I Like to Golf Alone

I’m not good at team sports. It was like group work in school. I’d rather do it all and let everyone else take credit than have to rely on people who did not want to put in the effort.

I like to golf alone. I am not a great golfer. I really enjoy it. I am a member of the Broken Tee Society. I love the camaraderie of golf. But I don’t keep score. My handicap is measured in beers drunk and balls lost and maybe cigars smoked. I’m just not a great team player and don’t want to frustrate a good golfer’s game.

I like to get on the course with a cigar and maybe a bottle of bourbon or a beer, turn off my phone, and loudly cuss in solitude as I ruin the perfect shot. Through the course of eighteen holes, my vocabulary begins to confound the Oxford English Dictionary and make angels weep.

People are so emotional now that they want affirmation. Trump supporters really covet affirmation. Get a D-list Hollywood celebrity who has not had a hit in years to say MAGA, and that person is going to be in the next poorly produced, made-for-Christians movie that goes direct to streaming and shows up on stage with Charlie Kirk at a TPUSA event.

Anti-Trump supporters really covet affirmation too. Work for Trump and then criticize him, and you can get on MSNBC and CNN and tell everyone how Orange Man is bad and find some billionaire to subsidize your blog while you hang out with Bill Kristol. You might get a New York Times column if you play it right.

I do not order grande coffee at Starbucks because that is stupid. I get a medium coffee or maybe a large — but only if that’s the only option because Starbucks sucks, and people who like Starbucks are reliable barometers of a lack of taste.

All of that is to say I think the “Gulf of America” thing is tribal, narcissistic nonsense from people who demand you beclown yourself to fit in. It is Mean Girls. It is an act of ritualistic de-shaming where if everyone acts like a fool, then no one is a fool, and no one has shame or can be shamed. “Gulf of Mexico” is a perfectly good 500-year-old name that no one thought needed changing until Trump did it, and now it is just a way to separate tribes, and people act like they had their first real orgasm when they hear it said.

It is, for MAGA, what pronouns and Latinx are to progressives — a tribal identifier and a weapon with which to bully others. Getting Apple and Google to change it and uproariously celebrating those changes is the rightwing equivalent of the Left getting a conservative-oriented company to start a DEI program. And, just as swiftly as the DEI programs went away when the left went away, so too will your precious “Gulf of America” when Trump goes away.

I never stopped calling Mount McKinley by its name when Obama changed it to Denali because that was tribal stupidity, too, for actual Indian tribes, and, yeah, they are American Indians, not Native Americans. I’m a native American. And I have always maintained that anyone who puts their pronouns in their Twitter bio or email signature line is an idiot not to be taken seriously.

Still, it is mental midgets who want to call Elliot Page “Ellen” and Caitlyn Jenner “Bruce,” but want to force everyone else to say “Gulf of America.” I hate the censorious right as much as the censorious left.

It’s stupid to shut the Associated Press out of events because they will not go along with “Gulf of America,” but it was stupid of Obama and Biden to shut out news organizations they did not like. All the press corps upset now were not upset then, and they were all in cahoots to censor the New York Post for accurately reporting the Hunter Biden story.

I note how many of the journalists reading this right now have been perfectly happy to go along with “Denali” and pronouns and all the stupid crap from the left (“unhoused,” “pregnant person,” “people of color,” “undocumented,” etc.) because, surprise, you’re on the left and just not honest enough to admit it. It’s like watching reporters upset Senate Republicans have confirmed nominees the left thinks are unqualified when Democrats did the same damn thing. Still, the reporters all insist those people were just so very qualified. Because, again, they’re on the left and just not honest enough to admit their own biases.

We live in unserious times filled with unserious people who do unserious things they insist are super serious. If you do not behave accordingly, you risk being otherized, ostracized, or declared no part of the tribe.

I did not ask to be in your tribe at the back of the short bus of life fighting against some other tribe fighting over the back row. In just the last week, I’ve been called a “propagandist for the Fuhrer,” a “domestic enemy,” and “enabler of law breakers,” by the anti-Trumpers and “a fat retard” by the pro-Trumpers. The Trumper at least got the closest to accuracy.

I am perfectly happy to criticize Trump, the Republicans, the right, the left, the Democrats, the press, and anyone else I think should be criticized. Likewise, I am perfectly happy to praise Trump, the Republicans, and the right when they deserve it. It pains me too much to praise the left and Democrats, though it is occasionally warranted, as it is also for the press. I have complex, multifaceted, and nuanced thoughts and sometimes hold two competing and conflicting ideas in my head simultaneously. It is part of being an actual human and a conservative.

I just note a lot of people on the right have succumbed to right-wing cancel culture. They are unwilling to speak up and speak out for fear of a mob or donors or Trump. They will, as a result, find themselves eventually on the wrong end of things, having no identity to separate themselves from the tribe they are trying to coddle. It is impressive how so many of these groups and people, Senators, and Congressmen privately might disagree but say nothing because they fear the mob more than they fear the Lord.

The right could no more be critical of Trump or Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. than the left could be of Biden or Harris. It is the same on both sides — mirror images on a short bus to hell.

I have it easier than a lot of others because I do not live in Washington or New York, and I do not have to hang out with the true believers and pretenders who want access to the people and events. I don’t need to performatively drag Mike Pence or Mitch McConnell on Twitter to virtue signal my fidelity to a cause I might be critical of in private. I’ll tell you exactly what I think. I don’t need to be in a fraternity, clique, or club full of groupthink.

You might agree. You might not. I don’t care. Your insistence on explaining my position based on what you perceive are my motives will say more about you than me. “Doing it for the ratings” or “doing it to fit in” or “doing it to save face with my audience/readers” has, in my long history of writing online and talking on air, been antithetical to what I actually do. Frankly, not telling people what they want to hear has been the key to my success, whether it makes them mad or glad.

As I said, I prefer to play golf alone, or at least with people who don’t feel the emotional need to be affirmed of stupid convictions based entirely on their need to be with their preferred “in” crowd.

I’d say Jesus is King and His is the only team that matters, but the anti-Semites are on about that right now and Candice Owens has probably trademarked it anyway if she’s not busy trading swastika quilt patterns with Kanye.

So I’ll instead just say that on that final day as I stand before the throne of Almighty God in Heaven and have a lot to account for, including the creative use of language in seclusion on a golf course, I at least won’t have to say, “Well I was just shoveling the shit they wanted me to.”

Excuse the language. Have a good day.

Also, we need more, not less, people like Danielle Sassoon. What has happened is a travesty.

Please Save The Date

If you made it this far, please put July 12, 2025, on your calendar. Those of you who are paid subscribers will get first access to tickets before the general public.

To celebrate my birthday, I’ll be doing a one-night-only event on stage at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, Georgia, raising money for two great charities.

Please plan to come to my “Not Safe For Radio Show.” I’ll tell all the stories I cannot tell on the radio. It’ll be a fun time and raise money for both the Fox Theater’s amazing charity and my kids’ classical education school.

July 12, 2025 / Doors open at 6pm / Event time is 7pm to 9pm

The Fox Theather, 660 Peachtree St NE, Atlanta, GA 30308