Edifice of Trust
by Victor C. Bolles
The Edifice of Trust is a podcast that provides discussion and analysis of today's current events from the perspective of America's Founding Principles. Based on Enlightenment philosophy as espoused by John Locke and economic freedom as described by Adam Smith, the host, Victor Bolles, provides listeners a path toward understanding current events from these timeless principles. Many Americans believe that the country is moving in the wrong direction, the podcast tries to point out a new course that everyone can support.
Episodes
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Takeaways 2026 Mid-Terms
Here are my takeaways from the 2026 mid-term elections. It was more than inflation. It was more the war with Iran. It's about us and who we are.
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What's Wrong with Oligarchs
I think oligarchs get a bad rap. Yes, they are very wealthy. But they got wealthy by supplying great products and services that most people want. A lot better than the empty campaign promises of politicians.
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Pack It Up!
The Democrats cannot pack left-leaning justices onto the Supreme Court until they have a Democratic president who can nominate candidates with the correct ideological orientation. But that has not stopped them from trying to soften up the public's acceptability for the need to expand the Court as…
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Welfare and State Power
The welfare state, as practiced in Europe and recommended by Bernie Sanders and the progressive left in the US, is becoming unraveled in France as the country runs out of resources while the populace demands evermore benefits. The end result is riots on the streets of Paris. But the demand for...
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If I were Trump
If I were in President Trump's shoes I would do things differently. Almost anyone would do things differently. President Trump may be likely to stay his course and not change anything. But without changes, much of what he has tried to accomplish – policies, buildings, names changes, etc. – will…
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There is Nothing to Debate
There are very few debates between rival candidates in the runup to the 2026 mid-term elections. And the few that have been held deteriorated into ad hominin attacks and shouting matches. But we live in a democracy and we need to able to debate the issues that confront us. And sometimes we even...
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Our French Future
French students are rioting in the streets because they want their government, already huge by any standard, to get even bigger. This despite the fact that their government cannot afford it current huge welfare state and is deeply in debt. Many Americans also want their government to do more. But...
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Who Cares about November?
Who does care about election day this November? The outcome seems pretty much preordained even though the MAGA right and socialist left continue to fight it out. But we deserve a better choice than these two essentially un-American options. If we want better choices in November 2028 we need to...
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Principles versus Reality
This has been a difficult commentary to prepare. America has welcomed people of many different religions as visitors as well as citizens. But members of one religion have repeatedly attacked us and our friends and allies. Many people, even some of our own leaders, have said that these attacks are...
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Looking for Good News
My wife always complains that my commentaries are depressing because I only discuss the bad news out there. But there is good news out there as well, if you look hard enough. In this commentary we look at some of the good news out there and discuss why many people are still anxious and depressed.
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Exploiting Exploitation
Greedy capitalists are not the only people exploiting workers and other so-called victims in the US. Political party platforms try to seduce people who feel that they are being victimized by powerful forces beyond their control and the Democratic Socialists of America are no exception. But the...
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Let's Get Real
Republicans and Democrats have been buying votes for decades with generous benefits and even more generous tax cuts – and now even the Democratic Socialists want to get in on the action. But there has been little improvement in the condition of the American people despite all these so-called...
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Is This Really Socialism?
There are a lot of policies being promoted under the name of socialism by Democrats in the runup to this fall's mid-term elections (and especially by the progressive wing of the Democrats as well as the Democratic Socialists of America) that have nothing to do with socialism. But many of these...
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Socialism Upended
Within two months of his election as president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez held a referendum for a constitutional assembly to change the basic institutions of Venezuelan democracy. With only 52% of the vote he was able to control 95% of delegates to that assembly. That was almost 30 years ago and…
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Forever Negotiations
A few days ago President Trump announced a temporary pause in kinetic warfare against Iran in order to give diplomatic negotiations another chance. Another chance? Hah! How many rounds of diplomatic talks do we need to realize that the Iranians will never be willing to negotiate away their key...
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American Suicide
For 250 years John Adams has been wrong about the imminent demise of American democracy. And while President Trump's vision of American greatness is distorted by his own psychoses, his goal is not to destroy American democracy (although it might be an unintended consequence of his actions) . The...
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There is no Deus Ex Machina
The campaign promises of politicians are similar to the theatrical plot device known as deus ex machina, something (in ancient Greek dramas an actor portraying a god hoisted onto the stage by a mechanical device) that somehow resolves an otherwise unsolvable problem the actors on the stage could...
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Mother Nature's Revenge
About a million years ago, our prehistoric ancestors were reduced to barely thirteen hundred individuals, a so-called genetic bottleneck. If our ancestors had not survived that precarious moment in time, we wouldn't exist. Right now we may be experiencing another genetic bottleneck as birth rates...
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Gag Reflex
The candidates for the upcoming 2026 elections that are being chosen by the Republicans and Democrats (aka MAGA and DSA) are repellent to say the least. Voters entering the voting booth must hold their nose and suppress their gag reflex before pulling the lever. In this commentary we look at how…
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Old Time Religion
Many of the early colonists came to North America so that they could practice their interpretation of the Christian faith for which they were being persecuted in their home countries. And those Christian principles played an essential role in creating what is now America. Movements to end slavery...
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The Next Greatest Generation
The Greatest Generation was made up of millions of ordinary Americans that rose to the challenges of the Great Depression and the Second World War. Past generations of American have had to meet the challenges of the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and others. Our generation, my generation, have...
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So, Elon's a Trillionaire - Let's Tax the Hell Outta him
As the largest shareholder in the newly public company, SpaceX, Elon Musk is now the world's first trillionaire. And it is only a matter of time for calls to tax the hell out of him start coming in from the left. But why? In this commentary we look at the counterproductive policy of taxing wealth...
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The origin of MAGA Politics
Nicholas Wade, in his most recent book the Origin of Politics, tries to use evolution to justify why a nation state based on ethnicity, language and religion is the best political structure for the United States and other nations around the world. He rejects the aspirational vision of the...
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No Art in this Deal
Peace talks with Iran are ongoing but, seemingly, going nowhere. As Condoleezza Rice stated in a recent op-ed, no deal is better than a bed deal. But any deal that does not change the behavior the Iranian regime is probably a bad deal. In this commentary, we look at how the parties to any peace...
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Rooting for the Underdog
Americans love to root for the underdog. But rooting for an underdog doesn't mean we want to tilt the field in the underdog's favor. We want the underdog to win fair and square. But how does rooting for the underdog translate from sports to real life? In this commentary we look at how we should...
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Stolen Franchise
There is no big tent in the Republican Party. Only loyalty to President Trump and his agenda is acceptable. Everyone else must be purged and President Trump has been very successful during this primary season in achieving this goal. Democrats are also in the process of cancelling anyone with…
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Sports Betting and Other Vices
Watching a golf tournament on Sunday afternoon has become a non-stop barrage of adverts for betting, announcers discussing of the odds for each player and other incentives to gamble even more from the PGA tour's official sportsbook, FanDuel. People may have a right to gamble(although Jefferson…
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Its not 1965 Anymore
The Supreme Court's decision to strike down minority-majority voting districts presumably required under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been denounced as attack by a right-wing Court dominated by Trump appointees on the civil rights of African Americans. But the Court correctly asserted that...
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Misunderstanding Democracy
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas gave a speech at the University of Texas celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and praising its principles and values. But he went on to say that the goals of progressivism are antithetical to those of the Declaration unleashing…
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democratic writing (small d democratic)
Danielle Allen describes in her book, Our Declaration, the lengthy and difficult process behind the writing of the Declaration of Independence. But the process behind the Declaration mirrored the democracy it sought to create. In this commentary, we look at how democracy is a process and discuss...
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Athens, Rome and Jerusalem
The well-educated Founders of America structured the new nation based on the classical literature of Democratic Athens and the Roman Republic that they had studied in college. And ended up with something they never expected. But it worked. And it has continued to work for 250 years. But now our...
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No Commissars
The No Kings protests were touted as a great success as millions turned out into the streets while the rest of us were inundated by widespread and generally favorable press coverage. But other than making them feel proud of themselves and superior to the MAGA deplorables what did they actually...
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What's Worse than Billionaires?
Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani say that billionaires shouldn't exist. But the truth of the matter is that our welfare system is dependent on those billionaires and other productive workers that produce much more than they consume. In this commentary we analyze the economic forces driving the...
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Finish the War
The Iranian regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have suffered heavy damage in personnel and equipment from the joint American and Israeli airstrikes against their country. But they are counting on high gas prices and sagging poll numbers to sap the American will to continue this…
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Regime Change Trump-style
Will the killing of Ali Khamenei and many of his top Islamic supporters mimic the capture and arrest of Maduro in Venezuela? Maduro and his regime were more profit hungry drug dealers than true believers in socialism or communism. It remains to be seen if the Islamic regime in Iran was made up to...
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Trump Is No Bonaparte
Time is running out for Donald Trump to establish his legacy. The legacy of Napoleon Bonaparte, for good or ill, has lasted over 200 years since his death. Will Mr. Trump's legacy last centuries? And what will be his legacy? In this commentary we will investigate Mr. Trump's efforts and try to...
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Compromise - A Dirty Word
Senator Chuck Schumer has announced that the Democrats will shut down the government if their demands aren't met. President Trump vilifies and tries to punish anyone who puts their conscience ahead of absolute loyalty to the MAGA agenda. The word compromise is alien to these two radical factions....
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No Safe Haven
Does the rising price of gold signal a looming financial crisis? The price of gold is just one of the forbidding economic signals we are confronting. In this commentary we look at a range of warnings and what we should do about them.
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In Search of Order
CNBC's Squawk Box crew will probably not have to make their annual pilgrimage to Davos next year. The American-led rules-based world order that the World Economic Forum had tried to reshape to match the good intentions of the global elite is dead. President Trump's speech at Davos was its eulogy....
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Unconstrained
President Trump's actions at home and abroad appear to be unconstrained by custom, decency or any rule of law. Hoover Institute fellow Thomas Sowell pointed out in his book, A Conflict of Visions, how an unconstrained vision can ignore the trade-offs the real world imposes on human activities...
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Donroe in Action
President Trump is wasting no time to put into action the principles expounded in the recently published National Security Strategy (NSS 2025). It is a strategy based on American power and American interests but not on American values. In this commentary we look at alternatives to a great power...
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Adios Maduro. Bienvenidos a Quien?
Maduro is now gone but many of the factors that precipitated his capture and arrest are still in place. The socialist government is still in charge. The Venezuelan armed forces are more or less intact. Far left "colectivos" still control the streets of Caracas. Cartels and drug runners still have…
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Urgent Priorities in a New World Order
As we enter the year 2026, we must confront the reality that we are living in a new world order. The old American led rules-based world order that was able to avoid great power conflict and provide economic growth and improved living standards across the globe is gone. In this commentary we look…
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Trumpified Security
I promise this will be the last commentary on Trump's National Security Strategy. Much of the controversy about NSS 2025 has been about the Trump administration's attitude toward Europe accusing the countries of Europe of losing their traditional cultures amid waves of mass migration. In…
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I Hate It when Trump's Right
The Trump administration's recently published National Security Strategy of the United States has been praised by the right and condemned by the left. But mostly for the wrong reasons. NSS 2025 is a rejection of the ideals and principals on which America was founded, the ideals and principals…
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Look in the Mirror
Our political leaders try to blame others for all the problems we face. Illegal immigrants, greedy corporations, drug cartels, white men, you name it. They want us to believe that we are victims not responsible for the difficulties that afflict us. But like the Michael Jackson song, Man in the...
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Conflation Nation
President Trump conflates his interests and desires with those of the country and accuses any who opposes him of sedition or treason. He accuses Marjorie Taylor Greene of being a traitor for pushing the release of the Epstein materials even though this was clearly the will of the people. A 35%...
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Mamdani Derangement Syndrome
Our leftist friends suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome cannot get anyone to agree with their rejection of Trump's policies because their arguments are based on emotion and not logic. Only others equally afflicted by this syndrome can sympathize. But now our friends on the right are…
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Unfinished Revolution
An article in the most recent issue of the Atlantic Magazine casts doubt on the validity of an originalist interpretation of the US Constitution citing the hopelessly archaic and undemocratic beliefs of many of the Founders. But the progressive reforms recommended by the author would only...
About this show
The Edifice of Trust is a podcast that provides discussion and analysis of today's current events from the perspective of America's Founding Principles. Based on Enlightenment philosophy as espoused by John Locke and economic freedom as described by Adam Smith, the host, Victor Bolles, provides listeners a path toward understanding current events from these timeless principles. Many Americans believe that the country is moving in the wrong direction, the podcast tries to point out a new course that everyone can support.
Hosted by
Victor C. Bolles
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