Dunces 2.0

By Steve Woodward

Amid my eternal quest to understand the deranged Left in 2025, a long-forgotten book title jarred my feeble brain as I inhaled the longleaf pine-infused air on a Spring evening. 

“The Confederacy of Dunces”, published in 1980, was written in the late 1960s by an iconoclast named John Kennedy O’Toole. 

“The novel offended the progressive sensibilities of publishers based in New York,” wrote historian Auguste Meyrat in 2024. “It took a fellow writer from Louisiana, Walker Percy, to agree to read the manuscript and advocate for the book’s publication nearly a decade after Toole committed suicide.”

And what happened next? The book was declared to be a literary classic. And what did it, and central character Ignatius C. Reilly, reveal that resonates today? 

“There’s a whole generation of Ignatius’s today: vain, overeducated young adults who can’t hold a job, live healthily, own any property, or maintain a friendship or romantic partnership, and yet often feel proud of themselves,” writes Meyrat. “Like Ignatius, they feel qualified to deliver their opinion on a whole range of issues they have no clue about. Without a doubt, if Ignatius existed today, he would likely be an online influencer hosting a popular YouTube channel or podcast.”

Ignatius is the poster boy for today’s Democrats, in other words. Their narratives, compliantly advanced by an ever more corrupt media, never have been more absurd, or delusional. We need to call them out for what they are. Dunces. Consider:

Tariffs are imploding the economy to permit a few Trump cronies to short the stock markets and make billions. (The tariffs are, in fact, causing a flurry of requests for Oval Office visits and phone calls by freaked-out foreign leaders knowing the gig is up).

The economy is teetering (but never mind the easing of inflation as reflected by the March consumer price index). 

The deportation of illegal immigrants tied to murderous gangs is just a pretext in a grand scheme to mass deport American citizens. (If true, start with Hunter Biden).

The Department of Government Efficiency ultimately plans to dismantle Social Security and Medicare to deprive American citizens of their “God-given” entitlements. (False, but at least DOGE will end Social Security payments to the deceased).

Luigi Mangione, who shot a UnitedHealthcare CEO in cold blood, is a brave martyr and, damn, he’s handsome, too. (Who knew the steely eyes of a crazed killer are a turn-on?)

Karmelo Anthony had to carry a knife to a Texas high school track competition and stab a fellow teenager in the chest because, like every black teen amid confrontation, an unarmed white kid is intent on killing him. (Media spin: the dead kid is not the victim).

Every business venture that became wildly successful under Elon Musk, especially electric vehicle production and space travel, is a threat to democracy and reminiscent of pre-World War II Germany. (And Trump is Hitler because if you repeat it often enough …)

Trump’s mass deportations are cruel and astonishing Executive branch overreach. And unprecedented. (Except Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden deported millions of illegal immigrants without inspiring one court injunction or Supreme Court intervention).

Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a “Maryland man” who was deported to an El Salvadoran prison by a heartless Department of Homeland Security. He should be returned immediately to his wife and three children because he committed no crimes on U.S. soil. 

 (Entering the U.S. illegally 14 years ago was/is a crime. Maintaining ties to the notorious MS-13 gang – evidenced by Garcia’s identifying tattoos — poses a threat to Marylanders. And only a feckless Federal Bureau of Investigation spared Garcia from arrest and charges after he was pulled over for speeding in Tennessee in December 2022 with eight passengers in tow from Texas. They presented IDs showing the same home address but traveled without a single piece of luggage. Say it with me: human trafficking).

Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D) flew to El Salvador to score a photo op with Garcia (photo nearby), knowing there was no possibility he would be freed. But it turns out Van Hollen is not the most deranged among the apologists for thuggish gang members living in our homeland illegally.

A New Mexico magistrate judge was arrested and has been banned from the bench for life after homeland security officers raided his Las Cruces home, responding to a tip about who was living in the judge’s guest house. In March, officers arrested Venezuelan illegal immigrant Christhian Lopez-Ortega, 23, in the home of Judge Jose Cano, a Democrat. The Tren de Aragua gang member had been living with the judge’s family after his wife hired Lopez-Ortega to perform several home improvement chores. 

The judge and his wife were said to be complicit in allowing their immigrant house guest to handle household firearms. 

And what is the fate of the “adopted” Venezuelan? Another Democrat judge overturned his bail and suggested Lopez-Ortega be returned to the custody of his fellow judge because they, the two Dem judges, are friends. He remains detained while a hearing to decide the gang member’s fate is pending.

Did John Kennedy O’Toole contemplate dunces as extreme and pathetic as these? In 2025, who is the dunce? The illegal thug or the New Mexico judge? China’s hijacking of the U.S. economy or Trump’s overdue tariffs? Deported illegals or politicians who coddle them? The healthcare CEO assassin or the dead CEO? A knife wielding high school punk or his dead, unarmed victim? 

Waiting.