was aspirational. It was about striving to improve the nation. It looked forward.

Donald Trump added one word.

Again.

That single word changes everything.

It isn’t just a slogan anymore. It’s a historical claim. The word “again” carries a timestamp. It assumes there was some point in our past when America had already reached greatness and that our mission is simply to return there.

So I ask the same question every time I hear someone proudly proclaim, “Make America Great Again.”

When?

Give me the year.

Not when America was great for people who looked like me.

Not when it was great for wealthy Americans.

Not when it was great for straight white Christian men.

Tell me when America was great for everyone.

When was it great for white men, Black men, brown men, white women, Black women, brown women, Native Americans, Asian Americans, immigrants, LGBTQ Americans, and transgender Americans—all at the same time?

Because if your answer begins with, “Well, it was great for…” followed by one particular group, then you’ve already answered my question.

It wasn’t great for everyone.

Was it when slavery was legal?

When women couldn’t vote?

When Native Americans were forced from their lands?

When Chinese immigrants helped build the railroads while being treated as second-class citizens and later excluded by law?

When Japanese Americans were imprisoned in internment camps?

When Black Americans lived under Jim Crow and were denied the right to vote through intimidation and violence?

When interracial marriage was illegal?

When LGBTQ Americans had to hide who they were to keep their jobs, homes, and families?

When transgender Americans were treated as though they didn’t even deserve to exist?

Exactly which version of America are we trying to return to?

History isn’t a Norman Rockwell painting.

It’s complicated.

America has always been a work in progress.

And that’s actually one of the things I admire most about this country.

Compared to civilizations that have existed for thousands of years, we’re barely 250 years old. In the grand scheme of human history, we’re teenagers. We’re still growing up. We’re still making mistakes. We’re still trying to figure out what it actually means to live up to the ideals we wrote down in 1776 and codified in the Constitution.

Growth is messy.

Our Constitution wasn’t perfect, which is why it has amendments.

Our laws weren’t perfect, which is why generations fought to change them.

Our society wasn’t perfect.

It still isn’t.

That isn’t weakness.

That’s the American experiment.

America’s greatest achievements have never come from trying to recreate the past. They’ve come from expanding the circle of who gets included in the American promise. Abolishing slavery. Expanding voting rights. Civil rights legislation. Marriage equality. Every generation has challenged the previous one to make this country more faithful to its own ideals.

None of that happened because we looked backward.

It happened because we moved forward.

That’s why I can enthusiastically support the idea of making America great. Every patriot should want that. Every veteran who has worn the uniform should want that. Every citizen should want that.

What I cannot support is pretending there was some mythical golden age that worked for everyone.

Nostalgia has a funny way of editing history.

It remembers cheap gas but forgets redlining.

It remembers booming factories but forgets who wasn’t allowed to work in them.

It remembers strong families but forgets the families that had to hide who they loved.

It remembers prosperity while ignoring who was excluded from it.

If your definition of greatness only worked for certain Americans, then it wasn’t greatness.

It was privilege.

As a veteran, I didn’t swear an oath to a political party or to a campaign slogan. I swore an oath to defend the Constitution—a living document designed to be strengthened by each generation. That oath wasn’t about preserving nostalgia. It was about preserving the possibility that tomorrow could be better than yesterday.

So yes, let’s make America great.

Absolutely.

But don’t ask me to make it great again until someone can answer one simple question honestly.

Again… when?

Show me the year.

Show me the decade.

Show me the moment in our 250-year history when America was genuinely great for everyone—not just for those who held the most power.

Until someone can answer that, I’d rather keep working toward an America that has yet to exist than spend my life chasing one that never did.

Because the true promise of America has never been that we were perfect.

It’s that we always had the capacity to become better.

That’s the America worth fighting for.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Christian Capitalism: The Bible Seems to Have Missed the Memo

I am continually amazed at how people can weld two completely different ideas together, slap a flag on it, put a cross next to it, and declare that they are inseparable. Recently someone confidently informed me, “This is a Christian capitalist country.”

I’m sorry… what?

Those aren’t synonyms. They’re not even naturally compatible philosophies. One is an economic system. The other is a religion centered around the teachings of a first-century Jewish rabbi who spent an awful lot of time warning people about wealth.

Capitalism is built around markets, competition, private ownership, profit, investment, and the accumulation of capital. Whether you think that’s wonderful or terrible is beside the point. That’s what capitalism is.

Christianity, if we’re actually talking about what Jesus taught instead of what modern politics wishes He taught, repeatedly warns about the dangers of wealth becoming an idol.

Jesus didn’t tell the rich young ruler, “Excellent portfolio. Diversify your investments.”

He told him to sell what he owned and give to the poor.

He didn’t praise the money changers in the Temple for providing valuable financial services.

He flipped over their tables.

He didn’t say, “Blessed are the shareholders, for they shall maximize quarterly returns.”

He said, “Blessed are the poor.”

He didn’t tell people to build bigger barns to store more wealth.

He told parables warning against exactly that mindset.

He didn’t preach, “Greed is good.”

He preached generosity.

He preached humility.

He preached caring for widows, orphans, strangers, and the least among us.

And then there’s that famously inconvenient camel-and-the-eye-of-a-needle passage. Christians have spent nearly two thousand years trying to explain that one away because, frankly, it’s uncomfortable. Apparently it’s easier to invent elaborate theological gymnastics than simply admit Jesus was pretty skeptical about wealth becoming the center of one’s life.

None of this means capitalism is inherently evil. It means capitalism is an economic tool. It has strengths. It has weaknesses. It creates innovation, but it also requires regulation because markets don’t possess a conscience.

Christianity, on the other hand, is supposed to be about conscience.

Those are different categories.

You can certainly be a Christian living in a capitalist society. Millions are.

You can believe capitalism is the best economic system currently available while also believing it should be tempered with compassion, charity, and protections for the vulnerable.

But calling capitalism itself “Christian” requires ignoring an astonishing amount of what Christ actually said.

It’s fascinating that many of the loudest voices proclaiming America a “Christian capitalist nation” are often the same people who accuse others of cherry-picking Scripture. Yet they somehow skip over nearly every sermon Jesus gave about wealth, possessions, generosity, and caring for the poor.

It’s almost as if they like the cross as a symbol but find the actual teachings attached to it… economically inconvenient.

If we’re going to invoke Jesus in our political or economic arguments, then we should probably start by reading what He actually said instead of assuming He’d be ringing the opening bell on Wall Street.

Christianity and capitalism are not the same thing.

One asks, “How do we create wealth?”

The other asks, “What do we owe one another?”

Confusing those two questions doesn’t strengthen either philosophy. It simply creates a version of Christianity that seems oddly more comfortable quoting stock prices than the Sermon on the Mount.

Perhaps the greatest irony is this: if Jesus walked into many of today’s churches preaching exactly the words recorded in the Gospels, some of the same people insisting this is a “Christian capitalist country” might accuse Him of sounding suspiciously… socialist.

That should probably give us pause.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

I have to admit, I must have missed the chapter in economics where tariffs magically extinguish wildfires.

Canada is battling massive forest fires. Smoke drifts thousands of miles across the border, degrading air quality throughout the Midwest and down the East Coast. It’s a reminder that Mother Nature doesn’t stop at customs checkpoints. Smoke doesn’t pause at the border to show a passport. Carbon monoxide doesn’t ask whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican. Air pollution doesn’t care whose flag is flying.

And yet, instead of asking, “How can we help our neighbor contain these fires before they get worse?” the response seems to be, “Maybe we should punish Canada.”

Really?

If your neighbor’s house is on fire, do you hand them a garden hose, or do you send them a bigger bill?

Leadership has always been about recognizing that some problems are bigger than politics. Forest fires don’t respect international boundaries. Neither do hurricanes, pandemics, earthquakes, or volcanic ash. The atmosphere is shared by everyone. That’s why countries have historically cooperated when disasters strike. Today it’s Canada. Tomorrow it could be California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, or any other state asking the international community for assistance.

Imagine if California were experiencing another catastrophic fire season and Canada announced, “Since your smoke is drifting into British Columbia, we’re imposing tariffs on American goods.” Americans would rightly ask, “Why aren’t you sending firefighters instead?”

That would be the rational response.

The irony is that helping Canada suppress the fires isn’t charity. It’s enlightened self-interest. Every acre extinguished means less smoke crossing into the United States. Every fire contained means fewer pollutants entering the air Americans breathe. Assisting with aircraft, equipment, logistics, or firefighters isn’t simply helping Canada—it’s helping ourselves.

That’s what leadership looks like.

Real leaders recognize that international cooperation isn’t weakness; it’s practical. They understand that not every problem can be solved by economic punishment or political theater. Sometimes the answer is as simple as asking, “What do you need, and how can we help?”

Tariffs don’t extinguish flames.

They don’t lower air pollution.

They don’t improve visibility.

They don’t help people with asthma breathe easier.

They don’t protect crops or wildlife.

They certainly don’t change the direction of the wind.

The smoke will continue drifting wherever atmospheric currents take it, blissfully unaware that someone decided to raise import taxes.

Nature has a remarkable way of exposing the limits of political slogans. You can tariff lumber. You can tariff steel. You can tariff maple syrup.

But you can’t tariff smoke.

You fight smoke by fighting the fire.

Everything else is just political performance while the sky fills with haze.