Some names and phrases don’t make a lot of sense. Like the VFW — Veterans of Foreign Wars. Doesn’t that name seem unnecessarily wordy? I mean, other than the Civil War, weren’t all of our wars “foreign” wars?
I’m no historian, but over the past 150 years, I’m pretty sure they all took place in other countries. Right?
“Veterans of Wars.” There: It’s simpler; saves the taxpayers some money. (That’s my cost-cutting contribution to DOGE.)
Other names have obvious meanings, but only after someone points ‘em out. For example, I’m very embarrassed to admit that it took me a ridiculously long time to learn that Biblical names with an “El” sound — Daniel, Michael, Rachel, Samuel — were all derived from the ancient name of our Heavenly Father, El. (And conversely, names like Jezebel are derived from Baal.) It makes sense when you stop and think about it.
It's like the lowercase “n” in the 7-Eleven sign: You usually don’t see it until someone overtly mentions it. But once they do, it’s impossible to ignore.
(And yes, it’s true: All the letters in 7-Eleven are capitalized except the “n” at the end. Go check it out for yourself.)
Then, there are the names and phrases that don’t exist, but probably should. For example, there’s a famous French phrase: “Déjà vu.” It refers to the foreboding sense of familiarity (or even repetition) in utterly unfamiliar settings.
Well, I’d like to introduce a new phrase to our political lexicon: Déjà voodoo. It’s kind of like déjà vu, only it refers to quasi-religious beliefs.
Déjà voodoo (dāZHä ˈvo͞o ˈdo͞o/): The foreboding sense of once again discrediting a cherished article of liberal faith — i.e. the skewering (and barbequing) of leftwing “sacred cows” over an open fire.
President Trump hasn’t even been in office for a month(!); his full cabinet and key personnel still haven’t been confirmed. Yet he’s already marching forward, making mincemeat of his opposition. There’s a newfound efficiency to Trump II’s executive decisions; less waste, fewer missteps, and an unparalleled economy of motion.
Give him credit: Our boy did his homework. This time around, Trump understands how D.C. actually works — and how it doesn’t — and the contrast is astounding.
To paraphrase Yogi Berra, “It’s déjà voodoo all over again.”
All those scared cows are getting pounded into jerky.
Trump dismantled the Biden-Harris fiction of “nothing can be done” by visiting disaster-stricken regions like North Carolina and Los Angeles and actually working with the citizens directly. The mere shadow of his presence was enough to save American hostages in Gaza. His furious, rapid-fire pace contrasted splendidly with Biden’s Roomba-like meandering. From (finally!) releasing the JFK files to challenging birthright citizenship, this has been — by far — the most consequential period of Trump’s presidency.
Best of all, he’s just getting started.
Deportations to Guantanamo Bay. Ending catch-and-release. Finishing the wall. Denying federal money to sanctuary cities. Designating Mexican cartels as foreign terrorists. Forcing Canada and Mexico to send more troops to the border. Withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization. Trashing the DEI’s racist garbage. Repealing Biden’s COVID directives. Redesignating the Houthis as a terrorist organization. Pardoning the Jan. 6 “rioters.”
And we didn’t even get to Greenland, the Panama Canal, or the Gulf of America!
As impressive as all of that was, it doesn’t hold a candle to the next three liberal sacred cows that were just déjà voodoo-ed this week: Trans in women’s sports, government waste (and/or corruption), and Palestinian statehood.
First, women’s sports: Trump didn’t back down from his crazy, radical idea that women’s sports ought to be for women. And in doing so, he claimed the mantle of common sense — and some very famous feminist allies:
Congratulations to every single person on the left who’s been campaigning to destroy women’s and girls’ rights. Without you, there’d be no images like this. pic.twitter.com/mzR7l5k1OW
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) February 6, 2025
Despite the liberal outrage and hysterical, over-the-top gnashing of teeth, the American people mostly nodded in agreement with Trump and Rowling: The rights of a handful of biological men who identify as women shouldn’t supersede the rights of millions of biological women who want to play, compete, and be measured against other biological women. It’s basic Star Trek logic: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
If it makes sense to Spock, it makes sense to us.
Next, Trump unleashed the dogs of DOGE and sic-ed them on government waste. Leftwing stalwarts like Elizabeth Warren began screaming, “No one elected Elon Musk to nothing!”
Which is stupid, of course. Elizabeth Warren received approximately 2 million votes when she ran for reelection, which is why she gets to appoint a staff. Trump received over 77 million votes, so he gets to appoint people, too. It’s not a novel concept.
Appointing people to the federal government is nothing new. Even George Washington did it. All presidents did.
Sen. Warren somehow taught at Harvard Law yet is mystified by how the constitution works. (Or proper grammar.)
The final destruction of liberal orthodoxy was slicing, sauteing, and shish-kabobbing of the sacred cow of Palestinian statehood.
Trump’s offer to take over Gaza, put Americans on the ground, and transform the land into the Riviera was jaw-dropping. It almost certainly won’t happen, which is a good thing: The American appetite for another Middle East (mis)adventure is nonexistent. Even if the ROI was a slam-dunk — which it absolutely isn’t — that’s not a cow anyone wants to eat anymore.
(Got food poisoning the last time we ate there. No interest in dining there again.)
But it does signal the end of the Palestinian statehood myth. As Lee Smith noted in his superb piece, “The End of ‘Palestine’”:
Yesterday, President Donald Trump single-handedly collapsed the most destructive idea of the last hundred years—Palestine. During meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, Trump said he was going to move 1.7 million Palestinians out of Gaza. And just like that, he broke the long spell that had captured generations of world leaders, peace activists, and Middle East terror masters alike, who had paradoxically come to regard the repeated failure and haunting secondary consequences of the idea of joint Arab Muslim and Jewish statehood in the same small piece of land as proof of its necessity.
Where do we go from here? Nobody knows. All crystal balls are cloudy; the future is unclear.
What we do know for certain is this: Because of Trump’s actions, for the first time in a VERY long time, outcomes other than Palestinian statehood are now on the table — including the outcome of banishment.
Smith continued:
Here is the stark reality: Gazans, not just the enlisted members of the Hamas brigades, waged an exterminationist campaign against Israel, and they lost. At virtually any other time in history, save the last 75 years, they would be lucky to lose only territory and not have their legend and language permanently deleted from the book of the living.
Trump’s generous offer to the Gazans therefore signals a return to history, but with a twist. Trump has not only spared them, but vowed to provide them with new lives, better lives, work, new homes, a chance to raise their families in peace, an existence not premised on total and permanent war with a more powerful adversary destined to rout them entirely, and would have already done so if not for the objections of other powerful global players.
It's a bargaining tactic: When the status quo sucks, change the status quo. Not only will you shake up a stalemate and get a better deal, but you get to serve your opponents a healthy helping of crow.
Goes nicely with sacred cow. Yum!
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