- July 15, 2026
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When the pot boils, the scum will rise.”
— James Otis Jr., American Revolutionary activist, 1776
By comparison to other U.S. locales, we are so fortunate in Manatee and Sarasota counties and in Florida. So fortunate that we do not have the scourge of the surge — the surge of the delusional, ignorant communists overtaking New York City and that state’s legislative and congressional seats and which is also spreading throughout the Democratic Party nationwide.
Surely you find chilling and stomach-turning the rants of the likes of New York City Mayor Zoran Momdani and Democratic Socialist candidates Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier.
Valdez touts the “Medicare for all” slogans; federal funding for all abortions and transgender surgeries; abolish ICE; free federal funding for all college education, including living expenses; “unions for all;” “housing for all;” a federal jobs guarantee; and ensuring “everyone has a right to living wages and paid time off.” Chevalier has said on X she wants to “seize the means of production;” abolish police, prisons and borders. Essentially, she mirrors and aligns with Valdez: eliminate entrepreneurial capitalism; convert to tyrannical collectivism; and hate all Jews and Israel.
It’s incomprehensible and tragic how completely ignorant and pathetic all of these Democratic Party communists and socialists are. Whom do they think will pay for all of this?
What’s more, do you think Mr. “Warmth of Collectivism” Momdani or any of his associates has a clue that when the Pilgrims tried collectivism on Plymouth Colony they nearly starved themselves out of existence? It was only after Gov. William Bradford converted the colonists to owning private property and capitalism that the colonists produced surpluses of food and began to flourish.
Or do you think they have any idea that another infamous collectivist, Mao Zedong, was responsible over his three decade reign for the deaths of between 30 million and 45 million Chinese people? Deaths from starvation brought on by Zedong’s complete collectivization of “the means of production?”
Or what about that great Soviet, Joseph Stalin, who clocked in at 9 million deaths — 3 million from executions and imprisonments and another 6.5 million during the great famine in 1932 and 1933?
And yet, this communist utopia thinking has spread like COVID among so many “college educated” young Americans.
Mind boggling. And scary.
It feels somewhat like the previous scariest political time during the turmoil-ridden, anti-Vietnam era of the 1960s. The dope-smoking, acid-dropping, gun-toting radicals of the Students for a Democratic Society rocked the country with their anti-establishment, anti-capitalism bombings and killings. But back then, those reprobates did not try to infiltrate elected offices.
Electing and giving power to today’s idiots would be horrific.
Do not dismiss the possibility.
Indeed, to that end, it would be a worthwhile warning to all of us — here and everywhere in the U.S. — to heed and understand one of the most insightful essays of the late Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek. In his 1944 classic book, “A Road to Serfdom,” he devotes an entire chapter to: “Why the Worst Get on Top.”
We are living it.
Hayek describes stages that result in the worst getting on top. You certainly can apply them to some of our elections today.
He first describes the conditions preceding “the suppression of democratic institutions and the creation of a totalitarian regime.”
“In this stage, it is the general demand for quick and determined government action that is the dominating element in the situation, dissatisfaction with the slow and cumbersome course of democratic procedure which makes action for action’s sake the goal.”
You can hear that in the rhetoric of so many candidates today no matter the party. They’re constantly spouting their disappointment in and the inaction of the incumbents. “It’s time for change” the call goes. You remember “Hope and change.” They all chant promises of how they’re going to make our lives better. Blah, blah, blah.
Hayek: “It is then the (candidate) or the party who seems strong and resolute enough ‘to get things done’ who exercises the greatest appeal.” Sound like Trump? In New York City, it was the flowery demagoguery of Momdani versus the washed-up Andrew Cuomo.
Hayek: “‘Strong’ in this sense means not merely a numerical majority — it is the ineffectiveness of parliamentary majorities with which people are dissatisfied.” He has that right — e.g. Congress, no matter the party.
Hayek: “What they will seek is somebody with such solid support as to inspire confidence that he can carry out whatever he wants.”
That somebody, Hayek says, must also do this: It “depends on the leader first collecting round him a group which is prepared voluntarily to submit to that totalitarian discipline which they are to impose by force upon the rest.”
What’s more, Hayek says, it doesn’t take a majority; it takes “the largest single group whose members agree sufficiently to make unified direction of all affairs … ”
In forming this “fairly homogenous group,” Hayek says, there are three main reasons this group will come “from the worst elements of any society. … The principles on which such a group would be selected will be almost entirely negative.”
“If we wish to find a high degree of uniformity in outlook, we have to descend to the regions of lower moral and intellectual standards where the more primitive and ‘common’ instincts and tastes prevail,” Hayek wrote.
“This does not mean that the majority of people have low moral standards; it merely means that the largest group of people whose values are very similar are the people with low standards.
“It is, as it were, the lowest common denominator which unites the largest number of people. … It will be those who form the ‘mass’ in the derogatory sense of the term, the least original and independent, who will be able to put the weight of their numbers behind their particular ideals.”
The candidate must gain “the support of the docile and gullible, who have no strong convictions but are ready to accept a ready-made system of values if it is only drummed into their ears sufficiently loudly and frequently.
“It will be those whose vague and imperfectly formed ideas are easily swayed and whose passions and emotions are readily aroused who will thus swell the ranks of the totalitarian party.”
We hear it daily: hatred of Jews, Israel, billionaires, corporations and, locally, developers.
Ginning up this hatred and envy, Hayek wrote, is “always employed by those who seek … the unreserved allegiance of huge masses.”
How can we counter this?
It starts with education. In this 250th year of our nation’s founding, it’s a reminder that we must repeat and repeat with our family members — young and old — that nowhere else in the world is a nation rooted in the principles that “all men are created equal” and that we have “unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” We are in charge of our own destiny. Government is to be our servant.
Likewise, as the 2026 elections draw near, be an informed voter. Remember that the Revolutionary War was about liberty, and the Constitution was about limiting government. Here’s a litmus test to pose to every candidate: What takes a higher precedence — individual liberty or the collective community?
When James Madison wrote in the Federalist papers, Madison envisioned those serving in office as “enlightened leaders” who “would demonstrate their wisdom and virtue more by what they did not do than by what they did,” wrote Isaac Kramnick in “James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay — The Federalist Papers.”
“They would not pass unjust laws that interfered with private rights. They would respect liberty, justice and property and run a limited government.” In Federalist 62, Madison warned that “excess of lawmaking” and “voluminous laws” would be the “diseases” most likely to occur.
And then there was John Adams. He believed for our republic to succeed, Americans needed to be virtuous — to do the right thing, the right way, for the right reason.
So look for the virtuous candidates who embrace individual liberty over the collective mob — so the worst will not get on top.
Here is one of many reasons why Sarasota County Commissioners Mark Smith and Joe Neunder should not be re-elected: Their myopic comments last week about data centers.
If you missed it, Sarasota County commissioners voted 5-0 to create a one-year moratorium on the acceptance or review of data center applications.
They did this to give the county planning staff time to evaluate how and whether large data centers fit in the county’s zoning codes.
To be sure, it is a smart move to be prepared. But the county, mind you, has not received any applications for data centers, although a company has expressed interest in property along Cattleman Road.
So, to throw gas and light the match against data centers — even though she said she did not intend to be hyperbolic, Assistant Director of Planning and Zoning Michele Norton shared with the commissioners the accompanying photo of a 400-acre Meta Platforms Inc. data center in Mesa, Arizona. And then Norton did what everyone else who opposes data centers does — gave details on “the extraordinary consumption of electricity, land and water” to operate the facility. All one-sided information.
Of course, all five of the commissioners took the bait. Smith and Neunder led the commission comments, while Commissioners Teresa Mast, Ron Cutsinger and Tom Knight all endorsed what the other two said.
Neunder was first to launch his opposition with his usual bombastic bloviating: “I have taken a significant dive into this particular topic. Ultimately, at the end of the day (his standard cliché), for me, it’s no, not now, never.
“Whatever we have to do from a policy perspective from this board and being married to a science teacher and really going down the rabbit hole here, I don’t see this as ever being something, from one person’s perspective, that we would ever want in our community … At the end of the day (There’s that cliché again.), this is a hard, hard no for me,” Neunder said.
Then Smith, always more docile, noted that he has attended numerous data center seminars at the state and national levels.
“Environmentally, I think it’s a disaster … The hum of these things, the size of them, they’re lit up like prisons because of security reasons at night. They don’t belong in Sarasota County … (W)e need to put in our codes to make sure they can’t apply. And so that anybody who’s thinking about coming here need not enter.”
No doubt, there are many readers who will cheer the commissioners’ votes. But if any of these five entrusted with leading the county tried living without horse blinders on and had the smarts to try to envision the future, they all should have said something to the effect of:
“I understand people’s concerns about data centers. But do any of you think it would be worthwhile to hear the other side of the story?
“Before imposing moratoria or declaring forever opposition to any kind of data centers, do you think it would be worthwhile to know the consequences that have occurred in communities with data centers? What are the trade-offs, the benefits and the adverse effects on taxpayers, the economy and environment?”
But no. This is yet another instance of myopic people ignoring future infrastructure needs — just as Sarasota County commissions have done for 50 years.
Question: How many of you think the demand for more computing power, for better cellphone connections, for more and faster digital access is going to decline?
Likely no one. Wouldn’t it be wiser, then, to be open-minded to whatever innovations come in the future? Think ahead.
Come the Aug. 18 primary election, Sarasota County voters should do themselves a favor — send Smith and Neunder packing.
