Mike Rowe defends America’s aspirational spirit against Kimmel’s plumber insult, highlighting career flexibility and the American Dream.

As only TV personality and host Mike Rowe can, he embodied what makes America great. The American Dream is not just about a certain achievement like buying a home or being promoted to a particular vocation: It’s about the opportunity to dream big and aspire to higher things — or just different ones.

Of course, Rowe’s incredibly insightful commentary, which he posted to X on Sunday, was born from unfunny comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s joke that maligned the fact that a plumber — that would be former plumber, former U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, and current Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin — is now heading the agency in charge of combating terrorism.

Rowe began:

If you haven’t heard, and even if you have, Jimmy Kimmel said this about Markwayne Mullin, former Senator from Oklahoma, and our newest Secretary of Homeland Security:

“We have a plumber now protecting us from terrorism.”

Apparently, there has been some backlash. Plumbers were offended, obviously, as were parents of plumbers, spouses of plumbers, children of plumbers, and millions of people who have had a plumber show up when they needed one. Comedians were also offended, (the funny ones, anyway,) along with a surprising number of terrorists – especially those with access to hot and cold running water. However, in spite of the ensuing kerfuffle, @jimmykimmel doubled down.

Yeah, Kimmel loves to do that, because he knows he’s bulletproof. Remember when people called for his job, and two of his syndicators stopped airing his show, after he made those terrible comments about Charlie Kirk’s assassination? All Kimmel did was send out the Bat Signal, and his leftist friends in Hollywood cried censorship. Kimmel gave a half-baked fauxpology, then went right back to business as usual: being a terrible comedian, but a great left-wing activist.

Here’s how Kimmel doubled down on his stupidity.

“I’m not upset that the head of Homeland Security was a plumber,” he said, “I’m upset that he isn’t still a plumber.” He further elucidated by adding, “I wouldn’t put a plumber in charge of Homeland Security for the same reason I wouldn’t call a five-star general to pull a rat out of my toilet, OK? We all have our areas of expertise.”

 

Rowe makes a great point on this: Being offended is always a choice, and from my perspective, we live in an age where people think having thin skin is a badge of honor. Rowe is Gen X like me, so insults like this roll off our backs. But Rowe does make the point about what he did find offensive about Kimmel’s ignorant opinion.

But I am a tad butt hurt by the suggestion that skilled workers should never evolve into something new, and that competence is somehow limited to one vocation. Obviously, expertise and skill are important. If I need a new kidney, I’d prefer a doctor do the surgery, not a late-night talk show host. But if the doctor in question used to host a talk show, why would I hold that against him?

Exactly. Dr. Ben Carson was a brilliant brain surgeon, but he chose to stop doing that and enter the political space, running for president in 2016, becoming Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in the first Trump administration, and now serving as a special advisor in this second Trump administration. So, is Dr. Carson any less competent at any of these professions because of his choice to aspire to be something different?

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) won her seat in 2018 after working in sales and retail fashion, and then founding her own marketing and event management company that she successfully ran for over 30 years. Blackburn is the first woman to have been elected as a U.S. Senator from Tennessee. That’s a huge aspiration, and she achieved it. After winning re-election in 2024, Blackburn decided she aspired to become Tennessee’s governor, and if the winds hold, she may just achieve this. So, does Kimmel wish to insult her for moving ably from being a successful businesswoman to U.S. Senator, and now potentially a governor?

He really needs to go sit down.

Rowe brought his point home with the 2016 presidential debate, when then-Senator and presidential candidate Marco Rubio responded to a debate question by saying that “America needed to get shop class back into high schools,” and “What our country needs are more welders and fewer philosophers.”

Rowe continued,

I don’t think the current shortage of welders has anything to do with an overabundance of philosophers. In fact, I think it’s a mistake to promote one vocation at the expense of the other. What we really need in this country, are more welders who can talk intelligently about Aristotle, and more philosophers who can run an even bead. More Generals, in other words, who can fix their own toilets, and more plumbers who can hold a powerful government job.

Amen to that. Then Rowe laid out Mullin’s trajectory, something that Democrats and the Left always omit when complaining about his ascension.

This is what Mullin did. He was a private citizen who mastered an essential skill and then turned that skill into a multi-million-dollar company that employed a lot of people and served a lot of customers. That gave him the freedom to do other things with his life, including a career in public service which got him into Congress, where he’s spent the last eleven years doing whatever Congressmen do. Now, he has a very consequential position in the Cabinet of the current administration.

Boom. If anything, Mullin is the embodiment of someone who not only aspires to become more, but also to be a person of agility and flexibility. As the adage goes, “Blessed are the flexible, because they’ll never be broken.” If Kimmel did finally get fired from his gig, he probably wouldn’t know how to pivot to anything new or different. He’s a small man, and small people only see their little elitist box.

Rowe brings it home beautifully. It’s not about a profession or competence in that profession: It’s about the American Dream, a dream that you can continue to pursue until you draw your last breath.

Is that not the embodiment of the American Dream? I get that Jimmy Kimmel might have a problem with Mullin’s politics, but what possible objection could he have about the trajectory of his career, or his desire to do more than one thing with his life?

The only sensible thing to do in the wake of a moment this tone deaf, is remind America that the skills gap is wide, and getting wider. The shortage of skilled tradespeople is now headline news and closing it is nothing less than a matter of national security. This year, my foundation has set aside $10 million dollars to help train the next generation of plumbers, and lots of other essential workers. I’m talking about hundreds of thousands of AI-proof, six figure jobs that don’t require a four-year degree, waiting to be filled. The money is currently available to anyone who wants to master a useful skill at https://mikeroweworks.org. Apply today.

As for those of you genuinely offended by Kimmel’s comments, consider expressing your disappointment with a modest donation to mikeroweWORKS. Our work ethic scholarship is making a real difference, and your money will be well spent, I promise. The donate button is big and red and hard to miss, at https://mikeroweworks.org

Excellent way to promote the power of aspiration, and how anyone who pursues their dream can always benefit from a little help.

That is what I love about being an American and pursuing my American Dream. My maternal grandmother and grandfather were sharecroppers who decided they wanted to aspire to a better life. Those aspirations took them out of the fields into working the “better” jobs at that time for Southern Blacks: a maid and a bellman. They moved from Tyronza, Arkansas, to Memphis, Tennessee, and then to Chicago, Illinois, joining that Great Migration from South to North that many took during that time because they aspired to something more. I am a product of that aspirational push, and I am always dreaming bigger and reaching higher. While the golden handcuffs of being a software and document specialist in law firms might be fine for most people, I knew from a young age I wanted to be a writer, and through fits, starts, and many detours, that is what I am doing today.

Always aspiring to go higher is what the American Dream is all about. People like Mike Rowe, DHS Secretary Mullin, and I get it. Poor souls like Jimmy Kimmel never will.

By Jennifer Oliver O’Connell  | 7:24 PM on March 29, 2026

Jennifer Oliver O’Connell (As the Girl Turns) is a contributor at Redstate and other publications. Jennifer writes on Politics, Pop Culture, and the American story, with occasional detours into Reinvention, Yoga, and Food. You can read more about Jennifer’s world at her As the Girl Turns website. You can also follow her on X and Facebook.

Story leads: info@asthegirlturns.com.

Source: Mike Rowe Hits It on the Head: Kimmel Didn’t Insult Plumbers; He Insulted America’s Aspirational Spirit – RedState

Conservatives are not being hypocritical when they say it’s okay for Cesar Chavez statues to go, but other civic statues to stay standing.

I’ve previously written that the United States should cancel Cesar Chavez and remove his images from the public square. Regardless of the alleged heinous crimes against women and children, he was a dedicated leftist committed to the union labor movement against farmers (and consumers) who didn’t respect free enterprise or free trade among the citizenry.

For me, this blunt decision brings up a larger question: If we should feel no compunction about tearing down Chavez, does that make conservatives in particular and common-sense Americans in general hypocrites because we opposed leftists removing other statues?

What’s the standard? Where do we draw the line? To form a more perfect union, should we scrap all the statues?

The slippery slope of social policy is real. We shouldn’t idly tear down everything we don’t like today just because our standards, knowledge, or public opinion have changed over the decades or even centuries past.

Furthermore, we must not ignore the subversive undercurrent about statute removals: Marxist agents in this country want to wipe out our entire history. Consider George Orwell’s devastating yet accurate maxim from 1984:

He who controls the present controls the past

He who controls the past, controls the future.

The important point, then, is to remember the past, not erase it. The same communistic miscreants who tried to erase two and a half centuries of American history also push climate alarmism, open borders, LGBT ideology, and collectivist ownership of property. They cannot succeed if the American people remember and revere their country, past and present.

In 2020, communists exploited the George Floyd Riots to erase America’s history, accomplished symbolically by damaging and destroying statues and monuments throughout the country. Even the Boston memorials recognizing President Abraham Lincoln and the 54th Massachusetts Regiment during the Civil War did not escape vandalism. Under the guise of erasing white supremacy, left-wing goons trashed, demolished, and destroyed our nation’s heritage, including those who undermined the perverse notion that one man’s value depended on his skin color.

What about the Confederate statues, conservatives? Should they have remained? That discussion certainly brings up complex issues!

Lincoln Project critics of Trump mocked the outrage from conservatives about the tearing down of statues. They posted a painting of colonists tearing down the statues of King George III at the outbreak of the American Revolution, then mockingly called them “Antifa” to deride the rest of us who didn’t want our country’s heritage removed. In effect, they dismissed the robust opposition to our nation’s heritage getting torn down, suggesting that it’s part of the American character to topple the monuments.

So, what should the standards be? We cannot—nor should we—remove all the statues, monuments, and commemorations. And yet we should have no problem with the removal of Cesar Chavez from the public square?

Here’s how I look at it:

One. We need to commemorate and celebrate those individuals and groups who built our country. Christopher Columbus is a no-brainer. He literally found the Americans!

Our American Founding Fathers should also remain. Establishing this great Republic on principles of ordered liberty, they pledged their lives and their sacred honor.

Critics will fault some of them for owning slaves during their fight for America, but we are not honoring demi-gods. Rather, they are heroes of our nation who accomplished great deeds despite their failings. Furthermore, some of the Founders, such as Thomas Jefferson, took great pains to try to end slavery before, during, and after the American Revolution. As the colonial governor of Virginia, he passed legislation to ease the process for the manumission of slaves. Unfortunately, a future governor repealed his efforts, but the will and hope of Jefferson and the patriots of his age pressed for the abolition of slavery.

Two. We should celebrate historical figures who improved the United States, or who helped steer this country from crisis to restoration. The Abolitionist movement and its adherents deserve our respect. President Abraham Lincoln should not be removed, either, but rather honored, even more than George Washington, in my view, because while Washington laid the groundwork for a new country, Lincoln overcame the contradiction of slavery to its eradication, and he kept the country together despite violent efforts to achieve its disunion.

Three. People of service who loved America should be honored. I don’t think this needs a great deal of explanation.

So, in general, when is it appropriate to tear down the statues?

One. If the man or woman being honored engaged in heinous crimes (heinous at the time they were committed, unlike slavery, which was legal), which were then covered up and revealed only later to the public—and those crimes are of such a horrific magnitude that no one would have commemorated them if everyone had been aware of those deeds.

There’s nothing wrong with tearing down the Cesar Chavez statues, presuming that all the allegations are true. Also consider when Penn State University removed the statue of famous football coach Joe Paterno after the horrid truth about his assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, came out. That would-be philanthropist had abused thousands of children, all while running volunteer services for kids, and reports indicated that JoePa knew all about it and covered it up.

Frankly, it seems odd to me that any institution would put up statues honoring someone still alive. At least wait until the person of interest has passed away, when a committee or a historian can review his life and work and decide whether to honor him.

Two. When tyrannies fall and the corrupt, oppressive regimes of those dictators collapse, every citizen should gleefully demolish their former rulers’ physical tributes.

When the citizens of the Eastern Bloc countries were freed from communism, right away, they began tearing down and throwing away all the icons of Communism. To this day, I love looking at the trash cans and dustbins filled with portraits and busts of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, all the other vile collectivists who wrought a veritable hell on earth. This principle justifies our American forebearers tearing down the statues of King George III, as well—So take that, Lincoln Project!

Three. If the man or woman being honored did not actually accomplish anything, or if the mythos around the individual is false. Most Americans are not ready for this tough discussion, but Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was not the freedom fighter, civil rights hero, or upstanding Christian minister that history (or rather progressive PR) makes him out to be. The whole truth about the man would fill another article. For now, follow historian Chad Jackson on Instagram to learn more.

One thorny question: the statues of the Confederate forces? Should they be torn down?

Those commemorations were erected in part to help the country heal. American military barracks received the names of Confederate generals for this reason, too.

Those memorials should remain as a testimony—and a reminder—that the Greatest, Freest country on earth held together despite a horrific civil war. Most countries never survive such a terrible conflict.

But we did.

That’s what statues and monuments are for: to remind us of our history, remember the good, and inspire us for future great exploits.

Arthur Schaper | March 30, 2026

Arthur Schaper is the Field Director of the International Pro-Family Group MassResistance.

In his spare time, he is a writer and commentator on topics both timeless and timely; political, cultural, and eternal. A life-long Southern California resident, Arthur currently lives in Torrance, CA.

Source: Which Statues Should Stay? Which Should Go? – American Thinker

We are capable of winning this fight.

When I write about threats to Western civilization, I struggle to find the sweet spot between describing the myriad problems we face and my firm belief that we are capable of winning this fight.  I do not think all is lost.  I do, however, think that it is important for as many people as possible to recognize what our enemies are doing.

When we are being attacked from all sides — culturally, politically, economically, socially, parentally, morally, religiously, psychologically — it is sometimes difficult to recognize that these attacks are all connected.  Those who wish to destroy Western civilization use every available weapon to hurt us.  When we concentrate on nothing but “bad news,” though, we talk ourselves into premature defeat.  We psych ourselves out.  We give our enemies greater power over us than they have.

We cannot bury our heads in the sand and ignore what is happening.  We also cannot allow what is happening to intimidate us into silence or cow us into submission.  Ideally, we will become more vocal in articulating exactly what our enemies are doing, find comfort in the growing chorus of voices urging resistance, and become only more confident in our defense of Western civilization.

Sounding the alarm is not a call for surrender.  Nor should hearing the alarm cause us to tremble.  This is the time for courage and determination.  When our Western ancestors faced similar dangers in the past, they did not hide or run away.  They prepared themselves for hardship.  They prayed.  They retrieved hidden swords from thatched roofs, straw beds, and bales of hay.

In broad strokes, we know what’s happening.  Open borders policies in North America and Europe are sabotaging social cohesion.  Christianity is under attack.  Reason, rationality, and scientific inquiry have been abandoned.  Our shared history is continuously rewritten in ways that turn our ancestors into villains.  Enlightenment ideals fostering individual sovereignty, personal freedom, and maximum liberty have been eroded by the pernicious encroachments of collectivism, Marxism, socialism, and communism.  Virtue is mocked, while sin is celebrated.  Unchecked desire, envy, and instant gratification have supplanted temperance, humility, and self-restraint.  The indulgence of personal fantasy has superseded the pursuit of eternal truth.  Schools, governments, and cultural institutions preach a false and destructive religion requiring Westerners to repent for their “climate change sins” and embrace the doctrines of “multiculturalism” and “diversity” as tenets of leftism’s “faith.”

Dutch political commentator Eva Vlaardingerbroek spoke for many Westerners who have mourned Ramos’s death when she wrote: “The system didn’t fail her, it actively betrayed her.  This girl’s tragic story is a perfect illustration of how the establishment feels about European women.  They first endanger you and then when you need help and cost them too much money, they push you to your grave.”

Discarding the moral and intellectual enlightenment obtained over centuries of work and contemplation, today’s governments have abandoned the hallmarks of Western civilization and reanimated the rotting corpses of paganism, hedonism, idolatry, and child sacrifice.  While Western citizens desperately seek civilizational renewal, Western governments do nothing but fan the flames of the growing inferno.

Criminals who have no legal right to be in the United States — including those who fled criminal prosecutions in their native homelands — go on to commit new crimes while here.  Violent foreign nationals who should not be here have raped and murdered far too many Americans.  Negligent foreign nationals who should not be here have killed far too many Americans while driving cars and commercial trucks across the country.  Far too many schools have been forced to figure out how to teach illegal alien children who cannot speak English or easily assimilate.  Far too many towns and cities have been forced into insolvency while providing ever-expanding social services for illegal aliens whom American taxpayers cannot afford.  Far too many hospitals are overrun with illegal alien patients who delay treatment for and drive up the healthcare costs of Americans.  And now the Democrat Party wants to pay the tens of millions of foreigners who illegally reside here “reparations” for feeling “unsafe.”

In responding to the pro-foreigner / anti-American policies of Representative Jayapal and her Democrat colleagues, one online commenter concluded, “Sometimes seems like only a civil war will save this country.”  That’s a sentiment widely held throughout the West these days.

Last week, a European Parliament conference concluded that the whole continent is headed for civil war.  One professor argued that “the foundations of Western self-belief, prosperity, and competency” are now broken and that Europe is “on a track for a peasant revolt.”  In response to Western governments’ betrayal of Western civilization, there will be an “uprising in which the ruled seek to punish their rulers for violating their obligations under the social contract, and for changing the rules of the game against their wishes.”  Most of the politicians and academics who participated in the conference do not believe that Europe will survive this century.  Although they expressed various opinions about how the coming chaos will unfold, they reached a common conclusion: “It will be bloody.”

Those of us who wish to defend the West should not scurry and hide.  We should recognize the moment and prepare ourselves accordingly.  Our enemies are everywhere.  That’s okay.  We are everywhere, too.

J.B. Shurk | March 30, 2026

Source: Defending Western Civilization from Its Domestic Enemies – American Thinker