Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s State of the Union Address for 1941 has come down to us as “The Four Freedoms” speech.  In it, Roosevelt envisioned a world in which all people would enjoy freedom of worship, freedom of speech, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

In the context of the Second World War, which had already been raging in Europe for two years (and much longer in Asia), these freedoms may have seemed like a distant dream for anyone outside of the United States.  Indeed, many Americans took the attitude (one with which I am broadly sympathetic) that Europe’s problems were for Europeans to handle, not Americans.  After all, we’d gotten embroiled in the First World War—ostensibly because “the world must be made safe for democracy,” as President Woodrow Wilson put it in his address to Congress requesting war with Germany in 1917—only to see authoritarian regimes rise throughout Europe and Asia.  Why should we get involved in another mess on a continent an ocean away?

Even with Hitler and Stalin sweeping through Poland, and with the former on the cusp of invading France, Americans were reluctant to get involved in another of Europe’s conflicts.  Roosevelt knew that Americans had little appetite for war, but he made a compelling point in his speech:

No realistic American can expect from a dictator’s peace international generosity, or return of true independence, or world disarmament, or freedom of expression, or freedom of religion–or even good business.

Such a peace would bring no security for us or for our neighbors. “Those, who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

As a nation, we may take pride in the fact that we are softhearted; but we cannot afford to be soft-headed.

We must always be wary of those who with sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal preach the “ism” of appeasement.

In other words, a Europe—not to mention Africa and Asia—in which Hitler reigned supreme would provide no real peace for Americans.  It would be “a dictator’s peace,” one in which Americans, while ostensibly independent, would constantly have to negotiate—and even bend the knee—to a powerful Old World hegemon.  Our own peace and liberties would be forever contingent on Hitler’s mercurial whims.

So it is that the United States today once again faces those who yearn for “a dictator’s peace.”  The enemy is not abroad—not North Korea, not Russia, not even China (although the Chinese are certainly a threat)—but at home.  Our national government, many of our State governments, our universities, our museums, our most important cultural and economic institutions:  all have been infiltrated and co-opted by an enemy within our gates, the enemy of Cultural Marxism, or “progressivism.”

A regular, albeit whispered, refrain in 2020 was, “maybe if Biden wins, we’ll finally have peace.”  These were words uttered by conservatives as much as progressives.  The relentless attacks on President Trump—easily the best President of the twenty-first century so far—were wearying.  Apparently, many of his supporters grew “tired of winning,” as candidate Trump cheekily predicted.  Even when people knew they were shams—like the two ludicrous impeachments—they secretly wished for some return to normalcy, which presented itself in the form of a geriatric octogenarian with a penchant for sniffing little girls’ hair.

Mind you, most of the people wanting “peace”—no more cities burned down by Antifa and BLM, they hoped—weren’t enduring even a fraction of what President Trump endured—still endures!—on a daily basis.  Mostly, their feathers were ruffled by a few cheeky Tweets and a great deal of hostile press coverage.  Oh, my, what a hardship—we have to hear Rachel Maddow squawk boyishly about how bad we Republicans are!  The terror!  Never mind that as their feathers ruffled, they feathered their retirement accounts with 20%-plus annual returns for their 401(k)s.

Now, here we are facing down 2024.  Markets are frothy at best.  Inflation is still through the roof, albeit it cooling slightly.  Grown men are increasingly emboldened—in no small part by our institutions and our own “President”—to espouse sexual relationships with minors.  Young people are mutilating themselves permanently in a vain quest for meaning.

Yet, the same voices yearning for “peace” are back at it, cooing over anyone but the one man who is equipped—and hardened—to take on the system.  Indeed, I was distraught to read this analysis from one of this site’s major contributors:

I don’t think I could vote for [Trump] were he to win the nomination. Another four years of the crap we endured in his first term? Count me out. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” (Matt 6:34) 2025 will have its own evils and I want those evils to be faced with a singular determination and not as an item amongst many items that are causing charges to be brought against a sitting president. You know they’ll never stop – they will hound him to the grave and then put up a neon hate sign where a headstone should be.

It is precisely because “they’ll never stop” that we must support President Trump.  Anything else is a dictator’s peace, which we must reject.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.