Today’s Firestorm & the Declaration

Larry P. Arnn - President, Hillsdale College

The following is adapted from remarks delivered on November 18, 2025, at a Hillsdale College reception in Franklin, Tennessee.

Two momentous things come together as the New Year approaches. The first is the 250th anniversary of the greatest document in political history, the Declaration of Independence. The second is the national firestorm that rages over its meaning.

Trump

The first of the contrary winds fueling our national firestorm is Donald Trump, who has closed out his first whirlwind year. Crime is down in several cities where he sent the National Guard. The economy is doing pretty well, and predictions are that it will continue, decline, or quicken (I think it will fluctuate). The stock market is high, and the range of predictions is the same. Iran and Hamas are weaker, thanks in vital part to Israel, and the cauldron of the Middle East is a little cooler. 300,000 fewer people work for the federal government (after the number had increased by 240,000 during the Biden administration). Military recruitment and defense spending are up, and Secretary of War Hegseth gave a stirring speech to the military about its purpose, which is to fight. Secretary of State Rubio has given some wonderful speeches about the purpose and manner of American foreign policy, and he and others shuttled around the Middle East at speed to put together a fragile yet promising peace deal. Secretary of Education McMahon has cut the Department in half and is after the rest. Secretary of the Interior Burgum is looking for ways to use the land, and Secretary of Energy Wright is looking for energy. Attorney General Bondi seems to know no fear. Vice President Vance frightened the daylights out of Europe, calling for the elimination of wokeness and for increased defense spending.

A blizzard of executive orders has given regulatory relief, stemmed the tide of DEI, and reduced the size and reach of the federal establishment. Shower pressure is up: you can now take a hot shower under a heavy stream. Pressure is up on colleges, too, which have been violating civil rights law systematically. Tariffs are higher here and abroad, and that is still shaking out. The federal debt is rising a bit slower. The border is closed. The Ukraine War is a stubborn disaster; Trump is working on it and asking Western Europe to pay the bill.

The Resistance

The other wind blows from the self-described “resistance” to the elected government, and it is picking up. The “No Kings” demonstrations have turned out a lot of people—or fewer than a lot, depending on who you talk to. Mamdani is the first self-proclaimed socialist Mayor-Elect of New York. Virginia went bluer. Jews have been harassed on our college campuses with almost European intensity. An assassin killed Charlie Kirk, and reports are that several Trump administration officials and their families have been moved onto military bases due to threats to their safety. Violent attacks upon law enforcement officers proliferate.

Zany radicalism abounds both on the left and the right, left and right being promiscuous terms that mean even less today than usual. Young people on the left seem enamored of Marx; on the right, many gravitate towards Nietzsche. Nick Fuentes, who has a big audience, professes to like both Hitler and Stalin, who to be fair did cooperate to carve up their neighbors before they waged merciless war on each other. Churchill made sense of that by saying that national socialism and communism differ as the North Pole differs from the South. Many young people do not seem to realize that the North and South Poles are bad places to live. Their confusion stems from reasons that are deep but also limpid, visible to the bottom.

Continue reading this transcript at IMPRIMIS

Larry P. Arnn is the twelfth president of Hillsdale College. He received his B.A. from Arkansas State University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in government from the Claremont Graduate School. From 1977 to 1980, he also studied at the London School of Economics and at Worcester College, Oxford University, where he served as director of research for Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Winston Churchill. From 1985 until his appointment as president of Hillsdale College in 2000, he was president of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. From October 2020 to January 2021, he served as co-chair of the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission. He is the author of several books, including The Founders’ Key: The Divine and Natural Connection Between the Declaration and the Constitution and Churchill’s Trial: Winston Churchill and the Salvation of Free Government.