So, by Trump's twisted logic, these voters ARE a threat to our nation, but mostly because they voted for him. Who'd a thunk it? (/s)
I wonder if these folks were basically low information voters, responding to "celebrity" and "strength" (though that concept in the context of TACO is laughable)?
As a naturalized citizen from Latin America. I'm offended, but not surprised. I bet to most naturalized citizens from Latin America this may not change their minds too much. In Latin America the society is almost a cast system and everyone knows where one belongs. I think many in the middle and upper class of Latin America believe they are white Europeans. They think they are not the people who trump will strip of their citizenship. They believe they are the ones trump wants. They see themselves above the darker more indigenous people from Latin America. It is sad, but I believe it is true. It takes a long time for people to stop thinking like this. My own mother an extremely well traveled person, educated, and with empathy for all, even told me once that she did not know she wasn't "white" this was after like 20 year of living here. I've been here for 40 years. I know so many people in South Florida from South America, who really see people from from other Latin American nations that have a greater indigenous mix as lower folks that can be discarded .
As much as I don't want trump to be so hateful, I am glad that many of the Venezuelans from upper class families in South Florida... Are now seeing how they are not white, they are Latinos, just like all of is here who immigrated from the south of the border. From Mexico, to Patagonia we are all one. It may be a hard lesson for many of them to learn. I myself had to learn that lesson.
So many won't care, until it happens to them personally.
So all the hate that Trump is spilling towards us, won't matter.
That any naturalized citizen of color could have voted for trump is inconceivable to me. If they actually believed he would only deport criminals as Biden and Obama and in fairness he had done in his first administration only at a much accelerated rate, they were not paying attention to those around him. trump might have been paying lip service to criminals but Stephen Miller and Project 2025 had a much broader agenda. Why do you think they are so interested in all the personal data of SNAP recipients.
Will, given the link you provided for "threatened to revoke the citizenship of naturalized Americans", aren't you overstating it? It's not all naturalized Americans. The link qualifies which naturalized Americans: "anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country." Of course, how the naturalized citizens will prove that they are an asset or that they love our country could mean that none of them qualify under Trump's so-called criteria. But he didn't say all.
Are you saying there will soon be an effort to investigate all naturalized Americans for their value? If so, perhaps the six million who voted for him last year would be exempt.
Hi, Sandy. I agree with J AZ: Trump is floating subjective standards (eg. "not a net asset," "incapable of loving our Country") that would empower him to selectively denaturalize people. So he can keep the naturalized voters who support him while he threatens those who don't.
Mostly what concerns me here is the silence of the media and the political opposition. For understandable reasons, they get preoccupied with Trump's other assaults on norms and the law. But we can't stand by when a president crosses this line, threatening to strip citizenship from people he doesn't like. We're becoming numb to the bigotry and the authoritarianism.
Will - longtime fan of your writing, and more so your heart. You first earned my deepest respect with your calm, reasoned article defending our trans family.
And here & now I truly feel what “honorable mention “ means 😊
Sandy - "anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country" equates to "anyone who seems disloyal to Trump or who challenges MAGA/Republican rule." You're right, that's probably NOT all naturalized citizens... it IS anyone who might appear to be in his way. Go to a rally, write a letter to the editor, post on social media that gets scraped up a Palantir web-crawler - well, that's not showin' the love
If this insanity reached its full endgame, my Asian American elderly mother (naturalized US citizen for over 50 years) and all relatives on her side of the family (some of whom enthusiastically voted for Trump, probably all 3 times) would be deported. They include doctors, engineers, business owners, and other longtime productive members of the USA. They drive nice cars and own nice houses. They think coming to the US was the best thing that ever happened to them. And they are just a microscopic sample of the many millions of naturalized citizens we have.
Does Trump have kingly powers to make this level of xenophobic fascism actually happen? Or is Congress and the Supreme Court that supine? Nothing would surprise me anymore.
Sumi - There are still things I haven't anticipated but not much would surprise me either.
I'm not saying anything you don't know here: All of the USA's 3 branches of government participated to implement Executive Order 9066 and incarcerate over 100,000 people of Japanese heritage. Plenty of the interned were citizens, both naturalized & native born in US. They owned homes, businesses, cars; had good jobs & nice clothes... before they were sent to "camps."
I'm not old enough to know firsthand, but my reading tells me that most other Americans were fine with this. Not supine. At least agreeable to it, if not actively celebrating (plenty in California celebrated their good fortune to vulture up the property of the imprisoned).
A lot has changed since World War II. A lot hasn't. The past 10 years have shown me that "a lot" is a much higher percentage of our fellow Americans than I ever believed. That's disheartening AND it steels my resolve.
Yes I'm well aware of that shameful chapter in US history. And not to justify or excuse it at all, but Japan was seen as a clear enemy that the United States was legitimately at full-scale war with. So the horrific policy of Japanese internment was successfully "sold," politically and publicly. Even Canada, with which I also hold citizenship, did the same thing.
Trump's desire to get rid of all naturalized US citizens (estimated at 24.5 million), despite us being at war with none of their countries of origin, takes things many steps further and makes zero sense on any level. I can't imagine there would be enough political or popular support for it, despite Trump's cult. Incarcerating 100,000 is one thing, but the logistics of incarcerating or deporting 24.5 million? Such an effort would shatter the country.
The most educated of my relatives (doctors, engineers) did not support Trump, but the business owners did as they believed he was better for their financial interests. Also, they originally arrived in the USA as refugees from an oppressive Communist regime. So they are staunchly anti-communist and identify with the Republicans as the most "anti-communist" party here. Trump still rails against "communists" all the time, which further appeals to at least some of them.
Not replying for Sumi Ink, but most Asians I know (my work is highly tied to Asia) are notionally "conservative" and are amenable to "top down" leadership style.
That said, why would anyone who identified as an American be more or less immune to the cult of Trump just because they were "X" ethnic or racial background? History is full of people who have sided against their own interests regardless of their country of origin.
I think the thought process was ‘I did it the right way and others should too.’ They are missing a core piece of the strategy — that this administration wants to make it impossible to do it the right way.
The missing part of the strategy is not they want you come here the right way, the legal way. the missing part is they never want you here in the first place unless you looks like them. You only need to listen to Nigel Farrage across the pond on how he described migrants and even long time subject of the British empire as not British enough for his version of civilized society.
Well these are the folks you court for their votes. You don’t need to need to nod your finger at them. At least they may change their vote away from maga. You have all these other MAGA wannabes authoritarians that aren’t going to change their mind so grateful for the opportunity. If we are going to win the next election(s) we need an open welcoming tent
Will, Thanks for the reporting, commentary and analysis. Plausibility aside, the fact remains these non-white voters that went for Trump were totally ignorant, gullible fools. What was coming was so obvious it was equivalent to diving off the Empire State Building and expecting to recount your experience. You know we have testing for all kinds of things that we must pass before we proceed. To drive a car, to practice law, to get to the next grade in school, to get certain jobs, to name a few, is it too much to ask to have people pass a test to vote? It wouldn't even have to be that hard, can you discern between fact and fiction? Do you know the difference between right and wrong? Did you ever hear of the Constitution? Can you tell me its first three words? Come on America, wake up and smell the f-ing coffee.
"So there’s a case to be made, albeit with plenty of caveats, that naturalized Americans delivered Trump’s re-election."
It is true that in 2024 there was a shift toward Republican candidates by recent immigrants and minorities. Many are pointing fingers and blaming these voters for electing Donald Trump and a Republican controlled Congress. They are not blameless, but this misses the vastly bigger picture.
White, non-Hispanic citizens voted for Trump over Kamala Harris in 2024 by 55% to 43%. 78% of Trump's voters were white. Every other demographic voted for Kamala by large to enormous margins, though not quite as large as in 2020. And some subgroups of white voters picked Trump by margins rarely seen since the sham Soviet elections. White Evangelical Protestants who attend church AT LEAST once a week voted for Trump over Harris by 88% to 10%. (Statistics from PEW and PRRI.)
White Americans went to church on Sunday and voted for Donald Trump on Tuesday. They are the ones most responsible for putting a morally decrepit sociopath in the White House. They are the ones responsible for masked thugs roaming the streets of American cities. They are the ones responsible for kidnapping people and send them be be tortured in prisons in El Salvador. They are the ones turning America into a corrupt, third-world autocracy.
As long as white Americans continue to vote the way they have in the past several elections, we should not expect recent immigrants and minorities to save us.
Well I have been a white guy for 70 plus years and as long as you're anti black, anti brown, anti gay and anti uppity women you're always going to get a large majority of the white vote.
I saw an interview with a minister who was asked why Christians voted for Trump considering he is a rapist and a criminal. He laughed and said he was God's imperfect messenger. We know he is immoral, but he is God's tool to make America great. Unspoken was he'll make white men in America great again.
I'm a white Christian American (13 generations deep--just saying) and not all white American Christians voted for Trump. I come from the "Love thy neighbor Christians vs. the storm the Capitol Christians." Maybe we are like Sunnis vs Shias. (I know little of their differences, just a comparison.) I agree we were a small subsection probably.
I know that not all white Christians voted for Trump. But they did by large margins. My first immigrant ancestor was on the second boat to Jamestown in 1608, and as far as I know, he and every single one after him was a Christian. My great grandfather was a pastor who founded churches in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and South Dakota. I grew up in MAGA America, and I certainly spent a lot of time in church in my youth. Even today, I am friendly with one small church that I admire, and occasionally I attend services for reasons I won't go into here.
But I don't think it is productive to think that some other community made Trump possible. The hardest core of Trump's followers consists of white Christian congregations. Prominent church leaders publicly backed Trump in the election and stood next to him at his inauguration. Pastors around the country preached Trumpism from the pulpit and said that it would be sinful to vote for a Democrat. I am close to a person who is Catholic who told me that before the election, Trump campaign literature was passed out on the church grounds after mass. I can't imagine that you are happy about how Trumpism is damaging the reputation of Christianity. Just for reference, atheists chose Harris over Trump by 85% to 13%.
Recent immigrants and minorities have enough challenges without people saying they are the reason Trump was elected. We shouldn't look to them to fix things. That's up to the rest of us.
Great and interesting reply! I’ve read a few books by sociologists and others about the Trumpist pastors and it is so disheartening to have my concept of Christianity so twisted so I know something of which you speak.
I think Will's point is that these new citizens' votes are moveable. As shown by their 2020 vs 2024, and now 2025 voting patterns. OTOH, these whites are kind of like the Lost Cause they still pine about- they cannot be counted on to do anything good here. Probably not till actuarial realities catch up to their voting realities.
So, for now, these new folks have an outsized power to turn election directions. And if this guy is stupid enough to shoot himself in the foot by threatening their citizenship, he will lose for his party this small but decisive election advantage come 2026 and 2028.
Oh...these citizens are "moveable" alright. I suspect a number of them would "move" right out of the country. I am married to an EU citizen who holds dual citizenship with the US.
If he were challenged to drop the citizenship of his homeland, I would be right there to renounce my citizenship in this country and away we would go.
This is family separation theatre by yet another name.
Non-Trump voters who can do so, should move to red districts. I'm being a bit facetious, but if one is ready to move out of the country... There are more of us than there are of them.
Think of the Aftyn Behn race in Tennessee. If enough Bulwark members had moved into her district last spring...
Tennessee would just gerrymander them into irrelevance. But if Fresno or Sacramento moved to Wyoming, it would turn the whole state blue. Of course, those people would have to live in Wyoming. Ugh. Good luck with that.
Hopefully, these citizens would be moveable in a direction that didn't include the extreme protest vote of moving out of the country, but I take your point.
I'm curious how many options would be left to people within the current trajectory of bad ideas of this regime? I find it an interesting coincidence that the Supreme Court today began looking at the supposed question of birthright citizenship and potentially unraveling the 14th amendment.
May it be so!
The movement against Trump Will describes would result in a huge majority in the House and a possible majority in the Senate after the 2026 elections.
This is why Trump and MAGA will do everything possible to keep the election from being free and fair.
I wouldn't be surprised if Trump uses some pretext to cancel them entirely or has the current House refuse to seat newly elected representatives.
So, by Trump's twisted logic, these voters ARE a threat to our nation, but mostly because they voted for him. Who'd a thunk it? (/s)
I wonder if these folks were basically low information voters, responding to "celebrity" and "strength" (though that concept in the context of TACO is laughable)?
They found out that progressives were right about white supremacists the hard way!
As a naturalized citizen from Latin America. I'm offended, but not surprised. I bet to most naturalized citizens from Latin America this may not change their minds too much. In Latin America the society is almost a cast system and everyone knows where one belongs. I think many in the middle and upper class of Latin America believe they are white Europeans. They think they are not the people who trump will strip of their citizenship. They believe they are the ones trump wants. They see themselves above the darker more indigenous people from Latin America. It is sad, but I believe it is true. It takes a long time for people to stop thinking like this. My own mother an extremely well traveled person, educated, and with empathy for all, even told me once that she did not know she wasn't "white" this was after like 20 year of living here. I've been here for 40 years. I know so many people in South Florida from South America, who really see people from from other Latin American nations that have a greater indigenous mix as lower folks that can be discarded .
As much as I don't want trump to be so hateful, I am glad that many of the Venezuelans from upper class families in South Florida... Are now seeing how they are not white, they are Latinos, just like all of is here who immigrated from the south of the border. From Mexico, to Patagonia we are all one. It may be a hard lesson for many of them to learn. I myself had to learn that lesson.
So many won't care, until it happens to them personally.
So all the hate that Trump is spilling towards us, won't matter.
Sorry.
drying rack - thank you for sharing your personal experiences & insights here. Your perspective is very informative
That any naturalized citizen of color could have voted for trump is inconceivable to me. If they actually believed he would only deport criminals as Biden and Obama and in fairness he had done in his first administration only at a much accelerated rate, they were not paying attention to those around him. trump might have been paying lip service to criminals but Stephen Miller and Project 2025 had a much broader agenda. Why do you think they are so interested in all the personal data of SNAP recipients.
Will, given the link you provided for "threatened to revoke the citizenship of naturalized Americans", aren't you overstating it? It's not all naturalized Americans. The link qualifies which naturalized Americans: "anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country." Of course, how the naturalized citizens will prove that they are an asset or that they love our country could mean that none of them qualify under Trump's so-called criteria. But he didn't say all.
Are you saying there will soon be an effort to investigate all naturalized Americans for their value? If so, perhaps the six million who voted for him last year would be exempt.
Hi, Sandy. I agree with J AZ: Trump is floating subjective standards (eg. "not a net asset," "incapable of loving our Country") that would empower him to selectively denaturalize people. So he can keep the naturalized voters who support him while he threatens those who don't.
Mostly what concerns me here is the silence of the media and the political opposition. For understandable reasons, they get preoccupied with Trump's other assaults on norms and the law. But we can't stand by when a president crosses this line, threatening to strip citizenship from people he doesn't like. We're becoming numb to the bigotry and the authoritarianism.
Will - longtime fan of your writing, and more so your heart. You first earned my deepest respect with your calm, reasoned article defending our trans family.
And here & now I truly feel what “honorable mention “ means 😊
Sandy - "anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country" equates to "anyone who seems disloyal to Trump or who challenges MAGA/Republican rule." You're right, that's probably NOT all naturalized citizens... it IS anyone who might appear to be in his way. Go to a rally, write a letter to the editor, post on social media that gets scraped up a Palantir web-crawler - well, that's not showin' the love
This is how authoritarians suppress free speech. Another case of Trump threatening to violate the 1st Amendment.
Don't count on it.
I'm hip.
"So if Trump thinks he can strip naturalized Americans of their citizenship, he’d better move fast."
Geesh, don't encourage him!
If this insanity reached its full endgame, my Asian American elderly mother (naturalized US citizen for over 50 years) and all relatives on her side of the family (some of whom enthusiastically voted for Trump, probably all 3 times) would be deported. They include doctors, engineers, business owners, and other longtime productive members of the USA. They drive nice cars and own nice houses. They think coming to the US was the best thing that ever happened to them. And they are just a microscopic sample of the many millions of naturalized citizens we have.
Does Trump have kingly powers to make this level of xenophobic fascism actually happen? Or is Congress and the Supreme Court that supine? Nothing would surprise me anymore.
Sumi - There are still things I haven't anticipated but not much would surprise me either.
I'm not saying anything you don't know here: All of the USA's 3 branches of government participated to implement Executive Order 9066 and incarcerate over 100,000 people of Japanese heritage. Plenty of the interned were citizens, both naturalized & native born in US. They owned homes, businesses, cars; had good jobs & nice clothes... before they were sent to "camps."
I'm not old enough to know firsthand, but my reading tells me that most other Americans were fine with this. Not supine. At least agreeable to it, if not actively celebrating (plenty in California celebrated their good fortune to vulture up the property of the imprisoned).
A lot has changed since World War II. A lot hasn't. The past 10 years have shown me that "a lot" is a much higher percentage of our fellow Americans than I ever believed. That's disheartening AND it steels my resolve.
Yes I'm well aware of that shameful chapter in US history. And not to justify or excuse it at all, but Japan was seen as a clear enemy that the United States was legitimately at full-scale war with. So the horrific policy of Japanese internment was successfully "sold," politically and publicly. Even Canada, with which I also hold citizenship, did the same thing.
Trump's desire to get rid of all naturalized US citizens (estimated at 24.5 million), despite us being at war with none of their countries of origin, takes things many steps further and makes zero sense on any level. I can't imagine there would be enough political or popular support for it, despite Trump's cult. Incarcerating 100,000 is one thing, but the logistics of incarcerating or deporting 24.5 million? Such an effort would shatter the country.
Thanks for this but why in god's name would these educated presumably bright people vote for a Hitler, Mao wannabe ? I hope you elaborate on this .
The most educated of my relatives (doctors, engineers) did not support Trump, but the business owners did as they believed he was better for their financial interests. Also, they originally arrived in the USA as refugees from an oppressive Communist regime. So they are staunchly anti-communist and identify with the Republicans as the most "anti-communist" party here. Trump still rails against "communists" all the time, which further appeals to at least some of them.
Not replying for Sumi Ink, but most Asians I know (my work is highly tied to Asia) are notionally "conservative" and are amenable to "top down" leadership style.
That said, why would anyone who identified as an American be more or less immune to the cult of Trump just because they were "X" ethnic or racial background? History is full of people who have sided against their own interests regardless of their country of origin.
Our current Congress is definitely that supine. The Supreme Court, it's hard to say.
We will see......
I think the thought process was ‘I did it the right way and others should too.’ They are missing a core piece of the strategy — that this administration wants to make it impossible to do it the right way.
The missing part of the strategy is not they want you come here the right way, the legal way. the missing part is they never want you here in the first place unless you looks like them. You only need to listen to Nigel Farrage across the pond on how he described migrants and even long time subject of the British empire as not British enough for his version of civilized society.
Bingo !
Well these are the folks you court for their votes. You don’t need to need to nod your finger at them. At least they may change their vote away from maga. You have all these other MAGA wannabes authoritarians that aren’t going to change their mind so grateful for the opportunity. If we are going to win the next election(s) we need an open welcoming tent
Will, Thanks for the reporting, commentary and analysis. Plausibility aside, the fact remains these non-white voters that went for Trump were totally ignorant, gullible fools. What was coming was so obvious it was equivalent to diving off the Empire State Building and expecting to recount your experience. You know we have testing for all kinds of things that we must pass before we proceed. To drive a car, to practice law, to get to the next grade in school, to get certain jobs, to name a few, is it too much to ask to have people pass a test to vote? It wouldn't even have to be that hard, can you discern between fact and fiction? Do you know the difference between right and wrong? Did you ever hear of the Constitution? Can you tell me its first three words? Come on America, wake up and smell the f-ing coffee.
They expected the snake wouldn't bite them? Will people ever learn that they should NEVER TRUST Republicans? probably not.
Scorpion and the Frog Will. It’s his nature
"So there’s a case to be made, albeit with plenty of caveats, that naturalized Americans delivered Trump’s re-election."
It is true that in 2024 there was a shift toward Republican candidates by recent immigrants and minorities. Many are pointing fingers and blaming these voters for electing Donald Trump and a Republican controlled Congress. They are not blameless, but this misses the vastly bigger picture.
White, non-Hispanic citizens voted for Trump over Kamala Harris in 2024 by 55% to 43%. 78% of Trump's voters were white. Every other demographic voted for Kamala by large to enormous margins, though not quite as large as in 2020. And some subgroups of white voters picked Trump by margins rarely seen since the sham Soviet elections. White Evangelical Protestants who attend church AT LEAST once a week voted for Trump over Harris by 88% to 10%. (Statistics from PEW and PRRI.)
White Americans went to church on Sunday and voted for Donald Trump on Tuesday. They are the ones most responsible for putting a morally decrepit sociopath in the White House. They are the ones responsible for masked thugs roaming the streets of American cities. They are the ones responsible for kidnapping people and send them be be tortured in prisons in El Salvador. They are the ones turning America into a corrupt, third-world autocracy.
As long as white Americans continue to vote the way they have in the past several elections, we should not expect recent immigrants and minorities to save us.
Well I have been a white guy for 70 plus years and as long as you're anti black, anti brown, anti gay and anti uppity women you're always going to get a large majority of the white vote.
I saw an interview with a minister who was asked why Christians voted for Trump considering he is a rapist and a criminal. He laughed and said he was God's imperfect messenger. We know he is immoral, but he is God's tool to make America great. Unspoken was he'll make white men in America great again.
Only certain white men, certainly not my ilk.
I'm a white Christian American (13 generations deep--just saying) and not all white American Christians voted for Trump. I come from the "Love thy neighbor Christians vs. the storm the Capitol Christians." Maybe we are like Sunnis vs Shias. (I know little of their differences, just a comparison.) I agree we were a small subsection probably.
I know that not all white Christians voted for Trump. But they did by large margins. My first immigrant ancestor was on the second boat to Jamestown in 1608, and as far as I know, he and every single one after him was a Christian. My great grandfather was a pastor who founded churches in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and South Dakota. I grew up in MAGA America, and I certainly spent a lot of time in church in my youth. Even today, I am friendly with one small church that I admire, and occasionally I attend services for reasons I won't go into here.
But I don't think it is productive to think that some other community made Trump possible. The hardest core of Trump's followers consists of white Christian congregations. Prominent church leaders publicly backed Trump in the election and stood next to him at his inauguration. Pastors around the country preached Trumpism from the pulpit and said that it would be sinful to vote for a Democrat. I am close to a person who is Catholic who told me that before the election, Trump campaign literature was passed out on the church grounds after mass. I can't imagine that you are happy about how Trumpism is damaging the reputation of Christianity. Just for reference, atheists chose Harris over Trump by 85% to 13%.
Recent immigrants and minorities have enough challenges without people saying they are the reason Trump was elected. We shouldn't look to them to fix things. That's up to the rest of us.
Great and interesting reply! I’ve read a few books by sociologists and others about the Trumpist pastors and it is so disheartening to have my concept of Christianity so twisted so I know something of which you speak.
I think Will's point is that these new citizens' votes are moveable. As shown by their 2020 vs 2024, and now 2025 voting patterns. OTOH, these whites are kind of like the Lost Cause they still pine about- they cannot be counted on to do anything good here. Probably not till actuarial realities catch up to their voting realities.
So, for now, these new folks have an outsized power to turn election directions. And if this guy is stupid enough to shoot himself in the foot by threatening their citizenship, he will lose for his party this small but decisive election advantage come 2026 and 2028.
I hope so . 🙏 🌊
Oh...these citizens are "moveable" alright. I suspect a number of them would "move" right out of the country. I am married to an EU citizen who holds dual citizenship with the US.
If he were challenged to drop the citizenship of his homeland, I would be right there to renounce my citizenship in this country and away we would go.
This is family separation theatre by yet another name.
Non-Trump voters who can do so, should move to red districts. I'm being a bit facetious, but if one is ready to move out of the country... There are more of us than there are of them.
Think of the Aftyn Behn race in Tennessee. If enough Bulwark members had moved into her district last spring...
Tennessee would just gerrymander them into irrelevance. But if Fresno or Sacramento moved to Wyoming, it would turn the whole state blue. Of course, those people would have to live in Wyoming. Ugh. Good luck with that.
Hopefully, these citizens would be moveable in a direction that didn't include the extreme protest vote of moving out of the country, but I take your point.
I'm curious how many options would be left to people within the current trajectory of bad ideas of this regime? I find it an interesting coincidence that the Supreme Court today began looking at the supposed question of birthright citizenship and potentially unraveling the 14th amendment.
I'd definitely nationalize that one woman in the header-photo.
OK, but weren't we seeing her becoming nationalized in the photo?
ah, a break in the comments section from all of the earnest-ness of the usual Bulwark readers - thanks, Josh :-)