The Last Great Season of America's Pastime

By Troy M. Olson

Today it is quite clear that other sports, namely football for sure, have surpassed baseball for the number one spot in the hearts and minds of everyday Americans. 

1991 was the last great season of America's pastime. 

Now, before I get trashed on this, hear me out. At the beginning of the last decade of the 20th century, you could still make a case for baseball as America's most popular sport, even though, throughout the 1970s and 80s, it had lost considerable ground to football. Today, you can make no such case. Baseball is no longer America's pastime, as football occupies that place today, except of course in my heart and the hearts and minds of many old souls throughout this country and beyond. 

Central to this 1991 thesis is what happens after. The 1994 strike puts baseball on a trajectory it never quite recovers from, and the two seasons in between were championships won by a Canadian team, the Toronto Blue Jays. No offense to our neighbors from the north of course, but nothing quite matches the storylines, the Americana of the times, and the fundamental greatness that was the 1991 season, capped off by one of the greatest if not the greatest World Series ever played, featuring two worst-to-first teams in the Minnesota Twins vs. the Atlanta Braves. But let's start with the season itself.

1991 featured what was easily Cal Ripken Jr.'s best season. Baseball's future Iron Man was in the middle of his consecutive-games-played streak that would one day see him pass Yankee legend Lou Gehrig, and on the field he was basically perfect. A gold glove (awarded to the best defender at each position), a silver slugger (awarded to the slugger at each position), an All Star, a second Most Valuable Player award, and a batting line of .323/.374/.566 (BA/OBP/SLG) with 34 home runs, and 114 runs batted in. This season would be impressive at any place on the diamond, but to do it at shortstop, catcher, or even center field is rarified greatness. 

In addition to Ripken Jr.'s best season of a Hall of Fame career, another Hall of Famer, Ricky Henderson, while playing for the Oakland Athletics, broke Lou Brock's career stolen base record in the month of May. Nolan Ryan, now in his 40s, would also record his seventh career no-hitter in May. For the year, there were seven no-hitters overall. Ryan's seventh no-hitter came while playing for the Texas Rangers, who in 1991 were partially owned by George W. Bush. 

In sports media, if you had cable, you could catch Major League Baseball four nights a week, otherwise CBS would cover it on Saturday afternoons. In April, the MLB required all teams wear American and Canadian flag decals in honor of those who served in Operation Desert Storm. Operation Desert Storm is to this day the last ticker tape parade honoring the military down Broadway in New York City. 

Only four teams made the playoffs (compared to the twelve today), making the regular season pennant and flag chases more impactful. Of baseball's four pennant or division flag chases, the National League West went down to the wire between the Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers. Of note in the American League West, every single team posted a .500 record or above, with just 14 games separating first to worst. 

Of the top ten highest payrolls in baseball, only one team reached 90 wins, and none of them made the playoffs. In fact, the World Series would feature two middle-market salaried teams who had just come off last place seasons from 1990 and who were not predicted to finish any higher than 5th in their respective divisions. 

And now onto that World Series. Arguably the greatest ever. The National League champion Braves, who needed nearly all of the schedule's 162 games to prevail over the Dodgers, needed all seven games of the National League Championship Series to dispatch the Pittsburgh Pirates, who had the best record in all of baseball over the regular season and featured stars like Barry Bonds in his athletic prime, Bobby Bonilla, Andy Van Slyke, Doug Drabek, and John Smiley. 

The second best record in baseball, the Minnesota Twins, outlasted the Chicago White Sox, a hot start from the partially-owned by George W. Bush Texas Rangers, and the three-time defending American League Champion Oakland A's to capture the very competitive AL West flag by eight games and then dispatched the AL East champion Toronto Blue Jays in five games in the best-of-seven American League Championship Series. 

This set up a worst-to-first World Series clash between the Twins and the Braves. Two very evenly matched teams whose history and future diverged greatly before and after but met perfectly in a World Series that went to all seven games, featured five games won by just one run, four games won in the last at bat (Games 3, 4, 6, and 7), and three games that were won in extra innings (Games 3, 6, and 7).

But it was the lore and baseball magic that elevated the Series and the '91 season beyond the stat sheet. After a Game One win at home, the Twins extended their 6-1 home World Series record dating back to 1987 to 7-1. An early two-run homer by Designated Hitter Chili Davis, a free agent signing that some in the league had written off as "past his prime" added to his 29 regular season Home Runs with a blast that put the Twins ahead. But it was this leg tag on Ron Gant from hometown Minnesota first baseman Kent Hrbek that grabbed the headlines in Game Two, and elicited boos from the Atlanta faithful when he was introduced in Game Three, to the happy warrior hat tip quote of: "I love it." 

Game Two ended with another save from the Twins stalwart closer Rick Aguilera, picked up in the Frank Viola trade between the Twins and the Mets that along the 1987 core, helped power the Twins to a fast rebound and second World Series appearance in five years. Yet, with the game in doubt and tied 2-2 in the bottom of the eighth, it was a platoon third baseman Scott Leius from Mamaroneck, NY in Westchester County who hit a home run that would be the deciding run. Leius had just five home runs all season. 

Over the next three games in Atlanta, with their backs against the wall just like it had been vs. the Dodgers during the regular season and down 3 games to 2 against the 98-win Pirates, the Braves came roaring back led by unsung heroes like Leius. There was ninth place light hitting second baseman Mark Lemke who hit three triples, a pinch hitter with fifteen at bats all year, and veteran Lonnie Smith, who hit a home run in games 3, 4, and 5. Smith had just seven home runs all season. 

Games Three and Four went down to the wire, their outcome in doubt until the absolute end. Game three stretched on for 12 innings and exhausted both bullpens. Arguably, this was crucial for the Braves as the Twins bullpen had been on an incredible streak of pitching all throughout the playoffs. To not only win game three but to win it while exhausting this strength helped even the score, and in Game Five, the Braves looked primed for their first World Series title in Atlanta, winning 14-5 and crushing the once unbeatable Twins bullpen. 

Coming back to the Metrodome in the Twin Cities down three games to two, the Twins future Hall of Fame CF Kirby Puckett was a calm and cool customer: "get on my back boys I'm going to carry us today."

In Game Six, Puckett did just that. For the game he batted 3 for 4, with a single, triple, home run, and three of the home team's four runs batted in. Highlighted in the lithograph above, is his super human catch in the third inning trailing backward into the left center field plexiglass wall where his stocky 5 foot 8 inch frame jumped above what seemed possible. In the biggest games, legends meet the moment. This would have been enough to solidify his Hall of Fame credentials, but Kirby was not done. Puckett, who grew up with many siblings in Chicago housing projects and lost his father before he ever stepped foot on a Major or Minor League baseball field, led off the bottom of the eleventh inning, yet another extra inning game. With the count at 2 balls and 1 strike, he sent an already all-time World Series to its seventh and decisive game. 

In Game Seven, the veteran ace of the Minnesota Twins Jack Morris, another hometown player signed as a free agent in the offseason, also met the moment. Morris was on one end of his career and the boy that grew up a Detroit Tiger fan who idolized him, John Smoltz, was another. Before the seventh game Twins manager remarked that: "It's a storybook World Series, what's going to happen in Game 7, Chapter 7? Oh my, God, I can't wait. Can you believe this? Going on like this? Unbelievable."

Both Jack Morris and John Smoltz would take their own interesting and winding paths to Cooperstown, baseball's Hall of Fame. On this day, both veteran and youngster were perfect. Not perfect in a literal sense, but in a story sense. Each team got their hits here and there, had base runners on. But neither Morris nor Smoltz would let in a run. For seven innings it went on like this. A 0-0 tie in Game 7 of the World Series, the last game of the year. 

In the eighth inning, fans from both teams would age and smoke in an era where smoke still filled bowling alleys and bars. For the top of the 8th, the Braves had a man on first and hit a double to the gap. 99 times out of 100 this would be a run scoring play. But not this day. 

Greg Gagne, one of the best defensive shortstops in the American League, and Chuck Knoblauch, Rookie of the Year in 1991, pantomimed a fake out double play, which makes utterly no sense if the ball is hit with authority toward the left-center field gap, but the confusion and the roar of the crowd caused Lonnie Smith to hold up for just a moment, just long enough for the relay throw to get in and keep him from scoring. 

Baseball is a game most like chess, not checkers after all. The love and appreciation of it escapes the instant gratification of much of modern culture.  

No big deal. With runners on second and third and nobody out, surely the Braves will still get a run across. It was their most serious threat of the day. After one out though, and a mound visit later from Twins manager Tom Kelly where legend has it Jack Morris said, or was thinking: "I'm going to kill you if you take me out!" 

In 2026, every manager would take out the starter in this situation and bring in the bullpen to finish up the game. But Kelly just came up and said to Morris that they should walk this guy to load the bases and set up the double play at every base. Baseball is a game most like chess, not checkers after all. The love and appreciation of it escapes the instant gratification of much of modern culture.  

Morris intentionally walked to load the bases, and then a ground ball double play followed. 

In the bottom of the eighth the script got reversed. It was the Twins with the threat, and as the home team, the World Series looked almost over. Like so many times throughout the previous 24 hours or so, the World Series was once again on the line... and once again, a line out unassisted double play ended the threat. Both Cinderella teams escaped the eighth inning unscathed, and lived to fight another inning. Unlike the Twins with Morris, the Braves took out the young Smoltz and turned to their bullpen. 

Morris stayed in for the ninth inning. And then he stayed in for the tenth. If history called for it, he would have went back out for the eleventh. 

Finally, in the bottom of the tenth the Twins leadoff man, and for years after their radio announcer, Dan Gladden, led off the inning with a broken bat shallow outfield hit that for most people would be a lead off single. But Dan Gladden hadn't stayed in the majors because of his power or any of the obvious star qualities. Tom Kelly would write his name into left field because he hustled and played the game hard. At the crack of the broken bat, Gladden hustled out of the box, after a lingering bounce on the Metrodome turf, Gladden rounded first and headed hard into second, sliding just under the tag. The relay throw to second was just a split second too late. The Twins had another threat going and only needed one run. 

Like for both teams in the eighth inning, where one run wins it, the Braves decided to walk two of the Twins best players after a strategically solid bunt from Knoblauch traded and the first out for a base. Gladden was now at third and all Puckett needed to do was hit hard somewhere or hit it far, even if up high. Puckett was intentionally walked, and so was Kent Hrbek. Tom Kelly went to his bench for the pinch hitting Gene Larkin, a Columbia alumni who when he did play played would often play first base like then President George H.W. Bush did when he was at Yale playing in the College World Series in the years after the War. The Ivy Leagues rarely produce professional baseball players, certainly not at the rate they produce presidents. 

All Larkin had to do was hit the ball high and far somewhere and the Twins would win the World Series. The announcers knew this. The Braves pulled in their infield, and outfield, hoping for another eighth inning type end to the threat. On the first pitch Larkin hit what in any other circumstance would have been a long fly ball out. It was solid contact to be sure, yet it was a hit that belongs to the many camped under fly balls that you'll see throughout a long season.

But the Boys of Summer in America's last great season of baseball had come to the final play. And what was usually routine, instead ended the only Game Seven in World Series history that ended 1-0 where the winning pitcher went the distance, and the game ended with a walk off at home. 

The Twins had won the World Series for the second time in five years.

When I was a boy, I had such a narrow perspective of the world and my surroundings that I thought this moment was routine, as routine as that last game winning hit would have been. Since it had happened two times already in my young life, I thought it was a regular thing that my favorite team would win the World Series, and took for granted and assumed, the American love affair with baseball. Yet it has now been thirty-five years since the Twins last won the World Series, and with each passing year its getting harder and harder to make the case that America's pastime is still even that pastime, let along one of the most popular sports. 

Hit by the 1994 strike, the steroids scandal, a flirtation with possible contraction of teams, including my beloved Twins, and the advent of the Internet and de facto end to the mono-culture, to be replaced by silos upon silos of micro-cultures going from fix to fix, headline to headline, doom scroll to doom scroll. 

The ratings for Game 7 in 1991 were 50 million viewers. By 1997 it was already down to 37 million. 

Today it is quite clear that other sports, namely football for sure, have surpassed baseball for the number one spot in the hearts and minds of everyday Americans. 

But in 1991 it didn't matter, and you couldn't see it. Unless you're Pat Buchanan, you couldn't see a lot of things. 

Excerpt from President George H.W. Bush's White House speech welcoming the World Series Champion Minnesota Twins...

Let me welcome the authors of "That Championship Season," the 1991 Minnesota Twins, a team that helped deepen America's love affair with baseball. It is absolutely wonderful what this ball club did for sports and for the spirit in our country. You showed why baseball is the most democratic of sports. It's also the most Republican of sports. [Laughter] But whether in the major leagues or Little League, what counts is the size of your heart and your dreams.

And in 1990, I don't want to remind them of this, they didn't have their best year. They came in last in the West, American League West. And this year, they rose like Lazarus to win their division, beat Toronto in the playoffs, and then came the 88th World Series. And what a series it was: Five games decided by a single run; three went extra innings; five games won in the last inning, and four in the last at-bat. It was a series of indescribable tension, a Fall Classic for all time.

...

"It's unfortunate that anyone had to lose this series because this was a true classic in every sense of the word." So each of you made this a kaleidoscope of beauty. Each showed why millions of Americans watch baseball, listen to, read about, debate it, and why for a few golden days each October, each of us becomes a self-anointed expert.

And that wonderful friend, Fay's friend and I'm proud to say mine, the late Bart Giamatti, once wrote that baseball is designed to break your heart. True. But it also lifts as perhaps no sport can. So I really, thank you guys for the memories, for coming to the White House on this spectacular day, for giving our country a wonderful lift.                                      

President George H.W. Bush, the last GI / Greatest Generation President, coming off of a victorious triumph of the end of the Cold War and largest coalition victory in history in the Persian Gulf War, was ushered out of office by 1992, with similar consideration and speed as we have toward many things today. 1992 was the beginning of the Baby Boomer arc of leadership that is reaching a similar end point today, yet it is hard to see how a year like 1991 shows up today or tomorrow, whether on the ball field or elsewhere. 

I'll end what is an admittedly longer article for The Frank Forum with a quote from George Will's book Men at Work: the Craft of Baseball:

"Baseball, more than any other sport, is enjoyed by the knowledgeable. The pleasures it gives to fans are proportional to the fans' sense of history."

I can think of a few things this applies to beyond baseball right now.

Troy M. Olson is an Army Veteran, lawyer by training, and co-author of 'The Emerging Populist Majority' available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Target. He is the Sergeant-at-Arms of the New York Young Republican Club and co-founder of its Veterans Caucus. He has appeared on CNN, CBS, and OAN. He lives in New York City with his wife and two children, and is the 3rd Vice Commander ("Americanism" pillar) of the first new American Legion Post in the city in years, Post 917. You can follow him on X/Twitter and Substack at @TroyMOlson

How My 5th Grade Teacher Taught Me To Love America

By Troy M. Olson

As parents, we are tasked with the moral education and development of our children. We are also tasked with the patriotic education and development of our children.

As America celebrates its semiquincentennial - 250 years out from the Declaration of Independence in 1776, a momentous occasion that altered not just the fate of the new world but the arc of human civilization - it's important to know the whole story beyond just our own individual and familial connection to the nation.  

When I was a kid, the Fourth of July was more majestic than Christmas. That’s hard to do for kids. It could have been a number of things: the weather; Minnesota’s (over) 10,000 lakes in all their glory; the extended family gathering, including living relatives of the Greatest Generation; ice cream and fireworks; baseball and the boys of summer; and so much more. 

Even before I knew the story of the founding, I was drawn to the feeling and ambiance of Independence Day.

And heaven knows I devoured every square inch of this set…

World Book encyclopedias from 1991

But, it was the 5th grade, in Mr. Sprafka’s social studies and history class, when I truly began to fall in love with America and the American story. 

Mr. Sprafka and his family lived in a historic home in my small town. Multiple generations living in the same well-kept home is a rarity in the Midwest. The long and harsh winters tend to do a number on houses and maintenance, and whatever the winters don’t do the realities of the ever upward real estate market do the rest. 

When I was eleven years old, though, what I saw was an interesting man who had traveled the world, lived in the most architecturally interesting home in my view, teaching me for the first time the Great American Story, from front to back. The highlight of that story was the American Revolution and its lead up. America was a story of heroes and resilience. Even though my family, like most families, did not enter the picture until decades later, all those who love America and the American people will have their chapter to add. And those chapters gain their inspiration from what came before it - this is our national inheritance.  

Just like much of youth, what I remember most was the enthusiasm and energy from the teacher, which transfers far more than the dates, facts, and figures ever can. It was the patriotic equivalent of the active presence of your parents being there: you don’t remember the details anymore, but you remember how you felt about it.

This summer we must transfer more than just good American vibes, and do more than grumble over the growing discord and differences among groups in the pride of being an American. 

We must find tens of thousands of Mr. Sprafkas from coast to coast to teach children about the Great American Story, and we must tell that story to our own children. As parents, we are tasked with the moral education and development of our children. We are also tasked with the patriotic education and development of our children. This does not mean we must know all of these things, but we must connect them with those who can do what we cannot.   

And I just hope that we all know someone in our life who can competently and effectively tell this great story of America, because transferring that at a pivotal young age may be the difference between whether 250 years reaches 300 years, 350 years, and so on. Because, if every American took Mr. Sprafka’s 5th grade history class and learned the story from him, not only would the kids be alright, but we’d have more adults in the room by now as well.  

Troy M. Olson is an Army Veteran, lawyer by training, and co-author of 'The Emerging Populist Majority' available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Target. He is the Sergeant-at-Arms of the New York Young Republican Club and co-founder of its Veterans Caucus. He has appeared on CNN, CBS, and OAN. He lives in New York City with his wife and two children, and is the 3rd Vice Commander ("Americanism" pillar) of the first new American Legion Post in the city in years, Post 917. You can follow him on X/Twitter and Substack at @TroyMOlson

Did Someone Say... New Podcast?

 

By Frank Filocomo and Troy M. Olson

We don't always post on Tuesdays, but when we do, it's because episode one of The Frank Forum podcast is now live on YouTube! 

That was a Dos Equis reference, for those who remember the meme. Perhaps I'm dating myself a bit here...

Anyway, you heard right: every other week - or fortnightly, if you're a logophile like me - we'll be posting an episode of our brand spanking new audio/visual podcast.

I know what you're thinking: "Oh great, another podcast! We need that like a hole in the head!" Well, listen: This one's different. We swear!

Troy and I recognize that "the I needs the We to be." In other words, Americans are all so desperately lonely, and both Right and Left manifestations of liberalism have left much to be desired. Namely, purpose and belonging. 

We'll discuss how we introduce the "We" back into a culture that has so gratuitously overemphasized "Me, Me, Me." 

We hope you'll join us on this communitarian journey. 

And thank you to the fine lads at the New York Young Republican Club for giving us a platform to conduct this podcast. 

Find episode one here:

Field of Dreams Is a Conservative Film, Actually

By Troy M. Olson

What true American wouldn't want to play catch one more time with their father?

"I experienced the sixties."

"No, I think you had two fifties and went right on into the seventies." 

This exchange during a school board meeting between Annie Kinsella, the wife of protagonist Ray Kinsella, and a woman intent on the removal of books from an Iowa public school district, and much of the plot of 1989's Field of Dreams, is meant to put the 1960s generation on a pedestal of moral righteousness. I do not fundamentally disagree with this take recently from Jack Posobiec about its intent. 

Field of Dreams was written for former 60s radicals to tell themselves how great they are even though they sold out. Love the baseball parts but the rest of the plot is so self-serving and dumb

— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) May 14, 2026

However, like with 1994's Forrest Gump, one of my favorite genres is the "accidental conservative or traditional values" film. 

Yes, the film was written by a radical or from the ranks of Hollywood's liberal class, yet its conclusion, themes, and takeaways end up being decidedly conservative, whether they were going for that or not. 

The fundamental conservative values of the sport of baseball have been well established by conservative commentators like George Will. I don't have to rehash them here. But the rest of the plot and scenery of Field of Dreams is very hippie, radical, and steeped in 1960's main character lore. 

"Oh my God! You're from the sixties."  For every reference, there is a derisive comment about the decade that follows. There is a disillusionment that has set in to the decade's true believers that I predict will soon happen with many of the fellow travelers of our current era. 

The 1960s radical son who wouldn't have a catch with his father merely serves as a precursor to the magic flight that takes shape at the end of the story. The son does play catch and reconcile with his father, and even gets to do it when they are both young. 

The reclusive writer, Terence Mann, a loosely-based stand-in for the real life-J.D. Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye), takes a magic flight of his own by seeing exactly what Ray and his family get to see, the baseball players from the past like Shoeless Joe Jackson playing right before them. His dream is presumably fulfilled just as the people are coming to the middle American farm in Iowa and the end credits are rolling, as he is off-screen eating popcorn next to Shoeless Joe and watching the Brooklyn Dodgers play at Ebbets Field. 

Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams

Then there is Moonlight Graham, the small-town Chisholm, Minnesota doctor who told Ray, and the audience, that if he had only gotten to be "a doctor for five minutes, now that would've been a tragedy." When this film was released, free agent salaries in baseball were beginning to truly explode, and we were just a half-a-decade away from the 1994 players strike which drove a dagger through the heart of America's pastime. The message: being a small-town doctor with generosity of spirit is greater than having an extensive page on baseball reference. 

Then there is even the closest thing the story has to an antagonist. The brother-in-law who represents the interests of the bank and wants to foreclose on the loan and therefore, end the field of dreams. By the end, he too can see the players. This is a story about belief, about familial and spiritual reconciliation 

The film is littered with conservative and return-to-tradition messages in the end, and the hippie wife Annie is increasingly losing the argument today against the big meanie conservative school board activist in the public imagination. America doesn't want to ban The Boat Rocker, it just questions whether explicit and sexual material should be available in a K-12 school. Considering America's so-called "banned book list" is entirely made up of the most available books ever, more and more people are catching on to this sort of gaslighting. 

Field of Dreams, Forrest Gump, and a whole host of films made in the late 1980s and first half of the 1990s all have one thing in common: these conservative-in-message films written by Hollywood liberals were being made when the baton of leadership in the culture was transitioning from the Greatest Generation to the Baby Boomers. 

In the next decade or so, a similar transition will be taking place from Baby Boomers to Millennials and the surrounding generations. It has already started, but it will accelerate. 

Understandably, right now the culture is not too kind to the legacy of the baby boomers, but for the elders, the children, and the squeezed and stressed out generations in between, I hope the rising political coalition and rising generation takes a long hard look every spring and summer at the true message behind this 1989 classic rather than writing it off. And I hope we make some new Capra-esque magic of our own, because our culture sure could use it.

Whether we agree or get along or not, what true American wouldn't want to play catch one more time with their father? And even if you cannot or do not, you can always revisit the times you did through the magic flight of America's great game of baseball.

Troy M. Olson is an Army Veteran, lawyer by training, and co-author of ‘The Emerging Populist Majority’ available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Target. He is the Sergeant-at-Arms of the New York Young Republican Club and co-founder of its Veterans Caucus. He has appeared on CNN, CBS, and OAN. He lives in New York City with his wife and son, and is the 3rd Vice Commander (“Americanism” pillar) of the first new American Legion Post in the city in years, Post 917. You can follow him on X/Twitter and Substack at @TroyMOlson

Elaine Benes Was Right

Elaine Benes in Seinfeld

By Troy M. Olson

Elaine Benes was right: "Quit telling your stupid story about the stupid desert!" 

In a famous episode of Seinfeld (aren't they all?), Elaine put her job on the line over her intense dislike of the 1996 Oscar-winner, The English Patient. Over the past few weeks, it's been easy to mock how irrelevant the Oscars and Hollywood in general have become, but a look back on the values of this Best Picture winner made in 1996 shows how far removed from old fashioned American values we already were then. 

It doesn't matter that the film was a period piece set in the years leading up to the Second World War until its end, the values of it are decidedly the era of egocentric "end of history" analysis that brainwashed a few generations into thinking that globalization was an inevitable weather pattern, there was nothing we could do about it, and not to worry because it's overwhelmingly good.

1990s America (Hollywood) - maybe the last successful decade we've had, where community and family and the overall trajectory of the country still felt secure - awarded this as its Best Picture of the Year that had the benefit of hindsight while promoting values far removed from the values that won the Second World War. 

Now consider a great film: Casablanca - made at the height of that war, when its outcome was still very much in doubt - is told with a confidence and value-set that almost assumes its victorious outcome. Premiering in late-1942, what makes the film particularly remarkable is that it was considered an ordinary assembly-line Hollywood picture of its day, despite its A-list stars. 

Casablanca (1942)

Rick Blaine is a quintessential American original whereas "The English Patient" (who is Hungarian), László Almásy, is a "citizen of the world." 

One of the film's most memorable lines is: "We are the real countries, not the boundaries drawn on maps with the names of powerful men." That is not a line born out of shared sacrifices abroad and Rosie the Riveter and silent, stoic, and resilient children at home. That is the dialogue not of the 1940s values, but of the 1990s where globalization is eternal and final, tech optimism reigned, and we'd probably never have a major war again... or something. 

The romance that is central to both films is told mostly or entirely through backstory, and again settles on radically different conclusions. 

Blaine's individualistic streak is evident throughout the film, yet by the end he arrives at the honorable end that serves the war effort. The culture churned out those ethics, built on community and obligation, which allowed its ordered liberty and individualism to strengthen the civics of a nation, whether through the little platoons of Tocquevillian democracy, or through the cultural ethos that produced so much greatness that it overcame flaws without coming undone. Rick Blaine was admirable because he was selfless in the end.

Rick Blaine was admirable because he was selfless in the end.

Whereas Almásy sells out his country and his friends in pursuit of "love," which is really just an infatuation with a married woman. 

With its glorious shots of the desert and sweeping romantic score, there is no doubt that The English Patient is technically impressive and designed to win you over, not just cinematically, but in its values, too. 

This, too, is another area where Casablanca triumphs, which ends in sacrifice for something greater than yourself for many of its characters, not just the lead. This is what the ethos of globalization infecting the 1996-made period piece gets wrong. It is the people within the countries, the families and communities and nations that make up those boundaries and lines on a map if you're doing it right. It is the social trust and sense of mutual obligation we have to another that counts at history's pivotal moments. And whether we are at one such moment or not, stop telling your stupid story about the stupid desert indeed, and let's get on with rebuilding our social trust and sense of mutual obligation to one another, and eschew the rootless and unmoored society of users, strangers, and libertines.

Troy M. Olson is an Army Veteran, lawyer by training, and co-author of ‘The Emerging Populist Majority’ available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Target. He is the Sergeant-at-Arms of the New York Young Republican Club and co-founder of its Veterans Caucus. He has appeared on CNN, CBS, and OAN. He lives in New York City with his wife and two children, and is the 3rd Vice Commander (“Americanism” pillar) of the first new American Legion Post in the city in years, Post 917. You can follow him on X/Twitter and Substack at @TroyMOlson

Can Father Even Know Best Anymore?

By Troy M. Olson

The country needs more children. If we have them, we'll end up alright. 

"I tried hard to have a father but instead, I had a dad." - Kurt Cobain lyrics from "Serve the Servants" on Nirvana's final studio album, In Utero.

I've always taken this lyric to be a line about Kurt Cobain's contentious relationship with his dad. Like so many in Gen X, Cobain was a child of divorced parents. His cohort was the first to experience the consequences of the liberalization of family law in the 1960s and 1970s. This line has long had me thinking about the genuine differences between being a father and being a dad. And, aside from mere preference and semantics, I think there is a difference. 

The Cool Dad vs. Fatherhood 

Around the time elder-Millennials were little kids, all of the cultural and family programming in our society moved from the fatherhood example best displayed in the classic TV shows, Father Knows Best, Leave It To Beaver, and The Andy Griffith Show, to shows that cast the father as incompetent and foolish at worst, and trying hard to be young, cool, and relatable at best. 

Beyond that, it became cool to mock the prior model as well as the decade it was most associated with: the 1950s. Now, I have long been a defender of the 1950s and written about that often, but I haven't focused in on what has long been in my head. 

Civilization needs strong fathers again. Not dads. We need moral lessons, wholesomeness, and fathers more interested in preparing their children for the world than being their best friend. 

A dad that is your friend, he may spend time with you, he may even coach your little league team, and there is something to be said about this model, but two straight generations of "cool dads" are not cutting it. The Millennials have been slow to grow up and now Gen Z (predominately the children raised by Gen X) is. 

What are we returning to, and why should we return to it? We're returning to father knows best. Why? Because society needs it and today's social and family statistics will tell us that new parents are older and older anyway, making the "cool dad" model more obsolete, and possibly ridiculous. 

While on pro-natalist and national renewal grounds we should be very concerned about declining birth rates, there are some silver linings to older parentage. We have seen this before.

Older Greatest Generation Parents

There are only two ways to mature in life: packing in the years gradually, or packing in the experiences into a small number of years. The Greatest Generation had both of these features. Coming of age during the Great Depression and a World War, the generation both had to grow up fast and because of what was going on in the world delayed forming families, especially relative to the era. 

Many returning GIs were well into their 30s before they became parents. My grandfathers, for instance, both WWII veterans, had seven children in their 30s and 40s between them. They had the life experiences and the necessary perspective that each generation since simply doesn't have. Not even close. 

Younger Boomer Parents

A critique of what in my view is clearly the greatest generation may be, well... they raised the Boomers. How good of parents could they have possibly been? One, Boomers were set up incredibly well by their parents both from a familial perspective and a societal one. While the 1960s opened up considerable cultural rifts between who would be the elder-Boomers and their GI generation parents and elders, it is hard to find a Boomer that would have a critical word to say about this generation. Two, Boomers were the first generation to be mass marketed as a generation at all. In both childhood terms, and mass marketing terms. While their slightly older Silents were the beginnings of youth culture, Boomers got it fully and then began driving the culture and writing all of the narratives that are still with us today. 

Boomers were also able to get married and have children in their 20s in ways their parents, and now their children, were not able to. It set them up for a long retirement, or at least a long post-raising their children period that has driven spending in the economy for quite some time, especially in housing. For instance, the median home buyer is 59 years old. Twenty years ago, it was 39. The same generational cohort (the youngest Boomers and elder Gen X) has basically been buying American homes for the near-entirety of the 21st century now. Housing sets the stage for so much second- and third-order decisions and spending too. If you have a house in the suburbs or a small town, you're going to buy more cars, and so forth. 

Older Millennial Parents 

While the Millennials flooded into the cities after college, chasing enough income to get their slice of the American dream, many have crashed into a wall of political turmoil and division, the college degree as an over-inflated and overrated status, and the incredible fatigue of being old enough to remember an America that was normal and having a childhood of expectations, but too young to really reap the rewards of a post-war, pre-9/11 America. But these days, Millennials are splitting from what this culture had pegged them as.

Being a parent is, objectively speaking, the most important thing you'll ever do. The most important job you'll ever have. 

Gone is the progressive archetype of the college-educated Millennials of a diversifying and "fundamentally transformed" America. Millennial voting patterns are not surprisingly following along the lifespan of their Boomer parents (started more liberal, becoming more conservative with age, and we'll see about the rest). In the last decade, the marriage and family gap in partisan voting habits has been driven by realigning Millennials getting married, taking on starter home mortgages, and having children. And for the married men with children, now a +20% Republican voting constituency, fatherhood, as opposed to being a dad or a cool dad, is taking on additional weight. Taking on the appropriate weight. Being a parent is, objectively speaking, the most important thing you'll ever do. The most important job you'll ever have. 

57% of Millennial dads say that fatherhood is a core aspect of identity. This is a good thing. Millennial dads also spend three times as much time with their kids as the previous generation. This is also a good thing. Although the quality of that time and the imparting of moral and practical education will be more important than the quantity. 

It is very important that Gen Z follows this father knows best era, with preferably one more kid than millennials are having. 

We can turn this whole thing around, and it will start at home, where all true peace and prosperity comes from. And, not everyone is going to be Ward and June Cleaver. That's not a reasonable expectation, especially if you know the radical opposite. But we can all pick up the slack a bit, and if we do, I think the country will be alright in the long run. 

If this sounds like white pill optimism, well of course it is. But that lesson is a lot more constructive and productive than the man-o-sphere (who are almost always childless). If you're not a father today, I don't care to hear about your views on masculinity. The only exception I'll make to that rule is if you're a veteran. 

The country needs more children. If we have them, we'll end up alright. 

The country needs more dads in homes, even the cool dad is preferable to no male role model at all. And family law reforms and balancing could speed this one along quite a bit. If we have more dads in homes, we'll end up alright.

The country needs more strong fathers as role models, who are focused on imparting moral lessons and passing on heritage and the received wisdom from ancestors. And strong father role models understand that the head of this model is faith in God, the marriage itself, and then the children. And the kids will be alright if father knows best again. 

Troy M. Olson is an Army Veteran, lawyer by training, and co-author of ‘The Emerging Populist Majority’ available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Target. He is the Sergeant-at-Arms of the New York Young Republican Club and co-founder of its Veterans Caucus. He has appeared on CNN, CBS, and OAN. He lives in New York City with his wife and son, and is the 3rd Vice Commander (“Americanism” pillar) of the first new American Legion Post in the city in years, Post 917. You can follow him on X/Twitter and Substack at @TroyMOlson

The Progressive Monopolization of the Commons

By Troy M. Olson

One of the more frustrating aspects of New York City's local politics is how driven it is by progressive activists with pet causes, time on their hands, and no access to a mirror or larger perspective on life. But the average activist is largely harmless in the scheme of things. It's the multiplication of them pursuing a fact-free proposition that can be the problem. However, what compounds this in the city is what passes as the "leadership class" for progressives also monopolizes public time for these same issues far beyond its weight class. Transportation and trip modes in the city is a perfect example of how out of touch this group is.

In NYC, you would think that buses and bikes have taken over the city from Zohran Mamdani's "free buses" campaign plank (one of four top repeated slogans and issue planks that he either does not have the power to do or wouldn't do a thing in the scheme of things) to the TransAlt (Transportation Alternatives) bike lanes all over the city obsession.

Source: NYC DOT Citywide Mobility Survey courtesy of Reza Chowdhury's X 

Let's look at the facts: a bus makes up just 4% of the total trip mode in NYC, while a bike makes up just 3%. On the other hand, walking takes up 46%, vehicles 32%, transit 18%, and rail/subway 14%. These percentages add up to more than 100% because some will combine more than one in their daily commute to work or wherever else they're going. 

Walking is the most common trip mode in the city. And increasingly, its conflict is not with cars but with bikes, especially of the e-bike and scooter variety, who, unlike vehicle operators, lack the requisite understanding for their responsibility on the road, do not face the legal liabilities like someone operating a vehicle does, and pretty much do whatever they want at increasing levels. 

Many people in their various trip modes frequently break the rules of the road and the street. But those on bikes seem to not have grasped the consequences like the rest. Pedestrians and frequent walkers know they're going to lose a battle and perhaps their life against a car. Those driving a car, even the terrible drivers, have an ingrained sense of destruction of what a car accident will do not just to a pedestrian, but to the drivers. Bikes operate in this middle ground where they have become both a hazard and dangerous to pedestrians and a hazard and dangerous to vehicles too, although in this case they seem to lack the understanding of how vulnerable they are on a bike if they face off against a car. Putting a bike lane all over the city has not brought any greater order to this off-kilter relationship, no matter how many statistics NYC's Department of Transportation wants to roll out. People make value judgments with their eyes and experiences. 

NYC is a place that is totalitarian in its administrative code and closer to anarchy in its day-to-day realities. And the increasing anarchy in transportation to being driven by the 3% of those whose trip mode is with a bike of some form. The 4% part of this equation is part of the "free bus" plan that Zohran keeps talking about. A few things on this: while, no doubt, the honest citizens of the city would benefit from this, especially elders, there are already many fare evasions on buses just like there are in the subway. This is not going to be some game changer because it already happens, would make the MTA's finances even worse off, cannot even be done unilaterally by an NYC Mayor, and again... we're talking about 4% of trip modes. What about safety for pedestrians, the most common trip mode? What about congestion pricing? A tax on the second most common trip mode and as you can see above, utilized by every income bracket considerably more than bikes, buses, and yes, even the subway. 

In fact, during the congestion pricing discussion the last few years these same activists would use the data on how many New Yorkers drive (around one-third) for their commute to make the case that the majority is somehow with them. I have my issues with the MTA, but even its Chairman points out how flawed Zohran's transportation plans are for the city. 

A real discussion on transportation in New York City would be holistic and in proportion to actual trip modes. This is not what we're doing and this has not been at all how the public debate has gone this year. Progressives in leadership and in their activism are guilty of the same mistake they accused "car culture" of: they are not centering their ideas and transportation around the actual needs, realities, and preferences of people. They have been myopically obsessed with being anti-car and making it as hard as possible to own and operate one. So far they have been unsuccessful. We're not a city of bike riders using these bike lanes, they're still mostly empty years later. And those who do ride bikes are still going on sidewalks, still operating how they wish when they're in traffic, and, at the recreational level, they are even going into city parks where families with children and seniors frequently gather. Simply put, they control by law or by behavior a share of the public commons far beyond what is justifiable. 

I wish this were just an isolated issue. But it's not. Issues like this are why it's so easy to call urban progressivism an elitist philosophy and worldview.

On issue after issue, this is the case and nothing much will change until the hard organizational work to build out a civic alternative is done. NYC will never get more affordable, is about to get more dangerous, and to add insult to injury, we will keep paying more and more for less and less, until the day the "new Tammany Hall" and its progressive activist and leadership class is defeated and dismissed from its monopoly control over the city's politics and future.

Troy M. Olson is an Army Veteran, lawyer by training, and co-author of ‘The Emerging Populist Majority’ now available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Target. He is the Sergeant-at-Arms of the New York Young Republican Club and co-founder of the Veterans Caucus. He has appeared on CNN, CBS, and OAN. He lives in New York City with his wife and son, and is the 3rd Vice Commander (“Americanism” pillar) of the first new American Legion Post in the city in years, Post 917. You can follow him on X/Twitter and Substack at @TroyMOlson

Labor Day and Respect for the American Worker Holds the Key to our Civic and National Renewal

 

By Troy M. Olson

Labor Day Is Often Seen as the End of the Summer, Beginning of the School Year, but increasingly it crosses all of the key areas that are key to America's civic and national renewal.

Labor Day became a federal holiday in 1894 and by that time had been celebrated in the late 19th Century in many states. Its existence came out of the labor movement of trade unionism where it gets its name. In those days, the labor movement existed outside the major two political parties in the United States, would work with both, and even a third that was organizing for major party status at the time--the People's Party (most often referred to as the Populists). 

While organized labor has come to be associated with the Democratic Party today, its history and greatest successes came when it was outside of either major party's reach. That success stalled there first at its post-war zenith under the Truman administration, but then begin to lose momentum in earnest starting in the late 1970s deindustrialization and outsourcing which went on almost uninterrupted into the 21st Century. With it were unionization rates, and subsequent union growth came almost exclusively in the public sector, where gains are going to be pit directly against the interest of taxpayers. Rather than government being the arbiter between labor and management, politicians became the spineless promiser between the taxpayer and the public unionized employee. Labor Day may owe its existence to the trade unionization and labor movement but it increasingly must celebrate the dignity of work itself. 

One of the labor movement's biggest mistakes was becoming a mere arm of a political party. But in the Trump-era, that is beginning to reverse over the key issues of trade, immigration, and a renewed national industrial policy. This realignment will continue in the years to come and probably top out at a figure where in a decade or so the Republican Party is winning more support, along with endorsements and money from 17 of the top 30 unions in America, mostly in the trades and security areas, whereas Democrats are left with 13 or so, exclusively in the public employee and service sectors. 

For many decades now, wages have been stagnant or declined in real terms for the American worker, and the decline of unions is not the only part of that, but political - labor relations in America being what they were certainly prevented considerable recovery. Outsourcing and the forces of globalization, along with mass migration have undercut the American worker and with it put a considerable dent in the American middle class, which brings us to our second area. 

The American middle and working classes were and still are the backbone of this country, especially its civic fate. The dependent poor may need the American government a great deal and America's richest may be able to lobby for the most favorable treatment from government, but it is the middle class families who make or break this Constitutional Republic. There was a time in this country where the middle class could raise their families on one income, and those days are long gone for most of it now, and who it is not gone for pays for that lifestyle with credit cards, reverse mortgages and home equity lines, and most certainly - two parent incomes. 

The dignity of work, strong and intact families backed by a stable income, and crucially what those factors contribute to our communities and civic vitality is why Labor Day is not just another sales day. If we kick off the summer remembering with those who gave the last fully measure of devotion to this country with Memorial Day it is proper that we end it with Labor Day that sees a renewed commitment to what honest, dignified, and purposeful work with fair and decent compensation does for the soul, how it nourishes and builds the family, and how it contributes to building a country whose most ambitious citizens are reaching higher and higher these days, in hopes of a half-century Golden Age to come. 

And for all of those people, of which I am certainly one of them, there will be national and civic renewal without the American worker. In a time where we have emphatically decided to put America and the American people first, let us strive to be a country that recognizes how important respect for the American worker is in reversing so much that has gone wrong the past half-century. 

Troy M. Olson is an Army Veteran, lawyer by training, and co-author (with Gavin Wax) of ‘The Emerging Populist Majority’ now available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Target. He is the Sergeant-at-Arms of the New York Young Republican Club and co-founder of the Veterans Caucus. He lives in New York City with his wife and son, and is the 3rd Vice Commander (“Americanism” pillar) of the first new American Legion Post in the city in years, Post 917. You can follow him on X/Twitter and Substack at @TroyMOlson