I am not by nature a pessimist, but it has been difficult to be anything other than pessimistic over the past several years. 

The appalling craziness of the Covid-19 lockdowns and shutdowns, which allowed our government to toss our most precious civil liberties and human rights on the trash heap in the name of fighting a flu bug, was a clear and frightening indication that our leaders and their so-called experts are not to be entirely trusted. Their oft-stated desire for a national amnesia and “forgiveness” to shirk any accountability for their anti-American actions is also a telling clue regarding their priorities and obvious self-interest.

The unbelievably reckless spending that is rapidly expanding our national debt to levels that will soon plunge us off a fiscal cliff—and the inability of Congress to swear off burning our country’s wealth—is a sign that the most lunatic and crooked among us are firmly in control of America. 

The crime now crushing our major and secondary cities, coming after many foolish years of demonizing our nation’s police, is further fueled by fentanyl pouring over our porous borders and a level of unrestrained sociopathic thuggery that is driving record sales of firearms to those who feel they have been left alone to defend their families, homes, and businesses. 

Looking to our schools and colleges for some shred of hope for our country’s future is pointless; our children, adolescents, and young adults have never been both so resoundingly stupid and blissfully unaware of just how dumb they really are.

America is, sad to say, all one big, idiotic, terrifying hot mess at this moment in our nation’s history, and the months leading up to our elections this November seem certain to set new lows for dignity, decorum, and discourse. Expect something akin to a national temper tantrum by disturbed toddlers for the remainder of this difficult year. Then accept it will actually be much, much worse than that.

However, being a determined optimist, I like to think that there are some small, tentative signs of hope for our country, and I can point to three examples that could show our long dance with dysfunction and delusion might finally be coming to an end—from sea to shining sea.

One example comes from San Francisco, a once-great American city that has become a byword for fecal-covered governmental incompetence.

Having voted in 2022 to recall Chesa Boudin, their far-left District Attorney who was the best friend every criminal in the Bay Area ever had, the city has now taken affirmative steps toward improved financial management and public safety by passing three ballot initiatives in this past Tuesday’s elections: allowing the police to actually pursue suspects (rather than allowing them to continue to simply get in their cars and drive away without any pursuit), enhancing neighborhood surveillance by law enforcement with video cameras and drones, and finally drug testing welfare recipients and compelling them to go into treatment in order to continue to qualify for county benefits. These measures are small but significant steps for a city still beset by crime and bleeding businesses, but they are perhaps a sign that voters have belatedly realized fashionable but wholly unrealistic Leftist crime policies have a negative impact on the quality of their lives.

Much the same sort of epiphany seems to be spreading through Chicago, which is almost a textbook example of how not to run a successful city—or how to successfully destroy one. The recent costly and disruptive invasion of illegal immigrants drawn by the city’s long-standing “sanctuary city” policy recently led to efforts to put a non-binding resolution on the ballot to revoke their sanctuary city status, but it was defeated by those far-left City Council members who are still firmly convinced that continuing to punish Chicagoans by encouraging more illegal migration is a wise and enlightened idea. The anger of those who castigated the Progressives on the City Council for their oblivious arrogance was a clear sign that the winds of change are finally blowing through the streets of this deep blue—and deeply dysfunctional—city. 

One fed-up Chicago Alderman was unsparing in his criticism, boldly stating “What are you scared of? The truth? Are we scared of the truth here? Are we afraid that the people are going to tell us that we are spending money frivolously in this body? Are we afraid that the people are going to tell us that we are headed in the wrong direction? Why are we afraid to let the people speak?” His words might serve as a warning to those who are busily censoring criticism of a variety of damaging left-wing policies that are harming children, families, communities, and our country as a whole: A people besieged will refuse to be silent forever, and their rage will transform America.

Finally, the Leftist fantasy that a sneering disdain for arresting, trying, and incarcerating criminals is a workable method of keeping our streets safe is today dying a very public death in New York City. Having spent the years since the George Floyd riots making it as difficult as possible for the city’s police to protect the public—while inviting in their own tidal wave of illegal immigrants with wildly generous handouts of housing, cell phones, and cash—the Big Apple has become a hellhole for its residents.

Kathy Hochul, the Governor of New York, has just had to send both the National Guard and State Police into the subway system to stem rampant lawlessness that seems more like what one would see in a dystopian movie. Only last week, a passenger slashed the neck of a subway conductor while he was on duty, and multiple shootings, stabbings, robberies, and passengers being shoved from the platforms onto the train tracks over the past couple of years have rattled New Yorkers. Given that the subway system is a critical transportation infrastructure that serves 3 million riders each day, there can be no more apt symbol of the consequences of left-wing law enforcement methods that coddle the criminals and ignore the traumas inflicted on the victims. As has been the case in San Francisco and other cities ruled by far-left Democrats, myopic ideological rigidity regarding law enforcement has led to the spread of chaos that is destroying our urban hubs—and angering their voters.

It is, of course, more than possible that our national awakening has come too late to save us from the accelerating catastrophe of decades of disastrously misguided experiments with bringing the very worst that Marxism has to offer to America, but perhaps we can now lessen the impact with which we are hitting the brick wall of reality. This could, after years of unrelentingly stupid political theories and governance, be the very best we can hope for.