Today is the 25th anniversary of 9/11. It’s hard to not conclude that Osama Bin Laden won. Anti-American ideology has taken over our media, our institutions of higher learning, and both parties have a substantial pool of gullible idiots that think withdrawing from the world will keep America safe. Bush was a disastrous president. But something I see clearly today is how we never had an honest discussion as a country about why he attacked us and what the Islamists want. In our rush to not be Islamaphobic, we never asked why we were attacked in the name of Islam. And that answer is they wanted to establish an Islamic caliphate, destroy both Israel and America and usher in the end times. The truth is, this is a clash of civilizations. Radical Islam kills everything it touches. Over and over we’ve seen Muslim majority countries taken over by their radical elements. It destroyed Iran. It tore apart Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. In the aftermath of Bush’s disastrous response to 9/11, we saw ISIS destabilize the Middle East. Literally millions of refugees were welcomed into Western countries without an honest discussion about what the consequences would be. We’ve seen the national character of the UK, Sweden and Germany radically change. As a result of a global left unwilling to ask if these Islamists even share our values and commitment to democracy, we’ve seen a rise of global right in response. Now our Western values are under attack from two fronts. On the left, we are increasingly aligned with Islamism and are joining their cause to annihilate Israel. On the right, we see the rise of strongmen with equal disdain for democracy and pluralism convincing people their problems will be solved by targeting their weakest citizens. There aren’t easy answers here. I am a Democrat, but I also realize I have more in common with a moderate Republican than I do the radical right and the radical left. Western values have created the greatest civilizations in the history of mankind, but this radical Islamic ideology is a genuine threat to all of it. We need an honest discussion about immigration policy. We need to fix our institutions of higher learning, And we need a media that champions America’s interests and not those of hostile foreign powers. And until we choose to do that, we should say the truth. Osama bin Laden successfully crippled the United States on 9/11.

I literally cannot understand why my trans sisters have decided to betray American Jews. It is a fundamental moral failure that makes me physically angry. This morning I watched a moderately famous trans woman I’m friends with go after Pink for reposting an account condemning antisemitism. Pink is Jewish. The statement was utterly anodine. And she’s throwing a temper tantrum on main, outraged that a Jew thinks she deserves dignity. She’s not the only one. Most of my sisters spout Jew hating nonsense. The average Jew thinks the average trans woman is an antisemite, and I cannot help but look at my community and think they have a point. We have no excuse to not see through the lies of Free Palestine. We’re facing a similar propaganda effort by people that want to turn discriminating against us into virtue. The famine is a lie, the genocide is a lie, the number of civilian deaths is a lie. And the thing that really gets me is if trans women had any sense, we’d be looking at our Jewish friends as people to learn from. No one knows more about surviving a world where people hate you than the Jews. They took smart lessons about building their own communities, refusing to be a victim, making politically effective advocacy across the left and the right. I’m proud of the character I displayed in being born trans and making a good life for myself. I feel no shame about what I am. But I do feel shame at the way my sisters are acting.