SubscribeStar Saturday: Off-Cycle Post-Election Analysis 2025

8 November 20257 November 2025 The Portly Politico4 Comments

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Call me Portlyanna-ish, but I don’t think the off-season elections were the dire warning to Trump and Republicans that much of the media—both mainstream and alternative—have made them out to be. I think there is some cause for concern in the enthusiasm department, but the trumpeting of these elections being a massive victory for the Democrats—and a huge blow to Trump—are more overblown that Michael Moore.

Consider the big three elections that captured most of the media’s focus: Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral race; Abigail Spanberger and the violent Jay Jones in the Virginia gubernatorial and State attorney general races, respectively; and that lady with a man’s name in the New Jersey gubernatorial race. None of these races were a real surprise:

Mamdani appealed to the base of NYC voters: recent immigrants, ethnic minorities, and white socialists;
Virginia is very blue in a cycle where Trump is not on the ballot and tens of thousands of federal workers—who vote Democratic anyway—are sitting at home, unpaid, who are highly motivated to get back at Trump;
and New Jersey is… New Jersey. It always looks like a State that might fulfill our wildest hopes that, “this year, it’s finally going to happen”—the refrain of every University of South Carolina Gamecocks football fan since time immemorial (I write—painfully—as a Gamecock myself).

Democrats are naturally going to distort—their favorite pastime, it seems—these results as a clear sign that momentum is on their side and that Trump is losing support. Conservatives should not be amplifying this message if it’s not true.

At best, I think it’s incomplete.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Spooktaculer 2025 Review

1 November 202529 October 2025 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Well, the 2025 Spooktacular is in the books. My neighbor called it “the last bachelor Spooktacular,” as it’s the last front porch recital before my wedding. It is also distinct in that it is very likely the last front porch recital at my current home, as Dr. Fiancée and I are in the process of purchasing a home. Of course, if my house lingers on the market for an extended period—a distinct possibility in my rural community—we could see a Spring Jam in Lamar in May 2026. We shall see!

But I digress. The “last bachelor Spooktacular” was truly a bachelor’s endeavor. None of my family could attend, and Dr. Fiancée was both sick and up the entire night before on-call. That meant yours portly had to take care of the preparations solo.

Fortunately, I’d gotten a head-start by working around the house each night after work. By the time last Saturday rolled around, however, I was absolutely wiped out, and slept in until after 11 AM—a rarity for me. Dr. Fiancée suspects that I was sick (I repeated the sleeping-in feat the following day), and I had been fighting off a cold most of the week, but even with my delayed start, I managed to get everything done. I even made my Mom’s legendary Rotel dip, which consists of melting vast quantities of Velveeta “cheese” product and mixing it with two cans of Rotel diced tomatoes and green chilis. I apparently did it right, because it was a hit.

Regardless, there was still a good bit to do in the yard and on the front porch. I’m not exactly big on regular cleaning—another quality of my rapidly expiring bachelorhood—and my front porch was looking pretty forlorn. The yard itself was a bit rough, but my neighbor had mowed it earlier in the week, so I mainly just had to deal with the flower beds and some pruning.

It was a day of little things going awry. For example, I grill hot dogs for the festivities. My grill had plenty of propane, but the electric starter wouldn’t work. When I went to get a stem lighter to light the grill manually, the lighter was out of butane. I couldn’t locate any matches, so I surrendered and decided to boil the hot dogs (on the plus side, my grill got a good cleaning). When I made the Rotel dip, I had the heat too high and some of the cheesy goo bubbled over onto my stove. John’s PA had a faulty cable—and so on.

But, in spite of it all—and I was more stressed than this post is letting on—the event was a success.

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Spooktacular 2025 is Tonight!

25 October 202523 October 2025 The Portly Politico2 Comments

Tonight’s the night—the 2025 Spooktacular! My students have been working hard on their solos, and it should be a fun night.

I have done a concert around Halloween for years, and started calling it the “TJC Spooktacular” in 2019. At that point, it was pretty much a solo show, with my buddy John hopping on to accompany me on a few tunes (or for me to accompany him).

During The Age of The Virus, I couldn’t find a venue that would book live music, largely due to concerns about big groups of people in a confined space. So I conceived of turning my front lawn into a seating area and my porch into a stage. Thus, the Spooktacular in its modern iteration was born.

That first front porch Spooktacular in 2020 was not a recital for my private music students, but was instead a more self-indulgent concert: John and I missed playing live music. I also paid a couple of groups to perform as openers: one of my students and his punk band—their first live gig—and two of my open mic music friends.

Then I began to transition towards the Spooktacular being a recital for my students. That helped to attract more people to the event, but also shifted the tone away from “raucous-but-mild-Halloween party” to “family-friendly Halloween party.” The original Spooktacular was never bacchanalian, but the current recital version is much more focused on family fun. The costume contest also seems to be a big hit among the little ones, too.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Long Live the King!

18 October 202518 October 2025 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Cringe-inducing “No Kings” protests are underway all over the nation today, attracting hordes of geriatrics who still think we live in a republic. Never mind that this time a year ago the nation was ruled by a naked emperor dancing about on marionette’s strings, each thread manipulated by a legion of unelected bureaucrats and Democratic apparatchiks. No, a robust executive is far more sinister than faceless puppeteers, right?

We all understand these protests are bogus. Had Kamala Harris won, we’d be knee-deep in tyrannical insanity, likely with the First Amendment and its speech and religious protections fluttering like a tattered banner of surrender in the winds of “progress.” The streets of our major metropolitan areas would be silent, unless the police got too frisky with a melanin-gifted drug addict, in which case every city would be ablaze and every Wendy’s bereft of its Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers. Regardless, most of these protestors still cling to the idea that the Constitution is under threat only when Donald Trump is enforcing it, but that the sacred document is perfectly safe when Democrats repeatedly violate it. It’s a classic example of “crying out in pain as they strike you.”

I for one welcome our Trumpian overlord. Consider: in the past few weeks he’s achieved peace in the Middle East—for the second time in his presidencies; he’s nearing some kind of conclusion to the Russo-Ukrainian War; and he’s designated AntiFa as an international terrorist organization (which it most certainly is, seeing as it gets much of its funding from the Chinese Communist Party and George Soros’s Open Society Foundations).

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Makeup Posts!

11 October 202510 October 2025 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Yours portly has been woefully behind the past two weeks with posting SubscribeStar Saturday pieces, so I’ve got three for you today:

A preview of Spooky Season IV, which releases later this month
An overview of last week’s grueling Homecoming Week 2025
Some reflections on education in 2025

Enjoy—and apologies again for the delays!

—TPP

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Systemic Wokeism

20 September 202520 September 2025 The Portly Politico4 Comments

If the assassination of Charlie Kirk highlighted anything, it was the systemic nature of woke Cultural Marxist ideology in our institutions. Most everyone knew of that sinister influence already—even and especially the Cultural Marxists—but Kirk’s assassination cast the lethal extent of this brainwashing into sharp relief.

There are demonic forces at work in the United States and the West that seek to promote confusion about sex, biology, faith, and Truth. The reigning mantra of the institutions is to “speak your truth,” “your truth” being whatever subjective set of assumptions and experiences cobble together into a narrowly solipsistic worldview.

It’s the mantra of unmarried women with overpaid jobs that are essentially daycare for grownups. That’s fitting: if you’re trying to build a worldview that just encourages people to consume until they die, it makes sense to frame it in the language of advertising and target it towards the demographic that spends the most money.

And in an increasingly feminized world, it’s the sales pitch of a lifetime: do and be whatever you want, as long as you’re not a mean old conservative. Worship whatever you want, especially yourself—just don’t worship Jesus Christ, because He Has Rules that might limit “your truth.” Consume as much as you want—just don’t get your hopes up about buying a house. Make your family look like whatever you want—just so long as you have god-like powers over slaying unborn children and snipping off your toddler’s wangdoodle when he starts playing with Barbies at his cousin’s house.

There is big money in transgenderism; just ask the Pritzkers, the bizarre family of overweight, moon-faced dwarves investing heavily in gender-altering surgeries. All of it, it seems, is in service to a devilishly Gnostic belief that technology will allow humans to transcend life and death—that we will truly be our own gods.

The price for these elite fantasies of apotheosis is the price that is always paid to make the waking nightmares of empty people come true: death and degradation for everyone else.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Legion

13 September 202512 September 2025 The Portly Politico4 Comments

“And he answered, saying, ‘My name is Legion; for we are many.'” – Matthew 5:9b

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” – Ephesians 6:12

Charles James “Charlie” Kirk was assassinated on Wednesday, 10 September 2025, while holding an open, civil debate. Coupled with the (racially motivated) murder of Iryna Zarutska on the Charlotte light rail, my heart has been heavy.

I saw the Zarutska surveillance footage on Telegram before I even knew the story. When I first saw it, I thought she’d been punched violently in the throat—until I noticed her bleeding out. I watched it a second time and realized with horror that I had just seen a woman die. The look of utter fear and confusion on her face still haunts me, and will for some time.

I’ve been on that light rail. The murder occurred very close to where Dr. Fiancée purchased her wedding dress. It is a good, generally safe part of the city. But evil goes where it wants, and it took the train that night.

So far I’ve avoided the close-up footage of Kirk’s assassination, but I’ve seen long-range footage. From the commentary I’ve heard, as well as Dr. Fiancée’s medical expertise, it is likely that he died instantly, or at least very quickly. He may not have felt it before he went into the loving arms of Jesus.

Yours portly was never a big Charlie Kirk listener, but I certainly knew of his impact. He was a bog standard conservative Christian, very much like most people I know and love. He might have been a bit milquetoast on some policy positions, but he was an incredibly effective speaker, debater, and organizer. His organization, Turning Point USA, did real yeoman’s work to reach out to people that historically have not found a ready place in the modern Republican Party: young people, blacks, Hispanics, homosexuals, etc. Kirk’s efforts likely won Pennsylvania and other key States for President Trump in 2024.

Kirk was also openly and unapologetically a Christian. He spoke boldly about his faith in Christ, and urged Americans not to be afraid, but to find strength and peace in a saving knowledge of Christ. He never, it seems, brandished his faith as a way to gain cheap political points, but espoused it sincerely, forcefully, and effectively.

His effectiveness is, likely, one part of why he was murdered. I believe that his faith had an even larger role to play.

Satan is powerful. He will lose in the end, yes—and that is why he tries to drag so many souls to Hell with him. Satan can only be in one place at a time, but his demons are many—and manifest.

His favorite tool right now seems to be the inherently atheistic, nihilistic, life-hating, angry doctrine of Cultural Marxism. Masquerading in a cloak of compassion and understanding, this woke ideology demonizes anyone that is not in complete lockstep with its ever-changing orthodoxies. Just like Satan, this ideology twists good concepts like compassion, sympathy, and health and applies them to the most wicked of goals: abortion, assisted suicide, catch-and-release policies, racial division, and on and on.

The modern Left is demonic. It promises that every person can be their own god, but all it produces is misery, emptiness, corruption, and death.

When the bullet ripped through Kirk’s neck, I am sure that Hell was rejoicing. But Christ, not Satan, Is King, and He Uses even horrible acts of evil for His Glory.

Turn away from this wicked ideology and embrace Jesus. Please—please!

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Conviction

6 September 20252 September 2025 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Yours portly sometimes gets a bit strident when sharing his views, particularly when it comes to immigration. I do believe that immigration—both legal and illegal—is one of the major problems facing the United States and Europe today. I also believe that not all cultures are created equal, and that Western Civilization is, broadly speaking, the best and highest form of cultural and civilizational expression ever achieved.

A great deal of that greatness—indeed, so much so that, like a fish in water, we don’t even realize how subsumed in it we are—comes from Christianity. So much of the morality we take for granted in the West comes from Jesus Christ’s Teachings: charity, patience, love, and—perhaps most importantly—forgiveness. Christ Died on the Cross to pay for our sins—not His. He Is the Spotless Lamb, Sacrificed to take on the burden of our sin once and for all. He Was Resurrected and will Return.

That idea of forgiveness—merely ask and believe, and Christ Will Cleanse you of your sins and Welcome you into His everlasting Kingdom—is hugely powerful, and often cuts against human nature. “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30-31) is probably the hardest teaching in Christianity, especially when “your neighbor” includes loving your enemies (Matthew 5:44). And, boy, do enemies abound in these blasphemous times.

I struggle mightily with the injunction to love my enemies. Indeed, I’ve been feeling a great deal of conviction about it lately. The enemies of Goodness and Righteousness and Truth are many, and they are cruel. But as Nietzsche put it (proving, too, that Truth can emanate even from those who are lost), “He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” Gulp!

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SubscribeStar Saturday: The Bare Minimum

30 August 202529 August 2025 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

The recent crackdown on crime, spearheaded by President Trump, in Washington, D.C.—as well as its incredible effectiveness—put to my mind the function of government at any level. The most basic function—the bare minimum—that any government should perform is to protect the rights of its citizens from a.) foreign threats (invasion, violent illegal immigrants, etc.) and b.) domestic ones (crime). Beyond that, governments should maintain and provide basic infrastructure that is conducive to commerce and mobility (roads, water, sewage) and should respond to the needs of their citizens as much as possible without infringing on the rights of the numeric minority.

That’s pretty much it. Yet governments in the United States and Britain still fail to provide even those three simple functions—protection of people’s rights; provision of their basic infrastructural needs; and concern for their interests.

Case in point: if the two nations’ leaders had really been paying attention to and cared about their constituents and their basic rights and needs, they never would have flooded their lands with illegal (and many legal) immigrants from foreign cultures. Instead of conducting forever wars in distant lands, they would have paved the roads. Instead of funneling money to Trojan Horse organizations designed to undermine our institutions with men in sundresses and mandatory DIE training, they would have invested in light rail or new water systems.

Instead, there’s been a sort of callous indifference to what normal—by which I mean average—people want. It is abundantly clear that, had they been asked, most Americans and Britons would not have wanted endless streams of migration from the Third World. They would not have accepted never-ending meddling in a part of the world that has been mired in conflict and authoritarianism since the Sumerian civilization first emerged around 4500 B.C.

It seems, however, that the tide is turning at last.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Myrtle Beach 2025: Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

23 August 202521 August 2025 The Portly Politico3 Comments

My brothers and I took an overnight trip last weekend to Myrtle Beach. Growing up, we would go to Myrtle Beach every summer for our dad to attend a big public works conference. While he languished away in conference sessions all day, our mom would take us all over Myrtle Beach to various attractions.

Naturally, we have fond memories of these annual trips, and we have several regular spots we like to check out on our visits as adults. One is the weird, wacky museum (for lack of a better word) that is Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

Ripley’s is named for the famed cartoonist Robert Ripley, who started his Believe It or Not! concept as a newspaper column. Ripley travelled the world and scrupulously documented everyone of his claims, even employing a team of researchers to help corroborate the wild facts that came pouring in from his journeys and his readers alike. Ripley built his first museum of oddities, which he called an “Odditorium,” in Chicago in 1933. He was also responsible for mobilizing public opinion in favor of making “The Star-Spangled Banner” the official national anthem of the United States (Congress passed a law, which President Herbert Hoover signed into law, in 1931, making the song the official anthem).

Ripley’s “Odditoriums” capture something of the spirit of a circus sideshow while also being, essentially, cosmopolitan museums of anthropology and natural history. If all of the artifacts, human remains, fossils, animals, etc., in a Ripley’s were presented less sensationally, almost all of them would fit nicely into the environment of your standard history or natural history museum. Ripley’s, however, goes a step further, and makes these weird, scary, cool things even more weird, scary, and cool by way of a mysterious, slightly sleazy, very sensationalistic presentation.

Consider that the name of the “Odditoriums” officially end with an exclamation point: Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Almost every placard has a nice exclamation point in its description, adding that extra level of grammatical excitement. It really draws attention to how wild, crazy, and/or unusual the factoid is, which just makes it even more memorable.

Then, of course, there are the artifacts themselves. Some are replicas; some are full-sized wax figures; some are actual artifacts. I was surprised by the sheer number of actual human remains on display in the museum, from shrunken heads to limbs to mummies. There are additionally wax reproductions of people with strange deformities, like a man with two pupils and irises in each eye; a Chinese man with a candle implanted into his skull; and a woman with a horn growing out of her head. There’s even a model of a pig, John Arnold, with six legs (and he’s from Darlington, South Carolina!):

The museum has a fun, often spooky, slightly dangerous feel to it, even though it is perfectly safe. It very much conjures up that sensation of being at a weird circus or county fair, with all sorts of freaks and oddballs skulking about.

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