Today’s Newsmakers at Noon welcomed Jeff Reynolds, Senior Editor at Restoration News, for a lively conversation about socialism, surveillance, women’s sports and the increasingly strange state of American politics.
We kicked things off with the “brave women”—LOL, née men—former NBA players making a point about women’s sports by presenting themselves as prospective 2027 WNBA draft candidates. It opened a larger conversation about whether mockery and ridicule are sometimes exactly the right response to absurdity, rather than pretending every idea deserves to be treated as reasonable.
From there, we dug into the growing influence of the Democratic Socialists of America. We talked about a pattern among some socialist candidates and activists: privileged or well-connected backgrounds, elite educations, and a quick path into activism or politics without much experience in a typical private-sector job.
The socialist theme continued with Keep Your Commie Hands Off Our Food, prompting a broader discussion about government intervention, central planning and what happens when political ideology increasingly reaches into everyday life.
Then we returned to a subject we’ve been hammering on: the surveillance state. New technology can reportedly connect a person’s cellphone with their license plate, while Flock’s massive network of automated license-plate readers continues raising fundamental questions about privacy. These tools may have legitimate law-enforcement uses, but should the government—or private companies working with government—be able to build enormous databases tracking Americans who aren’t suspected of committing a crime? Public safety matters. So does the Fourth Amendment.
Seattle made the list as well, with a couple seeking to recall Mayor Katie Wilson, arguing she’s simply “not right for the job.” And finally, we asked a question that would have sounded almost ridiculous a generation ago: Is “communist” no longer a slur? As socialism and communism become increasingly normalized in parts of American politics, are Americans forgetting what these ideologies actually produced historically?
It was a wide-ranging hour with Jeff, but the threads connected: freedom, limited government, personal responsibility and how much control Americans are willing to surrender before pushing back.
Your links and hashtags can remain exactly as they were—only the attribution needed correcting.
Links from Today’s Show
- Restoration News
- Democratic Socialists of America: March of the Overeducated Underachievers
- Socialist Candidates and the “Overeducated Underachiever” Question — X
- Keep Your Commie Hands Off Our Food
- New Surveillance Tech Links Your Phone to Your License Plate — Ars Technica
- Flock Cameras vs. Freedom: Welcome to the Warrantless Panopticon
- ‘Not Right for the Job’: Seattle Couple Seeks to Recall Mayor Katie Wilson — KOMO News
- Is ‘Communist’ No Longer a Slur? — American Greatness
