For Tom Cruise, “Top Gun: Maverick” represents his best ever opening weekend. The smash hit raked in an astounding 300 million world-wide in its Memorial Day weekend opening. Previously, Cruise couldn’t seem to break the 100 million mark, but with this sequel to the 1986 classic he’s blown all his previous records out of the sky. It’s great news for Cruise, but it’s great news for America as well.
“Top Gun: Maverick” represents a feeling Americans have been missing for almost two years—pride in a rugged American exceptionalism. “Maverick” is a statement about how America sees itself and how the Washington politburo has everything wrong.
The movie isn’t overtly political. In fact, the executives purposefully obscure the “bad guy.” It’s a nameless, faceless “rogue state.” My only real criticism of the movie is that the bad guy pilots wear black helmets and black opaque visors, something common to cheesy dog fight movies and '80s shows like “Airwolf.” But beyond that, the acting and cinematography will have you pancaked in your seat feeling the weight of 10 Gs while smelling the acrid smoke fuming from multiple barrages of deadly accurate Surface to Air Missiles (SAMs). However, to the credit of Cruise and the other producers, the Taiwanese flag is included on the back of Maverick’s leather flight jacket—a not so subtle, double barrel, middle finger to the Chinese Communist Party.
Americans have endured almost two years of predictable-as-clockwork hate mongering and anti-America rhetoric from the Democrat Party. Having installed their mannequin “president,” they’ve pressed their social agenda, designed to destabilize the foundations of democracy—the nuclear family, church, the Constitution, and our common language—and are pressing ever forward to install their tried and failed Marxist political system.
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If you’re struggling to understand the agenda of the left, think about it from this perspective: all they do, the green new deal, critical race theory, open borders, all of it is directed toward one purpose—to eradicate capitalism, democracy, and to erect a centralized, utopian state built on the precepts of Karl Marx. It’s that simple and extreme.
Americans are feeling the effects of collectivist policies meant to destabilize and weaken from within. Over the past two years, we’ve seen fuel prices nearly double—and not by accident. Green energy initiatives are Trojan horses for left wing operatives whose real objective is to diminish America’s ability to interfere with the global progress of socialist/Marxist regimes. If that seems conspiratorial, consider the effects of democrat green energy policies. Do they make America more or less dependent on foreign energy sources? The answer to that question is obvious. The more Democrats get their way, the more America suffers and becomes vulnerable to foreign manipulation and intimidation.
We become less capable of thwarting the existential threat of our time—China—the more “green” we become. Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist Party continues its steady progress toward achieving its 100 year plan. There are many other totalitarian forces at play on the world stage, but none presents the dire and imminent threat that China does. While we’re distracted by puzzling over the definition of “woman,” the Chinese are stoking the fires of their industry, mining rare earth metals, and assailing our digital gates with armies of hackers, bots, and an almost completely ignored threat—artificial intelligence (AI).
AI is a real battlefield. Top Gun briefly touches on the subject, when an Admiral dismisses Maverick’s fighter pilot swagger he does so by reminding Maverick that he’s a dying breed, destined to be replaced by advanced fighting drones. What was once science fiction is now science fact and the AI space is already inhabited. (For a fascinating look into the AI battle space, check out Jack Carr’s In The Blood). We’re led by a president with the sentience of a snail, while our enemies exploit and develop quantum computing with capacities that dwarf whole banks of supercomputers. Quantum computers will dominate the battlefield of the not very distant future as they consume data like black holes gobbling up whole stars and provide chillingly accurate forecasts of battlefield dispositions and outcomes. Google’s doing it to you right now. Google’s algorithms can accurately predict behavior given the vast datasets that exist on every consumer on the planet. But don’t worry, o’l Lunch Bucket Joe’s got your back. The “president” who can barely stammer through his teleprompter dialogue is your bulwark against the Rising Tiger (a riveting book by Brad Thor due out July 5th) and the AI threat.
America is tired of being berated by a senile old man backed by the party of infanticide, race-hate, and America-last policies. Most Americans want their children educated, not indoctrinated by pronoun confused perverts who are preparing school children for a life of victimhood and dependence. Most Americans are already weary of skyrocketing inflation that steals the value of hard earned savings. There’s a broad feeling that something has gone very wrong. When the world’s only superpower is so ineptly run it can’t even supply baby formula to its citizens, the truth is painfully clear. We have been diminished by Joe Biden, the puppeteers who animate him, and his buffoonish cabinet.
But "Top Gun: Maverick" is a break from all this. It’s a movie about something profoundly American—teamwork and the triumph of the individual. At its most basic, the American ethic is a narrative about how the heroic individual—the rugged, exceptional, and self-reliant—is essential to the success of the team. It’s oxymoronic on its surface, but the individual, and his or her intrinsic rights and responsibilities are the foundation of our corporate success. The writers of "Top Gun: Maverick" may not understand this explicitly but it is implicit in the American hero story—and that’s why it’s such a successful and inspiring movie. We’re not, as progressives would have you believe, blank cogs locked in a tribal dynamic. Marxists love a tribe because they’re easy to position within the brutal dialectic, as their differences ignite antipathy and breed struggle.
Top Gun is a break from all of Joe Biden’s miseries, and a welcome reminder of what it looks like to be great, noble, and free.
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