A Great American Thanksgiving

It’s been a rough year for me, particularly regarding family. The death of my mom, whom I was caring for, and my kid brother struggling with Alzheimer’s hit me really hard. So has the fact that I’m not blessed with a family of my own.

I’d broken up with several loving marriageable girls — one way or another — in my life because I wanted to be Raymond Chandler, both in quality of fiction and success. I always thought the right reward and woman was just ahead. But to quote what Chandler wrote for Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) in Double Indemnity, “I didn’t get the money and I didn’t get the woman. Pretty, isn’t it?” Both prizes remain in sight, though children far more distant. And I wished to be a great father like our dad was to us. Yet despite my setbacks, I’m a very lucky guy with plenty to be grateful for this Thanksgiving, personally and culturally.

Personally, I’m thankful for my physical and mental health — having watched my mother lose the first and my brother some of the second. And having seen too many good friends depart this Earth, I can still run a 10-minute mile, do 10 pullups, and, best of all, write. Okay, so I haven’t written my The Big Sleep or Strangers on a Train yet, but I’m working on it. I’m proud of my four well reviewed and received novels — Jake for Mayor, Paper Tigers, The Christmas Spirit, The Washington Trail. And to have a script, Operation Cowboy: The Assassination of John Wayne, being considered by one of the top film producers outside of Hollywood.

Culturally, I’m thankful to be on the right side of history when nearly all my former LA mates unfriended me for it. They did this from their left-wing industry towers while hailing Obama and Biden and mocking the hounded, then banished, Donald Trump. Until the very forces they championed turned against them for not being black, queer, or female enough. Then, their reemergent enemy Trump cut several of their lifelines like Late Night with Stephen Colbert and The Savant. Now they’re out of work and I’m on the functional — if way too desolate — right track.

Having exiled actual artists, the screen art itself turned to rot. Some outcasts who’d made Hollywood entertaining earlier this century, like James Woods and Patricia Heaton, have long blasted the fatal woke mind virus. The newest convert is Charlie Sheen, the star of the highest rated sitcom of the 21st Century, Two and a Half Men (2003-2011), back when TV could be funny and sexy despite feminist shrieking. On The Megyn Kelly Show last week, Sheen spoke of how he deprogrammed himself out of the Hollywood liberal bubble.

“The things that I discovered and the things I started to really unearth, you know, it was not just one of those moments. it’s like months of these moments of ‘Oh my gosh!’ And I felt really stupid. I don’t have a fancier way to describe it … Just some of the stuff I bought into, some other stuff I was worshipping, and some people I hated — because they told me that I was supposed to hate them.” Sheen’s “they” could describe my former friends. I’d feel bad for them except for one thing. Their side is evil, violent, destructive, anti-American, and now seditious.

The Republicans can be unproductive fools, squabbling over the likes of Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, Jeffrey Epstein, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and other inanities. But not a single one of them would even think of putting out a video urging soldiers to disobey orders from the Commander-In-Chief, as six Democrats did last week.

“Our laws are clear,” emoted unctuous Arizona Senator Mark Kelly. “You can refuse illegal orders.” “You can refuse illegal orders,” echoed Congresswomen Chrissy Houlahan and Maggie Goodlander. “You must refuse illegal orders,” repeated all six Democrats.

No servicemember has to be told by fat cat wretches to disobey illegal orders. Nor has any such order been given. The Democrats made this video for only one reason — to sow military discord against a President they hate. And in so doing, crossed a line into the realm of sedition. Righteously accused of this, the named Democrats fell back on their usual whimper, whining about death threats and misinterpretation.

But because he can see danger most Republicans cannot, Trump sounded the alarm Saturday on Truth Social, bypassing the blithering diplomatic niceties of his predecessors:

THE TRAITORS THAT TOLD THE MILITARY TO DISOBEY MY ORDERS SHOULD BE IN JAIL RIGHT NOW, NOT ROAMING THE FAKE NEWS NETWORKS TRYING TO EXPLAIN THAT WHAT THEY SAID WAS OK.

It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand — We won’t have a Country anymore!!! SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!

Speaking of Trump’s predecessors, one of his greatest yet most unsung feats in the 2016 election was wiping out both the Bush and Clinton political dynasties. A UK Daily Telegraph article last week suggested George W. Bush plans to retake control of the GOP after Trump’s term ends. “We will never let this happen,” declared Donald Trump Jr. on X.

George H. Bush was a great hero in World War II, and the third worst President of my lifetime. I loathed the man even before I watched him end the Reagan Revolution in one speech at the 1988 Republican Convention, gushing, “I want a kinder and gentler nation.” “Kinder and gentler than who?” Nancy Reagan asked her husband at the time. George W. Bush was a step up, but he went downhill after his 9-12 megaphone moment, as did the nation.

This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for leaders making America great again, after decades of those diminishing it.

READ MORE from Lou Aguilar:

The Wreck of Feminist Hollywood

A Gut Punch in the Culture Fight

Goodbye, Doctor Woke

Have yourselves a romantic little Christmas. Get your love interest my Yuletide romance fantasy novel, The Christmas Spirit. Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or wherever fine books are still sold.