A couple of days ago. CNN’s newest anti-Trump activist, Caitlin Collins appeared on Stephen Colbert’s late night show. She ‘explained’ how Donald Trump is fumbling and struggling with how to attack Kamala Harris, an accomplished black woman. Colbert leaned into her and said, seriously, that “we all know that CNN is objective and just reports the facts.” The audience – a very left-wing Colbert audience – spontaneously burst into loud, extended laughter. Befuddled, Collins asked Colbert if that was supposed to be a laugh line. Chagrined, Colbert told her it was not. In that moment, amidst her befuddlement, I gleaned a flash of raw fear in Collins’ eyes. Well there should be!

The establishment press was all in a panic to discredit Trump’s two and a half hour talk on X Spaces last week. It was nostalgic for me, hearkening back to the sort of respectful, wide-ranging interviews I used to enjoy doing with all manner of public figures. It touched on many matters on which Trump and Elon Musk agreed, some on which they disagreed – and all with good humor and respect. It focused on policy and how to make things work. In a more enlightened time in our history, that was the norm, whatever the format. The press immediately jumped on it as a terrible, rambling, extended rant that revealed the psychosis of both men. Malicious media attacks work best when the same media can suppress the actual words of the person interviewed, only offering brief snippets out of context that can be massaged and mutilated to prop up the regime’s preferred narrative. The problem for the regime media was that 1.3 million people listened to it live; some 248 million listened to the whole thing on tape; and over a billion people listened to it partially. What we heard was two accomplished men having a serious, respectful discussion on social problems and how to solve them to get America back to prosperity and peace. The hysterical, vicious reaction of the press to this calm, respectful discussion did, indeed, reveal the dark psychosis of modern regime media to all those who listened to the actual interview. It confirmed what conservatives have been saying about the gutter press to a whole slew of people who had not seen how bad it really is prior to listening to this interview and how that press reacted to it.

Now you can tell whether the media is interviewing a Republican or a Democrat simply by the questions it asks – without having to hear a word from the subject of the interview. If the question is along the lines of, “Why do you hate (DEI group du jour here) so much?” or “Why are you so evil?” you know they are talking to a Republican. If it is along the lines of “What is your favorite ice cream flavor?” or “Which do you prefer – perky puppies or fluffy kittens?” you know they are talking to a Democrat.

While the media has always leaned left in my lifetime, it began its precipitate descent into raw hack activism in 2008. It chose then to advocate for Barack Obama instead of making any pretense of objectivity. It shamelessly and dishonestly savaged Alaska governor and Veep nominee Sarah Palin. You know the dumb things you remember Palin saying? She didn’t say them. Tina Fey said them in her various SNL parodies of Palin – and the gutter press was happy to let you think Palin had actually said them. I was a permanent panelist on a Sunday night political talk show on WLS, the big talk radio station in Chicago that year. Just about two weeks before the Republican Convention, we were all speculating about who the Veep nominee would be. I spoke up and said I doubted it would happen, but the person most suited for it was the woman who was the (then) unknown governor of Alaska. As the mayor of a small Alaskan town, she had taken on the Republican establishment in the state (which gave us the likes of Lisa Murkowski) and won. Then she took on the oil industry (which thought it was going to roll her) and won. Palin was an accomplished governor AND giant-killer. The press could not have that threat to their precious Obama, so they savaged her. Be honest with yourself: do you still believe this woman was an airhead lightweight? If you do, it is because the gutter press convinced you so. Before they slimed her, she had had nothing but success and promises kept in her entire political career.

After that election I wondered what the press would do to reclaim its veneer of objectivity. It did not even occur to me it wouldn’t even try, for when you become an activist advocate instead of an observer who makes an effort to be objective, you have embarked on the road which leads to irrelevance and ruin. But the media didn’t even try. It had been seduced into thinking it was a great power-broker which could dictate the narrative on behalf of its administrative allies, the Democrats. It’s like drinking nothing but saltwater: it quenches your immediate thirst, while actually dehydrating you, beginning a vicious cycle that ends in your death.

In order to sustain the illusion, the media switched to identity politics, allowing it to pretend any policy criticism of Obama was ‘racist.’ I was flabbergasted. Obama busted way past the barriers that had once led to Richard Nixon’s resignation under threat of impeachment – and the press cheered him on for it. As amazing to me as it seemed, the media had decided to lash itself to the mast of the Democrats’ dinghy, thinking it to be an unsinkable ocean cruiser. Now the ultimate ruin of the modern media was not in question, only its timing – and if it would bail out at the last minute. It just kept doubling down. You can fool people for a while if you are a broadly trusted institution AND if you take care to put a plausible veneer on your fabrications. It still ultimately crashes because, each day you report fabulisms, a few more people who have actual expertise in the subject you lie about awake to the reality you are no longer reliable. When that grows to a certain critical mass, your influence is non-existent and frantic efforts to lie even harder while calling facts, evidence and logic ‘misinformation’ shreds the last tatters of your once-vaunted credibility. The press has now gone full Orwellian to an audience that, even among its ideological allies, can see it clearly. Inflation is NOT prosperity; senseless wars are NOT peace; boys are NOT girls; weaponizing law is NOT justice; and treating enemies as allies and allies as enemies does NOT make for stable diplomacy, no matter how much the gutter press insists upon it. When the old sleight of hand becomes obvious to everyone the magician on the stage is at the end of his career. The media had a choice between trying to be objective observers or becoming political power-brokers. They chose to be power-brokers, instead became obvious hacks – and now are in the final stages of their self-immolation. Whatever else happens this year, the current press – and most of its ‘journalists’ – will not survive. When they sell a fabulism, they are not taking control of the narrative. It is just one of the many death rattles signifying their demise.

This must be a good thing, right? Sure it is – but it is also a deadly dangerous thing. What I say of the press is also true of the Democratic Party. The press is just a bunch of remoras to the shark the Democratic Party has become. The team of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz is the most absurdly ridiculous parody of major party nominees in American history. Despite the desperate symbiosis of the media and Democratic operatives to make this seem like a serious and popular ticket, it is all done with smoke and mirrors, held together by duct tape and paper clips. When you get a glimpse behind the curtain where this is being manufactured you see pretty clearly that there is no there, there.

How long can the illusion be sustained? I think it begins to unravel very hard at what the media will call the “mostly peaceful” Democratic National Convention this week. Trump will start pulling away easily in September – and then dramatically in October. That is when the greatest danger begins – when the Democratic high command realizes that it can’t win and that it won’t be close enough to make another steal remotely plausible.

Modern Democrats have abandoned honor and thrown off all restraints. They effortlessly lie, cheat and steal to hold onto power. They threaten, cancel and jail opponents and dissidents. Do you think there are any limits to what they will do to hold onto power – to abide by a loss so big they can’t steal it? For crying out loud, they have committed a multitude of crimes in their grasp for power, crimes that will not have to be manufactured to send them to prison or worse, many of which rise to the level of treason. This is existential for them. Either they sustain and cement their power, cracking down harder than Stalin if they succeed or they face utter destruction. They will work to provoke violence and crises. They will create false flag events to try to pin on conservatives, Christians, Jews…anyone they can paint as dissidents. Shoot, there is already credible reports that the Biden-Harris administration gave Iran a list of 10 Mossad agents (effectively a death sentence) in a show of “good faith.” American officials deny it, of course. It could be that it did not happen and the Kuwaiti news paper which first gave assurances that it was true to the Muslim world are wrong. But given the many betrayals of Israel by this scarcely-veiled pro-Hamas administration, it certainly is plausible. Antifa-BLM rioters, supplemented by Hamas activists on our college campuses are ready and raring to go. Instead of ramping foreign wars down, the administration and the left will stir the pot. If it all does not unravel before the election, the period between Election Day, Nov. 5, and Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, will be the most dangerous two and a half months in American history. We can’t come out the other side of this dark tunnel the left is taking us into until we fully enter it. The entrance is just ahead.

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I am inundated with people sending me tales of specific provocations the left is preparing to take the country down entirely. Most of them are false; a few are probably accurate; and the truth is I don’t much care whether they are true or not. I have seen how this goes since 1963, when I was seven years old. Whether it is because I have been shown or that I am one of the greatest intuitive geniuses of all time does not much matter. Either way could be God’s way of charting a course.

Along that course, I have misinterpreted more than a few details, but have been dead accurate on the trajectory of it all for 61 years now – 29 of which I can prove with documentary evidence. In a very fundamental way, current events are just a rerun to me – a rerun in which my memory is hazy on details, as if I watched it originally in a semi-slumber, but a rerun, nonetheless. I realize that some details are more frightening and intimidating than others, but most of it is just a satanic distraction to keep you in a tizzy.

I know very well that bad things are happening and worse things are coming. What frustrates me, what sometimes makes me feel like an absolute failure is my marginal ability to get people to understand what is important and vital in the trial that has begun among us from what is extraneous and irrelevant. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate people sending me the fearful stories that shook them. Most of them I had already heard, a few I haven’t, Either way, it gives me a good take on where people are.

There are many sayings that, if fully plumbed, would tell us what to do. Ora et Labora (Pray and Work), from the Rule of St. Benedict is the most concise. St. Padre Pio’s dictum to Pray, Hope, and Don’t Worry is excellent, too. It doesn’t mention the necessity of work, but it does address the human penchant to worry all the time rather than trusting God. Of course, I love my own formulation of Acknowledge God, Take the Next Right Step, and Be a Sign of Hope. It is, unfortunately, not so concise, so usually gets abbreviated to The Next Right Step. That’s good but does not capture the fullness of what I would like ideally. My sentimental favorite is a formulation from my good friend, Jim Graham. His dictum is Pray Up, Git Up, and Saddle Up. That, he assures me, is the Texas version of Acknowledge God, Take the Next Right Step, and Be a Sign of Hope. I love it. In fact, I’m a little jealous of how concise it is.

The point is that we made the mess we are. Yes, the devil has inflamed it, but he would have had nothing to inflame if we had been dutiful about keeping faith. We all made this mess, some by our depravity and vanity, others by our neglect and timidity. Now God the Father stands before us commanding us to clean up our room – and a whole host of people who think themselves Christian – insist we don’t have to do anything but tell Our Father how great He is while waiting for Him to clean our room up for us. When I hear people busily spinning fantasies about how God is going to do everything for us and we just have to trust in Him I sometimes want to pull out what is left of my hair. That’s not trust: it is both presumption AND disobedience. The whole business about Rapture (a 200-year-old doctrine that NO Christian, Catholic or Protestant, believed in or even thought of for the first 1,800 years) or angels taking all us good folk to refuges where we will be cared for while the rest of the world gets smited is just that…mindless, presumptuous fantasies that both deny our responsibility for this mess, presume that we are God’s favored ones, and has a smugness about it that irritates me to no end. That’s all heavy on the Ora part while completely ignoring the Labora part. Do you really think God is going to be impressed that a bunch of people who call themselves His children are a bunch of pleading, mewling brats who won’t even take responsibility for, much less get to work cleaning up, the mess they made? I wish you well but, to be candid with you, if you believe this stuff, I think you are very far from God, indeed. But I also think He is going to puncture all these fantasies to force us to get serious. I pray that when no one is raptured and no angels come to take the good little boys and girls to safety people who read here, instead of going into existential despair, they will just think, “Well, I guess old Charlie was right,” – and then get down to serious work.

We have to trust without being presumptuous. How do we do that? Well, we certainly do not ignore or put ourselves in danger just to show how brave we are. That, too, is vain presumption designed to bolster our already over-inflated egos. But we also do not shrink from doing our duty just because it might involve or bring us near danger. That is an abject failure of trust which masquerades as prudence. We give ourselves over to God, trusting that once we do that, whatever happens to us advances His will and His Kingdom. That does not mean that bad temporal things won’t happen to us. For crying out loud, have you read the Scriptures? The mark of holiness of the saints is how many temporal trials they endured and how often they are martyred. There are people in Scripture who live lives of comfort and ease – but precious few of them are genuinely Godly people. One of the things I am most quietly proud of is that, during the few days three years ago when those closest to me were fearful I was not going to survive, dear Beckita says I told her that, “If God can use me most effectively from the other side, He will take me; if He still has work for me here, He will leave me.” I am proud of it because, in extremis, I lived calmly what I preach. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

I am a cooperator of the prelature of Opus Dei. I’m not a member, but I support the Work and I take advantage and sustenance from their direction. Perhaps the prime charism of Opus Dei is to “sanctify your ordinary work.” I LOVE that. In fact, I think the greatest piety is to be found in the most ordinary circumstances. Real trust is to do your ordinary work with fortitude and fidelity, knowing that God is walking with you. I have walked through the valley of death several times. I never trusted that I would make it to the other side in this world. But I knew God was with me and whatever suffering or triumphs came upon me while I walked with serene confidence were His, useful to Him in building and augmenting His Kingdom. What greater joy can there be than to give yourself to Him with your whole heart, knowing that in doing so, He will use it to bring more men to salvation, that the great family of God will be larger – and so will our circle of friends in Heaven?

Then there are those dullards who think themselves incomparably clever, always using whatever information they can glean to spin plans of their own devising. All purely temporal devisings of man, however prevalent they may seem in a given age, are just a bucket of ashes, destined for the heap of all the ashes that have gone before.

Ora et Labora. Pray and Work. The circumstances you are called to work in are like the weather; sometimes bad, sometimes good, but always transient. God knows what you need – and what He wants from you. Pray, work and don’t worry. (Or, if you’re a Texan, pray up, git up, and saddle up.)

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In just about a month, I will begin my next extended tour. Working from the Manual (I know, I know…as much as you have fretted over it, you have not done so as much as I have. It blossomed up to 230 pages – which is way too long. I want people to read it fully. Ideally, I would like it at 100 pages, but will be content when I whittle it down to 150), the theme will be, “Re-building the City of God.” I will be in the Chicago area for the week of Sept. 14-22, then will make my way east, ending in Maryland in mid-October for a Field Day. Every Field Day we have had has been fantastic: you meet a ton of like-minded people, gain some skills, adding both spiritual and practical fortification to your life. After that, I will spend several weeks in New England (ah, New England in the fall!), then double back to Texas around the first of November, available for events in Texas and Louisiana before heading to Alabama and Georgia at Thanksgiving through New Year, primarily with various family members. Then I will head west (with maybe a few stops in Florida and the Carolinas first and circle all the way up the west coast, then into the upper western states (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming), then down through the Heartland and then back to Colorado in the spring of 2025. If you want to schedule a talk or event contact my scheduler, Gina Waters, at ginaw@coracusa.com. This year, in addition to regular talks, I am glad to speak before substantial organizations that we may trade and share some resources with. With all the growing dysfunction in the world, we need to make strong, productive alliances with each other.

I would note that this trip will extend through the time in which I expect things to completely fall apart. So why am I doing it? I think this is my ordinary work: to defend the faith, hearten the faithful, and defend the faithful. So if I am to live my work with fidelity and fortitude, I must do it. I have no secret plan as to where to be when things fall. I don’t know where I will be when they do. If I did have a secret plan it would only be an addition to that bucket of ashes I was talking about. But God knows where I will be if things fall apart – and what He will want of me. I trust Him to show me in His good time. Meantime I will do my ordinary work with exuberant joy. I don’t trust God to carry out my plan. I trust Him to show me His plan in the moment I need it. And so, I carry on because that is my portion at His table. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

If communication goes out for any length of time, meet outside your local Church at 9 a.m. on Saturday mornings. Tell friends at Church now in case you can’t then. CORAC teams will be out looking for people to gather in and work with.

Find me on Twitter at @JohnstonPilgrim

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