He is from Argentina, and he told me cars down there do not just run on gasoline. Thousands use compressed natural gas, what they call GNC, and right next door in Brazil many drivers fill up with ethanol made from sugarcane and it’s way cheaper.

He was right. While we watch pump prices bounce with every bit of world news, Argentina and Brazil have spent years building everyday alternatives that keep driving costs steadier. They did not wait for some perfect new technology. They used what they had close at hand.

In Argentina, GNC or compressed natural gas is everywhere. The country has one of the largest fleets of these vehicles in the world, more than two million cars, taxis and buses. Many started as ordinary gasoline models and were converted with simple kits. Drivers can switch fuels with the flip of a switch, and the savings add up fast. CNG is often fifty to seventy percent cheaper per mile than gasoline, with thousands of stations making it easy to use. Government policies and their own abundant natural gas fields helped turn it mainstream. When gasoline prices jump, more people line up for conversions because the payback comes quickly. My painter was not exaggerating. For a lot of Argentine drivers, this is just normal.

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Next door in Brazil the approach is different but the idea is the same. Since the 1970s oil crisis, the country has pushed hard on ethanol from its sugarcane fields. Today more than ninety percent of new cars sold there are flex-fuel models. They run on gasoline, straight ethanol or any mix, and the engine adjusts automatically. Regular pump gas already contains about thirty percent ethanol by law. At the station, drivers simply check the prices and choose the cheaper option that day. When global oil prices spiked recently, Brazilian gasoline rose only about five percent. It is renewable, it creates rural jobs, and it shields most drivers from the worst price swings.

And yes, these kinds of fuels would change things for the environment too. CNG burns cleaner than regular gasoline, cutting smog, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter while lowering greenhouse gases by twenty to thirty percent. Sugarcane ethanol goes further, reducing full life-cycle emissions by sixty percent or more because the plants pull carbon dioxide from the air as they grow. Here in the United States, shifting more toward both could mean cleaner air and a real step against climate change.

If America embraced more of these kinds of solutions, the benefits could be significant. We have some of the largest natural gas reserves in the world and plenty of farmland that could support expanded biofuel production. More CNG vehicles and flex-fuel cars could mean lower and more stable fuel prices for families across the country. It would reduce our dependence on foreign oil, create new jobs in agriculture, manufacturing and vehicle conversion businesses, and keep more money circulating in local economies.

That conversation with my house painter left me wondering what a version of this could look like in the U.S. Maybe more support for CNG conversions, stronger flex-fuel options, or incentives to make these alternatives easier for everyday drivers. If other countries have figured out practical ways to keep driving affordable, it might be time to borrow a few pages from their playbook.

What do you think? Could something like this work? I would love to hear from mechanics, drivers or anyone who has tried one of these alternatives.

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John, look in the mirror. This past Saturday night, April 25, 2026, an armed gunman tried to storm security at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C. President Trump, the First Lady, the Vice President, and senior officials were all there. Shots rang out. A Secret Service agent was hit but saved by his vest. Trump and his team were rushed to safety. This was the third such attempt since 2024. And what followed from too many on the radical left? Not horror at political violence. Not any soul-searching about toxic rhetoric. Instead, we got visceral hate, celebratory undertones, excuses, and the same drumbeat of dehumanization that has poisoned our culture for years.

Let’s take Mark Davis, the No Party Affiliation candidate running for Congress in my state of Florida’s 16th District. He is the father of two young children and openly admits to disowning his own parents and cutting them off completely because they voted for Donald Trump. Not once. Not twice. Three times. He demanded they denounce Trump entirely and admit they were wrong. He has called Trump supporters fascists and Nazis. He even talked about how his own daughter feels embarrassed that her dad isn’t MAGA like the other dads at school. And here is what is really telling: I have not seen anywhere in his posts or campaign material where he actually talks about how he will improve things in Florida. No plans for better schools, a stronger economy, safer communities, or anything positive for his district. It is just nonstop Trump and Trump supporter hate. This is a man with kids in his house who is modeling for them that political disagreement justifies erasing grandparents from their lives. That loving family members who see the world differently makes them unworthy of a relationship. What lesson is that teaching his children about tolerance or basic human decency? What fear and confusion does it plant in their young hearts when the people who are supposed to protect them choose ideology over family? This is just one example of someone running for office.

And isn’t it ironic? These are the same people who love to call Donald Trump an authoritarian and a danger to democracy. Yet they are the ones acting like true authoritarians. They force their kids to believe exactly what they believe and treat everything else as completely wrong and evil. They disown family members and then raise their own children in an environment where disagreement is not allowed. That is not parenting. That is ideological indoctrination.

They hear parents raging on social media that half the country are irredeemable threats. They sit in classrooms where diversity lessons frame disagreement as violence and basic biology as bigotry. They watch television and Hollywood turn conservatives into cartoon villains and compare Trump to Hitler nonstop. Online algorithms feed the outrage and show them that wrongthink gets you canceled or worse.

They grow up with the radical ideologies you push:

The grotesque lie that boys can be girls and girls can be boys, taught in kindergarten classrooms, libraries, and doctors’ offices, often without parents even knowing. Puberty blockers, hormones, and surgeries are sold as affirming care while the Cass Review and skyrocketing rates of youth dysphoria prove otherwise. You have left a whole generation questioning their own bodies, facing sterility and lifelong medical problems, all while calling concerned parents bigots.

The open defiance of law enforcement that turned 2020 into flames while the media called them mostly peaceful protests. Defund the police and demonizing cops created real spikes in violent crime that hurt the very communities you claim to champion. Kids in those neighborhoods did not get justice. They got fear, shuttered businesses, and the lesson that chaos is power.

Racial essentialism through Critical Race Theory and anti-racism curricula that teach children to see each other as oppressors or oppressed based only on skin color. White kids carry inherited guilt. Minority kids are framed as eternal victims.

Climate doom indoctrination that tells children the world is ending in a decade because of their parents’ choices. Record levels of eco-anxiety and depression. A generation too terrified to plan families or futures.

Cancel culture and the constant siege mentality where disagreement is called hate speech, traditional faith or conservative values are branded extremist, and kids learn early that their neighbors, their country, or even their own family might be the enemy.

The result is a youth mental health crisis like nothing we have ever seen. Skyrocketing anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicide rates. Kids who cannot escape the hate, the fear, or the manufactured division.

You accuse Trump voters of cruelty. The projection is breathtaking. Your version of compassion demands mandatory affirmation of every radical idea or else. Your tolerance excludes anyone who believes boys are boys, police keep us safe, hard work matters, and America is not defined by systemic racism. Your diversity excludes biological truth, parental rights, and free thought.

Trump voters chose secure borders, strong families, law and order, economic opportunity, and an end to the endless cultural wars. Those are the things that actually protect children.

John Pavlovitz promises to live the apology by teaching kids that people are inherently valuable and love is worth more than gold. Those are beautiful words. But as a pastor and children’s book author, your movement has spent years teaching the opposite through actions that fracture families, confuse identities, terrify with apocalyptic talk, and now flirt with justifying political violence.

The radical left owes America’s children an apology. For the hate you have mainstreamed. For the fear you have instilled. For the families you have shattered, and for the generations you are actively destroying.

Mark Davis and every parent who has chosen ideology over family, outrage over relationship, and venom over truth needs to look at their own children and ask: Is this the world I want them to inherit? A world where political disagreement justifies erasing loved ones? Where disagreement is violence and violence is increasingly normalized?

The rest of us will keep fighting for something better: resilient kids raised on facts, not feelings; courage, not compliance; love rooted in reality, not enforced by ideology. Because protecting children means rejecting the very hate that has broken them and refusing to apologize for choosing sanity over the madness that just produced another near-tragedy in Washington.

About the Author

Jennifer Bash didn’t set out to become a political commentator but once she started paying attention, she didn’t stop. After voting for the first time later in life, politics went from background noise to a full-time curiosity, and eventually, a calling. Today, she breaks down news and policy with clarity, skepticism, and zero patience for performative outrage. Her goal isn’t to tell you what to think, but to make sure you actually understand what’s happening.

Learn more about Reasonable Arguments

I’m saying Mojtaba Khamenei is dead.

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Since the February 28, 2026 U.S.-Israeli strikes that killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and most of his immediate family in one compound attack, Mojtaba has not made a single public appearance. He has not released any audio or video. Every message credited to him has been nothing more than a written text read aloud by a state-TV anchor over an old photo. U.S. and Israeli intelligence have described him as unconscious or incapacitated in Qom. The regime keeps using his name anyway. In a system built around the Supreme Leader’s personal authority, this total silence says everything.

The regime benefits from keeping everyone thinking he is still alive. If they admitted his death right now, they would have to call the Assembly of Experts together immediately to pick a new leader. That would happen right in the middle of a shaky ceasefire, a U.S. naval blockade, and an economy already in collapse. An open power vacuum like that could easily spark fresh protests or even fighting between factions inside the regime. By pretending the Supreme Leader is still in charge, they look stable to their own people and to the rest of the world. It buys them time while the real players fight behind closed doors.

So who is actually running the show? Ahmad Vahidi.

Vahidi is 67 years old and the current Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He took the job on March 1, 2026, the day after his predecessor was killed in the opening strikes. He started out as a founding commander of the Quds Force back in the 1980s and 1990s, then worked his way through roles as Defense Minister and Interior Minister.

This isn’t someone who just showed up. He’s spent decades building power and tightening his grip, and at this point he clearly sees the country as his to control.

His ties to Hezbollah run deep. As the first leader of the Quds Force, Vahidi helped turn scattered Shia militants in Lebanon into the organized, battle-hardened proxy force Iran depends on today. He is wanted by Interpol with a Red Notice for his alleged role in the 1994 AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people. Argentina and the U.S. have long accused him of directing Hezbollah in that attack. He sits under multiple layers of U.S. sanctions for work on Iran’s nuclear program, weapons proliferation, and the violent crackdown on protests. As Interior Minister he publicly warned women about strict hijab rules and oversaw the security forces that used live ammunition on demonstrators.

Vahidi is dangerous because he combines hardline ideology with real operational skill. He truly believes in “Death to America” and has spent decades mastering proxy warfare. Right now he is the dominant figure in Tehran. He is the only senior official with direct access to whatever is left of Mojtaba’s office. His inner circle has pushed aside the more practical civilian leaders like Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. They control the negotiations in Islamabad and use the Strait of Hormuz as leverage. In every practical sense, Vahidi is acting as the real head of state on military and security issues.

The human cost of keeping this regime alive is heartbreaking.

The protests that began on December 28, 2025 started over economic collapse and skyrocketing food prices. They quickly spread to every province. At first the security forces used tear gas and batons. Then on January 8 and 9 everything changed. The regime gave explicit orders to shoot to kill. Security forces, mainly the national police under the Interior Ministry plus IRGC troops and Basij militia, opened fire with live ammunition. Snipers on rooftops targeted heads, chests, and eyes. Machine guns mounted on vehicles swept through crowds. Shotguns loaded with metal pellets were fired at close range. Some people were beaten or stabbed after being pulled away from the main groups. In detention centers others died from torture.

The numbers are grim. The government admitted 3,117 people were killed. Independent human-rights groups put the confirmed toll at least 6,126, with some estimates reaching 30,000 or more when you count those who died later from injuries or in prison. Victims included thousands of ordinary protesters, hundreds of children, bystanders who were simply in the wrong place, and even a few security personnel caught in the chaos. Hospitals were overwhelmed. Doctors were threatened if they spoke out. Families were pressured to bury their loved ones quietly.

This was the deadliest state violence in Iran since the 1979 revolution. Ahmad Vahidi, as Interior Minister at the time, sat directly in the chain of command that ordered it.

All of this helps explain why the United States has been so careful about following through on threats of total destruction. Trump’s team has said privately they are negotiating with the right people one day, only to see the IRGC hardliners overrule them the next. The mixed signals coming out of Iran, hardline threats about the Strait of Hormuz one moment and hints of flexibility the next, are not random. They come from a fractured regime where Vahidi’s side holds the guns and the pragmatists are struggling to be heard.

Vahidi is not fighting this alone. He has strong backers in Russia and China. Russia has been quietly helping with intelligence, drone technology, and military advice. China keeps the money flowing by buying Iranian oil through shadow networks even while sanctions are in place. These two powers give Vahidi extra leverage. They do not want a full-blown war that disrupts global energy supplies, but they are positioned to keep Iran in the fight if the ceasefire collapses.

The nuclear situation adds another layer of risk. Iran holds roughly 200 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium at Natanz and Fordow. That is one technical step away from weapons-grade material. Western intelligence believes Iran could produce enough fissile material for a single nuclear weapon in 7 to 12 days if it decided to break out.

Striking too hard or too fast could strengthen the very hardliners America wants to weaken. It could also trigger retaliation from an IRGC that already controls most of Iran’s remaining missiles and whose commander has spent a lifetime building proxy networks like Hezbollah.

Tomorrow’s ceasefire deadline is not only about oil, shipping lanes, or talks. It is about whether the United States will keep treating a regime that is already tearing itself apart as a single, rational actor, or whether it will finally see the reality on the ground before Vahidi finishes locking down control.

About the Author

Jennifer Bash didn’t set out to become a political commentator but once she started paying attention, she didn’t stop. After voting for the first time later in life, politics went from background noise to a full-time curiosity, and eventually, a calling. Today, she breaks down news and policy with clarity, skepticism, and zero patience for performative outrage. Her goal isn’t to tell you what to think, but to make sure you actually understand what’s happening.

Learn more about Reasonable Arguments

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