Napoli

I attended Restoration Weekend, an annual conservative event sponsored by the David Horowitz Freedom Center in Naples, FL 11/21 through 11/24.

It is a three day conference of lectures, films, books and exchange of information.

I hadn’t known what to expect following Trump’s election on November 5, 2024.

When I attended in 2016, after his first election, I thought that there would be a lot of whooping and hollering.

There was none.

It was a get-down to business state of mind.

Little did conservatives know that Democrats and their allies were already planning to obstruct, delay, demonize and impeach Trump. No one at the 2016 conference foresaw the FISA warrants, Russia dossier, Hunter laptop and its coverup, Trump’s being banned from Facebook and Twitter which all contributed to his defeat in 2020.

This year there was a muted joy. Person after person said that for the first time in years, they could speak without fear of being shamed or fired.

Speakers at Restoration Weekend included Tyrus (I demi-interviewed him. He was sitting in an armchair when I approached. We took a photograph. I later posted it on X.com with the tagline “Tyrus, my new BFF”). After a bit of chit-chat, I asked him “When did you become a conservative?”. “When I got my first paycheck,” he responded. I told him I was born a Democrat and that about 20 years ago I was at a Democrat dinner watching speaker after speaker mount the stage demanding “Gimme!’! and realized that I didn’t belong there. I walked out and registered as a Republican the next day.”); Riley Gaines, a championship college swimmer who experienced a 6’1” man, walk into a dressing room filled with young females and strip off his suit revealing his factory-issued equipment. When she protested to authorities they made her take a sensitivity course and intimidated her; Geert Wilders, traveling with his usual phalanx of state-issued security spoke of the efforts of Netherland’s elected officials to contain rioting immigrants. Others, including Gordon Chang (Fentanyl and China), Guy Benson of FOX News and Daniel Greenfield a/k/a Menachem Twainstein, Col. Richard Kemp, Anglo/Israel warrior, also spoke.

The take-aways after the conclusion of Restoration Weekend?

-Elon Musk’s purchaser of Twitter and his joining with Vivek Ramaswamy in the creation of Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE has changed the playing field

and

-Democrats’ policies are so unpopular they have a hard time winning elections. That is why they not only encouraged but facilitated the illegal alien invasion and why Democrat governors and mayors are saying they will go to jail rather than cooperate with federal officials in deportations. Never mind, the appointed border czar, Tom Homan has repeatedly said they are going after criminals with outstanding Removal Orders.The Dems are trying to paint pictures of legal immigrants and even citizens being ripped from their families by Big Bad Trump.

The fight is far from over.