Five Quick Things: Promises, Promises - National Logistics Post

I wrote this one back-to-front, and now I’m all out of words. So call this a cold open.

1. Yes, the Trump Five Grand Rebate Is a Shameless Pander. No, It Won’t Actually Happen. Why Are You So Upset?

Selena Zito — at least I think it was Selena Zito — was the first to suggest that Donald Trump should be taken seriously and not literally. That’s been pretty good advice, because while the Left has made a cottage industry out of chronicling the “lies” he’s told, most of which were exaggerations or imprecise formulations of things that were actually fairly true, by modern presidential standards, Trump has been remarkably honest.

And yes, I know that I am baiting the Democrat trolls in the comments by making that claim. But compared to Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who are the competition for the title of Most Truthful President of the 21st Century, I’ll argue Trump wins going away.

That’s not the point of this item. The point is that when the president told the packed-house crowd at the Republican National Convention in Dallas this week that he’d offer a $5,000 rebate to every American adult if the Republicans win the midterms, he was definitely not telling the truth.

.@POTUS announces the TRUMP DIVIDEND: If Republicans win both the House and the Senate, because of our tremendous economic success, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States for $5,000 pic.twitter.com/s4orJJGx9d

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) September 10, 2026

The usual suspects are apoplectic about this, and if I took it seriously, much less literally, I probably would be as well.

I imagine the basis for this is tariff revenue, and perhaps there’s a projection somewhere that Trump can find a trillion dollars of it to fund those rebates.

But it isn’t going to happen. We all know it won’t. So why is he making this promise?

My take on it when I saw it was that he’s doing a parody of the Democrats — who offer free healthcare, free housing, no more bills (the DSA is literally promising that), welfare for everybody. All they do is make bullshit promises of free swag for the folks. So if I’m Trump, and I think it’s a civilizational mission to keep a gaggle of communists without meaningful work on their resumes from getting power on Capitol Hill and unleashing a level of government dysfunction and foreign intrigue on Washington that might actually be unprecedented, then yeah — I’m going to do and say whatever the hell I need to in order to win. (RELATED: After We Laugh, We Must Treat DSA Program As Deadly Serious)

Does this further that end? It depends on the response.

I’m guessing they’ve calibrated this as bait. The response, other than to call him a liar (which is fair in this case), will be that Democrat plans are sustainable, in that they’ll create programs that benefit people rather than just throwing money out of helicopters.

That’s what I want them to do if I’m Trump. I want them to tout social programs which have proven to be (1) utterly ineffective, (2) full of moral hazard, and (3) ripe for the worst kind of fraud and corruption, so that I can say “forget about creating a welfare state which benefits a bunch of commie activists, I’ll just give you cash you can spend!”

Is that a conservative message? Hell, no. Like I said in yesterday’s column about JD Vance’s plan to revamp that HHS program which gives subsidies for child care, turning at least some of the money into a subsidy for stay-at-home moms (and perhaps some dads), socialism is the status quo and it’s going to take a heavy lift to make it go away, so at this stage of turning the aircraft carrier around perhaps the best option among those that are possible is to drive the Great Society socialist policy in a more pro-traditional family direction. (RELATED: On JD Vance’s Childcare Push)

Another iteration of this concept is school choice. The Left wants to tax you so they can take your kids off your hands and put them into government schools they run, and we see in so many places how well that works. So the conservative alternative isn’t to end “public education,” but rather to draw from that pool of tax money and give you an ESA or tax credit or a voucher that you can use wherever the hell you want. That’s closer to a cash payment/bribe like Trump is talking about, and conservatives are pretty unanimous that we like the idea.

Because we know the money is getting spent on education, and we see what happens to it.

Is this the same thing? Not really, right? It’s new spending, so you can’t equate it to Vance’s proposal or the school choice stuff.

Seen another way, though, if the Democrats got hold of the purse strings, they would easily barf out a trillion dollars in deficit spending, pretending to pay for that with utterly destructive taxes like on unrealized capital gains or on billionaires or on AI or whatever, taxes that would completely gut whatever economic growth might be had in the next couple of years. Sure, Trump would veto all of that, but that’s not the argument we’re making.

What he’s doing is framing the debate in a way he wants. Both parties are lying about the free stuff they’re giving out, but assuming the lies were true, which one would you rather have: something like a deeper dive into Obamacare, which has wrecked the healthcare system and made everything far more expensive, or an expansion of welfare programs which simply bribe more illegals to come here and get on the dole, which gives us more Medicaid and SNAP fraud and “Learing Centers” run by retarded Somali pirates, or a check from your Uncle Donald?

It’s not our favorite flavor of politics. Let there be no doubt about that. But Trump has now already made the most flagrantly false promise of free stuff in this campaign, and I’m not sure what the Left’s counterargument is going to be.

Read more On JD Vance’s Childcare Push

2. The Necessary Men’s Final Episode Pops Tomorrow!

Normally I’d make this Thing #5, but since we’re nine episodes down of The Necessary Men with only one to go — it’ll hit here at the site tomorrow — I thought I’d give it a little extra emphasis.

You guys have been in DMs and emails saying some really nice things about the book and the series, and there have been a few nice bumps for the pre-orders of the book (which can be found here, by the way) since the serialization here at The American Spectator began, so I’m feeling pretty good about where we are with it in advance of September 26.

What’s September 26? Well, that’s the publication date for the Amazon release of the book in Kindle and paperback format. I don’t have a date yet for the audiobook (which I’m going to do as a dramatic reading with a little help from Mike Holman and the other characters, all of whom have their own voices), or the video novel release (I’m working on that project now), but they’ll come soon, and you’ll be able to find both at MikeHolman.com. Those will be fun.

But the book is fun. Lots of fun. And as an American Spectator reader, you can read the entire thing here without having to buy anything (other than a subscription). Just go here, and you’ll find all the episodes of The Necessary Men, not to mention the first three books — King of the Jungle, From Hellmarsh With Love, and Blockbusters.

Is this the best place on the internet, or what?

3. Dallas 2026 Becomes Chicago 1968 (We Wish)

From Nick Sortor’s X account…

🚨 NOW: There’s a full on STANDOFF between Dallas Police and leftist rioters taking over streets outside the RNC

DPD has COMPLETELY blocked their march. Start ROUNDING THEM UP! 🔥 https://t.co/e80NDQSIZL pic.twitter.com/3fHMz1OBwq

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) September 10, 2026

I don’t need to say it. You already know who these people are.

4. This Can’t Be Real, Can It?

A few columns back, I was rather unsparing with the rod in describing just how dirty Wisconsin’s elections are.

Or perhaps I wasn’t. I ran across this on Thursday afternoon…

64,000 mail-in ballots were xeroxed in the back of a conference room during the Milwaukee, Wisconsin 2020 election by Claire Woodall-Vogg, which were all for Joe Biden.

She was then caught on camera at 3:00 am on Nov. 4th uploading the fraudulent tabulated votes on flash drives… pic.twitter.com/PB0IqeG0le

— Deep Leaks (@DeepLeaksHQ) September 10, 2026

No further comment needed, I don’t think. If this is the real thing, Wisconsin might just be the dirtiest place on earth on Election Night.

5. The Gentlemen Delivers, Bigly

If you aren’t a Guy Ritchie fan, as an American Spectator reader, you might consider becoming one. Ritchie is one of the few filmmakers and showrunners out there who don’t succumb to woke insanity, and the stories he tells are utterly fearless, don’t take themselves overly seriously, and usually deliver both memorable dialogue and hard-core action.

That’s particularly true of his latest project, The Gentlemen, the second season of which just dropped on Netflix.

The streaming series is not a continuation of, or even really related to, the movie version, which starred Matthew McConaughey. It’s similar in that it’s set mostly in the U.K., and it’s about an illegal marijuana distributor. But the series version, which stars Theo James — and he’s legendary in this, in the same way Jason Statham was legendary in Snatch at the beginning of Ritchie’s amazing run and Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes as Ritchie really got rolling — is about a British noble who comes home from a stint in military service to find his household in crisis and his good-for-nothing older brother enmeshing the family in a nightmare covered in criminals, debt, and debt to criminals.

In Season 2, James’s character begins to embrace the role circumstances have forced him into — and things take a very dark turn.

If you can deal with some blood and guts, it will suck you in like the best series do.

I’m a nonstop complainer that there is nothing good on TV. I won’t complain about this. It’s my favorite series this year.