The courage to stand alone
By Mark Alexander
web posted November 10, 2025
You may have heard that there were some off-season elections last Tuesday. The big takeaway from Nate Jackson: Blue States Vote Democrat!
And there was other news last week!
The Schumer Shutdown became the longest on record, as Senate Demos rejected the 14th vote to reopen the government. This is despite increasing pressure from Demo allies, including the largest federal workers union, to cut the crap.
Even their Leftmedia publicists are not buying it. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries's (D-NY) fake shutdown narrative got blown out of the water by CNN.
Thus, Demos continue holding the nation's military and other critical service providers, like air traffic controllers, hostage to their insistence that the temporary emergency subsidies passed during the COVID-19 pandemic to prop up ObamaCare, the so-called "Affordable Care Act," be made permanent.
As you well know, there is no such thing as "temporary" government funding, and yes, that includes taxpayer-funded "free" healthcare for illegal immigrants.
Firing a shot across the Demos' bow, Donald Trump called for Senate Republicans to terminate filibuster rules requiring a 60-vote threshold for legislation. Of course, the conventional wisdom is that if Republicans do so, the next time Demos control the Senate, they will cite the Republican precedent and discard filibuster rules.
However, given the strident leftist surge of Democrat Party socialists, who are Marxists hiding behind a more palatable political façade, they may set that filibuster precedent themselves.
But this column is not about the consequences of shutdowns. It is about the courage to do what is right and speak the truth.
 Fetterman |
Since the shutdown began 36 days ago, there have been two Democrat senators who have had the courage to stand against the gale-force winds of their party. They are Pennsylvania's John Fetterman and Nevada's Catherine Cortez Masto. Fetterman has broadcast his objections from the mountaintops: "I think it's a core responsibility as a senator to keep our government open. The Democratic Party, my party, the Republican Party, they have different priorities ... you sort those things out. But you don't hold shutting the government down as a hostage. ... I would remind everybody too ... this was designed by the Democratic Party to expire at the end of the year. This is not something taken from the Republicans. They were designed to expire. ... Shutting the government is really what the Democratic Party wants to do. ... I follow country, then party, and it's the wrong thing for the country. ... If you vote to shut our government down, you are going to harm millions of Americans, and why would you do this?"
That display of courage, under constant fire from the Demo crazies, is encouraging!
But there is another person who, though also not a conservative, has stood her ground against far more forceful winds than those against Fetterman and Cortez Masto.
And that would be author JK Rowling.
Yes, although she has earned the political and cultural condemnation of the American Left for opposing their deviant transnormalcy agendas, she is standing strong against that gender-cult deviancy as a citizen of the UK. And the UK has become shockingly oppressive of free speech. There is no affirmation of free speech in the UK, despite Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Apparently, the authoritarians among the UK government have employed the systemic redlining of free speech playbook used by the Biden/Harris regime. That assault on the First Amendment ranks high among the worst degradations of our free speech rights in the history of our nation. Fortunately, that infringement has been largely corrected by the Trump administration.
Rowling has described her political views as left-leaning and fiercely anti-authoritarian, particularly regarding freedom of speech.
Rowling has become one of the leading voices on the planet defending the rights of women against men who pretend to be women. Of the whole sordid so-called "transgender" movement, she says: "'What a woman means has changed over time' makes as little sense as 'what the sky means has changed over time.' No amount of fashionable jargon, pseudo-science or religious belief will alter the nature of women or the sky. You are not God. Reality exists independently of you."
As for the attacks against her exercise of free speech, she boldly notes: "Freedom of speech means freedom to cause offense. The number of supposed liberals who've fallen at this most basic hurdle, because for the first time in their lives they risked losing the approval of their tribe, has been staggering."
And she clearly identifies her detractors: "If you believe free speech is for you but not your political opponents, you're illiberal. If no contrary evidence could change your beliefs, you're a fundamentalist. If you believe the state should punish those with contrary views, you're a totalitarian. If you believe political opponents should be punished with violence or death, you're a terrorist."
Predictably, Rowling has obliterated her celebrity and media critics, as would be expected from a master of words, including some once-close friends. Furthermore, she has boldly restated a list of her beliefs "for handy reference":
Is it my belief that women and girls should have their own public changing rooms and bathrooms? That women should retain female-only rape crisis centres? That men don't belong in women's sport? ... That women should remain a protected class in law, because they have sex-specific needs and issues? That language should reflect reality rather than ideological jargon, especially in a medical context? That women shouldn't be harassed, persecuted or fired for refusing to pretend humans can change sex? That women should not be threatened with violence and rape when they assert their rights? That freedom of speech and belief are essential to a pluralistic democratic society? That troubled minors, especially those who are gay, autistic and trauma-experienced, should be given mental health support instead of irreversible surgeries and drug treatments on non-existent evidence of benefit? ... That cross-dressing heterosexual male fetishists aren't actually oppressed, but having the time of their lives piggybacking off gender identity ideology? That said ideology, and the privileged, blinkered fools pushing it because they suffer zero consequences themselves, have done more damage to the political left's credibility than Trump and Farage could have achieved in a century? Let me have your thoughts.
Who would dare?
Last week, Glamour UK, a women's fashion and beauty magazine, became the latest women's publication to feature men on the cover of its "Women of the Year" edition — in this case, nine men wearing shirts with the message, "Protect the Dolls." Apparently, "dolls" is what trans-dudes like to be called.
Rowling wasted no time issuing her condemnation of the cover, saying: "I grew up in an era when mainstream women's magazines told girls they needed to be thinner and prettier. Now mainstream women's magazines tell girls that men are better women than they are."
And once again, like Fetterman and Cortez Masto standing firm for what is right and speaking the truth out loud, Rowling's courage is encouraging! 
Mark Alexander is the executive editor of the Patriot Post.
