I was sad that I was doomed never to have my own doctoral students. God listened and sent me some. In Spain. I will now have to be present at a doctoral dissertation defense at 3 am my time.

My physician tells me I should quit eating. I guess I should also quit sleeping.

So here are the 5 lessons we can learn from Trump’s 2024 campaign.

1. Capacity to change.

Trump took into account everything that had lost him the 2020 election, learned from his mistakes, and changed course. Just one example out of many is that he abandoned his tendency to surround himself with losers and toadies. Instead, he attracted people who are stars in their own right and have their own large following. Musk, RFK, Joe Rogan. Like them or not, it’s undeniable that these are very successful dudes who have millions of fans. I heard Trump’s interview with Musk where Musk was saying things Trump couldn’t possibly agree with and Trump was holding himself in check. He was making a visible effort. And if he can do this at 78, we definitely can do it in our own lives.

Speaking of strong women, Trump handed his campaign and now the position of Chief of Staff to Susie Wiles, who is a very very strong lady. Kamala is a wallflower compared to this bulldozer of a woman.

2. Authenticity.

At every point, Trump is being himself. Again, good or bad, he’s being true to himself. He’s anything but fake, and people respond to that positively.

3. Turning personal flaws into advantages.

Listen to Trump’s account of the garbage truck stunt. He makes fun of his age, clumsiness and girth very openly. It’s impossible to mock a person for being fat when he already joked calmly and confidently about being fat. People like this but only if you do it from the position of strength and not looking for reassurance and compliments.

4. Instinct.

Instinct is a shortened leap of cognition. It’s our survival mechanism. Listen to your instincts, and you’ll be better off for it.

5. Thick skin.

It’s one thing to stand up to a crowd that dislikes you. It’s much harder to say unpleasant things to your supporters. Standing in front of thousands of disappointed, booing anti-vaxxers at a rally and be unfazed, saying that you are proud of the vaccine no matter how much it upsets your most loyal supporters, that’s big. It’s very very hard. I don’t like the vaccine but I admire the capacity to stay true to your beliefs in front of an admiring, disappointed crowd.

I’m going on in 10 minutes to talk about 5 lessons of Trump’s victory:

I will list the 5 lessons in question here later today because this can be useful to everybody.

I committed irregularities to save a colleague’s job. She’s contingent, not on the tenure track, and this is the first stable job she’s had in forever. I really wanted her to have this job because it carries excellent benefits, there’s possibility of promotion, and it’s full-time, unlike the patchwork of crappy part-time gigs she had previously.

I’m saying this openly because all the irregularities I committed were done with the full knowledge and approval of the Dean and the Provost. So that you understand the nature of the irregularities, one of them was the course I taught this summer outside of my discipline. I didn’t do it like it’s supposed to be done according to the official course description. Mind you, I didn’t get paid anything, got no course releases, got nothing at all for teaching it. From my sick bed while wriggling with pain I taught it solely to keep the program alive and save the colleague’s job. These were the irregularities. I did things that I don’t have to for free.

The problem is that this colleague didn’t believe I’m doing all this for free. She thought I was robbing her in some way. I talked to her many times. I explained that I’m not getting compensated in any form. But she clearly didn’t believe me and complained to the union.

Now I’m in trouble but that’s OK. I know I broke the rules and I’m willing to live with the consequences of my actions. That’s not the issue. The reason why I’m really upset is that there’s no possibility of keeping the program alive and keeping this colleague hired if I can’t continue bending these rules. She destroyed her own chance of employment and a stable career until retirement. If she trusted me, she’d be fine. This is weighing heavily on me. That people can just self-sabotage like this. I pray for serenity but it doesn’t come.

A large part of the reason why many Hispanics didn’t vote for Harris is that she’s a woman and she’s black. Pretending that these were not factors that mattered to them makes us Democrats who hide from reality behind words. And I’ve already repudiated being a Democrat.

It’s obnoxious to see people contort themselves into all sorts of shapes to pretend that this was solely based on the Hispanics’ dislike of Harris’s economic policy. Why are we lying to ourselves?

The truth is that the world outside America and Western Europe is a lot less hospitable to women. And it’s really inhospitable to gays. It also recognizes absolutely no historic debt to American blacks.

There is no magic dirt. Nobody becomes feminist, anti-racist and an LGBT+ ally by stepping on American soil. People bring their entire selves when they emigrate. You can either have mass migration or widespread enthusiasm over “the first woman of color president.” You can’t have both. Take your pick and live with the consequences.

Liberals, I am begging you to realize that even in coastal areas large minorities of the people you meet voted for the other guy. You cannot within minutes after meeting a total stranger and with no knowledge of their life or worldview make political statements that assume a liberal audience. It is so completely bizarre and narcissistic that you guys do this and betrays a very weak theory of other minds, besides.

https://x.com/wanyeburkett/status/1854714559895933235?t=MXPXtYVyhjF4T-yA65qihQ&s=19

And on campus! I don’t come up to colleagues who walk around with tragic faces and go, “Hey, so we won, cool, huh? Let’s par-tay, my friend!” No, I’m being sensitive and not assuming that anybody has to share my joy. Why can’t people do me the same courtesy and not approach me with, “So. How are you preparing for life in these fascist United States?” or “you must be so devastated. I can’t imagine how I would feel if I were a woman having to live in Trump’s kingdom.” I don’t want to know what was meant by the latter expression of support but eww, people. Many assumptions there, and they are all distasteful.

Muslim mobs in Amsterdam are hunting Jews tonight. I wish this was fiction. It’s not.

https://x.com/NiohBerg/status/1854691650427105725?t=T8hInt6eybVPsdcx3os5BA&s=19

The videos are shocking. While we are hearing endless prattle about imaginary fascism in America, actual fascism has been unleashed on Europe by the vapid self-hatred of Europeans themselves.

My favorite Ukrainian show invited a Newsweek journalist from the US to talk about Trump’s victory. He’s a sweet dude but an absolute far-left drone. He started doing the standard leftoid narrative about how Trump is Hitler and is about to hitlerize America in the most Hitlerian manner. There was a spirited discussion on the subscriber channel while he was talking, and people started to demand that I go on instead. The host interrupted the sweet leftoid dude and began to reassure the viewers that I’ll be there soon. It was very flattering. And also it was great to see that Ukrainian viewers won’t be duped.

Of course, the sweet leftoid dude raised every Ukrainian hackle by sitting in front of a poster that contains the famous Ukrainian saying, “Russian warship, go fuck yourself.” This is a phrase that valiant Ukrainian soldiers said to the overwhelming forces of the enemy when Russians told them to surrender. To us, it’s a reminder of what human bravery can be. And get this. The sweet leftoid dude CENSORED the last words of the brave Ukrainian warriors. He censored them. Instead of “go fuck yourself”, he put “go to the bottom of the sea.” [It’s all in Russian, and I’m translating it]. Thankfully, he didn’t change it to “Russian warship go do your anti-racist training” but give him time and he will.

This is the entire problem of the Left in a nutshell. They mean well. But they are so convinced of their moral superiority that it doesn’t begin to occur to them that their imperiousness bugs people. The same people who berate us endlessly for mispronouncing Kamala’s name think it’s perfectly fine to edit the words of our heroes whose bravery they can’t to comprehend, let alone imitate.

I thought nothing about the fact that North Korea joined the war in Europe could be funny. But then I saw this:

Jokes aside, North Koreans are killing Europeans, and we have been so brainwashed that we don’t even notice how wrong it is. President Biden refused to grant Ukraine the permission to strike the military bases in Russia where North Korean troops were warehoused and trained.

Bernie Sanders suddenly woke up and noticed reality:

It’s strange he’s only figuring this out now, after spending two election cycles pandering to his party’s race-baiting and DEI-mongering with every ounce of his energy.

Yes, Democrats became the party of wealthy primadonnas who despise the working classes. This happened twenty years ago and has only been getting worse. It’s now a party that calls working people nasty names for not wanting to refer to themselves as Latinxs and not believing in pronouns. It’s a party where multi-millionaires weep about how they are victimized by the proles whose skin color somehow makes them unfairly advantaged. It’s a party whose official line is that squirrels, water and butter are racist. Is it surprising that people are abandoning it in droves after hearing nothing but humiliating, hectoring, guilt-inducing rants for years?

So yes, hi, Bernie. Good to see you’ve come out of your hibernation but it’s a little too late.