Barbara Boyd, 6 July 2026

Barbara Boyd argues that recent speeches by President Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance offer an antidote to communism, socialism, and what she calls Democrats’ targeting of Gen Z and millennials through a counterculture shaped under Obama and Biden and teachers’ unions. She describes escalating attacks on Trump’s planned Freedom 250 celebration, including musicians withdrawing, blue states refusing to join the Great American State Fair, a Patriot Front march, and Chatham House commentary highlighting U.S. “fault lines.” Boyd highlights New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s July 3 City Hall speech criticizing inequality and “oligarchs,” including Elon Musk, and notes online satire in response. She then recaps Trump’s Mount Rushmore remarks defining American liberty, culture, self-reliance, and patriotism, and Vance’s New York Harbor speech invoking Washington, the Declaration, and builder Henry Kaiser.